We see your struggles. We see your victories. We see your sacrifice. And we’re honored to support you in every stage of your health and wellness journey.
As a rm built on relationships, our handshake matters. It means a warm greeting, the privilege of doing business together and knowing you can count on us. A handshake between two brothers, Witt and Jack Stephens, provided the foundation for a family-owned legacy that Jack’s son Warren upholds today. Under Warren’s leadership, Stephens continues to grow as one of America’s largest privately held independent nancial services rms, with of ces throughout the United States and in Europe. Our performance builds relationships with our clients, many of whom have become old friends. It’s why shaking hands with us means just a little bit more.
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A GUIDE FOR ALL SEASONS
After decades of guiding people down the Buffalo River, Mike Mills is ready to guide the state as secretary of the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism.
NEW LOOK HOGS
BLACK OWNED-BUSINESSES
To celebrate Black History Month, Arkansas Money and Politics is proud to recognize these Black-owned businesses and their contributions to Arkansas’s economy.
February
2023
6 | Plugged In 8 | Viewpoint
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AcreTrader Investing Platform Technology
Farmland is becoming an attractive investment option, and new technology is making such investment more feasible than buying a farm outright.
By Becky GilletteGood Cybersecurity Can Translate to Work
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Entrepreneurial Leaders
Startup Junkie founder Jeff Amerine has some advice for entrepreneurial leaders following the road to success.
By Jeff AmerineFIFTY
Fifty Over 50
Each year, Arkansas Money and Politics recognizes its “Fifty Over 50,” leaders and businesspeople who show that their careers are far from over.
By AMP StaffTeaching your employees to protect their personal information can improve their security both at home and in the workplace.
By Becky GilletteAI in Medicine Can Improve Outcomes
Though AI is still far, far away from replacing human physicians, it can still provide a powerful diagnostic tool for a doctor’s toolbox.
By Becky GilletteTech Leaders
We once again recognize a group of innovators, founders, CEOs and more who are helping advance tech-related industry in Arkansas.
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Though the tourism industry took a big hit in 2020, the rebound has brought Arkansas tourism to record highs with more still to come.
By Dwain Hebda By AMP StaffDana Rod | dana@armoneyandpolitics.com
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2023 Arkansas Business Hall of Fame
A new addition to the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame, Stephens COO Curt Bradbury is a legendary figure in the world of investment banking.
2023 Arkansas Business Hall of Famer E. Fletcher Lord Jr. has seen the game change time and again, but it’s always people that matter.
President and CEO Judy McReynolds has seen ArcBest through hard times and met every challenge with new innovations. Through all his many accomplishments as a banker and businessman, Ross Whipple has been guided by a simple principle: treat everybody like you want to be treated.
By Dwain Hebda By Becky GilletteTOURISM HISTORY & POLITICS VISIONARIES
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Susan Alturi, Scott Hamilton, Tommy Keet, Bobby Martin, Shannon Newton
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The iconic Rialto Theater is a beautiful reminder of El Dorado’s oil-boom past, and its restoration is a bright symbol for the city’s future.
By Katie Zakrzewski
Subscription Inquiries: Subscription rate is $28 for one year (12 issues). Single issues are available upon request for $5. For subscriptions, inquiries or address changes, call 501-244- 9700. The contents of AMP are copyrighted, and material contained herein may not be copied or reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the publisher. Articles in AMP should not be considered specific advice, as individual circumstances vary. Products and services advertised in the magazine are not necessarily endorsed by AMP.
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Mike Mills, the new secretary for the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, talks Buffalo River and what makes Arkansas a natural destination.
Photo compliments of Mike Mills, Secretary, Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism.
Page 58
J.B. HUNT GIVES NEARLY $9M IN APPRECIATION BONUSES
“That’s how you maintain staff. Good job!”
Frances FrazierSTONE BANK ANNOUNCES 3 PROMOTIONS
“Congratulations Blake, Sandy, and Joe”
Renee HaugenIF THESE WALLS COULD TALK: BARTON COLISEUM
“Growing up in Little Rock, saw some great concerts in Barton. I also had a lot of fun waiting out to buy tickets there and Sears.”
Nicole Dotson GulasJan.
February’s issue of AMP featured a story called Digs of the Deal: Coy’s Steakhouse . The daughter of the original owner’s name, Rosemary Wootton, was misspelled in the story. The correct spelling is the one used in this correction.
While there had been discussions about franchising Coy’s , those discussions would ultimately not come to fruition. The Little Rock location was opened in 1976 and operated for 17 years until 1993. A North Little Rock location was also opened but closed after just three years.
AMP shines a positive light on businesses across Arkansas and the leaders behind them, and this is one of my favorite things that we do for our state.
This month, we’re bringing back Fifty Over 50, which showcases business and political leaders who are achieving at a high level in their prime.
So much attention is paid to younger generations in business publications, and rightfully so. But it seemed to me that special acknowledgment is due to those women and men who’ve made an impact on their communities throughout their long careers and continue to do so.
Readers nominated the leaders named on this list from around Arkansas. Of course, they represent a tiny fraction of those who deserve recognition, and one day, we’ll get around to everyone.
But we hope you enjoy our little twist on honoring business leaders.
Also inside, AMP highlights some of the state’s notable tech leaders, organizations and schools. And we recognize Black-owned businesses, including The Design Group and Delta Dirt Distillery. The Design Group is a marketing business that has propelled other Black-owned businesses around the state, and familyowned Delta Dirt Distillery in Helena-West Helena makes vodka, gin, whiskey and liqueurs.
Tourism has always been at the forefront of our coverage, and there have been some major leadership changes by Gov. Sarah Sanders. We profile Mike Mills, secretary of the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, and introduce other new state tourism leaders, including Travis Napper, director of Arkansas Tourism. Napper will look at the economic side of Arkansas and dive into the numbers.
Thank you for reading. Hit me up with story ideas at HBaker@ ARMoneyandPolitics.com.
Heather Baker, President & Publisher hbaker@aymag.com / heatherbaker_ar
Ionce had a friend who, while having a heart attack, sat down at his computer to Google “treatment for heart attack.” He recognized the seriousness of his condition but wanted to treat himself in order to avoid the cost of going to the hospital and receiving treatment from a doctor.
OK, that’s not really true. I don’t know anyone who has done that.
But I do know many people who, when faced with a significant legal event, sit down at their computers and Google “employment agreement” or “contract to sell/buy a business” or “will form.” They want to avoid the cost of a lawyer despite the fact their legal matter could result in substantial personal or financial harm by putting at risk either their ability to earn a livelihood, or the viability of their business, or the sum total of their worldly possessions.
The practice is becoming more prevalent, thanks to websites like LegalZoom and RocketLawyer and retailers like Office Depot, which offer general information about basic legal principles and a plethora of fillin-the-blank legal forms.
While the practice offers the allure of significant savings in attorney fees, that often turns out not to be the case. As the use of these preprinted forms have increased, the number of lawsuits over issues related to the use of the forms have increased. In those cases, it is not uncommon that the cost of the litigation to resolve the issues is greater than what it would have cost to have attorneys negotiate and/or draft the agreement in the first place. Nor is it uncommon that such litigation ends in such a way as to strip one party or the other of any benefit of the original agreement.
I know what you are thinking. I am just a lawyer hawking the services of lawyers. Right?
Consider some examples to drive the point home based upon actual cases:
Case 1: Cindy owned a fleet of medical aircraft and wanted to contract with Joe to service the aircraft for a monthly fee. Cindy
and Joe used a preprinted legal form, which provided, “If any payment remains unpaid for more than 30 days, Joe will be entitled to charge interest on the outstanding balance at the rate of 1.8% per month until paid.” Cindy failed to pay. Joe charged interest. Cindy sued, alleging the interest penalty ran afoul of Arkansas’ interest rate cap of 17% per annum. The result? A court held that the contract was usurious and void as to both principal and interest. Joe was not contractually entitled to payment for the services he provided to Cindy. This is an example of how certain provisions in pre-printed forms may be unenforceable under state-specific law and go unnoticed by non-lawyers.
Case 2: Cindy made homemade jelly and wanted to sell it at Joe’s gas station. They talked and agreed that Cindy would make, jar and deliver the jelly to Joe. Joe would sell it. Cindy would get 75% of the sales proceeds; Joe would get 25%. They used a preprinted form to memorialize their agreement. Although they never discussed it, the form included a standard indemnity provision –Cindy will indemnify and hold Joe harmless for any and all claims and causes of action related to the sale of jelly. One of Joe’s employees opened a jar of jelly before it was sold. It spoiled and made a customer sick. The customer sued Joe and was awarded damages. Joe then sued Cindy and demanded indemnification under the form contract. The result? A court held Cindy was legally required to reimburse Joe for the damages he paid to the customer. This is an example of how preprinted forms often contain provisions that non-lawyers do not recognize as provisions, which are best stricken or altered.
Case 3: Joe was on his death bed. His girlfriend, Cindy, ran down to Office Depot and bought a pre-printed will form. Joe, Cindy, and Joe’s two brothers talked things over in Joe’s hospital room. All agreed Cindy was to get the bulk of Joe’s estate. Cindy filled in all the blanks in the form at Joe’s direction. Joe signed the will in the presence of
his brothers. The next day, in the hospital cafeteria, the brothers completed the section of the will form for witnesses. When Joe died, his mother contested the Will, asserting it was not properly executed. The result? A court held the will was not properly executed because the brothers did not complete the witness section in Joe’s presence. Cindy got nothing. This is an example of how preprinted forms may lull non-lawyers into a false sense that their agreement is legally binding.
Arkansas lawyers have knowledge of state and practice area-specific law. They have training to identify legal issues and ways to avoid them. They have skill negotiating, drafting and overseeing the execution of legal documents. They know what provisions to include, leave out or change to protect your interests. You cannot get that by simply printing a form off the internet.
The Arkansas Bar Association’s mid-year meeting is designed to provide and enhance that knowledge and skill base for attorneys who practice in the areas of tax law, estate planning and probate and elder law.
And the next time you are faced with a legal mater, I encourage you to sit down at your computer and Google “Little Rock estate planning attorney,” or “Arkansas tax lawyer,” or “Elder lawyer in Arkansas” to help you resolve your issue, and forgo the temptation to represent yourself using a preprinted legal form. You may also visit the Arkansas Bar Association’s website (www.ArkBar.com) to search its database of licensed attorneys by practice area or location.
It could save you a lot of time, headaches and money!
Arkansas’ outdoor and tourism economy is booming.
Our state has evolved from that of a regional tourism destination to one that attracts visitors from all over the country and the world. We are no longer a hidden gem.
Much of the success is attributable to an enviable collaboration between the tourism industry, the Arkansas Department of Tourism, our governor-appointed commissioners, the hospitality industry and the state’s marketing agency.
Those pillars of strength remain firmly rooted today along with our state’s ever-increasing public-private partnerships, which together have created an $8 billion industry – the state’s second largest behind agriculture – and fuels our economy in multiple ways, including the attraction of professional talent.
Of course, we have a great product to sell. Arkansas is blessed with stunning natural beauty, a hospitable culture and world-class amenities, including 52 unique state parks. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when social distancing and other restrictions left people across the country feeling cooped up, many visitors packed their bags and found solace in Arkansas.
Unmatched year-round access to an endless number of outdoor activities — whether hunting and fishing, cycling or rock climbing — is one of the primary reasons that tourism is such a powerhouse economic engine.
Ultimately, the goal of Arkansas Tourism is simple: Attract out-of-state individuals to visit Arkansas; have them stay as long as possible; return home and then come back again while encouraging those in their sphere of influence to do the same.
Marketing is the most critical tool in driving awareness of The Natural State’s attractions and transforms that knowledge into engagement, chiefly in the form of visitors to the state.
Arkansas Tourism’s marketing budget comes from the state’s 2% Tourism Reinvestment Tax, which is levied on lodging, campgrounds, watercraft and equipment rentals and admission to tourist attractions. The vast majority of these tax receipts are paid by outof-state visitors and directly benefits Arkansans by providing additional resources that are invested into promoting the state.
Each year, out-of-state visitors to Arkansas provide a substantial boost to the state’s
economy. In large part, this is because unlike many other industries, the tourism industry serves as a conduit that feeds various other industries, including transportation, food and beverage, lodging, recreation, entertainment and retail.
In 2021, 41.3 million guests spent $8 billion dollars while visiting the state, according to Arkansas Tourism’s most recent annual economic impact report. This equates to more than $650 million dollars in state and local tax receipts, money used to improve roads and other infrastructure in towns all over Arkansas.
Additionally, more than 64,000 Arkansans are employed by the tourism industry.
Annual tourism tax collections also serve as a barometer for the effectiveness of Arkansas Tourism’s marketing strategy.
From 2017 to 2021, Arkansas saw an increase in the number of outside tourists each year, not counting 2020 and its lockdowns and restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
By 2021, the state was poised for a great rebound for tourism. With COVID still topof-mind, consumers were looking for a way out of isolation, and there is no place better to do that than Arkansas. Our state’s vast outdoor offerings provided people with a way to avoid large crowds, find separation and enjoy life again. As a result, Arkansas’ tourism tax collections surpassed those of pre-pandemic 2019, and exceeded $20 million for the first time in history.
Consistent year-over-year growth in the 2% tax is a testament to Arkansas’ compelling attractions, as well as the successful marketing efforts.
Product development is the foundation of Arkansas Tourism’s successful marketing efforts. We must provide visitors with a reason to come for the first time and to return again and again.
For instance, our state’s outdoor economy is not only being driven by hunting, fishing and watersports but also by mountain biking. Private partners like the Runway Group have invested millions to make Arkansas the mountain biking capital of the world with year-round access to world class mountain bike trails. There are many other private partners – like Delta Dirt Distillery and Johnny Morris – who are investing significantly to grow our tourism economy.
Along with the natural beauty that our
of Tourism’s
agencyof record state has to offer, these developments provide the backdrop for creative storytelling that effectively communicates the heart of what makes Arkansas a premier destination. We develop creative assets that inspire, engage and motivate target audiences with authentic scenes that define the state’s landscape, attractions and culture, ultimately inspiring them to visit and explore all that Arkansas has to offer.
After we develop the story, we must tell the story.
Our successful marketing strategy relies on a commitment to market research and consistently revising marketing approaches based on emerging data. Rather than quick, sweeping changes in approach based on industry fads, we utilize sound analysis to make intentional, incremental adaptations in strategy.
While Arkansas will always be best experienced firsthand rather than through a screen or virtual reality headset, the state’s marketing strategy has leveraged digital mediums as a vehicle for telling the story of The Natural State for decades.
Arkansas has been leading with and leveraging digital media advertising as part of its advertising efforts since 2003, which today makes up more than 65% of Arkansas Tourism’s media mix. This is enhanced by utilizing new tools such as programmatic advertising, which allows the media plan to be adjusted in real time, making media placements more efficient and more effective.
Finally, Arkansas Tourism’s cooperative advertising program provides an affordable way for businesses operating within the industry to pool money and tap into supplemental funds to advertise to a broader audience, which would otherwise be cost prohibitive.
Bottom line: Arkansas’ tourism industry is thriving.
The proof is in the numbers. Two-percent tax collections for the current fiscal year are on track to exceed the $25 million mark!
With all that Arkansas has to offer, if we get people here, there’s a good chance they’ll come back time and time again.
Dr. Jingyi Chen is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Arkansas. But the Arkansas Research Alliance (ARA) Academy member may more accurately be described as an extraordinary solver of difficult problems. For example, as the world clamors for cleaner, cheaper and more reliable forms of energy, Dr. Chen and her team developed a process of generating electrical energy from ethanol – a fuel made by fermenting the sugar in the starches of grains, such as corn.
The challenge with extracting electric energy from ethanol is breaking the strong carbon-carbon bond that forms the ethanol molecule. Dr. Chen and her team developed a process called electro-oxidation that breaks the carbon bonds and releases more electrons – or electricity.
“What we hope to achieve is to make ethanol fuel cells a high-energy, high-density source of electrical power,” Dr. Chen explained. “These fuel cells can become lightweight power sources for electric cars and drones.”
While such technology is promising and could very well lead to an environmentally friendly and abundant source of energy , Dr. Chen’s work with nanomaterials has applications for a wide range of industries. Nanomaterials are materials of which a single unit is sized between 1 and 100 nm and are used in applications ranging from air purification to health care.
“I have two main directions going, both related to nanomaterials,” Dr. Chen revealed. “One direction involves catalysts for electricity-driven chemical reactions to produce cleaner energy. The second is to produce functional hybrid nanomaterials to fight against infections of bacteria and viruses, and to assist in the healing of hard-to-heal wounds, such as surgical wounds or the wounds one sees from soldiers on the battlefield.”
Nanomaterials can be used to stimulate cellular processes to activate wound healing. Dr. Chen is collaborating with ARA Academy member Dr. Mark Smeltzer to develop nanomaterials that are antimicrobial, which would significantly reduce the chance for infection during the recovery of the wound. The technology is called Antimicrobial Photothermal Therapy (PTT), which involves the use of low-power lasers that operate at wavelengths that interact with the nanomaterials to control the release of antibiotics and kill microorganisms at low dose.
“Our team developed a composite material to combine an antibiotic-loaded silver/gold nanoparticle, which can enable a dual modal therapeutic approach, much more potent than each alone (antibiotic therapy or PTT),” Dr. Chen said.
“In doing so, we found something interesting. The release of the antibiotic is activated under illumination. At the same time, silver/gold nanoparticles convert light to heat locally to destroy the bacterial cells. Together, the two components activate each other, leading to remarkable antimicrobial efficacy and the eradication biofilm infections.”
Successful development of this technology could help mitigate, or even eliminate, global antimicrobial resistance. Resistance to antibiotics is seen as a major issue by the Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization. Arkansas sits at the forefront in this field of research, which could lead to a lucrative biotech niche built here in The Natural State. Dr. Chen’s next challenge is to bring this technology out of the lab and into the market.
From developing clean and abundant energy to creating lifesaving nanotech therapies, Dr. Chen keeps busy in her lab at the University of Arkansas. And we’re all the better for it.
In 1989, my first real exposure to the possibilities of entrepreneurship came via a graduate course in New Venture Development at Western New England College. At the time, I was still serving as an Air Force captain in Air Force Systems Command at Hanscom Air Force Base near Boston. I grew up as a military dependent, and all of my siblings either served or were military spouses. The service was the family business.
Up until taking that New Ventures course, the career possibilities for me seemed to include either staying until retirement in the military or getting out to work for a defense contractor like Westinghouse Electric or Mitre. That New Ventures course scratched an adrenaline-driven itch for me that I hadn’t realized was there. The idea that I could assemble a team and build a new venture was an intoxicating prospect, one that has proven to be a wonderful winding road that I could never have anticipated or planned.
Nine new ventures, three Fortune 500 roles and seven years working in technology commercialization at the University of Arkansas ultimately led to the creation of Startup Junkie, the Conductor, Innovation Junkie and several small venture funds including Cadron Capital Partners. The past 15 years have felt like a calling for me. I couldn’t have known where the winding road of my life would lead. The last 15 years helping catalyze the Arkansas venture ecosystem have been made possible by the amazing Startup Junkie and Conductor teams. They move mountains for innovators, entrepreneurs and small businesses every day.
This winding road over the past 38 years has highlighted for me a few key concepts that can lead to organizational success when followed, or outright failure when ignored. Here are some thoughts that highlight the inexorable link between leadership and entrepreneurial success:
1. What is leadership? Leadership is being willing to serve others from out in front, knocking down obstacles so individuals and teams can succeed. Leaders help answer the “why” question, connecting the vision to strategy and tactics. My business partner, Dr. Jeff Standridge, brings clarity to the conversation when he says, “Good leaders balance results and relationships.” When results and relationships are in harmony, high-performing teams can be the result.
2. When things go well, pass along all the credit; when things go poorly, take all the blame. I first heard this particular statement from Captain Tom Cullen, who was my instructor in 1984 during initial qualification training to be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch officer at Vandenberg Air Force Base. This mantra stuck with me and has served me well throughout my career in building high-performing teams.
3. Learn to be a great follower. Make a leader’s job easier. Stay positive. Constructively challenge leaders with conviction and facts, and realize, ultimately, they have to make the call. Be OK with that. Everybody reports to somebody else, and learning to follow well makes for solid leaders. Even entrepreneurs report to customers, shareholders and their team.
4. Learn from both good and bad examples of leadership. To become a successful entrepreneur being able to identify positive and negative patterns in business models, markets, technology, risks, and most importantly, leadership can be crucial. Pay attention, take notes and learn what works and what doesn’t.
5. Be authentic. Whatever your leadership style may be, embrace it. Don’t put on a “leadership persona;” authenticity can’t be faked, and it can’t be just marketing eyewash. Figure out how to be comfortable in your own skin, and work to accentuate your strengths.
We used to say in the military that as leaders, we are always on parade, that is, your people watch you. Set the example, and be consistent. We’ve seen in recent years how poorly the “Do as I say, not as I do,” approach works for those in power. It erodes trust, and trust is everything.
6. Do the right thing. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who led U.S. forces in the first Gulf War, said we almost always know what the right thing is, we sometimes just struggle to do it. Always have the courage to do the right thing, even knowing that will be more difficult than it seems, because the right thing seldom aligns with the path of least resistance.
7. Have a bias toward action. Most leaders must make tough decisions with 70% of the information they really need. Make a decision, and take action. You’ll learn more from bad decisions taken early than perfect decisions never taken. Entrepreneurs cannot and will not survive waiting for complete or perfect information, so make the decision, live with it, learn from it and keep moving!
8. Dictation. Participation. Delegation. Situational leadership may require different approaches at different times. Understand that you can still be an authentic entrepreneurial leader with your own style, even as you apply different techniques based on the urgency or strategic consequence of a situation.
9. Emotional intelligence and empathy. Leaders must work to understand what their people need in order to be successful. This doesn’t imply a lack of accountability or being soft, but it does mean the leader listens well, engages regularly and pays attention to the team and their needs.
10. Realize not much is accomplished without a great team. The team is the No. 1 asset of any organization. In the classic book, “The Balanced Scorecard” by Kaplan and Norton, there is strong recog-
nition that attracting, developing and retaining great talent is crucial to organization success. Key performance indicators must be developed to track how ventures are doing in the talent and team arena. The whole game is about people and teams, in fact, the team is the reason the leader exists! So, lead by walking around. Stay connected. Take deep dives occasionally. Serve the team.
11. Build an enduring and evolving culture. Famous management consultant Peter Drucker is said to have coined the phrase “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” More recently, the best leaders and teams realize that purpose, mission, vision and core values are the strategy that drives the best companies. This includes how they hire, how they fire, how they interact with their customers and their community. The amazing success Jeston George has had at Apptegy of Little Rock, building a world leader in productivity software for school districts and cities, highlights how crucial a great culture can be. It is real for them, not just slogans on the wall or pages in a presentation. They live it.
12. Lead people and manage things. Know the difference between leaders and managers. Both roles are important, and not every individual can do both functions well. Gino Wickman, who wrote “Traction”, “EOS Life”, and “Rocket Fuel”, talks about the “Visionary Role” and the “Integrator Role.” Many entrepreneurs can be successful visionaries and solid leaders, but they may not be great managers, as sometimes their attention span and shiny object orientation can be a drag on the ultimate success of the venture. If a visionary leader is coupled with a strong integrator: (read detailoriented manager) great things can happen. That said, the best integrators are both great leaders and competent managers.
13. Be a servant leader and pay it forward. “Give and Take” is an incredible book by Adam Grant. Grant is the youngest tenured member of faculty at The Wharton School in Philadelphia and a world-recognized management thinker. A long-term leadership philosophy toward being helpful without an expectation of personal reward is his main theme. The embodiment of paying it forward captures the key findings of his book. Grant defines takers, matchers and givers, and he shows empirical evidence that leaders who give to their teams, their customers and their communities outperform. Giving leaders operate without concern for optimizing their personal gain or reciprocity. Read this book; it is a seminal work on the subject.
14. Imposter syndrome is real. Every leader who is being honest has felt like an imposter when they took on a new leadership role. Embrace that self-doubt. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Every role I ever had in 38 years caused me to feel like an imposter at some point. This feeling keeps a leader sharp and is a solid antidote for hubris.
15. Leadership doesn’t equal a title or a name in a box. Informal leadership is powerful and is driven by accumulated respect, the kind of respect that is earned and not appointed. Entrepreneurial leaders figure out how to get things done through persuasion and a solid vision others can believe in, even outside of the traditional reporting structure.
16. Effective oral and written communication is key. This requires work and effort. Entrepreneurial leaders that succeed can tell concise stories that draw their team and their customers in. This skill can and should be learned and practiced. Be candid, provide unvarnished truth up your chain of command and to your team, and avoid the CYA game. Your character and integrity are the only
things that really matter.
17. Take care of your team. Leaders must work to prepare their team members to have the best possible career, even if that means they leave to find other opportunities. Early in my professional career, after the Air Force and while at Westinghouse Electric Corporation, I worked for an engineering manager named Jim Strunge. I always wondered why he had the best teams and the best projects. He told me he worked hard to make sure his best team members received awards and promotions, even if those promotions took them to other teams or companies. It worked amazingly well. Everybody wanted to work for Jim Strunge.
18. Be confident, truthful and humble. John Lewis, one of the pillars of the revival of the entrepreneurial scene in Northwest Arkansas, famously said, “Hubris is the first sign of an impending train wreck.” Avoid the “fake it before you make it” syndrome and progressive disclosure. The disgraced founders of Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Theranos and FTX are all examples of what not to do as an entrepreneurial leader.
