Travel publication Condé Nast Traveler has designated Nashville as one of the 20 best places to go in the world in 2020.

This is the eighth consecutive year Nashville has been named a top destination by national and/or international publications.

Condé Nast Traveler spotlights Nashville’s dining scene and the city’s diversity of music genres, particularly noting the summer opening of the National Museum of African American Music in the Fifth + Broad development. The piece also spotlights East Nashville restaurants Folk and Lou and acclaimed chef Sean Brock’s soon-to-open Audrey and Red Bird.

In the past five years, the number of hotel rooms sold in Nashville has grown faster than any other top U.S. city. A record 15.8 million visitors came in 2019, and Nashville generated a record $7 billion in direct visitor spending in 2018, a third of the visitor spending generated in Tennessee. The industry employs 71,140 in Davidson County and generates $522 million in state and local taxes.

Other destinations included in the list were Armenia; Bahia, Brazil; Botswana’s Salt Pans; Canadian Arctic; Canary Islands, Spain; Copenhagen; Dominica; Dubai; El Chaltén, Argentina; Guyana; Metz, France; Mokpo, South Korea; Okinawa, Japan; Rwanda; Slovenia; Sri Lanka’s Southern Coast; Southeastern Australia; Southwest Michigan; and Tangier, Morocco.

Legal Aid, Bradley form protection partnership

Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands, Tennessee’s largest nonprofit law firm, has announced that the Nashville office of national law firm Bradley will begin accepting order of protection cases as part of a new partnership with Legal Aid Society and Metro Nashville’s Office of Family Safety.

This partnership will help address the need for qualified legal help for low-income residents seeking an Order of Protection in Davidson County. An Order of Protection is a civil court order that prevents the respondent from having any contact with the petitioner, typically for a period of one year.

More than 5,000 Orders of Protection are granted in Davidson County each year, often in response to previous abuse, threats of abuse, sexual assault or stalking.

The Metro Office of Family Safety, an entity of Nashville’s Metropolitan government focused on diminishing violence, will help train Bradley’s employees on working with victims of trauma. With a trauma-informed approach to helping victims of domestic violence, the attorneys will have a better understanding of the range of feelings that their clients grapple with so that they may more effectively represent their clients in these cases. Because the Bradley attorneys interested in this partnership mostly do transactional work, Legal Aid Society will go over the practical aspects of what the attorneys should expect to see in court when representing a client in an Order of Protection hearing.

The Office of Family Safety will refer clients seeking an Order of Protection to Legal Aid Society, which will then send a portion of all Order of Protection requests to Bradley’s participating attorneys, who are donating their services free of charge. The Bradley attorneys, whose background is primarily in corporate law, will receive training on how to work with victims of domestic violence, understand the impact of trauma and stand against assertive defense attorneys.

Bradford Group tapped as real estate influencer

Public relations and marketing agency The Bradford Group has been recognized as a top national influencer in commercial real estate marketing and communications.

Bradford was included in Real Estate Forum’s Influencers in CRE Marketing and Communication list, announced in the November/December 2019 issue of Real Estate Forum and online at GlobeSt.com.

GlobeSt. / Real Estate Forum collected nominations and selected the top marketing and communications individuals, teams and firms whose work has made a significant impact within the industry.

The Bradford Group has worked with a Nashville-based commercial real estate firm Southeast Venture for almost nine years. Other clients in the industry include Turner Construction, one of the world’s largest commercial construction companies, which Bradford represents in the southeastern US.

iHeartMedia second HQ coming to Nashville

New York-based iHeartMedia has picked Nashville as the location for its second digital headquarters.

The office location will be announced soon, the company reports.

The new location will open in the first quarter of 2020 and will be home to a new hub for the iHeartRadio digital product team, which will be making additional technology advances in conjunction with its teams in New York, San Antonio and Silicon Valley.

“Nashville’s technology ecosystem is thriving, and combined with the city’s rich history in music, entrepreneurial spirit and diverse culture, we believe this is the perfect location for us to extend our digital leadership and recruit highly-skilled and passionate candidates for our second iHeartRadio Digital headquarters,” says Daren Davis, president of iHeartRadio.

Nashville also continues to see rapid growth in the technology space, with a wide range of companies – from small tech startups to major Fortune 500 companies – building offices and hubs in the Music City. Nashville’s music culture, eccentric vibe and lower cost of living continues to attract young and inspiring millennials, students and startups.

