volume i, issue 3

[FREE] August/September Volume I, Issue 3

BUDDY ROEMER

GREEN ENERGY

MERIWETHER

BRICKS-N-BOMBS

The Lifestyle Magazine For Young Professionals

slay the dragon

solutions

business of a band

the icon story

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6

1 3SEE IT TRY IT2 DO IT16 Big Fish Tips

18 [Art]icle

27 Cover Story

30 Elsewhere

34 Meriwether

39 Mono Chrome

45 Fidna Skate Shop

48 Green Energy

52 VS

57 Recipe

60 Drink

62 Fashion

69 Claim Your Journey

73 Support

7

SEE IT TRY IT DO IT

8

PublisherColby Moore

EditorAmy W.

Graphic DesignLara Lauter

Mitchell Reed Cobb

Contributing PhotographersSarah Mattix

Mitchell Reed CobbColby Moore

Contributing WritersAmber Carew

Kait SpongNakia Thomas

Food & Drink RecipesNino’s ItalianDarren Betts

LegalDiana Beard Moore

Special ThanksIME

SeNSERukus Board Sports

Cult Energy DrinkHeavy Water Vodka

Sam ClaitorKenny Nguyen

9

quick |kwik| adjective1 (of a person) prompt to understand, think, or learn; intelligent

wick |wik| verb 1 absorb or draw off

quick-wick |kwik-wik| quick = wick = alive-The Gentleman’s Magazine, 1867

Published ByQuick Wick Magazine, LLC

4607 Bluebonnet Blvd, Suite BBaton Rouge, LA 70809

All submitted materials become property of Quick Wick Magazine, LLC

Copyright @ 2011 Quick Wick MagazineAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

used for solicitation or copied by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording by any information storage or retrieval system, without the

express written permission of the publisher

[email protected]

10

PUBLISHER’SNOTE

[Colby Moore]

Suppor t : To be actively interested in or concerned for the success of [insert anything]

Our goal at Quick Wick is to provide a publication that supports local businesses and young entrepreneurs. We are constantly looking for interesting, new businesses in and around the Baton Rouge area. In addition to offer-ing quality advertisements at an affordable price, Quick Wick offers young entrepreneurs in our community a unique opportunity to share the story behind their business with our readers. With each new issue of Quick Wick, more and more Baton Rouge businesses being run by innova-tive entrepreneurs are being featured in the pages of the magazine. The power of word of mouth and networking can never be underestimated in the Baton Rouge area, as many of you may know. I cannot tell you how many people have come up to me after reading the June/July issue to tell me how glad they were to learn about Ru-kus. You know you have seen those stickers on the win-dows of cars all around town, but now, our readers have had the chance to meet Ronnie Saurage. In this issue, we reveal the story behind another Baton Rouge “Icon” with the feature on local artist Brad Jensen. Also, Quick Wick had a chance to get a real behind-the-scenes look

What to Watch, What to Read, What to Listen to and Who to Follow

at a popular local band, Meriwether. I got a bird’s eye view of the support showered upon Meriwether by the few hundred adoring fans at their show at the Varsity Theatre last month. It sure was a great time taking those pictures! Another highlight of this issue is the cover story on former Governor and current Presidential candidate, Buddy Roemer. I personally had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Roemer for an interview. Actually, it was more of a good conversation than an interview. Mr. Roemer is a very per-sonable man who readily shared his experiences in both business and politics. He was even recently featured on the Colbert Report on Comedy Central. Much like many of our featured businesses, Quick Wick Magazine is constantly trying to perfect our impact on the community. We are excited to announce that we will be launching our iPhone and iPad apps soon. In addition to digital copies of each issue being available on our website, we are experiment-ing with placing video clips of interviews on our website, as well. Each improvement that we make with Quick Wick helps us to better support the Baton Rouge community. In turn, I would like to thank everyone who has given us the support and trust to help this publication succeed.

11

PUBLISHER’SNOTE

What to Watch, What to Read, What to Listen to and Who to Follow

thingst h a t k e e p m e m o t i v a t e d4

For Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day), the only thing that would make the daily grind

more tolerable would be to grind their intolerable bosses (Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell, Jennifer Aniston) into dust.

Quitting is not an option, so, with the benefit of a few-too-many drinks and some dubious advice from a hustling

ex-con (Jamie Foxx), the three friends devise a convoluted and seemingly foolproof plan to rid themselves of their respective employers... permanently. There’s only one

problem: even the best laid plans are only as foolproof as the brains behind them. -- (C) Warner Bros

12

WHO TO FOLLOW: Tony HsiehCEO of Zappos.com, Inc.

Author of:Delivering Happiness

WHAT TO READ:Delivering Happiness

DeliveringHappines.com

13

Song: My HeroArtist: The Foo FightersAlbum: The Colour and the Shape

Too alarming now to talk about

Take your pictures down

and shake it outTruth or consequence,

say it alouduse that evidence, race

it around

There goes my herowatch him as he goesThere goes my hero,

he’s ordinary

Don’t the best of them bleed it out

while the rest of them peter out

Truth or consequence, say it aloud

Use that evidence, race it around


he’s ordinary

Kudos my heroleaving all the bestYou know my hero,the one that’s on


he’s ordinary

16

for the

STARTUPENTREPRENUER

Entrepreneurship. To some, that word inspires creativity, passion, and stubbornness. To others, it describes crazy sched-ules, hectic lifestyles, and sleepless nights. Whatever the case is, if you find yourself to be an aspiring entrepreneur you are going to face challenges. My startup is no exception. Besides balancing college life and running a business, I’ve had my fair share of startup lessons learned. Fortunately, I’ve been surrounded by a great support system that helps me get back up each time.

Today, I have the privilege to share with you 5 lessons I’ve learned from the startup’s school of hard knocks:

Lesson One: Hire talent that is smarter than you.Despite running a presentation design firm, I am very proud that my team is much more knowledgeable than me when it comes to actual design. You can’t possibly expect to do everything yourself and have your business exponentially grow. By hiring good talent when it’s needed, that not only can increase profits, but also save you time of training. Our staff comprises of very talented individuals that all play a certain role in making the company greater. With that mutual sense of respect, we all understand that companies grow together, not individually.

Lesson Two: Focus on what’s important.By focusing on too many things at once, you can severely drop the quality of what’s important. Keep in mind that op-portunity comes knocking all the time; it’s how we respond to it that matters. I’ve recently been offered a very awesome position for a role in a nationwide entrepreneur movement. After hearing I would have to frequently travel, I turned it down. Why? I realized my first priority is the growth of my company. Sure I regretted it the moment I turned it down, but would I sleep better at night? Sure will.

Lesson Three: Set Office HoursWe all get a sense of pride when we complete a huge 15-hour project while fueled on energy drinks. But what’s the price you have to pay? Besides being tired and decreasing time spent on other priorities, you set unrealistic expectations for your clients. I mean let’s be honest. How many times can you work a week for 15 straight hours without crashing? We had this problem and fixed it by assigning typical 9-5 office hours. This resulted in more balance with our busy time schedules and created realistic expectations of when work is going to be done.

Lesson Four: Set Goals that are Realistic.In order to succeed as an entrepreneur, you need to set goals that are realistic. At our office, we always have a goal list that ranges from weekly, monthly, and annually. The key we find with goal setting is to set deadlines and to be specific. Rather than saying, “I want to make $10,000,” say,” it might be more realistic to say, “I want to make $10,000 by sign-ing on four accounts by the end of June.” By setting realistic milestones, you are more likely to be pleased than disap-pointed.

