Startups can now apply through Oct. 31 to participate in the Venture Center’s 2017 FinTech Accelerator, which has been extended until 2018 to the tune of $2 million.

Apply here.

The program is being funded with $500,000 each from global banking technology services provider FIS of Jacksonville, Florida, and Arkansas discretionary funds.

The 2017 program will begin Feb. 21, a kick-off open to the public is set for Feb. 23 and a demo day is scheduled for May 11.

Starting a small business is no easy feat for a multitude of reasons, and one of the largest hurdles for many entrepreneurs is securing funding. The 2016 Kauffman Index of Startup Activity is a comprehensive indicator of new business creation in the United States and shows start-up activity continues to gain momentum in 2016, following the upward trend that began last year. In short, the latest recession is behind us, new business activity continues to grow and these new ventures need funding. Your local bank can be a great resource to help finalize your business plan, and put you on the road to securing the money you need. Arvest Bank shares three things entrepreneurs need to stand out to potential lenders.

1. A thorough, realistic, business plan

A business plan is a crucial part of an entrepreneur’s lending ask, and banks will want to see a comprehensive plan for the creation, operation and success of the business. An industry analysis is needed to determine if a prospective company is in tune with the needs of the area and if there is enough market share available to be profitable.

The business plan should also include a market analysis of the prospective customers and their spending habits. Also, who are the competitors in the market and what is your business' point of difference that will enable you to be competitive?

2. Honest financial projections

Realistic financial projections are a necessary point that banks will review intently. Your financial projections should not be inflated beyond industry averages. Bankers will easily recognize this “stretching” of the financials, and would rather see that you are realistic about the time and commitment needed to grow a business. A good place to start is to assess industry standards and see how your company would compare to the current performance of businesses already in operation. In addition to profit and loss projections, banks will want to see a plan for anticipated cash flow, as timing and delays play a big role in managing the finances of an organization.

Financial institutions may also prefer that you list a secondary source of repayment in the event that your business does struggle financially. Banks have to protect their assets with every loan, so proof of savings, collateral or a strong guarantor will strengthen your request for funds.

3. Stakeholders and business resources

When a plan is under review, proof that the entrepreneur has stakeholders who know the business, and resources to guide them, is extremely beneficial. Providing a lender profiles of the business partners, investors, and management team to ensure that the business is in the hands of people with a history of successful experience can also be an advantage. Listing resources such as the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center at UALR also demonstrates to lenders that you have done research and know where to turn for guidance as you grow your business.

Entrepreneurs should know their industry, create a detailed plan for reaching their targets, outline the financial plan for success and have a team of players ready to work to make it all happen. Banks and lenders want to see their small business clients thrive, and will work with them to make sure the outcomes are successful for everyone.

OK, I admit it. I am a TED junkie. I try to set some time aside each day to find content on the web that is challenging, enriching, novel and even controversial. The site that will most often suck me in — to discover I have spent an hour listening to people I do not know — is TED.

The idea of TED talks has gone way beyond the original concept of technology, education and design. And while there are fascinating and well-constructed talks on the main TED stage, I am often more taken with speakers at local TEDx events. TED superstars like Simon Sinek and Brene Brown have nothing to fear from what are often quirky, homegrown topics ranging from “How to Travel the World With No Money” to “The Mathematics of Weight Loss.”

To understand the brilliance of TEDx you have to understand what it is. TEDx is a day of TED talks, organized and produced locally. No one makes a profit or gets paid for producing or working on a TEDx conference (except contracted vendors who provide services). No one can buy his way onto the stage, and no one can be paid to speak. There are many more criteria, but suffice it to say that TED protects its brand.

So it was not a small undertaking when a small band led by someone new to Little Rock managed to produce the first TEDx conference in Little Rock: TEDx Markham Street, branded by TED as TEDxMarkhamSt. (Disclosure: I spoke at the conference last year, and I will function as emcee on the stage this year.)

So why did more than 300 people take a workday out of their lives to fill Ron Robinson Theater last year? There was no one on the stage whom they could not hear in another venue, except perhaps Minnijean Brown-Trickey, who was given a place of honor as the last speaker of the day.

I think I know why, and it has a lot to do with leadership. You may not agree with what you hear at a TEDx conference, but you will learn something new. You may not get the full picture — since speakers are given 18 minutes — but you will be escorted into territory occupied by that speaker that is likely to be new, controversial and challenging. You may not be blown away by brilliant oratory, but you will be clear about why that speaker takes the stage.

Trust me when I tell you that it takes a lot of courage to walk onto a stage in a community where you do not have the safety of anonymity and advocate for something you believe in, introduce a concept or way of viewing the world that may not be mainstream or simply bare your soul about something you believe matters — with no confidence that the rest of the room will understand or care.

In fact, the entire story of the local event is an act of leadership behind the scenes. Salil Joshi is a master of public service/master of public health student at the Clinton School of Public Service and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He moved here two years ago and knew not a soul. And yet he has pulled together a band of volunteers, sponsors, vendors and speakers who have, largely under his leadership, made the event a reality in 2015 and are ready to repeat that effort in 2016.

No one in the enterprise gets paid for his or her time, talent or energy. TEDxMarkhamSt was born of vision, engagement, coordination and no small amount of sweat.

On Sept. 30, TEDxMarkhamSt will again take the stage at the Ron Robinson Theater behind the Arkansas Studies Institute building downtown. Once again, 15 or so speakers with something to say will take the stage for 18 minutes and give it their all. None is a nationally known speaker, but having interviewed all of them in preparation for the conference, I can tell you that they all have something to say.

Stephen Covey would call TED a day for “sharpening your saw” before you go back to work and start cutting down trees. More information is at TEDxMarkhamSt.org.

I. Barry Goldberg of Little Rock, an executive coach with a global client base, is a Vistage Peer Advisory Group chair. Email him at Barry.Goldberg@EntelechyPartners.com.

A Bentonville couple seeking to ride the microbrew wave has signed on as franchisees with Growler USA, a 2-year-old craft brew franchise that calls itself “America’s Microbrew Pub.”

Seth and Mary McDaniel hope to open their Growler USA location in Rogers some time after the first of next year. It would be the first Growler USA in Arkansas.

As an IT consultant his entire career, Seth McDaniel spent most of the week on the road. He grew tired of the travel and had always wanted to open a restaurant, but he lacked restaurant experience. “I found Growler USA and decided it would be a great opportunity to kind of dip my toes into learning how to run and operate a restaurant,” McDaniel said.

Growler USA currently has locations in Eugene, Oregon; Charlotte, North Carolina; Honolulu; Seattle; and Houston and Austin, Texas. It has about 40 franchises sold in 18 states, including metro areas of Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Orlando and Phoenix.

The company, based in Centennial, Colorado, says it’s dedicated “to offering only American-made craft beverages and a menu designed to celebrate the unique flavors of each drink.” The pubs offer up to 100 taps of craft beer, hard cider, draught wine, root bear, cold-pressed coffee and kombucha tea.

The craft beer aspect appealed to McDaniel, he said, “the ability to sell and support all the local breweries that are in northwest Arkansas — all of Arkansas, basically.” He added that “the vast majority of our 100 beer tap handles will be products from the local breweries.”

And “going with a franchise, I kind of get to leverage the processes and procedures that they’ve put in place, so I’m not trailblazing my own path.”

The Rogers Growler USA will offer a full lunch and dinner service, with a menu designed to pair with “a vast array of beer styles.”

His pub will be in a retail center at 4204 S. J.B. Hunt Drive in Rogers, part of the retail development in The District at Pinnacle Hills. Whisinvest Realty is the developer and leasing company for the project.

Although his wife, Mary, will be keeping her day job — she’s a buyer for Wal-Mart — Seth McDaniel will be devoting his full energies to the microbrew pub. And if things work out, they may open other Growler locations. “I’m taking it one step at a time.”

Their investment will total about $500,000, McDaniel said. They’ve obtained an SBA loan from Legacy National Bank.

Although it’s a franchise, McDaniel stresses that “it’s locally owned and operated with a focus on the local breweries in the community." All of the servers and beer tenders will be Cicerone Certified Beer Servers. Cicerone certification is a professional certification for beer professionals.

