“Good Day Sunshine” blared over the loudspeaker, followed by “Keep on the Sunny Side” and “Walking on Sunshine.” Time to feel good? Absolutely, for Entergy Arkansas CEO Rick Riley and Armando Pimentel, CEO of NextEra Energy Resources, who were breaking ground last week on Arkansas’ largest solar installation. The 81-megawatt utility-scale array near Stuttgart is expected to come on line before year’s end. The bright sun glinted off stainless steel hard hats worn by Riley, Pimentel and other officials as they turned the earth, and every speaker at the groundbreaking brought up the sunshine. Stuttgart Mayor J.W. Green even thanked the Almighty for it in his invocation. Soon, 350,000 solar panels will sprout on 475 acres of former Arkansas County rice fields, providing power for 13,000 homes. Meanwhile, 600 miles to the northeast, crews from Scenic Hill Solar of North Little Rock are installing solar panels on the roof of a L’Oreal cosmetics plant in Florence, Kentucky. Scenic Hill, led by former Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, cut the ribbon last month on a multimillion- dollar array at L’Oreal’s North Little Rock plant. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Seal Energy Solutions of Little Rock is working the small side of solar, partnering with Habitat for Humanity to install small rooftop units on By Kyle Massey [email protected]The List [P9] Legal woes continue for Baptist VP Whispers [P3] Exec Q&A With Paul Beran e University of Arkansas at Fort Smith chancellor looks at what businesses need, and how education can provide it. [P22] VOL. 34, NO. 20 MAY 15-21, 2017 $1.50 UPDATED DAILY: ArkansasBusiness.com Business Arkansas A&P Tax Collections in Selected Cities THE STATE’S BUSINESS NEWS AUTHORITY. AR KA NSAS BUSINESS PUBLISHIN G GROU P Do you know a 20-something worth watching? NOMINATE NOW! www.ArkansasBusiness.com/20 SOLAR CONTINUED ON PAGE 11 Big and Small Projects Follow the Sun Mark M. Henry, a registered patent attorney, won a $12.4 million verdict against Wal-Mart for a California web design firm. [ PHOTO BY BETH HALL] VERDICT CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 By Mark Friedman [email protected]A Look Inside A $12.4M Slap At Wal-Mart In early 2014, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. turned to a Southern California digital design firm for help with a problem that has dogged the Bentonville retailer for years: e-commerce. Specifically, Wal-Mart hired Cuker Interactive LLC of San Diego to improve the website for its United Kingdom grocery subsidiary, ASDA Stores Ltd. — a five-month job that would bring almost $600,000 to a company with about 20 employees. A slap-dash contract quickly led Wal-Mart to file a routine breach-of- contract lawsuit against Cuker — pronounced “Sooker” — in Benton County. That morphed into a federal case and a counterclaim in which Cuker accused Wal-Mart of taking the computer code written for the ASDA site and secretly shipping it off to teams in India and the United States to use in a website for Walmart2Go. Last month a federal jury in Fayetteville ordered How a small California firm sued a giant over trade secrets and won The Last Mile A $13 billion e-commerce shipping market has turned truck drivers into appliance installers and buoyed the venerable U.S. Postal Service. [P10] Open Wide Rock Dental Brands, having acquired Arkansas Dentistry & Braces, is not finished buying. [P17]
Transcript
“Good Day Sunshine” blared over the loudspeaker, followed by “Keep on the Sunny Side” and “Walking on Sunshine.”
Time to feel good? Absolutely, for Entergy Arkansas CEO Rick Riley and Armando Pimentel, CEO of NextEra Energy Resources, who were breaking ground last week on Arkansas’
largest solar installation. The 81-megawatt utility-scale array near Stuttgart is expected to come on line before year’s end.
The bright sun glinted off stainless steel hard hats worn by Riley, Pimentel and other officials as they turned the earth, and every speaker at the groundbreaking brought up the sunshine. Stuttgart Mayor J.W. Green even thanked the Almighty for it in his invocation.
Soon, 350,000 solar panels will sprout on 475 acres of former Arkansas County rice fields, providing power for 13,000 homes.
Meanwhile, 600 miles to the northeast, crews from Scenic Hill Solar of North Little Rock are installing solar panels on the roof of a L’Oreal cosmetics plant in Florence, Kentucky. Scenic Hill, led by former Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, cut the ribbon
last month on a multimillion-dollar array at L’Oreal’s North Little Rock plant.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, Seal Energy Solutions of Little Rock is working the small side of solar, partnering with Habitat for Humanity to install small rooftop units on
In early 2014, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. turned to a Southern California digital design firm for help with a problem that has dogged the Bentonville retailer for years: e-commerce.
Specifically, Wal-Mart hired Cuker Interactive LLC of San Diego to improve the website for its United Kingdom grocery subsidiary, ASDA Stores Ltd. — a five-month job that would bring almost $600,000 to a company with about 20 employees.
A slap-dash contract quickly led Wal-Mart to file a routine breach-of-contract lawsuit against Cuker — pronounced “Sooker” — in Benton County. That morphed into a federal case and a counterclaim in which Cuker accused Wal-Mart of taking the computer code written for the ASDA site and secretly shipping it off to teams in India and the United States to use in a website for Walmart2Go.
Last month a federal jury in Fayetteville ordered
How a small California firm sued a giant over trade secrets and won
The Last MileA $13 billion e-commerce shipping market has turned truck drivers into appliance installers and buoyed the venerable U.S. Postal Service. [P10]
Open Wide Rock Dental Brands, having acquired Arkansas Dentistry & Braces, is not finished buying. [P17]
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In a filing last week, McMaster’s attorney, Otto R. Fry, said she had “not breached the contrac-tual agreement in any man-ner,” and that the “allegations of fraud and misrepresentation are wholly without merit and should be dismissed.”
Fry also claimed that the Wagoners had defaulted on a separate promissory note to McMaster, failing to make a sin-gle $409 monthly payment on the note’s $62,000 debt.
‘Eager to Foist the Loan’Wilcox said that Centennial,
which filed its original law-suit on Dec. 29, seven months after the Wagoners assumed McMaster’s mortgage, was also misled and defrauded.
But, Wilcox said, “the bank continued to modify loans to the prior owner based on mis-information, and then when my clients took over, the bank was overly eager to foist the loan onto them and then fore-close quickly when things went sour.”
McMaster did not respond to a phone message before press time Thursday.
Attorney Vaughan Hankins of Sherwood, representing
Centennial, confirmed that the bank has requested a trial date on the foreclosure and said the Wagoners had “surrendered the property.”
Wilcox characterized the Wagoners as honorable and intelligent people who were “victimized in this ordeal.” They had agreed for the bank to take possession of the property to secure it for a possible sale.
Buyer interest is high, he said, but “obviously it is an expensive and unique piece of property” with a “limited range of possible investors.”
In other filings, the Wagoners confirmed that they have moved off the property.
Wilcox said his clients had tried to work with Centennial, “but to be frank, we are disap-pointed that they have chosen to so aggressively pursue my clients.”
The bank says the Wagoners, who were operating as Inception Management Group LLC, have not made a payment since late September.
Joanie White-Wagoner, who managed a Texas hospital before moving to Arkansas in 2016, has run Baptist’s hospital in Conway since its opening in September.
Request for ReconsiderationThe Texas podiatrist who
wants to buy the hotel and con-vention center on the Arkansas side of Texarkana out of bank-ruptcy asked a judge to recon-sider the denial of some tax incentives tied to the project.
The potential buyer, Dr. James J. Naples, entered into a $6.6 million purchase agree-ment with Dr. Hiren Patel, who owns the Holiday Inn and Arkansas Convention Centerthrough his Texarkana Hotels LLC, which is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
If Naples buys the property, he wants the city of Texarkana’s Advertising & Promotion Commission pledge to pay $150,000 annually for 15 years to continue.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Brenda
Back and Forth at the RanchThe ranch wrangling contin-
ues in Conway.That would be the legal tus-
sling over a ranch-and-restau-rant complex that led to foreclo-sure proceedings against Joanie White-Wagoner, administrator and vice president of Baptist Health Medical Center-Conway.
A lawyer for White-Wagoner and her husband, Darren Wagoner, who are accused by Centennial Bank of default-ing on a $2.5 million mortgage and other loans, said in a state-ment to Arkansas Business on Thursday that his clients are the victims of fraud by the previous owner, Letitia McMaster.
Attorney Beau Wilcox of Conway said that financial data provided by McMaster before the sale was inaccurate, and “was in fact manipulated to
mislead and induce them into the purchase” of the 45-acre Back Achers Ranch and Legends Bar & Grill on College Avenue, which includes a 47,000-SF arena and a house on nearby Shock Loop.
Wilcox said the business ven-tures were already failing before the sale, and that misrepresen-tations by McMaster constitute “outright fraud.”
In an April 27 motion in Faulkner County Circuit Court, Wilcox said the Wagoners had filed a third-party complaint against McMaster alleging fraud and breach of contract.
He asked the court to order Centennial to amend its com-plaint to include McMaster as a defendant. The bank responded that it had no obligation to do so, and that it had seen no evi-dence of fraud.
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BusinessArkansas
A Texas doctor wants the A&P Commission’s incentive to continue.
4 May 15, 2017 Arkansas Business
WHISPERS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3
WHISPERS
T. Rhoades approved the sale of the prop-erty last month, but most of the tax incen-tives, which total nearly $500,000 per year, aren’t going to continue with the new owner. That includes the A&P’s $150,000.
Rhoades ruled that the agreement with the A&P could not be assumed by Texarkana Hotels and transferred to Naples.
Naples argued in his court filing last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Texas that there is nothing in Arkansas law that prevents the assignment of the A&P incentive.
The attorney representing Naples, Mark Weisbart of Dallas, didn’t immedi-
ately return a call for comment. A hearing on the motion has not been
scheduled. If the deal with Naples falls apart, the
backup buyer for the Holiday Inn and Arkansas Convention Center is MidSouth Bank of Lafayette, Louisiana, which said Patel’s company defaulted on $10 million in loans.
Texarkana Hotels filed for bankruptcy in March 2016. It listed $10.6 million in debts and $5.2 million in assets.
Seven-Digit DealsA grocery store in Vilonia, a church
in Benton, Burger Kings in Cabot and Conway, a west Little Rock manor and an auto project in Sherwood have assem-bled for a six-pack of multimillion-dollar transactions.
w Harps Food Stores Inc. of Springdale sold its 31,500-SF store at 1086 Main St. in Vilonia for more than $4.9 million.
Buyer in this sale-leaseback deal: an affiliate of Cole Capital of Phoenix.
w Summit Church purchased Salem Baptist Church at 3069 Salem Road for $2.4 million. The deal included a pair of adjoining duplexes at 3141 Salem Road and a parsonage.
w Rowan Development LLC, led by Jasen Chi, bought a 9,326-SF home in the Chenal Downs neighborhood for more than $1.7 million.
Sellers: Steve Landers Jr. and his wife, Karmen.
w Flis Investments LLC, led by Christopher Flis, sold its Burger King at 1100 W. Main St. in Cabot for $1.7 million to Rachael JG LLC of West Hills, California.
w I-40 RV Exchange Holdings LLC acquired the Evans Motors project at 6701 Warden Road in Sherwood for more than $1.4 million.
Seller? Evans Properties, led by Paul, Darrell and Ralph Evans.
w FRP Cantrell Falls LLC, led by Dominic Flis, purchased the Burger King at 905 U.S. 65 in Conway for nearly $1.4 million from Arkaproperties LLC of North Platte, Nebraska.
Hooters 2018Remember that Hooters we told you
about a few weeks ago, the one coming to 6 Bass Pro Drive in Little Rock, near Bass Pro Shops and Outlets of Little Rock?
Well, we have a few more details.Stanley Conrad of Hooters of
Arkansas, the fellow who applied for a mixed-drink permit with the state, says he’s looking to open the restaurant sometime in 2018 and it will employ about 140 workers.
He has a 38-year history in the restau-rant business, Conrad said, having been involved with Stubby’s BBQ, Pizza Hut and Casa Mexicana in Maumelle.
Hooters currently has locations in North Little Rock and Fort Smith.
Whispers has reached out to Hooters corporate PR but hasn’t heard back.
Solid StateWhat keeps tech leader Doug
Hutchings in Arkansas?The CEO of Fayetteville startup
Picasolar says one anchor is a new capital campaign to raise $3 million for his busi-ness, which uses advanced techniques to improve solar cells and reduce their costs.
But he has a bigger reason, he told the Arkansas Advanced Energy Foundation in Little Rock last week.
“My wife loves Arkansas.”Hutchings does too, and the Mena
native said other things like natural beauty and cost-of-living advantages also favor Arkansas. He already has soft commitments for about $1 million in new capital from previous investors, and he plans to keep fundraising in his home state.
“Arkansas has a great business envi-ronment, and beyond the cost-of-living advantages and all the support we get from the University of Arkansas, it’s also cheaper to run a business here,” he said. “If we were in California or someplace else, we wouldn’t be asking for $3 million in capital. It would be more like $6 mil-lion or $7 million.”
Vesuvio Dunned by StateVisiting the state website listing busi-
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Last week’s visit indicated that Vesuvio Bistro at 1315 Breckenridge Drive in Little Rock had been served with a clo-sure notice May 4. But owner Bill Criswell says it was all a misunderstanding.
“We just got behind a little bit,” Criswell said. “They gave us a few days to pay it and we’re paid and going on forward.”
