It's Acadiana: Out to Lunch

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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