indestedness

Gasoline prices have fallen below $2 per gallon in the Philadelphia region, a level not seen since March 8, 2005,

reported on Monday.

The average price per gallon for regular unleaded is now $1.98 in the five-county Philadelphia region, down 3 cents since Friday. The average price per gallon for regular also fell by 3 cents in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey to $1.96, $1.77 and $1.76, respectively, and by a penny in South Jersey to $1.70, over the weekend. Even lower prices could be on the way, AAA reported.

“The wholesale price of gas implies that the nationwide average retail price will fall even lower in the days ahead, enabling motorists to pocket some much-needed spare change for the holidays,” Catherine Rossi, manager of public and government affairs, AAA Mid-Atlantic, said. “The price of oil could continue to decline — albeit not much — before leveling off. This would lead to still lower prices at the pump between now and the end of the year.”

Area gas prices reached an all-time high this year of $4.16 in the Philadelphia region, $4.07 in Pennsylvania and Delaware and $4 in New Jersey, including South Jersey.

At a Tuesday morning news conference at Westinghouse's new headquarters in Cranberry, Gov. Ed Rendell proposed a temporary increase of one-half percent to Pennsylvania's personal income tax.

The increase would bring the tax to 3.57 percent, but state law would require it to return to 3.07 percent after three years, according to a release from the governor's office.

Rendell said the temporary increase would raise approximately $1.5 billion per year in new revenue.

A temporary tax has been implemented successfully to address a fiscal crisis in Pennsylvania on three prior occasions, the governor's office said.

Even with the , the state is more than $1 billion short of balancing its budget by the end of June, the governor said.

Raising the income tax would be preferable to the alternatives, Rendell said.

“The simple truth is we have no good choices,” he said. “There are no shortcuts out of this crisis, no magic bullets, no painless path out of this morass. We can do the easy thing for the moment or the right thing for Pennsylvania’s future. The fairest plan is to spread the pain across the board, and let our economic recovery begin.”

CEO Phil Urban is set to retire from the Columbus insurer in only nine months, but it’s the last stretch of the road – not the one that opens up later – that’s on his mind.

“I’m really going to be focused on Grange for the next nine months, helping in the succession and the transition,” he said. “I’ve got a big file filled with (retirement) ideas, and I may do some, one or none of them.”

When Urban, 56, retires from the company in February 2010, a move he announced Wednesday, he’ll leave after more than a decade with the company – and a busy one. When Urban, a 30-year veteran of the insurance industry, joined Grange in 1999, it was pulling in about $700 million in annual revenue. That’s nearly doubled, much like the company’s geographic footprint.

Grange also is months away from finishing an 11-story, 240,000-square-foot addition to its Brewery District headquarters. And nearby, the company has its name on a new audubon center that’s set to open this summer in the Scioto Audubon Metro Park. The naming rights came with a $4 million donation Grange made in 2006.

Urban said he’s convinced the company “won’t skip a beat” when he leaves next year, but a key duty in what’s left of his tenure is a strategic planning process involving new products and services that’s roughly halfway down the road. He’s also agreed to help the company transition to a new president and CEO, a role Grange will staff after a search for internal and external candidates.

Looking back, Urban counts among his proudest achievements the company’s strong relationship with its individual agents and its long-term financial strength. Like many in the industry, Grange reported a steep drop in profit last year on disappointing investment returns.

“Grange Insurance today is better financially than any time in its history, not withstanding the difficult economy,” Urban said.

While Urban’s retirement plans remain up in the air, he said he hasn’t decided on remaining in Columbus but does plan on continuing to use his experience as a CEO on corporate boards. He now sits on Grange’s board and that of the Columbus-based Jeffrey Co.

Federal regulators have given Palm Beach Gardens-based 30 days to consider a sale, a merger or whether to continue operating independently.

The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) signed the supervisory agreement with SouthBank on May 21. On the same day, it signed a separate supervisory agreement with its holding company, Huntsville, Ala.-based Commonwealth Savingshares Corp., and a more serious cease and desist order with its sister institution, SouthBank of Huntsville.

The Palm Beach Gardens-based bank only had $24.5 million in assets as of March 31. It had capital ratios in excess of regulatory requirements.

The OTS agreement said the bank failed to comply with the requirements of laws and regulations, though it didn’t specify which ones, and failed in the areas of risk management, operational management and correcting deficiencies.

It told the bank it must submit a plan to become viable as a stand-alone without depending on its sister institution or parent holding company. The order also placed restrictions on the bank’s growth and the hiring of executive management.

Danny Wiginton, the chairman and CEO of both SouthBanks, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The Queen’s Medical Center has paid $2.5 million to settle lawsuits that alleged Hawaii’s largest hospital overbilled government health care programs for prescription medications, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

The settlement was the result of two whistleblower lawsuits brought by former pharmacy technicians, who alleged that Queen’s overbilled the state’s Medicare and Medicaid programs, as well as TRICARE, the federal health insurance program for military dependents, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Edward H. Kubo Jr.