The Arkansas Department of Finance & Administration, as authorized by Act 360 of 2009, can close any business that fails to remit withholding taxes for any three months during a 24-month period, and lists those businesses served with closure notices.
The state doesn’t disclose how much in sales and use tax a business owes, and Criswell declined to provide the amount.
The Little Rock Advertising & Promotion Commission in July sued Criswell’s Bistro Group for $1,500 in sales taxes but that debt was settled within hours, filings in Pulaski County Circuit Court show.
Stoby’s Eyes July ReopeningThe owners of Stoby’s, the popular
Conway restaurant devastated by fire in March 2016, are shooting to reopen by July 21, the restaurant’s 37th anniver-sary, says Patti Stobaugh, co-owner with her husband, David Stobaugh.
The Stobaughs decided to raze the old, fire-damaged building and build a
4,000-SF new and improved Stoby’s at the same location, 805 Donaghey Ave.
The electrical wiring, HVAC and plumbing have been installed, and work-ers were shingling the new building last week.
The Stobaughs should be moving equipment in in early July.
“We don’t want to rush it and have a bad opening,” Patti Stobaugh said.
The restaurant’s new kitchen alone is bigger than the old Stoby’s, Patti said, and it should seat about 128 customers, in addition to those on the patio.
Speaking of the patio, it will be dog-friendly.
“We’re sticking with our old theme,” she said. “It will look very much like the old Stoby’s.”
After the fire, the Stobaughs opened Stoby’s Express at 1310 Prince St., offer-ing strictly to-go service. They will prob-ably close the Express for at least a couple of weeks while they’re getting the new Stoby’s up and running, Patti said. But
not to fear, it will be reopened.“It’s really been a hidden blessing that
we would have never counted on or even really considered at this stage in our life,” she said of the Express location. “We’ve had so many people express that they want to keep that location open.”
Stoby’s Express has been so success-ful that the Stobaughs are consider-ing opening a couple more outside of Conway, “but we’ve got to get Stoby’s up and running and get our sea legs under-neath us before we do that.”
Kaiser Lands in ChattanoogaFormer USA Truck executive Joseph
Kaiser is the new chief financial officer at Xpress Global Systems of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Kaiser left USA Truck in April when the company promoted Zachary King to vice president and corporate controller. King joined the company in 2015 and served a variety of positions, including assistant controller.
Kaiser was named vice president and chief accounting officer in 2016 and served as principal financial offi-cer between the tenures of former CFOs Michael Borrows and James Reed. Kaiser earned total compensation of $419,424 in 2016.
(Borrows resigned from USA Truck in May 2016 and Reed was hired Nov. 1. Reed has since been promoted to CEO since the resignation of Randy Rogers,
and USA Truck announced the hiring of James Bates as CFO on April 19.)
Kaiser’s departure also affected the Arkansas Trucking Association, where he was chairman of the Accounting & Finance Council. The ATA created the AFC at its last conference.
Vice Chairman Eric Grant of Maverick Transportation gave the council’s report at this year’s conference, held in early May, and was named council chairman.
Chef Shuttle Says Opa!We asked for an update on Chef
Shuttle, the restaurant delivery service based in Little Rock, and got this: It’s moving toward franchising by summer 2017.
Chef Shuttle, now three years old, recently marked its 500,000th order, a representative said, and has more than 450 restaurant partners in three markets. An average of 15 new restaurants are joining each month.
And there’s this: Chef Shuttle will be offering delivery service for items from the 33rd annual International Greek Food Festival in Little Rock May 19-21.
The festival benefits area charities, and the demand for its menu items is fierce. n
Stoby’s most famous dish.
6 May 15, 2017 Arkansas Business
The U.S. Treasury Department paid $8 million for 344,577 shares of stock in One Bank & Trust at a sale conducted in Washington last week, according to the bill of sale filed in federal court.
As Arkansas Business recently report-ed, the Treasury had a potential credit bid of up to $47.9 million, which was the balance of a triple-damages judgment tied to a TARP funding fraud claim. The shares represent a majority ownership in the bank, which brands itself as Onebanc, where equity capital declined from $12 million as of Dec. 31 to $10.4 million on March 31.
Assets stood at $298.5 million at the end of the first quarter.
“The sale is another positive develop-ment for the Bank and no customers or vendors should be concerned by this latest step in the legal process,” CEO Jerry Pavlas said in a news release. “Nothing about the sale of this stock affects Onebanc’s daily opera-tions, employment or services to our custom-ers or community.
“The sale was con-ducted in full coop-eration with the U.S. Treasury and the Bank’s regulators in order to provide absolute certainty to the Federal government’s legal stand-ing as the majority owner of the Bank.
Resolving the issue of ownership released Onebanc from the burdens of the holding company liabilities and was critical to the Bank’s recapitalization.
“The sale was necessary in bringing closure to the complex issues created by the fraudulent acts of former Onebanc owners, executives and senior man-agement that were revealed during the change in management and the comple-tion of the forensic accounting audit.”
The former owner and CEO was Layton “Scooter” Stuart, who was removed from the management at the direction of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency before his death in March 2013.
“Currently, the One Bank shares are owned by the Department of the Treasury and by three key executives,” Pavlas said in a statement to Arkansas Business. “The key executives acquired share ownership through stock owner-ship programs acceptable to the banking regulators. The actual ownership per-centages of these four stockholder [sic] are subject to a number of factors and circumstances, and actual ownership will not be finalized until the consum-mation of a recapitalization transaction. The Treasury’s stock ownership, how-ever, is a majority stake and is projected to be in the range of 65% to 80% at clos-ing depending on the resolution of these various factors.”
— Gwen Moritz
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Weekly ReportBusiness
Arkansas
China Textile Maker Plans800 Jobs in Forrest City
Shandong Ruyi Technology Group on Wednesday announced that it will invest $410 million to remodel the former Sanyo manufacturing facility in Forrest City into a textile factory that will eventually employ about 800 people.
The Chinese company will use the 1.4 million-SF plant to spin Arkansas cotton into yarn, which will be sold to garment manufacturers. It will be the company’s first factory in North America.
Ruyi aims to buy about 200,000 tons of Arkansas cotton per year, according to Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who spoke along-side Ruyi’s chairman, Yafu Qiu, and state economic development leaders during an announcement at the state Capitol.
At the event, Hutchinson and Qiu signed a memorandum of understand-ing outlining terms of the deal, which Qiu said will mark “the first milestone of Ruyi’s steps into the United States.”
The company is receiving three incentives:
w Up to $4 million in grants from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, dependent on job creation.
w Create Rebate, an annual cash rebate that is equal to 5 percent of its total pay-roll associated with the new jobs created. The company will receive the rebate for 10 years.
w Tax Back, which provides sales tax refunds on building materials, taxable machinery and equipment associated with the project.
Mike Preston, executive director of
AEDC, said local economic development leaders provided another $1 million in incentives.
The Sanyo plant, which once made televisions, has been vacant since the company ended production there in late 2007. Ruyi aims to start renovations later this year, with construction taking about six months. Production at the 161-acre site should begin in mid-2018.
The company envisions two phases of operation. Phase one consists of remod-eling the existing plant, after which the company would employ about 480 peo-ple. Phase two would entail new con-struction at the site, allowing for employ-ment of 320 more. Preston said average pay at the plant would be $15.25 per hour.
— Lance Turner
Manufacturing
Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Chairman Yafu Qiu announce that Shandong Ruyi Technology Group will invest $410 million in the former Sanyo plant in Forrest City. They will use it to spin cotton and employ about 800 people. [PHOTO BY LANCE TURNER] Jerry
Pavlas
Ten Republicans and six Democrats have been named to serve on a legislative task force that will recommend tax cuts before the 2019 session.
House Speaker Jeremy Gillam and Senate President Jonathan Dismang last week named their appointees to the Tax Reform & Relief Legislative Task Force, cre-ated as part of a $50 million income tax
cut plan approved by lawmakers this year.The Senate’s Republican members
are Sens. Bart Hester, Missy Irvin, Dave Wallace, Dismang and Senate Majority Leader Jim Hendren. Its Democratic members are Senate Minority Leader Keith Ingram, Sen. Joyce Elliott and Sen. Larry Teague.
The House Republican members are Reps. Joe Jett, Frances Cavenaugh, Jim Dotson, Lane Jean and House Majority Leader Mathew Pitsch. Its Democratic members are Reps. Bob Johnson, Warwick Sabin and Kenneth Ferguson.
— The Associated Press
The head of a scholarship fund launched a long-shot bid last week to unseat a Republican congressman in northwest Arkansas, targeting the incumbent over his vote to repeal and replace major parts of President Barack Obama’s health care law.
Joshua Mahony, 36, said he’s running as a Democrat for the 3rd District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, who is seeking his fifth term in office. Mahony, the president of the Arkansas Single Parent Scholarship Fund, based in Springdale, ran unsuccessfully for the party’s nomination for Washington County judge last year. He announced his candidacy days after Womack and the rest of the state’s Republican U.S. House delegation voted in favor of the GOP health care bill.
Mahony said he was worried about the impact the bill would have on the more than 300,000 people currently on the state’s hybrid Medicaid expansion and on those with pre-existing medi-
cal conditions. He said he would have voted against the Republican health care bill, and would have voted for former Obama’s health care overhaul.
“I understand that [the Affordable Care Act], or Obamacare, is not perfect but I think it’s something if we take a thoughtful positive approach we can improve on it,” Mahony said.
Mahony said he supports abortion rights and opposes Republican efforts to block federal funding to Planned Parenthood. He also criticized President Donald Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the border with Mexico, saying he believes there are less expensive ways to monitor the border.
A spokesman for Womack declined to comment on Mahony’s candidacy. Womack, who was first elected in 2010, has nearly $1.2 million cash on hand for his re-election bid, according to his most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission.
— The Associated Press
Government
Politics
Scholarship Fund Leader StartsCampaign to Unseat Womack
U.S. Treasury PurchasesOne Bank & Trust Stock
Banking
Dismang, Gillam Pick 16 to WorkOn Tax Reform
Arkansas Business May 15, 2017 7
Global financial services technol-ogy provider FIS of Jacksonville, Florida, and the Venture Center of Little Rock on Wednesday named the 10 startup com-panies selected from a pool of 295 appli-cants for the second FinTech Accelerator.
The companies are:w Alpharank of San Francisco, a data
modeling company that processes pur-chase data for its clients to help them identify their most important customers.
w Alto IRA of Nashville, Tennessee, which aims to help its customers estab-lish a self-directed IRA more quickly than if they were to do so through a big bank.
w Bond.ai of New York City, a conver-sational AI platform that understands financial goals and enables users to meet those goals in the shortest possible time.
w eGiftify of Little Rock, a company that enables people to send and received
gifts instantly sent via email, text mes-sage, Facebook or print.
w Hedge Hog of Detroit, a high-return lending platform secured by borrower collateral.
w Plinqit of Ann Arbor, Michigan. HTC Mobile Apps of Austin, Texas, is its parent company.
w Omnetrium of Chicago, a technology platform built to help U.S. retail banks drive new account growth and stable core deposits to fund asset growth.
w Quotanda of Mexico City, which offers a platform to enable universities and lenders to set up student financ-ing programs that could make education more affordable.
w WalletFi of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which helps its customers manage recurring payments from one card to another.
w Xplanr of New York City, which aims to enhance organizations’ ability to show that they are in control of regulatory compliance programs.
Through the 12-week program, each will receive mentoring and training from FIS and the Venture Center as well as an initial $50,000 investment. The compa-nies may also be eligible for $100,000-$300,000 when the accelerator ends.
The Venture Center is a tenant of the Little Rock Technology Park, and the pro-gram will be held there.
The Venture Center said the number of applicants doubled from last year’s inaugural program. The accelerator, extended until 2018 to the tune of $2 million, is being funded with $500,000 each from FIS and Arkansas discretion-ary funds.
— Sarah Campbell-Miller
WEEKLY REPORT
The Arkansas Community Foundationon Tuesday announced its Disaster Recovery Fund has been activated in the wake of historic flooding in northeast Arkansas, and the nonprofit has already contributed $10,000 to it.
The fund will accept donations from the public to support the affected com-munities’ intermediate and long-term recovery.
The foundation said the fund is intended to help bridge the gap between the initial burst of giving during the very earliest days of recovery and the ongo-ing needs that will continue to emerge as residents renovate homes and busi-nesses, communities evaluate public infrastructure and new safety measures are put into place.
Donations can be made online at ARCF.org or by mailing a check marked “Flood” to Arkansas Community Foundation, 1400 W. Markham, Suite 206, Little Rock, AR 72201.
Grant recipients from the Disaster Recovery Fund will be selected in part-nership with local leaders and officials.
The fund will be used to restore or improve community infrastructure; pro-vide mental health services, legal servic-es, housing assistance and other support to individuals and families; establish or re-establish communitywide strate-gic plans that will help the community become more vibrant or resilient; and invest in the infrastructure/operational capacity of direct service organizations engaged in disaster relief efforts.
