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Name: J. Waylon Tate

City: Dallas

Neighborhood: Oak Lawn

Company/Title: J. Waylon & Associates, Principal

When did you move here? From Where?
2006, from Los Angeles, California

What made you decide to Say Yes to Dallas?
In essence, my public relations and advertising agency could operate from any major metropolis in the country. I chose to launch J. Waylon & Associates here – and have remained here – because Dallas is a great market for young LGBT business owners. We have thriving LGBT community members and allies that consistently support gay-owned businesses. Diverse demographics and inclusive policies enable us to do business without interference that we may experience in other locations.

How did you choose where to live in the Dallas Region?
Oak Lawn provided for me a safe, comfortable neighborhood near the amenities and entertainment venues that I frequent. With close proximity to major streets and Love Field, coupled with a five-minute drive to my downtown offices, this seemed the best choice for my needs.

What is the one thing that you could have done to make your move easier?
Considering the size of Dallas, it is a good idea to travel here and explore the numerous neighborhoods before making the move. I was lucky to find the exact area I was looking for, but it is a good idea to spend some time finding the best fit.

Tell us about your city/neighborhood. What do you like best? What makes it different?
Oak Lawn is a sea of complexity and is in the middle of much transition. Maple Avenue is providing some amazing new hot spots, and the growth on Lemmon Avenue is adding some refreshing options for entertainment and dining. I’ve become a huge fan of Paul Martin’s on Oak Lawn; incredible ambiance and a fantastic happy hour.

How has your opinion of the Dallas Region changed since moving here?
I am a native Texan with an unshakable pride for our state. I’ve lived in other cities in Texas, and while there may be some truth to the rivalry between Big D and Houston, I think we are all much more similar than we would like to believe.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to move here?
Dallas is a dynamic launchpad for young entrepreneurs. Commerce is written into our city’s DNA, and alongside numerous Fortune 500 companies, we have an abundance of thriving startups.

What is your passion, and how does Dallas help fulfill it?
My passions are many and one thing that I love about Dallas is the ability to fully realize my passions on the daily. I love the outdoors, and I have the Katy Trail for that. I love collaborating with professionals, and the North Texas GLBT Chamber of Commerce provides me that opportunity. I’m a huge fan of the arts, and Dallas certainly has a thriving scene for those who appreciate the arts. When I have visitors from out of town, there are staples that they must see: Nasher Sculpture Center, Crow Collection of Asian Art, Dallas Museum of Art, and the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. But on the regular, I am a huge fan of a hidden art gem in the city known as ArtLoveMagic, which showcases up-and-coming local artists, musicians and poets. The gallery on South Lamar is ever-changing and each month it hosts a special series. For live theater, I regularly follow Uptown Players for its talent casts and outrageous selection of plays. I’m also a huge fan of music, so I wouldn’t be complete without a season subscription to Turtle Creek Chorale, an internationally known men’s chorus with deep ties to the LGBT community.

What would you miss most about the area if you had to leave?
The people. I travel often and encounter a lot of personalities, and when friends visit here I continually hear that we are so friendly.

What is it like to own a business in Dallas?
My offices are located downtown, which makes my commute to work negligible. We do a lot of work in politics and policy, so being close to clients and government offices makes for easy lunch and coffee meetings. When I do work in other cities, I am often reminded of how convenient it is to do business in Dallas.

Where many cities may work against someone with a dream, Dallas embraces and supports them. Opportunities here are boundless, and the city provides a spring board for growth and entrepreneurial experimentation.

I have a lot of friends that are considering moving here, and one of the first things they ask me is if it is a good location for young, successful gay men, or as it is commonly referred to as the “power gays.” At first glance, a reference to the “power gays” may come off as arrogant or elitist, but neither of those things is accurate. A power gay refers to someone who normally has acquired a laudable education or excelled in his respective business, and uses that success to promote or support goodwill to the communities at large. By way of financial or political clout, a power gay promotes the advancement of LGBT initiatives through advocacy efforts, influence, or community leadership. Dallas has the largest LGBT population in Texas, so it is no surprise that we have a significant number of power players that are dedicated to achieving the goals of our communities.

Where do you go and what do you do on the weekends or days off?
Basically anywhere they serve Equality Vodka. They are a Dallas-based company that gives a significant portion of their proceeds to LGBT causes. Numerous restaurants and bars around Oak Lawn carry the brand, as well. If I know anything about Dallasites, it is that we love to socialize, and we love philanthropy.

