Richmond, VA (PRWEB) June 26, 2014

Tricia Charles has been a valued member of the Outdoor Living Brands family, Archadeck, Outdoor Lighting Perspectives, Mosquito Squad and Renew Crew, since 2002, longer than Outdoor Living Brands has been in existence. Charles, whose career has grown and diversified along with Outdoor Living Brands, is expected to hit her 100th franchise unit sold in July.

Initially hired by Archadeck in 2002, Charles rose through several corporate accounting and finance positions. In 2008 when Archadeck joined Outdoor Lighting Perspectives and Mosquito Squad to form Outdoor Living Brands, Charles professional strengths positioned her for a new challenge. We were looking to expand our franchise recruiting team to drive stronger growth across our multiple outdoor living franchises. We like to create opportunities for strong-performing team members to grow and diversify their business skill sets. At the time, Tricia Charles was our Controller and had no background in franchise recruiting or sales. However, Tricia had strong confidence in our brands and business models, excellent communication skills, confidence in our senior leadership team, and willingness to embrace our franchise discovery and qualification process. She took on this challenge and excelled! We are both proud of the success she has enjoyed personally and grateful for the important role that she has played in helping Outdoor Living Brands to continue enhancing the footprint of our franchise businesses, stated Chris Grandpre, Chairman and CEO of Outdoor Living Brands.

I was a little anxious and apprehensive joining the franchise development team. I knew my background in accounting would assist candidates as they explored financing opportunities but I was a little nervous to begin assisting potential franchisees in realizing their goals with a franchise opportunity, explained Charles.

In 2012, when asked to focus solely on the recruitment of Outdoor Living Brands fastest growing brand, Charles again rose to the challenge. I love all the concepts at Outdoor Living Brands, but taking such a new concept like Mosquito Squad and having a hand in really growing the footprint has been a very special part of my professional career. In 2012, Tricia helped Mosquito Squad reach the milestone of 100 units!

Now Tricia is on the eve of her own 100th franchised unit. I love working with franchise candidates. Helping them identify their goals and aspirations is one of my favorite parts of the initial conversation with the candidates. By focusing on where they want to be we are able to draw parallels throughout the education and discovery process. It is a great feeling when I hear about the success of the franchisees I have helped place. To think that I have been able to assist 99 different individuals, families and business owners realize their dreams is a remarkable feeling. Plus, I get to work with an amazing company like Outdoor Living Brands, where the culture is truly special and coming to work every day is like being around my family. The support of the company, my colleagues and the franchisees help drive our success, shared Ms. Charles when asked what she enjoys most about franchise development.

Im very proud of Tricia and what she has accomplished in such a short time. Selling one franchise unit is a very difficult taskselling 99 is something that very few franchising professionals ever achieve. Tricia is a remarkable professional and I consider it an absolute privilege to work with her. There is no doubt that in the near future we will be talking about her selling franchise number 200, shared Rob White, VP of Operations with Mosquito Squad. Outdoor Living Brands is proud to congratulate Tricia Charles on her success and looks forward to announcing her 100th closed unit in July.

To learn more about all the world class franchise opportunities with Outdoor Living Brands visit us online today at http://www.outdoorlivingbrands.com.

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Tricia Charles, Franchise Recruitment Consultant, Approaches Her 100th Unit Sold With Outdoor Living Brands

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) June 25, 2014

Solid Apollo LED Lighting introduces a new range of seven outdoor and landscaping LED Lighting solutions. Each high quality low voltage LED landscaping light comes with a variety of colors, mounting options, and sizes to bring the perfect amount of light to any outdoor project. With summer here, a desire to improve and enjoy our outdoor living areas, such as gardens, decks and patios, is even more important.

Current outdoor lighting options are limited, many flood too much light and cannot be dimmed and even fewer have multi-color options. Even the number of lights able to link together can be limited. Solid Apollos answer is variety vibrant colors from white, to color changing RGB, and even RGB-W: with color changing when you want and white when you need it. The color changing lights are extremely compact and efficient as the color mixing is done directly in each LED, no separate inefficient single color LEDs are required to make the colors. The color mixing creates a more efficient, brighter and more compact design. Also multi-positionable options, from solid mount, stake mount, in-ground and in-wall mounting is possible. Each light is low voltage, fully dimmable and can be tied together for a long chain of lighting.

