It's Acadiana: Out to Lunch: Recent Episodes
ItsAcadiana.com
OUT TO LUNCH Business over lunch. Each week Christiaan invites guests from Acadiana's business community to join him. Beyond the foundations of the Acadiana economy - oil, cuisine, music - there is a vast network of entrepreneurs, small businesses, and even some of the country's largest companies who call Acadiana home. Out to Lunch is the cafeteria of the wider Acadiana business community. You can also hear the show on KRVS 88.7FM.
"Your body is a temple." It’s a scriptural metaphor we hear so often we almost stop listening to it. But think about what that actually means: maintenance. Upkeep. Care. It’s hard work. Not everyone wants to do it, even if everyone ought to.
And that’s because it can be really inconvenient. You work an eight-hour shift that starts after you get the kids to school. And if you’re lucky enough to squeeze in an hour at the gym, you don’t know where to start. But what if you thought of the gym as more of a playground? A place where you can work on your body with a little help from a friendly coach.
If that sounds more enticing, maybe pay a visit to Bri Nelson. Bri is the club manager at Anytime Fitness here in Lafayette. Anytime is a franchise of gyms with a pretty obvious hook - they’re open 24-hours. That’s the “anytime” part of the name.
Bri herself discovered fitness as a teenager. She loves dancing, roller skating, hiking, shooting sports. She's the kind of person who tries just about everything. And she brings that openness to how she runs the gym.
Bri grew up in Charenton and studied biochemistry at Southeastern Louisiana University while working as a server and bartender to support herself. She was interested in going into the restaurant business, but a conversation with the owner of the Anytime Fitness she went to turned into a job offer. She came in as an administrative assistant, moved into coaching, then personal training sales, and eventually became club manager.
The Lafayette location has about 600 members, though the 24-hour model means you'll never see them all at once. On any given day, maybe 250 people are working out. Bri oversees all of it. Every new member gets a consultation and a coach who helps figure out what they actually need. That’s the philosophy at Anytime Fitness: accessibility. And not just because it’s open 24/7.
Caring for your body is hard enough. What about making time for the environment?
Louisiana is blessed with natural beauty, but you wouldn’t always know it by how we treat it. Maybe we ought to convince folks to take a little more pride in where they live. That’s where Jenee Dansdill comes in.
Jenee is the Community Engagement Manager of Parish Proud, a nonprofit focused on environmental stewardship and community beautification. She grew up in a house where nature mattered and she went on to study environmental science. That proved to be a tough industry to break into. So she volunteered. She worked in Lafayette coffee shops during the day and gave her evenings to the Bayou Vermilion Preservation Association.
After about a year, that volunteer work opened a door—a civil engineering firm hired her to work on watershed planning and water quality projects. But she kept volunteering, moved into leadership at BVPA, and basically ran two jobs for years until she became Community Engagement Manager at Parish Proud.
Parish Proud organizes community cleanups, school restoration projects, tree planting, environmental education. They've inventoried over 400 trees in Girard Park to support future grant applications. Each year they organize a Parish Proud day, sending a blitz of volunteers to clean up and beautify a local school or park. And they're doing it with two full-time employees and one intern.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Gravy in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We all know business, at least at the point of sale, has gotten pretty impersonal. Even at the grocery store, you can avoid other people altogether. Just pop in your earbuds and use the self-checkout line. The name of the game here is efficiency. Retailers and service companies are betting that most customers prefer speed and convenience at the cost of human contact and oversight.
An age-old lesson in business: It pays to zig when your competitor zags. Some people still value trust and reliability, especially when it comes to work done on their homes.
Pool
Sure, you can get a robot to clean your pool. But when it starts to leak, it sure is nice to call on someone who knows the pool in question.
That’s the kind of transaction Ross Gresham is betting on. When you call Gresham Pool Services, you’re getting Ross himself. It’s a one-man operation by design. Ross is targeting the customer who is fed up with getting a different technician every time something breaks down.
Ross started working on pools almost three decades ago, as a side job while he was a student at UL. After graduating in 2005 with a degree in industrial technology, he built a career at Lafayette Consolidated Government. But pool work never let go of him. In 2025, he left local government to launch Gresham Pool Services full time.
Today Ross has a book of 25 weekly maintenance clients and another 20 who call him for repairs. He's not chasing rapid growth. He's chasing an underground leak-detection niche most of Acadiana can't find locally. "It's me coming to your house," he says. "Not a different employee every week."
Fabric
Retail, of course, has changed dramatically in the information age. Again, online stores are betting that folks don’t really need to touch and feel something before they buy it. That might make sense if you’re door-dashing paper towels, but if you’re picking out fabrics to glow up your living room — you might want to see what it looks like in real life.
For about the last 40 years, folks in Lafayette have done that at the Interior Fabric Shoppe, owned by Jack Emling.
Jack didn't set out to run a fabric business. In the early 1980s, he and his then-wife ran a small furniture and gift store, and noticed Lafayette didn't have a proper in-stock fabric shop — somewhere you could see and feel the material before you bought it. That gap became The Interior Fabric Shoppe, which opened in 1986. It's since grown into a full-service interior design resource — custom draperies, bedding, motorized window treatments you can run from your phone.
Jack buys fabric direct from textile mills, which keeps prices competitive and the shop stocked deep. On top of the online retail revolution, the business has survived hurricanes, a fire, and a few decades of shifting buying habits.
Conclusion? It turns out, the human touch still holds up pretty well against the algorithm. More than that, it’s not hard to imagine that dealing with a real-live person is going to remain in demand, at least for a little while longer.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Gravy in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Even in the Zoom meetings, it’s helpful to have a place to go and do your work. Mind you, today’s employees want more than a cubicle, a desk and a red stapler. They want an environment they can thrive in. It’s why some companies invest lots of money in designing welcoming, energetic spaces for their workforce.
A good office space can help you build more than a book of business, it can create a sense of community and camaraderie. It can lead to more creativity, and yes employees that are fitter, happier and more productive.
So let’s say you’ve figured out the business building part. You’ve got employees. But do you have a team? One way to figure that out is to lock them in a room and see if they can get out.
No, it’s not a dungeon. It’s Escape Room Lafayette, managed by Katie LeBlanc. Katie got her start at Escape Room as an employee. And she got the gig thinking she was applying to work at a haunted house. She worked as a hostess — greeting guests, walking them through the rules. She became general manager seven years ago, after the original owner died and the business changed hands. Today it's owned by Kelle and Dan Messer, who run escape rooms around the country.
What hooked Katie on Escape Room wasn't the puzzles. It was watching complete strangers put their phones down and start talking to each other.
Escape Room Lafayette has grown from four rooms to eight, with space for a ninth, and about 550 guests a week come through the Johnston Street facility. In-house game designer Jason Falcon has taken the games from padlocks and combination locks to hidden mechanisms, electronics, and something closer to a movie set.
And the fastest growing part of the business? It’s businesses looking for team-building exercises and corporate retreats.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Gravy in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A fast car and pressed shirt are two things that probably won't ever go out of style. Considering we live in an age of rapid economic disruption, those two facts present a potentially endless business opportunity.
Everything breaks. It’s a natural law. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong is how Murphy put it. Scientists call it entropy. In business terms, you’d call it a blue ocean. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Some stains just never get out of the shirt.
Before you panic, though, maybe visit my guest Miles Frank.
Dry Clean
Miles owns and operates C&R Quality Cleaners, a dry cleaning business with four locations across Acadiana. Trained as a mechanical engineer, Miles hit the road as a field service technician after college. Which meant he was away from his family for long stretches at a time. In 1996, the birth of his twins changed his calculus. He started looking for something closer to home. A dry-cleaning business in Crowley came up for sale, and Miles saw his opening and bought it.
Over time, Miles added locations and consolidated operations, applying an engineer's eye to efficiency along the way. Today he runs Park Avenue Cleaners in Crowley and three C&R locations in Lafayette. He says the secret to his success is adaptation. C&R invests a lot in updated equipment and has added 24-hour, automated kiosks to cut down on emergency pickups, for instance.
Nationally, the dry cleaning industry is worth roughly nine and a half billion dollars a year — and Miles runs a piece of it right here in Acadiana.
Auto
In some ways, cars have changed a lot. But when it comes down to it, a car is an engine, a chassis and four wheels. No matter the make and model — or whatever computer is doing the driving — it’s going to need a tune-up once in a while, or maybe something more.
My guest Mitchel St. Romain can help you. He owns and operates Driven Results, a Lafayette-based auto shop.
Mitchel was born in Alexandria but grew up in Lafayette. He spent his early career in sales and marketing. Then a layoff in the oil industry forced a reckoning. Jobless, he turned to his passion: cars. He had grown up watching his dad fix cars the old fashioned way. Mitchel himself has spent the better part of two decades loving and working on an old Porsche. Fixing cars for other people was a natural next step.
Mitchel started doing repair, paint and body work out of a shop at his house. Word of mouth grew the business and in 2020, he made it official.
He keeps the operation intentionally small, working alongside his brother-in-law, with subcontractors brought in as needed, so he can keep the experience personal.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded one final time live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi before we packed up our chopsticks, picked up our plate lunch, and moved to our new location, Gravy, just a few blocks away in Downtown Lafayette. Join us next week at Gravy.
Meantime, you can find photos from this farewell to Tsunami show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
People are looking for healing in places they didn't used to look. Acupuncture, sound baths, energy work — once dismissed as fringe, are now very much moving into the mainstream. That shift shows up in the numbers. Wellness is a trillion dollar industry in the U.S. Americans spend more than $6,000 per person each year on it.
That's the broader current carrying a lot of what used to be considered alternative medicine into wider use. It’s also taken on a much wider meaning. My guest Peter Bulliard works where physical and mental wellness collide. He’s a healer, more specifically, he calls himself a master shaman.
Peter Bulliard was born in St. Martinville. He got a degree in art and later nursing, but spent years working as a touring musician, primarily as a drummer, before either of those careers took hold.
A brain tumor diagnosis in 1998 changed his trajectory. He began studying healing practices, eventually training with shamans and spiritual teachers across the globe, including a stint at The Four Winds Shamanic School, before transitioning into full-time spiritual and healing work.
His services include healing sessions, master classes and workshops, property cleansing, personalized mentoring, energy training, death doula services and spiritual guidance. He's also the author of the book Heal Anxiety in One Day.
That search for the fabric of reality isn't just happening in wellness. It's happening in our closets, too — a pushback against fast fashion, mass production, and clothes that fall apart in a year. People are turning to the essential fabric of American style: Denim. Dark indigo washes and vintage-inspired silhouettes are back in style.
Selvedge mills produce limited runs and the process can produce one-of-a-kind pieces. The fabric has become a natural fit for boutique brands looking to offer exclusivity their bigger competitors can't. If you’re in Lafayette and want a unique show piece, pop by Son of a Texan in Downtown Lafayette, owned by my guest, Sky King.
Sky moved often as a kid — rural Kentucky, Texas, Louisiana — and spent much of his adolescence at a remote church camp, which he says shaped his comfort with rural, small-community life. After high school, he skipped college and went straight into restaurant and food service work, which occupied much of his early adult life.
It was his grandfather who first taught him to iron and shine his shoes, planting an early interest in clothing and textiles. After his father died about six years ago, Sky began reassessing his direction — and found his way, alongside his wife Katrena, who'd been taught to sew and repair clothes by her own grandmother, toward a business built around longevity and repairability.
Son of a Texan opened in 2025. They specialize in selvedge denim and durable, small-batch goods from independent makers — clothing meant to be worn for years, repaired, and passed down.
It’s good for business that people are always wanting more. Sometimes the trick is to convince them to slow down and maybe invest in something deeper and more durable, like spiritual balance or a nice pair of jeans.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Most of us spend a good portion of our lives looking for the right words. The ones that explain who we are. What we believe. What we're here for. Some people find them early. Others take a longer route — through careers that almost fit, through places that challenge everything they thought they knew, through questions that don't resolve so much as deepen.
My guests today have both built businesses around helping people find their voice. For Sarah Mary Toce-Donlon, that voice often comes from above.
Sarah Mary works in communications at UL Lafayette and is building a business as a professional speaker. She offers speaking engagements, retreats, workshops, and leadership development . Her presentations weave together theology, philosophy, psychology, and leadership principles.
Sarah Mary grew up in Lafayette, and an internship with Homeland Security during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill led her to an early career in nonprofit work and disaster management. She later earned a Master of Divinity from Boston College — and that move to Massachusetts was a turning point. She describes the experience as one that broke her mind open, that challenged her worldview and deepened her understanding of faith and humanity.
After years in nonprofit work and communications, she came back to her calling as a public speaker. Her clients include Catholic school teacher retreats, corporate leadership trainings, church lecture series, and continuing education workshops for educators.
Having a strong voice is pretty important if you want to be a good writer. We talk about it all the time in my newsroom. Voice communicates everything, and it’s just as essential on the page as it is from the stage. If you’re an author looking to develop a strong voice, you might need the services of a good editor like my guest Keondria Francis.
Keondria is owner operator of The Assembly Literary, a brand that houses her services as an editor-for-hire for independent authors.
Independent authors carry a particular burden: they are the publisher, the marketer, and the writer, all at once. Keondria tries to lighten that load. She offers manuscript evaluation, copy and line editing, proofreading, coaching sessions, and digital resources — including character development outlines she created after noticing how many authors struggled to build believable, relatable characters. Her editing philosophy centers on one principle: improve the manuscript without losing the writer's voice — an approach that blends African American Vernacular English with traditional grammar standards when it serves the story.
Keondria works with two to three clients a month, most of them repeat authors. About 95 percent are self-published. She's now expanding — adding a proofreader to her team, and planning to launch her own publishing company by end of year. Her first project will be her own novel.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
So, your family has a business. You grow up around it. You love it. It’s the center of gravity for your family life. But…you swear you'll never do it. You leave. You build something of your own. And then one day you look up and… Just when you thought you were out, they pull you back in.
That’s one version of the story anyway.
There's another where you just never really left. Either way, you inherit something: a lease, a reputation, a relationship with people who really know you through your family and what they do.
Family business is a big deal in Carencro. Charlotte Stemmans Clavier runs one that’s been in operation for almost 60 years. She’s the daughter of racehorse trainer Don Stemmans. Her family founded Stemmans Horse Supply in 1968 — one of the only specialty equine stores in the region, serving everyone from backyard horse people to the racehorse industry, with everything you need, as Charlotte puts it, from barn to bell.
Charlotte has worked around horses her whole life. She started working at the racetrack at age eleven. By twelve, she was running the family store. She studied history and business at Tulane, worked for an attorney, and considered law school — before coming home.
Over time, responsibility shifted to her. After her mother's passing in 2002 and her father's more recently, the store became hers to carry forward. Today, Stemmans operates two locations: the main store in Carencro and a second on the backside of Evangeline Downs. Charlotte is also a notary public, deeply involved in Louisiana horse racing organizations — and the mayor of Carencro.
Jewelry wasn't Troy Raxsdale’s plan.
Troy grew up in Lafayette, served four years in the U.S. Navy, came home, and studied marketing and economics at UL — while working full-time in the restaurant business. His father started a home-based jewelry business and asked Troy if he wanted to help with sales. Troy said yes. They traveled together, selling out of cases, building territory — and eventually bought a storefront together.
Then Troy struck out on his own. In 1999 he founded Unique Wholesale Jewelry, which supplies retail stores across the country. And in 2021, when a Lafayette storefront called Southern Jewelers came up for sale, he bought that too.
Southern Jewelers carries the range you'd expect — necklaces, bracelets, charms, custom designs — but what keeps the lights on is repairs. About sixty percent of the store's business is fixing things: resizing rings, resetting stones, restoring pieces that belong to somebody's grandmother.
It's painstaking work, and it's gotten more complicated as the market fills up with jewelry from online vendors and mass retailers, where what something looks like and what it actually is aren't always the same thing.
There’s a lot to be said for just enjoying life for what it is. Maybe that’s the simple pleasure of riding a horse, or admiring a precious stone. But in reality, nothing is as simple as it looks. Somebody has to provide the tools for keeping a horse healthy and happy. Somebody has to procure, display and sell precious stones. Troy and Charlotte are both contributors to providing life’s pleasures and treasures.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Megan Constantin sits in for Christiaan Mader on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana.
When I say the name "Jourdan Thibodeaux…" You’re thinking of a musician. He’s hard to miss on stage at a festival as a fiddler and frontman for Jourdan Thibodeaux et les Rôdailleurs.
But Jourdan is also a business owner. In Henderson Swamp outside Breaux Bridge, Jourdan and his partner Scott LaGrange own and operate Cypress Cove Landing — a marina, dance hall, restaurant, bait shop, and alligator hunt outfitter.
Born on Cypress Island, Jourdan was raised speaking French by his grandmother, self-taught on a pawn shop fiddle. Everything he does is a kind of cultural advocacy. So you’re probably not surprised that he thinks of Cypress Cove Landing as a cultural hub.
And a hub it certainly is. Cypress Cove offers boat slips, houseboat rentals, guided alligator hunts, fishing, and weekly Cajun dances that regularly draw five to six hundred people. The venue also hosts music tour groups through SOKO Music Tours. It's deliberately family friendly — all ages, all parts of the property.
For Jourdan, it’s a place that exists because he got tired of watching authentic Cajun culture get replaced by a commercial version of it. Cypress Cove is a mission driven kind of entrepreneurship. But, as Jourdan will tell you, that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Cypress Cove employs ten people, and Jourdan puts whatever the business earns back into the operation and the community.
Real estate broker Beau Bourque, has always wanted to run something of his own. He grew up in New Iberia, studied business at UL Lafayette, and came out of school looking for work with an entrepreneurial edge. He found it selling beer and liquor for Crescent Crown Distributing — out front, making things happen. Then real estate called.
Beaux joined a commercial team at Van Eaton Romero in 2011, built a niche in mobile home parks and industrial properties, and in 2020 launched Beacon Realty — his own commercial brokerage in Lafayette.
Beacon serves local and national clients. It completes an average of a transaction every couple of weeks, which is impressive for a company that, so far, runs lean. Beau has brought on a second commercial agent and sees room to grow to five or six. About eight out of ten deals come through online leads, though Beau still makes at least an hour of calls every day and mails letters to prospective clients. The fundamentals, he'll tell you, don't go out of style.
Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette.You can find photos from this show by Alisha Zachery Lazard at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There's a version of life in Acadiana that most of us only see from a car window. We live in something of a paradise, it’s just sort of removed from your day-to-day reality. That’s in part because Louisiana’s natural beauty isn’t always so easy to see. Louisiana is flat. Famously so. We don’t have mountain vistas to behold.
So, if you want to really drink in Acadiana’s splendor, you probably need to get on the water.
Don’t have a boat? Don’t worry about it. Reed Rudasil has you covered. Reed is the owner of Wanderlust Rentals, a startup that rents kayaks, right on the water. He grew up in Lafayette and studied civil engineering at UL. But he figured out pretty quick he didn't want to sit in an office. He tried landscaping, he managed a crawfish restaurant, he started buying rental properties.
Eventually Reed founded a property management company called Experience Louisiana, focused on short-term rentals that often put guests close to waterways. Renting kayaks came naturally from there. Many of the properties he manages sit on the water — and guests kept asking what to do once they arrived. Reed's answer was Wanderlust Rentals, Louisiana's first multi-point service kayak rental system.
The concept is straightforward: kiosks placed by the water, stocked with single and tandem kayaks. Customers sign a waiver, pay, get a code, and they're on the water. No staff required. No waiting. The whole transaction happens just feet from the bayou.
Don’t have a car to get the bayou? Maybe try an e-bike. They’re everywhere, in case you hadn’t noticed. The electric bike market in the United States was worth $2 billion in 2025 and is projected to more than double in the next decade.
Gerri Simon is a serial entrepreneur who’s cashing in on that market. She owns eBikes Plus, a one-stop shop for electric bike sales and repair here in Lafayette. She grew up in Vermilion Parish — not far from the water, and not far from the kind of hands-on problem solving that runs in Cajun households.
Gerri's dad, she'll tell you, was an engineer who never finished high school. He taught her to build things and to work on things. She took that instinct to UL, where she discovered she was good at math, and came out the other side with a degree in mechanical engineering. She later got an MBA.
She went on to found and operate several businesses before landing on eBikes plus. A big part of her customer base is retirees with RVs who pack up the bikes to take with them on their roving vacations. But more and more people are turning to e-Bikes as their primary means of conveyance.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The advent of AI is either exhilarating or terrifying, depending on the day and maybe your last interaction with Siri. That’s because the stakes of the technology, at least as it’s promoted by its developers, is really really high. If what they say about it is true, it could upend human work as we know it. No wonder, then, that a crisis of trust has accompanied its rapid rise.
What happens when you take AI into rooms where the stakes are high and the tolerance for error is low? Rooms like courtrooms. Or patrol cars. My guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana are both building AI products for exactly those environments. And what they've each discovered is that the technology is almost never the hardest part. The hardest part is trust.
Grant Schexnailder grew up in Lafayette — out near Milton — and comes from a family of entrepreneurs. His mom runs Cheers Cheerleading Academy. Both of his grandfathers ran their own businesses. Grant went to LSU for finance, then to Southern University for law school — a calculated decision, he'll tell you, more than a calling.
By day, Grant defends municipalities and government agencies against litigation. Which means he knows courtrooms. He knows juries. And he knows how much rides on who ends up in that box.
When ChatGPT arrived, Grant saw something. Jury selection — one of the most consequential and least scientific parts of a trial — was a problem AI could help solve. In 2024, he co-founded Empath Legal with software engineer Shane Zhang. Empath is an AI-powered jury insight platform that aggregates public records and social media data to give litigators objective information about prospective jurors.
Sarah Brasseaux is developing AI tools a little further up the criminal justice chain. She's Co-Founder of Blue Partner, an AI platform for law enforcement agencies.
Sarah graduated from UL with a degree in General Studies, and she'll be the first to tell you she has no law enforcement background whatsoever. Her co-founder Ryan Bourque does, however. He's the IT Director for the district court in St. Martin Parish. Over the years he read enough police reports to see a pattern. When AI started becoming practical, he thought it could change how officers work in the field. Together, they founded Blue Partner in 2023, with mentorship from Lafayette's Opportunity Machine.
Blue Partner provides cloud-based AI tools for law enforcement agencies — a hands-free chat that gives officers real-time information on a call, a voice-controlled mapping feature, and a reporting tool that helps officers write in their own words while keeping their reports court-admissible. They're currently working with the St. Martinville and Duson police departments.
Sarah grew up in Wisconsin, moved to Texas at twelve, worked as a teacher, before relocating to Lafayette where she lives today.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Here's something most of us won't admit: we have too much stuff.
It’s human nature in the consumer age. You can’t throw a rock in Lafayette without hitting a storage unit. And that’s the stuff that doesn’t fit in our homes. Clutter is the order of the day. In the business world, that translates into noise. We pile on messaging, saying too much when getting straight to the point is the best way to make your case in the market.
Less is more, in other words. And my guests today are both in the business of less.
Heather Borges is a Lafayette native and registered nurse who spent sixteen years in healthcare. The pandemic brought burnout. Burnout brought reflection. And reflection eventually led her somewhere she didn't expect — professional organizing. In March of 2025, she purchased the Lafayette franchise of Bee Organized, a national company with 40 locations across the US.
Heather now helps families and businesses declutter their spaces, navigate major life transitions, and find out what their home actually looks like when you can see it.
And her concierge services extend beyond organizing into errand running, seasonal home management, photo organization, and decorating. Every client starts with a consultation, during which Heather's team conducts a personality assessment to understand how the client thinks about their space and what needs to go.
Jaci Russo of Brand Russo wants you to cut out the BS and get the message sharp. She’s so serious about it, she trademarked her proprietary approach to marketing: Razor Branding.
Jaci grew up in Lafayette and nearly went to law school. She ended up in Los Angeles working with major ad agencies and building brands for clients like Ticketmaster and the Home Shopping Network. Family brought her home, and in 2001 she and her husband Michael co-founded Brand Russo, a strategic branding agency serving clients with multi-million dollar budgets. Ninety percent of those clients are outside Louisiana.
Jaci is a Certified Professional Marketer, a co-author, and the host of two podcasts.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Maybe when you're in trouble, you have someone to call. A family member. A friend. Someone who knows the system, or knows someone who does.
But a lot of people don't have that. They're navigating institutions — legal, civic, governmental — that weren't really built with them in mind. And when no one's paying attention, things get lost. They need an advocate. Someone to speak for them.
Corrie Gallien grew up in Opelousas. She studied criminal justice at UL, then went to law school at LSU — not because she always dreamed of being a lawyer, but because she wanted to help people, and the law turned out to be the sharpest tool for that.
She spent over thirteen years in the legal field. In 2024 she launched Gallien Law, a firm focused on personal injury and appellate work — including juvenile public defense and appeals for children in state care. Kids, in other words, who have no one else in their corner.
Corrie is also deaf, and a survivor of domestic abuse. Those experiences don't sit in the background — they're the engine. In 2025 she founded the Corrie Gallien Collective, a platform for advocacy, public speaking, writing, and consulting. She's a published author, a Top Twenty Under Forty honoree, and a member of Leadership Lafayette.
Advocacy can amplify voices or it can provide a voice to the voice-less. Like a building or neighborhood or sense of place.
Lafayette has been building itself for decades — new subdivisions, new roads, new commercial strips. And in the rush to build new, it's easy to lose what was already there. Once a building is gone, the story it carried goes with it.
Denise Lanclos has spent years making sure that doesn't happen without a fight. Denise is a Lafayette native who spent her career in banking and finance, eventually serving as Director of Finance at the Cathedral of St. John. She became president of the Preservation Alliance of Lafayette in 2021 — a volunteer-run nonprofit founded in 1990 to advocate for the history and culture of this city.
The Alliance was born out of a fight. In 1986, residents organized to stop the demolition of the historic St. Mary's Orphanage. They won — and that victory led the city to adopt its first historic preservation ordinance.
Today, Lafayette has 140 properties on the historic registry, and the Preservation Alliance is the organization making sure they're not quietly erased.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There's a kind of person you've probably met before. Someone who, no matter what their job title says, is really just taking care of people. That's what they do. That's what they've always done. That’s who they are. The title just took a while to catch up.
Susan Titus is a Lafayette-area entertainer, nonprofit founder, and — by her own description — a woman whose life has had more than a few unexpected turns. She grew up in Franklin, Louisiana, earned a theater degree and at one point had designs on medical school. Instead, she spent fifteen years in retail management and corporate America before walking away in 2015 to become a full-time face painter and balloon artist.
Under the name Susie Q, Susan performs at roughly a hundred events a year — from birthday parties to corporate fairs to weddings — across Louisiana and as far east as Florida.
But Susan's second act may be her most important one. Growing up in Franklin, she watched too many girls become mothers at too young an age. Her family even took in a pregnant teenager who had been kicked out of her house. That never left her. So in 2022 she founded The Confidence Campaign, a nonprofit that delivers hands-on hygiene education and self-advocacy workshops to young women. In 2025 alone, more than fifteen hundred girls attended a Confidence Campaign workshop.
Frankie Dabney's career started in health and led her to a different kind of care. Frankie is originally from Georgia, and she trained as a nurse. But once she got into the work, she found the clinical side wasn't the right fit. A friend told her she had a gift for marketing. She listened.
That pivot eventually led her to a niche: marketing for senior living communities. It turned out to be a perfect match. Frankie had watched her own mother suffer a stroke and saw firsthand how hard it is for families to navigate care.
Frankie spent years traveling the country and internationally for a marketing firm based in England that served senior living communities. Then a project brought her to the Vincent Senior Living in Lafayette — just for a month, to create a brochure. She fell in love with the city and the Vincent.
So when the Vincent’s executive director offered her a job, she didn't hesitate. Today, as Community Relations Director, Frankie oversees all marketing and advertising for the Vincent — a resort-style senior living campus on twenty acres right here in Lafayette.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Here's a question every small business owner loses sleep over: how do people find out you exist? Word of mouth still works. Always will. But today you need more than that. The challenge is that most small business owners are already doing three jobs at once. Marketing is the thing that slides. The thing you mean to get to.
You need a presence — online, in print, somewhere people are actually looking. Figuring out where to start is daunting. What’s worth the investment? How do I know it’ll work? What’s the best media to buy for my business? Two decades into the social media era, getting noticed on platforms can still be a mystery.
Ashlynn Gary has built a business around solving exactly that problem.
Ashlynn grew up in Lake Charles and came to Lafayette for college, graduating from UL in 2020 with a degree in arts and humanities. She's always been creative — painting, choir, theatre — and she still acts with the local theatre community today.
In 2020 she started a t-shirt company called Leading Color, mostly to scratch an entrepreneurial itch. What she discovered was that she loved the marketing and branding side of it more than the shirts themselves. So she pivoted.
In 2021 Ashlynn founded Ash Creative Collective, a social media management company that handles content planning, content creation, scheduling, and customer engagement — so her clients don't have to. She also serves as media manager for Leadership Lafayette.
Don’t listen to haters. Print isn’t dead. With apologies to Mark Twain, rumors of its demise have been, well, somewhat exaggerated. In Lafayette, hundreds of businesses still rely on good old fashioned print products to sell their brands.
And they're not limited to flyers and newspapers. As Jennifer Brewer found out on a visit to Baton Rouge.
Jennifer was born in Lafayette, raised in Baton Rouge, and returned to Acadiana about ten years ago after marrying a local. She’s a real estate broker by day. But a few years ago, she and her friend and business partner, Krysten Ledet, spotted something on a visit to Baton Rouge — a beautifully produced print publication called The Scout Guide, displayed in a local shop.
Krysten and Jennifer were immediately drawn to it. When they looked into it and found the Lafayette market was still open, they bought in.
The Scout Guide is a 100% woman-founded franchise now operating in over a hundred cities across the country. It launched in 2010 in Charlottesville, Virginia, and has grown to support more than three thousand small businesses nationwide. Each edition is a premium print guide — and a community in its own right.
Jennifer and Krysten launched the Lafayette Scout Guide in 2023. This year, they printed 20,000.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hi, it's Christiaan Mader, host of Out to Lunch Acadiana. I love a dive bar. And I know I’m not alone. They attract a certain cult-like following among people looking for an unpretentious place to share a reasonably priced drink with an old friend or a new one. The appeal is fundamentally American. The drinks are cold, the music is loud, the bathrooms might be suspect — but you can be you and everyone's welcome.
In Acadiana, a great dive bar can be a cultural center of gravity. Especially if it’s got a stage and a spunky PA.
However adored, dive bars carry a janky reputation. And the people who love them, love them because of that jank. It’s hard to precisely define a great dive bar. But my guest Justin Bennet saw one in the making when he moved to Lafayette and bought Artmosphere, the Downtown Lafayette bar and music venue.
Justin Bennett grew up in New York and was literally raised in dive bars, sitting on a barstool drinking cherry cokes from the age of five while his musician father played gigs. He went on to earn a bachelor's in journalism from the University of Washington, spent five years with New York City's Department of Management rising from Press Assistant to Public Information Officer, and later served as Press Secretary for the Louisiana Workforce Commission. But it was Lafayette, Louisiana — a city he and his wife Marcela kept passing through on the way to Lake Charles — that eventually called them back.
In February of 2025, Justin purchased Artmosphere, a bar and music venue on Johnston Street that's been a Lafayette landmark for years.
He didn't just buy a bar. He bought a vibe, a history, and a whole lot of deferred maintenance. Now he's fixing the bathrooms, booking the bands, and making his grandmother's meatballs.
Barbecue
There’s maybe no better example of something great out of something humble than American BBQ.
We’re not necessarily known for BBQ here in Acadiana, but Shane Wiggins is doing his part to change that.
Shane was born and raised in Flynn, Texas. He came up through electronics repair school, then spent years in the oilfield — onshore, offshore, and eventually running a business with his father in Pennsylvania. When that chapter closed, he ended up back in the Lafayette area.
Shane had been making brisket for years. His Texas Twister BBQ sauce became so popular with friends and family that by 2020 he was bottling it commercially. He and his wife Allyson had long talked about a food truck. He told her: if that spot on East Main in Broussard ever comes available, that's the sign.
It did. He had to keep his word.
In early 2022, Deuces Taste of the South opened as a part-time venture — a Texas-style BBQ joint with Cajun influences, built around a forty-two-foot custom trailer that Shane built himself. It didn't stay part-time for long.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Some businesses don’t just sell a product — they sell a feeling. They create an experience you can’t fully describe on a website, because the magic is sensory. It’s atmosphere. It’s memory. It’s the thing that makes you walk into a space and instantly feel like you belong there — or like you’ve been there before.
From a business standpoint, that’s a tricky thing to build. You can’t ship “vibe” in a box. But you can design it — intentionally — through the details: the ingredients, the storytelling, the setting, the community you build around it.
Johanna Divine sits in for Christiaan Mader on this edition of Out to Lunch and hosts two guests who make their living creating experiences that are hard to explain, but easy to feel.
Rochelle Campbell is the founder of Pure Intentions Candle Company, a small candle business based in Youngsville specializing in clean-burning candles — and candle-making experiences that are part product, part party, part community event.
Yvette Landry is a musician, educator, author and interpreter, who – between playing shows, teaching and writing books – has also built a successful business hosting Cajun music and history tours in the Atchafalaya Basin.
Candles and music are two very different products, but both Rochelle and Yvette are in the business of creating a feeling people want to come back to. Rochelle is building a product line around clean ingredients, seasonal storytelling, and in-person experiences that connect people to her brand. Yvetteis proving that culture can be both art and enterprise — through live performance, books, teaching, and tours that translate Acadiana to the world.
Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette.You can find photos from this show by Alisha Zachery Lazard at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There’s an old saying you’ve probably heard before: Those who can’t do, teach. Well, that’s total BS. If you’ve ever tried to teach someone anything — how to play a guitar chord, how to dance a two-step, how to do just about anything — you know that saying has it exactly backwards.
Teaching is hard. Being good at something and being able to teach it are two completely different skills. When it comes to traditional crafts, teaching is maybe the more vital skillset. If we’re going to preserve what we do for generations to come, we need folks skilled at passing it on.
Sometimes, when there’s no one around to turn to, you need to be an autodidact, like Garret Rosen, owner of Rosen Guitars.
Garret is a Lafayette native whose path to guitar building and teaching took a few interesting turns — including degrees in English literature, music theory, and a master’s from Oxford University in philosophy, politics and economics.
After years teaching history, Garret opened Rosen Guitars in 2025 — a shop where every instrument is handmade by him. The business combines custom guitar building, original inventory, and lessons for players from beginners to professionals. His goal isn’t to be a big-box music store. It’s something much more personal — the person who builds the instrument is the one who teaches you how to play it.
Harold Bernard is the owner of Glide Dance Studios in downtown Lafayette. Harold has been teaching dance since 1985, but his relationship with dance goes back even further: his mother was dancing the jitterbug while pregnant with him. He grew up in the golden era of Cajun dance halls, later touring across the U.S. and Canada teaching dance alongside bands like Balfa Toujours and Steve Riley.
Today, at Glide Studios, Harold teaches Cajun, Zydeco, jitterbug, waltz — and even wedding choreography. He teaches almost every night of the week, often working with couples or small groups, and relies almost entirely on word of mouth.
Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette.You can find photos from this show by Alisha Zachery Lazard at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hi, Christiaan here, host of Out to Lunch Acadiana. Everyone’s got a story. It’s why I got into journalism. People are just interesting. But having a story doesn’t mean you’re any good at telling it. That part takes skill. And a lot of discipline — Even if you’re using a large language model to help.
Everyone needs an editor. It’s our motto at The Current. And it’s generally true in the world of business. Having someone to bounce ideas off of is vital for a composition of any size. Writing a book, however, takes a special kind of dedication. You might need something more supportive than an editor. How about a coach?
LaToya Guillory is the founder of The Intentional Author and the creator of the Acadiana Black Author Expo.
LaToya grew up in an Air Force family, bounced around the country, and eventually landed in Lafayette to attend UL, where she earned a degree in Child and Family Studies. She went on to get a master’s in Human Service Counseling with a specialization in Marriage and Family, and spent more than twenty years as a social worker.
Along the way, LaToya has always been “the helper”: starting a kids’ club in her apartment complex, babysitting for children with Down syndrome, leading worship bands, guiding couples. On track to become a licensed counselor, she hit a major detour when her graduate program lost its accreditation, forcing a rethink at the exact moment she was also raising a young son.
As The Intentional Author, LaToya now coaches writers through self-publishing — from the “I’ve got an idea” phase all the way to publication. She offers group masterclasses, year-long coaching plans, and one-on-one support, and she’s published several books of her own on purpose, marriage and faith.
LaToya also saw a gap in Lafayette’s literary scene and launched the Acadiana Black Author Expo in 2023 to give local Black writers a place to be seen.
A cancer diagnosis is a scary and all-too-common story. And it helps a lot to have someone to walk you through one of life’s most difficult chapters.
Phyllis Weaver is the Executive Director of Miles Perret Cancer Services. Phyllis grew up in north Louisiana and moved to Lafayette for college. She thought she might be a teacher or an artist, but what really stuck was her love of community work. She joined the Lafayette YMCA as an assistant program director while she was still in school, and stayed there for fourteen years — eventually becoming Senior Program Director. After that, she led LA Soar, a nonprofit focused on youth, before joining Miles Perret Cancer Services as an event coordinator in 2024.In 2025, she stepped into the role of Executive Director.
Miles Perret is a cancer resource center serving ten parishes across Acadiana. They provide everything from care kits and wigs to transportation help, school supplies for kids, counseling groups, fitness and nutrition classes, art therapy, and more — all free to clients.
On the fundraising side, the organization is probably best known for big events like the Camellia Crossing “gleaux” run and Games of Acadiana.
Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette.You can find photos from this show by Alisha Zachery Lazard at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When we talk about running a business, we usually talk about revenue models, staffing, square footage, and growth plans. We talk about work. What we don’t always talk about is emotional work. The phone calls you don’t charge for. The time spent listening instead of billing. The moments when you’re not really running a business so much as helping someone through a rough chapter.
Running a business can be really hard. But — hey — life is hard. If you need something to help you cope: Why not a furry friend. You might meet your next pet at Meow Woof Animal Collective.
Alex Pitre is the executive director and co-founder of Meow Woof. It’s a café and adoption center designed specifically for animals who have lost their people due to hospice care, medical emergencies, death, or relocation. These are animals who often struggle in traditional shelter environments and need time, calm, and consistency to reconnect.
Alex is originally from Opelousas and spent a decade living in New York City, where she built a career working remotely in tech. In 2019, she came back to Louisiana to help her parents relocate — and discovered that returning home didn’t feel temporary.
Alex has always done animal rescue work, but after coming back to Acadiana, she began feeling disconnected from her local community. Brainstorming with friends led her to an idea that combined two long-standing passions: animals and hospitality.
Self-care is health care. And that’s true for dogs too. If your pup needs a glam-up, Traci Pecot can help. She’s the owner and founder of Paws and PawPaws, a pet daycare and grooming center here in Lafayette.
Traci moved to Lafayette in 2005 after graduating from the University of Holy Cross with a degree in marketing. Her early career was spent in healthcare and hospice-adjacent work, followed by corporate sales. The idea for Paws and PawPaws had been in Traci’s mind for years, but it wasn’t until a restructuring at her company that she decided to act on it. Traci traveled the country visiting dog daycare and boarding facilities, earned industry certifications, and opened Paws and PawPaws in 2017.
Today, the business employs more than twenty people and serves thousands of clients through boarding, grooming, and daycare. But one of its quieter roles has become something else entirely: a place where seniors who can no longer own pets can still spend time with animals. You can hear the background to those early years in this 2019 conversation with Traci.
Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette.You can find photos from this show by Alisha Zachery Lazard at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Some things you don’t think about until they stop working. Then you get a trickle from your shower head. Suddenly, all you can think about is what’s happening with the pipes underground.
There’s money to be made in invisible industries. That’s true if you’re pumping water from a well — a technology as old as civilization itself — or driving engineered fluids underground to drill for oil.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch both work in industries that sit mostly out of sight — below ground, behind fences, or buried in technical jargon — but when they’re needed, they’re really needed.
Scott Russo is co-owner and water specialist at Waterboys LLC, a water well services company serving residential, commercial, and agricultural clients in Acadiana.
Most people get their water from large public or private utility systems. But more than 23 million U.S. households rely on private groundwater wells for their drinking water. That’s about 15 percent of the U.S. population who aren’t connected to municipal water systems and must maintain their own sources.
Waterboys, founded in 2020, offers well drilling, pump installation, maintenance, and emergency repair — often with Scott himself answering the phone at all hours.
Water is a round-the-clock need, so Scott is always on call.
Scott grew up in Kaplan, studied geology, lived overseas and in Las Vegas, and eventually found his way back home and into the water well industry.
Zach West is president of Downhole Chemical Solutions, a Lafayette-based company operating in the hydraulic fracturing industry. Downhole plays a big role in the hydraulic part of fracking, providing the tech and engineering needed to get oil and gas out of the ground.
The fracking boom revived the domestic oil industry over the last decade. The hydraulic fracturing services industry alone is estimated at more than $40 billion in size in 2025.
Downhole is an employee owned company with over 200 people on staff and serves a mix of major and mid-sized energy operators.
Zach grew up in central Louisiana in a family of engineers, earned degrees in chemical engineering and business, and returned to Lafayette to build his company.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When we talk about “growth,” we usually mean population, jobs, or maybe cranes on the skyline. But growth isn’t abstract — it’s physical. It’s steel. It’s dirt. It’s concrete. It’s towers you don’t notice and neighborhoods you drive past every day.
Christiaan's guests on Out to Lunch are both in the business of building up — literally. One builds the infrastructure that keeps business connected. The other builds the places people call home. Different materials, different risks — but surprisingly similar challenges.
Wiley Baxter is President and Owner of Custom Tower, a Louisiana-based company that designs, manufactures, and installs communication towers across the country. Wiley grew up in Pensacola, studied mechanical engineering at LSU, and spent time in corporate roles before buying Custom Tower in 2024, when its previous owners decided to retire.
Custom Tower builds the steel that holds antennas in the air — cutting, welding, galvanizing, assembling, and installing towers that can stretch hundreds of feet high. Their work is often for state and parish governments, and if everything goes right, you’ll never think about them at all.
Molly Creaghan is a regional manager at Dantin Bruce, a real estate development firm that handles projects from site selection all the way through leasing.
Molly grew up in Baton Rouge, went to LSU, and started her career leasing apartments — discovering along the way that she really liked the puzzle of property management.
At Dantin Bruce, Molly oversees operations, marketing, budgeting, staffing, and owner relations across multiple properties. Their Lafayette project, Camellia Grove, is a 136-unit “built-to-rent” townhome community near River Ranch — a development designed to feel more like a neighborhood than an apartment complex.
Molly and Wiley are both examples of people in our community who are in occupations as vital as they are invisible. On Out to Lunch we love to take an oportunity to turn the spotlight on people who other media might not so readily acknowledge.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
People in Acadiana love restaurants. They love talking about them, reviewing them, arguing about them. They always seem to think they could run one. Hey, if you can cook, why not?
Here’s the thing: Restaurants are famously unforgiving businesses. Margins are thin. Labor is hard to find and harder to keep. One bad weekend, one broken piece of equipment, one stretch of slow traffic — and suddenly you’re wondering why you ever thought this was a good idea.
And yet, people keep opening them.
Maybe that’s because a successful restaurant can be an institution, a fixture of community from generation to generation. Take Ton’s, the diner and plate-lunch place founded in 1963 by the grandparents of Christiaan's lunch guest, Hollie Girouard.
Hollie grew up in the restaurant. Ton’s was her second home long before it was her responsibility. A volleyball scholarship brought her to UL, where she studied graphic design and imagined a future in the visual arts. But restaurant life always sucked her back in.
In 2023, Hollie opened Ton’s Downtown in Downtown Lafayette. It’s got all the Ton’s staples people expect — gumbo, burgers, plate lunches — with a little bit of a Downtown twist. Belly up to the bar and you can grab fresh juice, vegan options, frozen coffee, cocktails, and late-night service on weekends.
Between the Broussard and downtown locations, Ton’s employs about thirty people. Hollie runs both, takes a long-term view of growth, and describes her downtown strategy as a “slow burn.”
Dillon Van Way is the founder of Uncle Bob’s Food Truck Roundup, a boutique food truck park in downtown Lafayette.
A food truck park makes a lot of sense in Downtown Lafayette — a dense area with relatively high foot traffic and a reputation as a food destination. But Dillon will be the first tell you it’s not easy getting a no-brainer.
Dillon is an architect by trade. And as you can by now guess, his name is not Uncle Bob.
The food truck park grew out of a real estate project. Dillon redeveloped a building into apartments and found himself with a vacant adjacent lot. Rising construction costs and inflation made traditional development unattractive, so he tried something else: a carefully designed food truck park. Uncle Bob’s opened during Mardi Gras of 2025.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Some people make a living building things. Others make a living making those things look good.
There’s more to decoration than meets the eye. Space has a tremendous impact on how we think and feel. Sometimes it really is all about appearances, and that’s true whether you’re picking out curtains for your living room or designing an arch of balloons for a wedding.
Our own spaces can tell the world a lot about who we are. Take a look at my desk for instance, and you’ll know right away I’m not someone you’d hire to design your workspace. For that, you should probably call my guest Krysten Ledet
Krysten is the founder and owner of Krysten Ledet Interiors, a full-service design firm that handles renovations, new construction, spec homes, commercial spaces, and hospitality builds. She grew up in New Orleans and earned her bachelor’s in interior design from UL Lafayette before pursuing a master’s degree. She’s a certified interior designer and licensed contractor—so she’s as comfortable knocking down your walls as she is selecting your wallpaper.
Krysten's design philosophy is shaped by her childhood in New Orleans and by Hurricane Katrina, which put 20 feet of water in her childhood home and left a lasting impression about what "home" really means. After stints working for commercial clients, she returned to residential design and eventually launched her own firm in 2020, partly to spend more time with her family and partly to stop commuting to Baton Rouge.
Bianca Russo is the owner of Louisiana Balloons Atelier, a custom balloon and event décor studio based in Sunset.
Bianca grew up in Brazil, where balloon décor is serious business—and also her family business. Her mother ran a balloon shop and passed down the craft, though Bianca initially took a very different career path, attending dental school before moving to Canada and eventually becoming a dental assistant in Las Vegas.
After relocating to Louisiana, Bianca opened her own balloon studio in 2025. Louisiana Balloons Atelier offers everything from simple foil balloons to fully customized installations for weddings, birthdays, graduations, divorces, sporting events—basically anywhere cake is served, balloons follow.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Farming isn’t what it used to be.
Louisiana has lost thousands of small farms over the last few decades. The average farmer is over 58. Land prices keep going up, commodity prices keep wobbling, and modern farming techniques are about scale, not stewardship of the land. The small independent farmer — the icon of the American landscape — is by and large disappearing. But not everyone is signed up for extinction.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch are young cattle farmers who have thrown out the conventional big ag playbook, putting their sweat equity into sustainable practices that emphasize high standards of animal care and meat quality.
Their meat story starts with a meet-cute in an animal science lab. Molly (Abshire) LeJeune met Hayden LeJeune while at McNeese State. She is from Little Cypress, Texas, where her family owned a big piece of land her grandfather once farmed. The land stayed in the family even after the farming stopped, which meant Molly grew up with a kind of open-ended question: What should this land be?
That question followed Molly into high school, where her family started buying beef from a woman practicing sustainable agriculture. That was Molly’s lightbulb moment. “I think I could do that,” she thought. By the time she graduated, she’d decided she wanted to farm — and not just farm, but farm differently.
At McNeese, Molly built her own curriculum — regenerative farming, soil biology, direct-to-consumer models.
Meanwhile, about 80 miles east, Hayden LeJeune was growing up on a rice, crawfish, and cattle farm in Richard, Louisiana. Like a lot of farm kids, he wanted to stay on the land — but the math didn’t work. Most small farms can barely support one family, much less two. So Hayden went to McNeese for agribusiness, figuring he’d become a feed rep or crop consultant and farm on the side like everybody else. Then he met Molly.
By the time they graduated, Hayden’s dad decided to get out of cattle — and handed his son a small starter herd. Today, Molly and Hayden run Cypress Prairie Farms, a regenerative beef operation in Richard with about 40 head of cattle on 70 acres. No pesticides, no fertilizers, no grain byproducts, no antibiotics. Their cows rotate on pasture to rebuild soil, reduce pests naturally, and create something rare these days — a farm that is building land instead of depleting it.
At Cypress Prairie Farms, Molly and Hayden sell everything from steaks to marrow bones to beef shares at local farmers markets and online. Their beef is USDA processed, dry aged for flavor, and delivered with the kind of transparency you only get when you personally know the people raising your dinner.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We often think of “doing good” as the business of nonprofits. You start a foundation, apply for grants, hold gumbo cook-offs, and hope the IRS sees things your way. But what if you didn’t need tax-exempt status to make the world better? What if turning a profit and doing good weren’t opposites — but the same business plan? Turns out, a lot of small business owners in Acadiana are already doing it. No mission statements, no donor walls — just good work disguised as work.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana both run for-profit businesses that exist for something bigger than the bottom line. One makes magic — literally. The other runs a thrift store that funds community support. And both have built businesses around something very simple: joy and generosity.
If you’ve been to a library show, a school assembly, a corporate retreat, a kid’s birthday, or a surprise party gone slightly off the rails — there’s a decent chance you’ve seen this man making balloon animals. Mitch Richard is the owner of MLR Magic. He grew up in Kaplan, where he was a consummate class clown.
Mitch's real stage debut came in 7th grade, when a teacher gave him the first five minutes of every class to “energize” the students — on one condition: Mitch had to keep a B average. By 16, he learned balloon art from Darcy Guidry — the legendary balloon guy at Hub City Diner — and started performing professionally a few years later. He’s now been “Mitch the Magician” for 25 years, doing more than 150 shows a year across Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Florida.
Mitch's company company books not just himself, but other performers, too. And while he performs everywhere from corporate parties to kids’ camps, his favorite shows are at assisted living facilities, where he says “people need to laugh the most.”
If Mitch works his magic through wonder, Lori Guillory works hers through generosity. Lori is the owner of Calvary Thrift, a faith-based thrift shop in Lafayette.
Lori also runs Camp Calvary, a Christian summer camp, and Calvary Creek, an 8-acre event venue.
Lori is a UL Lafayette grad, a lifelong thrifter, and — by her own admission — someone who didn’t set out to run more than one business, but kept doing it because she saw needs that weren’t being met.
Calvary Thrift employs eight people, sources locally donated goods, and donates profits into groups like The Hub, The Outreach Center, church ministries, and rent-assistance programs.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There's a temptation in business to want everything fast. Fast growth, fast profits, fast success. But the most durable things—the things that actually last—are often built slowly and with intention.
My guests on this edition of Out to Lunch understand that patience is a strategy. Both came to their current work almost by accident. And both are choosing growth on their own terms.
Allyson Romero is the founder of Grow Leadership Coaching. She spent eight years teaching in Lafayette public schools and later moved into management roles in the private sector. Allyson thrived as a manager, but it wasn't until she received leadership coaching as part of her own professional development that something clicked. She realized she loved coaching, she was good at it, and it aligned with who she actually was. When she was laid off in 2024, instead of looking for another management job, she took it as a sign to start Grow Leadership Coaching.
Grow Leadership Coaching is a local firm that offers individualized coaching to help managers and executives maximize their performance and reach their goals. They work on skills like effective communication and time management through one-on-one sessions or team coaching.
Most of Allyson's clients are already in leadership roles, and she's intentional about finding the right fit—she meets with prospective clients first to make sure it's a good match for both of them. Right now, it's a side venture for her, but one she's committed to growing with intention and a strong reputation.
While Allyson is sizing up the right client, Mary Hays is getting runners into the right pair of shoes. Mary is the owner of Geaux Run by Fleet Feet in Lafayette.
Mary has been active her whole life—cross-country runner in high school, swimmer, golfer, paddleboarder. But she spent her career at Teche Electric before being hired as manager of Geaux Run in 2012. She bought out the shop’s owners to become sole proprietor. When the opportunity came to join the Fleet Feet franchise in 2018, she was strategic about it — and she didn't sacrifice local control.
Geaux Run is a specialty athletic shoe and apparel retailer focused on proper fit. They carry running shoes, socks, GPS watches, inserts — everything the avid runner needs. What sets them apart is their commitment to fitting. They use 3D foot scans to ensure every customer gets the right shoe for their needs. The store also hosts free demo runs when new shoes release, collaborates with podiatrists and physical therapists to offer their customers discounts, and is a major sponsor of local running clubs and youth programs like Girls on the Run.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Some people discover their calling by accident. Literally. An injury or an illness or divine providence can lead to a vocation. You might call each of my guests today healers. But neither started out with the idea of becoming one. They were patients first — searching for relief when the medical system didn’t always have the answers.
That journey led them to very different paths. One through modern medicine and physical therapy. The other through the centuries-old practice of faith healing.
Becca Begnaud is a traiteur, a Cajun faith healer. She grew up in Scott, Louisiana, in a family and community where traiteurs were part of everyday life. If you had warts, a sprained ankle, or a headache, you went to see someone with the prayer.
But it wasn’t until Becca was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1989 that she began to take up the practice. A nun suggested she look into healing work. She studied Reiki, trauma first aid and worked in hospice care. Eventually she embraced her role as a healer in Acadiana.
For Becca, healing is community, it’s connection, it’s laughter and prayer. She’s practiced for decades as a volunteer, never charging for her services, and today she continues her work from her office in Lafayette.
Philip Thibodeaux is the founder of Restore Physical Therapy and Wellness in Lafayette.
Philip grew up in Monroe and followed in the footsteps of his mother, who was a physical therapist. But his own story as a patient shaped how he thinks about care.
At 14, Philip suffered a severe shoulder injury that went undiagnosed for months. By the time doctors discovered a torn labrum, the damage was done. He suffered through three surgeries and countless hours of physical therapy before he turned 30. The experience made him determined to treat patients differently than he had been treated.
After working for a major healthcare agency, Philip became frustrated with the corporate approach — overbooking, inconsistent and inconsiderate care. In 2025, after the birth of his son, he struck out on his own. He launched Restore, a boutique clinic that emphasizes personalized care and new techniques like SoftWave therapy.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sometimes the best businesses don’t start with a big plan. They start with nothing: no money, no equipment, no idea what you’re doing. Just a problem to solve, a skill in your back pocket, and the determination to figure it out.
That’s how Christiaan's two guests on this edition of Out to Lunch ended up where they are. One is making home furnishings from scraps. The other turned a pine tree into a broadband company. Both, you might say, made something from nothing.
Matthew Latiolais is the owner of Cajun Salvage Company. Matthew grew up in Lafayette and got his first lesson in welding at sixteen from a boatbuilder — thanks to his grandfather, who volunteered him for the job.
After college, Matthew spent his early career in the oilfield, but when the industry hit a downturn, he found himself sending out résumés to nowhere. Eventually, he decided the only thing left to do was work for himself.
In 2015, Matthew founded Cajun Salvage, a shop specializing in woodworking, metal fabrication, and architectural salvage. His first jobs came from tearing down barns and reclaiming materials. Now he builds everything from custom cabinets to cypress tables to barn doors — often based on whatever clients find on Pinterest. He’s also a Master Craftsman and a member of the Louisiana Crafts Guild.
Chris Disher is Managing Director of Cajun Broadband. Chris is a mechanical engineer by training, born in Ponchatoula and raised in Morgan City. He spent more than two decades in oil and gas, living and working all over the world.
When Chris and his family moved to a blueberry farm in St. Martin Parish, they ran into a different kind of problem: terrible internet. Chris’s kids begged him to sell the farm and move to the city, but instead Chris and a friend stuck an antenna in a pine tree and got 60 megabits per second. That was the start of Cajun Broadband.
Founded in 2017, the company now provides fiber and wireless internet to nine parishes, and employs 10 people. Cajun Broadband grew even faster through state and federal broadband grants: the company landed a $26 million grant to connect 9,000 homes. Chris says they started in a tree, and now their service is faster than some city providers.
Chris and Matthew's business histories, though as different as analog wood and digital fiber, are both proof that sometimes the best way forward is to stop waiting for someone else to solve the problem, and just build the solution yourself. It doesn't get much more Cajun than that. And that's how you get Cajun Salvage and Cajun Broadband.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you’re going to run a good business, you’ll need to know the tools of your trade, literally and figuratively. Sometimes it’s knowing how to find talent. Other times it’s owning the crane nobody wants to buy. Because here’s the thing: every project needs both muscle and machines. And neither comes cheap these days, especially in the world of construction.
The U.S. construction industry needs around 439,000 new workers this year just to keep up with demand, according to some estimates. So when someone says “tools,” they might mean manpower — or literally heavy machinery.
If you’ve taken on a home renovation project recently, you might have noticed that it can be hard to find the guy or gal for the job.
Grant Alexander is Board President of the Master’s Guild of Acadiana, an organization set up to train people for the trades and fill the skills gap. Grant was born in Gulfport, lived in Lafayette, and studied communication at UL. While running an insulation business, he saw firsthand that having tools means nothing without people who can use them.
Later, Grant opened a local home fixtures franchise and again ran into the same roadblock. They had the supplies, but not the skilled workers to install them. That experience inspired the Master’s Guild of Acadiana.
Now, the Master’s Guild teaches everything from basic construction skills to job-readiness. The goal is to help budding builders hit the job site ready to work.
Even a skilled worker needs the right tool. And sometimes, the right tool is an excavator. Troy Dowling is Branch Manager at SitePro Rentals in Broussard. SitePro offers the machines tradespeople need but often can’t justify owning.
Troy was born in New Iberia, and spent six years in the Marine Corps after which he carved out a career at Haliburton. He retired after 30 years, but he couldn’t sit still for long. He got a job at SitePro where oversees a tool-fleet valued at over $14 million, with everything from skid steers to massive booms, serving both contractors and DIY folks who don’t want to buy but need to lift.
There can be a lot of satisfaction in doing home repairs and renovations yourself. If you know what to do you can go on down to Site Pro, see Troy, and get the tools you need to do it. If you don't know what to do, satisfaction is replaced by frustration and it's better, faster, and ultimately cheaper to get someone who does know what they're doing to come do it for you. In Acadiana we can thank Grant and the Master's Guild for making sure we have those folks to call on.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Wellness isn’t just kale smoothies and yoga classes anymore.
It’s mushrooms as brain boosters, IV drips for recovery, tinctures, biohacking, and more. These trends aren’t fringe, they’re big business, generating $1.8 trillion in U.S. sales alone in 2024. And they’re on the move in Acadiana too.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch are building businesses in Acadiana riding these same waves — functional mushrooms, hydration therapies, supplements, biohacking — they all are part of wellness, and more than a buzzword.
Daisy Kerne is co-founder of All Caps Gourmet Mushrooms, founded in 2019 with Michael Campbell. Daisy’s from Loreauville, Louisiana, though she moved back and forth between there and Lafayette during her youth.
Daisy studied plant science at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and balances her time between her mushroom business, doing food demos, and nutrition counseling for cardiac rehab patients. As a single parent, she managed multiple gigs while homeschooling, and when Michael asked, “Hey, do you want to grow mushrooms?”, she took a leap.
Their current operations include fresh mushrooms, tinctures, seasoning blends, workshops, and growing kits.
DeAnna Smith is founder of Dripsy IV Bar.
DeAnna is originally from Pineville, Louisiana, holds a business administration & marketing degree, then became an RN after an accident involving an 18-wheeler changed her perspective. She started doing IV hydration on weekends while working as an insurance case nurse.
Deanna gradually built a waitlist for IV treatments, and in 2024 opened the first brick-and-mortar Dripsy IV Bar in Alexandria. That’s Dripsy…as in “everybody in the club getting dripsy.”
Since then, Dripsy has grown to three new locations, including adding outposts in Lafayette and Lake Charles in 2025. Dripsy offers IV drips, weight loss options, shots, telehealth, peptide treatments, and biohacking services.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There’s a reason you don’t hear people bragging about shopping for a new bank. Most of us choose one when we’re young and stick with it—even if we’re frustrated, even if it means worse service or fewer benefits. We treat it like a utility, not a relationship.
That’s good news if you’re running a big bank. Not so good if you’re trying to build a bank here at home.
Joe Zanco is doing exactly that. He’s the President and CEO of Catalyst Bank, a community bank based in Opelousas with branches around Acadiana. He’s a former CPA and internal auditor who cut his teeth working for the biggest names in banking and public accounting—Arthur Andersen, Iberia Bank, Home Bank.
But the banking path wasn’t exactly his plan. Joe grew up in St. Bernard Parish, the son of a butcher with a drinking problem. He got into banking thanks to a mop, a grocery store manager, and a knack for numbers. He’s been laid off by bankrupt state agencies and global scandals—but every detour brought him closer to his real calling: helping people grow their businesses.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is the world of civil litigation. Louisiana has lots of personal injuries to choose from. And that crowded competitive landscape comes with its own obstacles.
Geremy Garcia is a managing partner of Landgrave Garcia Injury Attorneys. His path to entrepreneurship winds through geology, pool supplies, and a fraternity house visit with Exxon’s legal team.
Geremy was born and raised in Corpus Christi and came to Lafayette in 2022. He studied geosciences at Texas Tech, then pivoted to law when the oil and gas industry hit the skids. After law school at Southern University, he found his niche in personal injury—especially the kinds of cases that require digging into long backstories and legal nuance, like dog bites or offshore injuries.
In 2023, he and Logan Landgrave opened Landgrave Garcia. They’ve had to get scrappy: bootstrapping the firm, managing cash flow while fronting litigation costs, and learning to run a business from scratch.
Turns out, there are two kinds of people who enjoy long odds and long paperwork trails: personal injury attorneys and community bankers. They may work in very different industries, but both Joe Zanco and Geremy Garcia are betting on something similar: that people in Acadiana value relationships, and that service still counts for something.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Here in Lafayette, comedy is growing up. The scene is expanding, more shows are popping up. It’s become a draw for national touring acts. And comics are choosing to stay—or come back—because there’s actually something to build here.
That’s pretty remarkable. Lafayette wasn’t really on the map as a comedy town until the last decade or so. But comedy itself — how it works, how it’s consumed — has changed. And it’s booming nationally while other live entertainment offerings have hit the skids.
On this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana, Johanna Divine sits in for Christiaan Mader and she's joined by two lunch guests who both work in comedy, but from very different angles—and very different eras. One started when comedy clubs were king, the other as memes have become currency. One uses hypnosis, the other political satire. And both have made Lafayette home.
Flip Orley has been a touring comic and hypnotist for more than 30 years. He’s performed in clubs and theaters across the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean, blending stage hypnosis with stand-up. He’s known for treating his volunteers with respect—no chicken clucking here—and for pushing audiences to think and laugh at the same time. He’s also an author, podcast host, and something of an HR nightmare, by his own account.
John Merrifield is the founder of Oof Comedy and the co-host of Laf City Radio. A Lafayette native, John got his start in stand-up after proposing a comedy night at a bar—possibly after one too many bad open mics. Since then, he’s built a following through viral memes, sharp political satire, and a prolific open mic scene at Cite des Arts.
John left for New York to build his chops, then returned to help grow Lafayette’s comedy scene from the ground up.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Two comedians walk into a sushi restaurant… Well, actually, that’s all we've got so far, we’ll leave the punchline to the professionals - when we meet Flip and John next time here on Out to Lunch Acadiana we'll hear the rest of the joke. Watch this space!
Till then, this comedy lunch was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette.You can find photos from this show by Alisha Zachery Lazard at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Some things are so familiar we stop thinking about them. Bread, for example. Or curry. They show up in so many meals they’re practically background noise. Staples. Comforts. Universals.
So what happens when someone decides that’s not good enough?
On this edition of Out to Lunch we’re talking about reimagining the familiar — turning the everyday into something exceptional. It takes a mix of obsession, patience, and maybe a little defiance. It’s the kind of project that makes your friends say, “You’re doing what now?”
Morgan Angelle is co-founder of Straw Cove Flour Mill and Baking Company. Morgan isn’t just baking bread—she’s milling her own flour, from grain she sources directly from farms she’s vetted herself. She even knows which wheat scientists developed the strains she uses. That’s commitment. But it’s more than that—it’s a philosophy. For Morgan, bread isn’t just food, it’s a story of place, labor, and connection.
Morgan’s culinary path started early. She grew up in Breaux Bridge watching PBS cooking shows and experimenting in the kitchen. She earned her culinary degree in New Orleans in 2005 and worked in kitchens across the region, but never quite felt at home behind the line. It wasn’t until she got obsessed with dough—literally, while working at Buck & Johnny’s—that she found her calling. Over eight years, she deep-dived into flour science, traveling to learn from bakers, millers, and farmers. She returned home in 2022 with a mission to build better bread from the grain up.
Sajeev Joseph is co-owner of Priya’s Indian Food. You might think you know Indian food — tikka masala, naan, maybe a samosa or two. But Sajeev and his wife Priya offer something different: food made the way it’s cooked at home in India. No artificial colors. No sugar. Lots of vegan and gluten-free options.
Originally from India, Sajeev studied theology, economics, and philosophy before settling in Lafayette in 2014. He and Priya started small, selling homemade dishes at the farmers market—she was the first Indian vendor there. In 2020, they opened their restaurant, a cozy four-table spot with a big reputation. Sajeev left his full-time job to support the business and help care for their kids. These days, their children sometimes pitch in too—making it a true family operation.
One of the knocks you hear from bigger city folks from, say, New York, New Orleans, or Austin, is that, as cool as our Cajun culture is, wouldn’t it be great if there was an awesome bakery here? Or a real, authentic Indian restaurant?
Well, one of the benefits of living in a community like Lafayette, is that one person can make a big difference. When that one person opens an awesome bakery, and another person opens an authentic Indian restaurant, not only do we now have the kind of food you normally only find in a big city, but guess what? We also don’t have to live in - or even visit! - New York, New Orleans or Austin.
Johanna Divine sits in for Christiaan Mader, hosting this edition of Out to Lunch live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette.
You can find photos from this show by Alisha Zachery Lazard at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
For every entrepreneur, the fantasy of your own business is about being in control of your destiny. For a lucky few, that pays off with the job — and lifestyle — of your dreams.
One way to get there is to help other folks fulfill their own fantasies. Or maybe even one — at least temporarily. That fantasy might be waltzing through an evening of elegance in the gown of your dreams. Or hobnobbing with trolls while you nosh on a turkey leg.
If the latter is your cup of mead, you might venture to Ville Platte for the Acadiana Renaissance Faire, co-founded by Blanche Boudreaux.
Blanche is the Faire’s creative director. She grew up going to Ren fairs as a teenager and leapt at the chance to get involved with one as an adult when she volunteered to help some friends get the Acadiana Fair started. She and her husband were pulled in as part owners, and they debuted the Acadiana Ren Faire in 2021.
The Acadiana Renaissance Faire has grown from a rented field to a full-on fantasy village in Ville Platte, complete with trolls, pirates, and fairy lands.
Blanche is also a licensed practical nurse by day, but her passion for storytelling and spectacle is what fuels her side hustle.
If Blanche helps you live your fantasy, then Annie Bonaventure helps you dress for it. Annie is the co-owner of Bella Bridesmaids in Lafayette, part of a national franchise offering a curated boutique experience for weddings and formal events. She bought into the business in 2021 after being a customer herself and realizing she loved the model.
Bella Bridesmaids prides itself as an all-one-shop. Bridal parties can get the whole crew styled for the rehearsal dinner to the after party. The company also boasts a virtual showroom that allows wedding parties to share favorites, order online, and get reminders.
Annie’s background is in cosmetology and wedding hair and makeup, so stepping into bridal fashion felt like a natural next step.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Alisha Zachery Lazard at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ideas always sound good in theory. Especially business ideas. That’s the deception of entrepreneurship. Even the simple stuff gets complicated. Take my guests today. One started a business hauling junk. The other lends tools out for free. Simple, right? But as they’ll tell you, there’s a lot more to it once you pop the hood.
Anna Kojevnikov is co-founder of the Lafayette Tool Library, a nonprofit that lets members borrow tools for home, yard, or auto projects—at no cost.
Anna moved to Lafayette in 2018 with her husband, a math professor at UL Lafayette. They bought a new home and realized they didn’t have enough tools for all that upkeep — or really enough space to keep them. Volunteering with disaster relief after Hurricane Laura showed her how widespread that need really was. Partnering with co-founder Alison Nederveld, she helped launch the Lafayette Tool Library to solve a community problem one tool at a time.
Anna is originally from Australia, where she worked in film and TV, but found her footing in Lafayette helping others create. She’s also the Community Engagement Director at the Acadiana Center for the Arts.
Coty Bergeaux was working in law enforcement when he took a family vacation that changed his outlook. Watching people living the high life in vacation homes along the Florida coast, he realized he wanted to be his own boss. He looked into storage units and ran across another idea: junk removal. He filed for an LLC one month before his son was born and started small, hauling his first king-size mattress with a rented trailer.
Coty Bergeaux is now the owner and operator of Acadian Haul Away & Junk Removal.
Coty hauls everything from mattresses to hoarder houses—running lean with just his truck, his trailer, and a strong back. He does about 50 jobs a month.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Alisha Zachery Lazard at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
These days, Facebook might be the last place you’d go for a taste of the sweet life. Social media is more likely to spike your blood pressure than your blood sugar. But it’s a pretty potent platform for launching a business or building a community.
Foodies
Jason Stoner is one of the mods at Foodies of Lafayette, a massive online community with more than 100,000 members, operated by Jason and the group’s founder, Heidi Jacobs MacDonald.
Jason is also the chef and host of Sunday Dinners, a monthly dinner party that blends fine dining with good old-fashioned hospitality. Invitations are hard to come by at Sunday Dinners. There are just six spots at his dining room table, so it’s not uncommon for reservations to be auctioned off at local fundraisers.
Jason is largely self-taught in the kitchen, sparked by the challenge of learning to cook for his kids. He grew up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and moved to Lafayette 15 years ago to be with his partner, Stephan.
Cheesecake
Seth Dahlen is owner of LA Cheesecake Bakery. Seth grew up in Perry and Abbeville and got his culinary start early, working in restaurants as a teenager. He fell for cheesecake while working at Black’s Café, where a coworker roped him into helping with dessert prep.
That spark led to a slow, deliberate build—he and his wife started by selling cakes from their home and building a reputation through Facebook. By 2022, they opened a storefront in Lafayette. Now, he’s running a full-time bakery with a cult following, offering more than sixty flavors and even stocking a cheesecake vending machine at the mall.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you think you know dirty jobs, you probably picture Mike Rowe knee-deep in some sewer or wrestling livestock. But let’s be real: there’s nothing heroic about coming in after the cameras are gone to mop up someone else’s mess—that’s the real work, and it can be a solid business proposition.
That’s especially true in Louisiana, where the air is wet and the floods frequent. All of that environmental damage needs someone to clean it up. And many of them turn to Rinea Blanchard.
Rinea is the Owner and Operator of Superior Contract Cleaning, a Lafayette-based remediation and cleaning company that handles everything from mold and fire damage to hoarding cleanup and post-construction debris.
Rinea started her business nearly three decades ago with a single account. Today, she operates a fleet that tackles big jobs across the country—and she still prefers restoring grout to taking on routine janitorial gigs.
If Rinea is cleaning up life’s messes, Trey Boone is helping prevent a few of them—mostly the kind that come from bored, untrained, or anxious dogs. Trey owns the Lafayette franchise of The Dog Stop, a full-service pet care facility that boards, grooms, trains, and pampers hundreds of dogs a month.
Trey bought the franchise in 2015 and now oversees operations across the state.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Fashion is a $400 billion industry in the U.S. It includes household names with global reach and big-box scale. But in this massive market, there's room for the neighborhood shop — if you find the right niche.
That’s right. If you want to get into the clothing industry, you don’t have to be afraid of fast fashion. Plenty of consumers are still out there looking for something curated, something custom — something that makes them feel unique.
LaGina Bruno knows that first hand, she's the Owner of LAD Prints and More.
LaGina is a graphic designer and vinyl printmaker based in North Lafayette. Her shop specializes in custom t-shirt design, vinyl printing, and personalized accessories — from mugs to umbrellas.
LAD Prints began as a side hustle in 2017 while LaGina was still working full-time in insurance. In 2023, she took the leap into entrepreneurship, and in 2024, she opened a storefront just down the road from her home.
Linda Solley Hurd is the Founder of Adeline Clothing. Linda started her online fashion brand in 2015 after realizing big changes were coming to the retail landscape. She turned her home-based business into a full-scale operation, eventually moving into a 14,000-square-foot warehouse in Lafayette.
Adeline Clothing is entirely online, selling curated and proprietary fashion lines to customers across the U.S.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
“If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you'll work until you die.”
That’s a bit of advice from Warren Buffet, "The Oracle of Omaha" and perhaps the world’s most successful investor.
For most, it’s a dream. But for Drake Bajat it’s a personal philosophy and throughline in his serial entrepreneurship.
Today, Drake owns Restoration One, a Lafayette-based company specializing in water, mold, fire damage, and biohazard cleanup. But he’s also operated a successful tax and accounting firm, owned a paint contracting company, and spent years in the oil and gas industry as a landman. He did well enough but wanted a business of his own that would give him control over his own time and money. He bought a Restoration One franchise after doing some market research. The company has four employees and averages about five jobs each week.
While Drake is focused on making money while he sleeps, Whitney Lange is busy making money where others sleep—designing bedrooms, kitchens, and entire interiors that clients dream of.
Whitney is the owner of DBR Designs, a full-service interior design firm in Lafayette.
Whitney grew up inspired by home décor shows on HGTV and turned that passion into a thriving career. After earning her interior design degree from UL and working in local design and staging companies, Whitney purchased DBR Designs in 2023.
She also owns House Dressings, Lafayette’s only dedicated home staging company.
Whitney and her team offer detailed and personalized designs, handling everything from initial consultations to the finishing touches that make spaces feel like home.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Giada Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Great products start with an idea, and a lot of tinkering. Edison and his lightbulb. Jobs and Wozniak in their garage. The image is familiar—a lone inventor, obsessing over details, experimenting, failing, learning, and eventually discovering something great.
South Louisiana has a pretty rich tradition of entrepreneurship and invention. Consider the crawfish boat, for instance. And, when you think about it, Cajun and Creole food in general can be likened to hare-brained contraptions. We’re constantly tinkering with ways to improve recipes to make them more efficient, cheaper or more flavorful — all without losing their essence.
Gumbo
There’s nothing more essential in Cajun cooking than the trinity — onion, bell pepper and celery, known around here as the Trinity, and depending on your bent toward Catholicism or sacrelige, even "The Holy Trinity."
Dreux Barrah is Founder and Chief Chopping Officer at C’est Tout Dried Trinity Mix.
Dreux’s path to business began in his home garden with an overabundance of bell peppers. He came up with drying vegetables as a way to preserve his surplus and created a dehydrated holy trinity.
Through experimentation, Dreux perfected his process, even crafting custom equipment like his flour-toasting "Rouxster." Now, C’est Tout sells not just dehydrated vegetable mixes but also fully dried dish starters for classics like gumbo, jambalaya, and etouffee.
Whiskey
One thing Cajuns aren’t famous for is whiskey — apart from drinking it, we don’t really make it. That is, until Philip Mestayer came along.
Philip is Co-Owner and Head Distiller at Distillerie Acadian, a small-batch distillery based in New Iberia.
Philip started as a weekend hobbyist, distilling whiskey with his dad and brother. Their goal was ambitious—create Louisiana’s first bourbon, a spirit more associated with Kentucky Bluegrass than Cajun prairies. What began as a passion evolved into a business, but not without a whole lot of elbow grease. Philip designed and welded much of their initial distilling equipment himself, navigating complicated federal regulations, supply chain issues, and tricky logistics.
Today, Distillerie Acadian offers seven unique spirits, from bourbon to handcrafted gin.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Americans love their pizza. We eat around 3 billion pizzas a year—that’s about 350 slices per second. And we wash down a good portion of it with wine: the U.S. is the world’s largest wine-consuming country, drinking nearly 1 billion gallons annually.
Put that all together and you’ve got a complete meal.
Pizza, of course, is ubiquitous in Lafayette. And it’s not hard to find a decent glass of wine. But it’s fair to say we’re not known for those delicacies. We’re more of a boudin and light beer crowd. And that’s why it might be hard to find a sommelier — a certified wine expert like Nick Dooley.
Nick is a Level 2 Sommelier and founder of Nick Dooley Sommelier, a boutique wine education and tasting business based in Lafayette.
Nick got his start in hospitality bussing tables at Ruffino’s, discovered a passion for wine, and steadily climbed the ranks of sommelier certification.
After an impromptu Facebook gig turned into a hit, Nick launched his own business in 2024. Now, he organizes in-home wine events, curates pairings, and teaches clients how to savor the subtleties of the grape.
He's also the wine manager at My Somm Wine Merchant in River Ranch.
Red and whites aren’t just varietals, they’re sauces. And you can find both varieties on the pies at Jim Deggy’s Brick Oven Pizza.
Paisley Turrubiartez is the co-owner and area manager of the Jim Deggy’s location in Downtown Lafayette. She started as a staffer on the original Jim Deggy's food truck in Pineville, where the concept originated, and worked her way up over seven years. When the company expanded to Lafayette, she became part-owner and took the reins of the new location.