Since its official launch as an all-in-one digital service in 2011, iHeartRadio has grown to become the No. 1 streaming broadcast radio platform – with six times the digital listening of the next largest commercial broadcast radio company. The digital app now has more than 135 million registered users and is available on over 250 platforms and over 2,000 different connected devices.

Louisville firm acquires Matthews Aviation Staffing

Nashville-based Matthews Aviation Staffing and its subsidiaries have been bought by Malone Workforce Solutions.

This entity will be a joint venture between Malone Workforce and its woman-owned Professional Staffing services entity, which is owned by Denise Malone.

Malone Workforce began as an employee recruiting firm in Louisville in 1969. Founded by Joe Malone as Falls City Placement, Malone now stands as the oldest recruiting company based out of Kentucky. Professional Staffing services is owned by Tim Malone’s wife Denise, and she has been providing diversity spend solutions to its staffing customers since 2003.

“Matthews Aviation has a very good reputation in the aviation industry and its founder Jerry Matthews shares the same vision, values, and dedication to customer service and employee support as Malone Workforce Solutions does,” Tim Malone says. “The addition of Matthews Aviation will add over 250 employees to the Malone payroll, and will bring the total Malone annual revenue to over $330 million.”

Metals service company opens Nashville location

McNichols Co., with 19 Metals Service Centers in operation in the U.S., has opened Nashville Metals Service Center at 1922 Old Murfreesboro Pike to provide specialty metals and infrastructure needs to the Southeast region.

“Due to products being local, we will be able to respond more quickly to customer requests and reduce lead times,” President Scott McNichols says.

At 18,000 square feet, the Nashville warehouse will carry a dedicated stock of the company’s vast inventory of perforated metal, expanded metal and wire mesh, as well as bar, fiberglass and plank grating.

“Our Nashville facility will offer customers expedited access to inventories for either quick pick up or same-day shipments,” says Mike Davidson, general manager of the southeast region for the company.

Trailer rental company to open in La Vergne

American Trailer Rental Group is opening a new location in the Nashville area under the Meisler Trailer Rental brand.

ATRG is a family of companies with a rental fleet approaching 10,000 units representing some of America’s most respected regional trailer rental providers.

The new site is at 483C Dick Buchanan Street in La Vergne and will be led by Keith Plaul, a well-respected executive in the transportation and logistics industry. Most recently, he served as senior maintenance manager with Ryder.

Building upon the outstanding reputations of Fleet, Meisler and FITS our customers now have access to our fleet approaching 10,000 units as well as a network of skilled mechanics and drivers.

Clearwater unveils new cyber risk program

Nashville-based Clearwater, a health care cybersecurity company, has announced its Clear Advantage Program for Business Associates.

The program enables its customers to implement and mature a best-in-class cyber risk management and HIPAA compliance program.

Clearwater developed the program in recognition of the need for the partner organizations that interact with the electronic protected health information maintained by health care providers to strengthen their ability to keep the information secure.

EnergyLogic sold to Rock Energy Systems

Rock Energy Systems LLC of Janesville, Wisconsin, has acquired its largest competitor, Nashville-based EnergyLogic LLC, to create the nation’s largest manufacturer and distributor of products in the waste oil space heater market.

Rock Energy Systems will continue to operate EnergyLogic’s Nashville-area manufacturing and distribution facility at 5901 Crossings Blvd in Antioch.

Waste oil heaters, which both companies manufacture, allow automotive repair and maintenance shops to heat their space by burning the oil drained from vehicles in an oil change. The genius of the technology is that, rather than paying to dispose of waste oil, it is turned into an asset that saves on energy bills.

Springfield plant earns Great Place to Work

The Springfield manufacturing plant of Bath Fitter, demolition-free remodeling solution for bathrooms, has been recognized as a Great Place to Work for 2019.

The Great Place to Work Institute is the global authority on workplace culture, employee experience and leadership behaviors, using validated employee feedback to compile their annual list of top workplaces.

Employees surveyed at the plant gave a positive response rate of 84%.

“To be recognized as a Great Place to Workis an incredible achievement, not least of all because the judges were our own employees,” says Chiquita Allen, human resources manager. “The Bath Fitter team here in Springfield has always felt like a family and it’s one of the reasons we’ve been able to achieve such great results and customer satisfaction over the years.”