He expects to employ between 15 and 20 workers.

As Arkansas Business writers were preparing last month’s well-received Business Icons features, we specifically asked some of the 10 to talk about what they were doing when they were in their 20s.

I want to use some of them to introduce this week’s eighth annual The New Influentials: 20 in Their 20s feature, because their answers were instructive — and not just because most of those business legends had found their life’s work before they were 30. Some of their stories seem like products of an earlier time that would be hard to replicate in the 21st century, but they also delivered reminders of the timeless qualities that propel a young adult toward success.

Bob Shell was already on his third career when he joined the Little Rock construction company that would eventually be renamed Baldwin & Shell — and he wasn’t yet 20. He had been fired from a job driving an ambulance. He had been denied a promotion from mail clerk to furniture salesman at Fones Hardware.

He was, in his words, “pretty disgusted” by the setbacks when he hired on with the 4-year-old Baldwin Co., and he was determined to make himself valuable to the company’s three founders, who had taken a chance on a 19-year-old who, by his own account, “didn’t know anything about construction.”

Six and a half decades later, Shell spoke of P.W. Baldwin, Werner Knoop and especially Olen Cates with an admiration and appreciation that reminded me of Ebenezer Scrooge’s memories of his first boss, old Mr. Fezziwig.

“They were all very good to me,” Shell said. And his job at Baldwin Co. became more than just a job. “I’ve really loved it.”

The morals of Bob Shell’s story, then, are to shake off failure and to make the most of opportunities. (And for those of us who are no longer young, Shell serves as a great reminder that eager beginners deserve the opportunity to show what they can do.)

Johnelle Hunt, widely considered the operational talent that turned her husband’s dream into the reality that is J.B. Hunt Transport Inc. of Lowell, also found her life’s work before she was 30 — just barely and involuntarily.

She was 29 and happy as a housewife and mother when Johnnie Bryan Hunt started his trucking company. But someone had to make those collection calls, and her fierce dedication to her family was all the impetus she needed.

“In collections you have to have someone really strong who doesn’t take no for an answer,” said Hunt, now widowed and in her mid-80s. “I knew for every dollar I didn’t collect, we lost 50 cents, so I couldn’t feed my children. I was a nice person until I started collecting money.”

A lesson from Johnelle Hunt, then, is this: One may find professional satisfaction — what is too often referred to as “passion” — in unexpected places and even in responsibilities that we didn’t seek out.

Jim Lindsey spent most of his 20s on the gridiron — he turned 20 the year he was part of the Arkansas Razorbacks national championship football team in 1964 and spent seven years in the NFL.

Then, at 29 in 1973, he founded Lindsey & Associates, the foundation of his real estate empire.

But he had a plan even while he was playing football, the game that he says taught him to understand a big picture. When he was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings at 22, he invested his $75,000 signing bonus in real estate — including the future site of the Northwest Arkansas Mall in Fayetteville.

The lessons from Jim Lindsey: When you get your hands on some money, don’t blow it. And if you know that what you are doing right now is not going to last forever, start preparing Plan B.

When George Gleason was 25, he bought the Bank of Ozark, with assets of $28 million. The next day, he gathered his 30 employees and gave them a pep talk:

“The theme of the speech was we may never be the biggest bank in Arkansas, but if we work really hard and every one of us does the very best we can, … we can be the best bank in Arkansas,” Gleason said.

Thirty-seven years later, the renamed Bank of the Ozarks has assets of more than $18 billion. It is the largest bank headquartered in Arkansas and one of the 100 largest in the United States.

Gleason said he set his goals too low in that first staff meeting, but I think the moral of his story is to under-promise and over-deliver.

I personally interviewed Johnny Allison, chairman of Home BancShares Inc. of Conway. He was a millionaire (“on paper,” he said) by the time he was 30, as had been his goal. But he had done it the hardest way possible: by accidentally investing in two money-losing mobile home manufacturers that he had no choice but to fix. He was barely in his 30s when he became the largest shareholder of a bank that, unbeknownst to him, had regulatory problems.

Allison’s business career would make a great management textbook, but I think the biggest life lesson he can teach all of us, young or old, is this: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

The New Influentials

A long-scheduled vacation kept me from participating in the committee that selected this year’s 20 in Their 20s, so I learned about most of these young leaders the same way you will: by reading the short profiles spread over the next 10 pages.

I have no way of knowing whether there’s another Bob Shell or Johnelle Hunt or George Gleason in this year’s crop. Some may have already gotten rich quick, like Johnny Allison. One of them, D.J. Williams, is following the Jim Lindsey path: Razorbacks to NFL to real estate, with on-air TV work thrown in for good measure. A couple of them, Jonathan Crossley and Eric Dailey, have chosen the get-rich-never field of education, but I suspect their stories will be as inspirational to you as they are to their students.

I do see in all of them the energy and ambition and adventurous spirit that is obvious in our state’s business legends, even decades after they were in their 20s. We’re proud to introduce these New Influentials and to consider all the potential they offer our state in the decades to come.

WASHINGTON — Americans finally got a raise last year after eight years of stagnating incomes.

(Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

The Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub of North Little Rock announced Wednesday that eight teams representing five universities kicked off an inaugural 12-week I-Fund program in Fayetteville over the weekend.

I-Fund is an early stage, proof-of-concept fund formed to capitalize and train university startups, according to the Hub's website.

Each team, which has at least one student member and one member from the business community, was awarded up to $50,000 in capital and will join a network that gives them access to mentors, investors and other entrepreneurs.

The teams will also receive structured training that includes the Lean Startup methodology to make sure the students validate their ideas before launching them.

The first set of participants were selected by a five-person investment committee.

The teams are:

• Carbolytix. It's working to develop a catalyst for hydrolyzing carbohydrates into glucose. The team is based at the University of Arkansas.
• Grox Industries. The team is developing a procedure to reduce the volatility and manufacturing costs of graphene. It is also based at the UA.
• IntelliNexus. It's developing technology that introduces intelligence in both autonomous and driver-controlled vehicles. The team is based at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the UA.
• Knallhart AgriTech. The team is making a product that reduces excess runoff of irrigation tailwater. It's based at Arkansas State University and the UA.
• Rejuvenics Technologies. It's developing a procedure to expedite healing of chronic wounds. The team is based at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the UA.
• Nexgen Medical. The team is engineering material to increase cell adhesion for tissue growth. It is based at the UA and Oklahoma University.
• Sipp Coffee. The team is developing an app for finding the best coffee in the user's location. It is based at the UA.
• TorOptic. The team is developing a device to deliver ophthalmic medication without eye irritation. It is based at the UA.

WattGlass of Fayetteville announced on Wednesday that it's received a $679,413 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative to help commercialize its anti-reflective glass coating technology.

The startup said it will use the money to work with leading solar panel manufacturers and integrate their coating, which is self-cleaning and anti-fog, with the glass currently used in panel production.

The 14-month project involves installing more than 240 panels in test arrays around the country.

WattGlass said its technology uses water-based chemistry and is cheaper than alternatives. It said the coating would reduce the cost of solar panel production and maintenance associated with cleaning them, as well as increase the performance of panels in the field.

WattGlass was founded in 2014 by four Arkansas entrepreneurs to commercialize technology developed by CEO Corey Thompson during his Ph.D. research under Min Zou at the University of Arkansas.

The grant follows another by a UA-connected startup, Picasolar. That company received its third SunShot grant, this one totaling $2 million, last month. 

Renovations to the future home of the Little Rock Tech Park could cost $358,729 more than expected and its opening may be delayed, Executive Director Brent Birch told the park's board of directors on Wednesday.

Birch told the board that much of the additional cost could be attributed to unexpected structural issues uncovered at 415 Main St. But the board has about $857,000 in contingency funds to cover overruns, and Birch said some extra expenses would likely be covered by shifting money from line items that come in under budget.

The park's opening could be delayed by as much as eight weeks, Birch said.

