Jessica's Press Releases

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

The Giant® Barbecue Battle - Washington’s Tastiest Summer Celebration

For the past 25 years, tens of thousands of people have flocked to our nation's capital to celebrate the "Official Start of Summer" at the Giant® National Capital Barbecue Battle, one of the largest and most unique food and music festivals in the country.

On June 23rd and 24th, 2018, historic Pennsylvania Avenue, between 3rd and 7th Streets, NW, in Washington, DC will become the epicenter of BBQ perfection, bringing together delicious BBQ, delectable summer specialties, nationally-recognized BBQ Contests, popular bands, celebrity chefs & more.

Washington's tastiest summer celebration pays tribute to everything barbecue and truly embodies the best that America has to offer. In addition to bringing together thousands of BBQ fans from around the country, the Giant® Barbecue Battle has raised millions of dollars for area charities. Funds raised from this year's event will benefit USO Metro and the Capital Area Food Bank.

For two days, amazing sights, sounds, and the hickory sweet aroma of mouth-watering barbecue replace the usual hustle & bustle of city life. Enjoy live music throughout the weekend with 30 great bands playing rock, reggae, jazz, blues, R&B and DC's own go-go music on 3 stages. This year's musical highlights include: The Plain White T's, Back Yard Band "BYB", Experience Unlimited "EU" featuring Sugar Bear, reggae with See-I, and international jazz recording artist Marcus Johnson along with many others. In addition, cooking demonstrations, celebrity appearances, and an array of unique exhibits and activities round out a weekend of fun. Special attractions include: Johnsonville's Big Taste "World's Largest" Grill, the Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile, Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, the Mr. Peanut Tour, the Comcast Techno Pavilion and more. There will also be plenty of summer sports action from the Washington Wizards, Washington Capitals, Washington Kastles, Mystics, Valor, Washington Redskins, and Baltimore Brigade.

Make sure to arrive at the festival hungry as the event offers plentiful free BBQ & grilled food samples in the Taste of Giant® Sampling Pavilion, Giant® Local Flavors Tent and throughout the event site. Popular BBQ restaurants from around the country will also be on-hand serving up delicious BBQ chicken, pork, ribs and brisket. To quench everyone's thirst, the event will feature the Giant® Corks to Caps Wine and Micro-Brew Sampling Tent, Ravage Wine Samples, a variety of Anheuser-Busch beverages and popular non-alcoholic drinks.

The high-stakes Giant® National Barbecue Championship Cooking Contest takes place all weekend long. Barbecue legends like Myron Mixon, Tuffy Stone, and Moe Cason from TV's "BBQ Pit Masters Show" compete side-by-side with other top BBQ chefs and teams from around the country. Teams cook off in multiple cooking contests including: the National Pork Board's National Pork Championship, the Perdue Sizzlin' Chicken Contest, the Smithfield BBQ Rib Contest, and America's Best BBQ Sauce Contest. In addition, attendees can sample and vote for top military chefs from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard cooking off in the Military Chef Contest.

The 2018 Giant® National Capital Barbecue Battle is heating up to be the biggest and best tasting yet, so mark your calendar for June 23rd and 24th and bring the whole family to DC's favorite celebration of the art of BBQ. Visit us at http://www.BBQinDC.com. We'll see you at the BBQ!

All information are taken from the news source. We do not promise anything nor take any responsibility for anything the news owner claim. We just share the news as is. You can contact news owner directly in the message for more information.

FIS Group Hires New Sales and Marketing Lead

FIS Group, a manager of U.S. and global developed, emerging and frontier markets equity portfolio strategies, is pleased to announce that Robert Morier has joined the firm as a senior vice president of sales and marketing. He will oversee FIS Group's marketing and sales efforts, and will report directly to Tina Byles Williams, CEO and CIO of FIS Group.

"We are delighted to welcome Mr. Morier to the team," says Ms. Byles Williams. "He brings over 18 years of experience in sales and marketing strategies for global and non-U.S. equity and debt investment products, which serves to enhance our continued commitment to meet and exceed our client's performance objectives."

Mr. Morier joins FIS Group from Global Evolution USA, where as managing director he directed the launch of its emerging and frontier sovereign debt strategies for North American institutions. He held previous directorships overseeing institutional investments at ClearBridge Investments, Indus Capital and Artio Global Investors. He also served as a vice president of institutional relationship management at Goldman Sachs.

Mr. Morier has a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Vermont. He is an advisory board member for the University of Vermont Grossman School of Business, and has been a Toigo Foundation mentor since 2009.

The hiring of Mr. Morier comes as FIS Group sees continued growth and success in its global and non-U.S. strategy offerings. Over the past 10 years, the firm has developed a niche expertise in less efficient investment strategies, such as emerging, frontier markets and non-US small capitalization. Its non-US small capitalization strategy was recently recognized as a "3 Star Top Gun" performer by PSN among its peers in the EAFE category.

