More Bad News for Creig

Occasionally I get asked about a post I wrote back on December 20, 2011 concerning a lawsuit filed against HoCo über realtor, Creig Northrop. “Whatever happened with that?” they’ll ask.

I had no idea. It seemed to have faded off into that silent world of negotiated settlements.

Until today that is. In his column in The Washington Post, Robert McCartney writes that an unrelated new suit, filed in federal court, alleges that Creig “received hundreds of thousands of dollars of illicit payments over a period of 13 years to send settlement business to a local title firm.”

That would be Lakeview Title. McCartney also mentions them.

“The agreement provided that Northrop would “designate Lakeview as its exclusive preferred settlement and title company,” and would not “designate or endorse any entity” other than Lakeview for such business.

The new lawsuit alleges that the marketing deal was a clear violation of a U.S. law, known as RESPA, which prohibits a firm from receiving compensation in exchange for referrals for real estate settlement services.”

The column also shed some light on the case from my earlier post.

“Much of the earlier lawsuit, in state court, was defeated on technical grounds. A judge ruled that the complaint didn't qualify as a class action and that the statute of limitations had expired. The plaintiffs plan to appeal.”

Now you know.

On A Roll

When the Howard Hughes Corporation purchased the former Ryland Headquarters building last August, it was more than half empty. Yesterday, with the announcement that GP Strategies had leased three floors in the nine story office building, it’s now 94% leased. In the commercial real estate game this is a home run.

Howard Hughes is beginning to make home runs look easy. In his remarks at yesterday’s ceremony, John DeWolf, Senior Vice President of Howard Hughes told the guests that downtown Columbia was one of the top three projects for the company. The other two were in Hawaii and New York City.  

There is more exciting news to come in Columbia too, including the pending announcement of the new restaurant for the former Red Pearl space. The company has actually found itself in the enviable position of having to manage announcements so that each new development gets its own time in the spotlight.

And speaking of spotlights, Ken Ulman was also on hand yesterday to help celebrate this latest downtown development and I took the opportunity to chat briefly with him. I asked the exec what he thought about the talk of Dutch Ruppersberger getting into the 2014 gubernatorial race. Ken did not betray any concern about this development. He suggested that it may already too late for Dutch in terms of both grassroots organization and fundraising. Apparently any monies Dutch has raised for his congressional races cannot be used for a statewide race.

In the meantime, Ken can look forward to more opportunities to stand in the spotlight in the coming months as downtown Columbia continues on a roll.

HoCo Losing Corporate HQ

On Tuesday shareholders of Columbia based Arbitron voted overwhelming in favor of being acquired by New York based Nielsen, combining the dominant radio rating service with the dominant television rating service. If the deal passes muster with the antitrust cops, the television guys will win and HoCo will lose a major corporate headquarters. According to this story by Gary Haber in the Baltimore Business Journal the radio ratings company “is one of the largest employers in Howard County. It employs about 860 people in the Baltimore area, out of a U.S. workforce of about 1,000.”

The ratings business is struggling to keep up with tech savvy consumers. In an article entitled “The Nielsen Family is Dead” in Wired, Tom Vanderbilt writes that “Nielsen and others have been scrambling to generate a new kind of TV rating, one that takes into account all of the activity that occurs on screens other than a television.”

“Since the 1970s, television has been ruled by the Nielsen Family—25,000 households whose TV habits collectively provide a statistical snapshot of a nation’s viewing behavior. Over the years, the Nielsen rating has been tweaked, but it still serves one fundamental purpose: to gauge how many people are watching a given show on a conventional television set. But that’s not how we watch any more. Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Roku, iTunes, smartphone, tablet—none of these platforms or devices are reflected in the Nielsen rating. (In February Nielsen announced that this fall it would finally begin including Internet streaming to TV sets in its ratings.)”

Arbitron has been trying to keep up as well. In 2005 they began rolling out the Portable People Meter which was meant to phase out its dependence on diaries. Four years later they encountered some unanticipated regulatory blow back.

Change may be constant but it can also be unpredictable.

Ready. Fire! Aim.

Count me among those who believe that Governor O’Malley’s proposed gun control legislation will do little to nothing to curb gun violence in the state. Short of an outright ban on gun ownership, nothing can stop a determined person from procuring a firearm and wreaking havoc with it. I don't believe you can legislate against madness.