The board in April approved a $6.8 million budget for renovation and asbestos abatement involving properties at 415 and 417 Main St. and 114 E. Capitol Ave., where the park plans to open early next year. It has been temporarily operating out of space at 107 Main St.

Construction began on the new space in April. But Birch said there were still tenants in 415 Main until May 31, so construction crews only recently discovered the need to shore up the north wall of the 100-year-old building.

The park plans other changes to the floor plan based on requests and feedback by prospective tenants. The Venture Center, which is currently renting space at 107 Main, has requested space on the bottom floor of the revamped building, and three prospective tenants have said they'd like a more elaborate coffee bar.

In his report to the board, Birch said 415 Main is still in the interior demolition phase. He said contractor East Harding Construction of Little Rock would know next month whether the building could open in early or late February.  

Birch said that once the new timeline is determined, the board will have to decide whether it should open one building in January and the other later or open both in February.

Board member C.J. Duvall said, considering the age of the buildings, the cost overruns were "not alarming." He asked Roy St. Claire of Wittenberg Delony & Davidson Architects of Little Rock whether he expected crews to find anything else that would result in significant additional costs.

"I think we've got everything addressed," St. Claire said.

Birch added that 417 Main is a concrete structure, while 415 Main is a wood-frame structure, and a lot more was known about 417 Main because a previous tenant had partially renovated it.

Tenants

Birch also said the park's first tenants have leases to sign and would be named within the next month.

PFITR of Missouri, which participated in the Venture Center's FinTech Accelerator, has set up shop in the park's temporary space at 107 Main and is interested in space at the new facility. LumoXchange, another FinTech Accelerator alum, is working with the park to move into the temporary space and also looking at options for moving into the new facility, Birch said.

Board members also voiced reluctance to spend more to keep up the HVAC system at the park's temporary space. Birch said the park had already spent about $4,500 and problems with the system had caused some uncomfortably hot days there. In July, the board voted to end its 107 Main lease.

In other business, the board met for 40 minutes to discuss Birch's performance but took no action.

When Californian Don Weatherman arrived at Lyon College for the first time in 1983, he was told that Batesville had a population of about 10,000. More than three decades later, it still does.

The population may be the only thing stagnant in the seat of Independence County. Fresh eyes, strategic planning, youthful energy and cold, hard cash are shaking up a college town on the jagged edge of the Ozarks that is burdened with many of the same challenges as the Delta that’s just minutes away.

“We know what a diamond in the rough we are,” Robb Roberts, executive vice president of locally owned First Community Bank and chairman of the Batesville Area Chamber of Commerce, said last week.

There are signs of change all over town. In the historic downtown of the state’s oldest city:

• The historic Melba Theater reopened last month in the 100 block of West Main Street;
• A block to the east, build-out is in full swing on an honest-to-goodness bar and lounge called 109 Main — a private club that will remain so since a dry-to-wet initiative failed to get on the November ballot;
• The first new building on Main Street in decades, The Pinto restaurant, opened for coffee last week and will start serving full meals this week; and
• The Batesville Public Library is preparing to quadruple its size by moving from a 112-year-old building on Main Street to a building a couple of blocks west that is a year older.

On the south side of town, near the White River that first brought settlers to the area, a state-of-the-art treatment facility that was dedicated in June doubled the city's maxed-out wastewater capacity, creating the opportunity to expand the poultry industry that has been an industrial mainstay.

And a sprawling $28 million community center and water park — what Mayor Rick Elumbaugh called the "sexy" project — should be complete by year's end.

Some of these projects were well underway by the time the Batesville Chamber rolled out a strategic plan called "Impact Independence County," a 40-page wish list (PDF) that was the result of blanketing the county with surveys. The strategic plan for economic development, tourism, educational excellence and healthy living was the brainchild of last year's chamber chairman, Phil Baldwin.

Baldwin moved to Independence County at the end of 2013 to execute growth plans for Citizens Bank, the smaller of the two Batesville-chartered banks. The former CEO of Southern Bancorp of Arkadelphia, a rural development bank with nonprofit affiliates, had used similar tools to create a strategic plan for Clark County and the Delta Bridge Project for Phillips and Mississippi counties in Arkansas and Coahoma County, Mississippi.

Without hiring a consultant but with models from other communities, the chamber partnered with Lyon College, where Weatherman returned as president in 2009, and the University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville to produce the strategic plan. (See Education a Cornerstone of Batesville's Strategic Plan.)

Before the ideas were committed to paper, "There wasn't really any vision for the community," said Crystal Johnson, the chamber's president and CEO. Now community leaders refer to Impact the way preachers refer to the Good Book, and it helped the chamber win a two-part grant totaling $67,000 from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation of Little Rock.

That money, in turn, is being divided into "mini-grants" to organizations that pledge to use the money to benefit low- and moderate-income residents, which are targeted by many of the 168 goals included in the Impact plan.

The goals are "all very achievable by 2020," Johnson said, and some of them have already been achieved. For example: hiring someone to promote tourism, something Johnson and chamber COO Jamie Rayford don’t have time to do as well as it needs to be done.

The Batesville Area Chamber receives no tax dollars and the city does not (yet) have a local-option advertising and promotion tax, but Kyle Christopher was hired two months ago as tourism director with seed money from a fundraiser at the chamber's annual meeting.

While other parts of Arkansas have been laser-focused on promoting their attractions, Batesville hasn't even had a brochure available at state tourism information centers.

"That's such a little thing," Weatherman said, "but it's a thousand little things."

Private Investments

Citizens Bank announced in April a $10 million, low-interest loan program specifically for investments in downtown Batesville. It also set aside $100,000 for small grants of about $5,000 each, and six of those have been made so far.

One was used to replace windows in the 231 E. Main St. building that houses Elizabeth’s Restaurant & Catering. One paid for the patio seating at The Pinto, the new rock building that Haley and Brice Stephens built from scratch on the vacant southeast corner of Main Street and Central Avenue with help from local architect Zack Mobley.

“We’ve been talking about this for probably 10 years,” Haley said last Monday, the last day of preparation before the soft opening.

The Pinto will compete with Big’s, a lunch spot directly across Main Street, where business has picked up since Joe and Janelle Shell and Mandi and Adam Curtwright put $650,000 and almost as much in sweat equity into reopening The Melba a half-block away.

The theater — exact age unclear, Joe Shell said — opened with a black-tie screening of “The Wizard of Oz” on Aug. 12. The Melba had been in almost continual operation since the 1940s, when its few African-American patrons had to use a separate entrance to climb stairs to the segregated balcony, but it had been closed for several months when the Shells and Curtwrights bought it in March 2015.

With the help of John Greer Jr. of WER Architects of Little Rock, the new owners tackled a labor-intensive renovation that included reupholstering the 414 orchestra seats. Janelle Shell’s father sanded and refinished every wooden armrest, a gleam that competes with the brass plates on the chair backs from a community fundraiser for the project called “Save Your Seat.”

Cliff Brown, who works for Baldwin at Citizens Bank, has teamed up with Chintan Patel, owner of the U.S. Pizza franchise in Batesville, to open 109 Main. Brown said he hoped the bar and lounge, modeled after places the partners visited in bigger cities, would help kickstart nightlife in Batesville.

Brown and Patel chose one of the last vacant storefronts on historic Main, which is being narrowed to a single westbound lane in order to slow traffic. But the hopes of city boosters were smashed last month when a petition to put a dry-to-wet initiative on the November ballot failed by fewer than 400 signatures.

Under a 2015 state law that also frustrated efforts in Randolph County, one invalid signature can disqualify an entire page of voter signatures. (Among the signatures thus invalidated in Independence County: Mayor Elumbaugh’s and that of Robb Roberts, the chamber chairman.)

Public Investments

The wastewater treatment plant that was completed earlier this year had been in the works since a 1 percent sales tax was approved by city voters in 2009, creating vast new capacity for industrial users.

But wastewater holding ponds aren’t as sexy as the “lazy river” water feature at the new community center whose delayed opening is now expected by yearend.

“Nobody ever asked me when the treatment plant would be finished, but people ask me all the time when the community center will be ready,” Mayor Elumbaugh said.

