The Greater Baton Rouge Business Report back issues from December 2008:
ENTREPRENEUR: Bronson Weatherford
Dec 02, 2008; ... Everybody thought Bronson Weatherford was crazy to leave a Fortune 500 company and strike out on his own at what might seem to be the worst possible time. "Everybody's like, 'Man, you're smoking crack.' But I saw it as one of the best times to do it," he says. "I see people losing their ...
Group therapy
Dec 02, 2008; ... Even during good times, a financial planner is a little bit like a shrink. "It's always been psychology," says Daryl Ellis of Ellis Insurance and Financial Group. While everyone knows in the abstract that you're supposed to buy low and sell high, emotionally that's hard for many people ...
Jet lag
Dec 02, 2008; ... It's been a turbulent ride for the Louisiana Airport Authority, which has survived negligence, hostility and a near miss with oblivion earlier this year in the form of a bill that would have abolished the authority - and along with it the dream of a giant cargo airport along the Mississippi ...
When things fall apart
Dec 02, 2008; ... It's a scary time to be an MBA student, given the diminished state of the financial industry. But there are worse places than school to ride out major economic chaos. Stephen Holliday, associate director of placement for the Flores MBA Program at LSU, says investment banking isn't a ...
That's slow business
Dec 02, 2008; ... Last summer, the state's budding motion picture industry was in the throes of its best year. For the fifth consecutive year, the industry was experiencing double-digit growth, and revenues from movies and TV shows shot and produced here were expected to approach $1 billion - nearly twice as much ...
Ready for the challenge?
Dec 02, 2008; ... With global demand for chemicals falling faster than it has in 20 years, 2009 is going to be a challenging year for the petrochemical industry. Just how challenging depends on the answer to the one question everyone is asking: How long will the recession last? Forecasts vary from a short ...
Outraged!
Dec 02, 2008; ... When the latest round assessments arrived in the mailboxes of St. Tammany Parish homeowners several months ago, so many people protested that the Louisiana Tax Commission swooped in to investigate and several government bodies proved too fearful to roll forward their millages. In ...
Gimme shelter
Dec 02, 2008; ... If President-elect Barack Obama makes good on his campaign promise to raise taxes on the wealthy, accountant David Winkler says his clients are prepared to dust off tax shelters and loopholes to soften the hit. With tension already high from a worsening economy, a potential tax increase ...
I want my DTV
Dec 02, 2008; ... When television stations are required to begin broadcasting their signals digitally next year, you might assume you'll no longer need to pay extra fees to your cable or satellite provider for digital-tier and high-definition programming. After all, it seems only logical that if television is ...
Disaffirming expropriation
Dec 02, 2008; ... In the weeks leading up to the Nov. 4 election, John Noland was telling anyone who would listen to vote "yes" on proposed Constitutional Amendment 6. It didn't help. "We just barely failed," says Noland, chair of the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority's board, of the ...
Franchising immunity
Dec 02, 2008; ... As the Capital Region has grown, so has the number of franchised small businesses. Franchises are more likely to pop up on the landscape in daunting economic times because acquiring startup financing can be much easier with the proven business plan behind the company name. Just ask ...
Over the barrel
Dec 02, 2008; ... Thanks to the sweet promise of rising oil and gas revenue, legislators spent the last session cutting taxes and increasing spending. Meanwhile, the Jindal administration, for all its promises of streamlining government, did little more than chip away at away at the margins of the state budget: ...
entrepreneur: Craig Sweeney
Dec 16, 2008; ... Owning a business wasn't enough for Craig Sweeney. He wanted accountability and a mentor to help grow his company. His solution was an advisory board. Sweeney's research confirmed smaller companies were using the board concept to fill the mentorship role and provide objective analysis, ...
Call of the wild
Dec 16, 2008; ... Bass Pro Shops might have finished second in the race to become the first outdoors retailer to open in the Capital Region, but its Denham Springs location has taken the lead over Cabelas Gonzales superstore in bringing neighboring businesses and additional commercial development. Of the ...
Expecting to fly
Dec 16, 2008; ... West Feliciano is not one of the Capital Region's fastest-growing parishes, but it's about to be. So says Steve Jones, director of the West Feliciano Parish Community Development Foundation. He and other leaders believe the sleepy hamlet of St. Francisville [population 1,700] and the ...
Improving Iberville
Dec 16, 2008; ... Iberville Parish, say residents, is chock-full of raw potential. Thrte are sprawling live oaks, quaint waterways, historic buildings and a healthy manufacturing sector. Yet, while parishes in the Capital Region like Livingston and Ascension have experienced population growth of up to ...
Mourning show
Dec 16, 2008; ... You could say that local Fox affiliate WGMB-TV's two-hour morning newscast was a casualty of the national recession. The 7-9 a.m. program was abruptly cancelled Dec. 1 amid cost-cutting measures that also included nearly a dozen layoffs. But even if slumping ad sales hastened the demise ...
Does Baton Rouge really want these people?
