Daily Record Financial News &
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Vol. 102, No. 208 • Two Sections
35¢ www.jaxdailyrecord.com
Jacksonville-based Firehouse Restaurant Group Inc., parent of the nationwide Firehouse Subs fast-casual chain of more than 900 restaurants, is looking for a new headquarters. The space should be large enough to accommodate company operations as it plans to add at least 1,000 more restaurants in the U.S. and internationally as part of a 10-year plan. Firehouse Restaurant Group doesn’t intend to leave Northeast Florida. Co-founder Robin Sorensen said the 20-year-old company needs more space, especially for parking, than what it now has at its 3400-8 Kori Road offices in Mandarin. It also leases space along Shad Road. He said the new space would put all of the Firehouse Subs headquarters staff under one roof, “where we can continue to focus on our core business goals.” Firehouse Subs needs up to 30,000 square feet of office space to accommodate its 102 existing employees and the estimated 25 more to be hired by the end of next year. Sorensen said it also needs up to 210 parking spaces to accommodate the staff, franchise owners and employees in training, and for other visitors. Firehouse wants to consolidate several functions into one larger location, including: • Space for Training Academy visitors. Firehouse hosts a training class every other week and a Day of Discovery, for franchise interview candidates, every other week, although the discovery day is held off-site now. • The Firehouse Subs Research and Development Test Kitchen, Quality Assurance and Supply Chain space, now operating at the Shad Road location. • The Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation and its staff of four full-time and two part-time employees. It has donated more than $14 million since 2005. Mathis
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Photos by Karen Brune Mathis
Firehouse Subs seeks space for new HQ
Teresa Durand-Stuebben is the first woman to be named a vice president at Auld & White Constructors LLC. She was named VP of business development in September.
A job of playing matchmaker Sales suit Durand-Stuebben
By Karen Brune Mathis Managing Editor
Durand-Stuebben was given the tiara to celebrate her 50th birthday in July.
Teresa Durand-Stuebben really enjoys sales. After graduating from Wolfson High School and a stint working logistics at the 1984 Summer Olympics in California, Durand-Stuebben returned to Jacksonville to start her sales track. First there was the clothing sales job at Jarrod’s at Regency Square Mall and then at its sister brand, Body Shop, also at Regency. After she married, she joined State Farm in accounting but also worked in sales as she had children. The move to real estate came through property management at an apartment
community, followed by 17 years with Jacksonville architectural firms, including KBJ Architects and Stuebben Architecture. Six years ago, she joined Auld & White Constructors LLC and was named vice president of business development almost a year ago in September, the first woman there to reach the position of VP. That was a strategic plan, knowing that sales involved identifying and meeting the customer’s needs. She knew there was an opening at Auld & White, called to see how she could be of service to the organization, talked with leaders over six months and then joined as business development manager. “I’ve learned it’s free to ask,” she said. “Don’t be scared to ask.” Workspace continued on Page A-7
By Max Marbut Staff Writer Read a good book lately? If you’re looking for a suggestion for some late summer reading, visit the Jacksonville Public Library and borrow a copy of “Brown Girl Dreaming,” this year’s selection for the Jax Reads campaign. “This is a communitywide effort to read the same book at the same time and then talk about it,” said Barbara Gubbin, director of the Jacksonville Public Library. Gubbin was joined at the launch ceremony Tuesday at the Main Library by Mayor Lenny Curry, who is featured on the poster for the effort.
Public
“I really believe in this,” Curry said before proclaiming September Jax Reads Month in Jacksonville. “Reading is so important for the doors it opens in the mind of a child,” he said. “Reading taught me ambition with purpose is OK.” “Brown Girl Dreaming,” by Jacqueline Woodson, tells through verse the author’s story of growing up as an African-American in the South of the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and realizing her growing awareness of the civil rights movement. Woodson’s latest work won the National Book Award, the Coretta Scott King Award and the John
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Newbury Honor. She was named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. The selection marks the first time a work of poetry has been chosen for Jax Reads. The annual literacy and discussion program began in 2002 with “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In partnership with Banned Jax, a nonprofit that promotes community conversation about censorship and free speech, Woodson will visit the Main Library’s Hicks Auditorium at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 4 for a book-signing and discussion of her book, her writing process and censorship. Admission is free and open to the public. Banned Jax Chair Leslie KirkReads continued on Page A-3
Photo by Max Marbut
Jax Reads brings city together through same book
From left, Mayor Lenny Curry, Jacksonville Public Library Director Barbara Gubbin and Erin Vance Skinner, chair of the library board of trustees, unveiled the poster for the Jax Reads campaign.
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