The lawsuits were filed under the federal and state False Claims Acts, which allow the government to claim up to triple the damages, plus penalties, for submitting false claims to government programs.

The two former employees allege Queen’s submitted fake bills for anti-psychotic medications that were dispensed by the hospital pharmacy from 1999 to 2002 and were authorized by a doctor, but not necessarily by a psychiatrist, as required.

The hospital was also accused of billing from 1999 to 2006 for services provided by medical residents who were supposed to be supervised by other doctors, but that the supervision did not occur, Kubo’s office said.

Under the settlement, Queen’s paid $2 million to the federal government, which shared $400,000 of the proceeds with the two former employees, and $500,000 to the attorneys for the two employees.

Queen’s will also maintain a compliance program to ensure its billings conform to the rules for five years under a corporate integrity agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Queen's issued this statement: " denies any intentional wrongdoing, but after five years of discussions and negotiations with the government, has agreed to settle this matter so that its resources may be spent on providing quality health care rather than on legal fees."

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Small businesses and lenders applauded recent steps by the

to boost lending, but they said the agency needs to take additional actions to address Main Street’s credit crisis.

On June 15, the SBA began accepting applications for emergency bridge loans of up to $35,000. Small businesses can use these loans, which were created by the economic stimulus bill, to make up to six months of payments on existing debt.

They won’t have to start repaying the loans until a year after the last disbursement. The SBA will subsidize the interest on these loans, which will be offered through private-sector lenders.

The stimulus bill also temporarily reduced or eliminated fees on the SBA’s regular 7(a) and 504 business loans, and increased the government guarantee on 7(a) loans to 90 percent. Weekly loan volume for the SBA’s 7(a) and 504 programs has increased by more than 30 percent since these changes were implemented March 16.

This increase in SBA lending is “a positive and welcome sign, but we have a very long way to go before SBA lending reaches solid levels again,” said Cynthia Blankenship, vice chairman and chief operating officer of

in Grapevine, Texas.

Blankenship told the House Small Business Committee June 10 that Congress should extend the fee reductions beyond 2009 or make them permanent, given the depth of the recession and the credit crisis facing small businesses.

Meanwhile, fees on the SBA’s 504 loans, which finance real estate projects and other fixed assets, are scheduled to increase significantly in October. This will negate the fee reductions adopted in March through the stimulus bill, said Jean Wojtowicz, executive director of the Indiana Statewide CDC, a nonprofit economic development organization that makes 504 loans.

This fee increase is unnecessary because the SBA has overestimated the number of 504 loans that will default, said Wojtowicz, who chairs the board of directors for the

. She contends banks have become far more conservative in their underwriting during this recession, “and only the strongest small businesses are now qualifying for new loans.”

Unless Congress appropriates money to offset the fee increases planned for 2010 and 2011, almost 20,000 small businesses will pay millions more dollars in fees than they should over the 20 years of their 504 loans, Wojtowicz said.

Meanwhile, David Bofill, owner of two boat dealerships on Long Island, N.Y., praised the SBA’s recent decision to let vehicle and boat dealers use 7(a) loans to finance their inventory, at least through Sept. 30, 2010. Most lenders have stopped making these so-called “floorplan” loans, forcing many dealers to close their doors, Bofill said.

The new SBA program can be “a critical lifeline, but problems remain,” he said. The SBA needs to “make the program permanent and do it quickly.”

“It will be very difficult to attract a lender to develop a floorplan program when the program is only slated to last a year,” Bofill said.

The size of these lines of credit also needs to be expanded beyond $2 million, because most small boat dealers have inventory worth much more than that.

The Treasury Department has allocated $25 billion in Recovery Act Bonds, which can be used for economic development projects in distressed areas.

The economic stimulus bill created the new bond programs. The legislation appropriated $10 billion for Recovery Zone Economic Development Bonds. The federal government will subsidize 45 percent of the interest on these taxable bonds, which will enable state and local governments to lower their borrowing costs. These bonds can be used for a variety of economic development projects, including job training and educational programs.

The legislation appropriated $15 billion for Recovery Zone Facility Bonds. Private-sector businesses can use these tax-exempt bonds to finance depreciable capital projects in designated recovery zones, which are areas with high levels of poverty, unemployment or foreclosures.

An investment management subsidiary of increased its stake in , the holding company that owns the

garage door and plastic film businesses based in Mason, to more than 15 percent.

Meanwhile, cost-cutting measures have eliminated dozens of salaried jobs at Clopay, where profits have been hammered by the U.S. housing slump and the pricing power of

, its largest customer.

Nuveen's NWQ Investment Management Co. filed an amended Form 13G with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Oct. 9, disclosing it owned 4.6 million Griffon shares. The company reported a 10 percent stake in early January. Since then, the market value of Griffon's shares has fallen more than 40 percent.