On the other hand what the gun bill may accomplish is to drive a major employer to leave the state, putting 300 Marylanders out of work. According to this story by Aaron C. Davis in The Washington Post, Berretta USA, which had been planning to expand its plant in Prince George’s County with a new line is now “weighing whether the rifle line, and perhaps the company itself, should stay in a place increasingly hostile toward its products.”

“Concern that the company will leave, and take its 300 jobs with it, is palpable among state lawmakers who worry it could be collateral damage from Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proposed gun-control bill.”

It's not an idle threat. The last time Maryland introduced new gun laws the company moved some operations from Maryland to Virginia.

The best quote in the story was that made by Ugo Gussalli Beretta, the patriarch of the five hundred year old company during a recent visit to the plant, ‘There always seems to be a problem with Maryland.”

Nice.

Nice Bus but Cash Bar

When I read that a statewide economic development bus tour was going to make its last stop at Merriweather Post Pavilion today it piqued my curiosity. This was the first I’d heard of it. Unbeknownst to me until today, a bus equipped with a recording studio, has been traveling around the state for the past three weeks inviting entrepreneurs and would be entrepreneurs to hop on the bus and record a pitch for their idea. The objective is then to take these budding businesses and try and connect them with resources.

According to this story in The Washington Post, “participants meet and receive feedback from top business leaders and have the opportunity to record a four- to six-minute business pitch inside the bus studio.”

“A panel of business professionals will judge the entries and choose several to advance to the next round. The winners will fine-tune their pitches for showcase at the Entrepreneur Expo, an event on Nov. 13 sponsored by the Maryland Technology Development Corp., or TEDCO.”

One of the major sponsors of the tour was our own Economic Development Authority, so naturally the county exec was on hand this afternoon to celebrate it’s conclusion in front of a group of approximately 100 people. The reception was held in the orchestra pit in front of the main stage and included a cash bar. Laura Nueman, the CEO of the HCEDA, introduced Ken as “our next governor.”

“Next year I’d like to see a thousand people here,” he told the assembled business people. I couldn't but think that free drinks might help that, particularly free drinks from Maryland brewers and vintners.

It seems like that would be a nice way to showcase some of Maryland's successful entrepreneurs too.

The Heat is On

Wegmans literally has the hots this weekend. As reported earlier by HowChow, the store is hosting a Hatch Chile Event today through Sunday. If you like hot stuff, its worth checking out.

Today, as I stopped in to pick up a few grocery items, I discovered Hatch Chili Peppers when offered a sample of a Hatch pepper cheese spread. It was love at first bite. Hatch peppers are sort of like jalapeño peppers except that the hot part sticks around for awhile instead of the hit and run you get from jalapenos. 

Before I finished shopping I had sampled a Hatch pepper stuffed with Italian sausage, Hatch pepper cornbread, and a Hatch sushi roll. For lunch, I treated myself to some Jambalaya with Hatch peppers at the prepared food bar. Talk about in-store integrated marketing!

Out in front of the store they have a Hatch Chile pepper roasting thing going on. I sampled some of those too. I also spoke briefly with Frank (the guy in white shirt waving) who told me that they had already sold four and half pallets of the peppers, each pepper pallet holding about 50 forty pound boxes of peppers.(Try saying that three times fast.)

You might even say they’re selling like hot cakes!

The Salugen Story Reconstructed

In a comment made to this post, school board member Brian Meshkin took me to task for a post I wrote last year about Salugen, his former company. Brian stated that the “post is premised
on, and filled with, falsities.”

This weekend I decided to spend some time trying to find out what I got wrong. In doing so, I ended up with more questions than answers about what actually went on with Salugen.

Here is what both Brian and I agree on. In July of 2008, the company was sold to Sherbrooke Equity AG of Switzerland. A press release  on October 6, 2008 announced the sale.

SAN DIEGO, CA, October 06, 2008 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Salugen (http://www.salugen.com), a life sciences company, announces today that it has been acquired by an affiliate of Switzerland-based investment bank, Sherbrooke Equity (http://www.sherbrookeequity.com). The acquiring entity has been renamed Salugen AG and will be based in Zurich, Switzerland.

"We believe that Salugen is the company of our future, as addiction along with other issues run rampant in our communities, both here and abroad. They can help to shed light on the problem and create solutions to these issues in our lives," said Lee Leblanc, Managing Director of Sherbrooke Equity AG. Specific terms of the transaction were not announced but the Company announced that the transaction would be accretive to Salugen shareholders and would address debt holders of the company as well.”

A month before that, on September 10, 2008, Dr. Kenneth Blum, the Chief Scientific Officer of Salugen, issued a press release announcing his resignation and that of “other key executives.”

