Education

Augusta Prep to break ground on W. Rodger Giles Institute for Inquiry

Augusta Prep will hold an official groundbreaking ceremony for its state-of-the-art W. Rodger Giles Institute for Inquiry at 4 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 24. The $11 million W. Rodger Giles Institute for Inquiry, scheduled to open in 2024, will be one of a kind in the Augusta area. The institute is being constructed as a unique future-facing sciences and engineering building that prepares students for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is being driven by high-speed Internet, cloud technology, artificial intelligence, automation, 3D printing, and big data analytics, along with the workplaces

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Darin Myers

Free Access: Coach Darin: Firing up the sales team the right way!

Yesterday, Dr. Rick Franza had a timely column about the Bulldog mentality and Coach Kirby Smart’s strategy to guide UGA to back-to-back National Championships. That same camaraderie and enthusiasm can build winning business teams. Whether your company is in the first quarter or the fourth quarter, Coach Darin Myers takes the concept a step further with some x’s and o’s for building a winning sales team. Value sales team behaviors over results. Of course, you want salespeople to successfully complete sales, but other behaviors are almost equally important, pursuing quality

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Consumer Stories

Augusta butcher shop expands to Columbia County

Jack Deese has wanted to expand his business to Columbia County for years, but he finally has the opportunity. Deese, the owner of The New York Butcher Shoppe located at 465 Highland Ave. in Surrey Center, is about to open a new location at 4446 Washington Road, Unit 18 across the street from the Evans Walmart. The store will be between Charro’s restaurant and American Family Insurance in the Shoppes at Camelot. He’s not quite sure when the store will be ready to open, but he’s currently shooting for February

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Consumer Stories

Business Lunch Review: The Purple Hull

Editor’s Note: Wes Hennings never met a meal he walked away from and is an opinionated eater! Each Thursday, he shares the results of a business lunch he’s had with a colleague as a way to advise our business community on the good, bad, and the tasty across the CSRA. He doesn’t let ABD or the restaurant know where he is going and his opinions are his own. He grades the restaurants he visits on a 1-5 scale with “5” being outstanding. We call this our “Real Business Lunch Review”.

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Consumer Stories

Build-for-rent communities offer new opportunities for investors

The number of people wanting to rent homes is growing, yet real estate investors hoping to cash in on that trend are finding a tight market for homes available to turn into rental properties. But Auben real estate agent, Phuong Nguyen says there is a solution – Build-for-Rent homes. He and Auben are currently working on several such developments in the CSRA. The Build-for-Rent (BFR) homes are typically single-family houses or townhomes clustered in a community setting, often with yards and garages. “It’s the same concept as an apartment complex

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B2B Stories

Female business leaders discuss working with people from other cultures

Kimberly Barker believes in taking risks and thinking outside the box. Barker, Director of Marketing for Hull Barrett Attorneys in Augusta, attended this month’s Women in Business Program hosted by the Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce yesterday. For this event, the Chamber partnered with the U.S.-Japan Council for Regional Women in Leadership to present a panel discussion called “Womenomics Across Cultures.” “We get so caught up in our own routine, we lose sight of the fact that there’s a big world out there,” she said. Nozomi Morgan, CEO of Michiki

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Lessons Learned

Free Access: Lessons Learned: Bulldog Mentality: What Business Can Learn from UGA Football

Regular readers of my columns, whether here in the Augusta Business Daily or other venues, know that I am no fan of the University of Georgia football team. I have a couple of pretty good reasons. First, I spent nearly seven years on the Georgia Tech (What’s the good word?) campus, as an Air Force ROTC instructor and then as a doctoral student. During that time, I learned much about the “Clean Old-Fashioned Hate” that characterizes the rivalry between the two schools. Second, the Bulldogs helped spoil my senior year

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Consumer Stories

Local Hospital offers hefty nurse sign-on bonuses

As ABD has previously reported, there is a nursing shortage in the CSRA and across the country which was amplified by the pandemic. Also in today’s economic update, Simon Medcalfe reports that Augusta has seen a drop in employment levels for health services which remain below pre-pandemic levels. Across the river, Aiken Regional Medical Centers is being proactive in reversing that trend by offering a sign-on bonus of up to $25,000 for qualified nurses. They have scheduled job fairs throughout 2023 focusing on positions in nursing and support services. The

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B2B Stories

Evans coffee shop owners hold off on launching a second location

While many local businesses are expanding, owners of a Columbia County coffee business have announced they have changed their minds about opening a second location at this time. Heather Needles and her daughter, Ali Kocher, own Rooted Coffeehouse located in the Market at Riverwood at 3116 William Few Parkway in Evans. They had previously announced plans to open a second location at 380 Milledgeville Road in Harlem. Needles and Kocher provided no reason for their decision in their Instagram post, but the new shop would have been located very close

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B2B Stories

Simon Says: Ups and downs continue in most recent jobs report shows healthcare lagging

As I reported last week, the Augusta Metropolitan Statistical Area had a strong jobs report for November with employment increasing by 1,300 jobs. Heading into the holiday season, it was no surprise to see that half the jobs were in the leisure and hospitality industry. Retail establishments also increased employment by 100 to a record high of 30,360. That equates to an additional 3,600 jobs from pre-pandemic levels. Professional and business services increased employment by 600 jobs, to a total of 34,250 in that sector. That is a post-pandemic peak,

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