Two other large investors,

, which reported a 9 percent share as of June 28, and

, with 5 percent as of March 15, began pressuring Griffon late last year to separate Clopay from Griffon's military-oriented electronic communications business.

NWQ's filing said its investment was not for the purpose of influencing control. It also disclosed in March that it owns 10 percent of

, an otherwise unaffiliated company that's also headed by Harvey Blau, Griffon's chairman and CEO. So far, Clinton and Barington haven't succeeded in getting Jericho, N.Y.-based Griffon to revamp its conglomerate-like structure.

Griffon did announce job reductions at , which makes garage doors, and plastic film maker

Co. as part of a cost-cutting program. Both companies' headquarters and technical centers are based in Mason at a 130,000-square-foot facility. Griffon also hired

to help it evaluate its strategic alternatives.

In the meantime, results at the Clopay businesses have deteriorated.

The company won't report its third-quarter results until next month, but for the three months that ended June 30 compared to the same period in 2006, sales at Clopay Building Products dropped 15 percent to $114 million, while sales at Clopay Plastic Products were flat at $97 million.

For the same period, operating profits in the garage door business fell from $10.3 million to $4.6 million. The company said a 15 percent reduction in salaried jobs during the second quarter would yield $5 million in annual cost savings.

Operating profits in the plastic film unit tumbled by nearly two-thirds from $8.1 million to $2.9 million. Griffon blamed the decline on higher material costs, lower selling prices to Procter, and a $1 million charge related to job cuts. Procter uses Clopay's plastic films to make diapers. The company completed a reduction in force that affected all functions and locations, it said, including a 10 percent cut in salaried jobs that will save $4 million annually.

According to Griffon's 2006 annual report, Clopay Building Products had about 1,700 employees. It operates several manufacturing plants, including facilities in Russia and Troy, both west-central Ohio communities.

Clopay Plastic Products employed about 1,200 people, including its expanding overseas operations. Sales to Procter were about $226 million, or 55 percent of all revenue, in 2006. That was down from $255 million in 2005 and $302 million in 2004.

Blau told analysts during an August conference call that "due to present conditions in the residential housing and credit markets, options that would increase shareholder value are being explored but are not attractive at this time."

A Clopay spokeswoman referred questions about its operations to Griffon. Eric Edelstein, Griffon's executive vice president and chief financial officer, could not be reached at its offices in Jericho, N.Y.

Imagine the scene: It's a closed Starbucks in a strip mall in Cupertino, Calif. The windows have been shut for privacy. In the room --

's Steve Ballmer, Apple's Steve Jobs, and

's triumvirate of Eric Schmidt, Sergei Brinn and Larry Page. And they're all on a mission to keep their top talent from jumping ship.

"Guys, we have a problem," Ballmer says. "Some of our best employees are job-hopping like locusts, feasting on the higher wages and better perks from our competitors -- that would be you. Now I know we've gone on plenty of raiding parties ourselves. But it's just time to stop the madness. I'm ready to reach a gentlemen's agreement not to poach your superstars if you'll do likewise."

Jobs doesn't hesitate. "I'm tired of paying moving expenses from Redmond. And it's getting old hearing some of my employees whining about how great the perks were when they were at Google. I'm all for a change."

The Google guys speak in unison: "Count us in!"

The specific meeting we described, of course, took place only in our imagination.

But the reportedly wants to know if tech's big boys really have been colluding to keep their top talent from jumping ship.

The and , citing unnamed sources, report that the investigation is preliminary and focuses on a who’s who of Silicon Valley tech companies including search giant Google, its rival

, iPhone maker Apple and biotech firm

.

reports that the Justice Department has issued formal requests for documents from “at least a dozen” tech companies.

“If they are (colluding) as is being investigated … then it is a serious potential anti-trust case,” said Albert Foer, president of the American Antitrust Institute. Collusion between the companies could depress wages.

In 2001, Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor wrote an appeals court opinion siding with a group of oil geologists and petroleum engineers who claimed

and other oil companies were colluding in hiring decisions.

Collusion could also damage the innovation for which Silicon Valley is famous, by keeping talented people from moving to new companies and bringing with them fresh ideas.

“One of the things that feeds innovation is people moving around,” Foer said. “Whereas Silicon Valley is famous for people moving around … that practice would be tailing off or ended by such an agreement,” between companies not to poach talent.

While the tech world may be famous for talented people jumping from company to company, those jumps haven’t always been exactly amicable, and tech firms often tie top talent to contracts that restrict them from going to work for the competition for set periods of time. In fact, the moves of talent from one tech behemoth to another have sometimes landed in court, as when former Microsoft employee Kai-Fu Lee went to work for Google, John Oates points out at

.

So it’s not out of the realm of reason to imagine tech bosses looking to keep top talent from moving without the hassles of court fights.

But already, the federal probe is drawing skepticism in the blogosphere.

Larry Dignan, writing on ZDNet’s

blog, calls the probe a fishing expedition with “waste of time written all over it.”

