Business Briefs

SBA Launches New Program to Aid Struggling Businesses
The Small Business Administration (SBA) is establishing a new loan program to help small businesses get cash flowing again during the recession. Beginning June 15, the SBA will start guaranteeing America's Recovery Capital (ARC) loans.
ARC loans are deferred-payment loans of up to $35,000 available to established, viable, for-profit small businesses that need short-term help to make their principal and interest payments on existing qualifying debt. ARC loans are interest-free to the borrower, 100% guaranteed by the SBA and have no SBA fees associated with them.
As part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, the ARC program was created as a no-interest, deferred payment loan to help small businesses that have a history of good performance, but as a result of the tough economy, are struggling to make debt payments. The will be made by commercial lenders, not the SBA directly. For more information, visit www.sba.gov.

Offit Kurman Expands Into Bethesda
Offit Kurman is continuing its growth with expansion into Bethesda. On July 1, 10 attorneys from Deckelbaum Ogens & Raftery will join the expanding mid-Atlantic-based law firm.
The new attorneys will expand Offit Kurman's service offerings to privately held businesses in the region, adding depth to two expanding practices: landlord representation and family law. Since October 2008, Offit Kurman has increased the number of its attorneys more than 50%.
"We are excited to continue the expansion of our firm with top quality lawyers from the Deckelbaum Ogens & Raftery firm," said Ted Offit, managing principal. "We are fortunate to have the ability to grow, despite the obstacles that the down economy has presented to many law firms in the U.S."

Harkins Wins New Construction Contract at Quantico
Harkins Builders, of Marriottsville, has been awarded a $69 million design-build contract by the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Washington for the next phase of construction of student quarters and instruction facilities at Marine Corps Base Quantico.
Harkins will build two 129-unit masonry and plank concrete bachelor enlisted quarters, a 60,000-square-foot instruction facility and an 18,500-square-foot block bearing and steel roof addition. The new dormitories will be similar to the Phase I building Harkins is currently constructing. The project is being built to LEED Silver specifications. Construction is expected to start in August.
The new buildings will serve The Basic School (TBS) at Quantico, where all newly commissioned United States Marine Corps officers are sent for a 26-week training course to prepare them for duty as company grade officers in the operating forces.

Maroon PR Restructures Due to Growth
Marriottsville-based Maroon PR has announced that, due to continued growth, it will create two separate divisions: one to handle its sports and entertainment clients and the other to focus on its growing list of non-sports business clients.
The restructuring means that Tim Richardson will be elevated to executive vice president and will oversee the sports and entertainment division, while Mitchell Schmale will be promoted to vice president to manage the firm's business practice. In addition, Matt Saler will be promoted to account executive and continue to work with Schmale in the business division.
Maroon PR's roster of sports client includes the Babe Ruth Museum, The Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation; The Carmelo Anthony Foundation; Orioles' outfielder Nick Markakis and Ripken Baseball. The business division consists of CRI Solutions, Geier Financial Group, MNS Group, PUNCH and Kneebouncers.com, Renegade, the Shad Ireland Foundation and Sullivan's Steakhouse. Additionally, Maroon PR has 10 nonprofit clients.

New NGC Building Slated for
Fall Occupancy
Northrop Grumman Corp.'s (NGC) Advanced Concepts & Technology Division plans to move several hundred engineers and scientists into a new five-story, 160,000-square-foot Class A office building by the end of the year. It will be the third building at the corporation's West Nursery Road campus on International Drive in Linthicum.
"We're consolidating a number of scattered facilities" to bring together employees now working at six different research and development locations in the BWI area, said NGC spokesperson Jack Martin, adding that the move will make addressing the daily workload "much more efficient."
The building is being developed by Opus East LLC of Rockville and NGC has signed a 10-year lease. The developer has designed the building to achieve LEED certification for energy and environmental design. Neither company released details of the deal.

Merkle Acquires CognitiveDATA
Merkle has acquired Little Rock, Ark.-based CognitiveDATA, a marketing technology company with data quality innovations that help recognized retailers, insurance providers, nonprofits and financial services organizations ensure the accuracy of mail files and eliminate waste in their direct mail programs.
Under the agreement, CognitiveDATA will remain a separate brand and will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Merkle. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Both companies have experienced recent steady growth. Merkle is a top 25-ranked national marketing services agency based on revenue, according to an April 2009 report in Advertising Age magazine. CognitiveDATA, which ended 2008 with $19 million in revenue, has been recognized in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and its growth earned it a mention in the Inc. 500 rankings in both 2007 and 2008.