— Sarah Campbell-Miller
Disaster FundSeeks to HelpFlood Victims
Nonprofi tEmployee Compensation
Federal vs. Private Sector
Federal civilian workers earned, on average, 17 percent more in total compensation — wages and benefi ts — than their counter-parts in the private sector during 2011-15, according to the Congressional Budget Offi ce.The CBO study, released last month, found that the diff erences in total compensation depended on employees’ education level.w Total compensation for federal workers whose highest educational attainment was a bachelor’s degree averaged 21 percent more than for similar workers in the private sector.w Among workers with a high school di-ploma or less, total compensation averaged 53 percent more for federal employees than for their private-sector counterparts.w However, total compensation for workers with a professional degree or doctor-ate averaged 18 percent lower for federal employees than for similar private-sector employees.“Overall, the federal government paid 17 percent more in total compensation than it would have if average compensation had been comparable with that in the private sector, after accounting for certain observ-able characteristics of workers,” the study said.The biggest factor contributing to the dif-ference between the two sectors regarding the benefi ts element of total compensation was “the defi ned benefi t pension plan that is available to most federal employees,” the study said. Such pension plans are increas-ingly rare in the private sector.The federal government employs 2.2 million civilian workers; in fi scal 2016, it spent about $215 billion to compensate them.
Source: Congressional Budget Offi ce
Technology
10 FinTech Accelerator Companies Named
Comparing the Compensation of Federal and Private-Sector Employees2011-2015
High Some Bachelor’s Master’s Professional School College Degree Degree or Diploma Doctorate or Less
Differences in Average Hourly Compensation Between Federal and Private-Sector Workers, by Educational Attainment Difference in 2015 Dollars per Hour Percentage Difference Total Total Wages Benefits Compensationa Wages Benefits Compensation
High School Diploma or Less $8 $10 $18 34% 93% 53%
Bachelor’s Degree $2 $9 $12 5% 52% 21%
Professional Degree or Doctorate -$16 -$1 -$18 -24% -3% -18%
CBO compared average hourly compensation (wages, benefi ts, and total compensation converted to 2015 dollars) for federal civilian workers and for private-sector workers with certain similar observable charac-teristics that aff ect compensation—including occupation, years of experience, and size of employer—by the highest level of education that workers attained.
Positive numbers indicate that, on average, wages, benefi ts, or total compensation was higher in the 2011–2015 period for federal employees than for similar private-sector employees. Negative numbers indicate the opposite.
a. The numbers shown for total compensation may not equal the sum of the numbers for wages and ben-efi ts because of rounding to the nearest dollar and because of the composition of the samples used by CBO.
High Some Bachelor’s Master’s Professional
Average Federal Average Private-Sector Benefi ts Benefi ts
Average Federal Average Private-Sector Wages Wages
Health Care
Two cancer researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock have each received a four-year grant of $791,000 to support their work. Aime Franco and Dr. Ling Gao have been awarded Research Scholar Grants from the American Cancer Society.
UAMS said the grants are among 109 national research and training grants totaling more than $45 million that will fund investigators at 75 institutions across the country. The grants go into effect July 1. Franco’s project seeks to determine how non-thyroid cells found in and around thyroid tumors promote cancer progression. Gao’s project is focused on the development of a poten-tial new therapy for metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare skin cancer.
— Arkansas Business Staff
2 Cancer ResearchersAt UAMS Get $1.6M
8 May 15, 2017 Arkansas Business
Wal-Mart to pay $12.4 million for damages that included will-ful and malicious misappro-priation of Cuker’s confidential information and trade secrets.
The verdict didn’t end the dispute. Last week, one of Cuker’s attorneys, Mark M. Henry of Fayetteville, asked the judge to prevent Wal-Mart from using Cuker’s code in any of its websites. Henry also is seeking sanctions against Wal-Mart’s attorneys for what he alleges was abuse of the discovery pro-cess. (See sidebar.) Cuker also was represented by Henry’s law partner, Adam Hopkins, and Callie Bjurstrom of San Diego.
Randy Hargrove, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said the company “does not believe an injunction is appropriate and has filed an opposition to Cuker Interactive’s request for injunctive relief.” He said in an email to Arkansas Business that Wal-Mart worked “diligently to meet the plaintiff’s requests” for discovery.
Wal-Mart, Hargrove said, also disagrees with the jury’s conclusions. “In our view, the finding and damages awarded are not supported by the facts,” he said. “We believe the ver-dict wrongfully holds Walmart responsible for taking the very materials which Cuker trans-ferred or licensed to us under
contract. We are considering all options, including an appeal.”
Most of the documents Wal-Mart filed in the case were filed under seal or heavily redacted, but the material made pub-lic describes a relationship between the world’s largest retailer and a small design shop that blossomed and then col-lapsed within months.
E-commerce Arms RaceWal-Mart has spent millions
trying to pump up its e-com-merce revenue, with limited success. Internet Retailer, an online trade journal, estimated Wal-Mart’s online revenue at
$7.7 billion in 2012 and $15.25 billion in 2016, a period in which e-commerce leader Amazon.com grew its sales from $61.1 billion to $136 billion.
In December 2013, Cuker Interactive announced that CEO Aaron Cuker would lead a panel on the future of respon-sive web design at the National Retail Federation’s annual con-vention in New York the follow-ing month.
Responsive design was rev-olutionary at the time. Online retailers had been maintaining separate websites for desktop computers while launching mobile versions for custom-ers who wanted to shop from
their iPhones and Android cell-phones. The arrival of iPads in 2010 meant some retailers had even added tablet-specific sites. But responsive design allowed a retailer to maintain a single website that looked good and functioned smoothly regardless of the device used to access it.
Cuker led the one-hour panel discussion titled “Is Responsive Design Part of Your Mobile Strategy?” In the audience was Alex Alexander, the multichan-nel technology director for ASDA, which was looking for ways to improve its website.
In 2014, Wal-Mart said in its court filings, buying gro-ceries online for delivery was
already common in the United Kingdom. Wal-Mart wanted a responsive website for ASDA to make “online grocery shopping easier and more convenient for its customers.”
And ASDA was in a hurry. After the panel discussion,
Alexander and Cuker met and agreed to talk more the next day about the possibility of work-ing together. By the end of that month, January 2014, the com-panies had entered the kind of contract that usually took months of negotiations. It called for Cuker to have the website ready to launch in June.
Speed can be dangerous. William “Chuck” Easttom II, an
Mark M. Henry said Wal-Mart executive Tal Herman initially tried to hire Cuker for the Walmart2Go project and then changed his mind. [PHOTO BY BETH HALL]
Walmart: A look insidea $12M blowto big retailer
Continued From Page One
Fayetteville Attorney Seeks Sanctions Against Wal-Mart, Saying It Abused ProcessFayetteville attorney Mark Henry last
week asked a federal judge to sanction Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for alleged discovery abuses throughout the case involving Cuker Interactive LLC of San Diego.
“Walmart’s chronic abuse of the discovery rules led to many sanctions throughout the course of this lawsuit, which predictably caused both a needless waste of time and money,” Henry wrote in the motion filed Thursday. “While the world’s largest retailer has an unending supply of time and money to engage in such obstructive tactics, the unwit-ting casualties of Walmart’s recidivistic abuse are both the Court and the prevailing party to the unanimous jury verdict, Cuker Interactive.”
U.S. District Judge Tim Brooks already found in October 2015 that “Wal-Mart has
abused the discovery process” by its nearly ubiquitous use of the highly confidential “attorney’s eyes only” designation on the documents it produced in the case.
Henry said in the motion for sanctions that Wal-Mart used the AEO classification “as a means to prevent Cuker’s computer and finan-cial experts from reviewing relevant evidence.”
Henry also said that Wal-Mart and its attorneys “flatly refused” to provide the code used for its Walmart2Go website so it could be compared with code Cuker pro-duced under a contract for another Wal-Mart website.
Wal-Mart’s attorney called it a fishing expedition, according to Henry. Wal-Mart also argued that Cuker’s code was such poor quality that it didn’t work. In a telephone
hearing in May 2016, Wal-Mart attorney Teresa Wineland of Little Rock told Judge Brooks that no Cuker code would be found anywhere in connection with the retailer’s platforms or websites.
“The code was never in any condition to use,” Wineland said at the hearing, an excerpt of which was included in Henry’s filing.
Cuker’s frustration seemed to be shared by Judge Brooks, whose warnings to Wal-Mart also show up in Henry’s motion for sanctions.
Last May Brooks said that if it turned out that Cuker’s code was found on Wal-Mart’s platforms, “then certainly the Court would view that as a very key finding in determining whether fees or sanctions or what have you would be appropriate down the road.” In a January hearing he said, “The Court finds that
Wal-Mart apparently is just not taking either this litigation seriously or this Court’s orders seriously, and that’s got to change,”
After Cuker finally received the Walmart2Go code, its expert found that Cuker’s code was in fact present, according to Henry’s pleading. A Fayetteville jury agreed and last month awarded Cuker more than $12 million.
Wal-Mart spokesman Randy Hargrove told Arkansas Business last week that it disagrees with the plaintiff’s accusations. “We worked diligently to meet the plaintiff’s requests,” he said.
Henry is asking for an award of all of Cuker’s costs, expenses and fees generated throughout the case.
— Mark Friedman
Arkansas Business May 15, 2017 9
expert witness who has reviewed scores of software development contracts, described the con-tract as “the most vague, inter-nally inconsistent, and poorly written software contract I have ever analyzed.”
But the honeymoon was on when Cuker emailed Alexander on Feb. 1, 2014. “I am energized for the start of this project,” he wrote. “I feel this is just the beginning of a successful long term partnership.”
Cuker’s email acknowledged that the “timeline is tight, and this will take a huge effort and lots of hard work from our team. We know what we have in front of us and we are ready for the challenge.”
Cuker Interactive was to be paid $578,000 to help Wal-Mart with the first phase of its proj-ect to make the ASDA website responsive.
Contract ProblemsAlmost from the start of
the relationship, the parties couldn’t agree on what the con-tract required. Cuker Interactive said it was obligated to deliver
13 templates for the ASDA web-site, but it grudgingly provided a total of 47, more than meeting its contractual requirement.
Aaron Cuker testified at trial last month that Alexander wanted all 47 templates, “but he didn’t want to pay for it.”
When Cuker initially refused and threatened to sue, he said Alexander “went ballistic. He said he wants them, and he said his legal team would destroy us.”
So Cuker Interactive relent-ed. “The last thing that we want-ed as a small business was to have a conflict with Wal-Mart,” Cuker said at the trial. His com-pany turned over the final code to Wal-Mart in July 2014.
Instead of being paid extra, Cuker Interactive would ulti-mately claim that it wasn’t even paid the full amount of the con-tract, collecting only $520,000.
And Wal-Mart sued anyway, saying in its filings that Cuker Interactive’s work was “incom-plete and had quality issues. … By then, any code that Cuker may have delivered was useless to Walmart, and the code was never downloaded, saved or
used.” Cuker eventually made a startling discovery about that supposedly worthless code.
‘Hot Mess’Tal Herman, Wal-Mart’s
worldwide director of user experience, was responsible for the ASDA and Walmart2Go websites. A filing by Cuker’s attorney, Mark Henry, quoted from a deposition in which Herman said that in early 2014 the “Walmart2Go website proj-ect was a ‘hot mess’ and he was ‘desperate’ to ‘leverage’ Cuker’s
work product to fix it.”Henry told Arkansas Business
last week that Herman initial-ly tried to hire Cuker for the Walmart2Go project. “And before [Cuker] could say yes, he said, ‘No, never mind. I got something else.’”
That something else was Cuker’s own work. “Walmart secretly forwarded Cuker-authored files for the ASDA website to a competing agen-cy … for contemporaneous design and development of the Walmart2Go website,” Henry said in a court filing.
Walmart2Go is now Wal-Mart’s flagship grocery web-site, Henry said in his filing, and it looks similar to the ASDA website that Cuker Interactive designed.
Wal-Mart’s attorneys denied the existence of any Cuker-
authored material on the Walmart2Go website “despite the fact that any reasonable comparison between the ASDA website and the Walmart2Go website reveals a virtual identi-cal match in both design and computer coded functionality,” Henry wrote. “Walmart then used its blanket denial as the basis for refusing to produce the Walmart2Go code.”
To help settle the question, U.S. District Judge Tim Brooks ordered Wal-Mart to turn over the Walmart2Go code in May 2016. After months of resistance, Wal-Mart finally handed over the code earlier this year — and expert witness Easttom testified that “those same codebases did, in fact, contain Cuker-authored code and trade secrets.”
The jury agreed. It awarded Cuker $12.4 million for sever-al of the trade secret claims, a claim of unjust enrichment and one for breach of contract.
