Around 70% of the US economy is driven by consumer spending. In other comparable economies, it’s different. Canada, France, Germany and Japan, all peg consumer spending at around 50%.

What this means is, the enormous might of the world’s most powerful military and globally dominant financial system, is powered by you and me, buying stuff.

That, in turn, relies on manufacturers making stuff we want to buy. And want is the operative word here. If we lived in a utilitarian society and only bought what we actually need, the wheels would fall off the US economy.

Peter Ricchiuti's lunch guests today are both great examples of how we all keep these wheels turning.

Cinched

If you wear pants, you could get away with owning 2 pairs. But if you’re an average American, you own many more than that. Reportedly, the average American owns 9 pairs of pants. 

Most of these pants have belt loops at their waist. You can only wear one belt at a time, so you could conceivably hold all of your pants up with the same belt. But, as you know, you don’t. Because the success of the country is depending on you buying stuff, you have a bunch of belts.

If you go down River Road and stop in at Torino Leather Company – or visit it online - you can choose from over 40,000 belts - made from regular cowhide or more exotic materials like lizard, ostrich, tiger shark, and python.

Tom Garner started working at what was then the Torino Belt Company in 1999. In 2006 Tom and three co-workers bought the business. In the intervening years they’ve built Torino Leather into a company with 30 employees and today they sell their belts across the country, in stores as wide-ranging as Dillard’s and Saks Fifth Avenue.

Sober

There’s nothing more basically utilitarian than drinking. Human beings have to drink to survive. We could drink only water. But what kind of consumer-driven economy would we have if we did that?

Over the span of human history we’ve come up with all kinds of different liquids to consume. Among the most popular is alcohol. Living in New Orleans, you might have a slightly skewed perspective on this, but across the country, a younger generation is turning away from alcohol.

A whole new industry has grown up to cater to these folks, making what are called “mocktails.” Mocktails are drinks you drink when you don’t want to drink. They taste like a cocktail, but they have extremely low or absolutely zero alcohol.

New Orleans is not only “the home of the cocktail,” we’re also the home of a growing brand of mocktails, called Mockly, the brainchild and growing business of husband-and-wife team, Tarik and Aimee Sedky.

When we talk about the US economy, there’s general agreement that we need to encourage and grow as much manufacturing as we can, rather than see it shipped offshore to other countries.

However, when we talk about the local New Orleans economy, we tend to focus on hospitality, tourism, conventions and music. 

It’s pretty rare to hear any conversation about growing the local New Orleans manufacturing sector. But there certainly is one. And its contribution to the general US economy is worth acknowledging.

Aimee Sedky and Tom Garner are great examples of local manufacturers. They have two very different products, and are at very different stages of development and growth, but Torino Leather and Mockly are both New Orleans companies with a nationwide impact.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When you make a commitment, you’re assuming you have a certain amount of knowledge about the future.

For example, when you get married, the vows about sticking together from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health presume there’ll be rough times ahead. What you’re also assuming is, you’re not going to wake up one morning and discover your marriage and the foundation you’ve now built your entire life on is illegal.

Same-sex couples actually are going into marriage with that threat hanging over their heads. But that’s a decision based on love. People do crazy things for love. You wouldn’t do that in a business setting where you’re dealing in cold hard numbers.

Or would you?

Well, you might. It’s called “calculated risk” and it’s precisely what’s going on in the marijuana business. Marijuana is, at this point, federally illegal. But a number of states have legalized it to varying degrees, some totally, some partially. Those states, along with a healthy dose of optimism about the way the rest of the country might go in the future, is enough of a possible upside for a good number of businesses to bet the farm on a coming pot boom.

Among those in this modern-day gold rush is a local company called Jack’s Pre-Rolls.

If someday we’re going to go to the store and buy a pack of joints like we buy a pack of cigarettes, we’re going to expect uniformity. A consumer is going to want every joint in the pack to be the same. And apparently, we’re going to want to put the joint down and light it up again later, in a way that doesn’t waste a lot of its content. To get that kind of product is going to require a different kind of machine than rolls cigarettes. And that’s the kind of machine Jack’s Pre-Rolls is investing in and, pardon the allusion, rolling out.