Martek Signs Supply Agreement With Lactalis Nutrition Sante
Columbia-based Martek Biosciences Corp. has entered into a multi-year, sole-source supply agreement with Lactalis Nutrition Sante for the use of life'sARA in infant formulas and growing-up milks produced by Lactalis and sold in France and Algeria.
"Our partnership with Lactalis further demonstrates that companies worldwide understand the importance of adding Martek's ARA to infant formula for infant health and development," said Ethan Leonard, vice president of pediatric nutrition for Martek. "Martek's DHA and ARA can be found in infant formula sold in more than 75 countries, and we continue to expand our international presence in the infant formula market."

NYSE Euronext, Ciena Partner on First 100G Network
NYSE Euronext and Linthicum-based Ciena Corp. have announced plans to implement the first 100 gigabit network that will enable NYSE Euronext to provide both the speed and ultra-low latency to facilitate unparalleled execution of equities quotes, trades, options data and other financial transactions in the U.S., Europe and globally.
Ciena's 100G technology will be a core infrastructure component to support the growing bandwidth demands of NYSE Euronext's new state-of-the-art data centers in the greater New York and London metropolitan areas. These facilities are expected to be operational in 2010 and are designed to serve as the company's operational hubs for more than 1 billion daily transactions comprising petabytes of information.

Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shops Select Micros e7
Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shops has selected the Micros e7 Point-of-Sale system and the latest generation of mymicros.net enterprise business intelligence software for all of its corporate and franchised stores. Deployment to all of its U.S. and Canadian locations will occur during the next 18 months.
"We wanted to achieve complete buy-in on our new system from the franchise community. Therefore, we assembled a panel of 10 franchisees from across the country to lead the evaluation and decision process," said Stu Boyd, senior manager, franchise business systems for Ben & Jerry's.

Howard County Breaks Ground on Nutrient Removal Project
Howard County recently broke ground on the Little Patuxent Water Reclamation Plant's $100 million Legacy Project, just two days after President Obama issued an executive order that could give the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to set a more stringent timetable for states to upgrade wastewater treatment plants and enhance nutrient removal capabilities.
The project will install state-of-the-art equipment to implement a strategy called Enhanced Nutrient Removal at the plant to reduce the high levels of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous), as well as sediments, that have been damaging the Little Patuxent River and the Chesapeake Bay for years.

DP Solutions Acquires ATSG
DP Solutions, a Columbia-based information technology services firm, has acquired Advanced Technologies Support Group (ATSG), based in Owings Mills. The combined entities have more than 50 years of experience, compose a workforce of 60 employees and serve hundreds of businesses across the United States.
The company views the acquisition of ATSG's business as a strategic step in expanding its Managed Network Services business and obtaining the technical and management staff required to meet its business goals. ATSG has established a successful managed network services platform entitled "Confidence-Plus," which is recognized as one of the leading managed services offerings in the mid-Atlantic region.

Arbitron Leads Series
B Investment in TRA
TRA, headquartered in New York, announced it has closed its second round of funding, raising $13.5 million led by Columbia-based Arbitron. The Series B financing round included participation by current investors Kodiak Venture Partners and WPP, as well as several angel investors who are advertising and media industry executives.
TRA plans to use the funds to grow its sales team and continue investing in TRA's online reporting engine, Media TRAnalytics, which draws from the largest anonymous television database of 1.5 million households and the largest anonymous single source database of 370,000 households nationwide.

Sourcefire Signs SRA as Reseller of 3D System to the Federal Government
Open source innovator and Snort creator Sourcefire, headquartered in Columbia, has signed an agreement with SRA International to resell the Sourcefire 3D System, its leading intrusion prevention system (IPS), to federal government customers.
As the only IPS software developed entirely in the United States, the system extends SRA cyber security offerings, enabling government customers to better defend against nation-state sponsored hackers by tailoring the detection engine to their specific needs while profiling everything running on an organization's network, and identifies potential vulnerable systems.

HCGH Staffing New Patient Pavilion,
Offering Job Opportunities
Howard County General Hospital (HCGH) is offering job opportunities to staff its new patient pavilion. "Howard County General Hospital started the new patient pavilion project when the economy was thriving," said Vic Broccolino, HCGH president and CEO. "While we envisioned the positive impact it would have on the community, we didn't have a clue that the opening would come at such a critical time for Howard County."
According to Maryland labor statistics, Howard County saw another rise in unemployment in February, from 4.6% in January to 5.2%. Unemployment in the county doubled from one year earlier.