The community center — 105,000 SF under roof, plus a 40,000-SF water park — was designed by ETC Engineers of Little Rock, and the contractor is G.A.G. Builders of Cabot. The gymnasium, big enough for three basketball courts or six volleyball games, can also be used for trade shows or banquets, and that will take some of the pressure off the UA Community College, the go-to place for large gatherings in Batesville.

The community center — Batesville Parks & Recreation Director Jeff Owens says naming rights are still available — is being paid for by a dedicated 1 percent sales tax approved by voters in 2012, half of which will sunset after paying for the construction.

The Batesville Public Library, supported by a 1-mill property tax, got a new director in April, Vanessa Adams. She is overseeing the move from a 5,000-SF historic building on Main Street to a 21,000-SF space being renovated down the street.

The library is among the recipients of a mini-grant from the Rockefeller Foundation: $3,750 for three computers for use by children.

The library currently has five computers, and Adams says it needs about 20. The new space will have room for more computers, programs, even book club meetings.

Younger Residents

Crystal Johnson said Batesville’s stagnant population — not dwindling like many communities in the Delta to the east but not growing like Conway or northwest Arkansas — was a “call to action.”

But the area is already attracting newer residents, like Baldwin and chamber director Carter Ford, a former aide to Gov. Mike Beebe who has opened a State Farm insurance agency in Batesville. Natives are also returning, like the Stephenses at The Pinto and Johnson’s husband, Damon.

The younger faculty members that Weatherman recruits to Lyon College like the idea of living in the historic houses downtown, where many of the residents are under 50.

“Almost every single week, a new millenial family moves to Batesville,” Ford said. “To find arts, to find diversity, you have to move to a large city — Impact proved that wrong,” Ford said.

LAS VEGAS - Officials from 21 states sued the U.S. Department of Labor Tuesday over a new rule that would make about 4 million higher-earning workers eligible for overtime pay, slamming the measure as inappropriate federal overreach by the Obama Administration.

Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, a Republican, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Eastern Texas, urging it to block implementation before the regulation takes effect on Dec. 1. Laxalt, a frequent critic of President Barack Obama's policies, said the rule would burden private and public sectors by straining budgets and forcing layoffs or cuts in working hours.

"This rule, pushed by distant bureaucrats in D.C., tramples on state and local government budgets, forcing states to shift money from other important programs to balance their budgets, including programs intended to protect the very families that purportedly benefit from such federal overreach," he said in a statement.

The lawsuit came the same day that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and more than 50 other business groups filed a legal challenge against the regulation.

Previously: Attorney Stuart Jackson on the new overtime regulations, traps to avoid and how to prepare.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez said he was confident in the legality of the rule, describing the lawsuits as partisan, obstructionist tactics. He noted that overtime protections have receded over the years: they applied to 62 percent of full-time salaried workers in 1975 and just 7 percent today.

"The overtime rule is designed to restore the intent of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the crown jewel of worker protections in the United States," Perez said in a statement. "I look forward to vigorously defending our efforts to give more hardworking people a meaningful chance to get by."

The measure would shrink the so-called "white collar exemption" that exempts workers who perform "executive, administrative or professional" duties from overtime and minimum wage requirements.

It would more than double the salary threshold under which employers must pay overtime to their white collar workers. Overtime protections would apply to workers who make up to $913 a week, or $47,476 a year, and the threshold would readjust every three years to reflect changes in average wages.

"This long-awaited update will result in a meaningful boost to many workers' wallets, and will go a long way toward realizing President Obama's commitment to ensuring every worker is compensated fairly for their hard work," the Labor Department said in May when it announced the new rule.

Business groups say the changes are too much and too fast, especially as states continue to recover from the recession.

"We believe that many employers across our state and the country_large and small alike_will not be able to meet the high cost of these ongoing rate changes, and as a result, will be forced to curtail hiring or even lay off employees," said Kristin McMillan, president of the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Other plaintiffs include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin, and the governors of Iowa, Maine and New Mexico.

The Eastern Texas district where the lawsuit was filed is known as a "rocket docket" court where cases move along quickly.

(Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Arkansas Business and the Best Companies Group on Wednesday honored 29 Arkansas companies with "Best Places to Work" awards, which honor firms that have exceptional workplace environments.

Among the winners was United Federal Credit Union, which received the 2016 Benchmark Award, given to the company whose workplace goes above and beyond in offering employee benefits, professional development programs and other perks.

The Michigan-based institution operates five locations in Alma, Fort Smith, Van Buren and Springdale. In 2015, the company reported over $2 billion in assets, $17.5 million in income and 140,000 total members.

"That would not happen without a satisfied workforce that advocates for us and the goods and services we offer," Noel Andrew Sanger, the company's market vice president, said of the its growth. "As the Arkansas market vice president, I follow two guiding principles: 'Leadership takes care of the team and the team takes care of the member,' and 'Teamwork divides the task but doubles the success.'"

UFCU’s focus on the employee has driven turnover to just 6 percent in the Arkansas region, well below national turnover rates of between 15 and 22 percent. Sanger credits operational elements that address its 49 local employees as individuals first as one big reason why.

Award winners are determined by a set of criteria set forth in the Best Places program, through which companies survey their employees about workplace satisfaction, corporate culture and company leadership. This year's honorees were recognized at a luncheon at the Embassy Suites Little Rock.

The event recognized two other companies as overall "Best Places to Work" in the small and large company categories.

Saatchi & Saatchi X of Springdale, an advertising firm, won in the small company category. 

"We transcend fun to make this a joyful place to work," said Jessica Hill, the firm's talent director. "We celebrate every success, birthday and anniversary. We have a committee that finds different ways for us to give back to the community; we've held fundraising events and internal games or competitions to raise money, as well as donating our time. Additionally, we have a secret committee called X-Files that creatively executes fun activities throughout the year."

Amid the entertainment value of crawfish boils, Halloween costume contests and charity Texas Hold 'Em tournaments, the company is also achieving important team building benefits that show up most clearly during times of stress.

Rockfish, a digital media agency founded in Rogers in 2006, won in the large company category. 

The firm, with offices in Little Rock, Dallas, Cincinnati and Atlanta, marked its fourth consecutive year as a Best Place to Work honoree. Lisa Bridgers, senior vice president for talent acquisition and human resources, said Rockfish wants its employees to do their best in the office and at home. 

This year, the company deliberately focused on employees' overall well-being. The goal was a happier, healthier and more productive workplace.

Other winners for Best Place to Work in the small category were:

• Braswell & Son Pawnbrokers
• C.R. Crawford Construction LLC
• Clark Contractors
• Delta Dental of Arkansas
• Harrison Energy Partners
• Kimbel Mechanical Systems
• Optus Inc.
• Perks.com
• Rainwater Holt & Sexton PA
• RevUnit
• Team SI
• The Good Earth Garden Center
• Travel Nurse across America LLC
• WELSCO Inc.

Other winners for Best Place to Work in the large category were:

• ABC Financial Services Inc.
• Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield
• Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp.
• Arkansas Federal Credit Union
• CaseStack
• City of Siloam Springs
• Delta Plastics
• Rockfish
• Rural Sourcing Inc.
• St. Bernards Medical Center
• Total Quality Logistics
• United Federal Credit Union
• USAble Life
• VCC LLC

More information about the Best Places to work program, including profiles of each company and how to register for next year's program, is available here.

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences has corrected a contract that for nearly eight years gave a private company the exclusive right to market UAMS’ intellectual property and resulted in no royalty payments for UAMS.

The contract originally favored RxResults LLC of Little Rock, which was formed in 2008 to sell something the university’s College of Pharmacy developed: a system for identifying lower-priced substitutes for higher-cost prescription drugs.

An executive and minority shareholder of RxResults is Alan Gardner, whose wife, Stephanie, was dean of the College of Pharmacy until mid-2015. Stephanie Gardner told Arkansas Business that she followed UAMS’ conflict-of-interest protocols and didn’t have any role in the business relationship with RxResults.

But after her promotion to provost and chief academic officer, UAMS officials expressed concerns about the arrangement and threatened to cancel the RxResults contract altogether, according to internal emails and documents obtained by Arkansas Business under the state Freedom of Information Act.

