Meet the 2023 Gulf South honorees

Amber Glassman is the CEO & Co-Founder of Bryan Anthonys.

Named after my brother, whose young life was tragically taken due to a severe case of bacterial meningitis, Bryan Anthonys was founded on the verifiable truth of life’s fragility — we only have one life and time isn’t something that is guaranteed. The brand was created in honor of Bryan, with the hope of encouraging others to make their life and the lives around them meaningful. With a passion to pursue purpose, we aim to transform the way we view fashion and the world around us — it’s about discovering personal style while embracing personal stories. At Bryan Anthonys, we create with purpose — by consciously offering meaningful designs, customers can always share and express who and what matter most.

Carlos De Aldecoa is the President of Cadeco Industries & Affiliated Companies.

Cadeco is the leading service provider for raw coffee processing. By incorporating vast industry experience, advanced technologies and a highly engineered infrastructure, Cadeco’s supply chain architecture yields quick turnarounds with the highest-quality service.

Eximius Coffee, LLC is a leading manufacturer of finished coffee products serving national-scale organizations with a wide variety of packaging options.

Gulf Coast Distillers is the largest capacity distillery west of the Mississippi, producing bourbon, whiskey, vodka, gin and rum in a wide variety of presentations.

Derek Maetzold is the Founder, President & CEO of Castle Biosciences, Inc.

Castle Biosciences is a company focused on improving health through innovative tests that guide patient care. For the diseases that our portfolio of tests cover, we believe the traditional approach to developing a treatment plan for cancers and other diseases using clinical and pathology factors alone is inadequate and can be improved by incorporating the personalized information our tests provide.

At Castle, we aim to transform disease management by keeping people first: patients, clinicians, employees and investors. Since our inception in 2008, we have remained focused on this vision. This foundational strategy remains the guidepost for the direction of our company and the basis of our long-term value creation.

Our innovative portfolio of commercial and pipeline tests target unmet clinical need along the patient care continuum. We currently market six proprietary tests designed to answer clinical questions and address treatment plan challenges facing physicians in dermatologic cancers, uveal melanoma, Barrett’s esophagus and mental health conditions: DecisionDx®-Melanoma, DecisionDx®-SCC, MyPath® Melanoma, DecisionDx®-UM, TissueCypher® Barrett’s Esophagus and IDgenetix®.

Neha Sampat is the Founder & CEO of Contentstack Inc.

Contentstack — the leading composable digital experience platform provider — empowers marketers and developers to deliver composable digital experiences at the speed of their imagination. Leading companies trust Contentstack to power their most critical content experiences with uncompromising scale and dependability. Known for its Care Without Compromise™ program, Contentstack has achieved the industry’s highest customer satisfaction rating. Contentstack is also a founding member of the MACH Alliance, advocating for best-of-breed composable technology that is microservices based, API first, cloud-native SaaS and headless.

Brett Hurt is the CEO & Co-Founder of data.world, a PBC

data.world is an enterprise data catalog for the modern data stack. Its cloud-native software-as-a-service platform combines a consumer-grade user experience with a powerful knowledge graph to deliver enhanced data discovery, agile data governance and actionable insights. data.world is a Certified B Corporation and public benefit corporation and home to the world’s largest collaborative open data community. Our company has 62 patents and has been named one of Austin’s Best Places to Work seven years in a row.

Dean Drako is the Founder & CEO of Eagle Eye Networks.

Eagle Eye Networks (EEN) was founded in 2012, revolutionizing video surveillance and bringing the cloud's advantages to the industry — better cybersecurity, usability and scalability — with an open RESTful API platform for unlimited customization.

EEN combines cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) technology to make company employees, customers and communities even safer. Examples of its early cloud AI technologies:

• AI-based video search, where customers can input specific criteria, e.g., a “man with a backpack wearing a blue shirt and gray shorts” or a “red SUV that entered the parking lot yesterday.”
• AI-based license plate recognition for high accuracy in all kinds of challenging conditions — increasing business security and efficiency while lowering costs.