5 lessons

17

Lesson Five: Network! Network! Network!Having a strong network matters. Networking with people that can help grow your business is very important in the startup stage. By joining local networking organizations, you can practice your networking skills and find likeminded people that face similar challenges in their business. What’s equally important is to keep in mind that while people might help you, it’s EQUALLY important that you help them. Net-working is mutual.

Kenny Nguyen is CEO/Partner of Big Fish Presentations a high-octane design firm specializing in the art of the presenta-tion. From customized presentation design, presentation delivery consultation, and AV rentals, Big Fish Presentations turns its clients’ presentations into experiences for audiences. Work has been published in Under30CEO and EO Overdrive. Along with Big Fish Presentations, Kenny is co-founder of the LSU Student Entrepreneur Organization I am Entrepreneur and Vice-Chairman of SeNSE, Baton Rouge’s Citywide entrepreneur organization. He is also assisting in social media for the 2012 Roemer Presi-dential Exploratory Committee.

You can contact Kenny at:[email protected]

ARTICLE

AFTER WALKING THROUGH THE DOORS OF BRICKS & BOMBS, WE UNCOVER PURPOSE,

STYLE AND BACKGROUND BEHIND THE CLOTHING COMPANY ICON AND THE ART

DISPLAY SHOWROOM. FOLLOW QUICK WICK INTO THE LIFE OF GRAPHIC

DESIGNER/STREET ARTIST BRAD JENSEN AND SEE WHAT IT REALLY TAKES TO

CREATE YOUR OWN PERSONAL STYLE AND FEEL FOR A PIECE OF ART.

PHOTOS & STORY BY: MITCHELL REED COBB

18

ARTICLE

AFTER WALKING THROUGH THE DOORS OF BRICKS & BOMBS, WE UNCOVER PURPOSE,

STYLE AND BACKGROUND BEHIND THE CLOTHING COMPANY ICON AND THE ART

DISPLAY SHOWROOM. FOLLOW QUICK WICK INTO THE LIFE OF GRAPHIC

DESIGNER/STREET ARTIST BRAD JENSEN AND SEE WHAT IT REALLY TAKES TO

CREATE YOUR OWN PERSONAL STYLE AND FEEL FOR A PIECE OF ART.

PHOTOS & STORY BY: MITCHELL REED COBB

19

Quick Wick: Icon/Bricks & Bombs is a staple in the Baton Rouge scene

of street art. State your name and purpose of what you do?

My name is Brad Jensen; I’m a graphic designer, poster maker,

clothing designer, shop owner… a little bit of everything. (Ha-ha)

Quick Wick: Where did everything begin for you? Growing up were you

always into art naturally or did you find it later in life?

Well, Icon started out strictly as a T-‐ Shirt brand. I started it when

I was 18 years old. As a kid I naturally gravitated towards drawing; I

always had that natural ability. I wouldn’t say I was that super

weird artsy kid who would rather sit inside drawing all day instead

of being outside. I definitely wanted to be out in the woods or riding

my bike, but on those rainy days or at night when I didn’t have

anything else to do I would draw, ya know? Later on it got to the

point where I had to do something that you are going to enjoy or do

something where I was doing math all day. (Ha-ha)

Quick Wick: What are your ideas/differences on street art and

regular gallery art?

Well the obvious reason is where people see the art. Really the only

difference is when you put it on the street as an artist, you have to

be ok with what happens to it. Inevitably you’re starting a

conversation when you put something out there, and somebody more

times than not will respond to it. That doesn’t really happen so

much in a gallery. You put something on the wall, nobody is going to

come in and rip it down or paint over it, but when you put it out in the

streets, somebody will do something to it.

Quick Wick: So basically, when creating the street art/posters, do

you come up with an art design and print out tons of copies to get

them pasted in the street?

It depends. For some of my smaller posters (18in x 24in and 24in x

36in) those are mainly screen-‐ printed. So when I do that, screen-‐

printing is a good process for doing a lot at one time, however many

you want to spend time doing. Bigger stuff is usually a one-of-a-kind

thing that sometimes incorporates hand painting so it takes a little

longer, but you can cover more area at one time.

CREATEDESTROY

“I’ll just make people see MY LOGO enough they will think it’s cool.

Repetition works, ya know?”

20



My name is Brad Jensen; I’m a graphic designer, poster maker,

clothing designer, shop owner… a little bit of everything. (Ha-ha)

Quick Wick: Where did everything begin for you? Growing up were you

always into art naturally or did you find it later in life?

Well, Icon started out strictly as a T-‐ Shirt brand. I started it when

I was 18 years old. As a kid I naturally gravitated towards drawing; I

always had that natural ability. I wouldn’t say I was that super

weird artsy kid who would rather sit inside drawing all day instead

of being outside. I definitely wanted to be out in the woods or riding

my bike, but on those rainy days or at night when I didn’t have

anything else to do I would draw, ya know? Later on it got to the

point where I had to do something that you are going to enjoy or do

something where I was doing math all day. (Ha-ha)

Quick Wick: What are your ideas/differences on street art and

regular gallery art?

Well the obvious reason is where people see the art. Really the only

difference is when you put it on the street as an artist, you have to

be ok with what happens to it. Inevitably you’re starting a

conversation when you put something out there, and somebody more

times than not will respond to it. That doesn’t really happen so

much in a gallery. You put something on the wall, nobody is going to

come in and rip it down or paint over it, but when you put it out in the

streets, somebody will do something to it.

Quick Wick: So basically, when creating the street art/posters, do

you come up with an art design and print out tons of copies to get

them pasted in the street?

It depends. For some of my smaller posters (18in x 24in and 24in x

36in) those are mainly screen-‐ printed. So when I do that, screen-‐

printing is a good process for doing a lot at one time, however many

you want to spend time doing. Bigger stuff is usually a one-of-a-kind

thing that sometimes incorporates hand painting so it takes a little

longer, but you can cover more area at one time.

CREATEDESTROY

“I’ll just make people see MY LOGO enough they will think it’s cool.

Repetition works, ya know?”

21



Clothing definitely came first. In the beginning I was designing

t-shirts and logos. They didn’t have much to do with anything; it was

a made up name that I though sounded cool, it sounded right. There

wasn’t anything it stood for, or anything like that. When I worked at

Buckle in the mall, I always saw the clothes with designs and logos.

I really enjoyed all ARTWORK from the skateboard and lifestyle

brands. I never really knew why I liked them, I just did.

Quick Wick: What is “Bricks & Bombs”? Explain the background on

how it came about.

Well I’ve had the shop open now for a year and a half. There is a

little more meaning behind Bricks & Bombs. Mistakenly, I overheard

some Clash lyrics --because I haven’t been able to find the song

since -- but I was listening to The Clash one day while I was working

and I heard the phrase “Bricks & Bombs” kind of popped out at me. I

thought WOW that is really cool. The meaning started coming to me.

Create and Destroy to me is building a community (Bricks) and

breaking down barriers as well (Bombs).

Quick Wick: Have you done any art collaborations with any other

artist, local or foreign?

I have been invited to some art shows or installations of something

where I’ll put some posters up and somebody comes along and paints

over it. I have not done a lot of collaborations and stuff. We did do a

mural here at the shop about six months ago and I had about 15

artists come in and draw on it, so we all got our hands on something.

It turned out to be a big collaborative thing. I think anytime you put

something on the street and somebody comes and paints on it, it’s an

instant collaboration.

Quick Wick: Where do you see Icon, Bricks & Bombs and yourself in

the future? Where and how do you want the company and scene to

grow? What are your goals?

