It seems to be a common complaint: Online employee recruitment efforts produce lots of resumes but few great prospects.

PC Magazine reported last month that the percentage of new hires coming from job boards and board aggregator sites has dropped to between 27 percent and 37 percent as the job market has tightened.

And, even more ominously, recruitment software maker Lever looked at 4 million “candidate considerations” during the 12 months that ended in July and found that only 1 in 100 candidates gets hired. The ratio is slightly lower at small companies and slightly higher at larger ones, but 52 percent of candidates who applied directly through a company’s website or online job posting were “underqualified,” Lever said.

Automated job-match programs — like Monster, Indeed, Glassdoor, Career Builder, Dice and the state-run Arkansas JobLink — are still useful, but experts say employers have to use them smartly to get the best results. And that starts with knowing what you want.

To avoid poor yields from the automated programs, employers should be specific and share the culture of their companies when posting jobs on online boards, experts told Arkansas Business.

“Company job descriptions should be more specific about telling who you are as a company and the types of people who will be successful,” said Cameron Smith of Cameron Smith & Associates in Rogers, an executive recruitment firm.

He also said employers should keep track of real metrics that gauge whether candidates are taking desirable actions so they know what content is resonating with job seekers. “It helps you to see what is working and what isn’t and how you can improve if something isn’t working.”

But there is point at which an ad can be too specific, Allison Ramsey warned. She said it could have the adverse effect of not attracting enough applicants.

“I wish I had the magic answer,” said Ramsey, who has been a local area manager for Staffmark of Cincinnati since 1993 and is communications director for the Arkansas Society for Human Resource Management State Council.

Accurate and complete job descriptions are also necessary to ensure that posting on boards is helping an employer, said Daryl Bassett, director of the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services.

The department operates Arkansas JobLink, an online job bank that also receives postings daily from the national Labor Exchange, other states’ job banks and USAjob.gov. The service is free to employers and job seekers.

Bassett said some 290,000 local and national job openings have been posted with Arkansas JobLink so far this year, and the most common mistake he sees employers make is submitting incomplete descriptions with erroneous or missing salary information. “These errors could lead to missing matches with potentially good candidates,” he said. “Additionally, some employers fill job ads with a list of ideal requirements most applicants won’t meet, resulting in low match rates and fewer candidates.”

Bassett said employers should work with their local workforce center to improve job postings, while Ramsey suggested listing mandatory and desired skills separately.

But Ramsey also finds fault with flawed filtering systems and job seekers being indiscriminate.

Ramsey said job boards search for keywords in postings. Job seekers are notified of openings posted that have those keywords in them and simply click yes to submit a resume without reading or only skimming the description. For example, Ramsey said, “I’ll post a job for a plant manager, and I’ll get a guy who has worked at Taco Bell.”

The other side of that, she said, is that, with a low unemployment rate of 3.9 percent, the few who aren’t working may be jobless because they have few job skills. As a result, they apply for jobs for which they are unqualified.

Arkansas JobLink uses the keyword-based filtering Ramsey mentioned. Bassett said it searches resumes for keywords, and job seekers whose resumes have that keyword are automatically notified of the posting. But he said this saves both employers and job seekers time.

The job bank also uses the Transferable Occupational Relationship Quotient, a software system that identifies and matches skills to related occupations and industries to expand and target job search opportunities. The system puts postings from other job banks into Arkansas JobLink and Arkansas JobLink postings into other online job banks, too.

Despite their flaws, Ramsey said job boards reach more people than traditional methods, and a 2014 Collegefeed survey of 15,000 young job-seekers backs up that statement. The survey concluded that around 70 percent of millennials say they hear about companies through friends and job boards.

Job boards are also beneficial because they can help fill non-specialized positions quickly, Smith said.

Ramsey added that posting openings online is cheaper than print help-wanted ads. The cost to post might be about $1,200 of the $4,000-$6,000 companies spend on recruiting, she said.

According to the PC Magazine article, job boards still represent 60 to 80 percent of what small companies spend on recruiting. Ramsey said the rest of her estimate is the cost of time spent searching for the right person.

And time is money, Ramsey said, so companies should post a job as soon as a position is available and leave it up for at least 30 days.

Social Media Aids in Recruiting
Bassett, of the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services, finds that efforts “to reach and attract young job seekers must include a robust use of social media in today’s society.”

Putting the word out that way, however, means employees must be prepared to receive responses by private message on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And Smith said engaging social media posts must include visuals. “Some companies have real, authentic photos and videos on their corporate websites,” Smith said. “Don’t just say what makes your company a great place to work; show it.”

Comparing Job Posting Costs
Online sites vary widely in pricing, features offered

	Glassdoor offers employers the ability to post 10 jobs for seven days for free. Then they can get a customized quote by contacting the sales department. Options include purchasing a customized company profile on the site, a single job posting or job slots that can be reused and display advertising that targets the best candidates.
	Monster offers one 30-day job posting for $299 to $599. The most expensive option includes advertising on other sites, 20 free auto-matched resumes, targeting through social media and the ability to search and find people by location and to email up to 200 directly. There are also discounts for bulk puchases.
	Single job posting pricing on CareerBuilder begins at $419 for 30 days, with discounts for the advanced purchase of more than one posting. All postings purchased must be used within 12 months. The posting will also appear in searches within a 30-mile radius of the city and ZIP code the employer selects as the location of the job.
	Simply Hired has been acquired by Recruit Holdings Co. of Tokyo, which also owns Indeed. While employers can post jobs for free to both, a paid listing is more prominently displayed. Employers can choose their own budget and pay each time someone clicks on their post.
	LinkedIn sells a 30-day job posting for $199, a five-job pack at a 22 percent discount and a 10-job pack at a 37 percent savings. Employers can also sponsor a post for an additional price per click and budget that they choose. The minimum bid per click is $1. The minimum total budget is $50.
	Dice caters to technical and engineering professionals with a 30-day single posting for $395. Prices go as low as $250 for five-10 postings. Premium products, like 60-day postings, require employers to contact the sales department.
	Craigslist charges anywhere from $15-$75 for a 30-day posting, depending on the location selected. Listings are posted in reverse chronological order, so a job an employer posts might get buried in just a few days and not show up until the job seekers have seen several pages of newer postings.
	Facebook offers those who operate pages, like businesses, the ability to boost a post for a minimum daily budget of $1 for up 14 days. Facebook says that post will reach 67-180 people. A company’s reach goes up the more it chooses to pay. It can reach a targeted audience, people who like the company’s page or people who like its page and their friends.

History books may devote more pages to nearby Little Rock Central High School, but in the day-to-day life of the neighborhood it’s hard to imagine any landmark around here ranking higher than Uncle T’s Food Mart.

Generations of customers have walked through the door for a Coke, a fresh deli sandwich or groceries, served with a smile by generations of the Woods family.

"As far back as I can remember I was in that store," said co-owner Dr. Jerrye Woods. "We pretty much grew up in the business."

The original Uncle T — Tillman Green — opened a grocery store in the Arkansas town of Sunset, where members of his extended family learned the grocery trade. Years later, his twin nephews Dr. William Henry Woods and Willie L. Woods, and Dr. Woods’ wife Margaret, bought Braswell’s Groceries at West 16th and High Streets in Little Rock. In 1980, the family moved to its present address, which featured a larger space that included a deli counter.

Willie and William took another cue from their uncle in employing family members. It was more than just cheap labor; William was particularly insistent his three children — now the store’s co-owners — gain a real-world entrepreneurial education, starting in elementary school.

"That was something our father really instilled in us, as far as working for ourselves, doing something for ourselves," Ron Woods said. "I raised my kids the same way. Even though they’ve had a lot more than we had growing up, they know the importance of working."

Uncle T’s has celebrated the neighborhood’s ups and buttressed its downs over the years, and this steadfast commitment has forged a nearly unbreakable bond of customer loyalty. Theirs is not a complicated philosophy, but it’s effective.

"Staying true to your customers, what they want and what they need and being friendly to them," said William Woods Jr., the store’s general manager. "Our customer base is strong; ever since moving from that location on 16th Street, some of our customers followed us from there to where we are now and they’ve been with us all these years."

Five decades after it opened, Uncle T’s is just hitting its stride. In November, the family will open a Conway location in the first floor of the new Donaghey Hall at the University of Central Arkansas and additional locations are in the works. There are also plans to move the Little Rock store across the street as part of a larger development.

Meanwhile, life in the old neighborhood goes on one sandwich, one story and one smile at a time.

"It’s definitely taught us the importance of family. It’s been important working together to build something and be a service to people," Jerrye Woods said. "That’s what our father instilled in us the most."

Fornetti, an international bakery with 8,000 European locations, has opened some of its first U.S. locations at Road Runner stores in Conway, Fort Smith, Heber Springs, Little Rock and Hot Springs.

Fornetti's breads, pastries and donuts are baked on-site; by spring of 2017, the company expects to be in all Road Runner stores throughout the state, according to Fornetti USA CEO Nick Peters.

"We are truly excited to partner with Road Runner as we know locals will love our baked goods the moment they try them," Peters said. "Road Runner's track record in leading the market with innovative concepts make them a natural partner for us as we introduce even more consumers to the great tastes of Fornetti in-store bakeries."

