There’s one extraordinary fact about this security company that we feel justified in bringing up first: Radius Security prides itself on preventing false alarms, with a proven 1.3 percent false alarm rate that is reputable within law enforcement agencies across Canada, and in the state of Texas.

Headquartered in Richmond, British Columbia, the company also has offices in Alberta, Toronto, Ontario, as well as in Southlake, Texas. But wherever it is, Radius Security boasts first-in-class technology for apprehending trespassers and preventing loss and damage, night and day, on dealerships and construction sites.

And the Radius Security team doesn’t expect prospective clients to take their word for it, either. It is quite the norm for a potential client to be plied with comprehensive stats when partnering with Radius to install the Redhanded solution on their sites – the result of the company’s careful tracking of the numbers of its successful police apprehensions, of a low false alarm rate, and of sites under its care.

“We use pretty edgy marketing to try to get that point across,” shares Stephanie Dawe, Marketing Manager. “But at the same time, we’re still trying to be very diligent in our messaging because crime is a complex issue, and perpetrators are usually between a rock and a hard place when they’re committing a crime.”

Next-level support and security
Radius Security’s big motivation is to help authorities efficiently apprehend criminals. But the company’s next-generation technology doesn’t just prevent theft on its clients’ sites; it also records activities like vandalism or accidents that occur during un-armed hours, for instance, when other service providers’ delivery or collection vehicles cause damage to its clients’ vehicles and property. “We partner with companies and help them to eliminate crime so that they are empowered to focus on what they do best,” says Richard Hambrick, USA Regional Sales Manager.

As the Radius Security team knows very well, security systems are a grudge purchase rather than something that clients enjoy buying. But, as Hambrick notes, once the damage is done, everyone wants the best system to protect them from recurring incidents.

“We’re the security company that everyone wants when they have had a break-in. You want to protect your business and your assets and luck is not a good business strategy,” he says.

As a result, the company is typically called on by crime victims who have been let down by traditional security systems and have suffered varying levels of loss as a result. It is usually around this point that clients start taking control by preventing loss rather than dealing with the aftermath.

Getting it right
It is common knowledge that video footage is sometimes evidential quality and other times not. For this reason, while its camera offering is second to none, the Radius Security team works with responding officers to ensure a greased-lightning police response that effectively catches attempted crimes in progress.

“We have the statistics to show over 990 successful apprehensions in the last 12 months. We have a false alarm rate that is under 1.5 percent,” Hambrick says.

The reason this percentage is significant, according to Hambrick, is that, consistently, in most major metro markets across North America, the false alarm rate is over 98 percent. This is concerning considering the enormous waste of resources given over to unnecessary police responses.

It comes as no surprise then that with the authorities pleasantly pleased to know that they can trust Radius Security alarm signals, they adjust their own responses. “The police’s response time on average is four to eight minutes from the time we call the police to the time that they arrive on-site,” says Hambrick.

“It’s a simple process. If you don’t lie to the police, the police will come quickly. If the police come quickly, they will catch criminals on the site.”

Hambrick emphasizes that “it is not a single piece of equipment that can accomplish that.” The fact is that many elements of proprietary technology are harnessed to create an unbeatable security solution. “If there was a single piece of equipment, every company out there would have [the same statistics as us.] We’re the only company that can give you our statistical facts documented.”

Redhanded™
The company’s most successful product, Redhanded™, combines a potent set of technologies to achieve its great remote-guarding success – including Human Detection Technology™ and CCTV technology. Radius Security has found ways of combining existing technology with its own proprietary solutions to create a product that speaks, seamlessly, to both law enforcement and clients’ needs alike.

“[The camera footage] is time and date stamped when a recording is made. It is admissible in court,” says Hambrick. The footage is easily accessible and the company provides it to the police and its clients as quickly as possible after an incident.

The product’s daytime capabilities are just as sharp as its nighttime prowess. And, as Hambrick points out, that’s how many of its clients are quickly persuaded that the system really pays for itself – especially with regard to construction site safety. In this way, the Redhanded solution can potentially lead to considerable cost savings, at the same time as clients benefit from a 24/7 monitored security service.

An anti-crime family
Radius Security clients become part of a team of dedicated experts. As many of the original founding family members still serve on the leadership team, you can expect a level of support that is above and beyond typical corporations.

Rob Baxter was the original creator of “Rosie”, the company’s well-known green camera box system. He is also at the forefront of research into minimizing false alarms as well as building relationships with law enforcement.

“Then there is Joslyn Alderson. I’m very fortunate to report to a leader like her,” says Dawe, praising the leadership team for their innovative minds and progressive entrepreneurial brilliance. “We’re a 70-year old company but we have a startup mentality where we are able to pivot and keep up with progressive changes in tech,” Dawe says.

Before moving into the President role, Mike Baxter spent several years leading the growth across Canada. As an expert in the Redhanded solution, his visionary and hands-on approach to leading the company has gained genuine respect from employees.

Leadership in the U.S.
Then there is Sam Alderson, whose job description, I am told, only scratches the surface of his actual function within Radius. Alderson heads up the company’s United States arm based in Texas, with a focus on sales.

“Sam Alderson is the driving force of the U.S. becoming a reality for Radius Security. He’s been the person heavily responsible for identifying the original markets that we started in. He’s also been responsible for delivering the Radius Security culture from our parent company in Canada,” says Hambrick.

Howard Sanders is another of the company’s U.S. leaders. As Operations Manager with over 30 years’ experience in amongst some of the country’s very best security companies, he is especially lauded by Hambrick for “ensuring that the client not only gets what we promised but that the client feels that they get more than what they asked for,” he says.

Radius Security’s research and development team would not be complete without its manager, Aleksei Bulavko, research, development and production manager.

The company’s command center supervisor, Sharon Hunt, is another of the company’s stalwart leaders known for treating clients like part of the family.

“Everything that happens in the Command Center, Sharon Hunt takes personal ownership for. One of the beauties of our company is that we have no third-party monitoring. We do not outsource our monitoring to different monitoring centers overseas like a lot of our competitors may do,” Dawe says. This not only allows better control over service delivery but builds a close rapport with both clients and police dispatchers over time.

One of the company’s main drivers at its Texas location, Richard Hambrick, has spent over 30 years in the safety and security, and electronics industries’ sales management divisions. He has even educated the police on what technology and electronics contribute to safety and security.

“Our leadership style is about how much dedication our teams and managers have put into looking for people who are going to fit the culture. We’ve been fortunate to have incredibly talented and experienced people join our team. But really, we hire for culture. People who are going to work well as team members,” says Dawe.

A force for good
Joslyn Alderson’s vision to have a sustainable impact on the communities Radius serves led to the creation of the philanthropic team, Community Matters – composed solely from employee volunteers to direct the corporate giving initiatives. The Community Matters team supports organizations whose missions are to help youth facing barriers to create positive, lasting relationships and become leaders in their communities.

The initiative has started traditions like an impressive holiday campaign. “With our annual Spread the Cheer campaign we align with organizations that help to address some of the root causes of crime, hunger and homelessness,” she adds.

The company’s culture is based on 30 fundamental behaviours that the firm refers to as its DNA. These include always doing the right thing, holding one another accountable, and much more.

With this pragmatic list of behavioural principles firmly embedded in the company’s collective mind, strategic and responsible growth is its next important shared value. Basically because, when working with the futures of the next generation of family and staff in mind, stability beats quick profits every time.

“That’s where you see the thoughtfulness and the decision-making being so carefully crafted. And, as employees, we all get to benefit from leaders who are not just thinking that way but acting and behaving that way,” says Hambrick.

Moving into the future, Radius Security will continue to apply the gold-standard strategy that allowed it to weather the COVID-19 crisis brilliantly. This means adapting to market conditions without missing a beat and protecting clients and partners by honouring the integrity of the company.

No matter what the economic climate, however, crime never sleeps. And, as a result, alarm companies and other security providers are learning one fact fast. Don’t cry wolf with Radius Security around. Because this team does not trade in false alarms.

The post Sounding the Alarm<p class="company">Radius Security</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

The well-educated, pro-business community of Davie has 105,054 people, according to the most recent census figures. Davie is conveniently located in South Florida near several major transportation routes, including Interstates 75 and 595, Ronald Reagan Turnpike, Port Everglades—the deepest port in Florida—and the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Since it was last profiled in the December 2019 issue of Business in Focus, Davie has remained committed to development.

“Despite COVID we’ve had numerous construction projects in town,” states Assistant Town Administrator and Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) Director Phillip Holste. “Over the past eight years, we’ve had over $1 billion in new construction in Davie. It hasn’t been focused on one sector but spread across residential, commercial, industrial. [We want] balance in the Davie economy, so if one sector is challenged, another sector will be there to carry on.”

The Academical Village—a 2.5-million-square-foot site including medical facilities, university offices, and businesses—is one of the most prominent of these projects. Construction continues on a Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) medical center in the village.