Well, Icon, I definitely branded myself with a type of art and

style that is associated with it and I’ll continue to do that. I’ll

have a couple of other things that I like to do, too, that people

would not necessarily associate with Icon. Bricks & Bombs, I’m

hoping I’ll be able to continue to have more art shows here. Give

people an opportunity, that normally don’t have one, to show

their art and bridge the gap between different people and

artists.

Quick Wick: Have you ever encountered any law enforcement while

creating any street art?

Yeah, I have. It’s been pretty minor. I’m usually pretty smart about

what I am doing, also pretty respectful. I’m not out there trying

to destroy a lot of people’s private property, small businesses

etc., but I definitely have though. Some of them where pretty

humorous; some of them were less humorous. (Ha-ha)

Quick Wick: any last words?

I encourage people to come and check out Bricks & Bombs. I try to

do a show here once a month. I am constantly looking for artists

to come in and show their work. Bricks & Bombs is an opportunity

for anybody who hasn’t had the opportunity to do so. I have clean

walls, working bathroom and good lights. In about two months

there will be a bar across the street, so I am hoping that will

bring some more people over here to check out the gallery. I am

glad to be a part of Mid-City and I am just trying to do my part to

impact this community.

“In the beginning I was designing t-shirts and logos. They didn’t have much to do with

anything; it was a made up name that I though sounded cool, it sounded right.”

22



Clothing definitely came first. In the beginning I was designing

t-shirts and logos. They didn’t have much to do with anything; it was

a made up name that I though sounded cool, it sounded right. There

wasn’t anything it stood for, or anything like that. When I worked at

Buckle in the mall, I always saw the clothes with designs and logos.

I really enjoyed all ARTWORK from the skateboard and lifestyle

brands. I never really knew why I liked them, I just did.

Quick Wick: What is “Bricks & Bombs”? Explain the background on

how it came about.

Well I’ve had the shop open now for a year and a half. There is a

little more meaning behind Bricks & Bombs. Mistakenly, I overheard

some Clash lyrics --because I haven’t been able to find the song

since -- but I was listening to The Clash one day while I was working

and I heard the phrase “Bricks & Bombs” kind of popped out at me. I

thought WOW that is really cool. The meaning started coming to me.

Create and Destroy to me is building a community (Bricks) and

breaking down barriers as well (Bombs).

Quick Wick: Have you done any art collaborations with any other

artist, local or foreign?

I have been invited to some art shows or installations of something

where I’ll put some posters up and somebody comes along and paints

over it. I have not done a lot of collaborations and stuff. We did do a

mural here at the shop about six months ago and I had about 15

artists come in and draw on it, so we all got our hands on something.

It turned out to be a big collaborative thing. I think anytime you put

something on the street and somebody comes and paints on it, it’s an

instant collaboration.

Quick Wick: Where do you see Icon, Bricks & Bombs and yourself in

the future? Where and how do you want the company and scene to

grow? What are your goals?

Well, Icon, I definitely branded myself with a type of art and

style that is associated with it and I’ll continue to do that. I’ll

have a couple of other things that I like to do, too, that people

would not necessarily associate with Icon. Bricks & Bombs, I’m

hoping I’ll be able to continue to have more art shows here. Give

people an opportunity, that normally don’t have one, to show

their art and bridge the gap between different people and

artists.

Quick Wick: Have you ever encountered any law enforcement while

creating any street art?

Yeah, I have. It’s been pretty minor. I’m usually pretty smart about

what I am doing, also pretty respectful. I’m not out there trying

to destroy a lot of people’s private property, small businesses

etc., but I definitely have though. Some of them where pretty

humorous; some of them were less humorous. (Ha-ha)

Quick Wick: any last words?

I encourage people to come and check out Bricks & Bombs. I try to

do a show here once a month. I am constantly looking for artists

to come in and show their work. Bricks & Bombs is an opportunity

for anybody who hasn’t had the opportunity to do so. I have clean

walls, working bathroom and good lights. In about two months

there will be a bar across the street, so I am hoping that will

bring some more people over here to check out the gallery. I am

glad to be a part of Mid-City and I am just trying to do my part to

impact this community.

“In the beginning I was designing t-shirts and logos. They didn’t have much to do with

anything; it was a made up name that I though sounded cool, it sounded right.”

23

BRICKS & BOMBS449 Hearthstone Dr.

Baton Rouge, LA 70806

www.bricksandbombs.com

www.iconvisuals.com

24

BRICKS & BOMBS449 Hearthstone Dr.


www.bricksandbombs.com

www.iconvisuals.com

25

Diana Beard MooreAttorney At Law

4607 Bluebonnet Blvd.Suite B


Telephone225.295.8288

Facsimile225.295.9495

[email protected]

ONE

with Buddy

ONONE

27

28

o, do you want to know how to slay a dragon? I bet that Buddy Roemer can give you a few pointers. After all, he does have over 20 years of dragon slaying experience under his belt. I recently got the chance to sit down with Buddy, and here is what he had to say: Roemer got his start slaying the dragons of Louisiana politics in 1988 when he left the House of Rep-resentatives to run for Louisiana state governor against the sitting democratic governor, Edwin Edwards. During a debate, Roemer and his challengers were asked if they would consider endorsing Edwards in the general election if they didn’t make it to the runoff. The last candidate to respond to the query was Roemer. He changed the course of the election when he stated: “No, we’ve got to slay the dragon. I would endorse anyone but Edwards.” On election night, his campaign promise to “Slay the Dragon” helped him to capture 33 percent of the vote compared with Edwards’ 28 percent. Edwards resigned his post, giving reign to Roemer before he was even inaugurated in January of 1989. When reminiscing about his dragon slaying days, Roemer is quick to say that the same principle ap-plies in business as much as it applies in politics. Now, all of this talk of dragons conjures up images of an armored knight saving the village from the dragon that has terror-ized the people for so long. Well, that is not far from the truth. The dragon can manifest itself as the multinational corporation, or as the career politician, or as the PAC. To “slay the dragon” is not necessarily an effort to overcome the “bad” guy, but it is more about outwitting the big guy. Frankly, this “David and Goliath” principle should be a mantra for any entrepreneur. Detecting the weak-nesses of its competition and responding with innovative solutions is the path to success for many small businesses. Roemer said that at first, the sleeping dragon (a.k.a. “Big Business”) laughs at the ideas of the new kid on the block, its much smaller competitor. Then, after the little guy achieves some success, the dragon awakens to try to beat its competition. However, the dragon’s attempts are often too little too late ultimately leading to collapse. Roemer, who has been involved in the banking industry for more than two decades, reflects upon a per-ceived weakness in the industry. The larger banks simply did not bother to know or respect its customers. This weakness allowed smaller banks to come along and offer a different approach to banking. Innovative ideas lead to the creation of banks that focus exclusively on serving its clientele of small businesses. The banker at a niche bank makes it a point to know his customer’s name and to become familiar with his customer’s business. Meanwhile, the big bank proceeds with business as usual.