The original contract contained two bones of contention: the terms of royalty payments and an exclusivity clause.

The exclusivity clause kept UAMS from selling the COP’s Evidenced-Based Prescription Drug Program, called EBRx, directly to any other customer except other state agencies.

UAMS’ frustration with the clause was highlighted when the Arkansas Department of Human Services announced earlier this year that it wouldn’t renew its contract with UAMS for the prescription services. DHS had budgeted $2.6 million for UAMS this year.

The loss of that revenue forced the EBRx program to lay off seven of its 20 employees because the contract restricted UAMS from seeking replacement clients. EBRx’s other clients included the state Employee Benefits Division and the University of Arkansas System.

Without the DHS contract, revenue flowing to the EBRx program fell from $3.3 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30 to a projected $1.6 million for the current fiscal year that began July 1.

“RxResults has had the benefit of exclusivity for 8 years and it hasn’t helped them or us,” Dwight Davis, the director of EBRx, said in an email on April 7. “The handcuffs must be removed.”

Davis had already complained about how little UAMS received from RxResults for the use of the EBRx system. Between October 2011 and September 2015, RxResults paid EBRx about $900,000 for services provided, which RxResults then resold to clients like Harding University in Searcy and Dillard’s Inc. of Little Rock.

RxResults payments provided “little to no margin,” Davis said in a Nov. 9 email, while “UAMS has made significant contributions to RxResults.”

UAMS hoped that RxResults would also generate royalty payments, but the contract based the royalties on RxResults’ profitability, not its revenue.

That contract language was a red flag for Nancy Gray, who was named director of BioVentures, UAMS’ technology licensing office and business incubator, in March 2015. In a Nov. 23 email, she insisted that the terms be changed.

“Profit is a non-starter for me,” Gray wrote. “Too many ways to ‘cook the books’ to adjust profits — aka commissions, bonuses, etc. Need to be tied to sales/revenues, not EBITDA. This point is a deal breaker for me.”

Since RxResults wasn’t profitable, it never paid the 5 percent royalty, according to documents provided by UAMS.

For January-May of 2015, RxResults had a loss of nearly $1.1 million on revenue of nearly $670,000. That report — the latest shared with UAMS even though quarterly reporting has always been required by the contract — projected total 2015 revenue of $2.5 million and an annual net loss of $2.3 million.

In early December, Gray and William Bowes, UAMS’ chief financial officer, let RxResults CEO Tery Baskin know they weren’t satisfied with the contract.

“Under the current Master Services Agreement and based on RxResults current projections, UAMS would not be paid a royalty until the end of 2018,” Gray and Bowes wrote in a Dec. 3 letter. “We feel strongly that we should already be receiving a royalty based on current revenues.”

Then, on Jan. 11, UAMS notified RxResults that the contract would be canceled in 90 days. That termination letter would be rescinded as talks continued, and a new agreement was finally reached at the end of August.

The terms of the royalty payment are now based on net revenue and the exclusivity clause has been relaxed.

Baskin said in an interview that UAMS had always received value from the business relationship. “It hadn’t been bad for UAMS at all,” he said. He said that in the first couple of years of their business relationship, the money paid to UAMS was “pretty much straight profit.”

He said he personally invested $1.3 million into RxResults and others invested $4 million in 2014. “So we’ve got significant private money that says this is a good model,” Baskin said. “This is something that needs to be done for health care, and we think it will be a good business investment at some point.”

Davis, the EBRx director, said the relationship with RxResults provided UAMS an opportunity to build its intellectual property and test it in the private market.

“But, I guess if you look at it from the perspective of this is supposed to generate royalties into UAMS, it certainly didn’t do that,” Davis said. “So it was a balance.”

‘Exclusivity a Good Thing’

Sometime around 2003, the Arkansas Department of Human Services asked UAMS’ College of Pharmacy for help controlling prescription drug costs, Stephanie Gardner said in an interview with Arkansas Business.

“And we helped them with basically creating an evidenced-based prescription drug program,” Gardner said.

The program was wildly successful, saving DHS some $70 million in just a few years. That savings attracted interest from private companies that also wanted help with prescription drug costs, but the COP “just didn’t have the resources to do that,” Gardner said.

UAMS Chancellor Dan Rahn said in an email to Arkansas Business that the medical school’s culture encourages commercializing discoveries “to use our intellectual capabilities to form companies and private sector jobs.” And that seems to be what Gardner was doing when, in her words, she “talked about this potential opportunity” with Tery Baskin, “who I had known for years.”

Baskin was interested in helping, he told Arkansas Business.

“Health care costs are obviously a big concern for everybody in the country,” Baskin said. “And that’s why when you have something that’s improving both the cost and the quality, this is going to turn out to be a real meaningful … model.”

He approached UAMS about marketing the service and formed RxResults in 2008. His first hire in 2009 was Stephanie Gardner’s husband, Alan, with whom Baskin had worked previously.

RxResults became part of UAMS BioVentures, and Baskin said the exclusivity clause was his idea.

“I wasn’t going to go through and build all of this and then [have UAMS] say, ‘Oh, you’ve done all the hard work, we’ll just go do all this,’ and then I’m left over here and did all the development work and … took all of the risk,” Baskin said. “So it was a good business decision. … That exclusivity was a good thing to have.”

BioVentures’ Gray said that most of the incubator companies have similar exclusivity agreements in place.

Payment Changes

Baskin said the prescription drug service saves the average client 12-15 percent of his total pharmacy bill. Despite such an appealing outcome, Davis said, selling the service isn’t easy.

Not only is RxResults in a “very competitive environment,” but the savings it offers requires some patients to change medications. And that, Davis said in an interview, is an objection to buying the product.

In his Nov. 9 email, he described another objection: “Some companies may view RxResults as a higher-cost middleman and elect not to do business with them.” Instead, he suggested at the time, potential clients would rather work directly with UAMS.

When interviewed recently, however, Davis said he had heard that concern from companies “on occasion” but wasn’t sure how many of those companies would have become UAMS clients.

The percentage that RxResults originally paid UAMS for direct EBRx services worked out to be about 60 percent of RxResults’ revenue, Davis said.

Davis said Baskin told him that such a high pass-through to UAMS was making it hard for RxResults to attract investors. Davis consulted with UAMS’ then-CFO, Melony Goodhand, who was also a member of RxResults’ board of directors, and in 2012, the contract was amended to 22 percent of the revenue RxResults receives from clients for UAMS’ services.

Goodhand left UAMS at the end of 2012. She was replaced in mid-2013 by William Bowes, who also took Goodhand’s place on the RxResults board until February of this year. Then the seat was filled by Keith Olsen, Stephanie Gardner’s successor as dean of the College of Pharmacy.

Leadership Changes

In September 2014, RxResults announced that it had received a $4 million investment from Ansley Equity Partners and Ansley Securities of Naperville, Illinois. The money would be used to accelerate the company’s growth and to expand its services, Baskin said in a news release at the time.

Baskin said in an interview with Arkansas Business in November 2014 that RxResults was in growth mode and planned to add between 20 and 30 jobs by 2016. That projection turned out to be overly optimistic; he recently said the company had 16 employees.

But other changes did affect RxResults in 2015. In March, Nancy Gray became the director of BioVentures, taking over from Marie Chow, who had served as interim director since Michael Douglas retired in 2012. And after Stephanie Gardner was promoted, Keith Olsen became dean of the College of Pharmacy.

Personnel Costs Soar

In the first five months of 2015, RxResults’ revenue was almost $670,000, an increase of more than 30 percent compared with the same period in 2014. But much of that growth seems to have come from selling a service that offered personalized medication reviews.

Meanwhile, personnel costs more than doubled to $962,000, and the five-month period resulted in a bottom line loss of $1.1 million.

Baskin said the board decided to sacrifice short-term profitability for a much bigger position in a few years. “Our goal was where would we be in that three- to five-year window?” Baskin said. “And it’s bearing out to be good.”

Baskin said that he pushed to revise his company’s contract with UAMS because of changes that RxResults made to its business, including fielding client calls that used to go directly to EBRx.