Manuel Barquin, the CEO of Solid Apollo, stated, With so few options available in the current market, a need for vibrant colors and a variety of mounting options is exactly whats needed to make the most out of all outdoor projects.

Each of the seven available models bring a variety of durable long-lasting options to any outdoor project. For example, the LED Beamer is a powerful multi-adjustable round LED light with RGB-W color changing and white. The LEDs in the Beamer mix the actual color in the LED, instead of using multiple separate color LEDs. This new design makes the Beamer even more powerful, yet compact and efficient. The PathwayPro is an in-ground LED light, with RGB-W color changing plus white and with two optional cover colors, in Stainless Steel or Coffee Brown. The PathwayPro is extremely durable and strong enough for people and vehicles to drive over without damage. The StepPro is a rectangular linear recessed in-wall light, great for adding light to walls, stairs, hallways, retaining walls and even around water features.

The seven models from Solid Apollo are great for bringing a variety of light options to any outdoor lighting project and can be configured to bring the perfect amount of light to any application. Solid Apollo also offers completely waterproof outdoor connectors, making longer, multiple wire connections, easier to do, including two, four and five wire connections.

About SolidApollo.com: Solid Apollo manufactures and distributes a wide range of LED lighting products and solutions.

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Solid Apollos New Low Voltage LED Outdoor and Landscaping Lights Bring a Vibrant Array of Color Options to Outdoor ...

Alpharetta, Georgia (PRWEB) June 26, 2014

Maid Right, a national residential cleaning franchise, announced today the launch of Maid Right Latino, a Spanish-English bilingual website designed to connect Maid Right Master Franchise Owners with those in the Latino community who wish to own their own home cleaning business.

Seeing that the Hispanic community is one of the fast growing demographics in the U.S., Maid Right is striving to reach entrepreneurs and the surrounding community through the right channels of communication, explains Danessa Itaya, Vice President of Maid Right Franchising, LLC.

For its initial phase, Maid Right Latino websites focus is in attracting Franchise Unit Operators for the following three areas of operation:

Rich Kissane, the CEO of Premium Franchise Brands (parent company for Maid Right), explains the structure of the Maid Right business. We provide an owner-operator business model that helps people build their own business with an initial investment as little as $1600, Kissane says. Combined with the organizations thorough training, the owner-operator model has continued to prove successful for over 20 years for JAN-PRO, Maid Rights commercial cleaning sister company and a global leader in their category.

Maid Right is partnering with Hispanic Franchise Online and Hispanic Market Advisors to expand this program and share their business opportunity with more Hispanic communities around the U.S. Franchise Kits are available to those interested in learning more about this business opportunity. For further information, please contact 1-855-624-3744 to learn more about the Maid Right franchise opportunity.

About Maid Right: Maid Right Franchising, LLC is a professional-grade home cleaning subsidiary of Premium Franchise Brands LLC. It was founded in April 2013 and has established 17 franchises, with two in Canada. Maid Rights owner-operator business model, branded processes, and advanced cleaning services are adopted from their sister company JAN-PRO, a leading international commercial cleaning company. For more information, please contact:

Pam Evans, Premium Franchise Brands Office: 678-336-1788 Mobile: 678-361-6512

Danessa Itaya, Vice President of Maid Right Office: 678-336-1823

About Hispanic Market Advisors Hispanic Market Advisors is a boutique digital marketing agency focused on developing online Hispanic market-ready solutions, including English to Spanish translations and Latino SEO services, to aid companies of all sizes to reap the growth of the Latin American and US Hispanic markets. Visit http://www.hispanicmarketadvisors.com for more information.

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Maid Right Franchising Launches Bilingual Website to Expand Reach

Published: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at 5:23 p.m. Last Modified: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at 5:24 p.m.

Janet Plunkett, an Etowah County Master Gardener, recently fell and broke her right wrist. (Janet is right-handed.) When her fellow Master Gardeners heard of her plight, several came to her rescue by sprucing up her landscape.