The jury ruled against Wal-Mart, which had sought $1.04 million plus attorneys’ fees, court cost and expenses, for its breach of contract claim against Cuker. n
“The last thing that we wanted as a small business was to have a conflict with Wal-Mart.”[AARON CUKER, CEO, CUKER INTERACTIVE]
Advertising & Promotion Tax CollectionsRanked by local option taxes on restaurants and/or lodging collected by selected cities in 2016
City
2016 Total A&P Tax Collections% Change 2015-2016
2015% Change 2014-2015
2014
2016 Restaurant Tax% Change 2015-2016
2015% Change 2014-2015
2014
2016 Hotel Tax% Change 2015-2016
2015% Change 2015-2014
2014Restaurant Tax Rate
Hotel Tax Rate
1 Little Rock
$13,741,5124.5%
$13,153,8356.6%
$12,343,337
$10,867,6433.9%
$10,455,323NANA
$2,873,8696.5%
$2,698,513NANA
2%2%
2 North Little Rock
$7,048,8593.1%
$6,836,6474.3%
$6,556,159
$6,096,6522.9%
$5,922,4285.4%
$5,618,826
$952,2074.2%
$914,218-2.5%
$937,333
3%3%
3 FayettevilleB
$6,600,3228.1%
$6,104,44210.7%
$5,515,522
$5,782,7047.1%
$5,399,6639.5%
$4,929,721
$817,61816.0%
$704,77920.3%
$585,801
2%2%
4 Conway
$3,934,4232.6%
$3,835,5454.1%
$3,683,821
$3,576,2562.8%
$3,480,3235.3%
$3,306,495
$358,1670.8%
$355,222-5.9%
$377,326
2%2%
5 Bentonville
$2,275,4935.4%
$2,158,27914.0%
$1,893,462
$1,467,6104.5%
$1,403,95011.0%
$1,264,454
$807,8837.1%
$754,32919.9%
$629,008
1%2%
6 Eureka Springs
$1,419,2357.7%
$1,317,7827.1%
$1,230,658
$702,3637.2%
$655,34910.4%
$593,507
$716,8728.2%
$662,4334.0%
$637,151
3%3%
7 Fort Smith
$888,73511.1%
$800,0375.0%
$761,826
—————
$888,73511.1%
$800,0375.0%
$761,826
0%3%
Source: The commissions 1 Hotel, motel and restaurant tax receipts are split evenly between A&P Commission and Parks & RecreationCommission
Researched by Jan Cottingham
Advertising & Promotion Tax CollectionsThe List
10 May 15, 2017 Arkansas Business
Deep in their hearts, online shoppers know that shipping isn’t free. They know that some-where in the price they pay is the cost of getting the thing to their doorstep, whether it’s a book or a box of cigars or a dis-assembled sofa.
What they may not realize is that this “final mile” of the sup-ply chain — experts call it a $13 billion market — is tantalizing for shippers even as it is putting pressure on retailers’ margins. It is turning truck drivers into appliance installers and provid-ing a rare bright spot in the for-tunes of the beleaguered U.S. Postal Service.
Two Arkansas transportation companies, J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. of Lowell and ArcBest Corp. of Fort Smith, are betting on being part of the revolution.
“One of the biggest chal-lenges is that the consumer’s expectations are a little bit out of line with reality,” said Dan Sanker, CEO of CaseStack Inc. in Fayetteville, which provides logistical and supply chain management support for com-panies. “Everybody expects everything to be free: shipping and even returns. That’s nice to have, and I like it personally, but from a professional standpoint there’s nothing free about that.”
A 2016 study by the consult-ing firm AlixPartners of New York City revealed that three-quarters of customers said the availability of free shipping “greatly” affected their buy-ing decision. The study also showed, to no one’s surprise, that shoppers were buying more stuff online — 23 percent reported they average approxi-mately 15 orders every month.
“How people shop has changed, which is an obvious statement,” said Doug Voss, associate professor of logistics and supply chain management at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. “That has led to a lot more packages show-ing up on our doorstep.”
Some companies are well positioned in the final-mile seg-ment. In any residential subdivi-sion during the afternoon, there will undoubtedly be a FedEx or UPS truck making the rounds.
Even the most venerable of delivery services is benefiting. The USPS reported a second-
quarter loss of $562 million Wednesday, but its package division — fueled by e-com-merce purchases from online vendors — reported an 11.5 per-cent increase in revenue com-pared with the first quarter of 2016. The division reported rev-enue of $4.7 billion from nearly 1.4 billion packages.
J.B. Hunt offers three kinds of final-mile deliveries, and ArcBest has identified the mar-ket as a $3 billion opportunity.
Transportation companies are becoming more involved because home delivery is more than just books from Amazon stuck in the mailbox. Consumers, increasingly, are ordering cumbersome, assem-bly-required items online and still wanting them delivered to the door.
ArcBest, on its website, said it offers a variety of final-mile services that include inside delivery, unpacking and light assembly.
“Whether it’s a retail or com-mercial delivery, ArcBest has a final-mile solution that can be customized to fit the needs of our customers,” ArcBest said in
a statement provided by spokes-woman Kathy Fieweger. “By utilizing the asset [less-than-truckload] network for pickups and linehaul, we can position these heavier, oversized ship-ments at the appropriate dis-tribution point to provide the full spectrum of delivery experi-ences.”
J.B. Hunt offers Threshold, Enhanced and White Glove res-idential deliveries. Threshold drops the product at the door,
Enhanced brings it inside, and White Glove includes assembly, installation and removal.
Final-mile services are a part of J.B. Hunt’s Dedicated Contract Services division, which in April reported first-quarter revenue of $392.5 million, up almost 10 percent year over year and approaching a quarter of com-panywide revenue.
XPO Logistics of Greenwich, Connecticut, another major player in final-mile delivery, reported first-quarter revenue of $207 million for its “Last Mile” division, a 16 percent increase from the same quarter a year ago.
J.B. Hunt brags that its
80-plus cross-dock locations — where incoming goods are loaded directly on an outgoing vehicle — allow service to 98 percent of the country. That’s advertising directed at retailers, because consumers rarely con-cern themselves with the how or whom, just the when.
“Say you ordered a new washer and dryer, and it shows up at your doorstep as delivered by someone who might work for a J.B. Hunt and their job is to
bring in that washer and dryer and install it for you,” Voss said. “It requires a lot greater skill set than we stereotypically think of a truck driver having.”
And for the shipper, it creates a more loyal customer.
“Think about this strategi-cally,” Voss said. “If a [retail] company would like to switch trucking companies that haul their stuff, now they have to go through the process of find-ing a trucking company that has employees who are not just trained to drive a truck, but install a washer and dryer.”
A few years back, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos spoke of his company delivering orders
by drone; some people likely laughed or made Jetson jokes.
In 2017, no one is laughing, and the idea of drone deliver-ies doesn’t seem far-fetched. The University of Arkansas’ McMillon Innovation Studio in Fayetteville is serving as a test site for a delivery robot from Starship Technologies of London.
The studio’s namesake is Doug McMillon, CEO of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville, which has greatly bumped up its e-commerce division to com-pete with Amazon.
“The study of logistics in business actually started with marketing,” Voss said. “It is a way to drive customer satisfac-tion, which is what marketers want. You sell more stuff by sat-isfying your customers. If you go to Walmart and the stuff you want is not on the shelves, you’re not satisfied. You’re going to go someplace else. Now should that stuff not be on the shelf, you have one more avenue to express your displeasure.”
Sanker, the CEO of CaseStack, said he recently ordered a couch from Amazon — “even though I’m kind of a Walmart fan.” It arrived two days later in six boxes weighing more than 100 pounds.
He put the couch together himself, secure in the knowl-edge that Amazon would be
responsible for return shipping costs if he wasn’t satisfied with his purchase.
“As a consumer I deserve that power; it’s my money,” Sanker said. “It’s unfortunate for some people but it’s really great for other people.
“Shipping hasn’t gotten cheaper; you’re just not paying for it. Frankly, someone is not making as much money. There’s no magic in the story. There were people making money, and those people aren’t making as much money anymore.” n
Customer Demand Drives Final Mile IndustryBy Marty Cook
J.B. Hunt offers three types of Final Mile Services through its DCS Segment, a nearly $400 million business for the company in the first quarter. [PHOTO PROVIDED]
“One of the biggest challenges is that the consumer’s expectations are a little bit out of line with reality. Everybody expects everything to be free: shipping and even returns. That’s nice to have, and I like it personally, but from a professional standpoint there’s nothing free about that.”[DAN SANKER, CEO, CASESTACK INC.]
Arkansas Business May 15, 2017 11
“tiny houses,” starting with two new 700-SF homes in the Baring Cross area of North Little Rock.
“No matter what the scale is, solar makes sense economi-cally,” Seal Energy CEO Josh Davenport said as his team put a three-panel, 1.08-kilowatt solar unit atop a Habitat of Humanity home on Frank Street opposite Vestal Park. “Solar is perfect for low-income housing, and par-ticularly for these homes built by Habitat, which are already hugely energy efficient. It works for a tiny house, for a big factory like L’Oreal and for homes and businesses in between. Look at the numbers. Now anybody can afford solar.”
Regulatory UncertaintyThese are promising times
for solar projects big and small, industry leaders say, even as the new administration in Washington focuses on reviving fossil fuels. But Arkansas solar leaders say the industry here is hobbled becase rules for home power generation are unsettled. Until a group working on net-metering for the state Public Service Commission presents its suggestions for rates and tar-iffs in September, those doubts will remain an issue, said Frank Kelly, a Little Rock financial planner and solar consultant.
While total solar numbers in Arkansas are hard to come by, Kelly says fewer than 600 home and small-business solar arrays in the state use net metering, the system that lets utilities give customers credit for the power they generate. But vendors like Kelly and Davenport see vast potential as costs fall.
“I agree with Frank that we’ll know more once the PSC report is out in September. But for now, people have a chance to install solar and be grandfathered in under the present rules and lock in their rates for 20 or 25 years,” Davenport said.
Heather Nelson, Seal’s presi-dent and COO, said she and her 47 employees were pleased to demonstrate solar’s value even on the smallest of homes. “It’s clean and affordable, and we are
proud to join forces with Habitat for Humanity in our backyard. We’re testing how these panels perform, and seeing if they’ll be practical in most or all the homes Habitat builds. We are thinking these units might cut utility bills to next to nothing.”
Habitat’s volunteer labor builds housing for qualified low-income homeowners, using paid contractors only for spe-cialties like electric, plumbing and heating and air. The home-owner gets a house with a small mortgage covering the cost of materials, and in the case of the Frank Street houses, solar units accompany LED light-ing, Rheem heat pumps and heavy insulation. The central Arkansas Habitat group, led by Director of Development Justin Buck, has built or rehabbed 170 homes since 1989.
John James, construction manager on the side-by-side two-bedroom houses on Frank Street, said he has overseen 28 new-construction homes for Habitat over the past six years. “These are all very efficient, Energy Star 3, with insulation in the walls and attic,” he said. “These are built better than some of the million-dollar hous-es in Chenal.”
Seal Energy initially built its business on efficiency retrofit projects. “It’s the heart of what we do,” Nelson said. “It doesn’t make sense to put state-of-the-art solar on a leaky building.”
Kelly, who leads SolarSource Consulting and is chairman of the Arkansas Renewable Energy Association, praised Seal’s work with Habitat but said many worthy projects are hindered by the state’s ambiguous atti-tude toward renewable energy. Lobbying by utilities and the state’s electric cooperatives keep the rooftop solar indus-try “limping along,” he said. “I tell people if you’re in the solar business in Arkansas, you’re lucky to be in business.”
He said less than a tenth of 1 percent of potential customers buy systems, but that a cloud-based system he developed a decade ago using satellite tech-nology had made the quote-making process simple. “Just call up, answer six questions and you’re set,” he said.
Arkansas’ sunny landscape ranks as the country’s 16th-best solar resource, he said, but the state is 50th in installed solar capacity. “In Louisiana there are probably 50,000 net-metering homes and businesses,” Kelly
said. “I chalk the difference up to the resistance and lobbying power of Arkansas utilities.”
Economical and Benefi cialKelly gave credit to Entergy for
its Stuttgart project, which CEO Riley said would enhance one of the “cleanest energy production portfolios across the country.”
NextEra, of Juno Beach, Florida, is building the array and will sell its power to Entergy under a 20-year power purchase agreement. The exact cost of it is under seal by the PSC, but commission Executive Director, John Bethel, called the solar plant “economical and ben-eficial,” adding that the price would “compare favorably” to power generated by coal or gas.
Kelly said utilities will embrace solar only if they own it. “In the trenches these guys normally get what they want, and it’s all about protecting their monopoly position.”
Kelly teamed up with Bill Ball of Little Rock to create Arkansas’ first “meter aggregation facil-ity,” Bearskin Solar Center in Scott. “It’s a great policy the PSC put in place in 2014 where customers can own their own solar panels at a large common
array. Their meter at Bearskin will correspond to their meter at home, and Entergy will credit the power generated against the power they’ve used.”
L’Oreal’s CommitmentL’Oreal is one of central
Arkansas’ largest industrial employers with 500 workers at its North Little Rock plant. Its projects with Scenic Hill Solar are part of a commitment to operate U.S. operations com-pletely with renewable power.
At the North Little Rock site, where Scenic Hill installed 3,600 sun-tracking panels out-side the 450,000-SF plant, the array is the state’s third-largest commercial solar plant, provid-ing 1.2 megawatts and cutting carbon emissions by 556 met-ric tons per year, the company said.
Scenic Hill is installing 5,000 panels at the Kentucky plant.
“We have achieved and even exceeded our target of a 60 per-cent reduction in CO2 emissions four years ahead of schedule,” L’Oreal Chairman and CEO Jean-Paul Agon said, noting that those environmental gains, the result of a program the company calls Sharing Beauty With All, came as its cosmetics produc-tion increased by 29 percent.
Halter wouldn’t put a price on the L’Oreal projects, his com-pany’s first undertakings, but he said the installations would provide $7.5 million worth of electricity over 30 years.
“We’re pleased that we met all our objectives,” Halter told Arkansas Business. “We finished ahead of schedule with better production than even we antici-pated. We used an Arkansas-based electrical firm, B&K Electric of Benton, and we look forward to doing more projects with them. We had planned on delivery to L’Oreal for July, so we were way ahead of schedule.”
The Kentucky array will pro-vide 1.42 megawatts of power, making it the largest commer-cial solar operation in that state. “The combined emphasis for companies is that they get the benefit of sustainability along with the understanding that solar power is cost-effective,” Halter said. “We’re excited not just about the Florence proj-ect, but also about discussions under way for further projects inside Arkansas and around the country.” n
OECC Catches Rays, and RecognitionSeveral of the state’s electric cooperatives have
ventured into solar power over the past several years, with Ouachita Electric Cooperative leading the way by distributing about 12 megawatts of power from a 151,000-panel array at Highland Industrial Park in Camden.
