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LOOKING FORWARD Former radio/cable saleswoman excels in male-dominated tech industry
Q: What does your company do? A: WeGoLook com-
that my experience in media sales helped me understand various types of businesses and client needs for overall solutions. Having the hands-on experience of working with many types of people and industries was invaluable. Plus, you had to hustle to earn a living!
bines technology with an on-demand workforce of more than 40,000 lookers to help businesses and individuals gather and validate information anytime, anywhere.
Q: Is it hard being a female exec in the male-dominated tech industry? Are there any advantages to being a woman? A: Yes, I think it’s dif-
BY PAULA BURKES Business Writer pburkes@oklahoman.com
Robin Smith, founder and CEO of WeGoLook, talks about her company and her keys to success.
ficult being recognized as a female executive in an industry dominated by men, whether that’s tech, insurance, banking/financial or auto. I deal with each of these industries. However, once you are accepted as a credible thought leader, I believe being a woman helps you stand out from the crowd.
Q: How’d you get the idea for your company? A: A friend was consid-
ering buying a high-end projector on eBay, but had trouble verifying the seller’s claims about the item. Other individuals had a need to verify claims made by internet sellers of homes, cars, heavy equipment and more. In 2012, we realized that businesses also had big needs for this type of solution, so we pivoted toward a business-to-business (B2B) approach.
WeGoLook founder and CEO Robin Smith talks about her company in Oklahoma City. [PHOTO BY STEVE SISNEY, THE OKLAHOMAN]
Q: You once told a group of women professionals “don’t be afraid to fail.” What do you mean? A: I think we all can be
roughly 140 employees and more than 40,000 lookers across the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. In January of 2017, our company was acquired by Crawford & Co., and that has dramatically increased our exposure to potential clients and partners, especially in the insurance space.
our most vocal critic and worry so much about making the right decision that we may end up not making a decision at all! People are always telling me about their ideas and passion to start their own company, but just don’t take that next step because they’re worried that it won’t work. I’m a firm believer in the analogy of “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” Take that shot! You may miss a few buckets, but you’ll eventually score!
Q: What are your main business staples today? A: In the B2B world,
Q: What’s your No. 1 advice for budding entrepreneurs? A: You don’t have to be
we primarily play in four industries: insurance, finance (specifically mortgagetech/fintech), auto and franchises/ chains. We’re able to support a variety of business processes for these companies, from expediting insurance claims to facilitating loan closing documentation and more.
an industry expert to be an industry leader. Don’t second guess yourself because you may not have a lot of experience in a certain area. The founders of Uber and Airbnb didn’t have a background in transportation or hospitality, yet they completely disrupted the taxi and hotel industry almost overnight, simply by providing a better service at a lower cost while leveraging technology. That’s what WeGoLook is doing within field services.
Q: You launched WeGoLook in 2010 with only yourself and a program manager. How has the company grown? A: We now have
Q: What was your first big boost? A: The Oklahoma tech
investment fund i2E Inc. closed on a $1.75 million Series A equity
Robin Smith, CEO of WeGoLook, accepts a 2016 Inc. 500 award from Norm Brodsky, senior contributing editor of Inc. Magazine, which annually recognizes the 500 fastest growing privately held companies nationwide. [PHOTO PROVIDED]
investment with us in 2014. We paid back the nonprofit in December 2016 when Crawford & Co., the world’s largest publicly listed independent provider of claims management solutions, acquired an 85 percent membership interest in
our company for more than $36 million. Q: Who are your lookers? A: Lookers are a diverse
group with a wide range of skills and experiences. Here’s just a few of the special skills and qualifications avail-
able through the looker network: licensed drone pilots, registered notaries, licensed adjusters and appraisers, certified mechanics, professional photographers and bilingual communicators. At an average age of 42.3, lookers are the largest,
most experienced and most professional ondemand workforce in the world. Q: Before WeGoLook, you sold radio and cable sales. How did that experience help you with your startup? A: I definitely believe
A PLATFORM FOR SUCCESS Using social media the right way can be great tool for your business BY MICHAELA MARX WHEATLEY Staff Writer mwheatley@bigwing.com
There are compelling reasons why using social media for business makes sense. It fosters engagement with customers through comments, likes and shares. If you play it right, your customers become social media ambassadors of your brand. “Social media is the No. 1 way to connect people with your business daily,” said Kellen McGugan, social media team lead at BigWing, a digital marketing agency in Oklahoma City that’s a division of The Oklahoman Media Company. “I’m willing to bet anyone reading this has checked a social media platform on their phone in the last 24 hours.” However, successfully using it for business is a whole other story. That’s
where strategy, skill and brand identity come together to make or break a campaign. FIND THE RIGHT PLATFORM Not every social media platform lends itself to your brand identity — and that’s important to embrace. It’s wise to test multiple platforms. Some may work great for you, while others won’t. You don’t have to keep up with every platform, but you should have a social media presence. “There’s endless potential to find your next customers or business partners, all you have to do is meet them where they are,” McGugan said. As of last year, there were 1.96 billion social media users around the world, and 81 percent of Americans had a social media profile on at least one platform.
LOVE YOUR FRIENDS, EMBRACE YOUR ENEMIES Social media is a twoway conversation. Deal with negative feedback quickly and professionally. Don’t get defensive and don’t ignore it. Recognize negative feedback as an opportunity to convert somebody who may be upset into a potential customer, McGugan said. UNDERSTAND TARGETING The amount of social targeting data available is astounding and you should develop deep customer personas to utilize it to maximum effect. However, the key to social targeting is to not only understand who the user is, but how they interact with the platform. “With our precise targeting methods, we reach your audience in the
most efficient and direct manner for your specific product or service,” McGugan said. “This strategy will help you achieve your business goals by connecting you with the perfect clients for your business.” KNOW YOUR TOOLS The days of winning the internet with a basic text comment are over. Most social media platforms offer their own suite of sophisticated tools to tell your stories. From stories to videos, you can create powerful marketing with nothing more than a cellphone. “The ability to create experiences rather than simply ads with the Facebook Ads platform is extraordinary,” McGugan said. “These experiences can elevate your brand in ways you never thought possible, but only if you’re willing to work and learn.”
TO PAY OR NOT TO PAY Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Instagram want you to pay to reach your audience — and they stack their algorithms accordingly. As social media networks move increasingly to a pay-toplay model, they introduce new ways to have you pay for the use of their data. That means that an organic audience on social media can take you only so far. “If you’re not paying to advertise on social media, just know that your competitors already are,” McGugan said. MEASURE, ADJUST Social media knows everything about their audiences and provides the tools to measure your success. If you are working with a third-party vendor, make sure they provide reports. Moreover, use this data to your advantage to improve your results.
“ABT-Always be testing,” McGugan said. “Instead of throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, take the extra time to do research on your competitors or a brand you strive to emulate to see what works for them. It’s a fantastic opportunity to see where you stand and what you do better than the rest.” KEEP UP WITH BEST PRACTICES You don’t want your posts to look dated. You don’t want pixelated photos or images that have been cropped badly. In other words, what works for your motherin-law’s personal page is not sufficient for your brand. “You need to treat your business’s social media presence like an extension of your business. If you don’t take yourself seriously, neither will your customers,” McGugan said.
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A TEAM EFFORT Creating niche in urban retail takes collaboration, broker says BY STEVE LACKMEYER Business Writer slackmeyer@oklahoman.com
Walker Avenue in Midtown, once a stretch of blighted and mostly darkened buildings, is after a decadelong transformation now lined with apartments, offices, restaurants, bakeries, clothing and gift shops, salons and a hotel. It’s the sort of walk that awed Allison Bailey as a young girl when she visited similar throwback retail stretches in smaller towns in Oklahoma and Texas. Armed with that passion, relationships with small retailers and developers, Bailey, a broker with Price Edwards, has emerged as a go-to person in putting together deals to bring shopping back to downtown. In addition to being on the team that turned Walker Avenue into a walkable retail stretch assembled by Midtown Renaissance, Bailey is also at work with the Steelyard, the Rock Island Plow building in Bricktown, and with multiple developments by the Pivot Project. “I really grew up going to these Main Street shopping areas like Bethany and Spring, Texas, and that was a special treat,” Bailey said. “As I got older, independent and got out of college, I found myself connected to Western Avenue, which was one of the main older retail areas in Oklahoma City at the time. It wasn’t a walkable street, but I loved the frequency and cadence of the buildings and the mix of retailers. When I would walk in, the owner was at the register.” Some might assume Bailey pursued a marketing degree in college, but while the creative side of her brain is part of the equation, Bailey describes herself as a numbers person whose degree was in finance and economics. After college, Bailey took a job as a gas scheduler with Chesapeake Energy — a task that involved waking up early each day to catch the markets starting at 7 a.m. All along, she maintained a blog and database she started in college to create a onestop site online for local retailers. “The website developed from that — these were businesses that were harder to find,” Bailey said. “And they were at a disadvantage, so maybe we could put them all together on a website and database. Then Yelp and Facebook pages blew up, and there were so many opportunities for small businesses to market themselves. It was great for them, but it made what I wanted to do obsolete.” Bailey, however, had built up a growing array of relationships with retailers and aspiring retailers with whom she worked with as a consultant when she left Chesapeake after a three-year stint. Bailey took her next big step forward assembling the first Holiday Pop-Up Shops in the Park House building at the Myriad Botanical Gardens in 2012. Using wall dividers, Bailey created a place for retailers and aspiring retailers to connect with downtown visitors celebrating the holidays. “At the time I didn’t
have a lot of consulting work during the holiday season,” Bailey said. “We lined stuff up for the Christmas season, but I didn’t get a lot of work because the shop owners didn’t have any time to communicate with me.” The pop-ups grew and moved to Midtown, with a string of retailers going from temporary or just online sites to opening permanent stores throughout the greater downtown area. Bailey is quick to say she is just a part of a larger team effort with Walker Avenue, which required closing parking spots to build new storefronts, creating sidewalk plazas and moving trash dumpsters. “The Walker Avenue design involved so many people,” Bailey said. “It
may have seemed to be relatively insignificant, but it mattered a lot to the street. There were so many involved, and you had to have a developer who thought it was worth it.” Being a numbers person remains a big part of the job for Bailey as she works with retailers and developers. “It’s lovely to have all these people and places and things, but the reality is everyone needs to make money,” Bailey said. “Everyone needs to make a living whether they are a retailer or an artist, someone looking to sell with a local retailer, or a developer who owns a building and is looking for a retailer. Everyone needs to make money if it is to be sustainable.”
