This is Oklahoma

This is Lou Renova - @405_photo - RCG #003

Episode 003 of our Random Car Guys automotive segment. Lou Renova known as 405_photo on Instagram has a pretty awesome story. His title is marketing and content creation for Farmtruck & AZN. 

Lou is a phenomenal automotive photographer. Most people who get involved in photography are given a camera from a young age and grow with it. Lou's experience is a little different. Working for the FNA team one day slinging T shirts at the race meets. AZN says "grab my camera and take photos" from that day the camera hasn't left his possession. 

If you follow him on social media @405_photo you will see how good he is. He's a car guy just like many of us, grew up around them and always liked being a part of the car scene. Cruising around town with all his mates, trying to find local street races and being a car guy. 

Fast forward to today, Lou has traveled the world creating content for Farmtruck and AZN's social media pages. Enjoy the story and follow Lou @405_photo

For more automotive content for Oklahoma headover to @randomcarguys on Instagram and give us a follow. 

#thisisoklahoma

Mike

 

This is Oklahoma Golf #001 - The Intro

NEW SERIES! As some of you will know, I have a huge passion for golf. It is the reason I am here today, the reason I met my wife. Everything in my life has revolved around golf in someway so naturally covering it in a podcast series was a no brainer. CAN'T BELIEVE IT TOOK ME THIS LONG! 

The goal for this golf series is for me to get together with a few of my friends every week. Talk about local golfing events, local players, course reviews, current events in the golf media and generally to have a good time. 

On this episode myself, Blake Jackson and Coach Tim Braaten ( Ex SNU college golf teammates ) sit down to introduce ourselves, our plans, tell some funny golf stories. We recap on the previous weeks golf tournaments around the world that Oklahoma golfers and Oklahoma related golfers (such as university players from out of state) are playing in. As well as what we think the best local muni course is in OKC. 

I hope you enjoy this series, I am really excited to cover this topic and to share more stories from my golfing adventures around the world. 

Follow us on social media @thisisoklahomagolf

AND LEAVE A REVIEW :) 

#thisisoklahoma 

This is Siren Media with Alyssa Murphy

On this episode I sat down with Alyssa Murphy from Siren Media. 

Alyssa started Siren Media in 2018 after being fired from her current job. Alyssa with the help of some friends created a freelance army to tackle projects. Alyssa has a passion for helping small businesses. She grew up in Edmond, her family have a small business Weathers Audio and Video. So she uses that to her advantage to relate to her clients.

Growing up at the family business answering phones at age 12 and engaging with customers. She learned customer service, always having some form of a job in her youth. Alyssa collected and learned all these attributes to small business to which she uses today.

Alyssa graduated from UCO and decided that she didn’t want to continue working in cosmetics as she did through college for MAC. So once she graduated her sister has this opportunity to come work as a social media manager for her art gallery.

Sadly social media management wasn’t valued that much by other businesses so there was no opportunity to scale. However the sales jobs were very lucrative. So Alyssa went to work as a saleswoman for a corporate media company selling media outlets such as radio ads, marketing products. This first quote corporate job out of college went well but after a while started to feel grey and never ending. Eventually she left that job to go work for a marketing company in Norman. After sometime there she was offered a new position a t a marketing firm in Mustang, Oklahoma. Working with smaller businesses to improve their marketing. But after a few months she realized there was very little business improvement being sold. It was more about getting the business and not helping the client.

So Alyssa left that job and started her own shop “Siren Media” her goal is to disrupt the culture of women in the workplace allowing or having their upbringing impact their business. She's now in her second full year of business

 And today is where we are now. This was such a blast learning about small business needs. Follow Alyssa on social media @sirenmediaokc 

AND LEAVE A REVIEW!! 

Cheers 

Mike

 

 

 

This is Scissortail Park

On this episode I sat down with Stacey Aldridge – director of marketing and communications of Scissortail Park in OKC. Stacey shared her story and talks about preparing for the Grand Opening of the park. The plans for 2020's events and the future of the park.

Stacey grew up in Massachusetts moved to East Texas her junior year of high school. Went to Texas Women’s University studying fashion merchandise with minor in marketing got into retail and shopping center development leading to a job in malls, worked at quail springs in 97 then moved to work at the Chesapeake arena and JUMPED at the opportunity to work at the scissortail park. Stacey started 7 weeks before the Grand Opening. 

