Fast Food
to Fine Dining
CA
From Corporate America to Mountain Paradise
at ITAL
Backyard
Bird Watching
LAY
The Free Spirit Of Enterprise
ise h c n an i t i o the
Volume III - Edition VI complimentary edition
capitalatplay.com
r ed F October1 2013 October 2013 | capitalatplay.com
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The Free Spirit Of Enterprise
publisher & editor
Your Retirement Income Strategists
Harley O. Morgan associate publisher
Jeffrey Green contributing editors
We look and feel like a small, independent, personalized financial planning and investment management company, because we are. Yet, we have the backing of a leading international financial firm offering us research, support and client service that has been recognized industry wide.
Dasha O. Morgan, David Bradley, Alexina O. Morgan, Linda D. Cluxton, Brenda Murphy contributing writers
Paul Clark, Bill Fishburne, Hunt Mallett, Roger McCredie, Jim Murphy, Mike Summey, Arthur Treff
Starks Financial Group offers a caring, professional approach to your finances. • Asset management from a financial planning perspective • Team-based, high level of personal service • Three Certified Financial Planner™ practitioners Dawn G. Starks, CFP® Jennifer L. Adams, CFP® David M. Werle, CFP®
illustr ations by
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contact us Our relationship starts with you and a financial plan, which builds into an investment plan to help meet your retirement goals and dreams. For a free, no obligation initial consultation, please contact us at 285-8777.
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Published by Universal Media Inc. PO Box 5615, Asheville, NC. 28813 ed
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Christ sChool
Publisher’s Thoughts
We make water work for you.
Finding something to do, a business to start or a risk to take, is not easy. Finding something that you see as opportunity through a calculated risk, but also feel secure with, is really what most entrepreneurs are looking for. So work for yourself, just not all by yourself. An Episcopal School for Boys
O
ne of the largest factors in the decisions we make is in our aversion to risk—our willingness to put ourselves and our families’ well-being on the line. Obviously some people are comfortable taking more risks than others. Franchises seem to offer the autonomy that some entrepreneurs are looking for, yet also provide the structure and guarantee of a solid business model. We all love to tout our locally owned and operated businesses, of which there are a plethora. However, when was the last time you thought about these semi-entrepreneurs, who open up their version of a privately owned business, that just happens to be under a well-known national (or international) logo? In this edition we talked to a few businesses owners to find out why they want to own a franchise (Some of which you might recognize as franchises; others you might not). Their backgrounds vary as much as do their focuses. The cover for this edition, which was specifically created for this edition by Sandra Bottinelli, exemplifies the choice for many franchisees and entrepreneurs alike. A postman is probably more risk averse than a tight-rope walker. They want to strike a balance between how much risk they take and how much money they can make. However, to make more money usually you need to take more risk. For those readers of Capital At Play who are accustomed to a much more photo-centric magazine, rest easy. November will not disappoint. Considering that you may be familiar with the image of a hamburger, a bird feeder, or can envision what a desk at a staffing firm might look like; I ask that you use your imagination to place yourselves in the minds of those individuals we have featured in this edition. Try to understand where they came from, why they do what they do, and what it means to you as a customer of theirs, as a potential or current stockholder in a franchise, and certainly as someone who sees the world with a sense of wonderment and curiosity.
Sincerely,
Harley O. Morgan
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featuredartist
Sandra Bottinelli This page exists to showcase the artist, Sandra Bottinelli, who has created the cover of this edition and the illustrations that accompany the columns found in this edition, as well as the previous September edition of Capital At Play. Below, you will find some of her works in oils.
S
andra Bottinelli was born on the shores of New Jersey in 1972, then moved to South Florida in her early teens. Ever since she can remember as if it were innate, she has been pursuing her passion as an artist. Following her interest in the arts and to expand her talents, she attended college at the University of Michigan, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1995. With a desire to experience the world and further her studies, she chose, as many artists have before her, to travel to Europe where she studied the fine arts in Salamanca and Barcelona, Spain. Affected by the energy of the museum walls, oil painting became her medium of choice. This experience eventually influenced her style and aided her in finding herself as a true artist. After returning from Europe, Sandra moved to Portland, Oregon, where she continued to paint, study and display her work. She quickly became a regional favorite, with her works displayed in numerous galleries and exhibits over the course of seven years. She later moved to Orlando, Florida for a short stay of three years, during which she participated in the numerous art fairs that are so popular throughout the state. She received many honors and awards during this time. Recently she found herself settling in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina where she hopes to stay. She now works out of her own studio located in Asheville’s River Arts District. You can visit Sandra and her work at whiteSPACE located in the Wedge Studios.
Bottinelli in front of “Deliverance”
“Eye of the Needle” oil on canvas, 72x36”
“Dance” oil on canvas, 48x24”
If you’d like to know more, contact Sandra here: sandrabottinelli.com | bottinelli333@gmail.com 6
CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
“Love and Birds” oil on wood, 20x52”
If you would like to see your commercial artistic talents showcased here, contact katrina@ capitalatplay.com
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CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
the Franchise Edition This edition we bring you a different perspective of private industry.
p.19
Fast Food to Fine Dining
p.35
From Corporate America to Mountain Paradise
p.61
Backyard Bird Watching
p.77
We Never Owned a Franchise, But We Saw the Need
a tr ademark :
is any recognizable sign, design or expression which identif ies products or ser vices of a par ticular source from those of others. The trademark owner can be an individual, business organization, or any legal entity.
October 2013 | capitalatplay.com
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Contents
o c t o b e r 2 0 13
lo c a l i n d u s t ry
columns
12 Franchise 101:
32 Hunt Mallett
Work for yourself, not by yourself
It’s Harvest Time North of the Equator
68 Mike Talks
l e i s u r e & l i b at i o n
Higher Education —A Blessing or a Curse?
44 Looking for Color off the beaten path
keepin’ it brief 28 Carolina in the West 56 The Old North State 72 National & World News
politics 84 Red Tape The meter’s running: Your taxi dollars at work
c a p i ta l a d v e n t u r i s t 88 Technical Motorcycle Running Bending with the Mountains
l i f e at p l ay 42 How do they do it? We ask everyone featured in C@P the same question, for an entire year. The question this year is: “Do you pursue furthur education, and why or why not?”
10 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
events 92 Get out of your Office See what’s going on in your community this month
SLEEPWALKERS?
DO YOU HAVE AN ARMY OF HAVE AN ARMY OF DOworse YOU HAVE ANOne who ARMY What’s than an employee who quits? checks out OF
SLEEPWALKERS? SLEEPWALKERS? SLEEPWALKERS? mentally, but still shows up to work each day. Employee disengagement costs employers $300 billion in lost productivity annually. Are your profits melting away because of disengaged workers? What’s What’s worse worse than an an employee employee who whoquits? quits? One Onewho who checks checks outout
What’s worse thanshows an employee who quits? who checks out mentally, mentally, but still shows up uptotowork work each each day. day.One Employee Employee disengagement disengagement mentally, but still$300 shows up toininwork each day. Employee disengagement costs costs employers employers $300 billion billion lost lostproductivity productivity annually. annually. Are Are your your profits profits costs employers $300Professionals billion in losthas productivity annually. Aretoyour Express Employment insight and solutions helpprofits melting melting away because because of ofdisengaged disengaged workers? workers? melting away because of disengaged workers?
re-engage your team, leading to higher productivity and driving your business to the top. Professionals Express Express Employment Employment Professionalshas hasinsight insightand andsolutions solutions to to help help
Express Employment hasproductivity insight andand solutions to help re-engage re-engage your team, team,Professionals leading leadingtotohigher higher productivity and driving driving your your re-engage team, leading to higher productivity and driving your business business toyour the top. top. business to the top.
(828) 654-8101 1979 Hendersonville Rd Suite B (828) (828) 654-8101 654-8101 Asheville, NC 28803 Rd Suite (828) 654-8101 1979 1979 Hendersonville Hendersonville Rd SuiteBB
1979 Hendersonville Asheville, Asheville, NC NC 28803 Rd Suite B Asheville, NC 28803
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Franchise 101
Work for yourself,
not by yourself
written by arthur treff
| photo by anthony harden
a tr ademark : is any recognizable sign, design or expression which identifies products or services of a particular source from those of others. The trademark owner can be an individual, business organization, or any legal entity.
Entrepreneurs are most often associated with two words: creativity and risk. They are the people who want to be the first in their field to offer something new, exciting and different. For them, a new business venture is created out of nothing. Limited only by finances, these innovators ‘enjoy’ the ultimate freedom of expression. 12
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local industry
F
Fear of failure is a constant companion, as entrepreneurs travel mile after mile of new business territory. There are no maps to follow, no roads leading anywhere specific. This trip is punctuated by one-way streets, dead-end forks in the road, and sightless tunnels. The only thing the entrepreneur knows is that s/he must keep going. The challenges come hard and fast at times. Most entrepreneurs will admit that although scary, the creative reactions to daily business problems are the core of the experience; for they bend and mold the organization and its people into something far beyond imagination. Are the individuals we feature in Capital at Play super human? Is there a genetic predisposition for small business success? No. However, a trait that all of them seem to share is the inability to feel satisfied working for someone else. They can’t help it; they’re born that way. What about you? Are you a trailblazer, or are you more comfortable following a well-marked path? Many of us dream, but uncomfortable with the open ended task of creating a new business, we migrate toward steady jobs with companies that can use our talents. If you aspire to become self-employed, but lack the courage of your ideas, there is a middle ground: franchising, a way to operate a small business within the relative safety of a proven formula. e e ’s a n d o r’s
When you purchase a franchise, you become the franchisee. In exchange for some start-up costs and a percentage of your future sales, the franchisor licenses you to operate as a satellite facility selling the franchise’s products and services. Your new business bears the same logo, advertising and overall appearance. The parent franchise has already established a brand recognition and quality reputation, so your venture has a head start; all you have to do is run your location. You’re in business for yourself, but not by yourself—the franchisor industry’s mantra. For the franchisor, franchise partners provide the company with an affordable way of expanding the business with very low risk. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship, and it works well as long as the franchise unit owners follow the rules, because consumers, once they’ve latched onto a brand, demand consistency. rules rule
Imagine striding up to the counter with a Big Mac on your mind, only to find out that this particular McDonalds no longer sells them! Franchises live or die by the rules. In business for themselves, but playing by the rules, individual franchise unit owners become corporate super-employees—they have skin in the game—because of their financial commitment. Business brokers and franchise consultants we’ve spoken to
agree that franchises target corporate employees looking for change. Successful corporate life is predicated by an employee’s ability to work within the confines of company policy. It is no surprise then, that when they retire, or are laid off, corporate professionals are drawn to opening franchises. Doug Boehme, Regional Director for the Central Indiana Small Business Development Center, explained that the people most likely to purchase a franchise are corporate employees who have been laid off more than once. “These are people who love company life but were blindsided by layoffs. They now want to control their destiny,” Boehme said. “They thrive in a corporate setting, because they understand the need for following company policy, they are the ideal franchisees.” l ayo f f s d r o v e t h e m a r k e t
Franchise sales boomed in the small recession of 2001-02. Corporations were laying off upper and middle management, writing large early retirement and severance checks in the process. The newly unemployed bought franchises as a way to reinvent their working lives. Additionally, banks continued to lend money for small business starts, and real estate values remained strong, homes were valuable for use as loan collateral. The boom went bust in 2008 when the current recession hit. Companies no longer offered severance packages during layoffs, so few of the unemployed professionals had the money to invest in a franchise. Residential real estate was a mess, many Americans’ home values went slipping below their mortgage balances, and banks were loath to incur any risk, most certainly not with business loans to the unemployed. Sales of new franchises became very bleak. Few out of work Americans had the means to purchase a new one, and many existing franchise units were barely making a living. Desperate franchisees put their units up for sale for pennies on the dollar in an effort to cut their losses, but no one wanted to touch a dying business. b righter outlook
Franchise Times (FT) has been publishing the performance of the US market since the year 2000. In their 2013 edition, FT reports that the largest 200 franchises showed global revenue growth of 8.2% last year, while the top ten of those reported a gain of 13.4%. Of that top ten list, the largest two, 7-Eleven and McDonald’s walked away with 15.8% revenue growth. In short, the earnings of ten US franchise corporations contribute more than half of the total franchise revenue. Where do these amazing growth numbers come from? The US economy is still struggling its way out of a long recession, so how can these numbers be possible? Do Americans really ingest that many Big Macs and Slurpee’s? October 2013 | capitalatplay.com
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Tree of Life pendants from our designer/goldsmith Paula Dawkins
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t h e f o u r r’s
Recognition The answer lies in what draws investors to buy them in the first place: franchise brand recognition. All of the top ten franchises have strong brand recognition that is in demand overseas. The giants are growing their revenue numbers by selling units outside of the USA. For the last 12 years, the number of domestic units grew only 32% while the international franchise unit count increased by a whopping 113%. Remember, that the above data states the revenue for the franchisors, the corporation that owns the brand, not individual franchise locations. Corporate revenue comes from company owned units, but the majority of company profits are the royalties paid by their franchisees from individual locations.
R
Royalties Purchasing a new franchise involves signing a contract with an average duration of ten years, which contains some monetary commitments for the buyer.
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Contract Fee ($10K-35K): This is a non-refundable sum, paid up front, to cover the corporations costs while training you and your employees about the business.
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Start-up Costs: New franchise units, like a lawn care business, can be opened for as little as $5K, while a fast food store may involve the buying of specialized equipment and a store house of inventory, which for a sub shop might be $160K, while a large burger franchise could approach the $1.5M range. Don’t forget that your new store may require a full build out of a rented space, which can be expensive as well. Hotel franchises may require you to own a building, which in some markets tips, can cost beyond the multi-million dollar mark. Royalties: A percentage of your future gross sales will be paid to the corporation. We’ve seen it as low as 4.5% and as high at 17+%. Gross means the franchisor gets paid first, even if you are not making enough money to cover your costs, and in some cases, even if you have closed your doors prior to contract termination. Why the difference in the rates? At 4.5%, there may not be much support involved (or really needed). However, if McDonald’s is your franchisor, you are expecting them to be working on the next ‘Mc-Something’ in their test kitchens. In essence, you’re paying them to do product R&D. At 17%+ royalty, franchisors are probably also relieving you of some administrative functions such as invoicing, purchasing, etc. Marketing Fees: Some franchises bills you regularly for national advertising campaigns, or they stipulate how much they want you to spend on local advertising. Rebranding / Redecorating: Your store has to look like all the others out there. Incurred initially, it will be repeated at scheduled intervals dictated by the franchise contract.
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Transfer or Termination Fees: A fee will be levied if you decide to sell or close your franchise unit.
R Risk
Another trend within the top 200 franchises is the unloading of company operated units. Franchisors are increasingly reluctant to open new, or retain existing,
local industry franchise locations. Since 2006, IFA reports the top 200 companies have shed 16,671 company-owned locations, a 22.4% plunge. On average individual franchisees own a staggering 88% of all operating units. Corporations are good at eliminating debt and risk. Business analysts believe that the big franchisors sold company-owned units to draw down corporate debt and risk. Franchisees bear all the operating expenses: initial build-out, redecorating, inventory, and advertising, and also pay the franchisor royalties whether profitable or not. For the franchise, pushing all the cost and risk onto the franchisees is a no-brainer. This little discovery had us searching for information on how well the individual franchisees are doing. When we went looking for that data, we came up empty. Small business consultants we spoke to verified that no organization has been tracking the profitability of the individual franchisee, but reminded us that the risk/reward equation for most franchises is balanced.
R
Reward “Yes, the franchise buyer bears most of the risk,” admitted Boehme. “But again, successful franchisees have the most to gain. If their profits are through the roof, the bulk of the money is theirs to keep, since the royalty paid to the franchise is typically a flat percentage of revenue.” Now it all makes sense. A profitable franchise unit can be very lucrative for the owner, and tracking this profitability is impossible, because, as a privately held business, annual sales and profits are not public knowledge. Americans continue to become franchisees. Eleven thousand new units are forecast to open this year, bringing the national total to 575,438 locations by years end. According to a 2013 economic analysis by IHS Global Insight, franchises in the US will employ 8.3 million people and generate $802 billion in revenue. t h e wat c h d o g
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) stepped into the role of franchise regulator in 1979. Since then, every franchisor is bound to fully disclose all facets of the business to potential buyers in an FTC dictated format. Initially called the Uniform Franchise Offering Circular (UFOC), its content was modified in 2007 and dubbed the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD), but most business analysts just call it ‘the prospectus’. Buyers analyzing a potential franchise purchase spend quality time with the FDD which discloses everything a franchisee should know. It includes all company financials, fees, contracts, termination clauses, pending lawsuits, competitive information and even the names and addresses of failed franchise units over the last three years. Our research indicates that the most valuable section of the FDD is the list of franchisees. A company can disclose
Chapter 6
Practical solUtions
Practical solUtions For YoUr BUsiness
start here chaPter 6 Over time, our book has been filled with all kinds of lending stories. We have worked with many types of businesses, some starting and others expanding. Whatever stage your business is in, you owe it to yourself to talk to one of our lending experts. They make understanding your business needs a priority and work as a team to find practical solutions. It’s the style of banking you’ll have to experience for yourself. After all, we’ve been a part of the Western North Carolina community for more than 75 years, and that’s our story. Come write the next chapter of your business with us. Start the process online at AshevilleSavingsBank.com or stop by any banking center and let us help write your lending story. commercial Mortgage
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everything that they expect, but what cannot be learned from disclosure is probably more essential. People who own existing franchises know the most about their operation, they can tell you the real story, and the FTC, as well as business brokers, will insist that you contact as many of them as you possibly can. Ask them some questions such as: Are you profitable? What products sell and what don’t? How easy is the corporation to work with? Do their demands change often? How is their service helpful in solving problems? Do they keep competition out of your territory? Does their advertising program increase your customer count? Knowing what you know now, would you do it again? help for the buyer
When a prospective buyer asks him about the viability of purchasing a new franchise, Gregg Solms strongly suggests to the buyer that the acquisition of an operating unit is less risky. “An existing location has a sales history,” he explained, “while a new franchise location has to create one.” Gregg is a Certified Business Intermediary, (CBI) and he owns Southeastern Regional Business Brokers in Asheville. He functions as a consultant to buyers and sellers of businesses, guiding them through the complex process. “We help them find a suitable business to buy, guide them through the negotiation process to a completed purchase agreement, provide assistance in due diligence, help secure financing, and navigate the myriad [of] other details. In our role as consultants, we not only help buyers get the best deal, we simplify the process of buying a business.” Gregg listed the following considerations when purchasing an existing franchise unit. Lease Terms: Can you keep it for at least ten years, and what are the transfer costs? Franchisee Rights: Can you terminate, and are there penalties attached to that?
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Territory Rights: Make sure no future franchisees can invade and cannibalize your turf. Business Mix: Are the franchised products a mix of high profit and low? If they are all low profit, you may want to look elsewhere. Remodel / Rebranding Requirements: How often will the corporation insist that your unit be redecorated and at what cost to you? Location: How desirable is the unit’s location? Are there synergies with other businesses? Cash Flow: How strong is the unit’s cash flow and can you live off it after expenses? i f i t ’s t o o g o o d t o b e t r u e …
Research for this article was time consuming, much to our surprise. The Net is jammed with rosy websites that paint a picture of how you cannot fail with a franchise—almost any franchise—and concrete profitability data is next to impossible
local industry to find. Remember what your mother said: if any opportunity sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Do you recall the frozen yogurt craze of the 1990’s? TCBY stores seemed to appear overnight, then died away during the last 15-20 years. The US is now experiencing another frozen yogurt store bumper crop in the form of self-serve offerings. Entrepreneur.com’s list is 26 yogurt companies deep, bearing names such as Red Mango, Sweet Frog, Fresh Berry and Let’s Yo’. Realistically, how many yogurt shops can the market sustain? Will this latest craze last into the next five years? Buyers beware. Franchise industry analysts have tagged another segment that is already saturated with franchise offerings: the home health care industry. Entrepreneurs, alongside the Medicare supplementary insurers, are eager to capitalize on the baby boomers forthcoming demise. Just because AARP or a Good Morning America host likes a novel business idea, that doesn’t mean you should buy in. Case in point: “Cereality”—a restaurant chain that serves only cereal. Will hipster customers pay $6.00 for a bowl of cereal with gourmet toppings? Are you willing to bet your life savings on that? How long will this novelty last before it wears off and the franchisees lose their money? As you cull through the thousands of franchises for sale, remember that—in exchange for your money—you become licensed to sell a product with strong brand recognition within a proven business formula. Ignoring the hot new brands, in favor of the proven, should yield results over a much longer time period. Each franchise opportunity should be analyzed individually and thoroughly and should be mated to your skills and interests. A mistake many people make when choosing a franchise is relying too much on an industry they’ve targeted versus what skills they posses and what they enjoy doing. Doug Boehme said, “Many franchises call for the owner to be a salesperson. I don’t care how hot the particular franchise’s market may be, if the franchisee can’t sell—or doesn’t want to sell—there’s a very good chance he will fail.” If opening a franchise appeals to your business sense, a comprehensive consumer guide to purchasing a franchise written by the FTC is available online at www.business.ftc.gov, which is a great place to start. Entrepreneur.com also has some great plain language articles on the franchise industry, and we recommend starting to read Franchise Times. After talking to two of them, we think that working with a reputable business broker or franchise consultant is something to strongly consider. A good one can guide you through the maze of opportunities and help you to decide which ones best fit your skills, financial plans, and risk tolerance. Their fees vary but are usually rolled into the cost of the future transaction. If your brain has yet to spit out a new business idea to rock the world, and you have some money to invest, franchising might be the best way of becoming your own boss. October 2013 | capitalatplay.com
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18 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
Fast Food
to
Fine Dining
TM
Don Rasnick of McDonald’s & Jeff Conway of Ruth’s Chris Steak House written by jim murphy
|
photos by anthony harden
October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 19
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From fast food to fine dining, restaurants comprise perhaps the most dominant franchise industry in the American economy. Dozens of giant nationwide chains contend for our business and our loyalty. From tacos to waffles, from chicken to beef, familiar logos dot the commercial landscape, offering breakfast, lunch, and dinner to “eat here or to go.” It is a huge and competitive business, dominated by two chains on opposite ends of the dining experience. McDonald’s and Ruth’s Chris Steak House both have a strong presence in Asheville. The two are directed by men as different as the restaurants they lead.
