It's Acadiana: Out to Lunch

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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