Subscriber exclusive — Business Notebook: Free census workshop, Crawfish Co. coming to Jackson, Recruiters Websites honored

The best business decisions are usually based on facts, and some of the best facts can be obtained through the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Census Bureau, along with the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Small Business Development Center on the Southeast Missouri State University campus, will host a free workshop next week about the tools and research data available through the bureau.

The workshop will be from noon until 2 p.m. Oct. 22 at the Small Business Development Center, 920 Broadway in Cape Girardeau.

Workshop participants will learn about resources to help them locate detailed census information such as income data and poverty levels in specific population areas. Participants will also be introduced to the Census Business Builder: Small Business Edition, which provides easy access to information about potential customers and similar businesses for those starting, planning or expanding a business.

Although the workshop is free, registration is required. To register, visit www.sba.gov/offices/district/mo/st-louis and click on the event registration link. More information is available by calling Jakob Pallesen at the SEMO Small Business Development Center, (573) 651-5156.

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Summit Truck Group, LLC, of Lewisville, Texas, has signed a letter of intent to purchase "substantially all of the assets" of Wiethop Truck Sales Inc., located at 2350 Independence in Cape Girardeau.Jay Wolz ~ Southeast Missourian

Summit Truck Group LLC of Lewisville, Texas, has signed a letter of intent to purchase “substantially all of the assets” of Wiethop Truck Sales Inc. of Cape Girardeau.

Wiethop has been a full-service International Trucks dealership since 1954 and has been at its current location, 2350 Independence St. in Cape Girardeau, since 1964.

With the addition of the Wiethop dealership, Summit Truck Group now has 26 locations in seven states — Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.

“We are excited to add Cape Girardeau to the Summit family of dealerships,” Summit chief executive officer Justin Fink said. “Its location midway between St. Louis and Memphis puts it in proximity to other Summit locations and will help us serve our customers in additional markets.”

“We welcome Wiethop’s employees to the Summit family and look forward to continued success in the Cape Girardeau market,” added Scott Gill, Summit’s executive vice president of finance and accounting.

Pending completion of appropriate contracts, Summit will assume operations of the Cape Girardeau location Nov. 1, and the dealership name will change to Summit Truck Group of Cape Girardeau.

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The SEMO Crawfish Co. is coming to Jackson. The business is owned by Ben and Amy Jo Hunter of Jackson, who raise crawfish on a farm near Sikeston, Missouri. Amy Jo told me last week they hope their Jackson location, at 3582 E. Jackson Blvd. next to the Rhodes 101 convenience store, will open by March.

“We actually grow crawfish,” she said. “It started out as a hobby, but then it started growing and turned into a business.”

The SEMO Crawfish Co.’s future home formerly housed a tax preparation business and was also the home of Stooges from 2001 until 2005. The Hunters are expanding the property to include a crawfish wash facility, kitchen, market and dining area.

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Now on to the rest of this week’s Business Notebook …

SoutheastHEALTH gains provider status at area schools

Southeast Orthopedics and Sports Medicine has been named official medical providers for Jackson High School and Eagle Ridge Christian School. Announcement of the provider designation status was announced last week by SoutheastHEALTH.

Under the agreement with the Jackson School District, a physician will provide sideline coverage for home football games alongside their team athletic trainers. At Eagle Ridge, an athletic trainer will be at all home sporting events. In addition, SoutheastHEALTH will offer onside preparticipation athletic physicals at both schools.

In August, Southeast Orthopedics and Sports Medicine was named official team physicians for Southeast Missouri State University’s NCAA Division I student athletes. With that agreement, and for the first time, medical coverage was also included for intramural and club sports student athletes and student performers at the Southeast River Campus.

Program will spotlight entrepreneurial women

As part of Women in Entrepreneurship Week, Oct. 19 to 26, the Harrison College of Business and Computing at Southeast Missouri State University, along with Women in Economics and the university’s Office of Institutional Equality and Diversity are hosting a Southeast Economic Showcase next week.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will be from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Oct. 22 in the Glenn Auditorium of the university’s Dempster Hall and will feature a panel discussion with six female entrepreneurs who will share their experiences of starting and running their own companies.

Panelists will include:

• Genevive Soshu, a Southeast student who is co-founder of MadeNGhana, a clothing company that blends traditional fabrics with modern styles.
• Carly Bowles, a certified public accountant, Southeast alumna and owner of SEMO CPA Co. in Cape Girardeau.
• Lisa Essmyer, a Southeast hospitality management instructor and owner of Fudio, a cooking studio and catering company in Cape Girardeau.
• Laurie Everett, a Southeast graduate and owner of Annie Laurie’s, The Indie House, Downtown Guesthouse and Mother Earth in Cape Girardeau.
• Sheila Hottel, a licensed cosmetologist and co-owner of Roots Spa & Salon in Cape Girardeau.
• Megon Rousseau, co-owner of Roots Spa & Salon and co-creator of Soul Ritual, a product line designed for “energetic well-being.”