Dec 16, 2008; ... The face of change in Baton Rouge looks a lot like Dan Kahn - a 26-year-old, Harvard-educated public school teacher in a sharp business suit with a goal of improving the community through hands-on involvement. He is not a native. He does not bleed purple and gold. And he doesn't live in the ...
A blueprint for the future
Dec 16, 2008; ... Blueprint Louisiana was on the road again last month, touting its successes in a hotel conference room filled with about 100 civic leaders, businesspeople and activists. "We had a great first year," said Rudy Gomez of Blueprint project manager SSA Consultants. Blueprint visited ...
A lighter sleigh
Dec 16, 2008; ... Christmas will be different this year for Christy and Ed Anderson. The Andersons are cutting back, thanks to the weak market and thousands in out-of-pocket expenses after Hurricane Gustav sent an oak tree through their Shenandoah home. After nearly three months of living in a driveway ...
Wild cards
Dec 16, 2008; ... The sale of gift cards is down at Holiday Hallmark in the Mall of Louisiana. But even the greeting card, with its 74-year history, is having a difficult time swaying consumer confidence after a rocky year in which some major retailers declared bankruptcy. "Hopefully, Hallmark ...
Forecast 2009: Gloomy vs. stormy
Dec 16, 2008; ... A lot has happened since Economist Loren Scott released his 2009 forecast for the Capitol Region. But Scott says he's sticking with a "short and shallow recession" - at least for now. What might ultimately tip the scale for Scott would be unemployment figures, fourth-quarter gross ...
In with the old
Dec 16, 2008; ... The story of a charming cottage on Napoleon Street in Beauregard Town says a lot about what's going on in the downtown real estate market. In late April, the 1,270-square-foot house went on the market for $127,500, or $100 per square foot. It sold for the asking price in just six ...
Rhetoric meets reality
Dec 16, 2008; ... With Americans losing more than $2 trillion in retirement plans in the Wall Street turmoil, Congress could consider legislation calling for sweeping reforms when it convenes next year. Aggressive measures - including the elimination of $80 billion in tax savings with 401[k] retirement ...
Not your father's dentist
Dec 30, 2008; ... A computer in dentist Ryan Perry's new Jefferson Highway office turns a scanned image of a tooth into a 3-D model that tells another machine how to carve a crown out of a solid block of porcelain. Within minutes, Perry is placing the newly carved crown on a tooth. Technology has ...
entrepreneur: Jacqueline Beauchamp
Dec 30, 2008; ... With the exception of an eerie blue glow emanating from the flat-screen Macs in Nerjyzed Entertainment's main room, the office is almost completely dark. Programmers and designers in jeans and Polos wander from desk to desk, talking about the best way to tweak that part of the intro or how to ...
Virtual reality
Dec 30, 2008; ... Shiny, tiny, black and silver with QWERTY keyboards or touchscreen interfaces, smart phones rule the lives of many Baton Rouge residents. Whether it is a BlackBerry, an iPhone or any of the mainstream smart cell phones, Baton Rouge residents are more connected today than ever. These ...
Powerful allies
Dec 30, 2008; ... Old South Baton Rouge didn't need another plan. At least that's what folks who live in the historic but downtrodden area north of LSU told the Baton Rouge Area Foundation five years ago. "People told us, 'We've had a lot of people tell us they're going to reinvent this ...
Much ado about something
Dec 30, 2008; ... The Jindal administration is pushing a plan to completely overhaul the way Louisiana delivers health care to indigent members of its population - and time is of the essence. If you made it through the previous sentence without nodding off, take a moment to congratulate yourself. Stories ...
See you at the top
Dec 30, 2008; ... Jeff Lynn's reputation preceded him. The nationally known corporate training expert was one of the architects behind Georgia's venerable Quick Start workforce readiness project, the state's ace-in-the-hole for closing deals with expanding or relocating businesses. Quick Start had crafted ...
Three steps back
Dec 30, 2008; ... If Louisiana's universities are the engines of economic growth, major budget cuts being handed down by the Jindal administration are like stuffing a sock in the supercharger. The state is facing a $341 million budget shortfall this year and projects a $2 billion gap next year. State ...
New look, same lenders
Dec 30, 2008; ... Loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration have grown in popularity over the past year because of the collapse of the subprime mortgage industry. The loans allow people with poor credit to buy houses, which is handy now that lenders are being extremely cautious because of the subprime ...
Capital gains
Dec 30, 2008; ... When the second round of the U.S. Treasury Department's Troubled Assets Relief Program began, Regions Financial Corp. accepted $3.5 billion in capital. Ranked as one of the top 10 banks in the nation with $144 billion in assets, the Birmingham, Ala.-based financial institution said it ...
Let's make a deal
Dec 30, 2008; ... When it comes to investing, Eddie Ochomogo is no fan of the New York Stock Exchange. Ochomogo refers to it as the world's biggest casino, and he's quick to tell you that he hates casino gambling. Instead, he likes to invest in tangible assets - bricks and mortar. "I like concrete," says ...