Bone McAllester Norton PLLC, one of Nashville’s largest law firms, will combine with Spencer Fane, an Am Law 200 ranked law firm with offices in 20 cities nationwide.
The combination will become effective Oct. 1 and position the firms to expand both in terms of size and geography.
Spencer Fane is a full-service business law firm with offices in Phoenix, Arizona; Colorado Springs and Denver, Colorado; Tampa, Florida; Overland Park, Kansas; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Cape Girardeau, Jefferson City, Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield, Missouri; Omaha, Nebraska; Las Vegas, Nevada; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Dakota Dunes, South Dakota; and Austin, Dallas, Houston and Plano, Texas.
WPLN announces new weekday daily news show
WPLN News is adding a new weekday daily news show, This Is Nashville, that will hit airwaves in the coming months. Executive Producer of This Is Nashville is Andrea Tudhope, and the show host is Khalil Ekulona.
This Is Nashville will showcase national-caliber reporting from the WPLN newsroom and will provide a forum to hear directly from decision-makers and the people who live with those decisions.
This daily show will feature neighbors, artists, writers, public officials and journalists reflecting the diversity of the region as they provide insightful and engaging conversation on wide-ranging topics and the day's top news.
Tudhope served as the senior coordinating producer for America Amplified, a CPB-funded public media community engagement initiative. She spent five years at Kansas City NPR affiliate KCUR, producing a daily talk show and reporting daily news and long-term investigative features. Tudhope also was a print journalist in Colorado, where she was part of the team behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning series “Other Than Honorable.”
Ekulona served as the host and producer of No More Normal, the pandemic-focused radio show on Albuquerque NPR affiliate KUNM. He has also been the co-host of Good Day New Mexico on KOB4 and served as a correspondent with New Mexico PBS.
WPLN’s news team has grown from 10 journalists in 2019 to 18 journalists today, many who cover special beats like education and health care. The number of journalists will continue to grow as more This Is Nashville team members are added.
LP honored by PENCIL Foundation
LP Building Solutions has been chosen as the 2021 recipient of the PENCIL Foundation’s prestigious Ingram Award.
PENCIL (Public Education Needs Community Involvement & Leadership) is a nonprofit organization linking community resources to Nashville public schools.
The Ingram Award is given each year to a community partner or volunteer who provides outstanding support and engagement to Metro Nashville Public Schools through PENCIL.
The award is named for the late E. Bronson Ingram, a founding board member of PENCIL.
LP has been a dedicated PENCIL partner since 2006, shortly after relocating its headquarters to Nashville.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when MNPS students were learning remotely, the LP PENCIL Box was needed more than ever to supply them with the tools they needed to learn from home.
PENCIL collaborated with MNPS procurement and logistics teams, along with scores of socially-distanced volunteers, to source, package and distribute 71,000 individual student supply kits. Throughout the 2020-21 school year, PENCIL also distributed 200,000 reusable cloth masks, and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of PPE and cleaning products to schools through the LP PENCIL Box program.
Terry launches latest online sports venture
Brentwood-based On3.com, which covers college sports and recruiting news, was recently launched by Shannon B. Terry.
“Over the next several months, we will be launching various aspects and features of what will be the next-generation college sports media and data company,” Terry says.
Terry and his team are the founders and creators of Rivals.com (acquired by Yahoo! Sports in 2007) and 247Sports (acquired by CBS in 2016).
On3 will be composed of three primary pillars:
• National college football, basketball and recruiting coverage
• Iconic fan publications that cover individual teams
• A recruiting and player database with features that never have been seen before
On3 also hopes to transform a “stale” industry with a revolutionary database (“On3 db”) designed for players, coaches, fans and media.
The new platform will allow players to upload their own content, provide NIL data directly to players, fans and coaches, and house an education section for players and their parents, among other features.
On3 recently announced the hiring of Grant Frerking, a University of Tennessee senior football player and entrepreneur, to lead the company’s NIL education efforts. He graduated in May with a degree in supply chain management.
Ncontracts earns spot on Inc. 5000 list
Ncontracts, based in Brentwood, has been named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America for the third consecutive year.
The company is a provider of integrated risk management and lending compliance solutions for the financial services industry.
Ncontracts expanded its operations in 2021 with the acquisition of QuestSoft. Ncontracts is part of the Gryphon Investors’ portfolio of companies.
eCard Systems teams with Paytronix
Nashville-based eCard Systems, a supplier of gift card, loyalty and prepaid card products to the retail, restaurant and service industries, is partnering with Paytronix Systems, the advanced digital guest experience platform for restaurants and convenience stores.