Through his experiences in politics, business and life, Roemer has seen that when young entrepreneurs take the time to develop relationships with other entre-preneurs in their community, good things follow. People who work together can accomplish so much more than any individual alone. In fact, as citizens, we each have an obligation to become involved in our communities, includ-ing in the political process. Thomas Jefferson once stated, “[I]f a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” If Americans want to remain free, we cannot be ignorant about our country’s problems or its politics. Information and participation protect the freedoms that allow us to seek the American dream by starting a business, owning a home, or completing an education, to name a few. A good place to start participating is on the state level. Louisiana is in a growth phase when compared to other states. What this state needs, according to Roemer, are more young entrepreneurs running for elected office. It is time to make changes in the way our government is run. The injection of the entrepreneurial spirit into the legislative and executive branches of government would lead to fresh ideas, vitality and new perspectives. In many ways, Louisiana is fast becoming the new California. The young business leaders of our state should participate in that evolution. Roemer, like many others, sees that post-Katrina Louisiana has brighter prospects than prior to 2005. In the face of adversity, many small businesses throughout the state are thriving. The true measure of greatness is what you do when the bad things happen. Many great Louisianans have taken the lemons delivered by Katrina and have made some long-lasting lemonade. In life, as in business, good things happen and bad things happen. We, as entrepreneurs, as citizens, as individuals, and as dragon slayers, must be prepared to learn from our mistakes and rise above them. On March 7th 2011, Roemer announced his re-turn as a dragon slayer when he announced his candidacy for the president of the United States in 2012. Presently, he is the only presidential hopeful that will not take lobby-ist or PAC money for his presidential bid. He believes that PAC money is the ultimate corruption of politics and the cause of the overspending in congress today. Politicians are busy paying off their campaign debts on special pet projects that help the PACs and lobbyists in Washington. Although Roemer is running at 2% in the Republican Primary, he said that he is “one good speech away” from taking the lead. The spirit of the dragon slayer continues.

Written by: Colby Moore

“They always laugh at first.”

S

think we knew this would be big when last summer we got Paramore’s Honda Civic tour. A lot of what we do is tour design so whenever a band carries their video screens on tour we design all of the content that is for that and so that’s kind of been interesting because there’s not a lot of competition in that market but it’s a hard market to enter because you have to understand the live side of it as well as the video production

side of it. So for us we both came from a live-event background so when we did Paramore that was kind of one of those moments when we were like hey were working with a legitimate act here and this is a

big deal.Basically I connected with a guy here in Nashville named Ken Day??? Gay?? He is basically a creative tour designer so his whole job is basically he designs tours and gets video products out there on the tours, he figures out the stage and how all the screens are going to be on the stage and comes up with creative ways to position all of the LED products. And so that’s kind of what his role is so he designs the whole stage but needs someone to design the content. I ended up meeting him at a mixer and he kind of mentored us along the way and helped us out and got us a lot of these first jobs we were doing just because he saw that we were young guys and were smart and understood the new technology and could do some stuff that other older companies that have been around for years couldn’t do because they were using old fashioned equipment or older

software, etc.Yeah and we were basically hired because we were young-we had never even done content before they picked us too because we were the same age as the band. We hung out with them a little bit on tour and got to go over a bunch of creative ideas and

they were great to work with. We did Saturday Night Live with Cee-Lo Green and we just did his whole tour, we do a good bit of his events. We are doing a Circ de Soleil a huge publicity stunt next week at Comicon and so were spending next week in San Diego out there and basically what were doing is the Circ de Soleil Kasha????? Basically they turn this wall purple and have people battling on wenches and it looks like you’re watching a battle from birds eye view but all those people are really hanging from ropes and jumping up and down and fighting so were projecting this on the side of a

That kind of became my passion in a broader sense and so from there I ended up, well the name of the company rabbit hole was the concept of chasing the rabbit hole and diving into the unknown and so for me it was about chasing my dreams and seeing where it was going to take me. I came to college to study audio engineering and entrepreneurship, and about sophomore year I actually started trying to do a live recording business with like live audio because I was an audio guy and I was doing that just like recording live sets for bands. And then I decided I was going to try to do concert DVDs too. That’s when I met my current business partner and he basically brought the whole video side to it and we basically realized that video was a much

more profitable industry.

We are all familiar with the Disney Classic Alice in Wonderland. Alice’s predic-ament begins when she follows the distraught white rabbit down a rabbit hole, falling into unfamiliar territory and finding her place of enlightenment. Jake Jorgovan, co-founder of the production company Rabbit Hole Creative, took inspiration from this particular scene while naming his company. Possibly seeing Alice’s journey parallel to his own. “The name of the company Rabbit Hole was the concept of chasing the rabbit and diving into the unknown. And so for me it was about chasing my dreams and seeing where it was going to take me.” Fortunately, Jorgovan’s dreams are taking him many places including the Para-more Honda Civic tour, which hit 31 venues

throughout the United States and Canada. But it all began at Belmont University in Nash-ville, Tennessee where Jorgovan studied au-dio engineering and enterpreneurship. Around his sophomore year, he started an audio recording business and offered his services to bands, recording their live sets. Even-tually, he decided to make concert DVDs as well. This is how he met his business part-ner, Kevin Fulda. He fully credits Fulda for enhancing his brain child, bringing the vid-eo aspect to their evolving business idea. After realizing videos were a more profit-able industry, the two dove into developing a full fledged video production and motion graphics company. And over the past two and half years, it’s been expanding successfully.

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Article By: Kait Spong

think we knew this would be big when last summer we got Paramore’s Honda Civic tour. A lot of what we do is tour design so whenever a band carries their video screens on tour we design all of the content that is for that and so that’s kind of been interesting because there’s not a lot of competition in that market but it’s a hard market to enter because you have to understand the live side of it as well as the video production

side of it. So for us we both came from a live-event background so when we did Paramore that was kind of one of those moments when we were like hey were working with a legitimate act here and this is a

big deal.Basically I connected with a guy here in Nashville named Ken Day??? Gay?? He is basically a creative tour designer so his whole job is basically he designs tours and gets video products out there on the tours, he figures out the stage and how all the screens are going to be on the stage and comes up with creative ways to position all of the LED products. And so that’s kind of what his role is so he designs the whole stage but needs someone to design the content. I ended up meeting him at a mixer and he kind of mentored us along the way and helped us out and got us a lot of these first jobs we were doing just because he saw that we were young guys and were smart and understood the new technology and could do some stuff that other older companies that have been around for years couldn’t do because they were using old fashioned equipment or older

software, etc.Yeah and we were basically hired because we were young-we had never even done content before they picked us too because we were the same age as the band. We hung out with them a little bit on tour and got to go over a bunch of creative ideas and

they were great to work with. We did Saturday Night Live with Cee-Lo Green and we just did his whole tour, we do a good bit of his events. We are doing a Circ de Soleil a huge publicity stunt next week at Comicon and so were spending next week in San Diego out there and basically what were doing is the Circ de Soleil Kasha????? Basically they turn this wall purple and have people battling on wenches and it looks like you’re watching a battle from birds eye view but all those people are really hanging from ropes and jumping up and down and fighting so were projecting this on the side of a

That kind of became my passion in a broader sense and so from there I ended up, well the name of the company rabbit hole was the concept of chasing the rabbit hole and diving into the unknown and so for me it was about chasing my dreams and seeing where it was going to take me. I came to college to study audio engineering and entrepreneurship, and about sophomore year I actually started trying to do a live recording business with like live audio because I was an audio guy and I was doing that just like recording live sets for bands. And then I decided I was going to try to do concert DVDs too. That’s when I met my current business partner and he basically brought the whole video side to it and we basically realized that video was a much

more profitable industry.

However, the whole process wasn’t easy. Jovorgan openly admits there were many hurdles. The company was conceived in their dorm room, which provided a very constrict-ing work space. Fulda’s bed was placed on cinder blocks in order to store cameras underneath it. Their room was also crowded with other various equipment, two desks, and a server-- in Jovorgan’s words, “barely a room.” The two shared this work environment for a full nine months. Finally, the duo began earning steady cash flow by recording senior recitals at Belmont’s music school. Afterwards, Jovorgan and Fulda took out loans to buy the legitimate equipment needed for their company and began working for clients in the music industry. In the past six months, Jovogan has began to witness his dreams become reality. “I think we knew this would be big when last summer we got Paramore’s Honda Civic tour.” Jovorgan adds, “It was one of those moments when we were like, hey, we’re working with a legitimate act here, and this is a big deal.” The team was connected to the Para-more project by Ken Gay, a creative tour designer, who became a mentor of sorts.