Allison Bailey, right, visits March 1 with Ben Nockels on the sidewalk in front of his store, Commonplace Books in Midtown, just south of NW 13 on Walker Avenue. [PHOTO BY JIM BECKEL, THE OKLAHOMAN]
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IN RECOGNITION MTM officials say happy employees make for successful company BY DAVID DISHMAN Business Writer ddishman@oklahoman.com
A local company known for its iconic sports products is big on business culture. MTM Recognition produces the Heisman Trophy, more than a dozen college bowl game awards and NCAA championship trophies. There’s no doubt it’s a cool business to be in, but the company is much more than sports awards. Corporate recognition programs provided the company the ability to grow to where it is now, and MTM employees are passionate about one thing in particular. “We’re trying to build culture,” said Cory Beltz, MTM Recognition director of sports business development. “That’s something you can’t do overnight. It’s what every CEO wants, but it takes time and planning.” Founded by Dave Smith in 1971, MTM Recognition specializes in physical and digital recognition programs. The company’s Del City campus provides production facilities for its online and in-person products. The recognition programs and products built by MTM Recognition provide employers the ability to reward employees while enforcing corporate values. MTM Director of Communications Donna Lamprecht believes this leads to better employee engagement, especially when a product is unique to a company and valued by the employee. “What we do is important because in the business world if you don’t have a good recognition effort in place, if you don’t engage your employees, you don’t keep your employees,” Lamprecht said. “It’s critical to the bottom line of your company.” The craftsmanship is
MTM Recognition Director of Communications Donna Lamprecht and Director of Sports Business Development Cory Beltz examine a showroom of trophies made by the company on Feb. 20. [PHOTOS BY JIM BECKEL, THE OKLAHOMAN]
evident in MTM’s production of the instantly recognizable items, like the Heisman, but the company is positioned to provide similar detail and design to other products. “We can make very customized products, heritage-type items,” Beltz said. “If you work at John Deere for 20 years and you get a heritage piece of jewelry, it has got to be unique. It can’t be just something you get on Amazon.com. Those are the things that give us an edge in this industry.” Gifts of this nature offer fiscal savings for companies because of tax breaks, Beltz said. “This industry stems out of the fact that you can do years of service and safety programs, you can deliver a value to your employee, give them a warm fuzzy feeling, and you don’t have to pay taxes on them,” Beltz said.
A display features various trophies, awards and other items designed to reward achievement and produced by MTM Recognition.
Additionally, emotional value felt by the employee can surpass the price of some form of recognition. Lamprecht uses the Olympics as an illustration, saying an athlete
cherishes the status of winning a medal far more than if the medal’s value in cash were awarded, or a substitute item like a high-definition television were given as a prize
instead. This recognition doesn’t have to be a physical trophy. MTM Recognition has grown due in large part to its development of digital
recognition programs for businesses and corporations. Instead of sculpting statues and assembling prized possessions for a mantle, websites are designed and built for individual companies in order to highlight achievements of employees. It’s all designed to foster the same engagement from employees and reinforce the company’s culture. “Happy employees equal a great workforce and a successful company,” Lamprecht said. Lamprecht and Beltz both believe employees at MTM Recognition exhibit this trait, contributing to the company’s success. Beltz said it’s the best way for others to grow their business. “Get your people involved,” Beltz said. “If you have a small group of engaged people, you can do anything. You can take on the world.”
‘A HEART FOR PEOPLE’ Helping others is key to a business’ success, Bob Funk says BY WILLIAM CRUM Staff Writer wcrum@oklahoman.com
Bob Funk says he realized the ministry was not his calling when he found there was a “great awakening at the end of every sermon.” Yet, if ministry’s mission is hope, Funk found his calling — and success helping families and communities — by giving individuals a leg up in the job market. Funk co-founded Express Employment Professionals, begun in 1983 in Oklahoma City, and serves the company as president and board vice chairman. Growing from 30 franchises in 11 states in 1984, Express reported matching 540,000 job-seekers with about 84,000 companies in three countries in 2017. The privately held staffing firm reported $3.4 billion in sales and just awarded its 800th franchise. Funk’s aim is for 900 franchises helping 1 million people find work annually. That, in a nutshell, is Bob Funk’s secret to success. “I’ve always lived by goals in my life,” he says. “A person without a goal is like a ship with-
Bob Funk, owner of Express Ranches and president and board vice chairman of Express Employment Professionals, is shown with “Dillan” on Aug. 2 at the Express Clydesdales Barn in Yukon. [PHOTO BY STEVE GOOCH, THE OKLAHOMAN]
out a rudder.” Funk recalls milking cows twice a day, seven days a week as a 14-yearold on a cousin’s dairy farm in Duvall, Washington. He also recalls thinking milking cows was not for him. By 18, he had set goals: explore the ministry, become a rancher, be an entrepreneur.
Funk studied theology and business at Seattle Pacific University, where he worked up to No. 1 singles on the tennis team. At the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, he undertook graduate studies in theology and joined the basketball team. The season produced just two losses and a victory over Oxford. All these years later,
Funk, now 77, leaves no doubt that beating Oxford was a big deal for the boys from Edinburgh. Back in the States, he returned to Seattle Pacific to complete his graduate degrees and wound up with Acme Personnel Services out of Spokane, Washington. He rose to vice president and was dispatched to Oklahoma city where,
with his executive team, he eventually acquired a stake in the company. Some on the team, he says, have been together 40 years. The group brought to the enterprise a strong work ethic, loyalty to one another and “a heart for people,” he says. And the business grew. Success is measured in many ways but “help-
ing” is a word that ties it together for Funk. For managers, helping others reach their goals. For job-seekers, helping them find where they want to be. For franchisees, supporting their goals as entrepreneurs. “The more people they help, the more money comes running through their doors,” Funk says. As his company’s No. 1 entrepreneur, Funk has turned his business smarts to cattle ranching, making Express Ranches of Yukon a top seedstock operation. He said his interests include 8,000 cattle, Angus and Herefords, and 200,000 acres of ranchland. Express Ranches’ annual spring bull sale in March reportedly grossed nearly $3 million. Students whose heifers are show prize winners have received $4.1 million in Express Ranches scholarships, he says. Funk’s champion black-and-white Express Clydesdales appear in draft horse competitions, shows, parades, fairs and other events. Having a goal and keeping at it is never far from his mind. “The more you help people,” he says, “the more successful your life becomes.”
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Carican Flavors owner Sharon McMillan prepares a lunch dish at her restaurant in Oklahoma City on Feb. 8. [PHOTOS BY CHRIS LANDSBERGER, THE OKLAHOMAN]
TASTE OF SUCCESS Caribbean restaurant is thriving in northeast Oklahoma City BY DAVID DISHMAN Business Writer ddishman@oklahoman.com
You don’t have to leave the state, or even Oklahoma City, to get a taste of the Caribbean. The next time you’re feeling like you’ve had one too many onion burgers, or an overpriced and under-portioned brunch, consider taking a trip to Carican Flavors for a more exotic array of options to please your palate. Open for more than 12 years, Carican Flavors is succeeding in the Oklahoma City restaurant scene by sticking to its owner’s roots. “The key to our success is what we are doing is a ministry to our community,” Owner Sharon McMillan said. “It’s not just about making money. We did this because it was some kind of calling.” McMillan moved to the United States when she was 17. Born in Trinidad and Tobago, McMillan would later call on her Caribbean roots when opening Carican Flavors. She originally lived in New York City, but moved with her husband to Oklahoma City 18 years ago. “We have family here,” McMillan said. “I have a cousin who was stationed here for the Air Force.” McMillan, who has a business degree and no prior experience in the restaurant industry, worked
ABOVE AND RIGHT: McMillan serves up lunch for customers Feb. 8 at her restaurant, 2701 N Martin Luther King Ave. in Oklahoma City.
in business finance in New York and her first several years in Oklahoma. The idea for a restaurant came later, when McMillan and her husband realized they were missing something. “During that time we missed the Caribbean food from New York,” McMillan said. “We decided, ‘Why not open a restaurant?’” Working with her husband, father and other family members, McMillan did just that. “The plan was to open a restaurant and cook like we cook at home,” McMillan said. It wasn’t easy, she said. Opening a new restaurant, and one so different from the standard Oklahoma
fare, required time for customers to grow acquainted with the menu and for word of the Caribbean food to spread. “Initially it was hell,” McMillan said. But McMillan and her family were committed. She relied on her financial experience in the business world to ensure the restaurant was fiscally sound. “Sink or float, this is what we are doing,” McMillan said. “And so far we have been floating.” It’s still very much a family operation. She coowns the restaurant with her husband, her father helps clean the building every night and her children work shifts. The food has been all
homemade Caribbean from the start. Serving dishes like oxtail, goat and lamb, with sides such as plantains, Carican Flavors offers flavors unique to this part of the country. Hungry customers can visit the restaurant at 2701 N Martin Luther King Ave, or have an event catered. Even after almost 13 years, McMillan says her restaurant is still largely undiscovered. She hopes that changes. “Still a lot of folks don’t know we are here,” McMillan said. “I feel we
are still undiscovered. No matter what, we are always looking for growth.” McMillan would like the business to develop to a point where it would be possible to take a step back from the day-today operations in the
coming years. Until that point, this successful restaurateur can be found serving up tropical flavors in landlocked Oklahoma City. For an authentic taste of the Caribbean, Carican Flavors is a sure bet.
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Rustic Cuff owner and founder Jill Donovan visits the Classen Curve Rustic Cuff location on Feb. 27 in Oklahoma City. [PHOTOS BY STEVE SISNEY, THE OKLAHOMAN]
‘FULL CIRCLE MOMENT’ Embarrassment leads to success for Rustic Cuff owner BY DAVID DISHMAN Business Writer ddishman@oklahoman.com
Oklahoma’s own Rustic Cuff jewelry is worn by celebrities around the world, but it took a scolding on the Oprah Winfrey Show to make it all possible. Jill Donovan had the opportunity of a lifetime when she was invited to appear on Oprah’s show to talk about her practice of regifting. Donovan had submitted an application online when she noticed Oprah was seeking regifters to appear on the show, and expected to share some fun stories regarding her regifting practices. But with the cameras rolling, Donovan faced harsh critiques from a panel of Oprah’s etiquette experts who told Donovan what she did was rude and tacky. Devastated, Donovan turned the disappointment into motivation. “What I thought was going to be a fun show turned out to be something embarrassing,” Donovan said. “After I was on the show, years passed and I decided I was going to move past the embarrassment. What happened on the Oprah show inspired me.” That inspiration led to the creation of Rustic Cuff jewelry. Donovan began crafting bracelets from a spare bedroom in her house. Working into the early hours of the morning, she crafted the jewelry as gifts for friends, family and loved ones. She didn’t sell them at first, just did so for the love of the process. Donovan didn’t even intend to turn it into a business. “I was never intending to be an entrepreneur,” Donovan said. “Because that to me meant work. I never knew work could be something you get to do instead of something you have to do.” Donovan is an attorney and was a professor at the time. What became Rustic Cuff was just a onewoman operation. But demand for the product forced a change of plans. Word got out about the handmade jewelry, and soon Donovan was meeting people she’d never met before interested in her products. She began selling the jewelry and hasn’t looked back. “I really think it was because I wasn’t focused and concentrating on
Rustic Cuff bracelets are on display at the Classen Curve Rustic Cuff location Feb. 27 in Oklahoma City. [PHOTOS BY STEVE SISNEY, THE OKLAHOMAN]
When I first started, it was almost always making custom work. To me the heart of Rustic Cuff is the custom work we do for people. Anyone can make bracelets, but the meaning behind them ... that is what sets this apart. Jill Donovan
Displays show Rustic Cuff jewelry at the Classen Curve Rustic Cuff location in Oklahoma City.
sales,” Donovan said. “It truly was for fun for me.” Without a marketing budget, Donovan began sending Rustic Cuff gifts to celebrities. Donovan would take the time to personalize each gift in the hopes it would strike a chord with whoever would be receiving the Rustic Cuff, and they would be proud to wear it. One person she sent a gift to was Gayle King, one of Oprah’s best
friends. Donovan loves watching King on television and thought it would be great to see her wearing a Rustic Cuff product on TV. What she didn’t anticipate was what happened next. After sending King a collection of Rustic Cuff gifts, Donovan received a letter informing her Rustic Cuff would be appearing on the March 2015 cover of O, The Oprah Magazine — on Oprah’s wrist. The woman on
whose show Donovan had been so embarrassed, the one that effectively motivated her to launch Rustic Cuff, would now be wearing a piece of that jewelry. Not just any Rustic Cuff, but one Donovan had sent to King. “The irony of Oprah wearing a bracelet was a full circle moment for me,” Donovan said. “You don’t often get confirmation moments like that.” But where did Win-
frey get the Rustic Cuff bracelet? There’s strong evidence it was regifted. “We weren’t selling it at the time; it was one we had made for Gayle King,” Donovan said. Donovan can’t worry too much about how Oprah ended up wearing her product, as her business has exploded. Donovan was the lone employee when the company began in 2011. She hired her first employee in 2012. But now? Rus-
tic Cuff employs 170 and retails from six showrooms, as well as online, for its products. Even with all the change, the mission stays the same. “When I first started, it was almost always making custom work,” Donovan said. “To me the heart of Rustic Cuff is the custom work we do for people. Anyone can make bracelets, but the meaning behind them ... that is what sets this apart.”