The Chief Information Officer at Jack’s Pre-Rolls is Paul Gregory.

There is one part of the cannabis industry that is federally legal, and that is the production of hemp. Since Congress passed The Farm Bill in 2018, it’s been legal to grow, harvest, and process hemp into various products, including rope, bioplastics, CBD, and food.

Again, pardon the allusion, but without getting into the weeds, the difference between marijuana and hemp, is zero. At least as far as the type of plant. It all comes from cannabis plants. The difference is the amount of THC in any individual cannabis plant. THC is the ingredient that gets you high. A cannabis plant with less than 0.3% THC is legally hemp. If it has more than 0.3%, it’s legally pot.

So, if you’re farming cannabis, it’s essential to know the THC level of every plant in your crop. The standard way of finding that out has been to chop off a bit of each plant and send it off to a lab to get tested. The real-world problem here is, in the week it takes for a farmer to get results, the plant can increase its THC level. That not only changes the value of the crop but in the wrong state it also changes the farmer from a person legally growing hemp to a criminal farming pot.

The solution to this problem is a hand-held piece of technology that’s a kind of cannabis-zapper. The technology is actually called Raman Spectrometry. And the revolutionary new hand-held device that adapts it to measuring THC levels on the spot, is called PAMAP - which stands for Predictive Analytical Modeling Application for Plants.

The company behind this advanced cannabis science is Mariposa Technology. Michael Dalle Molle is a partner and Chief Operating Officer at Mariposa Technology.

There’s a formula investors use to determine how risky a stock purchase is going to be. It’s called a risk/reward ratio. Typically, the higher the risk, the higher the potential reward. Jack's Pre Rolls and Mariposa Technology are both companies at early stages of development in a field so full of unknowns that it would be hard to accurately assess the possible reward for the risks you’re taking.

The legal hemp industry is in a comparatively lower-risk lower-reward category, but the THC side of the cannabis farming business is a textbook example of high risk, with a potential market that is simply unknown.

If marijuana is legalized, is it going to be as celebrated, popular, and lucrative as alcohol? Or is it going to be highly regulated and generally regarded negatively, like tobacco? Only time will tell. Let's al meet up back here in a year and get an update.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Would you like to go get coffee?”

When somebody asks you that, you know what they mean. They’re not suggesting, literally, that you might want to synchronize a trip to procure coffee - they’re inviting you to talk. Maybe they want to talk about work. Relationships. Kids. Parents. Movies. Music. Sex. Religion. Politics. School.

You could probably list another half dozen conversational topics you typically discuss when you get together with friends or family. And you still wouldn’t get to the subject of “death.” That’s because death is a subject we Americans don’t like to talk about.

Yes, we know it’s coming for all of us, but we seem to believe that if we employ a technique somewhere between outright denial and magical thinking, we’ll deal with the death of our loved ones only when we really have to – when they die. And similarly, someone else will take care of us when we die.

Liz Dunnebacke says we can do better. Liz quit her job in the film business to dedicate herself to death. She founded and is Executive Director of a non-profit organization called Wake.

Wake is for people who would like help planning an orderly exit from this life when the day comes at some point in the future. And for people with zero planning who need help with a deceased person, right  now.

Of course, as Sigmund Freud kind of said, sometimes a cup of coffee is just a cup of coffee.

Sometimes when you want a cup of coffee, you want a cup of coffee. Good, strong coffee that will make you feel how you want to feel. And you don’t need it delivered with a bunch of conversation. If, however, you would like especially strong coffee delivered directly to your home or work, Brice Sanderford can help you.

Brice is co-founder of Riverboat Coffee Company. Riverboat cold-brews coffee and delivers it to you in glass growlers – those glass containers usually used for craft beer, with a resealable top. Or, if you need a little more, they’ll bring you a keg.

Riverboat also has a retail location Uptown on Magazine and Napoleon, and a pedal-powered mobile coffee trike called “The Caffeine Queen.”

In our pursuit of happiness, there’s definitely something to be said for the popular opinion that we should live in the moment. But, whether that moment is as momentous as the death of someone we care for, or simply waking up in the morning and wanting a cup of coffee, it’s good to have a plan.