Gay’s job entails designing the position of LED products on stage and creating aesthetics to please an audience so they aren’t only listening to live music but witness a full-on experience. However, Gay needed help designing the content being pro-jected. He met Fulda and Jovorgan at a mixer and was responsible for booking their first jobs. “He saw that we were young guys. We were smart, understood the new technology, and could do some stuff that older companies couldn’t because they were using old fash-ioned equipment or older software.” Rabbit Hole Creative was responsible for videographing Cee-Lo Green’s entire tour as well as his recent performance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live. They are also working with Cirque du Soleil on a huge publicity stunt at this year’s San Diego Comic Con and designing Dolly Parton’s tour. Their biggest project aside from tour design is projection mapping. This technique takes real world surfaces and combines them with projected images in order to create 3D effects. “Basi-cally, you can take a building and make the image completely dark. Then you project the building back onto itself. You can make it look like the building is crumbling, falling down, or transforming into something else,” Jorgovan explains. Apparently, projection mapping is increasingly popular among ma-jor advertising agencies as a way to enhance their brands. The company is still playing it safe in terms of operating costs. Rabbit Hole Creative only has one full-time employee besides the two founders. Dillon Bock, also a recent college graduate, is a camera operator, editor, and supervisor. Other freelance employees fill in on specific projects. At this point, the team is focus-ing on building their creative resume and working diligently with their clients in or-der to build trust. They are still based in Nashville, Tennessee. Jovorgan stresses that it’s important for entrepreneurs to have a strong mentor to navigate them through the politics of any business, entertainment or otherwise, much like they were able to find in Ken Gay. “At this age, you’re young, naive, and don’t know what this industry has in store so it’s good to have mentors walk you through cru-cial decisions. You have to realize you’ll make a lot of sacrifices to make something successful, but at the end of the day it all pays off.” Rabbit Hole Creative is still a youthful company, but it’s successes are beginning to stock-pile, making the recent college graduates dreams of pursuing their life’s passions an actual possibility.

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Having kept alive their name for nearly a decade, Baton Rouge-based rock band Meriwether has certainly paid their dues and undeniably earned their spot as a hometown staple. However, they did not let the city limits restrain them. Drew Reilley (singer/songwriter/guitarist) of Meriwether sat down with Quick Wick to discuss the aspects of the music industry concerning band compatibility, self booking versus hiring a manager, the importance of social networking in today’s world, and the risks of committing to a label. Meriwether was the brainchild of Drew Reilley, who started the band in late 2004 after he admittedly broke ties with his previous project and began writing his own music. “I was looking for something new”, he quickly admitted. Josh Barbier joined the group on bass along with Brett Schexnay-der on drums. Reilley confessed that his first two additions “fit really well because Brett and Josh had been playing together for a while already”.

Meriwether powered on as a compatible three piece before eventually adding an additional guitarist, Steve Bergeron, to the mix. A long journey began and from the start, Reilley knew he “wanted to do everything right this time”, learning from his past experiences with other bands. As a three piece, Meriwether recorded a four song demo right away and made about 2,000 copies to hand out immediately. Diving in headfirst proved to be a successful start for the group, and frontman Reilley agreed, “The best way to promote your band is to always have a product to distrib-ute”. In addition to self-promotion, Meriwether started off by accepting any opportunity to play, ranging from “a three song spot in between sets to a chili cook-off.” As their demo gained attention, he and band mate Josh Barbier began to book their own shows. After running into problems with com-munication and double booking, they decided to hire a manager so that all they’d have to focus on was writing and playing music. “That’s definitely a plus”, Reilley added, as he strongly stated the upmost importance of constant creation.

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because you’re gonna write a bunch of [expletive], but its about the one out of ten songs that really matter.” As a band, Meriwether always took more into the studio than the amount they would be able to record. Their debut full length Make Your Move was a culmination of the first two and a half years of the band’s existence, and luckily, the members were able to pick and choose from a large bank of material they had worked so hard on. After signing to Suretone Records in 2006, the band continued to record their sophomore effort Sons of Our Fathers with Grammy-nominated producer Howard Benson. After various problems with the release date of the album, it was announced that Meriwether was no longer with Suretone. Consequently, the album has never been officially released, but Reilley has successfully released 22 tracks on Bandcamp in-cluding all the B-side recordings and demos from that record. His fight to rise above the label proved worthy because he felt “that everybody should be able to hear it”, even if Suretone wasn’t on board. And even through this fiasco, Meriwether continued to stay honest and true to themselves as they wrote and recorded Plug in the Snakes. Looking back to that time, Reilley remembered, “There was a lot of anger, aggression, and emotion built up inside all of us and that’s why it’s a very fast and heavy record.” After apparent accusations of changing their sound, he responded, “It’s my music. It’s not that we didn’t write that record for our fans but we had to get that out of us so that we could keep moving forward.” And move forward, they did.

Unsurprisingly, it did not take long for the subject of social media to arise. Meriwether has created a Twitter account (@Meriwether1), but don’t peg them as Twitter-crazed musicians who solely use social media as a replacement for physical pro-motion. “You gotta think,” said Reilley, “What were bands doing before there was social networking? Do that first”. Handbills, posters, and flyers seem to be phasing out in a sense, but from a business aspect, a new band cannot depend on a fan base to be given to them. It is something that must be earned. “We used to go slide them in everybody’s mailboxes”, Reilley admitted, “… and every possible way you can get more peo-ple to your show to hear your music is what you need to be doing as far as promotion.” Most impor-tantly, he stressed the importance of continual writing and persistent composition. Over-promoting the same material can easily be a band’s crutch, “which is why you must write until your fingers bleed

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After a couple of old members moved on to other things, Reilley found com-patible replacements for the band, including his brother Bob on drums. They have talked about putting together a new record but are currently just try-ing to figure out the next step. Almost as a jolting reminder to himself, he stressed “I’ve put too much of myself into this to just give it all up now.” Advice was plentiful from the mouth of this practiced musician as he told me, “The key to success, especially now-a-days in this struggling industry, is that you can not rely on anybody but yourself.” A band can produce a beautifully constructed record, but without the hard work in promotion, they cannot expect everybody to be at their shows. “You have to put the effort in to promote yourself in every way possible”, said Reilley as he confessed to me that he never sees a handbill on his car anymore and has noticed the lack of fliers around town. And like any art, production is most important. Writing, rewriting, and never settling seems to be the way of persistence Meriwether chose, rather than attempting to sell their band with popular gimmicks. “Find what works and run with it,” Reilley asserted, “because in the end, you can’t argue with a well-written song no matter what style or genre it is”.

Article By: Amber Carew

37Drew Reilly on stage at the Varsity Theatre

7248 Perkins Road, Suite FBaton Rouge, LA 70808

www.salonjolieofbr.com

Color - Cuts - Facial Waxing - Special Occasion Styling - Featherlocks

225.302.5690

Mitchell Naquin is one of the owners of Monochrome Contemporary Furniture, a local design and lifestyle shop that specializes in custom design and installation. In this interview, he tells us how the store was born, gives pointers for young entrepreneurs, and explains his role in the growing company.

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QUICK WICK: How did you get where you are now? Summarize your journey.

