Since the beginning of time, we have turned to nature to find plants and roots and fungi to calm us or pep us up, help us perform better, or take us out of our bodies and minds to some other dimension. It’s an age old tradition that continues to the present day and has given us foods, beverages, remedies, supplements and, drugs around which entire industries have been built.

Randy Mire makes his living in one of those industries: medical marijuana.

Randy is a pharmacist and owner of Capitol Wellness Solutions.  We had Randy on this show back in 2018, when the state’s medical marijuana industry was just getting started and Randy was the sole licensed pharmacist in the state to dispense medical marijuana.

Today, Capitol Wellness Solutions is one of 9 licensed pharmacies around the state that is selling medical marijuana, and state lawmakers in 2022 passed several measures to grow the size of the industry by allowing more licenses and more types of legal marijuana.

Randy had been a licensed pharmacist in Baton Rouge for a decade and already had a niche in specialty drugs before he decided to try selling medical marijuana. 

Rachel Jackson also has a niche in Baton Rouge selling a plant-based product with what some might consider healing properties: tea! Rachel’s business, Adornleaf Tea, blends handmade organic herbal teas with inspired names like Goddess In Repose, Early Rise, and Mull It Over.

Rachel was a visitor services coordinator at the Louisiana Arts and Sciences Museum, when she decided in 2018 to pursue her passion for tea by starting her own business. Rachel sources the leaves then blends them by hand and packages them to sell.  

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by Erik Otts at itsbatonrouge.la.

Since the beginning of time, we have turned to nature to find plants and roots and fungi to calm us or pep us up, help us perform better, or take us out of our bodies and minds to some other dimension. It’s an age old tradition that continues to the present day and has given us foods, beverages, remedies, supplements and, drugs around which entire industries have been built.
Randy Mire makes his living in one of those industries: medical marijuana.
Randy is a pharmacist and owner of <a href="https://capitolpharmacy.com/">Capitol Wellness Solutions</a>.  <a href="https://itsbatonrouge.la/2018/10/19/medical-marijuana-out-to-lunch-its-baton-rouge/">We had Randy on this show back in 2018</a>, when the state’s medical marijuana industry was just getting started and Randy was the sole licensed pharmacist in the state to dispense medical marijuana.
Today, Capitol Wellness Solutions is one of 9 licensed pharmacies around the state that is selling medical marijuana, and state lawmakers in 2022 passed several measures to grow the size of the industry by allowing more licenses and more types of legal marijuana.
Randy had been a licensed pharmacist in Baton Rouge for a decade and already had a niche in specialty drugs before he decided to try selling medical marijuana. 
Rachel Jackson also has a niche in Baton Rouge selling a plant-based product with what some might consider healing properties: tea! Rachel’s business, <a href="https://www.adornleaftea.com/">Adornleaf Tea</a>, blends handmade organic herbal teas with inspired names like Goddess In Repose, Early Rise, and Mull It Over.
Rachel was a visitor services coordinator at the Louisiana Arts and Sciences Museum, when she decided in 2018 to pursue her passion for tea by starting her own business. Rachel sources the leaves then blends them by hand and packages them to sell.  
Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at <a href="https://www.mansursontheboulevard.com/main/home">Mansurs on the Boulevard</a>. You can find photos from this show by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/acreaux/">Erik Otts</a> at <a href="https://itsbatonrouge.la/2023/04/11/weed-tea/">itsbatonrouge.la</a>.

OUT TO LUNCH finds Baton Rouge Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel combining her hard news journalist skills and food background: conducting business over lunch. Baton Rouge has long had a storied history of politics being conducted over meals, now the Capital Region has an equivalent culinary home for business: Mansur's. Each week Stephanie holds court over lunch at Mansur's and invites members of the Baton Rouge business community to join her. You can also hear the show on WRKF 89.3FM.

It's Baton Rouge: Out to Lunch

Weed Tea

Sometime around 100,000 years ago, what we think of as modern humans started wearing clothes. In the centuries since, the outfits and accessories we people have come up with have evolved from utilitarian garments to elaborate expressions of our culture and creativity.

Clothes and accessories are fun, fanciful and define who we are. Baton Rouge entrepreneurs are building successful businesses that capitalize on our desire to define ourselves by what we put on our bodies and atop our heads.

Karla Coreil, co-owner of Chapeaux, a Baton Rouge based millinery business that combines 19th-century British quality and tradition with South Louisiana style and flair.

Karla and her partner in Chapeaux, Jenn Loftin, opened the business in 2022 and custom make creative head pieces for high end occasions like the Kentucky Derby and down home celebrations like the St Patricks Day Parade.

Chapeaux also hosts private parties, which they call Chapeaux Party, at which guests can make their own festive hats and head pieces.

Karla is an attorney. Jenn has a Ph.D in education and works in educational publishing. When they started the business they said they were worried about how to spread the word. Turns out, Chapeaux caught on so fast their problem now is keeping up with demand.

