Business

Amber Brandon, of Kingston, a certified surgical technologist in the Surgery department at Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge, has been named August’s MMCer of the Month.

In her job, Brandon is a part of a surgical team working with physicians, surgeons, nurses and other staff.

She helps prepare the operating room for surgery, sterilizes and supplies equipment and helps the surgeons during surgery by passing them instruments and other sterile equipment.

She has been with Methodist since August 2007.

By Dana Peterka

Several years ago, I discovered a business model that clarified something I had been doing intuitively for years.

Business models, like the Porter 5 Forces Model, are useful tools in understanding how to effectively manage a business.

The model I discovered is the Customer Value Map. It is a powerful way to analyze and reposition your customer offerings in order to win more sales in your target market niche(s).

The Customer Value Map model I am referring to is different than those that are identified in a Google search.

You Say Tomato owners Darian Barnett and Jimmy Adkins have certainly gotten a lot of milage from their store’s name.

Decorative tomatoes large and small fill many of the Rockwood store’s nooks and crannies, along with paintings, posters and even a back wall display of the shop’s name accentuated with whimsical hot-pink stuffed animal heads.

Adkins says that touch of eclectic fun was the idea behind the moniker, which is a line from the old George and Ira Gershwin song, “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.”

Editor’s note: This is part of a series of stories on the winners of the 19th Annual Roane County News Reader’s Choice Awards. Griffin Insurance was named Best Insurance Agency in the poll.

Johnny Griffin knows the secret to success is really no secret.

“It is good employees,” said the president of Griffin Insurance in Kingston. “And mine are the best.”

Griffin opened his business in Harriman in 1980. He moved it to Kingston permanently in the late 1990s.