The HCA “is being built as a four-story hospital with 120 hospital beds that is ultimately going to be expanded to a ten-story hospital. They are going to have the largest neonatal intensive care unit in Broward County. Adjacent to that is a medical office building—a little over 100,000 square feet—that is being completed simultaneously with the hospital. The hospital itself will be open to the public in October 2021. I think everyone is going to be very impressed with the state of all our technology at that facility,” says Holste.

“The next thing we’re still working on is the construction of a new Davie town hall. The existing town hall has met its useful lifespan. We’ve been here for over forty years, and it’s in a very challenging state, so the council directed us to build a new town hall at our existing location.”

Architectural plans are being drawn up for the four-story, 70,000-square-foot civic structure. As Holste notes, the new town hall will be built on the site of the old town hall, once the latter is demolished.

Other projects include the Davie Business Center, a million-square-foot flex warehouse facility being built on Davie Road. The nearly completed center has attracted interest from high-profile clients such as Boeing. A similar project called Bridge Point 595 offers 700,000 square feet of flex warehouse space and is designed to take advantage of Davie’s proximity to the airport and seaport.

“We’re seeing lots of interest in final mile destinations. Companies such as Amazon want to provide final delivery to their customers,” he says of Bridge Point 595.

Intriguingly, the Town of Davie has also seen an influx of businesses offering succulent treats. A newly opened store on Davie Road called Sweet Alchemy sells donuts and desserts while a nearby locale called Midnight Cookies specializes in cookies and milkshakes.

Earlier this year, the Town of Davie partnered with Florida Atlantic University (FAU)’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) to establish a program for local business development. The center is part of a state-wide SBDC network funded by the Florida government, private partners, and the U.S. Small Business Administration, among other sources.

The plan is to enhance services for small business owners in Davie. This mission is intended to complement efforts to lure bigger companies to town. “We want to focus on bringing in small business and promoting and helping small business grow,” says Holste.

SBDC professionals can assist small businesses with marketing, planning, permitting, contracting, and growth-related issues. Helping small business owners to access state or federal funds is another goal.

On top of these business-oriented developments, several residential projects have been completed or are nearing competition in Davie.

Zona Village—a mixed-use project in the downtown Davie Road corridor with two hundred residential units and 20,000 square feet of ground-floor space devoted to commercial use—opened in August 2020 and has been favorably received by the community. Residents are moving in, and restaurants and a spa, among other businesses, are setting up in the village.

The Main Street Lofts was another big residential development on the Davie Road corridor. Holste describes the apartment complex as “a unique project,” featuring privately-owned condominiums.

Yet another project, University Pointe, a student housing complex, valued at around $60 million, opened its doors just before the pandemic. Despite this challenge, University Pointe has thrived and offers four bedroom living quarters with shared kitchen and living spaces for eight hundred students.

Remarkably, Davie has maintained its commitment to new construction even in the face of COVID. To keep the public safe but connected during the pandemic, the Town put as many services online as possible. Some municipal employees worked at home, and local government facilities were thoroughly sprayed and sanitized for those employees still in the office. The Town adhered to state guidelines and implemented mask-wearing, social distancing, and wellness checks of staff.

Financial support was also offered in some cases. “Working with Broward County, we were able to provide business and residential assistance,” says Holste.

Davie officials helped local companies with fewer than twenty employees access funds from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) and other programs. With financial backing from Broward County, Davie was also able to “provide rental and mortgage assistance for residents who lost jobs or were furloughed due to COVID,” he adds.

The Davie Parks and Recreation department came up with creative online programming to entertain and enlighten people forced to spend their time at home. Programming included virtual bingo and cooking shows, and some of these internet-based shows might be continued after the pandemic dissipates.

Popular community events also took a hit due to COVID. In late February 2020, Davie hosted its annual Orange Blossom Festival, featuring live music, a petting zoo, a kid’s play area, and other attractions. The 2021 festival was cancelled, due to health concerns, but town officials hope the festival will be renewed next year. The Davie Arena at the local Bergeron Rodeo Grounds usually plays host to a series of rodeo events, concerts, and animal shows. Its evens have also been suspended.

A few things have not changed, however. Davie continues to be a pro-business town, where local government does its best to attract and retain companies. The Town offers incentives to companies, ranging from tax increment financing, rental reimbursements, and an expedited permitting process.

These incentives are implemented “through our community redevelopment agency. The CRA gets its revenue from a variety of sources, including the Town, Broward County, and other government agencies. We use that funding to help redevelop and revitalize the CRA. We look at projects that bring a lot of property value growth and jobs to the area,” explains Holste.

The Town of Davie has excellent public schools, vast parks and open space, and nearly 170 miles of recreational trails. Town residents are well-educated, with a third of the community holding at least a Bachelor’s degree.

The Town remains dedicated to fulfilling its ‘2019 – 2023 Strategic Plan’, albeit with a few tweaks. One new goal is to “be prepared if we ever have a similar COVID situation happen again. I think the lesson learned for a lot of people is we weren’t as prepared as we thought we were. We want to make sure we can adapt more quickly to circumstances if it happens again, similar to how we’re adapting to natural disasters,” says Holste.

Current challenges, not including COVID, include dealing with stormwater. “Being in South Florida, this used to be the Everglades. We’ve had challenges during the last few years regarding significant rainfall events,” he states. The Town Council is considering a stormwater assessment, with a view to possible system enhancements or new construction. The goal is to improve the stormwater drainage network to prevent flooding.

Looking at future population levels, Town planners’ emphasis is on “balance,” he says. Balance means having enough residents to keep Davie economically strong, but not so many people as to strain local services and negatively impact the Town’s admirable quality of life.

If all goes to plan, building projects and local improvements will continue to be a focus in Davie for years to come. “Five years from now, I hope I can say the Academical Village is coming to completion and that the Town of Davie has a vibrant downtown,” states Holste.

The post Growing, Dreaming and Building<p class="company">The Town of Davie, FL</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Business in Focus sat down again with Shawnee Forward Inc. to catch up on the latest news and developments.

The community pulled together during the COVID-19 pandemic to overcome the challenges, and business leaders worked closely with government officials. “The business community has had a great voice [along with] the city commission,” says Shawnee Forward Inc. President and Chief Executive Officer Rachael Melot. “The city commission has tried to make decisions considering the safety of our people as well as the support of our business community and the partnership with our Tribal Governments.”

She explains that, “Shawnee leadership has worked to build and create opportunities to collaborate with our tribal leadership. Our tribal healthcare providers and SSM St. Anthony Hospital – Shawnee have been great distributors of the vaccine. They’ve helped our county by vaccinating as many people as possible.” Area healthcare heroes and citizens have all done their part.

Shawnee Forward Inc. partnered with the City of Shawnee, the City of Tecumseh, and Pottawatomie County to create a small business relief grant program to help businesses thrive during the pandemic. “Shawnee was one of the communities in the State of Oklahoma that proactively worked to help our businesses,” she says.

To apply for the grant, businesses needed to demonstrate a specific plan for how they would use the funding to adapt to the pandemic restrictions. For example, restaurants applied for money to buy heaters so patrons could dine outside. Other restaurants needed funding to create a drive-through service. Some businesses needed assistance expanding space to accommodate social distancing rules.

“They wrote their business case for how they would use the money to expand and grow their business, and a task force of people evaluated those,” Melot says. “We were actually able to get a second round of funding, so that every business that applied and was eligible, was granted some amount of funding from us.”

Around thirty-five businesses received grants of up to $5,000 each. “I think it’s just another great example of the region working together to utilize Cares Act funding for our business community,” she says. “In the follow-up interviews of the recipients, we have been told, in multiple cases, that the ROI to their business far exceeded their expectations. Our local businesses are so grateful, and it could only have been done with the collaborative efforts of Tecumseh, Shawnee and Pottawatomie County municipalities.

Shawnee enjoys a thriving downtown that continues to prosper, despite the issues COVID has imposed. “We are seeing significant investment in our downtown, and women-owned businesses have formed a particularly strong presence in Shawnee’s downtown,” Melot says. “I believe when women invest in businesses downtown, the community perception supports the main street business owners’ belief that the area is safe and welcoming. When women feel safe, the community at large feels safer.”

There has been substantial recent investment in new housing downtown, making the area more than just a shopping district. “We have multiple housing opportunities in our downtown area,” she says, and locals are eager to move in. “The last two developments that opened did so at full capacity.” The newest development, a higher-end apartment complex, opened almost completely pre-leased.

In addition to retail and housing, Shawnee’s bustling downtown offers a variety of entertainment opportunities that bring the community together. The Safe Events for Families organization [SEFF] puts on festivals and events throughout the year, from blues concerts to one of the state’s longest running Christmas parades. In addition, the City of Shawnee has invested in downtown walkability, so citizens can better enjoy all it has to offer.