19. Realize the journey is the destination. Live in the moment and enjoy it, because it goes by so fast. Have fun. Be serious, but don’t take yourself too seriously. Some years back Troy Aikman, the famous quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, had a moment of reflection after winning his second Super Bowl. He wondered, “Is that all there is?” High achievers spend a ton of time focused on getting there without enjoying the process.
After 38 years, I’ve realized the journey, that winding road with all the ups and downs, is the destination. Make your own path as a leader, and be sure to enjoy the journey! Feel free to reach out to the Startup Junkie, Conductor and Innovation Junkie teams if we can help illuminate your unique winding road.
Jeff is nationally recognized for the creation of lasting venture ecosystems, and co-authored in 2021 the Amazon bestselling book, Creating Startup Junkies – Building Sustainable Venture Ecosystems in Unexpected Places. Jeff has held senior leadership positions in nine startups and multiple Fortune 500 companies including American Freightways and FedEx Freight. He has made more than 90+ venture investments. Jeff now leads Startup Junkie Consulting, and co-leads Innovation Junkie and Cadron Capital Partners. Jeff served as Associate Vice Provost, Research and Economic Development, and Director of Technology Ventures at the University of Arkansas until leaving to pursue Startup Junkie Consulting full-time in 2015. Jeff still serves as an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at University of Arkansas. Jeff graduated from United States Naval Academy in 1984, served as an Air Force Officer for 6 years, and holds a Master of Science in Operations Management from the University of Arkansas.
Baptist Health Medical Center-Conway was recently named one of the best hospitals in the country for maternity care by the Leapfrog Group, based on its safety grade and other metrics.
The Leapfrog Group is a nonprofit organization founded in 2000 to help consumers better grasp safety and quality in health care. Leapfrog works to improve hospital safety and reliability by promoting hospital transparency and public reporting initiatives.
The Leapfrog safety grade uses over 30 performance metrics to produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe. Qualifications for Leapfrog’s list of the best 250 hospitals for maternity care require hospitals to carry an A or B letter grade on the assessment for spring 2022. In addition, hospitals had to meet high safety standards in numerous categories, including high-risk deliveries, cesarean sections, early elective deliveries, episiotomies, screening newborns for jaundice before discharge and preventing blood clots in women undergoing cesarean sections.
Baptist Health has had great success in raising Leapfrog scores through a wide range of safety initiatives across many areas of health care. More importantly, the effort has led to decreased infections, decreased surgical complications and a safer environment for patients.
OzarksGo, a Fayetteville-based fiber optic telecommunications subsidiary of Ozarks Electric Cooperative, announced it has recently completed the construction of a fiber optic project that stretches throughout its territory, resulting in connecting its 35,000th subscriber.
OzarksGo provides fiber-to-the-home services. The company differs from other internet providers, which run fiber optics to a hub linked to homes by much less-efficient copper wires. By contrast, OzarksGo runs the fiber-optic connections to the individual subscriber’s home. This process dramatically improves internet capacity and reliability. It’s also faster; average internet speed for other options might range from 10-300 megabits per second, while fiber-to-the-home can reach speeds of 1000 Mbps or 1 gigabit per second.
OzarksGo connected its first customer in 2017 and has made the internet, television, and phone service available to almost all Ozarks Electric members across its territory.
“We could not continue to bring state-of-the-art internet to Northwest Arkansas and Northeast Oklahoma without the help of our employees and those customers who continue to be our best advocates,” Steve Bandy, general manager of OzarksGo, said in the announcement. “Building a world-class fiber network from scratch is not easy, but we believe high-speed internet access is a critical service in the 21st century, whether you live in an urban area or a rural part of the country.”
OzarksGo has also begun to expand its fiber network and expects significant improvements shortly, with multi-gigabit services to come later this year.
Dr. Karen K. Petersen has been appointed the 13th President of Hendrix College, beginning in June 2023. Petersen will succeed W. Ellis Arnold III ῾79, who will become President Emeritus following his retirement in June.
Petersen was raised in Northwest Arkansas and joined the Hendrix community from the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, where she served as professor of political science and Dean of the Henry Kendall College of Arts and Sciences.
Petersen oversaw the college’s financial, physical, and human resources, including 120 full-time employees in 13 departments. During her tenure as dean, philanthropic giving to the college increased, including a 47% increase in unrestricted giving. She also helped secure a significant unrestricted pledge for student recruiting, marketing, faculty support and annual funding for a partnership with the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra to provide educational opportunities for music students.
Also, under Petersen’s leadership, the university restored academic programs in philosophy and religion and a Bachelor of Music degree.
"I am honored and humbled to be selected as president of Hendrix College. I look forward to serving alongside the caring and talented faculty, staff, and board members as we continue Hendrix's commitment to the life-changing power of a liberal arts education," Dr. Petersen said. "We are privileged to educate the young people upon whose shoulders the responsibility for our future rests, and I am dedicated to strengthening and preserving the residential liberal arts experience."
Petersen previously served nearly 16 years at Middle Tennessee State, where she helped develop and implement a comprehensive student success program, which doubled the four-year graduation rate and resulted in retention of 88% of full-time undergraduates and 86% of Pell-eligible students in the College of Liberal Arts. Her commitment to student success informed her work as a faculty member; she and a colleague developed and led a study abroad program in Israel for seven years and prepared students for prestigious international fellowship competitions.
Turbare Manufacturing, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, has revealed plans for a new facility at 925 Jeanette Drive in Conway. Turbare will produce drugs on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s shortage list.
“The list is ever-changing, and most are emergency products that contribute to a better quality of life,” General Manager Andria White said. “We will be able to step in and service those areas and fill in the gaps for those products.”
Turbare’s announcement includes plans to invest $11 million in the purchase of the property, modernization of the facility and new equipment. According to CEO Laura Martin, the 44,000-square-foot facility would house a state-of-the-art, automated equipment that will allow it to produce high-quality products.
Brad Lacy, president and CEO of the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce and Conway Development Corporation, said Turbare’s expansion is the continuation of a growing trend in the city that has eclipsed pre-COVID numbers.
“Tubare’s decision to locate in Conway adds to this momentum,” Lacy said. “Conway has always enjoyed a diverse local economy. Turbare will add to this diversification by bringing pharmaceutical manufacturing back to the market.”
Turbare plans to fill and add 100 positions by the end of the year with an average salary of about $50,000. Positions include executive-level positions, directors, managers, and clean-room technicians, as well as positions in warehousing, shipping, receiving, inspection, quality assurance, quality control, customer service and sales.
DeltaSolar has been commissioned to build a 512-kilowatt solar array for Woodlawn School District in Cleveland County. The solar energy system is designed to offset over 80% of the district’s current electricity demand, resulting in an anticipated savings of approximately $1.5 million over the system’s life.
The Delta Solar team members recently joined school and community leaders at a school board meeting on campus to celebrate the system’s completion.
“Our school board members took a thorough look at Delta Solar’s proposed project and saw the tremendous value it could provide our district,” said Superintendent Kevin Hancock. “I am particularly excited about the learning opportunities our solar energy system will bring our students as they think about career opportunities down the road.”
Douglas Hutchings, Delta Solar CEO said, “Delta Solar is proud to partner with Woodlawn School District on a world-class solar array that will provide significant savings for the district and educational opportunities for students. This project aligns with our mission and values of education and delivering best-in-class solutions to our clients, with a focus on rural communities. "
“We believe it is valuable to expose young people to cutting-edge industries, like Arkansas’ fast-growing solar sector. We are an educational organization that also designs and builds solar arrays, so collaborating with Woodlawn Schools is a source of pride for us."
The school district, which serves 570 students and employs about 80 faculty and staff, will be outfitted with 1,280 panels designed to produce 763,600 kilowatt-hours annually. The amount of clean energy generated each year compared to conventional utilities would be equivalent to taking 85 passenger cars off the road annually and growing over 300,000 tree seedlings for 10 years.
In late January, the Bentonville Library Foundation announced a $500,000 grant from the Alice L. Walton Foundation to support the Bentonville Public Library expansion.
Howard Kerr, president of the Library Foundation, said, “Alice Walton continues to invest in our community, giving every citizen or visitor exposure to things that heighten our interest in art, architecture, health and well-being and education.
The Bentonville Library Foundation is honored that Alice has chosen to invest in expanding our public library. Her generosity is always for the benefit of us, the people. Our appreciation is beyond measure.”
Library Director Hadi Dudley added, “Alice Walton’s philanthropy has significantly contributed to Bentonville’s culture, and her gift to our public library will also have a lasting impact on our community. I am grateful for her support.”
Recent donations bring the foundation’s campaign total to $8.75 million in lead gifts. The private funding raised will join the City of Bentonville’s bond funds of $4.5 million toward the library’s $16.75 million expansion project. To date, combined public and private funding comprise 79% of the amount needed for the expansion.
Several of the investments will be acknowledged through naming opportunities in the library expansion. For example, a $20,000 contribution by Cindy Flynt Walters and Betty Flynt provides naming rights to several family reading nooks in the Children’s Library.
Five corporations have made similar investments, including RJW Logistics Group, which made a $12,000 donation to name a four-seat adult meeting room, and Best in Class, which is naming the Library Foundation office for its donation of $10,000.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced on Jan. 19 her appointments of Eric Jackson, Dr. Trey Berry and Rebecca Lentz to the Arkansas State Parks, Recreation and Travel Commission. The appointments run through Jan 2029.
“I am excited to appoint Eric Jackson, Dr. Trey Berry and Rebecca Lentz to the Arkansas State Parks, Recreation and Travel Commission – three excellent representatives of Arkansas who will continue to show the nation and the world the incredible natural beauty, world-class outdoor recreation and great economic success of our state,” Sanders said.
Jackson is being reappointed to the body, Berry replaces John Gill and Lentz replaces Skot Covert.
Jackson is the senior vice president at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort and serves on Oaklawn’s board of directors. He has helped oversee the resort’s development into one of the premier racing and gaming centers in America and Arkansas’ top commercial tourism attraction, as well as supervising $100 million in construction at Oaklawn.
Berry is president of Southern Arkansas University, having risen to the position just four years after joining the university. His successful fundraising efforts have contributed to new programs, a variety of academic accolades and 10% enrollment growth for the highest enrollment in the history of the institution.
Lentz, also known as “Lady Angler Lentz,” is an outdoor enthusiast and National Guard veteran who uses social media platforms to showcase Arkansas’ outdoor recreation opportunities and natural beauty. She hopes to motivate others to explore Arkansas’ outdoors and related activities.
The Arkansas State Fair has named Little Rock native Tiffany Wilkerson as its new general manager. Wilkerson is the first female to serve in the position, the first African American, and, at age 39, the youngest to serve.
Wilkerson has worked for the Arkansas Livestock Show Association for the past 20 years, with roles including commercial exhibitor coordinator, box office manager, and director of administration. In her new position, she will oversee all business operations and direct all activities for the promotion, preparation, and production of the annual Arkansas State Fair. Furthermore, she will establish and maintain business organization and structure to efficiently conduct the management functions of the Arkansas Fairgrounds on a year-round basis.
Wilkerson hopes to build upon the traditions of the State Fair while growing the Fairgrounds as a year-round event venue and an ag-educational program. She said, “I am thrilled at this opportunity. My entire career as part of the Arkansas Livestock Show Association has been full of exciting challenges. I intend to take my 20 years of experience and build on our current levels of success. The sky’s the limit for the Arkansas State Fair and our Association.”
Bruce Maloch, chairman of the Arkansas Livestock Show Association, said of Wilkerson, “Tiffany’s historical knowledge, experience, and expertise make her the perfect choice to serve as general manager of the Arkansas State Fair. She is familiar with all aspects of the State Fairgrounds and will provide the leadership to make the fairgrounds the premier entertainment and livestock exhibition venue in the state.”
Westrock Coffee Company, a leading integrated coffee, tea, flavors, extracts, and ingredients solutions provider, announced an agreement to develop a 530,000-square-foot distribution center with Tempus Realty Partners, an Arkansas-based real estate investment partnership represented by Colliers Arkansas. The 30-acre site, near the heavily trafficked I-40 in Conway, is 30 miles from Little Rock.
Westrock Coffee will fully occupy the distribution center following construction, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2023. The state-ofthe-art development will support the distribution needs of Westrock Coffee’s extract and ready-to-drink manufacturing facility in Conway, 2.2 miles away.
“We are thrilled to announce the construction of our state-of-the-art distribution center, which will allow us to more efficiently and effectively serve our customers with our innovative beverage solutions,” said Joe T. Ford, co-founder and chairman of Westrock Coffee. “This new facility is a testament to our commitment to meeting the growing demand for our products and providing the highest level of service to our valued clients. We look forward to expanding our presence in central Arkansas and driving Westrock Coffee’s growth and success in the industry.”
Will Ford, group president of operations of Westrock Coffee said, “Westrock Coffee continues to invest in our operations, and the announcement of this new distribution center is further proof of our commitment to expand our business. In tandem with the development of our manufacturing facility, this center will enhance our capabilities and help our customers continue to innovate in the beverage space, which is undergoing seismic shifts in consumer preferences. We are truly excited to further cement Westrock Coffee’s connection to the Conway community with this distribution center.”
Honoring young business professionals is the dominant narrative in our culture: success and fulfillment are encouraged and recognized at the dawn of adulthood (or even sooner, if you can manage it). But achievements don’t come instantly, and success is becoming of everyone, regardless of age. People don’t turn obsolete at 32, 45, 50, or even 70, and our reader-nominated list proves just that.
The following individuals are not only making positive impacts in their communities but in the lives of all Arkansans. They are lawyers, CEOs, doctors, educators, small business owners and more. Thanks to decades of hard work, they are superstars in their fields. At Arkansas Money & Politics, we revere these individuals for their expertise and look forward to seeing what their futures hold—now presenting: AMP’s 2023 Fifty Over 50.
Bob Arthur Director of Training and Leadership Development
Harps Food Stores, Inc.
Bob Arthur has been with Harps for six years, but his early career consisted of sales work and vocational and bi-vocational ministry positions. He previously worked as a contractor, facilitating leadership and HR training for companies such as Tyson Foods, La-Z-Boy, Glad Manufacturing and more. Arthur earned his master’s degree from Liberty University; in 2006, he published “Incredible Influence,” a book focused on encouraging individuals to develop their relationship skills. Arthur has been involved in the Springdale community as a planning commissioner, president of the Springdale Rotary Club, 2010 president of Springdale Leadership, and a chamber board member. His favorite part of his role with Harps is being able to influence others for their benefit.
Arthur’s Prime Steakhouse
Ocean’s at Arthur’s Jerry Barakat owns Arthur’s Prime Steakhouse and Ocean’s at Arthur’s. Barakat has been in the restaurant business for 40 years and opened Arthur’s in 2007. Throughout its continued success, Arthur’s has moved several times and is currently located on Chenal Parkway in Little Rock. Arthur’s offers over 350 world-class wines from its wine cellar, and Barakat takes pride in the high-quality food served at both restaurants. He is also grateful for the friends, family, staff and support that make the restaurants excel in every category. The restaurants are managed by Barakat’s two daughters, Suzi and Sandy.
Kim Clatworthy has been the owner of Elder Independence Home Care, a leader in home nonmedical care for older adults, since 2014. Clatworthy learned early on that she wanted to care for others, thanks to the values her parents instilled in her; her favorite part of the job is being able to offer unique solutions to families in need of help. Clatworthy has been recognized numerous times for her work by the Greater Bryant Chamber of Commerce and others. She has undergraduate degrees from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
George Dodson is the co-owner of Hopkins Icehouse in Texarkana. Dodson and business partner, David Jones, originally purchased the building without a concrete business idea. However, the pair saw a need for a unique restaurant and bar in the area, and Hopkins Icehouse was born in 2007. After over a decade, Dodson has enjoyed growing the business and watching downtown Texarkana become an impressive entertainment district. Previously, Dodson worked in the family business of asphalt road overlay and was the vice president and general manager at Lamar Outdoor Advertising. Outside of work, Dodson enjoys spending time outside, live music and great food.
Chad Evans is president and COO of Aromatique, the HeberSprings-based leading manufacturer of decorative fragrances. Previous to this role, Evans oversaw Aromatique’s manufacturing operations. He attributes the company’s success to the employees, who have been dedicated to their work for decades. The company initially started in founder Patti Upton’s kitchen; today, the company operates across the country, shipping handmade decorative fragrances worldwide. Evans has been with the company since 1983 and spent many years on the manufacturing side before stepping up to his current role in 2013 following Upton’s retirement. Evans’ goal with the company is the same as it has been since the beginning: to provide the finest decorative fragrances on the market.
Beverly Foster, DC, has served the Little Rock community for over 25 years and is known as the “go to” chiropractic physician for complex and difficult back and neck treatment. She is an expert at blending the best of natural and conservative care with conventional medicine. Her patients and peers respect her knowledge and skills. Foster has been voted the “Best Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine” year after year by multiple outlets. She currently serves on the UAMS College of Public Health Advisory Board, has served on both the Arkansas
Though he’s moved around plenty within the supermarket industry itself, Gary Proffitt has enjoyed being a one-career man. He entered the business in high school, and shortly after attending the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, he went to work with the Phillips Company in their warehouseformat Food 4 Less stores. As he made his way up through the ranks, he worked as manager, co-manager and assistant manager in different locations, quickly setting himself apart as a standout operations guru. For Proffitt, there was never any doubt he had found his calling.
“I always knew I would like it and be good at it,” he said. “You get to make decisions, and when you get through, it’s something that you and your people have built together.”
In an era before ubiquitous Walmart Supercenters, the Phillips Company wanted to open a new type of store in Little Rock, in a format Proffitt described as “Food 4 Less on steroids.” The company would call it Mega Market, and it would call on Proffitt to get things off the ground. After a successful launch there, Proffitt applied his expertise to the remodel of the company’s Conway store.
“By the time we finished, I was running a store that had a floral department, a seafood department and a separate deli and bakery. I mean, we scratch-made croissants in that store,” Proffitt said.
The chain ended up selling to Walmart in 1992, and Proffitt had the experience behind him at that point to realize he didn’t want to work for the corporate giant. The thing about Food 4 Less that had excited him was the personal and community-first structural approach: managers had a say in the look and merchandising of their own stores, rather than working from a set of cookie-cutter rules.
After leaving the Phillips Company, Proffitt went to work as a retail counselor,
where he called on independent supermarkets in an advisory capacity. He’d assess the store’s operations and sit down with the owners to discuss everything from current conditions to market trends. The first time Proffitt met Oral and Steve Edwards of GES, Inc. – a company better known by its store names, Edwards Food Giant and Edwards Cash Saver – he was adding them to his customer list. Within a year of Proffitt calling on the pair, however, the Edwards knew they’d want to keep him around in a more permanent role. Proffitt officially joined GES in 1996 as vice president of operations, and he still holds the title today.
“At Food 4 Less, they taught me how to be a professional. Steve and Oral taught me how to operate a family-owned company and do it right,” Proffitt said.
“Doing it right” means a lot of things in Edwards stores. It means putting in the research to tailor each location to the community it serves. It means giving managers the autonomy they need to thrive. As Proffitt explains it, the driving idea behind everything the company does is treating people right and being fair.
“It’s one of the biggest things the Edwards do that is different from the corporate world. People have to kind of get used to it. I’m not sure it’s hard to get used to, because it wasn’t for me,” Proffitt said. “If you’re good at what you do and you’re happy to be here, they want you here. Showing people they’re appreciated is the key to the whole thing.”
Proffitt joined GES at a particularly fraught moment for the company. With Walmart expanding its footprint by the day, there were questions about the future of the Edwards brand. Though GES did have to shrink back at first to adjust its sails, Proffitt attributes the company’s eventual success to that core ethos and family-owned culture – in addition to a bit of sales savvy from one of its employees.
“Our meat director, Bob Childers, came to me. He said, ‘Gary, I’d like to do a Pick 5.’ I’d never heard of it,” Proffitt said. “You’d buy five packages of meat, and
even though they each had a different cost, you’d get them for $19.99.”
The idea couldn’t have come at a better time. Steve Edwards, seeing that the company’s competitors were moving away from in-store meat cutting and processing, had brought forward his own ideas for leaning into that market gap and becoming “the Meat People.”
“We still do Pick 5 today. It was a hit,”
Arkansas, Proffitt started adding merchandisers for various sections of the store, including deli/bakery, meat and produce, while maintaining his oversight of the grocery side. In the last year, those supervisors have turned into directors, with their own teams reporting to them about the state of the departments.
Whether it’s 50 people or 850, Proffitt’s approach to leadership hasn’t changed much. He prides himself on being inclusive and listening to his people, as well as giving clear directions so everyone knows exactly what’s expected of them.
Proffit said. “You won’t find any independent retailers that don’t do it in some fashion today, and we were one of the first to do it.”
The company also set itself apart with some well-timed investments into software upgrades. Proffitt said Edwards stores were some of the first that could ring up a Pick 5 deal properly, making the choice for shoppers even easier.
At one point, GES was down to three stores as it attempted to navigate the changing supermarket landscape. Now, the company operates 13, with number 14 due to open soon and 15 in the works.
Founder Oral Edwards passed away in 2017, and Steve Edwards now serves as GES president. As Steve’s son, Steve Edwards Jr., and son-in-law, Paul Rowton, have come into the company, Proffitt’s role has evolved to allow for growth and flexibility.
“My job has become more defined over time. It had to, because we’ve got over 850 employees today,” Proffitt said. “Now, Paul is vice president and Steve Jr. oversees special projects.”
Proffitt describes his role in its current form as more top-down than front-line. That shift is a testament both to Edwards’ success and the responsibilities he’s been able to delegate to others. When the company initially expanded into Central
When it comes to the stores themselves, his winning strategy is even simpler: “Full and clean. No matter where we operate, or what format it is, a clean, organized, well-stocked store wins.”
By far the most rewarding part of the job for Proffitt is successfully opening a new store. Every opening day is the culmination of his life’s work, and each location is built upon the hard-earned experience of the ones that came before.
“For the store we’re working on right now, the day before we open it and the three or four of us are walking through looking at it – it will be the best we’ve ever done,” Proffitt said. “Every one of them gets a little better. It is satisfying, too, for all the people in key positions who have had input into their departments.”
In preparation for the newest location, Proffitt interviewed one of the candidates for assistant manager for nearly two hours. The potential employee had decades of experience in the grocery business, so Proffitt wasn’t worried about his ability. Instead, Proffitt was concerned with making him understand one key thing about the job he was signing up for.
“I told him, probably about five times, ‘You just took the most satisfying job you’ll ever have,’” Proffitt said. “I could tell him that without a doubt.”
“Showing people they’re appreciated is the key to the whole thing.”
Thank
community education and earned a professional certificate in human resource development from the University of Minnesota. She has previously held various leadership positions at University of Wisconsin-Stout, where she served as provost and vice chancellor for academic and student affairs. She was also chancellor at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and most recently served as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Chippewa Valley Technical College in Wisconsin. Furst-Bowe was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to serve on the board of overseers for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and was a founding board member of the National Consortium for Continuous Improvement in Higher Education.
Max Greenwood was promoted to vice president for government and media affairs at Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield in 2019. Greenwood joined Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield in 1996 as the manager of public policy; in 2015, she was named director for governmental and media relations. Before joining the company, Greenwood was the press secretary for the Arkansas Governor’s Office, deputy press secretary for the Clinton for President campaign and transition team, and a Capitol Bureau reporter for the
Our focus is always on our patients. Focusing on their good health and well-being. Dr. Bev Foster has a reputation for being the best and it’s hard earned. Year after year, she is chosen the best Chiropractic Physician by multiple “best of” lists. It’s nice to be noticed, but more importantly we want to hear patients say how good they feel or that they are grateful they could avoid surgery.
Trust Dr. Bev and her team for your back and neck treatment.
We want you at your best!
Though most know Arvest as the oldest bank in Arkansas and one of the largest banks in the United States, the banking operations of Arvest support and are supported in turn by numerous other divisions. These include wealth management, title and closing services and the mortgage division, the last of which has been led by President and CEO Matt Kendall since Feb. 2021.
Kendall is a Northwest Arkansas man: born in Fayetteville; raised in Rogers, and now lives in Bentonville. His only extended absence from the region came during his time at Hendrix College in Conway, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business and economics.
“I had worked for Arvest during college in their operations area,” Kendall said. “I also had a local friend whose dad was a bank president at First National Bank and Trust in Rogers and who really liked it. So, when I came back after graduating from Hendrix, I applied to become an auditor at Arvest. I was able to learn the different areas of the bank, from deposits to mortgage to wealth to IT.”
Kendall left Arvest in 1993 to join Benton County Title and Abstract, which had been partly owned by his family since 1975. While there, he learned a great deal about title operations and became both a certified public accountant and a selftaught IT specialist.
“I never had a computer class in high school or at Hendrix,” Kendall said, “but at Benton County Title, I had to learn quickly to administer their SCO Unix Network and Novell network along with the hardware. I learned by watching others who supported us from the outside and would stay up with them all night asking lots of questions. Then I consulted several other title companies on information systems and hardware installs, as well as a local CPA firm.”
When the Walton family of Walmart fame acquired WACO Title Company, previously Washington County Abstract,
and brought it under Arvest, Kendall saw an opportunity to move to a bigger company and focus more heavily on IT. He was hired in 2000 as a network systems analyst to revamp and support all of WACO Title’s networks, phone systems and software systems.
Before the year was out, Kendall was promoted to chief operations officer of WACO Title and was made president and CEO in 2010. During his time in the company’s C-suite, WACO Title acquired six other title operations, grew from 40 associates at four branches to 125 associates at 17 branches, and its revenue increased by $2 million.
