Since its humble beginnings as a roadside cart, Buz & Ned’s Real Barbecue has been as much a part of the local culture as a business can be. Now owner Buz Grossberg is preparing to dish out even more.
Q&A
Monday Q&A: Surveying the economic landscape
“It is a boatload easier [to start a company] when your firm closes its office and still wants to work with you and when they terminate their contracts and tell the clients to work with us,” says a local engineer who started his own shop this month.
Monday Q&A: Can a mining company be ethical?
The tragedy at a Massey Energy mine in West Virginia has thrust the company’s brazen CEO Don Blankenship and his leadership style into the national spotlight. Blankenship for years chose to fight environmental and safety regulation rather than comply. Is that a good policy for a business? Late last week we chatted with Richard Coughlan, a professor and associate dean at University of Richmond’s business school who studies business ethics and business decision-making.
Monday Q&A: Keeping a foot in more than one door
Donnie Harper has two businesses, both of which have been affected by the recession – but not necessarily in a bad way.
Monday Q&A: You call this a free market?
President Obama signed a new health-care reform bill that will expand access to health care just as businesses try to reduce their role in providing benefits. This week RBS talks with two principals from Dominion Benefit Solutions, a locally-based firm that helps businesses select insurance plans, about what small businesses see in their future and why health care is not really a free market. Click to read a lively and frank discussion.
Monday Q&A: Who leaves Disneyland?
Ed Grier was the president of Disneyland resort in California. Now he’s settling in as the new dean of Virginia Commonwealth University’s business school.
Monday Q&A: Grocery industry insider
Soon the signs will change on 24 Ukrop’s stores around Richmond as they morph into Martin’s Grocery stores. This week RBS chats with Jeff Metzger, a longtime follower of the grocery industry and the fellow who broke the story open with his reporting in July 2009.
Monday Q&A: Electrician plugs folks into local businesses
Andrew Phinney didn’t know what he was getting into when he started a Facebook page called LocallyOwnedRVA.
Monday Q&A: A class with South University’s president
Troy Ralston is the president of Richmond’s newest institution of higher learning, South University. The university opened for classes in October at its campus in West Broad Village in Short Pump.
Monday Q&A: Is the pet industry really recession-proof?
Thousands of pet stores around the country, including several around Richmond, have one thing in common. They order their inventory of toys, leashes, collars and accessories from WholesalePet.com.