Customers can utilize AI analytics across any or all of their cameras by simply turning it on — no special hardware or complex configuration is needed.

EEN’s cloud AI technology is making the world far safer and transforming physical security into a core business intelligence system.

Hardy Murchison is the President & CEO of Encino Energy LLC.

Encino Energy is one of the largest private natural gas and oil producers in the US and a top 25 North American natural gas producer. While headquartered in Houston, our operations in the prolific Northern Utica Shale make us the largest oil producer in Ohio and the second-largest natural gas producer in the state.

Beyond our day-to-day operations, we are a company dedicated to our values of results, transparency, innovation, ownership and sustainability. These foundational values guide our employees and make us who we are. Encino Energy’s proven management team is deeply committed to our people, and we are fully invested in the communities we call home.

Encino Energy is committed to doing the right things for the right reasons while never losing sight of safety and sustainability. We focus on the long term, which means sustainable, safe and environmentally conscious operations, and carefully managed risks.

Craig Taylor is the CEO & Founder of Iapetus Holdings LLC.

The Iapetus Holdings suite of companies includes:

• Iapetus Infrastructure Services
• Atlas Field Services
• Atlas Commodities LLC
• Gold Coast Utility Specialists
• Atlas Retail Energy
• Hyperion Safety Environmental Solutions
• Soaring Eagle Technologies
• Unmanned Aviation Training Institute

We provide vegetation management, safety and environmental solutions to utilities and oil and gas, retail energy advisory services, energy commodities brokerage and drone data services.

Johann Moonesinghe is the CEO & Co-Founder of inKind Cards, Inc.

inKind was founded to help fix a financing model that is fundamentally broken for the restaurant industry. Instead of financing restaurants through equity investments, high-interest loans or cash advances, inKind purchases large amounts of food and beverage credit that it sells to consumers on the inKind app. Operators receive debt-free, non-dilutive capital to grow their restaurants, as well as inKind’s marketing support that drives new guest traffic. On the inKind app, consumers purchase restaurant credit and receive spending bonuses. Consumers can also discover restaurants, make reservations, browse menus and close their checks from the app. Unlike other financing alternatives, it was designed by operators, for operators. Its financing model provides restaurants with affordable capital and increased guest visits, making it a win-win for operators and guests.

In Q4 2022, inKind launched inKind Pass, a product that allows consumers to purchase restaurant credit that they can use across all restaurants on its platform. This allows inKind to drive in new customers and partner with large corporations.

inKind works with restaurants in the US and has consumers, passionate about food, discovering those restaurants.

We provide vegetation management, safety and environmental solutions to utilities and oil and gas, retail energy advisory services, energy commodities brokerage and drone data services.

Arran Stewart is the Chief Visionary Officer of Job.com.

Job.com is a digital recruitment innovator with a unique perspective: delivering technology and capabilities that shake up the market by bringing together a data-driven approach based in AI and machine learning with high-level, human-capital-delivered solutions, designed to efficiently attract and retain the right talent and provide consumer-level user experiences throughout the hiring process.

This combination provides true value and control to job seekers, companies and recruiting teams, resulting in more effective talent acquisition, better-fit career moves and a more human hiring experience. Job.com’s solutions are growing and evolving rapidly to serve multiple segments of the market and will come to represent the place where individual job seekers manage their career path and employers find their next hire.

Job.com’s mission is to transform talent acquisition with smart technology and a human-first approach.

Christopher Anderson is the Founder & CEO of Ledge Lounger Inc.

Whether you are poolside or beachside or at a five-star resort, or relaxing on your own patio, we believe the perfect day is spent outside. Ledge Lounger products are designed to create perfect outdoor spaces for entertaining and relaxation.