As Dignan points out, it’s pretty unlikely that there are any smoking gun agreements lying around the offices of the tech titans, and he adds: “Top talent isn’t that restricted. Google execs go to Facebook. They go to AOL. Yahoo execs go to Microsoft. Microsoft execs go to Google. In fact, you can make quite a career just hopping between those aforementioned companies.”

The probe comes as the government is stepping up scrutiny of the often-cozy relationships in the high-tech sector. Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney, who is in charge of the DOJ's Antitrust Division,

that the department would be taking a closer look at activities in the industry.

The Federal Trade Commission to Google earlier in the year because of antitrust concerns. FTC questions concerned the overlap of directors between Google and Genentech — Google boss Eric Schmidt sits on the Apple Inc. board with Art Levinson, who was CEO of Genentech at the time.

Regulators also called a halt to an advertising revenue sharing deal Google made with Yahoo.

has adopted a shareholder rights plan.

“The board believes that a shareholder rights plan enhances its ability to protect shareholder interests and ensures that shareholders receive fair treatment in the event of any coercive takeover attempt,” said Andy Marsh, CEO of Plug Power (Nasdaq: PLUG). “The plan is intended to provide the board with sufficient time to consider any and all alternatives to such an action. The board believes it is protecting the interests of all of its shareholders.”

In connection with the adoption of a plan, the Albany, N.Y.-based fuel cell developer declared a dividend distribution of one preferred stock purchase right for each outstanding share of Plug common stock held as the close of business on June 23. Initially, these rights will not be exercisable and will trade with the shares of Plug Power’s common stock.

The rights will become exercisable if someone acquires 15 percent or more of Plug’s common stock, or commences a tender offer that could result in that person owning 15 percent or more of Plug Power’s common stock. In that case, each holder of a stock purchase right—other than the acquiring person—would be entitled to buy additional shares. Each holder could purchase shares equivalent to the value of twice the exercise price of the right.

If Plug is acquired after any such event, each holder of a right would then be entitled to purchase, at the then-current exercise price, shares of the acquiring company’s common stock having a value of twice the exercise price of the right.

Any person who already owns 15 percent or more of Plug’s outstanding shares will be considered a “Grandfathered Person.” The Grandfathered Person would not trigger the rights unless he or she acquires an additional 1/2 percent of the company’s outstanding shares.

When that wasn’t enough, lights were turned off in areas of lower traffic and programmed to automatically turn on when a worker enters the area.

Next, Hague initiated a water reclamation project where water used for product testing is recycled into the plant’s water cooling towers and when necessary, used to sprinkle the lawn.

Hague, a mechanical engineer, hasn’t always been at the company helm. He spent 17 years working for large paper companies.

Still, he understands how factories work, and as a kid he used to help install the water treatment systems for his father.

The privately owned company is a family affair, co-owned with his brother, David, the CFO. A third brother, Jeff, owns a separate company down the street. He is a water treatment specialist and one of Hague’s customers. Their father still works a couple days a week.

Bob Hague said the company receives frequent inquiries from private equity firms that want to purchase the company, but he’s not selling. Quite the opposite.

He said the economic downtown is an opportunity to realign the company for the future.

“I believe the economy will recover,” he said. “We’re trying to be a bit more aggressive and look for new business, and when the economy recuperates, we can capitalize on it.”

DURHAM – A director and two top executives of business software company have resigned to protest a decision by the company’s board to replace Smart Online’s longtime counsel, Raleigh law firm Smith Anderson.

The resignations came after a May 19 board meeting during which the firm’s interim CEO, Doron Roethler, who was also board chairman and president, resigned for what a company spokesman described as personal reasons.

A new interim CEO has been named, and a search has begun to find his replacement.

Resigning in protest, according to letters filed by each with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, were board member Roberta Hardy, who had joined the Smart Online board in March 2009, CFO Timothy Krist and Neile King, COO and vice president of sales and marketing.

“The company’s former securities lawyers have substantial securities law experience and significant knowledge of the company,” Hardy wrote in her letter. “I am greatly concerned that the company’s change in securities lawyers will expose the company and its directors and officers to greater risk.”

Smart Online spokesman Steve Hoechster says the resignations came in the wake of a decision by the Smart Online board to hire the New York-based law firm to replace Smith Anderson.

Hardy voted against the move, Hoechster says.

Smith Anderson’s relationship with the software company dates back to 2006, a year before federal investigators arrested former Smart Online CEO Dennis Nouri, his brother Reza Nouri, and brokers Ruben Serrano and Alain Lustig on charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and securities fraud.

The charges stemmed from an alleged scheme, investigators say, in which the four men aggressively marketed Smart Online shares to investors in an effort to inflate the stock price.

Serrano and Lustig pleaded guilty to the charges in Manhattan federal court on May 22 and will be sentenced in August. The Nouri brothers are scheduled to go on trial June 15.