Sports Clips program will benefit veterans

Sports Clips Haircuts, which has a Cape Girardeau location at 3019 William St. near West Park Mall, has announced a program to support service member and veteran scholarships as part of the company’s “Help A Hero” campaign that kicked off this week.

The company’s Help A Hero Scholarship program is designed to reduce to burden of college, graduate and technical school tuition for current and veteran military members and is administered through the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). This year’s goal is to raise $1.5 million toward scholarships in the more than 1,800 Sport Clips Haircuts locations across the nation.

Anyone can support the cause by making a donation when checking out at a Sport Clips location. Many Sport Clips, including the Cape Girardeau store, will also be offering free haircuts on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, to service members and veterans with valid military identification. On that day, the company will also donate an additional dollar to the scholarship program for every hair-care service performed that day. Last year, the additional-dollar program added more than $100,000 to the campaign.

Awards and recognitions

Recruiters Website awards are pictured.Submitted

Recruiters Websites, a Cape Girardeau-based web development company, was recently named Best in Category for Website Design and first runner-up for Vendor of the Year by Management Recruiters International (MRI) at the 2019 MRINetwork United Convention in Orlando, Florida.

A survey of nearly 400 MRINetwork-member businesses selected Recruiters Websites as the top site design company and first runner-up overall based on product and service satisfaction, competing against a number of established companies including ZoomInfo, LinkedIn, Career Builder, Monster and other recruiting-specific vendors.

“Our goal is to do more than build a website,” said Jeff Gipson, Recriters Websites founder and team leader. “We work with the people behind the name, discovering their goals and their story so the website can start conversations that result in real connections.”

Recruiters Websites was established in 2012. The company also operates a local marketing and website design agency under the name Rooted Web, which is headquartered in Cape Girardeau’s Marquette Tower.

People on the Move

Matthew Janzow

Cape Girardeau native Matthew Janzow has been named chief medical officer and vice president of physician services at SoutheastHEALTH. His appointment to the CMO position became effective Sept. 30.

As chief medical officer, Janzow said his role “is to ensure high quality patient care and be an advocate for the physicians who work in the hospital as well as foster a culture of collaboration to make it as easy as possible for physicians to practice in the hospital.”

A general surgeon, Janzow has been affiliated with Victoria Surgical Associates in Victoria, Texas, for the past 15 years. While there, he held leadership positions at DeTar Navarro Hospital in Victoria, most recently as chief of staff. Before that, he served as vice chief of staff and chairman of the hospital’s quality council as well as chief of the hospital’s trauma department and trauma medical director.

Janzow is also a Navy veteran and was attached to the Portsmouth Fleet Hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia, from 2001 to 2003. During his military service, he was deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom and provided general surgery services aboard the USS Enterprise and that ship’s battle group.

He completed his undergraduate degree at Southeast Missouri State University and earned his medical degree at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He is currently working toward a graduate degree in business administration at the University of Wisconsin.

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Amanda Graser

Certified nurse midwife Amanda Graser has joined the staff at Southeast Obstetrics and Gynecology at Women First, a practice affiliated with SoutheastHEALTH.

Graser earned her undergraduate degree in nursing at Souitheast Missouri State University and also hold’s an associate degree in nursing from the Southeast Hospital College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

In addition, she holds a Master of Science in nursing with a midwifery focus from the University of Cincinnati in Ohio.

Chamber events

The Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce’s next Business After Hours gathering is 5 to 6:30 p.m. today at the Cape Girardeau County Club. Business After Hours gatherings are open to chamber members and guests.

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The Cape Girardeau chamber will host a ribbon cutting to mark the opening of Dana’s Hallmark Shop, 2136 William St., Suite 130, in Cape Girardeau at 10 a.m. Thursday.

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It’s not too late to sign up for the Jackson Area Chamber of Commerce’s Movie Trivia Night on Friday night at the Jackson Civic Center. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. with trivia starting at 7 p.m.

The event will include a silent auction. Participants must be at least 18 years old. Snacks will be provided, but participants are asked to bring their own beverages. Costumes are encouraged.

Prizes will be awarded to the top three teams. Prizes will also be given to the best-dressed team and best dressed individual.

Registration fee is $20 per person or $100 for a six-member team. Register by contacting the Jackson chamber, (573) 243-8131.

A final note

Wednesday is Boss’s Day, an opportunity to give your boss the appreciation he or she deserves (assuming he or she deserves it).

Boss’s Day dates back to 1958 when Patricia Haroski, an employee at State Farm insurance Co. in Bloomington, Illinois, registered it with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She chose Oct. 16 because it was her father’s birthday.

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