Don Rasnick of McDonald’s When he was 15, Don Rasnick’s stepfather told him to get a haircut and get a job. He went down to his local barbershop and then over to McDonald’s. In the 40 years since then, he has had hundreds of haircuts—but he’s still with MacDonald’s. “My original job was making shakes back when we used to mix the ice cream and all that stuff,” he recalled. And to underscore how far both he and the company have come in four decades, he recited the history in numbers. “McDonald’s numbers its stores nationwide according to when they opened. That first store where I worked in Sarasota, Florida, was number 54. The newest store I’m opening in Asheville will be number 35,771.” That newest store will be the ninth in Rasnick’s gallery of McDonald’s outlets. In fact, the only other owner of McDonald’s stores in the Asheville area is the company itself. While McDonald’s was growing, Don was growing right along with it. He moved from those shakes to the front counter, to shift manager, to store manager. “In a pretty short period of time I realized McDonald’s was a pretty good place to work. You got to meet a lot of people. Pretty girls worked there. You made a lot of friends, and it was something different every day.” One of the pretty girls who worked there had a pretty sister named Lois. Don and his best friend double dated with the sisters, and eventually Don married Lois and his friend married her sister. “So my best friend became my brother-in-law.” And what had began as a teenage job was becoming part of the family.
don r asnick of McDonald’s 20 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
The company bought that Sarasota store in 1973, effectively moving Don onto the first rung of the corporate structure. He climbed that ladder quickly. “I held just about every position in McDonald’s Corporation, both domestic and international. I was regional leader in both the South Florida and Atlanta regions. I did the ’96 Olympics in Atlanta. I opened the McDonald’s inside the Georgia Tech Dome.” But he resisted when the company offered him a position at world headquarters in Chicago. “Lois and I made a decision early in our lives that we wanted to stay in the south. I was born in Bristol, Tennessee, and we were both raised in Florida. We decided we didn’t want any part of those Chicago winters.” Now he sits in the Swannanoa building he bought earlier this year. His office cabinet displays his diploma from Hamburger U., a certificate for “35 Years of Dedicated Service,” and another for 40 years, a souvenir crystal golf club head. “I live to play golf—18 handicap,” he said. Pictures are still leaning against a wall, waiting to be hung. “I’ll get around to it. There’s too much else to do.” Don left the corporation and moved to Asheville in 1999. “I started buying McDonald’s stock when I was 18 years old, so I had the opportunity to do whatever I wanted. I had been at McDonald’s 28 years, and I was traveling 200 days a year as a corporate employee. I said to Lois, ‘I want to hang out and do down time.’ So I retired from McDonald’s, and played golf every day, did the honey-do list. Everything in the house was fixed. Nothing was broken.” He shook his head at the recollection, remembering that his “retirement” turned into nothing more than a short intermission. He interrupted his narrative to take a bite of the Chicken McNuggets he had brought in for lunch. He stated that he eats McDonald’s every day and, responding to a raised eyebrow, he ran through the calorie count of various items. At age 56 he appeared to be in good shape and was pleased to point out that his daily diet includes McDonald’s. He returned to his story. “I was retired for about six months when my accountant told me about some McDonald’s restaurants that were going up for sale. I bought two of them. That was in the year 2000, and later that year the company sold me two more. Lois said to me, ‘The next time you retire, don’t screw it up.’” Now Lois works in the office next to Don’s, handling the day-to-day administration of their eight restaurants. With 450 employees, including 65 managers at eight locations, the administration can be more than a full-time assignment. Don estimated that he works about sixty hours a week, and Lois laughingly asked, “Only sixty?” He’s not counting the time he spends “thinking about how [he] can do something different.” He admitted to long days, but with some executive perks. “Sometimes I get up at one a.m. and work until three. That’s the cool part of being the boss: If you want to work, you work and you can work any time. Yesterday I played golf, but I got up at 5:30 in the morning and worked until noon, so I already had seven hours in. I do have the luxury of determining when I work and when I don’t. I just know I got a lot of work to do every week.” That work begins with his eight stores. “I’m in the restaurants a lot. If I’m in a restaurant and we need to wait on customers, I’ll go work in the kitchen. It lets me see how well my people are trained, plus it’s much easier to communicate with your
“You see my short sleeves?” Rasnick said. “I always wear short sleeves because I’m always ready to go to work in a kitchen.”
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employees when you’re standing right there helping them make a hamburger.” It might be hard to imagine the owner of eight stores working in the kitchen, but Don backed it up. “You think of top management at McDonald’s—the chairman, the chief executive officer, chief operating officer—60 percent of that group started in a crew.” On this day, Don was wearing a white short-sleeve shirt with a quiet patterned tie. “You see my short sleeves?” he said. “I always wear short sleeves because I’m always ready to go to work in a kitchen. All of my top management team wear short sleeves. We’re all business professionals, but if we have to take care of a customer, we wait on the customer.” Back at his desk, his job includes managing those 450 employees. “We have a meeting every week, and we talk about every manager in the company, what their career looks like, what their development needs are, what is our development plan for them and how do we get to the next step. I have 65 managers and we talk about every one of them every week. We talk about their personal life too, because when you employ somebody you employ the whole person. So we talk about the things that impact their personal life, the things that subsequently impact us.” He leaned forward to expand on his connection with his employees. “I take a tremendous amount of pride in seeing the people that work for me grow. I’ve got store managers that work for me currently that started when they were 15 years old that are now the most successful person in their community, maybe in their family. They have had the opportunity to grow beyond their dreams as far as financial income, to manage a multimillion dollar business and to be able to have folks work for them and that they can see grow. I mean we sell hamburgers, but this is really a people business.” His thoughts shifted back to another weekly meeting: “I meet with all of my restaurant managers, and we talk about the business. This morning we were 22 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
talking about what promotions we need to do to impact a specific part of the day. So the managers will get some feedback, and we’re going to end up doing something about that.” And finally, his work reaches beyond the stores to his continuing links with the corporation. Don serves on the company’s Regional Leadership Council. He described it as 15 operators chosen from the 750 McDonald’s outlets in Virginia and North Carolina. “What we want to focus on are issues regarding the restaurants; such things as drivethrough lanes, 24-hour operations. I’m also a member of the company’s National Advertising Committee. That’s 44 owner operators in the U.S. that provide feedback and direction on how McDonald’s spends their advertising dollars on a national basis.” Having both corporate and franchise experience, does he feel a tension or friction between the two? He stared into space for a minute, letting out a long sigh. “Frequently. Frequently. We call it a feedback rich environment. We give McDonald’s a lot of feedback about how we’re running the business. For example, the company would like all the stores to have dual lane drive-thru operations. But that can be a pretty expensive investment. So if you don’t have the drive-thru volume to require that extra lane, then obviously you’re not going to do this. So we’re having a lot of conversations about that.” Under the franchise agreement, the franchisee pays the company four percent of gross sales. That payment formula can cause friction. It is in the company’s best interest to promote total sales, whereas the franchisee must try to increase profits. “This is always the internal conversation. Is the pie split so that the franchise can stay healthy? Because I want McDonald’s to stay healthy. I want McDonald’s to make money. I want them to be financially viable.” “We disagree a lot, but I can’t ever remember when a regional vice-president said, ‘I don’t care what you said, this is how we’re going to do it.’ I interact with top management frequently, but the cool thing is that top management seeks input. I think that’s what’s invigorating about being a McDonald’s franchisee. I think the franchisees in McDonald’s have truly a great relation with the company.” Becoming one of those franchisees is not easy. Before anyone will be considered —regardless of their experience at another company—they must have at least three years’ training in a McDonald’s restaurant, including all of the crew and management functions. And then they must make an initial investment of $750,000. “Just knowing how to run a business is not knowing how to run a McDonald’s,” Don said. In round numbers he estimated that last year McDonald’s received about 60 thousand
applications for franchises and accepted fewer than 100. Franchisees are presented with an agreement estimated at about 65 pages long. “When I was with the company, I used to put that franchise agreement in front of an owner-operator for him to sign,” Don said. “And their response would be, ‘Let me show it to my attorney.’ And my response would be, ‘OK. Let me help you out with that. If your attorney says, ‘Sign it,’ he’s not a very good attorney. But if you don’t sign it, you’re not going
“I interact with top management frequently, but the cool thing is that top management seeks input. I think that’s what’s invigorating about being a McDonald’s franchisee.”
to become a franchisee. You choose.’ Because it is written in favor of McDonald’s.” Under the agreement, McDonald’s owns the land beneath a store, but the franchisee owns the building and the equipment and furnishings in it. So, in addition to the four percent commission, the franchisee must pay the company rent for the land. But Don said the company leaves another major revenue stream to the franchisees. “McDonald’s doesn’t make money on the products we sell. The company doesn’t have anything to do with hamburger patties, buns or French fries. McDonald’s does approve the products for sale. The company develops the formula for the hamburgers, and our suppliers have to meet that formula. Each one of our suppliers has a McDonald’s representative on site, a quality assurance specialist, and they constantly are pulling product off the line and checking it for quality.” He crossed his legs and leaned back, warming to the topic. “We don’t have long-term contracts with any of our suppliers. Every one of them is a handshake deal and the reason for that is: You take care of me, you give me the best you’ve got, and we’ll give you a McDonald’s relationship. Obviously a McDonald’s relationship is very valuable. ” Don summed up the essentials of the franchise agreement in five requirements. “I run my operations at an acceptable level. I develop people. I reinvest in my business. I’m involved in the community. And I remain financially viable. McDonald’s job is to provide me the brand, and my job is to make sure I deliver that brand promise every day. So it is a good deal.” October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 23
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Featuring items like a fifty-one dollar T-bone steak, Ruth’s Chris Steak House is the very top of the franchise food chain. And at the top of Asheville’s Ruth’s Chris is an entrepreneur whose life reads like an improbable adventure novel. Now those adventures are no more than memories as Jeff Conway sat in a quiet booth in his restaurant, explaining the motivation for establishing the Asheville franchise. “My wife likes the mountains.” Jeff and his wife, Paula, already owned three Ruth’s Chris franchises and he said, “We wanted to grow our company, so the thought was, ‘Let’s go poke around up there.’” They kept poking until they uncovered a location just outside the Biltmore Estate on All Souls Crescent. Jeff teamed up with a prominent Asheville real estate investor, John Bell, to maneuver through a maze of obstacles. Three years and six million dollars later, Ruth’s Chris opened in Asheville. That was December 2011, and in less than two years, the restaurant has established itself as a landmark in the Asheville dining scene. Its traditional exterior blends quietly into the surrounding Biltmore Village architecture, and on the inside, the rooms surround visitors with understated elegance. Just off the entry, two glass doors lead to a small room with a single table set for two, and the walls are lined with 200-year old reclaimed cypress wine shelves, enough to hold more than 1,500 bottles. “We have wines here that sell for thirty dollars a bottle and for over one-thousand dollars a bottle,” Jeff said, sipping one of his favorites. Across from the cellar, a long corridor is lined with more wine in glass-enclosed shelves, a single bottle on each shelf with its own individual light. In the dining rooms, plush booths, blinding white linens, and sparkling glassware announce that this is a place to eat slowly—relax. The surroundings are part of the experience, but make no mistake: the star of the evening is the food. Ruth’s Chris described their steaks as “the finest custom-aged Midwestern beef.” And that’s only the beginning. “We broil it...at 1,800 degrees. Then we serve your steak sizzling on a heated plate….” Serious food—at serious prices. The filet is priced at forty dollars, the ribeye at forty-three dollars. Everything is a la carte. A potato will set you back another eight or nine bucks. But there is a less costly alternative. The happy hour bar menu—called Sizzle, Swizzle and Swirl—offers a variety of smaller plates for a nominal eight dollars. The choices include stuffed mushrooms, prime burger with fries, steak sandwich and barbecued shrimp. Cocktails and wine are also priced at eight dollars. “We want people to enjoy happy hour and then decide they’d like to have dinner here for a special occasion—their anniversary or birthday,” said Ashby Brame, Ruth Chris’ sales and marketing manager. The happy hour menu is available in the bar, which is something of a show in its own
“For people looking to get into business, you’ve got to know your numbers. You’ve got to know your business model.”
right. It is flanked on one end by a freestanding stone fireplace with an enormous abstract oil painting overlooking the patrons. And early on a Wednesday evening, those patrons are already assembling for what promises to be another busy night. Jeff is ready to greet them. Of all the tasks that go into running a restaurant, he says his favorite is playing the host. “I love this,” he said, looking around at the people in the bar. “I love walking into my restaurants, sitting down with people, having a glass of wine, and giving them the Ruth’s Chris experience.” His enthusiasm flowed into a commentary on the Ruth’s Chris brand. “It is really powerful. It has stood the test of time. They’ve been in business 48 years. Now there’s a certain fan of our steak houses and a certain expectation. It’s wonderful.” That 48-year history began in New Orleans when Ruth Fertel mortgaged her house to buy the Chris Steak House on Broad Street. With an investment of $22,000, she opened on May 24, 1965. On opening night she sold 35 steaks at five dollars each—not a bad night back in the ‘60s. After a fire destroyed the building in 1976, she moved to a new location and added her own name to the place, turning the popular Chris Steak House into Ruth’s Chris. The rest, as they say, is history. Meanwhile, Jeff Conway was writing a colorful history of his own. Jeff was 16 years old, a senior at Tulsa Memorial High School when he met Paula Carver. Four years later they were both accounting majors at Oklahoma State when they announced a lifetime merger, marriage. With their accounting degrees, Mr. and Mrs. Conway set forth on a journey that began with his job at Coopers and Lybrand in Oklahoma. After seven years he moved on to Ernst & Young in Tampa, FL., where he met some major investors who hired him to run a new company they were launching. And that’s where his life took its first adventurous turn. They bought “an old factory ship, reconfigured it as a fishing boat and sent it down to the Caribbean.” Jeff recalled that the ship, named the CSS Wave, was about 175 feet long and was equipped with the technology to flash freeze the catch. “The company was called Caribbean Seafood Sales, and they were in trouble. The drug cartel seized the boat and had it docked at San Andres Island between Colombia and Honduras. So I had to go down and get the boat back.” The year was 1990. With the drug cartel operating out of Colombia and the Sandinistas, and with Contras facing off in neighboring Nicaragua, San Andres was not what the travel brochures would describe as a tropical paradise. “I’m just a kid from Oklahoma with a CPA degree. I wasn’t ready for this. I found out that the plot was to load the boat with October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 25
drugs, have the Colombian police bust it and confiscate the ship. I swapped some big hydraulic (commercial fishing equipment) for 20 thousand gallons of fuel. Then I had money wired down and bribed the port captain. In the middle of the night the ship sailed out of San Andres up to neutral waters in Costa Rica.” The ship eventually made it to Tampa, where six months later, Jeff found a buyer for it. His investors were pleased.
accounting error, the question came up whether I knew about it. Big investigation. Front page Wall St. Journal. Jeff gets cleared.” He paused in his story to take a bite of an appetizer. “So then Madison Dearborn Partners (private equity investment firm) comes to me. It turns out they had just bought out Miss Ruth. They brought me in as the CFO of Ruth’s Chris in 2001.” Meanwhile The SEC was continuing to investigate allegations of mismanagement at Rent-Way. The accusation was that the company understated expenses to inflate its earnings. “They took four years and finally reached the conclusion that I looked the other way. ‘Deliberately blind and willfully ignorant’ was the way they put it.” Jeff pled guilty and served 10 months in federal prison. He recites the details with a studied detachment, which can’t quite conceal a bitter undercurrent. But now, sitting in one of his upscale restaurants, his anger remains submerged under nearly a decade of success. Jeff and Paula opened their first Ruth’s Chris in Charlotte in 2005 by renovating an existing restaurant. The adventurer turned restaurateur began as a CPA, and he quickly started with the numbers. “To open a Ruth’s is a two million dollar proposition. It’s a lot more if you have to buy the land. If you just find a nice building to lease, well then you don’t have to buy the land and build the building. You just have to finish the interior. So what I’m suggesting is to finish the interior and buy your plates and wine and inventory and train your employees, you better have twoand-a-half million dollars. Now if you’re going to buy the land
“But it’s not really work if you love what you’re doing. It’s so much better than being some corporate bureaucrat...We can get things done here.” “These super rich guys go: ‘This is our man. You find the right deal we’ll back you.’ And that’s when I found Rent-Way. I pitched that deal to them, and they went for it, so we bought this troubled company.” Rent-Way was a rent-to-own company based in Erie, PA, specializing in home furnishings. “We did this simple seven million dollar IPO and once we went public we were able to raise more capital. Over 10 years we went from 17 stores to 135 and turned it into a billion-dollar business. We grew by acquiring other companies. We made deal after deal after deal.” Rent-Way’s growth attracted the attention of major investment firms—and the federal government. “When Rent-Way had an
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and build the building, you’d better have six or seven million.” The CPA was clearly comfortable talking about seven-digit numbers. But the image seems incongruous to this garrulous restaurateur who just declared that his favorite part of the business is meeting with his patrons. He grinned in his agreement. “I was horribly miscast.” He paused, dismissing a thought. “But I was good at numbers. And I’ll say this: That accounting business platform is absolutely essential. For people looking to get into business, you’ve got to know your numbers. You’ve got to know your business model.” He took another bite of his appetizer and returned to his history with Ruth’s Chris. “The second one we bought the land and built the building.” After that they opened another in Savannah, and then Asheville. Stepping out from under the Ruth’s Chris umbrella, Jeff and Paula opened an independent restaurant in Charlotte. It is called Napa, and it gives them the experience of working both the franchise and independent sides of the street. He acknowledged some differences, but said Ruth’s Chris is not your typical franchise. “It’s like having an independent restaurant with a national brand name. We have a lot of liberty in terms of marketing our restaurants. The beauty of Ruth’s Chris is that it’s not a cookie cutter. None of the restaurants look the same. Each one is entirely different. Look around here,” he says, sweeping his arm to point out different design elements. “I picked out the artwork. I picked out the fabrics. I picked out flooring. I designed the building.” But individuality ends at the kitchen door. Remember, the food is the star of this show. “Now our menu, we have to comply with company standards. That’s what makes Ruth’s Chris so special.” But things like promotions are often left up to the franchisees. And he said they do compare notes. “We get together and talk about things that have worked well in other markets. For
instance, to celebrate the company’s 47th birthday we issued a seventy-seven dollar gift card for forty-seven dollars. I copied that from another franchise. We sold 4,000 cards in 10 days. At $47 each, that’s good money.” Talk of marketing and promotions revs up his engine. He leaned over the table as he continued. “One thing that has worked really well is that in Savannah and here in Asheville I was the driving force behind restaurant week. In Savannah we started with four restaurants participating, and now have about forty. And here in Asheville, we’re adding a Biltmore Village restaurant week.” He paused for a sip of water and then plowed on to his next idea. “And I’m going to start a jazz festival here. This area needs a good jazz event.” His promotional ideas translate to a work schedule that makes a mockery of the term, “full-time.” His commute from his home in Charlotte takes “two hours and 15 minutes door-to-door.” He grinned to indicate that he has timed it more than once. Add to that his time greeting and schmoozing with patrons along with all the other duties of running five upscale restaurants, and he was at a loss to estimate the hours he puts in each week. “I would say a lot. I work a lot. I’m the advertising department; I’m the human resources department; I’m the construction department; I’m the real estate department. And Paula is a huge part of the business. She runs the day-to-day accounting and administration of the office. In a business with 250 employees and $18 million annual sales, that’s a major job. “We’re both kept very busy. But it’s not really work if you love what you’re doing. It’s so much better than being some corporate bureaucrat, trapped in that culture of decision-making. I don’t feel like I’m some kind of slave to a franchise. We can get things done here.”