The event weekend was a huge success, lots of media requests. She spent her time in the photography pit during the concert. 28,000 people came through the gates and a couple thousand more including media, vendors and volunteers. 

After this Grand Opening the real work starts for the park. Bringing people to visit OKC. The park is another location that can pull more out of state travelers and instate travelers to town. This whole district in downtown is growing for the better.

Currently the event schedule is growing for the warmer weather months, they do get food trucks in for the weekends. But due to the erratic nature of the weather it’s hard to plan certain outdoor events. Events will pick up in March / April.

You can stay up to date on park on social media @scissortailpark or online at www.scissortailpark.org

Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode please leave a review and share it with one of your friends. 

#thisisoklahoma

 

 

 

This is Plant OKC

On this episode my wife Taryn joined me to interview sisters Emma & Addie Ryan. Owners of PLANT OKC in midtown OKC. If you have a social media, you watch the news or even have a Netflix account you borrow off your mates. You will have noticed that Plant based diets have been talked about a lot! 

So we thought what better idea than to interview the owners of OKC's most popular Plant based restaurant to find out their story. What a story it is. Emma was diagnosed with Cancer 9 years ago and after trying literally every possible option to cure her cancer she turned to a plant based diet. Go figure it worked! After Addie saw her recovery she tried it and her performance as a college athlete increased significantly. Now disclaimer here, everyone is different and not everyone will get the same results. However, myself and my wife eat 80-20 plant based meals and wow to do we feel better. 

So just give it a try. Eat more REAL FOOD and you'll be shocked at the difference in yourself. 

So not to ruin the whole story but 9 years later they have opened up their first restaurant. Emma has been a health coach and qualified chef for a long time and finally after lots of encouragement they opened PLANT OKC in August last year. 

This episode was so much fun! We laughed a ton and learned a ton about plant based food and how the girls make everything in house. If you're a first timer or want to try it please go to Plant OKC and ask for either Emma or Addie, they will tell you all you need to know and also there's a library of books there to read. 

You can get everything from a morning coffee and a bite to eat, a smoothie, lunch and dinner. Basically anything to fit your time of day! Try it out!

Follow them here @plantokc

Cheers, 

Mike

#thisisoklahoma 

This is Riley Sports Performance

On todays podcast I sat down with two past clients of mine. Josh and Katie Riley to talk about their new business RSP, Riley Sports Performance. Josh and Katie met in college where we all met as well. All of us are graduated of Southern Nazarene University. Josh is born and raised in San Diego with a love of baseball, football and basketball but naturally he was better at Baseball, which brought him to SNU. Katie grew up in Yukon and then went to SNU for athletic training. Both have always had a passion for sport.

 

After graduating they moved away to New York to work in the corporate world. After two years in the big city working in the corporate world, not really spending as much time around athletics as they’d like, they decided to come back to Oklahoma. Shocking I know they chose Oklahoma over San Diego one would think!

Once they returned they earned their fitness training certifications. Katie attended grad school and then they both worked at Gold’s Gym. Doing classes and building their client lists, building a community.

After putting in the hours and building a community around fitness for all ages, shapes and sizes. The timing was perfect for them to grow into this new opportunity at ARC Athletic, Recovery and Rehabilitation with 12 classes a week. All hours of the day there is a class for your schedule. They have created a new class that’s not really seen in OKC. It’s an adult strength training class. So a whole lot more personal with multiple coaches attending each class. By creating it this way they can work with different people, different sizes, all levels of fitness from power lifters to the first timers wanting to get some weight off before their vacation. Even elderly people wanting to be more stable when they walk, being stronger is healthy and that doesn’t mean you’re going to be a body builder that means you’ll not hurt yourself when you bend over to pick that box up in your home. 

In short it’s a strength training class for all levels of fitness with multiple coaches there to make sure you are doing all the exercises correctly.

Super excited for these two to be on this journey together for 2020. 

You are invited to their grand opening Feb 1^st there’s an hour workout and one hour for recovery from 9-11am all the details are on their Facebook page. Coffee will be provided by whole shot coffee.