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Travis Davidson, left, and Taber LeBlanc explain the filtration system that Taber Built Homes uses in the learning center of the company’s model home at 18508 Groveton Blvd. [PHOTO BY CHRIS LANDSBERGER, THE OKLAHOMAN]
BUILDING ON SUCCESS Oklahoma City-area homebuilders share their stories BY RICHARD MIZE Real Estate Editor rmize@oklahoman.com
The top homebuilders in the Oklahoma City area are in a tight pack, constructionwise, but just one topped 400 starts last year: Home Creations, based in Moore, with 406. Finishing out the top three, according to The Builder Report by Dharma Inc. in Norman: Taber Built Homes LLC, doing business as Homes By Taber, Oklahoma City, with 358; and Rausch Coleman Homes OKC, based in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with offices here, with 351. (Homes By Taber says it had 375 starts in 2017). Oklahoma City builders are small-volume builders. Below the top five, the numbers drop off fast. Most build fewer than 40 houses per year. None has a corporate
face and a consumer face. Real people run these mostly small businesses — even the biggest ones. We asked people at each of the top three how they got where they are, the same set of questions, and let them answer as fully as they wished: 1. How, when and where did you get started? 2. Who is your target market(s) and why? 3. Where are you building now/next? Why? 4. To what do you owe your success? 5. What’s your outlook for the rest of 2018? Here are the secrets to top Oklahoma City builders’ success: NO. 1, HOMES BY TABER Taber LeBlanc, president, replied: Q: How, when and where did you get started? A: Homes by Taber was
formed in 2000 by Taber LeBlanc and his wife, Julie. Julie’s father was a well-known developer and homebuilder (John Alexander) who helped Taber get his start in the industry. Homes by Taber grew from starting three homes in 2000 to starting 375 homes in 2017.
Q: Where are you building Q: Who is your target market(s) and why? A: Our goal is to pro-
vide the absolute best option for move-up buyers in the metro. We primarily target those that already own a home and are now looking for more. That could be more space, a better school district, more neighborhood amenities, or more included features in their home. We sell to firsttime homebuyers and downsize buyers, as well, but the majority of the homeowners joining our Homes by Taber family are moving into their
This home by Home Creations is underway at 1112 SW 137 in the Palermo Place addition. [PHOTO BY STEVE SISNEY, THE OKLAHOMAN]
second or third home. Most of our buyers compare us to other builders before purchasing. They pick Homes by Taber due to the value we create. They get so much more for their money with Homes by Taber. This is why we promote “Proudly Overbuilt.”
now/next? Why? A: When we
select neighborhoods, we only want to build in A+ locations with highly rated school districts. We know this is what our buyers are looking for, so we will not sacrifice locations for them. We have several comingsoon neighborhoods that
we are extremely excited about. All of them have created quite a stir with buyers looking to make them their next home. Woodland Park, located on the northwest corner of E Covell Road and N Douglas Boulevard in East Edmond. SEE BUILDERS, 8S
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We chose this location because of the close proximity to Interstate 35 and the enormous growth that is happening in that area. Everything is moving to this area, including the new Edmond event center and Showbiz Cinemas. Woodland Park will be different than any other neighborhood in Edmond with a huge, resort-style swimming pool to give our customers a way to spend their free time. Homes by Taber is also building soon in the newest phase of IronStone (near) Edmond. IronStone is in a prime Edmond location, the southwest corner of 164th and Portland. Portland has just recently been widened and redone to allow residents to commute easily and stress free. While not all pricing and floor plans have been solidified, our homes in IronStone will provide an affordable option for Edmond schools that is jam packed with “Proudly Overbuilt” value. Cedar Lane is the other newest neighborhood that we cannot wait to start in, which should be within the next month. Cedar Lane is located in Norman off of 12th Ave SE and E Cedar Lane. This neighborhood has our phones ringing off the hooks because it’s the first time in a while that Homes by Taber has started to build in this area. We are proud to be able to start offering our Proudly Overbuilt homes to Norman buyers very soon! TimberRidge Pointe is a neighborhood that we will be moving into in 2019. This neighborhood is very special for Homes by Taber because it is in an area we’ve never been in before but is rapidly growing, Choctaw. Through our research, we’ve seen that there is a demand for our homes there so we are working to meet that demand in this gorgeous neighborhood with huge ponds, tons of trees, and amazing highway access.
This is the Taber Built Homes model at 18508 Groveton Blvd. in the Grove addition in northwest Oklahoma City. [PHOTO BY CHRIS LANDSBERGER, THE OKLAHOMAN]
• “Proudly Overbuilt”: We say that we are proudly overbuilt with everything you’ve dreamed of, already included. Homes by Taber puts more into a home than any other builder in the region, without upgrades. We don’t believe in smoke and mirrors, but rather a what-you-see-iswhat-you-get mentality. • Giving back to the community: We take great pride in giving back to the community as a company with over 900 hours and over $100,000 given back to the community just last year. We were recently awarded the Edmond Chamber Philanthropic Business of the Year Award. We believe that you get what you give and if we do good for the community, good things will happen for our company.
This is the kitchen in the Taber Built Homes model at 18508 Groveton Boulevard in the Grove addition in northwest Oklahoma City. [PHOTO BY CHRIS LANDSBERGER, THE OKLAHOMAN]
Q: What’s your outlook for the rest of 2018? A: 2017 was a record
setting year for us, and we are not slowing down. We have multiple new additions coming online this year. We are hiring and continuing to grow our team. Our 2018 projections are for another record-breaking year for Homes by Taber.
Q: To what do you owe your success? • Employees and partners:
We have assembled the best team of employees and partners (subcontractors/vendors) that the region has to offer. We have built a culture in our company and with our partners based upon accountability and communication. Without the teamwork and teammates we have surrounded ourselves with, we would not be successful. We take great pride in our employee and partner retention rates and know that by keeping these relationships strong, it betters our company, our customers, and our economy. • Customer service: We know that our customers are the reason why we are here. If we make a mistake, we fix it. From our sales team, to our field team, to our warranty team we put the customer’s needs first. • Quality controls: At Homes by Taber, we have implemented quality control checks through every single step of the building process that have allowed us to provide a quality home every time to our buyers. Processes and procedures can make or break a homebuilder, so we put a huge emphasis on this each day in every department. We go above and beyond the code requirements to provide a safe, healthy, energy efficient home for our Homes by Taber families.
Ali Farzaneh
NO. 2, HOME CREATIONS Co-owner Ali Farzaneh replied. He, his brother Hossein, a lawyer, and cousin MJ, director of construction for nearly 20 years, represent the second generation of leadership in the company. Q: How, when and where did you get started? A: Home Creations was
started by my father, Jalal Farzaneh, and my uncle Mohammed Farzaneh. They moved to Oklahoma (from Iran) in 1978 to go to school. In 1981, they received their bachelor’s degrees, and in 1984 they received their Master of Architecture degrees from the University of Oklahoma and followed their father’s footsteps, as a master builder, by building their first home in Norman. As the company grew, Home Creations expanded to the greater Oklahoma City area, Lawton, Chickasha and Tulsa. Today, we have built over 12,000 homes SEE BUILDERS, 9S
Home Creations built these homes on Celeste Lane in the Palermo Place addition in southwest Oklahoma City. [PHOTO BY STEVE SISNEY, THE OKLAHOMAN]
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Sales representative Brice McManus shows the Rausch Coleman Homes model home at 7716 Leichter Ave. in the Wilshire Ranch addition, south of Wilshire Boulevard, west of Council Road. [PHOTOS BY STEVE SISNEY, THE OKLAHOMAN]
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in Oklahoma. The second generation is now becoming more involved and taking on the leadership of the company. MJ Farzaneh, who is Mohammad’s son, is the director of construction. Ali and Hossein Farzaneh, who are Jalal’s sons, are in charge of sales and marketing, and investment and legal, respectively. Q. Who is your target market(s) and why? A: Our focus remains on
first-time homebuyers and first-time moverups. This is the segment of the market that desires quality housing, and we are uniquely positioned to deliver high-quality homes at a price that customers cannot get anywhere else. Q: Where are you building now/next? Why? A: We build in the
greater Oklahoma City metro area, Tulsa metro area and Chickasha. In Oklahoma, we plan to focus in Norman in 2019, especially on Destin Landing, the largest development in the city’s history, with 762 master-planned acres, an open space community including an equestrian facility and trail. Q: To what do you owe your success? A: We strongly believe
that our quality of construction is unparalleled, especially behind the walls. We provide one of the best energy-efficient homes of any builder in Oklahoma. We strive to secure the best locations in Oklahoma, as well as the most valuable prices for the homes we construct. We have had a recent focus on smart homes using technology. In addition, we have a robust customer care department, as well as an easy purchasing process. Our strongest focus remains on customer experience throughout the purchasing and building process. Q: What’s your outlook for the rest of 2018? A: We expect to build
10 percent more homes in 2018 as we recently opened up Castleberry Villas and Lone Oak East in the city of Edmond. With the size and price of
This Rausch Coleman Homes model home and sales center at 7716 Leichter Ave. in the Wilshire Ranch addition in northwest Oklahoma City.
homes in these two communities, we will outperform most other communities in the Oklahoma City metro area. NO. 3, RAUSCH COLEMAN
mont. • Bryant Place, Oklahoma City. • Hunter Springs, Mustang. • Crossings at the Village, The Village. • Rose Rock, Noble. • Settlers Crossing, El Reno. • Silver Leaf, Mustang. • Fieldstone, Mustang. • Redstone Ranch, Yukon. • Oakwood Landing, Midwest City. • Wilshire Ranch, Oklahoma City.
Abbey Perman, marketing and listing administrator, replied. Q: How, when and where did you get started? A: The heritage of
Rausch Coleman Homes began on May 6, 1936, when our founder, Ernest R. “Buddy” Coleman, was born in Barling, Arkansas. In 1955, at the age of 18, Buddy Coleman built his first home that sold for less than $5,700. As the son of a carpenter, Buddy Coleman supported his family by building homes, while also attending Ouachita Baptist University. Given a choice of what type of builder he wanted the company to be, Mr. Coleman chose to provide housing people could afford. John R. Rausch, Coleman’s grandson, has been working side by side with his grandfather since he was 8 years old. Since his childhood, Mr. Rausch has been learning the company’s philosophies and implementing its visions. In the spirit of competition, he built his first home at the age of 17 (one year younger than his grandfather). As he grew older, he became progressively more involved in the company’s opera-
Q. To what do you owe your success?
A room staged for a baby in the Rausch Coleman Homes model at 7716 Leichter Ave.
tions and expansions. John R. Rausch, a graduate of Southern Methodist University, studied business and real estate finance. Remaining faithful to our heritage, our mission, our mandate, and our goal, in the last 60 years and throughout four generations, we have built over 20,000 new homes across Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas. Rausch Coleman Homes is the largest builder of new homes in the states of Oklahoma and Arkansas. In 2016, Rausch Coleman Homes was recognized by Builder Magazine as the 41st largest builder in the USA.