MITCHELL: Since I was a little kid, my mom has wanted to do a modern furniture store in Baton Rouge. I went to study Industrial Design at California College of the Arts and had been working for contemporary lighting designer Peter Staffis for a year in San Francisco. He is awesome. Everything we touched has an award on it, all due to him, and I learned more working with him for eight months than I did in school. That experience taught me how this industry ran and worked. Then my mother (co-owner Carol LaCour) called me after seeing the work we did and seeing I was interested in furniture and houses, and she asked if I would be interested in coming back and opening a modern furniture store with her. She said I could get on custom design as the store grew and just go in there and take a hold of that and I was like absolutely. I like furniture, I like doing the houses, and if I get to do custom design stuff then that’s awesome.

QUICK WICK: Where does most of your business come from?

MITCHELL: Most of our business so far isn’t walk-ins. It usually comes from previous clients, and we do a lot of houses. My mom’s been doing them from conception to completion for 20 years in Baton

Rouge, so our general role is going in with them and draw the plans up, doing all the design, picking the color, picking the furniture and doing the entire thing. We work directly with the contractors and builders and we’re on site throughout the whole thing making sure its how we want it.

QUICK WICK: What are the benefits of working with Carol and Dwayne at the shop and being able to do custom design in Louisiana?

MITCHELL: I definitely get more leeway to do what I want. It ’s also interesting though because out there everything we designed was plastic, metal, big box stuff. It was in China being manufactured so we didn’t really have many limitations, and here we have hand wood-workers and you know, no big molding machines or hyper factories to make stuff. It ’s kind of like relearning how to design stuff and relearning what we’re working with here.

QUICK WICK: Do you guys focus on being “environmentally-friendly?”

MITCHELL: The designing is more “green” here because we’re not using plastics, we’re using local woods and contractors so not much

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QUICK WICK: How did you get where you are now? Summarize your journey.

MITCHELL: Since I was a little kid, my mom has wanted to do a modern furniture store in Baton Rouge. I went to study Industrial Design at California College of the Arts and had been working for contemporary lighting designer Peter Staffis for a year in San Francisco. He is awesome. Everything we touched has an award on it, all due to him, and I learned more working with him for eight months than I did in school. That experience taught me how this industry ran and worked. Then my mother (co-owner Carol LaCour) called me after seeing the work we did and seeing I was interested in furniture and houses, and she asked if I would be interested in coming back and opening a modern furniture store with her. She said I could get on custom design as the store grew and just go in there and take a hold of that and I was like absolutely. I like furniture, I like doing the houses, and if I get to do custom design stuff then that’s awesome.

QUICK WICK: Where does most of your business come from?

MITCHELL: Most of our business so far isn’t walk-ins. It usually comes from previous clients, and we do a lot of houses. My mom’s been doing them from conception to completion for 20 years in Baton

Rouge, so our general role is going in with them and draw the plans up, doing all the design, picking the color, picking the furniture and doing the entire thing. We work directly with the contractors and builders and we’re on site throughout the whole thing making sure its how we want it.

QUICK WICK: What are the benefits of working with Carol and Dwayne at the shop and being able to do custom design in Louisiana?

MITCHELL: I definitely get more leeway to do what I want. It ’s also interesting though because out there everything we designed was plastic, metal, big box stuff. It was in China being manufactured so we didn’t really have many limitations, and here we have hand wood-workers and you know, no big molding machines or hyper factories to make stuff. It ’s kind of like relearning how to design stuff and relearning what we’re working with here.

QUICK WICK: Do you guys focus on being “environmentally-friendly?”

MITCHELL: The designing is more “green” here because we’re not using plastics, we’re using local woods and contractors so not much

shipping unless it ’s stuff we stock. Getting on the “green” talk, Baton Rouge and the South is always kind of behind on that, and coming from the San Francisco school I attended that was shoved down our throats. Not necessarily the word “green,” but the idea of sustainability and making sure you make the best and most out of what you use. Coming back and opening this store, we’re obviously fresh open and we haven’t had too much emphasis on that yet, but that’s a big thing that I want to start pushing and I know partners are equally into it. We want to use as many local woods as we can and use people in Baton Rouge and eliminate shipping, use solar panels on houses, use waste water for plant watering, etc. Just as much as we can to get people thinking in that notion. It ’s a trend in marketing because a lot of random products say “we’re green” as a way to market. It has been going on for forever but now were being told we need it.

QUICK WICK: Was your college education a large asset considering what you learned and the work you’re now doing?

MITCHELL: I think it depends on the person. I think for me, school was essential. Maybe not for houses and furniture because it was always my passion, but school taught me two things: program knowledge and discipline. My education incorporated a lot of program knowledge for Industrial Design and now we’re doing a lot more program-based design and sending off files to be printed, etc. Now as far as discipline goes, if I’ve got a deadline next Wednesday and its Friday, I’m not doing anything Friday night or Saturday night, I’m working 20 hours a day until Wednesday to turn it in, so really strict discipline is what school taught me, too.

QUICK WICK: In your opinion, how does the importance of education compare to the importance of experience, especially in terms of obtaining a solid job?

MITCHELL: I think I learned a lot more about actual design and how we work with manufacturers and how the industry works in general through actually working in the field. I don’t think school is absolutely necessary in a lot of design industries. Industrial is a lot different than Interior or Home Design because Industrial Design is more like if you have a good portfolio, you’ve got the job. Different places look at it differently, and some places just look at the degree first. But as far as picking up the talent, you don’t really need school. If you have the will to learn it you can pick up the books yourself and set up the meetings and learn what you need to learn that way.

QUICK WICK: Going back to starting up, how did the business begin and how heavily did you consider where the location of the shop would be?

MITCHELL: I moved back from California in August of 2009 and we opened in November of 2010. I remember conversations at Furniture Market… we’d be sitting there discussing where we wanted to open, and one of the biggest things we wanted was to be in the Perkins Road area in between College and the Overpass. Somewhere in this little area we are now because it really is a design area, and there are incentives for design companies, and its kind of a movement in this area with art galleries and architects. It just feels like an area of town

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that’s about to erupt. It ’s a cultural hotspot, and it’s cool and fun and there’s energy here and it feels like it ’s about to develop. Other than that we had no clue what we were doing. We looked on Government Street, we looked everywhere, and when we found this place it just seemed perfect. It was next door to one of our partner ’s offices, a good friend who has an art gallery, and it is kind of right where we wanted it to be.

QUICK WICK: Have you always known you wanted the style of your creations to be contemporary?

MITCHELL: I remember being at Market and we were thinking about doing a modern store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which is not known to really have modern furniture. It ’s more older, traditional houses, and we wanted to bring something different. So you go to New York or Dallas or Miami and you see the edgy modern stuff really pushing the envelope, and I remember wondering about how far we could push it in Baton Rouge without scaring people off or not getting business. That was a big hurdle too, trying to come up with a “look” and how modern we could go without going too far. We wanted to get people who wouldn’t normally think they like the modern style, but have them walk in here and realize it ’s beautiful. But we got it and we did it and opened it up and it’s been great.

QUICK WICK: How did you all figure out where to get your furniture from and all of the basic stuff?

MITCHELL: For those things we were lucky enough to have my mom. She’s been in this industry for so long, about 25 years, and she’s been going to Market as a designer for 10-15 years so it kind of grew from what she was doing and became this. This is really the end result of her 25 years of hustling, and I don’t really know anyone else who does what she does as far as housing plans to walking through the whole construction to the end to putting furniture in and art on the walls. Literally everything from conception to final piece. I think what has helped a lot of the houses she’s done is that she gets to think it through from beginning to end.

