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Upgrade Your Travel With Covington
06 days
by M. Fletcher
in Richmond Business
When you want to travel in style and comfort, Glen Allen based Covington Travel is there to help you with your planning needs. Whether you are looking to book business travel, plan a meeting, or plan the perfect vacation or even a cruise, the professionals at Covington travel are there to improve your travel experience from the first step out your door until you place your head back on your own pillow at home.
Well, you may have to take care of getting to and from the airport, but Covington Travel can help you with the most reliable flights and the best meeting venue. And, when you want to get away, Covington can help you plan the perfect vacation.
Covington has been upgrading your travel since 1967 when it began as a two person business. Josée Covington established the company in an era when airline and cruise tickets were handwritten. It helps that she’s fluent in five languages and is herself a world-wide travel. Her sons, Paul and Denny now help the agency to remain on top of the cutting edge of travel trends.
Today, Covington is in the top one percent of travel management companies located in the United States. Founded with the goal of upgrading the travel experience, Covington continues to provide exceptional service.
What the Covington team knows is that whether it’s individual travel or a corporation the smallest details are important. President and CEO Josée Covington says “Nothing is as important as the relationships we build with our clients, our suppliers, and our own colleagues. Not even the bottom line.”
With Covington you can upgrade the way you experience travel. After all, just because you’re traveling for business, there’s no reason to be miserable. Covington can make even business travel seem enjoyable.
What Covington understands about business travel is that it’s more than just getting the airline tickets. After all, you can do that online. But it takes professionals like those at Covington to be able to find the best deals, saving you time and money.
So maybe you not only need to travel for business, but you need to book facilities for a meeting was well. Covington can help you create distinctive meetings and events. Their experience with destinations and venues can save you lots of time that you might spend searching for just the right spot. More than that, the professional planners at Covington take care of all the endless hours of planning and details, bringing you a meeting that is flawlessly executed.
Dreaming of vacations can be fun. But sorting through websites and travel guides and brochures to find the best deals, reliable transportation and suitable accommodations can have you worn out before you even get to your destination. Allow Covington to help make your vacation more enjoyable by allowing their travel advisors to handle the details.
In a society where news is 24-hours and people are tethered to their phones and computers, every minute that can be saved by allowing professionals like Covington to take care of your travel, meeting and vacation needs is time you can spend on that next project, meeting with a client, or best of all, relaxing with the family.
That’s what Covington Travel can do for you with their knowledge and expertise as well as their many connections around the globe. They can create custom travel experiences and itineraries to meet your needs and preferences. As a member of Virtuoso, Covington has the added benefit of being able to offer you perks and upgrades that are not available to the general public. Because they deal with multiple clients, carriers and destinations on a day to day basis, Covington has access to deals and bargains that they’re more than happy to pass along to you.
If you’re looking to upgrade your travel experience, Covington Travel can do that for you.
Mom’s Treehouse for all things Mom
075 days
by M. Fletcher
in Richmond Business
Being a mother is a great job, but let’s face it, mothers are always busy. There’s always a child to feed, a scrape to kiss, a nose (or a behind) to wipe. Then there’s the business of taking care of the house, feeding the family. And in today’s economy, lots of moms have to work outside the home in addition to their already overly busy lives. While there’s nothing more rewarding than the unconditional love your child can give, it’s not always easy to be super mom.
Whether it’s caring for children, working for the PTA, playing taxi driver for various practices and events, or just trying to keep the household together, moms need all the resources and help they can get.
That’s where Mom’s Treehouse comes in. Mom’s Treehouse is there to provide mothers with support, education and resources to manage and maintain healthy active lives of their own. Mom’s Treehouse opened in Short Pump in December 2010 and is coming up on its first birthday as a resource for mothers.
Mom’s Treehouse also offers a full-range of fitness programs for mom and children as well as professional services for families. Fitness classes at Mom’s Treehouse are for moms regardless of their current level of fitness or age of their children. The professionals at Mom’s Treehouse are certified in pre- and post-natal fitness. Mom’s Treehouse can help moms to get fit, lose weight, gain strength and be better prepared for the daily challenges.
Fitness classes are also offered for children from birth to pre-school and even school-age. Working together Mom’s Treehouse can help moms and their children develop healthy, active lifestyles.
