“FYI: Business - Tulsa World” plus 4 more |
- FYI: Business - Tulsa World
- More Business - San Francisco Chronicle
- UPI NewsTrack Business - Investors Business Daily
- Letter: Martin: LSU seeks business ties - Baton Rouge Advocate
- (Miami Hurled) Honduras' business leaders hope elections restore ... - Democratic Underground.com
| Posted: 26 Dec 2009 07:42 AM PST Oklahoma rig count climbs by twoThe number of drilling rigs actively exploring for oil or gas in Oklahoma rose by two this week to 95, Baker Hughes Inc. reported. The state's rig count is 40 percent below the year-ago level of 159.Nationwide, the net number of active drilling units fell by 15 this week to 1,178, said Houston-based Baker Hughes. A year ago, the national total was nearly 32 percent higher at 1,721. Of the rigs running this week across the nation, 751 were exploring for natural gas and 416 for oil, the report said, while 11 were listed as miscellaneous. Of the other major oil- and gas-producing states, net rig tallies rose by two in Louisiana and North Dakota, while Pennsylvania added one drilling unit. Rig counts fell by two in Arkansas and Colorado, while Alaska, California, New Mexico and Wyoming each lost one rig. Net totals did not change in Texas and West Virginia, the report said. Baker Hughes, an oil-field services company and toolmaker, has tracked rig counts since 1944. Legislative action site launched by chamberThe Tulsa Metro Chamber has launched a new tool for legislative action called OneVoiceTulsa.com, a Web site devoted to making the voice of the Tulsa region's business community heard by local, state and federal officials.
The site will offer up-to-date news and information on policies, issues and positions affecting the Tulsa regional business community at the local, state and federal level. Weekly legislative updates distributed by the chamber during the state legislative session will also be accessible. Just Between Friends tops 100 franchisesJust Between Friends, a maternity and children's consignment sales event based in Tulsa, has topped 100 franchises after selling six in December.The company has expanded to 102 franchises in 22 states as moms across the country are embracing the consignment concept by attending spring and fall JBF sales. The new franchises are located in Reno, Nev.; North Bay, Calif.; St. Cloud, Minn.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Treasure Coast, Fla.; and Edmond. "At the beginning of 2009, we had 72 franchises across the country," said Shannon Wilburn, president and co-founder of Just Between Friends Franchise Systems Inc. "We have grown by more than 38 percent this year and we believe much of that growth is due to the recession as more families across the country search for ways to save money and earn money. " Many of our new franchise owners are women who have left the corporate world and see JBF as a great business opportunity. Others are families who are opening a franchise as an investment in their future." Just Between Friends franchises are experiencing an average 30 percent increase in sales. For more information on Just Between Friends, visit tulsaworld.com/jbfsale. FreshBerry Cafés inked for Virginia, MarylandBeautiful Brands International announced the expansion of its agreement with John and Linda Lenzmeier to include the development of 100 FreshBerry Frozen Yogurt Cafés in Virginia and Maryland.The previous agreement had tapped John Lenzmeier as lead development agent for a 50-unit FreshBerry franchise expansion deal in North Carolina. "Virginia and Maryland are a big part of our overall expansion strategy," said David Rutkauskas, Beautiful Brands' founder, president and CEO. "With John and Linda's help, I believe we have a great opportunity to develop the FreshBerry footprint and facilitate our expansion growth into a huge untapped market." BBI and the Lenzmeiers anticipate reaching their goal of 100 units within the next 10 years. The FreshBerry concept was created by Rutkauskas and his wife, Camille. The first FreshBerry Café opened in January 2008 in Tulsa. Today there are nine FreshBerry Frozen Yogurt Cafés open and more than 355 units in development across several states as well as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt. Chamber accepting nods for business awardsThe Tulsa Metro Chamber will honor Tulsa's rising entrepreneurs at the 2010 Crystal Star Small Business Awards in April, and the nomination process has begun.The Crystal Star is awarded annually to small business practitioners who, in the judgment of their peers, exemplify professional skill and leadership and are champions in their fields. Nominations are accepted in 10 categories, including small business person, entrepreneurial success, small business exporter, young entrepreneur, family owned business, financial services champion, home-based business champion, minority small business champion, veteran small business champion and women-in-business champion. Nominees must be Tulsa Metro Chamber members and in business a minimum of three years. All nominations will be considered and reviewed by the Small Business Awards Committee. Along with Tulsa-area recognition, winners are nominated for state-level awards with a chance to proceed to regional or national level. Nominations close Jan. 22. Winners will be honored at an awards luncheon April 28. For more information, visit tulsaworld.com/2010smallbizawards. SeekingSitters offers corporate programTulsa-based SeekingSitters Franchise Systems Inc. has introduced a corporate babysitting program designed to help productivity at work."We are now able to provide this service to businesses as a benefit to their employees so that businesses don't lose productivity and employees can feel safe about their children's care, " said Adrienne Kallweit, president and co-founder of SeekingSitters. Through its new Corporate Account Program, SeekingSitters helps companies provide safe, reliable and flexible care to the businesses or their employees around the specific need. SeekingSitters finds the sitters and thoroughly screens them. All job details and billing is handled online so a company can look up past charges or edit employee accounts. SeekingSitters services can be offered as part of a company's employee benefits package, the company's officials said. For more information, call Diane White at 906-6664 or e-mail diane@seekingsitters.com. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| More Business - San Francisco Chronicle Posted: 26 Dec 2009 07:42 AM PST Co-founder and CEO John Mackey is voluntarily giving up his chairmanship, a position he's held since the Austin, Texas, company's inception in 1978, according to a Thursday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mackey will remain on the board. Whole Foods said lead director John Elstrott will become chairman. His current position will be discontinued. At Whole Foods' annual shareholders meeting in March, CtW Investment Group, a shareholder activist group that works with union pension funds, unsuccessfully proposed that the CEO and chairman roles be separated. The grocer said it has been receiving these proposals for three years. But in August, CtW raised the stakes by calling for the CEO's removal. The activist group said an editorial by Mackey opposing President Obama's health care plan damaged the company's reputation, especially among its left-leaning customers. The group said Mackey "attempted to capitalize on the brand reputation of Whole Foods to champion his personal political views but has instead deeply offended a key segment of Whole Foods consumer base." CtW said Mackey has become a "liability" because of his "indiscretion." The shareholder activist has wanted Mackey to relinquish his chairman title because it believes an independent chairman could improve the company's stock price performance. CtW noted the stock had fallen 30 percent over the past five years ending Sept. 30, 2008 compared with a 14 percent gain in the S&P 500 Index. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| UPI NewsTrack Business - Investors Business Daily Posted: 26 Dec 2009 07:42 AM PST Dec 26, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- LONDON, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- Boxing Day sales brought out huge crowds of British shoppers Saturday, observers said. Bargain hunters jammed shopping districts in across Britain in search of day-after-Christmas deals as shop owners said they were expecting to see one of their busiest days, The Guardian reported. The newspaper said hundreds of shoppers lined up outside of Selfridges' department store in London waiting for it to open 9 a.m., with many of them running and elbowing their way inside when the doors were flung open. Boxing Day wasn't so pleasant, however, at the Selfridges store in Manchester, where four shoppers were slightly injured by a falling ceiling panel that came down as the doors were opened. Store officials said they immediately cordoned off the area and that paramedics had arrived within five minutes, adding, "Selfridges is currently assessing the cause of the incident." BUTNER, N.C., Dec. 26 (UPI) -- Disgraced U.S. financier Bernard Madoff was hospitalized in prison due to dizziness and hypertension, prison officials say. A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons said Madoff, serving a 150-year sentence in a Butner, N.C., facility after pleading guilty to orchestrating a massive Ponzi scheme, was moved to the medium security jail's medical wing Friday after experiencing dizziness, The Wall Street Journal reported. Madoff, 71, has recently been suffering from high blood pressure and heart palpitations, his attorney, Ira Sorkin, told the newspaper. Sorkin said he expected Madoff to soon be returned to the facility's general population. The Journal said the Bureau of Prison scotched rumors that Madoff had been assaulted. WASHINGTON CROSSING, Pa., Dec. 26 (UPI) -- Lockheed Martin Corp. has donated $400,000 to a Pennsylvania park commemorating President George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River. The Washington Crossing Historical Park in Washington Crossing, Pa. -- visited by more than 100,000 tourists per year -- has been threatened by budget cuts. But Lockheed Martin said in a release Friday that its donation will fund the addition of a dedicated education wing at the park's visitor center, which is scheduled for renovation in the latter part of 2010. The donation was announced by Marshall Byrd, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Newtown, Pa. Byrd also pledged, on behalf of the approximate 13,000 Lockheed Martin employees in the Delaware Valley area, a five-year commitment of volunteer in-kind support for the park's maintenance and operations. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Letter: Martin: LSU seeks business ties - Baton Rouge Advocate Posted: 26 Dec 2009 06:23 AM PST An Advocate editorial of Dec. 20 suggests that LSU's reputation for being generally unfriendly was a factor in Madhu Beriwal's decision to move her company, IEM, to North Carolina. No one can deny that LSU has a history of being less than fully engaged in the pursuit of public-private partnerships and collaboration. However, change is well under way. While much must yet be done to address business's perceptions about LSU, be assured we are fundamentally committed to proactively participating in attracting, retaining and growing business in Baton Rouge and across Louisiana. As many other flagship universities have demonstrated, university-business relationships can provide a win for the institution, a win for the business and a win for the community. At LSU we intend to energetically seek out these win-win-win opportunities. Let me offer a few examples as evidence of this commitment. We continue to strengthen our business incubator, the Louisiana Business & Technology Center, or LBTC, which offers programs to assist in business development and operates at our South Campus Research and Technology Park. In conjunction with the LSU System, we host on campus The Louisiana Emerging Technology Center, or LETC, a specialized business incubator focusing on companies that need labs. We have also established The Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute, or SEI, in The E. J. Ourso College of Business. Over the past few years, we have appointed deans to lead our key colleges who bring experience and enthusiasm for reaching out to business leaders and the business community. And we are working with the Louisiana Department of Economic Development to recruit several high-tech employers to the area. LSU's Office of Research and Economic Development