On the face of it, there might not seem to be much in common between a for-profit craft-coffee company and a non-profit deathcare organization, Liz and Brice are both in the business of encouraging people to think ahead to improve their own wellbeing and happiness. And whether the end result is in a growler or in the ground, that's a noble enough pursuit, don't you think?

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There was a time in the U.S. - not all that long ago - when all of us fell into one of very few homogeneous groups. You were either an employer or employee - there was no such thing as a “gig economy worker” or “startup entrepreneur”. Very few people were openly members of any of the categories L, G, B, T or Q. And nobody referred to themselves as “neuro-divergent.”  

If you go back to your own memories of childhood, do you remember a time when you thought you didn’t fit in? You probably do. Because, in reality, there is nothing objective to fit into. We learn to become what is expected of us. Or we did.

Today, we have far greater freedom to become the person we truly want to be. Instead of trying to beat creativity and idiosyncrasies out of people, we see the wisdom of equipping atypical individuals with skills that will let them function, while retaining their individuality.

That is Adela Baker’s job. Adela is CEO of a company called Mind Coach NOLA. Mind Coach NOLA provides individual and group sessions to people Adela calls, “Turbo Thinkers.”

Turbo Thinkers are folks who struggle with executive function skills and impulse management. A lot of Adela’s clients are entrepreneurs and creatives.

Growing up in Slidell, Gabriel Flores followed his own path. He started down the road to the million-dollar business he owns today when he was arrested - for spray painting on the walls at Slidell High.

Today, Gabriel is owner of The Inkwell Press. The Inkwell Press designs and produces screen-printing and embroidery on a multitude of items, including T-shirts, professional work wear, promotional items like flags, koozies, glassware, and much more.

An even greater connection to Gabriel’s less than illustrious entrée into the art world is his allied company, New Orleans Paint & Design. It’s acronym, NOPD, is a tip-of-the-hat to his origin story, and, even more ironically, the business itself is a mural painting company.

You can see NOPD’s murals all around New Orleans, including at Whole Foods, the ACE Hotel, Marjie’s Grill, and in locally shot movies and TV shows.

Talking with Adela and Gabriel brings to mind a two-word saying: “Be You.” Unfortunately, sayings like “Be you,” “You do you” and “Live your best life” have become social media cliches and memes. But for good reason. We keep encouraging each other with these bits of advice because being your authentic self and living the life you want to live with only a minimal amount of necessary compromise is an extraordinary challenge.

Adela is devoting her professional life to giving people the tools to simply be themselves. And Gabriel is a textbook example of the kind of success a person can achieve by having the courage to simply do what makes you happy.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you made a drinking game out of “New Orleans Clichés” and had to do a shot every time someone said, “New Orleans is famous for its food,” by lunchtime you’d be more drunk than a tourist on Bourbon Street wearing Mardi Gras beads in August.

If you live in New Orleans, you can be justifiably proud of our cuisine. But there are only so many poboys, muffalettas, and plates of red beans and rice you can eat. That’s why, when people move here from other parts of the country or the world and bring with them authentic food from their home, we locals jump at it.

Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern, Latin, and Indian immigrants have all created restaurants that New Orleanians love. To that list you can also add German, and Connecticut.

Ok, Connecticut’s not a country, and normally nobody in New Orleans would look to the northeast for any kind of food. That is, until 2021. That’s when Joel Griffin graduated from Tulane and instead of going back home to Connecticut for a lobster roll, he brought lobster rolls to New Orleans.

From his very first pop-up at The Boot, Joel’s Lobster Rolls were a massive hit. Over the Summer of 2021 New Orleanians were lining up for an hour or more and happily parting with over $20 for one of Joel’s Lobster Rolls. My neighbor, Jane, told me, “I spent 4 hours of my 50th birthday in line for a lobster roll.”

“Joel’s Lobster Rolls” is now the name of Joel Griffin’s company, and it’s the name emblazoned on his food truck.

Sven Vorkauf, grew up in his family’s deli business in Berlin, Germany. When he got old enough to take over the business, Sven turned the single store into a chain of European style delis.