Jim Deggy’s serves craft beer and wood-fired pizzas with a dough that cold ferments for 96 hours and finishes in a 700-degree French oven. Their menu is built on traditional flavors with a local twist—and their brewery uses a water-saving Smart Brew system to make it all work.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Alisha Zachery Lazard at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Running a nonprofit might sound like a mission of the heart. But it’s also very much a business.
These organizations have to pay staff, keep the lights on, and provide services. Yes, they rely on philanthropy. But they also need to generate revenue, build partnerships, and constantly make the case for their value—not just to donors, but to the community at large.
Acadiana has hundreds of nonprofits big and small. And to some extent they compete just like for-profit enterprises. There’s only so much money and attention in the world, even for a good cause. And what better cause is there than kids?
Lore Linton is the Executive Director of the Children’s Museum of Acadiana, a nonprofit that blends play and learning for kids and their families.
Lore has a long history with the museum, starting as a volunteer and working her way through nearly every role. She became Executive Director in 2023 and has since expanded programming, grown attendance, and taken on the everyday challenges of operating a museum inside a 100-year-old building.
While half of CMA’s revenue comes from admissions and events like birthday parties, the other half comes from donations, grants, and sponsorships—the nonprofit hustle.
Annie Spell has seen nonprofits from the other side of the ledger. A psychologist by training , Annie is also a longtime donor and board member of organizations like the American Cancer Society, Hearts of Hope, Miles Perret Cancer Services, and the Children’s Museum of Acadiana itself.
Annie says she grew up in a family that modeled community involvement—her grandfathers included both a longtime judge and entrepreneur. Annie ran a small, focused clinical practice working with adolescents, and did pro bono work for children in the court system. In 2025, she was elected unopposed to the Louisiana Legislature.
A major vehicle for Annie's philanthropy is the Tides Medical Foundation, a fund associated with the biomedical firm founded by her husband.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Alisha Zachery Lazard at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Email has been around since the 1970s. It’s quick, it’s convenient — and it consumes your life. If you’ve got an office job, chances are you spend most of your working life in an inbox.
Email may be the engine of modern commerce, but it might also be the slowest way to get things done—especially in industries where precision and timing are everything. That’s the pain point Chuck Perret set out to solve. Chuck is the founder of Centerline.Co, a cloud-based data management platform for the construction industry.
Chuck started his tech journey as a teenager working in his family’s blueprint shop, and eventually launched Centerline in 2021 after seeing firsthand how digital communication was breaking down in the construction world.
Centerline helps architects and contractors collaborate more effectively by ditching the messy world of long email chains. It offers project-specific communication tools, document sharing, and bid coordination—all in one place. Today, Centerline serves over 75 architecture firms, with 12,000 users and more than 800 projects managed through the platform.
If you’re going to hang a shingle in the digital world, you’ll need a different kind of architect: a web designer. Brandy Arnett is the CEO of Vibrandt Websites, a Lafayette-based web development company.
Brandy's not competing with Squarespace or Wix on volume—she’s competing with them on care. Vibrandt builds custom websites with an emphasis on both technical precision and creative polish.
Since founding the company in 2019, Brandy and her team of four have launched over 125 websites. And they’re not just building—they’re staying with their clients long after launch, offering same-day support and multiple redesigns over time.
Eighty percent of their clients are local, ranging from SLEMCO to CASA to the City of Abbeville, but their reach is growing nationwide.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It was once conventional wisdom in business that bigger was better. Economies of scale weren’t just preferable, they were inevitable, like a law of nature.
But, while big-box stores and corporate franchises do have advantages in cost and efficiency, small businesses are proving they can thrive by leaning into their niches.
Take Le-Grenadier, a cocktail lounge in downtown Lafayette where quality and atmosphere reign supreme. Owner Mia Stanford doesn’t just serve drinks—she creates experiences, crafting cocktails with premium ingredients, fresh-squeezed juices, and handmade bitters.
A St. Landry Parish native with a background in hotel and restaurant management, Mia spent years in the spirits industry before opening her own bar. She envisioned a cozy, intimate space where patrons savor their drinks, not just consume them.
Open only four nights a week and serving around 300 guests weekly, Le-Grenadier is a far cry from a high-volume bar churning out quick mixed drinks. Instead, Mia crafts vibe—sometimes even locking the door when the space reaches the perfect crowd.
Mia's approach aligns with broader industry trends— the U.S. craft spirits market was valued at over $14 billion in recent years and continues to grow as consumers seek more artisanal and high-quality drinking experiences.
A cocktail may be a cure for what ails your spirit. For other maladies, you might need a prescription. And despite the rise of big drug stores, there’s still a lot to be gained from getting your meds at a neighborhood pharmacy, like Soileau’s Pharmacy in New Iberia.
Neighborhood pharmacies buck the high-volume model and instead rely on customer satisfaction and loyalty. With that in mind, Tala Bui and her husband, Hai, bought Soileau’s in New Iberia in 2024, carrying on its tradition of exceptional service.
A pharmacist by trade, Tala had worked in large retail chains like Walmart before stepping into ownership. Unlike big-name pharmacies that process thousands of prescriptions daily with little patient interaction, Soileau’s prides itself on being a true community pharmacy.
Independent pharmacies like Soileau’s account for about 30% of all retail pharmacy locations in the U.S., but their overall prescription sales market share is closer to 15%, compared to giants like CVS and Walgreens, which dominate the industry. CVS alone controls about 25% of the U.S. prescription drug market. Neighborhood pharmacies nevertheless remain vital, offering patient-centered care that stands out in the healthcare industry writ large.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Frontiers aren’t just about the Wild West or outer space. They’re about discovery—whether it’s navigating a bayou or reshaping industry. Some frontiers lead us into nature, others to the grocery store aisle.
For Janeene DeClouet, she seeks out frontiers for peace. She is the owner of Duc in Altum Kayaking, a kayaking adventure business with a spiritual twist. What started as a personal search for strength became a career spent helping others discover the beauty of the outdoors.
A native of New Iberia, Janeene grew up in a large family and has always had a love for nature. She first discovered kayaking in 2006 when she was caring for her mother, who was suffering from dementia. Looking for a way to stay physically strong for the demanding role of caregiving, she and her husband took a guided kayaking trip through Pack & Paddle. The experience was transformative, offering both peace and a sense of empowerment. The couple gifted each other kayaks for Christmas, and Janeene found herself paddling regularly.
What began as informal group outings turned into a business when friends started offering to pay her for guided excursions. Encouraged by the demand, she made it official in 2008, naming her business Duc in Altum—Latin for "draw into the deep."
Today, Janeene leads small-group kayak tours throughout the region, averaging three trips per week.
There might not seem like much left to explore in the rice business, unless you’re Michael Fruge. Michael is a second-generation rice farmer from Eunice, but he’s not just growing any rice—he’s growing Parish Rice, a high-protein, low-glycemic variety.
Michael graduated from LSU with a degree in agronomy with a minor in agricultural business, and rather than return to the family farm, he spent 14 years as a sales rep in the rice industry. The job allowed him to travel extensively, learning from other farmers and gaining insight into the broader agricultural market.
When he returned to farming full-time, Muchael set his sights on creating a branded rice product that could compete with larger national and international producers. Working with the LSU Ag Center, he selected a variety of rice known as "Frontier Rice" for its increased protein content. When dietitians tested the rice, they pointed out that it had a much lower glycemic index than traditional white rice.
And that's the Aha! moment when Michael saw a unique marketing opportunity. Parish Rice was born in 2019, and today, it’s available in stores across Louisiana and Texas, with online sales reaching customers nationwide.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In Acadiana, food has a way of carrying history with it—whether it’s a family recipe passed down for generations or a classic technique reinvented for today’s tastes. For Ryan Jannise, keeping a family tradition alive meant growing and scaling it.
Ryan owns Lena’s Cajun Seafood Dishes, a company built on his grandmother’s beloved recipes. His grandmother, Lena Saltzman, was well-known for her cooking in the Delcambre area, where neighbors and friends sought out her seafood dishes long before they became a business. What started as a small, word-of-mouth operation grew into a full-scale food production company in 1990. But when Lena could no longer run the business, Ryan stepped in.
Taking inspiration from his background in government and IT, Ryan modernized the company while staying true to the flavors that made Lena’s famous. Today, the company has more clients and operates at a much larger scale. Lena’s dishes can be found in stores across Louisiana and Texas.
While Ryan preserves old traditions, Robert Sandberg is creating some new ones at Lucia Bakehouse. A Lafayette native, Robert’s first job in the industry was prepping food in a burger joint in Mexico, a far cry from the refined pastries he’s known for today. A stint at a French restaurant exposed him to pastry-making, and he fell in love with the precision and artistry involved.
After training in Dallas and working under some renowned chefs, he returned to Lafayette, where he launched Lucia. Inspired by the Viennois baking style, Robert built his business from the ground up, starting with farmers markets and pop-ups and watching lines grow and grow.
Lucia Bakehouse has quickly built a cult following and high demand for his small batch confections like French croissants and Roman maritozzi.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Architecture is more than just buildings—it’s about creating spaces that inspire, connect, and serve communities. That’s something Wes Thiele understands well. Originally from Atlanta, Wes moved to Lafayette in 2009, drawn by the steady opportunities in construction.
Career prospects took Wes to Dallas, but Lafayette left an impression on him. When he got the chance to move back to Lafayette, he pounced on it. Today, Wes is a partner at Diverse Studio, a firm he co-founded in 2023 with a vision to make spaces that have real impact. It has offices in Dallas and Lafayette and six full-time employees.
The firm specializes in commercial projects — schools, churches, civic centers and more. With every project, they try to create inspirational places.
Wes is also a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design accredited professional, meaning he specializes in green building practices.
From designing spaces to preserving them—our next guest takes a different approach to shaping landscapes. Allen McClain is a lifelong farmer, managing thousands of acres of rice and crawfish. He studied agriculture at McNeese and is on the board of directors for the Louisiana Farm Bureau.
But he’s also the founder of L’Terre, a unique retreat that invites guests to experience Louisiana’s natural beauty firsthand. In a nutshell, it’s a cross between agritourism and ecotourism. You can go birdwatching, catch your own crawfish, gator hunts, guided hikes and more. Allen’s farm is all about reconnecting people with the land — and there’s a lot of it: Six thousand acres.
L’Terre attracts guests from across the globe. And they come for all kinds of reasons. The farm has hosted corporate retreats and films. Locals even pop by to take in the farm’s beauty.
Whether you’re designing and constructing buildings, or enjoying the parts of Louisiana where there are no buildings in sight, it’s all about balance. Even the most ardent environmental ecologist has to go home to a building at night. And we wouldn’t be a citizen of Acadiana if we didn’t love and appreciate the peace and beauty of the natural world.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In 1992 during Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, LSU grad and Clinton Chief Strategist James Carville came up with two slogans for Clinton to focus on: "The economy, stupid" and "Don't forget about healthcare."
Today, politicians and citizens alike are very aware of both of these issues, which are more or less now combined in what is called The Care Economy. Even if you haven’t heard of The Care Economy you’ve benefited from it. It’s an umbrella term economists have developed to describe a wide range of support services — health, counseling, teaching, childcare and more. Put together, it’s a $650 billion market worldwide, according to the World Economic Forum.
At its most basic level, The Care Economy is about supplying for basic needs that in turn are necessary for people to work and thrive. Think about that through the lens of healthcare. For many people, navigating the healthcare system can be complicated, costly, or even out of reach. And that’s where Ashley Orphe comes in.
Ashley is the CEO of the Southwest Louisiana Area Health Education Center, or SWLAHEC, which,if you're recounting tho s friend, is pronounced "SWAH LA HECK."
SWLAHEC is one of many AHECs across the country. They were established by the U.S. government in the early 1970s as a way of addressing healthcare shortages. SWLAHEC operates about four dozen different health promotion and access programs.
Ashley comes to this work from a personal place. She lost her mother to breast cancer at a young age. The diagnosis was late in part because of her mom’s lack of means. She started as COO of SWLAHEC in 2022 and stepped into the CEO role in 2024, where she oversees dozens of health initiatives across 13 parishes.
Child care is another big part of the care economy. Lenita Turner has dedicated her life to it. After years in public schools, Lenita founded Little Scholars Learning Center in 2016. It’s a daycare center in Abbeville that focuses on high-quality early childhood education, preparing kids for kindergarten and beyond.
The center offers classes for children ages one year through four years plus summer camps, holiday camps, and afterschool programs for kids ages four through ten. The learning center currently has almost one hundred children enrolled and employs twenty people.
Keeping enough staff is a key challenge across the childcare industry. Lenita’s approach is to over-staff to make sure she has enough people on hand to operate.
Lenita also runs a nonprofit, the Vermilion Women’s Resource Center, which helps families with education, employment coaching, and essential supplies.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Some people build businesses on big ideas—others on big hearts. Sometimes, the best business plan is just knowing how to help people.
Music might not be the first thing you think of when it comes to helping people, but for Vanessa Lomas, it’s her love language…or maybe help language. Vanessa is the owner of TheraCare Music Therapy. Ninety percent of TheraCare’s clients are autistic, have down syndrome or cerebral palsy.
The idea behind music therapy is that it can help people express or cope with their feelings. That can be a powerful mode of connection, for instance, for people with autism.
Vanessa is a military kid who’s lived all over the place. She landed in Lafayette in 2014 and has made it her mission to support people like her brother, who is autistic and nonverbal. She holds a bachelor’s degree in music therapy from William Carey University and a master’s in music and music therapy from Florida State University. She is a Board-Certified Music Therapist and also specializes in neonatal music therapy. Vanessa is also involved with CYT and volunteers at her church’s children’s ministry.
Roy Hebert knows a thing or two about business. He’s been in banking, finance, and the oilfield, and now he’s giving that knowledge away for free. Roy is a mentor with SCORE, a nationwide organization that helps entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses.
A Kaplan native, Roy attended UL for both his undergraduate degree and MBA. His career spans decades in the financial sector, including roles in commercial banking, corporate finance, and consulting.
Roy is an adjunct professor at SLCC, and that’s where he discovered SCORE, a program of the U.S. Small Business Administration. SCORE, an acronym for Service Core of Retired Executives is a free service that connects experienced business leaders with burgeoning entrepreneurs. Roy says his clients come from all walks of life and range in sector and scale. They could be starting a landscaping business or getting an oilfield service company off the ground.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When you hear the word "franchise" you probably think golden arches or a pepperoni pizza. But franchises can be as creative and personal as any small business.
Today we’re diving into two different ways of running a business. On one side, you’ve got a franchisee — a business owner who taps into an established brand and system. On the other, a self-starter — someone who builds a business from scratch, learning and growing every step of the way.
Christiaan's lunch guests today represent both paths, and both are thriving here in Lafayette.
Joe Thomas is the owner of a local Frios Gourmet Pops, a franchise specializing in “happiness on a stick.” Before Frios, Joe worked for a manufacturing company. He got laid off in 2023. While on the job hunt, he explored striking out on his own. Maybe as a restaurateur or a landscaper. He landed on the idea of running a franchise, discovering Frios with a Google search. He was sold and launched his own franchise in 2023.
Spreading happiness on a stick involves Joe operating a van, pushcart and mini cooler to sell Frios gourmet pops at local events and festivals. He sells about 1,700 pops a month.
Born and raised in New Orleans, Joe came to Lafayette for school, earning degrees in electrical engineering and automotive technology. Outside of work, he’s an active member of the community — volunteering at his church, running with shelter dogs at Animal Aid, and tutoring kids in math and science.
For many small business owners, the dream might be to start a franchise. Others might find themselves building one just to chase runaway demand. Caroline Merryman fell into baking cookies during the pandemic. She delivered them to friends and soon found herself taking orders on Instagram. Six months later, she opened a storefront for Caroline’s Cookies.
When people started lining up around the block to buy her cookies, Caroline decided to drop out of school and focus on her business full time.
Today, Caroline’s Cookies has become a legitimate business success: Caroline operates three locations: two in Baton Rouge and her OG shop in Lafayette. Despite the growth, Caroline still puts a personal touch on the business. Each week, she picks a random Lafayette business and shows up with a batch of warm, gooey chocolate chip cookies. It’s a great way to spread kindness, and her brand.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When you hear the words "Gen Z," what word comes to mind? If you’re over 40, the answer is more than likely dismissive. When you look at the data, though, there’s one word that should come to mind: entrepreneurial.
In 2023, a record 5 million new businesses were started in the United States. A massive portion of them were started by Gen Z entrepreneurs. About 50% of Gen Z respondents say they intend to start a business in the next five years. And about half already have side hustles.
Yes, many are looking to become content creators or searching for work-life flexibility. But plenty others are starting brick and mortar companies. Like Geth Aguirre. At 19 years old, Geth launched Black Cat Coffee House, on Lafayette’s Northside.
Geth was scrappy and resourceful in getting started, sourcing used espresso machines and acquiring excess inventory from another local coffee shop that closed. Within a year, Geth had paid off her first round of business loans and the shop has continued to grow its customer base. Today she has eleven employees and serves up to 200 customers each day.
You don’t have to own a business to be a boss. At 21 years old, Kaitlyn Azemar became the youngest general manager in the history of Dogtopia, a national franchise of dog daycare and training centers with 270 locations nationwide. The company offers boarding, training and dog spa services.
Kaitlyn trained her first dog at nine years old, a maltese poodle mix named Ragin that she taught 50 tricks. Fast forward a decade, and she left school to get into animal training full time.
Kaitlyn uses a special training called LIMA, or least invasive, minimally assertive. The method prioritizes looking for physiological reasons why a dog might misbehave. She maintains a training certification from the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers.
As a boss, Kaitlyn manages a company with 15 employees, many around her own age, whch, as you might imagine, comes with unique Gen Z challenges.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There’s always something to do in Acadiana. That’s great if you’re a consumer. Options for lifestyle and entertainment are a big part of your quality of life. But if you’re on the business side of the equation, an endless supply of activities makes for a crowded and competitive market.
Throw in Lafayette’s notorious seasonality, and running an entertainment business can be challenging — but rewarding.
Lafayette is a small market. That means we’re often off the radar for national tours in the performing arts space. But for years, we’ve had a steady stream of acclaimed productions and performers coming to town. Jackie Lyle has had a big hand in making that happen.
Jackie has worked in performing arts promotion and advocacy for decades now. She currently serves as executive director of Performing Arts Serving Acadiana, a nonprofit she founded to advance performing arts in Acadiana. Most locals know it as PASA.
If that sounds like a wide lens, it is. PASA supports all kinds of programs and shows. Jackie has staged performances by leading dance companies like Ailey II or the Kyiv City Ballet. They host jazz quartets, cabarets, off Broadway productions and more.
Access is a key goal here. PASA brings these performers and performances to local schools and makes space for people with disabilities to get involved through the PASAble initiatives. PASA also set up a musical instrument recycling program called Play it Again.
Jackie has spent most of her life in Lafayette. Before her career in arts advocacy she worked in advertising and marketing.
Being a small market means Lafayette can struggle to attract big city amenities. Point in case: Ask anyone when we’re getting a Trader Joe’s. But when the national brands arrive, it can pay off big time. Case in point: Lafayette is a small fish in the stable of Topgolf, but it’s a location that’s punching well above its weight.
Bryan Roger is Operations Manager for the Lafayette location.
If you’re not familiar with Topgolf, it’s an international brand of hyped up driving ranges. The facilities are huge. Like parking decks that serve food, beer and golf balls by the thousand. Bryan says TopGolfers will hit 20,000 golf balls on a slow day.
Bryan got to TopGolf by way of the restaurant industry. He grew up in a restaurant family and was previously an operations manager for Mexican food chain Chuy’s. Bryan was born in Lafayette but grew up in Mandeville. He returned to Acadiana about 20 years ago.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There’s a saying in show business: Every musician wants to be an actor. And every actor wants to be a musician. For a lot of people, either option would be a dream job. Especially if they grow up to be doctors or lawyers instead.
But do lawyers want to be doctors? Do doctors want to be lawyers? Maybe. Maybe not. Even if you join the bar. You can still work in health care. Just ask Jack McGee.
Jack is an attorney. He got a law degree from Tulane. But he’s not practicing law so much these days. Instead, he’s running a plastic surgery clinic. McGee Plastic Surgery is the only clinic in Lafayette headed by a double board-certified surgeon. That would be Jack’s wife, Dr. Catherine Link-McGee.
Jack runs the clinic’s business operations. And he still puts his law degree to work in contract negotiations and other office matters. And there are plenty of office matters to attend to. Unlike many plastic surgeons, the McGee’s take insurance.
The start-up challenges are daunting for starting a mom and pop surgery center, Jack says. But McGee has built a strong client base, serving 400 patients with a full-time staff of three.
There’s plenty of lawyering in health care. For a lot of folks, medical malpractice suits might come to mind. But it’s a much bigger sector in the legal industry with a range of issues to be litigated, both literally and figuratively.
Berryl Broussard is currently the in-house counsel for the Teche Action Clinic, a federally qualified health center. That essentially means it’s a special type of clinic designed to address health needs in places with few doctors and hospitals with services for uninsured and underinsured.
Teche Action offers pretty much everything a patient might need. Primary care, dental care, counseling and more. The challenge here is how to make an action clinic sustainable. By definition, they receive federal funding, but it covers just a portion of the action clinic’s operating budget.
Berryl has long career in health law and is a certified health care compliance professional. She was born and raised in Opelousas.
Right now there are around 100,000 students in law schools around the country. Each year about 30,000 of those students graduate and become lawyers. Most of these folks start out in various types of legal positions - working in a law office – but after a few years a number of them find their way into other occupations, many in business.
It’s not necessarily that they don’t like being a lawyer, it’s because unlike other post-graduate studies - which focus in on a narrow specialty – law training ranges from a broad education in federal regulation to personnel skills required for client counseling.
A law degree is kind of the Swiss Army pocketknife of post-grad education. Berryl and Jack's individual journeys after law school have taken them down a lot of interesting paths, with further directions to come.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
One way or the other, if you’re in business in the 21st century, you’re selling yourself. That’s true whether you’re selling crafts or services. Social platforms like TikTok, Instagram or YouTube are basically all marketplaces of personality.
You still need a product that people want, but that’s not really enough. You need to connect with people if you want folks to buy what you’re selling.
When it works. It works. For many entrepreneurs today, the game is about virality. But lightning in a bottle isn’t a business model. At some point, you’ve got to have structure to be sustainable. Ask Colette Bernard.
Colette first went viral in 2021 selling two thousand t-shirts on TikTok. She was living in New York at the time just after graduating from the Pratt Institute. She paid off a little bit of her student debt and got out of the city. By the time she landed back in Lafayette where she grew up, she had a burgeoning online business with hundreds of thousands of followers craving her quirky, playful designs.
Colette now owns three businesses. A gift shop called Cocodrie, a vintage clothing shop called Retreaux and her design label, the Artist Colette. Social media is her fourth business, Colette says, and the one taking up most of her time.
An online presence is useful, of course, if you want to reach people. But if you want to help them, you’ll need a more personal touch. Shalonda Thibeaux is a Christian Life Coach and she uses YouTube to spread her message. But most of her work is high touch. Clients book one on one sessions with her to get advice on navigating challenges and changes in their lives.
Shalonda, who grew up in New Iberia and lives in Lafayette, got into Life Coaching after working to move past trauma and confidence problems in her own life. Helping people has been at the center of every job choice she’s made in her life. She spent eight years working in foster care for the state government and now works with a faith-based foster care service.
Shalonda also spent years as a jail minister for incarcerated women. In 2023, she got her life coaching certification and launched her coaching business, Talks with Shay, in 2024.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you're looking for an optimum time to do something difficult, it's easy to find excuses to procrastinate. When you're a habitual smoker is there ever "a good time" to quit smoking? When you prefer sloth, is there ever "a good time" to start working out? The answer is, of course, it's always a good time, and it's never a good time.
It's the same with starting a business. There’s never really a good time to start a business. The common wisdom is, life happens. Don’t let it get in the way of the opportunity you see in front of you.
Rhonda Dalquist found her way to selling ice cream after a series of life altering disruptions. Her husband lost a leg, and they sold their veterinary practice. She spent time caring for her parents through terminal cancer and her mother-in-law through a stroke.
Rhonda came out on the other side of it with entrepreneurial spirit intact and an idea for a business that would satisfy her love of ice cream, nostalgia and people. In April 2024, she launched Creamery Coaster — a mobile ice cream service. The concept hearkens to a time when her mom sold homemade freeze-pops for a nickel.
Creamery Coaster sells ice cream cones, chocolate dipped cones, ice cream cups, sorbet, cookies, push-pops and more. And like her mother did it, the push-pops are homemade.
Rhonda sells the treats out of a bicycle cart named Magnolia.
About 10 years into running a massage therapy business, Donna Wilson went back to school. She was looking for something that could balance with her home life. Donna kept on the nursing path and became a nurse practitioner. When the opportunity came up to buy an occupational medicine practice, she jumped on it.
in June 2024, Donna launched her own clinic, Occupational & Integrative Medicine. The practice is unique in that it offers essentially two lines of health services — conventional medical treatment like check-ups and lab work and “integrative” treatment like nutrition coaching and hydration therapy.
Donna sees about 12-18 patients a day with a staff of three.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sometimes in business you just need to go in a different direction. Maybe you’re a victim of your own success. Maybe your work-life balance is out of whack. Maybe you’re bored or maybe you just need a little extra cash on the side.
Recognizing the change is probably the easy part. Changing is the hard part — especially if you like what you do.
Rachel Sam figured out the change part the hard way. She built a successful program at UL. Got promoted. Had a daughter. But things got hard. Anxiety flared up and so did back pain. She took some time to heal and had an epiphany. She wrote it down in a book called “Hello, My Name is Happy.”
The experience moved her in a new direction. Rachel resigned from her role at UL in 2024 and went into consulting as Dr. Rachel Sam.
Rachel’s consulting work is broad. She helps nonprofits lead workshops for teenagers. She consults with colleges and universities on academic success for students coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. Some of the organizations she works with include SafeHavyn, the Lafayette Juvenile Justice Center and the Boys and Girls Club.
Sometimes a change can be a side-hustle. Maybe things are going pretty well, but you’re looking for a little extra cash or a chance to pursue your dream.
That can all be daunting. And adding a new business to your workload is stressful. So why not try a taste of the sweet life with a franchise?
Kylie Roussell took that path with her husband and bought into the sweet tea life. Kylie is part-owner and operator of Lafayette’s HTeaO franchise. HTeaO is a beverage company that specializes in iced teas — and they have lots of them, 26 flavors of iced tea alone. They also sell chais, coffees and espressos, drinks and a line of snacks. And that’s before you get to the secret menu
Kylie and her husband settled on HTeaO after first considering a restaurant. The franchise option presented an attractive alternative. Plus, she figured it wouldn't be hard to find a thirsty customer in sweltering Louisiana. Kylie lives in Iowa and originally looked at starting the tea shop in Lake Charles. They opted for Lafayette instead and launched with a location in River Ranch.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
At this point, alternative foods aren’t really alternative anymore. It’s like music in the 1990s. What was sort of underground has really become mainstream as more and more people have changed their diets to be healthier or to eat more ethically.
Gluten free or vegan foods aren’t just for speciality aisles anymore. They’re marketed aggressively for what they are — or what they aren’t — because companies know there are buyers out there.
Bianca Francis found her way to veganism by accident, she says. She was traveling for work and bought what turned out to be some meat gone bad. It put her on a path to finding some meatless recipes. By 2019, she was a full-on vegan.
Now here’s the thing. Bianca is a baker. She’s always been a baker; it’s something she learned from her mom. She started publishing vegan tips on a blog, and that became a springboard for her bake shop: Bianca Bakes Bliss. It’s a home-based business that sells vegan gingerbread, cinnamon rolls, wedding cakes and more. You can order her cakes online or find her at local pop ups and farmers markets.
Creole cooking has never and will never go out of style. It’s bold, it’s playful, it’s flavorful — it’s addicting. That is if you try Logan Alfred’s signature dish - crack wings. Folks line up outside his food truck — Southern Kreole Cravings — to get their hands on his spin on fried chicken wings with his own special sauce.
Logan first created them while working as an offshore caterer. Rig workers gobbled up so many that Logan’s onshore bosses took notice of the commissary invoices and flew to the rig to see what the fuss was about. Crack wings stayed on the rig menu from then on out.
In 2020, Logan launched Southern Kreole as both a food truck and a catering operation. Of course, Logan is more than just a wings guy. But the dish has become a runaway hit: He sells as many as 12,000 in a single year.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Giada Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Running a business is usually an exercise in multitasking. Whatever your one real gift is — that thing that got you into business in the first place — there’s a pretty good chance you won’t be doing it anymore once you’ve become successful enough.
That can be bittersweet. But it’s the way of the world. So it would make sense that what often separates good operators from great operators is the ability to do lots of different things well.
Sometimes it’s better to be a jack of all trades, especially when you’ve got a lot to do. Take the music business. It’s never enough to be proficient at an instrument. At some point, you gotta manage your act — get booking done, promote it, advance the show logistics, arrange rehearsals, setlists, egos, riders, the whole nine.
That gets much more complicated when you’re in a wedding band. You’re the soundtrack to someone’s special day. So the stakes are high. That’s why wedding bands can command top dollar. It’s a smart business. But a tough one. Especially if you’re like Matt Cobb and play 110 gigs a year.
Matt runs two different groups — Rouge Krewe and Parade Route. And, yes, he runs them. Besides bringing the hype to your cousin’s wedding or your aunt’s company Christmas Party, Matt is doing the books and managing the when, where and how of his band’s hectic schedule.
He started RougeKrewe in 2019 after graduating from UL with a degree in music education. The band got to be so in demand, that they couldn’t fill all the bookings. So he started a second band: Parade Route.
Matt and his bands spend most of their time playing in Louisiana, but they’ve been booked out of state and abroad. Wherever they go, their motto is “We don’t just play music. We bring life to the party.”
If playing hundreds of gigs sounds exhausting. Try managing properties. It’s easy to get spread thin in the development business, and it’s one of those industries that you learn by doing, not in business school.
Ravi Daggula has been connected to several high profile developments in Lafayette. He got his start flipping residential properties after college and cutting his teeth in hospitality by working at a hotel. He got into historic revitalization with Maison Mouton, a restored Creole manor he converted into a bed & breakfast. It gave him the bug for more ambitious development projects, so Ravi kept at historic preservation concepts. Today his portfolio of properties are gathered under the banner of Belle Vie Hospitality.
Ravi is originally from India and moved to Lafayette to get a degree in computer engineering. He thinks of himself as an impact investor and looks for projects that will have value that extend beyond the property itself, and its return on investment.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hank Williams’ 1952 song, Jambalaya On The Bayou, was the first time much of the world heard anything about us. What at first-listen to most people sounded like a bunch of nonsense syllables like Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, turned out to be a menu of Cajun dishes – Jambalaya, crawfish pie, file gumbo.
Today, if you’re from Acadiana and you travel the world, when you’ve been away from home long enough you might find yourself tempted to try Cajun food someplace else. And, though you may be in a pretty Parisian bistro, or a cool café in Quebec, you feel confident declaring the jambalaya or the gumbo doesn’t taste right.
Because we invented these dishes, we set the standard for this kind of cuisine. But what happens when you strip away our homefield advantage? When it comes to other types of consumables, how do we stack up here in Acadiana?
Let’s start with the two most popular and universally consumed human-made libations: coffee and beer. Is it fair to compare Acadiana coffee to, say, Colombian coffee? Or our local brew to German beer? Well, if we’re going to hold them to our Jambalaya and Gumbo standard, they’re entitled to hold us to their beer and coffee standard.
Colombia is one of the coffee capitals of the world. So, if you live in Abbeville Louisiana, with a population of around 12,000, you couldn’t expect to get a cup of fine Colombian coffee. Right?
Wrong.
Because one of those 12,000 people in Abbeville is Natalia Hernandez Choate, who happens to be from Colombia, you can go to Nube9 Coffee, or visit Nube9 online, and get yourself a cup - or a gallon - of genuine Colombian coffee. You can also get a bag of Natalia’s freshly imported Colombian coffee beans. Or you can pick up a bag of Nube9 beans at a number of select stores across Acadiana.
By and large here in Acadiana, we like things the way they are. We don’t like change. Maybe you grew up in Calcasieu Parish drinking Budweiser, believing it’s “The king of beers.” In that case your concept of monarchy might need a little re-education. That was the program Eric Avery found himself embarking on in 2016 when he opened Crying Eagle Brewing Company in Lake Charles.
Today Crying Eagle is a local staple. They have 20 craft beers on tap at their brew pub. They have a bistro, a beer garden, a tap room, and live music most nights. They introduce at least one new beer to the lineup every week. And they have 8 beers for sale in cans.
The brewery employs 40 people.
And how are they doing on the beer equivalent of the Jambalaya and Gumbo Scale? Pretty darn good. The Independent Craft Brewer’s Association described Crying Eagle’s “Divine Imagination” Double IPA as a "world class beer of superlative character and flawless execution."
When someone calls you up and suggests going to get a cup of coffee or a beer, you know they don’t mean it literally. The coffee or the beer are a reason to get together and socialize.
But the coffee on the table or the beer on the bar are far from irrelevant. I’m not sure that anyone’s done a study on this, but I think you’ll agree, it seems like better coffee and better beer make for better conversation and better occasions.
So, Natalia and Eric, are not just responsible for producing thirst-quenching liquids, they’re contributing to our happiness, and enhancing our relationships.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Giada Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It’s getting easier by the day for your average person to become a graphic designer. Fire up a Canva account, and you can have a logo in minutes. And Lord knows AI is only making that easier, and more surreal.
But, as things get easier for the masses, it puts a premium on stuff made by hand. Time was that it took blood and sweat to make the world beautiful. But, today? Well, imagine a robot trying to paint a boombox on a brick wall or the hood of a car. Foe some things, technology and machines won't do. For those occasions, you need an airbrusher. Like, for example, John Zant.
John is celebrated in Lafayette for his hand painted designs. He likes the tough jobs and has developed a knack for painting on any kind of surface, like signs and glass and metal and brick. He grew up in New Mexico and moved to Lafayette in the 1980s to go college and picked up an airbrush when a fraternity brother got him a job at a local store.
John spent years honing the skill and went on to launch a career in exterior art. He painted his first mural at Pioneer Park in Jennings and today gets contracts from local businesses looking for signage or designs that will help them stand out.
John’s also very active in the local skater community and is known by the moniker Bag of Boards.
Standing out is the name of the game in the high-end shoe business. Kids line up around the block to get the first shot at a limited edition sneaker. But if you want your footwear to be truly limited, you might hire Brandy Cavitt to paint your shoes.
Brandy is a graphic designer by trade. But her obsession is shoes. In 2024, she launched Shoe Fly Dirty Coast, a company that customizes sneakers on demand. The work is intensive. She conditions, massages, strips and softens shoe fabrics of all types — canvas, leather, you name it — so they can properly take paints. And she uses the high-end stuff to make the colors pop and stick. The process takes days but it can add years to the life of a shoe once properly treated with sealant.
Brandy’s play is to cash in on sneaker culture, which puts a big emphasis on one-of-a-kind, hard-to-find wearables.
Brandy grew up in the Lafayette area and started her career in graphic design at 21. She’s also a musician and previously worked for the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s office.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Do you think maybe it's time we dispense with the myth of the starving artist? There are more than enough ways to make money in creative industries these days. And not just in applied arts like graphic design or architecture.
"Marketability" can be a dirty word for some artists, but for others it’s a goal that isn’t at odds with expression. Even abstract expressionism. Or as Andy Warhol put it, "The business of art requires strategy and analysis."
OK, you're right, that’s not Warhol. That’s a bit of wisdom from Lafayette artist Lynn Sanders.
Lynn is an abstract expressionist artist with a head for business. Before she carved out a career as a painter, she worked as a shopping center executive. That gave her insight into how retailers and consumers think. Once she picked up a brush, she applied that knowledge to her art business.
Lynn first sold pieces out of a store she opened in a mall, making works for kids’ rooms. She quickly figured out the money was in the rest of the house. Flash forward about 20 years, and Lynn sells pieces through galleries across the South. A lot of Lynn’s work is purchased for interior design, and she produces some pieces on commission.
Lynn produces about 18 paintings a month and employs a full-time assistant in her Lafayette-area studio.
If you work in fashion, the idea that art and consumerism don’t mix would seem insane. Clothing designers have long blended expression and marketability, selling the idea that what we wear can be a part of who we are.
Nothing makes you stand out quite like a custom hat.
If that’s something you’re looking for, you might turn to Mia Montero, owner of the Montero Hat Company. Mia makes custom, hand stitched hats out of rabbit, nutria and beaver felts. Her hats are show pieces in a southwestern style. And she’s made them for some high profile folks: Lauren Daigle and Louisiana First Lady Sharon Landry have Montero hats.
Mia got into the business while looking for ways to make a little extra money before moving to Nashville for a career in music. She learned the trade from Lafayette hatter Colby Hebert and struck out on her own.
Mia looked at planting roots in Music City, but a surprise offer to work as a worship leader in Lafayette brought her home. Music is Mia’s first love and she released her debut record Sweeter Than Honey in 2023.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Summer is a tough time to be a parent. School is out. The sun is scorching. You need a break for your kids. Maybe they need a break from you. That’s why they created summer camp, a Godsend for working parents if there ever was one.
Kids get a lot out of camp: time to play and be curious, maybe a chance to learn new skills and meet some new friends. Summer camp is time-honored. It’s important. And if you’re in St. Martin Parish, you might send your kid to camp at Teche Center for the Arts.
TCA is the primary historical and cultural center for the Teche area of Acadiana. Jeanne Blanchard McBride is the executive director.
TCA has a wide range of year-round programs. They put on chicken runs, concerts, cooking classes and other cultural encounters. A big part of their business is camps. They run art camps, fall camps and summer camps, all of which are priced to be affordable.
TCA is a nonprofit, so besides running the organization, Jeanne spends a lot of time raising money. Jeanne grew up in Breaux Bridge. Before starting at TCA in 2021, she worked as an attorney and clerked for state and federal judges.
Summer camp is pretty much a universal childhood experience at this point. And there’s a lot of demand for enrichment programming throughout the year. Especially for kids who could use some special attention to thrive.
Kali Picard is the founder of Borderless Color, a studio and enrichment center designed to include kids on the autism spectrum. Programs are individually customized and are open to the neurodivergent and neurotypical alike.
Kali was born and raised in Lafayette. Besides running Borderless, she works as a speech and language pathologist.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Giada Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There’s a saying in the music industry: You have your whole life to make your first record. But one shot at making your second.
Novelist Jennifer Morehead, wrote three books before publishing her debut, Broken Bayou in 2024. It’s a thriller inspired by a real murder mystery, tapping into the nation’s ongoing obsession with true crime.
Jennifer has always been a bookworm. She grew up in Shreveport and went to LSU, later moving to Dallas where she took up a novel writing class at Southern Methodist University. That’s when she wrote her first unpublished novel.
She paused to have her first child and wrote a second book when her kids were old enough to go to school, shelving it after a couple of edits.
Jennifer dove into the publishing world with her third novel. She hired an editor. Worked with a literary agent and spent a year shopping the book. Unsuccessfully.
Along the way, she had written the first draft of a fourth novel, Broken Bayou — in 2015. Inspired by the story of a missing teacher who police believed drove her car into the bayou, Broken Bayou is a crime thriller that follows a child psychologist thrust into a grisly mystery in small town Louisiana.
The book was published by publishing imprint Thomas & Mercer and released in 2024, almost ten years after that first draft.
Jennifer's story of tenacity in the face of the relentless rejection of the publishing industry is almost a novel in itself.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Why sell a product when you can sell an adventure?
Experiences are a hot commodity in today’s marketplace. They make memories. The kids love them. And they come in packages that don’t need a warehouse. And when you sell an experience, you’re usually selling expertise.
Let’s say you want to go scuba diving. It’s not as simple as throwing on an oxygen mask and riding a dolphin. You need training, equipment and certifications. It’s an ordeal, but for adrenaline junkies and lovers of marine life — it’s totally worth it.
Greg Hidalgo got hooked on scuba at the age of 15. He worked his way through college teaching scuba classes and was recruited to teach diving at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Instead, Greg opened Divers Destination in 1986. Space would have to wait.
Divers Destination teaches scuba classes and sells all the stuff you need to go diving. Their clients range from hobbyists to commercial divers and law enforcement. They also arrange international diving trips. A big attraction is a marine biology camp based in Rotan, Honduras, where young divers learn about fish, coral and dolphins. And Divers Destination also offers year round swim lessons in a heated, indoor pool.
We live in a globalized economy, in case you haven’t heard. That means travel isn’t just a matter of leisure for big companies — it’s a necessity. And if you’re dealing with executives or large groups, booking trips isn’t as simple as an internet search.
Travel agencies still have a lot to offer corporate travel. Steven Landry served as regional head of business development for Wings Global Travel from 2019 to 2024. Wings is itself an international firm, founded in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Wings helps companies put together comprehensive travel packages that move their clientele from door to door, managing every stop on the trip. Spread across time zones, Wings’ operates around the clock, meaning they can respond to client emergencies and stay on top of changes in itineraries. Their clientele ranges from companies that spend millions on travel and logistics to small businesses with modest travel budgets.
Steven grew up in Lafayette and is also the founder and managing artistic director of the Acadiana Repertory Theater.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We tend to think of entrepreneurs as people with an obsessive vision. They have an idea that will change the world or at least make them lots of money. They take it to the workshop and hack away for days, hours, years until they bring their genius to market and find success.
Sometimes, a business idea just sort of happens. Maybe it’s a stroke of luck. And that could be a stroke of bad luck. Savvy entrepreneurs can make whatever hand their dealt — work.
Ari Dolegowski found his calling after he got hurt. He had been a phys ed teacher in New York and played in an adult soccer league. A physical therapist was on his team, so he asked for help. What he got was a new career.
Ari became interested in the combination of eastern medicine and physical therapy practiced by his teammate. So he set out to do that himself. He set up shop in Lafayette in 2020 after he and his wife relocated to be closer to her family during the pandemic. That shop is called Ari D Therapy & Training. He practices massage therapy, prenatal massage, cupping and more. The idea is to combine Eastern and Western practices to help clients manage pain and injuries holistically.
Ari books session at his studio and makes house calls. Ari grew up in Colorado and spent time as a professional soccer players in leagues in Israel, Chile and the U.S.
Disasters are a fact of life in Louisiana. It’s not so much luck as it is a changing climate. Dealing with the aftermath is a real pain. Especially when you get walloped by back to back hurricanes.
Imagine spending a month without power and then having to wrangle someone to fix your roof. And once that’s done, you’ve got to haggle with your insurance company to pay for it. Well, there could be another way. You could call Colorwheel. A disaster recovery company founded by Beau Killingsworth.
Colorwheel is essentially a construction company with a twist. They don’t just help you fix your roof, they help you with the insurance claims process, too.
Beau grew up in Lake Charles and had been through enough floods and hurricanes to know how much of a headache that was. He started colorwheel after working as an attorney in Lafayette and getting more familiar with the insurance claims process. He started the company in 2023. Beau is still a practicing attorney and contractor. He’s also a podcaster. He hosts a show called One Big Headgame.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Lafayette’s restaurant scene is famously difficult. There are more restaurants per person in the Hub City than there are in New Orleans, Austin and even New York City. Plus, you’re not just competing with the restaurant down the block. This is a place where everyone cooks. People set the standard in their own kitchens.
So what do you do if you move to Louisiana from a culinary capital like New York? How do you get ahead? Well, to start, you don’t open a Cajun restaurant.
Peter Cooke made that decision early on, when he opened Park Bistro, a fine dining concept grounded in Italian cuisine that’s tucked into Lafyette’s Saint Streets neighborhood.
Peter cut his teeth in high end cuisine in New York. At 25, he became the executive chef at Krupa Grocery near Prospect Park in Brooklyn and earned the restaurant a Michelin Star recommendation. He guided the restaurant through the pandemic and burned out. Plus, he married a girl from Louisiana. So he and his family relocated to Lafayette in 2022. Within a few months, he opened a restaurant and called it Park Bistro — a nod to his old New York neighborhood.
Chances are, if you’re making a sandwich in Acadiana, you’re using Evangeline Maid bread. It’s a childhood staple known for its soft texture and surgary flavor. It’s white bread. The processed stuff that’s great for a grilled cheese sandwich or a dollop of barbecue sauce. Country bread it is not. For all its French heritage, artisan bread making has not really been a big thing in this neck of Louisiana.
But that’s changing. One of the bakers behind a movement of craft bakeries is Chris Frazier of Boscoyo Baking Company.
Chris got into baking while working in the construction industry in Austin. He and his partner Haley met, and then ran bakeries in Portland, Oregon but moved to Lafayette to be closer to family. They opened Boscoyo in 2023.
Boscoyo zigs where white bread zags. They use stone milled whole grain flours and slow fermentation sourdough to make staples like Focaccia, Baguette, Ciabatta and their in-demand pan de campagne — the traditional french country loaf. They also offer pizza nights and cakes to fill out their business line. All of their baked goods are made with the same approach. No white flour and as much local sourcing as possible.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Giada Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Quality isn’t enough to sell a product. Consumers need to connect with what you’re selling. And the first way they do that, usually, is by connecting with your brand.
What is a brand? Well, for one thing, it starts with a name. But any marketing agency will tell you it’s more than that. It’s your company’s values. It’s what makes your product stand out. It’s the warm fuzzy feeling loyal customers get when they see your product on the shelves of their grocery store.
Of course, a name is important. Plenty of great products have been tanked by a lousy name. Sure, a cookie by any other name would taste as sweet. But that doesn’t matter if no one buys it. And when we’re buying products, we’re often buying them on faith, and the promise of a brand.
So if you believe in your product, but it’s not selling, maybe try shaking up the name. Think of it this way: Richard Starkey is an accountant. Ringo Starr is a Beatle.
Danielle Reggio’s allergen-free baking company began life as Dani Cakes in 2016. Her gluten-, egg-, soy-, dairy- and nut-free cupcakes did pretty well at farmer’s markets, but she felt like her expanding product line had outgrown the company name.
In 2022, she took on a new name: Whiskful Baking Company. Until then, Dani had been a home baker inspired by her own struggle with food allergies. Not long after the rebrand, Dani was able to quit her job to bake full time.
Today, Whiskful Baking Company makes a wide variety of allergen-free baked goods. Cookies, cakes, cupcakes, brownies, donuts, beignets, baguettes, dinner rolls and even pop tops.
Dani is originally from Carencro. Her bakery is located in Broussard.
Terrence Jones was in law school when decided to start a candy company. He created a brand — CBurns Tech and Confections — and a Facebook page to get started.
At first, the idea was to do business consulting and sell candy. When he tried to make a logo, he realized the concept was a little confusing. Some deft Googling led him to a branding opportunity: No one had claimed the name Louisiana Creole Pecan Candy. And Pecan Candies are Creole through and through. Terrence grew up making his family’s pecan pralines, a tradition handed down from his grandmother.
Louisiana Creole Pecan Candy has two product lines. Creole-ish includes the Jones family pralines and a BBQ sauce. While Cajun-ish offers a white chocolate spin as well as an allergen free pecan candy.
The company now has three offices - in Lafayette, New Orleans and in Atlanta - and has received support from Beyonce’s BeyGood foundation.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Giada Morgan and Liliana Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Most of us think about business in terms of the point of sale. I’ve got a product. You’ve got money. You give me money for the product and boom: we have an economy.
But Adam Smith’s invisible hand didn’t put that product on my shelf. It likely came on a truck. And that truck was built with parts sourced from places near and far. Which in turn were manufactured with raw materials extracted from all four corners of the globe.
That’s a supply chain. Ball it all up, and it’s the backbone of the American economy.
Logistics are an important part of every business. Getting the items that you need when you need them has a big impact on your productivity and bottom line. And that’s true if you’re running a restaurant or building a rocketship. Time is money. So is distance. When companies need something jonny on the spot, many of them use GOPHR, an on-demand delivery app developed by Lake Charles native and resident, Warren Vandever.
GOPHR is sort of like Priceline for logistics. It connects businesses and consumers to a fleet of 650,000 networked vehicles operated by independent contractors. The app can scan an object to produce a cost estimate, and links up the delivery with the right-sized vehicle. They ship just about everything. Paper clips, building supplies and industrial equipment.
Warren founded the company in 2019 after a decade in the military.
Louisiana has a long history in the logistics business, thanks to its industrial history and the offshore oil and gas industry. And many firms with legacies offshore have diversified their portfolios along with the state.
Complete Logistical Services is a company out of the Northshore area that helps offshore and maritime firms with staffing and recruiting. The person in charge of selling those services is James Brown.
James is the sales manager at CLS and has a background in marketing. And that has him working in a brand new world for the Gulf of Mexico: SPACE. In recent years, CLS has carved out a niche working with space tourism firms and companies developing offshore wind platforms.
James handles day-to-day client outreach, farming new prospects and making sure current CLS clients have what they need. He grew up in Metairie and lives on the northshore.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Some things are better left to the professionals. If you’re a VIP with a target on your back, security is one of those things.
Protection
Personal security is a highly specialized business. It takes discipline, preparation and the willingness to put your life on the line for your client. Risking life and limb isn’t for everyone. And that’s why few people get into personal security.
Those who do, like Myron Fonseca, often come from backgrounds in the military or law enforcement. Myron comes from both. Myron spent 31 years in the U.S. Army, retiring as Colonel. He served as a commander in Iraq and received a Gold Star.
In the 1970s, Myron began a career in policing. He worked in SWAT and as a bailiff for a judge. The experience sparked an idea to go into personal security. In 2022, he started Top Brass Protection.
Top Brass offers security services for individuals, families, businesses, homes and valuables. He also helps clients develop response plans for emergencies and disasters, including active shooter preparation. But the bread and butter of Top Brass is executive protection — personal security for VIPs.
Pole Dance
If you need protection, you’ll need a body man. If you want to work on your body and your body image, you might try pole dancing. And yes, you’ll need some training. Just ask Magnolia Love.
Magnolia is the owner of Magnolia’s Playground, a pole fitness and yoga studio.
Magnolia struggled with body image issues and self-esteem in her 20s. And in 2012, she discovered pole dancing on Youtube. She liked the idea, bought a pole and tried to teach herself. It took years to learn but took off when she moved to Texas and started taking classes.
When she moved home to Scott, Magnolia decided to open a pole fitness studio herself. She bought four poles and installed them in a mother-in-law suite in her backyard. Something clicked. She gathered students, and in 2023 Magnolia opened a brick and mortar studio in Downtown Lafayette.
The studio attracts 60 students each week and has 25 studio members. Magnolia employs seven teachers and hosts 15 classes per week.
Magnolia is also a certified yoga instructor and a certified funeral director and embalmer.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
At some point, you’re going to hand the keys to your business to someone else. That’s true whether you’re hiring employees or contractors or planning for succession. Life happens. And it’s just not in the cards for you to be able to run your business, by yourself, forever.
For many entrepreneurs, selling big is the dream. In the startup space, they call it an “exit” — the point at which some big fish gobbles up your smart idea and pays you handsomely for it. But the unicorn exit is a rare thing (that’s why they call it a unicorn, after all) and lots of firms out there need to think about life after the founder.
Even if you’re running a mid-sized company, chances are, one day, you’ll want to sell off your business and enjoy the fruits of your success. So what do you do? That’s trickier than you might think. Fortunately, there are people out there who can help.
Jude David is co-founder and Vice President of Mergers and Acquisitions for Final Ascent, a firm that specializes in helping mid-market businesses find buyers.
Jude has a background on the legal side of finance. And he his co-founder Steve Conwell realized that mid-level businesses — those with valuations between $10 million and $200 million — weren’t served by the investment banks that typically helped the big companies find buyers and partners for mergers. So they launched Final Ascent in 2017 to fill that void. They’ve grown to acquire clients all over the U.S., and primarily do their client work remotely.
The company helps business owners think through how to prep their business for sale, making sure the company’s profile is as attractive as possible to bump the value of the sale.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Marketing your new business idea can take a few different shapes.
You might take a deep dive with market research and try to define the demographic slice of consumer you’re looking for. Before you even bring your product to the shelves, you’ll try to understand the potential for growth: How many customers are out there who would want what you’re selling? How much disposable income do they have? What services are they already using?
It’s a way of measuring your potential. And that can be crucial to attracting investors, especially to a new idea and a niche product. But for a lot of entrepreneurs, the very first market test is themselves.
Kelly Hebert has a background in marketing and runs a media and design company with her husband. But Kelly is here to talk about a feeling we’re all familiar with: hangriness.
On a long road trip, Kelly got a little hungry and irritable and had a frustrating time finding a place to eat on her route. The experience inspired a search for an easier way. That led her to Dryve, a new travel app designed for parents.
Dryve helps them make easier pit stops with streamlined searches for coffee, restaurants, fuel and more. The idea is to quickly direct parents to what they need with as little distraction as possible.
Not every business idea requires extensive market research or design. Sometimes you just need a gimmick.
People like to poo-poo a kitschy calling card, but let’s face it: Everyone in business is trying to stand out. And little stands out more than Santa riding a lawn mower. If you run into that yuletide vision in Lafayette, you’re probably looking at Santa Sutton.
Santa’s idea began as a way of getting noticed. He took his dad’s old Santa suit and started riding an electric scooter, just to see if he could go viral. And he did. Santa on a Scooter became something of a sensation on TikTok, and Santa parlayed that fame into a business: Santa on a Mower.
Santa on a Mower is exactly what it sounds like. And it works. Since launching in 2022, Santa has signed dozens of properties to manage year round. Before that, Santa worked for 15 years as a chef and was born and raised in Lafayette.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you’re gonna be first, you’re gonna take a risk. All the more so if you’re going to market with a foreign concept.
People are creatures of habit. We look to the world we know to understand new concepts. And if something we’re trying is unlike anything we’ve tried before…that can be a recipe for failure.
Think of it this way: People who are remembered for being ahead of their time aren’t usually remembered for being wildly successful. It’s a contradiction in terms. To illustrate: Imagine trying to explain yoga to a bunch of Cajuns in the 1980s.
Movement
Yoga is so commonplace now, it’s hard to fathom. But that’s pretty much the story of Jerry Smith-Guidry, who was one of the very first people to teach yoga in Lafayette. A self-described “type A” personality, she discovered wellness and yoga in 1989 and fell in love. She went on to create the yoga program at Red Lerille’s Health Club here in Lafayette.
Today, Jerry runs Acadiana Yoga & Wellness studio, which she founded in 2009. Acadiana Yoga offers a range of wellness services, including yoga classes, massage, reiki, pilates and more. It’s also the only Yoga and Pilates mat certification in Lafayette.
Meat
It’s one thing when you’re introducing something new, and another thing entirely to introduce something misunderstood. Like bologna. Yes, bologna. And if you’re eating a slice of cajun smoked bologna made by Ross Brown, go ahead and get rid of any preconceived notion of how that sausage is made.
This is Bougie Bologna — High grade stuff made from pork shoulder. 100% free of byproducts, mechanically separated meats, and the unmentionables you usually find in bologna with the first name O-S-C-A-R.
Ross got into making bologna to convince his wife to like it. He learned the process from YouTube and started selling at a local bar — the Freetown Boom Boom Room in Lafayette. It caught on. And in 2022, Bougie Bologna was born. Ross quit his job offshore and has moved into bologna full time.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
I had a journalism student approach me a while back for a story. I asked him, “what kind of a journalist do you want to be when you grow up?”
He said, “A food writer. Because AI won’t take my job.”
Won’t it though? I suppose if they create a neural simulation of what it’s like to eat boudin, they could. But the panic around AI is big; mostly because few people really understand it.
The models making headlines, like ChatGPT, are really only the latest in a long line of advances in technologies designed to assist work - that is make it easier on people. Most companies still rely on people. And they need people to be good at what they do. AI can make work more efficient, but it can also help companies select and train their employees.
That’s the concept behind iCan, a company founded by David DeCuir. David spent years in the oil and gas industry and noticed that workforce development was a big problem. His company employed lots of people, but they struggled to make sure they all knew what they were doing. So he developed a new training program for his employer and cut $2.5 million off their annual bottom line.
Saving money is making money in business, so David struck out on his own. And iCan was born. iCan’s cloud-based software helps companies set up custom platforms that use chatbots to train employees on anything from HR guidelines to procedures.
Since launching fulltime in 2022, iCan has expanded from the energy industry to work with utilities and processing facilities.
David grew up in Lafayette and currently lives in the Geismar/Dutchtown area.
Helping companies get better is a massive industry. We generally call them consultants. And their product lines can range from expert assistance to IT.
If you’re in Lafayette, you’ve heard of CGI. And you probably think of it as a tech company. But it’s better understood as a consulting firm, and it’s one of the largest in the world.
Will LaBar is VP of consulting service for CGI and worked for the company out of Lafayette since 2000. Will was CGI employee number one in the Lafayette market. CGI employs hundreds in the area.
Will is in charge of CGI’s onshore delivery program. He leads a team that helps smaller markets get technology jobs, coordinating between local governments, business sectors and universities.
Will grew up in New Jersey and has worked for CGI since 1998.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
America has had a complicated relationship with Downtowns. When we invented the suburbs in the mid-20th century, Downtowns were left behind, only to make a roaring comeback in the 21st century.
That story should sound familiar for folks in Lafayette. Lafayette’s Downtown was left for dead in the 1980s and 1990s. It was practically a no-man’s land in the late 20th century but started coming back to life at the turn of millennium.
That turnaround didn’t come from nowhere. In 1983, some local business leaders created Downtown Lafayette Unlimited, a nonprofit group that promotes activity and commerce in Downtown Lafayette, sort of like a chamber of commerce.
Most folks know DLU by its major public programs like Downtown Alive! and most recently the building of an inclusive playground at Parc Sans Souci.
Today, DLU is headed by Jessica Hauerwas, who took over as DLU’s executive director in 2023. Jessica comes from a marketing background. She moved to Lafayette from Houma to go to UL and got jobs in marketing and business development at Acadiana Center for the Arts, Brand Russo and LogoJet.
Jessica got involved in DLU as a board member, becoming board president. Her job today is to promote Downtown as a destination and community asset and to raise money for DLU’s programs and activities.
American Downtowns can be pretty old. That’s why folks left for the suburbs in the first place: lots of cheap, new stuff. But Downtowns have great bones and great buildings. Putting them back into proper form is a great way to freshen up the built environment and create a sense of place.
For that kind of work, you’ll need an architect. Nic Bourque, is an architect’s architect. Fun fact: Nic was the first person to receive a master’s degree in architecture from UL. From there, he worked as a staff designer in Baton Rouge before returning to Lafayette to open his own firm in 2013.
Nic joined veteran firm Holly & Smith Architects in 2022, where he now serves as its studio director.
Holly & Smith have earned a reputation for restoring forgotten buildings, particularly in Downtowns and main streets. They work mostly on commercial projects, with some residential contracts mixed in. They’ve carved out a niche for themselves in sustainable design and specialize in using passive climate control systems, landscaping and shading to achieve comfortable interiors with a smaller carbon footprint. The firm has locations in Lafayette, New Orleans and Hammond.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live at the Acadiana Center for the Arts in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Fitness is a big industry. Over the last decade, the global market for fitness has nearly doubled to around $100 billion.
You’ve probably seen the results of that boom around town. Think of the world of 24/7 gyms and fitness centers, smoothie shops and personal trainers. That world is expanding not just in size but in variety. And it’s drawing in ideas and disciplines from the world of the arts, too. There are fitness programs based on ballet and dance. They combine movement, performance, expression and a pretty good workout.
That would be one way to describe aerial arts. You might be more familiar with how it’s applied to gymnastics or the circus: high flying trapeze acts or silk climbers.
You can get a taste of the high life with a little help from Rachel Adams, co-founder and co-owner of Sky Craft, an aerial arts studio right here in Lafayette. Rachel started taking aerial arts classes in 2015 with Erin Welch, who is now her business partner. They co-founded Sky Craft in 2022. The studio offers group and private instruction, as well as aerial performers for hire — no pun intended. Rachel and Erin often do pop-up performances at major events like Festival International or nonprofit fundraisers.
About 80% of Sky Craft students are kids, Rachel says. But interest among adults is steadily (ahem) rising.
Exercise might be good business, but the fundamentals of physical fitness are something most of us learn in school. Do you want a career in physical education? Well, it’s not really good enough to be the football coach anymore — you’ve got to know what you’re doing.
K-Lynn Mckey, is someone who can help you with that. K-Lynn grew up in Monroe and has lived in Lafayette since 2019 where she's a senior instructor in UL Lafayette’s School of Kinesiology and the program coordinator for K-12 Health and PE. In a nutshell, K-Lynn’s job is to teach teachers. And that job description is shifting fast.
K-Lynn’s program includes online instruction, which presents a challenge in and of itself: How do you teach someone to teach physical education in a Zoom room? A 21st century problem if there ever was one.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Who doesn’t want a taste of the sweet life?
Most folks are looking for a chance to indulge. Even when times are tough. Maybe especially when times are tough. When the economy goes down, ice cream sales go up: in the two years after the 2008 mortgage crisis, ice cream sales went up 25%.
even when times aren't bad, there’s never really a bad time for dessert. You can eat cake or frozen yogurt year-round in Acadiana. And that’s not just because it’s always hot. The local dessert market is on the move. Food trucks are flying around Johnston Street. That’s because a food truck is a great vehiclefor a home grown dessert business. You can keep mixing and baking at home, without the trouble of operating a commercial kitchen and front of house.
Nina Marie Charles has taken her craft as a cake artist from her house in Carencro all the way to Netflix. She was a contestant on Is It Cake in 2022. Locally, she’s known for her elaborately designed wedding cakes and for her food truck — Nina Creole where rolls are the name of the game: she makes them sweet and savory, with Louisiana spins on a fried egg roll.
Nina grew up in Carencro and worked in insurance and disaster response for several years before launching her cake business in 2016. Nina Creole was launched in 2021.
Of course, if you’re going to indulge, why not go big and get all the toppings. Sweet Magnolias Creamery can bring the whole frozen yogurt experience to your backyard. And my guest Charity Lewis is the one driving the truck.
Sweet Magnolias is named for a mini pig on Charity’s mini farm. The mobile fro yo truck isn’t the only venture named for Maggie the pig. Charity also operates a nonprofit — Magnolia Kids Club — and a farmers market — Maggie’s Organic Market.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
Charity is originally from Detroit but moved to Louisiana after a 10-year stint in Arizona.
She got the idea for the frozen yogurt shop from taking her kids to shops in Phoenix. And each summer, Sweet Magnolia’s serves a little homage to her time in Arizona: the prickly pear lemonade.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ask any business owner in a small town: What’s the secret to success? And they’ll tell you: relationships. When everyone knows you, where you go to church and whether your mom can make a roux, you're trading on a reputation bigger than your own.
Relationships drive business development and they can define success. That’s true if you’re selling barbecue sauce or underwriting commercial loans. Your word and your values mean something. So when a small town business endures, that’s usually a mark of strong community roots. Or a mark of making a high quality roux. Besides barbecue sauce, jarred roux is the secret sauce behind the longevity of Kary’s Roux and Pig Stand in Ville Platte.
Ross Lafleur is the general manager.
Kary’s is well known for its line of specialty sauces and seasonings. You can find them at just about any grocery store in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Florida.
It started life as a restaurant. Ross’ grandfather bought the restaurant he worked in as a teenager. He and his business partner found success bottling and selling the barbecue sauce they served with their plate lunches. Ross’s dad, Kary, joined the business in the 1970s, and the Lafleurs splintered off to focus on manufacturing.
And that’s the business Ross now oversees. It comes with a lot of cooking. 21st century marketing is one thing, but the best way to sell a sauce, is the good old fashioned taste test. It’s also Ross’s favorite part of the job.
Whether you’re selling jarred roux or running a restaurant, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll need somewhere to put all that money or maybe get a loan. And if you’re living in a small town, a community bank is a great option.
Banking, like a lot of other industries, is hot on consolidation. But community banks like St. Landry Bank and Trust still offer value to main street markets, where customers put a premium on knowing the people they business with.
At St. Landry Bank, Shelly Fontenot is the person to know. She leads business development for the Bank, meaning she spends a lot of time on the road building relationships and giving customers a taste of what community banking is like.
St. Landry Bank has been around a long time. It was founded in the late 19th century and is still firmly rooted in St. Landry Parish, with several branches in Opelousas and shops in Port Barre, Eunice, Scott, Carencro and in Lafayette.
Shelly had an unconventional path to banking. She got a degree in Fire Science and worked in the health and medical resources field out of school. She joined St. Landry Bank after connecting with her boss through a local Kiwanis Club. Shelly is from Ville Platte and now lives in Pine Prairie.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Dylan Babineaux at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Kids hate math. You’ve probably heard that before. Except, it’s not exactly true. One survey commissioned by Texas Instruments found that kids were twice as likely to say they like math than hate it. Now, Texas Instruments sells calculators. Make of that what you will.
That same survey found that about 70% of kids said they would like math more if they better understood how it applied to their future.
I’m a simple country journalist. I use numbers all the time: probabilities, data analysis, reading white papers on science and the economy. You can’t convince me that math doesn’t mean something, especially when coding is one the nation’s most in-demand jobs.
Ashley Carter loves math. More specifically, she loves to teach it. Ashley got a degree in finance but has made a career in tutoring with her company Minds Matter Tutoring. Math is the number one subject kids ask for help with, Ashley says. But she can help with any K through 12 discipline.
Ashley is the only tutor in Lafayette certified by the National Tutoring Association and one of only three in the state. She brings a compassion for parenting to the structure of her business model. Ashley is a mom of two, including one child with dyslexia.
Ashley grew up near New Orleans and lives in Lafayette. She launched Minds Matter in 2019.
So you don’t think you’ll need math when you get older? Try telling that to a business exec reading budgets and P and L’s. More to the point, you never really stop learning if you want to find success in business. And there are folks out there who can help you do that.
Dr. Phyllis Donatto spent years as an educator and now runs FTH Dimension, a workplace coaching consultancy. FTH Dimension’s trainings revolve around what Phyllis calls the three C’s: Connect, Communicate, Collaborate. She offers group trainings that include personality assessments, workplace observation and one on one coaching. And her clients range from individual entrepreneurs to corporations.
Phyllis grew up in Eudora, Arkansas, and became the first college graduate in her family. She earned a doctorate in education from UL Monroe and now lives in Lafayette. Besides being an executive coach, Phyllis is also the author of the popular children's book, Mom There's a Rooster In The House.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
East to New York City. West to Los Angeles. Pick your poison as the saying goes. Out of one swamp. Into another. For the Louisiana diaspora, home is hard to quit. Home is where the heart is, after all.
Many transplants become boomerangs, a demographic term of art for people who go away and come home. At least, that’s the hope if — like Louisiana — you’re a net exporter of people and talent.
Coming home can be a double-edged sword. It’s comforting. But, in creative industries, it can mean making do in a smaller market with opportunities hard to come by.
On the flipside: You might become the change you want to see in the world.
Kelly Clayton was the first in fifteen generations in her family to leave Louisiana. Kelly is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator. She left for New York in 1991 with a suitcase and seven boxes of books. And she meant it as a one-way ticket. But she returned to Louisiana in 2010.
Back home, Kelly has continued working as a literary artist here. She teaches poetry and creative writing, and organizes programs for formerly incarcerated people and kids in the Louisiana Juvenile Detention Center. In 2020, she published her poetry collection Mother of Chaos Queen of the Nines. Kelly grew up between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, but lives in Lafayette.
When Rachel Nederveld left home for Los Angeles, she knew she’d eventually come back home to Lafayette. Rachel is a film producer and podcaster, and made her name for herself in documentary circles with works like The Tuba Thieves and Footwork.
Rachel first worked in the music industry, getting a job with the legendary indie label K Records and opening Lafayette’s location of the Tipitina’s Music Co-Op in 2008. She got into film production in 2010 and moved to L.A. in 2014.
Being a producer is sort of like being the CEO of a film, Rachel says. She’s responsible largely for the logistics and fundraising. Her films have premiered at SXSW, Sundance, Tribeca and Lafayette’s hometown festival, Southern Screen.
Rachel returned to Lafayette in 2022 and is also developing a career in podcasting.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find p\otos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There are few words in the english language that more poetic when strung together than "coffee" "weed" and "cobbler." Yes, this is another "only in Acadiana" episode of Out to Lunch. So let's dive in.
For a lot of entrepreneurs, the dream of owning a business is about independence. The money helps, of course. But what they’re really after is a kind of self-expression or self-determination. They want the satisfaction of working on their own terms, of doing things their own way.
Working for someone else can offer stability, but it can be confining — especially when you have an unusual idea. You might not think a coffee shop is an unusual idea. But you’ve probably not been to a coffee shop quite like Coffeeweed Cottage in Lafayette. It’s the brainchild of Denise Champagne McClure.
Coffeeweed (which is technically a colloquial term for chicory) doubles as a cafe and home decor showroom. You can buy a cup of joe — artisan roasted — and shop for books, local crafts and…plants.
Denise is a trained horticulturist, and a big part of Coffeeweed’s vibe is its grow bar. Customers book grow bar sessions, pick plants and pots and get a lesson on how to help their new green friends thrive.
Denise grew up in Cecilia and opened Coffeeweed in 2023.
So diving headfirst into a new concept isn’t the only path to striking out on your own. Plenty of entrepreneurs take advantage of franchising opportunities. That’s how Christy Nolan and her husband Patrick came to open a Lafayette location of the fast-growing dessert chain: the Peach Cobbler Factory.
There’s no mystery here. The Peach Cobbler Factory is known for…wait for it…peach cobbler. But the concept serves up a much bigger dessert menu that encourages experimentation. Customers can mix and match toppings how they like.
Christy and Patrick both work full time outside of running their Peach Cobbler location. The idea was to find a concept that would give them an off-ramp to retirement. They toyed with a few ideas but fell in love with the Peach Cobbler concept when a friend opened locations in Alabama. A taste test at a location in New Orleans sealed the deal. They opened their location in 2023.
Christy grew up in Erath and now lives in Abbeville. She works for AT&T and her husband works offshore.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Liliana Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Acadiana is famous for ingenuity. Look no further than a crawfish boat to see what I mean.
You might say that innovation is in the water. And that’s because the peoples who settled here needed to be clever to survive. Of course, these days, necessity isn’t the only mother of invention. We live in the sportsman’s paradise, after all.
Fishing is what led Brian Signorelli to his signature invention. He was out on his boat one morning, fishing in some familiar waters, juggling a handheld flashlight and trying to work the throttle to avoid a stump. He hit a stump. And an idea hit him. Basin Boat Lighting.
Basin Boat Lighting is a patented safety lighting and signal system for watercraft. It fixes right on to a boat and can be powered by an adaptable charger that can use whatever power tool battery pack you prefer.
The idea has been a hit with boating enthusiasts and kayakers and Brian has since expanded the line to include more sophisticated and powerful units. Everything he produces meets or exceeds Coast Guard standards and is made right here in the U.S. of A — and by veterans, too.
Brian is a Navy vet, a medical fraud investigator and a registered nurse, too.
Maybe on your way to your favorite fishing hole, you’ve noticed a lot more RVs cruising the highway. It’s not your imagination, the RV and camping industry has exploded, especially since the pandemic. And camp sites have popped up around the country. But here’s a problem: You could book a spot for your camper a year in advance, hit some bad traffic on the way in and miss your booking. That means you might need a spot that night. And until Terry Broussard developed the app Spot2Nite, you were pretty much out of luck.
Think of Spot2Nite as Priceline for RVs. It makes it easier for wayward campers to run down last-minute spots by marketing last-minute inventory at area camp sites. It’s pretty much full service. It can filter availabilities based on the type of vehicle you drive, preferences for amenities and can even do the booking for you, with 24/7 customer support.
Terry and his son-in-law developed the business after Terry had retired from a long career in the healthcare industry. It’s since become the perfect retirement business. He can operate on the move in his own RV with a remote workforce.
Terry is also a veteran. He served for 21 years as an air force nurse and later became a veteran recruiter for Acadian Ambulance.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We all like to think of our businesses are unique. We come up with a value proposition or a mission statement designed to stick out in the market. But the reality is, pretty much every industry is crowded with competitors and copycats selling pretty much the same thing. That’s capitalism.
Now throw in the internet and the number of competitors explodes. It doesn’t just affect businesses that are used to locking down a local geographic advantage — like car dealerships, for instance.
Krisitie McMath Hebert knows all about that. She’s a third generation auto-dealer at Arceneaux Ford in New Iberia. Her father courted her to the family business right out of college, with the debut of a new Ford dealer incentive program. His offer: a salary, a car and paid off student debt. So, Kristie took that opportunity and ran with it. Today, she oversees the dealership’s four departments and its 42 employees. And she is the first woman named chair of Louisiana Automobile Dealers Association.
It’s not just car dealerships that have dealt with a shifting playing field. Today, you can get any number of mental health services online — and not all of it by ChatGPT. The counseling industry has changed quite a lot, even for folks working locally.
Shelly Killingsworth is a counselor and the founder of Worth Counseling, a boutique counseling service that specializes in integrative mental health.The approach is holistic. Food, mind, body and spirit affect mental health, Shelley says, and that guides how they treat patients. In-person visits feature a sensory, spa-like experience. And Worth also provides online services.
Shelly got her start as a contract counselor, developing enough clientele to launch Worth in 2019. The center now employs 9 counselors and is still growing.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Service businesses are tricky. For the most part, you’re selling assistance. And even when folks know they need help, things can get tense.
Imagine making a living when your clientele is by definition struggling. When someone brings you a mess, you need to be able to clean up with confidence, compassion and clarity.
Savings
Clarity is where Sonya Colliver starts with her clients. Sonya is the founder of the money management company Fix It Change It. And that brand about sums up her approach. When clients come to her in debt or dire financial straits, Sonya cuts to the chase with a color-coded spreadsheet: "Is this something we can fix or change?" Pretty straightforward. And straight talk is essential when you’re helping families navigate money problems.
Sonya also helps business clients and has a background in business herself. She and her husband have owned an HVAC company, Lake Mechanical, for over 24 years. She’s done money management work for years and officially incorporated Fix It Change It in 2020.
Sober
Getting back on your feet takes more than a rebound. People who suffer from addiction often need a period of transition to get started on the long road to recovery. Many will make that transition from in-patient rehab back into independence at a sober living house.
That was Luke Moore’s journey and along the way he found himself dissatisfied with the quality of sober living homes. So he prayed about it and started his own here in Lafayette: The Captain’s Table.
The Captain’s Table sets itself apart with a higher standard of living. The weekly or monthly fees come with necessities and Netflix, while residents provide their own food and toiletries. The house has eight beds and the residents do most of the upkeep and commit to self-improvement programs.
Luke has since relocated to Monroe and the day-to-day operations of the facility are overseen by a live-in manager.
Luke also operates a garbage can cleaning service called Bin Bros.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Follow your dreams. It’s what they tell you as soon as you learn to dance or play guitar. What they don’t tell you is — prepare for building maintenance and customer service.
For entrepreneurs of any stripe, reality is coming and it’s a cold drink of water. It takes a lot of work and unglamorous work at that, once you get to the promised land. Really savvy operators can turn that insight into another opportunity. That’s what Tim Benson did after following his dream of working in the music business.
Tim Benson is the owner and founder of the Music Academy of Acadiana, located right here in Lafayette. He started the academy after his band broke up and spending a few years teaching lessons privately.
One thing Tim figured out about running a music school: A lot of them have pretty crummy customer service. So he hatched a new company and service called PhoneScore, which provides feedback and reviews of how employees handle telephone interactions.
Bad phone etiquette is a weak link in marketing for a lot of businesses, Tim says. Many will spend loads of cash on SEO and advertising, only to introduce their brands to customers with a lousy greeting. Oh, and Tim helps with the SEO stuff too. He founded NetScore, a digital marketing service that helps brands with content, digital ad placements, newsletter campaigns and more.
Tim grew up in Carencro and along with his business ventures is still living the dream as a gigging musician.
Allison Brandon spent years in dance and theater instruction before taking the plunge to follow her dream: opening an arts education and performing arts center here in Lafayette: Wonderland Center for the Performing Arts.
The school grew out of small scale productions she developed from a weekly program for kids. Wonderland brought that idea to a much bigger stage, literally. Wonderland organizes some serious productions and houses a suite of theater and performing arts classes, most of it formatted for kids and teens. It hosts private lessons for voice, piano, dance, audition prep and even some specialty courses like Greek theater.
The community around Wonderland has grown considerably since Allison opened her first brick-and-mortar space in 2017. Today it works with about 120 students and employs a staff of 15, including 12 teachers.
Wonderland also houses Allison’s other theatrical ventures: the Looking Glass Theater Company and the Mad Thinkers, an interactive theater workshop for kids.
This is Allison's first time on Out to Lunch IRL but not her first time on the show. Her debut appearance was during the Covid 19 pandemic when we were all working remotely on Zoom. This IRL edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette.
You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Every business has an origin story: the moment where it all clicked and made sense. Most of the time, it’s the stuff of myth and legend. Successful businesses rarely fall from the sky and bonk you on the head. Unless, Sir Isaac Newton had it in his mind to bottle gravity and sell it.
For most entrepreneurs, getting from the idea to success is more about force of will than innovation, especially if you work in a niche industry. For Brent Broussard, inspiration came from therapy.
Brent took an interest in his therapist’s beaded bracelet, and his therapist suggested making bracelets might help Brent work on his patience. So Brent got to work, and in 2021, Beads by Brentley was born.