Kendall was brought over to the Arvest Bank - Mortgage Division in 2012 by the division’s previous President and CEO, Steven Plaisance. When Plaisance left the company, Kendall was selected to take his place. Now, he oversees everything the division owns and sets the strategic direction for mortgage lending for the bank group as a whole.
Whether at WACO Title or Arvest Mortgage, Kendall’s favorite part of the work has always been the ability it gives him to help others.
“I get a lot of joy from helping people solve problems,” Kendall said. “I really take satisfaction in helping someone get over a hurdle, complete a project or whatever it may be. I helped some of the folks that I have led or mentored over the years grow as associates and leaders and get into higher positions with the company. I love to help them gain success.
“It could also be a borrower. We often have to think outside of the box to make a loan, especially if another bank isn’t able to help, and Arvest can come through and help with homeownership or refinancing to save money.”
Kendall’s business philosophy goes hand in hand with his desire to help others. He lives by the motto, “Be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds.” He listed humility, integrity, hard work and effort as the most important traits in a leader, quoting the age-old saying, “surround yourself with people who are smarter than you.”
“I’m blessed to have the best leadership team that I’ve ever worked with,” Kendall said. “That’s what makes our division and my leadership a success: rely-
ing on those leaders underneath myself. We have a very strong work ethic, and a strong bond to make sure that we’re taking care of our customers and associates in an exemplary manner.”
Throughout Kendall’s career, technology has always been a major area of emphasis. With his personal interest and skills in the field, he frequently gets directly involved when he sees a vendor or project that gives him an opportunity to implement new IT solutions to increase effectiveness and efficiency.
“I think my children respect my technology acumen,” Kendall said. “I know there are a lot of parents that get teased because they don’t understand technology, but that’s one thing that I try to stay current on because it drives our future.”
The mortgage business relies on many manual processes that result in long cycle times to close a loan for purchasing a house or refinance. Kendall is eager to improve and automate those processes where possible, with the goal of bringing a cycle time of a month or longer down to just a few weeks.
Arvest Mortgage has already taken significant steps in that direction by allowing borrowers to do more through technology. Borrowers can send in documents electronically, and then sign those documents and get credentials verified via a “remote online notary” in a video call with a realtor, loan officer or anyone else who needs to be present.
Outside of work, Kendall is heavily involved in nonprofit organizations. He has previously served on the boards of the Open Avenues Foundation, United Way of Northwest Arkansas and Benton County Project Lifesaver, and he is a board member of the Teen Action Support Center, which helps teens in Northwest Arkansas with poverty, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, family issues and more.
Kendall is deeply passionate about his
involvement in a nonprofit he helped to establish, the JMC Foundation. JMC is named after Jackson McIntosh Carter, who was a close friend of Kendall’s eldest son and like a son to Kendall himself but died after a bone marrow surgery to treat his leukemia resulted in an infection.
“I wear a wristband every day to work. It says, ‘Be courageous, have hope and be kind.’ Even though he passed away his senior year of high school, Jackson always lived by that motto of helping others,” Kendall said. “There was never a stranger that he left out because of anything. He was always for the underdog. He always wanted to help people; it didn’t matter whether it was someone from church or anybody on the street. He had the kindest heart I’ve ever seen as a servant leader.”
Kendall joined others whose lives had been touched by Carter to put together the JMC Foundation in his honor. Since then, the organization has grown to offer three scholarships for football, entrepreneurship and kindness.
“For the kindness award, we really dig in hard and rely on the schools to give us somebody that has just gone over and above and beyond in an act of kindness. It can’t be just a little act of kindness, it has to be something moving and supportive.”
Last year’s winner was Emma Flager of Rogers High School. During the 2021-2022 school year, Flager learned that a classmate was seriously ill and organized a car parade to bring cheer to the student and his family. When he later passed away, she raised funds to support his family through a bake sale.
Kendall still has a long career ahead of him, whether it be improving the world of mortgaging through IT or supporting his community through nonprofits. Whatever he does, it can be certain that he will strive to help others as a speaker of words and as a doer of deeds.
“I really take satisfaction in helping someone get over a hurdle, complete a project or whatever it may be.”
Arkansas Democrat and the Arkansas Gazette. She received her undergraduate degree in political science from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois.
Glenn Grimes Owner
Capitol Glass Company
Glenn Grimes has been the owner of Capitol Glass Company since 1990 and recently took on co-ownership of Lacey’s Boating Center (2016) and Shiloh Marina (2022) at Greers Ferry Lake.
Grimes worked at Capitol Glass, the family business, throughout his childhood, starting full-time in 1972 immediately after graduating from high school. His father, Jack Grimes, co-founded the company in 1950. Grimes visits weekly to check on the business, while his son, Aaron, currently runs the company’s day-to-day operations. Grimes has been spending most of his time working on updates for the Shiloh Marina and managing Lacey’s Boating Center.
Mike Halter
Arkansas Regional President Cadence Insurance
Mike Halter is the Arkansas regional president of Cadence Insurance, formerly BXS Insurance, and has been with the company for over three decades. He previously served as vice president of Ramsey, Krug, Farrell & Lensing, a division of BancorpSouth Insurance Services. Halter received his undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of Central Arkansas.
Angela Harrison Owner, CEO WELSCO
Angela Harrison is the owner and CEO of WELSCO, one of the country’s largest independent welding supply and industrial-gas distributors. Harrison grew up in the family business but originally started her career as a behavioral counselor and nutritionist at a weight loss center. After being asked to join the company by her father, Harrison worked various jobs in the office and spearheaded the development of the company’s human resources department. She then switched to sales and took over from her father at age 27. Today, WELSCO is the largest woman-owned company in Arkansas and its industry. Harrison was also one of the first females to be elected to the leadership board of the International Oxygen Manufacturers Association. Over the years, WELSCO has grown to include customers and stores in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Missouri.
Buddy Hasten became the president and CEO of Arkansas Electric and Cooperative Corporation and Arkansas Electric Cooperatives, Inc. in October 2019. Hasten previously served as vice president at Associated Electric Cooperative, Inc. in Missouri and as regional director of generation at Alliant Energy in Iowa. After enlisting in the United States Navy in 1986 as a submarine reactor operator, he was selected for the Navy’s Nuclear Enlisted Commissioning Program (NECP), where he spent two decades working on various nuclear submarines and shore assignments. Hasten completed his Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering at Auburn University.
Smiley Technologies
Marc Haynes is the chief people and customer officer at Smiley Technologies, where he oversees human resources functions and creates programs to support and enhance organizational culture. Haynes spent 15 years with Acxiom Corporation in multiple leadership roles across IT, facilities, security, health and safety, and human resources. He has also served as chief human resources and loss prevention officer at Deluxe Media Services, held various roles within the Walmart Corporation and Kennametal Industries, and been a small business owner. Haynes received his undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of Central Oklahoma and a Master of Arts in human resources from Webster University.
CFO
Bill Hodge is a founding principal and serves as chief financial officer of HP Engineering. In his current role, Hodge focuses on growing the organization’s business side; he enjoys using an energetic approach to problem-solving and improving his leadership skills through running a business. Hodge is also a Certified Building Commissioning Professional and Certified Energy Manager who has worked alongside owners and engineers on projects across the United States and overseas. Throughout his career, Hodge
There is a lot of advice floating around – solicited or not – about how to pick a worthwhile career and excel at it. Aptitude tests and internships abound, and for many, it takes a slog through all the wrong jobs to finally settle on the right one. Fortunately for Keith Weeks, there was no such handwringing over his future.
“I think [the aha moment] is the story everybody wants,” Weeks said. “But really, it started out as just looking for a job, and that job turned into a career.”
Gary Houston founded his namesake electrical contracting business in Little Rock in 1978, and in 1989, a 22-year-old Weeks joined the company. It wasn’t his first job, but as far as Weeks is concerned, it was his first real one. And it’s the job that stuck: after four years as an apprentice, Weeks earned his journeyman’s license and then his master electrician’s license. Eventually, he moved into the office as an estimator before working his way up to vice president. Now, 34 years later, Weeks is president and owner of the company, alongside vice president and business partner Mitchell Shelby.
“I’ve worked with him for close to 20 years, and he’s truly the driving force behind our company,” Weeks said. “I’ve always said if he leaves, then I’ll leave too. He’s a wonderful person.”
When Weeks started out, Gary Houston Electric Company had around nine employees. Today, he oversees more than 50 people. Despite that growth, and the change in scenery from apprenticeship to the president’s chair, Weeks’ day-to-day has remained the same in one essential way.
“My daily job is whatever the daily job needs to be,” Weeks said. “It’s always changing, and there’s always something new to be done. We do anything from a one-hour service call to a million-dollar office building.”
Gary Houston Electric Company performs residential and commercial electrical services spanning from the design phase to the remodel, from regular maintenance to emergency repairs and everything in between. Once, during his time as an apprentice, Weeks even worked on philanthropist Jennings Osborne’s largerthan-life Christmas lights display. While the company does plenty of new construction, it’s the repeat customers that form the base of the company’s clientele; any growth depends on the quality of the relationships Weeks and his team have been able to build over the years. The way he describes his people, it’s clear that Weeks isn’t worried about their abilities, whether technical or personal.
“It’s not about me. It’s about the team I have in my office,” Weeks said. “We all work well with each other – not every day, but most days. I could not do it without them, but they could all do it without me.”
Ages around the office run the gamut, from 18 to nearly 80. Despite – or maybe because of – that range, the company atmosphere stays “light,” as Weeks put it.
“We’re always joking and trying to make it fun,” he said. “There’s plenty of stress without going and looking for it. We’ll bring lunch in, and cheesecake is our big splurge on birthdays. It’s more about the visit than the lunch, in my opinion.”
Weeks has learned a lot from people on either side of his own age, and he sees all those different perspectives as assets rather than impediments.
“Either you change with them, or you get stuck,” Weeks said. “Our newest thing has been social media and figuring out what that looks like for our company. We’re just learning new things. If you don’t learn, you get left behind.”
Weeks’ style of leadership – more of a non-style, as he sees it – is built on that kind of adaptability. He’s always ready to shake things up; the fact that things have been done a certain way for four decades
isn’t an excuse to shy away from novelty.
“We’ll try it for a week, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else,” Weeks said. “For a lot of people my age, that can be a thing: they’re stuck in a certain way. The great thing about having young people around me is having fresh thoughts all the time.”
Weeks had his own set of generational differences to navigate as he was coming up through the ranks under the guidance of Houston. The way Weeks and the company interact with customers may have changed through the years, but Houston also taught Weeks a number of timeless lessons that he carries into the present.
“If I needed to, I could call him today and he would give me some wonderful advice. I would not be anywhere without him,” Weeks said.
Many of the largest lessons Houston taught Weeks had to do with communication. One thing Weeks learned, at times without even realizing it, was the importance of body language and gestures. A heightened awareness for nonverbal cues has helped him notice when others are getting upset and diffuse tense situations before they can escalate. On the other end of the spectrum, Houston also expressed his business savvy in more pointed ways.
“There was another time where we had a project that was getting out of budget and the contractor had many questions as to why,” Weeks said. “I spent hours preparing for our meeting with the client. When we finally sat down with them and showed them that we had pages and pages of materials explaining what was going on, they decided they didn’t want to spend the hours it would take to go through it. As a result, the project moved ahead. Gary taught me to over prepare, and I have used that several times since.
During his tenure as president, Weeks has been able to pass those skills on to others, even if he’s hesitant to describe himself as a mentor.
“I think everyone tries to be a mentor, but I don’t know that I could fill those shoes,” he said. “He did a wonderful job, and he was very, very patient with me. It means more than he will ever realize. He’s given myself, Mitchell and many others the opportunities that we have today; owning this company is one of those huge things. I have such an appreciation and an admiration for him.”
Weeks sums up his career so far, and the countless things he’s learned along the way, with a mantra that’s hard to argue with. “Hard work and a great attitude take care of so many things,” he said. “Everyone loves to be around happy, friendly people. That will get you anywhere, in anything you do.”
When it comes to the future of Gary Houston Electric Company, Weeks once again defers to the people that have helped make the business into what it is today. He’s not necessarily looking to get any bigger, he said, but it’s ultimately up to the team.
“The more leaders that we have come out of our group, that’s really what dictates if we grow,” he said. “If you have people who can lead others, then it will happen naturally. It’s been the same thing with our clients; we don’t do a lot of marketing, because we have a lot of great relationships. We have a great client base and great team members. That’s really the growth, in my mind.”
“Everyone loves to be around happy, friendly people. That will get you anywhere, in anything you do.”
has gained experience in education, retail, medical, municipal, hospitality, multifamily, corporate, industrial, government and entertainment sectors. He understands the importance of balancing design performance with ease of maintenance. He is also a veteran of the United States Air Force.
Jerry Holder
Senior Vice President, Director of Enterprise Solutions Garver
Jerry Holder is senior vice presi dent and director of enterprise solutions at engineering services firm Garver. He has over three decades of experience in trans portation design and program management and previously served as the company’s director of transportation. Before his current stint at Garver, Holder was vice president and Texas district leader for engineering company HNTB. Holder leads teams of experts to construct efficient and modern interstate systems, river crossings, municipal streets and more; he believes that large infrastructure projects can be both short-term economic catalysts and long-term economic development investments. Holder received his undergraduate degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and completed his MBA at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
As CEO and chairman of Inuvo for the last 12 years, Richard Howe has used his intimate knowledge of business strategy, operations, sales and marketing and technology to create a new vision and successfully lead the company to prosperity. Howe has also been a member of the company’s board of directors since November 2008. In his early career, Howe wrote software that helped design and build some of the most significant construction projects in the world, most notably the Hibernia Offshore Oil Platform. Howe previously served as chief marketing/mergers and acquisitions officer at Acxiom. He graduated first in his class from Concordia University in Canada with an undergraduate degree in engineering; Howe later earned a graduate engineering degree from McGill University in Canada. His favorite parts of his role at Inuvo are working on strategy and technology.
Howard Hurst spent his childhood working with the family business and is proud to carry on that tradition as president of Tipton & Hurst. His grandfather, Joseph B. Hurst, and David Tipton founded the floral company in downtown Little Rock in 1886. Hurst became vice president of the business after receiving his undergraduate degree in business administration and management from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1980. Four years later, at 26, he stepped into the role of president, succeeding his father, Joe Hurst. Since then, Hurst has seen the company expand to Conway and Pine Bluff with the help of the company’s talented staff.
Osi Imomoh is the president and general manager of Southland Casino Hotel in West Memphis, a position he has held since May 2022. Early in his career, Imomoh served as Southland’s food and beverage director. He then held various casino manager positions with Delaware North, the global food service and hospitality company that owns Southland and other gaming operations across the United States and Australia. Imomoh has been recognized for his work in casino and hotel operations, revenue generation, guest satisfaction ratings and team productivity. He received his master’s degree in hospitality management from the Conrad N. Hilton College at the University of Houston.
Casey Jones has been a sales associate at The Janet Jones Company since 1992. Jones uses a relationship-oriented approach to real estate and has consistently ranked as the top residential agent in Arkansas and The Janet Jones Company for over a decade. Jones’ favorite part of the job is becoming friends with the extraordinary families he has had the privilege of serving over the past 35 years. Jones has previously served as a member of the Potluck Inc. and Baptist Health boards of directors. Jones is on the board of directors for Soaring Wings, a ministry serving children in crisis. Jones has received numerous accolades and has been recognized in publications, including AY About You, Arkansas Business, and At Home in Arkansas.
Garver’s Jerry Holder knows dedication goes beyond innovative infrastructure solutions. It’s about creating lasting connections in all those communities where we live and work. As an Arkansas native leading a team of experts to build a foundation for future growth, Jerry has spent more than 35 years improving the communities we call home.
Congratulations on being named one of AMP’s Fifty Over 50, Jerry!
Matt Kendall is the president and CEO of Arvest Bank’s mortgage division and Arvest Central Mortgage Company; he was officially named to the position in 2021 after several months of serving on an interim basis. Kendall has nearly 30 years of industry experience, having previously held the position of executive director of administrative operations, where he provided oversight for a variety of specialized areas within the mortgage division. Earlier in his career, Kendall worked as a staff auditor, title insurance and closing agent, network systems analyst, and was president and CEO of Waco Title Company. He received his undergraduate degree in economics and business with an emphasis in accounting from Hendrix College. Kendall is a board member of the Teen Action Support Center and JMC Innovation Scholars and a past president of the Open Avenues Foundation board of directors.
Cathy Kincaid
Baking Instructor
University of Arkansas Pulaski Technical College
Cathy Kincaid is a certified executive pastry chef and baking instructor at the University of Arkansas Pulaski Technical College’s Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute, where she teaches baking, pastry and cake decorating. Kincaid and her students prepare food for the college’s pastry shop and restaurant. She has been with the university for a decade and enjoys working with students. Kincaid previously ran a wedding and specialty cake business for several years before getting involved at UA-PTC, and she is a cake artist at the Blue Cake Company.
Taylor King Law
Taylor King, JD founded Taylor King Law firm in 1994 and has been practicing law for over 30 years. He received undergraduate political science and history degrees from Ouachita Baptist University before completing his doctorate at the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville. King was named to the National Trial Lawyers “Top 100” list and has been recognized in numerous publications, including AY About You and Arkansas Life. He is a member of the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association, the Arkansas Bar Association, the American Association for Justice, and the Pound Civil Justice Institute.
Vickey Kirkemier is an administrator at Superior Health and Rehab. Kirkemier was drawn to nursing during her time as a CNA while attending college at the University of Central Arkansas, where she realized she wanted to take a hands-on approach to patient care. She went on to attend nursing school at what is now the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton. After spending some time in nursing, Kirkemier took the opportunity to move into management and long-term care. She enjoys making an impact in the lives of others and being a trusted caregiver for people who reach out to her. In 2018, she was recognized by the Conway Chamber of Commerce as an “Outstanding Woman in Business” in the community.
Jeff Lovelady
CPA - CFO
Bell & Company
Jeff Lovelady is CFO and shareholder at Bell & Company, a regional certified public accounting and business advisory firm founded in 1981. Lovelady has been with Bell & Company since 1992; he provides clients with financial attest and consulting services and manages the IT department. Lovelady also has many years of experience working with transportation companies. He has written articles for Arkansas Trucking Magazine and Arkansas Business’ transportation edition. He received his undergraduate degree in education from Missouri State University and earned his CPA license in 2006. Lovelady enjoys puzzles, so deciphering a financial analysis is what he enjoys most in his work.
Surgeon
Rex Luttrell, MD is a general and bariatric surgeon at Saline Surgery and Weight Loss Clinic. An El Dorado native, Luttrell attended medical school in Bay Shore, New York, and Kent, England, before completing his residency at the James H. Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University. Luttrell joined Saline Health System in 1993 when he entered practice at Saline Memorial Hospital. He currently specializes in procedures involving gastric bands, vertical sleeve gastrectomy, OverStitch and the Orbera Intragastric Balloon.
Randy Machen, DDS is the founder and CEO of Little Rock Family Dental Care and has been in the business for over 30 years. Machen received his undergraduate degree in biology from Southern Arkansas University; he then went on to complete his Doctorate of Dental Surgery at the University of Tennessee. He began his career as a general dentist at The Doctors Building before expanding his practice. Machen has always been entrepreneurial and enjoys finding creative ways to make money. His favorite part of the job is seeing a patient smile and thank him for the work he has completed.
In 2018, Stacey Mason opened the Improv Lab in Bentonville. The Improv Lab uses workshops to help teams develop quick decision-making skills, improve listening skills and better understand their communication habits through improvisational games.
Mason is also the owner of Mason on Leadership, a leadership consultancy focused on applied improvisation, executive coaching and behavioral science. Early in her career, Mason led teams with Walmart Inc. in logistics and operations, global supply chain and enterprise inventory management. She later pivoted to leadership, executive development and culture coaching for the Walton Institute. Mason received her Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Tyler.
Andrew Meadors is the CEO of the Arkansas and Tennessee markets for Sunstar Insurance Group.
Meadors is a 30-year veteran of the insurance industry, and his favorite part of the job is helping everyone, including employees, clients, prospects and new agency partners, get to where they want to go. He is a former board member of the Insurors of Arkansas and serves on the Sunstar Insurance Group executive committee. Meadors received his undergraduate degree in business administration from Southern Methodist University in 1985. His early career consisted of selling commercial television time for the CBS affiliate in Dallas-Ft. Worth. In 2016, Meadors spent five months in retirement before being hired by Casey Bowlin, chairman and CEO of Sunstar in Memphis, Tennessee, to run and develop the Arkansas and Tennessee markets.
Rick Moody has been the market president of the Fayetteville area for Generations Bank since 2021. He oversees operations, the growth of lending and deposit relationships and community involvement for the Fayetteville market. Previously, Moody spent almost 20 years serving the Elkins and Fayetteville community in commercial lending and other leadership roles. Moody attended Arkansas Tech University; initially, in his career, he followed in his father’s footsteps as a cattle farmer and, later, the owner of a trucking company that provided bulk feed products to Arkansas dairy and turkey farmers. Moody’s favorite part of his current role is working with customers with a vision of starting something from the ground up.
Elizabeth Moore, JD was elected to a three-year term on the Southwest Power Pool board of directors in October 2020 and is a member of the human resources and oversight committees. Moore previously served as senior vice president and general counsel at Consolidated Edison of New York and has more than 30 years of experience in the regulator and energy industry. Moore has also served as an attorney at American Express, a partner at Nixon Peabody LLP and as counsel to former New York Governor Mario Cuomo. Moore completed her Bachelor of Science in labor relations at Cornell University and received her doctorate from St. John’s University. She is also a member emeritus of Cornell’s board of trustees.
Julie Nix is Baptist Health Rehabilitation Institute’s president and the surgical services executive for Baptist Health Medical Center - Little Rock. She has been with Baptist Health since 2004; in her current role, her top priority is to ensure that Baptist Health remains a leader in innovative service offerings and quality patient-centered care. Her responsibilities also include assessing and analyzing access to care, particularly in rural underserved areas of Arkansas. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and her master’s degree in health care administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Russellville
Paragould
Jonesboro
Little Rock
12 Locations Across the Natural State 95 Professionals Insuring Your Satisfaction
“I’d like to thank our entire Arkansas team for helping me get this recognition. Our success isn’t possible without them.”
— Andrew “A.B.” Meadors, CEO, Sunstar Arkansas, AMP Fifty over 50
As one of the fastest-growing insurance agencies in the region, our experienced associates provide exceptional service, professional knowledge, trusted advice, and a wide selection of competitively priced products. That’s the power of local. That’s the power of Sunstar. Learn more at sunstarinsuranceofarkansas.com
Little Rock: 10800 Financial Centre Pkwy, Suite 300 (501) 225-3454
Springdale: (Farris Insurance) 4706 S. Thompson Street (479) 756-6330
Jonesboro: (Incl. Evins Insurance) 2479 Browns Lane (870) 932-7448
Paragould: (Mark Miller Insurance) 117 W. Court Street (870) 236-1415
Camden: (Campbell & Co.) 221 W. Washington St. (870) 836-5724
Dorcas Prince and her husband, Stan, are the owners of Low’s Bridal in Brinkley. Low’s Bridal, located in the historic and restored Great Southern Hotel building, is one of the largest bridal shops in the United States and is the goto bridal gown destination in the South. Low’s Bridal began with Prince’s mother and six dresses in a room above the family pharmacy. Prince initially intended to become a pharmacist like her father, but she joined the other family business instead. Over four decades later, the appointment-only shop now offers more than 2,500 gowns in sizes 0-34 –one of the largest selections in the country – and handles about 5,000 weddings annually.
Gary Proffitt is vice president of operations for GES Inc, the company that operates Edwards Food Giant and Edwards Cash Saver stores across central and eastern Arkansas. After graduating from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Proffitt initially worked in various management positions for other supermarkets before moving into retail counseling for independent stores. While in this role, GES Founder Oral Edwards and his son, Steve, hired Proffitt to oversee operations for the Edwards brands. After more than two decades as vice president, Proffitt has helped the company thrive and open new locations at an impressive rate.
Susan Reynolds is vice president and sales associate at The Janet Jones Company. She is one of the top real estate agents both at the company and in Arkansas. Reynolds has been in real estate for over 25 years, earning her real estate license at age 18. In her roles at the company, Reynolds assists in running the business, helping agents in the office, training new agents and working on strategic planning. She especially enjoys motivating, encouraging and teaching new agents. Alongside administrative work, Reynolds lists and sells homes. She comes
from a long line of salespeople, including her mother, Janet Jones. Over the years, The Janet Jones Company has consistently ranked as the top real estate agency in Central Arkansas, and the firm remains locally, family-owned, and proudly independent. Reynolds has served on the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce boards and the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Auxiliary. Numerous publications have recognized her, including Arkansas Money & Politics, Arkansas Business, At Home in Arkansas, and others.
Todd Rice is an executive vice president and principal at Colliers Arkansas. He is a member of the firm’s executive committee and is responsible for managing the dayto-day operations of the brokerage department. Rice has over 15 years of experience in commercial land analysis and development, commercial mix-use projects, industrial, multifamily and retail representation. Rice was previously a broker with Coldwell Banker Commercial Hathaway Group in Little Rock, where he worked for six years. He was also the co-founder and president of the VanadisCl Development Companies, where he oversaw client development and project management for the company’s multifamily and commercial properties in Arkansas. He attended the University of Arkansas and is a certified commercial investment manager.