But Davis, from EBRx, and Gray, from BioVentures, said they were the ones who pressed the issue of renegotiating the contract. “I wanted to protect UAMS’ financial interest because that goes to pay salaries of my employees, and so we want to make sure our program is profitable,” Davis said in an interview.

CFO Bowes said Davis’ concerns about the terms of the contract caused Bowes “to question whether or not we should even be involved with RxResults.”

After the Dec. 3 letter informed Baskin that the exclusivity clause and royalty terms would have to be changed, Bowes met with Baskin. Bowes reported on that meeting in a Dec. 9 email: “As expected, the terms of the letter are such that this won’t work for RxResults and will send them into a deeper hole.”

Termination Threatened

Negotiations stalled during the last weeks of 2015, particularly regarding the exclusivity clause, COP Dean Olsen told Arkansas Business. “So I said, ‘OK, well, we’ll just terminate the agreement.”

Bowes sent the letter on Jan. 11. On Jan. 14, Alan Gardner, SVP and 5 percent shareholder at RxResults, emailed the termination letter without any other comment to his wife, Stephanie, Olsen’s predecessor as dean.

“There was nothing I could do as a result of that,” Stephanie Gardner told Arkansas Business. “That was just an FYI; there’s a potential for this to end.”

She said she didn’t have anything to do with the contract negotiations “at all.” And, according to Bowes, neither did Chancellor Rahn.

Except Baskin seemed to think he did.

In an email to Dean Olsen on Feb. 11, Baskin said, “I remain committed, as I know you and the Chancellor are, to getting our new agreement finalized.”

On Jan. 15, a meeting took place that included Bowes, Gray and Davis from the UAMS side and Baskin and Alan Gardner from RxResults. Negotiations resumed, but the termination letter wouldn’t be rescinded until April 8.

Meanwhile, Davis learned that EBRx’s contract with DHS would not be renewed when it expired June 30.

“I think this is exactly why the exclusivity clause of our agreement with RxResults should be stricken or minimized to some degree,” Davis said in a Feb. 21 email. “While it’s not one’s objective to compete with or harm RxResults, we are simply land-locked.”

In an email response to questions from Arkansas Business, DHS spokeswoman Amy Webb said the agency had been reviewing contracts to determine if they were “the best and most-cost-effective approach for the work being done.”

DHS added prescription drug analysis to an existing contract with Magellan Health Inc. of Scottsdale, Arizona, saving the Medicaid program $700,000 a year. Davis said the EBRx employees who were laid off were hired by Magellan.

After months of negotiations, UAMS and RxResults came to an agreement that removed the exclusivity agreement and injected a royalty tied to RxResults sales. And Gray said that under the new agreement RxResults will pay UAMS for services based on the number of hours it makes use of EBRx employees.

“Bottom line, we’ve ended up in a great spot,” said Chris Monroe, a vice president and principal at RxResults. “And that’s from our vantage point and UAMS’.”

For the current fiscal year, EBRx is projected to receive $150,000 from RxResults, which would be up from $108,000 that was projected for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

UAMS Chancellor Rahn, who last week announced that he will retire at the end of July, said in his email that it’s difficult to anticipate the revenue startup companies will generate.

“UAMS is committed to helping advance economic development through the growth of new businesses and commercialization of intellectual property,” he said. “It can take many years before a business reaches a point to generate a positive return to the University.”

Sarah and Jorge Gutierrez are bringing a Latin flair back to the River Market location that once housed Juanita’s restaurant with their plans for Little Rock Salsa, a private club focusing on salsa dancing, naturally, along with other Latin dances like bachata, cumbia, cha-cha and meringue.

The Little Rock couple have just applied with the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Division for a private club license and are working on their application with the city for a zoning change.

Little Rock Salsa is a kind of club-dancing school headed by the Gutierrezes that for the last seven years has partnered with local restaurants and clubs to hold Friday night salsa nights. Among those partners were Browning’s before it became Heights Taco & Tamale, Juanita’s and the Metroplex Event Center.

“It will be Arkansas’ first dedicated site for ballroom dancing and salsa and other Latin types of dancing,” said Sarah Gutierrez, who heads Aptus Financial, a Little Rock financial planning company. A “light menu” will be served, and Little Rock Salsa will feature a full bar, she said.

They plan to be open every Friday and may be open other nights as well for special events like “tango night.”

Sarah and Jorge, who manages a chemical plant in Jacksonville, met salsa dancing. “It’s just great fun,” Sarah Gutierrez said. “We met salsa dancing in Little Rock. We fell in love doing that. And now we teach together.”

Little Rock Salsa hopes to be open by December.

WASHINGTON — U.S. consumer confidence in September rose to the highest level in nine years, a hopeful sign that economic growth will accelerate in coming months.

(Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

From stolen credit card numbers to intellectual property, far too often we hear about large corporations such as Yahoo, Target and Home Depot that have been hit with cyber security breaches. 

News reports about these events can be misleading when they lull small-business owners into believing that cyber security issues apply only to big business. We often hear a small-business owner say something like, "I'm a blip on the radar. Nobody would want to target my company." 

But that logic doesn't hold true in the context of cyberattacks. Many cyber-attack mechanisms are automatic, meaning the perpetrators aren't selecting targets. They're simply seeking vulnerable computer systems — and that means small businesses might be the most susceptible. 

Here are three actions every small business should consider now to prepare for a cyber attack:

Create a response plan. With a concrete response plan in place, proper procedures become automatic if — or when — a cyber breach occurs.

Small-business owners and management should consider how they would respond to an attack if it happened. That includes knowing who will be involved in addressing the issues (both inside and outside the business) and planning for contingencies in case the business' network is inoperable or data is not available for some time period.  

Without a response plan, businesses may face liability. Take, as an example, a breach of customers' health information or intellectual property. Not only might the business be legally liable, but its reputation potentially tarnished. By creating a response plan, small businesses can easily mitigate these issues by sticking to their protocols in moments of crisis.

Consider hiring outside professionals to help evaluate risks and plan ahead. Small businesses often avoid hiring a consulting firm for fear of alerting the world to its supposed vulnerabilities. Instead of testing their luck, small businesses should seek expertise from professionals who consistently deal with cyber issues.

If a small business is concerned about that information being disclosed, it should consider hiring an attorney. In many instances, the preventive discussion of risk evaluation can be handled by an attorney in a confidential and privileged manner. If needed, the attorney can hire technical professionals to assist in the evaluation. 

Hiring outside counsel to audit a company's preparedness and advising on complying with U.S. laws and regulations better prepare companies against the fear of cyber threats and government investigations. Government agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission have all begun to regulate businesses' cyber security policies and procedures through the Dodd-Frank Act and the FTC Act. Specifically, regulators are using the language that service providers cannot engage in any "unfair" or "deceptive" practice.  

For example, after three data breaches in 2008 and 2009 at Wyndham hotels that caused consumer names, addresses and credit card information to be hacked and resulted in more than $10 million in fraud loss, the FTC filed a complaint stating that the company's data-security protections were "unfair" and "deceptive." The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the FTC can regulate cyber security policies and procedures as "unfair" acts or practices. Additionally, the 3rd Circuit stated that the company had fair notice of the act prohibiting unfair practices.

This ruling has opened the door for regulators and is a wakeup call that businesses, big or small, need to be serious about protecting consumer data.      

Consider purchasing cyber insurance. Many insurance companies now offer cyber liability and data breach insurance to protect against notifications, public relations, liability and other activities involved in cyber attacks.

Although cyber insurance might seem unnecessary to those who haven't experienced a breach, those who have understand the value of it. Many cyber insurance policies cover the cost of investigating and responding to attacks — a valuable asset in the critical few days after an attack.

As is common in most general liability policies, these cyber-attack risks are not covered. Further, a commercial general liability policy may not cover a lawsuit brought about by a cyber breach and may not protect against electronic data loss or breach because it is not categorized by the policy as tangible property.

Cyber security is a concern for all businesses today. Small businesses are not immune — and often are more vulnerable to an attack than larger businesses. Evaluation and planning are essential to addressing this universal risk.  