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Buncombe school board approves censure policy The Buncombe County Board of Education has approved a new “censure” policy, permitting the Board to issue an expression of formal disapproval to other Board members if a five-member majority agrees that others are out of line. According to the new policy, a “censure” allows the Board to reprimand or criticize the actions of a member for any behavior practiced, “which tends to injure the good name of the Buncombe County Board of Education and/or undermines the effectiveness” of the Board or school system. Many attendees spoke during public comment in opposition to the policy, claiming that it was unjustly targeted toward Board member Lisa Baldwin, who is often on the minority end of a 6-1 vote. The policy addresses a basic Board protocol to vote on censuring a member, ultimately resulting in one of three actions: to refer the issue to the District Attorney, request that the Board member resign from the Board, and/or issue the Board member an official warning regarding future conduct.
Cataloochee Valley gets a bike patrol A $1,000 grant from the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority to Friends of the Smokies has allowed the Elk Bugle Corps a more noticeable presence in Cataloochee Valley this year with its new Bike Patrol. The TDA grant funds the new Elk Bike Patrol, supplying safety uniform shirts, bike shorts and pants, bike safety mirrors and repair kits, and radio gear. These bicycle volunteers assist in traffic
control, skillfully dealing with “elk jams,” answering visitor questions, and being a highly visible presence in the valley. “Being on a bike allows us to respond quickly during high traffic times and during visitor emergencies. Kudos to GSMNP South District Ranger Joe Pond for this idea,” Stefanie McIntosh of Asheville noted. The TDA grant also provides more uniforms for the Elk Bugle Corps roaming the valley on foot and in the volunteers’ E-Ride vehicle so that visitors know where to go for information. Holly Demuth, director of North Carolina resource development of Friends of the Smokies, explained: “Our mission is to mobilize financial support for Great Smoky Mountains National Park to fund important park projects such as this…Supporting the Elk Bugle Corps and its new Elk Bike Patrol, made possible by this TDA grant, creates a happy visitor experience and increases tourism for Haywood County.”
Boone & ASU leaders could explore skateboarding plan According to Marsha Story, a Boone Public Works Department staff member who serves as clerk to the town’s transportation committee, efforts to terminate Appalachian State University and town of Boone bans on skateboarding have been paused until ASU leaders distinguish whether or not students still hope to pursue a plan. In July the committee talked about plans to find more information about utilizing skateboards and long boards for transportation purposes. ASU and the town presently ban the use of skateboards on campus, sidewalks and streets, with violations punishable by a University citation or $50 town
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fine. However, various groups, including the Student Government Association and the ASU Sustainability Council, have shown hope that local leaders will reconsider the policy and allow the use of skateboards as an alternative form of transportation. During a summer meeting of the transportation committee, ASU Sustainability Council member Eric Frauman was scheduled to appear at the September meeting to explain a data-driven pilot plan that ASU and the town could employ, if approved. But Frauman requested a delay of the presentation until he could work with this year’s ASU students. In July University Police Chief Gunther Doerr said that ASU is not interested in pursuing a pilot program alone, but may be open to collaborating jointly with the town. Doerr explained that University leaders are concerned about the topography of the area, as campuses that do allow boarding are in flat areas. Committee members examined the difference between transportation and recreational uses of boards, agreeing that all four wheels must stay on the ground at all times to be recognized as transportation. Boone Town Council member Lynne Mason proposed contacting other universities that allow long board use, as well as the surrounding communities, to see how they perceive it.
Hospital foundation donates to playground Blue Ridge Regional Hospital Foundation has given grants totaling $10,000 to support the development of Cane River Park in Burnsville. In collaboration with Graham Children’s Health Services and Yancey County, the hospital donated $5,000 for new playground equipment HunterBanks_CapitalPlay ad.pdf 1 11/4/11 10:42 AM
and $5,000 for new fitness equipment. Nancy Lindeman, director of Blue Ridge Regional Hospital Foundation, explained: “Cane River Park is the perfect place for our community to enjoy the outdoors and live healthy and active lifestyles…Investing in preventive wellness initiatives like the Cane River Park is a critical step toward achieving our goal of improving the health and wellness of the people we serve.”
Council approves $2.2 million for Eagle Market project Asheville City Council approved a $2.2 million loan for the Eagle Market Place project. The development is now estimated to cost $14,934,025. Other sources of funding for the project include over $1 million in state tax credits, nearly $4 million in other loans from the city and Buncombe County, and almost $700,000 in pass-through loans from Mountain Housing Opportunities. Supporters are also holding fundraisers and applying for private grants. In a recent iteration, the project would like to preserve the Ritz, DelCardo, and Dr. Collette building frontages and build a large structure behind them. It would offer 10,720 square feet for office space, community purposing, and historical preservation. It would also provide 62 apartments with rents ranging from $250-780. Rent controls would ensure the units would be available to persons earning 60 percent of median income for the next thirty years. As the design phase reached its winding-up scene, it was discovered that costs would be $3 million greater than estimated. Members of city staff explained those costs came from learning the soil on-site was poor, necessitating more work in laying
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the foundation and supporting structure for a second-floor deck. They also attributed the increases to “rising costs in general due to improved economic conditions.” To address the funding gap, the city employed a third-party estimator, who determined $3.6 million was more realistic. The estimator further discovered the contractor had listed as optional another $150,000 for “electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and interior finishes such as sheetrock.” To this, EMSDC replied they would let tenants of the affordable spaces do their own sheetrocking, etc. Regardless, MHO’s general contractor, Weaver-Cooke, said it would complete the project for its initial price, and the interested parties agreed the city could pick up the difference, which would add $3,367,618 to its former loan total of $1,300,000.
Local man donates records to bluegrass museum At 84 years old, Fred Chaffee still finds himself drifting off to music he has enjoyed for almost 50 years. He has 460 records of the different artists and songs that he claims “you won’t hear anywhere else.” He decided to donate 300 of those albums to the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky at the end of September. His albums were stashed away behind different cabinets in his Hendersonville home. He explained that those records represent classic, traditional bluegrass. Chaffee is not a fan of contemporary bluegrass on the radio today, but instead, remains more interested in the classics like Bill Monroe, Lester Flat and Earl Scruggs, or his favorite, Ralph Stanley. He claimed, “Now you can’t buy any of these records. Everything I own is obsolete.” Chaffee retired to Hendersonville with his wife in 1988 after living in Massachusetts. He was astonished that he came across more people in Massachusetts that listened to bluegrass than in his new North Carolina home. However, the more
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troubling trend for Chaffee is the change in the bluegrass landscape, as he is not into the new bluegrass sound. He says it is “too commercial.” That is a contributing factor to why he donated much of his collection to the museum. To him, it is about passing down a part of history that he loves “on to another generation.” Chaffee also explained that the rest of his collection, including albums, autographs and cassette tapes, will eventually end up at the museum.
Western Carolina University tops 10,000 students Western Carolina University has hit its highest enrollment level ever. For the first time, total enrollment has surpassed 10,000, largely due to a tremendous retention rate over the last year. University administrators revealed the enrollment figures during a recent special event and reception held at the Central Plaza area on campus. Western Carolina’s enrollment for the fall 2013 semester is 10,106, a 5 percent increase over last year’s 9,608 students. The University’s freshman retention rate, which is the percentage of first-time, full-time freshman students who returned for their sophomore year, is 78.7 percent this year, compared to the fall of 2012 retention rate of 73.7 percent. WCU Chancellor David O. Belcher proudly explained: “It’s amazing to think that when this institution was founded in a one-room schoolhouse in 1889, up there on the hill, it had a grand total of 18 students…Today, Western Carolina has grown to become a major cultural, scientific, economic and educational force in this region and in our state.” According to WCU officials, enrollment numbers have increased across the board. Numbers of first-time freshmen, undergraduate transfers, graduate students, distance education students and students taking classes at the University’s instructional site at Biltmore Park are all up. It is also likely that these enrollment numbers are largely due
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Appalachian State University and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have officially revealed plans to expand the physician assistant (PA) program at the Wake Forest School of Medicine to Appalachian State University’s campus. The program, to begin in June 2014, will address a shortage of primary care physician assistants in the rural areas of the state, according to John D. McConnell, M.D., chief executive officer at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Students admitted to the program will take the same curriculum as students in the current PA program, beginning a one-month basic science immersion at the Wake Forest School of Medicine. For the remainder of their pre-clinical training, students can participate in classes at either the Wake Forest or Appalachian’s College of Health Science. Supervised clinical experience, or rotations, will be administered by the program and take place at participating medical facilities, with an emphasis on building a PA workforce that remains in Western North Carolina. The program will initially enroll 24 to 32 students who will complete in-depth course work, including small-group learning, clinical skills and assessment activities and supervised clinical rotations. Following completion of the basic science immersion coursework, they will progress on to nine
The National Science Foundation gave Haywood Community College a $193,000 grant, which Deborah Porto, the College’s interim executive director of workforce development, hopes will get more women trained for manufacturing fields. Rather than the outdated stereotype of gritty factories and assembly lines, many of today’s advanced manufacturing facilities are cleaner, with highly trained technicians working at computer screens. The College is working with Haywood County schools to establish a dual enrollment program for local high school students. This program would allow students to earn a high school diploma and credits toward an associate degree in machining as well as electronic engineering. Many students with machining degrees find work at Haywood County’s highest average wages at companies such as Evergreen Packaging, Consolidated Metco, Sonoco Plastics and other firms. Those employees can make an annual salary of $60,440. Porto added, “The supply of trained technicians for these jobs is a well-developed pipeline of students from the high schools to the community colleges to local manufacturing employers.”
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months of preclinical training at Appalachian. Then, students will begin their year-long series of required and elective supervised clinical rotations in locations across the region and country. To help address the need for physician assistants in underserved communities, the program will target students from the Appalachian region who wish to train and work in these underserved areas, as well as veterans of the United States military. The PA initiative is partially funded by a three-year, $375,000 grant from the Duke Endowment.
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to the University’s online course offerings and to a new $46 million Health and Human Sciences building, which opened this autumn. Enrollment and graduation rates have become progressively more crucial as the UNC system moves toward performance-based funding from the state, with graduation and retention rates among the factors that will establish state dollars for WCU and other universities. The University is planning to mark the 125th anniversary of its founding. A yearlong quasquicentennial celebration is being prepared for 2014.
October 2013 | capitalatplay.com
31
by hunt mallett
It’s Harvest Time
north of the equator
H
hunt is the
owner & operator of Weinhaus, located on Patton Avenue in downtown Asheville.
Each year as summer winds down the vineyards approach that critical stage when the harvest season takes the grapes from the field into the winery.
V
eraison is the term for grape ripening, where the fruit hanging on the vines transforms from small, green, hard berries into what we recognize as grapes. Vines enter this stage about 30 to 70 days after the fertilized flowers have fallen off and become tiny grape bunches, mostly in July or August in the Northern Hemisphere and January or February in the Southern. This doesn’t occur for all varieties of grapes at the same time, and different weather patterns cause it to change each season. This year conditions on the west coast of the US have the harvest season starting almost a month
32 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
earlier than usual. It becomes very tricky as to when to pick the grapes, too much rain during harvest will cause the grapes to swell and the resulting wine will be thin and watery. Waiting too long could cause the grapes to over-ripen and risk certain molds and disease affecting them. Acidity can also go lower as grapes continue to ripen, and tanins and flavor compounds will change. Ultimately, winegrowers are seeking a good balance between the sugars, acidity, tannins and flavor compounds. All the methods that the growers use to protect the grapes and pick them at just the right time are crucial for the winemaker,
who takes harvested berries and works his craft to produce the best wine possible. The wine is an expression of three things: first and foremost, is the “terrior” or the earth it came from, next is the care and skill that the farmer or “vigneron” gives to nourish and care for the grapes as they grow and are harvested, and third is the winemaker who applies his skill to transform the grapes into wine and then age it until bottling. While it is true that the weather and conditions change each year to make a good “vintage” or not, those less desirable years can be overcome at wineries that utilize the best growers and winemakers to adapt and compensate to adverse conditions. That is why, even in bad years, the top estates in the US and abroad can make great wines. The number of cases made may dwindle, but the quality standards they have set assure the wine will be good. So our job as consumers is to take the finished product, match it with the right food, friends and occasion, and enjoy it in good health. Isn’t it nice that our part in the grape’s journey back to the soil can be so rewarding to our senses and well-being. As an example of a wellmade wine that goes with fall harvest foods, I offer Apremont, produced by Pierre Boniface’s winery in the French alpine region of Savoie. The grape is a lesser known one called Jacquère. It is light and dry and has the faintest hint of effervescence. It pairs well with chicken, fish, cheeses and the abundance of mildly flavored vegetables coming at this time of year. Cheers.
Oct 2013 - Wine & Wisdom
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photos by anthony harden
October 2013 | capitalatplay.com
35
G
Gary Gallagher chose Asheville for family rather than business reasons, but buying a franchise became the means to achieving the family lifestyle he sought with his wife, daughters and grandchildren in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina. A fter spending six years in the Navy, Gary spent most of his career in Human Resources positions in Ohio, North Carolina and Maryland working for large corporations like Allen-Bradley, AIM Executive, Inc. (AIM) and Taylor Nelson Sofres - National Family Opinion Market Research (TNS NF0). Gary discovered the area while working for AIM in Charlotte. His oldest daughter, Heather, played soccer for the UNC Asheville Bulldogs in 1998-99. Gary and his wife, Diane, were regular visitors to watch Heather play. The pull of Asheville became even stronger when Heather decided to settle in Asheville after college, and the first granddaughter arrived. But, moving to Asheville from a business perspective was challenging. Like many tourist communities with stunning scenery, Asheville does not command a lot of high paying jobs. Gary, a champion networker, was undeterred and made multiple trips to the area meeting with many area executives and taking every referral he could get. He got a job offer or two, but at compensation levels less than half of what he had made in bigger city, corporate jobs.
Finally a local member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) referred him to Gil Walker. Gil owned the local franchise of what was then called Express Personnel Services, having bought the franchise and opened the office in 1997. After listening to Gary outline what he was looking for Gil told him bluntly: “The job you seek does not exist in Asheville, but I’m interested in selling my business.” This led to six months of talks in late 2006 as Gary evaluated both the franchisor and Gil’s local office. While Gary had worked most of his career in corporate America, he was not completely unprepared for an entrepreneurial venture. Back in his Navy days, he had dabbled in antiques trading and then ran a combined beverage store and bar and grill in Cleveland while going to school and working. Gary said: “I was always interested in taking responsibility for my life and making something of it.” In fact he was almost wistful as he recounted some of the bar ownership adventures. It was a neighborhood family place with lots of social events, which “generated some half a dozen marriages”, and a bowling
meredith campbell and gary gall agher of Express Employment Professionals 36 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
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machine with about two hundred participants in a league. They drank lots of beer when they came in each week to play. But the bar eventually took its toll on Diane who was managing it during the day. She finally presented Gary with an ultimatum: “Make a choice. Quit your job and run it, find somebody else to manage it, or get a new spouse.” Fortunately, a neighborhood buyer soon stepped forward, and Gary escaped with his marriage intact.
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Express Employment Services In the fall of 2006, Gary set out to do his due diligence on Express Personnel Services. According to the company website: “Express Employment Professionals was created in 1983 by founders Robert A. Funk, William H. Stoller, and James Gray, from the dissolution of Acme Personnel, a Washington-based staffing company in which all three were associates.” The first franchises were sold in the midst of the 1983 recession. “That first year, Express Employment Professionals was able to generate gross revenues over $2 million despite the depressed economy. In 1984, due to the bankruptcy of Acme Personnel, the partners acquired the franchise rights to 30 Acme staffing agencies across the United States.” Significant growth followed in the next five years with “Express Employment Professionals being recognized as one of the fastest growing privately-held companies in the country. In 1990, Funk and Stoller purchased Gray's shares of the company.” “Today, Express Employment Professionals has more than 600 franchises in the United States, Canada, and South Africa. The staffing company generated $2.3 billion in sales in 2012. Express Employment Professionals offer a full range of employment solutions for area businesses and job seekers, including professional search and contract, temporary and contract staffing, evaluation and direct hire, flexible staffing, and onsite services. For employers, Express can also provide solutions to HR challenges, including an HR Hotline, HR compliance audits, employee handbook creation, Organizational Effectiveness Surveys, onsite client training programs, and affirmative action plans.”
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Taking the Plunge Back in 2006, as Gary Gallagher negotiated his deal with Gil Walker, he also had to get the blessing of Express Employment Professionals. Like most franchise agreements, the sale of a Gil’s franchise required approval from the franchisor. Interviews in Oklahoma City with Bob Funk and the management team led to his approval. Gary’s road was easier than others because of his HR background which was unusual. A more normal Express franchise purchaser has some corporate business and sales background, but specific HR skills are not required because the franchisee has such a rigorous training program. Like any new franchise owner, Gary had to go through two weeks of classroom training in Oklahoma City. Express Employment Professionals has a very structured approach based on 30 years of best practices. Their programs and training are ISO9001 certified which means they are vetted and approved by an independent International Standards Organization in each country. Most franchise owners also have to work an additional week in another successful franchise office, but this was waived due to Gary’s background and Gil’s desire to complete the transaction. So in early 2007 Gary found himself a franchise owner.
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estate Bill Fishburne is all about real
the Client
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is all about
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38 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
Advantages of Franchising If you ask Gary Gallagher about the advantages of franchising for the franchisee, he’ll tick off a long list that includes “support, knowledge, counseling, training and tools.” He said franchising “reduces some of the risk associated with starting a business.” Corporate support: Approximately 180 franchisor employees in Oklahoma City support the 600 Express Employment Professionals’ franchises in the US, Canada and South Africa. Financing the payroll: In any given week the Asheville office will have around 200 employees that they have placed with their manufacturing clients that need to be paid. Given that those clients don’t pay Gary every week, a healthy line of credit with a bank would normally be necessary. The Oklahoma City franchisor instead provides short-term financing of the payroll. In addition, their risk team helps the Asheville office evaluate the clients and their likelihood of default. Technology: Eighteen IT professionals in Oklahoma City build and are constantly upgrading the technology the franchisees use. This includes a customer relationship management package (CRM), job orders, candidate’s profiles, resumes management and data mining, billing, etc. The currently major IT initiative is on mobile applications. One of the unique applications of this for a local office is the ability to be available to assist clients 24/7. A client phone call to a helpline generates a text message to the local staffer on call, so they can respond any time of the day or night. In addition an Assistance Center is staffed by 23 people in Oklahoma City. They are extremely knowledgeable and well trained and can help the franchisee or his/her employees with almost any question relating to the recruiting and placement business. Marketing Materials: Branding and national advertising are provided by the franchisor and funded by a 1/10th% per month charge on net revenue to each franchisee. This allows for a nationwide advertising presence as well as efforts to update the overall company’s position and competitiveness in the marketplace. For example, in 2008 the company was rebranded from Express Personnel Services to Express Employment Professionals to better reflect the expanded services they are now offering. All of that creative cost in print and online was borne by the franchisor at no additional cost to the franchisee. There was even an allowance given to each office to change the signage. Coaching and Training: People are available to coach franchisees and their employees where necessary and the franchisor offers many continuing education programs both in Oklahoma City and online. In addition, there are three conference opportunities per year for training and fellowship with other franchisees: Sales Summit: A two day East Coast training program; The International Leadership Conference: Alternates between attractive east and west coast locations and is open to all 600 franchisees; There is also a Regional meeting of NC and VA franchisees.
Participation in franchisor decisions: Bob Funk likes to tell the franchisees: “We only exist because you exist” He frequently invites small groups of franchisees to meet with him and his management team to brainstorm ways to improve the company and the service it provides its offices.
CUSTOM CARS & RESTORATIONS
As Gary summed it up: “A strong well run franchise creates a competitive advantage for the franchisee particularly in technology and training.” When pushed for disadvantages, Gary came up empty except for admitting: “There may be more structure than some people might like. If you don’t meet certain criteria, the franchisor can take your business back, but so can a bank if you default on your loan with them.”
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Communit y Involve m e nt: The franchisor encourages and supports franchisee community involvement including some corporate donations. The company also has the Express Clydesdales, a spectacular team of horses that tour the country as goodwill ambassadors at charitable events for Express Employment Professionals. Gary last had them here leading the 2009 Asheville Holiday Parade.
RE A ST C O TU RA A TI L O N S
Rewards and recognition: Leadership circle rewards bring recognition and trips to franchisees that achieve Circle of Excellence Criteria in growth and operations.