“All other key executives of the company, with the exception of Brian Meshkin, CEO, also resigned. In accordance with Dr. Blum's agreement with Salugen, all rights to the intellectual property portfolio primarily owned by Dr. Blum and his research associates reverted to Dr. Blum, principal of Synaptamine, Inc. and other named patent holders. Key factors in the departure of the management team were not specifically disclosed however, under Mr. Meshkin's direction, Salugen was unable to raise capital, adequately perform operational activities or compensate employees and vendors.”

Brian claims that Dr. Blum was fired.

“Your accusations, based on a fraudulent press release, about alleged mismanagement of Salugen is also untrue.  Dr. Blum was terminated from Salugen a year earlier due to his own character issues preventing him from passing due diligence with an investment bank.”

 You may note that the dates don’t match up. This won’t be the first time in the Salugen story that this occurs.

In any event, Brian remained with the company and according to his own posting on yatedo.com, he “ Led the company to an IPO (symbol: SQZ.F) and exit for its initial investors in 4 years”  

On To2C, he pointed out  that the company went public on October 4, 2008, “the day the world stock markets crashed.”

The company on the other hand, claimed to be doing well in spite of the worldwide recession. Salugen issued a press release on April 13,2009 which painted a picture of a company prospering.

“ZURICH, SWITZERLAND and SAN DIEGO, CA USA – April 13, 2009 – Salugen® AG (www.salugen.com), a life sciences company, announces today the successful listing of its stock traded on the FWB® Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse (the Frankfurt Stock Exchange) under the symbol SQZ (FRA:SQZ.F). Last month Salugen’s share price increased over 70 percent despite uncertain economic times affecting the overall equity markets and is currently back on its listing price.”

After that things start to get a little fuzzy.

Brian says that “About one year later – in September 2009 – the transaction was unwound.  The public entity, whose stock symbol was SQZ.F, owned by Sherbrooke Equity, was sold to a German auction company.”

To say that Salugen AG's demise seemed sudden would be a huge understatement. Two months prior to this “unwinding” Salugen issued the following press release:

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND and SAN DIEGO, CA USA – July 7, 2009 – Salugen® (SYMBOL: SQZ.F), a publicly-traded international life sciences company, announces today the launch of its Salugen Medical Group (SMG) division beginning in the State of California. In its first week on the market, the Salugen System is being prescribed for dozens of patients suffering from a specific excess craving disorder, namely narcotic tolerance and dependence. The Salugen Medical Group’s first week revenues are over $200,000, and anticipates 2009 revenues in California to exceed $2M.”

A month later the future looked even rosier:

“ZURICH, SWITZERLAND and SAN DIEGO, CA USA – August 17, 2009 – Salugen® (SYMBOL: SQZ.F), a publicly-traded international life sciences company, announces today that it is on target to achieve its 2009 revenue forecast of $3 million USD based upon July 2009 actual revenues and its pipeline for August and September.

At $3 million USD in 2009, the Company will have record high revenues. Over the next twelve months, the Company’s revenue run rate will be in excess of $6 million USD. With the recent acquisition of the CraniYums consumer functional candy product line building upon its prescription HAVEOS product in physician offices, Salugen addresses a growing $18 billion market in the USA with its clinically-proven anti-craving products in both medical and consumer markets.”

Oddly, the same press release referenced scientific studies authored by Dr. Kenneth Blum, the guy whose character issues supposedly spooked the same investment bank that was now touting his studies to support its claims.

The following month, the company “unwound.”

Brian claims that after 2009, Sherbrooke and the guys in Switzerland no longer had anything to do with Salugen. Salugen AG and its stock symbol (SQZ.F) morphed into other companies (Pactolus AG, Berger Investments AG and Mioomy AG) that soon "unwound" as well. Mioomy AG a German online auction company even listed Brian as a “member” as late as March of 2010. Brian says he was unaware of that until today.

A Google search today of the SQZ.F symbol turned up Serica Energy, PLC.

The Salugen website now redirects users to Proove Biosciences, Brian’s new company.

Enterprise to Relocate in Town Center

Enterprise Community Partners, one of the oldest tenants in the American City Building, one of Columbia's oldest office buildings, will soon be relocating to 11000 Broken Land Parkway. Enterprise, which currently occupies over 80,000 square feet in the 117,000 square foot building, has been in the building for over 26 years.

11000 Broken Land Parkway was recently purchased by the Howard Hughes Corporation. The American City Building is also owned by Howard Hughes.