Then he sold the whole lot of them, and moved to New Orleans.

In 2012, Sven started over. At the Freret Street Market he had a pop-up he called Bratz Y’all. Like Joel’s Lobster Rolls, Sven’s Bratz Y’all was an instant smash hit with New Orleanians. 

Today you can find Bratz Y’all Bakery & Biergarten at its permanent home on Piety Street in the Bywater. The mostly-outdoor restaurant serves uncompromisingly authentic German fare including Bratz, schnitzel, pretzels, and decadent desserts, along with a wide selection of exclusively German wines, beers and spirits.

Over many years, the myriad influences of indigenous people - French, Spanish, Asian, Haitian, Honduran and many others who have moved here to New Orleans  - have built our city on a freedom of coexistence. New Orleans embraces everyone who shares our unique perspective on life.

It's hard to put your finger on what exactly that almost indefinable New Orleans-ness is. At the end of the day it’s not about a nationality, or an industry, or a plate of food. It’s about a person.

The reason Joel's Lobster Rolls and Bratz Y'all are businesses that are doing so well in New Orleans is partly because of lobsters and Bratz. But it’s largely because of Joel and Sven.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Typically, a “fish story” is a tall tale about “the one that got away.” It’s usually told by a person relaying details about a peaceful day spent fishing on placid waters when the most exciting thing that happened was a fish that could have been dinner swam away.

Like so many things, it’s different in Louisiana. Here, fish stories include hurricanes. Salt water intrusion. Fishing camps being flooded and destroyed. And “the one that got away” is more likely to be an insurance claim that was denied.

Here, people in the leisure fishing business are not your typical fishermen. Or typical businessmen. They’re larger-than-life characters who are equally adept at battling the elements and battling FEMA. And who can manage balance sheets and change bedsheets.

Fred Lewis has been an actor in a bunch of Hollywood movies, including Blaze with Paul Newman, and Tin Cup with Kevin Costner. In 2003, when the only way to go fishing in Venice Louisiana for longer than a day was to stay at the one available fishing camp, Fred had a houseboat towed in from Alabama. Eventually he started renting it out to other folks.

Before long, Fred had 5 houseboats docked at the Venice Marina. He’s sold one, and his stepson, Steve Brantley, has two. Fred’s company, Venice Houseboat Rentals, keeps the houseboats rented out pretty much continually. They all sleep six to eight people. It’s no exaggeration to say, Fred has almost single-handedly created a short-term-rental leisure-fishing industry in Venice.

Even closer to New Orleans, around 30 minutes south of the city, you can go fishing in Barataria. There you’ll find another impressive renaissance man, Theophile Bourgeois. 

Theophile is the front man of a popular New Orleans-based band, called Them Ol’ Ghosts. He’s a tattoo artist who founded an Uptown New Orleans tattoo shop - Oak Street Tattoo. And in Barataria he’s the owner of Bourgeois Fishing Charters.

Bourgeois Fishing Charters is anchored in a 10,000 square foot guest house that sleeps 52 people. They have their own fishing boats, four charter-boat captains, two full-time cooks, a housekeeper, a reservation department, and even their own seaplane.

In New Orleans we have a number of terms for activities that are unique understatements. For example, “going to hear music” typically refers to a night out that involves a whole lot more than just “hearing music.” “Going by my momma’s” can refer to anything from stopping by for a crawfish boil to painting your mom’s house.

Similarly, in most parts of the world, “Gone fishin’” evokes a kind of mental health day: A temporary checking out of daily life in favor of a slice of solitary, silent, self-reflection. Here, “Gone fishin’” - along with the terms “Going down to the camp” and “Going duck hunting” - typically refers to group undertakings in which the activity of fishing, camping, or hunting is inextricably bound up with socializing.

Whether you tend more toward the serious fishing or serious fun end of the spectrum, there’s a spot for you in Barataria or Venice. Theophile Bourgeois (Toe-feel) has you covered in Barataria and Fred Lewis has you covered in Venice.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1996, then first lady Hillary Clinton popularized the saying, “It Takes A Village” when she published a book with that title.

