Daily Archives: Oct. 24, 2012

Jeff Ablah leaves Rowley Snyder Ablah

Ablah

WICHITA — As its second anniversary approaches, Rowley Snyder Ablah will celebrate without one of its founding principals.

Jeff Ablah has returned to his father George Ablah’s real estate firm, Ablah Enterprises.

“They asked him if he wanted to come back over there and help them with the huge volume of projects,” Bruce Rowley says.

He says the departure doesn’t mean the relationship — personally or professionally — didn’t work with Ablah.

“You know, it worked great,” Rowley says. “Jeff’s walking out on a high note.”

Ablah is selling his stake in the agency, but he says he’ll still support it.

“I’m going to continue to be an ambassador and a consultant.”

Rowley says the agency “had a stellar first year.”

“The first year was crazy wild,” he says. “The second year, certainly, we’ve had some turnover of staff. … People who couldn’t or didn’t feel like keeping up. … It certainly is a high-turnover business anyway.”

Rowley says the agency, which has 15 employees including the principals, is doing well, though.

“We’ve had actually great growth in our second year. A lot of that has been attributed to Jeff. The partnership, having three (principals), has been phenomenal.”

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Unified Party Bus sells to Spot’s Party Bus

WICHITA — Ivan Moore, who founded the party bus business in Wichita, has sold his Unified Party Bus to Spot’s Party Bus.

“I’ve been doing it eight and a half years,” Moore says. “It’s been a phenomenal ride.”

He’d planned to sell the company a long time ago.

“I told myself … I would sell it when I got married.”

That didn’t happen. So then Moore told himself he’d sell the business when he had his first child. That didn’t happen either.

Now, he’s expecting his second child next month. The timing is right to leave, he says.

“Things aren’t quite as exciting as they once were,” Moore says. Also, he says he wanted “to get out when I was at the top of my game.”

Moore started with one bus and grew the business to nine buses.

Spot’s owner Mike Miller, who owns the cable service company Mill-Tel, opened his business with four buses in June.

“We felt that there was a big enough demand that we could get a share of the market and make it work.”

Miller has been running out of buses on the popular weekend nights, but he’s working on a fifth Spot’s bus and now also has eight Unified Party Bus buses.

“It’s really going to help us, we believe, gain market share.”

He says Moore had a strong corporate business for weekday rentals.

“We had not cultivated those relationships yet.”

Miller is keeping the Unified name on those buses.

“We don’t want to change what Wichita’s used to,” he says. “We don’t want to change what’s not broken.”

He’s keeping the Spot’s name, too, because he wants to take the brand to other markets.

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Grand Chapel has staffing upheaval

WICHITA — When last we checked in with Dennis Wilkie and his Grand Chapel event center at 828 N. Broadway, he’d just — as he put it — cleaned house.

Looks like he’s done it again. And again.

“I’ve gone through half a dozen different managers in the last few months,” Wilkie says. “When I’m not in attendance over there, it’s kind of like a kindergarten class with the teacher gone.”

Wilkie says staffing issues have hurt business.

“It’s no secret (that) management and staff that I’ve had in the past have just run this thing in the ground,” he says. “I can’t even imagine how many bookings were available that just slipped through our fingers. … We should be booked solid for the next three years, and we’re not.”

Wilkie says all he’s tried to do is have a business “where everybody’s happy and everything is run professional.”

Even though the business hasn’t “made a profit in a long, long time,” Wilkie says “there’s no chance — no chance whatsoever … it’s going to go under.”

“When I get good management in there, it does real well.”

Wilkie thinks he has good management in place now.

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