About FIS Group

FIS Group is an investment management firm that provides customized manager of managers investment solutions for institutional investors. For 20 years, we have delivered risk-adjusted returns by conquering the complexity of identifying high skill, high active share entrepreneurial managers that have gone largely undiscovered by the institutional investor community. Unique among our peers, FIS Group enhances risk-adjusted returns by using macro strategy insights to allocate capital among the managers and/or through a global macro tactical completion strategy. Our culture is a fusion of relentless curiosity and a scientific, disciplined process.

For more information please visit us at http://www.fisgroup.com.

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New Research: 59% of B2B Companies Do Not Use Email Marketing!

In its recent study, SuperOffice has found out that 59% of B2B companies do not send out email marketing campaigns to their subscribers.

Email marketing delivers a $40 return for every $1 spent. No other marketing channel comes even close. In fact, 87% of B2B marketers use email marketing to generate new leads, while 31% of B2B marketers cite email marketing as the channel that makes the biggest impact on revenue.

Given how important email marketing is for B2B brands of all shapes and sizes, SuperOffice wanted to explore the state of email marketing to understand how it's being used today.

With this new study, which analyzed 1,000 B2B companies, SuperOffice wanted to find out exactly how companies are using email to communicate with their audience.

"The importance of email marketing cannot be underestimated. Or, at least we thought so! In order to evaluate the current state of email marketing practices in the B2B world, we decided to conduct our own research, which turned out to be a real eye-opener. Without over exaggerating, this study is a must-read for all marketing experts out there," says Jennifer Lim Lund, Chief Marketing Officer of SuperOffice AS.

To conduct the research, SuperOffice created a new email address and then used it to sign up for newsletters from a mixture of small, medium and large B2B organizations.

Before the study, SuperOffice assumed that email is an important marketing channel for B2B companies, and that all companies would send at least one email within the 90-day test period.

Yet, the results of the study demonstrated a different picture. Only a handful of companies offered email marketing communication that reflected standard best practices.

Here are the key findings from the study:

This unique report offers a detailed analysis of the findings and comes up with 7 best practice email marketing tips, based on the best performing B2B companies.

Read more about the new research, its findings and implications here.

About SuperOffice
Driven by a passion for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), SuperOffice makes award winning CRM software for sales, marketing and customer service. As the leading European CRM provider, SuperOffice is trusted and used by more than 6,000 companies.

CloudLanes Demonstrates Enhanced Security and Data Integrity Capabilities for Large-Scale Data Migration to Microsoft Azure

CloudLanes, a Microsoft Ventures and Cervin Ventures portfolio company, demonstrated with Veeam large scale backups to Microsoft Azure in a seamless, safe and secure manner.

Asif Moinuddin, CEO of CloudLanes, said, "Enterprise customers with larger data sets are demanding a more robust and scaled out solution with enhanced security and data integrity capabilities. There is a need for a solution that seamlessly combines online cloud migration with offline bulk move of data to the cloud."

Ray Rodriguez from San Diego State University (SDSU) has been looking forward to solving the challenge of moving both his Veeam backups and video surveillance data to the cloud in a cost effective manner. "By leveraging the CloudLanes and offline ingest using Microsoft Azure Data Box we can now cost effectively bulk transport data to Azure. The enhanced security capabilities gives us peace of mind that video surveillance data is guarded with CloudLanes' enhanced security approach," said Ray.

"CloudLanes' interoperability with Azure Data Box allows customers to write data across multiple units as one cohesive solution. This, coupled with end-to-end chain of custody and data verification means customers can have confidence that their entire data set is intact and secure," said Vijay Ramaswamy, VP of Products & Marketing.

Dean Paron, Director, Azure Data Box, Microsoft Corp. said, "Customers often have huge data sets, crossing into petabytes. CloudLanes makes it easy for customers to span large data transport jobs across multiple Data Boxes for a smooth migration to Microsoft Azure."

About CloudLanes: CloudLanes' Cloud Data Platform industry's first secondary storage platform built over public clouds with a hybrid cloud approach. Built for data guardianship and optimized for backup and archival workloads, with unparalleled security and built in governance, chain of custody and data verification capabilities. CloudLanes also integrates with many of the leading PaaS components enabling data transformation.

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K. Hovnanian® Homes Build On Your Lot Division Offers a Quick Move-in Home at LaDue Reserve

Looking for a quick move? The K. Hovnanian® Homes Build On Your Lot division has you covered with a quick move-in home at LaDue Reserve in Mantua Township, Ohio. Those interested are encouraged to speak to Dina Greenawalt by calling 330-413-7250 for current pricing and complete home details.