The original saying, “It takes a village to raise a child,” is variously attributed to African and Indigenous American societies. Wherever it came from, its meaning is widely accepted. And that is, the knowledge and skills a child needs to become a well-rounded, successful, functioning adult are learned not just from a child’s parents, but from people in their community.

Peter Ricchiuti's guests on Out to Lunch today are two of those village people.

Larry Washington is working to retire the common complaint that kids graduate high school woefully unprepared for the real world.

You might have been one of those kids. A lot of us discovered when we left school that we knew nothing about credit cards, checking accounts, or budgeting. We had no real understanding of what being a member of the workforce is all about. And no one in school even broached the subject of entrepreneurship or what it means to start your own business.

If Junior Achievement of Greater New Orleans has a connection to your kids’ school, they’re going to graduate knowing all of that. Junior Achievement of New Orleans reaches between 20 and 40 thousand students a year. And Larry Washington is its President.

After we graduate from school and move into various stages of adulthood, marriage, and parenting, we find out we have even more to learn.

Ty Salvant is an author, speaker, and founder of an organization called Time With Ty that focuses on providing education, support, and assistance in those areas of our lives where we’re expected to figure it out on our own.

Sometimes, that strategy just doesn’t work out so great, and you need help. Time With Ty includes Time For Rest – self-care support for women; Time For Us – a marriage enrichment program; and Time To Play, which connects adults to local community organizations.

Ty is also the author of a series of children’s books called The Alphabet of You.

“Easier said than done.” We’re all familiar with that saying. And most of us are also familiar with how frustratingly true it is, in all kinds of avenues of life. It’s a lot easier to say, “Kids need a more rounded education,” or “We should be able to ask for help when we need it,” than it is to actually give kids a more rounded education, or ask for help when we need it.

We’re all indebted to people like Larry and Ty who dedicate themselves to stepping up and doing something about solving the problems most of just talk about.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s impossible to imagine having a business these days that isn’t plugged into the internet. Even if you’re a brick-and-mortar business – like a plumber, a lawyer, or you have a retail store – the first thing a new client does before they do business with you is check you out online.

You know that’s true because you do it yourself. We all do. And if the person we’re checking out has an unimpressive website, or their Instagram or Facebook page hasn’t been updated in a while, it can cloud our opinion of their professional abilities.

IT

So, if you’re a business owner who is already taking time away from your primary business to keep on top of your online presence, now you’ve also got another problem. Getting hacked.

That might seem like a remote possibility. Well, it’s actually not. Something like 30,000 websites are hacked every day. Worldwide, 64% of companies have experienced some form of cyber-attack. For a lot of businesses, this is all too much distraction to deal with. And that’s when they call in a company like BIOS Technologies.

BIOS Technologies has been around since 2002. They’re an IT company who take pains to be something other than your typical collection of wonky nerds with questionable personal hygiene. Their tech support employees are specifically hired because they also have people skills. The co-founder of BIOS Technologies is Kevin Launey. 

Diaries

As a result of changes in our work life that started with the Covid pandemic, and changes that come with an aging population, we’re seeing changes in our families.

As more of us spend more time working from home, a growing number of people are taking on the role of caregiver to a family member. That might be a parent, a grandparent, or a child with particular challenges.

There are a large and growing number of these unpaid caregivers in the United States. A startup company called Memoryz lets these caregivers find each other through an app, and provide each other with both practical and emotional support.

The founder and CEO of Memoryz is Rishawn Dindial.

I'm Not a Doctor, But...

Way back in 1984, an actor on a soap opera called General Hospital made a commercial for Vick’s Formula 44 cough syrup, and coined the immortal line, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.”

These days, a lot of us are forced to become familiar with subjects we know little or nothing about. You might not be an IT expert, and you might not be a nurse, but if you have a business with an online presence, or you have a family member who needs care, you find yourself simply having to rise to the occasion.

Keeping a business healthy and keeping family members healthy might not have many similarities, but what they do have in common is, they’re problems with solutions. Kevin's company is designed to provide solutions for business owners, and Rishawn's company is designed to provide solutions for family caregivers.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Most workplaces have a place to go when you’re not working. A lunchroom. Cafeteria. Or maybe a space with an espresso machine and a ping pong table. These non-work spaces are also places where unplanned but valuable work conversations happen.