What is your favorite restaurant?
I’m a foodie, so I enjoy searching for new patios around town. I’m a huge fan of Taco Dinner – in particular the one in West Village. This is a perfect place to people watch and make new friends. If I am entertaining with friends, we tend to escape to the patios at The Foundry or Rodeo Goat as they both offer larger patios with great energy. Another Dallas hot spot is Katy Trail Ice House, which is probably the best for people watching, and meeting new people; I enjoy the relaxed, eclectic crowd there the most. If it’s more business related, I’ll take clients to Henry’s Majestic or Savor in Klyde Warren Park. I find myself being pulled to Klyde Warren Park often as it makes for a spectacular outdoor evening dining experience.

What is your favorite festival/event?
Black Tie Dinner is an annual fundraising celebration in Dallas that benefits 20 North Texas LGBT beneficiaries. It is the largest LGBT fundraising dinner in the country – having raised more than $21 million to-date – and the proceeds are distributed to critical nonprofits that work year-round within our communities. It is quite simply THE event on the gay calendar. This is the one night of the year when prominent leaders in LGBT communities gather, dressed to the nines, to honor the work and commitment of dedicated volunteers and nonprofits.

Where do you like to shop? Why?
Highland Park Village seems to chip away at my pocketbook often, but I’m also a fan of mom-and-pop shops, and Bishop Arts has got that covered. Not a week goes by that I don’t hop over to El Padrino on Jefferson for the most amazing tacos I’ve ever eaten. This was one of my favorite discoveries when I moved to Dallas, as it is hard to find authentic Tex-Mex. Epiphany for Men has some great causal options for weekend wear, and I normally take some time to check out Indigo 1745 while I am down there. They always have unique pieces that you can’t find in other places.

NorthPark Center has done an incredible job with promoting new artists and their creations. Outside of a great day shopping, I equally enjoy the installations that have become a part of its venue.

Where do you feel you are nearest to your “tribe” in Dallas?
As a young gay entrepreneur, I feel most comfortable when I am around other creatives. Critical Launch and PrintBurner are two places that I find myself amongst my tribe; both run by creative geniuses, I get inspired each time I visit.

How do you interact with your community?
I work a lot but value the time I get to contribute to nonprofits or any opportunity to give back to a variety of issues. I have a soft spot for education and teach a government class at Richland College to empower young men and women to stand up and take their place in the world. Fortunately, my work enables me to interact with a number of different causes that are important to me.

Photo Credit: Imani Lytle

Name: Shradha Aiyer

Position: Director of Mobile Technologies

What made you say “Yes” to Axxess?
It has to be culture. We have a workforce that is more than 50 percent female at Axxess, which you don’t see at other places. I’ve interned at places where I was the only woman on the floor, so this is a fresh change. When I started at Axxess five years ago, we were at about 50 employees, but we were very diverse, with 15 countries being represented. We have over 30 countries represented now in our small, growing company. At Axxess, we really believe it doesn’t matter where you come from.

What can you find at Axxess that you can’t find anywhere else?
It would be the culture of innovation. We are a growing company but we haven’t stopped innovating. We are miles ahead from all our competition in the home health care technology space. Health care is so underserved from a technology perspective, but we constantly see the challenges that our customers and industry faces. Everything we do, even the services we offer to our state associations and our customers on a day-to-day basis, goes back to our culture of innovation and problem-solving, and you don’t get that in most companies.

What are the benefits to Axxess being in the Dallas Region?
Well, I went to the University of Texas at Dallas, so the first great benefit I see is that we’re a technology company and there are a lot of great minds here from a technology perspective and it is only growing, so us having access to great talent is amazing. The culture of Dallas is so welcoming to different cities, and it is so family-oriented and Axxess as a company is so family oriented as well. We really believe in work-life balance, so being placed in Dallas just works for us and helps us grow more.

What does Axxess do to give back to the community?
We do a lot, but just something that comes to my mind is that for a company our size, we actually have a vice president of corporate citizenship. Giving back is part of our growth mantra at Axxess – it’s actually the first part of it. It’s really in our DNA. We’ve adopted a couple of different schools. We have interns come and experience what it’s actually like to work in corporate life and understand the different tracks that there are. They work in the administrative department, they work in communications, they work with engineering. They get a good sense of where they want to go. We’re very active in promoting STEM as well as promoting women in technology. We’re also very cultural – we participate in a lot of cultural events.