According to Peters, the convenience store market is growing despite many people in the older generations viewing it "as a second rate food supplier." He cited data from Nielsen that spending at convenience stores has more than doubled from 2011 to 2015

"The convenience store market is going through a re-shape," Peters told Arkansas Business. "Giant stores have saturated the market. The growth now is in convenience stores so we're starting to see convenience stores rebrand, remodel and improve."

Peters said that the largest demographic group using convenience stores is millennials. That means convenience stores must improve the quality of the food they serve because millennials care more about ingredients than other customers, he said.

At Fornetti, food is prepared in the factory where pastries are proofed and frozen. The baking takes place in store. There, ovens have scanners that read barcodes on each product telling it how long to bake and at what temperature. Most items take 15-20 minutes, Peters said, and workers can operate the system after about 5 minutes of training.

Fornetti is based in Kecskemét, Hungary. In Europe, its locations include convenience stores, supermarkets and standalone stores. Peters said the company wants to bring standalone stores to the U.S.; it plans to test the concept in California and Texas in the next few months. 

Arkansas' in-store bakeries are located in Road Runner stores at 545 Skyline Drive in Conway; 6320 Rogers Highway in Fort Smith; 1500 Bypass Road in Heber Springs; 3039 Albert Pike Road in Hot Springs; and 800 South Broadway St., 11401 Cantrell Road and 13400 I-30 in Little Rock. 

The Road Runner stores are owned by Coulson Oil Co. of North Little Rock, which ranked No. 27 on Arkansas Business' most recent list of the state's largest private companies. 

Fornetti is also launching stores in Oklahoma.

All locations offer a variety of products including chocolate and fruit-filled pastries; donuts; artisan breads; and baguettes. 

A future apartment site in west Little Rock weighed in at $2.5 million.

Madison at Chenal LLC, led by Brandon Huffman and Graham Smith, bought the 5,000-SF office-warehouse at 15500 Kanis Road and an adjoining 12.8-acre tract. The seller is Winrock Enterprises Inc., led by Russ McDonough III.

The deal is financed with a $5 million loan from the Barnes Revocable Trust, led by James and Terry Barnes.

Winrock acquired the combined 13.4-acre property for $245,000 in March 2001 from McMann Inc., led by Daniel McNamara.

Dealership Site
Property for an equipment dealership in southwest Little Rock tipped the scales at $1 million.

Stribling Equipment LLC of Richland, Mississippi, purchased the 9,316-SF City of Fire Ministry project at 10504 Interstate 30 and the 10,120-SF strip center at 10510 Interstate 30.

The seller is Atkinson Properties LLC, led by Russell and Richard Atkinson.

The 5.49-acre development previously was tied to a February 2013 mortgage of $458,177 held by Central Bank of Little Rock.

Atkinson bought the property for $560,000 in January 2002 from William and Ruth Huffstutlar.

Tacos Transaction
A restaurant site in west Little Rock rang up a $775,000 sale.

Tacos 4 Life Real Estate LLC, led by Austin Samuelson, acquired the 1-acre location on Shackleford Road between Longhorn Steakhouse and Boomerang Carwash.

The seller is Shackleford Crossings Investors LLC, an affiliate of Invesco Real Estate of Dallas. Construction is backed with a 10-year loan of $1.75 million from Arvest Bank of Fayetteville.

The property previously helped secure a February 2015 mortgage of $36.2 million held by ZB of Salt Lake City.

Shackleford Crossings Investors entered the ownership picture in July 2011 at a $42 million foreclosure sale after buying the project debt in May 2011 for an undisclosed sum.

The deal included the 271,675-SF Shackleford Crossings lifestyle center and undeveloped outparcels totaling about 8.7 acres that were used to secure debt of $57.4 million held by the project’s construction lender, M&I Marshall & Ilsley Bank of Milwaukee.

Gallery Purchase
A 2,200-SF commercial building in the Heights area of Little Rock changed hands in a $699,000 transaction.

Cude Properties LLC, led by Travis and Jennifer Cude, bought the Heights Gallery project at 5801 Kavanaugh Blvd. The seller is Onkav LLC, led by Gary Childers.

The deal is funded with a five-year loan of $594,150 from Simmons Bank of Pine Bluff.

The 0.08-acre development previously was linked with a June 2015 mortgage of $456,000 held by IberiaBank of Lafayette, Louisiana.

Onkav acquired the property for $545,000 in March 2014 from Mitchell and Lee-Ann Jansonius.

Lomanco Buy
A 7,436-SF bar in Jacksonville is under new ownership after a $548,000 sale.

Lomanco Inc., led by Chris Grimes, purchased Big D’s Sports Bar at 2221 W. Main St. from Danny Martindill. The 1-acre development previously helped secure a May 2015 mortgage of $566,040 held by Centennial Bank of Conway.

The property was bought for $110,000 in September 1980 from B.K.R. Enterprises Inc., led Bobby Isbell.

Residential Acreage
A 40.3-acre residential tract in west Little Rock drew a $500,000 transaction.

D. Vincent investments LLC, led by Dale Briggs, acquired the land between the south end of Beckenham Drive and the north end of Belle Pointe Drive from Megyn Bell.

Uncle Sam received $100,000 of the sale in connection with a long-running income tax dispute with Bell’s late father, Melvyn Bell.

The land was purchased for $188,000 in January 1984 from the M.W. Kay Inter Vivos Trust and the Manie Schuman Trust.

Hickory Residence
A 4,788-SF home in west Little Rock’s Hickory Hills neighborhood weighed in at $1.25 million.

The Susan Cobb Underwood Revocable Trust bought the house from the Donna Kay Clark Trust.

The residence was acquired for $1.15 million in February 2006 from the Louis Gladfelter Revocable Trust.

River Oaks Abode
A 6,814-SF home in Little Rock’s River Oaks neighborhood changed hands in a $905,500 foreclosure sale.

Bo Ventures LLP, led by Richard O’Brien, purchased the house. The previous owners were Lewis and Debra May.

The residence previously was tied to an August 2003 mortgage of $935,000 originated by First Arkansas Bank & Trust of Jacksonville. It also secured a series of 2009 mortgages held by First Arkansas, $98,555; Summit Bank of Arkadelphia, $100,000; and Regions Bank of Birmingham, Alabama, $250,000.

The Mays bought the property for $210,000 in January 1996 from Alta Hale.

Woodland’s House
A 4,017-SF home in the Woodland’s Edge neighborhood of west Little Rock sold for $651,258.

Darin and Tamela Gray acquired the house from HRH Builders Inc., led by William Darby.

The deal is financed with a 30-year loan of $553,550 from Centennial Bank. The residence previously was linked with a September 2015 mortgage of $434,400 held by Little Rock’s Bank of the Ozarks.

The location was purchased for $80,000 11 months ago from Rocket Properties LLC, led by Lisenne Rockefeller and Ron Tyne.

Robinwood Home
A 3,876-SF home in Little Rock’s Robinwood neighborhood rang up a $600,000 transaction.

William and Lesley Callahan bought the house from Kyle and Terri Patton. The deal is backed with a $250,000 loan from Centennial Bank.

The residence previously was tied to a July 2014 mortgage of $195,865 held by Union Bank & Trust of Monticello.

The Pattons acquired the property for $530,000 in March 2005 from William Stover II and his wife, Donna.

Heights Domicile
A 2,517-SF home in the Heights area of Little Rock is under new ownership after a $550,000 sale.

Jane Ann Fortenberry purchased the house from Rush Harding IV and his wife, Rachel.

The deal is funded with a 30-year loan of $440,000 from Bank of America in Charlotte, North Carolina. The residence previously was linked with a December 2011 mortgage of $344,000 held by First Security Bank of Searcy.

The Hardings bought the property for $430,000 nearly five years ago from John and Miranda Bennett.

Cypress Residence
A 4,063-SF home in west Little Rock’s Cypress Point neighborhood drew a $535,000 transaction.

Richard Griffiths acquired the house from Mark and Trisha Guenther.

The deal is financed with a 30-year loan of $417,000 from Riverside Mortgage Co. of Little Rock.

The residence previously was tied to a January 2013 mortgage of $114,250 held by IberiaBank Mortgage Co. of Lafayette, Louisiana, and a May 2016 mortgage of $366,400 held by BancorpSouth Bank of Tupelo, Mississippi.

The Guenthers purchased the location for $60,000 in July 2002 from Ranch Properties Inc., led by Ed Willis.

Seven-Digit Construction

Arkansas Urology    $4,890,730
1310 Centerview Drive, Little Rock
Clark Contractors LLC, Little Rock

Renovation Cinemark Theater    $2,430,000
18 Col. Glenn Plaza Drive, Little Rock
Bailey Construction & Consulting LLC, Little Rock

New House    $1,385,000
73 Sologne Circle, Little Rock
Taggart Design & Build LLC, Little Rock

Slim Chickens, the Fayetteville restaurant chain, has a new executive on board. He’s Mark Mears, chief marketing officer. Mears has spent time with Noodles & Co., Schlotzsky’s and the Cheesecake Factory.

