VOL. TMN-6 | NO. 35 | Saturday, August 24, 2013
Innovation Delivery Team works to revitalize city’s communities
The history at the Four-Way Restaurant is as rich and soulful as the food.
From MemFix to MemShop to Night Market, it is possible to do more than imagine what a streetscape with locally owned small businesses and lots of foot traffic might look like.
EMPHASIS Financial Services
Banks respond to changing customer service needs
The CEO of the largest bank based in Memphis told analysts earlier this year on the company’s first-quarter earnings call that executives there are in the middle of rethinking the bank’s branch network.
Getting divorced is never a happy, fun experience, but Allegiant Financial Planning LLC hopes to take some of the cost and stress out of the situation for its clients.
Orion Federal Credit Union is making a big difference throughout the Mid-South area with its Orion Gives Back community involvement program, working with a diverse range of local nonprofit organizations and helping to shine a light on their various missions.
The accounting firm of Reynolds Bone & Griesbeck PLC has been around since 1916, when it was known as Shannon Reynolds & Bone.
THE MEMPHIS NEWS ALMANAC
2012: Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell vetoed a referendum on a half-cent countywide sales tax hike and the Shelby County Commission overrode the veto putting the item to voters in the city of Memphis and the unincorporated county on the Nov. 6 ballot. Voters defeated the sales tax hike.
Handheld metal detectors are being used in elementary schools in the Shelby County Schools system as one of several reactions to a kindergarten student who had a gun in his backpack Thursday, Aug. 22, at Westside Elementary School.
Attorneys for the Shelby County Commission, leaders of the six suburban towns and cities in Shelby County and the countywide school board are negotiating “in good faith,” according to a Friday, Aug. 23, filing in the Memphis Federal Court case on suburban school districts.
FedEx affiliation bolsters Ward’s growing trucking empire
Don Ward hasn’t been on the road in one of his trucks in about three years, but he still wouldn’t be in any other business.
As Bartlett citizens got an update this week on the move by it and the five other suburban towns and cities in Shelby County to form their own school systems, Bartlett Mayor Keith McDonald fielded a pointed question with an interesting answer.
Leena Asbridge has about two weeks left in her current work as a bank field examiner before she starts a new, sweeter chapter in her professional career.
Memphis drug kingpin Craig Petties will be in prison for the rest of his life for heading a violent drug organization with direct ties to a Mexican drug cartel that sold millions of dollars worth of drugs in a multi-state area centered in Memphis from 1995 to 2008.
Photojournalist’s program to help children build self-esteem returns
Agape Child & Family Services on Tuesday, Aug. 20, welcomed back award-winning photojournalist and author Linda Solomon and her nationally acclaimed program, “Pictures of Hope,” for the second straight year.
Verso Paper Corp. said Tuesday, Aug. 20, it has been warned by the New York Stock Exchange that its stock could be delisted.
The Memphis City Council’s sharpest debate during a Tuesday, Aug. 20, council agenda with several major issues wasn’t about Smart Meters or changes in garbage pickup.
When the current ownership of Kudzu’s Bar & Grill bought the eatery in September 2011, tables were full, the parking lot was packed and the business kept busting its projections.
The city of Memphis has a tentative lease of Handy Park with a group that includes some current tenants of the Beale Street entertainment district.
Teaching Garden connects children with food
Bethel Grove Elementary School of Memphis marked the opening of its American Heart Association Teaching Garden recently with a Plant Day Celebration and ribbon-cutting ceremony that included garden crafts, music and physical activity education.
Medtronic Inc. said its profit gained in the fiscal first quarter, buoyed by strong international growth and geographic expansion as well as robust demand for cardiac and vascular devices.
Banking in Memphis is in the midst of a rebound, judging by the latest numbers from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Carolyn Hardy admits she pushed hard to get the intermodal container yard that opened this week in Hickory Hill completed faster than the two years many contractors told her it would take.
Shares of GTx Inc. plunged on Monday after the drugmaker said an experimental treatment with the potential to prevent and treat muscle wasting in cancer patients failed to meet its goals in two late-stage clinical trials.
Musicians for Le Bonheur prepares to release CD
A sign hangs in the lobby at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital acknowledging the charitable efforts of an arguably unlikely group of hospital supporters.
For a second time, results in the August 2012 elections have been successfully contested in court.
Memphis-based startup Screwpulp, which participated in the latest cohort of the Seed Hatchery accelerator, has been busy in recent weeks.