QUICK WICK: Do you have any specific strategies or goals when meeting with potential clients in your field?

MITCHELL: In general, a lot of designers take a project and make it their project and leave their client out. Our strategy is to meet the clients and ask them questions about how they like to live, how they use their space, and try to develop a feel for whether they are going to be spending a lot of time as a family in the kitchen, or in a more formal setting like the dining room. We really try to feel people out. That is one of our biggest goals in my opinion.

QUICK WICK: Do you have any specific strategies or goals when meeting with potential clients in your field?

“it just feels like an area of town that’s about to

erupt. it’s a cultural hotspot, and it's cool and fun and there’s energy here and it feels like it's

about to develop.”


QUICK WICK: Anything else you’d like to say about the shop or any pieces in particular?

MITCHELL: A lot of people hear “modern furniture” and say “oh, we don’t like that!” But I think we do a great job of having really modern pieces mixed with warmer pieces, as well. If people don’t think they’re going to like it, I ask them to question that and take a walk through. It ’s worth the time because there’s always something in here they’ll like even if they don’t necessarily want it for their house. People will appreciate the shop and be comfortable in here.

QUICK WICK: For young professionals looking into starting a business or doing something similar, what kind of advice would you give them?

MITCHELL: It is definitely awesome for young people to go out and start businesses, but one thing that has been an extremely big help to me is having partners and having help. Doing everything on your own is frightening and overwhelming, as you know, so having partners has helped me out immensely. Having true passion for the industry you’re in is a necessity. I mean there are days when I don’t feel like being here, but I really do like what I’m doing. I’m not a salesman at all, but I can sell this stuff because I like it and I believe in it. It ’s not like I’m trying to get one over on someone. If you’re going to be doing something in sales it has to be something you believe in and you stand by. Other than that, just be ready to put your time into it because it’s your baby and it becomes part of your life, it ’s not a nine-to-five job. That’s one thing to do… decide if you want to have a nine-to-five job. If you want to be able to leave at five and not think about your work, don’t open a business. It becomes part of your life, but it is very rewarding. You put in a lot of work and you get a lot out of it. Seeing people happy and seeing houses that you’ve done brings so much gratification. Since the business has opened I’ve been busier, more stressed, but much happier because I get all of these results and it’s very rewarding.

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QUICK WICK: Anything else you’d like to say about the shop or any pieces in particular?

MITCHELL: A lot of people hear “modern furniture” and say “oh, we don’t like that!” But I think we do a great job of having really modern pieces mixed with warmer pieces, as well. If people don’t think they’re going to like it, I ask them to question that and take a walk through. It ’s worth the time because there’s always something in here they’ll like even if they don’t necessarily want it for their house. People will appreciate the shop and be comfortable in here.

QUICK WICK: For young professionals looking into starting a business or doing something similar, what kind of advice would you give them?

MITCHELL: It is definitely awesome for young people to go out and start businesses, but one thing that has been an extremely big help to me is having partners and having help. Doing everything on your own is frightening and overwhelming, as you know, so having partners has helped me out immensely. Having true passion for the industry you’re in is a necessity. I mean there are days when I don’t feel like being here, but I really do like what I’m doing. I’m not a salesman at all, but I can sell this stuff because I like it and I believe in it. It ’s not like I’m trying to get one over on someone. If you’re going to be doing something in sales it has to be something you believe in and you stand by. Other than that, just be ready to put your time into it because it’s your baby and it becomes part of your life, it ’s not a nine-to-five job. That’s one thing to do… decide if you want to have a nine-to-five job. If you want to be able to leave at five and not think about your work, don’t open a business. It becomes part of your life, but it is very rewarding. You put in a lot of work and you get a lot out of it. Seeing people happy and seeing houses that you’ve done brings so much gratification. Since the business has opened I’ve been busier, more stressed, but much happier because I get all of these results and it’s very rewarding.

Connect. Innovate. Inspire.

45S K A T E B O A R D I N G

FIDNA Company Profile

Type: Retail

Location: 3757 Perkins Rd. Suite C

Members: Kyle Cox (28) & Ben Boone (26)

Story: Started planning to open a skate shop in Baton Rouge a year and a half ago. They wanted to have a career that they could actually be-lieve in and want to show up for everyday. Skateboarding has been such a major factor in their lives that they couldn’t imagine doing anything out-side of that. Both had a taste of what working in the skate-boarding industry was like by designing and building (with a few helping hands from fel-low skateboarders) Revolution Skate Park a few years ago.

46S K A T E B O A R D I N G

The goal was to cater more directly to skateboarders and the different cultures that de-rive from or add to a skate-boarder’s life. Skateboarding, Clothing, and Art being some of the main things directly connected to being a skate-boarder. Music has also been a huge part of that, but they categorize that within “art”. They try to support local artists and local skateboarding com-panies foremost, but also carry almost all major skateboarding brands, both new and old.

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your ad herefor pricing and availability : [email protected]

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– Stephen and Jamie Ethridge

“Our mission is to provide high quality products that focus on helping homeowners bring down their cost of living by reducing electric bills, increasing energy efficiency and allowing homeowners and their families to live more comfortably.”

QUICK WICK: Briefly describe your business and what you offer to customers.

GREEN ENERGY: We’re energy efficiency specialists. For home and business owners, we start the process by offering a free energy analysis of their place. We go in and try to figure out how much energy they are consum-ing and why they’re consuming so much of it. We give them some tips to get their bills pointed in the right direction and show them some cost-effective things that Green Energy Solutions does to get considerably lower their bills and make their places more comfortable to live in.

QUICK WICK: What actual types of “solutions” do you guys have?

GREEN ENERGY: We offer all types of installation, windows, window film, solar water heaters, solar panels, a little bit of everything. If we don’t have it in stock we try to get it and make it happen. Our mission is to basically help homes and businesses consume less energy and save money.

QUICK WICK: How did you get start-ed? What is your background like?

GREEN ENERGY: I graduated from LSU in 2005 in Construction Man-agement. I worked for KB Home in Daytona Beach and in New Orleans after Katrina, then came to work construction for my brother for 3 years. I always wanted to open my own business, my brother and my dad have both done that, too, and I wanted to do the same. I was always interested in the energy-efficiency part of construction. So one day we just decided to go for it.

QUICK WICK: As a young profes-sional starting a business, what did you find to be challenging?

GREEN ENERGY: We used to work out of a bar when we were in col-lege, just me and a laptop and a printer and a few barstools. Finally, one day my dad came in town and we were talking about how ridicu-lous it was and how bad my back was hurting from working on a bar stool all day… plus we were trying to grow the business and not work from a bar that smells like stale beer.

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So we pulled the bar out and started transforming it into an of-fice. In the beginning I was doing energy audits, sales, install-ing, accounting, marketing… what else is there? I mean ev-erything, I did it all by myself. Quickly I learned to let go of some things and hired guys to help. Jamie was a nursing home administrator and ran nursing homes for a company. Once she saw the business growing and realized that I needed the help, she decid-ed to come on board with me. Now we have this husband-wife team and it works pretty well.

QUICK WICK: Do you think it’s beneficial being married and work-ing together?

GREEN ENERGY: You have to have a strong relationship to do that. But we’ve been together since we were 13 years old and we know each other very well, know each others work ethics and wont have to guess with each other. I didn’t have to guess hiring her. I knew I was getting a good employee. It does test you at times but it works as long as you remember your focus is to grow the business, and that business is business and work is work and our regular life is our regular life.

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QUICK WICK: Were there any specific events that happened to hinder your company?