Brent’s bracelets are made with earthy beads like obsidian, lava, turquoise and tiger eyes. Right now, his company is mostly e-commerce end-to-end. He sources the beads online and sells them through Facebook and Shopify, with some inventory sold at Lone Wolf Gatherings in Lafayette.
Brent also operates a nonprofit called Acadiana Vanguard Youth Initiative. The program helps young people on Lafayette’s Northside develop financial literacy skills, as well as life coaching and business coaching. Both the nonprofit and Beads by Brently are housed under Brent’s company Broussard Enterprise Group.
Brent grew up on the Northside and spent years in sales before moving into entrepreneurship.
"Politics is Louisiana’s favorite sport," the saying goes. But it’s not necessarily a big industry. The landscape for political communications and strategy is relatively narrow and limited to policymakers in Baton Rouge.
Breaking into the business from outside the Capitol is not an easy thing to do. You’ve got to ride a wave of victory to get somewhere in politics, and that can be hard with small-time candidates and causes, who often don’t have big budgets or name recognition.
Azi Yazdi-Kaufman is a political strategist and created the Blue Jay Strategic Consulting Group, a firm she launched in 2023. Azi had worked around communications and marketing for years, but moved officially into political strategy while working to change a piece of legislation that would have prohibited some foreign nationals from owning property in Louisiana. Azi is the daughter of an immigrant and she brought that perspective to her lobbying work.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
You know the saying: They don’t build them like they used to. When it comes to homes and buildings, that’s usually said like it’s a bad thing. But with a changing climate and changing marketplace, building things like we used to — brick by brick, nail by nail — just doesn’t cut it any more.
Enter modular construction.
The idea isn’t totally unheard of. Prefabricated buildings have been around for decades. But New Iberia's Tiago Atwi and his brother have brought a new twist on the concept with their comany, Boxy Construction.
Boxy designs and delivers steel framed, modular structures for residential and commercial construction. Think of it like real-life legos. Boxy ships all the parts you need, pre-fabricated with the fastenings and holes you need to set up the building quickly.
Tiago is a mechanical engineer by trade and worked on wind turbines out of college, getting his start on modular construction for a company based in Atlanta. He decided to bring the concept home to New Iberia where he grew up. And Boxy was born.
It’s not just building standards that have changed. They don’t make soap like they used to either. Ebony Robert figured that out when her son had a stubborn case of eczema. On a trip back home to visit family in Orlando, her great grandmother encouraged her to make him some old fashioned lye soap.
It worked. And suddenly, Ebony had a good problem on her hands: she needed to make a lot more soap. That journey led her to founding Ebony’s Beauty Hair and Skin Care. By 2015, she was selling her products in stores and online. In 2018, she opened a storefront in Lafayette’s Northgate mall.
The brand has grown tremendously. Ebony’s products are sold by Amazon, Walmart and carried by Doordash. Her shop carries about 3,000 different beauty and wellness products. But her handmade soaps are still the star of the show — and Ebony still mixes, labels and ships them all herself.
In 2020, Ebony opened the Entrepreneurship Learning Academy to help others learn how to run businesses.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Lilliana Morgan at itsacadiana.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Balance is everything. Greek philosophers thought of it as the key to happiness — the Golden Mean, the happy medium between extremes.
When you’re out of balance —emotionally or physically — things can go wrong real fast.
In the context of health, we often think of balance as a problem that primarily affects older patients. But there are a wide variety of illnesses and conditions that can quite literally knock you off balance.
Our sense of balance is created by delicate, complicated systems. And so it takes a very specialized approach to treat. FYZICAL Therapy & Balance Center, located in Lafayette, is a doctor-owned clinic set up specifically to treat vestibular disorders — the range of conditions like vertigo that impact human balance.
Jenee Leger, is Fyzical’s physician liaison. Her job is to connect the center’s services with doctors and other providers in the Lafayette area. She came to the company with a background in medical sales.
Fyzical itself is a franchise, with several hundred locations across the country. The Lafayette location opened in 2018, and is owned by a group of ear nose and throat doctors — otolaryngologists, if you’re into proper names. The centers offer the kind of specialized balance treatment you might find in a hospital setting. And it can also offer adjacent services like an on-site audiologist.
Vestibular disorders commonly affect military veterans. And Jenee works with local veterans groups to do outreach and education about those disorders and how to treat them. Jenee grew up in Franklin and is also the author of a children’s book calledI Know Just What I Want to Be.
When George Mills was in Texas, you might say his life got out of balance. He landed there to go to rehab and stuck around. The program didn’t take and he went through another. George has been clean since 1994 and the journey brought him to a career in behavioral health.
For 25 years, he worked for the treatment program that helped him. He left that role to become the executive director of The Extra Mile, a nonprofit organization that fills gaps in behavioral health left by government services.
The Extra Mile primarily offers programs for families, with an emphasis on support for families dealing with addiction, trauma and severe mental illness. It’s free clothes shop distributes $48,000 worth of donated clothes each quarter. The Avec Les Enfants program provides space for noncustodial parents to visit their kids. Meredith’s Place is a residential addiction treatment center for pregnant women or women with dependent children.
George grew up in Michigan and has served as executive director of the Extra Mile since 2020.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Lilliana Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Making a living in healthcare is a pain. Whatever side of it you work in, at some level you’re dealing with people. That’s the case if you’re a doctor, a researcher or even an entrepreneur.
When people buy what you’re selling, theoretically at least, they’re hoping to improve their lives. And not just in the way a nespresso machine would. This can be a matter of life and death. Or pain and comfort. No pressure.
It’s one thing to conceive of a new way to brew coffee. Another thing entirely to think of a new way to treat wounds and bring that idea to market in an intense and thorny regulatory environment.
Wound care is the primary product for Tides Medical, a biotech company headquartered here in Lafayette and founded by Joe Spell. Joe has a background in marketing and worked for years selling medical products. He launched Tides in 2009, seeing an opportunity to improve customer care. But the company took off after it landed on its signature innovation: advanced wound care products sourced from donated placenta.
Tides is now the largest commercial biotech firm in Louisiana and opened the state’s first tissue bank. The company now operates in 50 states with a salesforce of over 200 people, on top of 130 people employed in Louisiana.
Joe is originally from Milton and is a recent graduate of Harvard Business School.
Treating pain is tough. Imagine going anywhere when your body hurts. Trouble is, when you’re in pain is often when you most need to move. Motion is lotion.
Alix Sorrel is a physical therapist and the founder of Integrated Physical Therapy and Pilates. Her practice combines conventional PT with Pilates classes to help clients manage pain from injuries, chronic illnesses and more.
Alix came to the idea as a patient, after trying pilates to treat pain before her wedding. She launched Integrated Physical Therapy in 2012 and added the pilates studio in 2013. Today, her practice sees about 30-40 patients a week, ranging in age from seven to 94.
Alix grew up in New Iberia and holds a doctorate in physical therapy.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Lilliana Morgan. at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sometimes the best business ideas are hereditary. And I don’t mean family businesses.
Every family has a secret sauce or skill: maybe a green thumb or a gift for gab. Turning the family tradition into a business may not be so easy — unless you’ve inherited the entrepreneurial gene. That’s because everyone is trying to sell the family recipe these days. Especially in Acadiana, where every last name seems to have a seasoning blend.
But not every spice entrepreneur knows krav maga, like Kisha Formica.
Spice
Kisha is maybe best known for Kitchen Bravo, her online cooking and recipe brand. It started as a hobby, a way to share her love of cooking with the world wide web. But it’s also become a vehicle to sell Gunpowder Spice, based on a blend developed by her grandfather, who was an avid game hunter.
The product has been a family staple for decades, but it was Kisha who brought it to market in 2022, packaging it in a bottle shaped like a shotgun shell and a pair of dueling pistols — all of it a nod to her grandfather’s love of hunting.
Kisha is from the Lafayette area and also teaches krav maga.
Skincare
If you pick up a product by Bea’s Bayou Skincare, you’re buying a little homage to Arielle Brown’s grandmother, Beatrice.
Beatrice was an herbalist and an entrepreneur in her own right, known for her legendary pies. When Arielle began making skin products, she turned to her grandmother’s gift for horticulture for inspiration. The result: a line of creams, serums and solutions made with Louisiana plants like saw palmetto, blue green algae, sassafras, nettle and sugar cane.
Arielle's flagship product — Good Biome Scalp Relief Solution — was developed as a salve for her own skin issues. The solution took off on Etsy and spurred Arielle to expand her product line. Arielle has turned the concept into a successfully formula, winning thousands in funding from pitch competitions like Fund Black Founders and the Essence and Aveeno Skin Health Pitch.
Arielle is also a social worker and real estate agent and grew up in Lafayette.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A good product doesn’t just solve problems, it makes a customer feel good. And that can start with the buying experience itself.
Smart retailers know how to balance a hard sell with a soft touch, making customers believe that they arein control, and most importantly they are special.
For a lot of retailers, that means cultivating an experience. For Rusty Phillips, co-owner of The Bougie Bar in Downtown Lafayette, the experience is everything.
Bougie Bar is essentially a candle-making activity center. Groups book time at the shop and bring snacks and drinks to enjoy while they make custom jelly candles. The shop also retails goodies like shirts, mugs and chocolates.
The Bougie concept was a natural extension of Bourbon Royalty, the candle manufacturer Rusty founded with his business partner Jamie. Jamie made candles as a side hustle and the business grew into a pretty big producer, with around 800 wholesale accounts in 14 states. The Bougie Bar was born out of customer demand. Folks wanted to pop in the warehouse to make candles. In 2019, Bougie Bar was born.
When you’re selling clothes, you’re selling something personal. All the more so when you’re selling something intimate, like bras and lingerie.
Meaghan McCarron Savoy is the owner of La Femme, a bra fitting studio and retailer in Lafayette.
La Femme’s specialty is quality and customization. Meaghan's staff is expertly trained in fitting the hand-selected brands they carry. And they help customers think through all of the possible applications and needs for their purchases. They have a lactation consultant and an expert in mastectomy fitting on staff.
It’s a complicated business. Women often hate bras. They can be uncomfortable to wear and awkward to purchase. La Femme’s answer is attention to detail and a community vibe. They’re selling confidence, Meaghan says. She would know. Meaghan was a loyal customer before she bought the shop in 2021.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Lilliana Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Lafayette is home to two hospital systems and has a deep bench of medical providers. It’s the Hub City in a new kind of way. It’s Acadiana’s medical hub. So it might surprise you to learn that access to health care is still a problem. Every parish in Acadiana, except Lafayette, has a federally designated shortage of healthcare providers.
Why?
Well, if the answer were easy, it wouldn’t be a problem. But suffice it to say the health business is complicated because health is complicated. And we can look at the issue from two ends: providers on the one, and patients on the other.
Donna Aucoin is a medical psychologist and owner of Aucoin & Associates, a private therapy practice.
Donna began her career in mental health as a social worker. After going back to school to become a psychologist, she worked for the state office of mental health as a regional psychologist, where she did clinical work and developed community programs. She left state employment and moved into private practice, her long-term goal, founding Aucoin & Associates. The practice has grown substantially and now offers a range of mental health services for individual patients, families and groups.
In health care, it takes two tango. And the other partner here is the patient. Health education plays a big role in public health outcomes. And Gabriel Morley plays a big role in health education.
Gabriel is the CEO of Southwest Area Health Education Center, or SWLAHEC. AHECs are nonprofits set up by Congress in the 1970s to address health care shortages and can be found in every state. Gabriel’s office covers the Lafayette and Lake Charles areas and develops programs designed to help people make healthier lifestyle choices.
SWLAHEC also helps patients navigate the market for low- and no-cost health insurance and trains providers on community care.
Gabriel holds a doctorate in adult education and came to his job at SWLAHEC after a career working in libraries. He grew up in Slidell and holds a doctorate in adult education.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What’s new is new, but what’s old can be timeless.
We can get obsessed with new ideas in business. An innovation. A technology. A new place to put cheese on pizza.
But sometimes, a good business model is sourcing an old idea and bringing it back. As the salesman's famous closer goes, "Nobody ever regretted buying quality." That’s especially true in fashion, which we'll get to. And it’s true in farming too.
When you look behind the American food distribution system, it’s kind of (pardon the pun) nuts. People in Florida buy oranges from Mexico. People in Louisiana buy shrimp and crawfish from China — they just don’t tell anyone about it.
These are logistical innovations brought on by scale commodities and economies, and it’s totally reshaped our relationship with food. Mark Guidry saw that system and figured it was ripe for disruption.
Mark and his wife Connie are the co-owners of Guidry Organic farms. The brand is maybe best known for their pecan products — Guidry’s Pecan Butter is a best seller. But they also raise cattle and chickens and harvest blueberries. Whatever they do, they do it old school organic. The Guidrys practice regenerative farming. Byproducts from one side of the farm support growth on another.
It’s kind of how farming used to be when organic food was simply known as "food". Mark didn’t grow up farming. But he did grow up in Lafayette.
Now, as promised, let's turn to fashion. You probably buy your clothes off the rack. More likely off the internet. And you're prepared to trade fit for convenience and price.
Yes, your e-commerce clothes are affordable and they arrive in two days, but they don’t fit all that well. Tailoring is mostly a thing of the past, as the fashion industry sprinted toward fast fashion. But an old school method can make sense in a 21st century economy. E-commerce is a surprisingly good fit for custom, mobile tailoring. That’s the edge for Nathan Pearce, CEO of Pearce Bespoke.
Pearce Bespoke offers suits tailor made on the go through a mobile shop. They come to you, get your measurements and whip up a design fit for you in about 3 weeks.
Nathan’s been in the clothing business for most of his career as an entrepreneur. Out of college he launched Fraternity Collection, a custom t-shirt making business that was his first taste of success. He owns several Pearce Bespoke locations, including the shops in Lafayette, Baton Rouge and New Orleans. But he’s also franchised the brand, extending its reach to dozens of other locations, on pace to reach 50 by the end of this year.
Nathan is originally from New Orleans, but now lives in Baton Rouge.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. Photos by Dylan Babineaux.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There’s a well documented nursing shortage in the U.S. When Shelley Henry first started nursing, it was pretty common for one nurse to manage 10 patients. Today, it’s closer to 20.
We tend to think of the nursing shortage as something impacting hospitals and primary care. But the shortage is impacting end of life care, too. Hospices need nurses, and it’s getting harder to find them as demand for hospice and palliative care is growing.
Shelley spent 20 years as a hospice nurse and learned the ins and outs of the business. She saw a problem, and like any smart entrepreneur, came up with a solution: Amity Group.
Amity recruits and supplies nursing staff exclusively to hospices. It’s the only staffing agency of its kind in Louisiana and one of relatively few in the country. Today, Amity serves about 60 clients, most of them independent hospices, with a staff of 22 nurses.
It’s hard to find nurses. Of 20 interviewed, Shelley says she might hire two. She’s passionate about training and workforce development, and posts tips and advice videos for hospice nurses on social media. She also conducts an annual survey of nurses to help advocate for improvements in the healthcare industry.
Shelley was born in Texas, but has called Youngsville home for most of her life.
Standards of care are important in end-of-life businesses. It’s an industry built on empathy and a human touch. That’s no different when you’re dealing with grief, especially when a family loses a pet.
Catherine Lemoine has made a career in animal care and in pet cremation. In 2023, she opened a Pet Passages franchise. Pet Passages provides cremation services, funerals and memorialization for bereaved pet owners. The company organizes private or communal cremations, and puts together online memorials with music, photos and personal messages.
It’s a tough business, she says, but not necessarily because of the subject matter. Families come to her for empathy and a high standard of services. Like hospice nurses, finding good employees who can maintain that level of care in the pet end of life business is the challenge.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. Photos by Dylan Babineaux.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Leadership is a big deal in business. It’s actually a business all its own: Companies big and small operate executive training programs and the world’s most successful entrepreneurs write best-selling books about how they got to the top and what it means to be a real leader in business.
But what about being a leader in your community? That takes a different kind of training. Enter the Leadership Institute of Acadiana, and its Executive Director Katrena King.
LIA operates several programs designed to connect professionals to Lafayette and Acadiana and, more importantly, how they can get involved. The flagship program, is approaching 40 years of cultivating new leaders. And the program has a reputation as a springboard for public service, not just in elected office but in community organizations.
Katrena herself is a cautionary tale. She graduated in leadership class 34 and threw her hat in the ring to run it. In 2021, she got the job as Executive Director. A a lawyer by training, Katrena previously worked in planning for local and regional government agencies. She’s also pursuing ordination as a deacon.
The U.S. Military might be the nation’s oldest leadership program. And for veterans, the American Legion is a way to keep their service going. Stephanie Hanks is the first woman commander of American Legion Post #69, a job she's piled onto her busy workload as a realtor and a legal assistant.
Stephanie joined the service a little later than most, enlisting in the Navy at 26 and serving in a cryptology unit. After leaving the Navy she joined Post 69 but didn’t get too involved until she was pressed for duty as a junior Vice Commander. And in 2019, she became Commander.
The post has been busy under her leadership. Its 145 members help with disaster relief and volunteer for community projects. Times have changed and so have the needs of today’s veterans, Stephanie says. And there are a lot of vets in Acadiana, around 31,000.
Stephanie is originally from Virginia and is now one of Acadiana’s 3,000 women veterans.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. Photos by Dylan Babineaux.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
You know the cliche: Knowledge is power. Even Alexander the Great had a tutor while he conquered the known world. It helped that it was Aristotle.
A good education is a strong indicator of future success in business and in life generally. So it shouldn’t be surprising that there’s a vibrant industry out there in preparing people for getting ahead in school.
Modern education throws a lot of tests out at you. Want to go college? Take the ACT. Want to go business school? Take the GMAT. And that’s on top of the regular classes, tests and essays you’ve got on your to-do list. It can be a lot to manage.
Garret Douet is there to help you. Garret is the founder of Open Door Tutoring, which offers tutoring services for students at all grade levels and for the pesky standardized tests.
Garret is a student himself. He’s studying to be a mechanical engineer at UL. In fact, most of the tutors at Open Door Tutoring are students, many of them in engineering programs. It helps to be students, to teach students, Garret says. Garret is from Youngsville and founded Open Door in 2022.
OK, so Garret’s job is to teach one student at a time. How about teaching 30,000? You could say that’s Mark Rabalais' job. Mark is the Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction for Lafayette Parish School System, the public school system here in Lafayette. Mark’s role is to direct how the system’s 47 schools teach.
Public schools have always been a part of Mark’s life. His parents were public school advocates and his sister is an administrator. He began his own career as a teacher at Pineville High School, his home town. He moved to Lafayette to take a job as an assistant principal at Ernest Gallet Elementary School.
Mark holds a masters degree in art from Northwestern State and has a doctorate in education from UL.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan. at itsacadiana.com.
See omny.fm/listener for privacy information.
Let’s say you’ve accomplished all of your professional goals. You’re at the top. Business is good. Life is good. What do you do? How about…something completely different?
Success breeds success, but it can also stir up an appetite for new challenges. For high achievers, that can lead them to keep climbing after they’ve pushed that boulder all the way up the hill.
For Michele Ezell, the last mile of that climb was the pandemic. Michele and her husband opened Tsunami Sushi, the OG sushi restaurant in Lafayette, in 1999, adding locations in Baton Rouge and in New Orleans over the next two decades.
But navigating the restaurant through the pandemic put a new burr in Michele’s saddle. In 2021, she and her husband sold the business and Michele started a new chapter in real estate. Today she’s a realtor at Keaty Real Estate. That’s a big change from running an enterprise with 240 employees to working more or less for yourself and on commission.
Michele grew up in Lafayette and says her years in the restaurant industry have given her a solid edge in her new venture.
By the time Alysson Bourque became an award winning author, she’d already been a teacher and a lawyer in the Louisiana attorney general’s office. Now, Alysson is running Foreword Publicity, a boutique PR firm that provides marketing and promotional services for around 400 authors.
Alysson parlayed her own experiences writing and marketing the successful Alycat series to build a playbook for aspiring authors. She and her business partner Lori Olinsky launched Foreword in 2020 after helping a fellow author shepherd a book to success. They designed a comprehensive line of services that help aspiring and even established authors get their works noticed and sold in the digital marketplace.
Alysson is from Lafayette and has published six Alycat books.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Americans are going to get a lot older over the next 30 years. That’s not just an obvious statement about aging: the share of senior citizens in our country is projected to get much, much bigger. Researchers think seniors will account for 25% of Americans by 2060. It’s a population shift often referred to as the Silver Tsunami.
The impact of that change is on us now. And it’s putting a lot of pressure on the healthcare industry. There’s greater demand for care-giving services and treatment for chronic disease, and it’s getting harder to fill it.
Caring for people is a stressful business, but a rewarding one. Susan Amos has worked in healthcare and senior care since the 1990s. Today, she’s the Chief Marketing Officer for Senior Helpers, a senior care-giving franchise she bought in 2017 and then sold in 2023. But not before growing the company rapidly with her business partner. Her Senior Helpers unit doubled its business in its first year alone. Today it cares for 115 people with a long waiting list.
Susan also serves on the board of the Lafayette Council on Aging and on the advisory board of the Alzheimer’s Association.
Lack of access to care is a big hurdle, particularly in rural communities. In St. Landry Parish, for instance, there isn’t a higher rate of cancer diagnoses. But there is a higher rate of cancer deaths. That’s in part because St. Landry is what researchers call an underserved market. The Mary Bird Perkins Cancer opened a location in Opelousas to close that gap.
Mary Bird is a well known name in cancer care. It provides a wide scope of services with locations across South Louisiana and in Mississippi. Jodi Conachen is Mary Bird’s Chief Operating Officer.
Jodi comes from the marketing world. She’s worked for Community Coffee, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development and Women’s Hospital. She joined Mary Bird in 2019 as VP of marketing and became COO in 2023.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There’s plenty of demand for the good life. Who doesn’t want a taste of luxury or indulgence? And certainly, we indulge a lot in South Louisiana. "You only live once" could be easily the state motto.
Why not? We’re blessed to have plenty of good life to indulge here. So much so, that we yearn for it when we’re gone. For all those expats out there — and there are plenty — a taste of home means seafood. And it doesn’t get much more indulgent than oysters.
Oysters
The dirty secret of oysters, Boyer Derise likes to say, is that you’re selling butter. And Boyer is selling butter nationwide. The Bayou Carlin Oyster Company ships flash frozen Louisiana Oysters around the country and sells locally in grocery stores. The kits come in a variety of flavors: Garlic Parmesan, Andouille Cream Cheese, Roasted Jalapeno Cheddar and more.
It all began as an e-commerce concept for Boyer to add on to his prepped food brand Good Eats Kitchen. But he quickly found the good money was in wholesale, which makes up more than 90% of his business. In 2022, he closed Good Eats to devote more time to Bayou Carlin.
Cigars
After you’ve put away some grilled oysters and a couple of beers, it’s time to kick back and relax. For a lot of folks, a fine cigar is the perfect after-dinner treat.
Leona Bruno got a taste for cigars when she joined a motorcycle club. One night, she wanted a cigar to unwind, but didn’t feel like heading to a cigar lounge. A business idea was born: The Bearded Lady Mobile Cigar Wagon.
The cigar wagon is a mobile cigar experience. Like a mobile bartending service, it offers packages of cigar lines that can be paired with events — weddings, parties, company functions, that sort of thing.
Leona is self-taught about cigars, and coaches clients about the experience they want. Packages include a pop-up cigar lounge with cut and light services. All of them come with a selection of high quality cigars. The most popular? The Cuban Monte Cristo.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Over the last few decades, we’ve come to understand the role of private enterprise differently. There’s a call to be corporate citizens, and responsible ones at that.
Responsibility can be good business. It’s part of why big energy companies have begun to shift their marketing and their products toward sustainability. Think of it this way: You need a planet to run a business on.
We’ve even put a number on it because…capitalism. The World Bank estimated in 2011 that the combined value of the Earth’s natural resources — forests, rivers, wetlands, wildlands, farms and more — at $44 trillion.
So it can’t hurt to pay attention to how your business impacts the environment and those resources. That shift has been underway for years at the major corporate level, but Julie Esta is leading a much smaller operation in that direction as Sustainability Manager at Industrial Safety Solutions, a firm that helps oil and gas companies comply with environmental and safety requirements.
We talked in 2021 with Founder & President Ray Flores and Julie joined the company in 2023 after working in business development for a digital literacy company and creating her own line of healthy seasonings. Her job is to help ISS develop techniques that can reduce their own carbon footprint and that can be marketed to other companies.
Julie grew up in Sunset and now lives in Scott.
Caroline Jurisich has made a career of helping universities be more inclusive, particularly of people with disabilities. From 2017 to 2023, Caroline directed UL’s LIFE program, which offers education for young adults with cognitive disabilities.
She’s since moved on from that job to launch the Quad, an enrichment center serving the same community.
The Quad offers counseling, speech therapy, hands-on community service projects, a coffee bar, a cooking lab and a clubhouse. It’s a membership-based program that puts many of the most-needed services under one roof.
Caroline holds a doctor of education from UL and was recognized by the university as a Champion of Diversity in 2020. Caroline grew up in Bossier City and now lives in Lafayette.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What does it mean to invest in a community? Big economic development projects are usually sold that way. And if you’re cynical, it can sound a bit like hot air. If a big company puts a new factory in your town, it might bring jobs, but the investment is for the company and its shareholders.
Okay, but that’s not a bad thing. That’s capitalism. But community investment has long been the purview of philanthropy. The dawn of big philanthropy was tied to robber barons. Names like Carnegie and Rockefeller are synonymous with both greed and generosity.
Big name donors are still the most visible philanthropists, but more and more communities are investing in themselves, pooling contributions from donors big and small into community foundations.
Today there are more than 900 community foundations operating in the U.S., pumping billions of dollars each year into their communities. The third largest community foundation in Louisiana is housed in Lafayette — the Community Foundation of Acadiana.
In 2022, the foundation made over $16 million in gifts to causes in its eight-parish region. The foundation was started in 2000 and Missy Bienvenu Andrade is CFA’s second ever director. She took the helm in 2022.
Missy grew up in Lafayette and spent 10 years as dance choreographer before starting her professional life as a pharmaceutical rep and later moving into community work with a job at One Acadiana, the regional chamber of commerce. She moved into nonprofits with jobs at the Boys and Girls Club, becoming Chief Impact Officer for the Boys and Girls Club of Louisiana in 2021.
The Community of Foundation of Southwest Louisiana, which covers metro Lake Charles, was founded in 2008. Today, it’s helmed by Sara Mcleod Judson.
The Foundation has become an important part of recovery efforts in the aftermath of Hurricanes Laura and Delta, both as a channel for local dollars and for national philanthropy. David Philo, Yahoo’s co-founder, gifted $2.5 million to the foundation to help rebuild Lake Charles. That money is the cornerstone of a 50-year master plan.
Sara is a Lake Charles native and spent time working in public relations before moving into the nonprofit space. She’s been the director of the Community Foundation of Southwest Louisiana since 2013.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You ca find photos from this show by Astor Morgan. at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Americans spend about 300 hours a year in a car. That translates roughly into about 14,263 miles annually, at least according to a few minutes of Google research.
Take the specifics with a grain of salt but nobody would would dispute that we do a lot of driving.
Yes, traffic is bad in Lafayette, but mostly compared to how we think we ought to be living in a medium-sized town, not necessarily by a universal standard. By comparison, picture Atlanta during rush hour, or Los Angeles any time. But, nonetheless there’s no denying traffic, however long you spend in it, can feel like time wasted.
And that’s the appeal of the self-driving car. To some extent, it feels like we’ve been on the edge of a breakthrough with that technology for a decade. But here we are, driving our cars with our hands like Neanderthals well into the 21st century.
Colin Grussing hasn’t given up on the idea. Far from it. In fact, he’s busy "planting flags" as he likes to say, with his latest venture: aftermarket self-driving devices he calls "Palanquins" — named after the mode of royal transportation in the ancient world.
Colin uses an open-source technology to retrofit self-driving devices for road trip driving. (This stuff isn’t ready for your trip to the grocery store.) Colin used open source tech to equip three RVs and a Toyota minivan. He hopes to break into the trucking market and has concepts for another 50 applications of self-driving technology.
And no, he doesn't live in Silicon Valley, Colin grew up and lives right here, in Lafayette. But he's no stranger to epic business ventures. He first made a name for himself with 52businesses, a project in which he started a new business a week for a year.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The more we learn about the human body, the less we seem to actually know.
Medicine is always playing catch up with its own science. And more and more, the industry is moving toward individualized care, armed with metrics that help us stay on top of our wellness.
What if we could catch a problem before it happens? If that’s the goal, we’re not talking about preventative medicine; we’re talking about predictive medicine.
Marc Landry launched Healthy Heart Clinics and Cardio Care after he lost his parents. He wanted to create a company that could help patients manage their own cardio care and make sure that it fit what they needed.
Healthy Heart Clinics is a primary care practice. It offers cardiac care, wellness visits, health coaching and remote health monitoring. And Cardio Care is an online management tool for patients with chronic illnesses. It links technology and remote care to help patients keep track of their wellness between visits. The program comes with software that helps patients track their biometrics and prescription records.
Marc is originally from Scott and worked for 30 years in Dallas. He moved back to Lafayette in 2018, founding Healthy Heart in 2020.
Sometimes diseases are written right into our genetic code. Congenital defects can hide out for decades before becoming serious ailments. The early signs might be there, but with more than 7,000 rare genetic disorders known to medicine, it’s tough for even the best doctors to keep track of. Enter, ThinkGenetic.
Dawn Laney is the founder and chief genetic officer for Think Genetic, based in Lafayette. The idea for the company came from a genetic illness identified in Dawn’s own family. Her dad and aunt both suffered from non-fatal aneurysms. Dawn went looking for a genetic link and found an opportunity.
Dawn and her father founded ThinkGenetic in 2014. The company offers two basic products. They help researchers locate people at risk for rare conditions for clinical trials. And they help physicians narrow down options to refer patients for more testing or diagnosis. The goal is to cut down the amount of time it takes to achieve a diagnosis. The company also connects patients with rare diseases with advocacy groups and with genetic counselors.
Dawn is a genetic counselor herself. She's Director of the Genetic Clinical Trials Center at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Giada Morgan at itsacadian.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Dancing is a big part of our Acadiana culture. People in Acadiana dance like nobody’s watching; specially when everybody’s watching.
But dance can be more than an expression of tradition or culture. It can be therapeutic. You can look at a couple dancing as a microcosm of their relationship or you can look at yourself dancing as a way of getting in tune with your body.
“Whatever the issues are in a relationship, they’re gonna come up through dance,” says Caroline Helm.
Caroline Helm Huval is a social worker and she applies that philosophy in her practice both as a counselor and as a dance instructor at her business, Cajun Dance Therapy. She runs couples therapy sessions that explore relationship dynamics through dance. Couples learn to 2-step, waltz, jitterbug and zydeco. But what couples really learn is how to relate to each other.
Caroline grew up in Lafayette. So we know she’s a fabulous dancer!
As we observed earlier, dancing isn’t just therapy for you and your partner, it can be a way of getting in tune with yourself.
Carol Petijean discovered belly dancing 20 years ago and found it could be a powerful way to escape stress. For the last fifteen years, she’s taught belly dancing at Oasis Belly Dance in Lafayette. The school specializes in Polynesian and Middle Eastern styles, but she also teaches American Cabaret, Egyptian Raqs Sharki and improvisational tribal styles too.
Belly dancing is inclusive, Carol says. Anyone can do it and it offers everyone a chance to just let go. Oasis has about 90 dancers and they perform often at nonprofit events around town.
Carol was born in Rayne. And she also works as a bank fraud investigator.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Acadiana is a culture obsessed with itself. That’s not unique, really. Regional pride is a thing in most places, wherever you go.
A strong cultural identity — or more precisely, identities — can create a powerful market for artists who can tap into it. The ability to sell on social media or through e-commerce has only extended that reach. And that goes for pretty much any medium.
There’s the more classical approach of an artist, like Herb Roe. Herb is best known for his rich, textured and detailed depictions of pastoral Acadiana — scenes of country Mardi Gras, po-boy shops and boucheries.
Herb Roe grew up in Ohio, where he hooked up with muralist Robert Dafford and landed in Lafayette. Herb painted murals for 10 years before settling into a studio in Freetown to focus on his own work under the business moniker, Chrome Sun. Since then, he’s built a career tapping into the local and national obsession with Acadiana.
Acadiana’s cultural landscape is a fitting subject for oil painting — how about a chainsaw? That’s one way sculptor Kelly Guidry has cut his own path in the art world.
Kelly is a mixed-media artist. He works in metal and wood, and works in conversation with modern and traditional tokens of local life. He collects his work under the business name Modern Primitive, a brand concept he came up with while working in advertising.
Kelly left the ad business to go work full time as a sculptor. Today, he and his wife Robin work side by side to sell his work and others at a gallery in Breaux Bridge called the Pink Alligator. Kelly’s work is also sold online, by commission or at local festivals.
Johanna Divine sits in for Christiaan Mader as host of this episode of Out to Lunch Acadiana, recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
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When you’re a designer, you’ve often got one customer: the one right in front of you. And you’ve got essentially one product: the one you’re making. With every job, you’re building both your reputation and your portfolio. But here’s the kicker. If you’re doing custom work, then your customer is also your boss.
No pressure.
But pressure — and lots of it — is how diamonds are made. Jewelry makers like Steve Credeur are tasked with making not just something beautiful for their customer-bosses, but something unique and precious too.
But that’s the way Steve likes it. He takes pride in his company, Steve Charles Jewelers, being a small part of a family’s big story. It all starts with a one-on-one consultation. It’s a process so special, you’re going to need a referral. Steve doesn’t advertise his location. He takes appointments only. He tries to stay under the radar.
Despite actively avoiding brand awareness, Steve has built a clientele of around over 5,000 customers nationwide. He was born and raised in Carencro and lives in Youngsville. You’ll have to make an appointment to find out the rest.
Jewelry is just one kind of design of course. There are as many design jobs as there are industries and Maureen Dugas Foster has worked in a lot of them. She’s worked in project management, sales, and business development. She’s worked as an artist, in community engagement and as a teacher.
Maureen's training is in architecture, she’s the owner of Dugas Foster Design, a side-hustle studio that specializes in residential additions and remodeling.
The common thread in all of that is people and creativity. In 2016 Maureen founded Designing Women of Acadiana. It’s a civic group that serves as a gathering place for women who work in creative fields. They talk shop, go on architecture tours, host speakers and even have their own Mardi Gras walking krewe.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How do you convince a customer to buy a service they don’t know they need? That’s often the steepest hill to climb for businesses that offer improvements on existing products.
If solving a problem is the surest path to success, then satisfaction in the market can be a real hurdle. But if what you do works that much better than what’s available, you’re bound to blow the competition away…or maybe blast it away.
Greg Free is in the media blasting business. His company, General Abrasives, is unique in the Acadiana market. You can find pressure washers and other surface cleaning companies, but Greg’s company uses dry ice.
The technique is powerful. Dry ice leaves no water or chemicals behind, it kills bacteria and mold and can even deodorize smoke. It’s a faster, cleaner process than what’s typically available.
Greg started the business after working in IT at casinos. And it's what he saw happening when people didn't walk out of the casino with a pocketful of winnings that sparked his interest in developing a better cleaning technique. It's a ghoulish origin story but a lesson that there's a business opportunity in almost every human activity, even a very sad one.
Believe it or not, when Michelle Thomas-Packer launched SouthernMixx Bartending Services in 2018 there was a gap in the local party market: for mobile bartending.
In a state known for partying, there were relatively few companies that offered full-service bartending that could flex to meet events, big and small. Michelle had spent 30 years in the hospitality industry and saw how a personal touch or a twist could make a difference. So when she saw an opening in the event market, she seized on it.
SouthernMixx specializes in customizing bar service. Michelle and her team take the same level of care for weddings and backyard parties that you typically see with caterers. They design menus and specialty cocktails that enhance an event experience.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Let’s say you want to own a business, but you’re not sure what kind. A clever idea is probably a good place to start, but believe it or not you don’t have to have your own concept or business model to own your own.
You could own a franchise. Franchises are everywhere in the American marketplace — think of ubiquitous fast food brands like McDonalds or Jimmy Johns. It’s a $500 billion industry representing 750,000 individual franchises.
Owning a franchise solves a number of problems for entrepreneurs — they don’t have to worry about branding or recipes or product development. Franchisees buy a license — in essence — to sell a brand on their own terms.
Burgers might be the most common kind of franchise, but it’s not the only way to go. If you live in Acadiana, you might want to own — a boudin franchise. Boudin is big business in this market. And as Acadiana grows, so too is its appetite for boudin and specialty meats. One of the very best known brands in the business is the Best Stop, a staple in Scott, Louisiana. But thanks to a new franchise, you don’t have to go to the Boudin capital to get your fix.
Shaina Credeur and Danee Deville are the owners of a Best Stop franchise in Carencro and own the rights for locations in Lafayette.
Shaina grew up in Broussard. She and her husband run a jewelry store and have a portfolio of real estate investments. So investing in Boudin was a natural fit.
Danee didn’t have to buy into the Best Stop way of life — she was born into it. She is the oldest grandchild of the Best Stop’s founder. Robert Cormier. Growing up around sausage makers gave her the envie for owning a Best Stop of her own. When franchising became an option, she brought the idea to her friend Shaina and the two found themselves in hog heaven.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What’s the point of working yourself stiff if you can’t take it with you when you go?
Younger folks in the American workforce get it. Maybe wealth and power aren’t what they’re cracked up to be if we’re all gonna give it up when we cross into the great beyond.
If Baby Boomers were work-a-holics, and Gen-Ex’ers the slacker generation, then Millennials and the generations after them have become the work/life balance generations. And that can mean leaving the runaround of a steady job. Quitting can be rewarding: if it means spending more time with your family.
Seth Caldron left his job offshore to spend more time with his three-year-old son and chart a new career in the arts with his wife Jana. In 2021, they launched Aaron Grey Co., a Louisiana themed custom engraving, woodwork and design brand.
They built a shop in their backyard and packed it with woodworking equipment and a laser engraver. Jana makes the designs, while Seth churns out the products. And they can make just about anything out of wood, acrylic and leather, specializing in custom gifts. Their hottest seller is a handmade cocktail smoker made with wood chips from white oak barrels used to age Wildcat Brothers rum.
One career change can be a big enough challenge for a family, what about two?
Deanna Saizon left a career with a good company to pursue her passion for interior design. After 12 years at the Lemoine Company, she opened Saizon Designs in August 2021. That same year, her husband Alex lost his full-time job and turned to his thriving side-hustle for a new career.
Alex had launched Sirop Trading Company in 2019, a brand for his homemade simple syrup. When it was just a part-time gig, he managed to get his syrup in 120 stores. So when Adam Smith’s invisible hand closed the door on his last job, it opened a window for entrepreneurship. Sirop Trading Company blew up. Today, Alex’s syrups are sold in 350 stores spread across California, Texas, Florida, Indiana and Louisiana including big name brands like Costco and Total Wines.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Sunday’s Soda Fountain in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There’s a lot more to retail than selling something a customer wants. More and more, customers want experience. They want to feel like they’re buying into something — a lifestyle, an ethos, a trend.
Smart retailers, of course, know their customers. Really smart retailers know their customers better than they know themselves. Curation, then, is the name of the name.
Even with a treasure trove of marketing data available at your fingertips, selecting what you sell is still a challenge. That’s how local retailers hold their ground in the age of e-commerce: They know their customers better than anyone.
Some are so good at it, they can game the system the other way around: selling their collections online.
Charlotte Cryer has operated Caroline & Co. in Lafayette since 1997. The shop offers a wide variety of goods and gift ideas. Home decor and accessories, clothing, bath and beauty supplies and holiday specialties. Caroline & Co. has two locations now, with its flagship store in the River Ranch neighborhood.
Charlotte has also found a market for her goods online. They offer complimentary gift-wrapping and can ship straight from the store to anywhere in the country.
If you’re selling wedding dresses, curation is everything. Brides want to feel special on their wedding day, and they’ll pay handsomely for it. Gowns can cost $2,000 or more. It’s a lot to spend on something you’ll (theoretically) wear only once.
Nicole Cline takes each sale one by one. Her shop Sposa Bella has one dressing room, and her brides come in by appointment only. That approach gives Nicole the time and space to attend to the details of what brides want. She does extensive interviews with her customers before they try anything on. From there, brides and their families are treated to a concierge experience complete with champagne and music.
That level of care was missing when Nicole’s daughter got engaged and bought her wedding dress. When Nicole saw the opportunity to buy Sposa Bella, she seized the chance to fill that gap in the Lafayette bridal market.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Sunday’s Soda Fountain in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Variety is the spice of life. Right? Well, in Louisiana spice is the spice of life! Or maybe flavor.
It’s beyond cliche that we like things spicy here. Although most cooks and chefs will tell you we like things well-seasoned. No surprise then, that seasoning is a big business in this area. There are no shortage of homegrown seasonings or seasoning companies.
Every family has their own favorite blend. So why not have a blend you can make on your own — and make a buck off of? Brothers Troy and Zo Bolden are doing just that with their company Cajun Nation.
Troy and Zo created the brand name in 2004 as an apparel company. When Zo’s wife needed to go on a low-sodium diet, they came up with another idea: a line of low-sodium, MSG free seasonings that pack all the flavor the gulf coast is known for.
Cajun Nation took off. Today their products are found in major grocery and retail chains like Rouses, Albertsons and HEB in Texas. It’s still very much a family operation, and a Black-owned, veteran-owned business.
We’re constantly putting on our own spin or spice on pretty much every food you can find here in Louisiana. It’s not just seafood that we like to be well-seasoned. What about — macarons?
Cream Cheese & Pepper Jelly. Candied Jalapeno. Smoked Pecan. These are hardly traditional French flavors. They’re the brainchild of Virginia St. Germain, better known to her family as Tut — and the owner of Tut’s Bakery.
Virginia turned her passion for home-baking into a home business that specializes in made-from-scratch confections and baked goods. She makes her own yeast for sourdough bread, dough for seasonal pies, and fillings for those inventive, devilish macarons.
Virginia is a psychiatric nurse by trade. She operates the bakery at home in New Iberia with help from her husband.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Sunday’s Soda Fountain in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Let’s talk about space. Not outer space — although we might get to that later — but the spaces we live and play.
On Earth, it’s a limited resource. Which makes it ideal for a business venture.
You might find yourself standing in front of a strip of vacant land and say to yourself, "How do I turn this into something that makes money?" Or you might say, "What if it was still…space?"
In a nutshell, that’s what happened with Moncus Park — if you gloss over some classic Lafayette political purposes. But for our purposes it will do.
Space (and parking spaces)
It was 100 acres of paradise that Lafayette decided to preserve, rather than pave. And JP McFadyen currently serves as its Executive Director.
JP knows a thing or two about spaces. It got his start in the aerospace industry and later owned a bakery. JP sold the bakery and took a job as the park’s operations manager. Moncus Park opened in January 2022.
Living Spaces
You may have heard the U.S. is in short supply of housing. Yes, we’ve got plenty of space between the waves of grain and the purple mountains majesty, but there’s still a dramatic need for new or updated homes in urban spaces.
Tyren Morrison has made a business out of addressing that problem. His company, Equity Hub Construction, is part contractor, part developer and part title company. The stack of services helps Tyren easily rescue distressed houses and put them back into productive use as affordable homes.
Tyren got into the work repairing homes in the Lake Charles area after Hurricane Laura, and saw an opportunity to put all the parts of remarketing homes under one roof.
Tyren was born and raised in Lafayette, And got his start in the oil and gas industry.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Sunday's Soda Fountain in downtown Lafayette. You can see photos from this show by Photos by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There’s a lot of business that happens in your home. More and more, it’s become the center of commerce. And that’s not just because of big delivery services. It takes a lot of products to run a home.
The essence of American consumerism is convenience. We’re all thrilled to spend a buck to do it the easy way.
Think about it: When was the last time you changed your oil? Sure, you could do it. But that would take an hour. There are all kinds of chores we need to do and, like changing oil, forget to do. For example, changing air filters.
That’s why Mitch Poche started Filter Genie. It’s a web-based subscription service that offers just two products: air filters and fridge filters. The service helps you figure out what kind of filter you need and puts you on a schedule so the filters show up when you need them.
Mitch started the company after a long stint in the AC business. The brand is part of CIS Industries, a commercial HVAC company based in the New Orleans area. He and his business partner, his old boss at CIS, are focusing their growth strategy along the I-10 Corridor.
As our population ages, the home is also becoming a growth sector in the health industry. Home health care services like Mel Pickney’s Heart of Gold Private Duty Nursing serve about 15 million patients each year — on 600 million patient visits.
For Mel, though, the service is about a promise she made to her grandmother – care for others and never let them go neglected.
Mel has a long background in healthcare. But she got her knack for private care looking after her grandmother and later her father, a Vietnam vet. Today, Mel’s Heart of Gold offers private nursing care, companionship services, post-natal care and post surgical care.
Mel's Heart of Gold Private Duty Nursing employs 30 people to provide care at every duration: round the clock, overnight, long-term care and short-term care.
Mel grew up in St. Martin Parish and at one time hosted a radio show as Mel the Diva.
This episode of Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Central Pizza in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Yoga is crazy popular in the United States. And over the last decade, it’s only gotten more popular. In 2021, 34 million Americans took a yoga class. That’s up 15 million from a decade earlier.
And the industry has adapted to Western exercise habits. It’s not a strictly spiritual practice here. It’s a way to build muscle tone and balance. It’s also a very competitive industry. Dozens of yoga studios have come and gone in Lafayette over the years.
Toni Heinen spent much of the last decade as a Pilates and yoga instructor in other peoples’ studios. In 2019, after 14 years in the yoga biz, she bought her own studio: GoodWolf Yoga Studio.
Since then, Toni has grown the operation with a lot of love and community support. Today the operation employs 27 people to run classes from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. Good Wolf runs classes for all experience levels, including hot yoga, power yoga and Tabata yoga, their most popular course.
Toni is a certified yoga and Barre instructor, co-owns Ami’s Kitchen and is the creator of “Booty Ballet.”
Yoga’s popularity in Acadiana shouldn’t be all that surprising. Indian culture has had a presence here for decades. Lafayette has long attracted students and professionals from the Indian subcontinent. Folks like Jay Patel, who came to Lafayette in 1978 to work as a mechanical engineer.
Jay helped anchor a growing presence of Hindu people by founding the Acadiana India Association in 1991. In 2013, Jay stepped away from AIA - to build a temple.
Jay comes from a family of temple builders. His father and uncle each built one. And for years, the Acadiana Hindu community gathered without one. In 2019, Jay opened the Sri Krushna Balaji Mandir in Lafayette. "Mandir" is the Hindi word for temple.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The goal of pretty much every business is to grow. It’s the beating heart of capitalism. But scaling up is complicated. The bigger you get, the bigger the problems get. And it’s not a 1:1 ratio. The learning curve can get steeper and steeper as your operation adds new locations, new employees, new revenue streams.
Growing pains, however, are a good problem to have. Yes, the struggle is real. But if you’re doing it right, so is the payoff.
Corey McCoy and his partners at Kitchen on Klinton learned on the job quickly as their operation took flight. In 2016, they started selling chicken wings out of their house on Clinton Street in Lafayette to pay the party bills. By 2018, they built a food truck welded to a flatbed trailer. Later that year, they were in a brick and mortar shop near UL. Then came two more locations that later closed.
Kitchen on Klinton is again poised for growth and has been well recognized for its success. Corey and his partners received the Young Entrepreneurial Business of the Year award from the U.S. Small Business Administration.
If you’re in agriculture, business is always growing. Jerry Hale has spent his life farming. He grew up on a 7,000-acre cotton farm in Rayville, Louisiana. Growing up, his family farmed white cotton. King Cotton. The prime crop of the South.
And then, Jerry discovered brown cotton.
Acadian Brown Cotton is an heirloom seed, believed to be the first cotton found in Louisiana. The Acadians used it for their textiles when they arrived here. And sort of forgot about.
Acadian Brown Cotton produces a shorter fiber than conventional cotton, but it’s a more sustainable product. Brown cotton plants can bloom over and over, while white cotton plants are discarded once they’re picked.
Jerry took two cups of brown cotton seeds from a friend and kicked off a burgeoning eco-tourism business. Today, he grows around 2 acres of brown cotton and represents around 300 growers. In 2021, he represented Acadiana at the Selvedge World fair of Textiles in London.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadina.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
"Be yourself." It’s what we’re all taught from an early age. When you get a little older you find out the world around you doesn’t make that so easy.
Taboos are stubborn. And even as we get more comfortable talking about sensitive or personal subjects — it can feel daunting to open up.
That’s where the idea of “safe space” comes in. It’s maybe a more common practice in psychotherapy and counseling. But it’s emerging in public spaces too. And just in time. The world isn’t getting less complicated. And it can be confusing, particularly around questions of sex, sexuality and sexual health. All the more so for kids.
In Lafayette, there’s a safe space to get answers about all that. It’s called Safe Havynn. Courtney Celestine is Safe Havynn’s marketing director.
The idea behind Safe Havynn is to give teens a place where they can talk about sex. The bedrock principle here is whether we like it or not, kids are learning about sex and acting on it. The data doesn’t lie. Louisiana ranks among the highest in the nation for rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. It’s not easy to talk about sex, especially with adults. So Safe Havynn creates a space where kids can ask questions without the weight of moralizing.
Safe Havynn is a nonprofit and is funded by grants. Outside of its space in Downtown Lafayette, Safe Havynn works with schools and local courts.
It’s still hard to talk about sex. And it’s still very hard to talk about mental health. We’re getting better at it, but we’ve got a long way to go. Far too many people struggling with debilitating mental health problems often wind up isolated. Here’s the problem: Isolation is about the worst thing that can happen to them.
Enter Focus Clubhouse.
The program at Focus Clubhouse creates a working environment for folks with mental health problems to develop real-world skills and stay connected. Clubhouse members operate the clubhouse itself, helping with everything from cooking and cleaning, to outreach, intake and fundraising.
The program is totally voluntary. It gives people a place to go, where they can be understood — and valued.
Lafayette’s Focus Clubhouse chapter was started by Clarice Gallegos and her son Brian. Brian stabilized from a life in and out of homelessness by attending a Clubhouse in Florida. The Lafayette chapter has grown since 2020 to include 55 members.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It’s beyond a cliche at this point to say that folks in Acadiana have a special relationship with food. Whole towns are defined by their food festivals. You’ve got your gumbo festival, your rice festival, your sweet potato festival, your crawfish festival - in the case of Delcambre - your shrimp and petroleum festival.
Of course, that’s thinking about food as culture or as commerce. More essentially: Food is nourishment. You can’t live without…and some might say you can’t really live with it. Think about that the next time you say you’re dying for a link of boudin.
Another way of thinking about it: Food is medicine. It’s how we fuel and regulate our bodies. A good diet impacts how we think and how we feel. Eating right is the best way to live right.
Daphne Olivier is a dietitian who bills herself as The Unconventional Dietitian. Her practice takes a “food as medicine” approach to helping folks deal with chronic conditions and diseases: diabetes, hypoglycemia, obesity and more. She has a tailored approach, helping clients rethink what they eat and its role in their lifestyle.
Daphne grew up in Denham Springs began her career as an independent dietitian in 2011 after moving to Lafayette.
Food can be spiritual medicine too. Otherwise they wouldn’t call it soul food. Sometimes you run across a bite so good, you might say it was heaven sent — or divine.
Lynore Harding calls her custom bakery Divine Cakes and Sweets Boutique because it was divinely inspired. Lynore has grown her business from her kitchen as home baker, teaching herself the art of specialty cakes and decoration. Since 2019, she’s built Divine Cakes through word of mouth-watering takes on southern specialties like sweet dough pies and tea cakes.
Divine Cakes is mission-oriented. Lynore gets help from her son, who is disabled and her long-term plan for the company is to open it up as a community bakery, where people with disabilities can learn to bake and sell their goods.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Selling or buying a house can be a slog. And that goes for both real estate agents and folks in the market. It’s an industry ripe for revolution. Many have tried. And the results have favored one side of the transaction over the other.
The MLS — multiple listing service — added tremendous value to the role of the real estate agent. Then Zillow came along and empowered the buyer and seller. Barret Blondeau wanted to find a way to empower both.
Barret’s startup platform Falaya — like Atcha-falaya — tries to make real estate transactions flow smoothly like a river. The platform gives customers the cost efficiency of flat rate, which in turn gives the real estate agent the stability of a steady income — not just a one-time commission.
Since launching the concept, Falaya has sold 210 properties valued at $50 million and saved buyers and sellers $1.5 million on typical commissions.
A good real estate agent gets the personal touch. Think of the smell of cookies wafting at an open house. Well, Pam Flugence is all about the personal touch. Her company, Let’s Create, helps folks create custom gifts for their friends and family on their own.
Let’s Create lets you customize anything: t-shirts, cups, koozies and crafts. Not into DIY? Well she’s got classes for that.
Pam puts the personal touch herself, teaching customers how to make creations of their own. It’s called Let’s Create after all.
Pam has worked for almost two decades at Lafayette jewelry manufacturing powerhouse, Stuller Inc. and is a 2021 graduate of the business incubator, Accelerate Northside, at the Moody College of Business at UL.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What do you actually want to be in your life? As a kid you can dream about being an astronaut or brain surgeon or sports superstar. As an adult it’s not so easy to answer that question, and it's especially difficult if life has thrown you a curveball and if you’re navigating trauma or hardship.
In that case, when you're struggling to put one foot in front of the other, "Purpose" might be the last thing on your mind. But purpose might be the thing you need most. That’s Kandice Bateast’s theory.
By day, Kandice is a school psychologist in St. Martin Parish. But many more people know her as an author and podcast host.
Kandice went through a tough breakup herself and found purpose of her own: helping others put the pieces back together and get right with God. Her podcast Goodbye Heartbreak, Hello Purpose helps listeners heal by finding strength from within. Kandice wrote a book with the same name that tracks with the podcast. It’s a 365-day devotional, walking listeners through the post-breakup journey.
Sometimes your purpose is right in front of you. In Donielle Watkins’ case it was her son Logan, who has spina bifida.
Donielle has been an accountant for 20 years and in 2007 she founded DREAMS Foundation of Acadiana. DREAMS was the first organization of its kind in the area. It focuses on disability rights and inclusion. And the concept came from Logan.
Logan asked Donielle a simple question: Mom, when can I play basketball? It struck Donielle that there wasn’t any good reason that he shouldn’t. So she organized activities for Logan and kids just like him.
DREAMS has grown to serve around 700 people from ages 5 to 60. And it preaches self-reliance. Today, Donielle, who was born in Breaux Bridge and now lives in Lafayette, has 21 people employed in a manufacturing facility that produces Cane River Meat Pies.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Most customers are looking for value. They want the best product they can get at the best price. And the best price usually means the cheapest. No one haggles up.
In the jewelry business it kind of works the other way. Diamonds aren’t just precious; they’re priceless. "Priceless" is another word for "expensive."
Consider the tradition of spending three months pay on a diamond engagement ring. The whole concept is about measuring how you love someone by how much you spend on them. In that environment, it’s unusual for a jeweler to market their products as a “value.”
Blake and Mattie Gautreau have another approach. Their shop, Acadian Estates and Custom, can get you whatever precious stone you want, and they can do it at a good price.
You want a 6-carat diamond? Well, they can get you that. Or they can upcycle your outdated family heirlooms.
Acadian is one of the few jewelry shops that actively buys pieces from the public, instead of on consignment. They also retrofit legacy jewelry into new fashions.
Blake and Mattie are married, and Blake comes from a family of retailers. His family owns and operates Acadian Pawn. Mattie also works as a wine sales rep.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Most customers are looking for value. They want the best product they can get at the best price. And the best price usually means the cheapest. No one haggles up.
In the jewelry business it kind of works the other way. Diamonds aren’t just precious; they’re priceless. "Priceless" is another word for "expensive."
Consider the tradition of spending three months pay on a diamond engagement ring. The whole concept is about measuring how you love someone by how much you spend on them. In that environment, it’s unusual for a jeweler to market their products as a “value.”
Blake and Mattie Gautreau have another approach. Their shop, Acadian Estates and Custom, can get you whatever precious stone you want, and they can do it at a good price.
You want a 6-carat diamond? Well, they can get you that. Or they can upcycle your outdated family heirlooms.
Acadian is one of the few jewelry shops that actively buys pieces from the public, instead of on consignment. They also retrofit legacy jewelry into new fashions.
Blake and Mattie are married, and Blake comes from a family of retailers. His family owns and operates Acadian Pawn. Mattie also works as a wine sales rep.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Don’t believe what they tell you. Life has a second act. In fact, some lives have three acts or four or five or maybe nine if you’re a serial entrepreneur.
The heart of business is creativity: the desire to make something new. The twist is that you want to make money on it. But for some entrepreneurs, the goal is bigger than that. Noble pursuits are much easier to pursue if you’ve already struck gold.
In other words, folks some folks pursue passion projects instead of retirement. And they do that because they want to give back — plus they can’t quit the hustle.
Sherry LaTour was never supposed to own her business. She was raised to believe women shouldn’t work at all. Instead, she bootstrapped her way from the accounting department at a trucking operation in Houston to running a multi-million dollar oil and gas company.
Instead of retiring early, Sherry took on a new venture: mentorship. She bought Tops Appliances and Cabinetry in Lafayette and added “business incubator” to the company’s suite of services.
Tops houses dozens of small businesses that Sherry advises. She’s also carved out time to run a consulting business for oil and gas firms. Think of her like a mentor-preneur.
Second acts in business take an open mind. Bob Luke wants his third act to be cast with free thinkers.
When he’s not working as General Manager of Tiger Safety Rentals, Bob is working on his passion project: Cafe Detente. It’s part coffee shop, part think tank and part retreat for free thinkers. It’s also his front yard.
Cafe Detente has a give-some take-some ethos. Members sign up to be baristas or brewers. Brewers host custom workshops on topics of interest, and baristas sign up to attend. There’s a lofty goal here: bridging divides and finding common ground. The name "Detente" captures the vision: an easing of hostilities.
In a past life, Bob owned and operated a bar and grill.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Don’t believe what they tell you. Life has a second act. In fact, some lives have three acts or four or five or maybe nine if you’re a serial entrepreneur.
The heart of business is creativity: the desire to make something new. The twist is that you want to make money on it. But for some entrepreneurs, the goal is bigger than that. Noble pursuits are much easier to pursue if you’ve already struck gold.
In other words, folks some folks pursue passion projects instead of retirement. And they do that because they want to give back — plus they can’t quit the hustle.
Sherry LaTour was never supposed to own her business. She was raised to believe women shouldn’t work at all. Instead, she bootstrapped her way from the accounting department at a trucking operation in Houston to running a multi-million dollar oil and gas company.
Instead of retiring early, Sherry took on a new venture: mentorship. She bought Tops Appliances and Cabinetry in Lafayette and added “business incubator” to the company’s suite of services.
Tops houses dozens of small businesses that Sherry advises. She’s also carved out time to run a consulting business for oil and gas firms. Think of her like a mentor-preneur.
Second acts in business take an open mind. Bob Luke wants his third act to be cast with free thinkers.
When he’s not working as General Manager of Tiger Safety Rentals, Bob is working on his passion project: Cafe Detente. It’s part coffee shop, part think tank and part retreat for free thinkers. It’s also his front yard.
Cafe Detente has a give-some take-some ethos. Members sign up to be baristas or brewers. Brewers host custom workshops on topics of interest, and baristas sign up to attend. There’s a lofty goal here: bridging divides and finding common ground. The name "Detente" captures the vision: an easing of hostilities.
In a past life, Bob owned and operated a bar and grill.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Here’s a not-so-fun fact: A family of four wastes $2,200 worth of groceries every year. Fortunately, there’s a tasty way to solve that problem. Leftovers.
Leftovers put the Thanksgiving turkey in your turkey sandwich, or the Chinese takeout in your fried rice. Well, how about making a burger out of yesterday’s gumbo? Wait, what?
Susanne Duplantis describes this as “Thinking outside the icebox.”
Susanne is a blogger and cookbook author who reheated her career in the restaurant industry into a brand new dish. Her blog, Makeover My Leftover, walks readers through fun and easy-to-follow transformations of everyday foods.
Susanne baked that concept into a cookbook, Lagniappe Leftovers, that serves up leftover fare with a Louisiana flare.
Susanne was born and raised in New Orleans and now lives in New Roads.
Even a good plate of leftovers began life on a farm somewhere. If fresh is your preference, then the Lafayette Farmer’s & Artisans Market at Moncus Park is the place for you.
Mark Hernandez has been the director at the Moncus Park market since the day it launched in 2013 with 45 vendors. Today, the market features 70 vendors every Saturday, attracting around 1500 patrons each week.
Mark is a farmer himself. He and his wife have operated a 7-acre urban farm since 2002, growing blueberries, figs and herbs. Today, they are restoring the land as Cajun prairie.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
Our regular host, Christiaan Mader gives the host seat to Jan Swift for this episode of the show. When she's not filling in for Christiaan, Jan is host of her own Acadiana podcast, Discover Lafayette.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Acadiana isn’t really known for barbecue. What you get from your Sunday plate lunch joint is what barbecue purists would call “grilling.” Or better yet, you’ll find pork steaks baked in a sticky syrup of barbecue sauce. Not exactly barbecue. But it’s delicious.
It’s sort of weird to be purist about barbecue. It’s a way of cooking that springs from necessity. But it’s become an art form. Something people spend years mastering. And you can’t have masterful barbecue without a masterful sauce. And the sauce is where regional feuds are born.
Around here, we can stay out of the fight. Grab whatever sauce suits your palate: Texas smoke, Kansas City sweet or — if you’re reaching for a local bottle with a Carolina tang you could grab a bottle of Leonard's Carolina Barbecue Sauce.
The Leonard on the label is Chris, a North Carolina native who moved to Louisiana for a job in the oil industry. Chris used his pandemic downtime to bottle up batches of his dad’s (Dan "Diesel" Leonard) sauce recipe: a thin, tart marinade and finishing sauce in the Lexington style.
The sauce took off. And today Chris sells it at meat markets around Acadiana. It’s even been known to find its way into crawfish dip.
Though Acadiana doesn’t have a dog in the sauce fight, we’ve got plenty of dogs looking for a bite of something decadent.
Dogs might eat shoes, but they also like a taste of the good life from time to time. And Jennifer Decoux is here to indulge them.
Jennifer is the owner and operator of Chow Bella Dog Bakery, a one-stop-shop for canine confections. Rice crispy treats, cake bones, fruit roll ups, brownies, chicken strips, fries, nuggets and custom cakes. These are just a few of the treats Chow Bella churns out for pups — most with fewer than five ingredients and none with salt and sugar.
Jennifer was born in New Orleans and raised in Lafayette. You can find her and her Chow Bella range of canine cuisine most Saturdays at the Moncus Park farmers market.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Holy guacamole! We’re not at Tula Tacos for this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana. We’re a few blocks down Jefferson Street, at Amis Grocery store.
If you’ve followed Downtown Lafayette development over the last few years, that’s kind of a big deal.
There’s always been this chicken and egg kind of thing happening with residential development and grocery stores Downtown. Developers wouldn’t build apartments because there wasn’t a grocery store. And grocery stores wouldn’t come because there weren’t people living here.
Into that quagmire stepped Christiaan's lunch guests, Bradley Cruice and Rachel Brown, who opened their first grocery store: The Handy Stop in 2020. It had a good run but ultimately closed in 2022.
Bradley and Rachel did not stay out of the game long. They’re back with Amis Grocery. It’s a pared down shop. Looking around, it’s got upscale bodega vibes. You can grab a deli sandwich or some home goods.
And the timing this time, ahem, seems better? Downtown has enjoyed a good bit of residential development since Bradley and Rachel’s first stab at a Downtown grocery store.
Now a bit about our guests. Bradley grew up in the grocery business. His family operated a store in the New Orleans area. Bradley is a registered nurse and has been heavily involved in community health initiatives.
Rachel Brown is actually Dr. Brown: the principal of Lafayette High School. She was a not-so-silent investor in the Handy Stop, where she fell in love with the grocery game. Dr. Brown is also a sign language instructor and interpreter.
Out to Lunch was recorded live over a deli lunch at Amis Grocery. You can see photos from this show at itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In the mid-20th century, neighborhoods on Lafayette’s northside looked a lot like neighborhoods communities are trying to build now. In places like McComb, Veazey and Fightinville, families could live, work and play on their blocks.
The communities were stitched together by schools, churches — and businesses. Entrepreneurship wasa big part of the fabric of the community: the family grocery store or barber shop. A restaurant or even a zydeco club.
Fast forward to the 21st century and many of those businesses have vanished. And opportunity left with them.
But the spirit of entrepreneurship is still very much alive. And organizations like the Lafayette Entrepreneurship and Economic Development Center at UL see an opportunity to revive Lafayette’s Northside with that spirit.
Kevin Guillory grew up on the Northside — of Lake Charles that is. And that community tells a similar story. Growth and prosperity moved southward in Lake Charles, leaving older neighborhoods behind.
Kevin got his MBA from UL and moved to Texas, thinking he’d never look back. But look back he did. He landed at UL in 2014 as an admissions counselor and works today as the LEED Center’s Office Coordinator.
Kevin’s behind the scenes work is essential to the success of the LEED Center’s Accelerate Northside program, which offers workshops and training for entrepreneurs. That program kicked off in 2021 and has kept growing ever since.
Accelerate Northside was modeled after a successful program offered by the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. And one of the guys responsible for importing the idea was Kevin’s colleague, Jonathan Shirley.
Jonathan grew up in Abbeville and has long family ties to economic development. His mom used to run the Chamber of Commerce and his dad was an extension agent with Wildlife and Fisheries. Jonathan has been the LEED Center’s Program Manager since 2020.
In that role, Jonathan has overseen the launch of Accelerate Northside and its “head and heart philosophy.” The idea is they don’t just teach you how, but try to understand the why of your business.
Even if you have a great idea for a business and the drive to give it everything you've got, if you don't come from a business background or grow up around entrepreneurs it can be tough to know essential business basics, and especially how to avoid making mistakes you don't need to make.
You can check out graduates from Accelerate Northside on previous episodes of Out to Lunch - especially The Williamses and Creole Nutcracker - and see for yourself the significant difference Kevin and Jonathan's program is making. You can see photos from this show and a whole lot more at itsacadiana.com.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There is no shortage of podcasts. These days anyone can buy a microphone off the internet and start talking into it. The trick is finding an audience willing to listen.
Passion is a great place to start. And there are few things people are more passionate about than music and food. So why not connect them? That’s been the recipe for success for Greg Bresnitz.
It all started with a TV show — Dinner With The Band — but took off with his long running podcast Snacky Tunes, which he began taping with his co-host and twin brother Darrin in 2009.
Since then, the pair have recorded over 500 episodes interviewing chefs about the music that inspires their food. It’s a format that lends itself to endless hours of conversation and makes for a pretty compelling live event, too.
In 2022, Greg debuted Crescendo! — a new show guiding listeners through a seven-course menu with a chef, pairing each dish with a song.
Greg grew up in Philadelphia, built his career in New York but relocated to Lafayette in 2020. He says it’s a fitting landing spot for what he does. Few places combine food and music quite like Acadiana.
Knowing your audience is the first rule of media. And it’s also the best way to make your case in advocacy. Especially when you’re talking to the world.
Warren Perrin is an attorney by trade, but he’s best known internationally as an advocate for Acadian culture and a preservationist of Cajun history. He’s an author of books on Cajun History, including a biography of Beausoleil Broussard and he founded the Acadian Heritage and Culture Foundation, which operates the Acadian Museum of Louisiana in Erath, his hometown.
Warren made international headlines as the man who won an apology from the Queen of England. He spent a decade petitioning the British Crown to formally end the exile of the Acadian people. In 2003, the Crown issued a Royal Proclamation apologizing for the expulsion and setting July 28 as the official date commemorating the Acadian deportation.
If that weren’t enough, Warren was inducted into the UL Sports Hall of Fame for his achievements on UL’s legendary weightlifting team.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show at itsacadiana.com, and on Instagram and Facebook. And check out more lunchtime conversation about uniquely Acadian entertainment that's as unique as it is Acadian.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There’s nothing new under the sun, the saying goes. And that’s absolutely true in business. Revolutionary ideas are often old concepts made new again. It’s why the 1990s are making a comeback.
A smart entrepreneur might look back in time and realize that we fixed something that wasn’t broken. How about the family doctor. Time was, you had a personal relationship with your local physician: they knew more about you than the prescriptions on your chart. Today, a trip to the doctor’s office can make you feel like meat on a conveyor belt.
But a new approach is catching on. And, yes, it’s an old idea. Dr. Dee Dee Luke is a physician affiliated with MDVIP - a membership based medical service that gives doctors space to treat the whole patient.
Dr. Luke’s patients work on wellness plans that set out goals that emphasize good health. Dee Dee has practiced family medicine in Lafayette for over twenty years, but switched the MDVIP model in 2016. It slimmed down her patient list from 3,000 to 600. And from Dr. Luke's perspective it has given her the chance to practice medicine the way it should.
Wellness for people is one thing. How about wellness for the planet?
Recycling is another way to make something new of something old. Taylor Lyons Vaughn has a novel way of doing that: worms.
Taylor's vermicompost facility, The Worm Lady Recycles puts hundreds of thousands of worms to work turning your old banana peels, coffee grinds, toilet paper rolls and other compostables into fertilizer. In the worm business they call that castings.
European Red Wrigglers make really good soil and — apparently — a very good cup of tea!
Taylor’s worms recycle anywhere from 200 to 300 pounds of waste each week. Taylor collects all that refuse from five drop off locations around Lafayette and from some partner businesses: Spa Mizan, PJ’s Coffee in Broussard and Hub City Diner.
Taylor is passionate about vermiculture and opens the facility to tours for kids. She’ll even sell you your own starter kit of European Red Wrigglers.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette.
You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com and while you're there you can check also out other pioneering healthcare options in Acadiana.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
One thing you learn in business is that the future comes at you fast. As much as you try to stay ahead of the curve, the next big thing could already be around the corner.
And if you’re not aware of what’s coming, it could spell the end. Just ask Blockbuster Video.
Keeping up with trends can be a full-time gig. Smart companies who don't have an employee focused on the competition and the future, out-source. In Acadiana - and actually, beyond, one of the people companies turn to is Angela Cring.
Angela Cring is a futurist. Her company, Joy Forward Strategy, helps companies identify and plan for emerging trends. They hire Angela to put together strategic plans and open up possibilities.
Angela founded Joy Forward Strategy in May 2020 and today she handles a range of clients including some of the Acadiana area’s largest employers.
A key value here is that the future is not linear. And we have agency over what’s to come — if we keep our eyes on the horizon. That's all very well in business - using hard facts and pulling together seemingly unrelated strands of information to extrapolate the present into the future, but what about looking into the future of your personal life?
Yes, that's a business too. Predicting the future is a time-honored occupation. Even the Oracle of Delphi had to make a buck. And today, psychic services is a pretty big industry, accounting for about $2 billion in output in 2021, according to national industry estimates.
Locally, folks in Acadiana turn to April the Cajun Medium as kind of a life advisor. She says her work helps to reaffirm what people already know about themselves.
April didn’t embrace her talents until her 30s, working until then as an accountant. Today she runs a business as a forensic psychic medium and performs tarot card readings and helps with missing persons cases.
April is originally from Lafayette and performed hundreds of readings for free until opening her business in 2014.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.
And while you're rooted in the present you might want to escape into another dimension that's not as distant as the future. Check out lunchtime conversation about how you can learn to fly and swim in Acadiana.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What is Louisiana art? One definition might be — art that is unique to Louisiana.
The market expects a certain version of Louisiana. And so we give consumers what they want: alligators, bayous, pirogues, French, spices and so on.
People want authentic Louisiana. And what they think of as “authentic” doesn’t quite reflect reality. That’s the drawback of having a flavor that sticks out in the American melting pot: People want what they want.
Let me propose another definition. Louisiana is art made by Louisiana. Too broad? Maybe so. But it’s much closer to reality.
Louisiana is alligators and bayous, but it’s also lots of other stuff.
Dustin Rousseau is a Louisiana artist with a palette influenced by architecture and industrial design. He’s an architect by trade, but fell back into painting as an outlet to cope with stress on the job. Pretty soon, his colorful abstractions caught on through his Instagram page, and he later hooked up with General Public, a company that renders 3D prints of paintings for resale. That landed his work in Restoration Hardware.
Dustin grew up in Lafayette and now lives and works in Baton Rouge.
Alexis Braud wears a lot of creative hats. She’s a writer, illustrator, podcaster and artist. But primarily, she’s a storyteller. She calls herself the Lafourche Raconteuse — a spin on the Acadian Raconteur.
Alexis grew up in Cut Off — that’s Lafourche Parish. She is the author of several children’s books and has illustrated even more. She also hosted a podcast called “The Bayou Home Podcast” which explores what it means to be a Cajun.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. See photos from this show snapped on his iPhone by our audio engineer Dylan Babineaux! at itsacadiana.com.
Check out recent lunchtime conversation about Acadiana art with Francis Pavy and Erica Fox.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We’re all looking for that next great business idea. And sometimes it’s hovering right above you. Or maybe sitting in the palm of your hand.
Entrepreneurship isn’t always about inventing a new product or service. Most successful new companies are solving problems or seeing opportunities that should be obvious, but aren’t to most people.
The solution can be a high flying innovation or it can be a commitment to quality. Whatever it is, it usually pays off for the folks who have the good sense to pounce on the idea that’s right in front of them. If you’re first to market: well, it’s easy to drum up business.
It might be hard to imagine revolutionizing the drum stick. But that’s what Frank Kincel is doing with his company LA Backbeat.
Your average rock and roll drummer can blow through two or three sticks every gig. That’s a lot of wood, and the costs add up. Frank stepped off the road from a career as a touring drummer to start carving high-quality, durable, small-batch drum sticks. LA Backbeat has become a phenomenon among professional drummers, who turn to Frank’s sticks for their build and consistency. Instead of two or three sticks per gig. Try two or three gigs per stick. That’s saving money.
Frank’s been a tinkerer since childhood. He built his first bass drum out of scrap at age 10. Today, he’s lathing 250 sticks a day and shipping them to drummers around the country.
Adam Zayor's career took off when he looked up from his job overseeing petrochemical megaprojects. A marketing drone hovered above him and he thought, why not use these for his job.
Adam launched Fly Guys in 2017 and has since grown it into a multinational aerial imaging company based here in Lafayette. Fly Guys helps clients in agriculture, energy, construction and telecommunications get a birds eye view of their projects. It’s a clever, low-cost business model.
Fly Guys brokers with 5,500 contract drone pilots, using project managers to coordinate them. Fly Guys doesn’t own the equipment, which makes the model easy to scale up. And scale up it has: Today the company operates in all 50 states and 72 countries.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this on itsacadiana.com.
And there's more drummer and drone conversation, believe it or not, on Out to Lunch Acadiana. Check out Danny Devillier, drummer with a music school - https://itsacadiana.com/2020/09/29/remember-when-we-had-a-music-business/ and Lake Charles drone entrepreneur Cody Porche https://itsacadiana.com/2020/10/20/lake-charles-2020/.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Just because we’re 1,800 miles away from the other L.A., doesn’t mean you can’t have a career in Hollywood.
State tax incentives have lured productions to Louisiana over the last decade or so. And that’s given a lot of local talent an opportunity to work in the industry without making the leap of faith in Los Angeles.
You’ve probably heard of some big budget films and TV shows shot in Louisiana. I’m thinking of Morgan Freeman sightings and Blackham Coliseum’s cameo in the Secretariat biopic.
Hollywood’s venture eastward has given expat talent a reason to come home — without giving up their day jobs.
You might know Christiaan's guest from appearances in True Detective, Cedric the Entertainer and My Amazing Cheap Date New Orleans.
Amy Brassette is an actor and producer born and raised in Lake Charles. She specializes in voice acting and is known for disappearing into characters. She does a lot of voice-over work, and you’ve heard her characters on the Simpsons, Duck Dodgers and the computer game Everquest.
Movie magic is one thing. How about something more up close and personal?
Stand-up comedy is a tough game to crack into, so it helps to have a solid hook — like a Jedi mind trick.
Flip Orley is a comic and a hypnotist. Flip got interested in hypnotism at an early age, later honing his techniques with some psychology courses at the University of Arizona.
Since then, he’s made a career billing himself as America’s premier comic hypnotist. He also develops audio downloads for the clinical applications of hypnotism: you can get tapes of Flip coaching you through stress management, weight control and working on your poker game.
Flip tours nationally but lives right here in Lafayette.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this on itsacadiana.com. And check out Flip Orley's previous appearance on Out to Lunch with equally wisecracking Johnny Blancher from Rock'n'Bowl.
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Acadiana is famous for the wildcatter mentality. It’s a frame of mind inherited from the early days of the region’s oil industry, when lone prospectors went drilling until they struck black gold.
You can see the attitude just about everywhere. Lafayette has a really high level of entrepreneurship. Around 11% of the workforce is made up of business owners, a ratio competitive with innovation meccas like Austin, Texas.
So it's not so much about what we're making, but how we make it. It's the spirit of the region.
David Meaux is working to make rum the spirit of the region as founder and master distiller of Wildcat Brothers. Wildcat is the second rum distillery in Louisiana and the first in Acadiana. It sources its flagship brand of small batch rums from local sugar cane.
The goal is to make sipping rum, something you can enjoy neat, up, or on the rocks. David is a lawyer by training and founded Wildcat in 2011. Today you can find bottles of their flagship Sweet Crude rum in 40 states.