GRAND OPENING LINK! https://www.facebook.com/events/616073282461015/

 Classes through January are free! So come on down and check them out.

https://www.rileysportsperformance.com

Instagram @rileysportsperformance

Thanks for listening and please leave me a review and 5* #thisisoklahoma

Cheers

This is Jaxon Uhles

On this episode I sat down with Jaxon Uhles. Jaxon grew up in Norman and like every football players dream wanted to play at OU. He moved away to college but then returned and walked on at OU along side fellow walk on's that year. Probably the most notable was Baker Mayfield. Jaxon and Baker roomed together for their remaining years at OU. Jaxon talks about his time at OU, his first game when they beat Tennessee in double overtime away. The feeling of walking on the field in Norman and the support of the fans.

While at college Jaxon needed a coffee table and after seeing the price of one at a local store he decided to build one himself. Soon other players wanted a coffee table and so his new business 44designco was launched. However, the NCAA wasn't too pleased with him using his number and any images of him playing for OU for marketing. So he slowed it down to comply with the NCAA regulations. He was just trying to make it through college and pay for his tuition. 

Fortunately for Jaxon the passion of woodworking never died off and he still does it today. He has found his niche in cutting boards. He can make them in bigger batches and pull more profit from the materials than he could if he was making coffee tables. Plus it takes him far less time to make a batch of cutting boards. 

Jaxon did this for a year out of college but the love of football kept tugging at him. He recently became one of the coaches at Deer Creek high school and his looking forward to coaching these kids through their high school careers but also in life. Jaxon is a part of OKC FCA the OKC chapter of the fellowship for christian athletes. 

Jaxon still makes cutting boards and they are brilliant! You can find them on his instagarm page @44designco 

Thanks for listening and be sure to leave us a review. We need it. 

#thisisoklahoma 

This is Justin Wren & Jordan Miller | Fight For The Forgotten

On this episode I sat down with Justin Wren @thebigpigmy and Jordan Miller @iamjordanmiller to talk about their recent collaboration for FFTF. Justin has been on the podcast twice before (Ep 21 & 76) Talking about his foundation Fight For The Forgotten and his recent impact with #STANDWITHRAYDEN. Jordan has jumped on board at FFTF to bring his traveling assembly of musicians and creators to the masses. Jordan and his team at Generation Why travel across the country sharing their stories at school assemblies. Bringing hope to kids in school with the goal to stop teen suicides.

This episode talks about how these guys have been impacting kids across the world and how they plan to act together to increase their reach.

Big things coming from these two in 2020 super excited. Its a pleasure to have them on the podcast.

Follow them here @thebigpigmy @iamjordanmiller @fightfortheforgotten @gnwy/co  #thisisoklahoma 

Cheers,

Mike

This is Heady Coleman

On this episode I sat down with Mr Guthrie. Heady Coleman. Heady is a motivational speaker, professional greeter, pastor, community builder and all round great human being. His sole purpose is to change lives and make peoples day! He writes more handwritten notes than anyone I have ever met and is definitely someone you should know and follow!

His Instagram is @heady.coleman and you can find him at this months creative mornings greeting at the door or walking around his home town of Guthrie America. A town which he grew up in and is extremely proud to be a resident of.

Follow us here @thisisoklahoma for more Oklahoma content and subscribe for more podcast videos to come on youtube and Facebook. #thisisoklahoma

This is Eric Granado

On this episode I sit down with Eric Granado at the Central Exchange Building. Eric has ONLY been a photographer for a year! Crazy when you see his skills. Follow him on Instagram @eric.granado

Eric was born in Oklahoma, went to school here and then moved away to Oregon. He really wanted to work for Nike. After multiple interviews with Nike, meeting a lot of Nike's top brass he was unsuccessful and decided to come home. 

Moving back to OKC fueled his passion for photography and here we are today. Eric started a really cool series around small businesses in OKC. After that slowed down he picked up  a western theme and has now found his niche. Eric has worked with Stetson on there #stetsonstories and is continuing to perfect his craft and do incredible things with his camera to capture and share the stories of the people in the world of western culture, cowboys, ranchers, boot makers, all these interesting people.

We will be featuring more of Eric's stories on our platforms in 2020. Its a perfect concept and ties in nicely with our 2020 theme of people. 

Enjoy this episode and please leave us a review and subscribe to our youtube channel to watch future episodes.  ( link below ) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUb9wfhbrtok2FmpIAQ6Amg

#thisisoklahoma