It's Baton Rouge: Out to Lunch

Necessity is the mother of invention, so the saying goes. And while it may be a quaint adage it’s as true as ever today. Whether it’s brewing a better homeopathic cough syrup or designing duck hunting garb for female duck hunters, local entrepreneurs are building successful startups around products that the market was crying out for. Andrea Leyerle is a Baton Rouge-based entrepreneur w...

According to latest estimates, the U.S. wedding industry is worth over $60 Billion annually, and the average wedding sets the happy couple – or their parents – back by a whopping $44,000. Weddings are big business today. And this has created all sorts of opportunities for creative entrepreneurs who have figured out how to offer goods and services to satisfy the fancy and both the modes...

It’s not unusual on Out to Lunch to have a guest who’s a star in their own world. Someone who’s well known and highly regarded in a particular field. It’s much less common for me to have lunch with someone who’s a real star. Someone whose face and name is known nationwide. But that’s who I’m having lunch with today. My guest on this edition of Out to...

Louisiana, for all its man-made foibles and imperfections, is blessed with a lot of lush greenery, natural wildlife, and a temperate climate that allows for outdoor recreation. We also take our great outdoors for granted, and as a result, have one of the worst environmental records in the state and a host of regulations to deal with it. Diane Baum is owner of Baum Environmental Group , a contract...

One of the most exciting and interesting aspects of entrepreneurship is that there are so many niches, fields and areas of specialty that didn’t exist as recently as just 20 years ago but today provide opportunities for the creative and ambitious to build entire lifestyles and careers. What’s also unique and special about these emerging fields is the way they blend entrepreneurship and...

Although we’re living in an age of hyperbole where headlines and politicians are apt to cast everything in terms of absolute disaster or unprecedented achievement, it might be surprising but no exaggeration to claim that there are institutions and scientists in Baton Rouge that are world leaders in healthcare. Dr. John Kirwan is Executive Director of the  Pennington Biomedical Research...

The petro-chem sector may be Louisiana’s largest industry in dollar terms, but food is no doubt number one in the mindset of the collective culture. Louisiana is blessed with so many regional cuisines, restaurants and food entrepreneurs. On this edition of Out to Lunch Baton Rouge two colorful, local food entrepreneurs share their unique journeys, including how COVID has impacted the way the...

There’s an old saying about how you can never go home again. Which means, actually, that once you’ve moved away from a place and you come home, it’s different than it was when you left. But sometimes, what has changed is for the better and creates new opportunities for those who return. On this edition of Out to Lunch, Stephanie meets two young entrepreneurs who left town but are...

You probably noticed during the COVID-19 pandemic that people started spending a lot more time enjoying parks, public green spaces and the great outdoors – whether walking, jogging, hosting socially distant backyard gatherings, or riding bikes. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, those of us in south Louisiana were just beginning to enjoy the best of a lovely, cool spring and, based on anec...

We’ve all heard the alarming statistic: Louisiana loses a football field of coastline every 30 minutes. And we know a lot of money and resources is being put towards the problem. But, is it too late to really change the trajectory we’re on? And what does that mean for where Louisiana’s citizens will live in the years to come? Sea Dr. Craig McLain is Executive Director of the Loui...

If you’re like a lot of parents with school age children, you’ve probably spent a lot of time in 2020 juggling your career with taking care of your kids, who were off school, and then helping them with online school. Perhaps it’s given you a better appreciation for what educators and people who otherwise wrangle children, go through every day. On this edition of Out to Lunch Bato...

It’s a well worn cliché around here that Baton Rouge is a tale of two cities – with both the highest income levels and outcomes in the state and the lowest. Which of the two cities you’re in depends on whether you’re north or south of Florida Boulevard. There are a lot of reasons for this. On this edition of Out to Lunch, Stephanie and her guests focus specifically o...

Although we're living in an age of hyperbole where headlines and politicians are apt to cast everything in terms of absolute disaster or unprecedented achievement, it might be surprising but no exaggeration to claim that there are institutions and scientists in Baton Rouge that are world leaders in healthcare. Dr. John Kirwan is Executive Director of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center. "Pen...

The petro-chem sector may be Louisiana’s largest industry in dollar terms, but food is no doubt number one in the mindset of the collective culture. Louisiana is blessed with so many regional cuisines, restaurants and food entrepreneurs. On this edition of Out to Lunch Baton Rouge two colorful, local food entrepreneurs share their unique journeys, including how COVID has impacted the way the...

There’s an old saying about how you can never go home again. Which means, actually, that once you’ve moved away from a place and you come home, it’s different than it was when you left. But sometimes, what has changed is for the better and creates new opportunities for those who return. On this edition of Out to Lunch, Stephanie meets two young entrepreneurs who left town but are...

You’ve probably noticed during this COVID-19 pandemic that people are spending a lot more time enjoying parks, public green spaces and the great outdoors – whether walking, jogging, hosting socially distant backyard gatherings, or riding bikes. When the pandemic hit earlier this year, those of us in south Louisiana were just beginning to enjoy the best of a lovely, cool spring and, bas...

If you spend much time in Baton Rouge business circles, you know that real estate is one of the most vibrant and robust sectors of the local economy.  The real estate market has been on a roll since the Great Recession, with a boom in new commercial and office development and a steady increase in residential activity.  That is, up until the Covid crisis of 2020 threw a wrench in the real...

Have you checked out what happens when you Google Cure For Cancer? You get a lot of information about cancer treatment, but there's not a lot of information about who is working on an actual cure for cancer. On this edition of Out to Lunch Baton Rouge, Stephanie Riegel dives into a cure for cancer, and what's up with Google search. Cure for Cancer We often hear stories from successful entrepreneur...

What do you use to fight crime? How about an advanced AI tool called Crimer? A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) is one of those terms that can send chills up your spine and make you think of a creepy futuristic, science fiction film. But A.I is not the future, and it's not fiction. It’s here.  Lex Adams is the founder of Crimer , a software company that uses AI and analytics to predict patt...

As Out to Lunch Baton Rouge prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our shows from BC (Before Covid). Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Be Nice and Win Big. In 2011, Mary Patricia Wray was a young law student at Loyola University Law School in New Orleans. Just three short years later, she found herself serving as the communications director for a...

As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Baton Rouge Performing Arts. Imagine that you're the most beautiful person in the world. And you happen to have a sister, who is even more beautiful than you! If you didn't happen to be compared to your sister all the time, you'd be a real...

As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Principle versus Profit. We talk a lot about business on this show, and what it takes to be successful in business. On this edition of Out to Lunch Stephanie focuses on an aspect of business that doesn't typically get so much attention: et...

As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Down on Silicon Bayou. Down on Silicon Bayou, local Baton Rouge companies are carving out an amazing space in the tech sector. They’re designing impressive software platforms and tools that are attracting worldwide attention. Steve M...

As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: The Next Generation of Tech. As technology continues to evolve and change the world around us, our local economy is changing too and adapting — taking advantage of the opportunities the tech sector creates and preparing the next gene...

As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Hoarding Disorder. We all have a pack rat in the family. Maybe, in fact, you’re the one with the house that’s always a little messy and disorganized. You might not diagnose yourself as having a hoarding disorder - or other ment...