The American City Building was built in 1969 and was HoCo’s first high rise office building. It was named after the American City Corporation, which was once the largest tenant in the building.

Given its location next to recently announced Whole Foods Market, it would have to be considered a prime candidate for redevelopment.

Three HoCo Companies Make Inc. 500

Every year Inc. magazine ranks the 500 fastest growing busisines in the United States based on revenue growth. This year, Astrum Solar, based in Annapois Junction, was ranked No. 2.

According to this story by Ryan Sharrow in The Baltimore Business Journal, Astrum recorded “23,577 percent growth in the last three years and revenue of $26.9 million in 2011.”

They weren’t the only HoCo companies to make the list. Columbia based PCI Strategic Management was ranked 112 and Elkridge based Linq Services was No. 300.

The complete list for 2012 will be published in the September issue on Inc.

Failing Grades for HoCo Dems

Although it is probably not a report card that they care all that much about, our HoCo statehouse Dems didn’t fare that well in the annual Roll Call report card from Maryland Business for Responsive Government (MBRG). The annual rankings call attention to legislators “attitudes toward business, jobs, economic growth, and investment in the state…”

As I wrote in this post two years ago, MBRG ranks the elected officials based on their votes on business legislation, including committee votes.

“In order to compare a legislator’s score with his or her colleagues, both Senate and House members have been ranked by percentiles. The percentile represents where a legislator’s 2012 MBRG % rating ranks in relation to other legislators’ ratings.”

Delegate Frank Turner scored the lowest, earning a 0% for 2012, followed by Guy Guzzone with a 1%. Delegates Jimmy Malone and Liz Bobo were both ranked at 14% while Shane Pendergrass  got 46%.

The most biz friendly HoCo Dem in the General Assembly was Steven DeBoy at 60%. Senator Ed Kasemeyer scored 50% and Senator Jim Robey, 34%. For Jim this was actually a huge improvement over 2010 when he was given a 2% score.

The Dems seem to heading in the wrong direction on making Maryland more business friendly.

The Repubs fared much better in the Roll Call scoring. Senator Allan Kittleman received 76% and Delegates Warren Miller and Gail Bates each got a 72%.

Since I began paying attention, these numbers rarely fluctuate all that dramatically. As long as Maryland remains a one party state, there is probably little chance of change in the Old Line State's business climate.

Room for Rent

The Room Store's days in Columbia may be numbered. The low priced furniture chain filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December with hopes that they could reemerge as a going concern.

That may no longer be the case. In April the chain exited the Texas market where it got its start by closing ten stores. Now the rest of the stores may be on the chopping block. According to this story by Gregory J. Gilligan in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the company has asked the bankruptcy judge “to allow the beleaguered chain to sell its assets at an auction.”

“The stores and inventory could be sold in their entirety to a buyer that would continue running some or all of the locations, or piecemeal to a variety of buyers.”

Judging by how quickly the adjacent former Borders store was back-filled, this space is not likely to be dark for very long.

Gesundheit!

At a commercial real estate seminar last week, Anirban Basu said that from 2003 to 2010, the biotech industry accounted for one third of all jobs created in Maryland. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Maryland lags behind San Diego, Boston, the Research Triangle in North Carolina and Seattle-Bellevue-Everett in creating a sustainable, successful biotech cluster.

It turns out that the regions greatest biotech research institutions like the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda and the Food and Drug Administration in White Oak may be part of the problem. Anirban said it is a mindset problem that keeps the local biotech industry from capitalizing on opportunities.

“When someone sneezes in Palo Alto or Cambridge, researchers try to figure out how to make a buck from it. When someone sneezes in the Baltimore / Washington corridor researchers submit a grant to study it.”

Dr. Judy Britz is trying to change this. She is formerly the President and CEO of Cylex in Columbia and now serves as the Executive Director of the Maryland Biotechnology Center. She hopes to alter this grant writing mindset by embedding private sector  professionals in research departments who can recognize commercial opportunities and capitalize on them.

Gesundheit!

Untimely Service

Our mantle clock stopped working last week. Gone were the familiar quarter hourly chimes that had become part of our household rhythm. Even in a day and age of digital clocks, mechanical timepieces have endured.

They are high maintenance devices compared to their digital cousins. In addition to regular winding, the clock requires a lube job about every two years. If you don’t keep it well oiled, it will eventually freeze up. That’s exactly what happened to our clock.