Marriottsville Company Wins
Small Biz Achievement Award
Enterprise Solutions Realized (ESR), of Marriottsville, has won a 2009 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Small Business Achievement Award for its work with the Transportation Security Administration. The award was presented to Dennis Christmas, president of ESR, at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
Kevin Boshears, director of the Office for Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization at the DHS, said that ESR received the award for its work at the Transportation Threat Assessment and Credentialing office on the effort "Consolidated Screening Gateway," a case management system for background adjudication.

Constellation Energy Group on S&P's Negative CreditWatch
Standard & Poor's (S&P's) Ratings Services said that its "BBB" long-term corporate credit rating on Constellation Energy Group Inc. remains on CreditWatch with negative implications.
The listing indicates that S&P could affirm or lower the ratings depending on Constellation's ability to successfully complete the Electricite' de France International (EDFI) transaction. The CreditWatch on BGE indicates the company is not insulated from activities of the parent.

Thakrar Launches Skada
Capital in Columbia
Skada Capital has been founded in Columbia to provide creative financing options for small companies that have been unable to secure conventional loans for expansion, acquisition and startup expenses from traditional banks.
Headed by Sandeep Thakrar, a Wharton Business School graduate with more than 20 years of financing experience, the company has a network of more than 200 sources of capital to provide and fulfill commercial real estate financings, receivables financings, credit card financings and unsecured credit lines.

Ciena Anticipates Impairment Charge in Fiscal Second Quarter
Linthicum-based Ciena Corp. recorded a non-cash charge of approximately $456 million for impairment of goodwill in its fiscal second quarter that ended April 30. The estimated charge represents the total book value of the company's goodwill on its balance sheet as of the date of the announcement, which is consistent with the balance at the end of its fiscal first quarter, Jan. 30.
Goodwill represents the excess purchase price over amounts assigned to tangible or identifiable intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed from past acquisitions. This non-cash charge does not impact the company's normal business operations, nor will it result in any current or future cash expense.

J. Mezzanotte to Chair Howard Chamber Board
Joe Mezzanotte, a partner in the Columbia office of Whiteford, Taylor & Preston, began his term as chairman of the board of the Howard County Chamber of Commerce at the chamber's recent annual meeting at M&T Bank Stadium.
Mezzanotte stressed the chamber's role and resources in helping businesses navigate the current recession and unveiled its plan to become a premier resource for the expanding the government contracting community. He has been active in the organization for many years, and has served as a member of the board of directors since 2002.

TCS Acquires LocationLogic
Annapolis-based TeleCommunication Systems (TCS) has acquired the assets of privately-held LocationLogic, a provider of infrastructure, applications, content provisioning and integration services.
The transaction is structured as an asset purchase for approximately $25 million. It is composed of $15 million paid in cash and $10 million, or approximately 1.4 million shares, in TCS Class A common stock, which is valued using the volume weighted average stock price for 10 days prior to close. LocationLogic's assets were acquired by private equity investors Hale Capital Partners and Hale Global from Autodesk earlier this year.

M&T Bank Receives Approval to Acquire Provident Bankshares
Buffalo-based M&T Bank Corp. announced that regulatory approval has been received in connection with its proposed acquisition of Baltimore-based Provident Bankshares Corp. M&T received approval from the New York State Banking Department, having previously received approval from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Maryland Commissioner of Financial Regulation.
Provident's stockholders approved the merger on April 8 and it is anticipated that the merger will be completed during the second quarter. Following the merger, all Provident branches and ATMs will carry the M&T Bank name, and Provident Bank customer accounts will become M&T Bank accounts.

First Rehabilitation Resources
Expands in Laurel
First Rehabilitation Resources, a private medical and vocational case management company in Laurel, has expanded into 3,341 square feet of office space at 14502 Greenview Drive.
The company's services are offered to insurance companies, self-insured corporations, third-party administrators, adjusting companies, law firms, case management networks and individual families. They include workers' compensation, auto and health insurance, long and short-term disability and medical malpractice, with such specialties as catastrophic illness or injury, traumatic brain injury and stress-related disorders.