That installation, which largely serves the Aerojet Rocketdyne defense plant nearby, also gives OECC a cushion at times of peak power demand.
Last month the cooperative, which serves about 9,500 homes and businesses in south Arkansas, was named as one of the top 10 power companies nationwide for providing solar energy to customers
per capita.OECC provided 1,282 watts of solar power per
customer, ranking it fourth among U.S. electricity providers by that measure, according to the Smart Electric Power Association.
The No. 1 solar provider was the city utility of Palo Alto, California, at 2,753 watts per customer. In February, Palo Alto approved a contract providing some of the lowest-cost solar power ever negoti-ated in the United States, a price of 3.67 cents per kilowatt-hour in a 25-year deal with Hecate Energy of Nashville, Tennessee.
— Kyle Massey
The sun was out and hard hats gleamed last week as officials from NextEra Energy Resources and Entergy Arkansas broke ground on a 350,000-panel solar array near Stuttgart. [PHOTO BY KAREN E. SEGRAVE FOR NEXTERA ENERGY RESOURCES]
Solar: Sun smiles down on projects big and small
Continued From Page One
Shifting Tides Demand Quality Of PlaceReal estate professionals from across the state sat down with Arkansas Business for its latest CEO Roundtable
to discuss the changing face of commerce and development in the Natural State.
AB: Do those amenities and quality of life issues apply across the board from a talent attraction standpoint?
Covington: In Conway we’re bring-ing people in that are college gradu-ates, that are good with Acxiom, but the people that are good with their hands are not being trained for factory jobs of any kind. And there’s a lot of factories around. If you go to other parts of the state and you drive through the industri-al area most of it’s got “For sale” signs on it, “For lease” or whatever. I think that’s one part of the market that we’re missing out on.
Upton: As far as macroeconomic trends in central Arkansas, a real challenge in Little Rock is still the school system. I think that’s why the interstates are four and five wide at this point to Conway, Cabot, Benton, Bryant. Little Rock has taken a good direction with the vote on the capital improvements to the schools; being proactive is the right thing to do. But it’s going to take awhile, so I think you’ll still see the benefits of economic development activity extending to areas in central Arkansas outside of Little Rock.
AB: How difficult is it for communities to shift from Baby Boomer school of thought to Millennial school of thought in community planning?
Halsey: Millennials think differently; they’re not looking to work 80 or 90 hours a week. They’re looking to 40 to 50 hours a week and they want their quality of life. I think people my age and maybe a little bit older have a hard time getting that, simply because to us that was a luxury. Today it’s not a luxury, it’s reality.
Brown: There are numbers you have to pay attention to. Millennials are spending about half on department store stuff as what the generation before them did and double on restaurants and eating out. Millennials also spend double the percentage of their income on education than any generation before them. Not only that, they’ll move to a city just because their kid is going to college there. No other generation would ever do that. We know all of this data and the states that are already paying attention to it and creating places for it, I think, are going to be really successful.
Q:Q:
PRESENTED BY:
Arkansas Business: What are some of the primary trends affecting your industry right now?
Kris Upton, Rector Phillips Morse, Little Rock: Clearly online sales are having a very disruptive effect on retail occupancy and I think we’ve only scratched the surface. If anything, I think we might be missing how quickly that is occurring and how big the impact might be.
HanK Kelley, Flake and Kelley Com-mercial, Little Rock: We’ve had more stops on active (retail) projects since the election, which has nothing to do with the politics of who’s presi-dent, but everything to do with the funda-mentals of retail. They don’t want to go away, they just want to push to 2018, 2019 and hold with what they’ve got. It’s an indicator that retailers are being very sensitive about where they’re putting their capital right now. That’s got a lot to do with trying to figure out what their game looks like.
JosH Brown, Haag Brown Commercial, Jones-boro: You have some statistics that are mind-blowing. The amount of space that’s occupied by retailers that won’t be occupied by that retailer five years from now represents anywhere from 30 to 40 percent. Online sales, retail department store kind of stuff, was about 4
percent 10 years ago; it’s 15 percent now and causing lots of disruption and within 10 years it’s going to be over 40 percent. That trend isn’t going to change.
AB: Are smaller communities seeing opportunity now that people aren’t automatically heading for population centers for shopping?
george Covington, Covington Prop-erties, Conway: Several years ago, on a Friday night you didn’t think about eating in Conway. You went to Little Rock. You shopped in Little Rock. It was just a thing. On the weekend you went to Little Rock. Well, we don’t go to Little Rock anymore. We shop in Conway, we eat in Con-way, we’ve got as good a restaurants as they do in Little Rock. The amenities are so close that it’s made us more of a regional draw.
greg naBHolz, Newmark Grubb and Nabholz Properties, Conway: Not every-body, when they graduate from college, wants to move to a big city. Certainly that’s been a problem with a lot of places in Arkansas because people may want to go to Dallas or somewhere else. But people will move to places where they know there is a vibrant community no matter the size. Iowa did an extensive study on that and they found the people who gradu-ated college there would go back to the smaller towns and communities that did certain things, such as creating these vibrant downtowns, that create these areas where there’s plenty of people their age living there.
AB: And yet not every town can provide everything. Does the model therefore become not only what you have but what you’re close to?
Jerry Halsey, Halsey Thrasher Harpole, Jonesboro: That’s what we’re wanting to build in Jonesboro. I can leave my office at 5 p.m. and at 6 p.m. I can be at a Mem-phis Redbirds game or Grizzlies game. I have a friend who lives in Memphis and from where he’s coming from across town there’s times when I can get there before he does just because traffic is so bad. So when you talk about quality of life, I think you don’t just look at what Jonesboro has, but kind of look an hour away.
AB: That model naturally leads to traffic flow; what have you seen on that front?
Kelley: If you look at central Arkansas’ transportation system and the way our grid is set up, it’s pretty easy to get to almost anyplace in Little Rock, especially compared to northwest Arkansas. When I’m on a tour in northwest Arkansas driv-ing I-49, I can spend twice as much time covering the same geography as I do in central Arkansas. Now, they’re trying to fix it but you’ve got a carotid artery that’s corrupted with lack of attention and more 18-wheelers per square foot than any place in America. Not that I’m against northwest Arkansas, but the reality of driving and the reality of living there is going to reach a tipping point where either they get ahead of infrastructure or people are really going to start voting that they don’t want to do this every day.
Q:Q:
Q:
Q:HanK
Kelleywith what they’ve got. It’s an HanK
KrisUpton
KrisUpton
JosHBrown
retailer five years from now represents anywhere from
JosH
greg naBHolzated college there would go greg
georgeCovington
way, we’ve got as good a george
Jerry Halseyfrom across town there’s Jerry
Shifting Tides Demand Quality Of PlaceReal estate professionals from across the state sat down with Arkansas Business for its latest CEO Roundtable
to discuss the changing face of commerce and development in the Natural State.
SPONSORED SUPPLEMENTSPONSORED SUPPLEMENT
AB: Do those amenities and quality of life issues apply across the board from a talent attraction standpoint?
Covington: In Conway we’re bring-ing people in that are college gradu-ates, that are good with Acxiom, but the people that are good with their hands are not being trained for factory jobs of any kind. And there’s a lot of factories around. If you go to other parts of the state and you drive through the industri-al area most of it’s got “For sale” signs on it, “For lease” or whatever. I think that’s one part of the market that we’re missing out on.
Upton: As far as macroeconomic trends in central Arkansas, a real challenge in Little Rock is still the school system. I think that’s why the interstates are four and five wide at this point to Conway, Cabot, Benton, Bryant. Little Rock has taken a good direction with the vote on the capital improvements to the schools; being proactive is the right thing to do. But it’s going to take awhile, so I think you’ll still see the benefits of economic development activity extending to areas in central Arkansas outside of Little Rock.
AB: How difficult is it for communities to shift from Baby Boomer school of thought to Millennial school of thought in community planning?
Halsey: Millennials think differently; they’re not looking to work 80 or 90 hours a week. They’re looking to 40 to 50 hours a week and they want their quality of life. I think people my age and maybe a little bit older have a hard time getting that, simply because to us that was a luxury. Today it’s not a luxury, it’s reality.
Brown: There are numbers you have to pay attention to. Millennials are spending about half on department store stuff as what the generation before them did and double on restaurants and eating out. Millennials also spend double the percentage of their income on education than any generation before them. Not only that, they’ll move to a city just because their kid is going to college there. No other generation would ever do that. We know all of this data and the states that are already paying attention to it and creating places for it, I think, are going to be really successful.
Q:Q:
PRESENTED BY:
Arkansas Business: What are some of the primary trends affecting your industry right now?
Kris Upton, Rector Phillips Morse, Little Rock: Clearly online sales are having a very disruptive effect on retail occupancy and I think we’ve only scratched the surface. If anything, I think we might be missing how quickly that is occurring and how big the impact might be.
HanK Kelley, Flake and Kelley Com-mercial, Little Rock: We’ve had more stops on active (retail) projects since the election, which has nothing to do with the politics of who’s presi-dent, but everything to do with the funda-mentals of retail. They don’t want to go away, they just want to push to 2018, 2019 and hold with what they’ve got. It’s an indicator that retailers are being very sensitive about where they’re putting their capital right now. That’s got a lot to do with trying to figure out what their game looks like.
JosH Brown, Haag Brown Commercial, Jones-boro: You have some statistics that are mind-blowing. The amount of space that’s occupied by retailers that won’t be occupied by that retailer five years from now represents anywhere from 30 to 40 percent. Online sales, retail department store kind of stuff, was about 4
percent 10 years ago; it’s 15 percent now and causing lots of disruption and within 10 years it’s going to be over 40 percent. That trend isn’t going to change.
AB: Are smaller communities seeing opportunity now that people aren’t automatically heading for population centers for shopping?
george Covington, Covington Prop-erties, Conway: Several years ago, on a Friday night you didn’t think about eating in Conway. You went to Little Rock. You shopped in Little Rock. It was just a thing. On the weekend you went to Little Rock. Well, we don’t go to Little Rock anymore. We shop in Conway, we eat in Con-way, we’ve got as good a restaurants as they do in Little Rock. The amenities are so close that it’s made us more of a regional draw.
greg naBHolz, Newmark Grubb and Nabholz Properties, Conway: Not every-body, when they graduate from college, wants to move to a big city. Certainly that’s been a problem with a lot of places in Arkansas because people may want to go to Dallas or somewhere else. But people will move to places where they know there is a vibrant community no matter the size. Iowa did an extensive study on that and they found the people who gradu-ated college there would go back to the smaller towns and communities that did certain things, such as creating these vibrant downtowns, that create these areas where there’s plenty of people their age living there.
AB: And yet not every town can provide everything. Does the model therefore become not only what you have but what you’re close to?
Jerry Halsey, Halsey Thrasher Harpole, Jonesboro: That’s what we’re wanting to build in Jonesboro. I can leave my office at 5 p.m. and at 6 p.m. I can be at a Mem-phis Redbirds game or Grizzlies game. I have a friend who lives in Memphis and from where he’s coming from across town there’s times when I can get there before he does just because traffic is so bad. So when you talk about quality of life, I think you don’t just look at what Jonesboro has, but kind of look an hour away.
AB: That model naturally leads to traffic flow; what have you seen on that front?
Kelley: If you look at central Arkansas’ transportation system and the way our grid is set up, it’s pretty easy to get to almost anyplace in Little Rock, especially compared to northwest Arkansas. When I’m on a tour in northwest Arkansas driv-ing I-49, I can spend twice as much time covering the same geography as I do in central Arkansas. Now, they’re trying to fix it but you’ve got a carotid artery that’s corrupted with lack of attention and more 18-wheelers per square foot than any place in America. Not that I’m against northwest Arkansas, but the reality of driving and the reality of living there is going to reach a tipping point where either they get ahead of infrastructure or people are really going to start voting that they don’t want to do this every day.
Q:Q:
Q:
Q:HanK
Kelley
KrisUpton
JosHBrown
greg naBHolz
georgeCovington
Jerry Halsey
14 May 15, 2017 Arkansas Business
The property was purchased for$424,000 in January 2001 from White-stone Investment Group of Los Angeles.
The 0.69-acre Stagecoach develop-ment previously secured a March 2013 mortgage of $500,000 held by Centen-nial Bank.
The location was bought for $160,000 in March 2013 from RJ Properties LLC,led by Douglas and David Hendrix.
Retail TransactionA 15,453-SF retail center in North
Little Rock rang up a $950,000 sale.Gosen LLC, led by Joseph Minkyu Park,
purchased the Family Dollar Store, Sub-way and New World Beauty project at 4202-04 Camp Robinson Road.
The seller is James Family Properties LLLP, led by Judith Scherer.
The deal is backed with a 20-year loan of $760,000 from BancorpSouth Bank.
The 1.52-acre location was acquired for $230,000 in November 2003 from Fleming Cos. Inc. of Oklahoma City.
School SaleA former elementary school in North
Little Rock drew a $530,000 transaction.I-40 Kerr LLC, led by Byron McKimmey,
bought the Park Hill Elementary project at 3801 JFK Blvd. from the North Little Rock School District.
The 5.27-acre property was assem-bled in two transactions with Justin and Agnes Matthews for “the minimum legal consideration” of $1 in September 1924 and his Metropolitan Trust Co., $30,000 in May 1951.