Hoechster labeled as “pure speculation” any attempt to draw a link between the recent round of resignations at Smart Online and the ongoing securities case in New York.

Contacted at his home, King, the former COO, would say only that the board and the company’s executives “were aware” of ongoing developments in the securities case.

Asked about his decision to resign following the corporate counsel change, King said, “When you have a comfort level with someone, you don’t want to change that.”

In his letter to the SEC, King was more direct: “I am unfamiliar with the Cohen firm, and after reviewing their securities law experience I do not feel that they are qualified to represent the company competently and am concerned that the company and its officers and directors may be subject to increased risk by virtue of this change in legal counsel.”

Hoechster says the change in counsel had been an issue studied in advance of the May 19 meeting by Roethler, who was planning to step down as CEO because of illness in his family.

His departure and the subsequent resignations were “coincidental,” according to Hoechster, who added: “The company is moving on.”

As for Roethler’s replacement as CEO, the board tapped one of its own, C. James Meese Jr., who is founder of

He will receive $10,000 a month as compensation until Smart Online names a replacement, according to SEC filings.

The Pittsburgh metropolitan area will lose 162,295 residents by 2025, dropping it from the nation’s 21st largest metro to 31st, a new study predicts.

Bizjournals, an affiliate of the Pittsburgh Business Times, recently completed a project to predict population changes for the nation’s 250 largest metro areas. The study involved analyzing recent county-by-county growth patterns within each state and made predictions for five-year intervals between 2005 and 2025. The complete results are available

.

The study predicts Pittsburgh will be one of 37 metros to lose population over that time period, with a forecasted decline of 6.84 percent. Only 10 areas are expected to suffer a greater percentage loss:

Binghamton, N.Y. (7 percent);

Parkersburg, W.Va. (7.71 percent);

Charleston, W.Va. (8.05 percent);

Beaumont, Texas (8.66 percent);

Cleveland (8.91 percent);

Buffalo, N.Y. (9.71 percent);

Columbus, Ga. (9.85 percent);

Youngstown, Ohio (15.61 percent);

New Orleans (19.32 percent), and

Gulfport, Miss. (22.96 percent).

Action by federal regulators against Corus Bank could hamper funding for some major condominium projects in South Florida, banking experts say.

The Chicago bank, whose holding company is

(NASDAQ: CORS), faces limits on extending and renewing troubled loans under a Feb. 19 agreement with the

and a consent order with the .

“The regulators have taken the hourglass and turned it over, and the sand is beginning to evaporate,” said Condo Vultures Realty CEO Peter Zalewski. “Any project not meeting the standards will quickly get a call from the lender with the regulatory rules. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see a series of projects go into foreclosure over the next quarter or two, based on this agreement Corus signed with federal regulators.”

Corus Bank had 18 condo construction and apartment loans in South Florida as of Sept. 30, its third quarter earnings report said. About half of those $1.38 billion in mortgages were either not accruing interest or otherwise designated as problematic.

The bank was asked to raise its tier 1 capital to 9 percent from 7.87 percent within 120 days. If it falls short, it must show regulators a proposal to sell, merge or liquidate the bank.

There is little chance Corus Bank can raise capital in the current environment, said Philip van Doorn, a senior banking analyst at The Street.com Ratings in Palm Beach Gardens.

The bank’s 14 branches and $7.6 billion in deposits might be attractive, but its condos loans need to be written down dramatically, he said.

Corus Bankshares stock traded at $33.47 a share in April 2006, but has slid to about 18 cents in recent trading.

The release of the bank’s final fourth quarter results was delayed as it conducts appraisals of the collateral behind its loans. The bank also needs appraisals to extend credit on condo loans. Unfortunately, condo values have dropped since its South Florida loans were made in 2005 through 2007.

Even if it extends a loan, Corus Bank can’t fold accrued interest back into the balance. It can’t turn past principal payments into payments on accrued interest, either.

The bank can’t fund interest reserves in renewed loans. Condo developers use interest reserves to make loan payments when they haven’t generated enough sales.

“It has the potential to halt projects that were under construction to this point,” Philip van Doorn, a senior banking analyst at The Street.com Ratings in Palm Beach Gardens, said of the enforcement action. “For some projects that were being financed with interest reserves, this could prevent projects from being completed.”

Since the third quarter earnings release, Corus Bank repossessed the Tao condo in Sunrise, where it has sold two of the 396 units.

Five South Florida projects funded by Corus are under construction, with no units completed. These projects cover 1,537 units and $869.1 million in loans – more than half of its outstanding loan balance in the region. The three largest loans in the bank’s nationwide portfolio – the Miami-Dade County projects Jade Ocean Condominiums, Paramount Bay and the Mint at Riverfront – will likely start closings amid one of the toughest condo sales markets in the nation.

An additional 11 Corus Bank-funded projects in South Florida have sold 1,825 of 3,818 units, according to a search of county court records on Feb. 24. That includes 189 sales done at discounts through bulk sale agreements. An additional four units were purchased by a company controlled by four Corus Bank executives, who paid prices that real estate experts considered a premium.