The community is eager to retain its residents and provide opportunities for young, ambitious minds. “Shawnee public schools piloted the ICAP [Individual Career Academic Plan] program before it was state-mandated, and they’ve done an excellent job putting interns in our businesses even during COVID,” states Melot.

“Shawnee Forward had the opportunity to have one of those ICAP interns,” she says, referring to a successful example of the high school internships the program promotes. “She has been fantastic. One of the businesses offered her a job for the summer while she was doing our work. Not only did we get a chance to have a great intern for a semester, but then it gave her an opportunity for improving her employment and it gave one of our businesses a hardworking, smart employee.”

Shawnee’s business community benefits from Oklahoma Baptist University’s internship program too. The micro-internship program has “an intentional focus on attracting and retaining the great talent that graduates from Oklahoma Baptist University. So many of our member businesses have had internships [with] students from Oklahoma Baptist University in multiple degree programs,” Melot notes. The result has been rewarding. “Locals are excited to see highly-educated, well-rounded college graduates choosing Shawnee for employment after graduation.”

The University is expanding its educational options, creating more opportunities for students and local businesses alike. “Oklahoma Baptist University expects to enroll their first students this fall in their new engineering program,” she says. “Overall, Oklahoma is always in need of more engineers so Oklahoma Baptist University is responding to that.”

As with the high school internship program, Shawnee Forward Inc. has witnessed firsthand the benefits of the college internship program. “We had an OBU student intern in our economic development department this year—a political science major—and she spent hours helping us establish our policy structure and our policy support documents for the year,” Melot says. “And in that process, she was able to sit around the table with bankers and legislators and key business decision-makers who may one day be her employer. The whole state of Oklahoma is focused on developing the workforce, and Shawnee is proactively focused on connecting the business community to graduates of every program, from career tech to high school to university.”

With a firm track record of growth and success, Shawnee has a lot to look forward to. An infrastructure expansion is underway to create a six-lane highway running alongside the city. The local airport and local rail lines are growing and expanding, creating additional opportunities and demonstrating the health of the local economy.

“We look forward to continued growth. We look forward to continuing to have a voice at the state level through our representation both at the state and the federal level,” says Melot. From strong pro-business leadership to exciting new developments, Shawnee is poised to continue its upward trajectory. “Overall the community is positioned to attract and keep businesses and talent.”

The post A Place Where Business Thrives<p class="company">Shawnee Forward Inc.</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

You read that last one right. Brownsville is home to the SpaceX launch site and UTRGV’s STARGATE, making the city a gateway to space in addition to more traditional destinations.

Brownsville’s placement at the southern tip of the United States, along the Mexican border, is a key factor that attracts the aerospace industry to the area, particularly to Boca Chica Beach. “The City of Brownsville has been able to use that as our advantage,” says Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation [BCIC] Marketing and Small Business Development Director Nathan Burkhart. “The closer you are to the equator, the easier it is to launch rockets. A lot of people don’t know this, but Cape Canaveral and Boca Chica Beach were both in the same running back in the sixties to see who was going to be the area for NASA’s launch site. Clearly, Cape Canaveral won out, but now, within the private sector, Brownsville is winning out.”

Brownsville’s convenient location has long made the city a strategic center for trade and commerce. “Being a city on the border by the Gulf of Mexico, trade has always been in the history of our town, and it still is one of the top industries that we have down here,” says BCIC Executive Director Josh Mejia. In addition to a new state-of-the-art airport, rail access, a maritime port, major road access, and a spaceport, Brownsville is also a foremost center for manufacturing and healthcare.

The BCIC works hard to attract and support local businesses, and the key to its success is its willingness to adapt to the times. “Our strategies have changed in the past couple of years in regards to initiating these new economic development trends that we’re seeing nationwide,” Mejia says. Traditionally, economic development focused on incentivizing a large employer to relocate from one community to another. “But through that traditional model, there’s always going to be a loser,” he points out. “Economic development has to be self-sustaining instead of repeating the same process and using the same resources to just attract one company after another, hoping and crossing your fingers that that company will not relocate to another place and having that community end up losing the jobs that it once worked to gain.”

To achieve sustainable economic development, BCIC focuses “on business development at all levels, not just working in partnership with our key stakeholders to attract larger employees but, more importantly, to be able to foster start-ups and continue to help those small and medium-sized businesses in our community thrive and grow,” Mejia says. “That provides a much larger return on investment in the long run because these folks are born and bred in the same culture, in the same community, and are, therefore, more inclined to give back, hire locally, et cetera.”

The BCIC works to understand real-world challenges within the community and create the best incentive programs in response. These incentives could be anything from technical assistance and continuing education to financial incentives or expediting the permitting process. “We know that in business, time is money, especially when it comes to commercial and residential industrial development,” Mejia says. “So when we say simple things like we’re going to work in partnership with the city to be able to help you through the permitting process and cut your ten-month timeline to a five-month timeline, that’s a huge incentive in itself. So a lot of our non-traditional economic development strategies revolve around that.”

As well as providing standard economic development support, BCIC works to help businesses thrive long-term. “We go a little bit deeper than that to be able to understand exactly what else we can do to not only making it a success but make it a lasting success,” Mejia says. The BCIC wants to keep businesses in Brownsville, not just until another city tempts them away. The goal is for these businesses to grow roots within the community and give back, creating a sustainable relationship that benefits all.

The BCIC puts a particular emphasis on entrepreneurial support. Brownsville has a strong history of entrepreneurship stretching back to the mid-nineteenth century, and the BCIC is eager to build on this foundation. “The BCIC is focused heavily on not only assisting our entrepreneurs but making our ecosystem here open and inclusive to anyone,” Burkhart says. This means encouraging future business owners who may not fit the traditional mold. “Entrepreneurs can be anyone who has a business that has a potential to commercialize or scale,” he points out.

The new eBridge Center for Business & Commercialization is currently being built in partnership with the BCIC, The City of Brownsville, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and the federal government. The center will help establish entrepreneurial equity by developing and advancing an open and inclusive ecosystem for all entrepreneurs. The aim is to mobilize the next generation of entrepreneurs and equip them with the skills and resources needed to create jobs, access capital, and scale commercially.

“It’s going to be the largest entrepreneurial resource center south of San Antonio, the largest of its kind in the Rio Grande Valley,” Burkhart says. He explains that the center will be a ‘one-stop-shop’ for entrepreneurs at all stages of business development, from brainstorming a concept to taking an existing business to the next level.

The eBridge Center will place a particular emphasis on connecting participants to funding opportunities. “One of the biggest problems that all entrepreneurs face is access to capital,” Burkhart says. “So in creating the eBridge Center, we wanted to really focus on the availability of capital for these entrepreneurs.” The BCIC created the StartUp Texas program to offer seed funding to specific start-ups that meet certain criteria.

A key objective is to keep businesses in Brownsville. By providing funding and other means of support, “These great businesses that are starting up in Brownsville that need capital can remain in the city as opposed to venturing out to either Houston or Austin to seek funding and then establishing the businesses there,” Burkhart says.

“So the efforts that we’ve made have been to both provide the same opportunities entrepreneurs seek out elsewhere… and also to really highlight the wins within our community.” These wins speak for themselves. “The businesses that have been able to succeed and scale I think are prime examples of some of the work that we’ve been able to do,” he says.

Business owners and entrepreneurs are attracted to Brownsville for more than just the business opportunities the community provides. The city also offers a great quality of life. “We have a little bit of everything,” Mejia says. Stunning beaches, extensive hiking and biking trails, and beautiful resacas—oxbow lakes created from the Rio Grande—provide plenty of opportunities for outdoor activities. A quaint, historic downtown with a unique mix of French and Mexican architecture is a hit with tourists, as is the city’s award-winning Mexican cuisine.

“We have a lot of national and state recognized eateries here in the city—food that you will never experience anywhere else in the country,” Mejia says. The city is also a stopping point for a vast array of migrating birds, drawing bird watchers from all over the globe. “It’s actually the number-one area of the world with the most diverse selection of birds that travel through here and migrate south,” he says.

The City of Brownsville has a long history of entrepreneurship and business success. Now, with the burgeoning aerospace industry and a spaceport, the opportunities are only increasing. Armed with a strong commitment to attracting and supporting incoming and existing industries, the community is well placed to make the most of these emerging opportunities for many years to come.

The post Opportunities Abound<p class="company">City of Brownsville, TX</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Frequently appearing on many best-of lists, including CNN/Money Magazine’s biennial ‘Top 100 Places to Live — America’s Best Small Towns’ three times since 2007 (and taking seventh place in 2009) along with being one of the Gadberry Group’s ‘Top 10 Most Notable High-Growth Areas in the Country’ and deemed one of the ‘Best Places to Live’ according to Texas Magazine, it’s not surprising that the City of Keller is delighted.