Rodney Moore, an attorney of counsel with the Wright Lindsey & Jennings law firm in Little Rock, represents clients in the health care, banking, technology and insurance industries. Email him at rpmoore@wlj.com. Quinten Whiteside, an associate attorney with Wright Lindsey Jennings, defends clients in litigation related to transportation, intellectual property, premises liability, insurance defense, medical malpractice and employment law. Email him at qwhiteside@wlj.com.

El Dorado advertising executive Don Hale had a job opportunity at a bank, so he called a friend for advice. That friend was Hot Springs marketing pro Kirby Williams, who as fate had it was just announcing a banking job of his own.

News circulated simultaneously last month that Hale and Williams were stepping back from their firms to become marketing chiefs at banks — Hale as a senior vice president with Citizens Bank of Batesville, where he’ll be relocating soon, and Williams as senior vice president with Stone Bank of Mountain View, working out of Little Rock. He’ll also be moving. (His wife, Clare Thomas Williams, is from Little Rock and his two daughters live there.)

“Yes, Don Hale and I have been conspiring for years and we finally figured out how to dominate the north central Arkansas financial industry,” Williams joked in an email. More seriously, he said he and Hale had been close for years. But his move, he said, was sealed long ago and only revealed last month.

“I started working with the bank as a consultant a year and a half ago,” said Williams, 62, who began his career at First National Bank in Little Rock in 1977. “I’ve been working full-time with the bank since Jan. 1, but Stephanie [Alderdice] and I didn’t want a big deal made of it.

Alderdice bought Kirby & Co., Williams’ Hot Springs advertising and social media firm, but no financial details of the private transaction were revealed.

“The thing with Don was just a coincidence, but he did call me; he wanted to get my perspective,” Williams said.

Hale said he “wanted to visit with Kirby about this opportunity because he started in banks. We’re close friends and I think we have similar styles.”

Hale, who didn’t directly state his age but was 39 in 1995 when he was an Arkansas Business 40 Under 40 honoree, is giving up leadership of the Diamond Agency, his family-owned company in El Dorado, turning over reins to account manager Carol McDade.

Both men have strong confidence in their successors. “I’m leaving Diamond in capable hands,” said Hale, who grew up in El Dorado and returned after graduating from the University of Arkansas. “Carol has been with me 20 years, and she has all the capabilities to take over seamlessly. Kirby and I both have good people, and that probably did play a role in our being comfortable with all this.”

Hale said that Phil Baldwin, Citizens Bank’s CEO, lured him with a vision for what he plans to build, “and I wanted to be part of his team.”

Hale said his son Clark, a recent Henderson State University graduate, would be taking a visible role at Diamond, learning under McDade.

Williams, 62, said he picked a peak time to sell Kirby & Co., which will keep its name for now, to a woman he described as “brilliant” at social media. The purchase will be paid out over four years, with Williams on retainer.

In the new job, he’s excited to work with Stone Bank CEO Marnie Oldner, CTO Bruce Upton and President Nick Roach. The Mountain View bank, renamed from Ozark Heritage Bank last year with Williams’ help, has a branch in White Hall, management offices in Little Rock and plans for a banking center in Harrison. “We’re collecting ideas on how to build a perfect bank,” he said.

Alderdice, 35, was a championship coach of the Western Kentucky University Speech and Debate Team before moving to Hot Springs, where her husband, Corey Alderdice, is director of the Arkansas School for Math, Science & Arts.

She says the Kirby name is widely recognized. “Given Kirby’s outstanding reputation, I didn’t want to move away from ‘Kirby & Co.’ from the get-go.” Her first goal is to keep happy clients like the Hot Springs Advertising & Promotion Commission and the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce, then to grow the firm’s digital imprint.

McDade, 57, an “El Dorado girl” and Southern Arkansas University graduate, said she’s known Hale “as far back as I can remember” and will hold the course he set. “We all wear a lot of hats around here,” she said, praising her “ground crew” of about six employees and “a lot of ancillary folks.”

The agency is changing with the times, focusing on digital and social media along with print publications like the El Dorado Insider’s Guide, Arkadelphia Life and the Clark County Adventure Guide.

“Don and his family have instilled confidence in me,” she said. “I pride myself on loyalty – married nearly 40 years and working here almost 20. Most of my friends have been lifelong. What I lack in ability I make up for in loyalty and determination.”

A collapsed egg market and a contract loophole with their integrator have some egg producers in northwest Arkansas and east Oklahoma worried about survival.

In November 2014, Arkansas Egg Co. of Summers sold approximately 35 egg-producing contracts with local farmers to privately owned Vital Farms of Austin, Texas. In the past few weeks, Vital Farms has informed some of those contracted egg producers that the company would “turn out” their birds — that is, Vital Farms would collect and kill the birds to prevent their eggs from reaching the oversaturated market. Several farmers, almost all of whom requested anonymity because their contracts are still active with Vital Farms, told Arkansas Business that their birds or those of fellow producers have already been turned out.

The farmers are those whose integrator contracts with Arkansas Egg had been purchased by Vital Farms. As integrator Vital Farms owns the birds and provides feed, while the farmers are responsible for everything else.

For egg producers who have tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in land, chicken houses and accessories, losing eggs to sell could amount to financial ruin.

Vital Farms was founded in 2007. It was named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies with 2014 revenue of $28.7 million and a three-year growth rate of 496 percent.

According to producers who spoke to Arkansas Business, Vital Farms pays between 50 and 88 cents per dozen eggs; a producer with 5,000 chickens could lose the potential income of 4,000 eggs a day for weeks if not months, depending on how long each turned out flock had remaining in its laying life.

“It’s a bad deal for the farmers, I’m telling you,” said a northwest Arkansas farmer. “I don’t know how we can get it stopped or how we can get it fixed, but it’s not right. It’ll break people. There will be people who lose their farms over this.”

‘Tough Choices’

As recently as a year ago, the egg market was in fine fettle both for cage-produced eggs and the specialty egg market that includes cage-free, free-range and pasture-raised. But that was a year ago.

This summer, cage-egg wholesale prices — the most popular eggs on the market — fell to 55 cents per dozen, the lowest in 10 years. Specialty eggs, which generally sell from anywhere between $4 and $8 a dozen, couldn’t compete.

The glut was the result of prices that stayed high after the Avian Influenza scare of a year ago and caused many farmers to up their egg production to capitalize on the high prices. But when all those eggs hit the market, prices plummeted.

“I would say it’s the worst market since the late ‘90s; it’s hard to say if it is going to set up as one of the worst markets ever,” said Michael Cox, the president of Arkansas Egg. “Looking at the next 12 months it’s easy to see how things aren’t going to change much.”

Cox said he likes the long-term prospects for specialty eggs, but there will be short-term pain while the market remains flooded with cheap generic eggs. Vital Farms, with thousands of pricey eggs struggling in the saturated cheap market, decided to reduce production until the market rebounded.

COO and President Russell Diez-Canseco said Vital Farms had “tough choices” to make to keep the company sustainable long-term. Diez-Canseco said the company was using a clause in the original Arkansas Egg contracts that he said allowed Vital Farms to turn out birds when production was no longer profitable.

Diez-Canseco said Vital Farms would pay farmers 1 cent per day per turned-out bird for the rest of 2016. The 1-cent pay is the same as “pullet pay,” the amount Vital Farms pays farmers for birds before they start laying eggs, usually from 15 weeks to 25 weeks of age.

“We’ve never been in a situation before where we had more eggs than we needed,” Diez-Canseco said. “When you have too many eggs in a market like this, there’s not much you can do with them. So we’ve taken many steps over the last year to bring that supply more in line with our demand.

“As that problem has continued, we have had to take steps again — completely within the terms of our agreements with all of our growers — to bring that supply down. That’s what we did in this case.”

Cox wrote the original contracts and said the profitability clause was not meant to be used the way Vital Farms was using it, although Cox stopped short of directly criticizing the interpretation. Arkansas Egg still has a buy-sell contract for 30,000 chickens with Vital Farms, meaning Arkansas Egg owns and controls the entire laying process until selling the eggs,.

