How a plumbing business became a multi-faceted construction and disaster recovery company
Posted On January 19, 2023
How does a small plumbing company become a massive construction and disaster recovery business with about 200 employees, offices in five states and work lined up throughout the Western Hemisphere? In the case of Persons Services Corp., it happened through a succession that was fueled by the new generation adding new expertise to chase new opportunities. Our guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston,” Buddy Persons, is President and CEO of Mobile-based Persons Services Corp., and Managing Director of Persons Development Company. The company was founded in 1978 by Persons’ father, Paul E. Persons, Sr., as… Read More
Categories: Blog, Entrepreneurship, Podcast, Succession Planning, What's Working with Cam Marston, Work
Why a down economy is the time to get aggressive with your business
Posted On January 12, 2023
Does the economy have you worried? Scared of a recession and what it’d mean for your business? Our guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” tells us why we shouldn’t be so anxious – and why a down economy is the perfect time to get aggressive anyway. Peter Ricchiuti, an economist and professor at Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business, says the Federal Reserve is actually doing a pretty good job of walking the tightrope between lowering inflation and avoiding recession. “There’s a lot of fear out there,” he said, “but you look at the job… Read More
Categories: Blog, Podcast, Recession Economy, What's Working with Cam Marston
Lauren Weber wants to share the love of Fairhope in a new TV series
Posted On January 10, 2023
Lauren Weber believes the world needs more feel-good stories, more stories about love. And she believes the perfect place for them is Fairhope. Weber, our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston,” is an Emmy-nominated TV producer with two decades of experience who specializes in real-life romantic comedy. She was looking for an idyllic small town for her next project and, when she found what she was looking for in Fairhope, she loved it so much that she relocated her production company, Tremont Road, to the Eastern Shore. That project, “Love in Fairhope,” tracks the romantic… Read More
Categories: Blog, Generations, Podcast, What's Working with Cam Marston, Women
The Modern House: Answering the call to help the homeless through coffee
Posted On January 2, 2023
Why would someone open a coffee shop when they don’t even drink coffee? For Troy Whetstone, it’s a means to an end – and what he was called to do. Whetstone, our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston,” is CEO of The Modern House Coffee Shop in Birmingham. With the help of a pastor and other members of his community, Whetstone opened the shop in 2016 as a way to help the homeless. An exercise in social entrepreneurship, The Modern House Coffee Shop hires homeless people and trains them with the job skills and social… Read More
Categories: Blog, Charity, church, Entrepreneurship, Podcast, What's Working with Cam Marston, Work
Exploring trends in wine with Jim Cox of Southern Napa
Posted On December 17, 2022
Christmas is a nice time to enjoy a glass of wine by the fire, and when the weather turns colder that wine is more likely to be red. Jim Cox of Southern Napa Fine Wine House, our guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston,” says the demand for red wines rises when the temperature drops. “As soon as you get a hint of cool weather, people just switch from drinking white wine, drinking rosè, drinking sauvignon blanc, and they come in and they want reds,” Cox said. “They want that change-of-season feeling.” Cox, who co-owns… Read More
Categories: Blog, Podcast, What's Working with Cam Marston
For Gabriella Saab, writing is as much about process as inspiration
Posted On December 12, 2022
One might think of writers as creatures of impulse who work in fits of inspiration, waiting for the muse to lead them. Our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” flies against that image. Gabriella Saab writes historical fiction, a genre that requires a copious amount of research, and she has become very deliberate in how she goes about it. Saab’s first novel, “The Last Checkmate,” was quite successful and is now available in 15 countries. But as she began to work on her next novel, “Daughters of Victory,” she decided she needed a new approach…. Read More
Categories: Blog, Podcast, What's Working with Cam Marston, Women, Work
How do you make better bacon? For Bill-E Stitt, music helps
Posted On December 1, 2022
Make a better product and you can prove a lot of people wrong. People told Bill-E Stitt he wouldn’t be able to sell his small-batch bacon because its packaging didn’t include a window where customers could see the meat. He didn’t listen. Now he’s shipping it all over the world and it’s being used by championship chefs in prestigious cooking competitions like the World Food Championships. The last time we spoke with Stitt on “What’s Working with Cam Marston” a couple years ago, he was selling 1,200 to 1,500 pounds of bacon a week. Now it’s up to 3,000. He’s… Read More
Categories: Blog, Entrepreneurship, Podcast, What's Working with Cam Marston
Retaining Alabama: The effort to retain talent in a growing economy
Posted On November 27, 2022
Alabama’s colleges and universities attract a lot of students from out of state. Nearly 60 percent of the University of Alabama’s more than 38,000 students in 2021 came from other states or countries. At Auburn, out-of-state enrollment was just under half of its more than 31,000 students last year. More than three-quarters of those students leave Alabama when they graduate, however. What’s more, about a quarter of in-state students who go to college in Alabama also leave the state to start their careers. Overall, only about half the state’s college graduates are still working in Alabama five years after they… Read More
Categories: Blog, Podcast, Recruiting, What's Working with Cam Marston
Lane Zirlott of Murder Point Oysters is sharing the Butter Love
Posted On November 21, 2022
Business is competitive. You have to compete to survive. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t celebrate others’ success at the same time. Our guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” is a testament to that idea. It was three or four years ago that we first met Lane Zirlott of Murder Point Oysters, a south Mobile County company known around the Southeast. At that time, he was raising about 6 million oysters a year. Now the company has grown to the point that he’s raising five times that number annually. While Lane has worked tirelessly… Read More
Categories: Blog, Entrepreneurship, Podcast, What's Working with Cam Marston
Auburn is at the forefront of RFID, a technology that’s changed how we live and work
Posted On November 13, 2022
Do you ever think about the technology behind hotel room key cards, or vehicle key fobs, or the wristbands you use to get into Disney World? Probably not. You use them, they work, and you go on about your day. Our guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” thinks about it a lot. Justin Patton is the Director of the RFID Lab at the Harbert College of Business at Auburn University. For the last 17 years, he’s been at the forefront of research and developing applications for Radio Frequency Identification, which is the technology behind so… Read More
Categories: Blog, Podcast, What's Working with Cam Marston, Workplace