What is the company culture like at Axxess?
The biggest thing that comes to mind is openness. For everything we do at Axxess to really work, it has to start with openness. We’re representing 30 countries in about 250 employees, and that’s because of how open and welcome we are. We’re a fairly flat organization, so even if there’s someone new who has an idea, they will feel comfortable enough to take it to our CEO or leadership, discuss the idea and get that implemented quickly. It’s all about making Axxess better and making home health care and health care technology better. That’s where our culture comes from, that’s where our focus is, and everything we do revolves around being open about it.

If you could describe Axxess in one word, what would it be?
It has to be innovation, because at the core of our being, we’re solving problems not only at a technology perspective, but also from an operations perspective. We’re an agile company. We’re not only agile in the engineering department, but in all our departments. We’ve taken that model to our administrative department, our operations department, and they’re really churning out information and features and communications very quickly and rapidly. All of that wouldn’t be able to happen if we weren’t innovative in our thoughts and in the work we do and the processes that we follow.

Photo Credit: Holly Nguyen

Laura Pitcher is a blogger (The Bucket List Narratives) who travels to different destinations (especially Disney parks around the world) with her husband David.

How did you get to the Dallas Region?
I was born in Dallas and grew up in Plano. I went to Trinity Christian Academy and American Heritage Academy. I left and attended college for two years in Oklahoma and then moved back. I always knew that I wanted to live here long term.

What made you decide to Say Yes to Dallas?
With what I do, it’d probably be more practical for me to live in Orlando or Anaheim, since I travel so much, but what’s nice about running a mobile business is that I can choose to live anywhere, and I’ve chosen to be based out of Dallas. I’ve found that I like Dallas the most. It’s where I have my community, it’s where I have my people, and, at the end of the day, that’s what I value. There’s a sense of pride and sense of belonging that Texans have, and Dallas has more of a big-city vibe that you don’t get anywhere else in Texas.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to move here?
It’s an easy city to be rooted in. I think that the South in general is a very community-driven place and a very relationship-driven place. We have a lot of urban things to do, but it has very Southern roots, so it’s an easy place to find your tribe and your people. Dallas has all the appeal of a big city like New York or Chicago, but you have hospitality and friendship and community and sort of that small town feel.

Do you travel often? Is it easier or harder to do here?
I’m gone at least once a month, sometimes more, but I’m at the airport at least once a month. I’ve been to so many airports all over the world and DFW International Airport is definitely the easiest to navigate. It’s just so easy to fly out of and fly into. It’s also the easiest city to drive in compared to other cities. California traffic, Orlando traffic, anywhere – Dallas roadways are just the best.

What would you miss most about the area if you had to leave?
I would definitely miss my community the most. That’s what mainly keeps me rooted in Dallas, but I also just love the area. There’s always something new to eat, there’s always something new to try, and it’s not super expensive yet like New York or Paris.

What is your passion, and how does the Dallas Region help fulfill it?
What I really want to be able to do is travel and write about it and fulfill my dreams while still being rooted in community. Dallas helps me do that by providing a home base that feels safe and feels familiar and feels comfortable, but also lets me grow and lets me expand.

Where do you like to shop? Why?
I like to shop at NorthPark Center. I’ve been coming here since I was a kid. It has a lot of good memories and I think anyone that lives in the Dallas Region likes going to NorthPark. I also like the shops at Watters Creek and Highland Park Village. If I’m going to thrift stores, I really like Buffalo Exchange and Genesis’ Benefit Thrift Store. Dallas has a lot of good thrift stores in general.

What do you like to do when you aren’t traveling?
I love to hang out with my friends. My husband and I love going to Klyde Warren Park and coffee shops. We spend a good amount of time going to Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. They have really fun movie parties – they just did a Christmas in July “Elf” movie party where you throw snowballs at each other in the theater. When we aren’t traveling to Disney, we like to travel to other places – and when I’m not traveling, I’m planning my traveling. We just got back from Hawaii, Europe, Savannah, and Charleston.

What is your favorite festival/event?
I love Taste Addison, I love Texas Tulips at Pilot Point, I love the Bluebonnet Trails Festival. I love Christmas in Dallas – that’s my favorite. I love NorthPark at Christmas, I love watching “A Christmas Carol” they put on every year at Wyly Theatre. I love the lights at Highland Village Park. They do a “Gingerbread Stroll” where you can walk around store to store and look at gingerbread houses.

What’s your favorite Disney event?
They do a “Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas” event every year which is very fun. There’s an “International Flower and Garden Festival” at Epcot where they do these giant flower topiaries and there’s food and it’s super fun. I just like all of it.