"We wanted to offer homebuyers a quick move-in option in beautiful Portage County's pastoral landscape," said Joel Lazar, Director of Sales and Marketing at the K. Hovnanian® Homes. "This charming neighborhood of homes is ideal for those looking to enjoy the best life has to offer in a beautiful new K. Hovnanian® home."

The quick move-in home is a Turner Elevation B design, located at 12981 East Point Drive in Mantua Township and features 2,132 sq. ft. of living space, three bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths and a two-car side load garage. The Turner offers many options and upgrades, including: Dakota Plus siding (whole house); custom exterior designer columns; garage door opener with two remotes; white flush mount LED lights in kitchen and great room; alternate kitchen with 42" upper cabinets and hardware; 3 Progress® brushed nickel pendant lights above kitchen island; fireplace in kitchen, and steel beams in the basement.

LaDue Reserve is situated in Portage County's tranquil Mantua Township. The community is convenient to major interstates, shopping, area parks and nature reserves. Located in close proximity to Mantua Township's town square, residents of LaDue Reserve can enjoy walking paths that wind around the monuments that lead to Portage County's Historical Museum. Historic Mantua also offers great antiquing, outlet shopping and treasure-hunting opportunities.

The Sales Office is open on Monday from 1pm to 6pm and Tuesday through Sunday from 10am to 6pm. To learn more about this quick move-in home, visit http://www.khov.com/LaDueReserve or call 866-549-6578.

The developer of LaDue Reserve is K. Hovnanian® Homes Build On Your Lot, LLC, an affiliate and indirect subsidiary of Hovnanian Enterprises®, Inc.

ABOUT HOVNANIAN ENTERPRISES®, INC.
Hovnanian Enterprises, Inc., founded in 1959 by Kevork S. Hovnanian, is headquartered in Matawan, New Jersey. The Company is one of the nation's largest homebuilders with operations in Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia. The Company's homes are marketed and sold under the trade names K. Hovnanian® Homes, Brighton Homes® and Parkwood Builders. As the developer of K. Hovnanian's® Four Seasons communities, the Company is also one of the nation's largest builders of active lifestyle communities.

Additional information on Hovnanian Enterprises, Inc., including a summary investment profile and the Company's 2017 annual report, can be accessed through the "Investor Relations" section of Hovnanian Enterprises' website at http://www.khov.com. To be added to Hovnanian's investor e-mail or fax lists, please send an e-mail to IR(at)khov.com or sign up at http://www.khov.com.

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Top 5 Damaging Insects Homeowners Need to Watch for on Trees and Shrubs

When damaging insects attack a tree or shrub, pest control by an ISA Certified Arborist may be required. It's important for homeowners to know the signs of some of the most destructive insects in the Philadelphia area. The experts at Giroud Tree & Lawn share the Top 5 Damaging Insects that homeowners need to look for right now on trees & shrubs.

Eastern Tent Caterpillars
There's no mistaking these creepy crawlies by the signature tent-like webs, which are constructed in the crotches of tree branches. Eastern Tent Caterpillars have a taste for a wide variety of trees, so homeowners need to be on the lookout in spring time for signs of an infestation.
Not only are the webs unsightly, Eastern Tent Caterpillars can severely defoliate a tree. Defoliation will weaken the tree, making it more susceptible to invasion by secondary pests and diseases. Treatment for these caterpillars is most critical early in the season.

Emerald Ash Borers
These beautiful yet deadly insects are a 100% Fatal Pest, and they are decimating Ash trees all across the country. The adult beetles swarm the trees and leave their larvae underneath the bark. The larvae then feed on the tree, cutting off water circulation throughout the tree.
Unfortunately, anyone with an Ash tree faces a difficult decision. Protect the Ash tree from Emerald Ash Borer with treatment or let it die and remove it. Without treatment, Ash trees with Emerald Ash Borer die within 1-3 years. By the time homeowners see visible decline, Emerald Ash Borer has already done significant internal damage to the tree. That's why, it's critical to treat now before damage is beyond repair.

Giroud Tree & Lawn recommends Tree-age as the only treatment to fully protect Ash trees from Emerald Ash Borers.

"In good conscience, a company should not take money from homeowners for treatments that do not fully protect a tree from Emerald Ash Borer," says Lou Giroud, ISA Certified Arborist and President of Giroud Tree and Lawn. "While other treatments may reduce EAB populations, the deadly pest can still be in the tree and continue to destroy it over time. Tree-age trunk injections are the only treatment that Giroud recommends to its customers."

Leafminer
Leafminers emerge in springtime to mate and lay eggs. Once the eggs hatch, the young larvae begin feeding on the leaves. Oftentimes, homeowners can't see the actual insects but become aware of an infestation once the leaves develop yellow or brown raised blotches. Leaf Miners attack Birch trees, Boxwoods and Hollies. The best protection is to keep the plant healthy. An ISA Certified Arborist can monitor high risk plants and develop a treatment protocol if the pest is found.