Social science has a term for these kinds of unintended incidents. They’re called “latent functions.” Latent functions exist on a grand scale at our public libraries.

Principally, a library is a building that houses books that are loaned out. Beyond that principal function, all kinds of social and educational programs are run out of libraries. Reading Outreach for children, Adult Literacy, creative writing workshops, all kinds of community meetings… And then there’s the tax forms, internet access and other services libraries provide.

Although we expect to find all these things at our libraries, local governments typically see them as merely latent functions - beyond the regular scope of the institution - and for that reason don’t necessarily fund them.

In New Orleans, we have an organization dedicated to raising auxiliary funds to cover the shortfall. It’s called Friends of the New Orleans Public Library. It raises money through grant writing and donations, but principally it’s a bookstore.

Three days a week they sell donated books out of a building on the grounds of the Latter Library, on St Charles Avenue Uptown, and one day a week the bookstore is open at the library in Algiers.

The Executive Director of Friends of the New Orleans Public Library is Shannan Cvitanovic. 

When you’re not reading your library book, maybe you’re watching TV, or a movie. When you get to the end of a TV show or movie, the typically long list of credits is an indication of the large number of people it takes to make a work for the screen.

Although that list of creators can number well into the hundreds, the only people most of us have any real interest in is the relatively small number of actors.

Within the entertainment industry, actors are also the center of attention. Projects are often funded based solely on which actors agree to star in them. In the tiers below those starring roles, landing an acting job is highly competitive. Getting cast in a movie, a TV show, or a live theater production depends on how well an actor performs at their job interview – known as an “audition.”

Here in New Orleans, there’s a business that dedicates itself to preparing actors for auditions. It’s called The Actors Apothecary. The founders of The Actors Apothecary are Chelsea Bryan and Sylvia Grace Crim.

For most of us, reading books, watching TV, or going to a movie is a break from our everyday world. But for some people, books, movies and TV is their everyday world. Shannan's professional connection to books is unique: her daily labors provide an important element of funding for the New Orleans Public Library. And Chelsea and Sylvia's connection to film and TV is equally unique. On paper it seems paradoxical to create a business that’s building a community of actors while at the same time giving each of them a competitive edge, but in the real world it’s working.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this by by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a “curiosity” as “a strange fact.” On today’s show we take a look at two business curiosities.

The first is - The greater your need for money, the harder it is to borrow it.

In 2022, Elon Musk, then the richest man in the world, had no problem borrowing 13 billion dollars to fund the purchase of Twitter, a company that had been losing money for most of its existence.

If you’re a small business owner in Louisiana or Mississippi, however, your chance of being turned down for a loan is 60%. And that’s if you’re white. If you’re a Hispanic business owner, that number jumps up to 80%. And if you’re Black, the chance of your business loan application being rejected jumps to 87%.

These statistics were compiled by a financial institution called HOPE.  They’re the reason for HOPE’s existence in Louisiana, Mississippi, and other Southern States. HOPE is a loan fund and credit union supporting small businesses in primarily majority Black and Latinx counties and parishes.

The Senior Vice President of Community and Economic Development at HOPE is Kathy Saloy.

The other curiosity we’re looking at today is the financial conundrum of college education.

People go to college to get a degree to enable them to make more money during their working lives. But getting that degree requires years of financial hardship. And the ramifications of borrowing money to finance an education often severely limits a person’s economic opportunity for a decent portion of their working life.

A startup company called HustleHawks is setting out to provide students a way of making an income while they’re in college. And to allow them to schedule their income creation around their studies.

The co-founder and CEO of HustleHawks is Gerald Rossen.

It’s stating the obvious to point out we all need money. Generally, there are only two ways to get a hold of it: work for it, or borrow it. On paper, that sounds straightforward enough. But in the real world, neither of those options are simple. And both options are made more difficult if you fall into subsets of the population that includes students, women, and people of color.

Kathy Saloy and Gerald Rossen are both working to shorten the distance between money and the people who need it. A lot of people have already benefited from Kathy's efforts over many years, and a lot of people will hopefully benefit from Gerald's in the future.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.