October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 39
Asheville Growth since 2007 Having all the advantages of a great franchisor does not guarantee you success. After taking over the Asheville office, Gary immediately saw some weaknesses, threats and opportunities to his new business. Firstly, the local employees had strayed a little from the formulas that had been so successful for Express Employment Professionals for over 30 years. With the help of a corporate trainer he took his staff “back to basics” and retrained them
generated by the office at that time was concentrated with a single client. With a grin he remarked: “The only thing you know about any client is that they will leave you one day.” Gary recognizes that for many franchises sales skills are a key ingredient for success. He continued: “Don’t buy a franchise if you are not comfortable about having to ask somebody to buy something of value.” With Gary personally leading the sales effort and out of the office a lot, he took advantage of a unique opportunity to strengthen his business. His youngest daughter, Meredith Campbell, a graduate of Bowling Green State in French and political science, was wrapping up her post graduate work at the University of Cincinnati while simultaneously doing translation work for Maritz Research. Due to her advanced language skills, she had opportunities elsewhere in the USA and in Europe, but older sister, Heather, and Dad sold her on Asheville and Express Employment Professionals. Meredith had to interview like everybody else, but she joined the business shortly after the acquisition, initially doing front counter and inside customer service work before taking on outside new business development. Meredith said: “I was nervous to work for my father. We have always been close and have had a good relationship, but I had no idea how that would transfer in a professional environment. I first had to go through quite an extensive interview process with the Express team. I remember that it took the whole day; I was exhausted at the end. Gary made it clear that if all
“What we do is very similar to fishing. We, along with our competitors, all fish in the same pond and we differentiate ourselves by our knowledge of that pond.” on the use and best practices of the franchisor provided tools. Gary noted: “What we do is very similar to fishing. We, along with our competitors, all fish in the same pond and we differentiate ourselves by our knowledge of that pond; we know where specific types of fish can be found; the skills of our fishing staff, and the fishing gear we employ. Our clients routinely tell us we’re different and that difference comes down to the quality of our team, our accessibility and our processes.” Secondly, Gary was concerned that 40% of the revenue
40 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
weren't on board, I wasn't joining the office. I'm grateful the team gave the green light.” She continued: “I love the fact that when colleagues and clients learn that we are a father/daughter team their initial response is disbelief, but after a few moments of letting the reality set in, they clearly see the physical and character resemblance. The main challenge I face is the little bit of pressure I feel to always be on my "A" game, as I don't want to let him down.” Gary believes within reason that: “You should staff to where you need to be, not to where you are,” so when Meredith moved to Outside New Business Development it enabled them to intensify their relationship building and client recruitment efforts. They expanded into administrative, and then professional recruiting. This reduced their dependence on weekly manufacturing employment services from 75% to 60% and significantly mitigated that risk Gary had feared when he acquired the franchise. It enabled him to offer more value and services to his client base that has now grown to include such companies as Haines, Jones & Cadbury, John Laughter Jewelry, The Energy Partners, Mail Management Services, LLC, Asheville Savings Bank, Mission Health System, Home Trust Bank, Office Environments of Asheville, Arvato Bertelsmann and Guthy Renker Fulfillment Services. Meredith’s most recent promotion to Operations Manager is part of Gary’s succession plan and sets her up to grow from individual selling efforts to coaching and managing the dayto-day operations of the company. She said: “I'm extremely excited and appropriately terrified about my new role. As the Chief Joy Facilitator on the team, my job is to help everyone find success in their roles. I'm still working out what exactly I'm going to do each day, but I know we're going to have fun, help a lot people and be successful.”
She added her thoughts to the benefits of franchising: “Working for a franchise offers the best of two great worlds. We have the resources of a giant cruise ship (large corporate organization), such as training, systems, tools, marketing, finance, etc, but with the maneuverability of a speed boat (locally owned operation). When it comes down to it, it's truly our team of seven that help people get to work with the right company every day. We can make decisions quickly and customize them for both the companies we support and the job seekers we help.” With Meredith’s increased role, don’t expect Gary (who declines to give his age) to hit the golf links full time anytime soon. He views it as an opportunity to have more time to “give back to the community.” He has already teamed with Eblen Charities, The Andrews Institute of Leadership and Public Service, and AshevilleBuncombe Technical College in sponsoring the Chick-fil-A Leadercast and The Express Refresh Leadership Live programs for the past several years. Both programs feature bestselling authors, thought leaders and real world practitioners, and are simulcast “live.” Combined attendance this past year exceeded 1,200 participants gaining world class leadership and training and exposure at minimal costs. Better still, all the proceeds went to Eblen Charities. So franchising and Gary Gallagher were unlikely bedfellows brought together by the lack of well paying corporate jobs in Asheville, but its benefits have allowed him to live where he wanted to, to gather all his family in one place, to build wealth and a family succession plan for the future, and to give back to his newly adopted community. In this time of tough economies, falling wages, and corporate layoffs, we should all be so lucky or so willing to work hard enough to make something happen in our lives.
October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 41
how dothey doit?
Do you pursue further education, and why? Jeff Conway
Ruth’s Chris Steak House “I am big fan of continuing education. I believe effective business leaders need to stay current and read continuously. The rapid pace of technology requires business leaders to understand opportunities to optimize technological improvements. I think the hospitality industry has great opportunity for those who adopt best practices.”
Priscilla Palmer
Wild Birds Unlimited Hendersonville I did take some night school courses in early years that related to the job I was doing at that time. For Wild Birds Unlimited, we have ongoing information and educational material available in house.
Gary Gallagher
Express Employment Professionals “Yes I do. I believe that when you stop learning, you ought to go curl up in a corner somewhere. There is something entertaining and useful and exciting in the world every day, and it is important to my belief system to continue ‘sharpening my saw.’ Whether it is something to do with my business or my personal life, or a sport like golf, learning is why I think we are all here.”
To hear from our other featured franchisees, scan this QR code or visit capitalatplay.com/how-do-they-do-it 42 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
A S TA N D O U T I N T H E C R O W D .
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Mon.-Fri. 9:30am-7pm Sat. 9:30am-6pm Sun. 12pm-5pm October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 43
Looking for color off the beaten path written by paul clark
44 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
| photos by john fletcher
October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 45
L
ucky you. You live in some of the most beautiful mountains in the world, mountains that every year about this time begin to draw a brilliantly colored shawl over their shoulders as cooler weather settles in.
You can look out your window to enjoy some of autumn’s splendor. Or you can load your friends and family into the car for a day of leaf-looking that will take you into parts of Western North Carolina you may not have visited before. To help you along the way, we’ve suggested a couple of day trips that will have you home before nightfall. Included are some dining recommendations and some places to stay, in case you want to make your excursion an overnight sensation.
Asheville to Burnsville to Boone and back Whoever said you get can’t there from here might have been talking about driving from Asheville to Boone. There are several routes, but none of them are direct. Which makes them perfect for leaf peeking. A leisurely drive, a nice meal, some interesting stops along the way, maybe even a stay at one of the many inns between the two cities—it all makes for a perfect getaway. The Blue Ridge Parkway reigns supreme for views, and during fall, the sides of the undulating mountains are as brightly colored as a bowl of kid’s cereal, circa 1970. Raspberry red, lemon yellow, orange orange—it’s as if each tree asked its neighbors what colors they were coming out with this season, and then chose something distinctly different. Because it offers such grand views, the Blue Ridge Parkway on fall weekends has the heavy traffic that leaf-lookers hope to avoid. If you’d like to see the colors from this narrow national park, it’s best to go first thing in the morning. You’ll be amply rewarded—the early hours bring about not only the least amount of congestion, but also the largest number of local inhabitants that are more likely to amble out of the woods in search of food than they are during the heat (and traffic) of the day. A less congested but no less beautiful route to Boone is north out of Asheville on Interstate 26 to U.S. 19-East. If you haven’t been on U.S. 19 out of Mars Hill lately, you’ll be pleased to know that the state has completed construction into Burnsville, and the results are scenic in their own right (indeed, the highway is part of the state-designated Mount Mitchell Scenic Drive). The highway affords vast panoramas of the mountainsides climbing into 46 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
Yancey County and extensive fields on your way to Burnsville. It’s wide enough to make time if that’s your goal. The added lane also makes it possible to enjoy the trip at a more leisurely pace. The more adventurous get to Burnsville via Reems Creek Road out of Weaverville. The eight-mile road ends at the end of the valley; then turn left onto Maney Branch Road to climb the S-curves over the mountain (the road turns into Paint Fork Road) into Barnardsville (the views will remind you of the Alps, though without the whitecaps). In Barnardsville, turn right onto N.C. 197, a gorgeous road into Burnsville that is partially unpaved but wholly beautiful, taking you through the stands of poplar and oak in Pisgah National Forest. The road is paved once you get to the Yancey County line, traveling through the old settlements of Murchison and Pensacola before ending up in Burnsville. The 40-minute ride from the end of Reems Creek Road places you on U.S. 19-E. Turn right to head east into Burnsville and Spruce Pine. Spruce Pine, the quartz crystal capital of the world, is blossoming with new restaurants and shops. Chef Nathan Allen at Knife and Fork (61 Locust St., 828-765-1511, knifeandforknc. com), has garnered considerable press for his locally sourced brunch, lunch and dinner menus. Dry County Brewing Co. (585 Oak Ave., 828-765-4583, drycountybrewing.com) and its pizza shop (try the pesto pizza) are open for lunch on Fridays and Saturdays. Its IPA is made with local hops. Seven miles out of Spruce Pine, you have a choice of two beautiful routes. If you turn right onto N.C. 194, you’ll wind past the Christmas tree fields and small farms that flank Three
Leisure&Libation Mile Highway, a sometimes serpentine climb through forest and field in a sparsely populated section of Avery County. In no time, this road puts you onto U.S. 221, a scenic highway that, if the kids are getting antsy, makes a beeline to N.C. 105 into Boone. If things are cool in the car, consider taking 221 all the way into Blowing Rock, a lovely town that is an easy 15-minute drive from Boone. U.S. 221 into Blowing Rock takes you past the entrance to Grandfather Mountain, the highest peak on the eastern escarpment of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Though it is now a state park, there’s still a fee to drive up to and experience Grandfather’s famous swinging bridge ($18 adults, $15 seniors, $8 children 4-12, free for children under 4). But the view, oh my. On U.S. 221, you’ll see roadside stands selling local honey, and you’ll have the opportunity to pull into the parking lot of Grandmother Mountain (in the shadow of Grandfather Mountain) for a walk along the short trails there. From 221 at Grandmother Mountain, it’s an easy hop to get onto the Blue Ridge Parkway, which will take you over the elegant Linn Cove Viaduct to U.S. 321 near Blowing Rock. This stretch of the Parkway, as well as much of 221, has extensive views of the foothills that rise to the Blue Ridge Mountains (so called for the bluish haze the decaying vegetation gives off). U.S. 221 passes through shady forest and past unusual rock formations and is a beautiful way to cruise into Blowing Rock. Follow the signs for 321 into Boone. Your other option seven miles out of Spruce Pine is to continue straight on U.S. 19-E. You’ll travel through the quaint towns of
Plumtree, Minneapolis and Cranberry. “This is a gorgeous road in the fall,” said Edie Young at the family-owned Toe River Lodge in Plumtree (828-765-9696, vancetoeriverlodge.com). “It’s Christmas tree country. You pass through the shadow of Mount Mitchell. We have a golden fall here.” The lodge’s restaurant, brewery and winery are open for the season through Oct. 27 (with the exception of Oct. 11-12). Banner Elk, with its eclectic shops and galleries, is a great place to get out and stretch your legs. As you’d expect of a town that makes its living in the hospitality business, Banner Elk has several inns that make for a comfortable end to a day of sightseeing. The Banner Elk Inn (407 Main St. East, 828-898-6223, bannerelkinn.com) has entertained guests for more than 100 years (it was opened as the Shawneehaw Inn). Its antiques, collected from around the world, reinforce the realization that your time here will be slower, less rushed (though there is wireless Internet access throughout the grounds). Soft sheets and down comforters will send you comfortably off to sleep, refreshing you for your drive into Boone the next morning (but not until after one of the inn’s sumptuous breakfasts). The inn is within walking distance of the restaurants downtown. An excellent supper option in Banner Elk is Zuzda (502 Main St. West, 828-898-4166, zuzda.com), open at 4:30 p.m. every day through October. At the base of the road to Beech Mountain, chef and owner Doug Usko prepares nearly 100 small plates in the tapas style. Dishes include saffron paella, tempura lobster,
A leisurely drive, a nice meal, maybe even a stay at one of the many inns between the two cities—it all makes for a perfect getaway.
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L& L sesame-seared tuna sashimi, shredded barbecue pork, black bean cake and grits and cheese. Another High Country favorite in Banner Elk is Louisiana Purchase Food and Spirits, open Monday through Saturday at 5:30 p.m. Now 26 years old, Louisiana Purchase (397 Shaweehaw Ave., 828-734-4124, louisianapurchasefoodandspirits.com) is chef/owner Patrick Bagbey’s take on Creole and Cajun cooking, featuring dishes like barbecued North Carolina shrimp, Cajun seafood etouffee and Creole jambalaya. Dress is business casual. From Banner Elk, your drive into Boone can be the usual or the unusual. The “usual” brings you down N.C. 184, past Sugar Mountain ski resort (checks its website, skisugar.com, to see what events it has going on for leaf-lookers) to N.C. 105. The views of the upper half of this highway into Boone are all of glorious Grandfather Mountain. If you’re inclined, there’s a free, if strenuous, hike along the Profile Trail to Grandfather’s Calloway Peak, accessible from N.C. 105 about a half mile north of the 184/105 intersection (look for the sign that says “Profile Parking”). The views from the top are astounding, especially so when Beech Mountain across the valley is festooned in its fall array. The “unusual” drive out of Banner Elk will take you down a much-less trafficked state road, N.C. 194, along the Mission Crossing Byway, a state scenic byway named from the 1895 mission that the Episcopal Church built in Valle Crucis in 1895. This curving, ever-descending road goes past old farmhouses into Valle Crucis, the site of the original Mast General Store. Follow 194 through town and in a couple of miles you’ll be on U.S. 321 just outside of Boone, a busy city that bustles even more on football weekends. When you’re ready, the fastest route back to Asheville—and a scenic one at that—is N.C. 105 South to U.S. 221 South to Interstate 40. U.S. 221 takes you through the North Fork section of McDowell County—one of the prettiest drives in Western North Carolina.
Hendersonville to Rosman to Cashiers / Highlands, then home
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Here’s another route that takes you through some of the most picturesque, least traveled parts of Haywood and Transylvania counties before transporting you into the beautiful resort areas of Cashiers and Highlands. Your route back to Hendersonville, through Jackson County to Asheville, is much quicker but no less scenic. Time it right, and you might be able to include a football game at Western Carolina University. Head out of Hendersonville on U.S. 64 West and at N.C. 280, turn onto N.C. 276 North through some of the prettiest two-lane highways in the mountains. This rhododendron-lined road past Looking Glass Falls and the Cradle of Forestry climbs to Wagon Road Gap at the Blue Ridge Parkway. Cross the parkway and descend on 276 into Haywood County, going through the lovely small village of Cruso, in the shadow of Mount Pisgah. Seven miles out of Cruso, you’ll turn south on NC. 215. If you’ve made a late start or you’re just hungry, the intersection of 215 and Pigeon Road (N.C. 276) has a pretty good short-order restaurant, Breaking Bread Café (828-648-3838, closed Sunday). House specialties include lamb gyro and pork meatball or eggplant parmesan hoagies. This is a pretty interesting place—the convenience store next door buys chewing tobacco by the case, and farm tractors regularly pull in to gas up. Across the street, fresh produce lines the shelves at The Farmers’ Daughter County Market. Looming ahead and to your left will be 6,030-foot peak of Cold Mountain, the setting of Charles Frazier’s famous novel “Cold Mountain.” Frazier based the main character of the book on his great-great uncle, W.P. Inman, who is buried in nearby Bethel. Following the signs for 215, you’ll turn right off Pigeon Road onto Love Joy Road
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(also 215), and within a couple of miles, you’ll see a N.C. Scenic Byway sign that underscores what a beautiful drive you’re on. This stretch of road, meandering through horse and cattle country, is favored by bicyclists descending from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Long-eared cows munching grass watch motorists contentedly as they pass. Be sure to moo. Love Joy Road turns into Lake Logan Road (still N.C. 215; just follow the signs), an indication that the lake is down the road. Emerging from a beautiful stand of pines beside the road, Lake Logan was created in the 1930s as a reserve water source for Champion’s paper mill in Canton. It cradles water from the Pigeon River in a remote valley, undisturbed for the most part by through traffic. Within a few miles you’ll come upon Sunburst Campground, a Pisgah National Forest campground with a picnic area (there’s a $3 parking fee). The picnic tables are across 215 from a broad section of the Pigeon River that is a favorite spot for splashing and wading. You’re at 3,100 feet elevation, and now you begin to climb to the Parkway. The forest closes in on the highway here, putting fall’s colors near your windshield. Traveling up 215, you’ll find a few places to pull over to appreciate the creek and waterfalls. Toward the top, the forest pulls back, the sky opens up and once again you can see the tops of the mountains, as well as hemlocks, a sure sign that the Parkway is mere minutes away. Beech Gap is where N.C. 215 meets the Parkway. You’ve traveled 24 miles from Canton; Rosman is 17 miles away on the downhill side of 215. If Parkway traffic is light, you might consider heading north a couple of miles to hike on the Art Leob Trail, where you’ll see several bald peaks of over 6,000 feet (for parking, turn onto Black Balsam Knob Road but be aware that the lot can be crowded during leaf season). Or continue north a few miles to hike at the equally popular Graveyard Fields. To the south of Beech Gap on
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Raspberry red, lemon yellow, orange orange—it’s as if each tree asked its neighbors what colors they were coming out with this season, and then chose something distinctly different.
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L& L the Parkway are the Richland Balsam overlooks, at over 6,000 feet the highest views on the Parkway. The Parkway certainly has the highest views of the foliage, but you can get a more intimate views by continuing over Beech Gap on N.C. 215 through Transylvania County toward Rosman. The highway hugs the mountainside, giving you sweeping panoramas of the mountains as you descend. As you bottom out, you’ll skirt the North Fork of the French Broad River. If the water is high, the road will be lined with the cars of paddlers running rapids in the water. The waterway and the highway both terminate at the French Broad River and U.S. 64, your road into Cashiers (or back to Hendersonville, if you want to make a quick trip of it). If you need to refuel, Rosman, a quaint little town, is nearby. The U.S. 64-N.C. 215 intersection is the beginning of the Waterfall Byway, a 98-mile scenic route on U.S. 64 that goes past 200 waterfalls before it ends in Murphy. The marquee falls, such as Bridal Veil Falls and Dry Falls, are west of Highlands—out of reach for this particular tour. But water abounds on the route into Lake Toxaway, where a special spot for lunch overlooking the dam that holds back the water awaits. The Chestnut Café & Grille (828877-3400) on U.S. 64 in Lake Toxaway is sited above the dam’s spillway, the exposed rock floor scoured clean by the creek before it was dammed. The café’s covered porch is an excellent place to behold water cascading down the natural spillway while you savor a turkey and brie panini or the pot roast dip. Fall is beautiful at the falls, restaurant owner Cliff Singleton said. “The reds, the yellows and oranges—the colors are really awesome,” he said. His spot is a popular stop for leaf-lookers, so you’re likely to meet someone from home or from a place you’d like to visit. Another excellent dining option in Lake Toxaway is the Brown Trout Mountain Grille (828-877-3474, 502 Blue Ridge Road, browntroutproperties.net), where Chef
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L& L Christopher Schinzel fires up the grill for bison, sirloin, turkey and veggie burgers. The Brown Trout Mountain Grille has two guest cabins if you want to settle in for the evening. If you’re in the mood for a little history, the Greystone Inn (828-966-4700, www.greystoneinn. com) built nearly a century ago, has 17 guest rooms in the original mansion and 14 more modern rooms built elsewhere on its property overlooking the lake. U.S. 64, an N.C. Scenic Highway, leaves the lake to travel into the Sapphire Valley in Jackson County, and then on in to Cashiers, one of the loveliest villages in North Carolina. Located on the highest plateau in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Cashiers at 3,487 feet sees its leaves turn sooner than the lower altitude Asheville. The Cashiers Valley Leaf Festival, Oct. 11-13 this year, features music, regional arts and crafts, and food from area restaurants. The town is full of good restaurants, such as The Zookeeper Bistro (828-743-7711, 45 Slabtown Road, zookeeperbistro.net) and Randevu Restaurant (828-743-0190, 18 Chestnut Square). You can get a great cup of coffee (and sandwiches and dessert) at Buck’s Coffee Café, at the intersection of U.S. 64 and N.C. 107, your road back through Cullowhee to Asheville. At Buck’s, a café built from an old store, you can fortify for the drive home with a con panna (two shots of espresso with whipped cream). At Village Scoop Old Fashioned Ice Cream and Hot Dog Bar, located in a gas station across 107, you can fill up in a couple of ways. Highway 107 is a quick, scenic route back to the interstate through Glenville. On the way to Cullowhee, you’ll see houseboats puttering across expansive Lake Glenville, whose steep mountain shores will be a crayon box full of colors this time of year. You’ll come up the Tuckasegee River into the settlement of Tuckasegee, and before you know it, you’ll be in Cullowhee and then Sylva. From there, it’s an easy hop on U.S. 23-74 to I-40 to Asheville to I-26 back home to Hendersonville.