Acadiana wouldn’t have much spirit without music. And in the wildcatter mentality, Dustin Gaspard has made a go of breaking into the region’s music scene as a singer-songwriter, an unusual track for a culture best known for dance music.
Dustin grew up in Cow Island but went all-in on his dream with a move to Lafayette. No car, no job, no place to sleep.
In 2016 Dustin suffered severe damage to his vocal chords, forcing him to change how he used his voice and inspiring him to hone his craft.
Dustin has released several singles and put out the record Hoping Heaven Got a Kitchen in 2022.
On this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana, Jan Swift sits in for Christiaan Mader who's off on an assignment for the New York Times and NPR.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can see photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com. And check out recent lunchtime conversation with entertainer and creator of the Janky Piano show Hunter DeBlanc and selfie impresario Carlie Faulk.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When you look good, you feel good. More and more men are catching on to that concept. In 2022, the men’s personal care industry was projected to hit $166 billion, according to market analysts. Combine that with growing consumer interest about what goes in the stuff you put on your face or beard, and it’s a prime opportunity for entrepreneurship.
And MacRoyce Williams, is what you might call a serial entrepreneur.
Most of the time you can find Mac cutting fades at Da Woss Ness Barber and Beauty Shop in Lafayette. And while you’re there, you can pick up a tincture of StingerDrops Beard Oil, an all natural line of beard oil drops so wholesome…you can eat them.
Mac also runs TJ & Skyy Entreprises, which include a used car dealership.
Mac was born and raised in St. Martinville and is a 2021 graduate of the Accelerate Northside entrepreneurship program.
The secret to StingerDrops quality is the ingredients, which Mac sources right in his own backyard. Leah Williams, Mac’s wife and business partner, runs Joelle’s Magic Herbs and Plants.
Leah grew up gardening and decided to turn her hobby into a business during the pandemic. The garden produces flowers, succulents and of course vegetables and herbs. It’s set up as an education center too. Groups can walk the gardens and pick produce, while getting to know the process from seed, to plant, to table, as Leah likes to say.
Leah is also a teacher and has spent 19 years in special education. And also 2021 graduate of Accelerate Northside and has a certification in Sustainable Urban Agriculture.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan. at itsacadiana.com.
And check out recent lunchtime conversation about Northside Lafayette entrepreneurship Creole Nutcracker and Parc Village.
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The Creole Nutcracker isn't a kitchen implement, it's a Creole version of the classic Christmas kid's ballet, Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. And it comes from right here in Acadiana. To put this diversity-inspired ballet in current context, let's take a step back and look at where we are with inclusion in general.
We tend to think of advocacy as something nonprofits and community groups do. But more entrepreneurs are blending business and social justice in their startups. This isn’t corporate social responsibility. It’s social entrepreneurship. And it begins with the idea that every community can and should thrive.
Grassroots social entrepreneurs work at the neighborhood level and start enterprises that try to solve social problems or address community gaps. For example, "Is there a food desert?" Start a farm stand. "A lack of housing?" Start a community housing development organization. "Do people need a place to gather and create?" How about a village.
In 2021, Leigha Porter did just that with Parc Village on Lafayette’s Northside. It’s a community arts center that hosts talks, art exhibitions, dances classes, music lessons, a podcast studio and a conference room. Leigha calls it an “intentional creative space.”
Leigha is a decorated movement artist with a background in ballet, modern and jazz dance. Her work as a dancer and choreographer has appeared on BET and at Disney World. And if you're waiting to see for how this all ties in to The Creole Nutcracker, hang in there for just one more moment.
Parc Village is also the home of Heritage Parc, an arts mentorship program which Leigha co-founded with Jazmyn Jones. Leigha and Jazmyn have known each other for a long time. And together they are the minds behind the Creole Nutcracker. BAM! The duo began producing the Louisiana Creole spin on the Christmas ballet in 2018 and it has since become a smash hit annual tradition.
In 2021, Jazmyn started Creole Grounds, a mobile coffee service that she runs outside of Parc Village. She's also a well-traveled dancer and has performed with Debbie Allen and Houston’s Urban Souls Ballet Company. Fun fact: Jazmyn’s first dance teacher was Leigha.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website itsacadiana.com.
And check out recent lunch time conversation about another Acadiana stage spectacular, The Janky Piano Show.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The 21st Century has spawned an entire new class of entrepreneur: The influencer. No, it’s not just another word for celebrity. Influencers are more like traveling salesmen, except they don’t have to leave home. (Unless they’re selling travel.)
It’s kind of an ingenious business idea. Startup costs are low. A ring light, a smartphone and an Instagram account is really all you need.
Marketing firms are spending gobs of money on influencers now to hock their products. The sector now tops about $10 billion annually. Give it a little more time, and there will be influencer classes at your local business school.
Selfie
The industry is big enough that it’s spawned a support industry. Someone has to make those ring lights and selfie sticks. And the need to have bigger and better production has inspired businesses like Exposure Selfies, here in Lafayette.
If you pass it on Jefferson Street, you might think it’s a giant photo booth. But owner Carlie Faulk prefers the term "selfie studio." Content creators and influencers use her space — which includes 5000 square feet and 30 different rotating background installations — to run all kinds of shoots.
It can also be booked for private events, birthdays and Botox parties! Carlie grew up in St. Amant and launched Exposure Selfies in 2021.
Janky
Some spectacles just don’t work on a mobile device. Even in the 21st century, for some events, it’s better just to be there. And that’s pretty much the best way to describe the Janky Piano Show, the brainchild of Lafayette-based musician Hunter DeBlanc.
Janky Piano Show is an over-the-top variety show. It pipes in pop-culture nostalgia with pre-taped video parodies, a wheel of fortune for song requests and some pretty wild audience participation. At the center of the madness is Hunter himself, who plays MC and piano-man.
The show began as a way of jazzing up a weekly residency and has grown into a pretty complex production, requiring stage hands and costume changes. Hunter likes to describe it as a “Saturday Night Live piano bar…except it’s a whiskey fueled dumpster fire.”
On that note, sponsors took note of the show and have begun underwriting it.
Hunter grew up in Opelousas and has also spent time working cruise lines as a piano player. You can check out his pre-Janky-era appearance on Out to Lunch Acadiana at our website itsacadiana.com.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at https://itsacadiana.com/2022/04/05/janky-selfie/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Around 71% of the earth is water. Give it a few more years of sea level rise and we’ll top 80, no problem.
In Louisiana, we’ve lived with water a long time. And for a lot of kids, that begins with swim lessons. At some point in nearly every child’s life, they get thrown into the deep end. It’s a good idea they know how to swim, so they don’t sink.
And a staggering number of kids don’t know how to swim. A 2017 study found 65% of Black children, 45% of Hispanic children and 40% of white children don’t know how to swim.
Colleen Baczyk, founder of City of Lafayette Aquatics - better known as COLA - has been swimming against that tide for 20 years. The program began with just five swimmers in 2002 and now reaches around 250 kids children each year through competitive programs and summer swim lessons.
COLA runs the Southwest Louisiana Swim League, working with high school and middle school swim teams in the area. And Colleen has been a competitive swimmer herself since she was 5 years old and is also a chiropractor with Barczyk Chiropractic Group.
If you’re scared of the ocean but not heights, then maybe the open skies are a better place for you.
Lafayette is home to Acadian Aviation, one of the few full-time flight training schools in the state. The flight school was founded by Raja Gharazeddine.
Raja got his pilot’s license at 30, bought his first plane at 34 and left the restaurant business in 2007 to launch Acadian Aviation. Over the years, Raja’s students have shifted from people looking for a high-flying hobby to people looking for careers.
Acadian Aviation partners with Fort Polk to help military aviators get civilian credentials. In 2022, Raja kicked off a partnership with LSU Alexandria to offer a professional aviation program, one of only two in the state.
Acadian Aviation also offers charter flight services out of Lafayette Regional Airport.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website itsacadiana.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In 1515, Pope Leo X tried to cancel the bible. Well, Gutenberg’s bible.
It’s hard to imagine now, but back then printed books were considered a threat. Literacy among the wider population could undermine the influence of the Church.
In all, Gutenberg produced 180 copies of his Bible. Today, 280 characters on Twitter is how you change the world. So what room is there for the study of letters? And what about the original tweet: Short Fiction?
Jim Lambert spent a career in law before putting his shoulder to the wheel of the metaverse and starting to write short fiction. Jim took creative writing courses with the late, great Ernest Gaines at UL, and published his first compilation of short stories, Sub Rosa, in 2021.
Jim specializes in a kind of “hidden history” — finding nuggets of under-documented history and spinning them into fictionalized narratives.
In a very non-fictional world, Jim is also a spiritual mentor for inmates at Louisiana’s Angola Prison.
Speaking of second acts, according to Jordan Kellman, Dean of UL’s College of Liberal Arts, adult enrollment has boomed at UL Lafayette. A key component of that is the Complete LA program which gives discounted tuition to adults looking to finish their degrees.
These late bloomers are attending an institution rising in prominence. UL, as you may have heard, attained R1 status, recognizing it as a top research university.
Dr. Kellman holds a PhD in the History of Science and French History and has served as liberal arts dean since 2012.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website itsacadiana.com.
And you can hear recent lunchtime conversation about the benefits of a UL education with the Dean of the grad school and the benefits of dropping out from entrepreneur Josh Goree.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Do you always feel like somebody’s watching you? Well, it’s not just a dream — it’s the 21st century.
Information is power, and there’s money to be made from gathering it. Or keeping people from taking it.
Here’s a new buzzword for you: surveillance capitalism: the marketplace for information captured often without your knowledge - or consent - and traded for dollars. This has been enabled by innovations like cloud computing and the world wide web itself.
But the reality is, trading in information isn’t new, it’s just scaled up. Think about the old gumshoe. Private investigators have been around for a long time. P.I.
Ronald Gaspard has been in the research game for a long time himself — running Acadiana Research since the early 1990s. What began as a $10/hour gig has become a full-time career. He cases cheating lovers and insurance fraudsters, serves subpoenas and conducts courthouse research or, as he puts it, “Anything else that’s legal and makes a few dollars.”
Ronald is an Abbeville native, a military vet and former auxiliary sheriff’s deputy.
So, if everyone wants your information, what do you do if you don’t want them to have it? Cybersecurity is no longer a niche service contracted by large firms with troves of sensitive data. Anyone can justify state of the art information protection to block data hacks that come in all shapes and sizes.
Hunter Thevis is COO of S1 Technology, provides that kind of protection and more. As a managed service provider, S1 can do top-to-bottom IT support and specializes in a white glove approach.
Hunter founded the company with a group of IT specialists from the Acadiana area in 2021 and it’s grown steadily. Their customer base is primarily here but as they’ve grown they’ve picked up clients in Houston and in Alaska.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website, itsacadiana.com.
And check out lunch table conversation about just what the world wide web knows about you with AI guru Frankie Russo.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There’s no doubt that Lafayette is in an economic transition. Changes in energy are driving changes in the world. And Lafayette has, since the 20th century, been an American energy hub.
You don’t have to look far locally to see the changes. The infamous oil bust of the 1980s nearly bankrupted the entire city. Banks closed. Bumper stickers read, “Last one out turn off the lights.”
Fast forward: the 2014 bust hurt a lot. The metro area lost some 20,000 jobs — a nation-leading number. But here we are. The lights are still on. Why? Well, the top employment sector in Lafayette isn’t energy any more. 17% of Lafayette’s workforce work is in healthcare. It’s by far the largest employer in the market. Direct mining jobs? 10%. And that’s ⅓ of all mining oil and gas jobs in the state.
So how did that happen? Well, Adam Smith would credit his invisible hand. Others might credit the work of economic development organizations like the Lafayette Economic Development Authority, helmed by Mandi Mitchell.
LEDA
LEDA is a tax-funded agency that’s a bit like the economic gardener for the parish. It’s responsible for workforce development, business recruitment and is frequently tasked with analyzing economic impacts of big community projects or initiatives.
Mandi served for years as an assistant secretary in the state’s counterpart to LEDA - Louisiana Economic Development - and was instrumental in landing the deal that brought an Amazon fulfillment center and hundreds of jobs to Lafayette Parish. Mandi is a Lafayette native, a certified economic developer and the first woman and person of color to run LEDA.
One Acadiana
So if you’re doing economic development well, that means you’ve got a lot of ribbons to cut. Traditionally, that’s the role of your chamber of commerce, but Lafayette’s chamber of commerce is a different kind of animal. First, it’s not local — it’s regional, serving nine parishes — and second, it’s proactive. It shapes local and state public policy and advocates for business and free enterprise throughout the region.
Troy Wayman is President and CEO of One Acadiana and has shaped the organizations' second act since its founding in 2015. Troy has spearheaded initiatives emphasizing the need for a better quality of life to attract business and talent — a program called Vibrant Acadiana — and an initiative called 55 by 25, which aims to improve educational attainment across.
Troy is also a certified economic developer, and his organization serves as the voice of some 600 employers in the Acadiana region.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website itsacadiana.com. And you can also check out more lunchtime conversation about Acadiana economic development.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Louisiana isn’t just a sportsman’s paradise it’s a birders paradise. Maybe even an animal lover’s paradise.
Birdy
There are 25 rare bird species tracked by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries: The American Oystercatcher, the Red-cockaded Woodpecker, the swallow-tailed kite, the Crested Caracara. Some good news: the bald eagle, is no longer threatened.
So, who is doing the protecting? Well, it’s not just Wildlife and Fisheries. The effort takes some civilian help. The state permits people like Julie Rabalais to operate avian rehabilitation facilities to rehab injured birds that are federally protected.
Through her nonprofit, For the Birds of Acadiana, Julie has rescued and rehabilitated 400 birds. The work is meticulous. She cares for dozens of birds at a time, sometimes feeding them every 15 minutes for 12 or 14 hours a day.
Before her life in bird rehab, Julie ran a clothing boutique and is also a master gardener. Julie grew up in Michigan but moved to Lafayette in 2004.
Sit Happens
Some animals need attitude rehabilitation. Aggressive or fearful dogs can be problematic not just for their owners but for other people. These are pets most likely to end up in the care of animal control.
You might think, "Well, don’t they need a little bit of tough love?" Not so, says Vikki Bourgeois. Vikki specializes in “positive reinforcement” training methods that she offers through her company Sit Happens.
Vikki is one of only three Certified Behavior Consultants in the state of Louisiana and a Certified Trick Dog Instructor among accreditations.
Sit Happens is based in Scott, where Vikki offers “board and train” programs. She’s also a veterinary technician and was born and raised in Gonzales.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website itsacadiana.com where you can also hear more lunchtime conversation about rescuing birds in Acadiana.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Try this: Google “Lafayette dance studio.” You'll find 20 listings in Lafayette. For comparison, there are 12 McDonald’s.
Dance is a pretty big industry here. The operators even have political clout. The Heymann Center was shut down briefly during the pandemic until the dance community raised hell. But most of those studios are for young people. And dance, or any type of movement, is a lifetime pursuit.
There’s comparatively fewer opportunities for adults to age into a life with motion, especially if you’re not looking to two-step. For professional dancers, opportunities can be hard to come by, unless you want to open a dance studio and teach.
Clare Cook is founder of the nonprofit arts center Basin Arts, the only professional dance company in Lafayette. And she’s used Basin as a venue for artists of a variety of disciplines to show their work.
Clare is a Lafayette native, but got her MFA at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She still teaches and choreographs across the country and abroad.
Now, let’s talk about dance as exercise. Exercise crazes like Zumba or Barre3 are rooted in the physical discipline and exertion of dancing. But it can go much deeper than toning core muscles.
Disciplines like the Franklin Method or Pilates emphasize a mind-body connection in the practice and aim for something much more holistic than physical fitness. Alyce Morgan has taught Pilates at her studio Embody Zest for over 20 years and is now a certified Franklin Method instructor.
That approach uses imagery and movement and what they call “experiential anatomy” to reorient your mind, body and posture. Alyce makes her work approachable. You can take an “Old Tight Guy Pilates” class and she often takes her instruction out of the studio and into the world with public classes in local parks.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website itsacadiana.com. And check out lunch table conversation about Acadiana's own dance therapy, Cajun and Zydeco dancing.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
All musicians want to be actors and all actors want to be musicians. That’s how you get David Bowie in the Labyrinth and the Bacon Brothers.
To be fair, everyone wants to be in the movie business. Over the last couple of decades, changes in technology and tax incentive programs by state and local governments have made that somewhat easier for folks to do, without necessarily moving to Los Angeles full time.
Wherever you do it, it’s not going to be easy though. And it can be lonesome too, if you’re embarking on a passion project.
Brennan Robideaux has spent years pouring his time and life savings into one project: a documentary about pole vaulting Armand Duplantis, said to be perhaps the best to ever to do it and who grew up here in Lafayette.
The movie is called Born to Fly and Brennan tracked Duplantis before he won gold and set records in the 2020 Olympic games, following him around the world to document his rise in a candid feature built on 700 hours of footage.
Brennan grew up in Lafayette and opened a production company — Robideaux Creative — in 2018 to take on commercial work and other projects.
Brennan’s name might sound familiar to you because of his dad: former legislator and Lafayette mayor Joel Robideaux. Film maker Griff Furst credits the former mayor’s cultural economy program with helping his company Curmudgeon Filmsmake a home here in Lafayette.
Griff grew up in Van Nuys, California and in the entertainment industry, tagging along with his dad, actor Stephen Furst (a successful film producer though best known for his early work as an actor as "Flounder" in National Lampoon's Animal House), onto sets from a young age.
Today, Griff makes movies both behind and in front of the camera. Griff has acting credits in films like the Magnificent 7 and Terminator Genysis and has directed several sci-fi thrillers under the Curmudgeon umbrella — movies as diverse as Ghost Shark and Cold Moon.
Louisiana’s production tax credit first brought Griff to Lafayette in 2008. He met his wife, a Lafayette native. They now split time between Lafayette, New Orleans and L.A. And he continues to run productions both in Louisiana and around the country.
Conditions compelled us to record this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana on Zoom. Next week we hope to be back at our regular lunch spot, Tula Tacos on Jefferson Street in Downtown Lafayette.
Photos by Astor Morgan at our website, itsacadiana.com. And here's another interesting lunch table conversation about the Acadiana entertainment industry, specifically how the live music biz had to adapt to living with a pandemic.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The 1990s were a fertile but culturally awkward decade — the playground of Gen Xers and grunge and flannel. It was also the birth of the internet as we know it.
Companies like Yahoo and Google came of age during the dotcom boom, and so did a generation of IT professionals. They were the first wave of workers in the digital economy. Today, that generation is in charge. Information Technology is the backbone of practically every company, or perhaps an Achilles heel.
Christiaan's guests today were part of that movement in the 90s and built some of Acadiana’s first technology enterprises. And they’re also brothers.
Wayne Lobb and his brother Doug founded Cloudgin, an IT solutions firm that helps local companies set up and maintain their computing networks. The firm is boutique, it does no marketing and offers round-the-clock concierge services for around a dozen clients.
Wayne went west in the 1990s and spent time in California during the dotcom boom, coming back to Lafayette to set up shop. Wayne is an avid kayak fisherman and has kept his operation small to keep an even keel in his work-life balance.
Wayne’s brother Doug Menefee struck a different path. After founding Cloudgin, Doug became an itinerant IT consultant, helping a string of local firms set up their IT operations and working fulltime as a CIO for hire under the moniker DyslexiCio — a nod to that fact that Doug is Dyslexic. Doug had a hand in the very first live streams of Festival International and was an early advocate for cloud computing.
In 2022, Doug took a job with Boulder GX, a Texas-based company working on ways to make medical lab testing faster and easier.
Conditions compelled us to record this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana on Zoom. Next week we hope to be back at our regular lunch spot, Tula Tacos on Jefferson Street in Downtown Lafayette.
You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website, itsacadiana.com. And you'll find more lunch table conversation about Acadiana IT businesses here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What’s the difference between an artist and an artisan?
You might say one makes things for expression and the other for use. But in reality, the line is blurry. It’s a distinction without a difference for the people who are actually making things.
Art and craftsmanship have always been in conversation. Creating for expression was made possible by creating for necessity. Ancient Mesopotamians discover glassmaking. Syrians blow it into household goods. Eventually, you get Dale Chihuly.
But plenty of artists and artisans flow back and forth across whatever imaginary line human beings need to draw between categories.
If you visit artist Francis Pavy at his studio in Lafayette’s Freetown neighborhood, and you could be forgiven for thinking it was a workshop. Best known as a painter, Francis has shown his work internationally but he’s also a wonder with a C&C router, carving blocks to make his iconic paintings with motifs of Louisiana mythology, pop culture and 20th century design.
Francis grew up in Lafayette and began his career in glass making, moving into painting in the 1980s. Recently, he and his wife Cathi, a designer, launched an imprint for creating fabrics. Each textile features hand-designed patterns with orders filled on demand. Their line now includes eight different designs, meticulously crafted in a digital processing method Francis created to accommodate his style in fabric.
Since long before there was an Acadiana, this region has been blessed with a vibrant maker culture. The Atakapa-Ishak Tribe that populated Southwestern Louisiana and East Texas were known for their trading posts where travelers and craftsman could trade their goods.
That’s the tradition Erica Fox and her partner Kimberly Abadie-Moore tapped into when they launched Attakapas Collective, a cooperative that serves as a retailer and platform for local artisans, especially indigenous people and women of color.
Erica and Kimberly saw opportunity in the time people have spent creating during the pandemic and put the collective together as an outlet. The shop opened in Downtown Lafayette in 2021, just around the corner from Pavy Studio actually, and now represents 34 artisans who produce local goods like tapestries, jewelry, metalworking and more.
Erica is a songwriter and a Lafayette native. She spent 14 years in L.A. as a commercial artist signed to No Limit Records before moving back to Lafayette.
Pandemic conditions compelled us to record this episode of Out to Lunch Acadiana by Zoom. Next week we hope to be back at our regular lunch spot, Tula Tacos on Jefferson Street in Downtown Lafayette.
You can find photos by Astor Morgan from this show at our website. And there's more recent lunch table conversation about Acadiana art (and karate!) here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you were born in or after 1984 you haven’t lived in a world without the Karate Kid. Before that date, Karate wasn’t always a fixture of youth activity in U.S. But, believe it or not, it was in Crowley, Louisiana! Way back in the 1970's, thanks to Acadiana Karate.
Today, Stacey Knight Mejia and her husband Pablo run the dojo at a space in Lafayette. Pablo originally took over the business in 1978 and expanded it from its home in Crowley.
Today, Acadiana Karate offers instruction in mixed martial arts with methods based in a variety of disciplines: Judo, Tai Kwan Do, Jujitsu, Akido, Kung Fu and American Shotokan.
Besides the local shift from Crowley to Lafayette, one nationwide change over the last two decades is the number of women training and competing in martial arts. Today, around 30 or 40% of Stacey’s students are women and girls.
Stacey is a lawyer by training, but left the legal profession to make a career out of karate.
Speaking of gender gaps, there’s been much written about representation in the world of art. A recent data analysis of 18 U.S. art museums found that 87% of their collections are men. There’s been important progress, however, in leadership roles. In 2005, around 30% of museum directors were women. Today it’s 47%.
LouAnne Greenwald figures into the number. She directs the Hilliard University Art Museum, and has worked to connect the museum and UL with the rest of the community. Since taking over in 2014, she’s established educational programs, increased staff and rolled out free Wednesday programs that help open the museum’s doors.
LouAnne has a long history in arts, collections and fundraising, working as consultant in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, where she also cut her teeth as curator and educator for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can see photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website. And check out more lunchtime conversation about Acadian martial arts.
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What’s the future of the Louisiana worker? What a loaded question. Sometimes we get so caught up asking about the future that we forget that it’s already here.
Chew on this: in 2020, mining for oil & gas accounted for around 1% of Louisiana’s GDP. That’s down from around 10% a decade ago.
Louisiana has been in a pivot for a long time. And while we often talk about this change in terms of economic output, the real question is what happens to our workforce?
Don’t count out innovation and manufacturing.
Missy Rogers and her husband Scott founded Noble Plastics, which manufactures all kinds of custom, plastic molded products for a range of industries. Visit their facility in Grand Coteau and you’ll find robots whirring and a few dozen highly specialized employees.
Noble’s edge is taking both design and manufacturing in-house. They don’t just make things, they make the things that make things. A part of the company’s line is designing robotic machines and processes for other manufacturers.
Here’s a blue ocean strategy for Louisiana: digital wallets.
Louisiana is a pioneer in allowing residents to digitize their IDs and drivers licenses. Today, more than 1 million people use LA Digital Wallet, and during the pandemic around half a million people opted into a feature that allows you to digitize your vaccine card.
Calvin Fabre is the man behind that innovation with his company Envoc.
Digital credentialing is a pretty big space. Outside of state IDs, Envoc has developed a line of commercial verification and logistics apps for cargo shipping, inspection services and grading bubble sheet tests. LA Wallet itself is a growing service, and Calvin is actively pursuing Louisiana grads to staff it up.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can see photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website. Check out Calvin Fabre's last visit to Out to Lunch here when he was just launching LA Wallet.
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Imagine Acadiana without festivals. Between 2020 and 2021, we nearly got a taste of that reality. And for the most part it wasn’t pleasant.
Gathering is a big part of the culture here. So when Covid made getting together dangerous, it also threatened a way of life.
Festivals did what they could to keep the tradition alive. Going virtual was a workable substitute in a pinch, but the lift was still costly and the digital copy just couldn’t compare with the real thing.
Christiaan's guests today navigated Acadiana’s largest annual gatherings through two straight years of pivots.
Scott Feehan has been Executive Director of Festival International since 2015. Scott’s day job is in IT, but he’s been a cultural entrepreneur going on two decades now. If you grew up playing in rock and roll bands in Acadiana you might know Scott as the drum shop guy. Or as the man behind Lafayette’s School of Rock.
Pat Mould runs programming and development for Festivals Acadians et Creoles. He’s the man in charge of what happens at the festival and, crucially, who pays for it.
Pat is a renowned chef who’s made a big mark in bringing Cajun cuisine into fine dining, and he’s also the interim general manager of KRVS, the voice of Cajun and Zydeco music and the home of Out to Lunch Acadiana.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can see photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website. And check out Scott Feehan's take on the festival scene from inside the Covid bubble.
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When I work in a coffee shop, I don’t get much done. Honestly, I didn’t go to the coffee shop to work. That’s just a little white lie I tell myself to get out of the house.
Coffee shops might be the easiest place to track down if you travel for work. You know there’s wifi, but the environment can be unpredictable. Is the cappuccino machine too loud? Too bad.
Well, what if you could plug into a space meant for work. Not easy to do unless you know somebody in town. You’ve heard of co-working spaces like WeWork, but that’s still a commitment. When you travel a lot you need something for 20 minutes, an hour, half a day and you’re gone.
Clerc Bertrand has a solution for that. Workaroo: a network of office space for those of us hopping from place to place.
Workaroo uses an app to connect itinerant workers with office space.
Clerc lives in the Lake Charles area, but has grown Workaroo on the go herself, dodging lockdowns and hurricanes. Today, Workaroo has spaces in Lake Charles, Lafayette and Baton Rouge.
Clerc plans to grow the company to stretch the I-10 corridor. When she’s not building workaroo, Clerc runs the McNeese State University Athletic Foundation.
If your workspace is the great outdoors, maybe this isn’t so much a problem for you. Anywhere is the place to be.
Artist and muralist Hannah Gumbo is building a career for herself with the world outside as her canvas. An avid traveler herself, Hannah is passionate about Louisiana and creating vibrant spaces that tease out our traditions with abstract flourishes and surprising detail.
You can find Hannah's work on Downtown brick walls or barns scattered around Acadiana, and her work bubbles against the backdrop of our region’s rustic colors. She got her start with an ArtSpark grant from the Lafayette Economic Development Authority and recently won a second one to expand her work to business portraits.
Hannah will also shake up the stuffy headshot with a portable wooden booth packed with fun backdrops to make portraits of Louisiana business owners.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos + Amigos in Downtown Lafayette. You can see photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website. Here's more lunchtime conversation about other work options in which one of Lafayette's most successful college dropouts talks with the dean of the UL grad school.
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For a couple of years, I’d say the most common investigation request I’d get was "Why doesn’t Lafayette recycle glass?" The natural follow-up, of course, is... "What happens to it?"
Well...for most of the glass you use - it ends up in a landfill. Even the stuff you thought you were recycling all those years ago. And here’s a disturbing fact: Glass takes one million years to degrade in a landfill. Think carefully before you toss that High Life bottle in the trash can.
There is another option. Not recycling: upcycling. What’s the difference? Finding a new and improved use for your rubbish. Glass makes great mulch. It keeps the weeds, mold and mildew at bay. It doesn’t have to be changed out too much. And it’s lovely. It’ll make your garden glimmer.
How do you make glass mulch?
Tina Crapsi of Backyard Sapphire does it with a glass crusher she built herself. The “annihilator” can turn a case of beer into a pound of mulch in 15 seconds.
Backyard Sapphire processes the glass and turns it into custom blends of colorful mulch.
The service went viral quickly, and Tina and her partner Dawn signed up a few dozen subscription customers for curbside pickup and have begun working with local businesses, too. Bit by bit, Backyard Sapphire’s grassroots approach is keeping tons of glass out of local landfills.
So we’re trying to clean up the ground, what about the air we breathe? Carbon emissions aren’t the only toxin affecting our respiratory health. In Louisiana, we’re in a constant battle with mold.
Mold grows fast. It’ll spread with just 60% humidity in the air. Now imagine what happens after a hurricane? A home exposed to water can be overwhelmed with mold within hours.
We’ve actually managed to make this problem worse in the modern era. Drywall and synthetic glues have made building homes cheaper, but they’ve also created breeding grounds for mold. Just a little bit of water can create serious problems.
That means mold remediation is essential business in our neck of the swamp, but it’s actually not that common. Nicole Guillory Wenger and her husband founded DryMax in 2010 to respond to that gap. Nicole previously worked in architecture and did restoration work in post-Katrina New Orleans.
DryMax has since come to specialize in remediation, working a range of projects from post-disaster clean up to remediating historic buildings.
In Louisiana, there’s no shortage of work in the mold business. And Nicole spends a lot of her time teaching customers about what to look for in a quality mold contractor, even if she can’t take their work.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos + Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website. And here's more lunchtime conversation you might like, about the connection between recycling and art.
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Swamps and the French language put up barriers to globalization in Acadiana for generations. At least that’s the conventional narrative. Even within our own community, we often underestimate just how wide the cultural landscape is in South Louisiana and has always been.
Barriers persist. But there are lots of creative, thoughtful people chiseling away at them and mining for a common heritage.
It’s not limited to art and cultural anthropology. Lafayette has explored international touchstones for decades through big events like Festival International and the Latin Music Festival.
Cristina Martinez is in the business of expanding those horizons. She’s been an event planner in Lafayette for six years, managing projects big and small for Party Central and has hosted the Latin Music Festival herself. She’s also a media personality, moonlighting as the host of After Hours with Cristina Martinez, a Facebook Live show about sex, sexuality and sexual health.
During the pandemic, Cristina stepped up as a daily reporter for El Sabor/Telemundo, translating press conferences and Covid information for Acadiana’s rapidly growing Hispanic community. Cristina was born in Puerto Rico and has lived in Lafayette since 2008.
What does it mean to be from somewhere anyway? Home is an idea Olivia Perillo has explored in documentaries and photography. Since childhood, she’s been enamored of the connection between Acadiana’s swamps and the deserts of West Texas, where she spent time on trips to visit her mother’s family.
Olivia and her creative partner have produced two documentaries over the last couple of years. Migration, which profiled women leaving their birthplaces in search of new homes. And Intention which profiled the diversity of Louisiana cultural traditions among women.
Olivia’s work on Intention was funded by a Create Louisiana grant, and her films have been screened internationally. She also works as an archivist for artist Lynda Frese and a photographer for Country Roads magazine.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can see photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website. Also at our website you can find hours and hours of conversation about Acadiana's culture and its relation to our community and economy. Here's an episode about film and zydeco.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
E-commerce is about speed. But not just for the customer, for the seller, too. The name of the game is striking while the iron’s hot. Get your product to the top of the search ranking on Google and you can move units, fast.
Once a cat meme goes pandemic, it pays to be the seller who can deliver the hype on a mug or a t-shirt. The hard part is the logistics. Inventory takes investment and risk. What are you gonna do with all those cat mugs when the trend dies?
Lafayette native Josh Goree’s company, Completeful, makes that problem go away.
Instead of stocking all the inventory in your house, waiting for the internet to do its thing, Completeful stocks and fulfills your orders on demand.
Based in Lafayette, Completeful has grown fast since Josh launched it in his garage, engraving custom wedding gifts in 2017. Today, Completeful ships tens of thousands of custom products each day for sellers on Etsy and Shopify, enabling scores of micro-shops around the internet with an integrated app.
If the quick buck is your thing, then maybe graduate school isn’t for you. Going deeper into higher education is a way to bury yourself deep into a professional or academic pursuit. Believe it or not, it’s still a marketplace. Working your way through academia means finding a niche and selling yourself and expertise to your future peers and mentors. It can be highly, highly competitive, and very, very specialized.
And the graduate schools are competing for you too.
In 2019, U.S. graduate schools conferred 1 million degrees, an increase of 20% from a decade earlier. And despite a decline in postsecondary enrollment overall, graduate and professional programs have actually increased enrollment over the last 10 years by 8%, according to the U.S. Census.
UL Lafayette’s graduate school is a top producer of research. "How well do radishes grow in space?" "How does folklore impact the way our kids think and see the world?" Folks at UL are working on answers to those timeless questions.
As the Dean of UL’s graduate school, Dr. Mary Farmer-Kaiser has a front row seat to that work. Mary has helmed the graduate school since 2015, and has taught history at UL since 2000. A native of Kansas, she charted a successful career for herself by seizing the opportunities in front of her. Some great advice for anyone entering the workforce.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show at our website. And here's more lunchtime conversation with Acadiana locals building unique businesses - Karen Thibodeaux and Jezebel Lobelia.
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If you don’t know or care much about wine, then the language around it can sound like Greek. Or French, perhaps, is more accurate. "Terroir," "appellation," "cuvee." It can all be overwhelming. Go to a restaurant, order a bottle. Which wine do you like? Red or white? For a lot of us, that’s as far as goes.
Acadiana feels like Michelob Ultra country. People here drink light beers so they can drink a lot of beers. So maybe wine and wine culture would seem foreign to us...despite the French undertones of our lifestyle.
Maybe try thinking of wine this way: As an expression of place. That’s what "terroir" means: the earth, the air, the water that made the wine. We talk about food this way in Louisiana all the time. You could argue that gumbos and boudins have terroir. But you’d probably be thrown out of the party.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana, Acadiana's First Couple of Cool, Denny and Katie Culbert, are trying to tap into that obsession with place with their boutique, natural wine shop: Wild Child Wines.
Wild Child opened in 2020 in Downtown Lafayette and has since grown a cult following with its select imports of small batch wines from around the globe. The shop has a small wine bar for tasting and teaching. Those have been consistent themes for the Culberts, who have spent the better part of the last decade building culture around local foodways with initiatives like Runaway Dish, a series of popup dinners that introduced adventure to Lafayette’s culinary scene.
Outside of Wine Child, Denny is a photographer with credits in Saveur, Garden & Gun and Vice magazines.
Katie owns and operates the boutique clothing shop Kiki and its two locations in Lafayette and Baton Rouge.
This edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded in the studios of KRVS in Lafayette. You can see photos from this show at our website. And here's more lunchtime conversation about local Acadiana booze, namely vodka made from rice.
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Having a green thumb is a good way to earn a living. Agriculture was the first big business. It created the marketplace and civilization itself.
Of course, going green has an entirely new meaning these days. And I’m not talking about the green new deal. I’m talking about cannabis.
The medicinal properties of marijuana have been known for ages. And believe it or not, Louisiana was one of the first states to recognize that, passing legalization laws decades ago that sat frozen on the books.
But over the last couple of years, legislation opened up the cannabis and CBD market in the state, albeit with a tight regulatory grip.
Crystal Grayson and her husband Matt, an horticulturalist, seized on the new opportunity in 2020, launching Zorillo. Zorillo isn’t a CBD shop, though you can buy Zorillo products. It’s more like a co-op. Crystal and Matt seed, grow and process their own cannabinoid products and they help other farmers do it too. Crystal and Matt’s farm is in Broussard, and Zorrillo is under the umbrella of the company Grass Masters, which also includes Matt’s lawn care and landscaping business. Crystal also works as an escrow officer for a title company.
When you think green you might also think of the emerald isle. Tony Davoren, hails from Ireland but settled in Louisiana with his wife Sheila. Tony is also in the landscaping business with his company Irish Guy Landscaping, but you might also know him through his work in the traditional music scene. Tony is passionate about the crossroads of Celtic and Acadian culture. He is the creator and director of the Celtic Bayou Festival and also runs an Irish Dance Summer Camp with his wife.
Tony and Shelia met while touring the U.S. as part of Riverdance and now they live in Sunset where Tony has been perfecting his recipe for smoked sausage.
You can find photos from this show at our website.
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So much attention in business news is tech, and I don’t just mean Big Tech. The word “innovation” is thrown around a lot when really what we’re talking about are gadgets...not ideas.
But innovation in business is often about what you do, not what you use. Processes, procedures, protocols and work culture — these can all be major innovations in a successful business model, and none of them require a degree in computer science or a garage in Palo Alto to develop.
Entrepreneurs have been making money trying to optimize other businesses long before there were CRMs. It’s a big part of helping companies grow and become more profitable.
Jeff Resweber and his company An Extraordinary Mind do just that. Jeff helps companies big and small reinvent their processes - the under-the-hood wiring that can get tangled and gunky and slow growing companies down.
Jeff and his team embed with their clients, figuring out ways to make the less glamorous parts of their business run smoothly so the engine can hum. An Extraordinary Mind has worked with companies in a dizzying array of industries - finance, IT, education and energy. That’s why they call him the “instant expert.”
Running a good company isn’t just about making it more efficient. If you want to run a good company, do what you do well, but also...do some good. An important place to start is protecting your people.
For almost three decades, Ray Flores’ company Industrial Safety Solutions has helped companies make their workers and their work safer but, again, not by developing new gadgets, but by using the principles of behavioral psychology.
ISS helps companies create cultures of safety in their workforces, primarily serving the oil and gas industries. In 2020, ISS spun up a new division that helps companies roll out safety plans to address the threat of Covid. The new line built on years of hurricane recovery work and has become an important revenue line as the energy industry in Louisiana continues to decline.
Ray is passionate about community outreach and has recently connected with the nonprofit of Love of People as a vehicle to help him repair an old church that he credits with a piece of divine providence in his career.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Nathan Davis at our website.
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The ocean can be terrifying. The horizon doesn’t end. It’s vast and unknown, like staring into space only it’s lapping at your feet. But in business, the ocean is a both an apt symbol for opportunity — think "the blue ocean strategy" for marketing and innovation — and a great place to make a living.
Louisiana has certainly done that for decades with offshore drilling, shipping and seafood. Civilization itself has made use of the ocean for commerce for millennia.
Water
Our long relationship with the ocean has involved mostly, in one manner or another, sailing across it. There’s still plenty of stuff to figure out about working in deep sea environments. Christiaan's guest on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana, Erick Knezek, and his company, Oceanetics, specialize in developing cutting edge engineering solutions for ocean-going enterprises, including the world’s largest — the U.S. Navy.
Oceanetics is based in Annapolis, Maryland, home of the U.S. Naval Academy — Erick’s alma mater — but Erick is based right here in Lafayette.
Oceanetics does a lot of defense contracting work, including research and development for both the private and public sector, and also specializes in developing renewable ocean-based energy.
Blood
Blood might be thicker than water, but unlike water, it’s not a renewable resource. The business of collecting blood is an old one, and it’s done primarily for serving the medical community. The work is important. Science has yet to develop a suitable substitute for it, and hospitals need it on high demand.
The nation’s largest independent nonprofit blood services provider is Vitalant, which you might know by its previous brand name: United Blood Services.
Vitalant was founded in 1943 in Phoenix, Arizona and has grown to a network of 120 donation centers across the U.S. Vitalant operates here in Lafayette and serves 23 hospitals in 21 parishes.
Stephanie Kizziar is Vitalant’s Communications Director, and reports that just 3% of Louisiana’s eligible blood donor population are active donors. That means demand outstrips supply significantly, with local hospitals requiring at least 250 donations each day.
Stephanie got her degree in mass communications from LSU in 2008 and previously worked in marketing. She’s been on the Vitalant team since October of 2020.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can see photos from this show at our website.
You might also enjoy this previous Out to Lunch Acadiana episode about the marijuana business, for no other reason than, hey, who doesn't like hearing about the magical properties of weed?
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What’s not to love about a doughnut? They’re fried, fatty, crispy, doughy and sweet. You can dip them in chocolate, stuff them with Bavarian cream and roll them in sprinkles. They come vegan, gluten free or covered with bacon crumbles. You can slice them half and use them as a hamburger bun.
Anything that good has to be sold by the dozen. And it should be easy to do, right? Not so much.The doughnut business is cutthroat. It’s a crowded market out there and one dominated by customer loyalty. Plus, the hours are terrible.
Why get into the business? Drake Pothier says because it makes people really happy. The chance to make someone’s day better is a great reason to get up at 3 o’clock in the morning.
Drake owns Village Deaux in Maurice. He and his wife bought the shop in 2019, looking to diversify their income and find something new to sink their teeth into. They navigated the pandemic shut down and came out the other side with a doughnut shop that folks are driving to from all over Lafayette Parish. Which is saying a lot with all the good doughnut spots here.
Before running Village Deaux, Drake worked in communications and ran a successful insurance agency, which he sold in 2021.
So everyone loves a doughnut, but not everyone likes politics. And that’s what Marie Centanni sells: ideas. Marie is a political consultant, running her shop Centanni Communications since 2009.
Marie is a vet of the political scene. And her specialty is communicating public policy. That means taking a wonkish piece of legislation, dipping it in chocolate, stuffing it with bavarian cream and selling it to voters. Cynics may not like it so much, but it’s how the policy gets made. And I’m sure Marie has to get up plenty early in the morning to do it.
During the 2021 Legislative session, Marie played a big role in communicating the push for tax reform, a process which took steering several pieces of legislation through a toxic political climate. Marie is a former broadcast journalist, worked as a staffer on Capitol Hill and served as press secretary to former Gov. Kathleen Blanco. She’s advised over 250 candidates through the Candidate Training Bootcamp at the Louisiana Free Enterprise Institute, the nonprofit arm of her top client the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry.
Whether it's donut or doughnut, Democrat or Republican, Christiaan Mader has you covered on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette.
You can see photos from this show by Nathan Davis at our website. This is our first Out to Lunch show about doughnuts but you can hear more lunch table conversation about Acadiana pies here.
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I’m of the opinion that everyone can use an editor. It’s useful to have someone to bounce an idea off of and whittle it down to the sharpest point.
Working with an editor can be kind of intense. It’s like therapy or professional coaching. You work through bad habits and confront flaws you didn’t know you had.
This is starting to sound a bit like therapy. And maybe that’s a good thing. These days, folks are much more open about getting help. That used to be a taboo. Not so much anymore.
And I don’t just mean “getting help” in the traditional sense, as in tackling stress or some other mental health problem. People are turning more and more to counseling for all kinds of things.
How about work? Take it from me, running a small business is emotionally consuming. You get attached to your ideas and lose sight of the big vision. Change can be hard to swallow or even conceive. Sometimes, the biggest hurdle in professional development is ego.
Business coach Jeff Martin helps his clients get over the hump to entrepreneurial maturity. He specializes in counseling mid-career professionals on how to find another gear in their growth, usually by taking a deep look at their work and helping business owners figure out what to focus on. Before starting his coaching business, the Company Growth Academy, Jeff was a serial entrepreneur himself. He knows what it’s like to get attached. Jeff is an Out to Lunch veteran for his custom men’s clothing line — Short and Fat.
Now let’s talk about counseling in the more conventional sense.
About 20% of Americans sought mental health counseling in 2019. But the practice of counseling in a social environment expands beyond mental health disorders.
Major life events can be difficult to navigate and our understanding of how stress works has changed dramatically. That’s why Marie Collins says her counseling center, the Acadiana Family Tree, adapts its services to pressing community needs. Marie is Family Tree’s executive director and a licensed counselor herself. The Family Tree started as a parenting resource center and has grown to offer a broad canopy of services: marriage counseling, anger management, trauma and addiction counseling.
In the words of the inimitable Bill Withers, whether it's professional advice or personal counselling, "We all need somebody to lean on."
This conversation was recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can see photos from this show by Lucius Fontenot at our website. And here's more lunchtime conversation about counseling alternatives in Acadiana.
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Acadiana is kind of a hidden treasure. Most folks think of New Orleans when Louisiana comes up, but the nooks and crannies of the state are what make it special.
Hop on a rural byway and you can wind through all kinds of magical places. It’s a state you can stay-cation in and find lots of oddities and specialties. Pockets of cultures and traditions that are unseen even by folks just a few miles away.
Take Highway 90 north from Lafayette and the roads will rise and fall on hills. You’ll pass through the Cajun prairies and catch a view of the land of Zydeco. Before long, you’ve left Francophone Louisiana behind altogether.
Did you know there’s a Transylvania, Louisiana? Have you ever been to the Watermark Tavern by the river in Columbia, just north of Alexandria?
Dixie Poche has, and she’s lived to write about it.
Dixie is a travel writer with an expertise in Louisiana’s hidden gems. For thirty years, she sharpened her pencil in technical writing and corporate communications in the oil and gas industry. Her childhood in a general store in Cecilia inspired her to seek out the histories of Louisiana’s small towns. She’s published three books on Louisiana culture and is currently working on her fourth — about small town Mardi Gras Courirs.
Herman Fuselier is a familiar voice on KRVS. He's the host of Zydeco Stomp and has a storied history of his own — chronicling Louisiana’s cultural traditions.
Herman grew up literally next door to the world stage of Zydeco in Opelousas and spent years as a columnist and music writer in the Acadiana area. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Oxford American and NPR, and he’s the go-to guy for liner notes on big Zydeco records. In 2016, Herman published Ghosts of Good Times, which packs an authoritative history of Louisiana’s dance halls dating back decades.
Oh, and by the way, during daylight hours, Herman is the executive director of the St. Landry Parish Tourist Commission.
This episode of Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in Downtown Lafayette. You can find photos at our website. And check out more lunch table conversation about words and music.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What’s your shangri-la? Traditionally, in Acadiana, that might be the great outdoors. This is, after all, the sportsman’s paradise.
Finding your piece of heaven usually comes down to the world around you. For a lot of folks, that means where you live — literally. Your home is your private paradise. For others, perhaps, it’s something less tangible. Shangri-la is not where you are but an extension of your imagination — a state of mind or a world you conjure far away.
Either way, someone has to build it or help you find it. Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana are both in the business of making dreams come true.
Home
In the more conventional sense, Aimia Doucet helps families realize the traditional American dream — homeownership. She’s the mortgage lender and branch manager at GMFS Mortgage.
Home buying has changed a lot over the years, and Aimia's specialty is helping buyers navigate the process, debunking myths and helping them find a home that suits them. She’s one of the top lenders in the state by loan volume and was ranked #1 in the Lafayette market in 2018.
Screen
What about the world of imagination? If you’re working with bits and graphics and not brick and mortar, the possibilities are, theoretically, endless. Game development and design has become more cinematic, more detailed, more expansive.
Joshua Perrodin is part of training the next generation of world builders at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment in Lafayette. The industry has exploded in the last twenty years, and programming and development have become in-demand skillsets. What students learn at AIE isn’t limited to gaming either. Programming and development is also useful in building simulations for training in other fields like the oil and gas industry.
This show was recorded over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can see photos from this show by Lucius Fontenot at our website.
And here's more lunchtime conversation about Acadiana real estate and creative thinking, with Geoff Daily and Peggy Grace.
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Brands can become institutions — legacies that outlast their founders and become fixtures in our lives. In Acadiana, if your brand is food, it can become sacred. That means you don’t mess with it.
Now, imagine you inherit the institution or buy it. Well, on the one hand, you’ve got everything you need to succeed. As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Or if it tastes good, don’t fuss around with the recipe.
But businesses are living things in their own way. There’s a balance to strike between what old customers expect and what new customers want. Growth comes with change and requires innovation. How do you do that with an institution?
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana are both at the helms of Acadiana food institutions. And when it comes to staples, there’s no brand more traditional than Savoie’s Foods.
Open a pantry and you’ll find the same roux Ms. Eula Savoie first cooked in batches and sold in the family grocery store in Opelousas decades ago. Today, Savoie’s is a multi-million dollar food manufacturer and sells Cajun specialties like boudin, tasso and andouille sausage across the South.
Ms. Eula passed away in 2010 and the company is now in the hands of Freddie Lafleur, who is the company's CEO. Like most of the employees at Savoie’s, he’s been with the company for a long time. Thirty-seven years ago he started counting beans at Savoie’s as a company account. Now he’s in charge of the family-run sausage empire.
Robert Autin had two dreams as a kid: becoming a doctor and owning a restaurant. Today, Robert is a surgeon practicing here in Lafayette. And in 2017, he bought a restaurant, a Freetown institution: the Acadian Superette.
Since then, Robert’s put his stamp on the restaurant adding his own specialties to the menu — smoked meats, lamb, cochon de lait — on top of the Superette’s line of plate lunches.
Ms. Lynne, who sold the Superette to Robert and ran it since the 1990s, is still on hand to help him out. Robert has turned Ms. Lynne’s Superette into a hangout. He's added a patio, a bar, and now hosts live music and private events. Somehow, he still finds time to scrub in for surgeries.
You can find photos from this show by Lucius Fontenot at our website. And you can check out more lunchtime conversation about iconic Acadian food here.
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I work from home most of the time. And my desk is a pile of post-it notes, coffee mugs, knick knacks and unopened mail. I look to my left and my wife’s desk has the tranquility of a Buddhist temple. No wonder she gets more done.
Getting organized is a kind of therapy. It also makes satisfying TV. Marie Kondo made the trade famous by teaching people to spark joy in their lives with precise and meditative organizing. But she was really the tip of a long spear. Home and commercial organization has been a profession for some time. There’s real value in having someone experienced in making spaces work do it for you. Organizing doesn’t spark joy for everyone. But being organized does.
Renee Ory of Amazing Spaces here in Lafayette has made a career of it since the early 2000s. Renee began her professional career in design, but switched to organizing when she saw how many clients she worked with needed it. Amazing Spaces works with both residential and commercial clients, organizing home offices and streamlining warehouses for efficiency. They also provide move out and move in services, helping customers pack up and unpack with peace of mind.
Renee has a personal passion for organizing pantries and has a penchant for arranging space in older homes. Deep shelves are nothing a 20 foot lazy susan can’t fix.
Cleansing inside you is just as important for your mental health as cleaning around you. We’ve traded wholesome nutrition in our diets for cost and convenience. According to one estimate, around 90% of Americans have traces of pesticides in their bodies from eating conventional produce. Spinach is apparently the worst offender.
Besides the long-term health effects, big meals can make you feel pretty lousy after lunch. Clean eating can clear the way to a clean mind, and that’s what Beverly Boatner offers at Clean Juice Lafayette, the first local franchise location of the national organic juice chain.
Clean Juice offers made-to-order organic juices, smoothies, wraps salads and grain bowls. It’s the only all-organic juice bar in the city and they also offer juice cleanses: which are like home organizers for your body.
Beverly operates Clean Juice with her daughter and both of them are teachers. They use that background to help customers understand what to eat for their health and why.
This show was recorded over lunch at The French Press in Lafayette. Photos by Kieran McIntosh are at our website.
Here's more lunchtime conversation about the Lafayette mind-body fitness connection.
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In theory, plants are a pretty simple product. The general principle of it is straightforward. You put something in the ground. Add some water, some nutrients. You wait, you harvest, you eat. Or maybe you stuff it in a wicker basket and sell it at the farmer’s market.
But it’s really not that simple if you want to take something homegrown and market it. We run across products all the time that — in theory — you could make yourself. But maybe you couldn’t make it quite as well or as consistently or cheaply.
That’s the hump to get over in taking backyard commerce to the marketplace. And it applies to folks selling produce like hydroponic lettuce or what business school types call “value added products” like an herbal tea.
Or how about manglier tea? If you grew up in a Creole or Cajun household, you know what I’m talking about. If you didn’t, manglier tea is a French Louisiana cure-all made from a shrubby bush you probably have in your backyard. Traiteurs — faith healers — use it to treat all kinds of maladies. Your grandmother might have made it for you when you got a cold. It works. And like any medicine that works, it usually tastes awful.
Rayvin Silas-Chevalier has figured out how to make it more than a little palatable. Her company Blackbird Botanica brews manglier tea with honey, lemon orange and cinnamon. Her recipe is so good at helping the medicine go down, she can hardly keep up with the demand on shelves at local shops around Lafayette. Rayvin comes from a long line of healers. And it was her work as doula that first got her interested in herbal brewing. Her flagship product is Brave’s Brewed Manglier Tea — a Creole Immune Boosting Elixir.
Homebrewing and home growing can be rewarding, especially when it’s healing. But what if you want to scale up and bring that nutrition to a wider audience.
That’s actually pretty tricky. Selling even lettuce on grocery store shelves takes an act of Congress — more specifically meeting USDA standards. But that’s what it takes if you want to do local — bigger. And that’s Kohlie Frantzen is trying to do with his hydroponic farming concept — Helical Farms.
Hydroponic farming was an “a-ha” moment for Kohlie. The set-up, the machinery, the possibilities all seemed like a perfect fit for the skilled trades in Louisiana’s oil patch.
Helical’s top seller is lettuce, which they supply to several local restaurants. And the operation has partnered with food banks to stock pantries during the pandemic.
This show was recorded live over lunch at The French Press in Lafayette. You can find photos from the show by Kieran McIntosh at our website.
Check out more lunchtime conversation about local health alternatives and healthy local food farming here.
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Creativity can be like gas in a tank. If you go, go, go, you burn it all up. Work/life balance in creative industries is really important.
Business owners are paying more attention now to the environment they create for their employees. It’s not just about recruitment, either. It makes for a better product for your clients and customers.
Talent needs a place to thrive. And running creative businesses in a secondary market like Lafayette means you’re often a training ground. Developing talent can be an important competitive advantage.
Creative
Cherie Hebert created a garden for advertising talent when she launched BBR Creative with her partners in 1997. The firm has grown to compete on the national stage with award-winning campaigns for big brands like Tabasco, CC’s Coffee House and Cox Communications.
What got Cherie into the business was a passion for advertising design, a discipline with an important distinction from visual design. Advertising design is about sending a message, not just establishing a vibe. BBR creates messaging that cuts through the noise. With so much media noise pollution out there, it’s a tricky thing to do. At BBR, Cherie has created a space for her employees to create. They make a point to avoid burnout so their creative juices can refill. It’s an attitude that’s helped the firm attract gobs of talent over an impressive two decade run.
Tattoo
Like good design in advertising, a good tattoo needs clarity. Strong lines. Stark contrast. An image that cuts glass. Or, as tattoo artist Coby Cox would put it, an image you can make out from across the bar.
Tattoos aren’t rebellious like they used to be. Thirty percent of Americans have at least one tattoo. That’s about 100 million people. And the market for ink is getting more competitive but also more sophisticated.
Coby has watched the industry change from his shop AAA Tattoo in Lafayette since 1997. AAA sets itself apart from other shops with an open environment. It’s the kind of place anyone can get inked without judgment, and where young artists can learn tricks of the trade. Coby knows what it’s like to be the punk kid in the tattoo shop. He got his first tattoo at 16 in the back of a Harley shop. In other words, AAA’s business strategy is to invest in people.
See photos from this show by Brad Bowie at our website. And check out Cherie's previous appearance on Out to Lunch Acadiana when she was in the tiny house business.
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Family is a big deal in Acadiana. That can be quite literally true. Family trees are large and deep-rooted, and that grounds a lot of us here. This area is known for having among the highest population retention in the nation.
That doesn’t necessarily make being a teenager in Acadiana any easier. Defining who you are and who you want to be can be challenging. All the more so perhaps as the community diversifies and what it means to be from Acadiana becomes more complex.
Angst is angst wherever you are. And growing up in Acadiana can throw some unique challenges at you. There’s a dark side to joie de vivre. And in that shadow depression, anxiety and alienation lurk for teenagers coming up in a thorny world.
Roy Petifils helps high schoolers navigate all that as a professional counselor. At one time, Roy sought a career in the cloth, but left the seminary to work at St. Thomas More Catholic High School in Lafayette. He figured out quickly that he connected better with students one-on-one than at the whiteboard and made the career switch to faith-based counseling. He’s an author, podcaster and public speaker and practices at Pax Renewal counseling center in Lafayette. Roy is also the host of the podcast, Today's Teenager.
Historically, Acadiana’s unique culture has been a grounding force folks growing up here. That’s come through tremendous effort over the decades to preserve and promote Francophone heritage in the region. The effect has been powerful for our traditions — music, food, art — but not necessarily for the French language.
Speaking French natively is still waning, observes Lindsay Smythe Doucet. There was a time when most of us had a native French speaker in our families, but that’s not necessarily the case anymore, even as the broader culture has persevered.
Lindsay has taught French and English in the public school system for over 15 years, most notably at Lafayette High. In 2021 she’ll make the leap into running a brand new French immersion elementary school in Sunset: Ecole St. Landry. The program emphasizes dialect and conversation in its curriculum, instead of harping on conjugation and grammar. The goal here is to teach kids a language in a way that allows them to express themselves, to get on Twitter or Instagram and TikTok and play with French in the same way they do their native tongue. The school will open with 100 kids.
See photos by Lucius Fontenot from this show, recorded over lunch at The French Press, at our website. And there's more lunchtime conversation about Acadiana families here.
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The Romans had a saying: In vino veritas: In wine truth. It’s due for an update. Vodka is much more transparent. The art of distilling vodka is the pursuit of purity. There’s nothing to hide behind.
It makes a pretty good vehicle for a story to tell. And telling a good story is important if you want to get a leg up in the beverage industry. Of 220 million cases of alcohol sold each year in the U.S., 34% is vodka — the most among hard liquors.
So how do you tell a good story? You start with a grain of truth. In JT Meleck’s case: that’s rice. A distillery born on a rice farm in Branch, Louisiana, JT Meleck’s vodka is a genuine Louisiana product, and in that respect it’s one of a kind in a distilling sector dominated by potatoes and rye.
Mike Fruge started JT Meleck to add a new dimension to his family rice and crawfish farm. It’s no gimmick, either. JT Meleck is a premium spirit that doesn’t hide where it comes from. It’s named for Mike’s great great uncle who migrated to Louisiana to start the farm. The distillery is a new part of the business, and Mike still helms crawfish and rice farming operations, too. The label is also working on a rice-distilled whiskey.
When you’ve got a story like Mike’s, you might not need a great storyteller to sell it. But some companies don’t have such a strong sense of who they are and why they are. That’s where Jan Risher comes in.
Jan Risher is CEO of ShiftKey PR and a columnist for The Advocate. She did her time as a journalist, too, and now teaches a course in memoir writing online. With ShiftKey, Jan puts her nose for a good story to work for her clients, digging into the details to find the kernel of truth that will resonate with consumers.
We’re bombarded with storytelling and spin. Jan’s concept is pretty simple: how do you set your brand apart? Tell the truth.
So there's your Roman history update: In Vodka and PR Veritas.
See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur on our website. And check out Mike Fruge's previous appearance on Out to Lunch Acadiana where he talks about crawfish with sugarcane farmer Eddie Lewis.
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At some point, it feels like every business will have to compete with Amazon.
The stereotyped struggle of the 20th century was mom and pop versus Walmart. And we’ve all seen how that changed the commercial landscape in downtowns across America, and right here in Acadiana. Economies of scale are a powerful thing.
The new family business isn’t likely a brick and mortar anymore. E-business has created new opportunities through products on demand and on delivery. It’s the upside of entering a digital marketplace. If you’ve got a product to sell, you can find a low-cost way to market it.
It’s crowded out there and companies of all sizes need a way to differentiate what they do. And what better way to get ahead than get reviewed.
Sarah Branton, has found a niche as a supplier, so-to-speak, of reviewers. Her company Real Product Talk brokers free samples of new products to a network of around 1,000 reviewers. Reviewers are unpaid, but they get loads of free stuff to try and then tell the world what they think on Amazon, Target, Etsy and Google. Real Product Talk has given away around $1 million in free products since Sarah and her partner launched it in 2014.
Originally from Cecilia, Sarah is a serial entrepreneur and podcast host. She’s also leveraged her connections into a successful affiliate marketing business on Facebook.
Laure Hess got her start in digital marketing and found her big break in the gig economy. Laurel created Hampr, an app-based laundry delivery service, that connects laundry-laden households with washers willing to take that burden off their hands. Hampr’s target market is Laurel herself — the busy-mom-on-the-go. But during the pandemic, the service became useful for frontline workers working long hours.
Working in the healthcare industry gave Laurel an opportunity for a pandemic pivot. She used Hampr’s existing delivery network to spin off Presto Health, a startup that delivers prescriptions in partnership with Ochsner Lafayette General. In 2020, Hampr was selected for Techstar, a highly competitive startup accelerator in Austin that comes with a $120,000 investment award.
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are at our website. Hear Laurel talking about her early roll out of Hampr here.
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There’s a silly proverb: "Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach." It's silly because we all know that some of the best teachers can do and can teach. Skill and the ability to lead by example are immensely valuable especially when you’re teaching a craft or trade or a sport.
Teaching is a good product. And when executed properly it puts students on a lifetime path of learning and enjoying.
Melissa Hill created a space for folks to do just that . Niche Creative Studio in Lake Charles is part craft shop but all creative studio. A third-generation sewer, Melissa grew up crafting and carved out a side-hustle making memory quilts while she worked in nonprofits. She launched Niche in 2014 as a center for what she calls “missional creativity” — helping people find their own creative passions.
Savannah Vinsant Thompson accomplished her childhood mission pretty early. At 19, she was the first American to qualify for the Olympic trampoline finals and joined Team USA for the 2012 Olympic games in London. Since then, she’s made a living training the next generation of Olympians at her gym Hangtime TNT. She offers tumbling, cheer and gymnastics courses at two locations, one in Scott and one in Broussard. Somehow she squeezed in winning a national championship in 2018 before stepping back from Olympic competition to focus on her work.
You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website. There's more lunchtime conversation about Lake Charles businesses here and about creative outlets for kids here.
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You know a concept has become ingrained in the business world when it gets an acronym or shorthand. MVP — minimum viable product. CSR — corporate social responsibility. And now DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion.
Emphasizing diversity is nothing new. Business leaders, especially in corporate America, have embraced the idea that drawing from a wider pool of talent and perspective can make their companies better. The other two components — equity and inclusion — are somewhat newer considerations in boardrooms.
Equity, in this case, meaning the distribution of stake, power and opportunity and inclusion, meaning a proper seat at the table.
They have become more common in hiring and workforce development in the last few years, but the urgency of the issue exploded in 2020, particularly around racial justice. Put simply, it’s not just a moral imperative any more. Companies can’t afford to be toxic. Changing can require facing down unvarnished truths and having some uncomfortable conversations.
Uncomfortable conversations are a specialty for Elsa Dimitriadis. Her company Conversation Starters specializes in diversity and facilitation training. They help companies take a hard look out how they do business and whether their practices make room for everyone.
Conversation Starters launched in 2016, inspired by the unrest caused by the police killing of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge. Data from their work with local and national clients shows substantial improvement in workplace perceptions of leadership diversity, belonging and respect. In short — their method works.
Taniecea Mallery heads the Office for Campus Diversity at UL Lafayette, but she began her career in math, getting a PhD in applied and computational mathematics from Princeton.
Since returning to Lafayette, Taniecea has spearheaded UL’s strategic inclusion plan and has worked to help the school identify faculty members from underrepresented communities. Her leadership has put UL on the map as one of American higher ed’s DEI frontrunners, helping the school become one of only 19 U.S universities to participate in Aspire, a program for faculty inclusion in science technology engineering and math launched by the National Science Foundation.
For more background to this conversation, check out this conversation about diversity and neighborhoods in Lafayette.
You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website.
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Researchers estimate that more than 2 million Americans need help with an opioid addiction. And only about 25% will actually get it.
This can all seem so very daunting. But the reality is, we are getting better at treating substance abuse disorders. For one thing, we have better medicines that are keeping people alive. And providers are changing how they approach treatment of the disease, now recognizing that stability, not abstinence, is essential to sobriety.
Mark DeClouet is a psychiatric nurse practitioner. And he’s among a relatively small number of addiction treatment providers in Louisiana who have embraced this more compassionate approach. His clinic, Axis Behavioral Health, meets opioid addiction patients where they are. Crucially, his is one of the few operations that makes this treatment readily available to people insured by Medicaid.
Of course, the changes in how we treat opioid use disorders come from a better understanding of how they happen in the first place. Broadly speaking, health researchers have come to understand that our health is not just a function of our physical wellbeing. Where we live, where we come from, what we do and what our circumstances are have immense influence on our likelihood of getting sick and, perhaps more to the point, recovering.
Left unaccounted for, these social determinants of health can frustrate the treatment process and lead to repeat hospital visits, which drives up the cost of healthcare for everyone, while no one seems to get healthy. What good is a good drug if the nearest pharmacy is 25 miles away, you live alone and you don’t have a car?
Holly Howat has a nonprofit that tries to address the external factors that can complicate treatment. Beacon Community Connections has a simple innovation: the telephone. Her community care navigators connect with patients after they are discharged from the hospital to make sure they have what they need to get the best shot at staying healthy.
Lafayette is proud of its anointed title of "America's Happiest City," but clearly there are dark days for many of us here and across what appears from the outside to be bucolic Acadiana.
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are at our website. There's more Acadiana mental health talk here.
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Grocery stores did very well during the pandemic. In 2020, Lafayette grocery stores pulled in just over $300 million, a 10% increase over the previous year. It makes sense. Restaurants shut down. People stayed home. Supplies were key to surviving a stay-home order.
Now, imagine that there wasn’t a grocery store near you. Imagine you lost your job, or you were furloughed. Maybe you don’t have a car and the nearest grocery store is five miles away. If that’s your situation, you live in what researchers call a food desert. And that’s not just a problem during a pandemic.
Having access to healthy food is essential to a good quality of life. And more and more people now live in food deserts. They live shorter lives with higher rates of chronic disease. It’s a serious social problem and it disproportionately impacts poor and historically black neighborhoods.
On this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana, Christiaan Mader's guests are working to bring healthy food to communities without it, specifically on Lafayette’s northside.
Kevin Ardoin comes from a family of farmers, but he didn’t become a farmer himself until he had an epiphany. He quit his job in retail and got to farming. He now owns Zydeco Farms — a 43-acre produce farm in Evangeline parish. In 2020, Kevin launched Fightingville Fresh, the first farmers market in Lafayette’s Fightingville neighborhood and its mission is to make good, healthy produce available to folks living in a food desert.
While Kevin is working in Fightingville, Tina Shelvin Bingham is planting all kinds of seeds in the McComb-Veazey neighborhood of Lafayette.
Tina is Executive Director of the McComb-Veazey Neighborhood Coterie and the Community Development Director for Lafayette’s Habitat for Humanity. She’s worked to grow prosperity in the neighborhood since 2012. And that includes creating a community garden, where McComb Veazey residents grow and share produce. Like Kevin, Tina’s current career path was a detour. She was trained as an engineer and is now engineering a brighter future for her neighborhood.
See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website. And here's lunch-table conversation about sugarcane and crawfish farming in Acadiana.
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In case you were born after 2000, DJ stands for disc jockey. And true to the name, that’s what DJ’s did. They rode a record till it broke and became a hit.
Today, being a DJ isn’t so much about introducing people to new music. At least that’s not the case with DJs on mainstream radio. Hits are everywhere. You can stream them any way you want. People tune in with expectations of what they will hear.
That’s why DJ Digital, a.k.a. Brandon Journet, says he’s in the “gathering business.”
Digital is old enough to remember hauling sacks of vinyl from gig to gig. But young enough to have been underage at the time. Locally you know him as an on-air personality on Hot 107.9. He also hosts a nationally syndicated hip hop show via Townsquare Media called XXL Higher Level Radio.
Of course, restaurants were always in the gathering business. Ambience and culture in a dining room is often as important as what’s on the plate. In a place like Acadiana, where everyone can cook, you have to have some other kind of edge.
Restaurateurs often miss this crucial step in developing their businesses. Making their restaurants stand out and leave a lasting impression is essential to success. And with razor thin margins, getting it wrong can be devastating.
John Petersen helps restaurants avoid those traps. John is a consultant with Social Advising, a company that contracts with new restaurants to shore up and design their businesses from the back of the house to the front door.
John is a serial entrepreneur and a partner in some successful restaurants himself, including Central Pizza & Bar in Downtown Lafayette.
You can see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website. And here's some more lunch table conversation about food and music in Lafayette (an almost inexhaustible subject).
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Before the folks behind Beausoleil Books built a coffee shop or a bar to go inside their new boutique, they checked with their neighbors — the cafes and bars in Downtown Lafayette. They settled on a wine bar: something new to the fabric of Jefferson Street and something that wouldn’t compete.
That’s the shop local response to behemoth retail. Collaboration. Neighborliness.
Bryan Dupree and his three business partners created Beausoleil to bring new literature and ideas to Lafayette and to celebrate the French language. They stock new fiction and classic and cookbooks, in English and French. Their wine bar, The Whisper Room, is coming later.
A big part of what you get at a local shop like Beausoleil is personalized experience. There’s nothing more personal than style, especially when what you wear is fashioned by hand, like a work of fine art.
Hat-maker Colby Hebert’s shop The Cajun Hatter is another newcomer to Downtown Lafayette, but his hats have been in demand since he first started making them in 2016. His brand took off in New Orleans, where he also spent time in the film industry, both as an actor and in costume production. He found his way back to Acadiana in 2020.
Hat-making has seen something of an explosion recently. Four years ago, Colby was one of a few dozen hat makers in the U.S. Today, there are hundreds. Being a Cajun Hatter, makes Colby one of a kind.
You can see photos by Jill Lafleur from this show at our website. There's more lunchtime conversation about the Acadiana book business here and meet local author and illustrator Denise Gallagher over lunch here.
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The great American shopping mall has been on the endangered species list for several years now. But the retail apocalypse has yet to be realized. If malls are doomed, they don’t seem to notice.
It is true, however, that the way we shop is in the middle of a long disruption. When Amazon came along, it heralded the end of the in-person shopping experience and the trimmings that go along with it. In the mall’s case - food courts, arcades, playgrounds.
But the human touch has persevered. Brick and mortar stores have been making a coming back as people turn to bespoke shops to get personal guidance. Brands and retailers have to make it work both online and offline, embracing the advantages of each vehicle.
Vintage
Fashion retailer Mitzi Guidry is swimming upstream of retail trends. After moving back to Lafayette from Los Angeles she converted her online vintage boutique into a brick and mortar shop in Downtown Lafayette, called Lilou. Lilou collects and curates vintage and unique pieces for re-sale. It also doubles as a micro-cafe, allowing Mitzi to throw food popups and create a culture and community around her business. Mitzi has worked in the fashion industry for close to two decades, and still maintains a full-time gig with Los Angeles Leathercraft, a clothing manufacturer based in L.A.
Churro
For malls and retailers competing with online giants, the shopping experience is everything. And that often includes food service. Food courts have always been around shopping malls but they’ve become more and more important and more and more exotic in what they serve.
Daniel Estaban owns and operates The Churro’s Boutique, a kiosk in the Acadiana Mall that whips up wildly creative and personalized portions of the Mexican street dessert. If you haven’t had a churro before, it’s like a fried doughnut piped out of a pastry bag. You often find them with cinnamon and chocolate dipping sauce. But at Churro’s Boutique you can get them stuffed with cream cheese and strawberries and even mounted into a cake.
You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website. And here's more lunchtime conversation about local commerce and global e-commerce.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Maybe you could boil the tourism industry down into two segments: where you’re going and how you get there — the journey and the destination. Between the two of them you have the “why question,” as in, "Why bother leaving your house?"
For Louisiana and Acadiana particular, the allure to travelers is an exotic land within reach. The region is unique. And if you land in the right spot — a coffee shop with a French table perhaps — you can be transported without going too far.
It isn’t as organic as it seems. It’s taken years to claw back this area’s French language from the brink of oblivion, and that work is far from done. If it disappears, that’s one less reason for folks to travel here.
Francophone
Will McGrew has taken up the baton of decades of preservation work but with a for-profit twist. His company Tele-Louisiane is part production house, part content platform. It creates and distributes French-language content from across the state and aims to grow the broader cultural economy in Louisiana French dialects. In a sense, he’s seeding the market. Both creating and meeting a demand for Louisiana French film, shorts, documentaries and other media created in Louisiana.
Louisiana is the center point here. And Will intends to build a company that sources content from all the language cultures that make a home here. He founded Tele-Louisiane in 2018 and has steadily built a portfolio of original content for commercial and noncommercial partners. In 2021, he’s launching two new educational series marketed at the state’s French immersion programs.
Van
Of course for a lot of people, it’s not about where you’re going, it’s how you get there. RV travel isn’t just a means of conveyance, it’s a way of life. And one that commands a surprisingly lucrative segment of the travel economy. The RV industry accounts for roughly $50 billion in economic activity in the United States. And about 9 million Americans own RVs.
The sector is also starting to get a bit younger, as those bellwether millennials have begun to buy the appeal of traveling the open road in what can amount to a studio apartment on wheels. But the RV industry has been missing the connective tissue that makes hotel travel easier in the information age. Apps like Kayak.com or Travelocity don’t exist to centralize booking for the RV market. And that’s problematic for travelers who, by nature, go with the flow and often need a place to anchor down at the last minute.
That’s where Spot2nite comes in. Created by Terry Broussard and his son-in-law, Spot2nite offers both RV parks and RV travelers a convenient way to connect and manage bookings. Unlike the centralized booking apps in the hotel and resort industry, Spot2nite allows site operators to keep their existing booking systems. Spot2nite has park clients in 11 states and is developing an Apple iOS based mobile app that will accelerate the company’s growth.
You can find photos by Jill Lafleur from this show at our website.
Here's some more lunchtime conversation about Acadiana tourism.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When you have a business, you usually have some sort of a business plan. Even if you don’t run endless spreadsheets, you have goals, and an idea of how things will look if everything goes right. And, though you might be a bit more reluctant to think about it, you generally have an idea of what things might look like if you hit a lean period.
But, no matter how carefully you plan for every eventuality, for our two guests on Out to Lunch today there was nothing in the playbook to turn to when events conspired against them in the first Quarter of 2020.
When we first talked to these guys about appearing on Out to Lunch, we had a very different show planned. They both had their own very different shows planned too.
Scott Feehan is Executive Director of Festival International. If you live in Acadiana, you’re already wincing in sympathy. And wondering, “What’s going to happen to Festival in 2021?”
If you don’t know anything about Festival International, it’s a gigantic, sprawling and fabulous, free, street festival that takes place in downtown Lafayette every year in April. It’s the biggest international music and arts festival in the U.S.
The Other Show
Are you wondering what could be equally as difficult as being responsible for staging an outdoor street festival during a global pandemic? How about running a theater company? That’s what Steven Landry does.
Steven is Managing Artistic Director of Acadiana Repertory Theater. Acadiana Repertory Theater, or ART, is one a of a rare breed of theater companies that specializes in premiering new plays. If you’re one of the 73,000 playwrights on planet earth, it’s tough getting your work performed on any stage, anywhere. That’s why ART gets to select their annual season of 3 or 4 shows from over 1,400 submissions.
Photos by Jill Lafleur. Check out Scott’s appearance on Out to Lunch in happier days for Festival, and all of us. But, hey good times are around the corner, the show must go on, and somehow we'll be live in 2021!
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If you’re talking to somebody and you’re discussing how far it is from here to your place, you might say “It’s a long way.” The person you’re talking to can say, “How far is it exactly?” You can tell ‘em, “Three miles,” and they can decide if they regard that as a long way or not.
Here in Acadiana, it’s equally important to have an accurate measure of heat. But when somebody says to you, “How hot is that gumbo?” what do you say? You’re left with reverting to a use of language that is more Asian than English – where the meaning of a word changes with the intonation.
In discussing gumbo, “It’s hot” has a vastly different meaning than “It’s hot.” But, although we might understand each other, you can’t communicate with anywhere near the objective accuracy you had when you were discussing how far it is from here to your place. Which is curious, because there is actually a scientific measure of spiciness. Heat, in this sense, is measured in Scovilles.
A standard bottle of Tabasco sauce is around 5,000 Scovilles. Keep that number in mind. 5,000. Because there’s a guy here in Lafayette who grows his own peppers, and he’s famous in the world of pepper-growers for breeding and growing one of the world’s hottest peppers. It’s called the Primo Pepper. The Primo Pepper is 1.5 million Scovilles. That’s hot.
The Primo Pepper is the creation of Troy Primeaux, but everybody calls him Primo.
If you want to try Pimo’s Peppers but you don’t want to risk blowing the top of your head off, you can try sensibly tempered versions of the Primo taste in various forms – in hot sauces and in The Farmer’s Daughter brand of pepper jellies. You can find these products in a number of stores across the Sate of Louisiana, and you can also find them online at the amazon.com of Cajun food, a website called CajunCrate.com.
