VOL. TMN-9 | NO. 8 | Saturday, February 20, 2016
Hardy brings determination to influential post with the goal of lifting minority business participation
Carolyn Chism Hardy is a trailblazer, a success story, an advocate for the poor and middle class, and now she’s one of the most influential people in the private sector.
THE MEMPHIS NEWS EDITORIAL
Carolyn Hardy does not have any local customers.
In a Feb. 2 letter, Councilman Berlin Boyd called for EDGE to put a three-month delay on granting tax breaks and increase transparency about the investment that companies receiving tax breaks have made in the local minority- and women-owned business community.
Memphis City Council members debated at length Tuesday, Feb. 16, whether or not to form a committee to explore the lack of minority business growth locally.
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland is combining the two city offices overseeing minority business efforts into one agency.
SPECIAL EDITION Women & Business
Women entrepreneurs accelerating business, still hitting bumps in Memphis
Forbes recently penned 2016 as the year of the female entrepreneur, and the local landscape isn’t far behind for women business owners in Memphis.
Dianne Dixon, president of the Memphis chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners, has spent her life and career earning a seat at the table for herself, and now she’s holding the door open for a new generation of women business owners.
One of the most exciting – and also challenging – things about business ownership as an entrepreneur is that things are always changing, creating both opportunities as well as threats.
THE MEMPHIS NEWS ALMANAC
1985: Robert Cray Band at Huey’s a year ahead of his breakthrough album “Strong Persuader.” There was only one Huey’s at the time – on Madison Avenue in Midtown.
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
For 36 years Vice President Joe Biden was an Amtrak train commuter, traveling an estimated 2 million miles in his daily trips to Washington D.C. as a U.S. senator from Delaware.
Democrats are building a lead over Republicans in Shelby County’s early voter turnout.
Former local Democratic Party chairman and Shelby County Commissioner Matt Kuhn got right to the point Saturday, Feb. 13, as the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign opened its Memphis headquarters in the Chickasaw Crossing shopping center.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
The purpose of new meat-production startup Memphis Meats Inc. is in the name, but what’s perhaps more important – the “how” of the company’s operation – is not as readily apparent.
FINANCIAL
First Tennessee Bank is expanding the scope of a legal action it filed last May in the wake of Nashville-based Pinnacle Financial Group’s entry into the Memphis market.
First Tennessee Bank is expanding the scope of a legal action it filed last May in the wake of Nashville-based Pinnacle Financial Group’s entry into the Memphis market.
COMMUNITY
At Mot & Ed’s restaurant, regular customers go back a couple of generations. Owner Edna Banks-Hawkins only opened the soul food restaurant four years ago, but people come in with memories of her family’s chain of Boyd BBQ restaurants.
Two years ago, when Justin Entzminger found a job that combined his background in entrepreneurship with his dedication to the public realm, he jumped at the chance to join the Mayor’s Innovation Delivery Team.
Most of the topics you would expect. The 2016 overview on Medicare, coordinating services for seniors, and dealing with grief in the workplace.
TRANSPORTATION & LOGISTICS
The president and CEO of the Memphis Area Transit Authority said Tuesday, Feb. 16, that the city’s bus system will “collapse” without additional operating funds and city capital funding to buy new buses.
EDUCATION
At the last of three schools that Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen visited last week, Lester Prep principal Brearn Wright got right to the heart of the matter.
HEALTH CARE
West Cancer Center has a new tool in its arsenal with which to treat brain cancer and to, in the cancer treatment center’s description, “significantly” extend the rate of patient survival.
LAW ENFORCEMENT
The city plans to hire 10 part-time video analysts to start work on April 5 in the move to police body cameras as well as in-car cameras.
REAL ESTATE
The proliferation of limited-size Downtown hotels could make the area less attractive for the 500-room, full-service hotel Downtown desperately needs.
Jimmy Lewis isn’t surprised by word that emerged in recent days about Kroger, the nation’s largest grocery chain, eyeing an acquisition of specialty grocer Fresh Market.