We recently visited with him and Greg Smart, the chain’s co-founder and former CMO, and Smart, who’s transitioning to a chief brand officer role, told us Slim Chickens is working to meet its ambitious goal of 600 restaurants by 2025.

It now has 41 restaurants and should have more than 50 by the end of the year and then it’s “on pace for 40 to 50 restaurants per year for the foreseeable future.”

Slim Chickens, founded in 2003, had $50 million in revenue in 2015, and Smart said the chain was on track toward almost $100 million in revenue in 2016.

A Rogers couple, Mary and Alfonso Vidal, are opening a Young Chefs Academy, which offers cooking classes to children, in December. It’s the first Young Chefs Academy in Arkansas.

Young Chefs Academy, based in Waco, Texas, is a franchise school that teaches children ages 4-14 cooking fundamentals along with kitchen safety, menu planning and etiquette. Founded in 2003, it has about 20 locations around the United States as well as locations internationally.

“We thought that the community needed something for kids for cooking and Alfonso and I, we love cooking,” Mary Vidal said. Searching for franchise opportunities she and her husband discovered Young Chefs. “We ended up being in love with this project.”

Mary Vidal studied graphic design, but she has focused on being a wife and mother to the couple’s two daughters. She and Alfonso enjoy cooking together and enjoy introducing their children to new flavors and experiences.

Their school will open Dec. 3 at Suite 6 at the Village of the Creeks Plaza at 5208 Village Parkway in Rogers. Class sizes usually run about 12 students and are held after school.

Young Chefs Academy is a way for children to learn teamwork, experience different foods and engage in social interaction, in addition to learning lifelong skills. Rogers “needed something like this,” Vidal said. “We thought it would be a great addition to the community.”

Julie Burleson is the founder and CEO of Young Chefs Academy. The new Rogers franchise is one of five the company has sold this year, and it’s looking to sell 10 in the next 12 months, she said.

Young Chefs targets cities of 200,000 or more and places an emphasis on strong, family-oriented communities.

Burleson called herself “an entrepreneur at heart” who always appreciated franchising as a business model. The idea for Young Chefs came to her while she was in the kitchen with her 4-year-old son. “I was working on another startup business, and he was wanting to help me in the kitchen,” she said. “I’m a foodie and love cooking and herb gardening and all of that, and it was just literally one of those moments when he was after me to help him and I thought, ‘Oh, my goodness, a cooking school for children.’”

When she couldn’t find a franchise that offered all the components she was looking for, she decided to open her own store, “but I always had franchising in the back of my mind.”

Cooking and cooking shows were popular when Burleson founded Young Chefs and they’ve only grown more popular with time and even more popular with children. “With the advent of ‘MasterChef Jr.’ and ‘Chopped’ for kids, they’ve jumped on that bandwagon because they see the kids, how much they love cooking and how they respond to the culinary arts,” she said. “The chefs of today are like the rock stars of yesterday.”

Several Young Chefs Academy graduates have made it to the finals of “MasterChef Jr.” and “Chopped,” Burleson said. One of the attractions of the business, Burleson said, is that it’s a safe environment and it caters specifically to children.

Parents are welcome to stay and observe if they want.

Learning to cook is a skill of lifelong value, she said. “We believe that kids who learn to cook are going to, as a result, turn out a healthier generation, not because we shy away from dessert recipes or cooking with butter, but people who learn to cook from scratch are going to ultimately be healthier eaters.”

If the permits come through and everything falls into place, Fort Smith Brewing Co. should be up and running next year — the earlier the better, as far as Brooke Elder is concerned.

Elder, an accountant at Beall Barclay & Co. in Fort Smith, is a partner in the brewery business with Quentin Willard and brewmaster Micah Spahn.

Elder believes Fort Smith Brewing would be among the first breweries in the city since the Joseph Knoble Brewery, which operated from 1848 to 1881, according to the indispensable “Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture”.

Willard will be the general manager, and Elder will be handling legal issues, accounting and human resources.

The 9,000-SF brewery — 1,500 SF of that will be a tasting room in the front of the building — will be located at 7500 Fort Chaffee Blvd. in Chaffee Crossing.

She’s always wanted to be involved in a startup, Elder said. And because she has home-brewed before and craft brewing is booming and the immediate area didn’t have a brewery, starting one seemed like a good idea.

Three convenience stores in Lonoke County, residential property in Saline County, an eatery in Cabot and a future restaurant location in Conway form our group of multimillion-dollar transactions this week.

• JRM4 LLC, led by Jackie McClure, purchased Citgo and Exxon projects at 1504 and 1515 N. Bankhead Drive in Carlisle and a Shell project at 1695 N. Center St. in Lonoke for nearly $2.8 million.

Sellers? W.J. Reed III and his wife, Billie, and Steven and Debbie Reed.

• An affiliate of Rausch Coleman Homes of Fayetteville acquired 50 lots in Alexander for about $1.8 million.

Seller: Meadows Edge Co. LLC, led by Rick Ferguson.

• BRM Foods Inc. of Searcy sold a KFC at 1003 W. Main St. in Cabot for almost $1.3 million.

Buyer: An affiliate of a Canadian venture, Franchise Management Inc. of Woodstock, New Brunswick.

• An affiliate of Hideaway Pizza in Tulsa bought a 1.7-acre site at 1170 S. Amity Road in Conway for $1 million.

Seller: Lewis Crossing LLC, led by John Collett.

Hideaway recently opened its first Arkansas pizzeria on Warden Road in North Little Rock.

Dallas restaurateur Shannon Wynne and his partners didn’t really want to go to Bentonville, and they certainly knew they didn’t want to locate a Flying Fish restaurant there.

But that was before Alice Walton got involved.

Asked what led the businessmen to open a restaurant in the city, the smallest market to have a Flying Fish, Wynne said: “Alice leaning on us pretty hard helped. She flew us up there several times. We really did not want to go to Bentonville.

“But she told us she was going to build this museum, and we kind of went up there in midwinter when it was gray and misty and construction had started, and it looked like an ant bed out on a baseball diamond that was being built. She showed us all these pictures and it kind of looked interesting, but we thought like we were in Mayberry.

“We were polite and we left and told them we would get back in touch with them.”

A Walton friend in Fort Worth — Walton was living near the city at the time — had introduced Wynne and Walton. This friend called Wynne six months later and said, “’Alice wants you to go back up to Bentonville.’ We said, ‘We’re not going to do one, but thank you very much.’ He said, ‘She’s going to fly you up there. What have you got to lose?’

This visit, however, was different. “It was springtime and there was a Wal-Mart convention in town,” Wynne said. “Everything looked different. The museum was coming out of the ground and it looked just a lot different.”

By the third time the restaurateurs visited Bentonville, they were being encouraged to pick out real estate. They still weren’t convinced, however, saying it was “premature,” but they indicated some buildings they liked. Three weeks later, Wynne and his partners learned that one of the buildings they’d liked had been sold.

“So we decided to go ahead and do it because the impact that the museum was having was significant.” That, along with the fact that Bentonville is home to Wal-Mart, led the business partners to decide “it was a risk worth taking.”

Wynne, general partner of Flying Fish Inc., is well-known in Texas business and restaurant circles. His father, Angus G. Wynne Jr., was a Texas developer who started Six Flags Over Texas, and Wynne’s uncle Bedford Wynne helped found the Dallas Cowboys.

Wynne is involved in three restaurant management companies that together operate six different concepts, including the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium, and 30 restaurants throughout the country.

Flying Fish in Bentonville was opened in March 2012, and Wynne said the restaurant is showing a “healthy return.”

“Without that type of participation by Alice and Wal-Mart, we wouldn’t have gone there.”

Was an ex-con seeking to improve his life taken advantage of by a couple from his church who gained his trust by trying to help him repair his marriage?

Or were the couple just more victims of a man with a history, before and after prison, of taking money for construction work that was never completed?

That’s the fundamental dispute between Kristian Nelson and Mike and Gina Fullerton that is playing out in courts in two counties, and it could be a cautionary tale no matter which version turns out to be true.

The dispute centers on Pinnacle Valley Road west of Little Rock, where Nelson grew up and the Fullertons live now, and where the three hoped to turn a former yoga studio into a restaurant and build an office building next door.

The Fullertons bought the 1.1-acre site at 8501 Pinnacle Valley Road for $500,000 in December 2014 and opened Pinnacle Valley Restaurant there four months later. But the office building never got past the slab.

Since 2014, former customers have filed three separate lawsuits against Nelson and the construction company he worked for, Wilkins Development & Marketing LLC of North Little Rock. Each case alleged that work wasn’t done or properly completed, and two of the cases are still pending in Pulaski County Circuit Court.

Unlike in those cases, Nelson struck first in his dispute with the Fullertons. He filed an $815,000 lien on the Pinnacle Valley Road property in January. And attorney Brooks Gill of Dumas filed last month — in Jefferson County, where Nelson claimed an address — a civil suit alleging that the Fullertons used Nelson’s status as a convicted felon to keep him from getting an ownership interest in their joint business venture.