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state
the old north
BB&T raises retirement age for directors BB&T, based in Winston-Salem, is giving its directors an extra two years to hold their seats before having to retire due to age. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the board of BB&T approved a change to its bylaws to raise the mandatory retirement age from 70 to 72. The move, effective immediately, allows the bank to lengthen the pace of coming transitions on its board. Five of its 19 current members are between the ages of 68 and 70 years old. BB&T is the 12th-largest bank in the country and the third-largest in the Charlotte market, based on local deposits.
N.C. ranks second for new solar construction According to research organization NPD Solarbuzz, North Carolina ranked second in new solar capacity in the United States for the second quarter. California took first place, installing 521 megawatts of new solar capacity in the quarter. That is 53 percent of the new solar projects completed in the country between April 1 and June 30. Solarbuzz recently released its North America PV (photo-voltaic)
Markets Quarterly for the second quarter. A brief piece Solarbuzz published about the new report has a decent amount to say about our state. It says the state’s solar capacity is projected to grow 80 percent this year to 285 megawatts. It also notes projects currently in the pipeline are expected to increase North Carolina’s capacity another 30 percent in 2013. Solarbuzz identifies Chapel Hill-based Strata Solar as the state’s primary developer. The research organization says Strata alone has completed 100 megawatts of solar capacity in the 12 months ending June 30.
Four Triad tech firms named finalists for NCTA awards Four Triad-based firms are on the list of finalists for a variety of categories in the annual NCTA 21 Awards, held by the N.C. Technology Association. Lolly Wolly Doodle, based in Lexington, has won both customers and significant venture capital funding through its achievements marketing children’s clothing through social media. It is one of six nominees for Most Innovative Internet/New Media Company. Triad-based nominees in other categories include: ARCA, a banking technology firm based in Mebane; Odigia, a Winston-Salem
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based educational technology firm; and Varrow Inc., a IT services firm in Greensboro. Though nominees were not released, there are individual awards in categories such as Public Leadership, Tech Exec of the Year, and Outstanding Achievement. The winners will be announced November 7.
Billion-dollar Japanese candy maker planning factory near Mebane State and Orange County economic-development officials are discussing an arrangement with a large Japanese candy manufacturer that hopes to build its first U.S. manufacturing facility in an Orange County industrial park near Mebane. According to Steve Brantley, economic development director for Orange County, Japanese candy manufacturer Morinaga & Co. plans to invest nearly $48 million to build a 120,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in the Buckhorn Economic Development District, a 1,200-acre industrial development site in Western Orange County. The plant should begin production in mid-2015 and will employ about 90 people within its first three years. The new jobs are expected to offer an average salary of more
than $38,000 a year. The N.C. Department of Commerce has given the company a $264,000 performance-based grant from the One North Carolina fund, which is contingent upon a local match from the Orange County and Mebane governments. Mebane would supply water and sewer service for the project. Most of Mebane is in Alamance County, but a portion falls in Orange County. The city and county’s suggested incentives for Morinaga will be discussed at a public hearing and approved at a regular meeting of the city council and county commissioners later this fall. Morinaga is known as one of the largest candy and confection manufacturers in Japan with $1.75 billion in global sales revenue and more than 40 different product lines.
MetLife’s $110 million campus in Cary In one of the largest deals in Highwoods Properties’ 35-year history, President and CEO Ed Fritsch recently announced that his company will be investing $110 million in the construction of three new office buildings for MetLife on Weston Parkway in Cary. MetLife, the life insurance and investment-banking firm, will occupy all of the 427,000 square feet that is intended for the first two office buildings
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at the planned Weston Lakefront office park along the shores of Lake Crabtree. A third building of similar size is projected for the future. In late May, Highwoods filed sketch plans for three new office buildings and titled the project “Weston Lakefront,” although the tenant was not named in the sketches. The campus will be constructed to support MetLife’s Global Technology & Operations Unit, which the company revealed in March would be consolidating and relocating to Cary, along with a promise to bring about 1,200 jobs. Fritsch did not disclose details of the MetLife lease, but a deal of that size in the Triangle would typically generate between $10.5 million and $12.5 million a year. Construction is expected to begin soon, with anticipated completion in the first half of 2015. In the meantime, MetLife has already starting hiring its workforce in the Triangle that will be based at the Danbury Hall building in the Imperial Center office park in Durham, which is MetLife’s temporary residence until the Cary campus is finished and ready.
Novocor lands financing for new hypothermia device Raleigh startup Novocor Medical Systems has nabbed almost a million dollars in preferred stock financing. Its CEO, Tony Voiers, said it would go toward preparing a new North Carolina State Universityconceived medical device for a regulatory filing. Specifically, the device is a “therapeutic hypothermia-inducing device.” In other words, it can cool you down, and fast. In the occurrence of a cardiac arrest or stroke, paramedics use hypothermia tools to keep your body alive. Tony Voiers explained, “You can have tissue damage because of lack of flow of blood, brain damage, those kinds of things…If you can cool the body down rapidly, it slows metabolism down and eliminates the damage.” It is true that the therapy has been standard for sometime. However, Voiers noted that a big problem remains with how paramedics are currently conducting the cooling. He said, “They infuse cold saline as fast as possible into the patient…But the problem is, the ambulances in Wake County don’t have cold saline on them because they don’t have room for a refrigerator to keep saline cold.” In a present-day scenario, a secondary vehicle with a cooler must respond to begin the therapy, delaying treatment when minutes are highly valuable. Novocor’s device, however, is a small, portable heat exchanger that uses a chemical reaction to cool the saline, so the saline is able to go through the device and into the patient. The device will not need clinical trials for approval, but the company will still need to create a design and conduct tests prior to filing with the FDA, which is what the $961,000 will fund. According to Voiers, the offering closes in three tranches. The first tranche, nearly $337,000 in proceeds, closed August 28. Definitive agreements are already signed for the rest. Voiers expects to raise about $500,000 in additional cash to get the company to the filing stage. Voier estimates an FDA filing will be seen in about a year and a half. Novocor was incorporated this year, and was chosen as a TEDMED startup company. In addition, it received an NC IDEA Grant, and was approved for a North Carolina Biotechnology Center loan. 56 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
Coroplast Tape to bring 150 jobs to new plant in Rock Hill area Coroplast Tape Corp. plans to hire 150 employees and spend $12 million to open a manufacturing plant in Antrim Business Park in York County. Coroplast is purchasing a 40,000-square-foot shell building in the business park with the intention to expand, says Skip Tuttle of the Tuttle Co., which served as project manager for the construction of the speculative building. Coroplast, a German company, is in the course of buying 12 acres total in Antrim to allow room for expanding the building. The company produces adhesive tapes that are used in the automotive and aerospace industries. The new corporation was formed May 31 in Charlotte by the law firm Reinhard Henigs. The $1.2 million shell building was completed in 2012.
Carolinas HealthCare utilizes another virtual portal Charlotte’s Carolinas HealthCare System has created a virtual portal that will share its cardiac expertise with a hospital in Belize. The health-care system’s International Medical Outreach program and Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute have partnered up with the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital in Belize City to make the most of that technology. The virtual connection depends on advanced video capabilities to connect Sanger’s cardiologists with their counterparts in Belize. Dr. Geoffrey Rose, chief of cardiology for Sanger, explained, “It’s opening up a whole new world of opportunities for us to connect.” Carolinas HealthCare’s cardiologists will be able to consult with medical staff in Belize on treatment plans and options, have virtual patient visits, and examine test results such as echo-cardiograms and radiology scans. Opportunities for training and educational conferences will also surface. Those real-time consultations help patients get quality cardiac care. Previously, the lack of this type of technology and medical personnel with specific skill sets created limitations. Dr. Francis Robicsek, vice president of the medical outreach program, added, “They’re not alone anymore.” That medical outreach program is a partnership between Carolinas HealthCare and the Heineman Foundation of Charlotte, which promotes health care and education in under-served communities. Heart disease is a leading cause of death in Belize, which has a population of roughly 400,000, so having access to this type of technology can mean the difference between life and death. Beginning in 2011, the medical outreach program donated a mobile catheterization lab to Heusner Memorial, helping to modernize the cardiac care available in Belize. Cardiology and surgical teams from Sanger have been traveling to Belize every month to help with cardiac catheterizations, open-heart surgeries and stents. More than 100 catheterizations and nearly 15 open-heart surgeries have been performed in Belize so far. As Carolina HealthCare established its first virtual-communications portal in 2012 with the Guatemalan Institute of Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, this is its second portal. Carolinas HealthCare is the largest health-care provider in the Carolinas, with more than 60,000 full-and part-time employees. The health-care system owns, leases or manages 41 hospitals in the Carolinas, and total annual revenue at those facilities surpasses $7.7 billion.
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Backyard Bird
Watching
TM
Priscilla Palmer of Wild Birds Unlimited Hendersonville Chris Jaquette & Simon R. B. Thompson of Wild Birds Unlimited Asheville written by dasha o . morgan
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photos by anthony harden
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H
Have you ever watched the live camera videos on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology? Minute by minute, day by day, a streaming digital camera lets you see wild birds (Osprey, American Kestrels, and others) in their natural habitat. You can see birds making their nest, feeding their chicks, or fledglings taking flight. It is an amazing experience that will fill you with wonder. This fascination with birds has existed throughout the world for centuries, but with the technology of the 21st century a person can be closer to their daily activities than ever before. Just tune into the “cam” and leave your computer on. Wild birds have extraordinary colors, beautiful songs, and come into your view unexpectedly. Oh look, there’s a Pileated Woodpecker on my feeder. Quick I need the camera. Rats, where it is ? Now it has flown off? You can find birds with the most extraordinarily plumage—long flowing tails or peaked crests on their head. Surely at some point in time you have been exalted by a hawk or eagle soaring and swooping, high in the sky. Or you may have heard and seen the Canada Geese as they fly overhead in formation and then land nearby on a lake or pond. Or perhaps on a trip to London you had a opportunity to visit Regents Park and saw the Australian Black Swans with their striking red beaks.
Many birds have unusual nesting sites, (such as a Peregrine Falcon which has perched on BB&T building for more than one migrating season), amazing mating dances (such as the African Crowned Crane, which can be seen on You Tube), unusual calls (such as the evening calls, back and forth, of the North American Spotted Owl) and many migrate over amazingly long distances. The Arctic Tern is said to migrate almost 24,000 miles a year. Can you imagine? The tiny little Ruby-throated Hummingbird we see here in North Carolina is usually less than three inches long and weighs under one/thirteenth of a pound. This doesn’t stop him from flying to southern Mexico and Central America to spend the winter. This fascination with birds goes back in time. Most Americans are aware of the United States’ national emblem, the Bald Eagle, which was chosen in 1782 (to Ben Franklin’s chagrin) as a symbol for its majestic beauty, great strength and long life. Having a message delivered by a homing pigeon dates back to the ancient Romans. Genghis Kahn apparently established pigeon relay posts across Asia and much of Eastern Europe. Carrier pigeons
priscill a palmer of Wild Birds Unlimited Hendersonville 60 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
were often used in wars with amazing success, according to an exhibit in the Musﾃｩe de la Poste in Montparnasse a few years ago. They said that the Germans in World War I apparently strapped cameras to the bellies of carrier pigeons. Some pigeons even received war decorations for their feats. The exhibition reports that a brave French pigeon named Le Vaillant was awarded the Ordre de la Nation. Today, Wild Birds Unlimited has taken this fascination and grown it into a full fledged business. The hobby of backyard bird watching has become a sizeable, profitable business. Jim Carpenter opened the first store in Indianapolis in 1981. Two years later when the nephew of an employee enthusiastically asked him about the possibility of a store for himself, the franchise was born. Since then two hundred eighty-three franchise stores have opened in the United States and Canada窶馬ine new stores last year and probably twelve this year. The WBU Franchise company is privately held. The stores focus on the hobby of backyard bird watching and supplies their customers with what they consider the best seed, bird feeders, bird houses, needed tools, equipment and best advice possible. A lot of research goes into learning about the product to be sold and the supplier, before it becomes a part of WBU with the company logo. There is a very comprehensive Franchise Support Center in Indianapolis with approximately 40 employees there, who give advice with planning, site selection, lease negotiations, store design, and business decisions. After purchasing a franchise, each new owner attends a training session. Yearly marketing conferences with multiple business sessions are held in various cities throughout the United States. Next year the Leadership Conference will be in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So what does it take to open a store? The startup cost to open a new store is roughly between $95,000 and $161,000. The liquid capital requirement is between $25,000 and $35,000. (See www.franchise. wbu.com for more information.) The stores are individually owned and run by the franchisee. Prices are not mandated, and the owner makes all final decisions for his store. The franchise offers advice and best business practices on all business decisions. Therefore each store has its own personality, reflecting the individual community and the backyard birds in that community. Some stores emphasize accessories more than others, having more gifts, cards, and smaller items pertaining to birds. While others focus primarily on setting up the home backyard in such a way that more birds will come there regularly. Other stores are also into the ornithological aspect of birding, offering lectures on the subject and selling binoculars, handbooks, and guiding their customers on trips. It all depends on the individual owner, and where he/she wants to put the emphasis. Entrepreneur Magazine has listed Wild Birds Unlimited in the Annual Franchise 500 from 1987-2013 and the first in category from 2011 to 2013.
The hobby of backyard bird watching has become a sizeable, profitable business.
Backyard Birding in Hendersonville Seven years ago, Priscilla Palmer and her husband, Dan Palmer, decided to buy the Wild Birds Unlimited store that is at 150 First Avenue East in Hendersonville. Her husband is more of a silent partner but is always there to help when needed. Parking is easy for this spacious store in downtown Hendersonville. Priscilla had been feeding birds for years even before she came to North Carolina. After working at Wild Birds Unlimited for a few years, when the opportunity arose to buy the store
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simon r . b . thompson and chris jaquette of Wild Birds Unlimited Asheville
Birds in the Arts Birds are found in art, music, and literature throughout the ages. Children of course learn about birds early on in life. They know of the “quack quack” of the ducks in Old McDonald’s Farm or hear about birds when they sing “A Partridge in the Pear Tree” at Christmas time. The Sallie Middleton prints often have birds included, the bluebird, the cardinal, and the finch. Matisse painted a series of well known bird images in a signature aqua silhouette. John James Aududon portrayed biologically accurate fine pictures in his book, “The Birds of America.” Last year, a rare first edition of this book fetched $7.9 million at a Christie’s auction. One of these original books is currently on exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh, which was purchased for the state in 1846 by Governor William Alexander Graham. In a poem Emily Dickinson says, “Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” Musically one might think of the Beatles’ song, “Blackbirds singing in the dead of night. Take these wings and learn to fly.” Indeed wild birds are a part of everyday life, and feeding the birds can be a real pleasure and add to the day’s excitement throughout all seasons. It is a hobby that people of all ages can enjoy and is enhanced by the Wild Birds Unlimited franchises throughout the United States.
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from Sy Desloges, Priscilla jumped at the chance. She thinks of herself and her many customers as avid backyard birders. “We love to see the birds when they come to the feeders.” It is truly important that all the staff is educated about birds, so they can pass the information along to customers. “I have some wonderful people, who have all been with me for years. We sell an incredible amount of bird seed, about a ton a week. Our seed has no filler. It is all edible, with no added cereals, or grains, or filler. Perhaps you have seen some bird seed with red seed? No bird eats that. This red milo is added for weight in the seed package. We get our seed fresh every week, and the birds flock to the feeders.” “Our next best sellers are the feeders themselves. And we do clean and repair them for customers.” WBU has an amazing, unique pole system, so a whole array of different kinds of feeders can be hung in close proximity to each other on these iron extensions to the pole. A peanut feeder can be near a thistle feeder, and a suet holder across from that. The store carries all kinds of bird houses and birdbaths—for bluebirds, wrens, owls, and even bats. The opening in a birdhouse varies with the size of the bird. For instance a bluebird likes a 1 1/2” opening and may even have more than one brood each year. Some people just want a decorative house or feeder for their backyard. The Hendersonville store carries those too but warns that certain paints can be toxic to the birds. It is important that the paint be water based. “Of course we have raccoon and squirrel baffles, and we try to give advice about keeping the bears away from the feeders, particularly in the mountains. Unfortunately the feeders often must be taken in at night. Part of our job is to teach people and to make the hobby enjoyable. We also sell lots of nature related gifts, books, cards, puzzles, some clothing items, and even binoculars.” Working with the franchise has been a beneficial experience. “The franchise is not a wholesaler; there is no middleman. They give you training and help you to develop a business plan. Each store has its own territory. Mine is Hendersonville County.” The franchise consultant worked with Priscilla to arrange the store for improved sales. She carries a large number of their branded items. The franchise sends a lot of
“The franchise is not a wholesaler; there is no middleman. They give you training and help you to develop a business plan.
information regularly, like the “Hobby Guide,” and answers any birding questions that might arise. They do national advertising in industry related magazines.
The South Asheville Franchise in South Asheville Chris Jaquette and Simon R. B. Thompson own Wild Birds Unlimited at 1987 Hendersonville Road. In 2008 they purchased the business from Sy Desloges. Both men have been naturalists for years. Simon grew up in East and West Africa, had always been interested in birds and had been learning about bird life and habitat over the years. In 1994 after visiting a friend in this area, he took a job with the Foothills Equestrian Nature Center (FENCE) in Tryon. As a young man, Chris heard and saw an amazing Snowy Owl in a State Park in Northern Delaware. This piqued his interest and curiosity about birds, their habitat, and life. Later he became the horticulturist at the Chimney Rock Park for fifteen years. When the idea of buying a franchise and running a nature and hobby store became a possibility, Chris and Simon formed a partnership and took the step. The Wild Birds Unlimited name is considered highly desirable and a great draw, so Chris and Simon signed a contract with the WBU franchise. They consider the franchise support invaluable. Each store owner purchases their products individually and buys directly from suppliers. As Chris said, “I am an individual businessman; I believe in their product.” Because Wild Birds Unlimited has well established relationships and negotiations with particular dealers, prices can be favorable if one uses these dealers. But the store owner is under no obligation to buy from them. The franchise makes suggestions, gives guidelines, keeps the franchisees up-to-date on new products and helps to answer puzzling bird questions. The franchise provided the Asheville store with a well thought out marketing plan at point of purchase and suggested store signage. New product ideas are sent to the store all the time. In addition, a consultant comes to the store twice a year to give business advice or help with any situation. The favorable demographics for a hobby such as this in the Western North Carolina area were obvious. Asheville’s natural beauty makes it particularly attractive to older, retirement people, who consider bird watching a wonderful hobby. And this has proven to be true over the years in business. This year sales at the store should hopefully hit $500,000. As Chris said, “Sales in 2010 dropped considerably when the economy dipped. However, people didn’t travel as much as previously but instead had ‘stay-cations,’ which encouraged consumers to purchase items for the backyard. It feels good to feed the birds.” As part of the agreement the WBU stores must pay a yearly royalty of 4% of gross sales and contribute to the advertising fund pool. Next year, however, Chris and Simon want to enlarge the store. They plan to move to a new location in a larger space October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 63
and with better parking at the end of this year. Chris and Simon are primarily interested in educating, learning about and feeding the wild birds. They bring wildlife educators to their store, such as Steve Longenecker with his Red-tailed Hawks, Peregrine Falcon, and Great Horned Owls. Eight-five percent of the products in the Asheville store have been made in America, and many birdhouses, feeders, and other products have the WBU logo. Bird seed is considered one of the highest margin items, so forty percent or more of the Asheville store is devoted to feed. It is imperative that the feed be fresh and nutritious to be appealing to the birds. Thus high turnover of feed is important. Each breed has specific food, requirements (the finch likes thistle; the bluebird, meal worms; the hummingbird, a sugar nectar; the oriole, fruit) so the salesperson must be knowledgeable when advising the customers. And keeping the dreaded squirrel and the bears away from bird feeders is a continual problem.
has now made its way over to North America. It can be very competitive and is something that quite a few people of all ages find exhilarating and exciting. Birders who cross borders and countries in search of rari-
“Simon is a magician. He has incredible eyes, can hear a song and can immediately identify the bird. Then he can find it on a tiny branch under a bush.”