Sawfly
Sawfly can affect Pines, Spruces, and even Roses, so it's important to be alert for evidence of these hungry, little larvae. Munching through leaves and pine needles, Sawfly defoliate and weaken the tree or bush.
Needles on infested Pine and Spruce trees appear dry and strawlike. Repeated defoliation severely stunts the growth of the tree and results in a thin, unsightly appearance.
Infested Rose leaves will appear papery thin and browned at the edges. "In general, light to moderate infestations (on roses) are cosmetic in nature and rarely harm the host plant." explains Missouri Botanical Garden. "Heavier attacks, however, can weaken plants when leaf loss stresses them to the point of vulnerability to other insect and disease attacks." Which is why it is important to have an ISA Certified Arborist do an evaluation if homeowners see signs of sawfly damage.

Lace Bugs
Lace Bugs can cause serious damage! In the Philadelphia area, Lace Bugs attack Azaleas, Birch, Hawthorn and Pieris Japonica. These thirsty pests voraciously suck fluid from leaves. Damage can be severe including leaf discoloration, loss of vigor and premature leaf drop.
Yellow, white or brown raised spots on leaves are a warning sign. In cases of severe Lace Bug infestation, the plant may have large patches of brown. Plants should be monitored regularly for signs of Lace Bug infestation.

Homeowners, who spot warning signs of infestation from these pests, should schedule an evaluation with an ISA Certified Arborist as soon as possible.

About Giroud Tree and Lawn
Giroud Tree and Lawn specializes in tree service, lawn care and mosquito and tick control programs that make customers love doing business with the company since 1974. Serving Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties, the company offers professional tree and lawn evaluation, tree pruning, tree removal, insect and disease control, fertilizing, stump removal, traditional and 100% organic lawn programs and mosquito and tick control. Giroud Arborists are certified by the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) and have the knowledge and experience required to properly diagnose, treat and maintain trees and lawn health. The company is Accredited by the Tree Care Industry Association and Better Business Bureau. Giroud has also been awarded the Angie's List Super Service Award® every year since 2005. The "Giroud Treework for Charity" program donates free tree care services to parks, historical sites and other non-profit organizations located in the Company's service area. For more information, visit the company website at http://www.giroudtree.com or call 215-682-7704.

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Innotech Nutrition dietary supplements to detox, improve immunity and more, are now available on StackedNutrition.com

Innotech Nutrition's high-quality, natural health products, including B12 Oral Spray, Colflex Super Oregano Throat Spray, Wholy Tea Detox & Cleansing Tea, Vigr Elk Velvet Antler capsules, Wild Chaga Mushroom Chunks and Power Play Sport drink, are now available at StackedNutrition.com.

Family owned Innotech Nutrition, based in Canada, produces diverse products that are focused on all aspects of health and well-being. These products, formulated by doctors, holistic nutritionists, biochemists and herbalists, are distributed to health food stores, pharmacies, doctors and e-commerce sites throughout North America.

"We believe multiple approaches to healthcare are best for different health needs," Innotech CEO Wayne Friesen said. "There are vareas of the body that holistic nutritionists are better adapted for, and areas where modern medicine is crucial. Innotech Nutrition takes from the best approaches of different healthcare sectors, including Western doctors, holistic healers, herbalists, chiropractors and more."

A study by the University of Manitoba supports Colflex Super Oregano Oral Spray is an effective inhibiter of cold and flu bacteria growth, a common cause of illness. The B12 Oral Spray is packed with vitamins intended to help the body metabolize fats and proteins, giving a boost to the immune system.

"B12 Oral Spray is one of the easiest products you could possibly use to improve health," Friesen said. "Rather than taking a supplement with water and waiting for absorption, our B12 Oral Spray is just sprayed into the mouth for a quick nutritional benefit. Kids and adults love its sour wild berry flavor, making it easy for users to remind themselves to take it on a daily basis around flu season."

Power Play Sport is a nutritional powder used by athletes for accelerated performance, recovery, focus and sustained, explosive energy. The University of Manitoba is currently studying the effects of nutrients used in Power Play Sport, to provide scientific support of customer testimonials that the product improves the appearance of varicose veins and cellulite, and even helps reduce belly fat after extended daily use.

Innotech Nutrition detoxification products include vegan-friendly teas, Wholy Tea Detox & Cleanse and VIGR Wild Chaga Mushroom Chunks, a birch chaga mushroom that is brewed into a tea for immunity boosting properties and antioxidants.

Innotech products are free of stimulants, fillers, GMOs, sugar and sugar-alternatives.

For more information on Innotech Nutrition products, available now on http://www.stackednutrition.com, visit http://www.innotechnutrition.com.

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