If CajunCrate.com doesn’t have every single product with the word “Cajun” in the title, and every single food product made in Acadiana, it’s got to be close. They have everything from Nunu’s Original Cajun Seasoning to Bayhi Cajun Chili Starter, Zydeco Chop Chop, and thousands of other items. You can also get a box of assorted Cajun goodies sent to you each month in an actual Cajun Crate, if you’re a Cajun Crate subscriber.
Cajun Crate has been a successful business from its earliest days in 2016. Its creator and owner is Tara Guidry.
Photos by Jill Lafleur. And there’s more conversation about Cajun Crate and hot peppers.
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Louisiana shares the abbreviation “L.A” with the city of Los Angeles. Although that sometimes leads to some confusion on paper and online, in the real world there is very little overlap between the LA lifestyle in the desert west and the LA lifestyle in the humid South.
For example, if Aileen Bennett sitting in for Christiaan Mader was to say “burritos” you’d say Los Angeles. If Aileen was to say “poboys” you’d pick Louisiana. So, how about “skateboarding?” Naturally you’re going to say, Los Angeles. But you know this is a trick question, right?
The answer is, Lafayette native, Daniel Barousse. Daniel is an artist. A woodworker. And a skateboarder. The combination of those three traits is a company called Barousse Works, in which Daniel makes works of art from recycled skateboards.
How’s The Market Doing? No, not the stock market. The other one. On South Johnston.
During the Covid crisis we’ve seen some changes around here. Some businesses we regraded as institutions, and others we always assumed were doing great, have closed for good. Although we all lose something when a local business closes, as consumers we manage to recover. We find another place to eat a poboy, drink a daiquiri, or buy whatever it was we used to get at what used to be our favorite place.
But, during this pandemic we have come to realize there are some institutions that are simply irreplaceable. One of them is officially known as the Lafayette Farmers and Artisans Market, in Moncus Park. If you’re from Lafayette, you know it as The Farmer’s Market at The Horse Farm. Every Saturday morning since June 2013, the Farmer’s Market has been selling everything from fresh produce to popcorn. And offering experiences from Cajun music to face painting, 52 weeks a year. Some Saturdays it’s bitterly cold. Some Saturdays it’s raining. But every Saturday the Farmer’s market is open.
Or, it was. Until it wasn’t. To catch up with what we’re optimistically calling post-covid plans for the Farmer’s Market, Alieen Bennett talks with Market Director, Mark Hernandez.
If you didn’t know this show was made in the Louisiana variant of LA, and you just heard us talking about a vibrant farmer’s market and an artist who makes pieces of sculptural functionality out of recycled skateboards, you might well assume we were talking about the second largest city in America, rather than the 4th largest city in Louisiana.
Photos by Jill Lafleur.
Catch up with Abby the Popcorn person from The Farmer’s Market.
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Writers are hustlers. When you get paid cents per word, you’ve got to write a lot of words to make ends meet. And that’s getting harder to do in a crowded market. Anyone can blog. We all learn to string a few sentences together in high school. What’s the point in paying a professional?
In journalism, there’s actually a crisis because of that dynamic. There are as many reporters working today in the United States as there were 40 years ago. The machines that made publishing a lucrative business — actual printing presses — are rusting over. It’s not that there’s a lack of writing. There’s a lack of money to pay anyone to do it. For most folks writing for a living, that means writing whatever, whenever and however.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana both write to pay the bills — and that's not an easy thing to do. They wear a lot of hats to make ends meet and satisfy their curiosities.
Writer Charles Garret has led a curious life himself. He’s been a firefighter, a salesman, a mixed martial artist and a poet. Coming this year he’s launching a new venture Tora Arts that will turn back the clock on the communications industry – ditching the digital age for the honest touch of snail mail.
As a journalist, Chere Coen is a travel writer humping around the south for adventure and good eats. As Cherie Claire she’s a writer of romance novels— and a prolific one at that — publishing as many as two e-books each year.
Whatever medium they work in — journalism, poetry, advertising — today's writers are hustlers, ready for the gig economy.
Out to Lunch is recorded over lunch at The French Press in downtown Lafayette. You can see photos from this show by Lucius Fontenot, and more, at our website.
And here's more lunchtime conversation with Acadiana writers...
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In Acadiana, business is a tradition and tradition is a business – often the family business. There’s a long heritage of musical families around here, dynasties of fiddlers and accordion players handing down the tools and tricks of the family trade to generation after generation. Here our Acadiana musical families are household names, every bit as famous and respected for their talent as dynasties in other states maybe be revered for wealth and power.
In Acadiana, music is one of our greatest exports. Lafayette practically pumps out ranks of acclaimed Zydeco and Cajun musicians and most of them are carrying on something they learned from their parents and their parents’ parents. Throw a rock in any direction. You’ll probably hit a Grammy nominee. Throw another, you’ll hit her momma.
Christiaan’s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana are both internationally celebrated musicians from famous Cajun families.
Virginia-born Ann Savoy married into the Savoy family of Eunice and has toured internationally with her band the Magnolia Sisters which explores the feminine side of the Cajun tradition — they’re not actually her sisters. Ann is a writer and will soon publish the second volume of her archival work Cajun Music: A Reflection of a People.
Louis Michot grew up in a big, sprawling Cajun music family. Since 1999, he’s toured internationally with Lost Bayou Ramblers, a band he started with his brother Andre 20 years ago. Lost Bayou won a Grammy for their 2017 record Kalenda. Recently, Louis launched Nouveau Electric Records, a label that puts out experimental artists rooted in Louisiana French musical traditions.
Out to Lunch is recorded over lunch at The French Press in downtown Lafayette. You can photos from this show at our website, Photos by Lucius Fontenot.
Hear more tales about Acadiana music over lunch with Wilson Savoy, Joel Savoy, and Andre Michot.
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As 2020 draws to a close, thankfully, we take a look back at Acadiana's wide world of sports.
There can be a lot of pressure to take on the family business, especially when the family name becomes synonymous with the industry they work in. Imagine what it must be like to be a Hilton or a Disney or a Manning. Everybody copes with it differently. Some embrace it. Some make their own mark on it. Some leave it all behind and do something else entirely. Christiaan’s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana come from Acadiana’s wide world of sports.
Christian Willeford is the son of Beau Willeford, the legendary boxing coach and operator of the Ragin Cajun Boxing Club. Willeford’s dad trained scores of boxers in Acadiana over the years and brought the prestigious boxing championship, the Golden Gloves, to Lafayette. Sadly, Beau passed away in 2019 after a brief bout with cancer. Christian recently announced that he will close the club after a nearly four-decade run but is keeping the Golden Gloves going.
Leigh Hennesy Robson first made a name for herself as a world trampoline champion. Leigh was coached by her father, Jeff Hennesy, a prominent name in competitive trampolining. For the last two decades, however, Leigh has made a second name for herself, this time in the movie business. Leigh is a stunt double and stunt coordinator. She was Demi Moore’s double in GI Jane and Lucy Liu’s in Charlie Angels. Leigh is one of only a few hundred stunt women working in the film industry today.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at The French Press in downtown Lafayette. Photos by Lucius Fontenot.
More conversation about Acadiana sports with another remarkable Acadiana sportswoman, racecar driver Sarah Montgomery, here.
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In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes, or so Andy Warhol told us. That was pretty much a lie. But in fairness to Andy he probably couldn’t have predicted going viral. Today, people are fragmented into pockets of fame for all kinds of reasons. Celebrity isn’t just for gilded people on the coasts, it’s attainable by anyone, anywhere, anyhow, and you can get it even 30 seconds at a time.
That, of course, comes with it’s ups and downs. Not everyone makes money being famous. Some people turn out to be the subject of envy or hate. Others get blamed for things they can’t control, like the weather. And still others simply become infamous for just trying to make a point and have a little fun along the way.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana occupy their own corners of fame. Out here, people call it "Lafayette Famous," but the idea applies wherever people make headlines or memes.
In Sydni Dupre’s world that means being TikTok famous. Sydni, originally from Sulphur, lives in Lake Charles, and has built an audience of hundreds of thousands of followers — many around the world — who peer into a window of her life. She uses her piece of fame to be a disability advocate. She has Friedrich’s Ataxia, a neurodegenerative disorder not unlike ALS or MS. In short clips of her day-to-day life — making coffee, griping about her boyfriend — Sydni normalizes her otherwise very normal and charming life.
You can’t talk about "Lafayette Famous" without talking about meteorologist Rob Perillo. Rob's been in the business in this market for three decades and achieved a kind of metaphysical, cult fame. He’s not just famous for being on TV and controlling the weather, he’s famous for being Rob Perillo. There are all kinds of memes and tributes to him sprouting on the internet. Put another way, around here, he’s beloved, except when the weather is bad.
OK, speaking of memes and undeserved backlash, comedian John Merrifield is maybe not so much known by name than by reputation. He founded the CajUUUN Memes Facebook Page in 2016, which is a kind of exchange for off-beat, irreverent and subversive jokes about Acadiana and the Cajun experience. He’s a Lafayette native but he transplanted to New York City to work the comedy scene there. He made a big splash locally in 2020 with some satirical internet pranks designed to “make a fool of the fascists” in local government. For his service, he was sued and became equal parts anti-hero and local villain.
See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website. And, if this isn't enough for you, here's some more lunchtime conversation with Lafayette comedians.
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Education was already on its way to a new normal before the coronavirus was around. Technology made sure of that. Before School 2020, virtual learning was en vogue at all levels. Of course, the pandemic accelerated the changes already in place and that came with a lot of growing pains for students, for families, for educators and for the companies that build the things that make learning in the modern era possible.
So much of what we have learned in 2020 is likely to stick around, including new teaching methods and new technologies for delivering them. The challenges aren’t going anywhere either. That’s why they call it a new normal.
The new normal, aka School 2020, is precisely where Christiaan's guests on this edition are doing business.
School
Bryan MacDonald is CEO of SchoolMint, an education technology company that makes products to help schools attract, enroll, and retain students.
SchoolMint was born on the West Coast in 2013 with help from the renowned startup school and investment channel, Y Combinator. SchoolMint left Silicon Valley for Silicon Bayou in 2019, moving its headquarters to Lafayette after acquiring another EdTech firm founded here. SchoolMint products are in 19,000 schools across the country.
After School 2020
After-school programming is also going through a sea-change these days. Allison Brandon, founder of Wonderland Performing Arts, can attest to that.
Wonderland’s bread and butter is classes in the arts, with a specialty in stagecraft. Recently, Wonderland has switched to virtual programming — connecting kids and parents with top flight talent over video platforms. In 2020, Wonderland got into the learning pod business. They offer proctored spaces for kids to do their virtual learning at regular school during the week with the added value of arts programming.
See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website. Here's more conversation about Acadiana education BC 2020 and about extra-school arts education BC 2020.
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A good idea never really goes out of style. In the food industry, that’s because the basics have remained pretty much the same since restaurants and commercial cooking were invented. Make something tasty and deliver it to your diners with good service: it’s a universal recipe for success. That doesn’t mean it’s easy.
It’s like baking. All the ingredients can be there: the eggs, the flour, the cream. Do it right, you got a rich delicious custard. Do it wrong, you got a plate of scrambled eggs.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana have both been cooking it right in different ends of the industry.
Brad Sonnier, a baker by trade, is the chef and owner of The Rolling Pin Bakery. He’s a longtime pastry chef with a passion for French baking. And he’s brought that home, literally, to a commercial kitchen next to his house in Duson, just outside of Lafayette. The Rolling Pin delivers bite size morsels of French classics like mousse and macarons to catered events and to farmers markets. Brad thanks for joining me on Out to Lunch.
Ted Kergan is the owner of the largest franchisee of Sonic Drive-in’s in Louisiana. Ted is a native of Detroit — home of the American auto giants — and he’s got a pretty giant operation himself. Kergan Brothers Sonic employs 2,000 people in 60 Sonics all around the state, including drive-ins in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles New Orleans and more.
You can find photos by Jill Lafleur from this show at our website. And here's more conversation with Ted Kergan.
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Right after World War II, the U.S. government invested heavily in the American dream. The idea was to create a nation of homeowners. So the federal government got in to the lending business, subsidizing the building of suburban America and giving birth to a massive middle class. It created unprecedented wealth passed along from generation to generation.
The impact of those programs can still be felt today. Especially in communities of color, who were left out of the project.
Historians and sociologists have pointed to that exclusion — paired with widespread segregation, not just in the Jim Crow south — as the root of generational poverty still disproportionately impacting Black Americans. Without the same shot at home ownership, they have historically lacked capital or equity to start businesses or send kids to college It’s created a shortage of wealth available to Black entrepreneurs.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana have both worked to chip away at that problem.
Corey Jack consults with aspiring entrepreneurs to demystify the process of starting businesses. He also works as a contracted liaison to Black-owned businesses for One Acadiana, this region’s multi-parish chamber of commerce. Corey serves as the Executive Director of the Holy Rosary Institute, a nonprofit effort to redevelop an historic Catholic school that served Lafayette’s Black community. Once complete it will serve as a new community center for North Lafayette.
Terrica Lynn Smith is a real estate developer and entrepreneur with a mission to build equity in Lafayette’s Black community. She’s built a portfolio of developments and clients in 22 states and launched an investment group to help people without investor-level money build wealth. Terrica is a published author and an advocate for the power of education. Her $14 million dollar Madeline Cove development will be one of the first projects financed by the federal government’s Opportunity Zone program which aims to put investor capital in distressed neighborhoods.
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are at our website.
Here's more conversation about Acadiana home ownership.
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It’s a cliche now that everyone has a brand. Drawing distinct boundaries around you are, what you do — and maybe just as importantly what you don’t do — isn’t just for selling toothpaste anymore. It’s what people do. They trademark their identities.
Branding of course has its own professional standards that vary from industry to industry. How you sell yourself as a musician is very different from how you might sell a car. The language and vocabulary are different. What matters to customers or audiences is different.
And those languages might be different in different places...just as they are different in different industries. But now, what used to separate markets are merging together. We have the power to reach the world. But that also means we have to compete with the world.
Like anything else. This gets even weirder in the post-Covid era. We’re all digging for gold virtually now. And for some industries that rely on personal connection — the detachment can be challenging.
Christiaan's guest on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana are hacking their own ways through this brave newish world, sorting out how to sell a brand in a collapsed economy and a shrinking map.
Musician Dustan Louque has made a career for himself on the road for two decades now. His brand of artful folk has been accompaniment to a #vanlife approach to his career. Unlike many independent musicians, he’s managed to build a gainful career on top of deep connections with an audience scattered throughout the country. Since the pandemic, he’s pivoted to virtual performances to keep trucking.
Jaci Russo is a branding strategy guru and co-owner of BrandRusso, a multifaceted marketing and branding agency based in Lafayette. BrandRusso serves a diverse base of clients from all four corners of the United States. Jaci and her husband Michael, the firm’s chief creative officer, have developed a unique approach to branding that kicks jargon to the curb and hones in on relating consumers to her clients. They call it Razor Branding and Jaci hosts a successful podcast about that strategy fittingly called — the Razor Branding podcast.
Wilson Savoy is a Grammy winning Cajun musician, best known as leader of the band The Pineleaf Boys. Although he's reached the pinnacle of success, Wilson, like Dustan, has also turned his back on a nationwide professional music career and chooses to sacrifice the highs and lows of life as a fulltime musician to continue living in Lafayette, building houses. But Wilson is discovering that you can only turn your back on the wider world to a certain extent. Although he idyllically might want to once in a while climb down from the roof of a construction site and climb up on a stage and play accordion or fiddle or keyboard - things aren't quite that simple right now. Case in point - this year's Festivals Acadians et Creoles, which was an online virtual festival.
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are on our website.
Check out Wilson's previous appearance on Out to Lunch.
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Over the last few years, Southwest Louisiana has boomed. Billions in petrochemical investments poured into the region and put Lake Charles on an economic tear.
And there were plenty of entrepreneurs to take advantage of the bonanza. With big ticket clientele around and plenty of work, prosperity in Lake Charles market was the envy of the state.
The pandemic put a halt to that. Just like it did the last decade of economic expansion in America, the longest on record.
Just when Lake Charles and the rest of Louisiana began to wake up again. It got walloped. Twice. First Hurricane Laura. Then Hurricane Delta.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana have businesses in Lake Charles that have managed to keep chugging despite the chain of disasters.
John Viator operates a pair of bicycle shops - Southern Bicycle Company in Lake Charles and Acadiana Bicycle Company in Lafayette. The industrial clientele in the Lake Charles area has made the shop there very successful. And John has catered to them. But he’s also diversified. He launched a golf cart operation, Southern Golf Cars, two years ago, is developing a running retail brand and now has eyes on the shoe market.
Cody Porche’s company, Porche Aerial Imagery, flies unmanned drones for aerial photography in the Lake Charles’ industrial sector. Drones are cheaper and safer to operate than helicopters and have begun to shoulder in on that market. As you can imagine, aerial photography is in pretty high demand after a disaster, and Cody says Laura has kept him very busy since it came ashore with devastating effect across Southwest Louisiana.
See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website. Here's some more lunchtime conversation about Lake Charles from BC (Before Covid).
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It wasn’t that long ago that eating organic was a niche kind of thing. Convenience was king and farm-to-table restaurants were seen as little more than a trend for diners with big wallets. You might find some novelty snacks at a grocery — or if you had a Whole Foods around and the willingness to spend your whole paycheck.
But eating “organic” is really how we ate for most of human civilization. It shouldn’t be that surprising that there’s a demand for something we’ve had in our cultural DNA for centuries.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana both operate homegrown food brands that get back to the roots of how we eat, with a mix of innovation. They’re familiar faces at farmers markets, but landed in the trade at very different points in their lives.
Larry Lemarie spent most of his life in the oil and gas industry. After he retired, he became a hydroponic farmer. At Cajun Acres Farms in Arnaudville he grows tomatoes and lettuce and kale that he sells at farmers markets. The method is clean, naturally bug free and fast. His basil is in high demand and he’s been struggling to keep up with orders. He’s currently designing and building a version of his hydroponic system to bring to Haiti as a part of a nonprofit mission.
Taylor Stokes broke into the organic snack business when she broke her leg. Inspired to find something to munch on that could satisfy her carb cravings without gaining weight, she went vegan and experimented with veggie snacks with Cajun flavor. Out of the lab came Taylormade Eats, a line of kale chips that she launched at local farmer markets. Her chips landed on shelves at Lafayette’s Whole Foods when the organic grocer opened a few years ago. They now stock Taylormade chips at their stores in Houston.
Find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website.
Here's some more lunch-table conversation about organic options in Acadiana.
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Christiaan Mader was unexpectedly out of commission today so we've decided to take a trip back to our Best Of vault and make a return to the life of pies.
When we hear about people who are successful in business, we tend to hear different versions of a familiar story. Somebody with a singular vision relentlessly pursues an idea, till, against all odds and after all kinds of hardship, they create Wal-Mart or Apple. What you hear less often, are stories about people who have no single-minded obsession, but are nonetheless successful and happy, doing something today that just a few short years ago they would never have imagined. That’s the category that both of Aileen’s lunch guests fall into on this episode of Out to Lunch Acadiana.
Kevin Blanchard started out as a journalist. He was a news reporter in Lafayette, for The Advocate. By 2008 he was married and had kids. For a guy with a family to raise, the future of the newspaper business didn’t look too bright. So, Kevin went back to school. In 2011, he graduated from LSU with a law degree. As an attorney, Kevin was serving as Public Works Director and Chief Development Officer for Lafayette Consolidated Government when he came in contact with the owners of Southern Lifestyle Development. They’re the company behind River Ranch, and 17 other communities they’re developing throughout Louisiana.
Kevin went to work at Southern Lifestyle Development as their in-house counsel. He soon became the company’s Chief Operating Officer. And that’s what he’s doing today, managing 40 employees.
Korey Champagne grew up in Thibodaux, went to LSU and majored in dietetics and nutritional science with a plan of getting into healthcare. On the way to making that plan happen, Korey was working as a paramedic. That’s when he met his wife, who is from Broussard, and they had a child.
At this time, Korey was making some extra money by going to The Farmers Market with homemade pies that he was making. He couldn’t help but notice two things: one, he loved making pies. And two, his pies sold out really quickly. For a while, Korey was a paramedic piemaker. Till it got to the point where he had to make a decision about where to concentrate his efforts. The sensible plan would have been to concentrate on a career in healthcare.
And that’s how Korey came to be the founder and owner of a growing business called Acadian Slice. Acadian Slice is not a healthcare company, it makes pies.
Today’s business plan lesson? What business plan? Apparently you can follow your heart or your gut, without a plan, and end up being happy and successful.
Photos at Marcello’s Wine Market Cafe by Lucius Fontenot.
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Remember back in the BC (Before Covid) days when we had a music business? In this edition of Out to Lunch we look back on this conversation originally recorded in 2018.
In Acadiana there are a lot of things that differentiate us from the rest of the country. The biggest of all of them is music.
You can live in Kansas and learn to make a gumbo. You can live in California and row a pirogue. But there’s no way in the wide world that you can convincingly play Jolie Blond on the accordion or Bosco Stomp on the fiddle, unless you’re born and raised here.
Typically, in a Western capitalist economy, a rare resource is worth a lot of money. However, when it comes to our treasured musicians, we tend to under value them. Most Cajun and Zydeco musicians are working a second job to subsidize their music career.
Wilson Savoy plays in the Grammy Award winning band Courtbouillon, and crowd favorite Pineleaf Boys. He’s also a carpenter, building and renovating homes.
Danny Devillier is a musician. And he’s come up with a new angle on a traditional way musicians often subsidize their careers: giving music lessons. Danny is a drummer. He plays in the Grammy nominated band Bonsoir Catin, and he’s played with everybody who’s anybody in Cajun and Zydeco from Michael Doucet to Roddie Romero. But Danny doesn’t just give drum lessons. He teaches people to play all kinds of instruments, including guitar and fiddle, at his music school, The Music Room, in Lafayette.
Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius A Fontenot are at our website.
Hear Wilson's mom, Ann Savoy on Out to Lunch, and brother Joel too.
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When you have a business, you usually have some sort of a business plan. Even if you don’t run endless spreadsheets, you have goals, and an idea of how things will look if everything goes right. And, though you might be a bit more reluctant to think about it, you generally have an idea of what things might look like if you hit a lean period.
But, no matter how carefully you plan for every eventuality, for our two guests on Out to Lunch today there was nothing in the playbook to turn to when events conspired against them in the first Quarter of 2020.
When we first talked to them about appearing on Out to Lunch, we had a very different show planned. For April 2020. They both had very different shows planned for April 2020 too.
Scott Feehan is Executive Director of Festival International. If you live in Acadiana, you’re already wincing in sympathy. And wondering, “What’s going to happen to Festival in 2021?”
If you don’t know anything about Festival International, it’s a gigantic, sprawling and fabulous, free, street festival that takes in downtown Lafayette every year in April. It’s the biggest international music and arts festival in the U.S.
The Other Show
Are you wondering what could be equally as difficult as being responsible for staging an outdoor street festival during a global pandemic? How about running a theater company? That’s what Steven Landry does.
Steven is Managing Artistic Director of Acadiana Repertory Theater.
Acadiana Repertory Theater, or ART, is one a of a rare breed of theater companies that specializes in premiering new plays. If you’re one of the 73,000 playwrights on planet earth, it’s tough getting your work performed on any stage, anywhere. That’s why ART gets to select their annual season of 3 or 4 shows from over 1,400 submissions.
You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website. Check out Scott's appearance on Out to Lunch in happier days for Festival, and all of us. But, hey good times are around the corner and the show must go on!
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If you’re talking to somebody and you’re discussing how far it is from here to your place, you might say “It’s a long way.” The person you’re talking to can say, “How far is it exactly?” You can tell ‘em, “Three miles,” and they can decide if they regard that as a long way or not.
Here in Acadiana, it’s equally important to have an accurate measure of heat. But when somebody says to you, “How hot is that gumbo?” what do you say? You’re left with reverting to a use of language that is more Asian than English - where the meaning of a word changes with the intonation.
In discussing gumbo, “It’s hot” has a vastly different meaning than “It’s hot.” But, although we might understand each other, you can’t communicate with anywhere near the objective accuracy you had when you were discussing how far it is from here to your place. Which is curious, because there is actually a scientific measure of spiciness. Heat, in this sense, is measured in Scovilles.
A standard bottle of Tabasco sauce is around 5,000 Scovilles. Keep that number in mind. 5,000. Because there’s a guy here in Lafayette who grows his own peppers, and he’s famous in the world of pepper-growers for breeding and growing one of the world’s hottest peppers. It’s called the Primo Pepper. The Primo Pepper is 1.5 million Scovilles. That’s hot.
The Primo Pepper is the creation of Troy Primeaux, but everybody calls him Primo.
If you want to try Pimo’s Peppers but you don’t want to risk blowing the top of your head off, you can try sensibly tempered versions of the Primo taste in various forms – in hot sauces and in The Farmer’s Daughter brand of pepper jellies. You can find these products in a number of stores across the Sate of Louisiana, and you can also find them online at the amazon.com of Cajun food, a website called CajunCrate.com.
If CajunCrate.com doesn't have every single product with the word “Cajun” in the title, and every single food product made in Acadiana, it’s got to be close. They have everything from Nunu’s Original Cajun Seasoning to Bayhi Cajun Chili Starter, Zydeco Chop Chop, and thousands of other items. You can also get a box of assorted Cajun goodies sent to you each month in an actual Cajun Crate, if you’re a Cajun Crate subscriber.
Cajun Crate has been a successful business from its earliest days in 2016. Its creator and owner is Tara Guidry.
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are at our website.
And there's more conversation about Cajun Crate and hot peppers.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Louisiana shares the abbreviation “L.A” with the city of Los Angeles. Although that sometimes leads to some confusion on paper and online, in the real world there is very little overlap between the LA lifestyle in the desert west and the LA lifestyle in the humid South.
For example, if I was to say “burritos” you’d say Los Angeles. If I was to say “poboys” you’d pick Louisiana.
So, how about “skateboarding?” Naturally you’re going to say, Los Angeles. But you know this is a trick question, right?
The answer is, Lafayette native, Daniel Barousse. Daniel is an artist. A woodworker. And a skateboarder. The combination of those three traits is a company called Barousse Works, in which Daniel makes works of art from recycled skateboards.
How's The Market Doing?
No, not the stock market. The other one. On South Johnston.
During the Covid crisis we’ve seen some changes around here. Some businesses we regraded as institutions, and others we always assumed were doing great, have closed for good.
Although we all lose something when a local business closes, as consumers we manage to recover. We find another place to eat a poboy, drink a daiquiri, or buy whatever it was we used to get at what used to be our favorite place.
But, during this pandemic we have come to realize there are some institutions that are simply irreplaceable. One of them is officially known as the Lafayette Farmers and Artisans Market, in Moncus Park. If you’re from Lafayette, you know it as The Farmer’s Market at The Horse Farm. Every Saturday morning since June 2013, the Farmer’s Market has been selling everything from fresh produce to popcorn. And offering experiences from Cajun music to face painting, 52 weeks a year. Some Saturdays it’s bitterly cold. Some Saturdays it’s raining. But every Saturday the Farmer’s market is open.
Or, it was. Until it wasn’t.
To catch up with what we’re optimistically calling post-covid plans for the Farmer’s Market, Alieen Bennett talks with Market Director, Mark Hernandez.
If you didn’t know this show was made in the Louisiana variant of LA, and you just heard us talking about a vibrant farmer’s market and an artist who makes pieces of sculptural functionality out of recycled skateboards, you might well assume we were talking about the second largest city in America, rather than the 4th largest city in Louisiana.
See photos from this conversation by Jill Lafleur at our website.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Biographies and Boxing.
History is a messy business. It’s full of mixed and conflicting perspectives. It’s subject to revision — for the right or wrong reasons And while it’s tempting to think of it as a collection of facts, history is really a collection of perspectives.
This holds especially true for histories of people. Think about it: there are competing biographies, or authorized biographies, even unauthorized biographies - and, of course, autobiographies.
Christiaan's guests on this episode of Out to Lunch Acadiana are both writers of history.
Jason Theriot is a freelance author, a New Iberia native, and an academic. He’s written on a number of subjects, not just about people, including World War II histories and works about the environment, particularly the Gulf Coast. Jason is a former fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School where he worked on Environmental Policy. He’s currently working on a history of tank barges.
Deirdre Gogarty Morrison wrote her own history. She published an autobiography about her career as a boxer called “My Call to the Ring.”
Deirdre was born and raised in Ireland and moved to Lafayette to work with the legendary boxing coach Beau Williford. Irish law prohibited women from boxing professionally but that didn't deter Deirdre. She was to become Ireland’s first women’s world champion and has been inducted into the international women’s boxing hall of fame.
Deidre is retired from professional bouts now and spends her boxing time coaching both men and women.
Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Chopsticks restaurant in Lafayette.
You can find photos from this show by Lucius Fontenot, and more, at our website.
Find out more about extraordinary Acadiana women in sports here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Louisiana Silicon Bayou.
The term "Silicon Bayou" has been around for some time. It’s the promise of a new economy for Louisiana, sometimes thought of in New Orleans. Beyond the confines of the Crescent City, the Louisiana Silicon Bayou stretches well into Acadiana.
When you think about it, this area has always been the frontier when it comes to business, and that attitude was put on the map by oil speculators who came to be known as "wildcatters."
Today we call that, "entrepreneur." These are the risk takers. The folks hunting for the next big idea and hoping to strike gold.
Christiaan's lunch companions on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana both work in the world of startups — the new business frontier with a different kind of wildcat.
Kyle Boudreaux, more often called Skip, got into the startup world early. By 25 he was the CEO of an innovative diaper company. He went on to work in the world of investment capital and he recently launched the first venture capital firm in the area, called Acadian Ventures.
Bill Dalton has worked in digital marketing since the dot-boom. He launched Firefly Digital in the late 90s with his partner Mike Spears. The company was one of the first ad agencies in the area to build and design marketing campaigns for the web. People still called it the world wide web back then. Firefly Digital incubated the startup Smart Choice Technologies to a successful exit. Now re-branded as Firefly Marketing, Bill’s team provides full-service digital marketing for clients near and far.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded over lunch at The French Press in Lafayette. There are photos from this show by Gwen Aucoin and lots more info on our website https://link.chtbl.com/Vj_kXlwb
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Boudoir Photography.
Maybe you think Boudoir Photography - intimate, seductive portraits taken for romance or personal empowerment - is something that happens in other places. After all, we're pretty conservative around here. Aren't we? Well, apparently not.
April Courville got a masters in marketing in college and wound up in Minnesota where she fell into boudoir photography. When April moved back to Lafayette she built a big enough book of business to strike out on her own full time with a boudoir photography business called A. Danette Photography.
Here’s a photography cliche. Why hire a photographer when a phone can do the job? That was already the conventional wisdom 13 years ago when the iPhone debuted. Since then, the lenses have only gotten better and people have started making millions taking pictures of their lives on Instagram. But the professional photographer never went obsolete as predicted.
That’s because there are plenty of circumstances that require a professional touch — weddings, portraits, magazine features and commercial photography that requires special skills to make the ordinary look extraordinary. That doesn’t mean making a living behind the camera isn’t a hustle. Success in photography takes relentless self-promotion, creativity and maybe a little luck.
Paul Kieu detoured into photography while on a path toward law school. Taking pictures was a hobby until he figured out he could get paid to do it and he stuck with it after graduating from UL with a degree in political science. He worked as a photojournalist for the Daily Advertiser for several years until leaving to work on his own. Taking a particular interest in culture, Paul’s work captures Acadiana’s boucheries, festivals and celebrations in vivid detail. You can find his photos in several local and regional publications.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded over lunch at The French Press in downtown Lafayette. And talking of photographs, if you'd like to see photos from this show by Travis Gauthier you can find them at https://itsacadiana.com/show/out-to-lunch/
More conversation over lunch about Acadiana photography here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: The Music Business.
If you're in the music business and you can get a dollar for every time somebody says "The music business is changing," you'll probably make more money than however you're making it now in the music business.
Yes, Acadiana is rich with music, but music makes hardly anybody rich. And getting rich is besides the point. For the most part, the people who play the music that makes South Louisiana famous do so part-time. That includes all those Grammy winners you hear about.
Sure enough people get by. There’s never a shortage of gigs. And playing Zydeco or Cajun music can be good supplemental income. Plus it’s a great time. But long term, it’s tricky if not impossible to build a safety net or nest egg that most American workers accumulate over their careers.
Musicians can’t really retire — not that they would want to — and that means major needs can go unfunded and unmet in the twilight of most careers. Christiaan Mader's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana are both dealing with this problem, albeit from different angles.
Major Handy is by all accounts a living legend in blues and Zydeco. A world traveler. A raconteur, and an auto mechanic. At 72 years old, he’s deeply familiar with the challenges of being a working musician past the traditional retiring age. But he’s a consummate pro and fighter. He suffered a stroke at the beginning of 2020 but is already back on the beat, set to play some gigs in France later this year. Major is also involved with the Music Makers Relief Foundation, a nonprofit that supports and documents traditional musicians in the Deep South.
John Williams is president of Love of People, a nonprofit started by his family in the 1990s, but is best known for Blue Monday, a program he launched in 2016. Blue Monday raises money to help aging musicians pay for medical care and living expenses through an monthly concert and dinner series staged at Rock and Bowl here in Downtown Lafayette. Love of People runs several different initiatives including Musicians Etude, We Care and the Lending Closet, which compensates local musicians who donate their talents to benefits with credits to buy goods and professional services. John is also Executive Director of the Upper Lafayette Economic Development Foundation.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded over lunch at The French Press in downtown Lafayette.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Saving Birds and Saving Schools.
Normally on Out to Lunch we're talking about for-profit businesses. But here in Acadiana - maybe more than anywhere else in the country - there are organisations and people dedicated to making a difference rather than a profit. On this edition of Out to Lunch Christiaan Mader is talking with folks who run nonprofit organizations that fill an important gap in community services, saving birds and saving schools.
Even if your heart's in the right place, you still need to be able to find your wallet. Lafayette is not necessarily an easy place to raise money. People are generous here, no doubt about that, southern hospitality is certainly a local specialty. But people around here value independence and self-determination. Plus, they like a business idea to make business sense, which means they ought to make money and survive on their own.
That presents a challenge to nonprofits large and small. How do you make big impact on a lean budget? How do you build for the long term when all the money you get goes to the important and expensive work that you’re doing now.
Abi Broussard Falgout is the Executive Director the Lafayette Education Foundation. For close to 30 years, L-E-F has filled funding gaps for Lafayette’s schools and educators. The foundation is primarily a granting organization, with a tiny staff, and is best known for the annual Teacher Awards, a glitzy gala that celebrates the best teachers in Lafayette Parish. Abi took over as Executive Director in 2019. She’s also an entrepreneur who’s worked in marketing, real estate and hospitality.
Letitia Labbie runs a wildlife rehabilitation center out of her house in Youngsville. Letitia founded her tiny but effective nonprofit, Acadiana Wildlife Education and Rehabilitation, in 1998. AWER has taken in more than 6,000 birds and small animals over the years, which she treats at often enormous cost, and often entirely on her own. Letitia is currently raising money to establish a permanent treatment center that’s not her house.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded over lunch at The French Press in Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Travis Gauthier and more, at our website.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Wherever you live in Louisiana, or anywhere in the US for that matter, you might have noticed something has changed in your local supermarket, in offices, and even in airports and hotels. That something is, plexiglass.
Those giant sheets of plexiglass that now stand between you and the person on the other side of a counter are called Sneeze Guards. Have you wondered where they suddenly all came from?
Peter Seltzer has laser cutters that he uses to make paper products at his company, Pete’s Papercrafts. When Covid came along, Peter switched from paper to plexiglass, and started making face shields and sneeze guards.
Peter started out by making over 13,000 face shields for members of the Ochsner Health System. That alone would be an extraordinary accomplishment, if it was the whole story. But it’s barely the beginning.
Peter has gone on to make thousands of plexiglass sneeze guards. And the reason that Peter knew about the initial PPE shortage is because, as well as being a successful entrepreneur, he's also a paramedic, and founder and Director of a paramedic training program for high school kids, called Gateway EMS Training.
Hotel
One of the local business sectors that has been hardest hit by the pandemic is tourism.
Jim Cook is uniquely familiar with all aspects of the leisure and convention tourist industry. Jim is General Manager of the Sheraton Hotel in New Orleans. He’s also a commissioner of the Downtown Development District in New Orleans, a past Chairman of the Board of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau, and past President of the Greater New Orleans Hotel & Lodging Association.
When the tourist and convention business came to a sudden halt in March, it brought into stark relief just how dependent New Orleans has become on tourism. At some point the city seems to have crossed an unseen boundary. New Orleans used to be a place that people came to, just to experience everyday life. For a few days a person from somewhere else could eat, shop, drink, and listen to music like a New Orleanian. Now we discover that some of New Orleans most revered institutions – from famous restaurants to the French Quarter itself – can’t survive without a steady stream of tourists.
There are, apparently, other tourism business models that target specific types of tourists, not just high volume. The question New Orleans faces now is, Is there a way to retain a tourist and convention sector that doesn’t rely on 19 million tourists a year?
Photos from this by Jill Lafleur are on our website. There's more conversation about tourism here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you had to list two of the pillars of American existence you might choose Liberty & Justice. Or, maybe Equality & Opportunity. Well, how about Rent & Beef?
Rent
The pandemic has forced us to confront a number of economic issues that were due for examination. One of them is the rental market.
Even without the added stress of reduced pay or a lost job, renting can be a strained relationship, for both landlord and tenant. in 2019 Marco Nelson came up with an app called Rentcheck and it's already in use in all 50 States.
If you’ve ever rented an apartment or an office, you’ll have gone through the usually upbeat experience of moving in… and the typically much more painful process of moving out, which is usually the argument over the security deposit. The tenant wants her total security deposit back. The landlord says he’s not giving it back because of the hole in the wall. The tenant swears it was like that when she moved in… You’ve no doubt been through something similar to this, as either a tenant or a landlord.
What Rentcheck does is walk you through a series of steps that documents and records a tenant’s move in, and move out. Both the tenant and landlord have a set of time-stamped photos that they sign off on. And that, simply and efficiently, does away with all those ugly disagreements.
Beef
Dr. Shannon Gonsulin’s family have been raising cattle in South Central Louisiana since 1770. No, that is not a typo. SEVENTEEN 70. But it wasn't until 236 years later, in 2006, that Gonsulin Land & Cattle officially switched to producing fully grass-fed cows, with no hormones or processed grains.
Dr. Shannon Gonsulin comes from a family of ranchers. He's also a veterinarian. Dr. Shannon (as everyone calls him) owns Bayou Teche Veterinary Clinic, in Breaux Bridge, and Atchafalya Animal Clinic in Morgan City.
Being a rancher of organic grass-fed beef and a vet is a great combo. Not because you don't have to pay vet bills when a cow gets sick, but because when you produce beef that is guaranteed to be hormone-free and anti-biotic-free, cows don't have the luxury of having a sick day. if they do they have to be removed from the herd and that severely impacts the farm's bottom line. So Dr. Shannon is very involved with preventive medicine. If you can prevent a cow from having a single sick day its whole life, are there lessons for human medicine?
Photos from this by Jill Lafleur are at our website. More conversations about grass-fed pork are here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Back when we first started making Out to Lunch in New Orleans, one of our earliest guests was a young woman by the name of Amy Chenevert. Amy had gone to a football game and realized that all the guys were wearing fan fashion, but there was nothing fashionable for women to wear on game day.
So Amy started up a company that made gameday apparel for women sports fans. That was back in 2007. During the 2019 football season, a new piece of women’s sports apparel started popping up. If you don’t have one yourself, you’ve probably seen someone wearing it. It’s a sparkly, sequined sports jacket, in appropriate Saints, Tigers, and other team colors.
That sparkly jacket marked Amy Chenevert’s return to sports fashion. After taking some time away from her business, Amy is back at the head of her company, Tru Colors Gameday. The company makes fashion items specifically for women to wear and take to the game on game day, centered on a very specific NFL women's fashion accessory, the clear bag.
Game Day Every Day
the New Orleans Saints, the LSU Tigers, and every other successful sports team know how to go out on the field and win. Everybody knows their position. Everybody knows the rules. Everybody on the team knows exactly what to do. But they still have a coach. You can’t even imagine a football team without a coach.
When an organization with a lot of moving parts is dependent on communication and on-the-fly decision making, it makes sense to have someone who can stand back and see the big picture. Which is why businesses have coaches too. Like Julie Couret.
The companies Julie coaches are an impressive list that include GE, the Marriot, Sheraton, Entergy, Ochsner Health System, and many others.
Recently the question for a lot of businesses has gone from, “When will things get back to normal?” to “How do we survive if things never go back to normal?” Julie imparts a great deal of wisdom for businesses coping with Covid in this conversation.
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are at our website. More conversation about the future of the NFL season with Saints CFO Ed Lang is here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How’s the social distancing going? Are you managing to keep 6 feet away from everybody else? How do you figure out what 6 feet is? We’ve heard people describe it as the length of two supermarket shopping carts, or the same height as Drew Brees, if you can imagine Drew lying on the ground in front of you.
If you’re working with other people in industry, in construction, on a factory floor, or even in school, it’s now become vitally important to know what six feet looks like. Getting within six feet of another person greatly increases the chances of catching or spreading Covid 19. Once someone in the workplace or at school tests positive for Covid 19, and you have no idea what parts of the building they’ve been in or who they’ve been in contact with, the whole place has to shut down while it’s cleaned, and everybody has to get tested. So it’s vital – not just for health, but for keeping businesses open – that we know what 6 feet looks like.
A Baton Rouge company, Enginuity Global, is solving this distancing problem, with a product called the Proxxi Halo. The Halo is a wristband that alerts a user when they’re within six feet of another Halo wristband. The wristbands cost $100 each and since May, Enginuity Global has shipped tens of thousands of them to customers.
Dan Ducote is the owner and Managing Member of Enginuity Global.
Doctor Referral
This has probably happened to you: You go to your doctor, and she refers you to another doctor. A specialist. Do you know how your doctor decides who to refer you to? You might be surprised to learn that there is no established method. It’s more or less like recommending a restaurant.
When someone recommends a restaurant to you, it’s usually because they’ve been to the restaurant. But when your doctor recommends you go see a mental or behavioral health professional – like a psychiatrist or therapist - there’s a very good chance your doctor has never actually seen this person professionally herself. So, what is your doctor basing this recommendation on?
Maybe the therapist is someone your doctor knows personally. Or maybe she’s heard good reports from other patients. Don’t you think there ought to be a better way for medical professionals to find and refer each other?
That’s what Trevor Colhoun thought too. Trevor’s company, Trusted Provider Network, transforms medical referrals and recommendations into a more medically sound and logical system.
Trusted Provider Network is not for consumer recommendations. It’s not like a medical Yelp. It’s for medical professionals only. But it’s not LinkedIn or Facebook for doctors. So, what is exactly is Trusted Provider Network? How does a doctor use it?
Find out more about telehealth here.
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are at our website.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On this edition of Out to Lunch, Peter Ricchiuti, Stephanie Riegel and Christiaan Mader meet at the nexus of the Latinx Hub City Pang Wangle. Okay, let's unpack that:
LatinX
There’s no two ways about it – this is a tough time to be in business. There is help available to get through this rough patch – in the form of business loans, and even grants. Some are through Federal agencies, some are from State agencies, and there’s money available from city governments in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette.
Getting a hold of this money is not easy. Typically, businesses benefit by being a member of a business alliance to help them navigate the maze of regulation and bureaucracy. But some businesses are too small to join alliances like the Chamber of Commerce. For those small owner-operator businesses, getting access to financial expertise of any kind is challenging.
You might be a great hairdresser, house painter, or plumber, but that doesn’t mean you have great – or even any – business skills. Now, imagine having the added problem of not being able to speak English. That’s the position many Latinx self-employed people find themselves in, in Louisiana. And that’s why there’s an organization called El Centro. El Centro provides business assistance for Latinx entrepreneurs.
Lindsey Navarro is Executive Director of El Centro. There’s a local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, but that’s not El Centro. If there was ever an organization that truly exists to help the little guy, it’s El Centro.
Pang Wangle
Before a previous disaster, Hurricane Katrina, blew Stephanie Riegel and her family to Baton Rouge, Stephanie was a journalist and news anchor at WWL TV in New Orleans. One of Stephanie’s colleagues there was fellow journalist, Jennifer John.
Stephanie is still a journalist but Jennifer John is not, she’s the founder and CEO of a company with an intriguing name, Pang Wangle.
The story goes that while Jen was out in the field reporting, she was so sick of getting bitten up by mosquitoes and other bugs that she created a line of bug resistant clothing for women: scarves, wraps, pants, hats, and bags that are not only stylish and lightweight for life outdoors in the South, but they’re also impregnated with a safe and long-lasting bug repellant.
Things had been going pretty well since Jen launched Pang Wangle at the end of 2017. And then along came Covid 19. But, instead of decimating Jen’s business like so many others, the pandemic got Pang Wangle coverage in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, New York Lifestyles magazine, and on a coveted Buzzfeed list.
Hub City
Over the course of the last few months, journalists have found themselves asking what seems like an endless list of questions for which there are often no known answers. How long will this economic downturn last? What happens when your government assistance runs out? What is the future of education, of the tourist and convention business, the entertainment industry, air travel… The list goes on.
But, in the midst of all this uncertainty, there is one economic question that we get a definite answer to on this edition of Out to Lunch Louisiana. And that question is – Why, during the course of this pandemic and unprecedented economic uncertainty and record unemployment – why are bicycle sales through the roof?
To answer that question, we’re not turning to an economist or financial pundit, we’re turning to Meg Arcenaux, owner of Hub City Cycles in Lafayette.
You can also check out other bike related conversations.
Photos by Jill Lafleur at our website.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On this edition of out to Lunch, Peter Ricchiuti and Christiaan Mader discuss the daily ritual of deleting email, but not dog dating email.
Email You Don't Want to Delete
Opening this segment of Out to Lunch, Peter says, "I’m always wary of hosts of shows like this who start off a story with, “If you’re like me…” But I’m willing to go for it right now, because I bet there is one thing we have in common.
"If you’re like me, you checked your email today, and went down the list going delete, delete, delete, delete. The email from Amazon trying to sell you something you bought last week. The email from some company you can’t remember – maybe they were the people you bought those flip flops from… It’s like this every day, right?"
Now picture this. A marketing email from a company that sends you information about something you’re actually interested in. Maybe it’s the flip flop company, but they’re not sending you information about flip flops, they’re telling you about an advance in Alzheimer’s research, which you actually are interested in. Or a recipe for chocolate cake, which, strangely enough, you were just thinking about baking.
This would brighten your whole email experience. And on the other side of the equation, if you’re the company sending the email, your clients will actually open the email, read it, and appreciate you. That’s how the A.I-driven email marketing company RASA.io works.
If you’re thinking, “Well, that’s a great idea,” it’s way past the idea stage. Rasa.io has 20 employees and they send out 15 million emails a month.
Jared Loftus is Chief Operations Officer at Rasa.io. The secret to the success of these A.I-generated emails is their personalization. Peter says, "Suppose Christiaan and I bought the same flip flops, but I’m interested in brass bands and the oil business, and Christiaan is interested in progressive jazz and football. We both get email from the same flip flop company, but the emails we get are tailored to our specific interests."
The obvious question is, “How does a flip flop company know all this about me?” Where is this information coming from that allows a company to target clients so specifically? It's a fascinating concept and a fascinating company. Almost as fascinating as dog dating.
Dog Dating
We’re still feeling the effects of the lockdown. There are two segments of the population that the lockdown had a big effect on: dogs, and single people who like to go on dates. If you’re a dog, the lockdown was awesome – you had company 24 hours a day. If you’re human, single, and looking for somebody to date, well, the lockdown was challenging.
In the Venn Diagram of those two populations, dogs and daters, you can add Leigh Isaacson D’Angelo. Leigh is neither a dog, nor dating – she’s a married human, with a business called DIG.
DIG is a dating app for dog owners. The concept is, if you love your dog, and dogs in general, it’s good to weed out - at the very beginning of the dating process - potential partners who don’t like dogs. And DIG is big. It’s on the ground in 15 cities across the country. The biggest DIG communities are in New York and Los Angeles, and they're about to break into Europe.
And breaking news! DIG is expanding into animal loving world, with Tabby, the cat person's dating app!
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are at our website. For more conversations about dogs, Traci Pecot talks about her business that matches up lonely dogs with lonely people, and Jacey Simon talks about her business that pampers pets.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Although most businesses in the US and around the world are hurting as a result of the global pandemic, some businesses are booming as a direct result of the lock-down. Yes, there is an upside to Covid 19.
Pang Wangle
Before a previous disaster, Hurricane Katrina, blew Stephanie Riegel and her family to Baton Rouge, Stephanie was a journalist and news anchor at WWL TV in New Orleans. One of Stephanie's colleagues there was fellow journalist, Jennifer John.
Stephanie is still a journalist but Jennifer John is not, she's the founder and CEO of a company with an intriguing name, Pang Wangle.
The story goes that while Jen was out in the field reporting, she was so sick of getting bitten up by mosquitoes and other bugs that she created a line of bug resistant clothing for women: scarves, wraps, pants, hats, and bags that are not only stylish and lightweight for life outdoors in the South, but they’re also impregnated with a safe and long-lasting bug repellant.
Things had been going pretty well since Jen launched Pang Wangle at the end of 2017. And then along came Covid 19. But, instead of decimating Jen's business like so many others, the pandemic got Pang Wangle coverage in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, New York Lifestyles magazine, and on a coveted Buzzfeed list.
Hub City
Over the course of the last few months, journalists have found themselves asking what seems like an endless list of questions for which there are often no known answers.
How long will this economic downturn last? What happens when your government assistance runs out? What is the future of education, of the tourist and convention business, the entertainment industry, air travel… The list goes on.
But, in the midst of all this uncertainty, there is one economic question that we get a definite answer to on this edition of Out to Lunch Louisiana. And that question is – Why, during the course of this pandemic and unprecedented economic uncertainty and record unemployment – why are bicycle sales through the roof?
To answer that question, we’re not turning to an economist or financial pundit, we’re turning to Meg Arcenaux, owner of Hub City Cycles in Lafayette.
You can also check out Meg's previous appearance on Out to Lunch Acadiana.
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are at our website.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Whatever else has happened to you over the past few months, you’ve more than likely been keeping up with everything that’s going on, by checking the news.
Along with NPR, some of Louisiana’s most reliable news sources are the local New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Acadiana editions of the daily newspaper, The Advocate. Both in print and online.
The Publisher of all of the editions of The Advocate is Judi Terzotis.
The last time Judi was on Out to Lunch, back in February - which now seems like a lifetime ago - she was talking about how The Advocate was bucking national newspaper trends. In the face of shrinking circulations and streamlined newsrooms in most other places, The Advocate was hiring reporters, it was growing newsrooms, it had recently acquired the New Orleans Times Picayune, it was seeing new revenue streams from merchandising and live events… Everything seemed to be humming along.
Then Covid 19 hit. Now, when you go to the Advocate’s website there’s an advertisement that says “Our Covid 19 news team needs your help,” and there’s a “Donate” button. It’s been reported that journalists at The Advocate have taken pay cuts, and that 10% of the New Orleans newsroom has been temporarily furloughed. What was it about the pandemic that turned The Advocate from an outlier media success story into a newspaper that’s having a tough time?
Latinx Entrepreneurs
There’s no two ways about it - this is a tough time to be in business. There is help available to get through this rough patch – in the form of business loans, and even grants. Some are through Federal agencies, some are from State agencies, and there’s money available from city governments in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette.
Getting a hold of this money is not easy. Typically, businesses benefit by being a member of a business alliance to help them navigate the maze of regulation and bureaucracy. But some businesses are too small to join alliances like the Chamber of Commerce. For those small owner-operator businesses, getting access to financial expertise of any kind is challenging.
You might be a great hairdresser, house painter, or plumber, but that doesn’t mean you have great – or even any - business skills. Now, imagine having the added problem of not being able to speak English. That’s the position many Latinx self-employed people find themselves in, in Louisiana. And that’s why there’s an organization called El Centro. El Centro provides business assistance for Latinx entrepreneurs.
Lindsey Navarro is Executive Director of El Centro. There’s a local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, but that’s not El Centro. If there was ever an organization that truly exists to help the little guy, it’s El Centro.
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are on our website. Judi Terzotis talks more about the business side of The Acadiana Advocate here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There was a time in what feels like the distant past – a few months ago – when it was more-or-less optional for a business to be a member of a business organization, like the Chamber of Commerce.
But since the arrival of the pandemic and the economic disaster that’s come with it, there’s now so much uncertainty and so much red tape to navigate through – from Federal loans to local ordinances – that most businesses are finding it essential to turn to business alliances for help.
The Louisiana Alliance of Business and Industry - mostly known by its acronym, LABI - is Louisiana's official state chapter for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. It’s the state’s largest business organization.
Stephen Waguespack, President and CEO of LABI, spends much of time lobbying the legislature in Baton Rouge, and Congress in Washington DC, with a focus mostly on keeping government out of business – to minimize government’s influence on business. But now that businesses are struggling to survive this downturn, the landscape has changed and business is looking for cooperation and partnership from the State and Federal government.
But governments have their own agendas. Are they using this change in the power structure to advance them?
Now, Pork
You may remember, at the end of April, President Trump signed an executive order compelling meat processors to remain open to head off shortages in the nation’s food supply chain. The unintended consequence of this presidential decree was to make all of us aware – many for the first time – of just where our meat comes from. And most of the pictures we saw were not pretty.
This has got a lot of people who don’t want to go so far as turning Vegan, asking if there isn’t a better way to get meat onto our table. The answer is, Yes, there is.
Tim Melancon is a 4th generation Louisiana pig farmer. He farms pasture-raised Berkshire pork on T Moise Farms, in Sunset, Louisiana, specializing in raising an all-natural product. Tim's pigs are – perhaps ironically – totally vegetarian. Tim doesn't believe in additives, or preservatives.
Given a choice, probably every person who enjoys eating pork would far prefer to eat this kind of product. But it's that kind of widespread massive demand that has brought about the kind of industrial scale farming and meatpacking plants we have today. So, is it possible to have a nationwide, large-scale meat industry and still observe the kind of care Tim Melancon lavishes on your farm-to-table product?
See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, and more, at our website. More conversation about Acadiana meat is here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Just a few weeks ago, the idea that we’d all stop our lives on the same day and be self-imprisoned in our homes might have seemed like the implausible plot of a dystopian series you’d see on Netflix.
But since it really happened, it provided us with an un-imagined opportunity. Self-reflection. Now that things are starting back up, do you want to jump back into the exact same life you were living? Or could you use your period of suspended animation to reassess, and make some changes?
These are questions Dr Stephen Barnes is asking. Except he’s asking them about the State of Louisiana.
Dr. Barnes is Director of The Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Public Policy Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. And he’s a member of a select group of economists and advisers on the Louisiana Revenue Estimating Conference – a government panel that determines income projections that create the state budget.
Education
If you’re in college or you have kids in school, over the past couple of months you’ve learned a new word. And a new skill. The word is, “Zoom.” And the skill is, “Distance Learning.”
Up until sometime in March 2020, if you wanted to get an education you had to get out of your house and go to a classroom. Now you just have to go to your computer - or even your phone – and click on “Join Zoom Meeting.” And there you are, with the same teacher, the same lesson, even the same kids in your class. And it’s all going on in the comfort of your own home. Why would you ever go back to a classroom again?
Out to Lunch puts that question to someone whose life is intimately bound up with its answer: Tania Tetlow, President of Loyola University in New Orleans.
In this conversation, Tania lays out the possibilities for the post-pandemic future of higher education in stark and sometimes alarming detail. Dr Tetlow's fear is that we are about to embark on an era that she describes as "The GI Bill in reverse," in which a whole generation of kids suddenly does not go to college.
Photos by Jill Lafleur and more info at our website. Further examination of the Louisiana economy is here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
As we head toward the beginning of real Summer here in South Louisiana - you know, the day you wake up and it's H-O-T - we might typically have vacation and hurricane season as top-of-mind issues. But this year things are different. Who knows if you'll be able to take a vacation? With all of our Covid anxieties do we have the capacity to worry about hurricanes as well? Plus we have a whole range of new unknowns: The Saints, LSU, and back to the office. On this edition of out to Lunch, Peter Ricchiuti, Stephanie Riegel and Christiaan Mader run through those three current unknowns.
The Saints
It’s no secret that not everybody in the state of Louisiana has warm feelings for New Orleans. In towns across Louisiana it's not unusual to find a certain amount of political and financial resentment about the amount of money and attention given to New Orleans.
But all of that melts way when it comes to football. The name of the team is The New Orleans Saints. But it might as well be The Louisiana Saints. From Shreveport in the North, to the most Southern point of Barataria Bay, Saints fans are everywhere. And so, along with all of our individual problems that we’re grappling with as we work our way through this pandemic, we have one question that unites us: What’s going to happen to football?
Whatever else happens during football season this year, one thing is becoming increasingly apparent. And that is, football stadiums are not going to be allowed to be packed to capacity.
Ed Lang, Chief Financial Officer for The New Orleans Saints, and The Pelicans, discusses the question that I’m sure every team in the league is trying to answer: Is there a way to have an NFL season where football becomes a sport more like golf or tennis, where most of the audience is not in the stadium, and revenue comes from sources other than ticket sales? Is that model financially possible for the NFL?
LSU
There are a lot of unknowns in our future. One thing we do know for sure though is, the State of Louisiana is facing a massive financial shortfall. Whenever this has happened in the past, the first victims of cost-cutting out of Baton Rouge are healthcare and education.
This time, the Governor is proposing to cover the budget gap with Federal funds. However, as of today, that is far from a done deal. So it won’t be surprising if we start to hear some of the familiar economic-crisis catch-cries coming from the capital. One of the old faithfuls is taking the ax to LSU – including proposals to close down whole departments. If this happens, one department that will not be on the chopping board is the department that might be the future of education itself – online learning.
Dr Sasha Thackaberry is LSU’s Vice President of Online and Continuing Education. The stay-at-home learning that colleges have had to suddenly adopt over the Covid lockdown is being talked about as possibly changing the nature of college education forever. As every single department is now looking at putting at least some of their curriculum online, Dr Thackaberry is suddenly a central figure in the future of LSU.
Back To The Office
Over the past couple of months, if you have an office job… Well, we might have to come up with a different title for your occupation.
We’ve traditionally called it “office work” because it was done at an office. But, as we have all discovered, you can do office work at home.
Working from home has turned out to have all kinds of advantages. Office workers can avoid commuting and enjoy a more integrated work/life balance. And employers can cut down on the expense of running an office.
But what do these changes mean for people whose life and livelihoods revolve around the office? And there are plenty of them. Realtors. Food courts. Commercial cleaners. And almost every retail outlet in downtowns and CBD’s everywhere that revolve around the foot traffic that clusters of offices generate.
Possibly nobody is more affected by these changes - or more of an expert at being able to predict the future of office work - than Ashley Thibodeaux Herbert. Ashley is CEO of a New Orleans-based company called Bart’s Office.
Bart’s Office is a full-service office moving company. But it does more than just move office furniture. Bart’s does everything from making sure you buy the furniture you need, to setting up your internet network. One of the clients they worked with in 2019, for example, was setting up the new New Orleans International Airport.
So Ashley is in a good position to look at the what might be the future of the office. is this whole work-from-home period going to be something we look back on as just a temporary phase? Or are we looking at a permanent change to our relationship with the office?
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are at our website. More conversation about the Louisiana Covid economy is here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you're a certain age or a fan of British comedy, you might remember the standard introduction to any number of bizarre sketches on the 1970's TV show Monty Python's Flying Circus was, "And now for something completely different." On this edition of Out to Lunch we're taking a break from unrelenting weeks of disturbing or just downright bad economic news to look at three businesses who are continuing to exist in a parallel universe, beyond Covid 19.
Coffee
Coffee is the 2nd largest traded commodity in the world. Behind oil. After what’s been happening in the oil market over the last few weeks, it’s probably safe to say that, as of right now, coffee is the biggest commodity in international trade.
Drew Cambre is a professional coffee taster. It wouldn't be surprising if you didn't know "coffee taster" was an actual job. With the popularity of coffee drinking at a generational high and unemployment running at record levels, you might be thinking this is the kind of job you could do. Is it as fun and easy as it sounds?
Take a listen to this conversation and see what you think. Technically, Drew is Coffee Quality Manager at The Dupuy Group, a global logistics company headquartered in New Orleans.
Grass
Whenever somebody has a brilliant new idea for a business that’s going to make everybody rich, they pitch it as a version of another brilliant idea that is supposed to make everybody rich. Like, say, Uber.
The fact is, that even before this current economic downturn, Uber was losing billions of dollars a year. But that doesn’t stop entrepreneurs coming up with concepts based on Uber’s gig-economy model.
There’s Hampr, an app that’s “the Uber of laundry.” Bambino is “the Uber of baby sitting.” And now, from Baton Rouge, there’s Block Lawncare – the Uber of grass cutting.
The co-founder of Block Lawncare is Matthew Armstrong.
What started out as “the Uber of grass cutting” is poised to be more than just a grass hook-up. Block Lawncare has its sights firmly set on world domestic services domination.
A Better You
Whatever you do, however successful you are, it seems to be human nature to want to do better. To have a better job, a better house, a better car…
At the same time, even the most materialistic among us would probably say, we’d also like to be a better person.
To better ourselves in a non-material sense, we normally make a choice. We either go the secular route – go to therapy - or we go the spiritual route and join a church, or follow some other spiritual self-development philosophy.
Mary Margaret Camalo doesn’t believe you have to make that choice. Mary Margaret is a Transpersonal Psychotherapist who practices an approach to mental and spiritual health, called Psychosynthesis.
We typically think of mental health as having short term goals - like getting over depression – and spiritual growth as being a lifetime journey. Mary Margaret's Psychosynthesis balances these two seemingly opposed approaches to self-improvement.
As we look toward returning to some sort of normalcy, it’s good to remind ourselves that there’s life beyond the virus. And now for something completely different...
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, and more, are at our website.
If you're looking for more "And now for something completely different" business distractions from Covid 19, try this.
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From the US perspective, there are two predictable economic pillars we have always relied on: Oil and The Fed. We look at the price and supply of oil to calibrate our economic position in the global economy, and we rely on The Fed to insure our economic security. In the past 2 months we have had the pillar of oil completely yanked away from the foundation of our financial institution. Is another pillar, even more central to the US economy, The Fed really immutable? Starkly, is Doomsday possible?
The Fed
Whenever we get into any kind of real serious financial trouble – like the recession in 2008, or the economic slow-down we’re in now – we’re confident that the world is not coming to an end. The reason we’re so certain that the financial system is not going to crash, is because we believe The Fed is not going to let it.
The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States. It’s actually a series of 12 Federal Reserve banks. Here in Louisiana we’re in the Federal Reserve’s 6th District, anchored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
The Vice President & Regional Executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is Adrienne Slack. In this conversation Peter Ricchiuti takes Adrienne back to a statement by the Chairman of the Fed, Jerome Powell, on April 9th. Powell said, "The Fed will provide up to $2.3 trillion in loans to support the economy. This funding will assist households and employers of all sizes, and bolster the ability of state and local governments to deliver critical services during the coronavirus pandemic.”
In other words, on April 9th The Fed gave the United States $2.3 trillion. The Fed is not actually printing money, but on April 9th it did in fact create $2.3 trillion that didn’t exist on April 8th. Adrienne explains how this works, and discusses the bigger question: could gthere be a day when it stops working?
Oil
Nothing sums up the strange and unprecedented economic times we’re living in more than a simple, three-letter word: Oil.
Maybe there’s a fiction writer somewhere who imagined the day oil became a worthless commodity that you had to pay someone to haul away, like garbage. But it's doubtful there is an economist on earth who saw that day coming. Or even the days we’re living in now, where we’re discussing what’s called “$20 oil.” That is, oil that sells for $20 a barrel.
What does it cost to produce a barrel of oil? In Louisiana the common wisdom has always been, around $60. Over the last couple of years though, the oil field seems to have been staying alive with prices of around $35 a barrel. Is $20 oil finally going to kill off the energy business in Louisiana? Keep in mind that the reason this matters is, the energy industry in Louisiana employs over a quarter of a million people. And it pays over $2billion in annual state taxes. So whatever happens to the oil business in Louisiana affects all of us.
One good thing about a business that is continually in a cycle of boom or bust, is predictability. A bust is always followed at some point by a boom. Or it has been. This time, though, it looks like we’re going to need a more robust survival strategy than “Wait for better times to come around.” Do we have that strategy?
Gifford Briggs is the lucky person who gets to answer that question. Gifford is President of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association.
Crisis Leadership
No matter which part of Louisiana you live in, you’ve survived disasters. From catastrophic downturns in the oil business, to biblical floods, and storms. One of the most cataclysmic of these in our lifetime was Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans was brought to its knees in a way that, till it happened, had only existed as a theoretical “worst case scenario.”
Beyond the threat to life itself, hardship like that - and the crisis we’re going through now - creates enormous suffering. It also creates heroes. After Katrina, one of those New Orleans heroes was Blake Haney.
Blake is the owner of a business called Dirty Coast. Dirty Coast makes hip T-shirts with a New Orleans flavor. After Katrina, they also made a sticker. The sticker said, “Be A New Orleanian wherever you are.” Dirty Coast was then a small store. But demand was so great for those stickers that Blake gave away around one million of them. That slogan united a far-flung diaspora of New Orleanians and captured the resilience that directly led to the rebuilding of New Orleans.
Today, Dirty Coast has 4 outlets and a significant e-commerce component. Blake Haney still runs the company. He’s also the co-founder of locally.com, a nationwide e-commerce site that drives consumers to brick and mortar stores, and Bayou Brands, an e-commerce and product development consultancy.
There are very few thought-leaders who have actually been on the front-line of rebuilding a shattered economy. Blake is one of them. Can the lessons he learned last time be applied now to rebuild the local, state and national economy?
Photos by Jill Lafleur and more info is at our website. More examination of the current Louisiana economy is here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
As Louisiana and parts of the rest of the country begin to re-open, there's a question about the economy that everyone is asking: What's going to happen to education, real estate, and retail? On this edition of Out to Lunch Louisiana we're asking local experts in each of these areas to tell us.
Retail
With apologies for the medical metaphor, retail was already on life support before Covid-19 shut down practically every store in the country. If you weren’t an online shopper before all of this, you probably are now. So, now that we’ve all discovered how easy it is to order online and have everything show up at our door two days later, what happens to our mom and pop stores, our art galleries, and everything else that has typically relied on foot traffic?
In Lafayette, we’re in the process of finding out the answer to this question, as stores are beginning to re-open.
Anita Begnaud is CEO of the Lafayette Downtown Development Authority. Anita, with Lafayette being one of the earliest parts of the state and the country to open back up, you’re a witness to history. What are you seeing in Downtown Lafayette?
Real Estate
One of the changes that has come with this health crisis, is the discovery many of us have made about working from home. At first it was something of a novelty. It felt like a long weekend. But now that we’ve mastered video meetings and found strategies for balancing work and family, we’ve discovered that not commuting has distinct advantages.
As businesses open up, many people who have unshackled themselves from the office are looking to continue the work-from-home habit. And from the employer side, if productivity stays the same and you don’t need office space, well, that’s a significant saving.
This might all sound great, but if even just 20% of us stayed home, and office space and everything that goes with it shrinks by 20% – like attendance at the food court and the nearby gym – what does that knock-on effect do to the economy? Let’s start with what it might do to the commercial real estate market...
Matthew Laborde, commercial real estate broker at Elifin Realty in Baton Rouge, looks into the future of working from home and has some insightful, evidence-based predictions.
Education
If you’re in college or you have kids in school, over the past couple of months you’ve learned a new word. And a new skill. The word is, “Zoom.” And the skill is, “Distance Learning.”
Up until sometime in March 2020, if you wanted to get an education you had to get out of your house and go to a classroom. Now you just have to go to your computer - or even your phone – and click on “Join Zoom Meeting.” And there you are, with the same teacher, the same lesson, even the same kids in your class. And it’s all going on in the comfort of your own home. Why would you ever go back to a classroom again?
Peter Ricchiuti puts this question to Tania Tetlow, President of Loyola University in New Orleans. Is the Zoom classroom revolution going to have a permanent effect on education? Or is it just a Covid convenience?
Find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website
More analysis of the future of the Louisiana economy is here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The journey we are on is leading us down a path that none of us have been on before. As individuals, as family members, as bosses or as employees, none of us know with any certainty what we're doing or where we're going. As a state we're in the same position. On this edition of out to Lunch, we're asking, Where To Now, Louisiana?
The Covid-19 pandemic has changed so much about our lives, it’s hard to think of a part of our life that it hasn’t affected. But of all the changes, the biggest casualty - other than health - is employment. Currently, the number of unemployed people in the United Sates is hovering around a staggering 22 million.
Although this is a nationwide problem, the stop-gap solution to unemployment – the payment of unemployment compensation – is left to the states.
Unemployment compensation is structured like insurance. It works on the assumption that only a relatively small number of people will be unemployed at any one time. So, when 20 million people suddenly lose their job on the same day, how do states keep funding unemployment insurance and paying compensation?
Here in Louisiana, there’s a division of the Department of Labor that handles all aspects of unemployment. It’s the Louisiana Workforce Commission.
The Assistant Secretary of Unemployment Insurance at the Louisiana Workforce Commission is Robert Wooley.
It’s possible that the massive number of people who found themselves out of a job can get re-hired just as quickly when things open up. But what happens if it doesn’t work out that way? What if the economy comes back slowly? How does the state keep paying unemployment benefits to tens of thousands more people than it budgeted for?
A Rare Opportunity For Self Reflection
Just a few weeks ago, the idea that we’d all stop our lives on the same day and be self-imprisoned in our homes might have seemed like the implausible plot of a dystopian series you’d see on Netflix.
But now that it’s really happening, it’s providing us with an un-imagined opportunity. Self-reflection. When things start back up, do you want to jump back into the exact same life you were living? Or could you use this period of suspended animation to reassess, and make some changes?
These are questions Dr Stephen Barnes is asking. Except he’s asking them about the State of Louisiana.
Dr. Barnes is Director of The Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Public Policy Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. And he’s a member of a select group of economists and advisers on the Louisiana Revenue Estimating Conference – a government panel that determines income projections that create the state budget.
Now that we’ve been forced to stop every non-essential business in the state, when we start up again, Dr Barnes is thinking we could do a few things differently.
There Are Still Job Opportunities out There
Even though there are more than 20 million people in the US right now who are not working, and that is an extremely high number, it’s not everybody. The total size of the US workforce is over 157 million.
Companies who remain open through this crisis, are hiring. Reportedly, Amazon is still looking after already hiring 100,000 people, and WalMart is aiming to hire 150,000. Here in Louisiana, workforce recruiters are actively looking for people to fill positions. One of those recruiters is Henry Shurlds.
Henry is Partner and Vice President of One Source Professional Search. On the company’s website there’s a home page message that says, “We’ve weathered multiple economic and natural disasters during our 17 years in business, each time emerging stronger, and are confident our trusted client partners and candidates will do the same.”
We’re all looking for good employment news about now. Believe it or not, Henry sees local companies in Louisiana emerging stronger from this crisis.
See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur on our website https://itsacadiana.com/2020/04/21/where-to-now-louisiana/
Last week's Louisiana economic analysis of Louisiana and the global economy is here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
As this pandemic unfolds, we’re hearing about how it’s affecting the global economy. That might sound like an oxymoron because “the global economy” might feel far removed from our daily lives. But for all three of our guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Louisiana, it’s an integral part of their lives.
As the state’s second-highest ranking elected official, Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser is responsible for our connection to the rest of the world through the offices of the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism.
Louisiana's Tourist Global Economy
The reason people visit Louisiana is primarily to experience what for us is everyday life. Our food. Our music. Our outdoors. Our Southern Hospitality. And so, it’s fitting that in this state these elements of our life, grouped together in the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism, under the leadership of the state's second highest ranking elected official.
Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser may well have thought that when he was President of beleaguered Plaquemines Parish in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he was fighting the biggest economic battle of your life. Now he's in the position of leading the State in what is going to be an even more daunting recovery, of unprecedented and monumental importance.
Louisiana's Fashion Global Economy
Ellie Schwing has a foot in two Coronavirus hotspots. New Orleans and Italy. Originally a New Orleanian, Ellie moved to Rome, in 2014. That’s where she founded and has grown a successful fashion business, BENE Handbags and Scarves.
BENE manufactures high end leather handbags and silk scarves that are Italian in style and quality, but retain a New Orleans sensibility, as a result both of Ellie’s background and her continued design collaboration with New Orleans artists.
Louisiana's Oil Global Economy
In Acadiana, Ragen Borel has an oil and gas engineering and manufacturing business called MAP Oil Tools. MAP does business with oil producers around the world, and has more employees in China and Dubai than here in the U.S. Since Ragen was last a guest on Out to Lunch Acadiana, only a few short months ago, everything about the oil business and her business, has changed.
See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, and more, on our website https://itsacadiana.com/2020/04/14/the-global-economy-here-at-home/
Previous coverage of the Covid Economy is here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Remember the days before the Covid Economy? When you could go out to a restaurant? Or a bar? Or a music festival?
In Louisiana, we have over 400 festivals every year. From the internationally renowned – like Jazz Fest in New Orleans and Festival International here in Lafayette – to unique local favorites like the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival in Morgan City, or the Rice festival in Crowley.
And then there’s the literally thousands of bars and restaurants across the state, with regional specialties like smoked meat in Ville Platte, boudin in Broussard, or the muffuletta in New Orleans.
For now though, our Louisiana way of life has come to a grinding halt.
It’s tough times for all of us, but especially for folks in businesses that rely on social gathering. Not just because they’re closed down, but also because of the uncertainty of what their businesses will look like when we get back to normal.
Gus Rezende owns seven food and drink establishments in Acadiana, including Tula Tacos and Central Pizza, and through his company, Social Entertainment, he’s the promoter of a handful of festivals, among them the Acadiana Poboy Festival. How is Gus positioning his businesses for re-opening, and is he getting and Federal help through the Cares Act?
In New Orleans the Party Is On Pause
New Orleans might not have invented the concept of partying, but the city has certainly perfected it.
Before it became an alleged virus incubator, Mardi Gras in New Orleans was one of the most celebrated parties on earth. There are free parties every single night on Bourbon Street, and Frenchmen Street.
Even in the business world, New Orleans is known for socializing. Although conventions are meant to be places for doing business, there’s a reason Las Vegas and New Orleans are the country’s biggest convention destinations.
In New Orleans the worlds of tourism and conventions meet in the offices of an organization called New Orleans & Company - a city body that was formed by the recent combination of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation and the Convention & Visitors Bureau.
The Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of New Orleans & Company is Mark Romig. Mark has been a guest on Out to Lunch before, under happier circumstances. Back then we would never have imagined that we would be discussing the details of turning the New Orleans Convention Center into a hospital.
The Dr is In: Will Curing The Public Health Crisis Cure The Economic Crisis?
Meet Steve Ceulemans. Steve is originally from Belgium, where he got a degree in international business and management. After that, he got a Doctor of Science degree from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
You might well imagine that when Steve pursued these two very disparate avenues of academic study – business and tropical medicine – there were people who wondered if one would ever be able to use those two skillsets at the same time. Well, that time has arrived. As Executive Director of the Baton Rouge Health District, Steve Ceulemans is uniquely qualified to understand how this pandemic is undermining our economy.
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur and more info is on our website https://itsacadiana.com/2020/04/07/the-covid-economy-april-7th-13th/https://itsacadiana.com/show/out-to-lunch/
Last week's Covid Economy update is here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It's the second week of Out to Lunch Acadiana's host Christiaan Mader's link-up with Out to Lunch New Olreans host Peter Ricchiuti and Out to Lunch Baton Rouge host Stephanie Riegel for a state-wide look at our business and financial life in Louisiana, in what has become this unprecedented Covid Economy.
In Acadiana, Lafayette is often referred to as “Hub City.” The reason for that is, Lafayette is the economic hub of the region.
The population of Acadania residents who shop in Lafayette, or come here to do business, is about 600,000. Once you figure in the oil and gas industry that pays $800m annually in local wages alone, plus the tech sector, the medical sector, and manufacturing – including one of the biggest jewelry manufacturers in the country - the economic impact of shutting down Lafayette rivals New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
Lafayette's version of a Chamber of Commerce is the Lafayette Economic Development Authority, more often referred to by its acronym, LEDA.
The President and CEO of LEDA is Gregg Gothreaux.
Out to Lunch Acadiana host Christiaan Mader spends a good part of his day reporting on the impacts of Covid 19 in his role as publisher of the local independent news organization The Current. As a result, this conversation between Mader and Gothreaux is particularly insightful and illuminating.
New Orleans Troubled Past & Current Covid Economy
New Orleans' last total economic collapse wasn’t all that long ago. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina brought the city to a standstill. A large part of New Orleans’ economic recovery from that shutdown was driven by a Louisiana State initiative, called the Katrina Small Business Recovery Program. That program was headed up by Michael Hecht.
Michael is now President and CEO of an organization called Greater New Orleans Inc, a kind of super-charged Chamber of Commerce. Hecht is typically self-deprecating about his role in saving New Orleans after Katrina, but a lot of people credit him personally with saving small business in the city. Once again, we’re all looking for someone to tell us what to do to save small business in Louisiana, and beyond. Hecht's advice may agin turn out to be, literally, invaluable.