Q: Who is your target market(s) and why? A: Our target market
Q: Where are you building now/next? Why? A: Our current neigh-
and audience are firsttime homebuyers and renters. At Rausch Coleman Homes, we aspire to build the best-quality affordable homes, and we hold ourselves accountable to that goal. In our Oklahoma City division, we strive for excellence in our customer’s experience. Our sales professionals guide our homebuyers through the entire homebuying process, starting from buying power, credit repair, to whatever is needed to help lead them into homeownership.
borhood locations were chosen for many different reasons. Here at Rausch Coleman Homes we keep our customers in mind at all times. We are a customer-obsessed company. These neighborhoods have our customers’ families in mind. We consider the school districts, outdoor entertainment and convenient locations. Rausch Coleman is building all over the Oklahoma City metro area. Our communities are: • Bradford Place, Newcastle. • Colony Pointe, Pied-
At Rausch Coleman Homes, we honor God through our commitment to integrity and excellence in all aspects of homebuilding. We place the highest value upon the customer by exceeding expectations, and upon our team members by committing to professional development. We aspire to build the best-quality affordable homes and we hold ourselves accountable to that goal: customer-driven, integrity-driven, servicedriven, people-driven, and results-driven. Q: What’s your outlook for the rest of 2018? A: Our outlook for 2018
is to help as many people as possible to achieve the dream of homeownership. We are committed to our core values and growing exponentially in the coming year, to better serve OKC and the surrounding areas.
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THE OKLAHOMAN | NEWSOK.COM
Construction of apartments, retail and structured parking surrounds the 21c Museum Hotel. The West Village development is led by Andy Burnett and Mark Beffort. [OKLAHOMAN ARCHIVES PHOTO]
DESIGNED TO SUCCEED Developers explain ‘secret sauce’ to creating a new Oklahoma City BY STEVE LACKMEYER Business Writer slackmeyer@oklahoman.com
Devon Energy Center and BOK Park Plaza stand tall as testament to the downtown Oklahoma City renaissance that has taken place over the past 25 years. But they make up only a third of the almost $3 billion in private investment that has taken place since voters approved the Metropolitan Area Projects in 1993. A group of developers, all under the age of 50, are among those fueling the revival. They include Andy Burnett, who was an early partner in The Steelyard in east Bricktown and is teamed up with Mark Beffort in developing the $70 million West Village along Film Row and restoring the Pioneer Telephone Building at the gateway to Automobile Alley. Richard McKown, whose family’s legacy is in building homes throughout the metro area, has built hundreds of apartments, along with a mix of restaurants and shops in Deep Deuce. Blair Humphreys, meanwhile, is in the midst of building a mixed-use development, Wheeler, at the former Downtown Airpark along the Oklahoma River. David Wanzer, a former designer, Ben Sellers, who previously reviewed applications for federal housing development loans at HUD, and former banker Jonathan Dodson were getting their start separately in development when they teamed up to form the Pivot Project. Their work includes Tower Theatre, Sunshine Cleaners and Main Street Arcade — all redevelopments of historic buildings. They also are redeveloping older buildings along NE 23 into retail, restaurants and offices. Among the six, it’s doubtful to find one who hasn’t worked or consulted with someone in the group. They recently visited with The Oklahoman to discuss “the secret sauce” of becoming a successful developer in urban Oklahoma City. Q: Was development your first career choice? And how did you go about becoming a developer? Burnett: I knew pretty
early on I wanted to own real estate, whether that was buying existing buildings or building buildings. I knew pretty early in life that was
Developers under 50 share the secrets to success in creating a new downtown. From left, David Wanzer, Ben Sellers, Richard McKown, Jonathan Dodson, Andy Burnett and Blair Humphreys. [PHOTO BY DOUG HOKE, THE OKLAHOMAN]
Josh Kitchen, Blair Humphreys and Greg McAlister, from left, discuss plans for housing being built this spring at Wheeler along the Oklahoma River. [PHOTO BY CHRIS LANDSBERGER, THE OKLAHOMAN ARCHIVES]
something I wanted to do. I felt becoming a broker was the best vehicle toward learning how to underwrite and finance deals, how to find tenants, and so I started as a broker. Wanzer: When I went back to architecture school, I did want to develop my own projects. That was a goal. But I had a traditional path in architecture where I was designing buildings for other people. My segway
into development was through architecture. Learning through architecture was my path to getting to do projects. Sellers: I did not know I wanted to be a developer, and I didn’t know what a developer was, but I always wanted to own real estate. I always thought it would be in the form of single family housing. I started that path as an appraiser and I thought that was the best way to learn real estate,
by learning how to value real estate. And that led me to development. Humphreys: Our family has over 40 years of experience managing investment in real estate. Only this most recent generation with my brother and I have we been foolish enough to try to develop it. My interest is in the larger systems of how cities work and getting to see how MAPS impacted Oklahoma City. I wanted to see how we can make
the city a better place to live. Real estate development is a part of that. That led me to pursue a master’s in city planning and urban design. I worked for years on the planning side and teaching at OU with the Institute of Quality Communities. Wheeler District is just a door that opened for me, and I decided to give it a go. The scale of the project allows us to tackle some of the bigger challenges of how cit-
ies work, how neighborhoods work and to get it all to work together. Dodson: I was a banker for about 10 years. I was friends with all of these guys. I went on a trip with Andy to California, and he told me I should quit banking, that I was a bad banker (the group laughs and Burnett denies the claim) and that I would be a better developer. I then got a chance to work with my neighbor (Humphreys), and that was a terrible decision. We lasted 60 days. David and Ben felt bad for me, and that was the start of Pivot Project (the entire group is again laughing and rushing to correct the record). Burnett: Jonathan was such a good banker that he went with me to California to look at an RV park I was thinking of buying. Humphreys: The truth in that story is Jon got an opportunity to step into a partnership with the Tower Theatre (with Wanzer and Sellers) prior to our partnership’s final days. But you (Dodson) were a frustrated banker — it would be a fascinating comparison of banker Jonathan and developer Jonathan. McKown: I ran away in third grade to become a portrait painter. All I wanted to do was to SEE DEVELOP, 11S
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CASTING A WIDE NET State agency, strategic partners build more diverse Oklahoma economy
T
he Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST) was created by the state Legislature during the depth of the oil bust in 1987. OCAST was established to diversify and grow Oklahoma’s economy through science and technology-based activities that would ensure that the state would not depend on any one industry sector. Along the way, OCAST developed nationally acclaimed research support programs and strategic partnerships that today are advancing research and development, technology inventions, innovations, entrepreneurship and STEMrelated jobs across multiple industry sectors, including aerospace and defense, bioscience and biotechnology, information technology and advanced manufacturing. “Oklahoma has a storied history in making things, growing things, inventing things and doing innovative entrepreneurial things that are foundational for increased growth and scalability,” said C. Michael Carolina, OCAST executive director. “Together with our strategic partners and
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become an artist. I’m still trying to fail forward with that side of my life. But I was born into this. And when I decided to go to graduate school and get a Master’s degree in sculpture, it was with a focus on building sculpture parks as opposed to golf course communities. And then through working with several artists at Boston University, the idea of using art inside major commercial projects as a transformative way of place-making has become a major theme with which my architecture team has been working. Placemaking is about this larger idea of place-making and public art being a part of that. It’s a dream job. Not to one-up Blair, but this is my family’s 50th year in business and I am second generation. Q: You are all under the age of 50. And all together, you’re not that far off from doing about $250 million in development. What is it about Oklahoma City that has provided you with a pretty fertile environment for people of a younger age to strike out into development and see some success? Burnett: When I gradu-
ated college, most of my buddies moved out to New York, Los Angeles; they moved out of town. I actually accepted a job in New York and I changed my mind after 9/11. The opportunities that existed in Oklahoma City for our generation were much greater than what could be found in any of those other markets because of the oil bust of the ’80s. The oil bust wiped out that generation above our group that ordinarily would have put a ceiling on opportunities. Those people during the 1980s mostly left. There is only a few of them — the Mark Befforts and Gary Brooks — remaining, due to the oil bust. And because of that we have opportunities I would not have had in New York or even Dallas. Wanzer: A lot of folks from when Andy graduated college and when
Jim Stafford
OK INNOVATIONS
alliances, we are supporting cutting-edge R&D, technology-based startups, small business and workforce development by growing a culture of innovation across Oklahoma and transforming Oklahoma into a major technology corridor.” OCAST has funded nearly 2,700 projects over the past three decades and realized a 22:1 return for every dollar of state investment. The $294 million invested in research and development through OCAST has returned $6.5 billion in total economic impact, including private-sector and federal funding, investment in facilities, jobs and sales. And, the OCAST Intern Partnership program has been described as a “win-win-win” for the state’s colleges and universities, businesses and students in talent development, retention and recruiting. OCAST pursues economic development through a collaboration that involves governI graduated college left the state, so it did provide fewer people in this pond in our age bracket. This town has always been about relationship building. I hesitate to use the word “networking” because that implies it’s just about getting to know people to see what they can do for you. But this town is built on relationships and getting to know people. So you have quick access to people who make decisions — from politicians to bankers to mentors who are older than us. There is easy access in this town because of relationships. It’s about doing business with people we like. That’s a unique part of Oklahoma City that is different from other cities. Humphreys: If there is a secret sauce to Oklahoma City, it is that we do relationships well. Burnett: This table represents a big chunk of a small pond. Everyone is buddies. You are rooting for each other. That’s not normal. Humphreys: People at this table are still competitive. But they are not envious. And that is an important difference. They can celebrate each others’ success while still striving to lift the bar. Dodson: I will be curious to see if that can be maintained with the upcoming generation. All of these relationships were not grounded while we were trying to get to the top. We all wanted to see Oklahoma City become a better city. We felt like we all might play a role in that. Sellers: I personally never had a desire to live anywhere else. I wanted to visit other places like New York, Denver and Dallas. I did go to Dallas for a while. But I always wanted to live here. I visited other cities to see how they were doing development and how to bring cool buildings to Oklahoma City. And then Dodson lent me money, and that’s how I got into the business. Burnett: That’s how Jonathan and I met — on the Steelyard. Humphreys: The other side of how the history
C. Michael Carolina is executive director of Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST). [OKLAHOMAN ARCHIVES PHOTO]
ment, business and academia. Its strategic partners are the Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance (OMA), now in its 25th year; i2E Inc., now in its 20th year; and OSU’s New Product Development Center, now in its 15th year of operation. Together, the strategic partners comprise the Oklahoma Innovation Model, which leverages the state’s assets to help increase research
capacity in the state and to launch and grow Oklahoma companies for sustainable growth. OCAST and its partners have celebrated spectacular successes that go far beyond the numbers. For evidence, consider the successful exits in late 2016 of Oklahoma City-based WeGoLook and Selexys Pharmaceuticals. The state-funded Oklahoma Seed Capital Fund was an early investor in each company.