Joey Redditt is founder and owner of Jo Design Studio, a Baton Rouge couturier that makes custom clothing for men, women and children, with a particular focus on  special occasion dresses.

Joey has been designing clothes since 2010, when he was gifted a sewing machine. At the time, he had his own successful teeshirt company, Grab it Rabbit. After that business took off, he decided to try his hand at designing clothes. Today he has 35 thousand followers on Instagram, his own studio and a growing number of customers.

Joey works fast and Jo Design Studio offers to make bespoke creations -- sometimes in just a few hours. 

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs On the Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by Brian Newton at itsbatonrouge.la.

Sometime around 100,000 years ago, what we think of as modern humans started wearing clothes. In the centuries since, the outfits and accessories we people have come up with have evolved from utilitarian garments to elaborate expressions of our culture and creativity.
Clothes and accessories are fun, fanciful and define who we are. Baton Rouge entrepreneurs are building successful businesses that capitalize on our desire to define ourselves by what we put on our bodies and atop our heads.
Karla Coreil, co-owner of <a href="https://www.chapeauxparty.com/">Chapeaux</a>, a Baton Rouge based millinery business that combines 19th-century British quality and tradition with South Louisiana style and flair.
Karla and her partner in Chapeaux, Jenn Loftin, opened the business in 2022 and custom make creative head pieces for high end occasions like the Kentucky Derby and down home celebrations like the St Patricks Day Parade.
Chapeaux also hosts private parties, which they call Chapeaux Party, at which guests can make their own festive hats and head pieces.
Karla is an attorney. Jenn has a Ph.D in education and works in educational publishing. When they started the business they said they were worried about how to spread the word. Turns out, Chapeaux caught on so fast their problem now is keeping up with demand.
Joey Redditt is founder and owner of <a href="https://www.thejodesignstudio.com/">Jo Design Studio</a>, a Baton Rouge couturier that makes custom clothing for men, women and children, with a particular focus on  special occasion dresses.
Joey has been designing clothes since 2010, when he was gifted a sewing machine. At the time, he had his own successful teeshirt company, <a href="https://www.chapeauxparty.com/home#FAQ">Grab it Rabbit</a>. After that business took off, he decided to try his hand at designing clothes. Today he has 35 thousand followers on Instagram, his own studio and a growing number of customers.
Joey works fast and Jo Design Studio offers to make bespoke creations -- sometimes in just a few hours. 
Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at <a href="https://www.mansursontheboulevard.com/">Mansurs On the Boulevard</a>. You can find photos from this show by Brian Newton at <a href="https://itsbatonrouge.la/2024/04/10/chapeaux-jo/">itsbatonrouge.la</a>.

Chapeaux Jo

Technology has opened doors in so many industries and enabled us to do so many things we couldn’t even imagine in the past. At the same time, we’ve made things more complicated for ourselves, creating systems that don’t always talk to each other and languages we don’t understand.

On this edition of Out to Lunch, two lunch guests who are helping break through the clutter, with products and services that are enabling our tech systems to work for us more effectively - and helping businesses better communicate their messaging.

John Morello, is Chief Technology Officer of Gutsy, a tech firm that has come up with a better way to help companies protect themselves against cyberthreat. More specifically, Gutsy uses process mining – and we’ll get into that in a minute – to ensure that the various cybersecurity systems a complex organization has in place are talking to one another and doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

If John’s name is familiar to you, it may be because he was a guest on Out to Lunch in 2019, when he was running Twistlock, a tech firm that developed cloud-based cybersecurity solutions. In the years since then, John and his partners in Twistlock have grown that company, attracted new investors, and created the spinoff, Gutsy, to address a need they identified running Twistolock.

John is a 14-year veteran of Microsoft, who lives in Baton Rouge and is also a master diver and very active in coastal conservation. 

Kenny Nguyen is founder and CEO of ThreeSixtyEight, a Baton Rouge-based creative and strategic media agency that focuses on branding, marketing and advertising with a high tech, high energy super creative approach. The company’s origins date back to 2011, when Kenny and his friend were still students at LSU and started Big Fish Presentations, which specialized in public speaking and presentation services. In 2016, it merged with another local firm to form ThreeSixtyEight. In the years since, it has grown to include clients that include Alfa, Tomb Raider, and Compass Datacenters. 

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs On the Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by Brian Newton at itsbatonrouge.la.