The remaining Corus -funded project, the Aventine at Boynton Beach, canceled its condo conversion plan without any sales, and operates as an apartment community.

A Corus Bank spokesman did not return a call seeking comment.

Edgardo Defortuna, president of Miami-based

, said his company has a great relationship with Corus Bank, which has funded its Jade Ocean and Artech Residences at Aventura condo projects.

“I have no direct concerns about their funding availability because our transactions with them are just about complete, with one building done and the second one 30 days from being complete,” Defortuna said in an e-mail. “We hope they can resolve the current situation and have the ability to continue offering such services and resources.”

However, some developers could find federal regulators interjecting themselves in their dealings with Corus Bank based on the agreements, said Jack McCabe, CEO of Deerfield Beach-based

.

Sitting at his office desk recently, Tom Bowser grabbed a thin yellow marker and searched a document outlining the performance of

during his stewardship.

“Here it is,” he said, highlighting the portion that said revenue had doubled (to nearly $2 billion), net worth had tripled (to nearly $500 million) and membership had steadily increased (to nearly 1 million) since he became CEO in July 2001.

His tenure with the nonprofit insurer, which says it serves more than 42 percent of the Kansas City-area market, will end with his retirement in December 2010, the company announced May 29.

Except for a three-year break in the 1980s, when he worked for

and a joint venture that included Saint Luke’s and Aetna, Bowser has spent his entire career with Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

Executive Vice President David Gentile gradually will assume the CEO duties while Bowser focuses much of his attention on the health care reform debate as chairman of the , which includes the 39 Blue Cross plans nationwide.

Bowser said he chose that retirement date because he will be 65 years old then and also will be finishing his time as chairman of the association.

As CEO, Bowser has focused on streamlining the company.

For instance, one of his first orders of business was to lead the company out of its decadelong foray into the HMO field as Blue Cross and Blue Shield absorbed subsidiaries

and The insurer paid $56 million to buy out its partners in the ventures, which included several area hospitals.

“Instead of participating in exotic strategic initiatives,” Bowser said, “we have focused on the basics of service, financial strength and membership growth.”

Gentile said he will strive to meet the standards Bowser set.

“Following in Tom’s footsteps is a huge undertaking for me,” he said.

Part of filling those shoes will be community involvement.

Bowser has been chairman of the and the .

One accomplishment in his external role, Bowser said, was establishing the

when he served as chamber chairman three years ago.

The group provides a forum for top-level managers from throughout the local health care industry to discuss areas of common concern.

Bowser can rightfully claim the Health Council as a valuable contribution to the community, said John Bluford, CEO of

, who in 2007 followed Bowser as chamber chairman.

Bluford said that panel will be important as medical professionals navigate the changes expected from reform.

Bowser also has been a friend to Truman, Bluford said, by incorporating the safety-net hospital into the Blue Cross network. That has helped Truman broaden its payer mix beyond low-income patients using government insurance programs.

Within Blue Cross, Bowser said, one of his disappointments as CEO was the failure of CommunityBlue, launched in 2005 to cover the working uninsured with low-cost premiums. He said it didn’t catch on with employees, who continued to use free safety-net services.

Something else didn’t catch on with Bowser at Blue Cross: the customer-service training he received during his first week on the job from a cigarette-smoking woman who cussed like a sailor, even at customers.

At one point, she told Bowser that the caller she had just dressed down was the president of the local

union.

He chuckled at the memory: “Things have changed over the years.”

Research company says again led the U.S. core Internet search market in May.

According to Reston-based comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), its analysis of the U.S. search marketplace found Americans conducted 14.3 billion core searches in May.

In the comScore analysis of the five major search engines, Google sites led with 9.3 billion core searches.

ranked second with 2.9 billion searches, followed by

with 1.2 billion, Ask Network had 563 million and

showed 496 million. Google actually saw a 0.8 percent increase in its May over April numbers gobbling up 65 percent of the searches conducted. Yahoo came in at 20.1 percent, Microsoft Sites 8.0 percent, Ask Network 3.9 percent and AOL captured only 3.1 percent.

The May consolidated data does not include search activity at Microsoft Bing, which was launched on June 1. Bing will be included with June data. But, Microsoft's new search engine increased its share of the market for a second straight week ending June 12. Bing's U.S. usage rose 0.8 of a percent to 12.1 percent after jumping 2 percentage points in the previous week.

’s second-quarter earnings were nearly triple those from the same period last year. The company also reported a 16 percent jump in revenue.

In a Tuesday release, the Kansas City-based company (Nasdaq: AIPC) reported earnings of $26.2 million, or $1.21 a share, for the quarter that ended April 3. This compares with earnings of $9.4 million, or 50 cents a share, last year.

Revenue for the quarter was $162.3 million, up from $139.6 million last year. A 21 percent increase in retail revenue led the overall revenue increase, and overall volume rose 10 percent from last year’s quarter.