Cox said the clause was originally meant as a corrective measure for farmers whose birds were not producing enough eggs to pay for themselves and their feed. It was not meant as a market correction tool, Cox said.

“As the authors, I can tell you our intent was more related to production,” Cox said. “If they were underperforming with their egg output is the intent of that clause. We interpret it to be strictly a measure of production and not a measure of the company’s profitability.”

‘Severance Pay’

Producers whose birds will and have been turned out said they had the same understanding of the clause when they signed with Arkansas Egg. They are reluctant to voice those opinions publicly because most still have flocks under contracts with Vital Farms, and the company has told them it won’t restock birds until profitable market conditions return.

“The hens are doing what they’re supposed to,” said a farmer in east Oklahoma near Siloam Springs. “That is what the clause is there in for. They’re twisting that clause because they’re losing money.”

Diez-Canseco said Vital Farms doesn’t believe the current market conditions will continue long-term. He said he wished the pullet pay Vital Farms is offering could be more.

“I could make choices that would be more comfortable now, but maybe we wouldn’t be in position 2-3 years from now to continue delivering on our commitments,” Diez-Canseco said. “I wish these choices were easier. I wish we didn’t have this kind of situation, but the reassurance I would give those growers is, as painful as this is, we’re being proactive about making sure this is sustainable for all of our stakeholders.”

One farmer who didn’t ask for anonymity said the pullet pay Vital Farms was offering amounted to “severance pay.” Mitchell Yancey said he invested $200,000 for two pasture-raised chicken houses that can’t easily be repurposed for other uses, and the pullet pay he will receive for 5,000 turned-out chickens wouldn’t even pay his insurance.

“They’re still selling their eggs at the same price,” said Yancey, whose farm is at Westville, Oklahoma. “They grew at 100 percent for two years in a row and they outgrew their market. Now the producers have to pay for that.”

Diez-Canseco said Vital Farms’ pullet pay was the only instance he knew of where a company was paying for absent chickens. But Cox said Arkansas Egg was doing even better by the owners of organic chicken houses that the company had depopulated because the organic egg market was depressed.

Among the farmers Arkansas Egg is paying are Derek and Tyler Amoth of Gentry, who are listed on the “Meet Our Farmers” page of Vital Farms’ website. Cox said Arkansas Egg is paying what the depopulated chickens had been expected to produce if they had laid eggs.

Other producers said the Amoths were among those whose chickens would be turned out by Vital Farms; Derek Amoth declined comment when contacted.

“We chose to make good on what their income would have been,” Cox said. “It’s the right thing to do for one. A year ago, when they could have sold their eggs for 10 times the money I was paying them, they continued to sell their eggs to me. It’s a two-way street. When the ball was in their court, they honored their end of it. When the ball’s in my court I’m going to honor my end of it.”

One producer said he heard rumors that a second round of turnouts was in the works, but Diez-Canseco said the only contracts that allowed such action were the former Arkansas Egg ones. And those contracts, he said, are a “subset” of the company’s integrator contracts, which themselves were a minority of Vital Farms’ total contracts. He said Vital Farms couldn’t take more birds out of houses without breaking a contract.

“I don’t know who you’re talking to, but some of our integrator farmers have multiple flocks with multiple contracts,” Diez-Canseco said. “We’ve gone in and turned out one flock and left the other. By the way, that is my evidence that we haven’t broken any of our contractual commitments. If we just wanted to leave town, we would have shut them all off.”

G.C. Evans Sales and Manufacturing and Sleeve Seal announced Monday that they will invest a combined $6.4 million to expand operations in Little Rock and create 43 new jobs.

The two companies, which are under the same ownership, are located in at 3300 South Woodrow St. in Little Rock but will move all operations to a new, upgraded facility at 14000 Dineen Drive where they will incorporate two new printing lines.

G.C. Evans has been in Little Rock for more than 80 years and employs more than 40 people. The family owned business makes packaging and processing equipment for the food, bottling and pharmaceutical industries.

Sleeve Seal LLC was founded about eight years ago by the G.C. Evans owners and an additional partner. The company supplies printed shrink labels and high-speed labeling equipment used in the consumer and household goods sector as well as the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries.

"G.C. Evans Sales and Manufacturing and Sleeve Seal are extremely excited about this move," said Jason Jones of Sleeve Seal. "The support from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and the state of Arkansas has us on track of getting to that point sooner rather than later. We believe that Arkansas creates a competitive advantage for us nationally and we are looking forward to getting underway."

The companies will receive the following incentives from the AEDC, according to spokesman Scott Hardin:

• Tax Back, which provides sales tax refunds on building materials, taxable machinery and equipment associated with the expansion project.
• Advantage Arkansas, which provides an income tax credit based on payroll of new jobs. Credit will equal one percent of payroll.
• A $250,000 grant from the governor's Quick Action Closing Fund.

"Arkansas' job creation momentum would not be possible without homegrown companies like G.C. Evans and Sleeve Seal that continue to make significant investments in the state," Gov. Asa Hutchinson said in a news release. "G.C. Evans has a rich history in Arkansas and, along with Sleeve Seal, is positioned to flourish for many more years. With the addition of this expansion, we've announced more than 640 new jobs and $256 million in capital investment for Arkansas in just the last few days."

Programmers must teach computers and networks to protect themselves because they're fast but not smart, Phyllis Schneck told a crowd gathered Monday at the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock.

Schneck is the deputy under secretary for cybersecurity and communications for the National Protection and Programs Directorate and the chief cybersecurity official for the Department of Homeland Security.

In her speech, Schneck focused on the importance of public-private partnerships in combatting cybercrime. She also said her federal team needs additional manpower because it's not large enough to handle its "enormous" purview.

Schneck said the threat of cybersecurity breaches has grown and her team's job is to respond to potential breaches. They are flown overnight to provide 24-7 help to federal entities along with businesses, schools and state and local agencies. The team calls it "cleanup on aisle 9," Schneck shared.

Previously: What small businesses must know about cyber attacks.

Schneck said their mission is to make technologies safe and fun, and to make sure U.S. businesses and markets grow by stopping and arresting cybercriminals.

Schneck said cyber criminals "execute (breaches) with a ridiculous amount of agility because they don't have to stop and say, 'What do I do to make sure I get that right? How do I protect private information? How do I make sure that's safe?' They simply steal because we've innovated so quickly as a country and as a world. We have machines that, I said earlier, are not smart. They're just fast."

She said innovation, as it was 15 years ago, is still outpacing security and computers are only as good as "what we teach them."

On the current state of cybersecurity, Schneck said, "I guarantee you every network has a visitor. Guaranteed. The question is, is it going to hurt you?"

Schneck said a business or organization that suspects a breach should never pull the plug on its network, as has been suggested in the past. Doing so alerts cyber criminals that they've been discovered and makes tracking them more difficult

The solution is to treat a network like a biological being, to boost its ability to recognize and thwart an attack like a human's immune system fights off illnesses, Schneck said. Over the last 20 or 30 years, professionals have learned to stop attacks they already know are happening, she said.

The new goal is to stop attacks that people don't know are happening — to teach a computer to not run an instruction from a hacker, who right now could break into a network and go undetected for months.

One way Schneck's team hopes to accomplish their mission is by building a talented and diverse workforce. Diversity is important because cyber criminals are a diverse group, she said.

Schneck's team has the authority to hire people on the spot, often for temporary positions.

"We also have the authorization to pay cyber-people a little more — probably not as much as the private sector," Schneck said, but the mission and impact new hires can have is "incredible."

Data Breach Simulation

Schneck and other federal officials were in Little Rock to conduct an all-day data breach exercise for lawyers. The event was co-hosted by the legal department of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville and the Arkansas Department of Information Systems.

About 25-30 participants, half of them chief information technology officers, responded to a fake data breach at a theoretical university. The exercise was conducted at the Clinton School.

The goal of the exercise was to show that cybersecurity isn't just an information technology problem, but requires a team approach that includes communications professionals and attorneys; and that every company needs a plan to deal with a possible breach.