Vestige of Empire The rise and fall of Jake F. Butcher is legendary in Tennessee. The architect of the 1982 Knoxville World’s Fair, a former Tennessee gubernatorial candidate and the founder of United American Banks, Butcher and his brother C.H. at one time controlled an empire of 40 loosely affiliated banks and savings and loan associations. But their billion-dollar paper empire came crashing down the day after the fair ended when 180 federal bank investigators seized all their… More...
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Political Notes: A Needed Slice With the sunny days of summer upon us, golfers are flocking to courses across the state. Many golfers may be surprised to learn that some of the least-crowded fairways belong to the largest golf course owner in Tennessee—the state government itself. Insulated from natural business concerns such as convenience and profitability, the state has constructed courses in desolate areas at a considerable cost to all Tennesseans. These state-owned greens are in the red to the…
Political Notes: Knock, knock… Bowater’s decision to sell 100,000 acres of Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau represents both an opportunity and a quandary for state government.South Carolina-based paper manufacturer Bowater Inc., the Volunteer State’s largest landowner in terms of total acreage, announced plans last fall to shed 350,000 acres of timberland in East Tennessee—including 100,000 acres on Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau—by the end of 2006. For state government and the Tennessee environmental community, Bowater’s announcement, driven by recent financial losses and a…
Renal Rocking The term “corporate rock star” conjures up images of a ladder-climbing “suit” whose sole purpose in life is to impress the higher ups until he or she becomes one.That hardly describes Russell Dimmitt, assistant vice president of bio-technical services for Renal Care Group, the 37-state outpatient dialysis services company formerly headquartered in Nashville. (RCG was recently acquired in a $3.5 billion deal by German dialysis giant Fresenius.) Though Dimmitt bosses over 300 biomedical technicians nationwide,…
Two’s Company In the midst of the nation’s shrinking newspaper market, a new weekly publication has entered the eccentric Unicoi County scene. The Valley Beautiful Beacon (www.vbbeacon.com) is the brainchild of a group of local business leaders allegedly fed up with what they perceive as the existing paper’s negative slant, launched to compete directly with long-time media presence, The Erwin Record (www.erwinrecordonline.com). …
Thinking Outside the Book Library Systems & Services created a stir in 1997 when it contracted to manage a public library in Riverside County, Calif. The American Library Association formed a task force to assess the new outsourcing threat, and LSSI head Frank Pezzanite later complained that some considered his company “the Darth Vader of the industry.” …
Winds of Change The devastation of the Louisiana landscape following Hurricane Katrina last August is still evident in many of the hardest hit communities despite ardent efforts by residents to put New Orleans and the Gulf Coast back together.But if there is to be a silver lining to Katrina, it may be that the storm—the greatest insured loss in history—has sparked renewed interest from outside venture capital firms, including some with no prior history in the Pelican state…
Rose-Colored Beakers The confidence radiating from Dr. Craig Dees and his team at Provectus Pharmaceuticals is undeniable. The Knoxville-based, early stage drug development firm—comprised of former research workhorses from the Oak Ridge National Laboratories—says it has discovered a cure for cancer that will render other methods obsolete.“Everything we’ve got, we’ve invented. We’re an inventive bunch of little critters here,” says Dees, Provectus’ CEO. He boasts the success of its cancer-fighting agent, rose bengal disodium, an elegantly aggressive…
Something in the Water Multiple high ranking sources in Chattanooga area business and political circles have confirmed to Business Tennessee that local multimillionaire Henry Luken is mulling the establishment of a luxury yacht building operation in East Tennessee.Luken, part owner of Christensen Shipyards in Washington State, which specializes in building “mega-yachts” priced in excess of $20 million, declined to be interviewed. Christensen president Joe Foggia also did not return multiple calls requesting comment. …
Beyond the Bottom Line When a female employee at T. J. Snow Co., a Chattanooga-based manufacturer, asked to take a month off to tend to family matters, owner Tom Snow granted her leave with the assurance that her job would still be waiting for her when she returned. Sure, her absence was a slight inconvenience to the company, says Snow, and caused other employees to have to “work extra hard to do her work while she was gone.” But…
