If you turn on the news any time, any day, you’re bombarded with stories about climate change and natural disasters, political strife and polarization, and the world poverty that is driving unrest and a migrant crisis. Any one of these issues - not to mention the local problems at home - is too great for any of us to solve. And yet, some of us feel so compelled to do something. But what? Dawn Brown is Water Services Director at Matrix New World Engineering, a New Jersey based engineering firm specifically focused on environmental and climate related challenges, as well as resilience and sustainability projects. These are terms we hear a lot in Louisiana and, based here in Baton Rouge, Dawn makes sense of what they actually mean for us. Matrix was founded in 1990 and opened its Baton Rouge office in 2015. Dawn is an environmental professional who focuses on project management and development with a particular focus is waste permitting and landfills. A native of Baton Rouge, Dawn was a high school biology teacher before switching careers, and while Dawn now deals with environmental issues, Rebecca Gardner is doing her own part to change the world, helping migrants and disadvantaged women around the globe through Hands Producing Hope, a non profit she founded in 2014. Hands Producing Hope sells ethically sourced products made by migrant women and women from disadvantaged countries through a retail shop on Government Street in Baton Rouge and through its website and satellite locations. The organization partners with communities through artisan training programs, maternal health education, life skills classes, adult literacy education, business mentoring and more. It's an extraordinary operation. Rebecca is a native of Baton Rouge who founded Hands Producing Hope because of her passion for helping disadvantaged families and her desire to see long-term sustainable change in impoverished communities. Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by Brian Pavlich at itsbatonrouge.la.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As Louisiana tries to grow its workforce we hear a lot about the energy industry, healthcare, and the food and hospitality sectors for which the state is so well known. Today we’re visiting with two guests who are creating opportunities in two other areas – tech startups and film acting - helping budding entrepreneurs and aspiring actors create companies and film careers. It might not sound like these pursuits have much in common. You might be surprised. Stephen Loy is Executive Director of Nexus Louisiana, parent company of the Louisiana Tech Park, which is located in the old Bon Marche shopping center on Florida Boulevard. The tech park was created more than 20 years ago to drive economic development and job creation by providing tech startups with resources to bring their products and services to market faster and more effectively. Stephen has been executive director of the tech park since 2011 and has been with the organization since 2004, when he was hired as their Director of Communications. Today he oversees day to day operations, develops strategies to attract early stage companies, and manages one of Nexus' signature programs : Tech Park Academy. While Nexus Louisiana is growing the entrepreneurial ecosystem, Jency Hogan is helping to grow the local cultural economy through the drama school she and her husband, Aaron Hogan, founded and run. It’s called Love Acting and it’s specifically focuses on teaching film acting, as opposed to stage acting. The Hogans are both professional actors, who founded the school on returning to Jency’s native Baton Rouge after eight years in Los Angeles. Jency has produced short films, co-directed a western epic, was on the producer team of a biopic directed by Ethan Hawke, and is currently a recurring character named Vera Minder on the TNT hit Claws. Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by Analise Gonzalez at itsbatonrouge.la.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For more than a decade now, we’ve been talking about the changes brought about by e-commerce and how fewer and fewer of us are venturing out to malls and shops and opting instead of the convenience of e-retail platforms. As this brave new world of online shopping continues to evolve, we’re seeing an ever-growing and fascinating landscape of entrepreneurs who are using pieces and parts of the new technology, mixing the old with the new, the virtual with the real, and coming up with new iterations of retail. Nathan Pearce is CEO of Pearce Bespoke, a Baton Rouge clothier that is making custom tailoring more accessible, affordable, and easy, by using some of the digital tools that have made e-commerce so popular to create old-fashion, handmade garments. Pearce Bespoke offers tailor-made suits and separates through a mobile shop. They come to you, get your measurements, and whip up a designer piece of clothing for you in just a few weeks. Nathan has been in the clothing business for much of his career. He launched a custom T-shirt making business while fresh out of college and founded Pearce Bespoke in 2021, which now has brick and mortar locations in Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Lafayette. He is also franchising the brand and has more than 50 locations across the south. If you listen to radio shows and podcasts about business, you’ve probably heard entrepreneurs talk about the success of their business, describing almost gleefully how they initially failed before they made it. Well, failure isn’t always as much fun as these success stories make it sound. Not every failure is followed by success. Sometimes it’s followed by a career change. Take, for example, Conrad Freeman. Today Conrad runs the fabrication lab in the LSU College of Art and Design. It’s a lab where faculty and students can design and build stuff using a variety of materials. Before that, in 2020, Conrad founded Freeman Handcrafted designs, which made contemporary furniture by hand for commercial and residential customers. While Conrad’s furniture was beautiful, the market for his high-end products was very small in Baton Rouge and running the business was challenging, which is why he left just two years after founding the company for the position at LSU. Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the Boulevard. You can find photos from thois show by Brian Pavlich at itsbatonrouge.la.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a show about business. Not a place you’d typically turn to for dating advice. But on this edition of Out to Lunch we’re talking about the business of dating, love, and marriage. For past generations – your parents or grandparents - charting a life course seemed to be a lot simpler. Especially for a woman. You graduated from high school, you got married to your high school sweetheart or a guy you met in college, and everybody lived happily ever after. Then we hit the 1970’s, and 50% of marriages ended in divorce. Today in the United States, people are waiting longer to get married. Or opting not to tie the knot at all. Since 1973, marriage rates in the US have declined nearly 60%. Other statistics tell us that people are finding it harder to make meaningful connections. More young people than ever report feeling alone, disconnected, and clinically depressed. And all this comes at a time when a staggering array of apps and online dating sites are promising to pair people up for everything from one-night stands, to casual relationships to forever partnerships. What’s not working? And how do we fix it? We could look forward, to the next generation of technology and ask AI to find us love and happiness. Or we could look back. And rather than having to check a box that says, “I’m not a robot,” how about sitting down face to face with an actual human being who is a dating specialist? Yes, there is such a job. It’s called a Matchmaker. Admittedly there aren’t many of them. Ann Parnes is one of the very few. Ann Parnes is founder of Match Made in NOLA, a traditional matchmaking service that is, as its name implies, based in New Orleans but has expanded to Baton Rouge and does business like a real old-fashioned matchmaker – by carefully curating potential partners and introducing them to one another. Ann began her career as an attorney and spent several years prosecuting criminals, until 2014, when she felt a calling taking her in a different direction and became a certified life coach. From there she began to sense what she says was a real calling and a recognition that she had a gift for bringing people together, so in 2017 she opened Match Made in NOLA. And now her services have expanded to include Baton Rouge. most people who are dating and looking for a partner are younger. They’ve grown up with Bumble, Tinder, Hinge, OK Cupid, Christian Mingle, J-Date, Match.com and the list goes on. There are even specialty dating apps like “Dig – the dog lovers dating app.” So, let’s start with the obvious question. Is someone who turns to an old-fashioned matchmaker burned out on dating apps? Or is a typical client someone different who can’t bring themselves to use a dating app and hasn’t had any success meeting anyone at The Chimes or Chelseas? Could matchmaking be for you? On this special dating love and marriage edition of Out to Lunch, Ann explains the art and science of dating to Stephanie. If you're looking for a great place for a date in Baton Rouge you can't beat Mansurs on the Boulevard. We've been meeting there every week for years on Out to Lunch and we're all still happily working together! And if you're looking for even more of an insight into Ann's life you can check her out on It's New Orleans Happy Hour. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Paris. London. Rome. Baton Rouge. Yes, your next piece of stylish designer clothing might come from right here. South Louisiana is known for food and music and other artistic and creative cultural expressions so perhaps it’s surprising that we’re not known for our clothing designers. With so much inspiration to draw from, meet the crestive forces behind two local clothing lines. Dave Duncan is co-owner of Jack Duncan Design, a sustainably made menswear brand that creates shirts for the everyday man. Dave founded and runs the company with his wife Brittany Tubb Duncan, who shares his passion for finding unique prints and has her own brand, Itty by Bitty, which provides children’s options in the Jack Duncan prints. Dave and Brittany founded Jack Duncan Design in early 2023 and currently operate out of their home study and shop in mid City. Paula LaFargue is owner and designer at the Maybe Collection, a Baton Rouge-based business that also uses ethical practices to make comfortable, functional women’s garments that have minimal environmental impact – and they’re also beautiful and affordable. Paula started the company in 2016 after spending 10 years designing clothes for nursing moms, children and utility workers – not all at the same time. She is a a native of Baton Rouge who attended the Fashion Institute of Technology and cut her teeth in the fashion industry in New Orleans and Chicago before returning home in 2009. Paula is a returning guest on this show. We last spoke during the pandemic, when we were remote on Zoom. Since then, the Maybe Collection has grown. Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the Boulevard. You can find photos from this show at itsbatonrouge.la.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.