Baton Rouge's Unique Covid Economy
If you live outside of Baton Rouge, and everything you know about the city comes from what you hear or see on the news, you’d be forgiven for thinking that nothing goes on here but politics.
That’s far from the truth. And it’s the reason the slogan of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber is, “There’s more to Baton Rouge than you might think.”
For starters, there are over 1,500 businesses and organizations that are members of the Chamber.
The function of the Chamber is to support those member-businesses, help them grow, and to make Baton Rouge such a great place to do business that other people will be attracted to start or move companies here.
But, what does a Chamber of Commerce do when there is no commerce?
Stephanie puts that question to the President and CEO of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, Adam Knapp.
You can find further discussion about Louisiana's Covid Economy here.
Find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur and more information at our website https://itsacadiana.com/show/out-to-lunch/
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Out to Lunch Acadiana is linking up with Out to Lunch New Orleans and Out to Lunch Baton Rouge for a statewide examination of our businesses and personal finances as we deal with the national public health crisis that is Coronavirus in Louisiana and life in the Covid Economy.
Isolated in their respective homes, Christiaan Mader co-hosts the show along with New Orleans host Peter Ricchiuti and Baton Rouge host Stephanie Riegel.
On this inaugural edition of Out to Lunch Louisiana, Christiaan discusses the extent to which Acadiana has begun to feel the effects of the onset of the virus, from the oil field to Jefferson Street, with veteran local political insider and current CEO and President of United Way of Acadiana, Carlee Alm-LaBarr.
Stephanie Riegel introduces Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana's healthcare economist, Mike Bertaut, who reveals the scope of the current crisis for the healthcare company, for healthcare nationwide, and for the 1.6million Louisiana residents who are signed up with Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Peter Ricchiuti examines what the the slowdown of business and collapse of the stock market means to the future of stocks with veteran financial consultant, Ricardo Thomas. Is this like every other market turn down that will eventually correct itself and then some? Or are we really in uncharted waters here and therefore looking at a bigger change that we haven't seen before?
Out to Lunch Louisiana will continue as a statewide program for the duration of the public health crisis of Coronavirus in Louisiana.
Photos from the Zoom recording of the program by Jill Lafleur and more information at our website https://itsacadiana.com/show/out-to-lunch/
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Normally on Out to Lunch we're talking about for-profit businesses. But here in Acadiana - maybe more than anywhere else in the country - there are organisations and people dedicated to making a difference rather than a profit. On this edition of Out to Lunch Christiaan Mader is talking with folks who run nonprofit organizations that fill an important gap in community services, saving birds and saving schools.
Even if your heart's in the right place, you still need to be able to find your wallet. Lafayette is not necessarily an easy place to raise money. People are generous here, no doubt about that, southern hospitality is certainly a local specialty. But people around here value independence and self-determination. Plus, they like a business idea to make business sense, which means they ought to make money and survive on their own.
That presents a challenge to nonprofits large and small. How do you make big impact on a lean budget? How do you build for the long term when all the money you get goes to the important and expensive work that you’re doing now.
Abi Broussard Falgout is the Executive Director the Lafayette Education Foundation. For close to 30 years, L-E-F has filled funding gaps for Lafayette’s schools and educators. The foundation is primarily a granting organization, with a tiny staff, and is best known for the annual Teacher Awards, a glitzy gala that celebrates the best teachers in Lafayette Parish. Abi took over as Executive Director in 2019. She’s also an entrepreneur who’s worked in marketing, real estate and hospitality.
Letitia Labbie runs a wildlife rehabilitation center out of her house in Youngsville. Letitia founded her tiny but effective nonprofit, Acadiana Wildlife Education and Rehabilitation, in 1998. AWER has taken in more than 6,000 birds and small animals over the years, which she treats at often enormous cost, and often entirely on her own. Letitia is currently raising money to establish a permanent treatment center that’s not her house.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded over lunch at The French Press in Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Travis Gauthier and more, at our website.
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If you're in the music business and you can get a dollar for every time somebody says "The music business is changing," you'll probably make more money than however you're making it now in the music business.
Yes, Acadiana is rich with music, but music makes hardly anybody rich. And getting rich is besides the point. For the most part, the people who play the music that makes South Louisiana famous do so part-time. That includes all those Grammy winners you hear about.
Sure enough people get by. There’s never a shortage of gigs. And playing Zydeco or Cajun music can be good supplemental income. Plus it’s a great time. But long term, it’s tricky if not impossible to build a safety net or nest egg that most American workers accumulate over their careers.
Musicians can’t really retire — not that they would want to — and that means major needs can go unfunded and unmet in the twilight of most careers. Christiaan Mader's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana are both dealing with this problem, albeit from different angles.
Major Handy is by all accounts a living legend in blues and Zydeco. A world traveler. A raconteur, and an auto mechanic. At 72 years old, he’s deeply familiar with the challenges of being a working musician past the traditional retiring age. But he’s a consummate pro and fighter. He suffered a stroke at the beginning of 2020 but is already back on the beat, set to play some gigs in France later this year. Major is also involved with the Music Makers Relief Foundation, a nonprofit that supports and documents traditional musicians in the Deep South.
John Williams is president of Love of People, a nonprofit started by his family in the 1990s, but is best known for Blue Monday, a program he launched in 2016. Blue Monday raises money to help aging musicians pay for medical care and living expenses through an monthly concert and dinner series staged at Rock and Bowl here in Downtown Lafayette. Love of People runs several different initiatives including Musicians Etude, We Care and the Lending Closet, which compensates local musicians who donate their talents to benefits with credits to buy goods and professional services. John is also Executive Director of the Upper Lafayette Economic Development Foundation.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded over lunch at The French Press in downtown Lafayette.
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Maybe you think Boudoir Photography - intimate, seductive portraits taken for romance or personal empowerment - is something that happens in other places. After all, we're pretty conservative around here. Aren't we? Well, apparently not.
April Courville got a masters in marketing in college and wound up in Minnesota where she fell into boudoir photography. When April moved back to Lafayette she built a big enough book of business to strike out on her own full time with a boudoir photography business called A. Danette Photography.
Here’s a photography cliche. Why hire a photographer when a phone can do the job? That was already the conventional wisdom 13 years ago when the iPhone debuted. Since then, the lenses have only gotten better and people have started making millions taking pictures of their lives on Instagram. But the professional photographer never went obsolete as predicted.
That’s because there are plenty of circumstances that require a professional touch — weddings, portraits, magazine features and commercial photography that requires special skills to make the ordinary look extraordinary. That doesn’t mean making a living behind the camera isn’t a hustle. Success in photography takes relentless self-promotion, creativity and maybe a little luck.
Paul Kieu detoured into photography while on a path toward law school. Taking pictures was a hobby until he figured out he could get paid to do it and he stuck with it after graduating from UL with a degree in political science. He worked as a photojournalist for the Daily Advertiser for several years until leaving to work on his own. Taking a particular interest in culture, Paul’s work captures Acadiana’s boucheries, festivals and celebrations in vivid detail. You can find his photos in several local and regional publications.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded over lunch at The French Press in downtown Lafayette. And talking of photographs, if you'd like to see photos from this show by Travis Gauthier you can find them at https://itsacadiana.com/show/out-to-lunch/
More conversation over lunch about Acadiana photography here.
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The term "Silicon Bayou" has been around for some time. It’s the promise of a new economy for Louisiana, sometimes thought of in New Orleans. Beyond the confines of the Crescent City, the Louisiana Silicon Bayou stretches well into Acadiana.
When you think about it, this area has always been the frontier when it comes to business, and that attitude was put on the map by oil speculators who came to be known as "wildcatters."
Today we call that, "entrepreneur." These are the risk takers. The folks hunting for the next big idea and hoping to strike gold.
Christiaan's lunch companions on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana both work in the world of startups — the new business frontier with a different kind of wildcat.
Kyle Boudreaux, more often called Skip, got into the startup world early. By 25 he was the CEO of an innovative diaper company. He went on to work in the world of investment capital and he recently launched the first venture capital firm in the area, called Acadian Ventures.
Bill Dalton has worked in digital marketing since the dot-boom. He launched Firefly Digital in the late 90s with his partner Mike Spears. The company was one of the first ad agencies in the area to build and design marketing campaigns for the web. People still called it the world wide web back then. Firefly Digital incubated the startup Smart Choice Technologies to a successful exit. Now re-branded as Firefly Marketing, Bill’s team provides full-service digital marketing for clients near and far.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded over lunch at The French Press in Lafayette. There are photos from this show by Gwen Aucoin and lots more info on our website https://link.chtbl.com/Vj_kXlwb
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Writers are hustlers. When you get paid cents per word, you’ve got to write a lot of words to make ends meet. And that’s getting harder to do in a crowded market. Anyone can blog. We all learn to string a few sentences together in high school. What’s the point in paying a professional?
In journalism, there’s actually a crisis because of that dynamic. There are as many reporters working today in the United States as there were 40 years ago. The machines that made publishing a lucrative business — actual printing presses — are rusting over. It’s not that there’s a lack of writing. There’s a lack of money to pay anyone to do it. For most folks writing for a living, that means writing whatever, whenever and however.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana both write to pay the bills — and that's not an easy thing to do. They wear a lot of hats to make ends meet and satisfy their curiosities.
Writer Charles Garret has led a curious life himself. He’s been a firefighter, a salesman, a mixed martial artist and a poet. Coming this year he’s launching a new venture Tora Arts that will turn back the clock on the communications industry – ditching the digital age for the honest touch of snail mail.
As a journalist, Chere Coen is a travel writer humping around the south for adventure and good eats. As Cherie Claire she’s a writer of romance novels— and a prolific one at that — publishing as many as two e-books each year.
Whatever medium they work in — journalism, poetry, advertising — today's writers are hustlers, ready for the gig economy.
Out to Lunch is recorded over lunch at The French Press in downtown Lafayette. You can see photos from this show by Lucius Fontenot, and more, at our website https://link.chtbl.com/Vj_kXlwb
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In Acadiana, business is a tradition and tradition is a business - often the family business. There’s a long heritage of musical families around here, dynasties of fiddlers and accordion players handing down the tools and tricks of the family trade to generation after generation.
It’s one of our greatest exports. Lafayette practically pumps out ranks of acclaimed Zydeco and Cajun musicians and most of them are carrying on something they learned from their parents and their parents’ parents. Throw a rock in any direction. You’ll probably hit a Grammy nominee. Throw another, you’ll hit her momma.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of ut to Lunch Acadiana are both internationally celebrated musicians from famous Cajun families.
Virginia-born Ann Savoy married into the Savoy family of Eunice and has toured internationally with her band the Magnolia Sisters which explores the feminine side of the Cajun tradition — they’re not actually her sisters. Ann is a writer and will soon publish the second volume of her archival work Cajun Music: A Reflection of a People.
Louis Michot grew up in a big, sprawling Cajun music family. Since 1999, he’s toured internationally with Lost Bayou Ramblers, a band he started with his brother Andre 20 years ago. Lost Bayou won a Grammy for their 2017 record Kalenda. Recently, Louis launched Nouveau Electric Records, a label that puts out experimental artists rooted in Louisiana French musical traditions.
Out to Lunch is recorded over lunch at The French Press in downtown Lafayette. See photos by Lucius Fontenot and more at our website.
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There can be a lot of pressure to take on the family business, especially when the family name becomes synonymous with the industry they work in. Imagine what it must be like to be a Hilton or a Disney or a Manning. Everybody copes with it differently. Some embrace it. Some make their own mark on it. Some leave it all behind and do something else entirely. Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana come from Acadiana's wide world of sports.
Christian Willeford is the son of Beau Willeford, the legendary boxing coach and operator of the Ragin Cajun Boxing Club. Willeford’s dad trained scores of boxers in Acadiana over the years and brought the prestigious boxing championship, the Golden Gloves, to Lafayette. Sadly, Beau passed away in 2019 after a brief bout with cancer. Christian recently announced that he will close the club after a nearly four-decade run but is keeping the Golden Gloves going.
Leigh Hennesy Robson first made a name for herself as a world trampoline champion. Leigh was coached by her father, Jeff Hennesy, a prominent name in competitive trampolining. For the last two decades, however, Leigh has made a second name for herself, this time in the movie business. Leigh is a stunt double and stunt coordinator. She was Demi Moore’s double in GI Jane and Lucy Liu’s in Charlie Angels. Leigh is one of only a few hundred stunt women working in the film industry today.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at The French Press in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Lucius Fontenot and more info about the show on the It's Acadiana Website.
More conversation with remarkable Acadiana sportswoman, racecar driver Sarah Montgomery, here.
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We've always been told that there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. In 21st Century America you can add one certainty: the ever changing face of healthcare.
Apparently, back in the dim distant past, people used to get sick, go to a doctor, get cured, and go home. We’d pay the doctor for his or her services, and everybody would walk away happy.
That was a long time ago. Now you go to a doctor, you get a battery of tests, you get referred to another doctor who specializes in what may or may not be wrong with you, your insurance company refuses to cover the tests the doctor wants, your prescription plan doesn’t cover the medications you need, your doctor’s large office staff spends weeks sorting out what your insurance company owes the doctor and what you owe, and you end up with a gigantic bill and a worse headache than whatever it was that drove you to the doctor in the first place.
And everybody you know has a worse story than you about their own medical misadventures.
In the face of this, there are truly good people in the medical field who are working to deliver better outcomes for both doctors and patients. And to change the nature of healthcare system itself.
Blaine Lindsey is the Vice President of Growth Strategy of a company called Aledade Louisiana. Aledade is a relatively new type of care company, called an ACO – an Accountable Care Organization. Aledade’s function is to move healthcare from a user-pays model – where you pay the doctor for treating you each time you are sick – to an outcome based model where the doctor gets paid for keeping you healthy and not having to visit the clinic.
Most of us have very little idea about how the business side of medical institutions work. Many doctors themselves don’t understand how the complex mechanics of the healthcare delivery system work. Dr. Andy Blalock is not one of them.
Andy is a nephrologist – a kidney specialist – and also the Chief Medical Officer at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. Our Lady of Lourdes has been in Lafayette since 1949 and maintains a dual purpose – to provide the best in cutting edge medical care, and to provide for those who may least be able to afford it.
This episode of Out to Lunch is recorded over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville You can find photos from this show by Gwen Aucoin and more at our website https://link.chtbl.com/Vj_kXlwb
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One of the things we’re proudest of in Acadiana is our culture. And our family. We even talk about the family relationships between our cultures as being first cousins: Cajun and Zydeco.
There are similarities and notable differences between Cajun music and dance, and Zydeco music and dance. Leaving aside for the moment the intertwined Acadian and African influences, one major musical difference, obvious even to people from outside, is an instrument you hear in Zydeco only. And that’s the frottoir, or rubboard.
The rubboard didn’t start out as a musical instrument. It started out as, well, a rubboard. You used it to wash clothes. And then if you put thimbles on your fingers you could make a scratching sound by strumming it. It was Clifton Chenier and his brother Cleveland who came up with the idea of making a metal or stainless steel rubboard. The guy they turned to to make it was their friend and fellow worker at the Texaco Refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. He was a master welder, metal fabricator, and fellow Louisiana native by the name of Willie Landry.
Willie’s son, Tee Don Landry, has spent a lifetime making rubboards under the name Key of Z. He’s made around 3,000 of them. They’re in the hands of regular folks and famous musicians – like Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top and Rihanna. There’s even a Tee Don Landry rubboard in the Smithsonian.
The intertwined Acadian and African cultures that have given us Cajun and Zydeco music and dance have led to the relationship between the styles of music and the people who play them and dance to them being referred to as “first cousins.”
“First Cousins” is the name of a film about this very subject. The film was written, produced and directed by two sisters, Moriah and Elista Istre. Both Istre sisters have a Ph.D and are professional cultural historians.
Moriah is a folklorist and festival programmer as well as being the Director of the movie, First Cousins.
One of the funny things about families is, everybody else's family seems a lot more normal than your own. Till you get to know them! But the more you get to know your Cajun and Zydeco first cousins the more you get to love them.
You can see photos by Gwen Aucoin and more from this show, recorded live over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville at our website https://link.chtbl.com/Vj_kXlwb
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If you're like most people, you found out very early on, probably in pre-school, that things go a lot better when people like you. Nothing has much has changed since you were 4. From the factory floor, to the boardroom, to the halls of regulatory government, to million dollar marketing campaigns, being successful in commerce is very often nothing more than trying to figure out how to win the business popularity contest.
When your business comes into contact in any way with local, State, or Federal government, working with specialist consultants becomes less of an option and more of a necessity. In Acadiana, one of the leading governmental affairs consultants is The Picard Group.
The Picard Group has offices in Lafayette, Baton Rouge, and Washington DC. The company’s Principal is Tyron Picard.
In discussions of business strategy you often hear the advice that to grow you have to stop working in your company and start working on your company. Part of that task is to come up with a strategy for presenting your company to the world. Otherwise known as marketing.
When you start thinking about marketing, you’ve got a million questions to answer about how you want your company to look to clients or customers. You need to decide everything from the color of your logo to the attitude you want to present on social media. You can answer these questions yourself as they come up. Or you can turn to expert consultants to craft an overall strategy for you. That’s the specialist mission of a company called Healthy Image.
Healthy Image is in Lake Charles, but their work is spread far and wide. Healthy Image’s Creative Director is Barbara VanGossen.
Although this show is called Out to Lunch Acadiana, the insights in this conversation about business, and business’s relationship to government, go beyond the bayou and well beyond the Louisiana border.
You can find photos from this show by Gwen Aucoin at our website https://link.chtbl.com/Vj_kXlwb
More about unique aspects of marketing in Acadiana here.
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How many thousand times have you heard someone talk about working remotely, saying, "The great thing about the internet is you can work anywhere." Well, working in the oil field brings a whole new meaning to working "remotely." It's remote alright, and it's still tech, but it's of necessity, tech Acadiana style.
If you started out in the oil field before the internet, before apps, before social media, and in some cases before the computer, the relentless onslaught of technology drives you to a point where you either throw up your hands and decide to be a Luddite, or you embrace change. Like Tim Supple. Tim has embraced change in a big way.
For years the multi-billion dollar Acadiana oil and gas business depended for its existence on a breed of hydrocarbon cowboys called Landmen. A Landman secures the leases and rights for an oil and gas company to dig wells. That’s not nearly as simple as it sounds. It can involve masses of contacts, phone calls, promises, handshakes, lunches, drinks, scraps of paper, maps, blind alleys and frequent and expensive miscalculations.
Tim Supple and his partner came up with a way to take all the disparate inputs oil and gas company landmen accumulate, and assemble them in a whole new way: online. They created a web-based version of the Acadian Hydrocarbon cowboy and called him iLandman. In a tough time for oil exploration, iLandman is giving over fifteen hundred subscribers a much needed edge.
Chad Theriot is on the other side of the tech revolution. Although Chad grew up in Breaux Bridge his upbringing sounds more like a kid in Silicon Valley. Chad started working with his father in the family business, CBM Technology, at the age of 12. By 15 he was a computer programmer. Chad went on to create the first automated system that uses voice to produce a transcript for court reporters, and has designed and developed software for a wide range of companies including UPS and The Kellogg Corporation.
In 2011 Chad and his business partner bought his dad’s company, CBM, and for that reason Chad is living back on the Silicon Bayou.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded over lunch at Social Southern Restaurant and Bar . You can see photos from this show by Gwen Aucoin and more at our website https://link.chtbl.com/Vj_kXlwb.
More about Acadiana tech here.
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If you had a dollar for every time someone on radio or TV said, “Here in Acadiana we’re known for our food,” you probably would have made about a hundred dollars this month already. You wouldn’t be as wealthy, though, if you were collecting a dollar on the sentence, “Here in Acadiana there is a sizeable segment of the population open to a medically holistic, nutritious approach to diet with an emphasis on fresh fruit and vegetables.”
Although you don’t hear a lot of people say that, and as unlikely as it sounds, it’s true! Dr Marie Pace attests to that.
Dr Pace is the owner of a business in Lafayette called Optimum Solutions Holistic Health Consultants. Dr Pace is a doctor of Naturopathy, a Holistic Health Practitioner, a Certified Nutritional Counselor, and author of the book, Discover Health.
Dr Pace believes we would go a long way toward eliminating all diseases if we lived on a more balanced diet of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Jimbeaux Guilbeaux will be happy to bring you all the fresh fruit and vegetables you want. Jimbeaux is co-founder and Vice President of Sales at Freshko Foodservice.
Freshko’s 22 employees deliver fresh food, and more, to restaurants, hospitals, hotels, and other food-related businesses in Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Shreveport. Freshko’s success story is a classic Acadiana business tale and an inspirational testimony to good old fashioned decency in business.
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Social in Lafayette. You can see photos from this show by Gwen Aucoin and more at our website https://link.chtbl.com/Vj_kXlwb
Find out more about Acadiana diet and health options here.
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History is a messy business. It’s full of mixed and conflicting perspectives. It’s subject to revision — for the right or wrong reasons And while it’s tempting to think of it as a collection of facts, history is really a collection of perspectives.
This holds especially true for histories of people. Think about it: there are competing biographies, or authorized biographies, even unauthorized biographies - and, of course, autobiographies.
Christiaan's guests on this episode of Out to Lunch Acadiana are both writers of history.
Jason Theriot is a freelance author, a New Iberia native, and an academic. He’s written on a number of subjects, not just about people, including World War II histories and works about the environment, particularly the Gulf Coast. Jason is a former fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School where he worked on Environmental Policy. He’s currently working on a history of tank barges.
Deirdre Gogarty Morrison wrote her own history. She published an autobiography about her career as a boxer called “My Call to the Ring.”
Deirdre was born and raised in Ireland and moved to Lafayette to work with the legendary boxing coach Beau Williford. Irish law prohibited women from boxing professionally but that didn't deter Deirdre. She was to become Ireland’s first women’s world champion and has been inducted into the international women’s boxing hall of fame.
Deidre is retired from professional bouts now and spends her boxing time coaching both men and women.
Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Chopsticks restaurant in Lafayette.
You can find photos from this show by Lucius Fontenot, and more, at our website.
Find out more about extraordinary Acadiana women in sports here.
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Oil is still big business in Acadiana, even if it’s not quite as big it used to be. The IT business is quietly growing here too, specially in Lafayette. What's interesting about both the natural resource industry and the broadband-based-business is the way they're growing beyond our borders. We're now looking at Acadiana-based oil, gas, and IT from China to Houston.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana both run successful operations that have business portfolios that have managed to succeed and even grow in tough times by diversifying what they do and staying inventive.
Ragen Bourel runs her family business — an international oil services company Map Oil Tools. Her father founded Map in Texas but moved it to New Iberia. On her way to the top job, Ragen dropped out of college, hopped on at the warehouse and worked her way up to CEO. Today, Map is a small company with an international footprint with operations in the U.S., China and Dubai. In fact, Map has more employees in China than New Iberia.
Like Steve Jobs and Apple, Ben Johnson launched his company, Techneaux, in a garage. Ten years ago, he had one client and one co-worker. Since then, Techneaux has added new divisions and dozens of employees with operations in Denver and Houston. In 2019, Techneaux was named one of the state’s top growth companies. It supplies IT and data services for big industry on an innovative business model.
Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Chopsticks restaurant in Lafayette.
Find photos from this show by Lucius Fontenot and more at our website.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How often is it that we aim for one career and land in another? You go to college to be a painter and you end up a graphic designer, or you study philosophy and end up a lawyer. For most of us, we're lucky if we can do work we love on nights and weekends. Finding meaning in your work and the opportunity to express yourself - and get paid - is the career path less traveled.
Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana both thrive in careers that are perhaps only slightly different than the ones they imagined for themselves. The basic elements of their ambitions and skills are in place — artfulness, creativity, compassion and taste.
Virginia Goetting wanted to be an art therapist. She got her degree in fine arts but left school a nomad. She hitched a ride to a brief career in Louisiana’s film industry but ultimately landed in cosmetology and has worked in aesthetics for the last 10 years. For every client in her chair at Salon NV in Downtown Lafayette, she gets to sculpt new looks and lend a sympathetic ear. Sounds like art therapy, wouldn't you agree?
Mia Sandberg got her start in interior design, but she didn’t find her calling till her husband bought her flowers. The arrangement was a funky little thing, unusual and earthy. It spoke to her. When they landed back in Lafayette, Mia needed a new gig. "Why not flowers?" she thought.
Mia launched Root Floral Design in a shack behind her parents’ house in Carencro. The firm has grown into an in-demand florist for weddings and big events. Mia has a knack for unconventional arrangements with rich textures and unusual blossoms. This is interior design with living, breathing materials. And business is growing.
This edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded at Spoonbill Watering Hole and Restaurant in downtown Lafayette.
You can see photos from this show by Lucius Fontenot at It's Acadiana.com
Find a very different perspective on happiness and the wedding flower business, here.
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Everybody likes a pretty picture, and a good cheese. Well, maybe not everybody likes cheese, but when you team it up with grapes, chocolate, and other goodies it becomes something altogether different - an edible work of art.
Running a startup in any industry is building a plane in midair. You might think you know how fly, but then you hit turbulence. Or you figure out that you need to also know how to sell plane tickets. These days, it’s not enough to know the work, you’ve got to know how to sell it. When you're an entrepreneur that means selling yourself - more often than not on social media.
Christiaan Mader's guests today have both taken the plunge into startup life, in their own ways. What they have in common is that they both sell whimsy and imagination, and in most cases they have to sell it themselves.
Denise Gallagher got her start in advertising, working for 15 years as the art director at BBR, a well-established ad and marketing firm. She bet on herself and left the company in 2013, pursuing a second act as an illustrator for hire and a children’s book author. Her most recent book, Peg Bearskin: A Traditional Newfoundland tale, was published earlier this year.
Mandy Osgood co-founded Graze Acadiana in early 2019, in partnership with her mom.
Graze Acadiana creates what they call "foodscapes" - custom, seasonal sharing platters for social gatherings, corporate thank yous, or maybe an evening at home with a big appetite. It’s food that makes you feel good, and the designs are beyond appetizing.
The contents of the foodscapes are all fresh and wherever possible locally sourced, but the Graze Craze itself is imported from Down Under — New Zealand and Australia.
Out to Lunch is recorded over lunch at Chopsticks restaurant in Lafayette.
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If you don't have hours to spare in a doctor's waiting room, or you live in a remote spot of Acadiana, you're going to love the advent of Tele-Health: You can get first-class healthcare anywhere in Acadiana. Now.
We’re getting a lot of what we need from the internet these days. You can pick up your iPhone, unlock it with your face, and get a month’s supply of dog food delivered in two days. That’s convenience.
E-shopping is nothing new, even as it’s gotten faster and offered more stuff. But over the last decade, better and faster broadband has made it possible to network services that aren’t just about making it easier to be lazy.
And that’s well on display in the healthcare industry where advances in telemedicine are tackling serious quality of life issues with fantastic results.
Over miles of fiber optic cable hospitals now come to you. Telemedicine programs bring doctors, nurses and counselors where the patients are — at work, at school or even miles from the nearest hospital in areas where geography is a big hurdle in getting good health care.
Chistiaan Mader's lunch guests on this edition of Out to Lunch both work in extensively in telemedicine, advocating and advancing its benefits to the work place and to community health in general.
Attorney Nadia de la Houssaye, launched one of Louisiana’s first teleradiology networks, with her husband, a radiologist, more than 20 years ago. Nadia served as the company’s general counsel. Today, Nadia is a partner at law firm Jones Walker where she’s also the head of Telehealth.
Lafayette General Health is one of the major players locally in telemedicine. The system introduced a telemedicine clinic on site at jewelry manufacturer Stuller in 2012, offering on-the-job healthcare access to the jewelry maker’s 1,200 employees. Lafayette General’s program has since grown to serve public school systems and Lafayette Consolidated Government, where it provides care for more than 2,200 government workers.
Cian Robinson has been one of the big reasons for Lafayette General’s wins in that space. Cian ran the Lafayette General Foundation for several years and now serves as the health systems’ executive director for innovation, research and real estate investments.
You can see photos from this show recorded over lunch at Chopsticks restaurant in Lafayette here.
Hear more from Cian Robinson on past Out to Lunch shows here and here.
Meet Matt Stuller from Stuller Inc here.
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Your grocery and drug store purchase cards allow the stores to predict when you're going to need laundry detergent and Advil, and when you don't buy it in time they send you a coupon to get you to come back in. Then there's an even more advanced (some might call it "insidious") form of Artificial Iintelligence (A.I), like Frankie Russo's. Frankie's A.I knows you want to buy a car before you do.
We humans have an uneasy relationship with algorithms and robots. Sure, we create them. But there is a general sense of foreboding about a world where humans and algorithmic-driven bots co-exist.
Part of that fear is rooted in a Hollywood science-fiction vision of the future, which is more fiction than science. And then there’s the all-too-real truth about the advent of driverless cars; the massed DNA information database that Ancestry.com is building; and how much Facebook knows about you already.
When you consider this growth of Artificial Intelligence, you might start to realize that a science fiction future isn’t going to look like a Will Smith movie - where we’re fighting humanoids in the streets - but it’s also not futuristic. It’s happening right now.
Even right here in Acadiana. In fact, one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence in the world of marketing is Lafayette’s own Frankie Russo.
Frankie Russo is a pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence in the world of marketing. Which is why Frankie’s company, 360 IA, knows what you want to buy, before you do.
If you think that’s fascinating, listen to this conversation. If you think someone who can accurately predict your purchasing future is just too freaky, you might want to skip this.
You can see photos by Lucius Fontenot from this show, recorded at Spoonbill Watering Hole & Restaurant in downtown Lafayette, here.
You can hear Frankie's previous appearance on Out to Lunch here.
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When you’re starting a new business, every consultant will tell you, rule number one is - make sure your business solves a problem that people want solved. That last part of the sentence is considered to be vital. If you don’t have a product that people are looking for, you’ll never sell it and your business will never work.
Then, of course, there’s the exception to the rule. For example, dehydrated cocktail mixes that allow you to make a delicious bar-quality cocktail on top of a mountain, on a desert island, or in a foreign country where they don’t know how to make a good Old Fashioned.
Those dehydrated cocktail mixes are made right here in Lafayette. They’re called Leisuremann’s Cocktail Mixes. You might not have woken up this morning, or any morning, thinking, “I wonder where I could buy a dehydrated cocktail mix to take on vacation,” but it’s one of those strange things that once you know about it, you wonder why nobody thought of it before.
One of the people who did think of it is the co-owner of Leisuremann’s Cocktail Mixes, Cliff Couvillion.
Besides dehydrated cocktail mixes, there are many other things in life you can live without. They include gelato, sorbetto, coffee, wine, croissants, gluten-free baked goods, and brunch.
However, if you decide your life would be a lot better if you didn’t live without any of those things, you can find them all in downtown Lafayette at the stylishly re-vamped café and wine bar, Carpe Diem.
The owner of Carpe Diem is Liz Payne.
This show was recorded live over lunch at Chopsticks restaurant in Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Lucius Fontenot and more, here.
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Until a few years ago, if you wanted to know what's going on in the world or in your backyard, you had to buy a newspaper. Today we primarily get our news online. In this information society we expect information to be free. That trend has led to the well-documented demise of the daily paper. Except, not here. Here in Acadiana we are in the atypical position of having a newspaper that is actually expanding - both its staff and coverage. That newspaper is The Advocate.
At The Advocate, one of the people behind this trend-bucking expansion - and the person charged with figuring out how to make money out of information everyone expects for free - is the company's Publisher, Judi Terzotis. Judi has a massive task making a newspaper profitable. But, as host Aileen Bennett mentions in this Out to Lunch Acadiana conversation, you have your own struggles with money. We all do. Most of us somehow manage to spend all the money we make. Even if we get a raise, or even win the lottery, somehow we find a way to spend it all. So that when it comes time to buy something we really want, or really need, we stress out about it. Or we put it on a credit card and stress out about it every month for years to come. Wouldn't it be great if you could figure out how to live within your means, have everything you want - within reason - be happy, and even have savings? According to Molly Richard, that doesn't have to be a fantasy. That can be your real life.
Molly's company, Splendor Financial Wellness, takes ordinary people like you and me and, through a unique process that is focused on how our finances are linked to our psychological and emotional states, raises our financial IQ to a state of actual happiness. Molly is unlocking something revolutionary in its simplicity.
Photos at Spoonbill Watering Hole and Restaurant by Lucius Fontenot.
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There are two ways of launching a successful business these days. One is to come up with an idea. Write a business plan. Create a pitch. Hire a pitch coach to sharpen your message. Go through a business incubator, followed by a business accelerator program. Go to friends and family for financing. Then raise investment capital, and finally become profitable. The other method is to stumble by chance into an already existing business, buy it off the owner, and discover having had no formal training that you re a natural at business, and that before you know it you re expanding and diversifying just like the business planners tell you. Except you don t have a business plan. That s pretty much what happened to Nancy and Jesse at The Kitchen Shop in Grand Coteau. Technically their names are Jesse Poimbouef and Nancy Brewer, but everybody in Grand Coteau and way beyond know them simply as Nancy and Jesse. If you don t know about The Kitchen Shop, and you ve only ever driven past Grand Coteau, it s hard to grasp quite how extraordinary this business is. The range of kitchen equipment and gadgets in the front of The Kitchen Shop is staggering. And in the back of the store there s a small pastry shop and bakery that racks up online and real life reviews that frequently describe the pastries as best ever. If you think The Kitchen Shop in Grand Coteau is more like something you d find in Manhattan, that might be because Nancy was one of Manhattan s leading pastry chefs. And Jesse was an artist there, before they decided, 25 years ago, to get out of New York and move to Lafayette with no plan, no job, and no home. Diversification is the kind of thing successful businesses do to expand. For example, Amazon started off selling books only. Now it s diversified into selling, well, pretty much everything. On a markedly smaller scale, The Kitchen Shop diversified into women s fashion. It started out with Nancy s frustration at not being able to find anything fashionable to buy for herself to wear, and culminated in a spin off business called Pistache Dress Shop. Pistache is an equally unexpected find in a small Louisiana town and is now a stand alone business in Grand Coteau owned by Nancy s former prot g , Alyce Ray. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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As humans, we have two ways to communicate. Sight and sound. We started out beating on wooden logs and scratching figures onto the walls of caves. We ve evolved to where we are today talking to a hand held device and telling it to play music or movies. The biggest part of those millions of years of artistic and technological revolution has occurred in the past hundred years. First there was the invention of radio. Then TV. For around 30 of that recent evolution that is, for the last 30 years Charles Wood has been an eye witness. And a key player. Today, Chuck is General Manager of Lafayette based Delta Media Corporation, overseeing 6 radio stations and 5 TV channels in Acadiana. Radio and television became an integral part of our lives for a number of reasons, but one of them is because it was free. Radio and TV is principally funded by advertisers. That means, if you own radio or TV stations, no matter how good your content, you are reliant on advertising sales to make money. That means you re reliant on sales people. Sales is both an art and a science. Part personality, part persistence, and part system. One of the most popular and effective sales systems in the country these days is called Salesforce. It s a nationwide platform that s known generically as CRM Customer Relationship Management. Locally, Salesforce is represented by ADP Solutions, in Lafayette. Anne Pyle is Managing Partner of ADP Solutions. Of our five senses, three are most important sight, sound, and sales. Photos over lunch at Marcello s Wine Market Cafe in Lafayette by Lucius Fontenot.
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The decision to go in to business for yourself is a big one. On the one hand, you can do exactly what you want at any hour of the day without having to ask for anyone's permission. On the other hand, you're not getting paid. Aileen Bennett's two lunch guests on this edition of out to Lunch Acaiana made the decision to go into business for themselves for two very different reasons. And in two different centuries.
Back in the 20th Century, in 1983, Michael LeBlanc was the victim of massive layoffs in the oil field.Because there were no jobs to apply for, Michael went into business for himself, doing something he hadn't trained for, and that he didn't know a great deal about. Cleaning homes and offices. 35-plus years later, Michael's cleaning company, White Glove Interior Care, is keeping hospitals, offices, and homes clean throughout Acadiana, and in Baton Rouge.
In the 21st Century, in 2017, Brennon Kelly graduated from Life University in Atlanta with a Doctoral degree in chiropractic medicine. Brennon immediately moved back to his native Lafayette and opened his own medical practice, RISE Chiropractic.
Photos over lunch at Chopsticks restaurant in Lafayette by Lucius Fontenot.
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At the end of the day, business is all about sales. You might have a revolutionary idea for a business or a product. You might even be a genius. But if you can't sell, you might as well just leave all your brilliant ideas in your desk drawer. The art of sales is a particular skill. And it doesn't come naturally to everyone. That's why Reece Theriot started up his company, Fulcrum Sales and Marketing.
Fulcrum is a professional sales staff who you can hire to sell your great idea or product. The benefit to you as a business person is, you don't have to hire, train, and pay a full-time sales staff. Reece and his team at Fulcrum set up meetings and pitch your product for you. In a world of out-sourcing, cost-cutting, and increasing specialization, it's amazing nobody around here has thought of this before. Marcus Descant has the polar opposite take on sales. Marcus is a horticulturalist and the owner of a company called The Urban Naturalist.
Marcus was on Out to Lunch back in 2016. At that time he talked about his unique landscaping and gardening business that flipped the traditional concept of planting flowers in the front of your house and fruit and vegetables in the back. It was a concept he was calling the Edible Garden. Marcus hasn't totally quit doing landscaping but he's scaled back that side of his business. Now he concentrates more on selling plants. He grows and sells up to 40,000 plants a year. His nursery is open 24 hours a day. And here's the final statistic - the number of sales people Marcus employs. Zero. Marcus dramatically cut his overhead by disbanding his sales staff and selling his plants and garden products on the self-serve honesty system. And, guess what? Sales have increased!
Photos over lunch at Spoonbill restaurant in downtown Lafayette by Lucius Fontenot.
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No matter who you are, what you do, or where you live, there's no doubt that you're looking for same thing out of life as every other human being in the world: Happiness. Happiness is the stated goal of almost every societal organization in recorded history - from ancient Hindu writings to the United States Declaration of Independence. Here in Acadiana, Taylor McMahon is doing his part to increase the sum of human happiness. One App at a time.
Taylor has created an app called Hope Mindfulness and Prayer. You can download it for free, on either Android or Apple devices. And thousands of people have. The Hope Mindfulness and Prayer app is guided meditation. It has a wide range of choices of music and spoken word. Each meditation focuses on a specific issue, like stress, disappointment, healing a broken heart, and many more. The app's unique niche in the self-help market is its combination of mindful meditations and Christian principles. Although most of us accept that finding happiness is our own individual responsibility, we also seem to believe that our individual happiness has a greater chance of lasting if we're with someone else. That's why we get married. Ironically, in a search for life-long happiness, most marriages begin with the ultimate stress test: a wedding. If you've ever been in a wedding, you'll know the seemingly endless layers of drama involved. If you've ever planned a wedding, or had to pay for it, you'll know how expensive it can be. The current generation of marrying Americans - millennials - are getting married later, and when it comes to weddings, they're reportedly more cost-conscious than their parents or grandparents were.
That's why Lauren Bercier's company, Something Borrowed Blooms, is a gigantic success story. Something Borrowed Blooms is a wedding flower rental company. Yes, you heard that correctly. Instead of buying expensive flowers for your wedding, you can rent artificial flowers that look real, and even smell real. Lauren has a staff of 16 people. They're currently providing flowers for 400 weddings a month.
Photos over lunch at Chopsticks restaurant in Lafayette by Lucius Fontenot.
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Acadiana is changing. Yes, we still jealously guard our traditions and our culture, but we also embrace change. We re happy to have the fastest internet in the country. We re happy to be home to some very cool tech businesses. And we re happy to be able to go downtown to a coffee shop like Reve, which is as hip as any place in any major American City. But none of this fell out of the sky. Somebody had to build our high speed internet. Somebody had to attract companies to relocate or start up here. And somebody had to create the modern, hip space that became Reve Coffee on Jefferson. That person is Greg Walls. Greg is a contractor. A hands on property developer who uses his background in architecture as a jumping off point. A place to start a job, not hand off a bunch of plans to someone else. Greg picks up a hammer more often than he picks up a pencil. And all of his renovations bear the stamp of a talented designer who can combine traditional Acadiana with modern Acadiana. Blending the building and design traditions of our past, while embracing the future, is also the province of Randy LeBlanc. Like Greg, Randy doesn t just design stuff. He makes it. Out of metal. Randy s company, Metal Head, makes architectural metalwork like wrought iron gates, fences, railings, balconies, and other metal fixtures both artistic and functional that you find in both homes and commercial spaces. It doesn t get much more elemental than wood or metal. Photos at Marcello s Wine Market by Gwen Aucoin.
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If you re young you might find this hard to believe, but it s only been within the last generation that we have made the link between our health and our diet. It started with the realization that inhaling cigarette smoke can cause the formation of cancerous cells in our lungs. It took quite some time for us to believe that. And, as obvious as it seems now, it took even longer for us to learn and accept that eating processed foods and sugar has an effect on our heart health, and health in general. In Louisiana, food is a part of our culture. And not all of that food is good for us. That s the point Yvette Quantz makes, both in her private nutritionist practice and as Operations and Marketing Dietician for Eat Fit Acadiana. Also in the believe it or not category of physical health, it wasn t that long ago that there were only two types of people who got a massage professional athletes and men for whom the word "massage" was a euphemism for a very specific and localized type of physical therapy. This type of "massage" was conducted in what was called a "massage parlor," which basically came to be code for "brothel." Today we all accept the physical, and psychological, health benefits of real, therapeutic massage. Here in Acadiana, Kate Lemoine is a licensed massage therapist who is taking massage out of the clinic and on the road. Through her company, Open Arms, Kate shows up with her massage table or chair in locations as diverse as festivals and work places. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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There s a lot of talk these days about Artificial Intelligence. Economists and pundits are betting on who s still going to have a job in 20 years and who s going to be replaced by a robot or an algorithm. Some say the jobs most likely to disappear are taxi drivers, Uber, and truck drivers. Others say it s tax preparers and loan officers. As an illustration of how difficult it can be to predict how this is all going to go, you could look at the strangely similar fate of office receptionists and radio personalities. It wasn t that long ago that the person who answered the phone at your business was vitally important. To many customers, the office receptionist was the face of your entire company. Today, all of us have the experience of calling a business and having a conversation with a robot. If you think you re frustrated by this technological development, imagine how much more difficult life is for Jamey Hopper. Jamey is President of a company called Dexcomm. Dexcomm is a communications company that specializes in answering the phone for businesses. It s an answer service. Jamey bought the company when the world was a lot different, in 1989. There were 15,000 answering services in the country then. Now there are 150. In 1909 an Italian inventor, Guglielmo Marconi, won the Nobel Prize for inventing radio. In the past 109 years radio has had an immeasurable effect on all of us. It created the concept of the mass market. For the first time, you could talk directly to hundreds, then thousands, then millions of people. And you could sell them stuff. Including records. And political ideas. Radio became so powerful that the United Sates Government created the Federal Communications Commission to regulate it. Today, radio continues to evolve. Beyond Marconi style broadcasting, we now get radio delivered to us via satellite, the internet, and we listen to it on demand as podcasts on devices that are no longer actual radios. For over 25 of the last century of this evolution of radio that is, for the last 25 plus years Mike Grimsley has been an eye witness and a key player. Today Mike is Regional Vice President and General Manager of Townsquare Media, overseeing 19 radio stations in Lafayette, Lake Charles, and Shreveport. Photos at Marcello s Wine Market by Gwen Aucoin.
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Here's a question for you. What is Art? There are various possible answers. From the personal and pragmatic, "I know it when I see it," to the wide-ranging and ideological, "Anything that holds up a mirror to society." When we talk about art on a show that is about business, I can tell you one thing that art is not. It's not something you go into to get rich. It's hard to imagine any other human endeavor that we regard as essential to our well-being and happiness, being as openly unrewarded. Could you even imagine the National Football League as being a non-profit? It would be laughable. But it's totally acceptable for arts institutions to be un-funded, receive no special tax-credit status, and to make no money. That's why both of Aileen's guests on this edition of out to Lunch Acadaiana have businesses that are blatantly, openly, legally, and factually, "non-profit."
Sam Oliver is the Executive Director of the Acadiana Center for the Arts. The AcA is a home for the Arts with a capital "A." They showcase visual and performing arts. They serve over 300,000 people a year, and pay over 2,700 artists.
Cindie Axtell has a more modest but extraordinarily innovative arts operation. It's called Deuxieme Vie Creative, which is French for "Second Life Creative." It's a unique combination of a recycling program, an arts program, artist studio, art school, and art gallery. The concept is simple - if you have something you are about to throw in the trash that could be used to create art, don't throw it out, take it down to Deuxieme Vie Creative. That something could be as obvious art supplies, or less obvious, like maybe a piece of a vacuum cleaner that's broken that somebody could use in a piece of artwork. And if you're an artist, or an aspiring artist, you can go to Deuxime Vie Creative and use the recycled supplies to create art.
Photos over lunch at Chopsticks restaurant on Ambassador Caffrey Parkway in Lafayette.
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If you'd lived in the United States in the early 1900's, you would have been part of a fierce debate about alcohol. For many years there were people in Washington DC, and all across the country, who believed that alcohol was a drug that was so bad for us, that for our own good it should be totally banned. Eventually, that argument won out. In January 1920, alcohol was banned for sale or consumption in the United States. It was outlawed by a Constitutional Amendment. The 18th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States prohibited the existence of alcohol. The era that followed saw a tumultuous response to the ban. It included bootlegging, the rise of organized crime that controlled the underground alcohol industry, and the sale in stores of what was knows as "medicinal whisky." Eventually, 13 years later, the 21st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States repealed prohibition. A hundred years from now, when a historian is recounting the history of Cannabis and Cannabis products in the United States, what do you think they'll say about where we are today on the timeline of events? To help answer that question, and to tell us perhaps where we're going with the future of cannabis products - like CBD, hemp, and Marijuana - Aileen Bennett is joined by two of Acadiana's leading exponents of Cannabis products and of Marijuana, Dr Chad Rossitter and Travis DeYoung.
Travis is probably the better known because he's been the focus of both media and law enforcement attention for a good chunk of early 2019. Travis opened a storefront called Cajun Cannabis in the spot where Radio Shack used to be, on Johnston Street. Travis opened Cajun Cannabis to sell products made from the non-psychoactive version of cannabis plant material. That is, cannabis products that won't get you high. These products were made legal by a 2018 Federal Law called The Farm Act. The Farm Act legalized growing Cannabis and processing it into products like hemp and CBD oil. However, for some reason, local law enforcement didn't believe the Federal law applies to us, and they seized Travis's cannabis products and arrested him. Today, Cajun Cannabis is back open and in business. In a growing number of states - and in the entire nation of Canada - Marijuana is legal. That's the same Marijuana that according to Federal Law is a schedule one drug. It is defined, federally, as having no medicinal value and a high potential for abuse. The active ingredient in marijuana is called THC. That's the chemical that gets you high. THC is also the acronym for a medical doctor's clinic, with offices in Lafayette, Baton Rouge, Bossier City, and Lake Charles. THC stands for Total Health Clinic. The name and the link to the active ingredient in Marijuana is intentional. Total Health Clinic describes itself as a "plant centered" medical clinic whose doctors are licensed by the State of Louisiana to prescribe medical marijuana.
The founder of Total Health Clinic is Dr Chad Rossitter.
Photos over lunch at Chopsticks restaurant on Ambassador Caffrey Parkway in Lafayette.
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If everything worked out the way you thought it was going to, 10 or 20 years ago, what kind of a life would you be leading today? It's fascinating to ponder how different the world might be if Jeff Bezos didn't quit his job and start Amazon. Or if William Shakespeare had been content to make a living as an actor and hadn't started writing. We all change course. We change our minds. We fall in love, with a career or a person, and things that were quietly rolling along are suddenly off the rails and we're going in a whole other direction. Heather Degeyter is a prime example.
Heather was, step by step, building a career as an academic. She got a masters degree in language and literature at UL. And she was teaching at LSU, when she gave it all up. To make macarons. In June of 2019, Heather turned what was a passion and a growing home-business, making macarons to order, into a full-time job, and a storefront bakery on Kaliste Saloom in Lafayette, called Bonne Vie Macarons.
And then there's the story of Stephen Verrett, who dropped out of college to become a freelance web designer. If you're waiting for a story about how Stephen became a fabulously successful web designer... well, I could tell that story, but instead I'm going to tell you how he gave that up - to open a restaurant in Lafayette. Along with a couple of partners, Stephen took over what was the old Filling Station restaurant - which itself was originally a gas station - and turned it into Spoonbill. Today, we're sitting a table at Spoonbill, across from its co-owner, Stephen Verrett.
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We all know about the enormous economic challenges that newspapers are facing. With access to information that's posted online almost the minute it happens, it's become more difficult to convince people that reading the news next day in print has any value. The fact is that a good journalist can frame an issue, give it context, and deliver information in a way that you simply can't get on social media. But newspapers cost money. Reading social media, and pretty much everything else online, is free. To bring together both these worlds, newspapers have begun charging people to read their content online. Even here in Acadiana.
Kristin Askelson is Managing Editor of The Acadiana Advocate. Kristin oversees the newspaper's daily operations in Acadiana. It's a job that's getting more complex every year, and with every social media update. When a newspaper was a physical object you picked up in the front yard every morning, we called everything in print that wasn't paid advertising, "news." Even news of dubious importance, like the contents of People magazine, was still regarded, technically, as news. Then, along came the internet. Today, there are multiple avenues for getting the written word out into the world. There are online newspapers and magazines, websites, blogs, and social media. There is such a wealth of written material that we've had to invent a new category to describe it. That category we now call "content." You no longer need a publisher to get your content read. Anybody can publish anything they want. And, as you know, they do. The problem we have now is, among the millions of pieces of content that are published every day, how do you get someone to find your contribution to world thought?
Content management has become a specialized brand of marketing and publicity. Here in Acadiana one of its leading practitioners is Rodney Hess, Vice President of Rally Marketing, in Lafayette.
This is a fascinating and informative conversation about the changing face of news, and the information you consume online. Photos at Marcello's Wine Market Cafe by Lucius Fontenot.
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You're probably familiar with the term "Art versus commerce." It's one of the concepts that we take for granted are opposites. "Good versus evil." "Communism versus capitalism." "Left versus right." The problem with lumping art versus commerce into this list is that if you are an artist, you're required to find a place where art and commerce meet, or you're not going to pay the rent or keep the lights on. Aileen's two guests on Out to Lunch today are artists who have found unique and different ways to make a living from their art.
Dirk Guidry is the visual artist's definition of a split personality. On the one hand, Dirk is an abstract painter. His paintings are swirls of color, blending onto the canvas with movement and emotion, but without much obvious representation of anything recognizable. On the other hand, Dirk is a wedding painter. He goes to a wedding and paints the reception. Live. On the spot. The bride and groom leave with a painting of their wedding, complete with recognizable representations of their guests.
Hunter deBlanc has been a singer/songwriter and professional musician for years, playing in various bands. But Hunter dates January 2017 as the beginning of his current career - his push to become a solo artist. Because of an interesting musical journey that saw him land in Australia as a cocktail piano player on a cruise ship, Hunter is better known, and has more records played on radio, in Sydney Australia than in Lafayette Louisiana where he lives. Being internationally famous is not altogether a bad thing. But being a star in Sydney and living in Lafayette has its challenges.
Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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Any conversation about the global economy today is bound to include a discussion of China. Economists and pundits frequently refer to China as "the world's fastest growing economy." Or "the world's second biggest economy." The unspoken intimation in this choice of language is that we in the United States better look out - China is catching up to us. The truth is, the United States has been around for two hundred and some years. China, on the other hand, traces its history back between three and four thousand years. Chinese influence on the West, and on the U.S. in particular, can be measured in all kinds of ways, economic and cultural. Take, for example, acupuncture. In the U.S. we regard acupuncture as "alternative medicine." In China it's regarded as traditional medicine.
Here in Acadiana, Anne Huval is an acupuncturist. Anne has been practicing acupuncture since 2007, in her private practice, the Spirit of Life Acupuncture clinic in Lafayette.
Phil Devey might seem like an unlikely champion of Chinese culture. Phil is the owner of Frontline Real Estate Group, an Acadiana real estate company that deals in residential and commercial property sales and rentals. Phil is also co-owner of Chopsticks, a traditional Chinese restaurant, in Lafayette. Chopsticks' head chef came here from China and brought his authentic recipes with him. All the dishes at Chopsticks are created from these traditional recipes, using fresh local ingredients.
More and more, we're seeing people who could live anywhere choose to live here in Acadiana, and we see their skills, talents, tastes, and occupations flourish here with them, whether it's specialized acupuncture or fine Chinese dining. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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You probably know the line from the 1989 movie, Field of Dreams, "If you build it they will come." Decades after the movie came out this line continues to resonate with us, because it's about faith. Faith in ourselves. In our own courage to follow our dreams. And faith in our fellow humans - that others will recognize our courage and affirm it by buying into our dream. This is the exact opposite of how we're taught in business school to launch a business. But passion-driven businesses can be just as successful as the more traditional, highly business-planned venture. Aileen's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch are both evidence of this.
In 2013 Todd Buteaux wanted to escape the rat race in Los Angeles. He wanted his daughter to grow up knowing her family. And he wanted to spend time with his parents, who weren't getting any younger. So Todd abandoned his dreams of becoming an actor in Hollywood and moved back to Lafayette. Todd's wife, Rina, is Japanese American. Ironically, it has turned out to be Japanese culture that has fueled Todd's dreams since they moved back here. Today, Todd is co-owner and Marketing Manager of the Japanese restaurant Izumi Ramen, in Lafayette. He's also the marketing manager of the Hawaiian inspired restaurant, Poke Geaux in Lafayette. And he's the co-owner of Poke Geaux in Lake Charles.
In 2001, Mark Falgout came back home from traveling the world and decided to open the type of guest house in Lafayette that he would like to stay at if he was a traveler here. That's how the Blue Moon Guesthouse was born. Because all travelers here want to hear music, Mark gave them that too, in the form of the Blue Moon Saloon. It turned out that the Blue Moon was a great place for travelers to meet locals, because locals made the Blue Moon one of the most popular places in Lafayette to go to hear music. So Mark gave locals another, bigger, venue - Warehouse 535. And in 2018 Mark came up with another idea. This one does not involve a piece of real estate. It's the SOLO Songwriters Festival. From its early success, it looks like Mark's music-booking skills and the years he spent as a board member of Festival International have paid off.
Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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Have you ever bought something on impulse?
You see something you really like. You can't afford it. You know it's crazy, but you buy it anyway. Maybe you've done that with a piece of clothing. A pair of shoes. Even a car. How about a business? That's what happened to Camille Carloss.
Camille's husband, Dylan, took Camille on a date to Alexander Books. While they were there, they heard the bookstore was closing. Dylan was the impulse purchase instigator. Camille was the voice of reason. They couldn't afford to buy the bookstore, and they didn't own a house yet. Then they came up with a brilliant compromise. They'd get some other people to go into this crazy venture with them. And that's how Camille, Dylan, and three other people ended up buying Alexander Books.
One of the people who bought into the bookstore with Camille and her husband is Jori Bercier. Camille didn't know anything about owning or running a book store. So who better to turn to as a partner than someone else who also has no experience whatsoever in book selling? Jori Bercier does have a lot of other skills though. Jori has a graphic design business called McCaulley Media that focuses on working for non-profits who can't afford to market themselves. Jori leads mission groups and pilgrimages for Magnificant Travel. She speaks Spanish and French, and has a masters degree in Human Health.
Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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On this edition of Out to Lunch, Aileen Bennett sorts out the complex web of economic development organizations in Acadiana. Well, more or less. Aileen says there are so many of these business-boosting organizations that, "If I just read out a list of all the economic development and business support organizations in Acadiana and gave you a one-sentence description of what they do, I would still be reading by the time you got so bored you turned me off. So, I'm going to limit myself to two. One Acadiana, which used to be known as the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce. And Acadia Parish Chamber of Commerce." If you're not from Acadiana, you're already confused. So here's an attempt at an explanation. One Acadiana is a business support organization that encompasses all the parishes of Acadiana. It's designed to give businesses a voice and to cultivate economic growth throughout the region. One Acadiana has 950 members.
The CEO and President of One Acadiana is Troy Wayman. And that brings us to the Acadia Parish Chamber of Commerce. Acadia Parish includes Crowley, Rayne, Iota, and Duson. If you're from outside of Acadiana, you need to know one thing: here, size doesn't matter. Crowley calls itself The Rice Capital of The World. Rayne calls itself The Frog Capital of the World. There's a lot of cattle, soybeans, crawfish, and rice in Acadia parish. In fact, there is so much, mostly agricultural-based business going on in Acadia Parish that the Acadia Parish Chamber has over 300 members.
The President and CEO of the Acadia parish Chamber of Commerce is Amy Thibodeaux. Whether it's in Acadia Parish or any of the parishes under the umbrella of One Acadiana, all kinds of businesses depend on all kinds of economic development. And our towns and cities depend on these economic development partnerships to attract and retain businesses.
Photos over lunch at Marcello's Wine Market Cafe in Lafayette.
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For hundreds of years, philosophers puzzled over the mind-body connection: the relationship between our physical body and the feelings, emotions, and mental abilities that define us as human beings. Eventually, philosopher Rene Descartes summed up the mind-body connection as, "I think therefore I am," which seemed like the final word on the subject. Then, as we progressed as a society, the mind-body connection conundrum became the province of psychiatrists, psychologists, neuroscientists, and even nutritionists. Today, the mind-body investigation trickles down to a corner table at Caf? Vermilionville in Lafayette Louisiana.
On the body side of the mind body connection is Brian Melancon. Brian is founder and CEO of a company called c620 Nutrition. In body building circles, Brian is known as "The Mad Scientist." He's a fitness trainer with a focus on nutrition, and a reputation for training successful power lifters. Brian is also expanding his love of nutrition to the wider Lafayette community with his purchase of the health-focused bakery, Great Harvest of Acadiana.
On the mind side of the mind-body connection, meet James Huval. James is a psychotherapist. He has a practice in Lafayette called Southdown Consulting. James was a therapist in New York and New Jersey for 20 years before coming back home to Lafayette in the early two-thousands. If you live in Acadiana you might avail yourself of James's services if you need help in any area of emotional or psychological distress, including anxiety, depression, workaholism, sexual dysfunction, grief, anger, relationship issues, and many other aspects of coping with the demands of daily life.
Although we all know there is a connection between our mental and physical well-being, we almost never discuss this overlap in a professional setting. We go to the gym, but there's no psychologist there. We go to the therapist, but there's no physical trainer there. Typically, it's up to us, individually, to make our own mind-body connection. So it's a rare treat to have both isides of the Mind Body Connection in the same place at the same time, taking part in the same conversation. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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Many of us aspire to a life in the arts. For evidence of that, you only have to look at the massive popularity of long-running shows like American Idol and The Voice. Apparently, competitive sketching does not make compelling viewing, so we don't see TV shows about visual artists. But there are many people who have dreams of being able to make a living from their painting or drawing.
Cayla Zeek is a visual artist. A designer. And illustrator. Cayla is also the owner of the store, Mattea's Hand - which you can find on Etsy and on Jefferson Street in Lafayette - where she sells her paintings, drawings and her wide range of unique and often quirky, greeting cards.
Brandy Cavitt works with small businesses to give them the advantages of marketing and presentation that bigger companies have, without the price tag that PR and social media consultancies usually charge. It's a business model that's working for Brandy and for her clients and it's a lifestyle choice that keeps Brandy grounded, focused, and most importantly, in Acadiana.
Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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The tension between town and country has been around since the Industrial Revolution. It exists in every developed nation where there are cities. The fact is, cities depend on surrounding rural regions to produce food. And rural regions depend on cities to produce manufactured goods, even as basic to their survival as tractors and shovels. But because of economics, politics, and other factors, we frequently find urban and rural populations at odds with each other. Here in Acadiana, if you live on a farm or in a small town, you have a certain perception of Lafayette. It's too big, it's too busy, it's dangerous, and you don't go there unless you really need to. It's the same perception people in Upstate New York have of Manhattan, or people in Bakersfield have of Los Angeles. It gets even more granular here. If you live in Lafayette itself, you might have similar feelings about downtown versus your neighborhood. That's why there's an organization dedicated to keeping downtown Lafayette thriving, and making sure we all know that it's a safe and great place to live, work, eat, shop, and play. That organization is the Lafayette Downtown Development Authority.
Anita Begnaud is CEO of the Lafayette Downtown Development Authority. Besides economics and politics, there are other factors that have come to pit urban and rural communities against each other. The biggest of these other factors is perception. Or, in many cases, misperception. Cities get the reputation of being places that are dangerous and unwelcoming. Those reputations are often the result of reports of incidents that may in themselves be true, but the way these events are presented to us gives them a weight that is often disproportionate to reality. That method of presentation of information is Television. From the mid 20th century on, TV, and especially TV news, has had an enormous influence on how we see the world. Including how we see ourselves in Acadiana. If you're the gatekeeper of that perception, you have a big responsibility. Here in Lafayette, that role belongs to Sean Trcalek.
Sean is the General Manager of KADN-FOX15, KLAF-NBC, and MyNetwork Acadiana.
Photos over lunch at Marcello's Wine Market Cafe by Lucius Fontenot.
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One of the knocks we frequently hear about being an entertainer in Acadiana, is that if you don't play Cajun or Zydeco music, you're not going to work. If it's true that the exception proves the rule, you're not going to find a bigger exception to that rule than Flip Orley. Flip doesn't play an accordion or fiddle. But he could make you play one. Flip Orley is a comic hypnotist.
Flip has been entertaining audiences for 30 years. Although he lives in Acadiana, it's possible you've never seen Flip's show, or even heard of him. That's because he's hardly ever home. Aileen says, "I've been trying to find a date that Flip is in town to get him to be a guest on out to Lunch for over a year. Today, I've finally pulled it off." In her wildest imaginings, Aileen hadn't envisaged just how off-the-rails a converation about business could go with a comic hypnotist. She soon finds out. And her other guest, Johnny Blancher, the owner of Rock'n'Bowl, only adds fuel to the fire.
There are plenty of places to see Cajun and Zydeco music in Acadiana, and all kinds of other music as well - from rock to classical. But Rock'n'Bowl is the only venue in Lafayette - and only a few in the world - where you get to hear music accompanied by the sounds of ten-pins being knocked down. Rock'n'Bowl opened in downtown Lafayette in 2018. It's a live music venue, a bowling alley, a bar, and a restaurant. All in the one place. Although on paper it sounds like these very different activities would compete, and detract from each other. But in real life it's the opposite. At Rock'n'Bowl, bowling, live music, dancing, and eating feel like they belong together, and make for a unique night out.
Flip and Johnny hadn't met before they sat down to lunch with Aileen. Amidst the stroies and one-liners you do actually get to find out something about the business side of being a comic hypnotist and running a music venue/bowling alley/restaurant - but on top of than that, you get a preview of what should become the Flip and Johny Show.
This is a unique episode of Out to Lunch Acadiana. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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In 1994, a guy called Jeff Bezos was working in banking when he decided to start up his own business, selling books online. Most people thought that was a stupid idea, for two reasons. One, nobody would want to give a total stranger their credit card number. And, two, if you wanted to buy a book, why wouldn't you just go down to the bookstore? In the face of withering criticism, and years of phenomenal financial losses, Bezos persisted with his online shopping idea. Today his company, Amazon, drives global commerce. And Jeff Bezos is one of the wealthiest people in the world. Following in Bezos' logic-defying footsteps, other entrepreneurs were emboldened to launch startups based on what seemed like crazy ideas. Ideas that turned into like Facebook, Uber, Tinder, Tesla, and thousands of others - some successful, some not.
Local business person Laurel Hess has a startup business, called Hampr. That spelling might remind you of another local startup with a missing vowel, Waitr. The similarity is not insignificant. You can think of Hampr as the Waitr of laundry. Hampr is an app that will have someone show up at your house, pick up your dirty laundry, take it back to their house, and deliver back to you, clean. Is this a crazy idea that's going to crash and burn? Or is it the next big thing that will make Laurel Hess a billionaire?
Traci Pecot had a crazy idea too. She made a connection between lonely pets and lonely people. Specifically, pets whose owners need someone to look after them while the owners are away from home, and elderly people who are still active but forced to spend long hours alone. In May 2017, Traci launched her elder-people pet care business under the name, Paws and Paw Paws. Today, business is booming and - like Amazon's progression from selling books to selling everything - the affectionate Paw Paws are a part of an expanding doggie pet care service that includes boarding and grooming.
Photos over lunch at Cafe vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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You're probably familiar with the saying, "Nothing personal, it's just business." People use it as a justification for doing something that's going to advantage them, to the detriment of someone else. The underlying assumption is that wise-business-decisions and personal feelings are opposites. There's nothing more personal than taste. So, how wise is it, when launching a business, to base the whole company on your personal taste? That's exactly what both of Aileen's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch have done.
Scott Shea and his two partners launched Cousin's Smokehouse because they wanted to eat better tasting jerky. They wanted jerky that tasted like it was made in Acadiana, not like the generic stuff you buy at the gas station. In this case, Scott's bet on personal taste paid off. Today, you can get Cousins Smokehouse jerky at 600 locations, including all of the Rouses's supermarkets in Louisiana.
Kim White launched her business, Bulldog Pepper Jelly, because she couldn't find pepper jelly that was spicy enough for her taste. So she started making her own pepper jelly. Spicy. The way she liked it. The next thing you know, Kim was making 250 jars of pepper jelly - a day. Kim's sister, Cindy, liked the taste of Kim's spicy pepper jelly and joined her in making it in commercial quantities. Today, you can find Bulldog Pepper Jelly at all of the Rouse's supermarkets as well as high-end food markets in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
Photos at Marcello's Wine Market Cafe by Gwen Aucoin.
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The difference between men and women is a subject that s been examined from perhaps the beginning of time. Whether you believe the conversation starts with Adam and Eve, or a couple of organisms crawling out of the primordial soup, commentary about what sets genders apart is the province of everyone from archaeologists to comedians. You d be forgiven for wondering what we could contribute to this conversation on a radio show and podcast about Acadiana business. Well, here goes. Let s start with Emily Degan. Emily is the owner and CEO of a company called Saint Hugh. Saint Hugh makes clothes for women. Women who are involved in an activity that, for the most part, is the province of men. Hunting. Emily discovered when she was a young girl who liked to go hunting with her dad, that there were no hunting clothes that fit her properly. And the ones that did fit, didn t look good. Saint Hugh solves that problem by making outdoor apparel specifically designed for women. Saint Hugh designs look good, and they take into account the different demands of women s bodies out in the marsh or woods. Ross Fontenot started out his business in 2011 by dressing men. Ross and his business partner, John Peterson, opened a fashion forward menswear store in Lafayette, called Genterie. John left Genterie to start up the soft drink company, Swamp Pop. Ross stayed at Genterie, expanding the store and its market, to include women s fashion. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionvilleby Gwen Aucoin.
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When we talk about a successful business, we usually talk about the idea behind it. We tend to do that because a single moment of inspiration is more exciting to talk about than the years of hard work it takes to build a business. But there s also another quality that s vital in making the leap from inspiration to action courage. You can have the best idea in the world for a business, but if you don t have the courage to take the leap and turn your idea into a reality and the courage to keep going through the tough times then you simply won t have a successful business. Maria Ducote had the courage to walk away from a safe career, to start up a business she knew little to nothing about. Maria was a teacher for 14 years. And an assistant principal for nine years. In 2010 she was at an education conference in Baltimore, and went on a food tour. That s when the inspiration hit a food tour would be a business that would work in Lafayette. Maria thought, "Somebody ought to do that". The somebody, it turned out, was going to be Maria herself. For over 7 years now, Maria s company, Cajun Food Tours, has been running daily food tours, in Lafayette and around Acadiana. Jaida McGee was born and raised in Kaplan, Louisiana. When she was 17, Jaida started designing, sewing, and selling children s clothing. She sold her clothes at farmer s markets, and used the money to help support herself through college. Then Jaida opened a store Blush Boutique, in Abbeville. Blush Boutique eventually left children s clothes behind and specialized in women s fashion. But by 2017, like lots of retail in America, business at Blush Boutique had slowed down. Jaida was thinking that, after 10 years, she would have to close. But she didn t want to do that. So, instead knowing nothing about web design or social media marketing Jaida decided to build her own website and create a marketing campaign based on video driven social media. The strategy worked. Blush Boutique in Abbeville bounced back and today is a booming business. Photos pover lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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You re probably familiar with the saying, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." At the same time that saying was coined in England, here in the United States, the sentiment was quite different. In 1790 the Federal Government passed the first Copyright Act, which made imitation illegal. We re still in the process of working out exactly what is imitation and what, legally, isn t. For example, George Rodrigue s famous Blue Dog. Rodrigue s Blue Dog is based on the Cajun folk tale of the Loup Garou. If you grew up in Acadiana and you paint a blue dog, are you expressing your Cajun culture Or are you ripping off George Rodrigue That s the kind of question that is not just theoretical to George Rodrigue s son, Jacques. As an attorney, Jacques Rodrigue is a specialist in Intellectual Property. He s also Executive Director of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts. The law firm Jones Walker is a major sponsor of Out to Lunch. So, Aileen thought she d take advantage of that relationship and invite Michael Leachman to lunch. Michael is a partner at Jones Walker. He s a specialist patent attorney. Michael works with clients on patents and trademarks. He represents clients in federal and state courts in the areas of trademark infringement, unfair competition, and all kinds of trademark and intellectual property disputes in a wide range of all fields, including science and technology. Photos at Marcello s Wine Market Cafe by Lucius Fontenot.
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You might remember a guy called Zach Barker. Zach used to be the director of the startup business incubator, Opportunity Machine. Zach had a basic business philosophy which he summed up in three words, "Get stuff done." It sounds simple. But in reality, in business, the difference between success and something less is the ability to execute. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Talk is cheap. To succeed you have to get stuff done. Both of Aileen s lunch guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana are unwitting disciples of this Zach Barker philosophy. Tiffany DeLeon Steward is an Executive Concierge and Personal Project Manager. Through her company, The Good Steward, Tiffany offers small businesses, non profits, and individual professionals short term, task based assistance. Tiffany s company s self described mission is "to help people grow their business so that they can enjoy the life they ve earned." Tiffany is also the chief Ice Cream Maker and CEO of Sugar Momma s Secret Confections. Brent Henley is an industrial psychologist. He s the founder and CEO of a company called The Pyramid Group. And author of a book called The Nexus Initiative. The Pyramid Group are consultants who work with businesses to improve everything about them from performance to sales, including diversity, team building, leadership, and more. The Nexus Initiative, describes a whole new approach to business in which you get what you want, based on a philosophy of giving. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius A. Fontenot.
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In Acadiana there are a lot of things that differentiate us from the rest of the country. The biggest of all of them is music. You can live in Kansas and learn to make a gumbo. You can live in California and row a pirogue. But there's no way in the wide world that you can convincingly play Jolie Blond on the accordion or Bosco Stomp on the fiddle, unless you're born and raised here. Typically, in a Western capitalist economy, a rare resource is worth a lot of money. However, when it comes to our treasured musicians, we tend to under value them. Most Cajun and Zydeco musicians are working a second job to subsidize their music career.
Wilson Savoy plays in the Grammy Award winning band Courtbouillon, and crowd favorite Pineleaf Boys. He's also a carpenter, building and renovating homes.
Danny Devillier is a musician. And he's come up with a new angle on a traditional way musicians often subsidize their careers: giving music lessons. Danny is a drummer. He plays in the Grammy nominated band Bonsoir Catin, and he's played with everybody who's anybody in Cajun and Zydeco from Michael Doucet to Roddie Romero. But Danny doesn't just give drum lessons. He teaches people to play all kinds of instruments, including guitar and fiddle, at his music school, The Music Room, in Lafayette.
Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius A Fontenot.
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When we talk about business, we all understand that the basic objective of what we re doing is trying to make money. Implicit in this understanding is an assumption that we re trying to make money for ourselves. Or our company. But there are people who dedicate themselves, and their careers, to making money for others. Other people. Other companies. And even whole communities. Rick Fontova has spent over a quarter of a century in the oil and gas business. At the end of his 22 years at Shell, Rick was Vice President of the Americas for Exploration and Production. Rick went on to hold a series of other high level positions in oil and gas, and today he s the Chairman and CEO of NXT Energy Services. NXT is Rick s own company, and its dedicated to finding other companies in the energy sector that are promising but in need of support, in the form of investment and expertise. Rick is also co founder of Acadiana Angels, who invest in local entrepreneurial startups. Alex Lazard is dedicated to improving both the financial and spiritual well being of individuals, and of his community. Alex is the Lead Ministry Director of the Destiny of Faith Church. Destiny of Faith is headquartered in the Truman neighborhood. It s been in existence for almost 17 years, it has 1,200 members, and an impressive, new, 45,000 square feet, state of the art church. The church s mission is to increase spiritual growth and economic growth through new business and job creation; and social growth through personal development. Photos at Marcello s Wine Market and Cafe by Lucius Fontenot.
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Some things about life in Acadiana are unique to this part of the world. And some things we share with the rest of the world. One of those common issues, in business, is making the link between the online world and the real world. These days, over 80 of all retail purchases begin with an online search. And, you know from your own experience, almost everything else you do starts online too from navigation to planning a vacation. When it comes to the real world uniqueness of Acadiana, and our common online link to the rest of the world, Jesse Guidry is in an exceptional position. Jesse IS the link between Acadiana and the rest of the online world. Jesse s official title is Vice President of Communications at the Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission. In the world of online business and entrepreneurship, Tom Cox is a pioneer and a big deal success story, and not just locally. He s probably too humble to give himself this title, but Tom is one of the creators of e commerce. Way back in 1995 he came up with the idea of selling golf balls online. It was so long ago that Tom was able to buy the domain name golfballs.com. In the intervening couple of decades, in a world dominated by Amazon, golfballs.com has continued to be an industry leader in manufacturing and selling golf balls and golf equipment. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot
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You ve probably heard the saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." It s meant to be motivational encouraging us to take something bad that s happened to us, and turn it into something good. Aaron Beam is the poster boy for making lemons out of lemonade. Aaron was one of the founders of a company called Health South. Health South was a healthcare provider that, at its height, was a Fortune 500 company. It was the largest company in Alabama, with 40,000 employees in all 50 states. Aaron was the CFO the Chief Financial Officer. In 1996, in order to make the company s finances look more attractive, Aaron messed around with some numbers. Suggesting that the company s revenues were different from what they actually were. When this tinkering came to light, it became one of the largest corporate frauds in the history of the United States. Which is till is today. Aaron, and others at the company, went to Federal prison. As part of his sentence, Aaron had to forfeit his substantial wealth and property. Aaron has taken those lemons and turned them into lemonade. Today, Aaron Beam is a public speaker, an educator and author, who specializes in Business Ethics. Roy Devillier has not committed fraud. He has not spent any time in Federal prison. And he has not run a Fortune 500 company. Roy does, however, take lemons and make lemonade. It s called Roy s Lemonade. It started out back in the 1990 s when Roy was frustrated at not being able to get a glass of lemonade he liked at a festival. So he came up with his own recipe, and started selling lemonade himself at festivals. Today, Roy s Lemonade is on sale in 19 states. And when we say Roy hasn t run a Fortune 500 company, we might need to add "yet." Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius A Fontenot.
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If you re in school or think back to when you were in school there are days when you wonder why you re wasting your time getting an education. On those days, when you re thinking of dropping out, some encouraging, older, person invariably tells you, "It s worth hanging in and graduating cause you never know what you might end up doing with your degree." If you need living proof of this advice, you could point to Aileen s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch. Jaime Glas got a BS in Petroleum Engineering from LSU and started out working as an engineer in the oil field. Working on rigs, Jaime realized that the protective clothing she and other women were given to wear was designed for men. It was ill fitting, and baggy in the wrong places. It didn t just look bad it was actually dangerous. So, Jaime designed a line of protective, fire retardant, clothing for women. She calls it Haute Work. The 22 of the oil and gas industry that is made up of women are loving Jaime s designs, and wearing them. Willem Mast got a B.A.Sc a degree in Applied Science from Queen s University in his native Canada then went to work in the oil field in New Iberia. For Haliburton. When Willem got laid off during a downturn, he helped someone come up with a set of drawings for a prototype piece of equipment which the guy went on to sell, to none other than Haliburton. That experience, 20 years ago, gave Willem the confidence to start up his own drafting and design business which he called WMD Squared which stands for Willem Mast Drawing and Design. Today, Willem has 13 employees and a wealth of clients in fields as diverse as marine, motorsports, and oil and gas, who use WMD Squared as their company s design division. Photos at Marcello s Wine Market Cafe by Lucius Fontenot.