AIRPORT
On Feb. 11, OneJet announced Pittsburgh as its second focus city – its term for a hub or main connection point – and while Memphis didn’t make the cut this time around, it’s still in the running to be a focus city.
TECHNOLOGY
Anniversaries can be perfunctory milestones in the life of a business, mile markers along the road to longevity that represent a cause for reflection on the past and future.
SPORTS
The University of Memphis didn’t have much trouble with UCF, as evidenced by the 73-56 final score.
Trades happen. “It’s part of the league,” said point guard Mike Conley. Major injuries happen, too. “Very difficult,” coach Dave Joerger said.
Nearing the end of his senior season, Tigers forward Shaq Goodwin knows the time is coming when fans will talk about him in the past tense.
THE TIPPING POINT
We talk about building community – but what does that actually look like? Just ask Lori McEwen. She teaches writing to 10th- and 11th-graders at Power Center Academy, a Gestalt charter school in Memphis’s Hickory Hill neighborhood.
Attorney Oscar L. Thomas has rejoined Bass, Berry & Sims’ Memphis office as counsel after serving as vice president of business affairs for MRI Interventions Inc., a medical device manufacturer based in Irvine, Calif.
REAL ESTATE RECAP
317 Royal Chartres Square E., Cordova, TN 38018 -
The 276-unit Orleans at Walnut Grove apartment community has sold for $29.2 million.
TENNESSEE LEDGER
Moe-McQueen’s work in demand from Blackberry Farm to Manhattan
A cube of clay thuds onto the potter’s wheel. Hannah Harper, artist and studio manager, prepares to transform it as the wheel’s rhythmic sound accompanies the voice of her boss, potter and entrepreneur Leanne Moe-McQueen.
Tennessee football coach Butch Jones keeps his pulse on recruiting year-around, along with his SEC counterparts and other FBS coaches.
LOCAL COLUMNISTS
POP-UP WAFFLES. Pop-up concepts are hot. Popping up in spaces – Broad, the Edge, the Brewery, the Fire Station – reclaimed and repurposed to show what’s possible, the original character of the space adding flavor, the here-today-gone-tomorrow aspect adding spice, the unusual nature of the things served – things not seen every day and everywhere – adding adventure. Millennial curiosity addressed, the need for gratification met, the existential question asked and answered.
Ray’s Take Investment and consumption are two sides of the same coin, but sometimes there can be a blurry line between the two. Sometimes our intense desire for something can make it difficult to see which side your expenditure falls on.
If you’re planning a spring break trip to the Gulf Coast or Orlando, you’re not alone in that decision. College students and families alike flock to popular beach communities and Florida theme parks year after year.
In October last year – just as I was preparing to teach Kafka’s “The Trial” for about the twelfth time – I received a missive from, of all places, the United States District Court. Guess what, it said (though, this is a paraphrase), you are being called to jury duty. As Yogi would’ve said, “It’s deja vu all over again.”
When figures are presented detailing a 456 percent increase in tuition and fees at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville over the last 20 years, the result is usually some serious sticker shock.
One of the number one things that stops us in our job-seeking tracks is the online application process. We submit resume after resume and never hear anything back. So, if the Internet isn’t working, then what’s the answer?
I’ve always cringed when I get a calendar request with “Brainstorm” in the subject line. Immediately, I picture an unfocused free-for-all – after which nothing happens. But it’s a marketer’s mainstay, and there’s a right way to do it.
Editor’s note: Part one of a four-part series. A friend of mine is a stylist to the stars. If there is a movie or TV show shooting in the region, she’s on the set, making hair magic. She gets flown around the world at times. She’s in demand.
Editor’s note: Part one of a two-part series. During its heyday (1980-1993), the United Negro College Fund’s “Lou Rawls Parade of Stars” was the largest African-American special event in the United States held on one day. It forever changed African-American philanthropy and how African-Americans are perceived as donors, volunteers and fundraising leaders.