“Keller will often be on a couple of dozen of the big state or national lists every year,” says Rachel Reynolds, Communication and Public Engagement Manager. “Just in 2020, we were named among the Best Small Cities to Live In in America, and one of the Top 100 Safest Cities in the United States.”

A haven for family and business
For locals and companies, the City of Keller checks all the boxes on a list of must-haves.

Covering an area of 18.4 square miles (29.6 square km), Keller is considerably smaller than nearby Fort Worth, but comes with many advantages. From a downtown area rich in history to an active local government, local business community, engaged residents, and striking natural settings, Keller has everything except the chaos and stress of larger cities.

With a youthful average age of about 39 and an average household income totaling $184,628, Keller is perfect for families and especially for businesses catering to families and lovers of the outdoors.

“When you look at it on the state level, we made lists on everything from the Best Place to Raise a Family to the Best Suburb to Live In or To Buy a House In, all the way to Best Place to Retire,” says Reynolds. “So while we do have an average age of 39, Keller has done a fantastic job over the years of still making sure we cater to families of all different shapes and sizes. A big reason people choose to live in Keller and to do business here is the sense of community this city has been able to hold on to as it’s grown.”

Unlike many larger urban centers, the City of Keller strives to maintain a small-town feel, including Old Town Keller. Starting as a train stop in 1881, the area eschews chain restaurants and retailers, favoring instead local independents, unique one-of-a-kind shops and boutiques, and an array of service-related businesses, all set against the backdrop of live music venues, art murals, museums and more. While it would be easy to give in to big box-type retailers and restaurants, Keller prefers keeping things family-friendly and community-oriented in Old Town.

“Over the years, Keller has really become a beacon for those who want that small-town feel in their community, want those local businesses, and are here for the school district and all those great family attractions,” says Mary Culver, Director of Economic Development.

Working together
By keeping things relatively small, the City of Keller, the Chamber of Commerce, the Old Town Keller Merchants Association, and others do a superior job of business attraction and retention. Remaining proactive and creating business support strategies, initiatives include the successful ‘Keep it in Keller’ campaign.

Through a dynamic website and Facebook page, Keep it in Keller provides a wonderful guide to the restaurants, services, retailers, and attractions this family-oriented community has to offer.

Adapting well to COVID-19, Keller was able to transition to virtual events. Recently wrapping up its successful Small Business Week, a virtual scavenger hunt was held to draw foot traffic to area businesses through a smartphone app. Through various ‘missions,’ participants had to figure out which business to visit and uncover clues to win. “That was a very successful program that saw a lot of purchases for businesses. We have had other scavenger hunts over the years, which have definitely helped with our retention, but this year we upgraded to reach more participants through the app and increased our marketing efforts. It has provided an engaging and fun way for our community to help our businesses through a very difficult time and will have lasting effects because many participants have told us that they found a new favorite spot to eat or shop,” says Culver.

Like other communities, Keller faced challenges when the pandemic struck. City Council and the community alike felt the need to help out businesses and get involved. Quickly assembling a task force consisting of Council members, business owners and a representative of the Greater Keller Chamber of Commerce, the disaster recovery program ‘Keller – Beyond the Mask’ was born. This program included the creation of a Forgivable Loan Fund.

With funding through several donation activities and matching funds from the City, local businesses suffering through COVID were helped out in a variety of ways, including a Virtual Quarantine 5K. “We were able to award forgivable loans to 76 businesses totaling just under $219,000,” says Culver of the successful initiative. “And I’m proud to say that as of today we have retained 100 percent of those businesses.” The last loans were dispersed in August 2020.

To further ensure business retention and commercial buildings are maintained, the City also offers a façade improvement grant to encourage the rehabilitation, enhancement and restoration of building façades and stimulate business activity. The Keller City Council recently approved an update to the program policies to make it easier for applicants to submit their plans and include options for enhanced landscaping and art visible to the public. These updates were included to attract even more businesses and increase participation.

Boost for business
This year, the city also updated the Future Land Use Plan. A comprehensive 102-page document, the Plan discusses the fact that less than 11 percent of land within city limits remains available for future buildout, as well as the importance of City Council making the best decisions today for the years to come.

As a result, certain types of businesses are being prioritized. These include research and development – especially in the tech sector – e-commerce, and some small assembly facilities. “We have a high demand for experiential retail and restaurant, and that is a big focus for us as well,” says Culver.

Covering important topics including an overview of future land use, residential development, quality of life, economic development, and the transportation system, the plan reflects an important update to a document first drafted in 1998, and amended sporadically through 2017. “Most importantly, it is a vision for our future, and a tool aimed at achieving the highest and best use for the 18.4 square miles of land within our city limits,” it says.

“Keller City Council invested significant time identifying what types of business recruitment supported the goals of a family-friendly community and where best to locate those businesses for success,” says Culver.

To further support the Future Land Use Plan’s business and community goals, City Council approved its second Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone which includes potential public infrastructure projects totaling $129 million. Those projects include several significant projects already in the works to improve drainage, roads, water and wastewater, in the Old Town Keller District. A dedicated pedestrian crossing for Main Street and a pedestrian-friendly festival street for events are priorities to make Old Town Keller a shopping, dining, and experiential entertainment district.

Taking Center Stage
One of Keller’s up-and-coming projects is Center Stage, a 38-acre mixed-use development located close to a number of Fortune 500 corporate campuses like Charles Schwab, Deloitte, and Fidelity. Purchased by Realty Capital Management (RCM) last April, the development will see the construction of 475 multi-family units, 57 single-family patio homes, and 60,000 square feet of space for retail, office, and restaurant use.

True to its name, an integral part of the recent development will include an intimate performance stage facing a tree-lined lawn and surrounded by restaurants. The project is expected to break ground later this year.

Owing to Keller’s young demographic, the city council is striving to make Keller the most family-friendly city in the state of Texas. This is reflected in the city’s award-wining parks and recreation system, the business scene — including five locally owned toy and collectibles stores — and many of the more than 60 permitted annual events held in town. That family-friendly focus also influences the city’s recruitment efforts as leaders work to attract unique businesses to the community.

“There’s a reason certain businesses are going out with a new generation: Those young families are really looking for those experiential concepts. They don’t want your typical large franchises coming in; they would like to see unique businesses where they can have experiences with family and friends, especially in developments that foster that sense of community,” says Reynolds.

“The community is a big draw for businesses looking in this area,” she says. “People here love their city, they love the businesses here, and they are here to support them. The support we saw during the pandemic was incredible, and I think that speaks volumes compared to just going into some massive shopping center in a nearby city where they’re going to be one of 50 restaurants all in one spot, surrounded by chains,” she says.

“We see that our small businesses here really thrive.”

The post Keeping it Local<p class="company">City of Keller, TX</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Welcome to the Texas Innovation Corridor, located deep in the heart of Texas. Here’s where economic developers take a strategic team approach, and where opportunity knocks.

There’s a new 1 million+ square foot Amazon SAT-6 facility and a Parallel (dba goodblend™ Texas) medical cannabis research and development campus coming soon. Urban Mining Company recycles rare earth elements from electronic waste like laptops and cellphones and re-purposes these vital components for manufacturing electric motors, robotics, and electric vehicles.

UTC Aerospace Systems makes super-light and strong components for the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350. And Texas State University, in the City of San Marcos, has established itself for next-generation materials science research as well as programs to expedite innovations to the marketplace.

Those are just a few examples of the economic vibrancy of the area and what’s to come.

“We are nestled right in between two amazing, growing cities – Austin and San Antonio,” says Jason Giulietti, President of the Greater San Marcos Partnership (GSMP), the economic development organization for Hays and Caldwell Counties. “Those are the great bookends in Central Texas and our region is right in that corridor.”

Texas Innovation Corridor
GSMP has its headquarters in the historic City of San Marcos. The region boasts plenty of farmland, wide open spaces, and a number of other growth-oriented cities, including Kyle (the Pie Capital of Texas) and Dripping Springs (the Wedding Capital of Texas) in Hays County, and Lockhart (the BBQ Capital of Texas) and Luling (the Watermelon Capital of Texas) in Caldwell County.

“We’ve become known as the Texas Innovation Corridor,” he says. “We want to be of the same ilk as Silicon Valley and the Research Triangle in North Carolina. We deserve to be in that space and are continuing to prove it every day with these companies calling us home.”

And when companies are scouting for a location with all the lifestyle perks, this is a very special part of Texas, Giulietti says.

“We’re on the edge of the Hill Country, so we’re in a beautifully aesthetic location of rolling hills and vibrant green trees. There are not many other parts of the state, or the country, where you can really just kick back, enjoy nature and still be within a quick shot of a major city to drive to.” Plus, the people are some of the friendliest you’ll ever meet.

Giulietti worked in Connecticut for the state’s business development team before relocating to San Marcos and was first introduced to the area on a business trip. He brought his family along to spend a few extra days in Texas and they found the warmth and charm irresistible.