Their acquisitions by international companies brought hundreds of millions of dollars of new investment capital into the state, and their management teams remain in our state. Or consider the story of Wei Chen, a University of Central Oklahoma professor pioneering a new way to treat late-stage metastatic cancers. In 2017, Chen was awarded a $1.34 million grant from the
National Institutes of Health based on original research supported by the OCAST Health Research program. It all translates into a more resilient, diverse Oklahoma economy that creates good-paying jobs. Jim Stafford writes about Oklahoma innovation and research and development topics on behalf of the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science & Technology (OCAST).
Developer Richard McKown is shown in this 2011 photo at the construction site of the Level Apartments in Deep Deuce. [PHOTO BY JIM BECKEL, THE OKLAHOMAN ARCHIVES]
The Tower Theatre and adjoining retail may be the best known redevelopment tackled by David Wanzer, Ben Sellers and Jonathan Dodson with Pivot Project. [PHOTO BY STEVE LACKMEYER, THE OKLAHOMAN]
of Oklahoma City set us up is we’ve been trailing five, 10 and 15 years behind other cities with the intensity of development that occurred. There is a variety of reasons for that. The trigger was the original MAPS coming on line and the majority of that came up
between 1998 and 2003. All of us entered the market on the heels on that. So it’s just the momentum of development, but the lag that occurred before that created all of this opportunity. Dodson: Oklahoma City is interesting because you don’t just have room for
all this development, but we all practice a different kind of development. And because of that, it creates a context for relationships. McKown: MAPS, the leadership, the succession of leadership and the continuity of the MAPS mayors from Norick to (Kirk)
Humphreys to Mayor (Mick) Cornett — and hopefully extending to David Holt — is extraordinary and we’re all standing on those guys’ shoulders. I wouldn’t have moved back to Oklahoma City. I was happy building houses in the Kansas City metro.
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BANKING ON IT Loyalty is key ingredient in BancFirst’s recipe for success BY JACK MONEY Business Writer jmoney@oklahoman.com
BancFirst has operated under the trademark slogan of “Loyal to Oklahoma and You” for a dozen years. The slogan means more than just being a catchy phrase for customers to remember, though. BancFirst, its top executives said, values the relationship it has with its customers above all else. You can trace that value — one of its secret ingredients, you could say — back to the company’s beginnings, they add. BancFirst’s mission statement on its website makes no bones about its strategy, which remains focused on providing a full range of commercial banking services to retail customers and small to medium-size businesses, both in rural Oklahoma and in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Lawton, Muskogee, Norman and Shawnee. BancFirst, the statement continues, operates as a “super community bank,” with its community banking offices operating with the autonomy they need to respond to local customers’ needs. At the same time, BancFirst generally has a larger lending capacity, broader product line and greater operational efficiencies than its principal competitors in the nonmetropolitan market areas. “In the metropolitan markets served by BancFirst, our strategy is to focus on the needs of local businesses that are not served effectively by larger institutions,” the statement reads. “We are a relationship bank, not a transactional bank,” said David Rainbolt, BancFirst Corp.’s executive chairman. GAINING POSITION BancFirst’s origin can be traced back to the early-1960s, when Gene Rainbolt, now BancFirst Corp.’s chairman emeritus, bought a bank in Purcell. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he and other investors acquired interests in many rural Oklahoma banks, establishing
BancFirst announced leadership changes in May 2017. Standing in the lobby of its downtown Oklahoma City office are, BancFirst Corp. Executive Chairman David Rainbolt; BancFirst Corp. CEO David Harlow; BancFirst CEO Darryl Schmidt; and Dennis Brand, chairman of BancFirst Corp.’s executive committee. [OKLAHOMAN ARCHIVES PHOTO]
Thunderbird Financial Corp. to assist each bank with management services. After laws were changed in 1983 to allow multibank holding companies, Gene Rainbolt and his team brought seven of those banks into a publicly held company called United Community Corp. David Rainbolt, who was United’s chief financial officer at the time, said he, his father and other executives later created BancFirst because they wanted to begin to move into Oklahoma’s larger metropolitan communities so that the bank could tap asset growth deemed vital when it came to generating per-share earnings. “We merged those into a single bank ... so we could advertise a brand,” David Rainbolt said. But, having lived through the 1980s, Rainbolt said they also knew they needed strong assets those United Community Corp. banks provided. While the banks that formed the initial nucleus of BancFirst were in smaller communities, they were very profitable because they had very stable customers bases that gave the operation outstanding assets when it came to core deposits. “I realized early in my career that if you don’t have outstanding asset
quality, you can’t grow, you can’t take care of your customers, you can’t make acquisitions and you can’t deal with strategic vision,” David Rainbolt said. “Once we had that (and our survival was assured), we could begin to build a healthy entity that had the ability to enter Oklahoma’s larger metropolitan areas and to assimilate other banks,” he said. TRAJECTORY OF GROWTH By the time David Rainbolt became BancFirst Corp.’s chief executive in 1992, the company had $681 million in total assets. The company held an initial public offering in 1993 to raise additional capital designed to help it continue to grow. It worked. By 1996, the company’s total assets had grown to $1.19 billion, and by 2010, its assets total was approaching $5 billion when it acquired profitable banks based in Chandler, Moore and Okemah. For BancFirst, the purchases were part of a calculated business strategy that continued to seek organic growth both in metropolitan markets and through community bank acquisitions, David Rainbolt said at the time. “For the last 15 years, metro areas have been our biggest opportunity,” he
said. “Now after a hiatus, community bank acquisitions may be emerging as the next opportunity. “We’ve not seen any competitive model out there that convinces us we need to change. So far, we think our model is working as well, and maybe better, in the current competitive environment,” he said. On July 31, BancFirst Corp. completed a 2-for-1 stock split. The stock was issued in the form of a dividend to shareholders. Stockholders received one additional share for each share held on July 17. It was the second stock split for the company since going public in 1993. As its asset base and profitability continue to grow, BancFirst also continues its expansion. It acquired two additional community banks at the end of 2017, and promotes itself as Oklahoma’s largest state-chartered bank with 100 banking locations in 59 communities across the state. David Rainbolt said in February BancFirst Corp.’s total assets were about $7.5 billion. Another key to its growth has been its consistent lending policies, he said. While he agreed the bank certainly looks for good loan deals during Oklahoma’s boom years, Rainbolt said the best time
to find solid customers are during downturns. In that situation, the business might have just gotten a notice saying its existing bank can’t extend its line of credit or is calling a loan because the lender is in trouble. “That is when someone needs a bank, and that is when there is a differential opportunity to build longlasting relationships,” David Rainbolt said. “That is when you can make metamorphic moves, and that’s how we’ve grown.” MAINTAINING THE COURSE The bank announced a leadership transition in 2017, with Gene Rainbolt becoming chairman emeritus of BancFirst Corp. while his son, David, succeeded him as executive chairman. David Harlow, previously president of BancFirst Oklahoma City, succeeded David Rainbolt as chief executive officer of BancFirst Corp. As CEO of the holding corporation, Harlow oversees loan reviews, audits, compliance and risk management functions, plus accounting, corporate finance and investment banking activities for the holding company. BancFirst Oklahoma City’s Chief Executive Dennis Brand, meanwhile, became chairman of the
holding company’s executive committee. And Darryl Schmidt, formerly BancFirst Oklahoma City’s director of community banking, succeeded Brand as CEO of the subsidiary bank to oversee its line functions, lending and operations activities. In an interview, the team members’ comments echoed the bank’s mission statement when they discussed advantages BancFirst has in both rural communities and in large cities. The goal is simple: To attract high-quality customers, their deposits and loan business, and to keep them. One way they do that, they said, is to minimize change at the operations they acquire. Harlow observed that comfortable relationships benefit both customers and the bank. “When you go through a rough patch with a customer and you come out the other side, they know how you are going to react when there is trouble,” he said. “Also, you might reach a little further for something for them that you might not otherwise have done when you know how they will react in tough times. It is a twoway street. “If you lose customerfacing folks, you lose what you pay for.” In Oklahoma’s metropolitan markets, meanwhile, Harlow said he believes BancFirst has an advantage against its larger competitors because “we are more nimble. “I think our customer service level is superior, and that allows us to compete,” he said. Darryl Schmidt said BancFirst’s track record of keeping senior loan officers and bankers has been very successful. One way it does so, he continued, is to give its front line loan managers and bank executives the authority to make business decisions without having to run it through an approval process at the home office. “We like people who put down roots and don’t want to leave,” Schmidt said.
SUCCESS IS STACKING UP Renewed Oklahoma oil field is attracting growing interest BY ADAM WILMOTH Energy Editor awilmoth@oklahoman.com
A revival of drilling activity is restarting one of Oklahoma’s oldest oil fields, promising to flood billions of dollars of investment into southeast Oklahoma. Central and northwest Oklahoma’s SCOOP and STACK fields have attracted much attention from oil producers, service companies and suppliers in recent years. But growing interest — and investment money — is flowing into southeast Oklahoma’s Arkoma Basin. Several smaller, privately held oil and natural gas producers are testing modern horizontal wells in an area that for many decades have been home to traditional, vertical natural gas wells. Oklahoma City-based Antioch Energy controls 23,000 acres in the area and has identified up to 500 drilling locations, CEO Nathaniel Harding said in January. Centered around Hughes County, the western edge of the Anadarko
Basin features multiple oil and natural gas producing rock layers stacked on top of each other. Sometimes known as the Arkoma Stack or the Eastern Stack, the area so far has produced several strong test wells. “Compared to other plays in North America, this has some of the best economics, and there’s room to improve this,” Harding said. “So we may have the next great play in our own backyard. “And it’s no coincidence it’s happening in Oklahoma, led by Oklahoma companies.” The production also has attracted more than $1 billion in pledged oil and natural gas infrastructure upgrades. Edmond-based Tall Oak Midstream III in March said it will build an 80-mile pipeline to transport dry natural gas from its planned processing plant in Hughes County to an interstate pipeline that will carry it to market along the Gulf Coast. Tall Oak is still measuring interest in the project, but said the pipeline likely will have a capacity of
between 300 million to 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day and cost between $100 million and $300 million. “This pipeline would provide the ability to handle growth,” said Carlos Evans, Tall Oak’s chief commercial officer. “A lot of the pipes are at 90 percent take-away capacity, and we’re seeing pipelines charging max rates. This project will provide producers and processors the ability to meet forecast growth volumes.” Construction on the pipeline is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2019 and is expected online by the end of 2019. The pipeline will support Tall Oak’s Panther Creek processing plant, which is designed to handle 200 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and is expected online by the first quarter of 2019. Tall Oak’s announcement is the latest in a string of infrastructure projects for the Arkoma Basin over the past year. Tall Oak, Oklahoma City-based Valiant Midstream and Markwest Energy Partners
Tall Oak Midstream III has begun work on a natural gas processing facility in Hughes County. The plant will be similar to Tall Oak’s Battle Ridge natural gas processing facility, shown here, near Cushing. [PHOTO PROVIDED]
together have announced plans for more than $1 billion in processing plants and pipeline projects throughout the area. “There’s a lot of excitement coming together in the last 12 months or so,” Evans said. “Producers are starting to drill wells, and we’re connecting them to
our system and seeing the results. They’re continually performing better than expected. That’s an excellent problem to have, but it also drives the need for additional infrastructure.” The infrastructure is on its way, and Evans said there appears to be plenty of production to support
all the various pipeline and processing projects that are planned or under construction. “Everything we’ve seen so far around our customer results has been very consistent,” Evans said. “We’ve adjusted our forecast up several times. That’s a good indicator.”