Dave Roberts has been the senior vice president of business development and director of planning for Crafton Tull since 2016. Earlier in his career, Roberts designed zoos for the Little Rock firm MESA before starting his planning and design firm, Roberts & Williams Associates. He managed Roberts & Williams until it merged with Crafton Tull in 2008. Roberts oversees and contributes to various urban design and community redevelopment plans, and he frequently presents at conferences across the Mid-South. Roberts is a Governor’s Advisory Council on Cycling member and serves on the Little Rock Active Transportation Advisory Committee. He is also a member of the Camp Aldersgate board of directors.
Rodrigo Salas has been the executive director of EforAll since 2021. Salas is the primary fundraiser and spokesperson for EforAll/ EparaTodos and focuses on building relationships within the community to grow the program. He enjoys working with a wide variety of entrepreneurs and seeing their business ideas evolve. Salas worked in marketing and advertising in his early career and was referred to EforAll while mentoring entrepreneurs with Startup Junkie. He loves EforAll’s mission of accelerating economic impact in Northwest Arkansas. Salas received his undergraduate marketing degree from the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico and his MBA from the University of Texas.
Patti Stobaugh is the owner and founder of PattiCakes Bakery. She and her husband, David, are the owners of the Arkansas restaurant staple, Stoby’s. After receiving her accounting degree from Lyon College, Stobaugh worked in corporate accounting and served as the CFO of Arkansas One Call. Leaving the corporate world behind, Stobaugh opened a bakery next to the Russellville Stoby’s location; after the property behind Stoby’s in Conway became available, she moved the operation to Central Arkansas. Stobaugh, a past president of Haven House, has been on the Conway area Chamber of Commerce and, in 2015, was asked to join the board of directors for the Retail Bakers of America.
Steve Straessle has been the principal of Catholic High School for Boys for the last 18 years. A 1988 graduate of the school, Straessle started teaching in 1992 before taking the helm as principal; he continues to teach two classes in addition to his administrative and fundraising duties. He has served as the physical fitness and bowling team coach, yearbook sponsor, alum director and vice principal throughout his time at Catholic High. His numerous accolades include being named DAR Social Studies Teacher of the Year in 1995 and ASPA Administrator of the Year in 2016. Straessle is a member of the Arkansas Activities Association
board of directors and serves on the Arkansas Office of Outdoor Recreation Commission.
Chris Tanner
Co-Owner
Cheers in the Heights, Samantha’s Tap Room & Wood Grill, The Oyster Bar
Chris Tanner and his wife, Samantha, own Cheers in the Heights, Samantha’s Tap Room & Wood Grill and The Oyster Bar. Tanner originally earned a degree in aviation, but soon after, he and his wife turned to catering for extra money. That hobby turned into a full-time job and a career when the couple opened their first restaurant in Little Rock, Cheers in the Heights. In 2016, along with ICU nurse Devin Miller, the couple established the Heart of a Nurse scholarship in honor of their late daughter, Anna Charley Tanner.
Co-Owner, Realtor Signature Properties
Mitsy Tharp is a realtor and the co-owner of Signature Properties. While helping clients navigate the home selling and buying process, she and her business partner, Holly Driver, are responsible for the daily management of the brokerage and assisting agents in achieving their goals. Tharp received her undergraduate degree from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1992. She has been recognized for her work by publications, including At Home in Arkansas and AY About You, in addition to receiving awards of distinction from the Little Rock Realtors Association. Tharp currently serves on the board of directors for the Arkansas Zoological Foundation and the Little Rock Realtors Association, and she previously served on the UAMS Consortium Board.
Katherine Thomas, RN Owner
Arkansas Aesthetics
Katherine Thomas, RN is the owner of Arkansas Aesthetics, where she works as a master aesthetic injector and aesthetic trainer. Arkansas Aesthetics is the only aesthetic practice in the Southeast, focusing solely on neurotoxins and dermal fillers in all three locations. Thomas is the only injector in the state to be named to the Top 100 Best Injectors in America three years in a row. Thomas started her nursing career in the cardiovascular intensive care
unit at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Before founding Arkansas Aesthetics, she was the vice president of clinical education at medical device company AccuVein. Her favorite part of the job is meeting patients’ needs, some of whom have become her close friends.
Cathy Tuggle is the principal broker and owner of Tuggle Services, Inc. DBA Apartment Hunters and Arkansas Suites. Tuggle began her career as a leasing consultant in 1991, and in 1999 she had the opportunity to purchase Apartment Hunters; she started Arkansas Suites one year later. Tuggle holds the Certified Apartment Manager and National Apartment Leasing Professional designations through the National Apartment Association and has over 28 years of experience in the multifamily industry through marketing, training and property management. Tuggle is the chair of the UA Little Rock advisory board and the Commercial Real Estate Council of Metro Little Rock; she is a former chair for MakeA-Wish Mid-South and AR Kids Read. She currently serves on the UA Little Rock real estate advisory board, the Arvest board of directors, Fifty for the Future, the Little Rock Regional Chamber and is a member of Rotary Club of Little Rock. She is a past president of the Arkansas Apartment Association, Apartments Across America and a past officer of the Institute of Real Estate Management.
Brooke Vines is the co-founder of Vines/Brookshire, a media buying and planning company established by Vines and business partner, Bill Brookshire, in 2018. Her goal is to put people first – clients, team members, partners and the audiences her team is trying to communicate with. Her first professional job was at Arkansas Business Publishing Group, where she worked as an ad coordinator. Before joining forces with Brookshire, Vines was the owner of Vines Media, which she founded in 2004. Vines is also active in her community, mentoring other entrepreneurs at the Venture Center and volunteering with organizations including CARTI, Care-Link, Home For Healing, Holy Sews and others.
Keith Weeks has been the president of Gary Houston Electric Company for the past 10 years, having worked his way up under the guidance of founder, Gary Houston. Now with over three decades of experience in the company, Weeks is proud to be part of a hardworking team that continues to provide residents and businesses with crucial electrical contracting services. For 45 years, Gary Houston Electric Company has performed electrical repairs and remodeling for homes, retail spaces, restaurants, offices, warehouses and more.
Shannon Williams
Vice President and Senior Account Manager
CJRW
Shannon Williams is vice president and senior account manager at the advertising agency CJRW. She has three decades of experience in advertising and communications and prefers a team-focused approach to project management.
Williams works with various local, regional, and national clients in her current role to develop and implement marketing campaigns, including Visit Hot Springs, Stamp Out Smoking and others. Williams previously worked as an account executive at Stone Ward and held various positions at Alltel Communications, Inc. A Little Rock native, Williams graduated from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Keith Wingfield
Keith Wingfield is the president and co-owner of River Rock Builders, a custom home company specializing in high-performance homes, and is the most active Energy Star® Builder in Central Arkansas. Wingfield is a Certified Graduate Builder, Certified Green Professional and LEED AP. He and his wife, Patty, began building for customers in 1999 after building their home in Little Rock. Patty has since retired, but Wingfield continues to oversee day-to-day operations and ensures that each project is completed with the same quality and sound building principles the company has maintained for over two decades. Wingfield earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and began his career in construction material sales in 1977.
By AMP Staff
The Natural State is full of extraordinary businesses, and with Black History Month upon us, there is no better time to shine a spotlight on the amazing Black-owned businesses that help make our state great.
In 2021, the United States Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy released its Small Business Profile. This report totaled 23,141 Black-owned businesses in the state, with 641 operating with employees and 22,500 of these businesses operating without.
In the following section, Arkansas Money & Politics will be sharing several features on Black businesses throughout the state. From culinary delights to fashion and education, Arkansas is home to many businesses that cater to every possible client and customer need. This year, the following businesses will be highlighted: The Design Group, BlackOwned NWA & Black Paper Party, Southern Pasta Twist, Certified Pies, Gilmer’s Learning Solutions, Korto Momolu, Delta Dirt Distillery and B. Watts Photography.
Images mean things, especially images put forth by corporate logos. In the case of The Design Group of Little Rock, the logo is a sharp square and the letter “D,” the lower right hand corner of which dissolves into the background.
Read right to left, it suggests the com pany takes chaotic elements and brings them into sharp focus. Read left to right, it sends a very different message – that the multicultural marketing compa ny takes the status quo and blows it to pieces.
Asked which is a more ac curate description of the firm and co-founders Myron Jackson and Telly Noel smile.
“It would be the latter and not the former,” Jackson said.
“If we’re nothing else in this agency, we are disruptors. The status quo has always been about developing marketing messages that were meant to be relevant to all, but really only appeal to a few. As disruptors, we really try to challenge the status quo by creating an agency that speaks to the total market.
“We develop innovative communications that speak to the new ‘diversity-rich’ marketplace, whether you’re trying to identify consumers by race, ethnicity, lifestyle, life stage or sexual orientation.”
In their early days working for other agencies, Noel and Jackson saw campaigns that were inaccu-
400 W. Capitol Ave. #1802 // Little Rock // 501.492.4900 // designgroupmarketing.com
rate, pandering and failed to con nect with African American and Latino consumer segments.
The duo, who have known each other since Little Rock’s McClellan High School, finally decided to take the bold step of building a firm.
“Back then, when you talked about multiculturalism in terms of African Americans or La tinos, there was still this assumption that, because of shared language, there was shared culture,” Jackson said. “Our approach was to prove to clients that if your brand was associated with meaningful cultural narratives and relevant experiences, the result would be huge returns.”
“The early days were interesting,” Noel said. “We spent a lot of time trying to explain to people the importance of our market and what we do. It wasn’t accepted then, in terms of understanding multicultural communications, because there was just a general market approach to everything, driven primarily by the lack of diversity at the decision-making table. It took us some time to educate our prospective clients about what we did and how we did it.”
A cross-section of current clients ranges from Arkansas Department of Health, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and Saint Mark Baptist Church to FBT Bank, African American Mayors Association and First Security Bank. The firm has grown into a regional presence and serves clients as far asway as Washington, D.C.
Stephanie Jackson, a veteran of local media and Myron’s wife, has headed the PR side of the house for 11 years. She said the challenge of providing cultural education to the media is a constant, especially as television and radio stations in many markets are still behind the diversity curve, from management to front-line reporters.
“Most newsrooms are not minority-owned,” she said. “In fact, we only have one newsroom in central Arkansas that is run by a minority woman, and she is only one of two women who manage newsrooms in the state’s largest media market. Knowing the obstacles that are still in place for women, especially minority women, I can hopefully be more effective
in helping reporters and newsroom managers understand why a particular story would resonate with their audience.
For everything that’s different and groundbreaking about the nature of The Design Group’s messaging, the underlying principles that make them effective are surprisingly simple.
“The science of what we do hasn’t necessarily changed,” Noel said. “Honestly, people’s perceptions have changed. People’s understanding of the importance of telling our stories from our lens has changed.”
Myron Jackson agreed, adding the team maintains its voice and insights by spending a lot of time in the community, keeping their fingers on the pulse of the audience they are trying to reach.
“We often say that we have proximity power,” he said. “In the African American community, the target demo may be Telly’s mom, may be my aunt, may be a brotherin-law, may be a cousin. We use that proximity power and revel in the fact that no one’s going to understand that segment better than the individuals who are living it every day.
All three executives agreed the future holds nearly boundless opportunity for the firm as formerly underrepresented and disenfranchised population segments emerge, affirming their existence and value. As that happens, The Design Group will remain in step with the times, helping clients communicate more directly and effectively.
“Where do we go from here? We continue to grow,” Noel said. “We’re bold, we’re unapologetic and we want to keep helping brands benefit from being culturally connected.”
When Samantha and Kreg Stewart rented out part of a shared kitchen space and paid to design a logo, the plan was not to start a pizzeria. Rather, it was a development from a side hustle in meal prep that had outgrown their home kitchen. Kreg had lost his job as a truck driver due to the pandemic, which they viewed as an opportunity to turn their meal prep into a true business. Then a close friend of theirs, Harlem Wilson, turned that plan in a whole new direction.
While Kreg was a trucker and Samantha a businesswoman, pizza has long been both a passion and a profession for Wilson. His first two jobs were both making pizzas, but he decided to start making them at home, learning how to make dough from scratch. He gave Kreg a home-made pizza for his birthday in 2020, and Kreg described it as a lightbulb moment.
“It just makes sense in terms of profit margins,” Kreg said. “You don’t have to do as many things as with meal prep, since you can’t serve the same food or people will get tired of it. But some people never get tired of pizza and wings.”
Still operating out of that rented kitchen space only accessible from the back of a shopping center, Certified Pies only offers carryout and delivery. Despite the odd location, the owners noted that the support they have received from customers has been incredible.
“We had a tour bus from Missouri come through just this past weekend,” Samantha said. “I mean, just to think that they drove a bus around the back of this building to find us.”
Certified Pies’ menu boasts a range of specialty options that the owners have named after their shared passion for music. These include the Al Green, the Smooth Operator, and the Sweet James Jones, a unique combination of lump crab meat, bacon, green on-
ions and alfredo sauce, which has proven to be one of the most popular options. Both the wings and some of the pies make use of Truth Sauce, produced by another local business owner, Keith Tucker Jr.
“We take pride in what we do,” Kreg said. “We’ve tweaked everything and we’ve watched the business grow. We’ve made our dough over several times to the product that it is today, we went through
The story of Southern Pasta Twist began on New Year’s day 2022, when Antwane Wilkerson told his wife Gabrielle, “I don’t want to work for anyone anymore.” What followed was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, but a carefully-deliberated plan made with a sound understanding of business. With an official opening in Jan. 2023, that plan has just begun to bear fruit.
With a shared passion for cooking, the pair settled on starting a food truck for its advantages of low overhead compared to brick-and-mortar and the ability to move to events and follow demand. After coming up with the idea, Gabrielle decided to partner with a friend from business school, A’Ja Rolfe.
Gabrielle called Rolfe and told her, “‘Here’s a concept, you don’t have to make a de cision today. Just think about it and tell me what you think.’ She made the decision before we got off the phone and we created a four-year plan.”
Things rapidly advanced from there as they acquired a food trailer from a cous in. To reach a wider sample size for testing recipes, the Wilkersons organized an expo in June called Minding My Black Owned Business. Not only did the reci pes they were testing sell out, but the expo was so successful that MMBOB is now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with an 11-member board.
With such successes, the four year plan was completed in only a single year. Southern Pasta Twist is currently based in Maumelle and has five main menu items that combine delicious southern cooking with Italian cuisine in dishes such as pulled beef mac and cheese or fried lasagna.
“We definitely have a CEO mentality,” Gabrielle said. “We do not believe in leaving one job to go to another. We want to get to the point where we can hire
and the truck runs without us.”
Once that milestone is achieved, Gabrielle hopes to begin franchising. If things continue to progress as quickly as they have so far, keep an eye out – because Southern Pasta Twist might be coming to a town near you.
Black-Owned NWA, a business resource guide on Instagram and Facebook, has been highlighting Black businesses throughout Northwest Arkansas for a couple of years now, with the page’s following steadily climbing.
Run by J’Aron “Jae” Merchant and Jazmine “Jazzy” Hudson, the pages are dedicated to highlighting Black business growth in the region.
“A lot of new businesses have been popping up in NWA, which we’ve been really excited about,” Hudson said. “I would say the No. 1 area of growth we’ve noticed over the past year would be in mental health. Getting more Black mental health providers in this area is particularly important for the Black diaspora because it means that people understand the plight we have and the culture we share.”
In addition to running the social media pages that highlight the new and growing Black-owned businesses, Merchant and Hudson have also collaborated with several local entities in the region together for expos. On Feb. 25, Black-Owned NWA will be hosting its annual Black History Month Business Expo at the Fayetteville Town Center.
“Our first expo of the year is in recognition of Black History Month,” Hudson said. “This event is for everyone, so we hope to see lots of people supporting and celebrating Black businesses.”
The duo will also be hosting its annual Black Business Month Business Expo in August and may plan a small event for Juneteenth this summer.
“The business expos in this region are so important because it’s been pro jected that Black citizens will have a median wealth of zero, as a community, by 2053, and we really want to change that trajectory. We are doing our part in our little corner of the country to improve that number,” Hudson said, attributing the number to The Road to Zero Wealth Report.
Merchant and Hudson, in partnership with Madia Willis, have continued to grow their own business together. Black Paper Party rose to the public eye in December 2021, when it was featured on “The Today Show,” and many ce lebrities, including Issa Ray, began championing the brand for its inclusivity. With Willis as CEO, Merchant serving as chief product designer and Hudson as chief merchant, the business is now not only a Christmas decor and wrapping pa per company, but a staple for Black families preparing for any holiday or celebration.
“We have released our new Valentine’s Day collection, and we are currently working on our Easter designs,” Hudson said, noting the brand is likely to to expand into birthday decorations soon.
Willis, Hudson and Merchant all met in Arkansas, and though none of them were raised in NWA, Hudson credits the area for bringing them together.
“NWA is a place with overwhelming community support. I’ve met people from all walks of life in all corners of the world, and NWA has really special people, all who are very willing to help and welcome you into the community,” Hudson said.
217
W. 2nd. St, Suite 110 // Little Rock // gilmerlearningsolutions.comWhen one of her children began struggling in school, Ar’Jillian Gilmer and her husband, Charles, did all they could to help the child succeed, from games based around rhymes to spelling raps meant to ingrain the rules for spelling and reading comprehension.
“With this basis in mind, and working in the public school system, I knew that students could not possibly be receiving all the help necessary because teachers don’t have that type of time, not even in small group sessions,” Gilmer said.
While working as a teacher with the Little Rock School District, Gilmer began assisting her co-workers with their college coursework to become certified teachers, then started helping students that her co-workers sent to her, wanting to do all she could to help.
Gilmer’s Learning Solutions began as a one-woman operation in 2020, but on her own, Gilmer was only able to assist about five students at a time, so she turned it into an official business in 2021.
“We are contracted with eight Learning Solutions Experts, who range from high achieving high school and college students to educators/expert tutors to an adjunct professor who provides most of our professional collaboration services,” Gilmer said. Where GLS once had to find free locations like libraries or community centers to meet with clients, it has now grown into a brick-and-mortar location right in the
kortomomolu.com
“When you pray, move your feet,” is an African proverb fashion designer Korto Momolu grew up hearing, clinging to the words as she continues to achieve her wildest dreams.
Momolu has always been an artist, designing her life through clothes, interiors and any other way she could find to express her creativity. As a successful fashion designer, she is widely known for her time spent on Bravo’s “Project Runway,” and her designs that have made it into fashion shows all over the world, including New York Fashion Week.
Born in Liberia, she and her family lived in Canada as refugees during the first Liberian War. She attended an all-girls boarding school, where she first fell in love with individuality and creativity. Momolu said she would sketch daily, eventually turning from drawing pictures of objects to designing clothing she wanted to replicate.
Momolu attended Parsons The New School for Design School of Fashion in New York City, and professionally trained at Anne Klein, where she interned. Momolu never returned to school after her internship at Anne Klein, as it opened the pathway to professional designing.
Momolu, as a women’s clothing designer, focuses on comfort, beauty and not sacrificing quality of her pieces.
“As a designer, you have to know who you are, you have to know what you want to say. Designers are really no different than songwriters or other creatives. We all have a narrative and once you know what you’re search-
heart of downtown Little Rock.
“GLS provides personalized academic support wherein we access a client’s current proficiency based on Arkansas State Standards,” Gilmer said. “We continuously monitor progress to ensure that our lessons are effective at building the learner’s capacity to retain knowledge, apply it to various contexts, and demonstrate what is learned through various activities and assignments.”
The learning solutions provided by the company take a variety of forms, most of which are available in either private or small-group settings. Thus far, GLS has helped over 50 clients, with recent clients showing academic growth equivalent to four months to up to a year of school during their 18-week contract period.
ing for you can create it,” Momolu said.
Local to Little Rock, Momolu has lived in the area for 24 years, the longest time she has ever lived in one place. She attri butes her reason for stay ing as being a great place to raise kids, with a lot of com munity support.
Her designs nod to her Liberian roots and are inspired by the life she lives. In her current collection, she focused on creating joy in designs by sewing affirmations into each piece. These affirmations include words that speak life and appreciation of those who wear them.
“I want to create fashion because of the moment I first started buying fashion when I felt visible, special and beautiful. I hope my customers feel emotion from the details in the clothes that I’ve created,” Momolu said.
Brandon Watts found an early fascination with photographs. He credited part of this early interest to the sorts of landscape and architectural photos commonly used as computer backgrounds and screensavers, but more importantly to photographs of people.
“I never got to meet my granddad, but we had a couple photographs of him,” Watts said. “Through the photographs and the stories that my dad told me about him, it was almost like I got to meet the man.
“So I always felt like it was really important for other people to have photos of themselves. I have a daughter, so it’s good being able to know that one day I won’t be here but she’ll have photos of me and her, and that’s something that she’s always going to be able to treasure and look back on.”
Watts got his first camera in 2015, and within three years he opened Studio 4seven9 in Springdale. His work has been featured in high-profile exhibitions and publications such as Crystal Bridges, Vogue, US Weekly, and OK! He has also photographed celebrities and public figures ranging from professional basketball player Isaiah Joe to U.S. Sen. John Boozman.
While his “signature portraits” could be considered his specialty, Watts is skilled in various forms of photography from weddings to real estate to product photography. More recently, Watts’ work has begun to take him overseas, as he was flown to Scotland to photograph a private event. This was just one of several gigs where he has documented a client’s travels.
“That’s been one of my favorite things to do because it takes the pressure off a client,” Watts said. “Say you go on a family trip, you really can’t enjoy that
trying to get photos on your phone. But imagine if you have a photog rapher with you and you can em brace the moment and know everything’s being documented.”
Watts has also recently established his own nonprofit, Kidz N Cameras, meant to not only teach young people the art of photography, but also how to run a business.
“Through our programs,” Watts said, “we aim to help youth explore the world through the lens and become positive role models in their communities.”
Delta Dirt Distillery is built on a foundation of generations of family farming. The great-grandfather of CEO Harvey Williams first worked land in the Arkansas delta as a sharecropper. Harvey’s grandfather bought the land out of sharecropping in 1949 using money he had saved from picking cotton and selling moonshine.
Harvey’s family still works that land, and the produce they grow goes into the spirits they distill on Helena-West-Helena’s historic downtown Cherry Street. Harvey’s wife, Donna, is co-founder and chief brand officer, his son, Thomas, is head distiller and director of marketing and communications, and his other son, Donavan, is operations manager and director of national sales.
“The whole concept started back in 2017, long before the pandemic,” Harvey said. “A craft distillery checks all of the boxes in terms of having a business and using the farm to sustain it.”
The Williams had their first batch bottled and ready for
market by Dec. 2020, and the distillery opened its doors on April 1, 2021. Since then, Delta Dirt Distillery has swiftly expanded to new markets and sold over 1000 cases in 2022.
Delta Dirt Distillery’s first product was their vodka, which is highly unusual in that it is made from one of the Williams’ main crops: sweet potatoes. The vodka has won multiple awards including double gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, triple gold at the Microliquor Spirit Awards and gold and best in class for vodka with the American Craft Spirits Association.
“Taste-wise I think it gives you this unique earthy characteristic,” Harvey said of the vodka. “ It tastes like a vodka with character versus a vodka that just tastes like alcohol. Even on the nose, you can pour it over ice and nose it and really enjoy the flavor and aromas even before you ever taste it.”
The company’s bourbon is still likely a year away from release, but it too will contain sweet potatoes, making for another unique experience to look forward to. While Delta Dirt’s gin is not made with sweet potato, it is infused with botanicals including juniper berry, orange peel, angelica root, orris root, cassia, and more.
moment because you’re so stuck on
Company Name
21st Century Janitorial, Inc.
JBuzz Event Planning & Design
Cammo Cleaning, LLC
CD Real Estate Group
Collaborative Counseling Associates, PLLC
Cheesecake on Point
ELXR Yoga Lounge
FamilyFishers
Infinity Therapy, LLC
This February, Arkansas Money and Politics is happy to celebrate Black History Month by highlighting some of the state’s best and most promising Black-owned businesses. Though the businesses on this list represent only a small handful of the many thousands that support the Arkansas economy, they nevertheless show the breadth and depth of goods and services that Black-owned businesses can provide.
Whether you are looking for real estate, commercial cleaning, coffee, construction and remodeling, lawn care, books, yoga, or even catfish bait, one of the businesses on this list has you covered. Next time you’re looking for anything from lunch to a lawyer, consider checking this list to support your local Black-owned businesses.
Business Description City
Commercial cleaning services
Event management, design and production
Residential and commercial cleaning services
Full-service real estate and property rental management
Mental and behavioral health training and consultation
Food truck
Boutique yoga studio
Cold water catfish bait
Speech and language pathology
Jones Landscaping & Lawn Service Landscaping and lawn care
K. Hall and Sons Enterprises
Light House Solutions
Arkansas Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission
Morris Law Firm
Natural State Private Wealth Group
People Trust
PJ's Home Improvement & Repair Services
Industrial wholesale and retail produce sales, meats and paper products
Nonprofit youth and family services
Community outreach/leadership development
Law firm
Private wealth advisory practice
Nonprofit community development/loans and financial education services
Construction/residential remodeling
Prude Legacy Law Group, PLLC Law firm
Pyramid Art, Books & Custom Framing
QSF & Associates, LLC
Bookstore/art and art services
Real estate development services
Sims Bar-B-Que Restaurant
Strategic Health & Wellness Solutions
The Grind Coffee Bistro
The People Place
Tropical Market
Health and wellness products/licensed private care services
Coffee shop/bistro
Therapy/mental health
African/caribbean food market
Little Rock
Fayetteville
Bentonville
Conway
Little Rock
Little Rock
Fayetteville
Hot Springs
Benton
Little Rock
Little Rock
Fayetteville
Little Rock
Little Rock
Little Rock
Little Rock
Jonesboro
Fayetteville
Little Rock
Little Rock
Little Rock
Little Rock
Little Rock
Bentonville
Rogers
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From the Ozarks to the Ouachitas and from the Delta plains to glittering city centers, the postpandemic world has been very, very good to Arkansas tourism.