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If you live in Lafayette, or you spend any time in Lafayette, you ve almost certainly been to the Saturday morning Farmer s Market. There are a few staples there people and products you know are going to be there every week. Among them is Abby Perkins. I can almost guarantee you re thinking, "Abby Perkins.... No, don t know who that is." Well, how about if I said, "The Popcorn Girl." The Popcorn Girl at the Lafayette Farmer s Market is the owner of Cajun Cane Kettle Corn, Abby Perkins. Abby sells 50 pounds of popcorn every week. Along with it, she goes through 50 pounds of lemons, making fresh squeezed lemonade. Because this is Acadiana, nobody is surprised to find out people have another string to their bow. When she s not the Popcorn Girl, Abby is an integral part of the team that s building Waitr. Waitr is currently the most visible success story in Acadiana technology. But there are a number of other companies that form the backbone of the robust tech world that Waitr has grown out of. One of those companies is Accolades IT. If you have a business today, even if you re not in e commerce directly, your online presence is more than just window dressing. It s the way almost every person who is in any way connected to your business interacts with you. It s widely reported that well over 80 of real world business interactions begin with a web search. And the number is probably higher than that. The way customers, or potential customers, interact with you on their phone and tablet demands a radically different approach to your web presence than it did, even in 2007 when Accolades IT was launched. The self described Head Honcho over at Accolades IT is Scott Huber. Back in the old days, when sitting in front of a screen meant going to the movies, one of the comforting real world connections that we held onto while our minds were led into a scary or wondrous world beyond, was popcorn. Today, Abby s popcorn is a different kind of comfort food, and Scott s adventures into the screen beyond our real world are scarier and more wondrous than any movie could have imagined. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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America loves maple syrup. You can find it anywhere in the country from supermarket shelves to fast food restaurants. What America doesn t seem to know is that maple syrup has a cousin. That is better looking, richer, and better tasting. It s called cane syrup. Here in Acadiana, we know about cane syrup because we grow the sugarcane that makes it. We often use the name "Steen s" as a synonym for cane syrup, but if you start delving into cane syrup you find that there is an alternative to Steen s that is noticeably different. Poiriers Cane Syrup is made by Charles Poirier from a recipe that was created by his great great grandfather. Charles calls it "syrup with soul." He only makes as much each season as he can manufacture himself, by hand, from his own crop of sugarcane. When a batch sells out, it sells out. And it s doing that quicker and quicker each year as Poiriers is being discovered by chefs, and written about by magazines like Garden and Gun, and food bloggers. If you ve driven down Johnston Street in Lafayette over the last 8 years you will have noticed that what started out as a quirky pink sign that said "Sophi P Cakes" is today a landmark bakery. Sophi P Cakes makes cupcakes. The bakery is the creation of husband and wife team Jennifer and Dustin Melancon, neither of whom are Sophi or P. Sophi is short for sophisticated and "P" stands for punk. The spirit of the name was meant to embrace the concept of cupcakes for all tastes. And it worked. Sophi P Cakes makes up to one thousand cupcakes a day. They sell cupcakes out of the storefront bakery, and wholesale to office complexes, hospitals, and companies. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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If you re eleven years old, you ve already lived through a revolution. In July 2008, Apple launched the App Store. An app was a whole new thing. An application that would work on your iPhone to accomplish a specific task. And it was designed and built by a third party. That is, not Apple. Google and its Android operating system weren t far behind, and over the past decade apps have been downloaded to phones hundreds of millions of times. Whether you re 11 years old and glued to a device, or older and resistant to technology, apps on our phones are literally an integral part of our lives. And the revolution is far from over. Today, local software developer Calvin Fabre is at the leading edge of it. Calvin is the founder and President of a company called Envoc. Envoc employs 15 people who create all kinds of software products but the one that s getting the most buzz right now is an app called LA Wallet. It allows you to put your driver s license in your phone. And the state of Louisiana is the first state in the nation to recognize your digital driver s license as legally acceptable everywhere. This is a big deal. And it can get a lot bigger as it spreads across the country. When you re designing an app, you need to be able to answer the question, "What problem does my app solve " Gerald Huffman had a problem. The same one that most of us have where to find a good deal on a good meal at a restaurant or bar. Unlike most of us, Gerald decided to build an app to solve that problem. That app is called PLATE. It lets restaurants and bars add deals in real time, and it lets users find those deals. The fact that we re able to have this conversation over a meal in Lafayette, and get in our cars to go home, rather than getting on a plane to go back to California, is a testament to where we are, both here in Acadiana and in other parts of Louisiana. Photos at Marcello s Wine Market and Cafe by Lucius Fontenot.
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Back at the turn of the century, in 2000, writer Malcolm Gladwell came up with the concept of what he called "connectors." A connector, Gladwell said, is a person who knows a lot of other people. This connector is the center of a network of friends. These connectors and their networks are how fads and fashions spread. 2000 was 7 years before the invention of the iPhone. Today, Gladwell s connectors are not just a sociological observation. They re a revenue producing industry. On social media, they re called Influencers. One of the United States best known Influencers is Kim Kardashian. Ms Kardashian has around 90 million followers on Instagram, and 50 million on Twitter. For a reported 300,000 she ll mention you or your product, one time, in one social media post. Here in Acadiana, you might not think we have influencers with that kind of clout. But, actually, we do. If you spend any time at all online and you want to know what s going on in Lafayette, you know about Developing Lafayette. Developing Lafayette has around 13,000 followers on Instagram. And 40,000 on Facebook. If you adjust those numbers for the size of the Acadiana population, Developing Lafayette has a reach that rivals Kim Kardashian. Developing Lafayette is the creation of Ben Powers. Jolie Meaux is a hybrid somewhere between an online influencer and a real world connector. In the real world, Jolie caters private dinner parties and does pop up food events around Acadiana. You might have seen her on TV, cooking with Anthony Bourdain. Online, Jolie has a web presence on social media and on her own blog and website, where she s known as Porch, Wine, and Gravy. Recently, we ve started to learn that some of our local leaders in technology may become as legendary as our towering figures in music and food. The same recognition and success that we ve seen happen to Waitr could equally happen to an online concept like Developing Lafayette. And, equally, a cultural centric online vehicle that exports Cajun culture authentically, like Porch, Wine, and Gravy, could break through and become a sensation. Photos at Cafe vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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Typically, on Out to Lunch, Aileen invites people who don t know each other to have lunch with her, hopes they ll have something in common, and that they ll get along. She doesn t have to worry about any of that today. Aileen s lunch guests have a lot in common. And they re friends. Charles Fenstermaker is Chief Financial Officer at C.H. Fenstermaker and Associates a consulting firm that specializes in surveying, mapping, engineering, environmental services and advanced technology. Even if you don t know what the company actually does, you probably know it simply as "Fenstermaker" because you ve seen the name around here since 1950. That s the year another Charles Fenstermaker founded the company. The Charles is the 4th generation Fenstermaker to be a part of the family business. Blaise Zuschlag is Chief of Staff at Acadian Companies, which you probably know from their flagship business, Acadian Ambulance. The company was founded in 1971 by Richard Zuschlag Blaise s father with two ambulances. Today the company has 4,400 employees in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas and has six divisions that include air ambulance helicopters, an executive aircraft charter service, and a safety management system for the oil and gas industry. Acadian Companies is consistently one the highest revenue producers in Louisiana. Over the course of a lifetime we can change a lot of things about ourselves, and our surroundings. One of the things we can t change is our family. Navigating a family business comes with its own specific challenges. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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When we hear about people who are successful in business, we tend to hear different versions of a familiar story. Somebody with a singular vision relentlessly pursues an idea, till, against all odds and after all kinds of hardship, they create Wal Mart or Apple. What you hear less often, are stories about people who have no single minded obsession, but are nonetheless successful and happy, doing something today that just a few short years ago they would never have imagined. That s the category that both of Aileen s lunch guests fall into on this episode of Out to Lunch Acadiana. Kevin Blanchard started out as a journalist. He was a news reporter in Lafayette, for The Advocate. By 2008 he was married and had kids. For a guy with a family to raise, the future of the newspaper business didn t look too bright. So, Kevin went back to school. In 2011, he graduated from LSU with a law degree. As an attorney, Kevin was serving as Public Works Director and Chief Development Officer for Lafayette Consolidated Government when he came in contact with the owners of Southern Lifestyle Development. They re the company behind River Ranch, and 17 other communities they re developing throughout Louisiana. Kevin went to work at Southern Lifestyle Development as their in house counsel. He soon became the company s Chief Operating Officer. And that s what he s doing today, managing 40 employees. Korey Champagne grew up in Thibodaux, went to LSU and majored in dietetics and nutritional science with a plan of getting into healthcare. On the way to making that plan happen, Korey was working as a paramedic. That s when he met his wife, who is from Broussard, and they had a child. At this time, Korey was making some extra money by going to The Farmers Market with homemade pies that he was making. He couldn t help but notice two things one, he loved making pies. And two, his pies sold out really quickly. For a while, Korey was a paramedic piemaker. Till it got to the point where he had to make a decision about where to concentrate his efforts. The sensible plan would have been to concentrate on a career in healthcare. And that s how Korey came to be the founder and owner of a growing business called Acadian Slice. Acadian Slice is not a healthcare company, it makes pies. Today s business plan lesson What business plan Apparently you can follow your heart or your gut, without a plan, and end up being happy and successful. Photos at Marcello s Wine Market Cafe by Lucius Fontenot.
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Some little girls grow up wanting to be a princess. Some little girls want to be a big star. And other little girls grow up wanting to be executive producer of a major live event where they get to control everything from the music to wardrobe to catering. When little girls actually do grow up, there is one magical day where all these dreams come true. Their wedding day. Of the thousand and one decisions that have to be made when you put on a wedding, the two paramount issues for the bride are what she s wearing, and what her bridesmaids are wearing. In Lafayette, brides have the exclusive opportunity to build the gown of their dreams with celebrity designer Pedram Pasha Taheri, of Pedram Couture. Pedram s gowns have been worn by women marrying NFL and NBA stars and by celebrities Christina Milian, Gretchen Rossi, Serayah McNeill from "Empire" the show, not the town in Plaquemines and many more. Now you ve got your bridal gown sorted out, onto the bridesmaids. How on earth do you get five women who have completely different tastes and body types to look good in matching outfits Good news. In Lafayette there are people who can answer that question. They can be found at a business called Bella Bridesmaids. Bella Bridesmaids have literally hundreds of dresses from some of the world s leading designers. And if you re having a destination wedding out of town they ll even ship your bridesmaids dresses for you. Meghan LeBlanc is the co owner of Bella Bridesmaids. In the next 30 minutes you ll learn everything you need to know and more about what goes into dressing a bridal party. It s every bit as dramatic as you think. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.
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Things are changing around here. A few years ago, you never heard the words "entrepreneur" and "Acadiana" in the same sentence. Then we started to see what s known an "entrepreneurial ecosystem" grow up here. That s where people start up new businesses based on all kinds of outlandish ideas far removed from our usual oil and gas economy. To help these businesses succeed there are business incubators, business accelerators, angel investors, and even some access to venture capital to grow these new businesses. Because this is how household name tech businesses were born and grew up in Silicon Valley, people around here started saying, "If this entrepreneurial ecosystem is so great, shouldn t we have our own success story Like Google or Facebook " Well, guess, what As of 2018 we do. It s called Waitr. Waitr is a food delivery app that connects hungry people to restaurants. You place an order on your Waitr app. Waitr s proprietary technology sends your order to a restaurant. And in the real world, Waitr sends a driver who picks up your order and delivers it to you. In case you re thinking this is far too simple of a concept to be as big as Facebook, Waitr sold to the owner of the Houston Rockets and Landry s restaurants, for 308m. And it s barely started growing. Chris Meaux founded Waitr in Lake Charles in 2015. As a part of the company s sale, Chris is going to stay on as CEO. And when Waitr goes public, later this year, Chris will be Chairman of the Board. This sensational overnight success has taken Chris 23 years of hard work in the tech sector to achieve. In this candid conversation with Aileen Bennett, Chris chronicles where he s come from, where he s at, and, more importantly to him, the long road of deliveries and deliverables he has ahead. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Thomas Peters.
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If you re a kid today you hear stories from your parents and grandparents about how they grew up and you only hope that if your parents treated you like that someone would call Child Protective Services on them. Things like, parents making their kids go outside and play. Kids having to walk or bike places not being driven anywhere. No snacks between meals. No TV. And no phone. If you re a parent, you re continually struggling to get your kids to put down the phone, get outside, and do something that resembles what used to be regarded as normal human interaction for children. Aileen s guests on Out to Lunch are here to help parents with that struggle. John Jordan is the owner of Gracie Jiu Jitsu in Youngsville. As its name suggests, it s a place where kids and adults go to learn the specialized martial art of traditional, aka Brazilian, Jiu Jitsu. April Peters describes herself as the "Creator of Magical Experiences" at Hello Dancer, a dance studio for kids. Hello Dancer is not your typical dance studio which is traditionally a semester long rehearsal for an end of year recital. Hello Dancer s mission is to provide a stress free and fun experience for kids and parents where kids learn to love to dance, and develop a healthy sense of determination and accomplishment. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Thomas Peters.
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For most of human history, we ve looked to our political leaders to bring about change. We can go all the way back to Cesar, Napoleon, Churchill, and Lincoln. Since the industrial revolution, we ve been able to add the names of business leaders who have radically changed our world. Henry Ford. Sam Walton. Steve Jobs. Currently, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are changing everything from groceries to space travel. On a smaller scale, here in Acadiana, individuals in business are having an impact on our lives. Cian Robinson moved here from New Jersey because his wife, Dr Nathalie Harder, took over as Chancellor of South Louisiana Community College. Cian had a background in business development and landed a job here in Lafayette as Executive Director of the Lafayette General Foundation. Cian s current position at Lafayette General Health System is Executive Director of Innovation, Research, and Real Estate Investments. Dr Ryan Cazares comes from Scott Louisiana. Ryan graduated from the University of Houston in 2011. Instead of joining an existing medical clinic, he came home to Scott, and in 2013 founded Scott Eye Care. Ryan is the only eye doctor who s ever had a clinic in Scott. In business, being the first and only can go one of two ways. Either you find out there s a good reason there are no businesses like yours. Or, it s just what everybody has been waiting for. Luckily for Ryan, Scott Eye Care has turned out to be the latter. So many people in the medically under served populations in Rayne, Crowley and Church Point make the trek to Scott that Scott Eye Care now has two doctors and is looking to expand. Aileen Bennett knows more about the provision of healthcare in Acadiana than she might like. Her depth of knowledge pays off in this frank discussion about the health of our local and national healthcare system. Photos at Marcello s wine Market Cafe by Lucius Fontenot.
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Sometime over the past few years, the meaning of the world "business" has changed. Business used to be something that men in suits conducted in offices and on golf courses. Today, some of the most successful men in business don t own a suit. And business is no longer a boy s only club. Shows like Shark Tank make business look like a game anybody can play if you re prepared to roll the dice and partner for life with someone you met 12 minutes ago. And then there s the ubiquitous app. You can apparently dream one of those up on Friday, and by Monday you ll be making millions in the App Store. Some of those stories are true. But most of us have more modest dreams. We d like to be our own boss and have our own business. We d like to be able to pay the bills and save a little. And if we could accomplish that much we d be happy. The main obstacle to achieving even these modest dreams is, simply, a lack of business know how. We might be born with a talent to make, build, or perform, but most of us are not born with business skills. In some places you d have to go to business school to acquire those skills. Here in Acadiana, help is closer at hand. Heidi Melancon is Executive Director of the Louisiana Small Business Development Center. The LSBDC as most people refer to it helps start and grow small businesses out of its offices at UL. They ve been around since 1983 and Heidi has been running the show since 2014. 2014 was also the year Anne Falgout became Executive Director of the Vermilion Economic Development Alliance. The alliance is based in Abbeville and helps start and grow businesses in Vermilion Parish. If you re already in business and want to grow, or you want to get into your own business but are not sure how to do it, this edition of Out to Lunch will be instructive and inspirational. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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We often hear financial news pundits talking about manufacturing. Mostly in terms of how manufacturing has all but disappeared from the United States. Locally, you might think of manufacturing as the businesses on Highway 90, and other industrial locations, that make equipment for the oil field. But there are other forms of manufacturing that are not giant plants churning out things made of steel. They re small shops turning out products made of wood. And fabric. You might not think of a storefront like Parish Ink as a manufacturing plant. But actually, that s what it is. Parish Ink has been manufacturing their own Acadiana centric designer T shirts and other apparel since 2010. They currently have three locations in Lafayette. They sell their products nationwide. And they do custom designing and printing for customers from Houston to California. Tom Brown is co founder, owner, and Operations Director at Parish Ink. Manufacturing on a big scale can be a pretty soulless endeavor. Small scale manufacturing, on the other hand requires heart, soul, and particular craft skills where art and design meets machinery. That s what goes on at Cross Grain Studios in Lafayette. You ve probably seen Cross Grain Studio s wooden signs all around Lafayette outside businesses and subdivisions and if you ve ever been in the market for getting furniture you care about repaired or antiques restored, Cross Grain is the go to wood shop. Noah Mudge is the owner and operator of Cross Grain Studio. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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You may have heard the story about the famous bank robber, Slick Willie Sutton. In the early 1950 s, after a series of bank robberies, the police finally caught up with Slick Willie. When he was asked why he robbed banks, Mr. Sutton explained, "Because that s where the money is." Well, times have changed. Today, we think of someone completely different when we hear the name "Slick Willie." And banks are no longer necessariy the best place to find money, at least not if you re looking to borrow capital to invest in your business. Here in Louisiana, one of the alternative places you can turn to for bisness financing is Cardinal Capital Commercial Financial Services. Cardinal reportedly has over 4,000 sources of capital, including pension funds and insurance companies, who are ready to put money into Louisiana businesses. The CMO and partner in Cardinal Capital is Rob Powell. In business, everybody loves a success story. We all want to be successful. But, if by success, we think of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos, we re most likely all going to have to define ourselves as failures. One of the keys to success is defining what success looks like, to you. Maybe it s tons of money. Maybe it s a small fishing camp. Maybe it s having a career that gives you a work life balance. Whatever it is, once you ve defined it, you can map out a path for how to get there. That, of course, is a lot easier said than done. Unless you know Joel Dawson. Joel Dawson is a business consultant, a sales consultant, and motivational speaker. If you ve ever had periods of self doubt, where you ve wondered if any of your hard work will ever amount to anything, a few minutes with Joel will dispel all of those thoughts surer than a shot of whisky and a Roddy Romero song. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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When you have a small business in a small market, like Acadiana, you re facing challenges today that nobody has faced before you. There is no previous generation to turn to for advice on how to compete with online retailers. Or how to market to your local customers who might live next door but are getting all of their information online. These are essential issues that every small business has to confront. Aileen s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch are both helping local small businesses bridge the gap between the brick and mortar world where we live, and the online world where it can feel like everybody else lives. Megan Blanchard is co founder and CAO that s Chief Administrative Officer for a company called Digital Product Solutions. Digital Product Solutions specialize in giving small businesses an online presence. They build websites and do social media marketing, at price levels that are affordable for local small businesses. Zack Wright is Business Development Manager at Towny. Towny is an app. It s only available at this point in a few select locations across the country Indiana, Texas, Arkansas, and here in Acadiana. If you download the Towny app on your phone or tablet you ll be able to access special deals and products from local business. If you re a local business, you can get your business onto the Towny app and reach all of those people in your local community who are looking at their phones or tablets for information and deals. Somebody, somewhere is going to create the new model that combines online and real world retail. Time will tell if Towny is that solution. If it is, Digital Product Solutions will get the word out. Photos at Marcello s Wine Market and Cafe by Lucius Fontenot.
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There seems to be a never ending debate about healthcare in the United States. In this debate there are four main parties. The patient. Government. Insurance companies. And doctors. Despite their differences of opinion, all of these parties claim to agree on one simple thing. And that is, medical decisions are best made by doctors. Despite that, the fact is we have a healthcare system that is anything but simple, and that often filters medical decision making through a financial lens. In 2004, a group of doctors in Lafayette launched a business that would concentrate as much of the medical decision making as possible in their hands. They opened their own hospital. Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital is a 20 bed physician owned hospital with 8 operating rooms, 3 procedure rooms, and a caseload of 8,000 patients a year. The CEO of Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital is Buffy Domingue. If you live in a city or even a reasonably populated small town, the biggest problem you have seeing a doctor is getting an appointment. But if you live in a more rural setting, or maybe you work offshore on an oil rig, getting to see a doctor can be anything between a severe hardship and an absolute impossibility. A Lafayette medical company, Xstreme MD has solved that problem. Xstreme MD lets you see a doctor no matter where you live or work. All you need is an internet connection and Xstreme MD will put you in a virtual doctor s office with whichever type of physician or specialist you need to see. Since its inception in 2009, Lafayette based Xstreme MD has become one of the country s leading exponents of remote health care. Xstreme MD s Chief Medical Officer is Dr Michael Odinet. Peter Ricchiuti, professor of finance at Tulane University and host of Out to Lunch New Orleans, sits in for Aileen Bennett on this edition of Out to Lunch. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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After the oil crash of the mid 80 s, everybody around here realized that for the economy to come back, and for us to have a chance of surviving a future downturn, we d need to diversify. In other words, we d have to start up businesses here that employ people in fields other than oil and gas. That s easy to say. But we live in a free market economy. Politicians can t direct people to startup businesses. Nonetheless, look what happened. Another oil crash came along. Just a couple of years ago. It did certainly impact us. But not nearly as badly as the crash in the 80 s. Because, yes, our economy is now diversified. So, how did that happen One of the reasons is, if you have an idea for a business outside of oil and gas, you no longer have to leave Acadiana to make it happen. There are now avenues to take you from startup to success. There s people to help you set up your business and even find investors. Two of those business builders are The Opportunity Machine and Innov8 Acadiana. Destin Ortego is Program Administrator at the Opportunity Machine. Pete Prados is Program Director at Innov8 Acadiana. Tulane University finance professor and host of Out to Lunch New Orleans, Peter Ricchiuti, sits in hosting this episode of Out to Lunch Acadiana for Aileen Bennett. Photos at Cafe Vermlionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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One of the things we like to do on this show is introduce you to people who have businesses and occupations you might not be aware of. Or that are, shall we say "out of the ordinary." In that regard, we may have outdone ourselves with this edition of Out to Lunch. Rusty Wilson is a vermiculturalist. Also known as a worm farmer. Yes, worms. Down on the Acadiana Worm Farm, Rusty has hundreds of thousands of Red Wigglers, African Nightcrawlers and European Night Crawlers. Like a dairy farmer farms cows for milk, or a sheep farmer farms sheep for wool, Rusty s worms themselves are not the crop. It s the worm castings. Or poop. In horticultural circles, worm poop is a highly regarded fertilizer. And worm farming is, pound for pound, a pretty lucrative business. You might be thinking, "Well that s about as odd as it s going to get. Aileen couldn t find a business wackier than worm farming." How about a business where you don t have to do anything Except show up and be yourself. Much as you d be, say, in your own home. That s what Joseph Vidrine does for a living. Jo is a self described "Freelance Cajun." Jo makes appearances at venues across the country and around the world, doing Cajun stuff. He speaks. Plays music. Cooks. And takes photos which is not strictly Cajun but if a Cajun takes your photo in New England, it s spicier. What happens when two of Acadiana s most self motivated and passion driven entrepreneurs meet for lunch for the first time It s business, Acadiana style. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville in Lafayette Louisiana.
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We hear a lot these days about how we re all living in our own bubble. As more of us create our own TV channels with Netflix, our own radio stations with Spotify, and get our news from personalized social media feeds, we no longer have the kind of shared experiences we used to have, where we would laugh about last night s Seinfeld or agree how lame Brittney Spears new song was. If you re a TV channel, a radio station, or a record company, you ve found ways to adapt your product now called "content" to the new delivery system. However, changing the way you deliver content is not quite so simple if your medium is print. You can have an online newspaper or online magazine but it s not the same thing. One is made of paper, and one isn t. How to navigate these paper and digital demands, how to hold on to readers, and how stay in business in this environment is the sort of stuff James Flachsenhaar spends his days figuring out. James is Vice President of News for the Gulf Coast for Gannett Louisiana, and Executive Editor of The Daily Advertiser, all of which is a part of the USA Today network. Not all print is created equal. While people seem happy to get their news online instead of in paper form, there is really no digital equivalent of the glossy magazine. The feel, pictorial beauty, and the sense of luxury is hard to replicate online. But instead of that being a negative, it seems that the unique incomparable nature of magazines is keeping them thriving. Sevie Zeller is publisher and editor of local Acadiana 337 Magazine, and the co owner of 337 Media. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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We launched Out to Lunch Acadiana in July 2015. When we went on the air, KRVS in Lafayette was as it still is a mostly music station. We didn t know if we d have a single listener to a show about Acadiana business. Even knowing that, our very first guests, Matt Stuller from Stuller Inc and Anya Burgess from Sola Violins, were gracious enough to come on the show. In the intervening years, Out to Lunch has gotten pretty popular on KRVS. And podcasting has gone mainstream. Now we have a large radio and podcast audience, with listeners in Acadiana, across the country, and around the world. So, given that there is a pretty good chance, wherever you are, that you didn t hear Anya Burgess or Matt Stuller on our initial broadcast, we re going to rectify that. Though he s too modest to say it himself, Matt Stuller is arguably Acadiana s most successful business person. Here are a few facts to back that up. Stuller Incorporated makes 200,000 pieces of jewelry for over 40,000 jewelry outlets worldwide. It s one of the largest jewelry manufacturing and distributing firms in the United States, with facilities in Bangkok, Barcelona, and 3 plants in North America, including here in Lafayette where there are over one thousand employees. Stuller Inc is a huge and hugely successful company that Matt has grown from its infancy in the early 1970 s. It s an absolute pleasure to welcome Matt back to out to Lunch Acadiana. Anya Burgess is a fiddle player who started out fixing her own and other people s violins, on her dining room table. That eventually turned into a business when Anya opened her storefront, Sola Violins, in downtown Lafayette in 2014. As a musician, Anya has been nominated for a Grammy. Twice. Once each with both of her bands, Bonsoir Catin and The Magnolia Sisters. Anya and Matt are two very different but equally unique contributors to both the culture and economy of Acadiana. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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As social animals, we humans tend to ask each other two main questions. "How are you " And "What do you do " When we ask "How are you " we re looking a one word answer, something like "Fine," not a full medical report. But the response to "What do you do " tells us a lot of information about someone, besides what they do. For example, the reply, "I m a neuro scientist" or "I m a bass player in a punk band" tells us more than just what each of those people do all day. It tells us this is somebody I would like to talk more to, or this is somebody I can probably walk away from and go get another beer. Then again, once in a while, you meet someone who tells you what they do, and you have no idea what it might mean about them. Because you have no experience with anyone who does a job anything like that. And that s where we are on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana. Paul Kieu is a freelance photojournalist. Paul s photos have appeared locally in The Advertiser and The Advocate, in print across the country in publications like USA Today, and online on news sites like NBC news. Kody Chamberlain has one of those dream jobs that every kid who s ever sat in a class room with a piece of paper and pen has wanted from the age of 10. Kody draws comics. Yes, for a living. Kody is the creator of "Sweets A New Orleans Crime Story," "Punks The Comic," and other titles you ve most certainly heard of if you re in the comic world. Kody s a big deal in the world of comics. And he lives in Lafayette. Pictures at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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The expression "the bottom line" comes from business. It refers to the bottom line of a balance sheet which is the total sum of money you ve made or lost. In general conversation we take it to mean the absolute fundamental basis of something. On this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana, Aileen and guests are talking about the real world bottom line, for all of us. Life and death. And the business bottom line. These financial and existential elements come together in the person of Dr Paul Azar, the third. Paul is the fifth generation of his family to become a doctor. He also graduated cum laude from UL in finance and marketing. Paul s medical and business expertise combine in Lafayette, in his innovative stand alone clinic, Express Med, where you can see a doctor on demand, without an appointment and, if necessary, without insurance. Nicole Johnson is also in the business of saving lives. Though rather saving your life, Nicole teaches you how to save other people s lives. Nicole is the founder of CPRConnect, a company that provides training in CPR cardiopulmonary resuscitation. If a person stops breathing, or their heart stops beating effectively, CPR is a lifesaving technique that restores oxygenated blood flow to vital organs. There are many businesses and organizations that are legally required to have their staff train in CPR. And Nicole s company, CPRConnect, provides that training. Photos from the bar at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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For the last couple of hundred years we ve been making food in Acadiana that tastes totally different from anything you find anywhere else in the world. But, with the notable exception of New Iberia s Tabasco which is a hugely successful international brand it s only been relatively recently that Acadian food manufacturers have tried exporting our tastes beyond the borders of Louisiana. Aileen s lunch guests today have companies that are taking basic tastes from our everyday Acadian menu and selling them successfully across the country. Krispy Krunchy Foods sells fried chicken that Neal Onebane perfected and sold in his local convenience stores in the early 90 s. 17 years into his Acadiana convenience store chicken sales, Neal thought that maybe people in convenience stores in other places in America might also like his fried chicken. It turned out he was right. For the last few years Krispy Krunchy Foods has been one of Acadiana s most successful companies with annual revenues well north of one hundred million dollars. Five or six years ago, Acadiana cousins Collin Cormier and John Petersen launched a line of soft drinks based on a branding idea that was really nothing more than a local pun Drink Swamp Pop. That s only funny in Louisiana because outside of here most people don t know that Swamp Pop is a type of music. And when you think about it as a brand, putting the word "swamp" on a bottle of colored liquid doesn t make the average person in another state necessarily want to drink it. These were all lessons the Swamp Pop entrepreneurs were to learn over their first 5 years in business. Today, John and Collin have more than succeeded in educating non Louisiana drinkers and Swamp Pop is on shelves and tables in all kinds of places across America, including at Cracker Barrel coast to coast. Krispy Krunchy Foods, Swamp Pop, and their founders Acadian style family passion for their companies are success stories we in Acadiana continue to be proud of. Photos over lunch at Cafe vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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It s not unheard of for us to jump into something with two feet and totally commit to it only to discover some time later that things aren t working out exactly as we planned and we need to take some remedial action. On your wedding day, for example, you don t imagine you re going to find yourself a few years later making an appointment for couples therapy. When you drive off the lot in your fabulous new car, you don t imagine that in a year you re going to be cursing the day you got suckered in to buying it. When you start up a business, you can also find yourself some time down the road at a point you could never have imagined on the day you launched. In a bad marriage you have the option of divorce. The car you hate, you can sell. In business, there s also a single word for making radical change. That word is "pivot." "Pivoting" a business is not an admission of failure. It s an acknowledgement of the difference between a business plan and reality. Aileen s lunch guests have recent experiences in pivoting their businesses. Butch Roussel is the founder of a project called Civicside. Civicside lets citizens use crowdsourcing and crowdfunding which are kind of like online versions of a town hall meeting and bake sale to make local community projects happen in the real world. It s a great idea. And Civicside had its moments. Out of it, Butch has come to realize that the principles of Civicside are best implemented when there s a hard and fast time frame around a community project s creation. That s how Butch has come to pivot Civicside into what is now called The 24 Hour Citizen Project. Shane Istre was CEO and head of Business Development for a company called Kheiron Holdings. Kheiron provided Quality, Health, Safety, and Environmental consulting and training for the Oil and Gas, Pipeline, Marine Vessel, and Construction Industries. One of the facets of this training was the use of simulation in safety and operational training for onshore and offshore personnel. Out of this experience, Shane came to realize that the industry was going in an exciting new direction. One that utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a kind of parallel universe where businesses can in a way time travel into the future and model possible challenges before they show up in the real world. This technology is called Digital Twin. So Shane has pivoted his company to become a new entity, now called Digital Twin Studios. In business, being able to change with changing times, and being able to adapt to changing markets and demands, is the difference between being left behind in the dust and being out front in the lead. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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Many indigenous populations have a view of their place in the universe that defines them as stewards of the Earth. Australian Aborigines, Native Americans, and others, see themselves as intimately connected to the land. Here in Acadiana we re intimately connected to the land in an agricultural sense, but you wouldn t expect to see Neil deGrasse Tyson delivering a lecture on Cajun Cosmology. If anything, the spiritual aspect of both Cajun and European immigrants here are shared in Catholicism, whose worship is mostly directed upward to the Heavens, not down to Earth. Nevertheless, in recent years we have come to realize we are all stewards of the Earth. Whether you believe in manmade climate change or you think that something other than science is behind it, we know we have to do what we can to preserve green space, and grow and consume crops responsibly. Most of us try and incorporate these philosophies into our everyday lives. But for some of us stewardship of the land is everyday life. As a student, EB Brooks started a campaign to save the green space then known as the UL Horse Farm. The campaign worked. In 2013 EB went to work for Lafayette Central Park, the non profit formed to oversee the design, development, operation and maintenance of what is now called Moncus Park. Today, EB is the organization s Executive Director, and has helped raise over 14,000,000 towards the park s construction. Beth James is the 7th generation steward of her family s land over eleven hundred acres in St Landry Parish. Beth is the co owner of James Farms, and co founder of a new venture a rice mill making a product called Prairie Ronde Long Grain Rice. We re not seeing the current generations of Acadiana residents as you might expect drifting away from the land, but if anything the opposite. Our current stewards, typified by E B Brooks and Beth James, have a greater reverence for the land than ever. Photos taken over lunch at Social Southern Table and Bar by Lucius Fontenot.
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For as long as human beings have been on earth, we ve been on the move. If you re a Creationist, Adam and Eve were the first travelers when God told them to pack up their fig leaves and get out of The Garden of Eden. If you re an Evolutionist, geological finds support the theory that early humans wandered far and wide across the continents in search of food. Today, millions of us are on the move. Either for absolutely no reason other than our own amusement, or a desire to hang out with other people who have the same occupation as us. Amusing ourselves through travel or meeting up for business is a multi billion dollar industry. Here in Acadiana, the person charged with making sure we get our share of those billions is Ben Berthelot. Since 2012 Ben has been the President and CEO of the Lafayette Visitors and Convention Commission. If you re a tourist in Acadiana, unless you re coming for a music festival, you re probably not visiting for any specific reason. We don t have a spectacular national park like The Grand Canyon, or a man made attraction, like Disney World. If you re a tourist here you re probably coming to experience the food, music, and ambience or what we call "daily life." One of the daily life attractions in Acadiana are our quaint small towns and the culture within them. Like Eunice and it s famous Liberty Theater. The person responsible for both the theater and the town is the Mayor of Eunice, Scott Fontenot. Ben and Scott s decisions and actions over the next few years are going to affect almost all of us in Lafayette and Eunice. This conversation is an insight into what they re thinking and planning. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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Here in Acadiana, whether you re a recent arrival or your family s been here for generations, there s one thing we all agree on we have a unique culture that we need to preserve. That s a great sentiment. But even though we all have it, wishing doesn t make it happen. For culture to be preserved, somebody has to actually preserve it. Most of us are busy, working and raising families. Despite whatever good cultural intentions we may have, we re more likely able to quote lines from our favorite Netflix shows than lyrics to Cajun songs. Luckily for us, and for future generations, there are people among us who are making it their life s work to preserve, and to grow, our unique culture. One of them is Grammy Award winning musician, Joel Savoy. A member of one of the royal families of Cajun music, Joel plays in a band with his mom and dad Marc and Ann and brother Wilson as well as with many other combinations of Cajun musicians here in Acadiana, across the country, and around the world. Joel is also the co founder and owner of the record label Valcour Records, where you ll find music by Steve Riley, Bonsoir Catin, Cedric Watson, the Balfa Family, and many more. It s one thing to preserve a traditional culture. It s another thing altogether to get people to consume it, in competition for their attention with Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and every other distraction out there. The secret of social media is, not to be solely a consumer of it, but to use it as a marketing tool whether your message is Cajun culture or lawnmower repair. Here in Acadiana we are not typically known for our early adoption of technology. Matt Thibodeaux is something of an exception to that rule. Matt started out crafting social media campaigns for local companies back in the online marketing dark ages, over 8 years ago. Today Matt s Lafayette social media marketing company, The Matthew Aaron Agency, has over 15 employees, and social media marketing has become a key tool for businesses worldwide. Photos taken over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.
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You may remember in the late 1990 s a company called BASF had a massive TV marketing campaign, based on what they didn t make. They had a number of commercials that said things like, "At BASF we don t make the cooler, we make it cooler." And "At BASF we don t make the jeans, we make them bluer." All these beautifully shot and expensive looking commercials would end with, "At BASF we don t make a lot of the products you buy, we make them better." You could think of today s Out to Lunch as the BASF of Out to Lunches. Aileen s guest Mark Cartwright didn t invent fishing. But his invention makes it better. Mark is the creator of The Catcher s Mitt a special glove and set of accompanying tools that clip to your belt, ready for that moment when you reel in a fish. Available online and in sports stores across Louisiana and Mississippi, the Catcher s Mitt is increasingly becoming a fisherman s favorite. And meet Tipster, "21st Century jug fishing," where you drink beer and the fish catch themselves. Brian Biddick didn t invent the guitar, and although he does actually build guitars from scratch and spent many years doing just that what he specializes in is customizing guitars. In other words, Brian takes your guitar which you already like because it sounds good and makes it sound better. Brian is a master guitarchitect whose clients are literally a who s who in Acadiana music. Brian works out of Lafayette Music and, much to his wife s chagrin, on his kitchen table, but his influence on what we listen to spreads far and wide. Photos over lunch at Social on Johnston Street in Lafayette Louisiana.
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A lot of people around here in Acadiana compare the recent downturn in the oil business to the downturn in the 1980 s. The general consensus seems to be that although this downturn is having a longer term effect within the oil business itself, it s having a lesser effect on the overall Acadian economy. The reason everybody gives for that is one word diversification. And it s true. Over the past couple of decades the scope of local business has grown to include all kinds of new enterprises, from technology to tourism. Along with this diversification has come a whole new breed of Acadian business person. The entrepreneur. These are, for the most part, people with businesses that have nothing to do with the natural resources in this part of the world other than imagination and hard work. People like Aileen s lunch guests on this edition of Out to Lunch, Wayne Nix and Jeff Martin. Jeff is short and fat. Normally one would never introduce a person by their appearance. Even if it was tall and slender. But Jeff is the co founder of a company called Short and Fat. They make shirts for short and fat guys. The company s website which is important, because it s an online business is shortandfat.com. Wayne Nix has an MBA and he s an RN. He s a business guy who is also a nurse. Wayne and his wife, who is also a nurse, have a company called Rnvention and its first invention is The Multi Nix Tool. Nurses need all kinds of specific tools. They need to adjust the flow of a patient s oxygen, to measure the dilation of pupils in the eye, to clamp off tubes, they need scissors, and so on. The Multi Nix does all of these functions, and many more. It s the Swiss Army pocket knife of nurses tools. It looks like a pair of tricked out scissors, and its finding its way into the pockets of nurses across the country. Photos taken over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville in Lafayette Louisiana.
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If you re the kind of person who doesn t like meat, you might want to keep this show on in the background and not listen too closely. If you re the kind of person who believes there are certain jobs that women just shouldn t do for example, that there s nothing sexy about a lady pig farmer or a woman who knows her way around a butcher shop you ll probably be happier listening to an old Skynyrd album than hanging out for the next half hour with Aileen and her two fascinating women guests. And fascinating they are. Jamie Vickery has re written the term "farm to table." Normally when we talk about the commercial farm to table movement we think of restaurants that locally source food from small farms. In other words there are two separate entities a farmer, and a restaurant. In Jamie s case, she s the farm and the table. Jamie s company, Scratch Farm Kitchen, raises pigs, lambs and chickens on her farm in Duson. And serves them up on plates as a caterer, and at the Lafayette Farmer s Market on Saturdays. Betsy Bellard is a third generation member of the first family of meat and poultry in Opelousas. Betsy is Director of Sales and Marketing for the family businesses Targil Seasoning and Butcher Supplies, Bellard s Poultry, and the family s newest venture, Zydeco Chop Chop a combination of dehydrated herbs and vegetables, already blended and ready to use in anything from traditional Cajun favorites to regular American fare. Betsy and her dad, Tim, starting packaging Zydeco Chop Chop in 2014 and today you can find it in most grocery stores in Acadiana as well as Baton Rouge, Shreveport, and around the world thanks to its availability online. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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In Acadiana we love music. Not only do we listen to it, but many of us play it. There are probably more musicians per capita here than anywhere in the country. Music, for many families, is a way of both celebrating and passing on our culture. It is, as the late Eddie LeJeune, said, "In the Blood." Despite the fact that music is a central part of our lives, making a living from music is not easy around here. While we have lots of music, we don t have a lot of music business. We share that problem with the rest of the country. Since the advent of online music streaming services like Spotify, it s very difficult for musicians, or record companies, to make money from sales of recorded music. Which leaves music for film, commercials, and live performance as the principal sources of revenue for musicians today. With the focus on live music here in Acadiana, you d think that would work well for our local musicians. However, if you know any, you ll notice they re not living in gated mansions or driving fancy cars like their counterparts in Nashville, or even Austin. So why not Two local musicians shed some light on the Acadiana music biz. Lane Mack was born and raised in Lafayette. He was a contestant on the TV show The Voice, and his record, "Swampodisiac," rose to the number 2 spot on the iTunes Blues chart. Sean Bruce was born and raised in Carencro. Sean went to UL where he graduated with a degree in business with a focus on music. He s the owner of the Norwood Recording Company, his independent record label which released his latest recording, Staring At Maps. Photos at Social Southern Table and Bar in Lafayette by Lucius A. Fontenot.
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When we talk about somebody being in business, our underlying assumption is that they re in business to make a profit. For themselves. That assumption does not always hold true. Admittedly, exceptions are rare. And that s what makes them all the more remarkable. It would hard to find a more remarkable exception than Kim James Boudreaux. Kim is the Executive Director of Catholic Services in Lafayette. Catholic services provides a wide range of community help, including serving over 100,000 free meals a year at St Joseph s diner. Providing shelter for homeless or struggling men, women, and children. And along with many other, community initiatives, continue to provide assistance to people still struggling to rebuild after the floods. Kim has worked with other needy communities, including time spent in Mother Theresa s order in Calcutta, India. Joe Zanco is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Home Bank. That doesn t sound like the kind of job that typically lends itself to big hearted largesse. In Joe s case, however, it does. Joe is the recipient of the American Institute of CPA s 2016 Public Service Award, quote, "for the selflessness he has shown in supporting his community." In 2017, Junior Achievement of Acadiana named Joe Business Person of the Year, for both his professional accomplishments and commitment to community. Joe is the founder an organization called Lead The Change Now, which is focused on inspiring and investing in servant leadership. And he s part of a prison ministry, in which he teaches business, using bible verses. Many of us, especially at the holidays, or after a disaster, think about how fortunate we are and tell ourselves that we re going to do something to give back. For most of us that amounts to little more than a good intention. And maybe a donation. Some of us will actually get up off of the couch and go do something. But very few of us commit the amount of time, energy, and genuine love that Kim and Joe find in themselves to give. This is an inspirational insight into a whole other side of Acadiana business. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius A. Fontenot.
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On his album Purple Rain, Prince famously opens his dance party with the lines, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today, to get through this thing called Life." Prince s point is that we re all on our individual journey to find happiness, but we re also all in this together. Most of us quietly go about our lives, making our own discoveries and mistakes, and hopefully getting wiser as we do. Then there are people who, like Prince, feel compelled to share their discoveries with the rest of us. And that s what creates culture. Aileen s lunch guests are both people who are determined to share their very different Acadian experiences with the rest of us. And that sharing is giving us the opportunity to both celebrate and change how we live in Acadiana. Toby Rodriguez went to UL, studied industrial design, became a carpenter, then a butcher, then a celebrant of butchery with a travelling ritualistic Boucherie, and lastly found a home for all of his talents by taking over the Acadian Superette in Lafayette. That s where we find Toby today, and the journey is far from over. Phanat Xanamane pronounced, Par nut Zarna marn is an architect with a prestigious post grad degree from Columbia University in New York, and an architecture, urban design, and urban research office in New Iberia. Phanat s clients range across the country but he s also heavily invested in revitalizing and, frankly, revolutionizing New Iberia through design, dance, public transportation, health and wellness, and the economy. His initiatives range from a community garden to a bike sharing program. And much more. For many reasons, you might expect Phanat s compulsion to share would, at best, be greeted skeptically by a small, conservative, South Louisiana town. But that s not at all what s happening in New Iberia. Times are changing. And Phanat Xanamane is changing them. This edition of Out to Lunch is a compelling look back into the future, with two of Acadiana s most iconoclastioc traditonalists. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius A Fontenot.
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In the past, one of the indications of being good in business and a successful and respectable person in general was job stability. You graduated from high school or college, you got a job and you stuck at it for 40 years. If you did well, you d work your way up through the ranks and end up in management. But even if you didn t, you appreciated the security, you were loyal to the company, and you retired with a decent pension. That s all changed. Markedly. These days there is usually no pension waiting for you. And far from any stigma being attached to changing jobs, we regard change and new challenges as positive. On this edition of Out to Lunch, Aileen Bennett meets two people who have both recently made big changes. For 11 years Dana Baker was Executive Director of Festival International. For most of us, running the most popular music festival in town, and one of the greatest in the country, would be a dream job. Dana s new job keeps the dream alive. As of late 2016 Dana is the Executive Director of the Acadiana Symphony. Harold Bernard has started a new business at the time of life most people are retiring. Harold is 65 and as of January 2017 the founder and owner of Glide Studios, on Jefferson Street in downtown Lafayette. Harold is a dancer and dance teacher. Glide Studios is a place where you can learn dance, watch dance, or just plain old dance. In Acadiana our cultural life is an integral part of every aspect of our lives. From the symphony to the zydeco dance hall, in this conversation we discover the audiences are not so different. Often they re the same people. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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Here in Southwest Louisiana we are buffeted by elements and forces largely beyond our control. We don t have the luxury of debating whether climate change is man made or a natural phenomenon. Whomever is causing it man or nature we have to live with the reality that changing weather is bringing one hundred and 500 year storms far more frequently than centuries apart. And eroding coasts are robbing us of the very land that some of us live on. Alongside that, the economies of our urban centers and small towns have been, for a long time, at the mercy of the vagaries of international oil prices. You might wonder what the heck these broad brush subjects have got to do with you, your house, or your daily errands. YOu re about to find out Aileen s lunch guests are both involved in making the link between where we live and how we live. It s a link you might not normally think about, but it s fascinating. And vital. Geoff Dyer is the CEO and Director of Design for the Downtown Development Authority in Lafayette. Geoff is an urban designer with an international reputation. He s designed more than 80 projects in 18 states across the US. He s both an enthusiast and an authority on downtown revitalization. Which is what he specializes in here in Lafayette. Ursula Emery McClure is a founding partner in the firm Emery McClure Architecture, and occupies the prestigious seat of A. Hays Town Professor in the School of Architecture at LSU. Ursula has won numerous international prizes for her architecture and her firm s work is internationally recognized as well. Here at home, Ursula s designs are sometimes controversial as she champions forward thinking design while, as she puts it, "being caught between the global petro chemical infrastructure and an alligator." Photos from lunch at Social in Lafayette.
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It s not totally unheard of for a husband and wife to start up a business together. There are small businesses that are labor intensive and require long hours that a couple can split, and keep whatever profit they can make in the family. Traditionally, businesses like family farms come to mind. Or convenience stores. Gas stations. And, perhaps more stereotypically than true these days, the mom and pop scenario where dad is a plumber and mom handles the phone and the books along with the kids. You can probably think of other examples. But, unless you already know Sandi and Richard Chalmers, I doubt that your list of businesses a couple might start up together would include a baseball team. Sandi and Richard Chalmers met in college, where they got married. Richard brought Sandi back to his hometown of Lafayette, and some 28 years later, in 2010, they decided to start up The Acadiana Cane Cutters. The Acadiana Cane Cutters baseball team is member of The Texas Collegiate League. They re based at Fabacher Park in Youngsville. Couples have come up with all kinds of ways to re energize their relationship after years of being together. And families have come up with all kinds of businesses to go into together. Starting up a semi professional sports franchise together after a quarter century of marriage has got to be one of the most creative, inventive, and challenging ideas anybody has come up with. But it s certainly working out for The Chalmers. Photos from lunch at Cafe Vermilionville.
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Muhammad Yunus is a Nobel Prize winning economist. He is the inventor of what is called the micro economy. He came up with the idea of making micro loans to people in 3rd world countries so they could start a small business. Yunus s latest thoughts on the capitalist economy include the opinion that one of our biggest stumbling blocks to happiness and the fulfilment of our true human nature is that too many of us think about getting a job. Instead, we should be thinking about how we could be entrepreneurial and work for ourselves. Here in Acadiana, Aileen Bennett s lunch guests have unwittingly followed Yunus s call to action and thrown off the shackles of education and employment, respectively, to follow their own entrepreneurial paths. Nathanael Johnson was majoring in business at LSU when he decided to short circuit the whole process. He dropped out of business school to open a business. In 2007 Nathanael opened Caf Mosaic, a coffee shop in Eunice. Then he moved to Lafayette and opened another one. Reve on Jefferson Street. Today, Reve is more than a coffee shop. It s also a brand of coffee, available around the state and across the country, made from beans roasted by Nathanael or one of his 42 employees. Nathanael is quite a success story. And a role model for kids in business school everywhere Kelly Guidry has a website called chainsawguy.com. If you ve ever stood in front of a mirror rehearsing how you re going to explain something difficult to your husband, wife or parents, you can only imagine Kelly s speech in which he had to rationalize quitting work as a successful graphic designer with a paycheck to throw himself into the career of chainsaw artist. Going on for 20 years later, you can find Kelly s artworks in homes and collections locally, and all over the country thanks mostly to his marketing strategy of selling his pieces at festivals including Festival International and Jazz Fest in New Orleans. Aileen Bennett, Kelly Guidry, and Nathanael Johnson find a surprising amount in common as they discuss their adventures in self employment over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville.
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In the tech industry there s always a "next big thing" on the horizon that s going to change everything. It happens so often there s a name for this syndrome. It s called "disruption." The next big disruption that everyone s talking about is driverless cars. While we don t know when a driverless car is actually going to pull up outside your house or whether anyone is going to have the courage to get in it the funny thing is that, thanks to a much quieter revolution, we already have pilotless planes. You probably won t be getting on a flight to New York on a pilotless plane any time soon, but Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAV s as they ve come to be known are hard at work on military and commercial flights. Here in Acadiana, DaCoda Bartles is at the forefront of the UAV industry. DaCoda s company, Aerobotics, is an aerial camera company. Aerobotics aircraft buzz around checking on everything from oil rigs in the gulf to wildlife in the swamp. There is one kind of car that will probably never be driverless. A race car. Motorsports wouldn t be quite the same if the driver was sitting at the side of the track, or even in another city, driving the car by remote control. Motorsports is one of the most popular, most costly, and most highly rewarded sports in the world because race car drivers are so highly skilled. And daring. Unlike most other sports, a race car driver s life is on the line every second. You can count the race car drivers in Acadiana on one hand. And you can count the female race car drivers on one finger. Her name is Sarah Montgomery. Sarah drives a Mazda MX5 Global Cup Car, and she s a race winning and award winning driver. On this edition of Out to Lunch, Aileen Bennett notes that DaCoda s aircraft hsa been unmanned by technology, but Sarah s race car has been unmanned by a woman. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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Here in Acadiana, one of the things we value is tradition. By that we mean not just Cajun and Creole culture, but the old fashioned ways of doing things. We don t mind if business takes a little longer to conduct and includes a long lunch and longer conversations about our families and football than business cause that s just how it s done around here. On the other hand, we like to keep up with what s going on in the world and to have access to the same cutting edge ideas and technology that you can get anywhere else. Aileen Bennett sits in for Peter Ricchiuti on this edition of Out to Lunch and introduces two people at either end of that spectrum. They re both in versions of the health and fitness business, but pretty much everything about their approach to it is 180 degrees apart. John Williams is the co owner of a second generation family business called Pack and Paddle. Pack and Paddle is an outdoor lifestyle store that specializes in, among other pursuits, rock climbing, backpacking, canoeing, kayaking, fly fishing, and family camping. Besides selling equipment, John and his wife Becky lead trips into the Acadian lakes and bayous. And if you re looking to buy outdoor equipment online, don t Google Pack and Paddle cause they don t do business that way. John, Welcome to Out to Lunch. On the other end of the healthy lifestyle spectrum, there s a new business in town called Orange Theory Fitness. It s a hi tech gym where you work out in a group. You re wired up to a personal monitor and y all s vital signs are displayed on giant screens while you re working out. The workout is based on a scientific principle called EPOC which stands for Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption. In case you think this is a bunch of crazy talk, Orange Theory is one of the fastest growing companies in America. Entrepreneur Magazine calls it one of the top franchises in the world. Here in Lafayette, Blane Arnold is Orange Theory s head trainer. By the end of this conversation John and Blane come to realize they have more in common than they might have thought. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.
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Over the last couple of years we ve had to deal with the fallout from big changes in the oil business. We have been far less battered by equally cataclysmic changes in the film business. If you haven t been keeping up, here s the thumbnail sketch. In 2003 the Louisiana legislature decided to attract film production to the state by giving film productions 30 of their budget. In cash. That meant, if you were a Hollywood film producer making a 100m movie here, the State of Louisiana would write you a check for 33m. We started getting more film production than we d ever dreamed of. So much so that Louisiana came to be known as "Hollywood South." It seemed like a win win. Hundreds of local people became film crew and started working non stop. Mostly in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Shreveport. In the middle of 2014, the Legislature realized it was giving away about 250m a year to already wealthy film executives. And that figure was about to balloon. So they put a much lower cap on the amount of money they would give away in any one year. As a result, most of the film companies instantly picked up left. Through all these Hollywood South ups and downs, here in Acadiana we ve managed to keep our film business humming along quietly. Actor and Producer Marcus Brown was raised in Jeanerette and lives in Lafayette. You may have seen Marcus in the Academy Award winning movie, 12 Years A slave or in any of the 74 movies or TV shows he s been in since 1995. Marcus s production company, Believe Entertainment, has completed its second major motion picture. Andrew Morgan Smith comes from Lafayette and still lives here. Andrew is a musician. He writes and plays as much music as any working musician around here, but don t look for Andrew performing at The Blue Moon. If you want to hear Andrew s music you can listen to the score of any of the 61 big screen movies and TV movies he s composed. Including Jeepers Creepers III and the cult classic shark movies Ghost Shark and Trailer Park Shark. The film business, at the end day, is just another business. It comes with the same stresses that come with any business. Maybe more. But then again, Marcus and Andrew are making movies. And that is, well, just more glamorous than what most of us are doing. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.
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According to the United States Geological Survey, 71 of the Earth s surface is water. And 96 of that in other words, almost all of it is ocean. Seeing most of the planet is ocean, you might wonder why it s called "Earth" at all. In theory, it should really be called "Water." And seeing there are billions more fish than there are humans, you would think we relatively few humans would be dominated by fish. Whether you explain the fact that we eat fish rather than them eating us as evolution, God s design, or we re part of an alien experiment fish are a vital part of the diet of humans almost everywhere. In our part of the world, seafood is elevated to somewhere between religion and a way of life. And it s a vital part of our economy. No place more so than Delcambre. Although Delcambre only has 2,000 residents, on the day in 2013 when the Port of Delcambre launched the Seafood and Farmer s Market, 1,000 of them showed up. Today, the monthly market is a staple of the area. People come from as far away as Arkansas, lured mainly by the chance to get their hands on highly prized Vermilion Bay shrimp. The Assistant Manager of the Delcambre Seafood and Farmer s Market, and the Community Relations Coordinator for the Port of Delcambre, is Tammy Gordon. Tammy describes show she and her crew started up an online system where you can find out what fish are coming in to the port and go get em fresh on Delcanbre Direct. As you know, there are a lot of ways to prepare seafood. Fried. Grilled. Saut ed. And cooked up in a gumbo to name a few. It s only relatively recently though, that here in Acadiana we ve been able to eat fish that don t require any of these methods of cooking. Meaning, sushi In 2002 Michele Ezell opened Lafayette s first sushi restaurant Tsunami for no better reason than she loved sushi. And she was tired of driving to Baton Rouge or even New Orleans to get it. Since opening Tsunami in Lafayette, Michele has opened another Tsunami in Baton Rouge, and more recently a third one in New Orleans. Photos in the courtayrd of Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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If you live in Acadiana there s a good chance you attend your fair share of festivals. It seems like there s a festival around here just about every week. That s because there is. If you re in a Cajun band and you think at one time or another you ve been booked to play all of them, Google "Acadiana Festivals." I bet there s a couple you haven t heard of. The crown jewel of our Acadiana Festivals is Festival International. Over 300,000 people attend the Lafayette festival every year. Artists come from 20 countries. Maybe it s just me but it seems to get bigger and more fun each year though I m just judging that by the time it takes to recover. The Executive Director of the Festival since 2016 is a gentleman you might also know as a mild mannered software designer. Or, conversely, the badass drummer from Scott s Drum Center. He s one in the same, Scott Fehan. Two of the newest festivals around here are the Acadiana PoBoy Festival and Plate Lunch a palooza. The Poboy Festival is designed to celebrate the legacy of the humble poboy sandwich. And Plate Lunch a palooza is all about making a big deal about our local love affair with a good deal good meal. Both of these local food centric celebrations are the product of a company called S.E., which stands for Social Entertainment. If you like being social and being entertained you may already be familiar with the creative force behind S.E. He s also the guy behind Dix Daiquiris, Tropical Smoothie, and the Jefferson Street Pub. He s Gus Rezende. photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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We hear a lot in the national news about the global economy, and how we re all connected. Here in Acadiana we can certainly see how our families are connected, but it s often difficult to see our connection to the rest of the state, much less the nation, and the world. Sitting in for Peter Ricchiuti on this edition of Out to Lunch, Aileen Bennett introduces two local businessmen who are both part of the bigger picture. They re using skills they ve picked up outside of Acadiana to grow businesses that extend beyond our borders. Tommy Hebert is Manager of Public Affairs for the Atmos Energy Corporation. If you re not familiar with Atmos, they re the country s largest, natural gas only distributor. They have more than three million customers in eight states from the Blue Ridge Mountains in the East to the Rocky Mountains in the West. You might be surprised to learn that there are folks with names like "Rodier" in the U.S. outside of Acadiana. In places like Montana. That s where Bill Rodier came from before settling in Acadiana, a decade or so ago, and becoming Executive Director of St Landry Parish Economic Development. Both Bill and Tommy stress the importance of the one thing we in Acadiana pretty much all agree is at the center of all business people. Both businessmen agree that above all they are people people. Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville in Lafayette.
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The legendary Scottish poet Robbie Burns wrote, in old Scots Brogue, "The best laid schemes o mice n men, gang aft a gley." The Scots brogue was the British equivalent of Cajun French. In English we ve translated it as, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." Burns frequently wrote about innocent country creatures. Especially the way their lives can be impacted by the forces of our world without them even being aware of our existence. By extension, Burns was talking about us. How we, like the innocent creatures of the countryside, go about our lives with the best of intentions but somehow and we don t necessarily know why things just don t turn out how we planned. When that happens in business we ve invented an upbeat word for it. Pivot. For example, if you re selling widgets to companies that dig oil wells and the oil business collapses, you might want to pivot and figure out a way to sell those widgets to companies that dig swimming pools. That kind of pivot is pretty straight forward. Aileen s guests on today s show are dealing with pivoting businesses in ways in which there are no simple answers. No well worn paths to tread. And very little wisdom to follow. Tyler Woerner started his company in 2007. He called it Pixelbrush. It was a website company that designed, built and maintained websites. By 2016, Tyler had learned that he had actually started, and was trying to run, three companies. It turns out that website design, website building, and website maintenance are three very different businesses. And when you get successful, they require three very different types of people to run them. So Tyler pivoted. Now Pixelbrush is three different companies. Daysite. Eight Hats. And a new alignment with an existing company, Bizzuka. Christiaan Mader is a talented Lafayette based writer and journalist. You ve probably read Christiaan s work in IND Magazine and in A Biz. 2017 had already been a big year for Christiaan. He won the Louisiana Press Association s Freedom of Information Award the highest prize that the association confers and he was named Managing Editor of a new magazine called The Current. Then, later in 2017, the company that owned IND magazine, Abiz, and The Current went out of business. Leaving Christiaan more or less pivoting in the wind. Being a print journalist in the 21st Century is not for the faint of heart. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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Aileen s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch are in the same business grooming. There is, however, one significant difference between their two businesses. They serve different species. One is for human beings. The other is for dogs. Renee Ezell is the owner of the human oriented business, The Refinery Downtown. At The Refinery they specialize in men s haircuts and hot towel shaves. Plus they have a full salon and full range of spa services for both men and women. You can indulge yourself in all sorts of pampering from a hot stone massage to body waxing, and much more. On the canine side of high end spa services is a pet spa and boutique called Spoiled. At Spoiled your pet can get everything from a warm cleansing bath to a pedicure. And if your pet loves being pampered so much they don t want to go home, they can sleep over. The owner of Spoiled Pet Spa and Boutique is Jacey Simon. For anyone wondering about what separates us humans from animals, this conversation probably won t go terribly far down the path of answering any Darwinian questions. But you ll have a lot of fun learning about what goes into pampering pets and men. And women. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.
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For a great deal of the time humans have been walking around on Earth we were like other species. We spent most of our time outdoors and built shelters to sleep in, or to take refuge from severe weather. Somewhere along the line, that changed. Now most of we humans spend most of our lives indoors. Inside buildings. Our structures have become far more than just shelters. Some are essential to industry and business. Others have become expressions of our personality or symbols of our social status. Peter s lunch guests on this edition of Out to Lunch create both of these types of buildings. JoAnn Parker is the owner of ProLog Inc. ProLog makes buildings that look like shipping containers. And there s a reason for that most of them start out as shipping containers. ProLog customizes containers with equipment and supplies, and ships them all around the world. You ll find ProLog s industrial looking structures everywhere from oil wells in the Gulf to military establishments in the Middle East. Cutter Kates builds homes that are reflections of his personality and taste and yours. A refugee from the world of I.T, Cutter left computers behind around 3 years ago to follow his dream of designing and building houses which he does with his company CK Construction. CK Construction builds spec homes from Cutters designs. And custom homes for clients. You can find Cutter s creations in Lafayette, Baton Rouge, Morgan City and Houston. Locally, the highest concentration of CK Construction homes are at Sugar Mill Pond. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin Transcript of Peter s farewell to Out to Lunch On a personal note, this is my last broadcast as full time host of Out to Lunch Acadiana. As you may know, I m host of Out to Lunch in New Orleans and I have had an absolutely wonderful time over the last two years starting up and hosting Out to Lunch Acadiana. When we assembled the Out to Lunch crew here in Lafayette, we weren t sure how the show would be received. But thanks to your support and the support of the business community, we ve become the premiere media home for conversations and news about Acadiana business. There are a lot of people to thank whose behind the scenes contributions have made this show possible. Tom Peers, James Hebert, Judith Merriweather, Karl Fontenot, Johanna Divine, Andre Michot, Mitch Forman, Kim Perret, Bill Hines, Gwen Aucoin, Charlie Goodson, Armando Perry, Andrea and Ken Veron, Blake Langlinais, Cherry Fisher May, Pete Prados, Zach Barker, Blake Escudier, Jason El Koubi, Marisa Collins, Lisa Bowles, Dominic Lloyd, Ann Christian, and my brothers in arms, Eric Murrell and Grant Morris. Now that we re up and running, it s time for me to turn the show over to the captain of the home team. And so from next week, I m overjoyed to be replaced by Aileen Bennett. Aileen s accent gives her away as starting out life as a Brit. But her years in Lafayette and her immersion in the local community and local business community have infused her with the soul and spirit of an Acadiana native. I ll still be back from time to time to fill in when Aileen takes time off. And I ll still be hosting Out to Lunch in New Orleans if you re ever out that way. Out to Lunch Acadiana is all grown up, and like watching your kid go off to college, it s bitter sweet for me today walking away from something I truly love. The show will go from strength to strength. I ll miss the fun of being a daily part of it but I have family in Acadiana so I ll still be around. If you see me pumping gas or eating boudin Or eating boudin while I m pumping gas stop and say hi. Otherwise I ll see you as usual at Festival Acadiens and Festival International.
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The legend of Evangeline is the Cajun Romeo and Juliet. It s a story that captures the essence of the Acadiens experience. And it s as romantic as any ever told. The story of Evangeline Parish is equally essentially Cajun. It might be a little more down to earth than the eternal search for love. But then again, if that search includes the love of boudin and cracklin some folks can be as determined as Evangeline herself. Just ask T Boy Berzas. T Boy is the owner of T Boy s Boudin and Cracklins, T Boy s Slaughterhouse and Meat Market, and T Boy s Cajun Seasonings. T Boy is based in Mamou Louisiana. But for those of you listening outside of Evangeline Parish, you can also find T Boy s meats at T Boy s Boudin Online. Once you ve got your meat, one of our favorite methods of preparing it is barbecue. Over 70 of American homes have a grill. Which means around 200 million Americans enjoy barbecue. Now that s a huge market. And not just for meat. What s a barbecue without barbecue sauce One of Louisiana s best known and oldest barbecue sauces is from Evangeline Parish. Jack Miller s Barbecue Sauce started out in 1941 at Jack Miller s American Inn restaurant in Ville Platte. In 1955 Jack Miller bottled his restaurant s sauce and it soon found its way into stores across the state and beyond the borders of Louisiana. Today, Jack Miller s Barbecue Sauce is still made in Ville Platte by members of Jack s family, headed up by his son, Kermit. There s not enough time on one show to meet all the great business people in Evangeline Parish in fact we couldn t even fit them all into the extremely spacious room at Caf V but we can do the next best thing and that is introduce you to Tojo Ward. His real name is Dr William Ward, but everybody calls him Tojo. Tojo is the Chairman of the Evangeline Parish Industrial Board the Evangeline Parish organization that fosters economic development. This is a fun and informative conversation with three quintessential Cajuns who, as Peter Ricciuti says on this show, are as fascinating and successful in their own world as any entrepreneurs anywhere from Silicon Valley to Shanghai. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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You might have heard of a recent study about chocolate milk. Although it sounds absolutely preposterous, this perfectly legitimate study found that 7 of the American public believes that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. 7 of the population is around 20 million people. Although it sounds laughable, the explanation offered for what seems like extraordinary ignorance is that so many of us live so far away from the source of our food, we no longer know what it looks like in its raw form. Take, for another example, salt. You go to the store, you buy salt, you use it with just about everything you eat especially in cooking but do you ever think about where it comes from Jeremy Conner does. Jeremy lives in Lafayette but he grew up in Pensacola Florida. Jeremy still goes back to Pensacola regularly. When he does, he fills up a specialized container with 275 gallons of sea water. Jeremy trucks that water back to Lafayette. Through a process of evaporation and dehydration, he turns Pensacola sea water into salt. He packages it and sells it under the name Cellar Salt. Phil Gremilion is a Lafayette native with an equally fascinating food product. Phil s company, Papa Jaebert s, is a spice company unlike any other in the world. Phil is the planet s only commercial farmer of a native Louisiana pepper called the Peter Pepper. It s an extraordinarily hot pepper. By some estimates it s ten times hotter than a jalapeno, and literally too hot to handle. When Phil harvests and processes the peppers he has to wear gloves and a gas mask. But even this sci fi image of harvesting peppers in a hazmat suit isn t what sets Phil s Peter Peppers apart from other peppers in the world. The most significant trait of these peppers are their shape. They re called a Peter Pepper because they look like a penis. If all that doesn t make Phil Gremillion interesting enough, he s also the inventor of the Cajun Cooker a contraption that replaces the Cajun Drunk Chicken beer can technique and a similar cooking tool for turkeys. There s very little that s more fundamental than salt and pepper, or, in this case, salt and Peter Pepper. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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We all reach conclusions because of sound. We say a person "sounds nice." A song "sounds romantic." Or an idea "sounds good." When we reach these conclusions, what we re doing is attributing feelings and emotions to sounds. Giving sounds feeling and emotion is the province of Peter s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch. Jason Harrington designs and builds hand crafted amplifiers for music and voice. Jason s company, Lullaby Sound Design, marries modern acoustic science and old fashioned vacuum tube technology to create unique, high end sound equipment that s custom built for musicians. Jason s business is right here in Lafayette. Larry G. Miller who everybody calls Larry G also creates wooden boxes that make sounds. Cajun accordions. Larry G s been making accordions under the name Bon Tee for 37 years. He s built and sold over 1,200 accordions. Larry G is also one of very few people who can make traditional triangles for Cajun music, out of the tines of pitchforks, and among his many other accomplishments, Larry G is one of the founders of the C.F.M.A. the Cajun French Music Association. In an Out to Lunch first, Larry G fires up an accordion he just finished making 60 minutes ago, Jason pulls out a guitar, and it s fais do do at lunchtime Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.
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Summer lasts a long time in this part of the world. We take advantage of it by doing stuff outside like crawfish boils and bike rides. Meg Arcenaux is an expert on both of these Summertime activities. Meg is the owner of the bike shop Hub City Cycles as well as a pop up crawfish boil business called Hawk s Boil Up. When you look back on your childhood, hot Summers seemed to stretch on forever. One of the quick and cheap ways we cooled down as kids was eating a popsicle. Nick Villaume grew up in the 1980 s and has combined the joy of popsicles with the music of the era by starting up a popsicle company called Pops and Rockets. Nick s popsicles have 80 s rock flavors like Sweet Child O Lime; Rice, Rice Baby; and Cran Halen. Peter Ricchiuti savors the flavors of crawfish, popsicles, and yes, possibly, by the end of this convesation, a crawfish popsicle on this edition of Out to Lunch. Photos at Social Southern Table and Bar by Gwen Aucoin.
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There s a pretty good chance that you listen to podcasts in your car. There s a one hundred percent chance that at some point you re going to have to stop for gas. When you do, there s a ninety percent chance you won t go into the gas station. Nine out of ten people get gas, pay at the pump, and drive off. Which is something of a tragedy. Because they don t know what they re missing. Inside the most unassuming looking gas stations across America are some fascinating people and believe it or not some gourmet food. I m sure you find that hard to believe but we have it on the authority of none other than Al Hebert, who lives near the Vermilion River just outside of Abbeville. Al is a nationwide expert on gas station food. He s known as The Gas Station Gourmet. Al has one of the most eccentric business backgrounds, not just in Acadiana but anywhere. He started out in the sheriff s office. Became a detective. Then a hostage negotiator. Then, looking to do something a little more low key, he somehow ended up as a TV personality, hosting a cooking segment on the news. One day on assignment he did a story about a gas station in Crowley and was so amazed by the awesome food they were making there that he decided to turn gas station food into a lifetime s work. And so the persona and the business of Gas Station Gourmet was born. This is a fascinating tale of one man s passion, as inspiring as it is eccentric. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.
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To the rest of the United States, the symbol of Louisiana is the alligator. Gators slither across T shirts, baseball caps, and posters in every souvenir shop in the state. You can find the cute critters doing everything from smoking a cigarette leaning up against a gas lamp in New Orleans French Quarter, to playing the accordion in a pirogue in the shade of a cypress tree on a sleepy bayou. Here in Acadiana, the alligator is far from a cuddly toy with a cute toothy grin. It s a crop. An industry. And in some communities a danger to life and limb. If you find a gator on your front lawn depending on where you live, the law might let you take care of it yourself. If it doesn t and if you have a lick of sense you can call on a professional to get rid of your gator. Like Ronnie Guy. Ronnie has been a nuisance alligator hunter for the State of Louisiana for twelve years. He s a member of the Louisiana Alligator Advisory Council and serves on the board of directors for the Louisiana Trapping and Alligator Hunting Association. If you prefer your alligator in a different form perhaps in the shape of a belt, purse or wallet you can purchase all of these products and more from Lafayette s Mark Staton Company. The company started out in 1992 as simply Mark Staton. Today a dozen employees design, manufacture and retail alligator skin products to individual customers and retail stores across the country. The owner of Mark Staton Company is still, Mark Staton. What to do if a gator shows up at your elementary school, how to get one to end up on your feet as high end boots, or on your table in sauce piquant, this episode of Out to Lunch will substantially increase your gator IQ. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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Apparently, back in the dim distant past, people used to get sick, go to a doctor, get cured, and go home. We d pay the doctor for his or her services, and everybody would walk away happy. That was a long time ago. Now you go to a doctor, you get a battery of tests, you get referred to another doctor who specializes in what may or may not be wrong with you, your insurance company refuses to cover the tests the doctor wants, your prescription plan doesn t cover the medications you need, your doctor s large office staff spends weeks sorting out what your insurance company owes the doctor and what you owe, and you end up with a gigantic bill and a worse headache than whatever it was that drove you to the doctor in the first place. And everybody you know has a worse story than you about their own medical misadventures. In the face of this, there are truly good people in the medical field who are working to deliver better outcomes for both doctors and patients. And to change the nature of healthcare system itself. Blaine Lindsey is the Executive Director and Southeast Division Head of a company called Aledade Louisiana. Aledade is a new type of care company, called an ACO an Accountable Care Organization. Aledade s function is to move healthcare from a user pays model where you pay the doctor for treating you each time you are sick to an outcome based model where the doctor gets paid for keeping you healthy and not having to visit the clinic. Most of us have very little idea about how the business side of medical institutions work. Many doctors themselves don t understand how the complex mechanics of the healthcare delivery system work. Dr. Andy Blalock is not one of them. Andy is a nephrologist a kidney specialist and also the Chief Medical Officer at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. Our Lady of Lourdes has been in Lafayette since 1949 and maintains a dual purpose to provide the best in cutting edge medical care, and to provide for those who may least be able to afford it. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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One of the things we re proudest of in Acadiana is our culture. A big part of it is music and dance. Cajun and Zydeco. There are similarities and notable differences between Cajun music and dance, and Zydeco music and dance. Leaving aside for the moment the intertwined Acadian and African influences, one major musical difference, obvious even to people from outside, is an instrument you hear in Zydeco only. And that s the frottoir, or rubboard. The rubboard didn t start out as a musical instrument. It started out as, well, a rubboard. You used it to wash clothes. And then if you put thimbles on your fingers you could make a scratching sound by strumming it. It was Clifton Chenier and his brother Cleveland who came up with the idea of making a metal or stainless steel rubboard. The guy they turned to to make it was their friend and fellow worker at the Texaco Refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. He was a master welder, metal fabricator, and fellow Louisiana native by the name of Willie Landry. Willie s son, Tee Don Landry, has spent a lifetime making rubboards under the name Key of Z. He s made around 3,000 of them. They re in the hands of regular folks and famous musicians like Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top and Rihanna. There s even a Tee Don Landry rubboard in the Smithsonian. The intertwined Acadian and African cultures that have given us Cajun and Zydeco music and dance have led to the relationship between the styles of music and the people who play them and dance to them being referred to as "first cousins." "First Cousins" is the name of a film about this very subject. The film was written, produced and directed by two sisters, Moriah and Elista Istre. Both Istre sisters have a Ph.D and are professional cultural historians. Moriah is a folklorist and festival programmer as well as being the Director of the movie First Cousins. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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In Acadiana there are a number of Holy Trinities. There s the original, Christian, one. There s the roux onions, peppers and celery. And there s the Acadian Agricultural trinity Sugarcane, crawfish, and rice. In the rice capital of the world, Crowley Louisiana, The Falcon Rice Mill has been a family business since 1950. It s the only family run rice mill in the country. And it s the home of Country Cajun Rice. Today the third generation of the Trahan family Christine Fulton and Robbie Trahan own and run the Falcon Rice Mill. Robbie Trahan makes the trek from Crowley to Cafe Vermilionville for this edition of Out to Lunch. Rice and crawfish might not seem to have a lot in common other than when they re served on a plate but agriculturally, they re cousins. They grow in the same field. In Branch Louisiana, the Fruge family raise more than one million pounds of crawfish, and grow nine million pounds of rice a year. Mike Fruge is the owner of Fruge Aquafarms, incorporating Fruge Seafood and CajunCrawfish.com. To complete our trinity, meet Eddie Lewis III. Eddie is arguably the most uniquely over qualified sugarcane farmer in Acadiana, if not the world. In 2007 Eddie was Chase Bank s number one personal banker, nationwide. Eddie sold more bank products than anyone in the country working out of a branch office in the Albertson s grocery on Ambassador Caffrey. He went on to become a successful stockbroker at Morgan Stanley until 2011 when his father died unexpectedly and Eddie came home to Youngsville to join his brothers on the farm. This slightly less than holy trinity of agricultural entrepreneurs has a lot in common. Not the last of which is they all work with their families. This is a fun, lively, and informative conversation about life on and off the farm. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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We generally talk about heroes in a time of crisis. When we re in some kind of life threatening danger, a hero is an ordinary person who does something extraordinary. In the normal course of events, in a small town, a hero can be almost the opposite. A hero can be an extraordinary person who does something ordinary. Like growing vegetables. Or making soap. In the hands of hometown heroes, these otherwise ordinary events can have a remarkable effect on the economy and life of the town itself. Louis Lancon served in the US Army for 20 years. He fought in Somalia in 1993, in Baghdad in 2003, and was company commander in the pitched battles to retake Ramadi in 2005. Today, Louis is President and CEO of the Sugar City Growers Co op a forward looking hydroponic fruit and vegetable production in Jeanerette, Louisiana. While he was away fighting for his country, Patty Lancon stayed home and raised kids. When Louis returned and retired form the military and relocated to Jeanerette, Patty decided to go into business. She opened Bayou Bath Company, at first making soap in the family kitchen and today selling a wide range of local products and incorporating an in store florist. The entrepreneurial Lancons have contributed a soldier s lifetime of service to the United States and continue to contribute the next phase of their life to the life of Jeanerette. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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We often hear people lamenting mostly politicians that manufacturing in America has hit an all time low. The catch cry you hear frequently repeated is, "we don t make anything here anymore." Here in Acadiana we know that s not true. We make pretty much everything. On this edition of Out to Lunch Aileen Bennett sits in for Peter Ricchiuti and introduces two people who make things Alison Bohl Dehart and her husband, Peter. Alison and Peter makes things individually and together, through their company, Makemade. The wide range of stuff they make includes websites, photographs, movies and children s toys. Makemade is 5 years old. Alison and Peter have been working together every day. And they re still married. This conversation was recorded over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville.