Featuring classic outdoor furniture pieces; stylish, convenience-adding accessories; and our signature in-pool furniture for in-water use, all Ledge Lounger products are made of high-quality materials and designed to withstand the elements, so you can relax with peace of mind and enjoy the amenities of the outdoors year-round.

Eduardo J. Morales is the CEO & President of Mexcor International.

At Mexcor International Fine Wines & Spirits and beer, we offer a diverse portfolio containing premium spirits, a unique selection of fine wine, craft and value-added beer, an assortment of ready-to-drink libations, nonalcoholic mixers and many hard-to-find niche items. Having family ties to Licores Veracruz, makers of exquisite aged rums, as well as Casa Maestri, a rapidly growing artisanal distillery located in the heart of Tequila, imparted a passion for this business within Eduardo Morales at an early age. At Mexcor, we genuinely listen to the customer and market’s needs and look for innovative solutions to fill those demands. At Mexcor, quality, customer satisfaction and a value to the consumer are of our utmost priority. I invite you to try some of our flagship products, such as Agavales Tequila, Crown Club Whisky and Frio Light Beer, to taste the Mexcor difference for yourself.

Prasad Gundumogula is the Co-Founder, CEO & Chairman of Mondee Holdings, Inc.

Established in 2011, Mondee is a travel technology company and a modern travel marketplace with its headquarters based in Austin, Texas. The company operates across the United States and Canada and has core operations in India, Thailand and Greece. Mondee is driving change in the leisure and corporate travel sectors through its broad array of innovative solutions. The company’s platform supports daily searches and processes a substantial transactional volume annually. Its network includes leisure travel advisors and gig economy workers, airlines, and hotels and vacation rentals. The company also offers packaged solutions and ancillary offerings that serve a global customer base. On July 19, 2022, Mondee became publicly traded on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol MOND.

William Pate is the CEO of Par Pacific.

Par Pacific Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PARR), headquartered in Houston, Texas, owns and operates market-leading energy, infrastructure and retail businesses. Par Pacific’s strategy is to acquire and develop businesses in logistically complex, niche markets. Par Pacific owns and operates one of the largest energy networks in Hawaii with 94,000 bpd of operating refining capacity, a logistics system supplying the major islands of the state and retail locations. In the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies, Par Pacific owns and operates 61,000 bpd of combined refining capacity, related multimodal logistics systems and retail locations. Par Pacific also owns 46% of Laramie Energy, LLC, a natural gas production company with operations and assets concentrated in western Colorado.

Cody Nath is the President & CEO of Refined Technologies.

Refined Technologies at its core is a chemical cleaning and decontamination service provider for refinery operators. Our value proposition is to provide safe, predictable and efficient services so that maintenance can occur, through a combination of technology and process operations expertise.

Tom Weber is the CEO of Removery.

Removery, the world’s tattoo removal experts, helps people reflect on the outside who they are on the inside. Born from the partnership of North America’s four largest and most trusted tattoo removal brands, the company is committed to driving research and advancements in the world of laser tattoo removal while ensuring client safety and effective results. Removery is home to the world’s first tattoo removal Clinical Advisory Board dedicated to the advancement of the industry.

Currently, Removery has locations across the United States, Canada and Australia. The company’s goal is to normalize tattoo removal and empower clients to feel confident in their own skin.

Chris Howard is the President & CEO of Softeq Development Corporation.

Softeq is headquartered in Houston, Texas, and provides early-stage innovation ideation, technology consulting and software development solutions to enterprise companies and innovative startups. Founded in 1997, the company operates offices throughout North America and Europe. The Softeq Venture Fund and Softeq Venture Studio de-risk early-stage tech investments and help startup founders accelerate growth.

As a full-stack and full-cycle software and hardware development service provider, Softeq bridges technology gaps in knowledge-intensive projects and builds end-to-end IT solutions from the ground up. Softeq leverages its mature low-level programming heritage and hardware skills to help clients build software applications, engineer platform software, and design hardware and software to run a wide variety of connected products.