Commercial LandA 4.61-acre commercial site in North
Little Rock sold for $425,000.Richardson Properties LLC, led by
Keith Richardson, acquired sole owner-ship of the land on the south side of 9300 Maumelle Blvd.
The seller is MGY LLC, led by Marc Yelenich.
The property was bought through RichMarc Development LLC in January 2002 for $215,000.
The sellers were Nancy and Robert Lott, Carlos Robinson Jr. and his wife, Thressi, McKinley and Sansanee Robin-son, Ruben and Joyce Robinson, Arthur and Margaret Ellison Hubert, Treopia Bryant and Elsie Dodson.
Estates HomeA 4,330-SF home in the Somersett
Estates neighborhood of west Pulaski County is under new ownership after a $730,000 deal.
Christie and Deno Grumbos purchased the property from Stuart and MitziMiller.
The deal is financed with a 30-year loan of $424,100 from Arvest Bank.
The 5-acre residential spread pre-viously was tied to a June 2015 mort-gage of $484,380 held by BancorpSouthBank.
The location was acquired for $75,000 in February 2013 from Joey and Brandy Rhodes.
Mirabel ResidenceA 3,700-SF home in the Mirabel Court
neighborhood of west Little Rock’s Chenal Valley development changed hands in a $534,900 transaction.
Maroun and Kay Farah bought the house from Randy James Construction Co. The deal is funded with a 30-year loan of $418,410 from NFTN Inc. of Lewisville, Texas.
The residence previously was linked with a June 2016 mortgage of $368,000 held by First Security Bank of Searcy.
The location was purchased for $87,000 11 months ago from Crain Family Holdings LLC, led by Larry Crain Jr.
Chimney Rock HouseA 5,280-SF home in Sherwood’s
Chimney Rock neighborhood rang up a $525,000 sale.
Carl and Mary Peterson acquired the house from the Roby & Tonya Lambert Family Trust.
The deal is backed with a 30-year loan of $420,000 from IberiaBank of Lafayette, Louisiana.
The residence was bought for $735,000 in September 2005 from Jason and Ginger Ford.
Woodland’s DwellingA 3,485-SF home in the Woodland’s
Edge neighborhood of west Little Rock drew a $508,000 transaction.
David and Amelia Bardwell purchased the house from River Rock Builders LLC, led by Keith Wingfield. The deal is financed with a 30-year loan of $457,149 from Wells Fargo Bank of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
The residence previously was tied to an April 2016 mortgage of $392,000 held by BancorpSouth Bank.
River Rock acquired the location for $72,000 in January 2015 from Rocket Properties LLC, led by Ron Tyne and Lis-enne Rockefeller. n
A 35,520-SF office building in west Little Rock weighed in at $3.25 million.
Normandy Place LLC, led by Max Mehl-burger, purchased the Markham Execu-tive Center at 10201 W. Markham St. The seller is Security Plan Life Insurance Co. of Donaldsonville, Louisiana.
The deal is financed with a 21-year loan of $1.76 million from BancorpSouth Bank of Tupelo, Mississippi.
The 1.93-acre development was bought in October 2008 as part of the$8 million acquisition of Ozark National Life Insurance Co. by the parent com-pany of Security Plan Life, Citizens Inc. of Austin, Texas.
Meadowcrest PurchaseA 122-unit apartment project in
southwest Little Rock tipped the scales at $2.8 million.
Meadowcrest Apartments LLC, led by Don Marshall Jr., sold its namesake com-plex at 5315 Stanley Drive to Colonial Park RBG LLC of West Plains, Missouri.
The deal is funded with a five-year loan of $2.2 million from Arvest Bank of Fayetteville. The 7.57-acre development previously was tied to a June 2010 mort-gage of $2.3 million held by One Bank & Trust of Little Rock.
The property was assembled in four transactions totaling more than $1 mil-lion.
The sellers were Zato Investments Ltd., led by Michael Rushin, $1 million in October 2003; Mahmood Qadri and Zohra Sharief, $48,000 in December 2003; Oldner Real Estate Management Inc., led by John Oldner, $15,000 in February 2004; and Habitat for Humanity of Saline County Arkansas Inc., led by Donna Bosley, $12,000 in March 2004.
Dollar DealA Dollar General Store in Little Rock is
under new ownership after a $1.22 mil-lion transaction.
GRT Little Rock DG LLC of San Rafael, California, bought the 9,360-SF store at 4748 Springer Blvd. from Rosebud Springer LLC of Huntington Beach, California.
The 1.02-acre development previously was linked with a December 2014 mort-gage of $720,000 held by Arvest Bank.
The project was purchased for $1.2 million in December 2014 from PB General Holdings (Springer) LLC, led by Leonard Boen.
Tandem ForeclosuresA pair of Little Rock retail projects
changed hands in foreclosure sales total-ing $985,000.
YN Investments LLC, led by Murad Mandani, acquired the 15,460-SF South Park Center at 7515 Geyer Springs Road for $640,000 and a 3,016-SF project at 10507 Stagecoach Road for $345,000.
The properties were owned by RWL Investments LLC, led by Ron Lazenby.
The 1.81-acre South Park development previously helped secure an April 2014 mortgage of $3.1 million held by First Community Bank of Eastern Arkansas in Marion and a July 2014 mortgage of $640,000 held by Centennial Bank of Conway.
New ownership visited Little Rock’s Markham Executive Center. [PHOTO BY GEORGE WALDON]
Attracts $3.2M Sale
Seven-Digit Construction
Kroger Remodel $3,432,3862509 McCain Blvd., North Little RockCDI Contractors LLC, Little Rock Remodeling $1,945,000Collision Center10005 Col. Glenn Road, Little RockITR Construction LLC, North Little Rock New Home $1,050,00013900 Beau Vue Drive, Little RockParkinson Building Group Inc., Little Rock
Arkansas Business May 15, 2017 15
Sales HeroHolly Fleenor17 years of sales experience; 14 of those in telecommunications.
Biggest Sales Accomplishment?President’s Cabinet
Secret To Sales Success:Holly’s secret is her relationship with custom-ers. With longevity in the industry, she serves as a trusted advisor helping businesses move forward with technology. By putting customers’ needs fi rst, Holly brings smart solutions to their daily challenges while demonstrating a proven ROI. Watching a business transform and become more profi table and e� cient is the most fulfi ll-ing part of the job.
Sales Heroes
Wes Martin 7 years in sales
Biggest Sales Accomplishment? My biggest sales accomplishment was helping a client successfully secure a ground lease on a piece of property that others in the industry said was impossible to lease. I take pride in helping clients achieve something that others say is impossible.
Secret to Sales Success: Always work harder than the person next to you and follow up, follow up, follow up.
John C. Hathaway 33 years in sales
Biggest Sales Accomplishment? Over three decades of consistent service to clients.
Secret to Sales Success: Clear understanding that if the client’s needs are first priority, commissions will naturally follow.
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HATHAWAY GROUP
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Their professionalism and sales experience set them apart in their industry.
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
16 May 15, 2017 Arkansas Business
Most Read Stories of the WeekArkansasBusiness.com’s most popular stories for the week ending May 11:
1. Little Rock Looks Up: 7 Downtown Projects Set to Open by Year’s EndA restart is in the works for a key part of the Creative Corridor in downtown Little Rock.
2. El Dorado Building Its Hopes On ArtsSouth Arkansas city hopes to attract people, keep residents with $100 million project.
3. CJRW Wins $15M Parks & Tourism Ad ContractLittle Rock ad fi rm has had at least a part of the account since the 1970s.
4. Governor Makes Appointments to Boards, CommissionsWorkforce Services, Stadium commissions see new members.
5. Bank of the Ozarks Expands BoardCompany’s board membership raised to 16, female board membership now 25 percent.
“I’m hoping our project will keep these people home more, and increase the likelihood of other companies
relocating here with a large employee base.”— Austin Barrow, president and COO of nonprofi t El Dorado
Festivals & Events Inc.
Did you have any idea that 54 per-cent of employees at CJRW have had an Arkansas fishing license?
Or that 51 percent of the workers at the Little Rock marketing firm have owned a kayak, boat or canoe?
And just guess how many got mar-ried in Arkansas. All is revealed in the unredacted parts of CJRW’s proposal for promoting Arkansas parks and tourism.
As widely anticipated, CJRW kept its hold on the state’s largest marketing contract, a $15.2 million-a-year job of providing all advertising services, “tra-ditional” and digital, for the Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism.
CJRW has worked for Parks & Tourism for well over 40 years, and its pitch emphasized the home-field advantage. Along with plenty of Arkansas-centric workforce details like those above, it highlighted dozens of pictures of employees and their loved ones enjoying Arkansas parks, lakes and attractions.
(By the way, 71 percent of the firm’s people were married in Arkansas, a nug-get illustrated by an image of company President Jill Joslin in her wedding dress at the State Capitol.)
Much of the red meat was redacted from CJRW’s 210-page written submis-sion, including specific strategies and the names of any subcontractors. But the intangibles may have boosted it over the other two finalists, Birdsall Voss & Associates of Milwaukee, known as BVK, and D&G Collaborative, the union of Natalie Ghidotti of Little Rock and John Deveney of New Orleans.
CJRW faced a no-win PR situation. Had it lost the tourism account, the nar-rative in Arkansas’ competitive advertis-ing world would have been “big firm with all the advantages loses longtime state contract.” In winning, it faces this mind-set: “Big firm with political connections triumphs; what else is new?”
There’s no doubt that the announce-ment carried no surprise. But you can’t fault CJRW’s flaunting its Arkansas bona fides. There’s founder and Chairman Emeritus Shelby Woods pictured bicycling in Bentonville. Brian Clark, the tourism account’s senior strategist, enjoys a bever-age at Beaver Lake. Creative director Wade McCune and his photogenic family beam at Lake Hamilton and Lake Catherine. Gary Heathcott admires a mess of fish he hooked at Lake Ouachita. Lauren Euseppi, Elizabeth Michael, Drew Harris and friends ply the Buffalo River.
As one veteran Little Rock ad man said, a judging panel made up largely of parks department and parks com-mission officials was never likely to pick an out-of-state firm, though seven were among the 13 agencies in the running.
BVK, which submitted a 148-page unredacted proposal, was ready to com-mit 40 employees to the account and to open an office in Arkansas. But it seemed to acknowledge it was fighting uphill. “Nearly 75% of BVK’s business is not physically located near a BVK office and that’s the case for 100% of our DMO [destination marketing organization] cli-ents,” it said. “This approach has served BVK and our clients very well.”
Birdsall was only slightly behind after written proposals but fell far back after oral presentations, winning just 46 points in the second phase to 76 points by D&G Collaborative and 101 points to CJRW.
Some advertising pros groused about cronyism favoring CJRW, and anonymous comments on the Arkansas Business website suggested that the fix was in. The state would be better served by a more diverse group of judges, sever-al commenters said, and one noted that Parks & Tourism Director Kane Webb was appointed by Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is said to be close to CJRW’s leadership.
Still, a partner at a competing firm, speaking on the condition of anonymity,
said CJRW was also a logi-cal choice, experienced and well-equipped to handle a big account. “They’re prob-ably the biggest firm in town, they have a lot of skilled people, and they’ve been doing this work for years. It’s only natural that the state would want an in-state ven-dor, too. In all fairness, some shops couldn’t take over that account without doing a lot
of hiring and transition. CJRW can do it seamlessly.”
On the other hand, the state’s behind-closed-doors procurement process feeds doubt and speculation, another ad man said. “I don’t know why it’s done that way. They talk about transparency, then do things like block the oral pitches from public view. The presentations used to be public, so why the change?”n
Tourism Pitch: Arkansas,You Run Deep in CJRW ArkansasBusiness.com
Publisher Editor Online Editor Print/Digital Reporter Mitch Bettis Gwen Moritz Lance Turner Sarah Campbell-Miller @mitchbettis @gwenmoritz @LT @ArkNewsGirl
66% of CJRW employees are from Arkansas
Burnham Fam
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Vita
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Bret Ellington | Lake Springfield
Rachel Reynolds | Greenbrier
Arkansas Business May 15, 2017 17
Rock Dental Brands of Little Rock recently bought the group Arkansas Dentistry & Braces, and it’s not done buy-ing.
The dental group is acquiring anoth-er dental group that has seven or eight offices in Arkansas and Missouri, Merritt Dake, one of the founders of Rock Dental, told Arkansas Business last week.
Dake declined to name the clinic, but said the deal should close by the end of the month.
“And then after that, we’re going to take a little bit of a breather,” Dake said. “We feel pretty confident and comfort-able in taking all of them on, but it’s always nice to have a few months of operating to ensure that we smooth out the processes before we take on more.”
Rock Dental Brands — founded in 2012 by orthodontists Dake, his father, Mark Dake, and Bryan Hiller — now has a total of 58 locations, including 39 in Arkansas and Missouri. Most of the Arkansas and Missouri loca-tions operate under the names Westrock
Orthodontics, Leap Kids Pediatric Dental, Impact Oral Surgery and Rock Family Dental, and four clinics in northeast Arkansas will eventually be branded as Rock Dental.
Smaller dental groups selling to larg-er practices has become a trend in the industry, but most dental practices in Arkansas are still operated by sole prac-titioners.
Rock Dental’s acqui-sitions have fueled rev-enue growth. It brought in $8 million in 2014 and $30 million the fol-lowing year. In 2016,
Rock Dental Brands had $51 million in revenue, and this year it is projecting $71 million.