Taking Birding a Step Further Simon Thompson takes birding to another level. On the day of this interview, he was just about to leave for a very quick trip to New Mexico where a Rufous-necked Wood-Rail had been seen, the first time ever north of the border in the United States. This was quite an event, and certainly worth the trip if he was going to be successful. The laptop was on and e-mails were rapidly crisscrossing the continent, trying to find out where, and when the bird was last seen. This is called “chasing rarities” or "twitching”—this last term was originally British, but
ties are known as “World Listers,” although many more folks tend to keep the hobby within their own country. There are approximately 10,000 bird species in the world, and Simon has seen around 5,800 of them. He has seen almost every species found in Eastern North America and is continuing his search in other parts of the world. Last year a veteran British birder Tom Gullick, at the age of 81, became the first person to see 9,000 species of bird. He achieved this world record when he sighted Wallace’s fruit dove (Ptilinopus wallacii) on the remote Indonesian island of Yamdena. Originally from Britain, Tom is now a resident in Spain, and he has been the top world lister since 2008. Simon, with his extensive knowledge and experience, leads birding tours— locally and internationally. He has formed a company, Ventures Birding Tours, and arranges birding and nature tours to many places throughout the year. Go to www. birdventures.com for more information. The tours book up early and concentrate on all aspects of bird watching, and the tours usually connect with local guides for a fuller experience.
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Together they arrange the overnight accommodations, any boat trips, and transportation. In addition, the tour will often include any noteworthy sights in the immediate area. The majority of the trips are to national or state parks, but occasionally they venture into private reserves, all in search of the best birding and nature experiences to be found in the local area. Susie and John Ruhl have been on a number of his trips: to Panama, Costa Rica, Newfoundland, Alaska, and many others. As Susie said, “These are absolutely wonderful trips. Simon is a magician. He has incredible eyes, can hear a song and can immediately identify the bird. Then he can find it on a tiny branch under a bush. He always hires locals as they know their terrain, which of course helps their economy. He is so much fun and has a wonderful sense of humor. These trips are just terrific.” This past May and June, Simon and Chris took a group of birders to Alaska. Upon returning to North Carolina, they offered an Alaska Travelogue in their Wild Birds Unlimited store. With photographs of seabirds on the seacliffs of the Pribilofs Islands and a Polar Bear on the ice covered Arctic Ocean off Point Barrow, they took the group on a nature tour of much of Alaska's beauty. Chris and Simon offer their travelogues and other workshops on a monthly basis at their store. In addition Simon gives lectures throughout the local area and leads birding excursions, locally to Jackson Park, Beaver Lake, Fletcher Park, Sandy Mush, Snowbird Lodge, and throughout the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. He even arranges Ventures to search for dragonflies and butterflies, with a tour running in August to Fletcher Community Park, or has seasonal sessions to experience migrating warblers in our own local birding hotspot, Jackson Park in Henderson County. In addition, trips go out West (Nebraska’s Platte River or the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas) or to Canada. This past August, Ventures Birding took a tour to North Carolina’s Outer Banks to see the large number of shorebirds (plovers and sandpipers) that migrate along the shore, as they head south towards their wintering grounds in Central and South America. As many incredible and colorful birds are found on other continents, tours are organized to see and enjoy these species in a myriad of overseas destinations, such as Honduras, Papua New Guinea, Ecuador, and Trinidad and Tobago. The more one travels, the more one wishes to see more and more of the birds and nature in the world around us.
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October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 65
by Mike Summey
Higher Education
–A Blessing or a Curse?
M mike is an
entrepreneur, author of several books on real estate, and also an avid pilot and philanthropist.
Throughout high school, students are sold on the benefits of getting a college education. They are shown charts and graphs depicting average income comparisons between high school dropouts, high school graduates and college graduates.
K
eep in mind, educators have a vested financial interest in keeping students in school as long as possible. That’s why I question whether the statistics given young people are a true depiction of the value of higher education? I have to ask, is average income the only way to measure the value of a degree? Averages are fine, but I’m not much of one who relies on averages. As my dearly departed friend Zig Ziglar used to say, “If you put one foot in a bucket of boiling water and one foot in
66 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
a bucket of ice water, on average you will be comfortable.” He also said, “You can do a lot of things with boiling water and a lot of things with ice water, but when you pour them together about all you can do with is take a bath in it.” Unfortunately, I believe too many young people are being soaked by academia. College is not for everyone. If you research the financial benefits of a college degree as compared to a high school diploma, the numbers are as varied as the sources. Some sources quote starting salaries, others
quote average salaries, and still others use median salaries, but the numbers for each vary widely. I’m not going to attempt to put a specific number on the difference, I’m just going to give you a different perspective to consider and let you play with the numbers. If a high school graduate gets a full time job making $15 per hour, in fifty forty hour weeks he or she will earn $30,000. That amounts to $120,000 during the four years other students are going to college. When you add this loss of income to the money spent on four years of college; room and board, books, fees and other expenditures in addition to tuition, the monetary difference between the high school graduate and the college graduate could easily surpass a quarter of a million dollars before the college graduate even enters the workplace. If all or a substantial portion of college has been paid with student loans and as many students do, they graduate with a chunk of credit card debt in addition to the student loans, these new graduates start their earning years deeply in debt and facing a very tough job market. They find that they are competing with an increasingly large number of college educated applicants as well as those high school graduates with four years of work experience. Is it any wonder so many of them are moving back home to live with their parents because they can’t make it alone? What’s lacking is an honest discussion about ability and desire. Not everyone has the IQ to succeed in college and many of those who do simply do not have the desire to put their education to work. They go to college because they feel that is what their parents want or what society expects. Then when they graduate and learn that their degree doesn’t land them the high paying
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jobs they were expecting, they become depressed. They get really depressed if they are also burdened with large student loans and credit card debts. Nearly half of college graduates end up in careers different from what their degrees are in. A constant refrain I hear from new graduates is: “Everywhere I apply, they want two to four years of experience. How do I get that experience if I can’t get a job?” My answer is simple: “You start at the bottom and work your way up.” The problem is most students are over sold on the value of a college degree and what it will be worth in the workplace. The reality is you don’t start out on top just because you have a degree. Granted, a college degree can help you move up in a company faster than someone without a degree, but it won’t land you halfway up the ladder of success as many young people are led to believe. Let me share some personal experience. When I was in the business world and hiring employees, I can tell you from first-hand experience that I would rather have hired a high school graduate with a desire to learn and four years of work experience, than a college graduate with an overinflated opinion of their worth and very little understanding of how the real world works. The real keys to success do not come from a college degree; they are what I refer to as the three D’s of success. Desire, Discipline, and Dedication. You must have the Desire to learn, the Discipline to do the things necessary to learn and the Dedication to keep at it long enough to be successful. It’s like a stool with three legs; it requires all three to be stable. If you are missing any one of the three, you will not have a steady platform from which to grow and succeed. I learned that there are many ways to gain knowledge other
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than attending college. Reading, listening to audio or watching video programs, attending seminars and, yes, even apprenticeships are other ways. People who possess all three of the D’s of success will find and use these tools and rise to the top of any organization. The ones who don’t will be good foot soldiers, but will always need someone to lead them.
deduction and put as much or as little as they liked into a personal education account. I matched whatever they put in dollar for dollar with the condition that the money must be spent on books, educational programs or seminars. I found that this accomplished two important things. First, it allowed me see who had the Desire to contribute to their personal success. Secondly, unlike materials paid for entirely by the company, when they had some “skin in the game,” they were far more likely to have the Discipline to study the materials and the Dedication required for improving their performance. Don’t get me wrong, I would never attempt to discourage anyone from going to college. Knowledge is power, especially in the business world, but there are many ways to gain knowledge other than in college. I don’t have a college degree, but I’ve spent my entire life reading, studying and trying to broaden my knowledge base. It has served me very well and I’m definitely doing better than any of the averages put out by the education community. That’s why I believe that depending on the student, higher education can be a blessing or a curse. Had I gotten a college degree, it may have helped me get a job earning a salary that would have kept me comfortable enough to avoid taking the risks and facing the challenges that have led to my success.
The real keys to success do not come from a college degree. They are what I call the three D’s: Desire, Discipline, and Dedication. When I started in business, I lacked a great deal of business acumen, but I wasn’t lacking in the three D’s of success. In every instance when I found myself lacking in knowledge, I made it a point to rectify that shortcoming by learning all I could about the subject as quickly as possible. I studied books, educational audio and video programs; I went to seminars and took selected courses that were targeted to the subject matter I needed. I built an extensive library of educational materials over a lifetime. I learned that there is nothing you can get in college that you can’t get from these other sources. I also learned it is much more meaningful when you can apply what you are learning as you learn it. It was from these experiences that I identified the three D’s of success. I found myself leaving behind those who were not willing to learn, especially the ones who thought I was crazy. As my business grew and I added employees, I found an interesting way to identify people who had the three D’s. I began offering my employees the opportunity to sign up for a payroll
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world
news
Georgia regulators support gas pipeline replacement
L.L. Bean tote sewn from Fenway’s 100th anniversary tarp
The Georgia Public Service Commission has officially signed off on a $275 million plan by Atlanta Gas Light Co. to replace 756 miles of plastic pipe installed in or before 1974. Commissioners unanimously voted in support of a recommendation by the agency’s staff to phase in the costs of the project to reduce the impact on customers. According to the plan, which the company agreed on, monthly bills will increase by 48 cents next year, another 48 cents in 2015 and another 49 cents in 2016, for a total increase of $1.45 per month. The 756 miles of plastic pipe to be replaced are part of nearly 3,300 miles of plastic pipe installed between 1963 and 1983 that surveys concluded might need to be replaced. Some of the pipes had started to deteriorate toward the end of an original life expectancy of up to 50 years, resulting in safety concerns. AGL officials have not yet decided whether to replace all or just part of the roughly 2,500 miles of pipe not involved in the current project.
L.L.Bean has launched The One Fund Boston Tote to raise money for The One Fund Boston. According to Bean, 100 percent of its profits from sales of the limited-edition bag will go to the charity for Boston Marathon bombing victims. The bags are priced at $49, and are sewn in Maine from pieces of the tarp that was used to protect the Fenway Park infield during the field’s 100th anniversary in 2012. At its June deadline for applications, 259 Marathon bombing victims had applied to the fund. Donations to The One Fund are being kept open indefinitely. The bags feature a patch with the blue and yellow The One Fund Boston logo, and are trimmed with blue handles. In addition, an interior pocket includes the same logo and a narrative about the bag. The 3,500 totes that were made became available in early September. In Massachusetts the totes are sold at L.L.Bean stores in Burlington, Dedham and Mansfield. L.L.Bean said that this autumn the company will introduce another limited edition product made from the Fenway Park rain delay tarp.
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Not here, but there...
Microsoft to buy Nokia’s handset business Microsoft Corp. will purchase the handset business of Finnish manufacturer Nokia Oyj and license its patents for $7.2 billion. Nokia’s devices and services unit, along with 32,000 employees, will reportedly transfer to Microsoft. That unit accounted for nearly half of Nokia’s 2012 revenue. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop will return to Microsoft after three years of running Nokia. That creates an assumption that Elop, 49, will be the potential successor to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who claimed in August that he will retire within the next 12 months. Both Microsoft and Nokia have had issues keeping up with their rivals, Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc., which have dominated the wireless handset market in recent years. The decision implies that Nokia executives realized they would not be able to catch up with their more fleet-footed competitors. Nokia’s most recent upscale smartphones operate on the Microsoft Windows 8 platform, but those phones have failed to make significant progress in the U.S. market.
Walgreens has a new drug distributor AmerisourceBergen has officially launched its previously announced 10-year relationship to distribute pharmaceuticals to more than 8,100 Walgreens locations nationwide. As part of the arrangement,
AmerisourceBergen, headquartered in Pennsylvania, will also have access to global sourcing for generic drugs and related pharmaceutical products through the joint venture between Walgreens and Alliance Boots, a multinational pharmacy-led product distributor. Steve Collis, president and CEO of AmerisourceBergen, explained: “Our partnership with Walgreens marks the largest distribution deal of its kind within the pharmaceutical industry, and we are confident our teams will execute operations seamlessly to supply the millions of Walgreens’ customers with brand name and generic pharmaceutical products.” When the agreement was first publicized in March, AmerisourceBergen said the deal would supply an incremental $28 billion in revenues and 20 cents in earnings per share for the company in fiscal 2014. In addition, the partnership grants Walgreens and Alliance Boots rights to purchase a minority equity position in AmerisourceBergen.
Madison Dearborn finds buyer for Yankee Candle Yankee Candle, a private maker of high-end candles and home furnishings, will reportedly be sold to Jarden Corp., of Rye, NY, for about $1.75 billion. Jarden owns the Crock-Pot, Mr. Coffee, and Sunbeam appliance brands, among others, and one analyst was quoted as saying that Yankee Candle fits in that stable as another niche brand.
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A Chicago private-equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners bought Yankee Candle for about $1.6 billion in 2006. With this sale, investors are allegedly expected to receive nearly two times their investment. Madison Dearborn had tried to sell Yankee Candle for $2 billion, but did not find any buyers. Had it been unable to find a buyer at all, the firm probably would have attempted to take Yankee Candle public again after taking it private in 2006. The sale could close sometime in the fourth quarter this year.
Hawaiian Airlines offers passengers Apple iPad minis during flights Hawaiian Airlines began offering Apple iPad mini tablet computers for passengers to use on its wide-body Boeing 767-300 aircraft in early September. Hawaiian Airlines contracted Bluebox Avionics, a global provider of portable in-flight entertainment to airline carriers, to supply 1,500 iPad minis on 14 of Hawaiian Airlines’ aircraft serving routes between Hawaii and the U.S. Mainland, Asia and South Pacific. The iPad minis will replace the previous portable entertainment systems on those routes. “Hawaiian Airlines’ signature on-board hospitality is already very popular with travelers, but we wanted to go even further to ensure our customers’ travel experience is more enjoyable…With the help of Bluebox Avionics, we’re building on our acclaimed in-flight
service by incorporating the latest in popular consumer tech products to enhance our in-flight entertainment options,” Blaine Miyasato, vice president of product development for Hawaiian Airlines explained. The iPad minis will be complimentary in business class on all B767 routes and will be offered to passengers for rental in economy class. The rentals will cost $15 if reserved at departure gate prior to boarding, or $17 if purchased in-flight, subject to availability, on routes to the Mainland, Brisbane, Australia, and Pago Pago, American Samoa. Currently, Hawaiian Airlines operates the wide-body, twin-aisle Boeing 767-300 aircraft between Honolulu and the California cities of Oakland, San Jose and Sacramento; Seattle and Phoenix in the U.S.; Fukuoka and Sendai in Japan; Seoul, South Korea; Brisbane, Australia; Papeete, Tahiti; and Pago Pago, American Samoa. In addition, Hawaiian Airlines’ B767 routes also include service between Kahului on Maui and San Jose, Oakland and Seattle.
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refineries unable to meet the nation’s demand for gasoline following years of mismanagement and disruption. According to the company, the oil refinery and complex will produce 400,000 barrels-per-day and should become operational by 2016. The plant will also generate 2.8 million tons of urea for fertilizing crops and to produce polypropylene, used to make plastics. The company is still in search of an additional $2.5 billion in development funds to supplement the $3.5 billion of its own equity put into the project. Standard Chartered and Nigeria’s Guaranty Trust Bank led the $3.3 billion loan deal. According to Forbes, Dangote’s estimated worth is $16.1 billion. He has made his wealth in cement, flour, and sugar.
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Nissan recently announced that it would have “commercially viable” cars, which will be self-driven by 2020. Nissan’s Autonomous Drive program is now underway in Japan and will strive to make the vehicles available across the full range of models within two vehicle generations. According to Nissan, the company is already working with MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Oxford and The University of Tokyo, and is currently building a dedicated autonomous driving proving ground, which will replicate real world conditions, to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2014.
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Ernie and Brenda Konkoli of Homewatch Caregivers by bill fishburne
October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 75
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Ernie and Brenda Konkoli had never owned a franchise until they bought into the Homewatch CareGivers System. Today they are beyond pleased with their decision and most of all, are delighting in being in the home health care business.
Homewatch CareGivers of WNC has clients in hundreds of homes across Buncombe, Henderson, Madison and Transylvania Counties. Wherever there is a need they often can provide a qualified person or persons to meet it. The company is managed from offices on Hendersonville Rd., on the second floor, at the busy Spring St. intersection near T.C. Roberson High School. The business has grown faster than school traffic at 3:30, and Ernie Konkoli said the franchiser’s online continuing education program was a major factor in their decision to go with Homewatch. “We believe in education,” Ernie Konkoli explained. “Homewatch University enables us to provide an enormous amount of medical education for our clients and to the family care givers that we serve. Homewatch CareGivers is the only home care agency that has a fully accredited online university in health care. When we coupled that with the other attributes of the franchise, Brenda and I knew this was what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives.”
The Decision Konkoli came to the mountains to live after a successful career in engineering and business management. “I had started a mechanical engineering degree from Kent State University and landed a first job with TRW. In the following 34 years, we were relocated at least seven times as I went up the corporate ladder to plant manager and corporate executive. This time, when we retired, we wanted to pick the place we lived and we wanted to provide services that were needed by the members of the community. We saw this as our last move, to start a business we could love, and to do it in an area we both loved.” Along the way, Konkoli was involved in the sale of six companies. It gave him a true picture of how the business world works. “Six of the companies were sold, spun off or formed into joint ventures. I was a reluctant participant in those. I was a part of selling two U.S. companies to German owners, one joint venture with an Israeli company, and one with an American company. When a corporation decides to buy or sell there is tremendous restructuring going on. They achieve huge economies in order 76 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
to justify the purchase price. “It was a difficult 34 years. I’m a team builder. I love to train people. I did this everywhere I went, and I sold that concept to the buyers. The last company I was with, unfortunately, wanted us to out source operations to a foreign entity. That was against my values. When you have a foreign owned company in the U.S., they have very little allegiance to American workers. As I went through that, I determined Brenda and I would do something completely different when we retired—something with people as the focus, not numbers.” His last stop was in Avon, Connecticut, where he ran a company that made high-precision plastic components for medical instruments. Connecticut was beautiful but the Konkoli’s knew they didn’t want to continue to live in the Northeast. “We had vacationed in the mountains of Western North Carolina for over 25 years. We knew if we could create the right opportunity that this was the place we wanted to live. Taking a year off before making the plunge into a new business gave the Konkoli’s time to think, investigate and plan. “We studied all kinds of business opportunities and looked specifically in senior services. We came to the realization that our strengths lay in home health care. Neither my wife or I were licensed health care professionals, but Brenda has been a care giver in many capacities throughout her life. From raising our children to volunteering in hospitals to working in and managing group homes, she has always been a care giver in some capacity.
“I determined Brenda and I would do something completely different when we retired— something with people as the focus, not numbers.”
“It’s a business and it’s a calling. And I’m gaining the calling because you fall in love with your clients and the care givers who have been doing this most of their careers. I’m doing my part working to teach them some of the business side. It’s a small business and you wear many hats.”
Demographics In addition to the climate and lifestyle appeal of the mountains, Western North Carolina’s demographics gave the region extra appeal. “When we studied the demographics in this country and realized just how quickly the population in America and in all the Western nations has grayed, we knew there would be an exploding need for senior services,” Konkoli said. “You will see over the next 15 to 20 years not just an explosion of new senior services but a re-marketing of existing services toward the senior market. In the mountains our senior citizen population is at least 50 percent higher than the state average. Senior population is defined as those over 65. The nationwide average is 13 percent of the population. In our area it is 50 percent higher. In Buncombe County we’re at 20 percent. In Hendersonville it is 22 percent and in Brevard it is 24 percent, nearly double the state average. And all this is before the boomers come along.”
Boomers and Consumers “The crazy thing about society today is that since January, baby boomers have started turning 65 at a rate of 10,000 per day,” Konkoli said. “That will continue for the next 18 years. Senior percentages are going to double over the next 18 years across the entire country. “What a lot of people don’t realize is that the fastest growing population we address are the parents of the Boomers. These people are 75 to 90 years old and are the first generation that has benefitted from the major advances in medical technology. Vaccinations, immunizations, antibiotics, advanced disease prevention and treatment, joint replacement, heart surgery and even dental care. These were things that cut lives short in previous generations. There will be a huge need for home care over the next 20 years. The majority of our clientele are folks in the 80 to 95 year old age group, the parents of the Boomers.” Konkoli said they chose the Homewatch CareGivers franchise as their new business “because you don’t have to have medical experience. The franchise enables us to learn existing systems and they have a great support system. Their full resources at your disposal anytime you need their help.
The Services Homewatch CareGivers is in the business of providing non-medical home care services to people of all ages. Clients range from short-term convalescent care to providing care for hospice cases. Most of the clients are people who have illnesses or are just getting too old to fully care for themselves. This latter group includes victims of dementia and Alzheimer’s. “Home care can be very exhausting to family care givers,” Konkoli said. “We can provide the 24x7 care or we can provide respite care. In some cases we are the only network of support for those people. Two-thirds of our clients live more that two or three hours away from mom and dad, so they really can’t provide daily care. They depend on us to be their parents’ family when they’re not here.” October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 77
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Brenda Konkoli provided a list of the three primary care programs. “Not everyone requires a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA),” she explained, “so we structure our programs to meet the needs they have now with the ability to add to them as required.”
