Clearing some items off the desk

I've had a busy week here at the newspaper office, with tips flooding in about new business openings and news releases from area businesses touting new people and new products.

It is now desk-cleaning time. I've got details about a new study of training needs of regional employers, a new hotel that will be built near Center Junction and several other tidbits. If you don't see anything about a tip you've submitted, don't fret. I'm checking everything as fast as I can, and when I have something definite you will see it here.

Let's get started.

• Training needs: Cassandra Hicks, financial aid coordinator at Southeast Missouri State University, sent in a copy of her MBA research paper on "Training needs of Missouri's 8th Congressional District." Hicks sent out more than 3,000 surveys to businesses through 46 chambers of commerce in the 28-county congressional district. She got 382 responses, with 379 being useful for the report.

The top general training needs identified by the study included customer and market focus, leadership and strategic planning. The top specific training need identified by the survey was focusing on customer requirements, needs and expectations.

"The number of years a business has been in business can also have a significant impact on the type of training needed," Hicks wrote in her paper.

Of the businesses responding, nearly 80 percent have fewer than 100 employees, about three-fourths have been in business for more than 10 years and about half had gross income of more than $20 million.

The survey also showed that smaller firms, those with fewer than 100 employees, have more concerns about training their employees for customer market focus, rating that need significantly higher than larger firms, Hicks wrote. Literacy skills were also an important concern for firms with fewer than 20 workers.

Hicks used the study to discuss the need for more research into business training needs and to understand why national figures show that of 5 million small businesses nationwide, only 150,000 use Small Business Development Centers to develop employee skills. Business that take advantage of services such as those offered at the development centers have a success rate of 86 percent over two years, Hicks noted.

• Jackson hotel: The Jackson city planning office just needs one more piece of paperwork to issue a building permit allowing Old Horizon Inc. of Carbondale, Ill., to begin construction on a 62-room Comfort Suites hotel on the east side of South Old Orchard Road just off U.S. 61 at Center Junction.

Pete Patel off Old Horizon Inc. didn't return a message left with him last week, so I don't have a lot of details about the opening date or when construction would actually begin. But the application for a building permit indicates the hotel will cost about $2.2 million to build and will have large rooms with separate sleeping and working areas.

Comfort Suites is part of the Choice Hotels chain, which includes 10 brand name lodging groups, including EconoLodge, SleepInn and Clarion. I'll keep trying to contact Patel, so keep checking my blog, Rude Awakening at www.semissourian.com, or look for more on a future Monday.

• Southeast students earn mini-grants: Three Southeast Missouri State University received mini-grants and office space in the Southeast Business Incubator to help them launch new businesses. I spoke with Tiffany Thomas of Gordonville, who won a $5,000 grant to build Kurios Photography, which will specialize in portrait photography, including senior class photos for students, and event photography.

Tiffany, 29, said photography "is something I always enjoyed doing."

The idea to take pictures as a business came up after she took some senior photos for students who needed an inexpensive photographer and was encouraged by several people to make it her livelihood. She returned to Southeast Missouri State University after a 10-year hiatus from school while she and her husband, Brian Thomas of El Shabbai Heating and Cooling, were starting a family. "I've been wanting to go, but we were married right out of high school and it never worked out financially until now," she said.

To see some of Thomas' work, visit www.myspace.com/kuriosphoto.

The other winners of the grants were Stefanie Tooley of St. Peters, Mo., who also received $5,000 to launch a graphic design company, and Matt Taylor of Cape Girar­deau, who received $2,600 to develop his lawn care and maintenance business.

The awards were made following a yearlong competition known as the Student Entrepreneurship, Southeast Apprentice Program.

• Ad agency plans for growth: Perryville, Mo.-based The Wright Group sold its building on the town square in Perryville in preparation for building new offices at the intersection of South Perryville Boulevard and West St. Joseph Street.

The Wright Group is a brand development and advertising agency owned by Johnathan Wright, who said the new location will be ready in about a year. "The new office and retail space will better suit the agency as we face the future," Wright said in a news release.

• Zellmer opens fourth Buffalo Wild Wings: Bill Zellmer of Cape Girardeau, owner of three Buffalo Wild Wings franchises, has opened a fourth location in Poplar Bluff, Mo. The new restaurant, in Mansion Mall, will join Zellmer's group that currently includes the Cape Girardeau location on William Street in the Town Plaza, and locations in Carbondale, Ill., and Sikeston, Mo.

Like the other locations, the new restaurant will focus on "wings, beer and sports," Zelmer said.

• Hotel chain gains recognition: Home-grown hotel chain Drury Inn & Suites took the top ranking for customer satisfaction among Mid-Scale, Limited Service hotels in the annual J.D. Power and Associates North American Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study, winning 824 out of a possible 1,000 points. It is the second consecutive year Drury has won the top ranking. Only two hotel chains, both in the Luxury Segment, scored a higher total score.

The Drury company, which grew from a single Cape Girar­deau Holiday Inn operated by the Lambert Drury family of Kelso, has 120 hotels in 19 states.

The company's hotels are all family-owned, noted Chuck Drury, president and CEO of the hotel chain, in a news release. "This puts our team in a position to provide a consistent level of quality, service and value every day for every guest," he said.

J.D. Power and Associates, a global marketing information company that is a subsidiary of McGraw-Hill Companies, ranked the hotels in eight categories ranging from overall customer satisfaction to the costs of extras such as telephone and Internet service. Drury, which advertises itself as the place where Extras Aren't Extra, provides a free hot breakfast, free evening beverages, an hour of long-distance calls per day and free high speed Internet service, which helps explain its top ranking.

In fact, Drury received an "Among the Best" rating in each of the eight categories, the only chain in its class to receive that distinction.

• Winks reopens: If you live in the Perryville Road/Lexington Avenue area and have missed stopping at Winks convenience store for a morning coffee, tank of gas or a six-pack on the way home, you won't have to wait any longer. I stopped by the new store at 2107 Perryville Road on Thursday and owner Kevin Stanfield, who operates the store in partnership with his father, said the new building is ready to go.

Employees were scurrying around, working on the final cleanup and stocking chores while a few early customers trickled in. Since the early 1980s, the Stanfields operated Winks at a location next door, but Kevin Stanfield said the building was "kind of worn out," was too small and needed more fuel pumps. The Stanfields, who are also partners in My Daddy's Cheesecake with Wes Kinsey, will be selling the restaurant's sandwiches, salads, coffee and yes, cheesecake, at the new store, Stanfield said.

• Computer dealer adds lines: CPU Inc., a provider of computers, networking and software, added two new lines of products to its repertoire. Mike Unverferth, director of sales and marketing, said the company is now a Lenovo authorized business partner, adding the notebook and desktop computers from the company spun off by IBM.

In addition, CPU has received authorization from Apple Computer to be an Apple business agent, which will give them a presence on the Apple Store Web site and, when a customer makes a purchase online through CPU's portal, the company gets credit for the sale and will support the products with local service.

CPU began 30 years ago in the sales, service, networking and support of computers.

Rudi Keller is the business editor of the Southeast Missourian. Contact him at 335-6611, extension 126