For the three years leading up to the COVID emergency and related restrictions, visitor numbers and tourist spending in The Natural State were already creeping upward. After a justifiable dip in 2020, a slingshot effect in 2021 demolished all previous numbers, according to Arkansas Tourism’s most recent Economic Impact Report.
More than 41 million people visited Arkansas in 2021, a 14% increase over 2019 with 30.1 million total leisure visitors, a spike of more than 11%. Four out of 10 visitors spent an overnight in the state, a 23% jump over 2019 totals.
Lodging is just one area where visitors showed a willingness to spend money in the state. As per the Economic Impact Report, total visitor spending topped $8 billion, equaling a mark previously set in 2019. Of this, 30% was spent on transport, and 29% was spent on food and beverage. State tax receipts were up 9% to $467 million, and local taxes generated totaled $186 million, 10% over 2019.
Travis Napper, director of Arkansas Division of Tourism, said despite the robust numbers, the public hasn’t seen anything yet. He said the goal heading into
the new year was to make such numbers the norm and not a byproduct of pent-up demand.
“There’s so much potential that I’m ready to see it fully in action,” he said. “We have great partnerships that exist, but there’s still potential to take a lot of those to the next level and initiate new ones. Some of those are other governmental partners and other agencies, and some of those are private businesses. Some of those are just other organizations within our state or regionally that we can work with.”
Matching the remarkable numbers of 2021 is a tall order and will require more than just goodwill. Napper is quick to point out that in addition to partnerships and momentum, the department also has considerable resources at its disposal to help achieve its goals.
“One thing we’re looking forward to is to unleash the full extent of the funding we have available to us, for what it’s been made available,” he said, referring to the state’s so-called tourism tax. “This industry went to bat for us and for itself many, many years ago to have this funding, and we have a good bit of it ready to deploy. I think now we’re going to have full authority to go deploy it.”
At the same time, Napper said the department isn’t merely going to go on a spending binge but will deploy resources strategically to get the biggest bang for its buck. He said work has been done behind the scenes
to identify those areas of promotion and marketing that provide the highest return on investment.
“Over the past few years, we’ve done the best we could to set the table with certain research projects that showed us where funding can be used and where it’ll be used most effectively,” he said. “Now we’ll have even more resources to do that, and that will be with the main goal of elevating our image, elevating our exposure, especially around outdoor recreation, going back to knowing our strengths and sharing them abundantly.”
The tax, a 2% assessment levied on lodging and attractions, was created to support the kind of marketing Napper envisions. The total tax collected has grown substantially since 2011, increasing every year except 2020. In fact, from 2017 to 2019 alone, every quarterly tax haul bested the previous on a year-over-year basis. In total, those three years brought in more than $50 million for marketing efforts. In 2021, the total was just under $21 million.
“That 2% we’ve talked about, we’ve had 20 consecutive months of each month being the best individual month we’ve ever had,” Napper said. “If you look at the economic impact report, 2019 had been the peak year, which we’ve since reached or surpassed, outside of employment.
“[The tax] definitely is helping to continue to elevate what happens on a statewide level. We don’t have to target [spending] in any one place, but where we think it’s for the best impact of the entire state.”
The type of windfall the tax represents has drawn criticism in recent years, as many in the state’s tourism industry decry what they consider a too-conservative approach to the very marketing for which the tax is earmarked. Arkansas Tourism spent $7.5 million in total media buy in 2021, a little more than half of the $14.2 million in tax collected in 2020’s pandemic-impacted year.
Mike Mills, newly appointed secretary of Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, said he’s not afraid to leverage resources more broadly for the purposes intended, be it money collected via taxes or by appropriation. He said under his administration, more money will be spent to attract both native and out-of-state tourism activity.
“Part of promoting Arkansas is to promote travel within,” he said. “We now have the funds to do a much better job than we did 40 years ago. We now have additional capabilities by having money to spend on travel Arkansas first, see Arkansas first and so on.
“We also have the 52 state parks, which we promote, and they have their own promotions budget. This is the 100th year for Arkansas state parks, for instance, and we have planned a lot around that. We’ve even come up with this little passport that you take and get stamped at each of the state parks when you go.”
Mills also noted how tourism now has a more direct line to the state’s leadership. In one of her first official actions, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued an executive order establishing The Natural State Initiative. Chaired by First Gentleman Bryan Sanders, the body will advise the governor on the best ways to promote tourism, specifically related to outdoor recreation.
“The governor wants to be known as the education governor, but if you dip down underneath that, Parks and Tourism is going to be next,” Mills said. “Literally, Bryan is going to be around us all the time. That means we have the ear of the governor every day. I think that young leadership is really going to help us push a lot of our agenda out there.
“I also know Bryan is very focused on the partnerships that we have outside of the government, such as foundations that are providing millions of dollars for the Murphy Arts District in El Dorado, the Walton Foundation that’s doing all the bike trails in Northwest Arkansas and elsewhere, and other partners as well. I know that’s going to help to have that push behind us.”
Gina Gemberling has answered to several official titles during her time with the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau: Vice President of Sales and Service, Senior Vice President of Marketing and as of last year, President and CEO.
Leading the organization post-COVID – and therefore tasked with rebuilding convention business, filling local hotel rooms and luring people to restaurants and attractions – she’s also already making a strong case for yet another label: “Comeback Kid.”
“In 2020 and 2021, we were dealing with groups canceling and postponing and that was a lot of our business,” she said. “We were fortunate in 2022 that we only had one convention that actually postponed from early January to March. We were also fortunate the business came back stronger and quicker than we anticipated. Business is not quite back but overall, revenues into our organization are strong.”
Even with the memory of the lost year 2020 still fresh in the minds of the public, it’s hard to quantify the lingering impact of the pandemic on any given industry. Yet, travel and tourism must certainly rank at the top of business sectors suffering the most from that time, as restrictions on gatherings, closed restaurants and bars and an emphasis on
quarantine-in-place eviscerated travel and tourism numbers.
The immediate impact was bad enough – a $910 billion hit nationwide in 2020, according to the U.S. Travel Association – with lingering effects and uncertainty threatening to carve a jagged swath through the U.S. economy. For those operating within travel and tourism, the situation became existential as many small businesses that shuttered never reopened for lack of workers. Even travel organizations were not exempt from the Great Resignation, Little Rock CVB among them.
“Unfortunately, during the pandemic
we lost many, many employees,” Gemberling said. “All in all, the tourism industry as a whole lost a lot of people who had a lot of good years of experience in our industry.”
As things began to normalize, staffing became a major priority for Little Rock CVB in order to properly manage its many responsibilities and recruit new business. Gemberling said one of the big challenges of her first year as president and CEO has been getting headcount back up to par.
“This past year has been a year of a lot of rebuilding, getting our staffing levels back to where they need to be in order for us to represent Little Rock tourism, manage our facilities and service our customers,” she said.
“It’s been a challenge, but a good challenge. It gave us the opportunity to look at the organization as a whole and see where we have gaps and where we need to be in the future. It allowed us the time to reimagine LRCVB and where we’re going and what critical positions we needed to put in place to get there.”
Gemberling comes to the top spot at the CVB with 34 years in the industry, 24 of them at the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau in Illinois. There, she held various positions including four years as executive director.
“I grew up in a small farming community in central Illinois, which was about 45 minutes north of Springfield,” she said. “I spent a few years in the hotel industry and then heard about this convention and visitors bureau thing and went to work there as an entry level salesperson.
“My last few years there, we went through a total rebranding. We also, at the time, spent a lot of time on our local advocacy, educating the community on the importance of tourism. We were able to really bring the tourism community together to that one vision, truly believing in the brand.”
Gemberling arrived in Little Rock in 2018 as vice president of sales and service and served in sales and marketing leadership capacities until ascending to the top job last year. She said while she can draw many similarities between Springfield and Little Rock, it’s what differentiates Ar-
kansas’s capital city that drew her here.
“One differentiation between us and a lot of convention and visitors bureaus is that we actually manage our convention center, our performing arts center as well as the amphitheater,” she said. “That’s not real traditional for convention and visitors bureaus nationwide.
“Traditionally, convention and visitors bureaus are basically the sales and marketing arm for a destination. Here in Little Rock, we do have that extra advantage in that we are all in this together and we do not have two separate entities managing the sales and marketing efforts in the facilities. It’s one of the things that attracted me and interested me about coming to Little Rock.
“Another thing that really impressed me was the tourism infrastructure in our downtown. Downtown is the heart of most destinations and just seeing all the infrastructure we have, from the Clinton Library to Ottenheimer Hall to the Statehouse Convention Center to both of the major hotels and of course, Robinson Auditorium, is pretty impressive. It says something when a city is willing to dedicate so much time and energy into building that tourism product.”
Heading into 2023, Little Rock tourism has bounced back from the pandemic in most business sectors, Gemberling said.
“The numbers in our buildings for conventions are very strong,” she said. “In fact, attendance in our buildings and our facilities has been almost back in record numbers; in some cases, more than 2019. We also saw the leisure traveler come back – first, actually – at mid-year 2021 through the end of 2021.
“Overall, however, we’re down about four-and-a-half hotel occupancy points and that’s what really tells the story. Hotel occupancy is still trailing a little bit and that includes everything from business travel and leisure travel to small corporate meetings that LRCVB may not touch, but that goes directly to the hotels.”
The comeback effort got a major shot of adrenaline last month with the unveiling of a new travel-and-tourism master plan. Gemberling said the document outlines needed steps and strategies for moving past recovery mode into looking for strong future growth.
“I think we’re fortunate in that we have many, many attractions and things that are our identity,” she said. “For example, the increase in the cycling product here in Little Rock. There’s not many destinations nationwide where you can be in the downtown metropolitan core, jump on the trail and be right there in nature within minutes.
“It’s our job as a destination and marketing organization to package those. How are we positioning the city in front of different audiences? That will be one of our larger selling tactics moving into the future.”
As for her personal leadership goals, Gemberling said she hopes to apply her own unique skillset and sales-oriented approach to expand upon what was built before her.
“Fortunately for me, my predecessor Gretchen Hall built a strong base and a strong bond within the city of Little Rock,” she said. “Gretchen led us through the pandemic, led our organization through one of the toughest things tourism has ever seen, and kudos to her for the job she did.
“One of my goals going forward is community engagement; in fact, we created a position within our marketing division at the end of last year for the purposes of bringing that to the forefront. It’s important to me as a leader to be out in the community, but I also want our entire team out in the community as well to help spread our message and continue to sell the vision of Little Rock tourism.”
Heading into 2023, Little Rock tourism has bounced back from the pandemic in most business sectors.
By Dwain Hebda // Photos Submitted
Arkansas native Mike Mills has made a lifelong career out of guiding. Since 1974, he’s helped countless thousands discover Arkansas’s scenic wilderness, most of them on the Buffalo National River. He’s guided his business, Buffalo Outdoor Center of Ponca, through the rocks of changing tastes and times to become a premier outfitter.
He’s personally guided two governors, two First Ladies and two U.S. Senators on Buffalo River excursions, and even served a stint as head of Arkansas Department of Tourism, where he guided efforts to throw open wide the doors of the state to visitors from across the country and around the world.
With the dawning of the new year, Mills has taken on another challenge, this time as secretary of the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism. It’s a role both novel and strangely familiar, and he hasn’t wasted any time making it his own.
“We’ve got great people in this organization,” he said. “Great people, lots of experience. I don’t need to manage that. I need to manage the overall team and bring enthusiasm and encouragement to those teams.
“I’ve snuck into a couple state parks, and they didn’t know who I was,” he said. “I went in and said, ‘Are there any administrators here today?’ They looked at me like, what do you want with them? Then when I tell them I’m their new secretary, that’s when they start calling me all kinds of formal names.
“I tell them, ‘My name’s Mike. and that’s what you call me.’” He shrugs. “I’ve been one of them for 50 years.”
Mills was born in an Army hospital in Fort Knox, Kentucky. His parents, both Arkansas natives, moved the family back to Northwest Arkansas by the time he was two.
“I was raised in Lowell, Arkansas,” Mills said with an impish smile. “When I traveled with 4-H and FFA, I’d always tell people I was from L.A. and they’d say, ‘Oh, that’s cool!” I’d say, ‘You’re right. Lowell, Arkansas.’ ”
After graduating from Rogers High School, Mills began his studies at Hendrix College in Conway. In 1969, his sophomore year, Mills joined the Marine Corps. At boot camp, he discovered something exemplary about himself that stood head and shoulders over his fellow recruits.
“I was the No. 1 typist out of 350 guys,” he said. “At that point, they were needing more administrative people than they did grunts. So anywhere I went, it kept me out of trouble. This was ’69, ’70 and ’71.”
Mills returned to Hendrix where he graduated with a degree in biology in 1974 and promptly started his first canoe rental business, The Wilderness Company in Fayetteville.
“I loved canoeing. I learned to canoe at about 8, 9, 10 years old,” he said. “Dad wanted to fish, and I’m the oldest of four boys, so I paddled out
there. He didn’t want me to bang on the boat because it made noise. When he wanted to stop, he wanted to stop. I learned how to step in an eddy before I even recognized what an eddy turn was.
“Our family vacations would be camping and fishing, and I still have that canoe at Buffalo Outdoor Center. It’s a 1950 Grumman sport canoe. When I got to college, it was the back-to-nature ecology movement of the late ’60s, early ’70s. I had a canoe, a tent, I knew how to camp. I had great camp recipes to cook with.”
From Fayetteville, Mills would soon relocate to Ponca, where he managed the Lost Valley Lodge resort. In 18 months, the owner approached him about buying the place.
“He tried to sell it to me for exactly twice what he had paid for it two years earlier when they hired me,” he said. “I was trying to buy it at that time too, so I knew exactly what he paid for it. I said no and really, that was the best thing that had ever happened to me, because it forced me to go down the road and start my own company, which
“There was a whole lot of on-the-job training; make a mistake, learn from it, don’t make that mistake again.”
was Buffalo Outdoor Center.”
Today, BOC is a model of diversification with cabins, zipline and other amenities to draw in visitors year around. But in 1976, the menu was a short one – canoe rentals – which only generated sales when water levels cooperated, at best about four months out of the year.
“The first 20 years were a struggle,” Mills said. “It was a canoe rental business, so its operation was March, April, May, June. You’re working four months out of the year, and the other eight months you had to find something to help bring in income.”
BOC boasted 66 canoes, which Mills, his then-wife and his brother-in-law worked hard to keep filled. The reputation of the Buffalo was growing, thanks in part to National Geographic doing a spread on it in 1977, but capitalizing on that notoriety was an elusive thing. In the off season, Mills attended community college in Harrison to get some basic business knowledge, but mostly he lived and he learned.
“There was a whole lot of on-the-job training; make a mistake, learn from it, don’t make that mistake again,” he said. “Those lessons kind of came to you. Some were hard; you buy a radio phone that’s going to be great for communications only to discover you live in a valley on the Buffalo River where it won’t work. That was pre-cellphones.”
In 1982, his wife needed a change of scenery so Mills landed the job of director of tourism in Little Rock, a post he’d hold for four years.
“That was a tremendous learning event,” he said. “I learned about state government. I got on many boards, such as Travel Industry Association of America, Travel South. It gave me a lot of experience, and it gave me a great view of the big picture of tourism.”
“In winter of ’86 I was at a travel show in Fort Worth handing out brochures to little old gray-haired ladies. I never did sell the business, it was just being managed by my brother-in-law. And I thought, ‘If I go back to my business, I now have the big picture. We need to build cabins, we need to do other things to make it a full-time resort.’ So, I left state government and went back to the resort.”
Over the next decade, a new business plan slowly but surely took shape. Five cabins became 10, and 10 became 15, until today there’s 30 that welcome visitors to arguably the most picturesque part of Arkansas. Over the years, horseback riding, the state’s
first canopy zipline, camping and retail have spread out risk and lengthened the season.
Mills also leveraged the media networking he’d done while as tourism director to generate hundreds of articles, broadcast news and TV spots, accelerating interest in the river and his business. In 2011, BOC was recognized as Arkansas’ Small Business of the Year, and today, more than 12 million guests have passed through BOC’s doors. The company’s success has generated more than $1 million in tourism tax receipts and donations totaling $40,000 to the Tourism Development Foundation.
And while his time in state government was relatively brief, his service to the tourism industry has been anything but. Mills has served 40 years on the Tourism Development Foundation, 39 years on the Arkansas Travel Council, 28 years on the Board of America Outdoors Association and 25 years on the Ozark Mountain Region Tourism Association. He’s a founding member of Arkansas Resorts and a charter member of Arkansas Scenic Highway 7 and Arkansas Scenic Rivers Commission. He also spent 18 years on the Arkansas Parks, Recreation and Travel Commission.
As he steps into his new role, Mills sees not only the immense potential for the future but notes the investment of some of the state’s leading corporate and philanthropic citizens that is helping drive Arkansas’s reputation as a tourist destination forward.
“We are extremely fortunate in this state to have relationships with the Waltons, the Murphys and the Stephens who have donated millions of dollars’ worth to trails, mountain biking and other amenities,” he said. “To that, we want to attract microbreweries and coffee shops, stuff the new generation is looking for. Having more facilities, more small businesses that help attract people to these mountain bike courses or the state parks is going to be part of that draw.
“I also want to see some more diversity. I have already suggested we make an African American cultural tour like our existing wine tour and golf tour. We receive a lot of African American visitors who are coming to Arkansas to look at history, and I don’t think we have done enough to really try to connect all that. That’s one of the priorities for me.”
The latest class of inductees to the University of Arkansas Business Hall of Fame represents a cross-section of leaders who have spent decades building successful companies and improving the community through job creation, wealth distribution and overall economic development. Moreover, this year’s group cast a mold for generations to come, highlighting The Natural State as a place to launch and build prosperous businesses across a wide range of industries. AMP salutes the 2023 Hall of Fame class as they are enshrined forever as true Arkansas Visionaries.
Plan to attend the 2023 Arkansas Business Hall of Fame induction event on Friday, February 17 at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock, starting at 5:30 p.m. For more information, or to purchase tickets, contact abhf@walton.uark.edu or call (479) 575-6146.
There may be no brighter-shining example of financial success and institutional integrity than Stephens Inc. The Little Rock firm is synonymous with building wealth, be it of the individual, corporate, institutional or community variety, and the company imprint can be found on some of the greatest success stories in Arkansas and beyond.
Chief Operating Officer Curt Bradbury is well-acquainted with this legacy of success, having worked here from 1972 to 1985 and then in his current role from 1995 to the present. He’s at home in this environment, matching his own deeply rooted belief in the opportunities that can be divined from the bleakest of circumstances by hard work, faith and the meritocracy of a capitalistic, free market system.
“The myth about capitalism is that it is about money and greed. It’s not,” he said. “I believe it’s about human achievement. It is about realizing dreams and building successful businesses that offer good jobs and the opportunity for personal fulfillment on one side of the equation, and offering returns on investment and wealth creation, in the broadest sense, on the other side.
“It is the system that offers the most personal autonomy and freedom — freedom to create and be rewarded. What we do at Stephens is at the very heart of capitalism, and we are capitalists. We care about others, about job creation and providing the dignity of a job for all people. Capitalism is the best way to achieve all of that.”
Born in Little Rock in 1949, Bradbury grew up through the public school system at Wilson Elementary, Southwest Jr. High and Central High School. Attending the University of Arkansas, where he would earn a degree in finance in 1971 and a master’s in economics in 1972, he formed the foundation for his calling in life.
“In Dr. Robert Kennedy’s sophomore level investments class at the U of A, I read the chapter of the text that described what
an investment banker does,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘That’s what I want to do for a living.’ I’m one of the lucky ones who got to do exactly what I wanted to do.”
Not only that, but Bradbury got to ply his trade from the beginning at arguably the most prestigious firm outside of New York, Stephens Inc. There, he melded the theoretical elements learned in the classroom with the real-world responsibilities that come with dealing in other people’s futures. And he was guided by the best.
“There were several people who had an early influence on me, but to condense it to one, I would say Jack Stephens,” he said. “One of the many important lessons he shared with me was the value of being direct and candid, of saying what you think, even in the most difficult situations. Companies and relationships built on truth persevere.
“The one thing that has not changed over the 50 years I’ve been here is that you must make a profit to survive and prosper. And it is no less true than it was then that you can make a profit with respect for customers, employees, shareholders and the law of the land.”
management talent and got down to business. Selling off affiliate banks and cutting staff reduced expenses while tranches of substandard loans were uncovered in excruciating detail. Operations soon became known for austerity, adopting a tightly conservative attitude toward lending and spending.
The tactics worked. By 1989 Worthen posted across-theboard profitability from its family of banks for the first time in five years. Worthen Banking Corp. posted net income of $10.4 million in 1988 and net income of $11 million in 1989. When Worthen sold in 1994 to St. Louis based Boatmen’s Bancshares (eventually to become part of Bank of America) it culminated one of the biggest turnarounds in Arkansas banking history, to this day a source of great personal satisfaction for Bradbury.
Returning to Stephens Inc., Bradbury rapidly became one of the most recognized and respected figures in the national financial community, contributing not only to the firm’s fortunes and that of its clients, but to the industry as a whole. He helped
Bradbury’s legacy with Stephens Inc. alone would have been impressive enough, but the detour he made into banking in 1985 cemented his hall of fame credentials. That year, he left the firm to join Worthen Banking Corp. to help rescue the company from the brink of insolvency touched off by a cataclysmic $52 million loss associated with the implosion of New Jersey-based Bevill Bresler Schulman Asset Management Corp.
Named Worthen’s Chief Executive Officer in early 1986, Bradbury looked to undo the damage of an accumulated $235 million in shaky loans, many by the corporation’s flagship Worthen Bank & Trust, which seriously impaired the ability of the bank to survive. A challenge of monumental proportions, the march back from the precipice would be slow and painful, a slog for which Bradbury drew fortification from two stellar examples of leadership from his youth.
“I learned most about leadership from my football coach, Mike McGibbony, at Southwest Jr. High,” he said. “What I have observed about leadership over the years is that you can’t wait for an engraved invitation to be a leader. Either you step into the breach or you don’t.
“My dad served in the U.S. Navy in World War II. From him, I learned the most important lesson is to do your duty. Show up, do the work, and do more than is expected of you.”
Under this guidance, Bradbury surrounded himself with
found The American Securities Association, an investment banking trade association for non-Wall Street firms, serving as its inaugural chairman of the board.
He has served three terms on the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association Board of Directors and is a former member of the American Enterprise Institute’s National Council. He formerly served on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority District 5 Conduct Committee, is former advisory director of the Export-Import Bank and a former director of the American Bankers Association.
To that list of accomplishments, add induction into the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame, where he joins longtime mentors, the late Jack Stephens and Jack’s son, Warren Stephens.
“I am grateful for the honor,” Bradbury said. “I’m in awe of those who have received it before, and am humbled when I think of their accomplishments and what the combined impact of their work has had on the state, our country and the world.
“My ambition was to work at the very heart of capitalism, to be an investment banker, and to do so at Stephens for the last 50 years seems to have worked out. I am proud of my lengthy tenure at Stephens and the opportunity to work with multiple generations of the family. I would say that apart from my own family, my wife, Charlotte, and our sons, it has meant everything to me.”
Companies and relationships built on truth persevere.
It takes a unique set of skills to shepherd a business through a century of operation, let alone grow a family-owned company into a major player in its industry. As a part of that long lineage, E. Fletcher Lord Jr. has guided Little Rock-based Bumper to Bumper/Crow-Burlingame Co. through good and lean times, survived intense competition from the rise of national auto parts chains and expanded the company’s footprint as one of the few remaining independently owned companies of its kind.
Not bad for someone whose initial steps into the company were tentative at best.
“I’m not sure that I was the kind of kid who sat down and created a big book of plans,” he said. “I’d get up every morning and go to school. I knew I was going to graduate, and when I graduated, I knew I’d go into the Army for a while and knew I was going to get a job.
“I had no vision whatsoever that I was going to be in the parts business. It wasn’t ever discussed with me, nor was planning part of the process at all. I was just going my own way and wound up in the parts business anyway.”
In fact, after graduating from what was then UALR, Lord had his eye on banking. He was mulling a job at Union National Bank as a correspondent banker when a friend of his father asked him to lunch.
“He told me, ‘You know, you can be a banker anytime you want to, but you’re never going to get the chance to be involved with a family business like you’ve got. You’re silly not to give it a try,’” Lord said. “That’s how I wound up coming to work for us.”
The origins of the family firm lie with Bob Crow, Lord’s maternal grandfather, and J.G. Burlingame who together founded Crow-Burlingame Co. on April 21, 1919, 11 years after Henry Ford’s Model T was introduced and William Durant founded General Motors. Six years earlier, Ford introduced the moving assembly line, bringing the automobile within financial reach of millions.
Recognizing this shift in market forces, Crow and Burlingame entered the “auto accessories” business, selling bumpers, seats, steering wheels and other components that, while standard today, were not included on cars of that era. When automakers started
including those elements during production, the partners quickly pivoted to selling repair and maintenance parts, recognizing the impending demand as millions of cars flooded the market, many running on unpaved roads.
“You’ve got to remember that in 1919, they invented this business,” Lord said of the original partners. “It wasn’t already estab-
lished where everybody knew how to do it and how much you could charge and what would pay the bills. They learned it as they went.”
Nevertheless, leadership’s instincts proved sound, and the company grew by opening locations throughout the state.
“In many cases, we were the first ones to open a store in the given town we were in,” Lord said. “We bought a store in El Dorado, Arkansas, in 1928, and then between 1928 and about middle or end of the Depression, we focused just on opening stores.”