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‘IT’S CLOSE TO YOUR HEART’ OKC retailers see success in family business BY DAVID DISHMAN Business Writer ddishman@oklahoman.com
Running a family business can be difficult, but some Oklahoma City businesses have had success under the leadership of multigenerational ownership. Mathis Brothers and BC Clark Jewelers are both in the family business and have sustained success across generations. Mathis Brothers started in 1960, while BC Clark Jewelers traces its roots back before statehood, to 1892. Both businesses are currently under the direction of a pair of brothers, but additional family members work and contribute to the operations. Larry Mathis and Bill Mathis are the current Mathis Brothers, but they weren’t the original. The pair bought the business from their dad and uncle in the late 1980s and continue to lead the business today. The key to their success, according to Bill Mathis, is the ability to work well together as a family. “Always look at every situation from the other person’s point of view,” Bill Mathis said. “The ‘Golden Rule’ has never been more true than in the family business. Just let the right decision be your guide, and celebrate when other people think of something that benefits the business.” Bill Mathis’ wife, Terry Mathis, and Larry Mathis’ wife, Beth Mathis, also play important roles in the business. “We all bring different perspectives to the table,” Terry Mathis said. “It’s close to your heart. You do the best for the com-
pany.” Several more family members in the next generation already have begun careers at the business. Bill Mathis has a son and daughter, Rit Mathis and Kerry Pacillio, who live and work in California. Rit is the current spokesman for the company, appearing in TV commercials seen by many Oklahomans. Larry Mathis’ daughter, Carson Mathis, also works in California. Bill Mathis has two younger sons, a 13-yearold and an 11-year-old, and he acknowledges a third generation of Mathis brothers — or other combination of family — could end up working and operating the business. Working together is the biggest blessing for Bill Mathis. “You get to spend more time around your family,” Bill Mathis said. “A lot of people have great relationships with their relatives, but only get to spend limited time with them. After a period of time, you begin to think alike, and it’s got the benefit of being there when the other is not.” At BC Clark, Coleman Clark and Mitchell Clark are the latest generation to operate the family jewelry. Their father, Jim Clark, still works in the store but said his sons handle the business decisions. Coleman Clark credits several reasons for the company’s sustained success, including continuity. “Going from generation to generation, we’ve been blessed to have a lot of similarities,” Coleman Clark said. He says he hears from other family businesses
Jim Clark, right, poses for a photo Feb. 6 with son Coleman Clark at the downtown BC Clark store in Oklahoma City. [PHOTOS BY CHRIS LANDSBERGER, THE OKLAHOMAN]
it can be a challenge to work together with family members. In his family, he’s thankful to his predecessors for their fiscally conservative approach to business, and for their good stewardship of money. This has helped the company in times of low profit throughout the company’s 125-year history. Coleman Clark has one piece of advice for others in family business. “Always be looking for long-term growth,” Coleman Clark said. “That’s where being a private family business has helped us in a lot of ways.” Both Coleman Clark and Bill Mathis express gratitude toward Oklahoma, and Oklahoma City.
Terry Mathis and Bill Mathis pose at the Mathis Brothers store at 3434 W Reno in Oklahoma City.
Coleman Clark spent time early in his career out of state, working for a different company before returning home to the family business. “Oklahoma City is a great place,” Coleman
Clark said. “I’m glad to be back.” Mathis Brothers has grown and operates stores in California, but home for the company is still where everything started. “We love Oklahoma;
Oklahoma has been good to us,” Bill Mathis said. “We’ve grown a lot from a little tiny business to what we are now, and we are thankful for those who have helped us accomplish that.”
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EMPOWERING WOMEN Oklahoma City-based institute’s success is seen all over the globe BY CARLA HINTON Staff Writer chinton@oklahoman.com
When Terry Neese thinks of the success of the Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women, she envisions soccer balls — lots and lots of soccer balls. The Oklahoma entrepreneur founded the institute 12 years ago, and the image of the sports balls easily comes to mind to this day. Neese said a woman who took part in the institute’s classes on business plan development and exporting started a soccer ball company, employing 24 women who hand stitched the balls in the woman’s rural Afghanistan home. The Afghan hit a snag when she attempted to get trucks to deliver the balls from her home to other places, but Neese worked with the State Department for three years to get the necessary vehicles needed to transport the sports products. “Today, she has more than 500 employees, and she is exporting those soccer balls to Germany,” Neese said proudly. Each woman who has participated in the institute’s classes and programs has a similar story, Neese said. About 80 percent of those who have been part of the Oklahoma-based program are still in business — and their success is the institute’s success. Neese started Terry Neese Personnel Services, an Oklahoma City-based staffing firm in 1975. She turned the business over to daughter Kim Neese in 2005, and it is now named Neese Personnel. In 2006, Neese attended her first U.S.Afghan Women’s Coun-
Terry Neese is founder and chief executive officer of the Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women. [PHOTO PROVIDED]
cil meeting in Kabul, Afghanistan, with a goal of hearing from a group of emerging businesswomen who were trying to make it as entrepreneurs. The institute and Neese’s Peace Through Business program evolved from that initial trip. After the programs’ successful graduation of 13 women from Afghanistan in 2007, Neese was asked to open the innovative initiatives to women entrepreneurs in Rwanda. “I could really relate to women in Afghanistan and Africa who had businesses and who were essentially bootstrapping it as I did in the 1970s,” Neese said during a recent interview. PAYING IT FORWARD Like Neese, Karel Ford, the institute’s director of operations, said there have been many success stories stemming from the organization’s work to empower women all over the globe. She said much has taken place since Neese was first chosen by the U.S. Commerce Department (under the Bush Administration) to travel to Afghanistan to work with women there. Ford said the program model includes an eightweek course to help
Karel Ford, director of operations of the Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women, poses for a picture with her staff members at the institute’s Oklahoma City office. [PHOTOS BY JIM BECKEL, THE OKLAHOMAN]
This soccer ball displayed at the Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women has sentimental value for Oklahoma businesswoman Terry Neese, who founded the organization.
women develop a business plan. Through that course, which has been expanded to 10 weeks, participants are assigned an e-mentor to connect with them and offer support online. Ford
said many of these helpful mentors women are in Oklahoma, while others are from the Dallas, Texas, area and other communities. Ford said part of the graduation from the pro-
gram includes getting the business plan accessed by a panel of judges. Eventually, the class participants meet with a mentor in-person where they able to connect one-onone over a period of five days. Ford said an important aspect of the graduates’ success is paying it forward. “That could mean teaching other women in their communities, it could mean simply empowering their own staff,” she said. She said the institute’s graduates have started businesses in fashion design, handicrafts, leather products, education, construction, cosmetics, mobile banking and medicine. They have created 16,000 jobs in their countries, no small feat. In 2017, a major success
came to fruition when one of the institute’s first participants, Manizha Wafea, started the first Afghan Women’s Chamber of Commerce. Neese said Wafea had to go before the country’s high economic council to present the idea and she garnered their approval. Neese said the council began in October 2017 and it now has 280 members. Meanwhile, Ford said the institute’s accomplishments are the result of a team effort between the people who work with the program participants and the participants themselves. “I think it works because everyone around it is so passionate, and it is truly empowering,” she said. “Everyone is handson, from the founder and CEO (Neese) to the staff and the volunteers.”
SUCCEEDING AT THE TOP CEOs turn to peer mentoring networks for answers to difficult questions BY JIM STAFFORD For The Oklahoman
As co-founder and CEO of a rapid growth, Oklahoma City-based online marketing firm called Tailwind, Danny Maloney weighs challenging business decisions on a daily basis. Should the company move forward with certain deals or business partnerships? Are all the company’s employees in the right positions for their skills sets? What’s the best use of his time? Rather than relying entirely upon himself to answer all the difficult questions, Maloney turns to his peers in the executive peer group to which he belongs called Vistage. The Vistage group meets monthly in Oklahoma City, where CEOs and executives share their professional challenges and provide advice to their peers. “Before joining Vistage, I didn’t really have the same kind of access to other CEOs to be able to bounce questions and ideas off of,” Maloney said. “So, that’s the big difference now, being able to get other perspectives. Hearing and considering different angles on how to approach problems has been really helpful.” Vistage is an executive coaching organization that began 60 years ago when a group of Milwaukee executives began meeting to share knowledge
Rod Whitson, standing in blue shirt, addresses a Vistage peer mentoring network group meeting last year in Oklahoma City. [PHOTOS PROVIDED]
and experiences. Today, Vistage serves more than 22,000 CEOs, business owners and key executives across 20 countries. In Oklahoma City, business veteran Rod Whitson chairs two Vistage peer mentoring groups, including the group of 14 executives to which Maloney belongs. Whitson is a former CEO in the financial services industry and a longtime affiliate of Vistage. He introduced Vistage to Oklahoma City in 1995 and was the organization’s vice president of marketing from 1997-2000. “Vistage members give very direct, unbiased feedback to each other. They are very honest and transparent with each other,” Whitson said. “The accountability
around it is invaluable.” Whitson’s Oklahoma City Vistage groups claim over 20 members who commit to a full-day meeting once a month. That is followed up with a one-on-one meeting between Whitson and each CEO. George Glover, a longtime executive in the steel and natural resources industries, chairs another Oklahoma City-based Vistage group of 14 members. “Vistage brings value to its members through the perspectives and experiences each CEO brings to the meetings,” Glover said. “Anytime we process an issue or opportunity, it’s not just a learning opportunity or moment for the CEO who brings the
issue to the table, but it’s a learning moment for them all.” Whitson said CEO peer boards like those offered by Vistage fill a much needed gap for executives who often have no one else to turn for answers. Through Vistage and similar organizations, they gain diverse insights and perspectives from other CEOs that provide strategies they may not have considered. Each monthly Vistage meeting features a morning session with a speaker on a topic selected by members, followed by an afternoon peer-to-peer board session. “Everything is shared with the group in total confidence,” Whitson said. For Tailwind’s Malo-
Danny Maloney, right, CEO of Oklahoma City-based Tailwind, chats with Craig Shimasaki, CEO of Moleculera Labs, also an Oklahoma City-based company.
ney, the Vistage group has provided a growth opportunity for his entire team. “At a personal level, it’s helped me learn how to be a better CEO,” Maloney said. “It’s help-
ing me learn how to use my own time more effectively, but also how to create opportunities for people within our organization to grow and be able to accelerate their own careers.”