They stopped at a Western outfitter store where they bought cowboy boots for the kids and chatted with the shop owner about the best local places to go. When they were in the car driving away, the guy came out running toward the car, waving them down.

“We were thinking, ‘What did we do? Forget a credit card? What happened?’ No, he came out to tell us about a place to check out in San Antonio with the kids. And I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, where are we?’” Giulietti says.

Nine months after that trip, he got a call from a recruiter about a job in economic development in San Marcos and they left their Connecticut home to “get down here as fast as we could,” he says.

Strategic direction
He joined the Partnership in Fall 2019, helping to bring jobs and investment to the area with the same strategic model he had spearheaded in Connecticut. (He’s a go-getter, previously selected as one of the top 40 under 40 by the Hartford Business Journal and Connecticut Magazine. In 2018, Consultant Connect named him one of the top 50 economic developers in the country.)

So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Giulietti has helped GSMP attract diverse industries and close more deals last year, despite the pandemic, than the team had in the past three years combined. Now, fiscal year 2021 could see double those results.

He attributes GSMP’s outstanding performance to strategic direction. Their playbook, Vision 2025, is a community effort that includes collaboration with 80-plus volunteers to help shape and define where they are going and how best to execute the tactics.

Input came from all sectors, including social services, business and the public. Vision 2025 keeps the team focused on its key principles of accountability and transparency, and GSMP establishes benchmarks to measure progress.

This team has volunteers working with all facets of business, from main street retailers to leaders assisting Amazon in locating its new facility. “Economic development is a team sport, for sure, like football,” Giulietti says.

His unique approach also includes private sector businesses he has recruited to highlight important resources and connections to attract new business.

Connections come to you
“We bring resources to the opportunities much earlier. Prospective businesses love it because they’re eventually going to need those connections and resources. For the ones who take advantage of it, their deals move 90 percent faster because the connections are made,” Giulietti says.

Case in point is Parallel’s medical marijuana production and research campus slated to open in 2022. The medical cannabis industry is highly regulated and complex to navigate. GSMP started working with the company 18 months ago, helping with every step from site selection search to funding.

“It was not a typical site selection because it couldn’t be near a school, for example, and certain other properties. We helped them partner up with our real estate partners to find the right location that also met the security requirements. The company has to be inspected by Texas Rangers on a regular basis, so it has to be hyper-secure.”

Securing financing for this non-traditional enterprise was also a challenge, so Giulietti and his team introduced local and national partners to find the capital needed to make the investment and roll it forward.

“We were able to help bring this project to closure and ultimately get them to build this massive campus right in San Marcos.”

The draw of a college town
Texas State University, the fifth-largest university in the state, has also been a huge draw for new business, supplying an educated workforce for innovative companies, and offering local youth a place to pursue post-secondary studies without leaving the area. The infusion of high-quality, innovative jobs is a win-win for companies and graduates.

The university also has a 58-acre site off-campus for science, technology and advanced research. The facility, known as STAR Park, also serves as a technology incubator for business start-ups, providing labs, conference rooms and office space.

“When we’re going out to attract new business, we can say, ‘look, your future workforce is already learning this in the school system.’ So, let’s make sure as you come here, we connect those dots and leverage those programs,” says Giulietti, outlining the advantages.

“It’s still affordable to live here. You can raise your family, you have great school systems and ultimately graduates will have a job. There’s a vibrancy in the youth that comes with a college town, but also opportunity. When kids graduate, there’s a place for them to go work.”

Another reason so many businesses are finding their way to San Marcos is speed. GSMP facilitates initiatives for developers to build what Giulietti calls “speculative property.” Essentially, developers build on greenfield sites without the promise of a tenant. Developers construct a building shell or envelope, then GSMP works to lure prospective tenants. Relocating businesses prefer to move quickly and have the building customized to suit their particular requirements.

“We need to push this gas pedal as hard as possible to feed this opportunity,” he says. “As we continue to grow the region, the Texas Innovation Corridor will be a destination for people and for companies to come locate.

“I want us to be recognized for that and then have some very clear-cut examples of the new economy as it evolves with electric vehicles, autonomous driving and alternative energy.”

The post The New Sweet Spot for Emerging Industries<p class="company">The Greater San Marcos Partnership</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

“Our population has grown exponentially even though COVID was taking place. This past year, our census numbers came out, and it looks like we’ve added about twenty-two people per week,” states New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation (NBEDC) Vice President of Economic Development Chester Jenke.

The city currently has around 90,000 residents, up from 36,500 just two decades ago, according to census figures on the economic development corporation website, and Jenke has predicted that the city might soon top 100,000 people.

As to why people continue to flock to New Braunfels, Jenke thinks it is the “quality of life, work, and play. You don’t have to leave New Braunfels to go to San Antonio for healthcare anymore. You don’t have to leave New Braunfels to eat at a high-quality restaurant. If you want entertainment, it’s right here in New Braunfels.”

The city also has an excellent school system, excellent location near vital transportation routes including Interstates 10 and 35, warm weather, a strong economy, low cost of living, scenic beauty, and a lively entertainment scene.

On the business front, TaskUS Inc., a customer service outsourcing firm, has announced plans to place its headquarters here and has filed for an initial public offering (IPO). Jenke is extremely excited by the decision, which came about following months of discussion with city officials. “Yes, they are moving their headquarters to New Braunfels, and yes, we are working with them [to secure] additional office space,” he states.

This announcement was one in a series of big expansions by businesses in New Braunfels. Earlier this year, technology firm and automotive supplier Continental said it would re-launch construction of a 205,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in New Braunfels. The company, which counts Toyota as a top client, had put the project on pause when COVID spread.

Last year, McCoy’s Building Supply relocated and expanded its door and millwork facility in New Braunfels. Canadian General-Tower, a company that produces thermoplastic sheeting for industrial and automotive clients, will be adding 150,000 square feet of new space to its New Braunfels facilities. And the Go! Retail Group—an Austin-based company that operates pop-up stores—also enlarged its operations in the city.

Other construction projects are designed to enhance local services and amenities. The police station is getting an upgrade, for example. “Right now, the police department operates out of an old lumber yard that was converted into a police station. The building was never designed to be a police station. The police department is running out of space to store evidence,” says Jenke.

The city decided to construct a new police station with an adjacent Comal County jail and an office for the Comal County sheriff to centralize and streamline law enforcement services. There will also be a memorial for war veterans at the site. The new facilities are expected to open later next year.

A new public library on the west side of the city is now being built, to serve residents of that part of the community better. “The growth in New Braunfels makes it difficult for people to get to just one library. The west side is an area that has been in great need of library facilities and technology—a place to go and work on computers and those kinds of things,” says New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation President Kathy Meurin. There is a “very small outlet,” on the west side at present, and the new library branch is slated to open in September 2022.

Last year, a project to develop a youth sports complex received $750,000 from the state government. This grant plus local funds will pay for baseball, soccer, and softball fields as well as landscaping, parking lots, and restrooms. The project is budgeted at over $25 million, with a scheduled competition in mid-2023.

Work on the Veramendi project, an eight-year initiative to build a master-planned residential community, continues. Construction “has just taken off and is going full-speed,” reports Meurin.

This flurry of activity is even more impressive given that Texas was hard-hit by COVID-19. While the impact “was not as bad as we thought it was going to be,” says Jenke, the city responded in an effective, proactive manner when the virus struck. The economic development corporation website, for example, gives residents information on where to get the COVID vaccine or COVID testing. Jenke estimates that “between one-third and one-half,” of the city’s population has currently received at least one COVID vaccine shot.

Municipal officials provided some personal protective equipment (PPE) such as hand sanitizer, gloves, masks, and face shields to local businesses. The SPARK Small Business, meanwhile, offers free consultation and training for local small companies and helps firms acquire loans—important services given the economic battering caused by COVID.

When the pandemic hit, city officials discovered that “there were many businesses in New Braunfels that didn’t have an e-commerce type of storefront. They didn’t have a base on the Internet to stay in business during the time period when COVID [shut everything down],” notes Jenke.

This realization spurred civic leaders to move ahead with a plan to deliver high-speed Internet to downtown businesses. An Internet provider has been hired to install the necessary infrastructure to offer low-cost, high-speed broadband that is scheduled to be running early next year and enhance the online presence of downtown businesses.

For all these efforts, COVID did have some negative effects and not just on the health of area residents. Sales tax revenues briefly took a dip, and some popular community events were put on hold.

Last year, New Braunfels was supposed to celebrate its 175th anniversary. Celebrations had to be postponed, however, due to the pandemic. The new plan is to host a series of celebratory parades, parties, and events this year to mark the founding of the community by German settlers in 1845.

“We have a big Fourth of July parade and fireworks celebration. We have a gala that’s being planned for October,” says Meurin.

Residents took the party postponement in stride. As Meurin points out, celebrations for the city’s hundredth anniversary were postponed due to World War Two while celebrations for the 150th anniversary were sidelined because of a bad flu season.