Lord remembers with a knowing chuckle how company leadership puzzled over how to best leverage his skills, something that almost ended his career before it ever began.
“Quite frankly, when I went to work they didn’t know what to do with me,” he said. “I was a college graduate with an economics degree, and most people in the business weren’t college graduates or even college attendees. It was kind of a down and dirty sort of business, wasn’t anything very glamorous about it.
“I spent a year in the office and finally went into my boss and I quit. I said this isn’t working. And he told me that he knew it wasn’t, but it was his fault, and he should have done something about it. If I’d give him some more time, he would.”
The solution, sending Lord out into the stores throughout the company’s territory, not only struck a chord with him but was the best industry education he could ask for.
“I spent the next 10 or 12 years traveling all over our territory, working with our stores in various capacities. And that’s where I really fell in love with the business,” he said. “I was on the road all the time. I went some places because it was an emergency, something needed to be done. But a lot of times, I would just go to poor performing stores or even good performing stores and figure out what was going on there and learn from that.
“I learned it was all about the people, and it wasn’t very much about anything else. The pricing was pretty well-established at that point in time. There was a routine you learned how to do, but it wasn’t that complicated; you just had to hire good people to take care of your customers. If you had the right people everything else took care of itself.”
Lord’s career ran parallel to major changes in the parts business, from government regulations that pushed companies into warehouse distribution to the changing retail landscape that saw the rise of dedicated parts chains and big-box retail. Named company president in 1979 – with Bobby Lord, his brother and vice president, at his side – he kept up with the times by employing a mix of wellworn growth strategies and bold new thinking, sometimes having to fight to do so.
Such was the case when, during a period of rampant consolidation in the 1980s, Lord saw an opportunity to buy a major competitor.
“I went to our board, and my daddy and told them I wanted to
buy that business,” he said. “They didn’t like the idea of borrowing money at all. They were Depression-era people, and we never owed any money to speak of. The thought of going out and borrowing a bunch of money and buying a business like that was just terrible.
“That was the first major battle I had to fight, and I got the help of my board to convince my daddy that he should do something like that. He agreed to not fight me about it, and we bought our competitor, and that was a major change for us.”
In another deal from that era, Lord not only boosted distribution considerably, but also brought with it some new technology.
“They had more distribution than they had stores, and we had more stores than we had distribution, so you put them together we
were a legitimate business that competed for both the independent market and the company-owned store market,” Lord said. “Plus, they had just finished computerizing and had a big modern conveyorized warehouse system, where we were still using pencil and paper and shoving carts around.”
Today, the company boasts four distribution centers, 210 company stores and serves as exclusive parts supplier for 190 additional independent outfits. The second largest independently owned parts company in the country, Bumper to Bumper/Crow-Burlingame Co. serves a market area from Kansas City to New Orleans and Texas to Atlanta, employing 1,500 workers in peak season.
The family legacy has expanded by a generation as well, with Lord’s son, E. Fletcher Lord III, taking the reins as president in 2019; his son-in-law, Ben Butler, serving as executive vice president; and his nephew, Crow Lord, marshaling the stores like his uncle once did. Now chairman, Lord describes himself as semiretired, enjoying more time for his wife, Diane, their seven grandchildren and more than a little golf.
As he enters the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame, he’s grateful for having had the opportunity to build a successful company the right way, benefiting employees and customers alike.
“Everybody that we compete against is public, with lots of money to throw at the marketplace, and they do,” he said. “It’s a challenge, but it still gets back down to being a people business. You can have all the inventory in the world and the best location in the world, but if you don’t have people in the stores that customers want to do business with, it’s not worth very much.”
You can have all the inventory in the world and the best location in the world, but if you don’t have people in the stores that customers want to do business with, it’s not worth very much.
In the world of logistics and transport, ArcBest’s Judy McReynolds is a unicorn in more ways than one. Not only is the native Oklahoman one of the few women to serve as chairman, president and CEO in the male-dominated trucking industry, she moved into the role lacking the miles logged and freight hauled by many industry executives who started behind the wheel.
None of which phases McReynolds much, nor has it prevented her from achieving things that are the envy of any CEO. Under her leadership over the past 12 years, the Fort Smith-based company has diversified offerings, boosted revenue and is well-positioned to meet any challenges that lie ahead, a direct reflection of its fearless leader.
“There’s a story I like to refer to, and it’s so true,” she said. “In my years growing up, from when I was a child into my teenage years, I spent a lot of time with my family down at my grandparents’ in western Oklahoma.
“My grandfather was one of 10 and he only had one sister, so I grew up around a lot of men. I think that’s why I was always very comfortable working around men in our industry. I never really focused on how being a woman was that unusual.”
McReynolds, who joined ArcBest in 1997 from the accounting industry, has weathered plenty of situations that would have sent less-resolute leaders scurrying for higher ground. She joined the company right after a major acquisition ballooned ArcBest’s size and scope, allowing the carrier to keep up in a marketplace crowded with competitors.
A little more than a decade later, as McReynolds was promoted to president and CEO, market conditions once again saw several carriers fighting for their survival, ArcBest among them.
“In 2009, the year before I first took my role as CEO of the company, we lost over $100 million dollars because of the financial crisis, the Great Recession that followed and because of a price war that occurred in our industry,” she said. “Right out of the chute, I
had to deal with cost control issues, I had to deal with cash flow issues and getting our company to a place where we could improve.”
McReynolds’ multipronged strategy also included looking for new ways for the company to grow revenue.
“The less-than-truckload business during that time was very, very challenging,” she said. “What we stood on was great customer relationships, and in those customer relationships, we found that customers we had been doing business with for decades were spending money elsewhere on services we didn’t provide. Once we had that information, we went about positioning the company so that we could provide a more holistic set of solutions.
“We bought Panther Premium Logistics in 2012, and we did three other truckload brokerage acquisitions that were smaller from 2015 on. Then in November of 2021, we bought MoLo, a Chicago-based truckload broker that was a sizeable acquisition, and that made us a top 15 truckload broker.”
Also expanding the range of the company’s services has been the refinement of logistical tools and services.
“Our mission is to connect and positively impact the world through solving logistics challenges, and we do that for shippers, specifically our customers,” she said. “We stay focused, but we also try to stay ahead, whether it’s through technological advances that we could be more efficient with or as an innovation in our business. We try to stay very open and externally aware.
“Our challenges have certainly been there, whether we had an upswing in business or a downturn. Meeting those challenges starts with having great people, investing in them and communicating with them in a way that’s honest and motivating. That’s where the culture side of our company really shows up.”
Growing up in Norman, Oklahoma, McReynolds displayed an early aptitude in math, which led her to the chemical engineering program at the hometown University of Oklahoma.
“I worked for a law firm when I was in college and tried to navigate around my schedule and the labs that you had for chemical engineering and all that,” she said. “I finally said I can’t do all of this like I want to. I had a little bit of experience at the law firm with accounting and liked it, so I ended up changing and going that direction.”
With her undergraduate degree in hand, McReynolds hired on with Arthur Anderson in Oklahoma City, where her clients ran heavily in the oil and gas field and gave her a first taste of serving clients in a volatile industry.
Three years later, she took a position with Deloitte in Florida, and after a couple of years, she and her husband, Lance, an Arkansas native, wanted to get closer to home. In 1990, she landed a role with Ernst & Young in Little Rock working directly with transportation logistics companies, including ArcBest.
“I was on the tax side of things, and I just steadily built a relationship with the people here,” she said. “One of the partners I worked with at EY left and came to work for ArcBest, and he encouraged me to come to work here.
“At the time, I knew what a challenge it would be, because of knowing the company. My husband raised his hand and said, ‘I’ll be a stay-at-home dad if you want to take on that role.’”
McReynolds had the accounting chops and knew better than most candidates the company’s financials, allowing her to get off to a running start. Even her limited trucking experience did little to impede her momentum, as she was constantly seeking out
ways to learn and grow.
“One of the things our company does when you come in as a new person, no matter the role, is you go out and you see the service centers or distribution centers in the field,” she said. “I remember in the early years going to Little Rock to our distribution center there and learning more about the business.
“I also always made it a focus of mine to make sure that I was available for various business meetings, even if it meant that I was going to work late in the evening, rather than just staying focused only on my accounting responsibilities. In that way, I learned our business, and I really grew to love it.”
McReynolds credits the previous challenges for battlereadying the company for the pandemic, from the C-suite to the driver’s seat.
“Because of the experiences in my early years as CEO having to work through similar and difficult challenges, it really helped me to deal with the pandemic,” she said. “When we got word that things were going to be shutting down, we started interacting with customers and understanding that they were also going to be shutting down. We had customers saying they may not be able to pay us as quickly as they typically did, so we knew immediately we were going to have to have some drastic changes.
“I will say, I’ve never been so thankful for our drivers. Our drivers were patriotic in their approach and were just there. In plenty of other industries and plenty of other places, you didn’t have people who were that willing to show up for work.”
It didn’t take long for McReynolds and her team to see the cumulative benefit of their efforts on the balance sheet. The company saw the highest quarterly revenue and operating income in its history in Q3 2021, only to top those figures in each of the first three quarters of 2022. As the company enters its 100th year, and she enters the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame, the future has never looked brighter.
“I remember growing up, my parents always said I can do anything that I set my mind to,” she said. “And it really is true; if you just take each role that you have, do the best you can, build trust with your coworkers and your team and stay open to change, there’s no limit to what you can do.”
If you just take each role that you have, do the best you can, build trust with your coworkers and your team and stay open to change, there’s no limit to what you can do.
Ross Whipple’s business career can be aptly described as playing the long game. Not only can every enterprise in his remarkable career trace its origins back generations, but the positive impact of those ventures under his leadership have spread out like a woody vine, setting roots and sprouting shoots of their own.
From preserved and maintained forestland to main street banking interests to untold charitable contributions to causes large and small, Whipple’s imprint can be detected directly and indirectly in his hometown of Arkadelphia, in southwest Arkansas, throughout the state and beyond.
“This is just really simple,” he said in describing his business philosophy. “We learned this in kindergarten. Just treat people like you want to be treated. Treat your customers like they want to be treated, and treat every customer the same.
“It doesn’t matter if they’ve got $10 million or $1, because to them, it’s the same, it’s all they have. Not only that, but we don’t know what they may turn into tomorrow. So, you treat everybody the same, and treat them like you want to be treated. And it generally works.”
When you make even a part of your living in the timber business – where a tree planted today isn’t ready for harvest for three decades or so – you quickly learn how to lengthen your field of vision. Whipple exercised this leadership quality to great success both in the forest, where he began his career at age 18 learning from the cutters and sawmill employees who formed the foundation of the business, and also in banking. In that field, he grew multiple local institutions from what they were into what he knew they could be.
In 1979, his mentor and cousin, Jane Ross, bought controlling interest in Merchants and Planters Bank of Arkadelphia, a modest operation with unrealized potential. Whipple led a merger with the Bank of Malvern to form Central Arkansas Bancshares, and in 1989, he became president of Merchants and Planters Bank. He and Ross would gain controlling interest in the bank holding company, which gave Whipple more freedom to execute
a strategy that included enhanced customer service and offering employees the chance to hold equity.
Though completely new to the banking world, Whipple showed a natural aptitude for the work, exercising basic, common-sense principles and showing a nose for opportunity that resonated with customer, shareholder and employee alike.
“I’ve always said I never was a banker. I was a risk manager,” he said. “That’s one of the things that you do in any business, but
especially the banking business. There’s all kinds of risk. There’s interest rate risk, there’s financial risk, there’s regulatory risk, and you have to manage the whole thing as a unit.”
In less than a decade, the company completed additional acquisitions and consolidated four bank charters into Horizon Bancorp, Inc., which Whipple then sold to Mercantile Bank of St. Louis, now U.S. Bank, in early 1998. The price represented a robust 3.25 times book value and 24 times earnings.
As a follow-up, Whipple launched Summit Bank in Arkadelphia in February 2000, and grew it to $1.2 billion dollars in assets using the same successful formula, selling out in 2014 to Bank of the Ozarks, now Bank OZK. In both instances, the success of the company radiated out well beyond top floor executives.
“I had a very good return for all the shareholders, which I’m very proud of,” he said. “What really pleases me about this is that a lot of our employees were invested in the company. Now, you have to understand how I’m putting this: There were some people who worked for the bank that had more of their net worth in it than I did. I had other assets, but I had some employees that put everything they could into a 401K or bank stock.
“I was really pleased with what happened to them; as we went forth, they reaped enough of return to take care of their families and live a good life once they retired.”
Whipple was born in Arkadelphia in June 1951, the only child of Catherine and Max Whipple, an accountant with Reynolds Metals Company. He grew up in modest circumstances in Malvern; his family had enough, but he didn’t have to look far to see others where, in his words, “There was too much month at the end of the money.”
Perhaps because of this awareness, Whipple demonstrated an early gift for entrepreneurship. He launched a lawn mowing business at age 11, within two years had expanded to two employees, and two years after that, bought his first car with the proceeds.
He continued that enterprise through high school until the summer before his senior year when his cousin Jane, approached him about attending college at Henderson State University and working for her. Ross ran the family timber business and also the relatively new Ross Foundation, a private foundation established with timberland when Jane’s mother, Esther Clark Ross, died in 1966.
“I had known Jane all my life although we were not really that close,” Whipple said. “I thought I’d give it a try, and it turned out well for both of us. She was very, very good to me in mentoring
me, and financially she was very good to me. But it wasn’t easy; I will tell you Jane had a pretty tough reputation, and being a woman in the business world in the ῾50s, ῾60s and ῾70s she had to be.
“She wanted to make sure that I learned everything about the forest industry from cutting logs to driving skidders to working in the woods. She wanted to make sure that I got the full flavor of the industry, and it was good for me. I came to understand quite a bit about what it takes to run a sawmill and what it takes to run all the equipment that brings the wood to the mill.”
Per the agreement, Whipple entered Henderson in the fall of 1969, graduating with Distinguished Military Graduate honors and a second lieutenant’s commission in the U.S. Army, where he served in the 1st Cavalry Division. He began in the MBA program at the University of Arkansas in the fall of 1974, during which time he’d meet and wed Mary McCombs, another long-term investment of time and affection that yielded three daughters and seven grandchildren, soon to be nine, in the nearly 50 years since.
There are many aspects today that underscore Whipple’s business achievements, from the aforementioned successes in banking, to expanding the timber company’s holdings from 500 acres to 70,000 acres, to growing the Ross Foundation’s land base from 16,000 acres to 64,000 acres. This latter accomplishment is arguably the most personally meaningful to Whipple, as managing the Ross Foundation forestland as a charitable asset by expanding public use and natural resource benefits has enabled the foundation to make millions in charitable grants.
One standout contribution, awarded in 2010, helped make possible the Arkadelphia Promise, assisting each qualifying senior of Arkadelphia High School in covering college tuition.
“[Arkadelphia Promise] gives so many more people the opportunity to receive an education, which I think is great for our community, the state and the nation as a whole,” he said. “If a kid lives in Arkadelphia and they want to go to Henderson, for example, they can go for nothing, basically.
“I think we need to give back some of the bounty that we’ve been fortunate enough to have acquired. We should all do that.”
Now entering the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame, Whipple is still planning – and executing – what comes next.
“I had to learn how to work at an early age; I’m 71 years old, and I’m still doing it. I have no intentions of leaving,” he said. “You really need to plan for things in life, but you don’t need to spend 95% of your time planning and 5% executing. I think you need to spend 5% of your time planning and 95% of your time executing.”
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Treat your customers like they want to be treated, and treat every customer the same.
When it comes to economic development in the technology sector, Arkansas is setting itself apart as the place to be. With one of the lowest costs of living in the country and a variety of business incentives for organizations in emerging tech, the state is catching the attention of startups and Fortune 500s alike, as well as attracting skilled workers to fill high-tech jobs in cybersecurity, fintech, retail, supply chain and more. In the following section, Arkansas Money & Politics will assess recent developments on this front and highlight some of the people, companies and programs making Arkansas’ technological footprint known.
Over the past several decades, Arkansas has become a hub for financial technology (FinTech) disruptors. Now home to some of the biggest players in the FinTech sector, including companies like Acxiom, ABC Financial and FIS, the state has focused on bringing in tech startups and enriching existing businesses with several incubators and accelerator programs. These programs are designed to foster growth through education, mentorship and resources, and they serve as the perfect jumping-off point for entrepreneurs working on “the next big thing.”
The state is also proactively fostering a homegrown, highly-skilled workforce that meets the needs of the tech companies that call Arkansas home. Arkansas was the first state to mandate coding education in schools, and the state’s “Learning to Code” initiative is putting more high school students on track for successful careers in tech.
Artificial intelligence is making headlines for its written and artistic capabilities, but the technology is also breaking ground through innovative new uses in health care. The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Institute for Digital Health and Innovation touches on the recent growth in health technology and how needs are being met for both clinicians and patients in new ways.
Technology is also making a new kind of “farm to table” possible – that is, giving more people the ability to invest in farmland from the comfort of their kitchen tables. Fayetteville-based AcreTrader connects users to lucrative but previously unfeasible investment opportunities, and CEO Carter Malloy touches on the vital role technology plays in bringing benefits to the platform’s investors and farmers. Meanwhile, Edafio Technology Partners Chief Growth Officer Mark Hodges highlights the importance of strong personal cybersecurity practices for individuals and how they can have a knock-on effect on businesses.
From long-standing giants to exciting up-and-comers, from FinTech to eCommerce and every line of code in between, one thing is clear: the future of tech is in the Natural State.
Want to own some farmland but can’t afford to buy an entire farm? AcreTrader, based in Fayetteville, gives people an opportunity to invest in agricultural operations while providing farmers financial resources to grow their businesses.
AcreTrader Founder and CEO Carter Malloy said the company broadens investment access to a tangible asset class.
“Technology plays a crucial role in our business, impacting day-to-day communications with investors, farmers and operators across the country, as well as Australia,” Malloy said.
Malloy said there has been a surge in interest in investing in farmland over the past few years for several reasons.
“Globally, we are reliant on food, fuel and fiber, and U.S. farmland serves as an important piece of the global food supply,” Malloy said. “Historically, farmland has had little to no correlation with assets in publicly traded markets, whether that be stocks, bonds, real estate investment trusts, etc.
“During recent recessionary environments, farmland has historically produced consistently positive returns. Finally, farmland could be a strong inflation hedge. Uncorrelated to other asset classes, farmland is an intriguing option in today’s economic environment as the U.S. faces inflation rates not seen in decades.”
Another company under their umbrella is Acres, which Malloy
describes as “a user-friendly land analysis platform designed to help bring transparency to the existing opaque land market.
“Born out of AcreTrader’s due diligence process on the farms they offer on their platform, Acres brings together powerful insights for about 150 million parcels throughout the U.S. Acres allows ag professionals, landowners and the like to see insights like comparable sales data, historical satellite imagery, vegetation index and more.”
Individuals can get started on the platform for free or upgrade for professional features, like portfolio management. Malloy said within AcreTrader and Acres, technology is the thread that runs throughout, allowing their teams the tools to make buying and selling land common, transparent and easy.
“Farmland has historically yielded consistent returns and outperformed during volatile market conditions,” Malloy said. “Farmland is a hard asset, and it has historically performed well with low volatility compared to other asset classes, such as gold or other forms of real estate. While the value of gold or stock markets can fall significantly in a single year, farmland returns have been positive every year since 1990, the first year of the NCREIF Farmland Index.”
Edafio Technology Partners Chief Growth Officer Mark Hodges once did an informal check of how many people in a neighborhood had adequate home WiFi security. Out of 30 houses checked, 22 still had the default password that came with the equipment, leaving people vulnerable to theft of any personal information shared on WiFi.
Many businesses rely on cybersecurity training once a year for employees. Some of the training requires little more than people watching a short video and then answering a quiz. But the consequences of a breach for a business can be devastating. Hodges advocates that businesses teach their employees how to practice good online security in their personal lives.
“When companies help employees understand how to secure personal information, it has a downstream effect on business,” Hodges said. “Not taking security seriously is a lot like leaving the house, not locking the door, and then being shocked when you get broken into. Having a security mindset can give businesses a strategic advantage in the marketplace. Keeping employees alert to good security builds a wall around the business and builds trust with customers.”
Hodges, who has taught at the Harding University College of Business for 20 years, said even downloading apps to one’s phone without checking the end user license and data privacy policy can be dangerous. He recalled a popular app in the summer of 2019 that allowed users to take a photo of themselves and use a filter that would age the image. A lot of the college students he knew were using it.
“I read through the data policy and found the Russian company that created the filter did facial recognition software,” Hodges said. “All of these people were handing their faces over to a facial recognition company in Russia. I think individuals leave data exhaust all over the planet. We don’t even know what we are leaving behind, but cybercriminals can take bits and pieces and put together a version of you that can get a credit card or do any number of other things that harm you.”
In general, large businesses have armies of people to deal with cybersecurity. But many small- and medium-sized businesses aren’t expecting cybercriminal attacks.
“That is exactly why they are being targeted,” Hodges said. “People don’t realize it is so easy to target someone in an automated way. And people greatly undervalue data until it is not accessible. Business will come to a halt. That is not even counting the potential penalties for breaching the security of customers’ data.”
According to an IBM study, cybercriminals take about 277 days after breaching a system before taking action. During that time, they carefully study the company and determine its weaknesses. Besides ransomware attacks locking companies out of access to their data, a common scam is accounts payable fraud. The cybercriminal poses as the CEO, sends an email to the Chief Financial Officer and directs that the bank account routing for a vendor be changed.
“The next thing you know, you get past-due notices from that vendor,” Hodges said. “When they go back, they find out they sent that money to a black hole. Accounts payable fraud is a big deal now. It is unbelievable the amount of money that gets stolen. I know of one company building new facilities that lost $280,000 that way.”
It is also important that top leaders in an organization set the right example. No one is going to follow a leader who is not doing the right things, such as changing passwords on schedule.
“Having just one entry point can put the whole company at risk,” Hodges said. “The best thing is to have a different password for every system you use. There are so many breaches and data sold on the dark web. If my Gmail address and my password gets sold, and I used the same password also for Amazon and my bank, then all of these accounts are compromised.”
If Hodges could encourage people to do one thing, it would be to use multifactor authentication (MFA), which is requiring a code or secondary method of authentication after entering a password.
“It has been shown to be over 99% effective in securing one’s account,” Hodges said. “MFA is considered an industry best practice for authentication. Everyone should turn it on for their banking and other personal accounts that offer the capability. Businesses should, in all cases, require it of all employees, including the highranking executives in the C-suite.”
There are many skills in medicine that a machine can’t replicate. Skills like how to listen to a patient and ask questions that go beyond what their current medical issue might be, how to empathize and develop trust, and many technical skills that are not currently able to be performed by a machine. For other skills like repetitive analysi and knowledge retrieval and routine, the average clinician can be greatly helped by an artificial intelligence (AI) field known as algorithmic medicine, said Joseph Sanford, MD, director of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Institute for Digital Health & Innovation (IDHI).
“Algorithmic medicine brings these analysis and interpretation tools to the bedside, so that clinicians do not have to seek it out,” Sanford said. “It can improve accuracy in diagnosing from medical images. It can nudge clinicians towards care options that the literature supports, or away from those that have been found to be less effective. At its best, algorithmic medicine standardizes and improves a practitioner’s decision making. It does not supplant it.”
The goal is to improve medical decision making by leveraging the vast amounts of data in the electronic medical record with techniques from behavioral economics.
“There is excellent work being done in personalized genomics, medical imaging, population health modeling and health care logistics, among others,” Sanford said. “This is a rapidly evolving field, and I think the most impressive results are ahead of us.”
Trust is an incredibly important issue in medical decision making generallym, and Sanford said it can be difficult to get patients to trust these new tools. He said it is crucial to educate patients that these tools are just that, tools.
“They are not making decisions for the clinician, nor can they ever override patient autonomy,” Sanford said. “While not precisely the same, think about using these tools in the same way you might use Maps to plan a trip. It provides more information than you could ever collect on your own about route, duration, recommended stops, traffic conditions, etc. But only you can choose which road you drive down.”
Sanford said that factors that influence trust in AI are the same that influence trust in any large, complicated system: transparency, efficacy, control, perceived credibility and ethical alignment with your culture are just a few of the factors that must be considered.
Providers use algorithms for patient care every day already, said UAMS Associate Chief Medical
Informatics Officer for Innovation, Research, and Entrepreneurship Kevin Sexton. “We use them to adjust dosages of medications, evaluate patient risk for a particular condition, among other uses,” he said. “The difference here is that the computer is helping make decisions. “
He finds it interesting that we trust AI in many parts of our lives every day, from what movies we watch, songs we listen to, to where we go to dinner. It’s easier for AI to gain adoption with decisions that have little downside risk.
“It’s this risk and low tolerance for error that also inhibit trust in these systems for clinical decisions,” Sexton said. “That’s why we see the most successful implementations where machines work with the clinicians to make a decision as a partner.”
The other potential is to expand screening capabilities of the health care system. Sexton said there is great work being done with AI for eye exams to detect the changes of illnesses like diabetes and hypertension.
“These types of exams are difficult to train providers to do consistently, but a machine taking pictures for analysis does a very consistent job obtaining this information,” Sexton said. “Also, with more patients wearing monitors at home (anything from a smart watch to a medical device) there is tremendous data for analysis, and health care systems don’t currently have a universal, organized approach to analysis of all of these data streams. Machines are ideal for this use case as well. Ultimately, we think that the future of machines in health care should be to allow more access to care.”