The company’s stock closed on Tuesday at $27.47, down $4.50, or 14.1 percent, on volume of 3.8 million shares, according to

. The stock’s average daily volume the past three months is 460,000 shares.

“Volume was a key factor in our overall revenue growth, handily outpacing the industry’s overall growth rate,” CEO Jack Kelly said in the release. “Moving forward, we are well positioned to capitalize on what we believe will be a lasting upward trajectory in consumption, given pasta’s value, versatility and nutritional benefits.”

In roughly the past year, AIPC has settled lingering problems stemming from a scheme by former executives to make the company’s financials look good even as sales fell. The scheme had fallen apart in August 2005, drawing lawsuits, pummeling the stock price and requiring the company to refile financial statements.

If Washington state hadn't had so many teachers in the 1970s, Portland would be out one top banking executive.

Some 30 years after scrapping her plans to become a kindergarten teacher, Cheryl Cebula has reached an industry pinnacle: She's Albina Community Bank's new president and chief operating officer.

"I don't know that I ever had aspirations to become president of a bank, but being at Albina is a logical step for me," said Cebula.

Cebula will handle much of the day-to-day lending operations oversight while Bob McKean, Albina's CEO, will spend more time focusing on the organization's holding company matters.

"I'm wonderfully happy with this," said Jim Bradshaw, banking analyst for D.A. Davidson's Lake Oswego office and an Albina board member. "I've been impressed with her knowledge of banking and her ability to motivate people and set an example for people both in and outside the bank. She's fabulous."

In her new role, Cebula will oversee the fruits of Albina's recent labors. Among them: Albina held a December capital-raising event that, after a few stops and starts, delivered $5 million to the Portland-based lender.

Cebula's bank has also showed improved financials over recent years. Its total assets level rose from $122 million in 2005 to $137 million in 2006; deposits during the same period also rose from $104 million to $109 million.

Shareholders for the bank, traded over the counter, collected earnings of 81 cents per share last year, down from $1.15 in 2005 but significantly higher than 2004's 13 cents-per-share level.

Albina, though, measures its success as much by community involvement levels as it does the bottom line. At that, the bank's reach has expanded: After making its mark providing loans to North and Northeast Portland businesses, Albina opened branches in the city's Pearl district and Beaumont neighborhood in 2004.

In running Albina's bank side, Cebula will conduct branch operations, as well as perform retail and marketing development functions. She'll also head up commercial deposits and lending services.

She could add a handful of services, such as a remote capture offering that allows customers to make deposits without venturing to a branch.

"I think what we'll do, though, is enhance what we have today, instead of coming up with a bunch of new things," she said.

Cebula's detour into banking came after a move from Seattle to eastern Washington didn't yield a teaching job. Even though she held a degree in elementary school psychology, Cebula took a teller's job at the Bank of Yakima.

She found the challenge enthralling, and eased her way into more responsibility.

"In banking, things are constantly changing because of the regulator environment," she said. "I enjoyed learning new things and feeling challenged in the positions I held. And when I was promoted, it simply snowballed into a career."

She eventually joined U.S. Bank in Portland, left the company when it was sold in 1997 and joined Albina a few years later. The bank nicely filled her desire to work for a group with a strong social mission, she said.

Even so, the lightly traded bank has needed to grow to continue that mission, McKean said. Its Regulation A offering, a means by which smaller public companies can generate capital, took longer than expected after the Securities and Exchange Commission asked for more detail on Albina's registration forms.

An SEC spokesman said the 93 follow-up questions asked of Albina after the bank's first filing falls well within the commission's norm when it comes to Regulation A paperwork.

Still, McKean had hoped the offering, designed as an expeditious money-raising means, would have gone more quickly. Albina first filed its request in June; the offering took place on Dec. 20.

Once closed, the offering went smoothly, selling out almost immediately. The money helped Albina raise its legal lending limits from $3 million to $4 million. Legal lending limits are driven by a bank's amount of available capital.

McKean said Albina is growing so rapidly it may do another Regulation A offering in the next two years.

It's a natural move for them, said Bob Rogowski, a banking analyst with McAdams Wright Ragen Inc.'s Seattle office.

"The capital markets window is wide open for community banks," he said. "Whether it's a private placement of equity at a community bank or if it's a startup bank, capital is plentiful. ... Bob McKean's a good operator, and he's using that to make it into a stronger bank."

warned shareholders at the company’s annual meeting Tuesday that the recession might force additional closures of laser-vision surgery centers this year.

The news sent shares of LCA (NASDAQ: LCAV) down sharply during late-morning trading. But the 10 percent dip, which brought shares to $5.89, was followed by a recovery. Shares in LCA closed up about 1 percent, or 8 cents, to $6.51 Tuesday.