Dake said Rock Dental’s growth has been “meticulously” planned out. “We probably had a lot more interest from other dentists in the community in both Arkansas and Missouri, maybe more than we expected,” he said.
Typically, the dentists who sell their clinics to Rock Dental continue work-ing at the practice, but Rock Dental’s recent acquisition of Arkansas Dentistry & Braces from Drs. Benjamin Burris and Justin Bethel was not typical. “The own-ers are selling and leaving the state,” said Dake, who declined to reveal the pur-chase price for the 19 locations, which include offices in northwest and north-east Arkansas.
Dake said Rock Dental first reached out to Arkansas Dentistry in 2015 to see if it was interested in being acquired, but nothing came of the inquiry. At the end of 2016, however, Arkansas Dentistry contacted Rock Dental to ask if it was still interested in the purchase.
Dake declined to say what changed the minds of Arkansas Dentistry’s own-ers.
Burris didn’t return a text message or an email, and Bethel couldn’t be reached for comment. In a news release, how-ever, the dentists called the sale the “best course of action for our patients, our team members and our community.”
Dake said Rock Dental wanted to buy Arkansas Dentistry, which was formed in 2014, because of its locations in Arkansas.
The Friday Eldredge & Clark law firm in
Little Rock prepared the documents for the sale, which closed on April 28.
Arkansas Dentistry bought a majority of its supplies overseas, and Dake said that purchasing will now be handled by Rock Dental. The Arkansas Dentistry name will remain for now but will change to a Rock Dental brand name later.
The acquisition pushed the num-ber of employees Rock Dental has at its headquarters and all clinics to 410. In December, the head count was 230.
As with other Rock Dental clinics, the dental professionals will have the authority to treat patients the way they think is best, Dake said. He said other large clinics sometimes dictate to the providers what treatment procedures to use.
“We take a little bit different approach,” Dake said. “We want the doc-tors to be comfortable in the procedures that they’re doing, and really making the decisions on treatment.” n
Rock Dental:Deals KeepDake Smiling
Merritt Dake says Rock Dental Brands feels “pretty confident and comfortable” in its new acquisitions.
Sales HeroesMichael Johnson 18 years in sales
I strive to help others achieve their goals.“Those who are the happiest are those who do the most for oth-ers.” - Booker T. Washington
Myles McDougal 9 years in sales
A successful advertising campaign is only as good as the media outlet. Arkansas Business is hands down the best media outlet for busi-nesses to reach other businesses.
Rosemary Bruton 17 years in sales
I love building and maintaining close relationships with my clients and helping them achieve their marketing goals.
Greg Churan 24 years in sales
I strive to be a persistent, trusted adviser by recommending relevant solutions and sharing qualified referrals.
Scott Haggard 31 years in sales
I like to gain insight into my cli-ent’s needs, issues and industry trends then translate that infor-mation into a marketing strategy to maximize my client’s advertis-ing investment.
Donald Trump, desperate for a win that didn’t come with an aster-isk because the Senate changed
the confirmation rules, held a Rose Garden celebration when the House of Representatives barely approved a replacement for the Affordable Care Act that is 180 degrees from the promises he made to working-class Americans whose votes in key states made him president.
The Potemkin celebration didn’t sur-prise me: President Trump’s brand is all about the optics. Perhaps his true believ-ers wouldn’t realize that he didn’t have a bill to sign — or what the bill he was celebrating would actually do to them and their families. It’s a cinch none of them knows how much it would cost or how many people it would affect because Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan, throwing yet another conservative tradition under the bus, couldn’t wait for pesky little details like that before insisting on a vote.
But, weeks later, I’m still trying to figure out the politics. Are House Republicans counting on Senate Republicans to keep them from actually sending millions of Americans back into the ranks of the uninsured? Or have Republicans looked at their November election results — seats lost in both House and Senate and the sixth second-place popular vote count in the past seven presidential elections — and decided that this may be their last chance to pull national policy back to the right before the liberals take hold?
Or could Robert Costa, political report-er for the Washington Post, have gotten it right when he tweeted that Republicans “believe they can perhaps blame [Senate Democrats] for any further stall. Tell base they’ve acted, rally for 2018.”
Blaming the other party is always popular, but it seems risky in this case. I can’t imagine that Democrats, slammed in highly effective 2012 campaign ads for cutting $500 billion from Medicare (in order to get more people insured), are going to let 2018 pass without reminding voters that Republicans voted to cut $800 billion from Medicaid while sending most of it back to high-income taxpayers. (Misleading? So was telling voters that Mexico would pay for a wall.)
President Trump’s premature exul-tation notwithstanding, Obamacare remains in place. It is as flawed as ever, but millions of Americans — including one in 10 Arkansans — are better off than they were without it. Senate Republicans have a rare opportunity, legislatively and politically, if they will seize it.
Consider: They no longer have to prove that they would never, ever make nice with Barack Obama, and they only have one Senate seat to defend in 2018 in a state that Hillary Clinton carried. Most importantly, Trump’s nomination and election should reassure them that GOP primary voters actually love big-govern-ment promises and care little about tradi-
tional conservative policies. (The biggest takeaway from 2016: Policy is overrated.)
If the goal is to fix Obamacare, Republicans can do that by re-embrac-ing the individual mandate to buy health insurance. Yes, I know that the current Republican position is that no American should be forced to buy a commercial product (except auto insurance, obvi-ously). But Republican voters are used to changing their deeply held convictions on command — just as they did when Republicans abandoned the original, conservative, Heritage Foundation idea that an individual mandate was the sort of personal responsibility that good citi-zens want to take on anyway. Stiffen the punishment for not buying insurance, bring the young and bulletproof into the system, watch the private-sector compe-tition rebound.
This is not actually my preferred sys-tem. I remain attracted to the idea of mandatory, government-run catastroph-ic coverage for all legal residents of the United States, regardless of age, medical history or place of employment. It would be similar to Medicare for all, but with a very high deductible — I’m thinking $25,000 or thereabouts, but I’m not sure of the right number — so that it serves as a safety net rather than a first line of defense.
The private insurance industry could continue to operate below that level, with a variety of products available for indi-viduals and families — even employee groups, if we insist on continuing the artificial connection between workplace and health insurance. (Admit it, employ-ers. You’d be delighted to get shed of that responsibility.)
Higher-income folks could afford bet-ter insurance with lower deductibles. Lower-income families still might have to declare bankruptcy because they couldn’t pay the deductible, but the uncollectible costs shifted to the rest of us would be much smaller.
Yes, I’m talking about another social-istic government program like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — the ones candidate Trump repeatedly prom-ised not to cut because it turns out that Republican voters actually love that kind of thing. n
Email Gwen Moritz, editor of Arkansas Business, at [email protected].
Voters in the Little Rock School District made their voices heard Tuesday: No taxation without
representation.Almost 65 percent of those voting
opposed extending a tax to raise $160 million for the district. The overwhelm-ing defeat came despite an uneven playing field. Citizens Against Taxation Without Representation raised only about $3,000 to campaign against the tax plan, while the Committee to Rebuild Our Schools Now raised 10 times that, more than $30,000.
It’s been two years since the state of Arkansas took control of the LRSD and dismantled the school board. It cited six academically distressed schools, a num-ber now reduced to three. The takeover and lack of local control have deeply divided the city, a situation that benefits no one. And there’s no doubt that the dis-trict needs the money an extension of the millage would have provided.
With the vote, however, school district patrons declared they won’t volunteer to give the district more of their money when they don’t think they’re being represent-
ed. This attitude is as American as it gets.State Sen. Linda Chesterfield, speak-
ing Wednesday at a rally to press for a locally elected school board, acknowl-
edged the need to heal the divisions, then added: “But I had great hope when I saw the results of the election by precinct, because across the city, the citizens of this school district sent a message: ‘No taxation without
representation.’ They didn’t just say it in southwest or the East End. They said it across the city. This should be a message to these folks: We believe in democracy.”
Chesterfield on Wednesday joined eight other lawmakers from Pulaski County in calling on the state to reinstate a locally elected school board “as soon as possible but no later than 2018.”
We agree, with an emphasis on the “as soon as possible.” n
Here’s a trivia question for those who followed President Trump’s
reception of his Chinese coun-terpart at Mar-a-Lago: How many of the world’s most recog-nizable brands started in China? The answer: Exactly zero.
According to Interbrand’s lat-est report on best global brands, Apple, Google and Coca-Cola head the list. If you listed those brands by geography instead of by name, that’d be California, California and Georgia.
Of course, the United States does not have exclusive rights to the world’s most recogniz-able brands. Think Mercedes-Benz or Louis Vuitton. And not all brands are old: Henry Ford started making cars more than a hundred years ago, but Amazon is less than 25 years old. Not all brands are Western, either: Toyota and Samsung — that is, Japan and South Korea — both make Interbrand’s top 10.
So what do the United States, Germany and France — but also Japan and South Korea — have that China doesn’t? These nations tolerate free-
thinking, and China does not. Freethinking sometimes car-ries with it an assumption of atheism, but I’m not using it in that way; after all, atheists can be as closed-minded as the rest of us.
Indeed, some of the most influential freethinkers have been profoundly religious. In “The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy,” his incred-ible essay in the American Political Science Review, Robert D. Woodberry shows how the
presence or absence of “con-versionary Protestants” — peo-ple we’d call evangelicals — explains significantly the rise of democracies worldwide.
“Religious beliefs and insti-tutions matter,” he concludes. “What we consider modernity was not the inevitable result of economic development, urbanization, industrializa-tion, secularization, or the Enlightenment, but a far more contingent process profoundly shaped by activist religion.”
The United Arab Emirates — a federation of absolute monarchies — offers a case in point. The UAE boasts a New York University campus but forbids Muslim citizens from choosing another religion, or no religion at all. If Woodberry is right, don’t look to the UAE for the next global brand. Societies need more than imported American research universities. They need freethinkers.
And that’s one obvious test for freethinking: How do people handle religious beliefs outside the mainstream? Shintoism and Buddhism are the major-
ity religions in Japan, but Japan has had several Christian prime ministers — along with, unsur-prisingly, world-class compa-nies like Toyota, Honda and Sony.
There’s a pattern here. Religious liberty and economic flourishing go hand in hand. Religious intolerance and eco-nomic flourishing don’t. That makes sense: If you can’t prac-tice your religion in your living room, why do you think you can start building computers in your garage?
And so we come to Arkansas: Let’s make sure the citizens of this state can voice opinions out of step with our cultural con-sensus on hot-button issues and be unafraid of state action against them. Now, they may annoy their neighbors, some of whom may be their clients or their customers. So they may lose revenue, as people decide they don’t want to shop there.
But it’s one thing to fear failure in the marketplace; it’s another thing to fear a knock at the door. This February the Washington State Supreme
Court, in a unanimous ruling, said Barronelle Stutzman, a flo-rist, should have prepared flow-ers for a gay marriage, despite her religious beliefs. The state attorney general personally argued the state’s case against her. Whatever you think of the technicalities of Arkansas’ attempt to localize the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, there’s something to be said for limiting the power of the state to check people’s religious beliefs.
It’s most important when you find a person’s position most offensive.
Notice the argument here isn’t constitutional, but eco-nomic: Let freethinkers flourish in a state whose nickname used to be the Land of Opportunity. Freethinkers don’t always wear skinny jeans, leather jackets and smoke unfiltered cigarettes.
Sometimes they’re old Christian women. But they have businesses, too, and we should let them keep them. n
James Bruce is an associate professor of philosophy at John Brown University in Siloam Springs. Email him at [email protected]
in North Carolina. In fourth grade, we do state reports and I have chosen your state! I am very excited to learn more about the great state of Arkansas as I work on my report.
Most of the information that we get for our reports will be from books and websites. We also like to get informa-tion from people who live in the state, too. This is why I am writing to you. I was hoping that you would be willing to send me some items to help me learn more about the best things in your state. It could be things like postcards, maps, pictures, souvenirs, general information, this newspaper article or any other items that would be useful. You can mail items to the address below. I really appreciate your help! n
Archie ZimmerMr. McConaughy’s Class
Charlotte Latin School9502 Providence Road
Charlotte, NC 28277
FEEDBACK
Help aKid Out Construction Begins on State’s
Largest Solar Array
DoggpatchDan: Two things: First, if the energy purchase price is confi dential under a PSC agreement, how will it be known if this is a good fi nancial deal? Or maybe Entergy doesn’t want people to know how aff ordable solar can be?
Second, there’s a woman in that photo. Taken altogether, this whole newfangled so-lar power business and letting a woman into this man’s world just seems too farfetched for Arkansas. We need to go back to coal, like our fearless leader President Trump suggests.
Libertycan86: All this talk of economic de-velopment and long-term economic benefi ts sound a little far-fetched to me. It realistically sounds like there will be 250 construction jobs for three-quarters of a year and then after that you’ll have a handful of employees at the site to manage it. I would like to see a little more information on this “additional $8 million in taxes OVER THE LIFE of the array.” What kind of taxes? This sounds like the “libraries produce $4 for every $1 invested” argument that was put forth in Searcy for the new library. It all sounds like a bunch of smoke and mirrors and rainbows and unicorns that the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce can use to say “look at what we did” and beat his chest and go back to his offi ce while the rest of Arkansas County wastes away.
Cable Cord-Cutting in Arkansas,and Feeling It at ESPN
Herb Lair: Live sports continue to be the big hook for cable. Time-shifted prime-time pro-gramming is acceptable, and live news and weather are easily available. There are several aggregators providing guides and access to day-old content at less than $10 a month. Options for local broadcast stations are avail-able via high-def antennas or internet.