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Beyond that the company offers an array of professional nursing services to keep patient care programs up to date and to ensure there is significant and complete communication with other health care professionals and with family members.
Getting into the system
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The easiest way to get into the home health care system is for a family member or senior to pick up the phone and ask for a consultation. When done early enough, this gets the family set for whatever situation may be coming. Konkoli says it is unfortunate but that phone call is generally not made before there is a crisis and stress. “Most interventions come during a time of crisis, when children who haven’t visited their parents in a while call and say, ‘Oh my God, I had no idea they were living like this.’ “Seniors do not want to discuss their needs with their children or neighbors. Their biggest fear is the loss of independence. As long as they’re living together
as husband and wife to some extent they compensate each other for their losses in abilities. Eventually it catches up with them and that is when we get called. Sometimes we go into a home and there isn’t a clean pot, pan or dish in the home. It’s a pigpen, and we have to send multiple care givers in to work together to try to get this house back in shape so one care giver can then maintain it for them going forward. (For a full listing of key indicators that your parents need help, see p. 83)
Territory Ernie and Brenda have expanded quickly but methodically. They try not to overreach their range even if a call is within their franchised territory. “Generally we work within 45 miles of Asheville,” Ernie said. “We have been within five miles of Tennessee in Madison County and we cover Brevard and Hendersonville as well as the Buncombe County area. We’re restricted to North Carolina because of our state licensing. Even within our territory we sometimes have to turn down requests for service because we don’t have enough fully trained and qualified care givers. We are not going to disappoint our clients by providing them with poor service. That’s not who we are.
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Nuts and Bolts Homewatch Care Givers, Inc., is a franchising company located in Greenwood Village, Colorado. They recently received the 2013 Franchising Business Review 50 Satisfaction Award, indicating their franchisees are in the national top 50 in terms of franchisee satisfaction regardless of the type of franchise. Measurements include training, marketing, systems and intangibles rated by the franchisees such as trust, respect, honesty, ethics, and how much the franchiser cares about the franchisees success. For more information on the award go to franchisebusinessreview.com and click on the FBR50 awards logo. Dawn Wilson, Franchise Sales Coordinator for Homewatch, said there are 111 franchisees worldwide including some with multiple territories. There are 214 total territories in operation including 14 in Candada, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Mexico. “The initial Homewatch franchise fee is $43,000 for one territory,” Wilson said. “Capitalization requirements for the first year run between $77,000 and $125,000 including the franchise fee and startup expenses.” Wilson, like franchisees Ernie and Brenda Konkoli, stated that HomeWatch University provides an unparalleled service to franchisees, care givers and their clients. Wilson said there are “more than 800 courses currently being offered and 2700 hours are accredited for Continuing Education units in certain disciplines and states.”
Who pays? HomeWatch Care Givers of Western North Carolina primarily contracts with private pay clients, not with governmental agencies. “We’re not Medicaid certified. We haven’t chosen to go through that process,” Konkoli said. “Private pay is our primary payer. We also work with many organizations, including the Buncombe and Henderson counties Councils on Aging (COA). We take cases from the Veterans Administration and Project Care, a government funded respite grant program for family care givers of individuals suffering disorders such as dementia or Alzheimer’s. It resides in the Land of Sky Regional Council offices
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in Asheville. We also receive payment from long-term care insurance companies and that source is growing.” Unfortunately, for seniors unable to pay for their own home care, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed to further reduce home health funding by the maximum level permitted by law—3.5% annually from 2014 to 2017—totaling a 14% cut over the next four years. Analysis of the proposed rule revealed that a 14% reduction in home health reimbursement would result in a cut of $22 billion over 10 years. When coupled with the $72.5 billion that Medicare home health funding that has already been cut since 2009 since passage of the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare), the nation’s home health sector is facing a total cut of nearly $100 billion according to Val J. Halamandaris, president of the National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC). If finalized as proposed, this cut is projected to impose net operating losses on 47 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia by 2017, rendering many home health agencies inoperable. Nationally, the Medicare home health margin will drop to -9.7%. Ernie and Brenda are already faced with losing money on each Medicaid-funded patient they accept. “We have not gone through the Medicaid certification process for exactly this reason,” Ernie said. “When we accept clients from Buncombe County Council on Aging we are reimbursed at Medicaid rates. We lose money on every one of those cases but we do it because it’s the right thing to do for the community.”
Aunt Mary’s story
own. In 2003 a niece visited her and determined the house was a wreck and her aunt seemed to be confused. Over a period of several months, with the niece and a nephew now paying more attention, it was determined to take the aunt to a geriatric physician. At that meeting the doctor wrote an opinion that the aunt had become “incompetent”. Her driver’s license was taken away from her and a home care companion was hired to provide the basic level of companion services. At the same time, her nephew went through the court process to be named her guardian. This empowered him to take care of Mary and make all the decisions regarding her personal care. The new responsibilities required him to be bonded by an insurance company and to file annual reports to the Clerk of Court regarding every aspect of her care and finances. The companion care worked out well. With that assistance, including weekends when family members were not available, plus help from Meals on Wheels, Aunt Mary was able to continue to live in her familiar home, the same one she had been born in. After five years of increasing levels of care, neighbors reported Aunt Mary had begun to wander her neighborhood at night, in the winter. The nephew spent sleepless nights on her couch guarding the door lest she wander and freeze to death. Eventually he arranged for her to move into the Alzheimer’s wing of an assisted living facility. Today she is in a skilled care center in the last stages of Alzheimer’s. The nephew says his life has been blessed to be there for her in her final years. Aunt Mary, unfortunately, cannot comment. The family just hopes and prays that somehow, at whatever inner level of self awareness she retains, she knows she is still loved and cherished.
A 76-year old never married lady living alone seemed to be doing well. Her nephew and other relatives called frequently but noticed she was no longer initiating calls on her
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When should you call for assistance? Here’s a list of 20 key indicators that your parents need help. Five positive indicators mark a need for further investigation by family or friends. Ten or more should cause you to stop what you’re doing and make the call now. Spoiled food that doesn’t get thrown away Missing important appointments Unexplained bruising (falls) Trouble getting up from a seated position Difficulty with walking, balance and mobility Uncertainty and confusion when performing once-familiar tasks Forgetfulness Unpleasant body odor Infrequent showering and bathing Strong smell of urine in the house Noticeable decline in grooming habits and personal care Dirty house, extreme clutter and dirty laundry piling up Stacks of unopened mail or an overflowing mailbox Late payment notices, bounced checks and calls from bill collectors Poor diet or weight loss Loss of interest in hobbies and activities Changes in mood or extreme mood swings Forgetting to take medications—or taking more than the prescribed dosage Diagnosis of dementia or early onset Alzheimer’s Unexplained dents and scratches on a car “Seniors lose their senses one at a time, or all at once,” Ernie said. “They forget to eat. The forget to drink water and get dehydrated. They lose their sense of smell and then forget to take a shower. They think they didn’t do anything the day before and don’t think they smell. They don’t want to wash their clothes and they lose their sense of balance. They become a fall risk. There are lots of signs you can pick up on but when you don’t see them for two or three years and they don’t tell you anything on the telephone, you just get shocked when you walk into a full-blown crisis.” This list and more information can be found at www.agingcare.com
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them through the foggy, gaslit streets? Actually, “street” taxis as we know them—vehicles hired by individuals to take them to a specific destination—date from mid-seventeenth century Paris. Almost as soon as these individual conveyances became popular, some entrepreneur decided that if several such vehicles were combined into a fleet, each would be a profit center making money for a centralized owner, and taxicab companies were born. And inevitably, local governments recognized a source of income and began requiring licenses for just about every aspect of taxi operation, from drivers to vehicles to horses. The ascendancy of the automobile eventually led to the development of in-cab meters, which allowed taxi companies to set fees for both time and distance—and provided bureaucracy with yet another means of tracking and taxing those fees. The national compliance resource Licenses123 says, “In North Carolina, taxis are among the most highly regulated local businesses. Cities not only license drivers, vehicles and taxi companies, but often control the market by creating EL REMMA H 005$ G NISNECS T N I AP
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tumped by the very first question, he whispers to his buddies, “What does a yellow light mean?” “Slow down,” they whisper back. “Whaaaaat doooooes aaa yellllllowww liiiiiiight meeeeean?” Lloyd murmurs. The show was Taxi, which won 18 Emmy Awards in the early 80’s by chronicling the doings of a diverse bunch of fictional Manhattan cabbies and their Fagin-like dispatcher, Louie DePalma (Danny DeVito). Each driver had his or her own back story, and with the exception of Lloyd’s character, who was impervious to reality, and Hirsch’s, who had resigned himself to a lifetime of cab-driving, each of them was pursuing a personal dream—acting, boxing, fine art—and was only driving a hack in order to make ends meet. The result was a treasure trove of comedy-drama. For that matter, literature and the silver screen are rife with romanticized public transportation. There are secret agents following each other in rickshaws, masked courtesans languishing in sedan chairs, and where would Holmes and Watson be without an efficient London hansom to drive
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Those of us who have attained a certain age can recall one of the funniest scenes in television sitcom history: an aging hippie (Christopher Lloyd), his brain fried by the drugs he ingested in the 60’s, is taking his chauffer’s license test, surreptitiously aided by two friends (Judd Hirsch and Tony Danza).
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commoditized medallions or local franchises that restrict the entry of new taxi companies into their cities. Accordingly, anyone involved in the taxi business can expect some serious paperwork, fees and licensing processes.” Actually, though, the state’s involvement in the taxi business (other than collecting its share of vehicle property taxes and license fees) consists primarily of establishing broad requirements for company owners, drivers, and vehicle maintenance. The interpretation of these guidelines, as well as creation of ordinances and direct enforcement of regulations governing taxicab company operations, is done at municipal level and can therefore vary widely from one North Carolina city to another. Per state rules, the owners of taxi services are responsible for seeing that their drivers “meet certain legal and ethical guidelines,” violations of which can result in loss of a driver’s permit. These include “conviction of a felony, illegal use of alcoholic drinks or drugs, addiction problems, non-U.S. citizenship and the habitual violation of traffic laws and regulations.” In addition to being his cabbies’ keeper, the fleet owner must provide constantly updated proof of financial responsibility in the form of a certificate of insurance—a type of liability coverage that applies to businesses operating even a single taxi—that must cover the owner, the operator, and “all agents and employees of the business” in case of an accident involving the vehicle. The city itself levies a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity fee on each and every cab at the rate of $25.00 for the first year and $5.00 for annual renewal. Individual drivers’ permits are $15.00 to begin with and $10 each year thereafter. “I’m over at the city almost daily, taking care of some part or other of the paperwork connected with all these rules and
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regulations,” said Ben Queen, who operates taxi fleets under four different names—Yellow Cab, A Red Cab Company, New Blue Bird Cab and Beaver Lake Cab. Each taxi brand’s dispatch office is located in a different part of town, but Queen directs operations out of a central headquarters on Haywood Road. Queen is something of an anomaly in the taxi business: a third generation owner. “My granddaddy bought Yellow Cab in 1969, and it had been around for a good while then,” he said. “It’s still our biggest fleet, with New Blue Bird after that. The other two are doing well for us, but Yellow and Blue Bird are still the best known.” His total inventory comprises some 35 cars, and keeping up with insurance, city inspections and personnel records eats most of his administrative time. “Running the company doesn’t leave much time for running the company,” he said. And there’s a wild card out there that seems to be at odds with the spirit of free enterprise: In North Carolina, city councils have the power, at any time, “to amend a taxi franchise by reducing the number of authorized taxis operating in its jurisdiction at a particular time.” Furthermore, under the same law, “a taxi franchise holder is
Anyone involved in the taxi business can expect some serious paperwork, fees and licensing processes.
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October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 83
PA IN T IT CR AC Y D PE RMMIT PE RM IT TO RE AU CR AC Y N LATIO N E STANSTA RM IT PER N BUMIT N BU RE AU AT IO TO PAI NT MIT ND PER IN T RE GU M O N ADLEM N B AN D PE ST PER ND E LE GI SL AT IO RE G UL STA ON AD E E AD RM IT TO PA LE GI SL AT IO AD N HA MM ER AT IO N LE PA INLISTCENS M O LEGISLATION LEMON UL 00 HA MM ER LE G ISL AT ION TO CR AC Y PE $5 ING $50 0 RE LEG IT AU 00 HA MM ER G ER RE IN M T RM ION BU NS IN AT PE BUREAUCRACY IT TONTPA H AMNT REGULATION PA LIS CE NS IN G $5 RM IT AT IO N CE PE TO IT RM SL NT REG UL LIS N IT RM GI PE PAI O PE LE IT N $5 00 PAI D TO RM D TI MIT STAN IS LA CENSING PERMIT TO HA MM ER MIT TO PAI E STAN AC Y PEER LISCENSING PERMIT STAN D PE RM E STA ND PER G LE GMM SIN G PER LE MO NA DE O N AD IN G $5 00 LEM ON AD RE AU CR LE MO NA DE ER LIS MM LI SC EN SI N TO PA IN T M ER LEATMION IT LIS CE NS LEG ISL AT ION CY $50 0 HA AM M ERMITBU TO PA IN T N PE RM IT 00 H AM AM M ERMIT BUREAUCRACY $500 HA STAN D PE RM BU REAUC RA $5 00 H N PE RM IT N PE RM IT NT REG UL $5 00 EHSTA RE GU LATIO TI O N LEM IT LE MO NA DE LATI O N $5 RE GU LATIO LA IS E STA ND PER MIT TO PAI RE GU LATIO ND PER IS RM G AD PER G PE LE ON LE D AD G G LE G IS LA LEM ON STAN E AD LI SC EN SI N N LI SC EN SI N O LE M
00 HA MM ER NS IN G $5
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not allowed to sell, assign or transfer allotments under its taxi franchise” and franchise owners must report, to city council, “on at least a quarterly basis,” how many taxis are operating under its name. Thus maintaining multiple sub-companies under different names can serve as a partial hedge against municipal incursion. Insurance, license fees, vehicle upkeep and registration—it all gets factored into what shows up on the meter as the wheels of the cab go round and round. The median Asheville cab fare for the first kilometer (cabs have gone metric, it seems) is $2.50, but can range as high as $5.00. Each additional kilometer costs $1.55. And telling a cabbie to wait while you pick up your date or use an ATM or fetch some groceries will run you anywhere from $8.00 to $25.00 an hour. Compensation of taxi drivers varies from company to company. Some actually salary their drivers and offer benefits and incentives. Statewide, such salaries range from a low of $19,327 to a high of $40,609, with a median of $28, 573. Tips may be extra or split with the company. Other firms operate on a straight split-the-take basis. Recently a blogger, who signed himself “ashevillecabbie” summed up his take on the current state of the city’s taxi business:
red tape
“I drive a cab in a place where the city (Asheville, NC) sets the rates but does not limit the number of cabs,” he said. “It seems to work out pretty well. There are several cab companies and they are free to work out with their drivers whatever financial arrangements they can get away with. Of the two biggest companies, one charges a lease per shift (which does include gas) plus 50% of the take; the other company gets 45% of the take but drivers buy their own gas. And there are plenty of cabs in Asheville—in my opinion, probably too many. I think the public is a lot happier with their taxis than Seattle seems to be with theirs, and there are no drivers being horribly taken advantage of.” “No drivers being horribly taken advantage of?” Louie DePalma would cure that in a heartbeat.
To read previous editions of Red Tape, or to view this article online, just scan this QR Code. capitalatplay.com/redtape
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6/19/13 10:10:08 AM
CapitalAdventurist
Technical
Motorcycle Riding: Bending with the Mountains writ ten by arthur treff | photos by john fle tcher
“Travelling by car is like watching a movie, riding a motorcycle is like being in a movie.” — Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
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here are wonderful destinations within a half-day’s drive in Western North Carolina and many paths to get there. As an avid rider, I believe that the optimum way to arrive is aboard a motorcycle. Robert Louis Stevenson’s agile mind created fiction full of adventure, just right for movies. Surely he must have ridden a motorcycle, because he wrote, “It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.” To focus on the journey’s end is missing the point entirely. Traveling by two wheels, you don’t just observe the beauty of the mountains, you drive within it. You are exposed to the outdoors in ways not possible while sealed within a car. Your nose detects freshly mown grass, pungent honeysuckle
86 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
blossoms and the balsam-infused, cool of a mountaintop. Motorcyclists also see more. Looking up, hawks are found riding thermals, a turn of the head is rewarded with the sight of rushing water shielded by a stand of rhododendron. At every mountain turn, the views are different, sometimes valley, sometimes wooded, and long-range vistas are everywhere. If you’ve become an occasional rider who takes the bike for an annual one hour outing up the Blue Ridge Parkway and back, you really are missing out on something special. Riders from all over the world come to the Appalachian range to get their fill of the unrefined beauty while piloting the bounty of twisty mountain roads.
GA_Capital3_Oct13_GA 9/6/13 2:32 PM Page 1
The continuous tight curves of some two lanes—such as 209 between Trust and Hot Springs—can sicken automotive passengers in a heartbeat, turning the first trip into their last. The same route, traveled by motorcycle, is akin to flying in two dimensions. No longer a four-wheeler fighting the road, on a bike you and machine effortlessly bend into the corners — it’s lyrical. The Blue Ridge Parkway is extremely scenic, and the corners numerous, but, on weekends, it becomes tedious with traffic. A satellite view of The Southern Appalachian mountains reveals a different and dense web of sinuous asphalt ribbons—this is where you want to ride. You’re up for it, but how do you decide on a route? Sure, you can just launch into the country turning whichever way you choose, but that gets old after a dozen U-turns on dead end roads. There are a few resources available. GPS and smartphones are great tools once you’re lost, but they can’t help you select the optimum two wheel roads. The “Motorcycle Adventures” series of books by Hawk Hagebak are a good start, as are DeLorme’s Gazetteer guides, which show every road, including gravel, within any state. There are also motorcycle specific maps which depict routes containing an abundance of corners on good surfaces, views and most of all, low traffic. MadMaps.com publishes back road motoring maps for every portion of the United States. BlueRidgeDrives.com, sponsored by McDowell County, depicts back road rides north of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Perhaps the most useful printed guides for motorcycling in the Appalachians are created by a Waynesville, North Carolina company, America Rides Maps. Superior motorcycle roads on ARM maps are color coded for ease of route planning, and in addition, include the locations of bathrooms, gas stations and camping areas. If you need an excuse to go riding, make one up: Meet friends for breakfast on Mt. Pisgah, or some town an hour away; Take an Ashe County tour of Barn Quilts; those quilt block paintings on the side of barns (www.ashecountyarts.org); Ride as many peaks above 3,000 feet as you can in a day; Visit NC, TN, VA, and KY in one day; Make up a diner tour or a homemade pie tour with an ice cream diversion; Pack your camping gear and bed down somewhere new for a night. Traveling two lane roads, don’t expect five star restaurants. Many of the small mountain towns are centered around a tiny grocery story, filling station and post office, all located in the same building.
A Stroll & A Bite IN ONE OF ASHEVILLE’S ARCHITECTURAL JEWELS
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www.grovearcade.com October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 87
Culinary choices may appear slim, but the road less traveled does have its rewards, if your tastes are flexible. On a recent trip through Mountain City, Tennessee we discovered a diner located on the bottom floor of an old house, two blocks off the main road. Great food, great people and they had espresso, almost nonexistent in the hills of Eastern Tennessee. After piloting the curvaceous 261 out of Baskerville, North Carolina, which summits Roan Mountain, we were hungry. A sign on 19E pointed us to Smoky Mountain Bakers, located behind a white farmhouse, where a brick, wood-burning oven pumps out the best pizza we’ve eaten in years. Enjoy the gooey slices on handcrafted dough while on the deck surrounded by the mountains. If you’re inspired to travel our twisty treasures, we have to ask: how are your cornering skills? 37%* of motorcycles fatalities are single vehicle, and the result of poor cornering technique. If you like your present looks, we suggest you keep them in tact by owning: D.O.T. approved helmet; Motorcycle-specific pants and jacket with armor at the: knees, hips, elbows, shoulders and back; Full-fingered leather motorcycle gloves; Boots: over the ankle, preferable higher with armor at the shins and ankle. Having gear is great, but only works if you wear it. Insurance statistics show that most crashes occur within 5 miles of home, so don’t be tempted to leave the armor in the garage when just running to the store. ATGATT: all the gear, all the time. Before venturing out, remember to check the bike; the acronym TCLOCS helps: Tires and wheels: no dents in wheels, no cracks in tires, air pressure to within +/- 1 psi of bike manufacturer’s specification; Controls: levers, switches, cables and throttle; Lights: headlights, turn signals, and horn should work; Oil and fluids: check for levels and leaks Chassis: suspension and drive: chain, belt, and driveshaft; Stands: side or center stand, does it retract fully? Once on the road, remember that 90% of motorcycling is from the neck up. Eyes scan the traffic, looking well down the road to spy any challenges, this allows you to react in time. Good cornering technique requires continuous eye work, riders need to keep their gaze as far down the path of travel as possible, observing changing road conditions nearby, switching back to the long range focus as quickly as possible. The bike will always go where you’re looking. Fixate on the side of the road long enough, and that’s where you’ll end up. Your focus should always be as far down your projected path as conditions will allow. While your eyes are doing their job, the rest of your body should be at work as well. If you’ve taken any Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) courses, you’re familiar with the phrase, ‘Slow-Look-Press-Roll’. Slow: adjust your pace to appropriate corner entry speed. Look: focus your eyes as far into the corner as possible. Press: push your inside handgrip into the corner— right to go right, left to go left.