There’s a great social benefit to Mom’s Treehouse. Mothers get to meet other Moms and form lasting friendships. After all, who better to understand what a Mom has to deal with than other Moms? But the social benefits aren’t just for the moms, they’re for the kids as well.
Beyond fitness and the social benefits, Mom’s Treehouse offers other services such as doula and massage services, as well as nutrition and lactation consulting. The shop in the front lobby offers moms products and clothing items that are perfect for an active mom’s workout.
Founder and owner Rachel Pustinik, herself a mom of 2 young daughters, says that when her first daughter was just a few months old she founded Stroller Strides in Richmond. She began training moms for local running events and eventually created Mother Runner Training. She soon realized that regardless of the age of their children, all moms need support and encouragement, so she founded Mom’s Treehouse as a home for moms where they can learn how to raise a happy and healthy family while receiving the support they need.
Pustinik says “I realized that no matter what the age of her children, a mom continues to need support, encouragement, and a sense of community. I realized I needed to create a ‘HOME’ for moms,a ‘HOUSE’ where they can learn how to raise a happy and healthy family all while receiving support and acknowledgement for thier dedication, and a ‘TREEHOUSE’ where moms are the center of attention.”
Membership in Mom’s Treehouse is $99 a month and includes:
- Free and unlimited classes for Mom. Classes include Stroller Strides, Fit4Baby, Zumba and Friday Booty Blast
- Free and unlimited classes for the kids. Classes include Kids and Family Yoga, Martial Arts Classes, Irish Dance, Eco-Art for Toddlers, Baby Signs Sign Language, Playgroups and much more.
- Discounts on other programs which include Body Back, Mother Runner and more.
Mom’s Treehouse is located at 2292 John Rolfe Parkway in Richmond. Call them at 888-232-2450 or visit their website.
A Good Car at a Good Price
0586 days
by M. Fletcher
in Richmond Business
In the early 1990s, seeking to find a new retail opportunity, Circuit City CEO Richard Sharp and Vice President of Corporate Planning Austin Ligon developed the concept for CarMax. In December of 1991 the Circuit City made a wise investment of $50 million to fund the concept.
The first CarMax store was opened in Richmond in September of 1993. The first sale was a 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee. By 1996 Car Max announces plans to open 80 to 90 stores nationwide. Adding to that was the launch of CarMax.com which allows customers to search through the entire Car Max inventory.
The company lives and operates by five basic principles:
- We offer tens of thousands of used cars across the country
- Every car we sell has a low, no-haggle price
- Our vehicles are superior in quality. Only the best cars meet our high standards
- We’ll buy your car whether you buy from us or not
- You’ll get friendly customer service
And it works. Ten years after Sharp and Ligon first dreamed of the concept, the company posted their first annual profit of $1.1 million. CarMax owes much of its success to simply providing customers what they want: an easy shopping experience to get a good car at a good price.
CarMax says they are the smart choice for buying a car, offering thousands of vehicles for under $12,000. Key to their selling method is posting the price right the car. No negotiating, no hidden charges. And they’re willing to work with a number of financial institutions to get the best option for prospective buyers.
Car Max invests back into the community. They recently announced a $45,000 grant to the Enrichmond Foundation for the fourth season of the CarMax Summer Basketball League.
Even with a struggling economy, Car Max reported that this spring they sold more cars and at higher prices. According to the Richmond Times Dispatch, “CarMax CEO Tom Folliard attributed the spike in wholesale sales to fewer cars on the market.”
Still at a meeting earlier this week Folliard told shareholders. “I still think we’re in for a little bit of a rough road. Although we see some positive signs in the economy, I personally feel it’s going to be a slow burn.”
Today, CarMax has 100 stores across the country. They’re ranked as a FORTUNE® 500 company and and have been named one of FORTUNE® magazine’s “Best Companies to Work For” six years in a row. Since that first sale in 1993 they’ve sold more than 2 million cars.
It seems that at least 2 million buyers agree that this is a better way to buy a car.
And, while the parent company of Circuit City declared bankruptcy and closed their doors last year, CarMax appears poised to remain strong and even rebound when the economy recovers.
But perhaps they’ve made enough of a name for themselves now that they’ll be even stronger in the future. It might just be that this downturn in the economy has convinced consumers that the shiny new car they want doesn’t have to brand new.
When they make that decision, CarMax has a good car, at a good price.
Thousands of them in fact.
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