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‘NOT JUST ANOTHER PRODUCT’ OKC’s Cytovance Biologics continues on growth trajectory BY JIM STAFFORD For The Oklahoman
Oklahoma City-based Cytovance Biologics created some breaking news in January 2005 when as a new company it launched contract pharmaceutical manufacturing operations at what was then the Presbyterian Health Foundation Research Park. It claimed 10 employees. Fast forward to 2018. Cytovance is still breaking news about its operations. The company recently announced that it had completed the first production in a new state-of-the-art 1,000liter microbial facility. Today, Cytovance employs 217 people, including 30 Ph.D.level scientists. It has grown into one of Oklahoma’s largest biotech companies, operating from five buildings that comprise 147,000 square feet of space on the renamed University Research Park campus and additional locations on the city’s near north side. Clients from around the world contract with Cytovance to produce investigational new drugs for use in clinical trials. Those might be groundbreaking new therapeutics for cancer treatments, flu vaccines, cardiovascular disease, rheumatoid arthritis, immunotherapies and more. Mike O’Mara, Cytovance’s senior vice
president of manufacturing operations, compared a contract manufacturing operation (CMO) with producing a batch of cookies based on someone else’s recipe. “They come to us with this recipe; this is how you can make one cookie,” O’Mara said. “We can take that process and scale it up to make 10,000 cookies. They come to us with a drug or therapeutic and need to make it in mass quantities for clinical trials.” A CMO such as Cytovance offers capacity that clients may not have. “The reason CMOs are so attractive is that companies can manufacture their products without having to build the space themselves,” O’Mara said. “The fear is that you build this multimilliondollar facility and then your drug fails. Then you are sitting there with that building that you can’t use.” Cytovance markets itself at industry trade shows and through a small sales force located on both the East and West coasts, the Midwest and in Asia. There are scores of CMOs competing for biologics customers worldwide. “I think what separates us from some of the competition is that we give our customers a more personalized relationship,” O’Mara said. “They are not just
another product coming through our facility.” By the end of this year, Cytovance expects to employ at least 285 people, O’Mara said. Launched as an Oklahoma-owned business in 2005, Cytovance was acquired in 2015 by Hepalink USA, a subsidiary of China-based Shenzhen Hepalink Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. The Oklahoma City business has retained almost total autonomy in the operation of the business, O’Mara said. “The parent company, Hepalink, does not get involved in our day-today business,” he said. “We run all of that. At the end of the year, budget time, end-of-year results, they consult with us. But for the most part, we run independently from them.” Look for even more breaking news from Cytovance in the near future. “We are talking to several clients about commercial supply of their drugs,” O’Mara said. “Some of those clients require additional capacity of up to 10,000 liters.” New business of that scope likely would require additional space and even more employees. “If we get a couple of our customers who go commercial, it’s going to require us to do 24/7 operation with a whole new wave of hiring people, as well,” O’Mara said.
This is the Cytovance Biologics manufacturing facility in the University Research Park in Oklahoma City. The company employs 217 people, including 30 Ph.D.-level scientists. [PHOTO PROVIDED]
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PatientLink Enterprises Inc. CEO Debi Willis, seated center, Larry Willis, left, and CTO Angela Webster, right, are surrounded by the team.
PROVIDING A LINK System will help patients be more involved with their own records BY ADAM WILMOTH Energy Editor awilmoth@oklahoman.com
After making a career of collecting medical information, a cancer diagnosis made the effort even more personal for Oklahoma City entrepreneur Debi Willis. Founded in 1999, Willis’ PatientLink Enterprises Inc. helps medical offices more easily digitize and use the paperwork patients fill out before appointments. The inspiration for her second major product followed from her own experiences with doctors. “I realized we needed something for patients to gather our data,” she said. “I just got diagnosed with cancer. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. I had to stand in doctors’ offices to get that information, and I even got chastised by one doctor who said I could only get two copies even though more than two doctors needed that information.” Such information is more than just a convenience, she said. “Had I not been persistent with my doctors, I would be dead now,” Willis said. “They told me I was fine, but my journey showed me that we as patients need to be more involved.” Willis and her company have spent much of the past six years developing MyLinks, a system designed to collect records from multiple doctors and use it to create reports that can be useful to both patients
PatientLink Enterprises Inc. CEO Debi Willis shows off some of the awards and the company has received. [PHOTOS BY DOUG HOKE, THE OKLAHOMAN]
and their medical providers. “I had spent a decade focused on moving data from patients to the doctor’s office, and it felt like it was time to move data from the doctors back to the patients so they could take better care of themselves,” Willis said. The process is complicated because doctors and hospitals have used various, incompatible systems. Federal law, however, requires medical providers by January 2019 to use compatible formats. PatientLink has worked closely with government regulators throughout the process. The U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services and its Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology have been encouraging medical offices to allow better access to patient data. The office last year recognized PatientLink and its MyLinks system as the winner of its consumer health data aggregation challenge. “The Consumer Health Data Aggregator Challenge asked submitters to address a need that many consumers have today — the ability to easily and electronically access and securely integrate their health data from different health care providers using a variety of differ-
ent health IT systems,” the health department said in a statement. Willis said she expects MyLinks to be available to the public sometime this year. Some medical offices already are compatible with the system, and the rest are expected to update their systems by the end of the year. While MyLinks is designed to primarily to benefit health care patients, Willis said she also hopes it will boost medical research. “A focus of MyLinks for me is that not only will people be able to download and understand their information, but they will be able to share it,” she said. “There are
so many diseases where we don’t understand how they are started, like autism, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s. One reason I believe we can’t find a cure is because the data is sliced all over the place. “Patients are the only ones with access to the complete picture. Being able to opt in to share the data will help find cures faster.” MyLinks users can opt into the data-sharing program, but no information is used without permission, Willis said. The research components also have personal significance for Willis, whose mother has Alzheimer’s disease.
“I was at a conference several years ago and was surprised to see how many of us had moms with Alzheimer’s,” she said. “All of us acknowledged we would be happy to share our data and answer questions to help figure out what’s happening and to see if there’s a way to turn it back and get our moms back.” While Willis and her 15 employees at PatientLink Enterprises work to roll out MyLinks, they also continue to focus on their flagship product. Willis developed the PatientLink system beginning in 1999 when a client asked her to help the office workers save time collecting patient data. The system began with a bubble form similar to a standardized test and a scanner that imported the data to a computer where it could be translated into a format preferred by doctors. Over the past 19 years, the system has evolved to where it can be accessed by smartphones, tablets and personal computers at home before patients arrive at the doctor office. Willis said she expects the PatientLink system to continue to evolve with technology and doctor and patient needs. “The PatientLink format is a great path for adding other things like more educational materials and the ability for patients to learn about different responses while they’re filling out information for a provider,” she said.
KEYS TO BUSINESS SUCCESS Humility, collaboration, effective communication are among necessary traits Beverly Glover is principal of BJ Glover Learning & Consulting. We asked her to share her thoughts about entrepreneurial success.
plan; operating in an area of weakness; and having an unrealistic timetable. Q: What are the top skills an entrepreneur or executive needs to succeed? A: Self-motivation;
Q: What defines business success? A: I think each entre-
preneur must define business success based on his or her own business goals and plan. In short, enjoying the desired work content; developing a professional reputation for reliability and delivering high work quality; acquiring and keeping the ideal customer base in the desired market; and, of course,
Beverly Glover
generating at least the planned amount of revenue would indicate business success to me. Q: What are the leading roadblocks to business success? A: Insufficient startup
capital; a weak business
courage to take a risk; decision-making and prioritization; perseverance through tough times and disappointment; humility for honest selfassessment, collaboration, and learning from others; vision; servant leadership; flexibility; effective communication; ability to inspire others; and solid business acumen.
Q: Are those skills different for professionals? A: Some are the same,
but others may not be required for a professional. For example, a professional may not require the same degree of vision, risk-taking or decision-making to perform in his or her specific role in an organization. Q: What are the most common bad habits/traits that can sabotage success in business? A: Procrastination;
taking shortcuts; starting but not finishing or following through; communicating poorly; unethical behavior.
Q: Is a college degree or advanced degree such as an MBA needed to succeed? Are there certain scenarios where you’d recommend advanced education? A: I believe the quality
of the degree determines its value. In my opinion, a low-quality degree doesn’t improve an individual’s ability to succeed in business wherein a high-quality degree would better prepare the person to be successful. I would recommend advanced education for any technical or academic related business. Otherwise, I believe the entrepreneur can hire the expertise she or he is lacking.
Q: Do you have any other take-away advice? A: Be sure you actually
want to run a business. Sometimes people who dislike their work environment or answering to someone may think this indicates they should be an entrepreneur. The danger is that the person may only need a change of work environment or arrangement. They may discover they don’t want to do the “business” part of having a business and really just need to be an independent contractor to a business owner. PAULA BURKES, Business Writer
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PERFECTING PROCESSES Entrepreneur succeeds with specialized quality control software product BY JIM STAFFORD For The Oklahoman
Max Doleh, founder, and CEO of Edmondbased Productive Technologies and Sigma Blood Systems, pulled a phone out of his pocket and searched for an email he received the previous day. The sender was the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, a client that had just gone live with Productive Technologies’ PERFEQTA quality and process management software platform for its blood bank. With PERFEQTA, clients can build software applications around the way they work without the need to engage more expensive custom software development services or buying off-theshelf software that may not entirely fit the client’s operations. PERFEQTA was created to facilitate quality control and reporting requirements in heavily regulated industry such as health care, aviation or manufacturing. “Yesterday, we got the email that MD Anderson has shut off their old quality software, and now PERFEQTA is the official system of record for their blood bank’s quality control procedures,” Doleh said. “We are ecstatic.” MD Anderson, one of the world’s most respected centers devoted to cancer patient care, research, education and prevention, began a transition to the PERFEQTA platform on Dec. 1.
“MD Anderson was able to automate their existing procedures without making a lot of changes to the way their business operates,” Doleh said. “And they transformed over 200 laboratory procedures into smart PERFEQTA applications on their own in five months. That could have taken three years otherwise.” PERFEQTA has found success in the quality control software market because it provides the ability to manage processes from the user’s point of view, said Doleh, who employs 51 people in his companies. “After using the PERFEQTA platform, MD Anderson users reported through anonymous surveys that PERFEQTA will make a great impact on their daily operations,” he said. “They liked the intuitive design, ease of use and the support received from the PERFEQTA team.” MD Anderson went live with the PERFEQTA software just weeks after blood collection organizations in New Jersey, and Iowa also began using it. Users with the Central Jersey Blood Center and Iowa’s LifeServe Blood Center report similar experiences to MD Anderson’s. “Instead of using multiple software products to automate different areas of our operations, we are working on consolidating all of that into PERFEQTA,” said Stacy Sime, president and CEO of LifeServe. “Our staff was able to configure and validate the platform in record time
Max Doleh, left, meets with an unidentified representative from Northern Ireland in 2016 during the 2016 BIO show in San Francisco. [ARCHIVES PHOTO PROVIDED BY JIM STAFFORD]
to help manage facility maintenance and quality system documentation within the blood center. We see PERFEQTA as an essential tool to help our continuous improvement efforts, as we strive to provide safe blood to those that need it.” When Doleh received the email notifying him that MD Anderson had gone 100 percent live with PERFEQTA, he and his team celebrated with cake. The cake symbolizes a happy client, Doleh said. “We want our clients to look at PERFEQTA as a natural extension of their work environment,” he said. “We plan to continue building futureproof technologies that grow with clients’ operations and aspirations.”
Max Doleh, founder, and CEO of Edmond-based Productive Technologies and Sigma Blood Systems, at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization convention last year in San Diego. [ARCHIVES PHOTO BY JIM STAFFORD, FOR THE OKLAHOMAN]
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Oklahoma-born musician and producer Garrett Starks, owner of Castle Row Studios, stands in front of the recording studio’s drum collection. [PHOTO BY DOUG HOKE, THE OKLAHOMAN]
BUILDING HIS ‘CASTLE’ Garrett Starks discusses origin, inspiration of Del City studio BY NATHAN POPPE Entertainment Writer npoppe@oklahoman.com
DEL CITY — Music means business at Castle Row Studios. Located alongside a street of cheap eats in Del City sits a modern recording studio with a vintage movie theater exterior. Three tracking rooms live inside the slick music mecca and everything you’d need to score a movie, make an album or record a radio spot. After a two-story tour, Castle Row owner Garrett Starks sat down with The Oklahoman to describe his road from driving a tractor in Alfalfa County and working with local artists to landing sessions with Kanye West, Lil Wayne and being the soundtrack HQ for the new MercyMe origin story film, “I Can Only Imagine.” At 24, Starks has come such a long way from his high school class of 26, roughly the same amount of employees that work throughout his studio. The Cherokee-born creative tried his hand at acting, but shifted toward audio production during his college career at NYU Steinhardt. Starks brought it all back home to open Castle Row in June 2015. Here’s a few highlights from our conversation.