Mike Fullerton told Arkansas Business that he hadn’t been served with the lawsuit, but maintained that he and his wife are the victims in their dealings with Nelson. The Fullertons — through MGK LLC, the entity that bought the land for the project — sued Nelson on Oct. 21 for filing a false lien.

In an interview at their restaurant, the Fullertons ticked off a list of complaints against Nelson, including not getting the office building job completed and poor construction work at the restaurant.

They said Nelson received approximately $40,000 to start work on the office building, but only poured the slab.

The couple tried to have Nelson prosecuted, and the Pulaski County prosecuting attorney’s office filed two felony theft charges against Nelson in January but dropped them in August.

Tonia Acker, a deputy prosecuting attorney, told Arkansas Business that the case was difficult.

“There’s clearly a breach of contract as well,” Acker said. “When we started looking at all the evidence that we had going forward, we just did not feel that we had the evidence to meet our burden of proof at this time. And so we decided to not go forward with it.”

Nelson declined to comment on his business relationship with the Fullertons. But while he knows “it looks bad” to be sued so many times, he insists he’s done nothing wrong.

“I’m not trying to win votes,” Nelson said. “All I’m trying to do is make a living so I can feed my kids and take care of my bills. People are making it very impossible for me to do that. [I’m] trying to move on with my life.”

In September, Nelson acted as his own attorney in seeking to lower his child support payment of $419 a month. His court filing said his salary was lowered to $3,600 a year in March “due to financial crises and bankruptcy of his employer.” The child support order wasn’t lowered.

The Office of Child Support Enforcement also filed court papers in September that said Nelson had paid only $251 between February and September and owed $2,700. It said that Nelson “should be jailed accordingly.”

A hearing on his child support obligation is scheduled for Jan. 25.

Wire Fraud

A 1991 graduate of Joe T. Robinson High School in Pulaski County, Nelson was convicted in Pulaski County Circuit Court in December 2002 of passing hot checks and in February 2003 of filing a false report of a crime.

Those convictions would haunt him when federal prosecutors became interested in promises he was making to investors in his companies, Pinnacle Valley Consulting and Pinnacle Valley Sports. From late 2004 through late 2006, Nelson told investors across the country that he could help them make money from residential real estate.

“Nelson misrepresented to the investors that they had actually purchased houses or lots and constructed houses, and further misrepresented that he had actually developed a subdivision,” according to the 20-count indictment for wire fraud filed in U.S. District Court in Little Rock in April 2007.

The indictment said he persuaded 17 investors to give him $800,000.

While he was on bond on those charges, the U.S. attorney’s office in Little Rock also indicted Nelson in May 2008 for being a felon in possession of seven firearms, including shotguns and a semiautomatic assault rifle.

In June 2008, Nelson pleaded guilty to 10 counts of wire fraud and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was sentenced in February 2009 to 71 months in federal prison and was ordered to pay $760,000 in restitution.

He was released from prison in September 2012 and went to work for Wilkins Development & Marketing, owned by his uncle and aunt, Darryl and Deborah Wilkins of Maumelle. The Arkansas secretary of state’s office lists the status of the company as not current.

Meet the Fullertons

The saga of the Fullertons and Nelson began in the summer of 2014.

Mike Fullerton said a Wilkins Development employee drove by their house on Pinnacle Valley Road in Pulaski County in search of potential driveway resurfacing jobs.

Mike Fullerton agreed to have the work done, but he also requested other projects that included walkways. The employee said that his boss, Nelson, could handle that request.

“We didn’t know anything about him, but we figured, heck, why not?” Mike Fullerton said. He hired Wilkins Development for the $20,000 job.

While on the job, Nelson told the Fullertons that he grew up on Pinnacle Valley Road. And they discovered another connection: They all attend New Life Church. Nelson said in his lawsuit that he attended the church “as part of the process of rebuilding his life.”

A friendship and business relationship quickly blossomed.

The Fullertons also said they learned that Nelson and his wife at the time, Ashley, were having marital troubles. The Fullertons had taken marriage classes at church and offered to help the troubled couple, who had married a couple of weeks before Nelson was indicted in 2007. They divorced in 2015.

In talking with the Fullertons, Nelson mentioned that the building at 8501 Pinnacle Valley Road was for sale. Gina Fullerton said she was interested in the space to use as a dance studio.

Nelson, in his lawsuit, said that he wanted to use it as a restaurant, event center and convenience store. Nelson wouldn’t operate the restaurant, but he would handle building and marketing it.

Gina Fullerton had experience in the hospitality industry, so they kept talking.

“So one thing led to another, and we discussed — with his assistance as the construction and marketing professional — pursuing this,” she said.

She said that she and Mike Fullerton would buy the property. “And we could consider a business partnership with him if certain standards were met,” Gina Fullerton said. “He also was supposed to build an office building that would be on the property.”

Mike Fullerton, who is an engineer and has an ownership interest in Bernhard TME of Little Rock, said he wanted the office building so that tenant income could help offset any dips in revenue at the restaurant.

Nelson would not be an owner initially, but if he did what he was supposed to do and put money into the project, he “could buy into the business,” Mike Fullerton said. “But first you’ve got to complete the construction and everything else.”

At that point, it appeared everything was going smoothly. The Fullertons knew about Nelson’s criminal record, but Mike Fullerton said Nelson seemed to have put that behind him.

“It was like he was trying to live a reformed life and trying to make something of himself,” he said.

Public filings indicate that there were already signs of trouble in Nelson’s business.

Lawsuits Start Coming

In March 2014, Christie Stadther sued Nelson, Darryl Wilkins and Wilkins Development over the construction work they did at her North Little Rock home earlier that year.

She had paid them $31,000 for a project that included building a deck, but then she had to spend another $17,200 to redo the work, according to the lawsuit filed by her attorney, Robert Newcomb of Little Rock.

“The Defendants intentionally with malice took [Stadther’s] money with no intention of properly doing the work therefore committing fraud,” Newcomb wrote in the complaint.

In a September 2014 deposition taken in connection with the case, Wilkins said that he was aware that the deck his company built was dangerous and had to be torn down. Wilkins also acknowledged that Nelson had failed to get a building permit or obtain the necessary employment paperwork from the workers on the job at Stadther’s house.

Still, Wilkins defended Nelson’s work as an executive. Wilkins said he considered his nephew to be a competent, trustworthy employee.

Wilkins also defended the counterclaim that he and Nelson filed alleging Stadther owed them $10,800. In that filing, Nelson said Stadther ordered him off the property “in the middle of construction; thus requiring Defendant to leave the site in a hazardous condition.”

In December 2014, about the time the Fullertons were buying the yoga studio property, Wilkins and his company agreed to pay Stadther $70,000 to settle the case. Nelson and the counterclaim were dismissed from the case.

Stadther, though, still hadn’t been paid as of last week.

In May of this year, Myron and Lanetta Richards of Little Rock sued Nelson and Wilkins Development for breach of contract for not completing a home construction project in 2015.

The couple also alleged in their lawsuit, filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court, that Nelson failed to pay a plumbing subcontractor $14,000 they gave for that purpose.

Nelson, acting as his own attorney, has denied the Richardses’ allegations. The case is pending.

Earlier this month, Jamie Thompson of Sherwood sued Nelson and Wilkins Development for failing to complete a pool project and home remodel. She also alleged that subcontractors “were either left unpaid or were given bad checks” by Nelson.

In January, Nelson filed a $3,500 lien on Thompson’s property. “I have supplied labor to this project and Im [sic] owed money for my work,” he wrote.

In her suit, Thompson says the lien is fraudulent and should be removed. Nelson had not responded as of Thursday.

On Pinnacle Valley Road, other problems soon came to light.

In January 2015, construction on the office building stalled. Nelson “just completely disappeared on us,” Mike Fullerton said.

He said Nelson received about $40,000 to start construction work on the office building, which was supposed to be completed at the end of January.

Blaming the Weather

“And this whole time, from January until March, I was constantly asking, ‘When are you going to get out there?’” Mike Fullerton said.

Nelson, he said, blamed the delay on bad weather and other construction projects he had committed to do.

Fullerton said he pushed Nelson to build the office building, “but to no avail.” No work was done after the slab was poured.

On Feb. 4, 2015, Darryl Wilkins, the owner of the construction company, filed for personal Chapter 13 bankruptcy reorganization. He listed $133,000 in debts, about half of which was owed to Stadther, and just $68,000 in assets. The case was eventually dismissed because Wilkins failed to make plan payments, and Wilkins refiled for bankruptcy in January of this year.

With some glitches, the build-out of Pinnacle Valley Restaurant was completed on schedule. Nelson attended the grand opening in March 2015, but then distanced himself from the Fullertons, Gina Fullerton said.

Nelson “started backing away when we started asking him for the money he said he was going to help contribute month to month,” she said.

Nelson, in his court filings, denied all accusations of wrongdoing.

“The real truth is that once the restaurant opened in 2015, the Fullertons implemented a plan or scheme to force Nelson out of the project by making false accusations of criminal theft by Nelson,” Nelson said in his lawsuit. “This was done to force Nelson out of the project and thereby receive the benefit of all of Nelson’s vision, time, expertise, financial contributions, work and labor while retaining 100 percent ownership of” the restaurant and MGK, the entity that bought the property.