When a crew of eight Master Gardeners arrived, each one looked around, selected an area of landscape to tackle and immediately went to work. A few Master Gardeners hoed weeds, others pruned shrubs and a couple of men pruned the lower limbs of some smaller trees.

A few Master Gardeners worked in Janets vegetable garden.

Others raked and cleared debris from the yard, and a few cleared some overgrown vines that covered a stretch of backyard fencing.

A couple of overgrown shrubs were removed as well.

Months ago, a large limb from a neighbors tree, which had been toppled by high winds, landed along the perimeter of both yards. A couple of brawny Master Gardeners went to work sawing the large tree limb. Very soon that area of the landscape became neat, opened to receive sunlight and was looking good.

In less than three hours, the crew of Master Gardeners accomplished a great deal of work.

Both homeowners, Janet and her neighbor, were most appreciative of the tree removal.

As lay horticulturists trained through Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Etowah County Master Gardeners perform service to the community, often lending assistance with school, church and Habitat for Humanity landscaping projects; sometimes offering advice with landscape design. From April through September, area Master Gardeners staff the Horticulture Helpline, answering horticulture questions and seeking solutions to problems. In late winter and early spring, a couple of Master Gardeners give hands-on pruning classes to the general public.

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CAROL LINK: Master Gardeners spruce up injured colleague's yard

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KEATS wrote, 'a thing of beauty is a joy forever' and that opening line to his 1818 poem Endymion for some reason always make me think about Knypersley Pool.

Knypersley Pool and I go back a long way. Happy hours spent there with my late grandfather. Finishing 14th in a fun run as a member of the 59th Newchapel Boy Scouts. Days fishing without catching a thing. But who cares when the surroundings are so beautiful? Although I haven't paid her a visit for some time, Knypersley Pool has a special place in my heart.

Knypersley Pool and Greenway Bank Country Park are havens for wildlife, a place for Potteries people to escape to, and are among Staffordshire's greatest beauty spots. But right now we face the terrible spectre of a 50m high wind turbine being placed in a nearby field to tower over it all.

It is the largest turbine proposed yet in the Staffordshire Moorlands, and it is claimed it will be visible from as far away as Mow Cop.

I am not opposed to wind turbines and green energy. Such developments are necessary, inevitable and should be encouraged. There is a place for wind turbines. But at Greenway Bank?

I understand that the effectiveness of a wind turbine is predicated on wind speeds, and so the siting of them is vitally important. Therefore I understand the reasoning behind targeting certain parts of North Staffordshire. It can get windy up here! However, many other factors need to be taken into account when planning for a structure as large as that proposed, and one of those must be the appropriateness of its setting. Greenway Bank is far from an appropriate setting. The proposed site is located within the greenbelt and in a Special Landscape Area, along the head of the Trent.

There is a train of thought from some quarters, that the north is desolate, and this is shaping parliamentary debate around fracking. The proposed wind turbine at Greenway Bank clearly fits within this particular mindset.

Although Knypersley Pool is indeed a thing of beauty, there is an inherent contradiction at its heart in that the pool is manmade, having been built in 1827 by Thomas Telford and James Potter to supply water to the Caldon Canal. Yet this impressive feat of civil engineering has left behind a wonderful legacy. When talking about his aims and aspirations for the village of Portmeirion, its architect Clough Williams-Ellis said he wanted to demonstrate, "that one could develop even a very beautiful site without defiling it, and given sufficient loving care one could even improve on what God had provided". Telford and Potter clearly had the same thoughts when creating Knypersley Pool.

Would a wind turbine add anything positive to this beautiful part of North Staffordshire? The answer has to be a resounding 'no'. There is no environmental and social case, and even though the proposal is being pushed forward by a commercial company, I would also argue there is no economic case either.

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The Sentinel commented Dave Proudlove: We don't want a wind turbine at Knypersley Pool

MILLEDGEVILLE The City of Milledgeville earned a $39,000 GATEway grant toward landscape improvements along Franklin Street between Wilkinson and Clarke streets.

Memory Hill Cemetery frontage improvements are the main focus of the monies. The grant doesn't require local match.

Public Works Director Frank Baugh said the Friends of the Baldwin County Cemeteries approached the department last fall hoping to improve the cemetery entrance.