*NHTSA 2005 FARS data. 88 CA
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Roll: roll on enough throttle to stabilize the bike, hold what you’ve got, then accelerate to resume your straight-line speed when you have the corner made. Remember to keep your hands and arms loose—rigid bodies do not react smoothly to the rapidly changing road conditions. When you feel tense, grip the tank with your legs instead, take a breath, and relax your hands. While practicing cornering, it’s best to concentrate on one thing at a time to avoid overloading yourself, which makes your body tense, the antithesis of smooth cornering. For one leg of a trip, pay strict attention to your eye work, striving to look far into the corners and way down the road. When your eyes feel dialed-in, concentrate on your hands. Are they tense? Are you pressing into the corner with the inside grip? If your bike feels unsteady mid corner, there’s a good chance one hand is fighting the other. Strive to use pressure from only the inside hand while cornering. If you feel tense: breathe, squeeze the tank with your knees, and wiggle your fingers. Motorcycling rewards riders who strive to be lifelong learners. Absorb as much as you can by taking any of the different types and levels of motorcycle classes available. Rider education reinforces the applicable muscle memory in a controlled setting, keeping your reflexes sharp. You always learn something new. Ready to go? Check your gear and your bike, then head out on the amazing backroads of the Appalachian Mountains secure that your training will help keep you safe to ride again. Accelerating out of a tight corner, the barrier between man and machine evaporates. Two wheels dance through the rhythmic curves, made particularly special when there is so much beauty to enjoy. The curtains are opening onto a brilliantly sunny day… let the movie begin.
Check your gear and your bike, then head out on the amazing backroads of the Appalachian Mountains.
Arthur Treff admits to being addicted to gasoline guzzling two wheelers, sparked by a brief ride in a sidecar during elementary school. He is a current Motorcycle Safety Foundation instructor with a modest bucket list: to ride every curvy road in the USA.
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for a full URL index, see p. 97 October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 89
Events
Oct october 3
Ruelles de France at Weinhaus: A Taste of France 6 -7 pm | the weinhaus, 86 patton ave, asheville, nc Enjoy pictures of enchanting villages, gorgeous landscapes, and hear fascinating stories of tours to this area of the Côte du Rhône. Treat yourself to a selection of wines, cheeses and appetizer plates.
rsvp sylvie: france 26120@ gmail.com
october 4 -31 HandMade in America Exhibition, The CSA Artists: Additional Works opening reception: oct 4th, 6:30 - 8 :30 pm handmade in america gallery 125 s. lexington ave. suite 101, asheville, nc The exhibition will showcase the craft work of HandMade in America’s Community Supported Art program’s artists. The CSA program offers shareholders six pieces of special edition art by regional craft artists for a $200 share, equaling to about $33 for each piece. Featured artists are: Susan Grier, ceramics; Christopher Perryman, wood; Carla and Greg Filippelli, fiber; Suzanne Q. Evon, jewelry; Ben Elliott, glass; and Mary Carol Koester, book arts. There will be live music from Mario Piccolo of the Gypsy Swingers Acoustic Jazz Trio and refreshments generously provided by Storm Rhum Bar & Bistro.
(828) 252- 0121 | lmudge @ handmadeinamerica .org
For The Love of Sewing:
october 4 - 5 Southern Green Living Expo - CANCELLED For The Love of Sewing:
october 5
Forest Festival Day 11250 pisgah hwy, pisgah forest, nc More than 80 traditional craftsmen, exhibitors, forestry students, and entertainers gather at the Cradle of Forestry to celebrate our forests and forest heritage. Highlights include wood carvers, weavers, a blacksmith, fly fishing, archery, face painting, horse drawn wagon rides, and the John G. Palmer Intercollegiate Woodsmen’s Meet, a lumberjack competition.
$6 per person | 828 - 877-3130
www.ashevillecottonco.com october 5
Fall By The Tracks Festival & 5K Run FABRIC • SEWING MACHINES
BERNINA • BABY LOCK • HORN 1378 Hendersonville Road, Asheville (next to Harris Teeter) 828-277-4100 • Mon-Sat, 10a-5:30p
www.ashevillecottonco.com
90 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
10am old depot association, 207 sutton ave, black mountain, nc The festival, in its 15th year, celebrates local arts and crafts in a family friendly fall setting. This small festival in front of the Old Depot will have an apple press,
So you know when and where
WNC Veterinary Hospital kid’s games, and demonstrations by the crafters. There will be food, activities, and old-fashion fun for the whole family. The Fun Run is held at the Old Depot in downtown Black Mountain. The course is a flat run which will start at the Depot and take runners down Vance Avenue and across parts of the Black Mountain greenway. The Oaks Trail will take the runners to Recreation Park where they will run around the sports fields. Once finished with Recreation Park, they will run back down the Oaks Trail to Vance Avenue then back to the Old Depot.
www.olddepot.org october 5
Wamboldtopia Sculpture Gardens 1pm-5pm 69 wamboldt ave, asheville, nc See the private sculpture garden at Wamboldtopia in West Asheville while it is open to the public. Meet the artists, see work in progress and tour the gardens.
free | wamboldtopia .com
october 5 , 12 & 19
Asheville Art in the Park 10 am- 5 pm
pack square in downtown asheville
Your other family doctor. 2 Pond Street, Arden, NC 28704 • 828-684-3531
(Located near intersection of Long Shoals and Hendersonville Road)
www.wncveterinaryhospital.com
SLEEPWORLD
Artists exhibit their creations, formed with various materials from, including glass, ceramics, woodworking, metalsmithing and the fabric arts. From pottery to jewelry to sculpture and two-dimensional art, the market offers a tantalizing bouquet of contemporary and traditional mountain art and crafts.
free admission october 12
Oktoberfest noon- 6 pm
coxe ave (between hilliard ave and buxton st ), downtown asheville
This festival mixes Bavarian traditions with Asheville’s eclectic vibe. It’s a perfect time to celebrate the local beer scene. The event features beer tastings from various local breweries. Internationally-renowned “oompah” band, The Stratton Mountain Boys, will encourage dancing, and fun contests will be held. Buying advance tickets is recommended since it will probably sell out.
$30 - $35 advanced purchase | $40 day of
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Eco-Friendly Bedding Natural Talalay Latex Rubber Breathable & Cool • Mold & Mildew Proof Dust Mite Resistant
Financing Available With Approved Credit SAME DAY DELIVERY! (If In Stock)
71 Airport Road, Arden
I-26 to Airport Exit 40, 1.5 miles East - Across from Super Walmart
828-651-8900
www.SleepworldNC.com
Monday - Saturday 10-7 • Sunday 1-5 facebook.com/sleepworldnc
twitter.com/sleepworldnc October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 91
Events october 12
Church Street Art & Craft Show 10am-5pm main street, waynesville For this 30th annual event, Main Street is transformed into an art and craft marketplace for this one-day event, widely recognized as one of the finest juried art shows in the region. There will be live mountain music and clogging, entertainment, and food.
free admission october 13
Honor Ride Asheville 8am liberty bicycles, 1378 hendersonville road, asheville, nc Honor Ride Asheville is a non-competitive bike ride honoring America’s healing heroes. There are three routes to choose from: 25, 50 and 75 miles. The funds raised through the Honor Ride Series support outdoor cycling programs and Indoor Spinning Recovery Labs at Military and VA locations around the US, as well as cycling equipment for healing heroes.
ride2recovery.com
october 12 -13
upscale furniture consignment
Recycle & Refurnish Your Home
1100 West Chapel Rd, Off Sweeten Creek Road - one road up from Regional Medical park on W. Chapel Rd. We’re up on the hill with a green roof.
828.277.5700
frugaldecorandmore.com 92 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
Tour De Falls Waterfall Tour 9am-2:30 pm dupoint state forest
Friends of DuPont State Forest will sponsor a 12-mile waterfall tour by shuttle bus to four of DuPont State Forest’s spectacular sites: Triple Falls, High Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and Lake Julia. Shuttles will run every 30 minutes from 9am-2:30pm, allowing you the chance to enjoy each site for as long as you like. You are also encouraged to take short hikes to enjoy the beauty of the falls and lake. Volunteers on each shuttle and at the four stops will provide information about the history of the forest and the work now being done to preserve and protect it. Triple Falls and High Falls have covered shelters with picnic tables. The tour takes three hours or longer, depending on how much time is spent at each stop. The parking lot for the tour is located just up the road from the High Falls access area at 1300 Staton Road in Cedar Mountain, NC.
$6 - $12 | 828 - 692-2929
october 17-20
LEAF Festival 9 am 377 lake eden rd, black mountain, nc Step into another world at the Lake Eden Arts Festival, where you can relax, dance, and be happy. LEAF is a small festival with just 6,000 people a day, yet encompassing many experiences, concerts, workshops, and so much to explore. LEAF happens at the site of the old Historic Black Mountain College with a mix of rolling hills, lakes, streams, and stunning mountain beauty on hundreds of acres.
varies from $35 + | www.theleaf.org october 17-20
Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands thursday-saturday 10am- 6 pm sunday 10am-5pm us cellular center (formerly the asheville civic center) 87 haywood st. in downtown asheville
150 First Avenue East, Hendersonville, NC • 828.694.0081 www.hendersonville.wbu.com
More than 200 craftspeople fill two floors with fine handcrafted items, while local musicians play live on the arena stage, and craft educators share their knowledge.
adults- $8 | children under 12-free group discounts available october 19 -20
North Carolina Chrysanthemum Society Annual Show saturday 1-5pm | sunday 1- 4pm nc arboretum, 100 frederick law olmsted way, asheville, nc Hundreds of chrysanthemum blooms will fill the Arboretum Education Center in a kaleidoscope of vivid colors. This annual show is judged by expert accredited National Chrysanthemum judges from across the country according to strict National Chrysanthemum Society standards and highlights the exceptional variety in size, shape and color of these popular fall flowers. The show is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about how to grow display or show quality chrysanthemums. Guests can enjoy the shows and flower sales as well as trail walks, family activities, and exhibits.
parking $8 per car | 828 - 665 -2492
October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 93
Events october 19
esteemed honor of predicting the winter weather season and the Woolly Worm wins prize monies of $1000.
Apple Harvest Festival 10am-5pm main street, waynesville This festival features live mountain music and dance, craft and demonstration booths, apples, cider, fresh fried pies and other apple delicacies.
free admission
adults – $5.00 per day children (ages 5 to 12) – $2 .00 per day children ages (0 to 4) – free www.woollyworm.com october 24
CFWNC & UNC Asheville Host Demographer Dr. Jim Johnson unc asheville campus , humanities lecture hall
october 19 -20
Wooly Worm Festival 9: 00am banner elk , nc The Woolly Worm Festival provides an opportunity to witness wooly worm races and to debate how accurately the worms’ stripes forecast winter. Since 1978, the residents of this village nestled between the Carolina’s two largest ski resorts have celebrated the coming of the snow season with the Woolly Worm Festival. They determine which one worm will have the honor of predicting the severity of the coming winter; they make that worm earn the honor by winning hard-fought races. Festival goers will have the chance to take in the over 140 food and craft vendors with their handcrafted items, plus rides, musicians and dance teams. The festival will have many returning vendors who make worm houses and pins, face painting and also include artists who do photography, pottery, stained glass and much more. Participants wishing to race their worm may register at 9 am, and shortly after that races begin. Saturday’s winning Woolly Worm holds the
The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina (CFWNC) and UNC Asheville are pleased to announce that Dr. Jim Johnson, William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, will present Disruptive Demographics on October 24 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. The talk will take place in the Humanities Lecture Hall on the UNC Asheville campus and is open to the public. Attendance is limited and reservations are requested .
www.cfwnc.org october 26
Brevard Halloweenfest 10am- 6 pm downtown brevard, nc Brevard is located in Transylvania County, so it seems to be the perfect place to honor Halloween. Started in 1982, Halloweenfest
wild
1640 Hendersonville Rd. Asheville, NC 28803 / 828.274.9500 / www.carolinacinemas.com
wednesdays
$5 tickets! $3 student discount
Not valid with any other offer, event, or Sony Film. 3D surcharges still apply.
at the Weinhaus
ActionFest Film Series
monthly charity event for AVL’s Homeward Bound donate & receive a free beer or soft drink & a popcorn!
94 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
Artisan cheese, meat and gourmet products with a local flair Sandwiches • Cheese Plates • Wine • Beer Gift Baskets • Picnics • Party Platters • Private Parties Located in Downtown Asheville, near Pritchard Park 86 Patton Avenue, Asheville • 828.484.1586 • csasheville.com
features the Proper Pot Apple/Pumpkin Bake-off and a street festival on the Saturday before Halloween and includes “Flight of the Vampire” 5K Run.
free october 25 -27
Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit asheville, nc This is a three day music festival staged in the heart of downtown Asheville, NC. The vision and programming philosophy behind Mountain Oasis celebrates the creative spirit of musical exploration, along with the innovative spark that fuels all of the arts. Most of the concerts, panel discussions, interactive experiences, installations and more are in or near downtown Asheville.
$74. 50+ | mountainoasisfestival.com friday
Bassnectar Neutral Milk Hotel Tricky Rustie Sparks Bondax Jacques Greene Daniel Johnston Half Japanese ITAL (Live) ** Silver Apples People Get Ready
saturday
Nine Inch Nails Animal Collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor Gary Numan Chromatics Zola Jesus & JG Thrillwell The Bug Bosnian Rainbows Actress Delorean Sorne
sunday
Pretty Lights How To Destroy Angels Disclosure Mount Kimbie Ulrich Schnauss Jessie Ware Shlohmo Autre Ne Vuet Robert Delong T.Williams
october 27, 2013
Guided Cemetery Tour 5pm- 6 pm riverside cemetery, 53 birch street, asheville, nc Join Ryland Brown, owner of Gateway Seminars and editor of the book If The Stones Could Speak, for a walking tour of the cemetery and a presentation of gravestone symbolism. This will not be a historic tour through Riverside Cemetery, but will use the cemetery as an opportunity to explore the history and meaning of cemeteries, graves and funerals.
$10 | register at www.gatewayseminars.com or call 828 -214 -5134 URLs - Capital At Play
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COSMETIC • PREVENTIVE • RESTORATIVE • ENDODONTICS • ORAL SURGERY
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600 Alliance Court Suite A-1 • Asheville, North Dr. Carolina Jamie 28806 Maddox 828-670-9894 • www.aadentalpartners.com Dr. Paige Leahy Dr. Jamie Maddox {located next to the Biltmore Square Mall}Dr. Cliff Feingold Paige Leahy Dr.Dr. Jamie Maddox CliffLeahy Feingold Dr.Dr. Paige Dr. Cliff Feingold 600 Alliance Court Suite A-1 • Asheville, North Carolina 28806 828-670-9894 • www.aadentalpartners.com 600 Alliance Court Suite A-1 • Asheville, North Carolina 28806 {located next to the Biltmore Square Mall} • www.aadentalpartners.com 600 Alliance828-670-9894 Court Suite A-1 • Asheville, North Carolina 28806 {located •next to the Biltmore Square Mall} 828-670-9894 www.aadentalpartners.com {located next to the Biltmore Square Mall}
Health Care Reform is different for everyone. Call me for a + Important dates and deadlines personalized + Considerations for savings and expanded health benefits from BCBSNC, overview + New the most preferred health insurer in NC1 Authorized Agent WES WASHEL 828-669-7912 whwashel@ebenconcepts.com
1 BCBSNC Brand Tracking Study; Prophet; March 2013. ®, SM Marks of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. U9230a, 6/13
October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 95
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Celebrating our Capital at Play 2 year Anniversary at the Capital Club for more party photographs, visit us online at capitalatplay.com 96 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
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1. Linda D. Cluxton and David B. Morgan 2. Kate Brantly, Allegra Brantly, and Andy Strauss 3. Becky Cannon and Emi Kubota 4. Adrian Vassallo, Susan Haldane, and David Kozak 5. Charles, Virginia, and Patrick of Corner Kitchen Catering
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6. The Capital Club 7. Oby Morgan and Danny Radcliff 8. (facing) Michael and Eva Greene 9. Carl Loftin, Pat Starnes, O. E. Starnes IV, Caroline Noor, Sophia Ungert
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10. Ian Moore and the Second Stringers 11. Bill Beal and Steve Whitmire 12. Ian Moore 13. Kimberly Hunter 14. Oby Morgan and Terri King
15. Mark and Lynne Dorsey 16. Katrina Morgan 17. Joe Tyson, David Morgan, Dasha Morgan, and John Bell 18. Cheryl MacPhail and Laura McCue October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 97
An Education for an Inspired Life Asheville School prepares high school students for an education of a lifetime. A challenging academic experience motivates students to become better thinkers, communicators, and develop strong study habits. One hundred percent of our graduates go on to college, and they attend top colleges and universities. Students learn life lessons in a nurturing, close-knit community of 280 students from 20 states and 17 countries. For more than a century, Asheville School has fostered lives of leadership and service. We invite you to discover Asheville School and learn why our students have a competitive edge. Call today to request an admission packet, attend one of our open houses, or inquire about our merit scholarship program.
Open House Dates: November 16, 2013 • January 20, 2014
ashevilleschool.org Asheville • North Carolina 828.254.6345
Visit ashevilleschool.org/app
ashevilleschool.org/facebook • ashevilleschool.org/twitter • ashevilleschool.org/youtube • ashevilleschool.org/linkedin • ashevilleschool.org/googleplus 98 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013
Why Should Professionals Bank With Us? One Simple Reason.
Jean Wauford Asheville 828-398-2176
Kelly Davis Asheville 828-348-2280
Lisa Parham Hendersonville 828-233-0599
Merrill Tibbals Charlotte 980-321-5946
Professional Banking from Forest Commercial. If you run a professional firm or small business, you understand that the financial requirements of your company are often interwoven with your personal needs. Our Professional Bankers offer you a single contact for all your banking needs, from deposit and lending services to mortgages and cash management. As your dedicated link to Forest Commercial, a Professional Banker guarantees service and convenience at the highest level – for you and your firm, practice or other enterprise. For a simpler, more rewarding financial partnership, a move to Forest Commercial could be the single best banking decision you’ll ever make.
ForestCommercialBank.com Asheville: 1127 Hendersonville Road, Asheville, NC 28803 • 828-255-5711 Hendersonville: 218 North Main Street, Hendersonville, NC 28792 • 828-233-0900 Charlotte: Loan Production Office, 122 Cherokee Road, Charlotte, NC 28207 • 980-321-5946 Member FDIC
An Asheville-Based Bank Serving Commercial, Professional And Personal Clients.
BauerFinancial Five-Star Rating
October 2013 | capitalatplay.com 99
FEEDING THE COMMUNITY FEEDING THE COMMUNITY Ingles has made a commitment to support organizations that help our community get the food and resources they need Ingles has mademembers a commitment to support organizations that help our community members get the food and resources they need
HUNGER HAS HAS A CURE HUNGER A CURE Through the assistance of local agencies, providing fresh, nutritious food to
Through the assistance of local agencies, providing fresh, nutritious food to people struggling with hunger people struggling with hunger
FORYOUR YOUR HEALTH HEALTH FOR Ingles supports organizations that provide ďŹ nancial and emotional support for
Ingles supports organizations that provide ďŹ nancial and emotional support for community members living with serious illness. community members living with serious illness.
TOOL S FOR TOOL S SCHOOLS FOR
SCHOOLS
VALUABLE LEARNING TOOLS
Ingles Markets has contributed over 10 million dollars to schools to purchase VALUABLE LEARNING TOOLS valuable learning tools and equipment.
Ingles Markets has contributed over 10 million dollars to schools to purchase valuable learning tools and equipment.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The BackPack Bunch provides food for students to take home on weekends FOOD FOR THOUGHT when they otherwise would not eat.
The BackPack Bunch provides food for students to take home on weekends when they otherwise would not eat.
100 CA ITALat LAY | October 2013