The cable model, unlike the original broadcast model of matching content cost increases with advertising, has gotten so skewed to con-tent being paid by subscribers, not advertisers, it’s getting a shock. ESPN has always been on the basic tier for mutually benefi cial reasons. Cable subs are subsidizing that content with 30 percent sports addicts and the remaining 70 percent casual or non-sports sub paying $1 billion a month. Streaming with 100 percent ad-supported content will bring a much needed new model perspective. Google’s YouTube viewers are watching a billion hours of its clips per day. Google has perfected the ad-supported search and content model. The cable TV revenue model is admittedly broken.
Sam Smith: Folks are tired of being ripped off . Technology has made things easier and more economical. If you live close to TV tow-ers, you can just get an antenna and get lots of stations for free. Complement that with all the streaming options and you’re set.
Report: Wal-Mart Near $300MSettlement Over Alleged Bribery
Gino Capito: I’ve worked for other interna-tional companies in the past and it was well known that large companies in countries such as Mexico and in South America, etc. demanded bribes. It wasn’t that the U.S. company wanted to; it had to. Corrupt coun-tries require corrupt rules. Unfortunate.
Dismang, Gillam Pick 16for Governor’s Tax Reform Group
Fire Mark Pryor: Hopefully, these legisla-tors and the governor will go “big and bold” and set Arkansas on the path to eliminating the state income tax as Texas, Tennessee, Florida, New Hampshire, Washington state, Nevada, Alaska, Wyoming and South Dakota have! n
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Arkansas Business will recognize 20 young professionals between the ages of 20 and 29 who are making their mark on the Arkansas business community.
DO YOU KNOW A 20-SOMETHING WHO IS WOrTH WATCHING?
NomiNate Now ArKANSASBUSINESS.COM/20
Legal NoticesNOTICE
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF PULASKI COUNTY, ARKANSAS PROBATE DIVISION
ESTATE OF ROSEMARY G. COMPTON, DECEASEDLAST KNOWN ADDRESS: 14300 Chenal Parkway #1309Little Rock, Arkansas 72211DATE OF DEATH: April 12, 2017
DOCKET NO.: 60PR-17-746
A will dated February 22, 2010, was on April 21, 2017, admitted to probate as the last will of the above named decedent and the undersigned has been appointed Executrix thereunder. A contest of the probate of the will can be effected only by filing a
petition within the time provided by law.
All persons having claims against the estate must exhibit them, duly verified, to the undersigned within six (6) months from the date of the first publication of this notice, or they shall be forever barred and precluded from any benefit in the estate.
This notice first published on May 8, 2017.
Stephanie G. Johnson, Executrixc/o Craig S. LairRose Law Firma Professional Association120 E. Fourth StreetLittle Rock, AR 72201
PROBATE NOTICE PROBATE NOTICE
THE DEADLINETO SUBMIT
LEGAL NOTICESIS NOON MONDAY.
Submit your notices to [email protected]. For more info contact Bonnie Jacoby at (501) 372-1443 ext. 308.
Arkansas Business May 15, 2017 21
Business ServicesMike Kelley has joined ABC Financial in
Little Rock as regional sales director. He previously served as the vice president of North American sales for Core Health & Fitness of Vancouver, Washington.
ConstructionBrad Payne, Kelly Haley, Tim Oelke,
Brock Ferguson, Gerald Gregory, Daniel Hunt and Chris Collins have all been hon-ored with Excellence in Construction Awards from the Associated Builders & Contractors of Arkansas. Recipients hon-ored as Outstanding Council Member of the Year for their respective regions of the state include Payne, of United Rentals, Central Region; Haley, of Acme Brick & Tile, Western Region; Oelke, of Oelke Construction Co. Inc., Northwest Region; and Ferguson, of Centennial Bank, Northeast Region. Gregory, of Garrett Excavating Inc., was honored as Young Professional of the Year for the Central Region, and Hunt, of CDI Contractors LLC, was honored as Young Professional of the Year for the Northwest Region. Collins, of Hunt-Rogers Materials, received the Phillip Joiner Award.
EducationRickey Rogers will assume the role
of dean of students and director of resi-dence life at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia on June 1. He served as a resident director of a residence hall at the university from 2013 to 2016 and has been an assistant football coach at the university since 2013.
Dr. John Dornhoffer has been appointed chairman of the Department of Otolaryngolog y-Head & Neck Surgery in the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. Dornhoffer has served on the UAMS faculty
since 1994 and as vice chair of the depart-ment since 2009. He is also a professor and director of the Division of Otology/Neurotology and in the Department of Neurobiology & Developmental Sciences in the College of Medicine.
Nicki Hilliard has received the 2017 Outstanding Woman Faculty Award from the UAMS Women’s Faculty Development Caucus. Hilliard is a profes-sor in the UAMS College of Pharmacy in Little Rock.
EnergySam Ellis has been promoted to direc-
tor of cybersecurity and controls at Southwest Power Pool in Little Rock. He previously was director of system opera-tions at the company.
EngineeringClint Whitley has been hired as director
of sustainability and business develop-ment at Empirical Energy Solutions in Little Rock. He was previously an architect and sustainability coordinator at Cromwell Architects Engineers in Little Rock.
Financial ServicesMitchell Beggs has joined Edward
Jones in Little Rock as a financial adviser. He was previously a sales adviser for Drivetime in North Little Rock.
Wes Womack has been hired as vice president and commercial lender in the Arkansas region lending division at First National Bankers Bank in Little Rock. He previously was vice president and a com-mercial lending officer at BancorpSouth Bank in Little Rock.
Samuel “Tanner” McKnight, Seth Parsley and John David Sonnier have been promoted to bank assistant examiner at the Arkansas State Bank Department. McKnight and Parsley work out of the department’s field office in Jonesboro, while Sonnier is assigned to one of two groups based in Little Rock. Having pre-viously performed tasks as a bank assis-tant examiner under supervision, they are now given the responsibility for the position of assistant examiner in charge on a regular basis.
GovernmentPat Fitts has been
promoted to assistant deputy director at the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission. Fitts has been with the commis-sion in Little Rock for 28 years. His previous position was colonel of the agency’s enforce-
ment division.
Health CareDr. Marat Grigorov and Dr. Serena
Pierson have joined the Northwest Health staff. Grigorov has been hired as a neurosurgeon at the Neurosurgery Center in Springdale. Grigorov received his medical education at Lake Erie
College of Osteopathic Medicine in Erie, Pennsylvania, and completed an internship at the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth, Virginia. He recently completed his neurosurgery residency at Advocate BroMenn Medical Center in Normal, Illinois. Pierson has been hired as an OB/GYN at the Willow Creek Women’s Clinic in Johnson. She previously worked at Mercy Hospital in Rogers. Pierson received her medical education at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Twin Cities campus, in Minneapolis. She then completed her obstetrics and gynecology residency at Parkland Health & Hospital System, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, in Dallas.
Susan L. Gatto has joined the Conway Regional Health Foundation board of directors. She is the director of the University of Central Arkansas School of
Nursing in Conway.
TelecommunicationsTim McEuen has been hired as an exter-
nal relations manager at Natco Communications Inc. of Flippin. He pre-viously was a business division sales manager at Ritter Communications in Jonesboro.
David Carson, Kirby Davis and Monica Principato have all been
honored by Natco Communications of Flippin for 15 years of service at the com-pany. Misty Ring and Wanda Humphries were also honored for 10 years of service, and Vicki Allen, Bill Basinger and Robert Belyea were honored for five years of service. n
Submit news items to ArkansasBusiness.com/Movers
Super MoversA closer look behind a prominent promotion This Week: Dr. Dan Rahn and Dr. Robert Hopkins Jr., Masters in the American College of Physicians
New Position: Dr. Dan Rahn and Dr. Rob-ert Hopkins Jr. of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock have been awarded Mastership in the American College of Physicians, the national organization of internists. Rahn and Hopkins were two of 53 internists from across the world to receive the honor at the ACP’s annual scientific conference held in San Francisco this year and were the only two Arkansans to achieve Mastership this year. Just more than 0.5 percent of the 148,000 ACP members worldwide have been awarded Mastership of the College. “Mastership is the highest honor the college bestows, and it comes only after a long, arduous process during which they carefully vet the credentials of all nominees and ensure that the recipients deserve it,” Dr. Omar Atiq, a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and governor of the ACP Arkansas Chapter, said in a press release. According to ACP bylaws, Masters are elected “on account of personal character, positions of honor, contributions toward furthering the purposes of the ACP, eminence in practice or in medical research, or other attainments in science or in the art of medicine.” ACP activities and community
service are also taken into consideration.
Background: Rahn has been UAMS chancellor since 2009 and will retire on July 31. He previously served as president of the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and senior vice chancellor for health and medical programs for the University System of Geor-gia, as well as director of the Lyme Disease Program, director of clinical training in rheu-matology and director of faculty practice for the Department of Internal Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. Hopkins is a professor in the UAMS Departments of Pediatrics and Internal Medicine. He has served as director of the Combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Residency Program since 2006 and was associate director from 1995-2006. He was governor of the Arkan-sas ACP Chapter from 2007-11.
Education: Rahn is a graduate of Yale University and the Yale University School of Medicine, where he completed internal med-icine and rheumatology training. Hopkins is a graduate of the Medical College of Georgia and completed his residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at UAMS. n
Movers Shakers+
Masters are elected “on account of personal character, positions of honor, contributions toward furthering the purposes of the ACP, eminence in practice or in medical research, or other attainments in science or in the art of medicine.” [PHOTOS PROVIDED]
BusinessArkansas
JohnDornhoffer
PatFitts
TimMcEuen
22 May 15, 2017 Arkansas Business
Bio: Paul B. BeranBackground: Beran has worked in educa-
tion for the last 39 years. In addition to 17 years of teaching, he has been
an academic dean and then a vice president for faculty and instruction at the community college level. In 2001, Beran became president at North-western Oklahoma State Uni-versity, and in 2006, he was appointed as the second chancellor of the University
of Arkansas-Fort Smith.Education: Beran received
his bachelor’s in English and political science and his master’s in English at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. He completed his doctorate in higher education curriculum and instruction at Texas A&M University. n
[PHOTO PROVIDED]
MARKET YOUR BUSINESS TO THE STATE’S AVID WATERFOWLERS.
For advertising information, contact Bonnie Jacoby at 501.372.1443 or [email protected].
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Exec Q&ABusiness
Arkansas This Week: Paul B. BeranChancellor at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith
You recently oversaw an update to the university’s master plan. What are the highlights? Our 2017-22 Strategic Plan is dedicated to enrolling, retaining and graduating students who have been provided an innovative and holistic education that focuses on academic opportuni-ties that support economic growth and development of the UAFS region and Arkansas. We’ll be fostering pro-fessional growth and development for our faculty and staff and aligning our resources to support these university objectives. Our extensive contract training and education with over 100 businesses and industries annually, including Fortune 500 companies, and our continued focus on career-focused university educa-tion will help us reach our vision of
being a national model for workforce mobility through education and pro-fessional development while serving as the thought leader in the region.
What does UAFS do to help students get the best education at the least cost? UAFS has stayed committed to being in the lowest 20th percentile of cost of Arkansas public universities. To make that happen, UAFS has committed itself to evaluating for elimination anything that does not support the core teaching and learning mission. For example, we have saved by vending out many services, such as custodial and grounds maintenance, at less cost than we can do them ourselves. UAFS has grown a foundation that supports students with well over $1 million
in scholarships yearly, in addition to doing our best to make sure students are connected to all the grant and scholarship dollars from other sources that they can get. We have instituted a required fi nancial literacy class that all students must take to help them understand the relationship of current debt to future well-being.
What’s the best way for busi-ness and higher ed to work together to educate the 21st century workforce? Listen to each other and stop blaming each other. The necessity of speed-to-market makes businesses want a workforce that can get the job done now. But preparing people to be job-ready means training for tasks, inculcat-ing a work ethic and life skills and educating to use critical and creative thinking skills to embrace change and solve problems — so quality training and education that create long-term depth of knowledge take time. Higher education must get better at embracing change and responding to training and education needs with fast-to-market completion strate-gies. Business must be willing to share with higher education not only what
Chancellor Beran also created the Chancellor’s Coalition for the Visual Arts, which provides a public venue for the exhibition and collection of works of art.
it needs now, but what innovations are coming and help higher education prepare for new training and educa-tion needs.
What are you proudest of having achieved at UAFS? I am most proud of the accomplishments
of the faculty, staff and administra-tion — past and present — who, in just 15 years, have created a quality comprehensive regional university that is completely connected to the economic and quality of life needs of the greater Fort Smith region and Arkansas. n
WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCEthe 2017 CLASS
2017
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Zara abbasi, Just Desserts by Zara
Jonathan adams, associateD builDers & contractors of arkansas
adrienne baker, Wright linDsey Jennings
brian blackman, Waco title company
amber brewer, yelloW rocket concepts
sam carrasquillo, sc home, ally JaDe investments, canana construction
terrance clark, thrive inc.
sarah slocum collins, roberts group
michael considine, entergy arkansas
nick copas, balDWin anD shell construction company
marisha dicarlo, arkansas Department of health
mat Faulkner, think iDea stuDio
Jerry Fenter, fenter physical therapy
Jeston GeorGe, apptegy
shash Goyal, i square management
eric Grant, maverick transportation
lindsay henderson, conWay area chamber of commerce
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