COVID also caused the cancellation of Wurstfest 2020, an annual ten-day event saluting sausages and the city’s Germanic heritage. Wurstfest participants sometimes dress in traditional German clothing such as lederhosen and dirndls to get into the spirit of the occasion.

Wurstfest had already suffered a blow in 2019 when a fire occurred in the Marketplaz, the location where festival vendors prepare food and sell their wares. A new Marketplaz has been constructed and the city plans to celebrate Wurstfest this year.

In pre-COVID times, New Braunfels attracted up to three million visitors a year, drawn by Wurstfest and the city’s entertainment scene featuring Gruene Hall, the oldest dance hall in the State of Texas, and multitudes of musicians. There are also water-based attractions like the Guadalupe River, the Comal Springs natural water spring, and the Schlitterbahn Waterpark and Resort New Braunfels.

There was a precipitous decline in visitors last year thanks to COVID, but tourism is on the rebound. The Schlitterbahn Waterpark is open, albeit with restrictions such as reduced capacity and a reservation system. River outfitters are back in business with new health protocols so rubber tubes and other river craft are sanitized after each use.

“We are looking forward to having a nearly normal year. Texas, New Braunfels is one of the most Googled vacation locations, according to Travelocity right now,” says Jenke. The city is “not locked down. We are open for business.”

This upbeat attitude exemplifies New Braunfels’ pro-business ethos. The city works hard to keep companies in the community and entice new firms to set up in the area. Officials assist businesses in every way possible and offer enticements such as tax abatements in some cases. “We’re looking for industrial, manufacturing, headquarters, back office, medical. One of our major goals has been to have different industries,” states Jenke.

The challenge moving forward will be to balance a rapidly growing population and economy with the local charms that make New Braunfels an appealing place to live.

“I think we’d really like to retain that heritage feel in New Braunfels and continue to have an excellent quality of life. We want to retain that quality of life and stay true to our heritage. That’s what makes New Braunfels unique,” says Meurin.

The post New Braunfels Continues to Bloom<p class="company">New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation (NBEDC)</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Traditionally, vaccine development requires a decade or more of ongoing effort. So it is a remarkable feat that not one, but multiple vaccines made it through the process to earn FDA and EMA emergency use authorization within a year of the pandemic’s onset. Collaboration, large-scale government funding, and a strong motivation to succeed were factors behind the achievement.

The fact that researchers managed to bring vaccines that rely on messenger RNA (mRNA) to the market adds to the significance of the achievement. The industry has been developing the approach for decades, and last year’s research built on this knowledge. “For over 30 years, various pharma companies have been researching and working to develop a simpler way of creating effective vaccines, that relied on the principle of understanding the exact structure of the mRNA,” Hannah Burke reports in her article ‘The lasting impact of 2020 on the life science industry’ for Proclinical.

“Once scientists had determined the structure of all of its genes, including the genes that make the spike protein, experts across the world were able to work on the design of an mRNA vaccine,” she continues.

The Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines utilize the mRNA strategy, “which introduces engineered, single-stranded mRNA molecules providing the biological instructions for cells to pump out virus-killing proteins,” Chris Lo reports in ‘COVID-19: lessons learned across the life sciences’ for Pharmaceutical Technology magazine.

This approach was key to their rapid development. “The ability of mRNA vaccine developers to design antigens in silico allows for much faster testing of vaccine candidates, as they avoid complex and time-consuming cell culture production and fermentation-based manufacturing of target pathogens or antigens in traditional vaccine development,” Lo explains.

The potential of using mRNA goes far beyond COVID-19, or even vaccines, for that matter. The approach is the wave of the future. After bringing the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines to market, researchers are turning their attention to mRNA platforms to fight cancer and autoimmune disorders as well as a range of infectious diseases, from Ebola to the flu. The technology is still in development, but researchers are optimistic with regard to the potential.

“While researchers have been incredibly optimistic about mRNA vaccines’ potential in a wide range of viral disease, from HIV to hepatitis C, there’s still some way to go to prove the efficacy benefits of mRNA vaccines over their better-understood live-attenuated, inactivated and conjugate counterparts,” says Lo in ‘MRNA vaccines: the post-pandemic outlook after a breakthrough year’ for Pharmaceutical Technology magazine.

“Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech’s jabs are the first mRNA-based vaccines to receive even emergency authorisation from key regulators, and real-world data from the global COVID-19 rollout will play an important role in validating their long-term efficacy and safety profiles against the coronavirus and other viral agents,” he adds.

The new approach and the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccines have not been without controversy, however. An extremely rare but potentially deadly side effect, blood clots, has occurred in some patients who received certain vaccines.

Pharmaceutical companies will make hundreds of billions of dollars from the sale of the COVID-19 vaccines. Pfizer anticipates that sales of the vaccine it developed with BioNTech will reach $15 billion by year’s end—with a profit margin of almost 30 percent, Matt Egan reports for CNN Business. Not bad for a product priced at under $20 a dose. Even so, vaccines are not the industry’s biggest money-makers.

While there are exceptions—and the COVID-19 vaccine and boosters will bring in significant revenue in coming years—pharmaceuticals to treat chronic diseases tend to rake in the most money. Although $15 billion is a tidy sum, Egan points out that these vaccine sales “are simply not a game-changer,” for the big pharmaceutical companies. Pfizer, for example, will likely see revenue between $44 billion and $46 billion in 2021, and profits of at least $14 billion, not counting any increase in revenue from its COVID-19 vaccine.

Relatively new on the scene, Moderna stands out as an exception. The pharmaceutical company had no approved products for sale in 2019 and made only $60 million in revenue that year. In 2020, Moderna accepted $529 million in grants and $200 million from early sales of its vaccine. Revenue for 2020 is expected to skyrocket to $16 billion, the vast majority of which will come from vaccine sales, Egan reports. Accordingly, Moderna shares are up 187 percent over the past year.

Profit from the COVID-19 vaccine did not come without risk. Egan calls the effort a “gamble” that would have brought significant financial consequences if those efforts had failed, even taking into account that most pharmaceutical companies accepted government funding to help offset that risk. Unlike many of its competitors, Pfizer did not take any taxpayer money to develop its vaccine, taking on all the risk of the $1 to $2 billion endeavour.

The race for the COVID-19 vaccine has left the life sciences industry forever altered. Pharmaceutical companies had to form new strategies to develop a vaccine in record time—while simultaneously managing the complications of a global pandemic. This meant that, in addition to researching treatments for a new disease, the industry had to manage operations remotely, deal with breakdowns in the global supply chain, and navigate new ways of interfacing with healthcare workers and clinical trial participants.

One of the most notable changes is the decentralization of clinical trials. During the pandemic, the industry had to overcome the challenge of developing new therapies and vaccines while maintaining social distancing requirements to keep everyone safe. Digital technologies allowed researchers to administer pharmaceuticals and monitor the response from afar, allowing clinical trial participants to remain at home during quarantine.

These technologies are not new, but the pressures of the pandemic greatly increased their use. Ryan Jones, Chief Executive Officer of clinical trial software company Florence Healthcare, wrote in Forbes magazine that decentralized clinical trials (DCTs) are likely to become a new standard, offering a more diverse patient pool for better results.

Another area of significant change is in post-clinical-trial regulatory submissions. The FDA granted emergency use authorizations for COVID-19 treatments when the need for their accelerated development became evident. This meant that regulators had to increase efficiency in order to shorten the time required to complete the drug development process. Pharmaceutical companies are eager to keep these new efficiencies in place after the emergency passes.

Now that the industry has developed COVID-19 vaccines, the next challenge is getting them out to the masses to obtain global herd immunity. Not surprisingly, the developing world is at a disadvantage when it comes to distribution. “Wealthy nations have tended to dominate orders of first-generation vaccines through exclusive bilateral deals, with many low and middle-income countries struggling to find affordable supply lines,” Chris Lo reports in ‘COVID-19: lessons learned across the life sciences’ for Pharmaceutical Technology magazine. Global organizations such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the World Health Organization are working to alleviate the problem, but the imbalance remains an ongoing issue.

In response, suggestions have been presented at the World Trade Organization to waive intellectual property rights for vaccines, including patents, to allow developing nations to jumpstart domestic production and diversify their supply sources. After the massive investment put into the vaccine’s development, the pharmaceutical industry and many developed nations are against this approach.

Johnson & Johnson has announced in a press release that it will provide its vaccine on a not-for-profit basis as long as the crisis continues, while Pfizer has provided its vaccine at cost to nations unable to afford the less-than-$20 per dose.

Pharmaceutical companies will see substantial sales of the COVID-19 vaccine in the future. Booster shots are expected to be a significant source of ongoing revenue long after the pandemic ends, particularly as new variants of the virus surface, Egan reports for CNN Business.