Both doctors said getting clinical trust in an AI system is much the same as it is for patients.
“We share the same biases and concerns about providing good care that patients have about receiving it,” they said. “Some aspects are of more interest to the provider than the patient. Namely, a clinician generally wants to see that it is im-
mediately effective on a variety of patients. They also should have a strong understanding of what’s going on underneath the hood, particularly focusing on where the system is weak, so they can be prepared to independently validate something that appears odd to them. And they must have a strong sense of control as the care of the patient is ultimately their responsibility.”
Health care finances were difficult prior to the pandemic and have not gotten easier since. The UAMS physicians say that algorithmic medicine solutions need to demonstrate added value to clinicians and health care systems for whom any additional expense might mean decreasing care at the bedside.
Where investment has already been made, in the electronic medical record, for example, they are seeing results in medical and research data that would have previously been impossible to analyze. Further out, they hope to see augmented decision making act as a force multiplier, enabling physicians and nurses to care for more patients in the same time span and at a higher average quality that they would have without these tools.
AcreTrader was established in 2018, and its online investor platform launched in 2019. The Fayetteville-based farmland investing company allows individuals to participate in farmland ownership through a first-of-its-kind portal. Farmland is a historically attractive asset, with low volatility and strong returns, but barriers to entry (price, the logistics of farm management) make it inaccessible to many investors. AcreTrader aims to make the process of buying and selling land common, transparent and easy by leveraging technology, data and the expertise of its team. The process also bridges a gap between farmers and investors, giving the former an innovative route to capital and the latter a way to invest directly in farmland and support the agricultural industry. Using proprietary software and processes, AcreTrader identifies farmland and subjects each parcel to a rigorous review before deciding whether it should become an offering on the website. AcreTrader takes care of the ongoing management and administration for each farm acquired; the company manages farms across the country, with crops including soybeans, corn, wheat, peanuts, cotton, potatoes, onions, beets and timberland.
Little Rock education technology startup Apptegy was born out of the need for a centralized tool to share information between schools and families. The company’s solution, Thrillshare, is a communication platform school leaders can use to distribute news, stories and media through a variety of channels. Apptegy allows schools to build a strong digital identity with custom-built applications and websites that make it easy for parents, teachers, students and administrators to send and receive the information they need. From lunch menus to text alerts to student success stories, Apptegy makes sharing simple for everyone involved. Since its launch in 2015, the company has grown to 400 employees, working with nearly 3,000 school districts across all 50 states and even internationally. Apptegy was named one of America’s Best Startup Employers by Forbes in 2020 and 2021. Apptegy was also awarded a spot on Inc. 5000’s list of the fastest growing private companies in 2021.
Headquartered in Conway, customer intelligence company Acxiom operates across the United States and around the world. For over 50 years, Acxiom has enabled people-based marketing for its clients with data solutions and systems that improve customer experience and business performance, all while prioritizing responsible data use. Working with clients across industries from financial services to retail, from food delivery to health care, the company offers a full suite of strategy consulting, predictive and marketing analytics and marketing measurement offerings. Acxiom’s Real Identity™ solution was named “Best Overall MarTech Solution” in the 2020 MarTech Breakthrough Awards program. Real Identity™ synthesizes and analyzes billions of interactions to help brands better recognize their audience and build deeper customer relationships. As the digital and offline worlds of customer interaction evolve, Acxiom also commissions research to forecast trends and keep clients abreast of the shifting marketing landscape.
Rogers-based eCommerce company Bold Strategies helps brands grow faster both before and after launch using proven market assessment, optimization and growth capabilities. In 2017, the company launched the first ever end-to-end eCommerce agency to bring together Pure Play, Omni and Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) selling. Bold Strategies helps brands test market their products online before jumping into a full-scale national launch. The company’s Digital Test Markets and proprietary OptiBrain™ software provide Size of the Prize and detailed optimization suggestions. In addition to full-scale test markets, Bold Labs also features an expert conversion rate optimization (CRO) team that can help brands fine-tune their website or retail messaging, imagery, claims and user experience. From research to launch and all the steps in between, Bold Strategies aims to give brands the tools and expertise they need to achieve growth across an array of eRetailers.
Headquartered in Fayetteville and launched in 2010, Field Agent’s innovative application crowdsources shoppers’ smartphones around the world to provide insights, product reviews, ondemand sales and more. With over 2 million app users, or agents, brands, retailers and agencies, can collect the in-store information they need to make informed business decisions. Field Agent’s solutions are designed by retail professionals and come in a range of self-serve and full-service options. Field Agent has pioneered dozens of fast, simple, self-serve products, including auditing, marketing and research, that can be shopped, purchased and launched in just a few minutes. Pre-built for cost and speed, the click-and-launch products are available on the company’s Plum retail-solutions marketplace. Field Agent also offers custom-tailored solutions to meet specific brand needs. The company’s clients represent a wide variety of industries and products, including Coca-Cola, Clorox, Gillette, 3M, General Mills, Little Caesars, Tyson and Halo Top.
Gainwell Technologies is a Conwaybased provider of cloud technology solutions vital to the administration and operations of health and human services programs. Gainwell has over five decades of industry expertise, offering an array of scalable and flexible solutions to clients in 50 states and territories nationwide. Gainwell’s CMS-certified Medicaid Management solutions are modular, intelligent and cloud-based, with a comprehensive and integrated suite of solutions that help accelerate claims processing, support value-based care and control escalating costs. Gainwell’s Coordination of Benefits solutions for Medicaid, Medicare, Military and State Agency programs use proprietary data and algorithms, and the company’s Program Integrity solutions root out erroneous claims at any stage in the claim cycle. The company also offers human services and public health, pharmacy, systems integration and analytics solutions to help agencies operate more efficiently and effectively for the wellbeing of their communities.
NOWDiagnostics is a diagnostics testing manufacturer working to develop rapid, accurate, affordable and easy-toadminister over-the-counter and pointof-care tests. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Springdale, the company has produced 320,000 tests across 10 countries and 14 distributors. The company’s ADEXUSDx® product line uses a single drop of blood to test for a variety of common conditions, illnesses and diseases and provides results in a matter of minutes. By eliminating the need to send tests to off-site laboratories, NOWDiagnostics can decrease the results waiting period by days. The company currently offers an hCG (pregnancy) test in the United States and Europe, as well as two heart attack tests and three toxicology tests in Europe. Additional tests are in the development pipeline, including sexually transmitted diseases, food intolerances, common infectious diseases and a variety of screening tests.
Founded in 2012, Bentonville’s RevUnit is a technology studio that helps supply chain clients identify and implement data solutions that actually prove ROI. RevUnit specializes in software products that help increase productivity, learning, communication and engagement in the workplace. RevUnit works with clients across industries, including transportation, freight, logistics, retail and manufacturing, to achieve results through innovative data solutions. RevUnit’s solutions include rapid prototypes, strategy workshops, UX audits and more to help clients take effective action quickly. Within a year of its founding, the company became one of Walmart’s key strategic technology partners; in the decade since, RevUnit has created technology and data solutions for several Fortune 500 companies. RevUnit has been named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastestgrowing private companies, as well as the Entrepreneur 360 list of America’s most innovative businesses.
Teslar Software operates out of Springdale and is composed of bankers and engineers helping to improve efficiency at regional financial institutions across the country. The company began as 3E Software in 2008; Teslar was born soon after and has grown year after year ever since. The company’s eponymous software is a SaaS solution designed to save time, improve the accuracy of data and make information more accessible regardless of institution size. The company has evolved into a vital strategic partner for its clients, responding to their needs with a comprehensive suite of modules to improve every aspect of modern banking. Through a scalable, streamlined process that integrates multiple systems and empowers bankers, Teslar Software allows community banks to keep up with competition even as regulations change. Among others, Teslar Software’s clients include Centennial Bank, Simmons Bank and Citizens Bank.
Founded in 2011 as Tech Atlantis, Fayetteville-based ZenWork is a fast-growing digital tax compliance and regulatory reporting company. All of the company’s products are IRSapproved and come with bank-grade security measures. ZenWork’s array of products include its Tax1099 e-filing service, Compliancely background and identity check tool, SQUAHR human resources software, other IRS form and e-filing solutions and Fidentity, an application designed to help offices manage visitors, events, employees and other processes. The company currently serves over 100,000 customers nationwide, including 30,000 CPA firms, as well as enterprise customers including Allbirds, Berkshire Hathaway, GrowthForce, Rover
and Deloitte. ZenWork stays up to date on federal and state compliance requirements to make the filing process for clients as simple as possible. In 2021, the company received $162.5 million in minority investment from Boston firm Spectrum Equity, amounting to nearly twice as much of the venture capital invested in Arkansas companies during the first nine months of that year.
Joe Ehrhardt is the CEO and founder of Teslar Software, a provider of lending process automation tools for community financial institutions.
In his role, Ehrhardt shapes the company’s strategic vision, oversees team and company culture and ensures team members have access to the resources they need to effectively serve Teslar’s client base.
Ehrhardt entered the banking industry in 1999 as a teller at Arvest Bank before moving into the role of software development manager with ANB Financial.
Inspired by the impact community institutions have on local consumers and small businesses, Ehrhardt launched Teslar (formerly 3E Software) in 2008 to empower community bankers with tools they need to grow with efficiency and confidence.
Ehrhardt completed both his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering and his master’s degree in information systems at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
As chief technology officer at CatalyzeH2O, Humeyra Ulusoy Erol, PhD is responsible for product design, the research and development of electrochemical techniques and solving technical challenges for the removal of contaminants from wastewater.
Erol received her doctorate degree in chemical engineering at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where she collaborated with industry partners and sponsors to solve industry-related water treatment problems as part of the MAST center.
Before her role as CTO, Erol was the company’s senior research and development engineer.
In 2022, CatalyzeH2O came in third place at the Northwest Arkansas Tech Summit’s pitch competition for its advanced filterless electrochemical dualstage water purification system.
Jeston George is the CEO and founder of Apptegy, a Little Rock-based education technology company that has been recognized as one of the country’s fastest-growing startups in the ed-tech sector.
The company’s Thrillshare software allows schools to enter news, stories and other forms of media into a single platform which distributes the information to linked tools such as social media, SMS, voice calls and websites.
Since its founding in 2015, Apptegy has grown to over 400 full-time employees across multiple offices and works with over 3,500 school districts across the United States.
In the spring of 2017, after receiving several rounds of in-state investment, Apptegy announced an investment round of $5.7 million from Kansas Citybased Five Elms Capital.
George has been a serial entrepreneur throughout his career, founding and successfully exiting two companies before starting Apptegy.
When Kenny Kinley joined Edafio in 2011, he brought decades of leadership experience in international data and technology services. Still, he knew there was something special about this Arkansas-based, locally focused IT services provider— Edafio had a reputation for delivering highly professional technology expertise with a personal touch and community orientation. Becoming President/CEO of Edafio in 2020, Kinley was determined to build on this foundation and stay in touch with the communities Edafio’s clients serve, to expand while preserving Edafio’s core values. Under Kinley’s leadership, Edafio has grown to be Arkansas’s largest technology solutions provider and one of the nation’s top-ranked MSPs. Offering end-to-end IT consulting and managed services, cybersecurity and more, Kinley still sees Edafio’s impact on businesses in the local communities as the most meaningful source of differentiation. Edafio sets a rare example in the industry by putting people and communities first. Kenny graduated from the University of Central Arkansas in 1995.
Carter Malloy is the founder and CEO of AcreTrader, an online platform designed to increase investor access to farmland.
Growing up in an Arkansas farming family, Malloy has had a lifelong passion for investing, agriculture and conservation; since launching AcreTrader in 2019, he has led the company to exponential growth.
The company has successfully raised over $60 million in Series B funding and grown from 20 employees to 120 employees across its two business divisions, which include AcreTrader and Acres, a comprehensive land analysis and mapping tool.
AcreTrader has been featured in The New York Times, Bloomberg and Barron’s, in addition to being named one of 13 Financial Fintechs to Watch by Business Insider.
Prior to founding AcreTrader, Malloy was part of an equity investment firm and a managing director with Stephens, Inc.
Charles Morgan is the chairman and CEO of First Orion. Morgan has always loved gadgets and machinery and earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Arkansas in 1966.
After working for several years as an IBM systems engineer, Morgan joined a small company in Conway with 25 employees in 1972. Under Morgan’s leadership, that company grew into Acxiom, a world leader in customer data management with 7000 employees globally and $1.5 billion in revenue. For his achievements, he was inducted into the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame in 2004.
Morgan left Acxiom in 2008 to found First Orion, which is now a global provider of digital call experiences for the world’s leading carriers, enterprises and developers. In 2015 he published a chronicle of his life entitled “Matters of Life and Data.” He lives in Little Rock with his wife, Susie.
Joseph Sanford, M.D., is director of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Institute for Digital Health & Innovation, where he co-directs its Division of Innovation.
He is chief clinical informatics officer for UAMS and an associate professor in the Department of Anesthesiology in the UAMS College of Medicine. He also is the UAMS fellowship site director for the clinical informatics fellowship based at UAMS and Arkansas Children’s. Sanford has been on the forefront of digital health and clinical informatics initiatives in recent years, succeeding the Institute’s founding director Curtis Lowery, MD, in 2020. Sanford’s expertise has been applied in digital health initiatives relating to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the development of the statewide UAMS Health system. Sanford’s clinical background is in general anesthesiology with fellowship training in management of perioperative services from Stanford University. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Kevin Sexton, M.D., is president of BioVentures LLC, the technology licensing office and business incubator based at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
Sexton, a trauma surgeon and associate professor in the UAMS College of Medicine’s Department of Surgery, became interim director in 2021 following the death of Nancy Gray, Ph.D., who had led BioVentures since 2015. BioVentures helps equip researchers with technology licensing, patent protection and other resources that are required for company startups.Sexton also is co-director of the Health Sciences Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HSIE) Training Program for UAMS postdoctoral fellows, a program of the Translational Research Institute. He is an associate director of the UAMS Institute for Digital Health & Innovation and associate chief clinical informatics officer for Innovation, Research and Entrepreneurship. Board certified in clinical informatics, much of Sexton’s work has been investigating new software systems for UAMS, analyzing how best to integrate systems and examining how the electronic health record can be used for research.
Charu Thomas is the Founder and CEO of Ox. Ox provides human centered automation technology for retail and supply chain operations. In March 2021, Ox announced a $3.5 million seed round in funding from MaC Venture Capital based in Los Angeles, California. Today, Ox has over 30 employees and provides operational infrastructure for some of the largest enterprises in the world. Prior to Ox, Charu was an internationally awardwinning wearable computing researcher from Georgia Tech’s No. 1 ranked industrial engineering program. She was also the youngest member of the Forbes 30 under 30 Manufacturing and Industry list in 2020. Outside of work, Charu enjoys exploring meditation, math and metaphysics.
Dr. Joseph Sanford
Kevin Sexton
Charu Thomas
As the largest university in the state, the University of Arkansas has programs and courses to teach students about almost any kind of technology imaginable. Simply teaching what is already known is not enough, however, which is why the U of A is also a nationally recognized hub for research that pushes the boundaries of modern technology.
Research centers at the U of A include the Institute for Nanoscience and Engineering, the Arkansas High Performance Computing Center, the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies and the High Density Electronics Center.
The U of A is also eager to share the fruits of its research through the Arkansas Research and Technology Park, which partners with technology-intensive companies and allows them to make use of the university’s resources. Closely connected to this is the GENESIS Technology Incubator, a business incubator that partners with tech-focused entrepreneurs during the critical early stages of a company.
There are countless exciting advances in the world of software development, but what about the hardware that makes the software possible? Infrastructure and machinery may not be glamorous, but without them the rest of our tech-based world would grind to a halt.
At the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton, students will find courses on coding, cybersecurity and the use of work-related programs. UACCM’s Workforce Training Center offers non-credit educational and training programs to produce knowledgeable and capable employees.
These programs include courses on things like fiber optics and broadband as well as training courses to use the type of heavy machinery needed to build that infrastructure such as underground directional drills.
The Arkansas Center for Data Sciences is a nonprofit organization dedicated to growing and improving Arkansas’ IT pipeline by working with individuals, employers, institutions and community partnerships.
For the individual career seeker, ACDS offers training resources and apprenticeship programs with real IT employers; these programs often end in a job offer. For employers, these apprenticeships not only help with locating and training IT talent but can potentially include state tax credits.
The ACDS also assists higher-learning institutions with IT and data science programs and hosts a variety of meetings and events to promote learning throughout the community. These include networking events, seminars, “Lunch & Learns” and webinars.
The Arkansas Biosciences Institute is a consortium of five major research institutions: Arkansas Children’s Hospital; Arkansas State University; the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture; the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
Established by referendum in 2000 to research tobacco and smoking related illnesses, it has expanded into many new biological and medical fields. Though the ABI’s primary objective is research rather than education, it does provide undergraduate and graduate students with an incredible chance to participate in projects that improve the health of our state through research and technology.
For K-12 students, the ABI’s outreach program offers school group tours of ASU laboratories and a transgenic plant facility to expose students to biotechnology research focused on agriculture, medicine and health.
The University of Central Arkansas has taken major strides to promote technological education and advancement for the state. One such stride was the establishment of the Arkansas Coding Academy, which offers a coding bootcamp for quick skill building as well as a more robust 26-week software development program that will include a cybersecurity bootcamp.
UCA’s cyber range is a high-tech closed network which can be used as a cybersecurity training space. As an isolated and controlled environment, the Cyber Range can simulate any kind of cyber-attack and give students real-world experience in defending against them.
Through a partnership with Startup Junkie, UCA also established the Conductor, which provides accelerators, resources and other events to help develop tech-enabled startups, many of which are behind some of the biggest technological advancements in our state.
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences is at the cutting edge of medical technology in both the state and nation and has been home to treatments more advanced than anywhere else in the world.
As well as being the state’s only health sciences university, UAMS possesses numerous “core facilities” that outside investigators can make use of to perform research with resources that are not available elsewhere. These include specialized facilities for brain imaging research, digital microscopy, experimental radiation, molecular imaging, flow cytometry and more.
UAMS facilities and expertise have resulted in grants from numerous organizations on the state and federal levels such as the Department of Defense, which is currently funding research on dozens of topics such as combat casualty care, traumatic brain injuries, the health effects of radiation and neurotoxin treatment.
With only two starters returning from last year’s College World Series team, Dave Van Horn entered the offseason looking for answers on how to fill out his lineup card for the 2023 Arkansas baseball season.
In addition to Peyton Stovall and Brady Slavens coming back, the Razorbacks returned a pair of key bench players and one redshirt, plus brought in five freshmen, five transfers and eight JUCO signees.
That meant Arkansas had a whopping 23 position players vying for just nine spots in the order, making for a highly competitive fall. Despite the newcomers, Arkansas finds itself ranked anywhere from fourth to No. 11 in college baseball’s preseason polls.
“I thought the competition was outstanding,” Van Horn said in November. “Made for some really good practices and some very good scrimmages. Guys were getting after it. … What I saw is that the position players know that there’s a lot of spots open and they were fighting for them.”
Last year’s lineup was widely projected to be one of the best Van Horn has ever had from an offensive standpoint, but got off to a frustratingly slow start before finally heating up.
Even though it fell short of expectations, the Razorbacks still hit 106 home runs — three shy of tying the school record set a year earlier. The long ball has become a staple of Arkansas’ offense, as each of the last four full seasons rank in the top five in UA history — with the last three taking the top three spots.
Including the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Arkansas has hit 422 home runs since 2018. That is the most in the country over that span and 32 more than the next-closest team in the SEC (Florida, 390).
The Razorbacks lost a lot of that pop to the MLB Draft and graduation, but they still showed an ability to hit the ball out of the park this fall. In 14 scrimmages — most of which were seven innings or less — attended by various members of the media,
Arkansas hit 34 home runs.
That is expected to carry over into the season, but Van Horn seemed to indicate that this year’s team shouldn’t be quite as reliant on the long ball.
“Offensively, the power is probably a little better than I thought it was going to be,” Van Horn said. “We’re going to hit some home runs, but I think what you’re going to see in this offense, they’re going to fight you pretty good. If the fall is any indication, we should be able to put together a pretty good lineup.”
As things currently stand, it seems like a handful of positions are still up for grabs. The left side of the infield, the two corner outfield spots and catcher could still be won by multiple players.
There’s a good chance that all of them get a shot early in the season and there could be shuffling throughout the year, but Van Horn traditionally settles on a starting nine sometime during SEC play, even if he tweaks the order here and there.
“It always works itself out because it’s a good mix of rightand left-handed hitters, so maybe you platoon,” Van Horn said. “I platoon a little bit early. I always tell the hitters, ‘You guys kind of write the lineup, and you show us who to play. We just put you in a certain order.’ I truly believe that.”
1. Tavian Josenberger — CF
S/R | Jr. | 6-0 | 185
Kansas City, Mo. / Park Hill HS (Kansas)
This is probably the easiest spot in the order to fill out. Not only did Tavian Josenberger establish himself as a starter with a strong showing this fall, but he is a prototypical leadoff man.
He has some pop in his bat, but the portal addition is just a solid overall hitter who has a knack for getting on base. He’s a switch-hitter who puts the ball in play, plus he can run and is willing to swipe a bag.
“Right now, Tavian’s definitely a starter,” Dave Van Horn said. “He had a great fall. Top of the order guy, switch hitter, can bunt, handle the bat a little bit (and) he’s got a little feel for stealing.”
2. Peyton Stovall — 2B
L/R | So. | 5-11 | 190
Haughton, La. / Haughton HS
One of only two returning starters from last year’s team, there’s no question that Peyton Stovall will be an Opening Day starter for Arkansas. He turned down a lot of money to come to college and had quite a bit of hype as a freshman.
The season probably didn’t go as well as he had hoped, struggling at the plate and battling an injury, but Stovall ended the year on a tear, hitting .429 in the postseason — and that included going 0 for 9 in the last two games. Before that, he was hitting .525 across nine NCAA Tournament games.
A change fans will see, however, is where the Louisiana native lines up defensively. Stovall was a first baseman out of necessity last season and actually handled the position really well despite being new to it. With Robert Moore moving on to the professional ranks, he’ll slide over to his more natural position: second base.
“He’s a really good second baseman,” Van Horn said. “You guys are going to get to see that. Now that he’s getting everyday reps there, turning the double play, fielding the ball, he’s really good. We’ll be in good shape there.”
3. Jared Wegner — LF
R/R | Gr. | 6-0 | 210
Kearney, Neb. / Kearney HS (Creighton)
A transfer from Creighton, Jared Wegner was the first portal pickup of the offseason for Arkansas. In fact, he announced his commitment to the Razorbacks before the super regionals.
The corner outfielder battled injuries for most of his career but got healthy as a senior and earned first-team All-Big East honors after hitting .343 with 11 home runs and 53 RBIs in 49 games. Much like catcher Michael Turner last summer, Dave Van Horn was surprised to get a player of his caliber to campus.
4. Brady Slavens — 1B
L/R | Sr. | 6-3 | 205
Olathe, Kan. / Olathe Northwest HS (Wichita State/ Johnson County C.C.)
Perhaps the most surprising development for Arkansas this summer was the return of Brady Slavens. It was widely expected he would get drafted and begin his professional career, but instead, he’ll play as a rare super senior in 2023.
One reason he likely slipped in the MLB Draft and didn’t get offered what he had hoped was because he was dealing with a lingering elbow injury that required offseason surgery.
It was a successful surgery and Slavens now seems to be primed to remind everyone what he’s capable of — all while going back to the position he played in 2021.
“I think Brady’s in a really good place,” Van Horn said. “He feels good about being here. He’s excited about playing first base. He’s excited about getting on the field instead of DHing all the time like last year because of the elbow.”
5. Caleb Cali — DH R/R | R-Jr. | 6-3 | 225
Montverde, Fla. / Montverde Academy (Florida State/ Hillsborough C.C./College of Central Florida)
One of several junior college players Arkansas brought in this offseason, Caleb Cali began his career at Florida State before stints at two different JUCOs.
A third baseman by trade, Cali has “really soft hands” and a good arm, but Van Horn said he sometimes relies on those hands too much instead of solid footwork. Because of that, he’s just a “good” third baseman — compared to being a “great” first baseman.
If Brady Slavens isn’t fully cleared and ready to go on Opening Day, it’s likely that Cali would fill his spot at first base, but Van Horn said the goal is to coach him up and make him “great” in the hot corner.
Regardless of where he ends up defensively, Cali will be in the lineup because of his bat. He was one of the Razorbacks’ most consistent hitters this fall with a team-high .419 batting average and 16 RBIs. He also hit four home runs, which was tied for the team lead.
6. Jace Bohrofen — RF
L/R | Jr. | 6-2 | 200
Oklahoma City, Okla. / Westmoore HS (Oklahoma)
When he transferred to Arkansas from Oklahoma last offseason, many penciled Jace Bohrofen into the starting lineup. However, he ended up starting only 24 games.
Bohrofen got off to an ice-cold start, going hitless in his first 17
at bats, before finally breaking out the third weekend of the season. Unfortunately, just as he was turning the corner, he suffered a freak injury when he crashed into the wall during pregame warmups.
That caused him to miss three weeks and when he returned, he split time in left field with Zack Gregory, who eventually took over as the primary starter late in the season. Now entering his second season in Fayetteville, he’s been voted a team captain.
R/R | Jr. | 5-11 | 185
Boston, Mass. / Georgia Premier Academy (San Jacinto J.C.)
One of the positions still up for grabs leading up to the season, shortstop likely would have been Jordan Sprinkle’s spot, but the UC-Santa Barbara transfer got drafted and opted to sign professionally instead of coming to Fayetteville.