Gina Fullerton said Nelson’s version of events is wrong.

“The reason why we were associating with him is for the construction and marketing, and if he abided by what was requested … then we could talk further” about an actual partnership, she said.

Mike Fullerton said the relationship ended completely in May 2015 when Nelson demanded that the Fullertons sign half of MGK over to Wilkins Development & Marketing, “which we never even remotely talked about giving it over to his company.”

At that point, Mike Fullerton said, Nelson refused to do any other work. Fullerton said he got his attorney involved in the dispute and told Nelson not to come back onto the property.

In January 2016, Nelson filed the lien against the Fullertons, the restaurant and MGK. He said he was owed $815,000 for material, labor and services.

Mike Fullerton said the restaurant is operating and he’s hoping to get money to complete the office building. But, he said, the experience with Nelson has changed him.

“I don’t trust anyone anymore,” Fullerton said. “We’ve been burned so bad from this one instance that I just can’t trust people like that anymore.”

Nelson said he is looking forward to having his day in court. “I just want fairness to prevail,” Nelson said.

There are any number of ways to try to gauge the impact — economic and otherwise — Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has had on Bentonville, on Arkansas and beyond since its opening Nov. 11, 2011. Here are two:

When the museum’s executive director, Rod Bigelow, was in London in July for the opening of the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition at the Tate Modern, everywhere he looked he saw O’Keeffe’s “Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1,” which Crystal Bridges had loaned to the Tate.

“It was incredible to see that image across London, in the Tube, in the newspaper, on books, on banners,” Bigelow said. “It was everywhere.” And on almost every image was the legend “Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas USA.”

The exhibition, the first major exhibition at the Tate after a $394 million expansion, generated dozens of news stories in the United Kingdom, many of them noting that “Jimson Weed” belonged to Crystal Bridges, which had bought it in 2014 for $44.4 million, the most ever paid for a painting by a woman.

Another mark of the museum’s impact is more tangible. All four Bentonville exits on Interstate 49 are undergoing major improvements to accommodate increasing traffic.

Of course, the population growth necessitating the widening of I-49 from four lanes to six between Fayetteville and Bentonville is occurring throughout northwest Arkansas, not just Bentonville. But Bentonville itself has grown from a population of 35,000 in 2010 to more than 45,000 now, Mayor Bob McCaslin estimated. That’s nearly 30 percent in six years.

Bentonville has become a national, even international, tourist destination, the mayor said, and many of those visitors “have decided to make Bentonville home.”

Alice Walton, the museum’s founder, expresses surprise about Crystal Bridges’ popularity.

“I knew this museum was needed,” she said in response to emailed questions from Arkansas Business. “I grew up here and didn’t really have access to art and I knew we wanted to change that. What I underestimated was how much people wanted to have access to that great art.”

When Walton, daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, announced in 2005 her plans to build an art museum, annual attendance was estimated at 150,000 to 300,000 visitors, the museum noted last week.

“Today, the museum has welcomed over 2.7 million people from all 50 states and six out of the seven continents, including places like Brazil, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Russia, Switzerland, and Zimbabwe. Approximately 50 percent of the visitors are new, which means 50 percent are returning.” Last year, 607,948 people visited the 200,000-SF museum, located on 120 acres near downtown Bentonville.

“Our team has done a wonderful job capturing repeat visitors and making it truly a community center,” said Walton, who also chairs the museum’s board. “I think that’s a really important part. I’ve never met anybody in the museum who doesn’t talk about feeling welcomed.”

What Mayor McCaslin called “the transition” began in about 2008, when the city completed the renovation of its downtown square, which is linked to the museum through a series of landscaped trails. He attributed the city’s growth to a number of factors: an abundance of jobs, an excellent education system and a high quality of life.

But Crystal Bridges has also played a significant role in the city’s development. For one thing, the museum every year is bringing hundreds of thousands of people to Bentonville, McCaslin said, an influx reflected in sales tax receipts (see Crystal Bridges: By the Numbers). And many of those people are in the area for the first time.

“If they’ve never been to Arkansas before, most people — I can say as a native-born Arkansan — most people … have perceptions of Arkansas that are usually inaccurate, so when they get here, they’re somewhat blown away. ‘My goodness, this is a really nice place. It’s pretty. The people are nice. They’ve got all the amenities that I would find in a suburb of any major city in the United States.’”

The museum isn’t the clincher in luring businesses to the area, said Mike Harvey, interim president and CEO of the Northwest Arkansas Council. But it helps attract a good workforce, he said, and a good workforce stands atop the list of what attracts businesses to a locale.

Crystal Bridges has created a kind of “cultural gravity” for the region, Harvey said, drawing other amenities into its orbit and generating other cultural opportunities, among them the 21c Museum Hotel in downtown Bentonville and Crystal Bridges’ plans to transform an old Kraft cheese factory in the city into a venue for contemporary art. That project is under the direction of Steuart and Tom Walton, grandsons of Sam and nephews of Alice.

Not mentioned by Harvey but falling into the category of new cultural opportunities is the Bentonville Film Festival, founded in 2015 by Academy Award-winning actor Geena Davis and Trevor Drinkwater. The festival promotes women and culturally diverse voices in film.

“The burgeoning arts community in northwest Arkansas is, I think, directly or indirectly attributable to what Crystal Bridges has brought to the area,” he said. “It’s really kind of one of those game-changers like the museum in Bilbao, Spain.”

Crystal Bridges has “put us on the map as an art destination in the middle of the country,” Harvey said. “It’s one of those things that make people stand up and take notice that ‘Hey, there are some things going on down here that we need to check out.’”

The museum “has helped us with the perception, with the image of the area in terms of people’s thinking about ‘flyover country,’ if you will.”

(Also see: Little Rock Artist Delita Martin: Crystal Bridges 'Propelled My Career')

Tea and Dog Biscuits
The Bentonville square and its immediate vicinity are home to a number of restaurants, all but one of them opened in 2008 or later, and the kind of upscale specialty stores common to much larger cities: the Spice & Tea Exchange and Three Dog Bakery, an all-natural bakery for dogs.

Among the restaurants is Table Mesa Bistro, which was a pioneer on the square, opening in 2008. It joined the only other restaurant then there, the Station Café, which has now been open 19 years.

Table Mesa’s owners, Carl and Lindie Garrett, went on to open Tavola Trattoria nearby. Award-winning chef Matt McClure oversees the The Hive Restaurant at the 21c Museum Hotel. And at Tusk & Trotter, one block off the square, water is served in Mason jars, and the Ozark Cobb salad features free-range chicken.

(Also see: Alice Walton Reels In Flying Fish to Bentonville)

The city’s booming downtown has attracted new apartment developments, among them the mixed-use complex Thrive, a 62-unit complex at the intersection of Southwest A and Southwest Fourth streets.

Christy Walton, a daughter-in-law of Sam Walton, is behind the development of a 1-acre pocket neighborhood on NE A Street, the Black Apple Community, close by both downtown and the museum. Pocket neighborhoods are planned communities featuring smaller homes usually grouped around a common area.

Tom Walton — son of Jim Walton, who is chairman and CEO of Arvest Bank Group Inc. — is the managing principal of RopeSwing Hospitality Group, a hospitality company that focuses on redevelopment of downtowns and which is behind a number of Bentonville projects: Record, a 12,000-SF event space; The Belfry, a restaurant and bar; and the Pressroom, a restaurant. Tom Walton was named Arkansas’ Tourism Person of the Year in March.

So if “hipster” were still a thing, Bentonville would be hipster heaven. But the city has also gained recognition for being family-friendly, with the $21.5 million Scott Family Amazeum, a child-friendly interactive museum just down the road from Crystal Bridges, of particular interest.

‘Something Really Big’
Five years after Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened, it’s hard to imagine Bentonville — and Arkansas — without it. It’s the first thing many Arkansans take visiting family and friends to see. It’s a holiday outing and a school field trip.

The announcements of the latest art acquisitions still thrill: O’Keeffe’s Jasper John’s “Flag,” for which the museum paid $36 million. Jeff Koons’ “Hanging Heart (Gold/Magenta),” no price disclosed but an almost identical piece sold for $23.6 million.

And a $20 million grant from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced in 2011 makes admission to the museum free, a boon anywhere, but particularly to a poor state.

Rod Bigelow, the museum’s executive director, echoed Alice Walton in describing the museum as “a welcoming place,” a goal it sought from the beginning.

McCaslin, who became mayor in 2007, was at the press conference where Walton announced her plans. He said he had a good idea from the beginning that the museum could be “something really big,” and by the time it opened in 2011 he was certain that “this was a game-changer for northwest Arkansas.”

McCaslin remembers saying, “I think we will see a transformation in our local area, driven a lot by Crystal Bridges. And I think we’re now seeing that. It is a transforming experience.”

WASHINGTON — Consumers boosted their spending in September at the fastest pace in three months, while their incomes grew by a modest amount.

(Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

The election is over, and Arkansas is now the latest of many states to have a medical marijuana law on the books.