“Procedure volume in April and May has declined approximately 45 percent from the comparable period last year and we currently anticipate continued softness throughout 2009,” said LCA-Vision Chairman Anthony Woods, who was among six directors re-elected to the company’s board at the annual meeting, held at the Queen City Club downtown.

Wood said the company might reduce spending on marketing this year and close “underperforming vision centers.”

Complaints about cost-cutting gave rise to takeover attempt by LCA-Vision founder Dr. Stephen Joffe, whose investment group acquired an 11 percent stake in the company and floated its own slate of directors. The Joffe group terminated its reform effort in March and Joffe has since sold more than half of his shares.

In addition to re-electing six directors, shareholders rejected a stockholders' rights plan that makes hostile takeovers more difficult.

Cindy Deuser and her sister, Sue Olmscheid, decided in 2005 to leave behind corporate jobs and open a different kind of shop for women. Lillians Shoppes is named after the sisters’ grandmother. Stores feature “ridiculously affordable” designer-inspired handbags and women’s accessories — and are open only four days a month. The first shop opened in the founders’ hometown of Buffalo, Minn. The venture has grown to about 27 locations, about two-thirds in Minnesota, with plans to double the number of franchises by 2010. Deuser has more than 20 years of business experience in staffing, human resource operations, organizational change management and business culture initiatives inside large corporate environments. In addition to being CEO of Lillians Shoppes, Deuser is also the founding chairwoman for Sara’s Dance Foundation. The foundation was established in 2005 in memory of family friend Sara Johnson-Turpin, a young woman who loved dancing, and lost a battle with leukemia. Through the foundation, Deuser plans to build and operate The Dance Wellness Center — a campus for women recovering from cancer treatment or living with a serious illness.

Continuing education : AA degree, Normandale College.

Business course studies at St. Cloud State University

What accomplishment, either personal or professional, makes you most proud?

Raising two sons as a single mom for years, and working two jobs. I have taught Adam and Jake the meaning of courage, forgiveness, ambition and looking at everything as, “[our] glass is overflowing!” They are now 29 and 24, college grads and both working in the Minneapolis area.

In March 2006, the Valley was at the peak of its real estate boom. Things were good, and money flowed freely.

It’s a bit different today, as Wall Street investment houses fall like dominoes and the stock market records its biggest dips since 9/11.

But during the interim period, the shell of the 32-floor, 1,000-room

has taken shape in the heart of Phoenix. The state’s largest hotel will open Sept. 30 after more than three years of planning and two years of construction.

“It’s really an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment,” said Steve Spivak, the Sheraton’s sales and marketing director. “Not only is this a new hotel, we are developing a new destination.”

A number of other hotel properties are entering the metro Phoenix market as the real estate market suffers through a major downturn.

The urban boutique W Scottsdale opened its doors Sept. 5 in a soft launch, with a large-scale grand opening celebration planned in October.

“We looked to open a hotel here back in the 1990s,” said Michael Mahoney, CEO of

, developer of the W. “In 2003, we selected this site ... here we are, five years later with an open hotel.”

The 224-room boutique property broke ground in early 2006 and cost more than $100 million to build.

That kind of a long-term time frame isn’t unusual for multimillion-dollar hotel projects, said Duane Vinson, vice president of Tennessee-based

, a leading analyst in the hospitality industry. And the W is right on target, according to Smith’s statistics.

“From pre-planning to opening, a luxury property such as the W takes 62.8 months. That’s over five years from just being an idea to opening the doors,” Vinson said.

Properties in the Sheraton’s category, on average, require five years of planning and 20 months of construction.

“A lot of the products that are opening their doors now, these were just ideas in 2003 and 2004. That is when the industry was really coming out of that 9/11 downturn,” Vinson said.

After three years of planning and construction, the

and Spa will open Nov. 4 near the intersection of Lincoln Avenue and Tatum Boulevard in Paradise Valley.

“We had anticipated opening in the summer, but at a certain point we decided to postpone the opening,” said Valeriano Antonioli, the Montelucia’s executive director.

The delay wasn’t based on the economy, he said, but rather the completion of customized features at the property. The resort includes five pools, three restaurants, three bars, and a spa with 19 treatment rooms.

“We have a handcrafted 30-foot main staircase that had four people working on it for more than six months. A standard staircase would take two days to install,” Antonioli said.

Similarly, executives at the W had planned to open in August, but custom features — including the glass portholes in the port-cochere that offer a view into the bottom of the resort’s rooftop pool — led to a fall opening. Earlier goals had tagged the opening to coincide with Super Bowl XLII in late January 2008.

“These are very high-end, customized properties, and they are smart to take their time,” said Debbie Johnson, president and CEO of the

. “You don’t want to open and have things not be spot-on from the start.”

The fall openings of these three properties are bringing more than 1,500 new rooms into the Valley’s inventory as the tourism industry struggles along with other sectors of the economy.

“With these economic conditions, there’s nobody that would have planned to open now,” Johnson said. “But these properties all have great name recognition and bring their own demand.”