has been especially active in forging partnerships with the business community, focusing on activities that will produce a lasting impact on the economic development of Louisiana and beyond. Large and complex universities can sometimes seem cumbersome, slow, bureaucratic and unfriendly. LSU wants to change that. We are committed to working with business and community leaders and public officials to ensure that we are open, receptive and responsive in building new relationships that improve us as a university while in turn advancing job and income growth. When I met with Ms. Beriwal, I told her that if and when she encountered barriers at LSU she need only call me and I would act with dispatch. That offer is made to all others as well. At LSU, we understand the many roles we can play in shaping a brighter future for all the citizens of the state. Being a player in support of economic development is one such role, and we will always work to perform at the highest possible level. Michael Martin Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| (Miami Hurled) Honduras' business leaders hope elections restore ... - Democratic Underground.com Posted: 26 Dec 2009 06:52 AM PST 
BY LAURA FIGUEROA TEGUCIGALPA -- Just days after Honduras' recent presidential elections, Tegucigalpa Chamber of Commerce members gathered for their monthly meeting and breathed a collective sigh of relief. ``Finally, we can get back to business,'' said Luisa Maria Willingham, the chamber's director. For five months, talks of networking and sales projections were put on hold as business owners tried to navigate through the civil unrest caused by the forced removal of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya in June. Getting back to business now means facing the harsh economic landscape of a country that has essentially been on standby for half of the year. Almost 180,000 jobs have been lost since Zelaya's ouster, according to studies by Honduran business groups. A study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., found that nearly $50 million was lost each day during a series of curfews imposed by the de facto government. While the Nov. 29 elections won by conservative Porfirio Lobo are seen by many as the country's way out of political turmoil, business leaders are hoping that international acceptance of the election will also restore faith among foreign investors and local consumers. ``Foreign businesses often have a fear of investing in Latin America because of the problems that have resulted from someone like ``What Honduras has demonstrated is that we're not going to follow in the political path of Chávez,'' Facusse said. ``Many business owners will look at what happened here, will note our elections and see Honduras as a more stable place where the government will not try to take over your business.'' Already the third-poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, the country's weak economy suffered even more setbacks in the months following Zelaya's removal. Tourism dried up as leery travelers kept away and the U.S. State Department issued warnings against traveling to the beleaguered nation. Infrastructure projects, which employ thousands of Hondurans, remain on hold after the United States and the European Union withdrew millions in financial aid. Nearly $37 million in U.S. aid has been suspended, a substantial amount for a country where foreign aid accounts for nearly 20 percent of its budget. Throughout the capital city, shop owners try to lure in customers, despite running their shops behind windows boarded up to keep vandalizing protesters at bay. ``As soon as people feel safe by the new government, which promises to be a reconciliation government, then we're going to be ok,'' said chamber director Willingham. ``The clarity of the political map in our country, and the overwhelming amount of people who showed up to vote, will demonstrate the faith that our people have that our country is moving forward in the right direction.'' INDEPENDENT HOPES Moving forward, business leaders say they have gleaned several economic lessons in the five months of political and economic isolation -- namely that they must try to reduce dependence on foreign assistance and trade. ``We learned the hard way that governments have interests, not friends,'' Willingham said. ``We have depended too much on the good will and donations of other countries. We really need to start moving in the direction of becoming self-sufficient.'' Willingham said her chamber is doing its part to revitalize small businesses -- by training folks accustomed to selling goods from their home on ways to formalize their business practices and expand their ventures. Business leaders are pegging their hopes that Lobo, a wealthy cattle rancher, will use his business prowess to boost economic development. Lobo is a graduate of the University of Miami's business school. ``The first thing that needs to be done is to create a plan for the next four years that should be a long-term plan to create the conditions for investment in our country,'' said Amilcar Builnes, director of the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise. `RESTORING FAITH' Builnes was among a dozen high-profile Hondurans whom Lobo called upon just days after his victory for the first of many ``national dialogues,'' which the new president hopes will fuse rifts created by the political crisis. The council will be launching an outreach campaign to help assure foreign investors that it is safe to resume business with Honduras. Builnes said Honduras must now work on establishing better trade relations with its Central American neighbors. ``We're the No. 1 business purchaser of other Central American countries, but we're not sending enough of our products to them,'' Builnes said. He added: ``The nature of the elections was a great starting point, but now we have to get back on course to working on restoring faith in our economy.'' Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
The Web site coincides with the OneVoice legislative agenda, which the chamber puts together annually to advocate the issues of greatest benefit to businesses in the region. | You are subscribed to email updates from Business - Bing News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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