Although the new amendment to the Arkansas Constitution is effective immediately, it should take some time for the approved use of medical marijuana to begin. At the very least, someone has to design and print the required "Registry Identification Cards" for users — unless one of your employees shows up with a registry identification card from another state and claims to be a "visiting qualifying patient."

So, what does the new law do? It allows (among other things) "qualifying patients" who have "qualifying medical conditions" certain protections in the workplace.

For instance, employers:

1. Cannot "discriminate" against qualifying patients in the hiring, termination or any term or condition of employment, or otherwise penalize an individual, based upon the individual's past or present status as a qualifying patient;
2. Cannot discipline a qualifying patient for the medical use (which includes actual use or mere possession) of marijuana in accordance with the amendment if he or she possesses not more than 2 1/2 ounces;
3. Cannot discipline a qualifying patient for giving a permitted amount of usable marijuana to another qualifying patient for medical use if nothing is transferred in return; and
4. Cannot discipline anyone for giving a qualified patient marijuana "paraphernalia" to facilitate the use of medical marijuana.

"Qualifying medical conditions" include cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, severe arthritis, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), hepatitis C, Crohn's disease, fibromyalgia, ulcerative colitis and any "chronic or debilitating disease or medical condition" with symptoms such as peripheral neuropathy, "intractable pain," seizures, "severe" nausea or "severe and persistent" muscle spasms.

The Department of Health also can add to this list, although our guess is that it is not going to jump on that opportunity immediately.

Federal contractors will really have their hands full given the tug-of-war between federal and state law. Federal law still considers marijuana an illegal drug, although there are some legal prescription drugs, like Marinol, that contain THC or other marijuana derivatives.

Even if you are not a federal contractor, Arkansas employers may have differing obligations under the Arkansas Civil Rights Act, which covers disability discrimination, and the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. However, the Department of Transportation's drug and alcohol testing regulations still do not authorize "medical marijuana" under a state law to be a valid medical explanation for a transportation employee's positive drug test result.

There are also implications under Arkansas' workers' compensation laws.

One particular statutory section that defines compensable injuries states, "The presence of alcohol, illegal drugs, or prescription drugs used in contravention of a physician's orders shall create a rebuttable presumption that the injury or accident was substantially occasioned by the use of alcohol, illegal drugs, or prescription drugs used in contravention of physician's orders."

In other words, the workplace injury is non-compensable. Now, if medical marijuana use by an employee who is injured on the job is not inconsistent with a physician's orders, the previous presumption about the cause of the injury disappears.

Is there any good news for employers? To an extent, yes.

The new amendment does not require an employer to "accommodate the ingestion of marijuana in a workplace" and does not require an employer to allow an employee to work "while under the influence of marijuana."Nor does it require admission of a "guest, client, customer or other visitor" who is "inebriated" as a result of the medical use of marijuana.

Finally, the new amendment does not permit any person to:

1. Undertake any task under the influence of marijuana "when doing so would constitute negligence or professional malpractice;"
2. Possess, smoke or use marijuana in a variety of locations, such as schools, school busses, alcohol or drug treatment facilities, public transportation or any "public place;" or
3. Operate, navigate or control any type of "motor vehicle, aircraft, motorized watercraft, or any other vehicle drawn by power other than muscle power" while under the influence of marijuana.

So, how is this going to play out in the Arkansas workplace?

Let's take an example: assume you have an employee who appears to be under the influence of something. You require the employee to take a drug test, and he or she tests positive for marijuana or THC. What happens next? The law does not require an employer to allow an employee to work under the "influence" of marijuana. Unfortunately, we do not have a specific definition of "under the influence," but hopefully the Department of Health or the General Assembly will define that term for us.

It is interesting to note that the new amendment also talks about a person being "inebriated," and we assume being "inebriated" is a whole lot worse than simply being "under the influence." Regardless, an employer should do what it would normally do with any person appearing to be under the influence — objectively document as best as possible what was observed at the time and be ready to explain why being under the influence of anything (medical marijuana, a prescription drug or an illegal drug) in the employee's specific job is a bad idea.

We suspect the Arkansas Department of Health or the General Assembly will fine-tune this amendment (as they are allowed to do) to help everyone understand their obligations, so stay tuned.

All sorts of questions remain about the provisions of the amendment, some of which seem a bit contradictory.

Attorney Stuart Jackson heads up the Labor & Employment Law team at Wright Lindsey Jennings in Little Rock. You can email him here and see this post on the WLJ website.

Rock Town Distillery announced Wednesday that three of its whiskeys have scored the rating of "Liquid Gold" in Jim Murray's 2017 Whisky Bible.

Rock Town's Arkansas Rye Whiskey received a grade of 95.5 out of 100, while its Barley Bourbon from the Flavor Grain Series received a 95 and its Single Barrel Bourbon received a 94.

Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible is a whiskey guide with more than 4,600 analyzed tasting notes on the world’s leading and lesser known whiskies.

“To receive these ratings on three different whiskeys is a tremendous achievement,” said distillery founder and head distiller Phil Brandon, “I'm so proud of our team and what our little distillery in Arkansas has been able to achieve in its short six year history.”

Rock Town’s Arkansas Rye is slowly distilled from a mash of 52 percent Arkansas grown rye grain, 38 percent Arkansas grown corn and 10 percent malted barley. It won a Gold Medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition earlier this year.

Rock Town's Arkansas Barley Bourbon is part of its experimental Flavor Grain Series, where un-malted barley was used instead of the typical rye or wheat. This bourbon is only available for purchase at the distillery.

One of the most powerful forces of persuasion is “social proof,” the tendency of people to look to the behavior of similar others when they aren’t sure what is correct in a given situation. You can find evidence of social proof nearly everywhere. My Little Rock neighborhood is just one example.

We have scheduled trash pickup every Monday (excluding the frequent Monday holidays) plus recycling pickup every other Monday. That means on Sunday evenings asking the question, “Is this a recycling week or not?”

I sometimes forget. Apparently, my neighbors do too. What often happens is that neighbors tend to look to the streets and driveways around them for clues. One yellow-topped recycling bin rolled to the end of a driveway will spawn a rash of copycats, newly secure in the belief that if most people in the neighborhood believe it’s a recycling week, then that must indeed be the case.

How many hotel rooms have you visited in 2016? Chances are, then, you have noticed one of those little cards in the room asking you to reuse your towels or limit how often the linens are changed. What you might not know is that most hotel guests who are notified about these programs do in fact reuse their towels at least once during a multi-night stay. What some hotel executives don’t seem to know is that they could get even higher participation by using social proof.

A research team (Noah Goldstein, Robert Cialdini and Vladas Griskevicius) tested the potential by changing a few words on that standard sign. When guests were informed that most of their fellow guests had reused towels, they were 26 percent more likely to recycle theirs. In a followup study the team got even more specific. When the message was that most of the guests who stayed in that very same room had reused towels, there was a 33 percent increase in recycling.

Still, a lot of companies ignore the power of social proof. One of the largest hotel chains typically uses a card with the headline “Like we care for you, we care for our planet.” Blah. Imagine the impact of a 26-33 percent increase in recycling across millions of room-nights each year — if the leadership would change only a few words on those ubiquitous cards! A message that preaches what people should do is typically less effective than a message that shares what other people are doing.

Social proof can pull people in a negative direction too. Some people and companies send the wrong signal, unintentionally telling the rest of the world that some behavior is wrong but at the same time saying that lots of people do it. As one example, managers at the Petrified Forest National Park became alarmed at how often visitors would swipe pieces of petrified wood to take home as souvenirs. They tested messages for new signs. For one, the signs simply asked visitors not to steal any of the wood. In another, the signs stated that many past visitors had stolen wood and asked the current visitors not to do likewise. A control group received no message at all. In the areas with the simple “please don’t steal wood” message — a message without social proof — theft rates were less than 2 percent. But in the areas with the “many past visitors have stolen wood” message — one with negative social proof — the rate of theft was nearly 8 percent.

The key for managers is to point out where you are authentically the most popular, fastest growing or highest rated in order to be more persuasive. The proof will be reflected in the power of your message.

Jim Karrh of Little Rock is a consultant, coach and professional speaker as well as a consulting principal with DSG. Visit JimKarrh.com, email him at Jim@JimKarrh.com and follow him on Twitter @JimKarrh.

The sale of a 90,000-SF retail center in west Little Rock weighed in at $7.1 million.

Colony West Group LLC, led by T.J. Leflar, Marshall Saviers and Brian Shaw, and C-Lef Partners LLC, led by Leflar, bought the Colony West Shopping Center at 10300 N. Rodney Parham Road.

The seller is Doyle Rogers Family Ltd., led by Doyle Rogers Jr.

The deal is financed with a 10-year loan of $6.1 million from Simmons Bank of Pine Bluff.

The Rogers family acquired the 7.96-acre site in July 1970 from International Paper Co. through The Kroger Co. for $504,500.

Pediatrics & DQ
Undeveloped commercial land in Sherwood tipped the scales at $1.38 million.