The school year before Ford Road Elementary School became part of the seven-school Innovation Zone within Memphis City Schools, no more than 17 percent of its students were proficient or advanced in reading, math or science.
A few months ago, the Levitt Shell, which recently unveiled its fall season lineup, got an updated website and brand.
The charter school that opened for class Thursday, Aug. 15, in North Memphis is unique for several reasons.
When last we saw the University of Memphis football team, the Tigers were finishing Justin Fuente’s first season on an inspiring three-game winning streak. They checked out of Conference USA with a 4-4 league record. They provided hope as they start play this season in the new American Athletic Conference.
Tigers basketball coach Josh Pastner expended a lot of energy stumping for Conference USA in hopes it ultimately would help The University of Memphis gain a better seed in the NCAA Tournament. But it never really worked out that way.
The best coach in college football admitted that he – and everyone else at Alabama – was proud of the team’s recent accomplishments. You know, two straight national titles and, if you want to deal in ancient history, three in the last four years.
MEMPHIS STANDOUT
Girls Inc. is a national nonprofit providing girls ages 6-18 with after-school and summer programs, field trips and college tours.
MEMPHIS LAW TALK
Though the jump Brian Yoakum made at the beginning of August from The Biller Law Firm to Evans Petree PC was only a floor away, he saw a greater opportunity to broaden his practice areas and expand the services he could offer clients.
MEMPHIS NEWSMAKERS
Bonnie Hollabaugh has joined nonprofit Christ Community Health Services, the largest primary care provider in Memphis, as director of development. Hollabaugh’s nonprofit development experience includes extensive work with Ronald McDonald House Charities of Memphis, Girls Inc. of Memphis and Hutchison School.
REAL ESTATE RECAP
6020 Shelby Oaks Drive, Memphis, TN 38134, Sale Amount: $2.1 million -
An affiliate of Oklahoma City-based Champion Hotels has paid $2.1 million for the 103-room Baymont Inn & Suites Memphis East hotel at 6020 Shelby Oaks Drive in Northeast Memphis.
LOCAL COLUMNISTS
SURPRISE. THERE’S A BOOK. A couple of years ago, friend Willy Bearden – storyteller, writer, historian, filmmaker and lead singer in the Earnestine & Hazel House Band – and I worked on a project for Elmwood Cemetery. Willy scripted and produced a combination walking/driving tour of that magic ground and I voiced it, spending hours poring over the script with Willy and recording every word of it.
“We have so much data but no answers.” This phrase echoes down the halls of all of the larger clients with whom we meet. In a quantitative world, where there is every dimension of research and analysis available, unreality multiples. The business world is drowning in data and, by the level of panic and anxiety, has lost its rudder.
Ray’s Take No one ever likes it when I use the “B” word, but there’s a reason I do it.
In an article titled “Mentally Fit” in the July 29, 2013, issue of The New Yorker, Patricia Marx writes, “[A] study of six hundred and seventy-eight elderly nuns analyzed essays they’d written in their twenties and found that the sisters who had used the most linguistically complex sentences tended to have the lowest incidence of Alzheimer’s, which is why I’ve added this unnecessary subordinate clause even though it’s been a long time since I was in my twenties.”
Holdover is a term used in commercial property leases that describes continued occupancy by a tenant beyond the expiration of the lease, also known as “tenancy-at-sufferance.” Most office leases usually devote a section of the lease to this situation and impose a financial penalty on the tenant for not taking action by either vacating the space, or renewing or extending the term. This financial penalty can sometimes be viewed by the tenant as a “holdup” by the landlord because it can amount to a considerable amount of money. Who’s really suffering here?
The Internet has created an unprecedented power shift in the marketplace. Gone are the days where the salesperson alone carries the lion’s share of the knowledge about the products and services he’s selling and therefore holds the power in a sales exchange.
Last week, we discussed the recent upshift in the global economy. The next major moment for the market will occur on Sept. 18 when 65 percent of economists expect that the Fed will announce a “tapering” of its quantitative easing program. The movement in the 10-year Treasury bond interest rate confirms this expectation as rates have now climbed to 2.84 percent, up from 1.6 percent three months ago.
Board members with experience and connections in the private sector can help nonprofit organizations grow and think in new ways. And nonprofit service can help board members from the private sector to grow and think in new ways, too. Efficiency and cost reductions often contribute to business success. Time and energy is devoted to developing and implementing strategies that increase the efficiency, value and profit while decreasing costs. Technology, collaboration and innovation have factored greatly in this process.
Very few people will probably disagree with the idea that developing and maintaining a positive mental attitude is helpful in sports, business and life in general.