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If you travel around Louisiana, you see enormous differences from north to south. And even more from east to west. It s always been this way, to some extent. But the differences have arguably never been as extreme as they are now. Here in Lafayette, and in Acadiana in general, we re going through some pretty major changes as we adjust to the new reality of the oil business. Meanwhile, just an hour s drive away, around Lake Charles, there is an enormous boom. So enormous that it s by some measures the biggest growth region in the country. On this edition of Out to Lunch, Andrea Moreau sits in for Peter Ricchiuti and takes a look at what exactly is going on at either end of that one hour drive between Lafayette and Lake Charles with Chad Thielen and Debbioe Springer. Chad has his finger on the pulse in Lake Charles, and Debbie is on the front line in Lafayette. Debbie has been in the energy business for 37 years and is founder and President of Lafayette based Audubon Energy. Debbie started out in the oil business as a very rare breed a female Landman. After conquering the good old boy network, Debbie was President of another energy company before founding Audubon Energy in 2012. It would take too long to list everything Chad Thielen can get accomplished in a day, but here s the short list. Chad is President of Lake Charles based land management company, Lacassane Company. He is president of the Morganfield and Belle Savanne developments, which he s developing with the folks who developed River Ranch in Lafayette. And if that s not enough, Chad also manages a handful of oil and gas exploration companies. And there s more, but again, that s the short list. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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Just 135 miles apart, a 2 hour sprint on the interstate or a scenic ramble on the 90, New Orleans and Lafayette are two of America s most culturally interesting cities. Economically, though, they re different. New Orleans is booming and growing while Lafayette is facing headwinds from a depressed oil economy and the continuing after effects of floods that are combining to limit opportunity. Given this situation, it would seem to be an unlikely time to expand a New Orleans business into Lafayette. But that s what two prominent local companies are doing. The iconic Rock n Bowl and the gourmet hot dog sensation Dat Dog are both opening locations in Lafayette. Johnny Blancher from Rockn n Bowl and Constantine Georges from Dat Dog shed some light on their logic over lunch with Peter Ricchiuti. Lafayette is no stranger to parties but with these two businesses at either end of Jefferson, both with music venues, look for these New Orleans imports to be a big part of the revival of downtown.Photos at Commander s Palace by Alison Moon.
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If you had a dollar for every time someone on radio or TV said, "Here in Acadiana we re known for our food," you probably would have made about a hundred dollars this month already. You wouldn t be as wealthy, though, if you were collecting a dollar on the sentence, "Here in Acadiana there is a sizeable segment of the population open to a medically holistic, nutritious approach to diet with an emphasis on fresh fruit and vegetables." Although you don t hear a lot of people say that, and as unlikely as it sounds, it s true. Dr Marie Pace will attest to that. Dr Pace is the owner of a business on Kaliste Saloom in Lafayette called Optimum Solutions Holistic Health Consultants. Dr Pace is a doctor of Naturopathy, a Holistic Health Practitioner, a Certified Nutritional Counselor, and author of the book Discover Health. Dr Pace believes we would go a long way toward eliminating all diseases if we lived on a more balanced diet of fresh fruit and vegetables. Jimbeaux Guilbeaux will be happy to bring you all the fresh fruit and vegetables you want. Jimbeaux is co founder and Vice President of Sales at Freshko Foodservice. Freshko s 22 employees deliver fresh food, and more, to restaurants, hospitals, hotels, and other food related businesses in Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Shreveport. Freshko s success story is a classic Acadiana business tale and an inspirational testimony to good old fashioned decency in business. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.
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A few football seasons ago, after years of losing, the Saints suddenly started to become a winning team. People back then would explain the change of fortune with a knowing look and two words "Drew Brees." In Acadiana, people have recently started exchanging that same knowing look when they talk about the impressive number of new businesses starting up around here. Folks look at each other and say, "U.L." What they re referring to is officially known as, "The B. I. Moody III College of Business Administration at The University of Louisiana Lafayette." On this show, and in conversation, so many people talk glowingly about the effect the UL business school is having on the growth and diversification of the Acadiana economy that we thought it was about time we find out what s going on inside those business school buildings. Dr Gwen Fontenot is the interim Dean of the business school, a position she s held since 2015. Dr Fontenot is in her second tour of duty at UL. She first taught at the business school from 1984 to 89. And this tour started out in 1999. Dr. Geoffrey Stewart is the Moody College of Business Administration s Associate Professor of Marketing. Dr Stewart has been teaching at UL since 2003. Andre Moreau sits in for Peter Ricchiuti on this edition of Out to Lunch that goes behind the scenes at Acadiana s academic business engine. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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There s a great deal of uncertainty in the oil business these days. When times are tough and margins are slim, oil producers find ways to trim costs wherever they can. But, no matter how big or small your company is, there are only so many people you can lay off. There are only so many wells you can close down. Oil producers still need to produce oil. What they want to do is produce it more efficiently. You d think because we ve doing this here in Acadiana and around the world for a long time that by now we would have figured out all the cost cutting methods of getting oil out of the ground. Well, apparently, we haven t. Peter Ricchiuti s three guests on Out to Lunch today have each come up with new oil field innovations. Josh Suttles is AIM Division Manager for Nacher Corporation, the inventor of a piece of equipment called The Flange Cuff. Aaron Broussard is a member of a Lafayette institution, Begnaud Manufacturing. At Begnaud Aaron has developed a product called Power Brush Machines. Calvin Fabre is a Technical Debt Specialist which is working on time, money, and effort spent in the future to pay off poor design decisions of the past and at Envoc he s the developer of an app called Spotter. Josh, Aaron and Calvin describe how oilfield innovation is always in demand, in either a rising or sinking oil economy. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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If you re a certain age and in business, you might have had a business mid life crisis. It s not about getting a tattoo and a Harley Davidson, it s about being confronted with a massive change in the way business is done, and deciding what to do about it. If you started out before the internet, before apps, before social media, and in some cases before the computer, the relentless onslaught of technology drives you to a point where you either throw up your hands and decide to be a Luddite, or you embrace change. Tim Supple has embraced change. In a big way. For years the multi billion dollar Acadiana oil and gas business depended for its existence on a breed of hydrocarbon cowboys called Landmen. A Landman secures the leases and rights for an oil and gas company to dig wells. That s not nearly as simple as it sounds. It can involve masses of contacts, phone calls, promises, handshakes, lunches, drinks, scraps of paper, maps, blind alleys and frequent and expensive miscalculations. Tim Supple and his partner came up with a way to take all the disparate inputs oil and gas company landmen accumulate, and assemble them in a whole new way online. They created a web based version of the Acadian Hydrocarbon cowboy and called him iLandman. In a tough time for oil exploration, iLandman is giving over fifteen hundred subscribers a much needed edge. Chad Theriot is on the other side of the tech revolution. Although Chad grew up in Breaux Bridge his upbringing sounds more like a kid in Silicon Valley. Chad started working with his father in the family business, CBM Technology, at the age of 12. By 15 he was a computer programmer. Chad went on to create the first automated system that uses voice to produce a transcript for court reporters, and has designed and developed software for a wide range of companies including UPS and The Kellogg Corporation. In 2011 Chad and his business partner bought his dad s company, CBM, and for that reason Chad is living back on the Silicon Bayou. Meet two quietly effective Acadian tech innovators. Change is afoot in the Acadiana economy. From Breaux Bridge to Lake Charles. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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This is a show about Acadiana business and, as you are probably well aware if you travel around Acadiana, there are no shortage of fascinating businesses to talk about in this part of the world. From oil and gas companies to jewelers and from accordion builders to app builders. From all these choices, we have a couple of guidelines for whom to feature as guests on Out to Lunch. We only book people who have a real business, not just an idea. And we don t have the same people twice. So on this edition of Out to Lunch we re featuring a person who is making a second appearance. And a business that doesn t exist yet. Cherie Hebert was a guest on Out to Lunch last time to talk about her Lafayette ad agency, BBR Creative. Today she s back with a second career as a house builder in Arnaudville. Cherie is probably not going to be swinging a hammer too often but she is planning to build 12 houses in her first year in business. If you add up the square footage of all those houses, you ll get a building about the size of the average family home. Cherie s company is called Tee Tiny houses, because the houses she s building are tiny. At 240 square feet each they are part of the nationwide tiny house fad. Cherie, welcome back to Out to Lunch. The other guideline we use for booking guests on Out to Lunch is that on each show we have guests representing different companies. With that in mind, meet George Marks, Cherie s partner in Tee Tiny Houses. George is the founder of the NuNu Arts and Culture Collective in Arnaudville known far and wide beyond the confines of Acadiana as the NuNu Collective, or just NuNu. The shape of things to come in Acadiana and beyond is rolling out of Arnaudville. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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Thomas Edison was the 19th Century s Steve Jobs. He invented the motion picture camera, the record player, and the lightbulb. Incidentally, Edison was known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park" which is the same part of Northern California where Steve Jobs lived and worked too. Edison explained his genius as being "one tenth inspiration and nine tenths perspiration." That formula can be applied to success in business too. It s pretty easy to define perspiration. It s working hard. It s a lot more difficult to find inspiration. Not just the great idea that gives rise to a business or a product, but the many ideas that you need to come up with along the way to make adjustments and even radical changes which in today s business jargon are called "pivots." You probably know all about delegating the perspiration side of business hiring, or partnering to share the workload. But you might be less familiar with who to turn to when you need inspiration. Yes, there are people who specialize in having great ideas. Like Jeff Benton and Aileen Bennett. Aileen Bennett describes herself as a Roaming Creative Director, an Idea thinker upper, and a Brand Experience Consultant. With her company, Creating Clever, Aileen has a unique perspective on making a business successful. She says, for example, it s often the little details that determine how customers feel about your business. The look on the receptionist s face. The smell in your hallway. The sign in your bathroom. The attitude of the staff when they are on a break. Jeff Benton is the founder of a company called The Stronger Company. Jeff is one of only 150 people worldwide certified to consult with businesses using EOS the Entrepreneurial Operating System. It s a business model and a set of tools that synchronize all the pieces of a business to optimize its chances of turning great ideas and great people into great companies. Jeff is also a certified Dale Carnegie Leadership Instructor, and co founder of the enormously successful electronics company, Pre Sonus Audio Electronics. With the realignment of the oil and gas business there are a lot of talented, creative people who don t want to leave Acadiana and who are branching out into all kinds of other businesses. Jeff and Aileen s consultancies are among the new Acadian perspective contributing these new ventures. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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Acadiana is different from pretty much every other place in the world. It s even different from the rest of Louisiana. It s hard to know exactly where on the I 10 the difference begins, but you know it when you see it. Because it doesn t just feel different which it does. And it s not just because people are nicer which they are. But you know it when you see it because Acadiana looks different. On this edition of Out to Lunch Peter talks with two people who are responsible for creating and preserving buildings that give Acadiana a style that is uniquely entwined with our culture and lifestyle. Robert Daigle is the developer of The Village of River Ranch a 320 acre traditional neighborhood development in Lafayette and the managing partner of Sugar Mill Pond Development Company the developer of Sugar Mill Pond, a 500 acre traditional neighborhood development in Youngsville. L J Gielen lives in Crowley, the rice capital of the world. LJ owns a restaurant The Rice Palace. He s a part owner of a construction company L K Breaux and Associates. But what L J is probably best known for in Crowley and in nationwide historic restoration circles is the enormous amount of time, work and capital he has put into restoring The Grand Opera House of The South. In the 39 years it was open, The Grand hosted a list of notables from Enrico Caruso to Babe Ruth and Clark Gable. After being closed for 69 years, LJ has brought The Grand Opera House of the South back to life and today the theater is back in business. At this only in Acadiana business lunch at Social in Lafayette, two of our finest, most charming gentlemen talk about their wives, ghosts, personal fulfillment, and in understated humility their incredibly successful businesses. Photos by Gwen Aucoin.
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If you ve ever bought a house, you quickly come to realize that buying something for hundreds of thousands of dollars is not quite the same as buying groceries or a bicycle. If, like an increasing number of people these days, you decide to leave the safety of a steady paycheck and go into business on your own, you can be overwhelmed by the thousands of decisions that confront you, any one of which seems at the time like it could make or break you. In either instance, starting up your own business or buying property, the difference between disappointment and success can come down to one word advice. If you re starting up a business in Acadiana and you re looking for the kind of seasoned advice you d expect to find on the East or West Coast, you need go no further than Lafayette. That s where you ll find Geoff Daily and his company, Start Stuff Industries. Start Stuff helps you start stuff. Coming from an impressive tech background up North, Geoff Daily fell in love with Lafayette in 2010 and has been helping locals start stuff in Acadiana ever since. Geoff, welcome to Out to Lunch. Buying a piece of property whether it s your home or your business starts with finding the piece of property. On the face of it that would seem pretty simple. But in reality it isn t so easy to find the perfect property. And once you ve found it, things only get more complicated from there, ending weeks or months later with a mountain of papers and a lifetime of debt. As with starting a business, the difference between disappointment and success in buying property can come down to who is advising you. Peggy Grace and her company PAR Realty have been advising real estate clients in Lafayette and Lake Charles for 25 years. In late 2016 Peggy took her company into a partnership with an international real estate company, Engel and Volkers. Having the power and resources of an international player gives Peggy a competitive advantage in Acadiana, and provides an advantage for Acadiana residents looking to move out of state. Photos at Social Southern Table and Bar by Gwen Aucoin.
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When you travel around Acadiana it s amazing how many talented people live in this part of the world. You can stop in at almost any small town and find a handful of people living there who are doing something sensational. Take for example, Eunice. After being born and raised in Eunice, Michelle La Fleur McFayden went to college for electrical engineering, and got a job with NASA. From 1988 to 1998 Michelle was a Space Shuttle Flight coordinator at NASA s Mission Control. That s one job you can t bring home to Acadiana so when Michelle and her husband NASA co worker J.P. decided to move back to Cajun country they had to find something else to do. That s when Michelle and J.P discovered the Great Harvest Bread Company and opened a bakery on Kaliste Saloom in Lafayette. Neither Michelle or J.P. had baked bread before. But, hey, it s not rocket science, right Lori Walls comes from one of the most familiar families to folks in Eunice. The Johnsons. Lori s grandfather opened Johnson s Grocery in Eunice in 1939. Back then, Johnson s was the first place in Acadiana to commercially sell Boudin. In 2005, after 68 continuous years, the family business closed down in Eunice. Meanwhile, Lori was working for an optometrist in Lafayette. In her off hours she was smoking meats and making boudin at home. In 2008, Lori and her husband Greg opened the second generation of the family grocery, including an 80 seat restaurant, in Lafayette. They called it Johnson s Boucaniere. Today Johnson s in Lafayette is already approaching institution status in Lafayette like its predecessor Johnson s in Eunice. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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When you own a business you generally believe that nobody knows more about your business than you. But there are times in the lives of many businesses that growth or success complicates things. At these points specialist consultants outside of your company can have greater insight than you about what you need to do to achieve your goals. When your business comes into contact in any way with local, State, or Federal government, working with specialist consultants becomes less of an option and more of a necessity. In Acadiana, one of the leading governmental affairs consultants is The Picard Group. The Picard Group has offices in Lafayette, Baton Rouge, and Washington DC. The company s Principal is Tyron Picard. In discussions of business strategy you often hear the advice that to grow you have to stop working in your company and start working on your company. Part of that task is to come up with a strategy for presenting your company to the world. Otherwise known as marketing. When you start thinking about marketing, you ve got a million questions to answer about how you want your company to look to clients or customers. You need to decide everything from the color of your logo to the attitude you want to present on social media. You can answer these questions yourself as they come up. Or you can turn to expert consultants to craft an overall strategy for you. That s the specialist mission of a company called Healthy Image. Healthy Image is in Lake Charles, but their work is spread far and wide. Healthy Image s Creative Director is Barbara VanGossen. Although this show is called Out to Lunch Acadiana, the insights in this conversation about business, and business s relationship to government, go beyond the bayou and well beyond the Louisiana border. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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Here in Acadiana we take the term "Southern Hospitality" seriously. We re proud of how we welcome people into our homes, and into our businesses. And for some of us, hospitality is our business. On this edition of Out to Lunch, Peter Ricchiuto introduces two people at very different ends of the hospitality industry Herb Schilling and David Billeaud. David is the founder and owner of one of Lafayette s favorite institutions, T Coon s restaurant. David started T Coon s in 1993, and he s still there every day, in the kitchen, cooking. David, thanks for taking time out of T Coon s to come eat at Social. Welcome to Out to Lunch. Herb Schilling spreads around hospitality on a grand scale. Since 1950 his family company, Schilling Distributing, has been wholesaling Budweiser, Anheuser Busch products, and more recently a wide range of beverages all across Acadiana. Photos at Social Southern Table and Bar by Gwen Aucoin.
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We often talk about business and creativity as if they are polar opposites. In fact, business is a creative enterprise. Every great business, from Apple to Wal Mart, stems from a great idea. As with other creative endeavors, like movies and music, the execution of an idea takes a team of collaborators. But the undertaking only becomes a success when all of the team players are contributing their individual talents toward creating the same vision. As much as business leaders like to stress team work over individuality, with sayings like "There s no "i" in "team," the fact is that vision is not a collective activity. The inspiration and vision that is central to creating a single, unified, successful business comes from an individual. The kind of inspired people who can have a great idea and inspire and lead others to execute it are not very common. But Peter Ricchiuti has two of them as lunch guests on Out to Lunch. Jason El Koubi is the President and CEO of One Acadiana. One Acadiana is a 9 Parish wide organization that promotes Acadiana as a place where business can flourish and succeed, and where business people and their families can enjoy a lifestyle unparalleled in the United States. Along with a talented team, it s Jason s vision, and ability to implement it, that is bringing noticeable positive change to Acadiana s economy. Jason, welcome to Out to Lunch. Blaine LaFleur is the founder and CEO of Stonewall Consulting. On the face of it, Stonewall Consulting is an engineering firm that builds machinery products, primarily for the oil and gas industry. But that would be a bit like saying Bruce Springsteen is a singer songwriter. While it s technically true, it doesn t convey the impact that transforms Blaine s approach to his work and clients into something more than just tool making. Blaine describes his mission as offering others a platform to succeed and find their purpose. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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There are a number of terms people use to try and make talking about business as exciting as talking about football. You re probably familiar with the football clich s, "We re going to go out there and play our own game." "Our plan is to play hard till the final buzzer." And all time favorite, "It s mental." In business we hear people describing their business as being so exciting it s "moving the needle." A "paradigm shift." And a "game changer." As in football where most teams don t play their own game or play hard to the final buzzer most businesses are not shifting paradigms or changing the game. But, once in a great while, a business comes along that does change the whole game for their clients, for their industry, or even for all of us as consumers. And that s the case with Peter s three guests on Out to Lunch today. Tom Hayes is the local General Manager of Uber. Against long odds and stiff opposition, Tom has successfully brought the ride sharing business to New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Lafayette. If you re a certain age you might remember the term "dial up." It referred to the act of getting online. In those days, most of the time your computer was a word processor. You had to use your landline to get onto the internet and to give you an idea of the speed of your connection, it would take around an hour to download a song. Today, if you re in Lafayette and you re hooked up online through LUS the Lafayette Utilities System you can download a song almost instantly, and download an entire movie in 4 minutes. That s because LUS has built one of the fastest internet connections in the world. And that is not some sort of wild claim or "moving the needle clich ," it s true. Terry Huval is the Director of LUS. If you re one of America s biggest and most successful companies like Apple, Fox, Buick, or GMC, you get marketing advice from only the best and the brightest. All of those companies and many more household names besides take advice from a consultant company on Jefferson Street in Lafayette called Potenza. Potenza s founder and CEO is Frankie Rousseau. On this edition of Out to Lunch from Cafe Vermililonville in Lafayette Peter talks with three local guys who are actually moving the needle, shifting paradigms and changing the game. Photos by Gwen Aucoin.
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If you live in Acadiana there s a pretty good chance you re connected in some way with the oil industry. Most of us know somebody who works offshore. These men and women are gone for days and weeks, ferried out to massive oil rigs in the Gulf. So massive that they often refer to them as "floating cities." They call them cities because there s a lot more going on on an oil rig than just drilling for oil. There s a whole community of people who, besides work, have to eat, sleep, get medical attention, go see a movie, workout at the gym, and more. Providing the real estate for these non work activities on a floating hunk of metal out in the ocean is the specialty of a company called HB Rentals. HB Rentals is the world s largest supplier of temporary on and offshore accommodation modules. The company operates from three major global hubs. In Aberdeen, Scotland, Singapore, and from its headquarters here in Broussard, Louisiana. The President of HB Rentals is Deirdre Toups. Whether your company is out in the Gulf on an oil rig, or up in space on a rocket, you need stuff. All kinds of stuff. From nuts and bolts, to chairs, beds, protective clothing, maybe even a pest control contract, and a million other things some of which you may never have anticipated or budgeted for. Businesses can take the unpredictability out of their supply chain by turning to industrial procurement professionals. One of the nation s most recognized procurement companies is Brewster Procurement Group. Their clients include NASA, and a who s who of major oil and gas companies. The founder, CEO and Managing Principal of Brewster Procurement is Janet Brewster. Peter, Janet and Deirdre take a business trip out to the Gulf and up in space on this edition of Out to Lunch from Cafe Vermilionville in Lafayette. Photos by Gwen Aucoin.
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William Shakespeare famously wrote in his play As You Like It "All the world s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts." Like much of Shakespeare s work, you can look at this on many levels. One interpretation is, although we each believe we are masters of our own destiny, in fact much of our life is spent performing for others, doing what others expect of us. These days, especially in our professional or work life. For some of us, life is even more complex than Shakespeare observed. If you actually are a professional performer, your serious work day world is a stage, and your work life consists of actually playing the part, of fictional characters. Amy Waguespack is an actor and theater director. Amy is the founder and Artistic Director of Acting Up Theater Company. Acting Up is the resident, professional, theatre company at the Acadiana Center for the Arts. Amy, welcome to Out to Lunch. Clare Cook is a dancer and choreographer. Clare is the Artistic Director of the Clare Cook Dance Theater, and the founder of Basin Arts, a new dance and arts space in downtown Lafayette. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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Business today is increasingly about information, technology, and service. Before this era, business wasn t so much people making things happen, it was simply about making things. Today on Out to Lunch Peter Ricchiuti is talking about people who make things. With robots. And steam. At the beginning of the 21st Century Missy Rogers and her husband Scott founded Noble Plastics with a bunch of employees who had no experience whatsoever making plastic products. Noble Plastics has continued on this path of local groundbreaking, creating a state of the art manufacturing plant that today includes robotic plastic molding machines, automated monitoring, a design studio, and an Acadiana Small Business of the Year Award. Jim Phillips calls himself the Founding Evangelist and Information Officer of The Incubatrix. The Incubatrix is a free community building program based on STEAM Science, Technology, Education and Art Makers. THE INCUBATRIX was launched in 2014 at the Lafayette Science Museum during The STEAMpunk and MAKERS Fair which celebrates Art and Science through performance, presentation and hands on interactivity. Peter met Spanky Meche, today s Entrepreneur du Jour on this edition of Out to Lunch through One Acadia, the organization that s leading economic development in Acadia Parish. Spanky is the founder of Spanky s Small Engine and Mower Sales in Church Point, Louisiana. Since its founding in 2010 Spanky s has grown and become a focal point for other businesses. In 2015 Spanky s won the Rising Star Award for outstanding sales and service from international power equipment manufacturer and distributor SCAG. Photos taken over lunch at Social. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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When we talk about "manufacturing" in the United States it s usually in the context of how many big ticket items like cars are no longer made in Middle America. Louisiana is practically never mentioned in discussions about manufacturing. But there s a surprisingly active manufacturing community here in Acadiana. A lot of it is based on making products large and small for the oilfield. But, despite what you might think, over the last 20 years while the manufacturing base in the rest of the country has shrunk, in our part of the world it has continued to grow. We ve featured companies as diverse as Stuller Inc and Begnaud Manufacturing on this show. Today Peter introduces two members of the next generation of Louisiana manufacturers. Jacques Dugal is the founder of a company called Idea Zoo. Idea Zoo specializes in combining 3D Printing and Laser Cutting to produce a range of products primarily made of plastic or wood. If you re not sure exactly what "3D Printing" is, Jacques explains all, and dissects the current state of the 3D consumer revolution. Grayson Carroll is a jeweler at Artisan Jewelers in Lafayette. Grayson grew up in the jewelry business his father, Sam, is a co owner of Artisan and although Grayson spent years working in the ski fields in Colorado and the oilfield in Acadiana, since 2010 he s been designing and making jewelry back here in Lafayette. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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In 1964, Bob Dylan wrote, "The Times They Are A changin ." Perhaps nothing illustrates that the times are still changing better than the fact that Dylan now has the Nobel Prize in literature for that and other observations. There are countless Ph.D dissertations and pages of press punditry examining all the various social forces at work that are changing our country. Hopefully among them a social scientist is tackling one of the big questions of our time What happened to beer and coffee Back when Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan was writing about changing times, Americans even hipster poets were content to drink Folgers, Maxwell House, Budweiser, and Schlitz. Today, a mere generation or so later, hipsters, and many more of us, demand better tasting and fresher artisanal beers and coffees. Those tastes are a changing all across the country. Even here in Acadiana. In Lake Charles, Nancy Holmes started roasting her own coffee beans as a hobby. Today her artisanal coffee roasting company, Acadian Coffee Roasters, is a wholesaler, supplying 100 organic coffee to casinos, restaurants, farmers markets and stores. And business is booming. It doubled over the past 12 months. Nancy, welcome to Out to Lunch. Meanwhile, in Broussard, Andrew Godley is brewing beer. Also starting out as a hobbyist, Andrew has turned his passion into a successful and growing business. Andrew s Parish Brewing Company has 17 employees and makes around 10,000 gallons of beer a week, including the popular Canebreak and Envie beers. Parish is in the enviable poition of selling as much beer as it can brew. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.
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There are very few things that can we all agree on. Employers, employees, politicians, and parents have a range of divergent views on most subjects. Except one. Education. Everybody agrees that education is the fundamental driver of a healthy economy and a healthy society. We attribute a good education system to everything from full employment and a low crime rate to individual self fulfillment. From that position of unity, we very quickly return to our more familiar positions of vastly different opinions and lots of them when it comes to deciding how exactly we ought to educate children. Vanessa Williams is a proponent of a style of education called Montessori. It s been around for over 100 years. It can be found all around the world, including 4,000 Montessori schools in the United States. Vanessa founded the Ashton Grace Montessori School in Lafayette in 1993. Sasha Nick believes you can teach any subject through art. That s what she does at her children s art studio, The Little Paintbrush. Sasha founded The Little Paintbrush in Lafayette in 2004 and has classes for both kids and adults that range from straight ahead art class to Summer camp and painting parties. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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Wherever you are right now, take a look around. If you re in the car, check out the dashboard. You probably take it for granted but somebody had to design every component of it. If you re at your desk, everything that s on it from your computer to business cards to coffee mug had to be designed by somebody. Strangely, seeing every single thing in the world has to be designed, it s amazing how few designers you run into. To rectify that, Peter Ricchiuti has invited two very different Acadiana designers to lunch. Lisa Bourqe designs houses and spaces we work and live in. Lisa is an architect and residential and retail designer whose work you can find here in her native Acadiana and in California. Jared Stepp s designs can be found all around the world. Jared and his partner at i10 Distribution design cables and earbuds for the iPhone that users worldwide agree are superior to the stuff that Apple makes. That s a big deal. The diffrence between "by design" and "design by" is subtle but significant on this edition of Out to Lunch. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.
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Although Lafayette is a bustling city we like to believe we re a small town where, if we don t all know each other, we know of each other. Jezebel Lobelia may be the exception that proves the rule. Although Jezebel is known nationwide, it s possible you ve never even heard of her. From her home studio here in Lafayette, Jezebel Lobelia is the creator of fashionwear that she sells under the label Jezebel s Fascination. Jezebel sells on average, across the country, one piece a day. In the world of hand crafted designer fashion, that is significantly successful. Jezebel s company is called Jezebel s Fascination because the fashion items she s making are called fascinators creations of fabric and feathers worn on your head, kind of like the exuberant decoration you might see on a woman s hat at the Kentucky Derby, without the hat. Karen Thibodeaux also makes fashion items. Karen s business, Sew What, designs and manufactures women s clothing. Karen is the creator of a line of Cajun inspired clothing called VaCajun. Karen s company is headquartered in Branch, Louisiana, where the company is a big deal it is the town s single biggest private sector employer. In this conversation Peter Ricchiuti gets to meet the biggest deal in Branch Louisiana and the most fascinating woman in Lafayette. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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You ve probably had this experience You go to a great restaurant; you really like it and you go back regularly. But there s hardly anybody in there. Ever. The even stranger thing is, the restaurant across the street is not nearly as good, but it s always busy. Why is that Well, there may be a number of reasons. But the principal ones are usually marketing, branding, advertising, and perception. All of which can be grouped under the banner of what is commonly called "Getting Your Name Out There." On this edition of Out to Lunch, Peter is joined by two folks who specialize in getting your business s name out there. Chad Cole does it literally. He ll write your name in neon, in LED lights, or in shiny paint, and he ll hang it where the world will see it. Chad is the President of the Universal Sign and Manufacturing Company. You see his signs all over Acadiana. Cherie Hebert will get your name out there on social media, in the newspaper, on radio, TV, billboards... she ll even write your name across the sky if that seems like a good way to get your name out there. Cherie is a founder, partner and brand strategist at BBR Creative. BBR is a powerhouse advertising, design, and marketing firm in Lafayette. It s been in business for 27 years and has 37 employees. You can have the greatest idea in the world or the greatest restaurant but if you don t get your name out there nobody s going to know about you. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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Here in Acadiana there s one thing we can all agree on. No matter what our politics, our age, our ethnicity, or anything else that separates us, the one thing we all have in common is a love of Cajun food. You don t have to be Cajun or even raised in Acadiana to be an expert on the exact way you like your gumbo, boudin, and everything else that s native to our neighborhood. And God forbid you have to leave Acadiana for work or some other reason and live somewhere else. Then what do you do Up until now you ve had to rely on somebody here sending you a care package. These days though, things have changed. Now if you re living out of town you don t have to ask your sister in law to pick you up some Swamp Pop and ship it to Seattle at some enormous cost. Now you can call Tara Guidry. Tara s recently founded business is called Cajun Crate. It s a monthly care package from Acadiana, curated and delivered to wherever you are, or wherever you d like to send someone a gift of Cajun goodies. For a part of the world that is so food centric, Acadiana is missing a couple of essential pieces in the food chain. There is no food incubator like they have in Baton Rouge at LSU to help food based entrepreneurs. And there s no infrastructure to facilitate the current passion for what s called farm to table getting fresh local farm produce into restaurants. Zack McMath is stepping into both these gaps. Zack is combining his business skills and his passion for food to found McMath Food Group. McMath Food Group includes a network to connect farmers to local markets, and a brand new facility with two commercial kitchens, one for food entrepreneurs and another for caterers and food trucks. Zack is calling this combined contribution to the food economy the Acadiana Food Hub. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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If you listen to this show and you ve made it all the way to the end, you ve heard Peter Ricchiuti say, "Our Acadiana business consultants are Pete Prados from Innov8 Acadiana, Zack Barker from the Opportunity Machine, and Dr Blake Escudier." Pete, Zach and Blake all do great work helping people launch new businesses. But it doesn t matter how great of an idea you have a for a business or how helpful your consultants are, if you don t have one essential ingredient. And that is investment capital. Or as it s called in some circles, money. Running up debt on your credit cards and your friends and family chipping in can only get you so far. The next step is to find somebody who has access to real capital and believes in you, even though in the early stages of starting a business you might have very little to show for your idea other than a business plan. At this stage you can turn to what s called an Angel Investor. An Angel is someone who is prepared to invest in your business and in you, and risk real capital on your crazy idea. Here in Acadiana, Angel investment has been hard to come by. Until now. The founder of Innov8 Acadiana and our business consultant Pete Prados is the director of the recently founded Acadiana Angels. If you re looking for an example of a crazy idea that s just crazy enough to work, how about this one It s called Yellow Jacket. It s a case for your cell phone. So far you re probably thinking "A cell phone case Big deal." Well, wait till you hear the next sentence. The Yellow Jacket cell phone case is also a 7 million volt stun gun. Yes, The Yellow Jacket cell phone case is a 7 million volt stun gun The CEO of this crazy product is Chris Zavala. Imagination, creativity, and intelligence are not the sole properties of Silicon Valley. We ve got our share of impressive thinkers here in Acadiana. And now we have our share of people with money to back them. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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There was a time when you could go out to lunch and ask somebody at the table, "What do you do " and you could be pretty confident you d understand the answer. These days things aren t quite so simple. Take, for example, Peter s guests on today s show Tom Allsup and Will Labar. Will has a pretty straight forward job title. He s the Vice President of Consulting Services at a company in Lafayette called CGI Federal. For the past 38 years CGI Federal has worked with government departments as diverse as Defense and Treasury and everything in between, to do... Well, what Will and CGI actually do is where it starts to get a little more complex. What it looks like CGI Federal do is run the Federal Government. Tom Allsup s job description is even more inscrutable. Tom works for a company called Perficient. He s their "Director of Delivery, PMO and MSO." Do you have any idea what that means Perficient is a major American company that trades on the NASDAQ and has offices across North America, and in India and China where they... Well, Tom is going to explain. If you needed any proof that we re not living in your grandfather s Lafayette, this conversation is it. By the end of it you ll have a lot more insight into what s going on. Actually, well before the end of the show it all starts to make sense. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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We hear a lot about how manufacturing in the United States has declined over the past couple of decades. And we hear an equal amount of talk about various plans to bring it back. Some parts of the Acadiana economy are tied in to the national economy. And some, well, just aren t. Like Faulk s Game Calls. In what used to be the family home, the 4th generation of the Faulk family have been making duck and goose calls for neaarly 90 years. This is one product that is not being outsourced to China. But, perhaps surprisingly, you ll find Faulk s Game Calls all around the world including Russia and, ironically, Turkey. The Marketing Director of Faulk s Game Calls is founder Clarence Faulk s great grandson, Canaan Heard. If things go well for Teresa Rymer, her great grandaughter might be sitting at a table like this 90 years from now telling the story about how the family is still making Stethies. Stethies are customized, personalized stethescopes. The ubiquitous piece of medical equipment that s draped jauntily around doctors necks on TV and that s held against your chest when you re in the doctor s office. Teresa is not a medical equipment technician, she s an entrepreneur and a creative designer who has come up with the idea of putting designs on stethescopes rubber tubing. So that when you go to the doctor she might raise your heart rate by using a stethescope that has the Atlanta Falcons logo on it. Or Mickey Mouse, or Elvis... the possibilities are endless. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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If you re at home right now, maybe you ve got some yogurt in the refrigerator. If you re in the car, you might have a pen in the cup holder. Probably one of those free pens you got from a bank, or an insurance company, or the plumber. And if you re at your desk, you more than likely have a computer keyboard in front of you. All these items have something in common. The keyboard has keys with letters printed on them. The pen has a name and phone number printed on it. And the yogurt has a pastoral scene and the container s contents printed on it. All this printing is done by specialized printers that transfer ink onto all these various odd shaped surfaces. One of these printing methods is called Ink jet. And one of the well known brands of inkjet printing is LogoJet. In 2015 Logojet was named by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing companies in America. Previous companies who have made it onto this list include Pandora, Toys R Us, and 7 11. Unlike these other companies, LogoJet is right here in Lafayette. Its founder and president is Susan Cox. Long before anyone had figured out to how to put a logo on a plastic yogurt container, people were putting images on flat surfaces like canvas. They used a much slower and more painstaking method. A small brush. Coming up with an idea, painting it onto canvas, framing it with wood, and selling it that s a business model that s stood the test of time. Even though we can print thousands of images an hour, or steal them off the internet, we still greatly value original, hand created paintings of artists. Especially those whose work records and reflects our unique culture. Like the striking and beautiful paintings of Lafayette artist, Herb Roe. This is a fascinating conversation that demonstrates the incredible breadth of businesses and occupations in Acadiana. It s also a great lesson in the science of oil painting, the nature of entrepreneurship, and the triumph of love over all. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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There have always been people who believe the end of the world is just around the corner. Like people who say that honking at a red light makes it turn green, eventually they re going to be right. When the end of the world gets here, if you happen to be home in Acadiana, make sure you know where to find Peter s two lunch guests on this edition of Out to Lunch. Jess Fike will make sure you have fresh water. Marcus Descant will make sure you have fresh food. Jess is the President and CEO of H2O Inc. H2O can turn just about any water from seawater to sewerage into water for drinking and bathing. Which is what they are doing in places as diverse as oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and in the country of Mexico. Marcus is a horticulturalist. He s the owner of The Urban Naturalist in Lafayette. Marcus specializes in creating an Edible Landscape, environments that look nice and taste good too. It s both an ancient and hip new trend in domestic agriculture. Instead of planting flowers in your front garden, what about purple okra Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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As we have seen once again, as a result of the catastrophic rain and floods in recent weeks, one of the hallmarks of life in Acadiana, including business life, is an awareness of the importance of giving back. Both during times of urgent need, and in times of less urgency, one effective way of returning wealth to the community is by way of the Community Foundation of Acadiana. Since its founding in 2000 the Foundation has received 170m from over six thousand local donors. It has distributed 80m. It currently has a further 80m to invest in the local and regional community. The President and CEO of the Community Foundation of Acadiana is Raymond Hebert. Downtown Lafayette is the economic heart of Acadiana. And it s making a considerable effort to make itself not just the physical, but also the cultural and social center, of both the city of Lafayette and the region. Downtown Lafayette is not just a place. It s also the name of an organization that creates and promotes activities Downtown including Downtown Alive , Artwalk, and a slew of other events. Downtown Lafayette is an outgrowth of the Downtown Development Authority. Its Director of Marketing and Events is Kate Durio. As Acadiana begins to be made whole again after the dive in the oil industry and the devastating floods, we can all begin to benefit from a resurgent economy. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.
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You ve probably seen the cartoon where a dog is sitting at a computer. He s looking down at his doggy friend, explaining to him, "On the internet, nobody knows you re a dog." Similarly, on the internet you can be a big dog in online business, a computing superstar, and nobody knows you re in Acadiana. Like, for example, Doug Menefee. Doug is a nationally recognized leader and innovator in technology. He s advised companies like Amazon, Direct TV, and DropBox in the innovation of cloud computing. Doug s a local Lafayette boy and avid kayak fisherman. Nicholas Laborde makes video games. In 2010 he founded his company, Raconteur, reportedly without knowing anything about computer programming. Today Raconteur has 6 employees scattered across the country while Nicholas pulls the strings from here in Lafayette. The company recently launched its first game, Close Order, which has already caught the attention of Microsoft Xbox. The cavalcade of stars of Acadian computing continues with Tre King, owner and developer at iCandy Labs. iCandy designs and makes software, specializing in custom made apps for other companies for phones and tablets. They also have a couple their own apps that you can get at the Apple App store. You might find one of them useful tonight. It s called Ragin Out. It s an app that lets you discover events and nightlife in the Acadiana area as well as hooking up with your friends who are out. Photos taken over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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If you didn t live in Acadiana you d probably believe that the one constant around the world is time. In Acadiana we know that s not true. We don t divide up the year by traditional seasons. Unlike most places, it s too unpredictable. Some years we ll have a Spring that might last a week before the onslaught of Summer. Other years late Summer can provide Spring like Fall weather all the way to Thanksgiving. So we ve taken to living by more predictable seasons. For example, crab and crawfish season. For many of us crabs and crawfish are our favorite foods. As you might imagine, crabs and crawfish have favorite foods too. They re called Pogies. Pogies are a fish that are inedible to humans but are so tasty to crabs and crawfish that the promise of a pogie meal lures them into traps. When young crabs and crawfish ask their parents "Where do Pogies come from " the truthful answer is usually "Abbeville Louisiana." That s the home of a company called Louisiana Bait Products who catch, process and wholesale huge amounts of Pogies. Johnny Hollier is Sales Manager at Louisiana Bait Products. Sherbin Collette knows a thing or two about fish too. Not only is Sherbin the Mayor of Henderson, Louisiana you don t get to be mayor of anywhere without knowing a few things but he s also the owner of Collette s Seafood. And he s the representative of the wild catfish industry on the Louisiana Seafood Marketing and Promotion Board. Will Davis is, founder of a company called Ice Shack that makes Ice Bites. An Ice Bite is a New Orleans style snoball in a pouch, with a screw top that you can grab out of a store freezer, unscrew, and squeeze blue bubble gum, strawberry or wedding cake flavored snocone into your mouth as you bike, walk, or drive away. Ice Bites are spreading across the country, now to 30 states thanks partially to their appearance in World Market. Out to Lunch is recorded over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville in Lafayette. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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The way this show works is, we invite a couple of people who are in business in Acadiana to have lunch. Usually, they re people who we think will get along, or might enjoy meeting each other, because they have similar business interests. On this edition of Out to Lunch we re changing things up. Peter s guests at the lunch table have nothing in common. Well, almost nothing. One of them is one of Lafayette s most successful restaurant owners. In fact, he owns the restaurant they re dining at, Social. As well as Charley G s, Pete s, and The Tap Room. Peter s other guest is one of Lafayette s most successful oil and gas executives. He s Chairman, President and CEO of the publicly traded company PetroQuest Energy. The one thing these two impressive gentlemen do have in common is this they re both named Goodson. Not only that, they re both named Charles Goodson. And not only that, they re both named Charles Thomas Goodson. And they re both known as Charlie. It s not a trick question. They re not the same person. And they re not related. Even though they both live here and the Lafayette business community is not all that big they ve only run into each other a handful of times in the past 40 years. So we ve pulled off something of a coup here. It s The Charlie Goodson and Charlie Goodson Show Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.
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Somewhere along the line in the path of human progress we figured out fermentation. Eating fermented food might not have been all that useful in maintaining health and nutrition, but it sure felt good. And later, once we invented currency, people bought fermented goods in bottles and cans with romantic names that hinted at sophistication, like Budweiser, and Schlitz. Over the last decade, beer sophistication has become a reality. There s been an emergence of small, local artisanal breweries who make beer that does more than give you a buzz it actually tastes great. Here in Acadiana our contribution to the sum total of better tasting beer in the world is hyper local. Bayou Teche Brewing makes 9 different ales, specifically designed to complement the tastes of Cajun and Creole food. The President of Bayou Teche Brewing is Karlos Knott. After fermentation, humans came up with another way to make brain altering liquid distillation. That started out with stuff that was pretty nasty a kind of paint stripper version of gin that was so hard to swallow it was termed "medicinal" and thought to cure The Plague. Again, when we figured out we could enjoy the process of drinking and not just the effects, things started getting a little more sophisticated bringing us home to the Bayou where David Meaux owns Rank Wildcat Spirits. Rank Wildcat bottles Gold Medal winning rum under the labels, Sweet Crude and Black Gold. One of the things about alcohol consumption that s universal the world over is the social aspect that surrounds it. Most societies have created versions of the bar room, though not many of them as much fun as the many and varied establishments here in Acadiana. Nobody knows this better than Gus Rezende. Originally from Sao Paulo Brazil another place they know how to party Gus opened Dix Daiquiris in Lafayette, and before that, The Jefferson Street Pub. What could be better than a business lunch with a bunch of guys who make and sell booze Photos on this page at Social by Gwendolyn Aucoin. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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We live in a nation where we pride ourselves on individual achievement. When things go wrong, we look for reasons and explanations. When things go right, we put it down to our own hard work. And a little bit of luck. The truth is, of course, that achieving success or sometimes just managing to get through a day takes more than individual hard work and happenstance. Sometimes we plain and simple need help. Peter s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch are all people whose businesses are about helping. Helping you feel better. And do better. Sue Schliefer is a life and career coach. Through her company, Oak Communications Coaching and Consulting, Sue provides life coaching, career guidance, and management consulting services to individuals and to organizations throughout Acadiana, the United States, and even beyond our borders. Alyce Morgan is the owner of Embody Zest, a unique exercise studio, offering Pilates, The Franklin Method, Aerial Yoga, Zestercise, Laughter Yoga and Sleeping Qigong. pronounced Chee Gong . If you re wondering what all that exactly is, they re each forms of movement designed in differing ways to make you feel fabulous. If you overdo it at Alyce s studio, or you re just feeling creaky, you might want to visit Anita Carrere. Anita is the owner of Abbeville Chiropractic Clinic which is, no surprise, a chiropractic clinic in Abbeville. What might be a little surprising is that Anita can perform chiropractic on you, and the horse you rode in on. Anita is one of only 6 people in Louisiana who is a certified animal chirppractor. Photos at Pete s Family Sports Grill by Gwen Aucoin.
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Cherry Fisher May, publisher of ABiz, sits in for Peter on this show to talk about healthcare. And dogs. If it seems like the conversation about healthcare in the United States is never ending, between the ever changing policies of your personal health insurance, and the government level debate over the Affordable Care Act, one thing is for sure about Acadiana healthcare nothing is going to change in the next 30 minutes. That s because Cherry has representatives of two of the biggest and most influential healthcare providers sitting around the lunch table with her. Kip Schumacher s real name is William, but everybody calls him Kip. He s a medical doctor but he s also the founder and Executive Chairman of the Schumacher Group one of the largest emergency medicine and hospital groups in the nation. The Schumacher Group treats more than 4 million patients a year. In 2015 Abiz named them Acadiana s biggest private company, with revenues of 675m. Lafayette General Health System is Acadiana s largest non profit, community owned regional health system. They have over 3,000 employees in hospitals and clinics throughout South Central Louisiana and as of the 4th quarter of 2015 a new alignment will see their revenues exceed a billion dollars. The Executive Director of the Lafayette General Health System s community revenue arm, Lafayette General Foundation, is Cian Robinson. Cherry s Entrepreneur du Jour is Leslie Mann Sandlin, co creator of Swamp Dogs of Louisiana. Swamp Dogs of Louisiana is Acadiana fashion for dogs. Not Halloween costumes or embarrassing Princess dresses Swamp Dog makes rugged alligator and cow leather collars with a local Acadian fashion flair. know Swamp Dogs of Louisiana seems like a small business compared to Kip and Cian s big enterprises, but at the end of the day what makes you feel better than a dog For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwendolyn Aucoin.
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I m sure that like most folks around here living in Acadiana has advantages that you wouldn t trade for anything. But, despite the great food, music, and generally unbeatable lifestyle, I m sure you also assume there s only so much you can achieve here. Especially in business. Things like technology innovations. They come from Silicon Valley. Right Nationally known alcohol distilleries are in places like Kentucky and New Jersey. It s time to change our assumptions. Chris Meaux has created and launched what is turning out to be a revolutionary piece of technology. It s a phone app. Called Waitr. Waitr, very simply, allows any restaurant even white tablecloth fine dining establishments to deliver food to you at home. Or work. Chris started Waitr in 2013 with five people. Today he has 126 fulltime employees and another 350 part time or contract workers. And Waitr is just getting warmed up. Trey Littel started building his company in 2011. In 2016, the Louisiana Travel Promotion Association named it the State s number one tourist attraction. It s not a museum. Or a plantation home. It s a rum distillery. It s called Louisiana Spirits, the home of Bayou Rum. Louisiana Spirits is the largest privately owned rum distillery in the United States. The huge numbers of tourists who stop in at the distillery have gone home and spread the word across America. Now Bayou Rum is growing in popularity across the country. Trey Litel and Chris Meaux s kids went to the same school, Chris and Trey went to the same school, and they live pretty close to each other. But this is the first time ever they ve gotten to sit down and talk about business. Pretty soon you can expect to see Chris s Waitrs delivering Trey s rum. A very productive, informative, and super fun, lunch. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.
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One of the pieces of advice you often hear when you re deciding on a career is, "Do something you love." Inherent in this advice is the underlying assumption that "work" and things you love like enjoying yourself are two distinctly different undertakings. When we re kids that distinction is way more blurred. Everything can be fun. Even school. Starting with Pre school. Jonathan Pearce is having 4 times as much fun as a pre schooler. Jonathan is president of a group of four preschools. Sugar n Spice Preschools have two locations in Lafayette, one in Broussard, and another in Youngsville. Tommie Townsley writes and publishes books for kids. Tommie is the author of the "Cajun Tales" series of books, with 7 titles so far, including Clyde the Cajun Calf and Amos the Artistic Alligator. Tommie s company, Ally Gator Book Bites, has published 20 children s books by other local authors. It s probably not PC to call someone "nutty," but nonetheless meet Nutty Scientist Alexandra Drouant, co owner of Nutty Scientists of Acadiana. Nutty Scientists of Acadiana specializes in edu tainment a fun way for kids from 3 to 17 to learn science. Although it s a cliche, the children are our future. These three Acadiens on today s Out to Lunch are touching a lot of young lives who, before you know it, are going to be the future of Acadiana. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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If you ve been out to dinner, drinks, or hung out with friends over the last couple of years, there s a good chance you ve been in more than one conversation about the state of the energy business in Acadiana. Here at Out to Lunch we ve talked about it a lot too. And we ve finally come up with a great idea. What if we talked to people about the energy business who actually know what they re talking about Rick Richard is Chairman of CleanFuel USA, an alternative motor fuel company based in Georgetown, Texas, and President of Empire of the Seed Consultants consulting on energy projects in Southwest Louisiana and the nation at large. Previously, Rick was Chairman, President, and CEO of Columbia Energy Group a 7 billion Fortune 500 Company. In Washington DC, Rick was a legislative assistant for energy issues to U.S. Senator Bennett Johnston, and was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Rick is the recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal from the U.S. Secretary of Energy for his role in creating economic opportunities in natural gas markets. And he lives in Lake Charles. Jason French is the Senior Director for Government and Public Affairs at Cheniere Energy. Cheniere is a Houston based energy company primarily engaged in LNG related businesses. In Louisiana Cheniere owns and operates the Sabine Pass LNG terminal, and Creole Trail Pipeline, and between here and Texas they have around 900 full time employees. This conversation about the current and future state of the Acadiana energy industry is guaranteed to surprise you, in a good way. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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Cherry Fisher May, publisher of Acadiana s business magazine ABiz, sits in for Peter Ricchiuti on this edition of Out to Lunch. Cherry admits she doesn t have any NPR, Out to Lunch or ABiz research to back this up, but statistically she estimates per square inch there s more great food in Acadiana than anywhere in the nation. Because you live here and maybe were even raised here, you know all about it. But, unless you re friends or family, it s unlikely you know about the food career of Jennifer Jackson. Dr Jackson is CEO of Keystone Nutrition, a company she started in 2014. Jennifer s food and nutrition clients include 8 parish jails. Jennifer also consults for the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice, the Lafayette Juvenile Detention Home, WIC a nutrition program for low income women and Whole Foods. In the department of Specialty Food Careers, Bob Carriker has a special seat at the table. Known as "Dr. Boudin" he is actually a Ph.d and professor of history Bob is Acadiana s boudin authority. He s the author of the recently published book Boudin A Guide to Louisiana s Extraordinary Link, and creator of Acadiana s biggest sensation of 2015, the Boudin King Cake. Bob, welcome to Out to Lunch. Jennifer s and Bob s slice of the food business might be unusual or eccentric, but if you re looking for something truly nutty, meet Jady Regard. Jady is Chief Nut Officer at the Cane River Pecan Company. Jady took over the family business in 2002 and found a unique niche in the nut market Corporate gifts. What says "Let s make a deal" better than a customized tin of pecans with your company logo on it Right Apparently so. The B2B nut business is booming. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwendolyn Aucoin.
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One of the traditional instruments in Cajun music is the triangle. Although it couldn t be much more basic, its simple presence forms the foundation of many songs. There s another kind of fundamental triangle that distinguishes and connects three sides of Acadiana rural life, city life, and Cajun culture. This edition of Out to Lunch today s show looks at businesses dedicated to maintaining each of these 3 key elements, and keeping them in balance. The Bayou Vermilion District is committed to the preservation and enhancement of natural and cultural resources for residents of Lafayette Parish. The BVD provides boat, canoe, and kayak launches along the river, and maintains public parks. They also have a Living History Museum. A folklife park. And a restaurant. They have over 50,000 visitors a year. David Cheramie is CEO of the Bayou Vermilion District. Cities across the country in part inspired by New York City s Central Park have realized the importance of preserving greenspace for recreation and as a home for cultural events. Here in Lafayette, in 2012 a company called Lafayette Central Park Inc leased The Horse Farm 100 acres of green space on Johnston Street from the city and is in the process of converting what was once a playground for horses, into a playground for people. The company s Director of Administration and Capital Projects is E.B. Brooks. Brandon Broussard epitomizes all three sides of the Acadian triangle Brandon is a teacher at Acadiana High School, teaching traditional and modern skills of meat processing and agriculture, as well as an entrepreneur with a small business teaching Cajun dancing. This conversation is the heart of 21st Century Acadiana a conscious mix of culture, forward looking urbanism, environmentalism, and dancing Photos on this page are taken at Social by Gwendolyn Aucoin. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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If you grew up in an average home or you re growing up in an average home today "business" can seem like something very foreign. Something that people who wear suits do. Something that requires going to business school. And that means spending your life in a boring office, going to meetings, and being that obnoxious person at the airport obsessively pounding away at a laptop. If that s what you think going into business means, Peter Ricchiuti s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch are going to open up a whole new world for you. Lisa Crane taught herself to ice cakes by watching The Food Network. This was even before YouTube. Lisa worked in a bakery in Echo Louisiana, moved to Pineville, and finally to Ville Platte where, in 2015, she opened her own business the Uptown Cake Company. Business is booming and the shop is already expanding. Chad Monceaux is a fireman in Crowley, Louisiana. Crowley, as you probably know, is "the rice capital of the world," and when he s not putting out fires, Chad is the Vice Chairman of Crowley s International Rice Festival. If you ve never been to the festival, this is not like organizing a middle school bake sale it s more like putting on Lollapalooza. The festival costs nearly a million dollars to stage and in a town of 13,000 people, the festival attracts 300,000 visitors. Troy Primeaux who almost everybody calls Primo is a musician, a music producer and an ecologist with a degree in sustainable agriculture. 10 years ago Primo started growing peppers. Today he grows over 70 varieties of peppers including what is measurably the hottest pepper in the world. And Primo s wife, Kara, uses Primo s Peppers in her popular line of products, The Farmer s Daughter Pepper Jellies. Photos at Pete s by Gwen Aucoin.
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Acadiana is known for many things. From the outside, it s mostly zydeco and alligators. But when you live here, one of the things you appreciate most is the pace of life itself. Folks take time to stop, talk, and listen to each other. So, it s ironic that this relaxed attitude has produced one of Louisiana s most successful and innovative businessmen whose businesses are all about speed and convenience. John Dan Gielen is Chairman of the Board of Shop Rite the gas station convenience stores he started in 1969 and Tobacco Plus, a chain of tobacco stores he started in 1991. Today, Shop Rite and Tobacco Plus are in 59 locations in central and South Louisiana. And John Dan s empire has expanded to over 1,000 locations in 6 states through his convenience store supply company, Church Point Wholesale. As vibrant as ever, John Dan talks to Peter Ricchiuti on the anniversary of his company s 50th year. Although he s retiring and unassuing, John Dan Gielen is literally a Louisiana business legend. Part of the secret of his success is buried between the lines of this conversation a humility and an intelligence married to an attitude that looks forward and a conscience that is completely clear from a lifetime of doing what s best for people not profit. Ironically John Dan s philosophy is exrtemely profitable. The next generation of Gielen s is embodied in John Dan s grandson, Cody. Cody is both John Dan s "right hand man" and an entrepreneur in his own right with a chain of Another Broken Egg restaurants throughout Louisiana, Alabama and Florida. The only thing missing from this folksy, unvarnished conversation is the crackle of logs in the fireplace. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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There s an old saying in business that s half joke and half warning and can be applied to any location. In this case let s say Acadiana. "Do you know how to make a small fortune in Lafayette Start with a big one." Of course it s much easier to lose money than to make it, but the fear of failure doesn t scare off the usually young person with real entrepreneurial fire in their belly. The trick is channeling enthusiasm and passion into channels that will result in less talk and more business. The Opportunity Machine launched in 2009 to help Lafayette entrepreneurs turn ideas into reality. The Opportunity Machine, as its title suggests, give entrepreneurs opportunities to access classes and expertise from successful local business people in every aspect of building a company from making and marketing a product to doing your taxes. The Executive Director of The Opportunity Machine is Zach Barker. Pete Prados is the Director of Innov8 Acadiana. The number 8 in Innov8 represents the 8 parishes in Acadiana. Innov8 has helped develop and find financing for a number of fascinating startup businesses, some of which we ve featured on previous editions of Out to Lunch, including Wade Cl ment s Lift Horse and Wayne Nix s Nix Tool. There are many more, some of which Pete tells Peter on this edition of Out to Lunch. Dr. Blake Escudier defies the laws of physics by being in 3 places at once. Sitting at his desk in his office in Lafayette, Blake is an online professor of marketing at Kaplan University, and teaches the MBA program online at the University of Fredericton in New Brunswick, Canada. Among a long list of impressive academic business exploits, Blake previously taught consumer behavior to students in Silicon Valley at San Jose University. If you ve got an idea for a business in Acadiana or you want to know what business plans other people around here are hatching, check out this conversation. Photos at Charley G s by Gwendolyn Aucoin.
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Living in a place rich in traditions like Acadiana doesn t mean everything stays the same. Quite the opposite. Here, tradition is something that creative and business people continually nourish and grow. Some literally, like Brian Gotreaux. Brian and his family developed Gotreaux Family Farms, growing traditional food from veggies to tilapia in a way that s both traditional and modern. A few generations ago Brian s approach to agriculture on his property in Scott was simply called "farming." Today, it s called producing nutrient dense food that s organic and local. Collin Cormier takes an all new Acadiana approach to an established American institution soft drinks. While Coke and Pepsi are taking hits for their part in contributing to the nation s obesity, Collin and his partner launched Swamp Pop, an all natural alternative soft drink with local Acadiana flavors that are now finding fans across the country. George Graham is founder and principal of The Graham Group, a marketing company and ad agency with branches in Lafayette, New Orleans and Baton Rouge. For most people, running three offices would be enough work for an average day. But George is also Acadiana s most visible food blogger, the closest thing to being a chef without actually being a chef, and among other notable accomplishments, represented Louisiana in a nationwide TV search for the creator of the country s best burger. Photos on this page are taken at Charley G s by Gwendolyn Aucoin. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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Many of us have dreams of quitting the nine to five and doing what we really want. For many different reasons, that mostly remains a dream. Although it s often said in sarcasm, Peter s guests on Out to Lunch Mark Boudreaux, Janie Varisco, and Skylar Manuel are in fact living the dream. Their stories are very different, but they re all equally inspirational. Mark Boudreaux spent nearly 40 years in the oil industry working offshore, and later as an executive at ExxonMobil. In 2013 Mark retired and started doing what he really wanted. Cooking. Today Mark says he s the only personal chef within a one hundred mile radius of New Iberia. Janie Varisco also started out in the oil industry. Then spent 12 years in sales, before launching her own business as a wedding and event planner. When weddings started to become what Jamie describes as "a circus that s all about the party, gown, and guest list," she decided to focus on the part of the wedding she cares about the vows. Janie became a wedding celebrant. She s made something of a name for herself in local wedding circles because she s happy to marry anyone in love and legal, including LGBTQ couples. Skylar Manuel didn t switch careers. She didn t get that far. Skylar went to school to study criminal justice, but realized that wasn t the career she wanted and instead started doing what she enjoyed most baking cakes. After 3 years the bakery she was working at closed down so Skylar took out a loan and opened her own bakery. Today Sky s The Limit Cakes is known for the one of a kind sculpted cakes that Skylar makes to order. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.
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In Acadiana we re quick to acknowledge the incredible talents of our Cajun and Zydeco musicians. Which is pretty natural. After all, if they re not going to come from Acadiana, where are they going to come from In other styles of music and the arts where we don t have the field all to ourselves, the interesting thing is we have an equally talented array of artists. Some of them are natives. Others move here. Like Jenny Krueger. Originally from New Mexico by way of D.C., Jenny has been a professional flute player since she was 15. She was also the starting center on the boys basketball team in 5th grade, and had dreams of becoming a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. Since 2010 Jenny has been the Executive Director of the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra. Mark Falgout runs a unique music business that s a combination hostel and honky tonk. At the legendary Blue Moon Saloon in Lafayette you can come for the music which ranges from rock to Zydeco and if you love it too much to leave, you can sleep it off in a dorm bunk for 18. If your timing s right, you can even stick around for the crawfish boil. Gerd Wuestman is an internationally acclaimed classical guitarist who has played everywhere from Carnegie Hall to Berlin, and recorded 11 albums. In 2008 Gerd became the Executive Director for Lafayette s Acadiana Center for the Arts, better known as the ACA. Vastly over qualified for simply scheduling events, Gerd has revolutionized the 40 year old organization. With a brand new performance venue and visual art gallery, the ACA hosts over one thousandarts events each year. There are a lot of people doing a lot of great things in the music and art worlds in Acadiana. But not many are having more fun or more of an impact than Jenny, Mark, and Gerd. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.
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Acadiana is known for entertainment. If you don t play in a band yourself, someone in your family almost certainly does. There s music everywhere from small house parties to giant festivals. But there s more to life than music. For example, comedy. There s a genre of Cajun comedy, typified by our friend Boudreaux. Boudreaux usually appears to be a na ve country boy at the beginning of the joke, but in the end gets the last laugh. Over the years there have been a few notable Cajun comedians. But what Acadiana has not enjoyed is a comedy culture. There haven t been comedy clubs, or a place where visiting stand up comedians on a national tour could perform. Until the recent advent of a business, called Lafayette Comedy. The founder of Lafayette Comedy is Jason Leonard. Jason is also the founder of the Louisiana Beard and Facial Hair Association. That s not a joke. It s how Jason got started in the funny business. If you re going to make a living as a comedian in Acadiana you either have to have very meager needs, or have a few other skills to supplement your income. Robert Harris is a comedian. He s also an artist, recording artist, event poster designer, playwright, performing artist, and voice actor specializing in Cajun accents. On top of that he has a gallery in downtown Lafayette where he sells his artwork. And he s royalty best known around Lafayette as King Rob. On Out to Lunch we generally have three guests. So the thinking when putting together trhis show was, who could we invite as a third guest to join these two comeians How about somebody who could use a laugh Say, someone who spends all day teaching people how to shoot, bust a meth lab without blowing themselves up, get into a hostage location through the roof, use a Taser, repel out of a helicopter, and react to all kinds of threats of violence That would be Joey Comeaux. Joey is founder and CEO of the Cover Six Training Academy in Church Point. He might be a fearsome tactical assault expert, but on this show Joey gets the last laugh. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.
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The conventional wisdom about starting a new business is, target a specific market. Dustin Melancon and his wife Jennifer decided to throw that idea out the window. Instead they set out to manufacture a product that can be enjoyed by Sophisticates and Punks. What product could satisfy that wide of a target market Cupcakes. Sophi P Cakes a self described "cup cakery" has been in business in Lafayette since 2010. Sophi without an "e" at the end is short for sophisticated, and the "P" is for punk. Andrew Klenert is taking on the holy grail of adolescence. Imagine if you could cure acne. And while you re at it how about Eczema, Psoriasis, rosacea, dermatitis, cold sores, bug bites, poison ivy, even pet rashes That s what Andrew s product Thyme Out is on the road to doing. Andrew s all natural product is made here in Lafayette and shipped to 18 states and 150 stores around the country, including Walgreens. Photos on this page are taken at Charley G s by Gwendolyn Aucoin. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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In the United States people congregate for entertainment in buildings, like multiplex movie theaters, or dedicated chunks of real estate like Broadway in New York, and Disney World in Florida. Here in Acadiana, we have a parallel universe of popular entertainment. None of it involves massive permanent construction. It requires only an open field or a blocked off street. Here we congregate for festivals. There are two major long running festivals that are known among fans of music and French culture way beyond the confines of Acadiana. The oldest is Festival Acadiens. Starting in the 1970 s as a combination of smaller Cajun and Creole cultural celebrations, Festivals Acadiens has grown in size, stature, and economic impact under the guidance of Barry Ancelet. Barry is the father of the festival and one of the principal figures in the conservation of Cajun culture. The other big Francophone festival in town is Festival International. Held in downtown Lafayette every April since 1986, the festival features French speaking musicians from around the world and attracts audiences big enough to take over most of the city. Scott Feehan is President of the Board of Festival International and its interim Executive Director. Renee Matamoros doesn t produce one festival a year, she produces 12. For two seasons of 6 weeks each, in Spring and Fall, Renee stages Rhythms on The River in the Town Square at River Ranch in Lafayette. In Acdaiana big fun is big business. Photos on this page are taken at Charley G s by Gwendolyn Aucoin. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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The saying "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" assumes a democracy of things. Meaning every object, from a speck of sand to a skyscraper, has the potential for beauty, if we decide it s beautiful. Even if you believe that to be true, you have to admit that some objects are just more obviously beautiful than others. On this edition of Out to Lunch, Independent and ABiz publisher Cherry Fisher May sits in for Peter Ricchiuti and talks with two Acadian craftsmen who make objects of undeniable beauty. And function. To describe what Alex Caldwell creates as "handbags" or "purses" is a bit like calling the Grand Canyon a ditch. Technically it is. And technically Alex does make handbags and purses. But they re not like anything you ll see at Macy s. They re handmade works of bejeweled art that look like Faberge eggs. Actually Alex also makes Faberge style eggs, and other jewelry. His list of many impressive customers around the world include the Sultan of Brunei, Harrods, Neiman Marcus, and his works has even the star of a blockbuster Hollywoood heist movie. Every piece is hand crafted right here in Acadiana under the name Vivian Alexander. If you re a listener to Out to Lunch you may have heard in the end credits that the show s theme song is performed by Andre Michot. Andre is a member of the Grammy nominated band, Lost Bayou Ramblers. The band s nearly constant touring, their appearance at rock festivals, and the respect they ve gotten from the established rock and pop community make them one of this generation s foremost ambassadors of Cajun culture. The accordions Andre plays on stage are instruments he builds himself, part of a line of Michot Cajun accordions he builds and sells. Andre and Alex find they have a lot in common in their detailed craftsmanship and the painstakingly long time it takes to make a genuine work of art, that is also carried, swung, pushed, pulled, and dropped. Photos taken over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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Jourdan Thibodeaux says there s no truth to the saying that the two things you don t want to see being made are suasages and legislation. Well, he s sure about susages anyway. Justin is part of family business Comeaux s, one of the sausage and boudin grand masters of Acadiana. Kyle Waters likes the meditative ritual of making sausages. Kyle s the chef at Social on Johnston Street, a Lafayette dining favorite and one of the homes of Out to Lunch Robbie Bush eats regulalrly at Social but he could eat anywhere in the world. Robbie s a travel agent and shares one of the secrets of getting a low price airfare. Peter Ricchiuti has never had more fun than hosting this spontaneous, fly by the seat his pants show with a random collection of guests. Photos by Gwen Aucoin.
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The Independent and Abiz publisher Cherry Fisher May sits in for Peter Ricchiuti on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana. Cherry kicks off by noting the old adage in property development is "Land is valuable because they re not making any more of it," whereas in reality, in the United States there s around 80,000 square miles per person. But, for whatever reason, most of us don t want our own 80,000 square miles. We want to live near other people. And close to a Walgreens. Which makes certain pieces of land desirable, and others not. Which brings us to the three golden rules of property, "Location, location, and location." In Acadiana, family owned company Billeaud Comapnies have been honing their land and property development skills for over 100 years. Today, Billeaud is one of South Louisiana s largest office space and retail property management firms. Jennifer Whitmore has been with Billeaud for 26 years, most recently as Vice President of Real Estate Operations. It s hard to drive around Lafayette and other parts of Acadiana without seeing the name Stirling Properties. That s because Stirling has 12 million square feet of managed property stretching from Jackson Mississippi to Bossier City and another 60 million square feet for sale or lease. Stirling s Senior Retail Leasing and Development Expert is Ryan Pecot. Although Acadiana is steeped in tradition even in property development times are changing. Part of that change is being brought about by UL Professor of Architecture, and ground breaking architect, Corey Saft. Corey is the designer of the Lebois House, an eco friendly home that generates its own electricity and uses almost zero power from the grid. From right here in Acdaiana, Corey is designing the future. Photos taken over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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We go online for just about everything today. News, weather, music, banking, clothes, shoes, books pretty much everything you re looking for, you just have to Google it and it will pop up. For example, try Googling "Golf balls." You probably won t be surprised that no matter where you are in the world the first thing that shows up at the top of page 1 is GolfBalls.com. What might surprise you is that Golfballs.com one of the world s leading online golf retailers is right here in Lafayette. The co founder, President, and CEO of GolfBalls.com is Tom Cox. Tom joins Peter Ricchiuti on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana to talk about how you get to be number one If you re thinking you d like to start up your own Acadiana based online business, or make your current business more successful online, you might want to talk to Lafayette s John Munsell. John is co founder and CEO of Bizzuka, who give smaller companies the same kind of tools and online firepower that normally only larger companies can afford. If you want any proof that the strategy works, for 3 consecutive years Inc Magazine named Bizzuka one of America s fastest growing companies. John Munsell, welcome to Out to Lunch. Peter s Entrepreneur du Jour today is Ryan Conway, founder of new online business here in Lafayette called CollegeAD.com. A.D. stands for Athletic Director. CollegeAD.com has 20,000 email subscribers, including the vast majority of Division One Athletic Directors, and in just a couple of years has gone from an idea and one employee, to a staff of 7 and is the go to online resource for insider news among the staff of college sports. Photos taken at Charley G s by Gwendolyn Aucoin. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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If you grew up around Lafayette and Lake Charles and you re a certain age, you might know Don Begneaud. If you ve got kids and you leave out the part where he dropped out of college Don Beagneaud s story is inspirational. Don started out as a welder, riding a bicycle to classes while a guy he d hired to work for him did his welding jobs. That didn t last too long Don tired of ridnig a bike and letting the other guy have all the fun. Today, the metal shop Don founded while he was meant to be in school is Begneaud Manufacturing, a 65,000 square foot factory that serves a variety of industries, including agriculture, aviation, aerospace, automotive, communications, hospitality, marine, medical technology, and more. The term "Gone fishin " is part of our everyday vocabulary, across the country. Those two simple words say a lot more than literally announcing you ve gone out to catch food for dinner. "Gone fishin " is a polite way of flipping the bird to the everyday world of work and responsibility. For some people, like Zach Dubois "Gone fishin " isn t a day off work, it is work. Zach is the founder of Cajun Lures, manufacturer of handmade fishing lures. Peter, Don and Zach are also joined by today s Entrepreneur du Jour, Wayne Nix, inventor of The Nix Tool, a specialty all in one tool for nurses. Wayne, a nurse with a business degress, combined his skills and came up with the idea for his new business while working as an RN. This lunch meeting might be the breakthrough Wayne was looking for Zach thinks there might be a major fishing application for the Nix Tool. Photos taken at Charley G s by Gwendolyn Aucoin. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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When we talk about emergency services we think of the three types of first responders, police, fire, and medical, as equals. Although they are indeed equal in their vital function of saving lives, they re not equal financially. When a police car or a fire engine shows up, the vehicles and the people in them are funded principally by taxes. Most ambulances and EMS workers are not. They re independently owned and operated companies. The biggest ambulance and EMS service here in Acadiana is Acadian Ambulance. In 1971 Richard Zuschlag was one of the founders of Acadian Ambulance. Today Richard is the CEO and chairman of the company, and Acadian is one of the country s biggest rural EMS services with over 4,000 employees, 400 ambulances, helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. Local aviation company PHI Inc started out as Petroleum Helicopters. That was back in 1949. The company had to add the letter "I" for international when they started growing. Over the past 66 years PHI have been active in over 40 countries around the world, including the first civilian aviation company flying in Antarctica. The President and Chief Operating Officer of PHI, Inc. is Lance Bospflug. Locally, PHI is an integral part of the oil and gas industry, flying to and from oil rigs in the Gulf but oil workers are only some of the more than 1.3 million passengers PHI carries every year. On this edition of Out to Lunch, Peter Ricchiuti s Entrepreneur du Jour is Arun Lakhotia. Arun is on sabattical from his teaching positiom at UL where he is known for many interesting student projects but none perhaps as exciting as the unmanned military vehicle, CajunBot. Photos on this page are taken at Charley G s restaurant by Gwendolyn Aucoin. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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In business, when we talk about "exports" we re referring to a complex set of conditions that need to be fulfilled to get products out of the United States and into other countries. One of the first problems an exporter faces is finding a market where his or her products are going to be desirable. Or even understood. Although Acadiana is a part of the United States, it s about as close to a foreign country as you re going to get. Local manufacturers who take products that everyone here at home loves can run into some interesting reactions when they put their local best sellers on a truck and send em a few miles north and east. A great example of an eyebrow raising product outside of Acadiana is The Cajun Injector. It s the creation of New Iberia s Bruce Foods. Bruce Foods enjoys nationwide success with many products including America s number one selling Bruce s yams. Worldwide, their products are available in over 100 countries. At 1,200 employees, Bruce Foods is one of America s largest privately owned food manufacturers. President and CEO of Bruce Foods, Si Brown, joins Peter on this edition of Out to Lunch. If you re looking for a product name that s going to stand out on a supermarket shelf, how about "Slap Ya Mama" That s the name of the newest addition to the local food export movement. From Ville Platte Louisiana the smoked meats capital of the world Slap Ya Mama Cajun Seasonings are the brainchild of a couple of generations of the Walker Family. But it s the current generation, brothers Jack and Joe, who have turned the family seasonings into a successful business. Jack Walker is the Vice President of Marketing, and Joe Walker is the Vice President of Distribution at Slap Ya Mama. Slap Ya Mama and Bruce Foods are taking Acadiana to the world, showing the way away from Cajun heat to Cajun taste. Photos at Charley G s restaurant by Gwendolyn Aucoin.
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If you re in business and you re lucky or talented enough to be doing well, it s not long before you start comparing your business with others that are doing better. And start wondering how you could do as well as they are. Or better. We do the same sort of thing, consciously or unconsciously, in our personal lives. It seems to be human nature to compare ourselves to others. And to want to do as well or look as good as our friends and colleagues. Peter s three guests on this edition of Out to Lunch are all experts at making you do better, feel better, and look better in various and very different ways. Christina Harper is co founder and the Managing Partner of Lafayette based company, Excelerant. Excelerant is a professional leadership development firm that specializes in coaching, training, and development of top level company executives. The company has been around since 2003 and is the recipient of a number of impressive national and local awards. Joel Dawson is also a business and leadership coach, with a specialty that makes him uniquely unsuited for a conversation on radio. Joel maintains that only 7 of what we hear when we talk is words. The other 93 is non verbal communication. Joel leads workshops based on this principle called Mastery of the 93 . He is a professional speaker, founder of the Dawson Financial Group, and author of the autobiographical book, The Puddle. Doing well in business and succeeding personally is all worthless if you re not healthy. That s where Peter s Entrepreneur du Jour comes in. Brian Broussard is the owner of Fit Life, a company focused on corporate wellness. The principle being if you keep employees fit and happy, you re going to lower a company s healthcare costs. Fit Life will take on a whole company or just you personally to keep you physically fit, looking good, and eating right. Photos on this page at Charley G s by Gwendolyn Aucoin For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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We re in an era of the Sharing Economy. Home sharing business Air B n B has a capital valuation of over 10 billion dollars. Car sharing business Uber is closer to 20 billion. This mindset finds its way into day to day business as well. Ground rules that used to be based on competition are becoming infused with a greater sense of cooperation. On this edition of Out to Lunch, Peter Ricchiuti introduces three local business people who are contributing to spreading wealth rather than merely accumulating it. Skyra Rideaux is the founder and Chair of the Gulf Coast Young Professionals Leadership Summit. The aim of the organization is to bring young professionals together with seasoned business and community leaders to give young professionals the tools to become local, regional and national leaders who can make an impact in their community. Traditionally, the European capitals of Paris and London, and then New York, were centers of commerce. Today you don t have to live in a population center to be a power player in business. You can live in Louisiana. And you don t even have to live in New Orleans or Lafayette. There s an association of young professionals in Vermilion Parish, called FUEL Vermilion. Its chairman is Megan Landry Lalande. In 1984 a select group of thought leaders got together to discuss Technology, Entertainment and Design, and because of those 3 areas of interest called the get together TED. Today TED has grown way beyond that first meeting and under the brand name TED X has spread around the world to become synonymous with the sharing of great ideas. In Lafayette there s a branch called Ted X Vermilion Street. TedX Vermilion Street is headed up by Taylor Sloey. Photos on this page are taken at Social restaurant on Johnston Street by Gwendolyn Aucoin. For more information about Acadiana entrepreneurs Innov8 Acadiana and The Opportunity Machine.
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In business, it s good to remember the old saying, "All that glitters is not gold." In Acadiana, that glittering might be a rare gemstone. Or a shiny new violin. For a long time Lafayette's economy was based on one of the most valuable rescources buried below the earth's surface. Oil. In 1970,
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