There was also a concern that Arkansas might lose JUCO signee Harold Coll to the MLB Draft, but he made it to campus and was the presumed frontrunner to start at shortstop. After all, he was a top-100 recruit coming out of high school, originally signed with North Carolina and then was a standout at San Jacinto J.C., a powerhouse at the junior college level.
However, Coll finds himself in a battle with John Bolton, a transfer from Austin Peay in his final season of eligibility.
8. Hudson Polk — C (R)
R/R | Jr. | 6-1 | 210
Coppell, Texas / Coppell HS (Oklahoma)
There was a moment this summer when there wasn’t a single catcher on the roster. Michael Turner was out of eligibility and got taken in the MLB Draft, while backups Dylan Leach and Max Soliz Jr. transferred out.
Van Horn eventually brought in three and two have separated themselves as the primary contenders, with Oklahoma transfer Hudson Polk and JUCO transfer Parker Rowland (who began his career at Arkansas State) moving ahead of New Mexico State transfer Cal Kilgore.
“I think that we’ve got a good mix there,” Van Horn said. “We’ve got a switch-hitter and a right-handed hitter. They both have a little bit of experience back there and they’re both strong. I thought for the most part, the catching position was hopefully solved.”
L/R
Olathe,
Another spot seemingly still up for grabs is third base. There are several guys vying for the spot, including Kendall Diggs, Jayson Jones, Caleb Cali and even Reese Robinett.
With Cali slotted at DH, we’re giving the nod to Diggs because he’s the most veteran option and Van Horn really likes what he brings to the table offensively. That said, he’s also getting a look as a corner outfielder in the Razorbacks’ preseason practices.
The longtime Arkansas coach has also said he’s expecting Diggs to make a big jump from last season, when he was a key bench contributor who delivered in some huge moments — most notably with a walk-off home run to beat Ole Miss.
“Offensively, the power is probably a little better than I thought it was going to be.”Head Hog Dave Van Horn Sophomore 2B Peyton Stoval
INF Reese Robinett — Fr. | 6-3 | 220 | L/R
OF Mason Neville — Fr. | 6-3 | 200 | L/L
INF Jayson Jones — Fr. | 6-2 | 225 | R/R
INF Ben McLaughlin — Jr. | 6-3 | 200 | L/R
C Parker Rowland — Sr. | 6-3 | 215 | S/R
INF John Bolton — Gr. | 5-10 | 175 | R/R
On the mound
Jace Bohrofen is not a pitcher, but that didn’t stop him from discussing the arms on this year’s team during his exit meeting with Dave Van Horn a couple months ago.
Like everyone else who stopped by Fayetteville to watch the Razorbacks during fall ball, the junior outfielder was impressed by not only the talent of his teammates – whom he had to face every day at practice – but the sheer number of capable arms on the pitching staff.
D1Baseball has already claimed that Arkansas “might have college baseball’s best pitching staff” and the Razorbacks’ veteran coach isn’t shying away from the potential of his pitchers entering 2023.
“Well right now, it’s the best I’ve ever had,” Van Horn said.
“Is that honest enough for you? That’s the way I feel about it. I mean, we’ve got depth. But what you see on paper, we’ve gotta get it done on the field.”
Ace Connor Noland is gone, as are key bullpen arms Evan Taylor, Zebulon Vermillion and Kole Ramage, but Arkansas returns nearly half of its innings from a staff that helped it reach the College World Series semifinals last season.
Not only are significant contributors like Hagen Smith, Will McEntire, Jaxon Wiggins, Zack Morris and Brady Tygart back, but the Razorbacks have also brought in a trio of transfers. They landed Koty Frank out of the transfer portal, plus signed Hunter Holland and Cody Adcock from the JUCO ranks. That doesn’t even factor in a few second-year pitchers primed to make a jump or incoming freshmen.
“I think our pitching is extremely, extremely deep,” second baseman Peyton Stovall said. “All those guys can start, but you can only start three guys on the weekend, so we’re going to have options to choose from.”
While it may be a stretch that all of them are capable of starting, Stovall’s sentiment rings true.
The Razorbacks, at least on paper, appear to have five or six bona-fide SEC starters on their roster when they need only three to get through a weekend. That depth should not only help in the postseason, but also throughout the year by giving Arkansas some flexibility that it hasn’t had in a long time.
“If somebody needs a week off, somebody’s fading, give them a week off,” Van Horn said. “Just let them sit and watch and be ready for the next week. And we can do that. We’re not going to go crazy about it.”
*LISTED ALPHABETICALLY*
· R-Jr. RHP Will McEntire
· So. LHP Hagen Smith
· Jr. RHP Jaxon Wiggins
· Sr. LHP Zack Morris
· So. RHP Brady Tygart
· Jr. RHP Cody Adcock (via JUCO – Ole Miss/Crowder C.C.)
· S-Sr. RHP Koty Frank (via transfer portal – Nebraska)
· Jr. LHP Hunter Hollan (via JUCO – San Jacinto J.C.)
Andrew Hutchinson is the managing editor of BestofArkansasSports.com. The uncondensed versions of his projected starting lineups and pitching rotations for the Hogs previously appeared at BestofArkansasSports.com.
By Becky Gillette
The University of Arkansas for Medical Science (UAMS) Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute has undergone a “very large sea change” with the hiring of 23 new lab-based researchers since Michael Birrer, M.D., Ph.D., became vice chancellor and director of the Cancer Institute three years ago.
“This represents a radical shift in direction,” Birrer said. “We did the hiring smack in the middle of COVID but were still able to hit the ground running. We have added 30,000-square feet of lab space. We have some pretty high-profile lab resources.”
One major effort involves proteomics, the study of proteins in complex biological samples. The Cancer Institute’s cutting-edge mass spectrometers are a national resource. In addition to analyzing proteins from Arkansas, they analyze work from around the country.
“It is really a feather in our cap,” Birrer said. “We also have an equally prestigious genomic laboratory, where we do very sophisticated, highthroughput sequencing of patients looking for abnormalities in their tumors. We have the only resource like that in the state.”
Another major effort involves the Center for Research, Health and Social Justice program headed by Pebbles Fagan, Ph.D., which is looking at issues like health disparities in cancer patients across the state. This work funded by a $19-million
grant that started in 2021 has a large tobacco cessation program.
“Tobacco abuse is, frankly, rampant in Arkansas,” Birrer said. “We have really experienced counselors, but it goes beyond that regarding finding out what else works to get people off cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. How do we stigmatize it? What can we do to start at an early age to prevent tobacco use?”
The Cancer Institute also has a low-dose CT scanning program that can catch lung cancer early when it can be treated more effectively. They have plans to put a CT scanner in a van and take it around the state to areas where this technology has not been accessible. They do the same thing now with mobile mammography.
The Cancer Institute has four research programs:
•Developmental Therapeutics is looking at new targets and therapeutic agents.
•DNA Repairs and Host Response is investigating how DNA repairs can be used to battle cancer.
•Cancer Biology has the largest number of researchers, including a new group of structural biologists using X-ray crystallography to look at the 3D structure of proteins in cancer cells and how that might be used to develop new therapeutic agents.
•Population Science and Cancer Prevention looks at the epidemiology of cancer in Arkansas looking at possible causes of cancer
clusters from things like well water contaminants and pesticide use. This program is tied to cancer prevention by using the data to help people avoid cancer by living healthier lives.
“It is an exciting time from a research standpoint,” Birrer said.
The Cancer Institute is also adding proton beam therapy and building a new radiation oncology center that will open next summer. It has doubled the size of clinical trials. “Within a year, we will have a really wonderful portfolio of trials so people don’t have to leave the state to get into appropriate clinical trials,” Birrer said.
All of this represents efforts by UAMS Cancer Institute to be seen as a national cancer leader by achieving the status of becoming a prestigious National Cancer Institute-designated (NCI) Cancer Center. Birrer said they have essentially achieved
the amount of research required and expect to have enough patients and the number of clinical trials required in another year to 18 months. Other factors include community outreach and a statewide navigation program to provide cancer education, screenings, and recommendations on treatment options. About 1,500 new jobs and a $70-million economic impact over five years is expected from NCI designation.
The UAMS Cancer Institute has about 160 members (professors in the College of Medicine) who spend some portion of their time doing cancer research. Fifty of those members are physician scientists (with both MD and Ph.D. credentials) who see patients and perform lab-based research. Quite a few are federally funded researchers with millions in grants from the National Institutes of Health and the NCI.
Arkansas’ cancer specialists since 1976, CARTI’s vision is to be “the cancer treatment destination” for residents across the state. With 18 locations and counting, including the main campus in Little Rock, the notfor-profit provider’s world-class team is committed to delivering innovative, trusted cancer care close to home.
“We have been growing aggressively and truly want to shift the dynamics of health care in Arkansas,” said CARTI President and CEO Adam Head. “We’ve added five cancer centers over the past five years to offer oncology services where our patients live and work. As a nonprofit, our goal is to reinvest in the communities we serve. Our mission is making trusted cancer care accessible for every patient through compassion, innovation and purpose.”
CARTI’s cancer centers are focused on making treatment as convenient as possible. For example, the CARTI Cancer Center in Pine Bluff opened in a 30,000-square-foot space this year. Head said CARTI saw there were significant needs in Pine Bluff. It has everything they offer at the CARTI Cancer Center in Little Rock.
One new technology that Head finds gamechanging for patients is the CyberKnife S7, a revolutionary radiation oncology treatment not found anywhere else in the state. It is focused on shorter-
course treatment. Head said the system features the world’s only motion-synchronized, AI-driven, real-time treatment delivery, which means that cancer can be targeted to the exact millimeter. The technology can even follow a patient’s movement as they breathe.
“Typically, radiation oncology centers across the country provide 40 to 50 treatments,” Head said. “The CyberKnife at our main campus is particularly phenomenal for prostate cancer, one of the top five most common cancers. With the CyberKnife, for eligible individuals, we only have to
do five treatments for a quicker recovery and return to everyday life.”
Another groundbreaking development is the addition of the CARTI Surgery Center, a 57,000-square-foot facility at its Little Rock campus.
“It’s going to change outcomes for cancer patients,” Head said. “The vast majority of cancer surgeries can be in this type of facility. The CARTI Surgery Center is the first of its kind in Arkansas and the South. We learned through COVID that many patients don’t want to go to a hospital for surgeries. The vast majority can be done in a non-hospital setting. We are leveraging innovative technology options, including two DaVinci robots, and offering extended stay capabilities, if needed.”
Head said it is extraordinary to see patients responding to what CARTI is doing.
“We are strategically adding specialties and treatment centers in response to what patients need and want,” he said. “Improving the patient experience and their outcomes are behind our decisions to build the surgery center and additional full-service cancer centers.”
In general, health care is difficult these days when reimbursements often fall short of meeting expenses. No matter what, Head said CARTI will continue to invest in people and services.
“We provide what we believe is critical for successful cancer treatment,” Head said. “For services not reimbursed, we count on our generous donors and partners who support the CARTI Foundation. Their contributions fund our pa-
tient assistance program, which can help cover the cost of accommodations, transportation and more, in addition to new innovative treatments and technologies.”
A few years ago, CARTI expanded its food services, including opening The Hope Bistro in Little Rock. Healthy food is essential to everyone, but it is a little more complex for cancer patients. Sometimes patients find that the food they used to enjoy is now completely unappealing.
“We have to be sensitive to that,” Head said. “Health care food can get a bad rap. We try to flip that on its head with a certified chef and dedicated team who provide healthy options as well as comfort food. And, we have in-house dieticians who work with physicians around the state to help coach patients.”
Additional expansions are likely in CARTI’s future. “If it aligns with our mission and will make a difference for patients walking the cancer journey, then we will continue to lean into that,” Head said.
One of the newest cancer centers in the state, the UAMS Baptist Health NLR Cancer Center, is allowing patients to get treated closer to home, said Director Sunny Singh, MD, who is a hematologist and oncologist.
“Since we opened in July of 2021, the clinic has really picked up,” Singh said. “We provide rapid
diagnosis of patients and general hematology and oncology services, so patients can have everything they need in that clinic. A lot of patients appreciate that we can provide those services locally, so they don’t have to drive across the bridge to Little Rock. A lot of patients are older people who are afraid to navigate the city. We provide most of the same
services as UAMS in Little Rock. Having said that, for now we do have to send patients to Little Rock for PET scans, but Baptist is planning to hook one up on the NLR campus soon.”
The third floor of the facility offers all that is needed to deliver hematology and medical oncology treatment. The first floor provides radiation oncology.
“Radiation and medical oncologists work handin-hand,” Singh said. “We try to consolidate all care. We partner with Baptist Health and local physicians in North Little Rock to offer most services in North Little Rock. The other advantage is that we also screen patients for clinical trials. If someone is a good candidate for a clinical trial in Little Rock, patients can make informed decisions about pursuing that.”
Singh said major advancements in cancer treatments over the past 10 to 20 years have resulted in higher survival rates. Surgery has become more precise and less extensive, which helps patients to preserve a lot of function. Radiation techniques have been refined to minimize side effects. Most advances have been seen in medical oncology including molecularly targeted agents, immunotherapy and cancer-fighting oral medications.
“Also, we now have immunotherapy that is a game changer especially with skin and lung cancers, which are very common cancers,” Singh said. “Giving the high incidence of smoking in Arkansas, we see a lot of lung cancer. We have clear guidelines in how we should screen for lung cancer. Anyone who has smoked cigarettes could be eligible for CT scan as part of lung cancer screening. Colonoscopy, mammograms, pap screens and prostate cancer screening have been able to improve cancer detection, which improves treatment and outcomes. I encourage people to discuss this with their primary care providers.”
Singh said there has also been progress in terms of knowing what side effects to anticipate from their treatments, and oncologists have medications that can prevent some of them. For example, there are several medications to prevent chemotherapyinduced nausea and vomiting.
“Additionally, many of our drugs may suppress immunity, but we now have improved guidelines regarding preventing and treating infections in this scenario,” Singh said.
A concerning trend that has been well reported lately is people getting cancer at younger and younger ages. Singh said a small part of it could be because of better detection, but there are also lifestyle, diet and environmental factors at play.
“There is strong evidence suggesting that eating processed meat and other highly processed foods cause inflammation in the body, and this may lead to different types of cancer,” Singh said. “Research also shows air pollution and exposure to certain types of chemicals increase the risk of different types of cancer. A lot of patients we see are from farming communities where people had exposure to herbicides and pesticides early in their lives.”
Also, obesity is strongly linked to breast, colon and other types of cancer.
“I would strongly advise people to eat fresh organic food — greens, other vegetables and fruit — that is not processed,” Singh said. “That is the type of food which is not inflammatory, and really improves your gut health. We know that a healthy gut is linked to a lot of good things for people’s minds and bodies. When it comes to cancer, we are seeing evidence suggesting patients who respond better to immunotherapy are the ones with better gut health.”
Customized physical, occupational and speech therapy programs are conducted by licensed therapists who focus on improving mobility and motor skills following an injury or illness. The enrichment of daily physical function can significantly improve a resident’s selfreliance and overall happiness.
Our staff provides residents with specially tailored treatment plans designed to recapture health, independent living and facilitate a return home.
Jamestown features separate rooms and private suites with a private entrance for the comfort and convenience of shortterm residents and their families focused on returning home. A full meal service with snacks is prepared daily.
Quapaw
Sometimes, buildings act as time capsules, standing in the midst of modern architecture to remind us of how far we’ve come. The Rialto Theater is one of the largest and most intricate theaters in all of southern Arkansas, and the southeastern region. Located at 117 East Cedar St. in the downtown El Dorado, Arkansans across the southern portion of the state came from miles away every year to see the building, which has withstood the test of time. The iconic Rialto Theater is, in many ways, a time capsule — a cosmopolitan reminder of El Dorado’s past, and a hint at what lies in the near future.
*********
A commotion broke out around the oil well. People stopped what they were doing and rushed near to see the source of the hubbub. On the morning of Jan. 10, 1921, the Busey oil well brought dark, bubbling crude oil to the surface of the earth, and El Dorado’s fate was changed.
Overnight, the town was booming with an influx of people eager to strike it rich in the oil industry. Within six months of the discovery and subsequent oil boom, the town’s population exploded from 3,000 to over 40,000. Within two years of the discovery, 56 wells in the area were producing 50,000 barrels of oil every day.
Some of the most well-known characters in Arkansas’s history — some seemingly larger than life — were able to create political and financial dynasties in 1920s El Dorado.
“Famed tycoon H.L. Hunt got his start here; El Dorado’s Lion Oil Company became a petroleum powerhouse; businessman C.H. Murphy begat companies that shape the city to this day,” wrote Mel White in the July 2018 issue of AY About You.
The oil boom put El Dorado on the map, and as hundreds of oil executives and laborers flocked to the area in hopes of economic promise and a better life, the desire for more sophisticated leisurely opportunities grew. The Rialto was the city’s silver bullet, paving the way for folks to come to El Dorado for the opportunities and
stay for the amenities.
The first Rialto Theater was owned by the well-known and affluent Clark and McWilliams families of El Dorado, who owned a large portion of stock in Arkansas Amusement Enterprises, a chain of over 30 movie theaters across the state. L.B. Clark and W.F. McWilliams built the theater to be the flagship for the chain.
The new Rialto was built in 1929 on the foundation of the former Rialto Theater, which had been constructed in 1918 and only seated 400. The theater was designed and built by the Little Rock architectural firm of Kolben, Hunter, and Boyd for a price tag of $250,000. This new Rialto Theater could seat 900 people on the main floor and 250 in each of the two balconies.
The rectangular-shaped Rialto was built in the Classical Revival style, consisting of three stories above the ground level with Egyptian Revival details on the front facade and around the theater’s main entrance. The building capitalized on the cosmopolitan style popular in the roaring ῾20s. Part of the building’s original 1920s design also consisted of barriers separating the balconies and the concessions areas, which fell in line with the segregation requirements of Jim Crow laws at that time.
In its heyday during the oil boom, patrons of the Rialto would have found ornate double stairways as well as elaborate lounges for men to smoke and women to freshen up. Red velour draperies hung from arched panels helped to dampen sound and enhance acoustics, while the original theater seats were made of cushioning and rich leather upholstery.
When it was first built, the new Rialto Theater had state-ofthe-art technology, equipment, and mechanical systems in place to make sure the lights and sounds of the theater were in optimal condition. Sound and projection systems were installed by an engineering firm from Buffalo, New York. The theater was also outfitted with a Kohler organ and a 32-foot by 63-foot stage. A Celotex ceiling, a washed-air ventilation system, $13,000 Ozite wall panels,
and Vitaphone sound system all helped earn the Rialto theater the moniker of “the showplace of the South.”
The Rialto Theater’s owners saw it as more than just a place to enjoy the new phenomenon of talking pictures. “We believe that this theater will serve as a community asset,” they said, in the double-page announcement found in the Sept. 29, 1929, edition of the El Dorado Sunday News, “and will aid materially in the economic progress of El Dorado and vicinity.”
For decades, the theater attracted vaudeville performers from around the country, leading a tourist explosion for El Dorado. Under the Clark and McWilliams families, the theater thrived and was renovated throughout the years so that it could continue to be a staple of arts fanatics everywhere. The theater was standingroom-only for the 1939 regional premiere of “Gone With the Wind,” drawing individuals from Louisiana and Texas as well as across The Natural State.
In the years that followed, the theater was largely business as usual. But as the ecstasy of the oil-boom began to fade, so too did the popularity of the Rialto. In 1980, the theater closed for seven years while city officials in El Dorado tried to figure out what purpose the theater should serve next before the city ultimately chose to restore and reopen the building.
In 1986, the theater was added to the National Register of Historic Places and reopened the following year. From 1987 to 2006, the structure served as a three-screen movie theater, and in 2003, was included in the El Dorado Commercial Historic District. The main lobby and concessions area of the theater briefly operated as a bar called Marilyn’s, but this eventually fell through. Soon, the theater again closed, and all was quiet for several years.
In 2012, the winds of change blew for the Rialto Theater. The
Murphy Arts District, formed by a coalition of individuals in El Dorado committed to ensuring that visitors and residents had creative outlets for music, food, art, theater and dance, purchased the Rialto Theater. Plans were announced to restore the theater once more as part of phase two community revitalization efforts in downtown.
As work continues, proponents envision the revitalized theater to be the hub for live music performances, comedy shows, movies and plays. The theater will have floor seating available for 850 attendees, as well as a full balcony.
The revitalization comes at a time when the community is gaining national attention for the work it has done to improve and promote downtown. The Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism recognized Murphy USA Chairman Madison Murphy as Tourism Person of the Year in 2018 and presented the Murphy Arts District the Natural State Award.
Murphy believes that by creating both entertainment and economic opportunities, people will not only move to El Dorado to build their careers but also their lives.
“The arts district directly addresses the quality of life,” Murphy told White in the AY About You interview, “but it also tests the thesis: Can you be successful in economic development through arts, entertainment and culture? And we think the resounding answer to that is ‘yes.’”
As of January 2023, workers with Diversified Construction & Design have laid concrete for a new sidewalk outside of the Rialto Theater and its next-door neighbor, Sports Alley, on East Cedar Street. This comes as part of the ongoing preparations for the 2023 Governor’s Conference on Tourism, which El Dorado will host in February.
History tends to repeat itself. El Dorado, a once popular tourist destination as a result of the oil boom, has found itself in the spotlight of another tourism pilgrimage as the city updates, restores and expands its amenities and attractions. This time, the Rialto Theater will get to witness the second popularity boom and hopefully be a lasting staple for the city of El Dorado.
Iremember this incident as if it occurred last week rather than decades ago. It happened during my first season as an outfitter on the Buffalo River. Our business was on US 65 north of Marshall.
One beautiful spring morning, a couple from Louisiana appeared in our storefront, eager to go canoeing. Once we’d completed the paperwork, we headed to Woolum, our put-in point. As we drove across the US 65 bridge over the Buffalo, I mentioned that they’d float under this spot in a few hours before arriving at Gilbert, the take-out point.
When we got to Woolum, water conditions were ideal. In fact, the shoals at the put-in were so noisy that conversation was difficult. I placed their canoe at the water’s edge and gave them paddles and PFDs. The couple climbed into the boat, the man in the stern and his wife in the bow.
I put my hands on the canoe, set to shove them into the current. I was surprised when the man cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Which way do we go?”
I grinned, pointed to the left, and pushed them into the water, waving as they floated off.
When I picked the couple up hours later at Gilbert, they’d fallen in love with Arkansas.
But I’ll never forget that man’s question: Which way do we go? Maybe it’s something Arkansas’s tourism industry leaders need to ask themselves each day.
It’s true. We have many advantages in The Natural State—with more to come:
• An expansion is underway at Bentonville’s Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
• Our state park system is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.
• The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts will soon unveil a new facility in Little Rock.
• While plans aren’t public, it appears the old Dogpatch theme park near Jasper will become an environmental showplace.
• Gaming in Hot Springs, West Memphis, and Pine Bluff seems to be thriving.
• Arkansas’s restaurant, brewery, and distillery scene is booming.
• Southeast Arkansas’ Delta Heritage Trail is gaining steam.
• Fort Smith’ U.S. Marshals Museum will open in 2023.
• Arkansas has built an impressive network of mountain bike trails.
• El Dorado’s South Arkansas Arts Center, is expanding and Fayetteville’s TheatreSquared has a new home.
• The Arkansas Nature Conservancy has added Blue Mountain and Rattlesnake Ridge to its list of protected places.
Yet, that question remains: Which way will we go when it comes to Arkansas tourism?
We have federal recreational facilities across Arkansas that wearing out. Our congressional delegation must make certain funds are
available to operate and maintain these investments.
Destinations along the Buffalo River — such as Whitaker Point, Lost Valley, and Steel Creek — are overwhelmed by crowds at times. We must ensure these sites don’t lose their charm and identity. And, of course, Arkansas legislators must take action to prevent another commercial hog farm within the Buffalo River’s watershed.
Northwest Arkansas will double its population within the next 25 years. Planners must think about housing, education, and transportation — and also recreation and open space.
The Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage & Tourism has done a fine job promoting the state and its distinctive regions. Yet it has accumulated a large advertising surplus, dollars that could be appropriated to encourage visitors to explore lesser-known areas.
Likewise, the state parks division has done commendable work, reducing its backlog of deferred capital improvement projects. But with Arkansas’s population growth and the demand for recreation, thought must be given to expanding the system. We haven’t had a new state park since Mount Magazine opened in 2001, an undertaking that required decades of effort.
Finally, I’ll suggest if Arkansas is serious about “The Natural State” slogan, the tourism industry must become pro-active on environmental issues. Let’s consider the magnificent maple trees lining Fayetteville’s streets. People unknown to us planted those trees decades ago, but years later everyone enjoys them. Perhaps the industry, in collaboration with the Arkansas Forestry Commission, could mount a statewide tree-planting campaign that would not only bring folks together for a common cause but would also pay dividends for future generations.
Arkansas’ tourism industry can point to a long list of accomplishments. Visitation counts and tax receipts are at all-time highs. But if Arkansas is to continue advancing, we must ask ourselves that big question: Which way do we go?
Otherwise, The Natural State could end up killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
Amr Ismail, MD
Conway Regional Multispecialty Clinic
Amr Ismail, MD, is a practicing pulmonologist at the Conway Regional Multispecialty Clinic with experience in diagnosis and treatment of conditions that affect the lungs, such as asthma, COPD, sleep apnea, and pneumonia. Conway Regional is also proud to offer an endobronchial ultrasound bronchoscopy procedure used to diagnose different types of lung disorders, inflammation, infections, and cancer.
Visit ConwayRegional.org to learn more.
We’re not just growing we’re growing together.