Castle Row Studios is located in Del City. The 10,600-square-foot studio space contains three recordings studios, a live performance venue and several production rooms. [PHOTOS PROVIDED]
interested in that because I felt like drums were the concrete floor of the whole thing. They’re the foundation and house for a song. My parents are farmers and my grandparents are farmers. I come from a long line of agriculture people, cattle ranchers and farmers. Every summer, since I was old enough to see over the steering wheel, I was on a tractor.
Q: Pretend I’m an Oklahomabased musician that’s new to the music scene. What would you tell me if I showed up asking to record here? Garrett Starks: One of the
things we’ve noticed for a lot of independent artists here in Oklahoma is a lack of knowledge for how to exploit yourself, to get on a radio tour or to get placement on Spotify playlists. There’s all of these things you need to do to get some traction ... long before you could even be looked at by a label. We’re finding it’s more effective if we build a program that will actually do that and help give those resources and help put those opportunities in place. Q: So, you’ve found success through more than just recording and helping produce records? Starks: Absolutely. It
Q: When did it start to feel like you’d be following a career in music? Starks: Recording my
Located upstairs inside Castle Row Studios is Studio B. This space is a revitalization of what is formerly known as Woodside Studios. The former studio was converted to include a slightly larger control room and a larger tracking room.
doesn’t do anybody any good if their music doesn’t get somewhere. We could sit here and hammer away at trying to book studio hours until the end of time. The real goal is to assist local music talent we really believe in. We have to use all of the resources we have available, all the friends, the connections, everything we’ve put into place. That’s the only reason Castle Row is here. We saw this massive need for
something more. Q: You recently hired six producers to help maintain Castle Row Studios. Is that how you avoid spreading yourself too thin? Starks: Sure. They all
have their own lane, specialties and niche. That’s huge because we’ve got nice-looking rooms, equipment and all that stuff but, to be quite frank, the artist wants to work with a producer,
a person that sees their vision and can translate that into a recording. Yes, you need all these things to make it happen, but the key element is a creative force — that person who can see your vision and translate it onto a recording. Q: Let’s back up a little bit. What was your life like before this studio? Starks: I started as a
drummer. ... I was really
songs turned into recording all the neighbor kids songs, too, and that became a community effort. Like a lot of creatives, I was involved in a lot of different things. I was into acting, so I was really enthralled with the stage. Not only was I into the performances but also I was focused on what the stage lights look like. What would everything sound like? All kinds of aspects. I wanted to build the set. I wanted to do all these different things with it. Music was just this awesome culmination of everything that I loved. I liked the energy and the
way you could use music to convey a message without saying anything. Q: It was a two-year process creating this place. How easily did it all come together? Starks: The vision was to
create a studio that could facilitate all the local talent and everybody that we want to exploit from home. All the talents here at home, we need to make them be known to the rest of the world. That’s No. 1. Number two was attracting touring artists. A-list and B-list label artists that come though this area. Whether they stop and play The Criterion or Tower Theatre, they’re coming here and you need a place that they can feel comfortable working in and really what that comes down to is having not only the equipment that they’re used to but also a room that’s built and designed in a way that they are used to seeing. ... The layout, the colors of a room, the sound and the producer has to feel comfortable. So, that was a big part of it. We made a studio more in line with how studios are built in New York, Nashville, LA or Miami.
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Cassie Stover sweeps up dust and dirt inside the Factory Obscura’s immersive “SHIFT” installation on Feb. 13. Designed less as an exhibition and more as an experience, “SHIFT” drew 20,000 visitors from the time it opened in November until it closed at the end of February. [PHOTO BY DOUG HOKE, THE OKLAHOMAN ARCHIVES]
CREATIVE CASH FLOW Artists adopt different strategies to monetize their talents BY BRANDY MCDONNELL Features Writer bmcdonnell@oklahoman.com
When Cassie Stover got the chance to paint a striped room last fall, she took it. And that stripy funhouse room ended up awash in hot pink lights, adorned with clock faces and nestled in the popular “SHIFT” installation she and her fellow members of the Factory Obscura art collective built in a studio space in the Classen Ten Penn area. “My background is painting, so I’m usually thinking canvas and hopefully that sells,” said the Oklahoma City artist. “No one would see stripes and go ‘That’s Cassie Stover’s work’ — which I like.” Nowadays, many artists seeking to monetize their talents and techniques are looking beyond the traditional model of solo artisans creating paintings, photographs or sculptures, placing their pieces in the most prominent gallery they can manage and waiting for someone to wander in and buy their work. Often, artists are looking to collaborate with other makers, develop experiences rather than singular artworks and diversify their skills to be successful. COLLECTIVE EXPERIENCE The old concept of strength in numbers is the basis for the growing popularity of art collectives and co-op galleries, in which artists pool their skills and resources to either make a space more affordable or create projects beyond the scope of a single person. “Working with other artists and kind of losing your solo identity and trying new stuff where I’m going to be a team player, it’s a different way to work. But it’s exciting. It kind of reminds me of college in the sense of you have that camaraderie with your fellow art students that I haven’t had in years,” Stover said. “You get out of your comfort zone and try
Known for his photorealistic drawings and paintings, Oklahoma City artist Jerron Johnston has diversified his artistic skill set over the years to include graphic design, technical illustration and commissioned portraits. [IMAGES PROVIDED]
new things.” The fledgling Factory Obscura created with its first major project an immersive installation designed less as an exhibition and more as an experience. “SHIFT” drew 20,000 visitors from the time it opened in
November until it closed at the end of February. Although “SHIFT’s” location in what was formerly Current Studio has closed, Factory Obscura co-founder Kelsey Karper said the collective is moving into a new workshop and hunting
for a 40,000-squarefoot or larger public space where its artists can develop more immersive experiences. In the future, the collective will look to charge people to enter their experiential attractions. “People have been
paying for experiences for a long time, but the offerings when it comes to experiences haven’t really changed that much over the last 20 or 30 years. We’ve got amusement parks, bowling alleys, movie theaters, mini golf. A lot of
those things are kind of the same that they’ve been for a while. So, this is something new. This is a new kind of experience that people can have, and there are models out there that show that SEE ARTISTS, 21S
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Members of the Oklahoma City art collective Factory Obscura gather on Feb. 13. [PHOTOS BY DOUG HOKE, THE OKLAHOMAN ARCHIVES]
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yeah, people are willing to pay for this kind of experience,” Karper said. DIVERSIFIED OFFERINGS From drawing a photorealistic portrait and painting a detailed landscape to designing a business logo and creating a technical illustration, OKC artist Jerron Johnston has developed a wide range of artistic expertise. Along with working as a technical illustrator for Tinker Air Force Base, he and his wife, Crystal, teamed in 2005 to start their own business built around his art. “I was trained as, well, back in the day, they called it a commercial artist, and it’s basically a graphic artist today. I learned all aspects of studio art, advertising art, screenprinting, darkroom work. So, it’s a variety of things that help me in my present job, and I’ve taken classes to update my skill set over the years,” he said, recommending Oklahoma CareerTech centers as great places to find affordable classes. “People in the business world are always talking about diversifying what you do, and the same thing works in the art business. You’ve got to be willing to diversify if you’re looking to make income, if you’re wanting to get your work out to different places.” For the past three years, Johnston has shown his artwork in the Paseo Arts District at In Your Eye Studio and Gallery, a co-op gallery where about a dozen artists share the space and the cost of having a spot in one of OKC’s most prominent arts districts. “That’s maybe one of the smartest things you can do,” he said. “That’s also a motivation because we meet together and we talk about things, we critique each other and we suggest things to each other. We become like a family, and it’s good to have that because it motivates you to keep going. You can learn from each other.” For Johnston, one of the secrets to artistic success has simply been getting his name, his work and himself out into the public eye, whether through joining a community art guild, applying for art festivals or placing his work in local galleries. “it’s best to be openminded about what you do and be open to new
Marke McConnell adds rubber mats to part of Factory Obscura’s immersive “SHIFT” installation.
Tiffany McKnight, above, and Alana Murray, right, decorates for a special event at Factory Obscura’s immersive “SHIFT” installation on Feb. 13.
ideas and new venues,” Johnston said. “You can definitely get yourself kind of locked into a certain type of picture, if you will.” ART ON THE ROAD After finishing his bachelor’s degree at the University of Oklahoma, Eric Piper was brainstorming ideas for surviving as an artist when someone suggested he take his work on tour just as he might take a band on the road. “I grew up always playing in a band ... and we learned how to organize these punk shows at the VFW. We’d all kind of chip in, rent out the VFW, put a $5 cover and invite these bands to come in and play and do the event. That’s kind of the idea and the model that I had in my head when I went into it. Whenever I went out on tour, I just reached out to
all my different friends or anybody that I knew that had moved away or was living in another place,” said Piper, who grew up in Lawton. “I wasn’t ever thinking that Oklahoma was a really cool, interesting background. For me it was like Paris or New York or L.A. where all this big stuff is happening. But when you leave Oklahoma and you’re in these other places, then everybody is really interested in Oklahoma. They’re like, ‘Whoa, you’re from Oklahoma? This is super-interesting. I’ve never met anyone from Oklahoma,’ and you get to be kind of a representative of the culture you’ve learned. … Whenever you go on tour, you can invite everybody that you meet back to come to Oklahoma, too.” In fall 2016, Piper cofounded the Resonator Institute, a nonprofit art space and artistic collec-
tive in Norman. Resonator has maintained an active schedule of exhibitions, concerts, workshops, performances, movie screenings, dance parties, spoken word events and more, becoming a spot not only where an eclectic group of local artists can create but also where out-of-towners can bring in their art. He said artists often put all their creative focus into producing their work when they should be just as innovative and resourceful when it comes to getting their work out there. “Instead of looking for somebody to organize for you or waiting for a gallery to call you and book you a show … I think it’s better to take charge and be like, ‘Hey, I’ve got this idea, this is kind of a vision that I have for how things can work together,’ ” Piper said. “If you look at it more of as a creative practice,
where you can kind of experiment and try these different ideas and see how they work and then just evaluate and kind of tweak it.” Although he still enjoys printmaking, Piper said planning art tours, exhibitions and experiences has become his chosen medium. “I kind of look at this … as an artwork in itself, so the big project I’m working on is trying to find people from across the country that maybe I haven’t worked with before and putting another kind of national tour together to try to hit all these different states,” he said. Likewise, as OKC’s Factory Obscura develops its plans artistic experiences, Stover said she is eager to work on
another group project she hopes will capture the public imagination as markedly as “SHIFT.” “Even amongst my own friends, they don’t necessarily go into a gallery and want to buy a painting. … We live in the Instagram age where people want selfies and they want to go out and do something. They don’t necessarily want to buy the art to take home, they just want something to do. It’s that entertainment factor,” she said. “It’s hard for any of my solo painting shows to give that kind of entertainment unless you’re just into art itself. We’ve had people say, ‘Oh, I don’t do art … but that was awesome.’ So, we’re kind of bridging that gap (and showing them) art can be cool.”
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