Paytronix conducted a lengthy vetting process, calling for proposals from across the industry to find a card partner for order management, production and support services to best fit its customers’ needs as well as stringent security and quality requirements.
GEODIS unveils eLogistics service
Global transport and logistics provider GEODIS, with operations in La Vergne, is launching an extended GEODIS eLogistics service in the U.S.
The new service aims to provide best-in-class e-commerce fulfillment solutions to emerging direct-to-consumer brands. The new service leverages GEODIS’ global expertise and utilizes strategically placed U.S. logistics hubs to support new and emerging brands seeking a 3PL provider that can fulfill orders and scale with their business.
The service features multi-tenant, automated fulfillment centers designed to enable a faster, more convenient and more affordable shipping experience for U.S. brands as e-commerce continues to drive demand.
Notably accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. e-commerce revenue from fashion and accessories is expected to grow from $102.5 billion in 2019 to $153.6 billion in 2024. As a result of shifting consumer behavior from brick and mortar to E-commerce, emerging brands are increasingly seeking 3PLs to enhance their logistical solutions to meet the demand.
GEODIS will operate the service from four new strategic GEODIS eLogistics locations across the U.S. A state-of-the-art automated facility will be going live in Tennessee in Q1 of 2022.
Powered Health invests in PolicyCo
PolicyCo has announced $1.5 million in seed funding, led by majority investor Powered Health, a Nashville-based company.
Founded by Bill Butler, PolicyCo links policy and procedures to external auditory and regulatory frameworks, introducing the concept of policy management system to today’s compliance ecosystem.
PolicyCo exists to standardize, streamline, and organize your organization’s policy documents and offers a virtual chief information security officer to bring structure and guidance to your compliance journey.
This funding will fuel go-to-market momentum for PolicyCo and be used to scale sales and marketing efforts as well as execute and expand upon the organization’s product roadmap. The seed round is the first of several expected raises, aimed at downstream growth for PolicyCo’s mission.
Amazon fulfillment center set for Clarksville
Amazon will build a state-of-the-art fulfillment center in Clarksville that the company says will create 500 full-time jobs.
The 1 million-square-foot facility, which will house innovative Amazon technologies and energy efficient, zero-emission power industrialized truck equipment, is expected to launch in 2022.
The Clarksville facility will be Amazon’s 10th fulfillment and sortation center in Tennessee and the fourth to be announced in the past 19 months. In 2020, Amazon committed to creating 1,000 jobs at new facilities in both Memphis and Mt. Juliet. Most recently, the company announced a new fulfillment center project in Alcoa, tacking on an additional 800 new jobs.
Since 2010, Amazon says it has invested more than $13 billion in Tennessee, including infrastructure and compensation to thousands of its employees in the state. Amazon’s investments in Tennessee contributed an additional $13 billion into the state’s economy, and using methodology developed by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Amazon estimates its investments in the state have created an additional 39,000 indirect jobs on top of the company’s more than 25,000 direct hires in Tennessee.
Twain invests in Nashville Hyatt Place
Twain Financial Partners has announced the successful financing of $10.5 million for ground lease capital to the Hyatt Place hotel in Nashville.
Twain’s funding will aide in the construction of a 129-room select service hotel. In addition to the guest rooms, the hotel will offer a fitness center, meeting rooms, restaurant and bar. Construction began in June 2021 and is expected complete mid-2024.
Twain Financial Partners is an investment management firm located in St. Louis, Missouri with over $4 billion in assets under management within the public-private partnership sector.
Charities benefit from race donations
The inaugural Big Machine Music City Grand Prix delivered a successful weekend on track for race fans and raised funds for several community organizations and event partners in Nashville.
The race week featured a number of programs and events ranging from those aimed at providing fundraising to recognizing and showing appreciation for military and first responders.
Among the highlights from last week’s event:
• Raising nearly $35,000 for Rocketown
• Raising nearly $25,000 for the Martha O’Bryan Center
• Facilitating a donation of $25,000 to the Daniels Center at Middle Tennessee State University courtesy of G. Harbaugh Foundation.
• Raising more than $6,000 for Walk Bike Nashville by staging the Music City Pedal Prix
• Over 200 participants in the Walk Bike Pedal Prix
• Donating more than 800 pounds of food courtesy of Levy Restaurants to the Nashville Rescue Mission.
• Donating more than 7,000 tickets to military and first responders courtesy of the Wesley Financial Group and the company’s Freedom Friday initiative.
• In-kind donations to the American Cancer Society, Friends of the Smokies, Boy Scouts of Middle Tennessee, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Monroe Carroll Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.