It’s a pretty common problem according to Ben, the Hands of Time service manager. People simply forget to have it done. I asked Ben if they sent out regular clock lubrication email reminders to their clients. “We just started sending postcards,” he told me though he expects they will eventually switch to email. Apparently change comes slowly in the clock repair biz.

So do repairs.

The good news is that you can still get these clocks serviced right here in HoCo. The Hands of Time clock shop in Savage Mill has a staff of four fulltime horologists. The bad news is that they are one of the last remaining clock repair shops in the area. That means they almost have too much business.

Even a seemingly simple lube job can take a couple of months. Most repair work takes longer, like five months longer.

It looks like its going to be awhile before we hear those soothing quarter hour chimes in our house again.

CSX…In the News

This morning HoCo residents awoke to news of a CSX “ freight train collision” in Jessup. A story about the incident by Elizabeth Janney in Elkridge Patch  immediately linked the accident to the HoCo loco intermodal controversy.

While the proposed intermodal site in Hanover has gotten most of the attention, some loco politicos have suggested that the Montevideo Road site might be the better choice. Those residents used this incident to suggest that they don't want an intermodal terminal either. The Montevideons cited this freight train collision as further evidence of the “impact of having a large-scale freight operation which may be rife with hazardous materials near their homes.”

The thing is, this wasn’t really so much a collision as it was a derailment. No one was injured and damage appeared relatively minimal. WUSA didn't even use the word collision in their report. They called it a minor train derailment. They have pictures too. 

Yesterday, just before this  happened, CSX announced that it was adding 140 jobs in Maryland this year, including new jobs right here in Jessup. I didn’t hear or read any stories with quotes from politicos, economic development authorities or chambers of commerce welcoming this news. In fairness, it could be that the press was only minimally interested and nobody asked. An announcement of 140 layoffs or news of an accident that hurt or killed someone would be much more interesting I suppose.

Getting Closer to Our Co-Workers

If it seems like its getting a little tighter at your office than it probably is. A recent research study conducted by CoreNet Global predicts that the average amount of space allocated to each employee in an office will drop below a hundred square feet within the next five years.

This is part of a trend. In 2010 the average allotment was 225 square feet, today the average is 176 square feet.

"The main reason for the declines," said Richard Kadzis, CoreNet Global's vice president of strategic communications, "is the huge increase in collaborative and team-oriented space inside a growing number of companies that are stressing 'smaller but smarter' workplaces against the backdrop of continuing economic uncertainty and cost containment."

I noticed this in HoCo loco offices too. The majority of my clients that are currently renewing leases, are focused on gaining new efficiencies in their spaces. Sometimes this means a file room gets eliminated in favor of off site storage, other times it means reducing the suite size and getting everyone to just cozy up a little.

It hasn’t hit our office, yet. Even though our office is ninety percent open work plan, we still work out to 284 square feet per person. I don’t know how long we’ll sustain that but for now I’m grateful. 

Compost Crunch

About a thousand HoCo residents are now participating in the HoCo kitchen waste recycling program reducing the amount of waste sent to the landfills by 25%. By most measures the program has been a success yet, according to this story by Kevin Rector in Explore Howard, “it's future is also mired in uncertainty.”

"With what's going on in Annapolis and what's going to happen with our budgets, I'm not sure yet," said Howard County Department of Public Works Environmental Services Bureau Chief Evelyn Tomlin on the program's future. "I think we're really going to see a real impact on what we can do."

Right now the biggest problem is where the stuff in the green bin ends up after it leaves the curb. When the program started in 2010, the collection of banana peels, egg shells and pizza boxes were trucked just across the border to a composting facility in Carroll County, Woodbine based Recycled Green Industries. The privately held business, which once processed over a half million cubic yards of organic waste every year, agreed to stop accepting food waste in December after being notified by the Maryland Department of the Environment that they were out of compliance with state regulations. According to this story by Jeremy Carroll in Waste and Recycling News, DOE spokesperson Samantha Kappalmen, said “composting can cause surface and ground water pollution and it is important for composting to be done within the state’s regulatory requirements…”

Does this mean that HoCo’s green can initiative has helped make Carroll brown?

Now our wet garbage is traveling across the state line to another company facility where, either it is in compliance, or the regulatory environment is just more favorable.

The Few, The Proud, The Merkle

It’s not easy getting a job at Merkle, but then again it’s not supposed to be.

I can’t help myself.

Since reading this column by Thomas Heath in The Washington Post about Merkle I find myself conjuring up potential slogans for employee recruitment for the Columbia based company. Then again maybe they don’t really need that.