GREEN ENERGY: Well, we had a baby. We have a 21 month old little girl, and she was two months old when I started the business, so that was a pretty large hurdle. Jamie took on the role of appointment setting, but you usually have to do that after 5:00 PM because that’s when people are home. So at 5:00 PM our sit-ter leaves and then you’ve got this live person that cant feed themselves or anything so that takes out of family time a little bit. Now we’ve got a full time appointment setter that does that, though, so we can spend time focusing on the family and keeping it balanced too. Dealing with all of the responsibilities of starting a new business/being a business owner, having a baby at the same time, and just getting organized and getting a focus on what we wanted was the biggest hurdle.

QUICK WICK: What type of things do you do to promote your business?

GREEN ENERGY: Jamie takes care of our mar-keting and setting up events. We do lots of local events like the Farmer’s Market once a month. We set up in Sam’s Club once a quarter, and any type of festivals we can find. We like to do local things to give back to the community like volunteer work, just anywhere that people can see our business giving back out in the public. We try to open up to people so it’s a business that’s personable. We want people to know who is behind it. Also, a lot of business owners and home owners don’t know about some government funding that is out there for a lot of the products and services that we offer, so we wanted to start educating everyone on what we have to offer and what the government could help with. We give everyone all the paperwork they need and if they have any problems we help them out. We make it a no brainer.

A example of insulation from Green Energy Solutions

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QUICK WICK: Did you experience a moment when you knew it was developing well and was really going to work?

GREEN ENERGY: When construction companies started calling us to do multi-family projects with like 30 homes at a time, we’re starting to get into that. We also started to get a lot of incoming calls and referrals, which excited us. Word-of-mouth has been working great for us and is our biggest help. We’re very concerned with our quality and that helps bring other people to us. If the customer isn’t happy, we make them happy and deal with it until they are.

QUICK WICK: Any last thoughts to share with readers?

GREEN ENERGY: Don’t wait until it’s too late! Not to scare people, but you need to start doing your part. The US makes up 5% of the world’s population, using 26% of the world’s energy. We need to lower our consumption and be more efficient. If you cut your costs now instead of five years from now when you absolutely have to, it would help you out a lot. Solar panels and things like that are expensive but pay for themselves in the end. It’s helping the environment and cutting the consumption as far as the country goes, and lets face it, energy bills aren’t going down! We’re going to see huge energy spikes in the next few years, so if we don’t do something about it now, we’re going to get stuck. Don’t wait until it’s too late.

“We try to open up to people so it’s a business that’s

personable. We want people to know who is behind it.”

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VSThis location is approximately 25,000 square feet, open Monday-Friday 4:30 AM - 10:00 PM, Saturday 8:00 AM -

6:00 PM, and Sunday 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM. It houses nearly 100 pieces of equipment, a pool, and racquetball court,

among other ammenities. There are classes and personal trainers available. Xtreme Nutrition Xpress offers

smoothies and supplements.

Pro: Larger facility with multiple ammenitiesCon: Crowded at times with limited privacy

53

VS This location is approximately 3,000 square feet, open 24 hours a day, every day. It houses nearly 35 pieces of

equipment, a tanning bed, and a pilates machine. There are personal trainers and nutritional seminars available.

Pro: Open 24 hours a day with maximum privacyCon: Smaller facility with less equipment

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FreshStartQwikWik.pdf 7/18/2011 4:14:43 PM

Towne Center 225.757.6131

www.aristocracyapparel.com

ARISTOCRACYa p p a r e l f o r t h e p e o p l e

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your ad herefor pricing and availability : [email protected]

HEATING with Nino’s ItalianTHINGS UP

Chef and co-owner Elton Hyndman preparing one of Nino’s popular appetizers.

57

Darren Betts is currently the head bartender at the City Club in Down-

town Baton Rouge, where the native has

been employed for the past 22 years. He is the

most recent of four head bartenders the

City Club has had, keeping it in the family, as his grandfather was

one of the previous. His signature drink is the

Bloody Mary, which is his grandfather’s secret

recipe. He describes his experience working at a

private club as very unique and enjoyable. His secret to longevity, he tells us, is to “know

all, see all, tell nothing, give good advice, and be sure to make a damn

good drink!”

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MIXING IT UP with DARREN BETTS

City Club’slegendary bartender

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Men’s Clothing:Aristocracy

Women’s Clothing:Rodeo Boutique

Hair & Make-up:Salon Jolie’

Photography:Sarah Mattix

Sponsored By:Cult Energy Drink

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8

claimyour

journey“You have to set up milestones for yourself

and every one of them you reach is momentum going towards the next.”

69

www.claimyourjourney.comfor more info onBrandon Williamsand his site:a digital guidefor running in

Louisiana.

70


Louisiana.

Sometimes all you need is a

moment to zone out from work

and the obsessions of what

has to get done next, turn the

iPod on your favorite playlist,

feel the breeze of stress

disappearing… and take a

run! Maybe running hasnʼt

been this relaxing for you, but

rather, a healthy choice after

work or simply the mean for

trying to look good, but what

if you could add a social

experience to your run? What

if you joined a running group

and could enjoy networking

without doing actual work at

all? What if you had all the

latest updates of whatʼs

happening in your running

community brought to you with

a simple click of the mouse?

Brandon Williams, with 20

years of running experience,

followed his heart and has

given the running world of

Louisiana the answer to those

questions with

ClaimYourJourney.com. Claim

Your Journey displays the way

you should approach running

or any task in life; he tells us,

“itʼs always a journey and itʼs

nothing that youʼre going to

conquer in just a day.” Claim

Your Journey reaches past just

a simple website, but serves as

a digital guide for running in

Louisiana. You can easily be a

part of the exciting world of

runners near you, watch

recent videos, read about new

events, and get involved. “We

have a very active running

community in Louisiana,”

Brandon explains, “and Claim

Your Journey was formed and

developed to become the

platform to broadcast running

here.” If youʼre not already

involved in the running world,

Brandon says “all you need is

tennis shoes; the right ones!”

After affably parting ways

with his clothing company

“Dope,” Brandon decided to

create ClaimYourJourney.com.

“Because thatʼs my real

passion – running-,” he

added, “and when you find

that [passion], you have to

see what happens.” Brandon

is seeing great things happen.

His website gives you more

than you expect. The front

page has been created in a

magazine style with different

features, like race directors,

runners in certain areas,

spotlighting stores and differ-

ent running brands that come

into town. “For example,” he

explains “Saucony came into

town and we did a special

video interview with them.”

Things like this are easy to

share with everyone in the

running community on the

website. On top of the special

features, Brandon and his

team have been working

diligently on the blog section.

The blog section is basically a

representation of one runner

from every city in LA giving

you their story of what theyʼre

training for, even adding

information about whatʼs

going on in their area.

Looking with the eyes of a

businessman, Brandon

expressed his point of view of

running, “It takes careful

planning, which is how you

have to work to be successful

in business. You have to set up

milestones for yourself and

everyone you reach is momen-

tum going towards the next

one.” He continued, “Set up

milestones for your business

like you set up milestones for

running. For instance, you can

go 4 miles one day but keep

pushing it, and you can do 5

or 6 the next time.”


Louisiana.

71

He was determined at the beginning of 2011 to tackle a running series that pushed his running milestones further, not knowing that this would lead to something greater; the creation of ClaimYourJourney.com. Brandon shined light on his heart, his team, and the running community of Louisiana with a closing statement for readers, “Running is more than just our lifestyle; itʼs our passion.” Claim your journey and get involved.

Article by: Nakia Thomas

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QUOTE TO LEAVE WITHsee you next time...

“The harder you work, the luckier you get.”

74

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