At about the same time, we saw this GATEway grant opportunity. It occurred to us that we could work all this together, Baugh said.

The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) recently awarded more than $1.3 million for the 2014 GATEway grants to 43 local government entities around the state.

The GATEway grant program uses revenue collected from permit fees for vegetation removal in front of outdoor advertising signs.

Funds from the grants are used to reimburse local government when purchasing and installing plant material for landscape projects on state routes.

Any organization, local government or state agency can apply for a grant up to $50,000 contingent upon authorization by a local government and an agreement to perpetually maintain the project.

A primary goal of the program is to fund enduring enhancements to roadsides utilized by the traveling public. Project proposals ranged from interstate interchange panoramas to landscape embellishment of city entrance signs.

The funds may be used only for landscape plant material and its installation for the furtherance of roadside enhancement and beautification projects.

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City awarded grant to spruce up southern historic district

Waters carve local landscape

By Mary Hill mhill@titusvilleherald.com Thursday, June 26, 2014 4:06 AM EDT

Titusville residents coped with flooded property and washed out roads and bridges Tuesday night into Wednesday after a series of thunderstorms rumbled through the Oil Region, dumping between 2 1/2 to 5 inches of rain in some areas.

And, Titusville made national TV news Wednesday morning when the region's storm damage was featured on ABC's "Good Morning, America."

Many city roads were closed late Tuesday and early Wednesday, but became passable later in the day Wednesday.

Titusville Police Chief Gary Thomas said about 2 1/2 inches of rain fell Tuesday night.

"We kept updating our Facebook page with [street] closings," he said.

Due to the amount of rain that fell in a short period of time, some Titusville residents and business experienced flooding in their basements.

Kirby Macquarrie, a bartender and maintenance employee at Boonie's Sports Bar, on Diamond Street, said the establishment's basement was flooded.

Macquarrie said that, at one point, there were 8 to 10 inches of water in the basement.

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Waters carve local landscape

Land Clearing update number 3
Just to show what #39;s next. more to come soon. Thanks for watching Leave a Comment///// AND///// Subscribe to my channel. Thanks for watching.

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Land Clearing update number 3 - Video

Land Clearing update Number 4
I got alot done today,,More than any other, Up two this point. Thanks for watching more to come,,,, leave a comment////// Subscribe///////////// Lige Bell Bu...

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Land Clearing update Number 4 - Video

I have had the opportunity to drive Interstate 75 from Gainesville to Fort Myers recently and was wondering about all the land clearing along the side of the interstate. Mulch piles from ground up 20 feet high in some places. What's going on? Is this the beginning of some sort of widening project or something other? I have tried looking on the DOT website but was unsuccessful figuring anything out. Friends have noticed the same and no one seems to know why.

Lou Sclafani

The state Department of Transportation is indeed preparing for work on I-75. What you and others have noticed is clearing in preparation for a project to add a third travel lane in both the northbound and southbound directions along I-75. The scope of the overall widening project will extend from Hillsborough County into Sumter County, ending at the I-75/turnpike connection in Wildwood, which, when complete, will provide the public with a continuous six-lane roadway from the Georgia state line to the bay area.

DOT spokeswoman Kris Carson said construction projects from just north of County Road 54 in Pasco County to south of State Road 50 are getting under way and will take about two to three years to complete. Widening of I-75 south of SR 50 and into Sumter County is set to begin in mid 2015, and this phase of work will include reconstruction of the SR 52 and SR 50 interchanges, along with the I-75 widening.

Do we have a date for when the lane closures and other traffic mess on U.S. 19 around Countryside and north of there will finally be done?

Jim Ford

The DOT's project on U.S. 19 from Countryside Boulevard to East Live Oak Street is scheduled to wrap up in October, so we have one more reason to look forward to the start of fall. The improvements include repaving, sidewalk and curb construction, and a traffic signal upgrade at Nebraska Avenue.

Email Dr. Delay at docdelay@gmail.com to share your traffic concerns, comments and questions, or follow Dr. Delay on Twitter @AskDrDelay.

I-75 widening to go from Hillsborough to Sumter 06/25/14 [Last modified: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 4:23pm]

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I-75 widening to go from Hillsborough to Sumter