In addition to securing an ongoing source of revenue, pharmaceutical companies have enjoyed a public relations boost like never before. Consumers rarely remember the name of the company that produces a specific medicine. But as the vaccine race became front-page news, company names became daily headlines. Public perception of ‘Big Pharma’ shifted radically, from greedy profit mongers to dedicated scientists working tirelessly to save the world. Controversy still lingers of course, but the positive image boost the industry received could counteract the recent push for government to drive down pharmaceutical prices, reports Egan.

Overall, the life sciences industry remains strong and the outlook for its future is bright. The industry has proven its ability to deliver during a crisis and has enjoyed a positive shift in public perception. After the changes made to clinical trial procedures and post-clinical trial regulatory submissions, the industry is likely to enjoy a more efficient environment in which to operate. Armed with new research tactics and new mRNA advances to tackle a variety of diseases, the years ahead promise exciting opportunities for an already robust industry.

The post Life Moves Forward<p class="company">The Biosciences Industry and the COVID-19 Crisis</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

To say life changed with the arrival of the Coronavirus is an understatement.

Global supply chains slowed down, leaving businesses with no merchandise. Hospitals scrambled for masks, gloves and ventilators. Businesses shut their offices.

Despite the global chaos, some good emerged from the pandemic. Respect grew – especially during the early days amid uncertainty over how COVID was transmitted – for the hard work of those essential workers often taken for granted, professional cleaners.

For CleanMark, the pandemic validated the company’s tried-and-true methods, cleaning products, uncompromising procedures, and ongoing investment in technology. Especially to their clients.

Maybe the reason for the seamless manner in which CleanMark took on the challenge was their preparedness. “There wasn’t a significant adjustment to the business,” says CleanMark’s Chief Executive Officer John Vavitsas. “A lot of our processes in the back office and front office were already in place to adapt effectively to a COVID environment.”

Disinfectant products, disposable gloves for handling chemicals and cleaning, and other precautions that made the news were being used by trained staff before the virus emerged. Mask-wearing, of course, was new, and immediately mandated across all North American sites.

Vavitsas notes that while many of the core services performed remained unaltered, it was the swift implementation of high-touch, enhanced hygiene protocols coupled with clear client communication about cleaning, sanitization and disinfection that provided the necessary reassurance for clients, employees and their guests. As the situation developed, technologies such as electrostatic fogging were implemented swiftly to provide a further layer of protection.

And although recent research indicates that we are less likely to catch COVID from surfaces than was originally thought, optics matter. “Our customers were 100 percent focussed on the need to keep everyone safe in what were the most uncertain of times,” says Vavitsas. “Where I think our teams excelled from the outset was the consistent manner in which they communicated, coordinated and cleaned. We made sure we had the facts. We thought about every potential pathogen eventuality for each of our sites, and we did everything possible to ensure the scope of work was executed in a manner that provided peace of mind.”

For years, cleaning was sometimes considered an anonymous kind of job – but COVID-19 changed all that. “Since the pandemic, the focus has shifted and all eyes are on our Service Personnel,” says Stella Kyriacou, Regional Vice President, Central Canada.

“They are receiving the recognition they deserve,” she says. “It’s positive to see the praise and gratitude that everyone in this industry is receiving during this difficult time. It is wonderful to see the definition of essential workers extended to include cleaning Service Personnel, who are most certainly essential during this pandemic.”

With such a keen focus on workplace safety, one of the biggest industry shifts has been the emphasis placed on compliance and accountability. In short, clients expect the highest levels of clean and innovative ways to prove it. Launched over a decade ago, CleanMark’s CleanSmart system is at the heart of its advanced, automated service model – giving clients real-time information and analysis on the go. From the cleanliness of surfaces to staff schedules, CleanSmart has become an invaluable tool.

At CleanMark, accountability starts at the top. John’s strong values, business acumen, and passion to be the best facility service company in the industry have helped build CleanMark into a Pan-North American operation with an outstanding organic growth rate.

“John is a natural leader – takes risks and doesn’t hesitate to jump in when needed,” says Soula Bougiotis, Vice President, Client Experience. “He’s motivated by new challenges: to keep things fresh and ahead of industry. John encourages everyone to learn and grow. By modelling this behaviour from the top down, the entrepreneurial spirit permeates throughout the organization, and CleanMark has experienced significant growth in the last number of years driven by this spirit.”

Today CleanMark serves a wide array of single and multi-site clients, including well-known retailers, shopping centres, fitness centres, cinemas, automotive dealerships, daycares, pharmacies, medical clinics, and leading North American electronics retailers.

Although the business has expanded considerably, cleaning millions of square feet daily, CleanMark’s values remain constant. “The CleanMark community is bound by our values: service, passion, collaboration, and integrity,” says Bougiotis. “These values are at the forefront of any recruiting or promotion activity. Our industry is a relationship and people business. Regardless of background, these values coupled with an individual’s desire to learn and grow contribute positively to our community.”

And it shows. Living their values every day has led to double digit annual growth for close to three decades realized through an outstanding client retention rate and impressive organic growth in Canada and the United States.

But rather than rest on its laurels, CleanMark continues to improve all areas of the business, including technology and automation. This investment allows the company’s territory leaders to focus on the delivery side of the cleaning industry rather than administrative tasks. The results: greater efficiency for teams, who can spend more time engaging with Service Personnel and clients. By freeing up time, staff devote more time to the field, and less to tasks that have now been automated.

“For the vast majority of businesses, technology is not an option but rather a requirement of daily operation, survival, and growth,” says Dr. Peter Androutsos, Vice President, Information Systems and Technology.

“Unlike canned reports and data that are provided by individual service providers – employee timecards and human resources portals – CleanMark has taken steps to take information from multiple third-party platforms so as to generate meaningful reports that offer insight into aspects of the company as needed by the target audience,” he says.

Some examples of the many benefits of technology include automatic assessments of employee eligibility for health insurance under the U.S. Affordable Care Act; streamlining supply orders; and refining processes and accuracy for the company’s purchasing agent.

“Finally, using technology we have become 95 percent paperless,” says Androutsos. “CleanMark is always looking for ways to minimize waste and become more environmentally friendly. We have been Eco Certified for the last 10 years and continue to improve our processes at the worksite and at our back end.”

According to Jeff Ku, Vice President, Finance and Administration, automation has allowed CleanMark to make many strides, including scaling with no additional back-office overhead; reducing errors, allowing quicker response to clients, scaling quickly and efficiently, and more.

“Automation has also allowed front-line staff to view reports and gain access to data that was not available in the past which, in turn, allows decisions to be pushed out to those who can action them rather than waiting for a central response empowering everyone,” he says.

Another way CleanMark ensures customer satisfaction and peace of mind is through their own take on “checklists” and “audits.” Tailored specifically to each client’s scope of work, the company began mandating weekly/monthly inspections with each customer to provide a face-to-face, one-on-one experience in real time a decade ago.

“All that has changed now is that it is real-time, automated, and interrelated with other platforms that we utilize to ensure that the CleanMark brand standard is delivered,” says Sophia Harris, Regional Vice President, Atlantic Canada.

Using a third party form-processing system that offers CleanMark the ability to define forms however it likes, the company creates generalized questionnaires that are completed by site auditors when visiting service locations. Since these audit forms require all sections to be completed, they also act as indirect checklists for the audit process.

Along with assigning a general grade to the quality of the work performed at service areas, site auditors can also embed photographs of areas needing attention, highlight exceptional work, supply comments, and capture signatures and sign-offs.

“Upon completion of each site audit, all information is immediately pushed to the Cloud where the data is assembled into a standardized document that can be sent to a client either on demand, or in some cases, automatically on submission,” says Androutsos.

“Lastly, by taking advantage of our provider’s remote API (application programming interface), we can collect audit information to facilitate analyses such as service performance over time, audit frequency, and equipment compliance, as well as help us identify and potentially act upon subjective differences in scoring that can exist between auditors.”

For years, CleanMark has been acknowledged as a place to grow and succeed. As CEO and leader, John Vavitsas has formed many key relationships internally and externally, and plans to continue to grow with existing clients, backfill some markets where the company has capacity, and continue to invest in people.

“One of the greatest benefits is watching some of our people grow over the years,” he says. “Sophia Harris is an excellent example. She is currently a Regional VP, having risen up the ranks through a desire to develop and a passion to go the extra mile for every client. She is an invaluable member of the senior executive team who knows every aspect of our service – giving her a unique perspective.”

Appreciative of her mentorship, Harris says John’s entrepreneurial spirit is just as strong in the company today as it was when she first started. “We have a motto at CleanMark – treat your book of business as if it were your own,” she comments. “By empowering our managers to think and act this way, it allows them to feel the sense of ownership.

“For the past 20-plus years, when making decisions that impact my team and clients, I always ask myself, ‘What would our CEO do?’”

Intrigued by the industry and realizing she wanted to do more than answer phones and prepare proposals, Harris approached the company’s Chief Operating Officer who then spoke to John about giving her a chance for advancement.