Technology has opened doors in so many industries and enabled us to do so many things we couldn’t even imagine in the past. At the same time, we’ve made things more complicated for ourselves, creating systems that don’t always talk to each other and languages we don’t understand.
On this edition of Out to Lunch, two lunch guests who are helping break through the clutter, with products and services that are enabling our tech systems to work for us more effectively - and helping businesses better communicate their messaging.
John Morello, is Chief Technology Officer of <a href="https://gutsy.com/">Gutsy</a>, a tech firm that has come up with a better way to help companies protect themselves against cyberthreat. More specifically, Gutsy uses process mining – and we’ll get into that in a minute – to ensure that the various cybersecurity systems a complex organization has in place are talking to one another and doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
If John’s name is familiar to you, it may be because he was <a href="https://itsbatonrouge.la/2019/04/04/tech-talk-out-to-lunch-its-baton-rouge/">a guest on Out to Lunch in 2019, when he was running Twistlock</a>, a tech firm that developed cloud-based cybersecurity solutions. In the years since then, John and his partners in Twistlock have grown that company, attracted new investors, and created the spinoff, Gutsy, to address a need they identified running Twistolock.
John is a 14-year veteran of Microsoft, who lives in Baton Rouge and is also a master diver and very active in coastal conservation. 
Kenny Nguyen is founder and CEO of <a href="https://www.threesixtyeight.com/">ThreeSixtyEight</a>, a Baton Rouge-based creative and strategic media agency that focuses on branding, marketing and advertising with a high tech, high energy super creative approach. The company’s origins date back to 2011, when Kenny and his friend were still students at LSU and started Big Fish Presentations, which specialized in public speaking and presentation services. In 2016, it merged with another local firm to form ThreeSixtyEight. In the years since, it has grown to include clients that include Alfa, Tomb Raider, and Compass Datacenters. 
Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at <a href="https://www.mansursontheboulevard.com/">Mansurs On the Boulevard</a>. You can find photos from this show by Brian Newton at<a href="https://itsbatonrouge.la/2024/03/27/tech-bros/"> itsbatonrouge.la</a>.

Tech BRos

Healthcare is big business, and it’s only getting bigger. In 2021, healthcare expenditures topped $4B in the U.S. By 2028, that figure is expected to reach $6.2B.

Within this growing and rapidly changing sector, nurses play an outsized role. They comprise the largest component of the healthcare workforce, they're the primary providers of hospital patient care and they deliver most of the nation’s longterm care. They’re also helping to lead the charge in new ways of delivering care, creating companies right here in Baton Rouge that are reinventing the way nursing is done.

Renita Williams Thomas is a pediatric nurse specialist and the owner and CEO of In Loving Arms Pediatric Day Health Center, an outpatient center for children with medically complex needs such as congenital heart disease, traecheotomy, seizure, and genetic and neurological disorders, among others.

The center combines skilled nursing, education and therapy and enables children with chronic conditions to interact with other kids their age who may also be going through similar health challenges. Renita founded the center in 2012 after spending more than two decades in the field with the Southern University School of Nursing - where she earned her bachelors and master’s degrees in nursing - Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center, the Louisiana State Department of Health and the Lousiaina School for the Visually Impaired. 

Blasia Rivet is a Registered nurse and the founder and owner of Decision Critical, a concierge nursing agency that offers in home and mobile private duty nursing services in the Baton Rouge region. Services are tailored to fit patient and caretaker needs and include acute and chronic conditions, elderly care support, post op recovery, and more.

Blasia founded Decision Critical in 2014 to fill the need she saw in the community for a higher level of personalized care than one can get beyond the doctor’s office. Blasia is a native of Baton Rouge and a graduate of southeastern Louisiana university school of nursing. 

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs On the Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by Brian Newton at itsbatonrouge.la.

Healthcare is big business, and it’s only getting bigger. In 2021, healthcare expenditures topped $4B in the U.S. By 2028, that figure is expected to reach $6.2B.
Within this growing and rapidly changing sector, nurses play an outsized role. They comprise the largest component of the healthcare workforce, they're the primary providers of hospital patient care and they deliver most of the nation’s longterm care. They’re also helping to lead the charge in new ways of delivering care, creating companies right here in Baton Rouge that are reinventing the way nursing is done.
Renita Williams Thomas is a pediatric nurse specialist and the owner and CEO of <a href="https://www.inlovingarmskids.com/">In Loving Arms Pediatric Day Health Center</a>, an outpatient center for children with medically complex needs such as congenital heart disease, traecheotomy, seizure, and genetic and neurological disorders, among others.
The center combines skilled nursing, education and therapy and enables children with chronic conditions to interact with other kids their age who may also be going through similar health challenges. Renita founded the center in 2012 after spending more than two decades in the field with the Southern University School of Nursing - where she earned her bachelors and master’s degrees in nursing - Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center, the Louisiana State Department of Health and the Lousiaina School for the Visually Impaired. 
Blasia Rivet is a Registered nurse and the founder and owner of <a href="https://decisioncriticalbr.com/">Decision Critical</a>, a concierge nursing agency that offers in home and mobile private duty nursing services in the Baton Rouge region. Services are tailored to fit patient and caretaker needs and include acute and chronic conditions, elderly care support, post op recovery, and more.
Blasia founded Decision Critical in 2014 to fill the need she saw in the community for a higher level of personalized care than one can get beyond the doctor’s office. Blasia is a native of Baton Rouge and a graduate of southeastern Louisiana university school of nursing. 
Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at <a href="https://www.mansursontheboulevard.com/">Mansurs On the Boulevard</a>. You can find photos from this show by Brian Newton at itsbatonrouge.la.

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