Successful Businessman

Town House, the upscale Chilhowie restaurant that has gained national acclaim since chefs John Shields and Karen Urie Shields took over the kitchen four years ago, is closing.

The impetus for the closure is the departure of the chef and pastry chef, who are married. According to news releases from the restaurant, they decided to leave to open their own restaurant. There’s no word yet on where it will be or what it will be like, but they are reportedly considering staying in the mid-Atlantic region.

Along with owners Tom and Kyra Bishop, the chefs put Town House — and Chilhowie — on the map. They incorporated local ingredients and have said that access to wild greens, edible berries and other items was one of their favorite things about living and working in Southwest Virginia. The restaurant is currently on winter break and will officially close after that.

When it comes to using Facebook for recruitment, you can post jobs on your company’s Facebook page. Pages are free to set-up and easy to access and update.

Many little touches can be added to make them unique and user friendly. Having a dedicated feed or setting up a “vacancies” tab on the applications bar would be the best idea, that way returning visitors will know exactly where to look and you can fill the space with useful recruitment information if there aren’t enough vacancies to fill it.

However, with all these people out there, you need to be able to grab their attention and give them something in return for spending time on your little part of Facebook.

Here are my tips for creating the best environment in which to use Facebook for recruitment:

1. Decent Pages – create good, eye-catching and engaging pages which are easy to use and have links to your company site and any other relevant sites. Webrecruit

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We all want to do more things in less time. It’s a common theme throughout all of corporate America, and it even extends into professions like healthcare, education, and civil service. We can’t rely on the institution we’ve placed ourselves in to help us accomplish this goal. Rather, I believe we must rely on multiple paradigm shifts in our own life. No longer can we say, ‘Oh, I’ll do that tomorrow’, or ‘Staying up an extra hour won’t mean much tonight’. 2012 is a new year, a new opportunity to do new things with our lives, and more importantly, our personal lives.

If you’re an entrepreneur like me, you probably work 50+ hours per week every week of the year, with the exception of maybe one or two 30 hour weeks around the holidays. You probably have a tight schedule of meetings, development time, and HR priorities. What you may not have is a highly organized and efficient manner of completing all these tasks. Success as an entre

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With interest in oil and gas production rising along with the price of oil, the industry is turning an eye to a rock formation northwest of Abilene, local experts said.

In the Abilene region, “the biggest thing is a leasing play occurring in northern Fisher County and western Nolan County and Mitchell and Scurry counties for a potential shale that may be oil and gas productive,” said Allan Frizzell, a district vice president for the Texas Oil & Gas Association and vice president of Abilene-based Enrich Oil Corp.

Such a “leasing play” is a rush to acquire mineral rights from landowners.

“It’s pretty speculative, but the lease bonus money being paid to mineral owners is pretty high and is injecting a lot of revenue into local banks,” said Frizzell, explaining that “it’s in its infancy, as far as the drilling and completion phase.”

Mark McKeehan, past-president of the Abilene Geological Society, said about the geologic formation that “everybody’s known it shows oil and gas for long time.”

But now producers have the ability to use techniques such as hydraulic fracturing, commonplace in exploring rock formations such as the Barnett Shale and Eagle Ford Shale in Texas.

In the area northwest of Abilene, “the technology’s catching up with it: the ability to go in there and ‘frac’ the thing and open it up has caused it to be a potential moneymaker for the people in that area,” said McKeehan.

Such fracking techniques have come under fire from environmental critics who have complained about potential contamination of groundwater from fracking or waste produced by the fracking process, with the Environmental Protection Agency studying any potential harmful effects.

Frizzell emphasized the depth of the formation.

“It’s very deep.

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You have to love a New Year. It means you can start afresh, change your wayward habits and create new stretch goals for you and your business.

It is also a great time for reflection and to celebrate all the successes and failures of the year that is now behind you. You can take through the things you did well into the New Year, and leave behind the screwups (but not the lessons learned).

If you haven’t already, I suggest you take time out for yourself to write down what you want your 2012 to look like in every way, shape and form possible.

As the experts say, if you don’t know where you’re going how will you know how to get there?  The same is true for what you envisage for yourself the clearer you can get, the more realistic it will be, and the more likely it will happen.

To ensure your 2012 is truly exceptional, here are the top 10 things you can start doing now:

1. Expect the best for yourself. There’s nothing selfish in wanting to live the best possible life. Set your

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Addition to company

First Financial Bankshares Inc. has announced that J. Kyle McVey has joined the company as accounting officer. McVey recently completed the certified public accountant exam and will be licensed as a CPA in both Texas and Florida.

McVey formerly worked as a tax associate for KPMG LLP in Jacksonville, Fla., and as an account executive and financial consultant for New Horizons in Abilene. He earned his master’s degree in accounting and bachelor’s degree in business administration from Abilene Christian University.

CRC promotion announced

Michelle Rodriguez recently was promoted to contact center manager of the Cooperative Response Center Inc.’s regional office in Abilene.

Rodriguez, who had worked for CRC for three years at its Austin, Minn., facility, relocated to the Abilene office in March to assist with training new employees and preparing the office for its early May opening. She formerly served as a supervisor in the local office.