Even today, Harris remembers his words to her: “We have finally found someone that can work the front desk and our clients, staff and management have commented on CleanMark finding the right person, so if I decide to have you work in the field that will leave us with a gap at the front desk. But if I don’t give you this opportunity, I would be holding you back, so I guess finding your replacement just became my priority.”

That, she says, is CleanMark – helping people grow and providing them with opportunities. “In the many years that have followed, strong, talented individuals have continued to join our organization, demonstrating that as long as our values and leadership qualities are aligned, CleanMark provides opportunity to all.”

CleanMark continues to invest in automation, its people and servicing its clients North America-wide. The company has grown significantly since its inception in 1997 but its founding values remain.

The post Keeping Clients Safe<p class="company">CleanMark </p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

We spoke with company owner and President Benjamin Merkley, who represents the third generation of company ownership; Senior Vice President Marc Galarneau, who’s been with the company for over 40 years; and Vice President of Sales, Shannon Hall, to learn more about Dustbane and how it is ticking all the boxes.

The company’s roots can be traced back to several years before it was founded by Chester Pickering in Ottawa in 1908 – to a time when he was a homeless teenager who did cleaning chores for housewives in exchange for food. But it wasn’t just a matter of earning a meal for himself, says Hall; he’d offer to do extra so that he’d get more food to share with friends who were also homeless.

To this day, Dustbane’s guiding principles have remained focused on ensuring a clean environment for the public, whether it be in a school or hospital, on a construction site or airplane, or in a shopping mall. And, through its corporate culture, Dustbane remains committed to helping others, just as Chester Pickering did.

“We grew from manufacturing a single product,” says Merkley, “to where we are today, supplying a full line of cleaning chemicals and equipment for commercial and industrial use. What makes us different is how we go to market. We really try to engage with the end users to understand their businesses and challenges and we come up with customized solutions that we can provide through our local distribution partners.”

Dustbane still manufactures the original sweeping compound that gave its name to the company, but in truth, Dustbane is about so much more.

In a 155,000 square foot facility in Ottawa, the company manufactures over 100 commercial and industrial cleaning chemicals including a complete range of ECOLOGO® Certified products. All have undergone testing to ensure they are compliant with national environmental standards and meet industry-specific needs.

In addition, the company manufactures floor polishers, vacuums, and other cleaning equipment and accessories. The company keeps significant inventory and is ready to ship from the warehouse to distributors across Canada on the same day an order is received.

Game changers
While phrases such as ‘game changer’ are sometimes merely advertising hype, Dustbane’s HealthGuard One-Step Disinfectant, Cleaner and Deodorant concentrate, when used with the Victory Electrostatic Sprayer, is a veritable game changer.

As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the country, the Victory Electrostatic Sprayer put Dustbane light-years ahead of the competition, focusing on the critical need for thorough disinfection of shared hard surfaces in public places. “The notion of, ‘If it looks clean, it must be clean,’ was no longer good enough,” says Galarneau, who after over 40 years at Dustbane knows a thing or two about cleaning.

This disinfectant concentrate manufactured by Dustbane is an effective mildewcidal and fungicidal sanitizing spray that will completely disinfect visibly clean, hard, non-porous surfaces within five minutes of contact time, the company says. But application through a hand-held spray bottle is time-consuming, especially if there’s a requirement to penetrate every crack and cranny of surfaces people may have touched, or where mildew or fungus is growing. And also, in high traffic areas, having to do it more than once a day.

This is where a partnership with the U.S.-based Victory Innovations Company, which manufactures the Victory Electrostatic Sprayer, enters the equation.

As the company explains it, the sprayer’s “patent-pending technology provides an electrical charge to the disinfectant, allowing it to wrap conductive surfaces with an effective and even coverage. Double-charged particles also envelope all surfaces, whether they’re shadowed, vertical or underneath.”

The sprayer was designed to save time and labour, to spray less liquid and cover more surface area, and since 2019 has been distributed in Canada by Dustbane.

We watched a demonstration video and saw how a traditional spray bottle took 1 minute and 13 seconds to cover a 50 square foot area, gulping over 10 fluid ounces of disinfectant. But it was truly eclipsed by the capabilities of the Victory Electrostatic Sprayer which covered the same area (at its maximum application-thickness setting of 110 microns) in just 22 seconds, sipping just over three fluid ounces.

The result was a 69 percent reduction in the amount of chemicals used, and completion more than three times faster by the Victoria Electrostatic Sprayer.

Merkley shares how “we’d started looking for innovation and bringing a solution to the marketplace to make the job easier, to hit the performance curve and get a return on investment, and this was it. The device sprays electrically charged particles into the air and these are attracted to hard surfaces. They spread and land evenly, and if using a disinfectant, kill viruses and bacteria.”

The demands of staying safe
This was prior to COVID-19 when the sprayer was being shown as a way to reduce labour and product costs, but when the pandemic hit, Merkley says, there was a huge demand for cleaning solutions. The demand was so great that the Dustbane team immediately pivoted to doing thousands of virtual demos with distributors as well as end users – factories, schools, hospitals, municipalities – how to use the product, giving them a safe solution to issues posed by the pandemic, and in the process, revolutionized cleaning.

“I want to tell you,” says Merkley, “how proud I am of the way our staff responded during the pandemic, when it got crazy in March, 2020. The demand for cleaning solutions was overwhelming and our staff responded beyond what I could have hoped for.” Dustbane operates on a five-day, 40-hour production schedule, “but we were beyond double shifting seven days a week to keep up with demand. Staff from accounting and financing, and Marc and Shannon and I, we were all pitching in on the filling line to get the product out to our customers.”

Galarneau believes the demand for this product will continue. “We believe that long after the pandemic is past, cleaning is going to remain a priority in everyone’s life. People are going to expect to work in a clean office and enjoy clean environments wherever they go.”

Site surveys show the way
When Merkley and his team went into the field to demonstrate the electrostatic sprayer, it was by no means the first time they had connected in such a personal way with end users. In fact, the company’s entire sales program is centred around providing cost-effective solutions to cleaning challenges, as opposed to simply selling product.

It begins with a site survey, which involves taking an audit of a business or institution’s cleaning practices and is offered without charge. From there a Dustbane representative can show the end user just how much is being spent, can identify labour savings, and point out blind spots that may affect health and safety.

Hall says that end users face challenges around how they do their cleaning, and to assist with that the Dustbane team can create individualized programs, with flow charts and matching materials and training sessions that demonstrate how to apply the chemicals in the safest way. This way tasks are not missed, and nothing is done that could badly impact surfaces.

“There are different risks and hazards in every area,” she says. “Healthcare has its own challenges, but so does manufacturing, where there could be opportunities for bacteria to build up in sitting water or grease spills. We need to look at what risk or hazard is associated with each specific business. We don’t take a cookie-cutter approach as no two situations are ever the same.”

Giving meaning to cleaning
This article began with the tale of how Dustbane founder Chester Pickering shared food he earned by doing household chores among other homeless youth. 113 years later, the company remains true to his humanitarian outlook, through a formalized program Give Meaning to Your Cleaning™, aimed at giving back to local communities and doing what is right for the planet.

A year ago, Dustbane began planting a tree for every jug of its hard-surface cleaner sold. To date over 185,000 trees have been planted in Madagascar, an island country off the east coast of Africa that has been ravaged by the effects of deforestation, land degradation, and the effects of climate change. 80 percent of the population is subsistence farmers who survive on $2 per day.

By planting trees, the people are paid a living wage and food security is enhanced. It is also hoped that this may help reverse some of the effects of land degradation which has almost destroyed the island nation and that the trees will have a positive effect on climate change.

With regards to Dustbane’s manufacturing policy vis à vis the environment, raw materials and packaging materials are carefully selected, with products undergoing a stringent third-party certification process.

The company is also working to remove single-use plastics while researching creative ways to repurpose other materials. For example, the sweeping compound is shipped in reusable garbage containers manufactured from recycled plastics collected in blue bins in Ontario.

Acts of Kindness is another branch of Dustbane’s Give Meaning To Your Cleaning™ program. It partners with not-for-profits in various locations across Canada where the company does business. In Ottawa it has partnered with Equal Chance, a charity whose focus is on helping economically disadvantaged black youth and providing them with some of the educational equipment children from middle class families take for granted.

Elsewhere in Canada the company partners with distributors to help a local charity or cause. In East Vancouver, for example, they loaded a truck with 400 pizzas and drinks, and served them to 400 people in need. They also donate cleaning chemicals to homeless shelters and other not-for-profits which may find maintaining a clean environment a challenge.

“There are lots of different ways to support organizations across the country and around the world. It’s been a phenomenal journey,” says Hall.

Chester Pickering would be proud.

The post Bringing New Meaning to Cleaning<p class="company">Dustbane</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.