Pediatrics Plus Real Estate Sherwood LLC, led by Todd Denton, purchased 4.4 acres near the northeast corner of Country Club Road and Heritage Lane. The sellers are Stuart McGilvray, $1.18 million; and Heritage Properties Ltd., led by Sandra Franecke, $192,500.

Development of a 24,000-SF Pediatrics Plus facility is backed with a one-year construction loan of $6.75 million from Bear State Bank of Little Rock.

In a separate but related transaction, an adjoining future Dairy Queen site sold for $410,229.

You Scream Properties Sherwood LLC, led by Todd Denton, acquired the 1.17-acre location from McGilvray.

Construction is funded with a five-year loan of $1.17 million from Simmons Bank.

The properties were bought in September 1985 as part of a $4 million deal.

The seller was General Hospitals of Humana Inc. of Louisville, Kentucky.

Academy Acquisition
A 17,150-SF day care facility in North Little Rock changed hands in a $1.15 million transaction.

Little Scholars Academy LLC, led by Michael Johnson, acquired its project at 10910 Maumelle Blvd. The seller is New Life Church of Arkansas Inc., led by Harry Bates.

The deal is financed with a $920,000 loan from One Bank & Trust of Little Rock and a $150,000 loan from New Life.

The 2.06-acre development previously helped secure an August 2008 mortgage of $1.5 million held by Centennial Bank of Conway.

New Life purchased the property for $700,000 in December 2002 from Horace and Barbara Henderson.

Auto Purchase
A 25,835-SF auto facility in south Little Rock rang up a $950,000 sale.

Rice & Rice LLC, led by Jeremy Rice, bought the 3.94-acre Asher Wrecker/Mitchell Motors development at 5909 S. University Ave. and a neighboring 0.85-acre parcel from LL Ark Properties LLC of St. Louis Park, Minnesota.

Rice & Rice also purchased an adjoining 6.09 acres for $158,000 from Automotive Group Realty LLC of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

The deals are backed with loans of $950,000 and $157,500 from First Security Bank of Searcy.

LL Ark acquired its property for $900,000 in June 2014 from the Scott A. Landers Revocable Trust.

Automotive Group bought its land for $487,000 in May 2002 from Landers United Auto Group No. 6 Inc.

Smoothie Sale
An 840-SF Tropical Smoothie outlet in North Little Rock is under new own-ership after a $900,000 deal.

DT Smoothie LLC, led by John Hathaway, purchased the project at 2600 Main St. The seller is Tropical Real Estate LLC, led by Glen Johnson.

The deal is funded with a 10-year loan of $720,000 from Simmons Bank. The 0.62-acre development previously was tied to a December 2015 mortgage of $696,000 held by the bank.

The former National Bank of Arkansas branch was acquired for $430,000 11 months ago from Arvest Bank of Fayetteville.

Helmich Buy
A 1,125-SF auto service project in Little Rock’s Hillcrest area drew a $450,000 transaction.

Little Gidding LLC, led by Doug Martin, bought Helmich Auto Service at 2712 Kavanaugh Blvd. from Lisa Rose West and her husband, Stan.

The 0.2-acre development was purchased for $33,000 in May 1977 from Mobil Oil Co. of New York.

Covenant Office
A 6,667-SF office building in North Little Rock sold for $330,000.

Covenant Ministry International acquired the 4524 Burrow Road project from Bells CDC Building LLC, led by Richard Bell.

The 0.83-acre development was bought for $290,000 in August 1999 from Apartment House Builders Inc., led by Reed McConnell.

Chenal Circle
A 5,021-SF home in west Little Rock’s Chenal Circle neighborhood weighed in at $1.2 million.

Bobby and Mary Stewart purchased the house from Ted Snider Jr. and his wife, Jan. The deal is financed with a 30-year loan of $840,000 from Little Rock’s Bank of the Ozarks.

The residence previously was linked with January 2009 mortgages of $417,000 held by Moore Mortgage Inc. of Little Rock and $245,000 held by Delta Trust & Bank of Little Rock.

The Sniders acquired the property for $950,000 in April 2007 from Douglas and Diane Smart.

Woodland’s Abode
A 3,396-SF home in the Woodland’s Edge neighborhood of west Little Rock changed hands in a $525,000 deal.

William and Ginny Mustain bought the house from Mike Kuhn Construction Inc.

The deal is backed with a 30-year loan of $525,000 from Arvest Bank.

The residence previously was tied to a November 2014 mortgage of $381,600 and a December 2015 mortgage of $60,800 held by Bank of Little Rock Mortgage Corp.

The location was purchased for $76,000 two years ago from Rocket Properties LLC, led by Lisenne Rockefeller and Ron Tyne.

Miramar Place
A 3,746-SF home in the Miramar Place neighborhood of west Little Rock’s Chenal Valley development rang up a $520,800 sale.

Steven Wolfe acquired the house from Clinton Properties Inc., led by Bruce Clinton.

The deal is funded with a 30-year loan of $416,640 from BancorpSouth Bank of Tupelo, Mississippi. The residence previously was linked with an April 2015 mortgage of $388,800 held by the bank.

Clinton Properties bought the site for $84,000 in December 2014 from Deltic Timber Corp. of El Dorado.

Rural Residence
A 2,244-SF home in southeast Pulaski County is under new ownership after a $500,000 transaction.

Cynthia Caughron purchased the 15.75-acre spread about 5 miles south of Scott from the Jones Family Living Trust, led by Jeffrey Jones.

The deal is financed with a 30-year loan of $450,000 from One Bank.

The property was acquired for $25,000 in October 1972 from the L.D. McGraw estate.

Million-Dollar Construction

Peak Flow Storage Facility     $13,667,935
5200 Scott Hamilton Drive, Little Rock
Van Horn Construction Inc., Russellville

Repair Parking Deck    $5,500,000
Park Plaza Mall
6000 W. Markham St.
Western Specialty Contractors of America, St. Louis

Primrose School      $2,000,000
1601 Kirk Road, Little Rock
Hart Construction LLC, Searcy

Renovation       $1,950,000
11 Edgehill Road, Little Rock
Jack Hartsell Construction Co., Little Rock

Renovation Surgical Nursing        $1,350,000
Arkansas Children’s Hospital
1 Children’s Way, Little Rock
Nabholz Construction Corp., Conway

There was a time when Arkansas was dotted with catfish ponds, and not the kind where children with cane poles and a can of worms would try their luck.

These catfish ponds covered acres and acres, mostly in south and southeast Arkansas, and were brimming with all sizes of catfish for the commercial processor. These commercial ponds — along with those in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi — helped feed the nation.

It wasn’t that long ago. To catfish farmers, whose market has cycled even as fish-farming techniques have improved, it might seem so.

“We’ve had a tremendous shakeout since the early 2000s where we lost acreage,” said Larry Dorman, an aquaculture specialist with the Cooperative Extension Service at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

Arkansas had nearly 38,000 acres devoted to catfish farming as recently as 2003, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

In July, the statistics service reported that Arkansas farmers had scaled back operations to 4,900 acres.

Arkansas is still the nation’s third-largest catfish producer, behind No. 1 Mississippi (35,000 acres in 2016) and No. 2 Alabama (14,800 acres).

The industry hit hard times when competition from Asian producers, which flooded the market with cheaper alternatives, combined with rising feed prices to put the squeeze on the Arkansas farmer.

The farmers who survived the downturn have seen a return to a more manageable market.

Feed prices, which once reached nearly $500 a ton, have fallen back to the $300 range, which gives flexibility to the farmers’ margin.

The price for a pound of catfish is in the $1.20 range, a much-welcomed improvement from the dark times when a market glut drove the price to 80 cents and even cheaper at some processing plants.

“The fundamentals are better for us,” said Bari Cain, the executive director of Catfish Farmers of America. Cain operates about 400 acres south of McCrory in Woodruff County. “Feed prices have gone down, and the prices have remained relatively good. The fundamentals look better.”

Intensified Production
Arkansas farmers may not have as many acres of catfish pond, but they have learned some tricks through genetics and technology to increase their production.

One of the biggest keys is raising a hybrid of a blue and a channel cat. Channel cats grow fast and adapt to different conditions but can suffer from diseases, and the hybrid is a fish that grows well without the same susceptibilities.

“With improved methods of fish farming, we’ve really increased production to a whole other level,” said Brad Graham, the president of Catfish Farmers of Arkansas. Graham operates a 475-acre farm in Montrose (Ashley County).

“Some ponds I’m pulling 15,000 pounds an acre; some ponds are pushing 20,000 pounds an acre. Five years ago, the best I could do was not even 10,000 pounds to an acre. Rather than increasing acreage, I’m trying to just increase production within the acreage I have. The hybrid catfish is one of the main differences.

“We can stock at a heavier density per acre and not have the disease we would have with the channels.”

Cain said hybrid catfish have been used for a decade and, coupled with technological and equipment advances, have allowed farmers to pump up their production — what Cain and Dorman call “intensification.”

Graham said he uses an elaborate — and expensive — 24/7 monitor system with buoys and “electrics” that ensure the ponds constantly maintain proper oxygen levels. That guarantees the fish are properly cared for and maximizes yield from each pond.

