Springdale, AR founders on the NWA Founders podcast

Springdale is the production side of Northwest Arkansas. Tyson Foods is headquartered here, the food economy runs through the city, and its founders tend to be manufacturers, tradespeople and family companies, the operators who don't make the Bentonville travel pieces. Businesses here make things, fix things and finance things.

The five guests on the show so far fit that pattern. Chris Chandler leads Chandler Capital Group, a family manufacturing company dating to 1978 that grew from vehicle accessories into a diversified group and now grows by acquisition. Charley Boyce joined Paschal Air, Plumbing and Electric in 2010, when it had twelve to fifteen people, bought it in 2012 and built it past 200 people. Joe Ehrhardt founded Teslar Software, which builds lending and workflow software for community banks across the country. Joseph Reece co-founded RMP, the Springdale business law firm, in 2005, and it now serves companies across Arkansas from multiple offices. Are Traasdahl runs Crisp, the venture-backed data platform connecting consumer brands and retailers, from an office on Johnson Avenue, and opened the Arkade startup space in Bentonville.

For a city this size, five guests is a short list. The closest the show has come to the food business itself is Todd Simmons of Simmons Foods, recorded in neighboring Siloam Springs, and that conversation is worth your time. Springdale has many more stories in exactly what this show is about: family companies passing to the next generation, trades businesses growing past their first crew, and the manufacturers and processors so many people here work for.

The conversations on this page cover a family manufacturer working through succession and acquisitions, a trades business bought out and grown past 200 people, bank software built for a regulated industry, a law firm growing with its clients, and a retail data platform backed by venture capital. The five conversations below run newest first.