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EAP, City of Shreveport and Planet Aqua partner to bring aquarium

On Wednesday, Sept. 8, Shreveport Mayor Ollie Tyler and Jon Whitehead, Director of Business Development for Planet Aqua Group (PAG), announced that the city would be home to EAP portfolio company PAG’s pilot aquarium.

From The Shreveport Times:

A Shreveport landmark will soon have a new life as an aquarium. Mayor Ollie Tyler made the announcement Wednesday during an afternoon news conference.

The long vacant Barnwell Center on Shreveport’s downtown riverfront will become the location for the area’s first aquarium, with a projected opening date in the summer of 2017. The development is in line with the promises Tyler made to the city’s citizens to bring more family-friendly entertainment to downtown.

“We’re growing economically and attracting businesses that will enhance the quality of life for our citizens as well as our visitors,” Tyler said in a Wednesday afternoon news conference that outlined the project.

The Shreveport Aquarium will be in the Barnwell Center on Clyde Fant Parkway and will feature interactive displays. According to the website ShreveportAquarium.com, visitors will be able to touch sea stars, sea urchins, shrimp, sting rays, sharks, sea jellies and more – including a  touch tank where visitors can feel sting rays and sharks and learn how these animals adapt and survive in their environments. Guests will have opportunities to learn how they can make a difference in the sea world and ours.

Tyler said the city began working on the $4.3 million project 12 months ago. City staffers partnered with EAP — the Entrepreneurial Accelerator Program, a public-private partnership between the Biomedical Research Foundation, city and the Caddo Parish Commission — to bring the project to its starting point.

“To make this work, I think we touched every part of the city staff — it was a true team effort,” said Dave Smith, EAP’s executive director.

“It’s another example of our administration moving from vision to action,” Tyler said. The aquarium is expected to draw around 140,000 guests in its first year alone and to enhance the development of what Tyler calls one of Shreveport’s greatest assets, the riverfront…

Read the full article here. 

National beverage manufacturer Multipack Services to host job fair for wide range of open positions.
National beverage manufacturer Multipack Services, which packages and distributes beverages for nationally recognized brands, is hosting a job fair Tuesday, Oct. 8 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at its Shreveport location.
Multipack is located at 2791 Valley View Drive in Shreveport.

Job titles for open positions include: Quality Manager, Quality Technician, Maintenance Manager, Maintenance Technician, Warehouse Manager, Warehouse Technician, Operations Supervisor, Operations Manager and Packaging Technician.

Starting wages will be $18 per hour and above. Some positions are salaried.

For more information on positions for hire, visit BRFLA.org/jobfair. Candidates should be prepared for on-site interviews.
“This job fair is an opportunity for people to join a new build and a national company at our Shreveport location in our first round of staffing. It’s not an everyday opportunity, and we’re looking for individuals who are high energy and want to start their new career,” said Justin Wilkinson, Vice President of Operations.

Louisiana Economic Development (LED), Multipack Services and regional and state economic development partners BRF, North Louisiana Economic Partnership and the Caddo Parish Industrial Development Board announced Multipack Services’ new location in December of last year.

The company expects to create 141 direct new jobs with an average annual salary of more than $51,000. LED estimated that the project would result in an additional 228 indirect jobs, for a total of 369 new jobs in the Northwest region.

“Multipack is ready to gear up its operation in its state-of-the-art facility to offer a wide range of services, including product specifications and design. The site is expected to produce more than 100 million cans of beverage products per year. We hope that the community is ready to join in on the ground floor of this operation and be a part of this scale-up,” said John George Jr., M.D., BRF President and CEO.

The job fair is sponsored by BRF, Career Adventures and Lagniappe Sourcing Consulting.