“All of my ponds are fully automated,” Graham said. “We don’t have a pond get away from us like it used to. Oxygen would get low and you’d catch it, but it would have been low for an hour or so. We don’t have that now. There’s no stress compared to a few years ago.”

Room for Growth
Arkansas acreage may never return to the 35,000 to 40,000 range, but the state can still produce a significant amount of catfish for market. In the early 2000s, the top four states in the country — the agricultural statistics service stopped including Louisiana in its reports after 2008 — produced nearly 400 million catfish.

From July 2015 to July 2016, that number had fallen to 88.5 million, down 13 percent from the same time span the previous year. Arkansas’ production was 6.4 million, down from 6.9 million the previous year.

“We’ve had some changes in intensification of the industry since,” Dorman said. “We’re still producing a sizable amount of catfish; it’s just on a lot less acreage. Nationwide we are approaching a [healthy] state. We’re seeing a little bit of growth here and there, not massive growth.

“I’d love to see us back in the 20,000 range. I hope it happens.”

The problem with getting back to 20,000 acres, Dorman said, is finances. When farmers get hit, their bankers do too, and he fears that tighter lending might prevent farmers from being able to expand as the market does.

Also, some catfish farmers converted ponds to other agricultural uses, and getting them catfish-ready again isn’t simple or inexpensive. Creating new ponds is equally labor- and capital-intensive.

“We see some numbers that reflect processing being down,” Graham said. “I think that is a supply issue more than a marketing issue. You come off a time when people are losing money. People have to put money back into the ponds.”

Dorman said he believes it might take a few years for the fingerling supply — the baby fish that grow up to be delicious fillets — to catch up with the resurgent production needs.

The market seems stable enough to consider it, even with Asian imports still a concern. In 2015, Arkansas passed Act 1191, which required labeling if the product was imported and whether it was catfish or catfish-like.

“Their volume has increased, even this year,” Cain said of Asian competition. “We’re just making it despite all that. There is a certain amount of business that doesn’t want the Asian product. That’s what we’re catering to.”

Dorman said catfish farming isn’t an easy occupation because of the constant monitoring of supply and demand and the matrix of costs and price.

“The day you raise one catfish too many is the day the prices drop,” Dorman said.

Cain, who has been a catfish farmer since the mid-1980s, said he has to budget for the highs and lows of the market, from year to year. A good price in Year 1 allows him to survive a tough Year 2.

“It’s the average price you get over several years that keeps you going,” Cain said.

WASHINGTON — American consumers ramped up their spending last month in a sign of robust health heading into the crucial holiday shopping season.

Retail sales rose 0.8 percent in October, after an upwardly-revised 1 percent gain in September, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. The two-month increase was the largest since the spring of 2014.

The numbers suggest that the economy may grow more quickly in the final three months of the year than many economists had expected. Retail sales are closely watched as a sign of consumer health. Consumer spending makes up about 70 percent of the economy.

Steady hiring and emerging signs of solid pay increases have made Americans more confident and willing to spend. The unemployment rate fell last month to a low 4.9 percent and in October, workers saw the biggest annual pay gain since the end of the recession.

Some of the biggest sales increases were in autos and gas, with higher prices boosting gas station sales. Even excluding those categories, however, sales rose 0.6 percent in October and 0.5 percent the previous month.

Auto sales rose a healthy 1.1 percent, though many dealers relied on steep discounts. Sales of home and garden supplies also rose 1.1 percent in October, a positive sign that more Americans are remodeling and expanding their homes.

Home Depot, the nation's biggest home improvement chain, upped its outlook for the year Tuesday after beating Wall Street expectations handily. Customer transactions jumped, as did the amount they spent on each visit, the company said.

Most other retailers also saw healthy increases: Grocery stores, health and personal care outlets, sporting goods retailers, clothing stores, and online and catalog retailers all reported strong sales.

Online and catalog retailers are continuing to seize market share from older-line outlets such as department stores. Online and catalog sales have increased 12.9 percent in the past year, much faster than the 4.3 percent gain for all retailers. Department stores, meanwhile, have seen their sales plunge 7.3 percent in the past 12 months.

Furniture stores were one of the few to report a drop in October, with sales falling 0.9 percent.

Steady hiring may be boosting spending. Employers have added about 175,000 jobs a month this year, down from last year's pace but still enough to push unemployment even lower over time.

That appears to be boosting consumer confidence, which has been mostly healthy in recent months. A measure of consumer sentiment by the University of Michigan rose in the first half of November.

Even with solid growth in the October-December quarter, the economy has been weak this year. It expanded at just a 1.1 percent pace in the first six months of 2016. It accelerated to a 2.9 percent pace in the July-September quarter.

Even with a healthier expansion in the fourth quarter, growth may not reach 2 percent for the full year.

(Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Harps Food Stores Inc. of Springdale announced Thursday that Kim Eskew, its president and chief operating officer, has been elected as the privately held grocery store chain's new CEO.

Eskew replaces Roger Collins, who has served as CEO for 17 years. Collins announced Thursday that he was stepping down from the post. He will remain chairman of the company's board.

Eskew, originally from Piggott, joined Harps in 1977 while in college at the University of Arkansas. He worked his way up to executive vice president in 2002 and president and COO in 2008.

Collins said in a news release that Eskew "has been overseeing marketing and operations, and has been instrumental in helping produce 11 consecutive years of record earnings. He is a man of integrity and I am confident that he will do a skillful job moving Harps forward. I am very happy for him."

Harps was founded in 1930 as a family-owned business and became employee-owned in 2001. Since then, the chain has more than doubled in size and added $100 million of value to employee-owner accounts, according to the release. It has 85 stores in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas.

When it comes to planning your event, the to-do list may seem daunting. It makes sense — event planning is all in the details — but we’ve spoken with event planners from around the state for their tips and tricks for making your event run seamlessly from the planning stage to the day-of.

Stick With Your Game Plan
Your first step in planning any event is deciding on the particulars. What will the budget be? What kind of venue would be best? Event planners are readily available to help you with even the simplest steps in the planning process, but once they understand your vision they can give advice on making your event the best it can be.

“When it comes to planning events, I like to have the client give me their vision first,” says Lesa Carmack, booking manager at Arkansas State University Convocation Center. “I can’t tell you the cost until I know your vision.”

Choose The Right Venue
Choosing a venue for your event can be tricky. You first need to know the head count, then narrow down your possibilities by the venue capacity. There are ways to streamline the planning stage for events if you choose to go with an all-inclusive venue like the Little Rock Marriott. At the Marriott, clients are required to use the food and beverages provided by the hotel.

Jennifer Scritchfield, senior sales and events manager at the Marriott, says that things like tables and chairs being included in the booking price of events can help cut down on the cost of bringing in outside furniture rentals.

“For bigger events, we will negotiate a menu tasting with the client and our chef to work with the budget and still keep a great menu on the table,” Scritchfield says.

Stay Organized
Organization is key when it comes to planning your next event. Having an event binder with different documents including the event itinerary, guest list, keynote speakers and more can help you quickly flip to whatever information you’re looking for rather than shuffling through emails. Carmack recommends keeping paper files as well as digital files. She prints emails and keeps them in files, so that every detail is documented.

Trying to stay on top of deadlines is also important in the event planning realm. The better handle you have on events in the future, the easier it will be to adapt to things as complications arise.

“I try to stay a month ahead of events, as well as meet with customers and work on events that are really far out,” Carmack says.

See To Small Details
Aside from choosing the venue and figuring out the head count, there are many smaller elements that can make just as big an impact on your event. Choosing the table settings, linens and decor, for example, are decisions you should not save until the last minute.

“We will normally attend a tasting to choose the event meal about 6-8 weeks out,” says Leslie Gordy, events manager at Arkansas Business Publishing Group. “We can select centerpieces about a month out from the event.”

Be Tech Savvy
Deciding to include a video element to your event can kick things up a notch. Finding a video production company is a step that is often overlooked, but can set your event apart.

“Things to splurge on would be the video production company that you have creating the video for your event presentation,” Gordy says. “That will make or break the event. If the main presentation of your event is to show videos of each honoree, you better choose the best video production company out there and make sure that it meets your needs and gets the job done in the best way possible.”

Another often-overlooked element is the lighting and technology company you choose to set the mood.

“You want to choose a company who shares the same vision as you, whether it's about the stage design/setup, how the music will be played or the videos will be displayed,” Gordy says. “Those are all major things that you need to spend money on in order to make your event run smoothly and be successful.”

Spend Wisely
As for most, staying under budget is not only ideal, it’s usually imperative. There are ways for you to cut down on cost without compromising the caliber of your event.

“I come from years of working in the nonprofit world and I'm still in the mindset of getting things donated and getting the best deal out there,” Gordy says. “It was certainly trial and error for a few events, regarding what we could skimp on and what we should spend more money on. But in the end, we always stayed within budget and made more money than the previous year.

“For instance, centerpieces are things that I choose to skimp on. It's not that we don't think they are important, it's just that having a centerpiece on the table will not make us more money or sell us more tickets or sponsorships. It's an addition, and to me, you spend as little as possible on additions that don't make money for you.”