“It isn’t easy to get hired. The screening process includes making a presentation before three people, who then vote on whether they want you. “

That’s hard.

Still, it’s seems to be working. The 1,500 employee firm was recently valued at $400 million. That’s a long way from where they started when David Williams acquired Merkle in 1988. “And Williams has his sights set on raising revenue to $1 billion a year.”

And that will certainly require a few more people.

Port Lands a Very Big Deal

The future prospects of the Port of Baltimore for container shipping got a big boost this week. The world’s fifth largest container shipping company, Hapag-Lloyd has chosen Baltimore over other east coast ports, to be a major US shipping hub. According to this story by Candus Thomson in The Sun, state officials, who had lobbied hard to woo Hapag-Lloyd to Baltimore, claimed this “will boost container traffic at the port of Baltimore by roughly 10 percent, increasing the number of waterfront jobs and further raising the region's profile within the maritime industry…,”

Good news indeed. There’s a HoCo loco angle to this story too.

“For stevedores and other workers at the Seagirt Marine Terminal, operated by Ports America Chesapeake, the additional containers will serve as a warmup for the expected arrival of the so-called post-Panamax ships, the world's largest cargo vessels that will use the Panama Canal after a widening project is completed in 2014.”

This is one of the reasons why a loco intermodal terminal could be a boon to some of the HoCo loco companies involved in the distribution of goods. There is approximately six million square feet of HoCo loco warehouse space housing a variety of distribution firms. I really don’t care if its Montevideo or Hanover as long as its here it will be good for those jobs.

CSX actually helped sell Baltimore to Hapag-Lloyd. James White, executive director of the Maryland Port Administration explained “a team that included Ports America Chesapeake and CSX as well as the port of Baltimore made a presentation to Hapag-Lloyd…”

“Ports America was able to emphasize the deep-water, post-Panamax berth and cranes, its efficiency in unloading ships and the open land next to Seagirt, on which a warehouse could be constructed. CSX outlined its $160 million commitment to finishing the National Gateway rail project, which will allow double-stacked freight trains to deliver goods to the Midwest.”

Cracks in the Bedrock

In an ad currently airing on television, Wesley Foster, the CEO of Long & Foster real estate, states that his company was founded on the “bedrock of honesty and intregity.” He then goes on to say that those are the qualities “that I’ve always seen in Creig Northrop.”

In a lawsuit filed on December 9th against the Creig Northrop Team of Long & Foster, several families in the Baltimore area are now challenging that assumption. According to this story by Jamie Smith Hopkins in The Sun,  the suit “alleges that the defendants used a complex scheme to get clients to buy new homes without first selling their old ones, requiring two new loans rather than one and netting more fees and commissions for the companies. The defendants fabricated documents to make these deals possible, the lawsuit also alleges.”

Apparently this isn’t the first time this year that Creig and his team has found itself defending its “honesty and integrity” either.

“In the earlier lawsuit that settled in March, a Fulton couple said they were victimized by a similar buy-now-sell-later scheme. G. Russell Donaldson, who represented them and is one of the attorneys involved in the new suit, said the settlement terms were confidential.”

I’m betting that Mr. Donaldson is not on the Creig Northrops team Christmas card list.

The Least Worst

 For those of us who continue to struggle through a weak economy there is some comfort in knowing that it could be worse. According to this story by Lindsey McPerson in Explore Howard, Anirban Basu recently described the HoCo loco economy as the “least worst, and least worse of course is the new excellent…”

While the HoCo unemployment rate is the lowest in the state, we are still feeling the effects from the slowdown in government spending.

 “More problematic for Howard County, he said, is that the Washington metropolitan region, which is largely tied to federal government employment, has only added 5,600 jobs in the past year. Basu said the shrinking of the government sector is not good for income growth or the housing market in the area.”  

Fortunately, a couple of HoCo loco private sector businesses are picking up some of the slack. In this article by Danielle Douglas in Capital Business, Columbia based Micro Systems and Medstar Health were both singled out for adding jobs in 2011.

“Micros Systems in Columbia is one company that added jobs. It brought on 23 new, local employees in the past year, boosting its headcount to 1,016. The company, which provides the hospitality industry with cash registers and computer applications for back-office functions, is projecting revenue north of $1.1 billion this year, a 10 percent increase over the prior year.”

“MedStar Health, a Columbia-based regional health care provider, grew its local employee roster by 25 percent to 15,559 people. The company manages a network of nine hospitals and 20 other health-related businesses in the area, including Washington Hospital Center and Good Samaritan Hospital.”