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Presented By
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FACES & PLACES 
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East Area Council members teed off a series of City Updates planned for this spring with an outing to TopGolf Fort Worth. Brenda Hicks-Sorensen, City of Fort Worth Economic Development Assistant Director and Roger Venables City of Fort Worth Assistant Director of property management presented updates on recent development and what is to come regarding the city bond election, roads, new parks, libraries, police stations, infrastructure and more. Cheers to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport for sponsoring the EAC.
L to R: Casey Norton, DFW International Airport; Venables; Hicks-Sorensen; and Jessica Fanguy, DFW International Airport. See more pics from the event here and Hicks-Sorensen's presentation here. |
Take a ride on the wild side: Spectacular sports attractions, including the NFL Draft in April, classic museums, the Stockyards, the Zoo, Sundance Square, Panther Island, Near Southside. So much to do, so little time to celebrate it all. Fortunately, the Fort Worth Convention & Visitors Bureau's Annual Meeting & Breakfast, February 28 at the Omni Fort Worth Hotel, pays homage to all the great "Things To Do," that draw visitors to North Texas. Most arrive via Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, this year's breakfast honoree. Chief tourist attraction Bob Jameson will update CVB efforts and Sarah Robbins, chief hospitality officer and co-founding partner of 21c Museum Hotels, will keynote with a talk about the power of saying "Yes" to your customers. Say "Yes" that you want to go and two of you could be all aboard.
 Peter is in the Casa: Do NOT allow your kids or grandkids to try any of this at home, alone. DO, however, enter to win this four-pack of tickets to Neverland at Casa Mañana. The production, which runs four weekends, is the spittin'-image take-off of Peter Pan, but produced for younger audiences. Yes, Peter will fly and Wendy will goo-goo eye him during their "Awfully Big Adventure." She's 13; he's ageless. Her world is transformed by Peter, who shows her that there is magic all around if we just look hard enough. And poof! Casa's Lindsey Rushen-ed over the Feb. 2 opening-night tickets.
Take me to this leader: Robin Fuller has just enough influence with husband Chris that she "generously donates my time," says Chris Fuller of Influence Leadership. Robin generously donated RightPath assessments -- one behavioral, one forced choice -- and here's the right path that two winners will take. Online, you'll do the Path 4 and Path 6 assessments. That is followed by a de-brief on the phone with Chris to understand what the summary means and how to leverage it in personal and professional growth and leadership. Chris is one of North Texas' most accomplished (and traveled) speakers, authors and trainers on leadership.
Ride 'em, cowpokes: January 25th is the Annual Roundup of outstanding young professionals in the Chamber's group, Vision FW. Nearly 200 aspiring CEOs and Mayors and volunteers will bronc-bust their way to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame and Museum at 5:30 p.m. for a tour and reception with food and spirits by Joe T Garcia's. Then it's a short boot scoot to see the cowboys, bulls, clowns and chuckwagons at the world's greatest Stock Show & Rodeo. It also happens to be TCU Night at the Rodeo, so purple is acceptable dress alongside your western courture. Chamber trail-herder Brittany L. Brookens has a pair of tickets for visionaries.
When Harvey rains on your parade: Chris. B Brown, the Houston City Controller and not the Singer-Minus-Rihanna, is one handsome money manager. A 4th generation Houstonian and all-time homer except during his undergraduate days at TCU, Brown is the guest of Neeley School of Business Dean (he, too, is a Homer) Erekson for the Tandy Speaker Series. If you have ever wondered about municipal finances (and Astros baseball), come to TCU for breakfast Feb. 1 and learn from the man running the nation's 4th most populous city.
Congratulations to the January 10th Prize Winners:
- Nathan Draughn, BB&T
- Louise Appleman, Tarrant County College District
- Susan Medina, SKM Communication Strategies
- Landon Brim, Southside Bank
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HE SAID, SHE SAID, THEY SAID
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 The rest of the Acme story: Mr. B enjoyed a cartoonish history lesson from Acme Brick President & CEO Dennis Knautz. Acme Brick was founded and has been a success since 1882. The original Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner carton production, Furry-ous, featuring the Acme Corporation, debuted September 16, 1949. That Acme had products that always failed. Knautz explained the commonality of the Acme name. "It's Greek and means something that is best, perfect, the pinnacle."
The bottom line: Bob Luce, American National Services furniture guy, was not aware of "smart office chairs" so he did some research. "Steelcase is introducing the SC Gesture chair with a remote device for adjustable posture options," he said. "Starts at $984." Rev up your bottom-line jokes.
Tech talk: D&M Leasing commercial car crony Kevin Arnett was a tech guy and talks the X.25 packet switching and ISDN talk like few others. Long ago but not far away, he worked with a GTE team doing Internet text without graphics in Grapevine. He also helped intro to Dallas / Fort Worth ISDN, the simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data and other network services.
Who me? Mike Coffey's firm, Imperative Information Group, does background checks; Mike also consults with HR departments because "48 percent of hires fail within the first 18 months." He says you must ask a candidate a thorough criminal history question. "You're looking for underlying conduct," he said. Make sure you get permission to do the background check.
Just a little ol' suburb: Why does Fort Worth want commercial growth? The city's and Chamber's economic development strategic plans indicate that when commercial and industrial growth isn't strong, the tax burden weighs heavily on residential.
Doctors of Development: Mike Berry, Hillwood's builder of Alliance(s), says Fort Worth's economic development strategic plan is a "Ph.D in economic development." Now, "how do you staff it; how do you pay for it? If we want to raise our game, it's not always about incentives. It's about bear-hugging ... make it easy for people to do business here." Bear hugger Brenda Hicks-Sorensen, assistant director of economic development for the city, said new ideas about "investment strategy" and incentive plans would be presented to the City Council early in 2018.
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"I love firemen. My mother said I would do ANYTHING to get them to the house."
-- Michele Klepser
Signarama Fort Worth
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No Sand bagger: One of the
Chamber Small Business of the Year finalists in the Emerging Business category is
CAET Project Management Consultants. The Keller company does interior renovation and construction projects. "With all of the construction in the U.S., companies that normally perform the PM/CM functions are finding that they can't manage all of the projects so we come in and help. We have projects in Texas, California, Colorado, Nevada, Wyoming and New Mexico," said President Molly Sandlin. CAET formed in February 2016. Molly says she is no relation to the Sandlin homebuilder.
Kudos: Fidelity Investments has 45,600 employees. 31,335 are Vice Presidents, including recently-promoted Son No
BGood. Mr. B is as proud if not more proud than the other 72,669 parents, but is wondering if the
Chamber has a Sr. Vice President of Newsletters position.
Airing it out: Erika Hersh of
PeopleFund clamored to get out of a cubicle and into an office at the
Business Assistance Center. She needs privacy for conversations about loans. 2018 and she got her wish; however, she quickly learned that a closed-door during the recent freeze made the heat too stifling in her office for any meeting.
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MAPS ARE HERE & FREE!
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 This four-color street map covers Tarrant County and includes a special inset indicating the location of the DFW International Airport in proximity to Fort Worth and Dallas. Grab your FREE copy of the 2018 version
here, or email us to order multiple copies.
Email
Christine Gores or call 817-338-3332 for more information. See more of our publications in our online store.
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