Photo Credit: Holly Nguyen 

Name: Jing Chang

Position: Lead Engineer (Android Developer)

What made you say “Yes” to Bottle Rocket?
I interviewed with some bigger companies who would have very stern faces and would say, “Why are you here today? Why should we hire you?” versus Bottle Rocket, saying, “Let me introduce you to our environment first and see if you like us, and then we’ll talk about if you’ll be a good fit.” I personally prefer places not as uptight. It’s a very different mindset to me. It’s a pretty warm and open environment, and you can see everyone walks around with a smile. When I joined, I was 100 percent confident that it would be a good place to work.

What can you find at Bottle Rocket that you can’t find anywhere else?
I think its passion and transparency. Our CEO, Calvin Carter, gives a presentation to each batch of new hires about why he started the company and what his vision is. He’s like a pioneer – he started this company the day after Apple announced they would have an App Store. Another thing is transparency. Every week, we have a company-wide meeting, and the CFO (we call him Uncle Gary) gives us a very transparent financial report. As an engineer, I don’t really understand the financial portion, so for me to get exposed to that is one thing I really like about being here.

What are the benefits to Bottle Rocket being in the Dallas Region?
The first thing that comes to my mind is restaurants! We’re in the center of Addison, so there’s lots of good food around here. Large conferences, like the Big Design event, are often in nearby hotels. It makes it easier for Bottle Rocket to host meetups that we have, like the Dallas Google Development Group. The location is a pretty good add-on for people who are really big on learning more and meeting new people.

What does Bottle Rocket do to give back to the community?
Bottle Rocket is heavily involved in children’s education. There’s a summer camp for Coppell ISD where we teach kids how to do mobile apps. We provided some of the equipment, did some of the teaching and gave them resources. There’s also the Bold Idea, where we teach kids from third grade to high school how to program. Some of the Rocketeers – that’s what we call everyone at Bottle Rocket – will volunteer to be their teachers.

What is the company culture like at Bottle Rocket?
I like that when we work, we work really hard and we try to make it efficient, but when we play, we play really hard too. Some floors in this building are bankers, so when they look at us, they’ll say, “Oh, you’re from the eighth floor right? We envy you because you don’t have to dress up every day!” There’s also some video games here that people will play during lunch of after hours. On the ninth floor, there’s two big tables dedicated to board games that people will play during lunchtime, too.

If you could describe Bottle Rocket in one word, what would it be?
I would say we’re very passionate. We like what we do and we always try to explore and see what to do in the mobile app business because everything changes. We have opportunities to learn things that we’re passionate about, and we really enjoy working on things we make.

Photo Credit: Holly Nguyen 

Name: Jacob Buckles

Position: Digital Marketing Specialist

What made you say “Yes” to Hilti?
I was given an opportunity to do something I was really passionate about, on a global scale. I really enjoyed their flexibility in working with my schedule, and working from home. However, I think the most important thing for me was the culture – culture is so important at Hilti. They’re really big about diversity and inclusion. It’s not something they just say, they really live by it.

What can you find at Hilti that you can’t find anywhere else?
You can make an impact working at any level within the organization. They’re open to new and innovative ideas, and the best ideas win at Hilti.

What are the benefits to Hilti being in the Dallas Region?
The main benefit for Hilti is that they’re in the largest construction market in the United States – that being the Dallas Region. Also, Hilti is a global organization and we’re located near one of the largest international airports, and one of the friendliest domestic airports. I think those are a few reasons why Hilti really thrives in the Dallas Region.

What does Hilti do to give back to the community?
We’re big participants in Habitat for Humanity. We also have an HR policy where you can take multiple days off of work to volunteer with an organization within the community that you’re passionate about. I’m involved in several organizations, such as Heart House and the Dallas Regional Chamber – specifically, LEAD YP and the YP Board. There’s a lot of opportunities at Hilti, and they really push you to be involved in the community.

What is the company culture like at Hilti?
It really goes back to diversity and inclusion. We have a really big mix of cultures at Hilti. It’s not uncommon to see people having full-on conversations in a multitude of languages, and it’s not uncommon for people in various levels of the organization to have an impact. I think those two words (diversity and inclusion) characterize our culture. We also spend a lot of time investing in internal training throughout the year to help us stay on our cultural journey.

If you could describe Hilti in one word, what would it be?
I would say innovative. We’re innovative in our products, we’re innovative in our culture, and we’re innovative in how we treat and compensate our employees.

Photo Credit: Holly Nguyen