Trevor Best is the CEO & Co-Founder of Syzygy Plasmonics.

Syzygy Plasmonics is developing a first-of-its-kind photocatalytic reactor to electrify chemical production. When powered with renewable electricity, this platform technology is able to reduce both cost and emissions from many different chemical reactions. Syzygy’s go-to-market product will focus on transforming the economics of clean hydrogen production to help accelerate the energy transition. Syzygy can make clean hydrogen from different feedstocks, such as methane and ammonia. After market entry with hydrogen, Syzygy plans to expand into other reactions, such as CO2, to value, fertilizer and commodity chemicals.

Chad Kalland is the CEO and Kenny Rouse is the President & Founder of Vecta Environmental Services, LLC.

Vecta Environmental Services was founded in 2011 as a high-quality provider of environmental and industrial services specializing in delivering mission-critical services to clients in the petrochemical, commercial utility, oil and gas, and manufacturing markets.

Vecta has established itself as a regional leader in an industry typically dominated by multinational corporations. We have achieved this by providing industry-leading employee safety and customer service. Our offerings include hydro blasting, hydro excavation, chemical cleaning, tank cleaning, and insulation and scaffolding.

Michael Wilson is the President & CEO of Vibrantz Technologies.

In April 2022, Prince, Chromaflo and Ferro became part of the Vibrantz Technologies brand. Today, Vibrantz is a leading global provider of specialty chemicals and materials whose purpose is to bring color, performance and vibrancy to life. Our products and technologies serve a wide array of applications and make their way into myriad consumer products. With key competencies in particle engineering, glass and ceramic science and color technology, Vibrantz has leading positions in specialty mineral and chemical additives for batteries, electronic components and construction; dry powder pigments for paints and coatings, thermoset plastics and thermoplastics; and high-performance glass coatings and porcelain enamel solutions.

John Magee is the President & CEO of VLS Environmental Solutions.

At VLS, we address your company’s most significant hurdles with waste management and compliance through sustainable solutions. With our high environmental standards, we build trust in the communities where we work. We strive to limit waste, injury and environmental impact while driving positive relationships with government agencies and building loyalty among everyone involved in our solutions.

Our environmental services can make your company more efficient and compliant and contribute to a sustainable future. Choose VLS for waste management, marine services and railcar cleaning.

Ting Qiao is the CEO & Co-Founder of Wan Bridge Group.

Wan Bridge is a Texas-based builder and operator of build-to-rent communities across the state. Since 2016, we have been active in the acquisition, development and operation of our communities located in high-demand cities across the state, including Austin, Dallas and Houston. Our build-to-rent community products range from low-density homes on acreage sites to medium-density developments that include duplexes, triplexes and townhomes. We believe that residents should have access to a home without the hassle, providing a lifestyle filled with activities and people they enjoy the most. Our build-to-rent communities provide that every day. 

Mathias Ihlenfeld is the CEO of woom bikes USA.

woom is a globally acclaimed kids’ bicycle company, originally founded in Austria in 2013, with its North American headquarters located in Austin, Texas. The brand was brought to the United States by Mathias Ihlenfeld in 2014, one year after woom had been founded in a tiny garage in Vienna, Austria, by Mathias’s brother Marcus and his business partner Christian Bezdeka.

woom USA quickly established itself as a digitally native brand, developing direct-to-consumer expertise and serving its customers through a personal relationship with the brand. Due to the remarkable product, excellent service and extensive word-of-mouth recommendations, woom USA was recognized as one of the fastest-growing, privately held companies in the US. woom has disrupted the kids’ bike category in North America and is the largest and fastest-growing direct-to-consumer brand in the space.

Its award-winning bikes include options that are 40% lighter than conventional kids’ bikes, making woom bikes the lightest series-production kids’ bikes in the world. Ninety percent of the components on woom bikes are specifically designed for kids.