Monday Q&A: Grocery industry insider

Soon the signs will change on 24 Ukrop’s stores around Richmond as they morph into Martin’s Grocery stores. This week RBS chats with Jeff Metzger, a longtime follower of the grocery industry and the fellow who broke the story open with his reporting in June of 2009 for the trade magazine Food World. Richmond BizSense: What was most interesting to you about the Ukrop’s deal?

Monday Q&A: Electrician plugs folks into local businesses

Andrew Phinney didn’t know what he was getting into when he started a Facebook page called LocallyOwnedRVA.

The 27-year-old electrician just wanted to bring attention to local businesses off the beaten path. He never expected more than a few hundred fans. Since the page went live in mid-January, it has gained more than 11,000 fans and has become a hub for the latest information on what local shop owners and services companies are up to. BizSense caught up with Phinney to find out what sort of effect his efforts are having and where he plans to take it next. Below is an edited transcript.

Monday Q&A: A class with South University’s president

Troy Ralston is the president of Richmond’s newest institution of higher learning, South University. The university opened for classes in October at its campus in West Broad Village in Short Pump.

Other South University campuses include Virginia Beach, Savannah, Ga., Columbia, S.C., Montgomery, Ala., Tampa, and West Palm Beach, Fla.

Ralston was president of Everest College’s Arlington campus before joining South. Before that, he had worked at DeVry University, where he held a variety of positions that included director of start-up operations and regional director of operations.

Ralston also has worked in sales for professional sports organizations, including the Oakland Athletics, the Phoenix Suns and the Denver Nuggets.He graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in Broadcast Journalism and holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the Keller Graduate School of ...

Monday Q&A: Is the pet industry really recession-proof?

Thousands of pet stores across the country, including several in the Richmond area, have one thing in common: They order their inventory of toys, leashes, collars and accessories from WholesalePet.com.

Bo Nelson started the Richmond-based company in 2001 and has handful of employees. The company has 4,500 active customers on its site that order from 200 pet product suppliers picked by Nelson.

“We are very selective,” Nelson said. “We get about 10 vendors requests per week. Out of those we choose one every other week to get onto our site.”

The company is paid a commission by the suppliers based on sales completed over the site.

BizSense met with Nelson to find out more about how he got started -- somehow Paris Hilton comes up -- and his thoughts on the oft-repeated legend that the ...

Monday Q&A: Building an empire one oat at a time

Zaydie's isn’t a household name – yet. But if Janice and Shelley Freed have their way, it soon will be.

The mother and daughter are co-owners of Zaydie’s Granola, which they make in their western Henrico County home and distribute to gourmet and health food stores in the Richmond area and throughout the state. You can find a list of stores that carry Zaydie’s at zaydiesgranola.com, and through March part of the company's proceeds are going to Haiti relief.

Janice, the mother, started the company in August 2008, and 26-year-old Shelley joined her in the business in January 2009.

BizSense interviewed the Freeds last week.

Below is an edited transcript of the conversation.

Richmond BizSense: How did the business get started?

Shelley Freed: My mom, Janice, was baking the granola for ...

Monday Q&A: Rockin’ and rollin’ at Plaza Bowl

Plaza Bowl has the scent of every other bowling alley: sanitizer and snack food.

Jim Szilagyi moved to Richmond for that smell. Well, that plus duckpin bowling. Plaza Bowl is the southernmost of the roughly 50 remaining duckpin alleys in the country. (Duckpin bowling involves small balls that fit in the palm of your hand and three throws per turn.)

When he took over two and a half years ago, he ripped out four of the lanes and built a stage, making Plaza Bowl the most unlikely venue in Richmond’s music scene. BizSense caught up with Szilagyi to find out more.

Monday Q&A: From the farm back to finance

Todd Newton has a few photos of his family up in his office. There is a tractor in one of the recent photos, because for the past 18 months Newton worked on a family farm in Alabama, growing soybeans.

Now the North Carolina native is back in a suit and tie in the corner office of Anderson Strudwick. His job is to help turn around one of the last remaining independent financial services firm in Richmond, which has a wealth management division and an investment banking division.

Monday Q&A: Get out of jail (not for) free

We’ve written about lots of former Circuit City employees as they venture off into the world of entrepreneurship, but when it comes to switching careers, it’s going to be hard to top a copy writer-turned-bail bondsman. Kent Brockwell’s career path led him from business reporter to editor of Richmond.com to a copy writer for Circuit City to bail bondsman. We caught up with Brockwell to find out why he is getting into the bonding business.

Aside from the fact that its founders are a former funeral director and a journalist who happen to be brothers, Hacksaw Bail Bonds also seeks to connect clients with social services to keep them out of trouble with the law. In other words, owners Richard Brockwell Jr. and Kent Jennings Brockwell aren’t necessarily looking for repeat customers.

The firm opens for business sometime in February at 901½  Hull Street, across from the new Manchester General District Court.

Monday Q&A: A new lease on business

When a business says it’s looking to the General Assembly for potential business, that usually means a piece of legislation that could give an industry a boost.

But Slayton Dabney caters to the legislators themselves. The bills are irrelevant to his business – he just needs lawmakers in Richmond trying to legislate.

Dabney is the owner of Dabney Properties, a corporate housing firm he started about three years ago. He provides housing to about 40 legislators and aides while they attend the session for the next 60 days or so.

Monday Q&A: Yellow jackets take sting out of staffing

You’ve probably seen Dan Schmitt’s business. Or at least the yellow jackets his employees wear when you walk through the turnstiles at a college basketball game or event at the Richmond Coliseum. Those jackets are popping up at more and more venues these days as the company adds high school sporting events and is planning an expansion into North Carolina.

Three years after graduating from the University of Richmond with an undergraduate degree in business, Schmitt started providing local stadiums with hundreds of ushers in yellow jackets.

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