Accreditation Reaffirmed for Bowie State's College of Business
Bowie State University's College of Business recently had its accreditation reaffirmed by the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) Board of Commissioners for 10 more years. The process examined the academic programs and units within the College of Business and recognized the university's teaching standards at the baccalaureate and graduate level.
Located in a new, state-of-the-art Center for Business and Graduate Studies, the College of Business consists of three departments which include Accounting, Finance and Economics; Management Information Systems; and Management, Marketing and Public Administration, as well as a business technology program and graduate studies.

eCity Now The Galley Creative Group
eCity Corp. has a new name and brand: TGCG Inc., and is doing business as The Galley Creative Group. The reasons for the name change were evolutionary in nature, as the branding agency has significantly expanded.
To cite the company's enhancements, the name change was made as the company enters its second decade in business, planning and sponsoring events for corporate and nonprofit clients from its Ellicott City location.

Heneson Comes Up Big - Twice
The work of Bonnie Heneson Communications (BHC) has been cited twice of late. The 2008 Howard County General Hospital physician's directory won first place in the physician marketing category at the 2009 Alfred Knight Awards, the annual Maryland Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development award contest. In addition, BHC's integrated marketing campaign for the launch of Monarch Academy Public Charter School also garnered gold at the Hermes Creative 2009, an international competition for creative professionals.

Local Author Tillman Publishes Book
The Chesapeake Watershed, a new book by local author Ned Tillman, helps create a sense of place for the reader and offers them a call to action to help reduce the negative impacts on the bay from a range of human activities.
Blending natural history and personal narrative, Tillman takes the reader into the murky shallows of the bay to chase crabs, onto the Eastern Shore to hunt quail and into the Piedmont to paddle through whitewater. At the end of each chapter, there is a call to action section with suggestions the reader can pursue at home and at work to become a better steward of the interdependent web of life.

New Organic Mattress Engineered by Columbia Firm
Local engineering firm Rhintek Inc. has announced a new product: an organic latex mattress. The was created after company president Rainer McCown became frustrated by the continual morning back pain he experienced after a night's sleep on his traditional mattress set.
A trained engineer from the California Institute of Technology, McCown set out to find one material that creates comfort and health benefits for the back. After inspecting many test mattresses, the "eureka" moment arrived: he used foamed latex rubber, then selected an environmentally conscious manufacturer, Savvy Rest of Charlottesville, Va.

Merkle Ranks Among Top Firms in New Advertising Age Agency Report
Columbia-based Merkle announced its top rankings in a new report from Advertising Age magazine. The Agency Report 2009 ranks Merkle among the nation's top 10 Direct Marketing Agencies, in the top 25 U.S. Marketing Services Agencies and among the top 30 Agency Companies worldwide.
With a 16.8% growth rate from 2007, Merkle holds the distinction of being the fastest growing direct marketing agency in the Top 20, with 2008 revenue totaling more than $211 million. The rankings were published in the April 27 issue of Advertising Age magazine.

DocPoint, Atalasoft Provide
Microsoft SharePoint Solutions
Fulton-based DocPoint Solutions, a subsidiary of Quality Associates Inc., a provider of Microsoft SharePoint, has announced a new reseller relationship with Easthampton, Mass.-based Atalasoft.
This partnership authorizes DocPoint to distribute, customize and install Atalasoft's Vizit SP software. Vizit SP is a comprehensive solution for viewing, cleaning up, indexing and annotating documents within the Microsoft SharePoint Server. The zero-footprint document viewing system allows end users to access documents without installing any software or downloading files to their desktops.

Arundel Finance Office Cited for Excellence in Reporting
The Anne Arundel County Office of Finance has won the Excellence in
Financial Reporting award for the 28th straight year. The peer review is conducted by the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada.
The comprehensive annual financial report was judged by a panel to meet the standards of the program, including demonstrating a constructive spirit of full disclosure to clearly communicate its financial story and motivate potential users and user groups to read the report. The association serves approximately 17,500 government finance professionals.

ESR Receives Maryland CATS II Master Contract
The Maryland Department of Information Technology (MDoIT) has announced that Enterprise Solutions Realized (ESR) has been awarded a Master Contract for the agency's Consulting and Technical Services II (CATS II) contracting vehicle.
The Maryland Board of Public Works approved MDoIT's recommendations at its May meeting. ESR will be able to bid on task orders for consulting and technical services to agencies of the state of Maryland. In addition, county and local governments also may use the CATS II vehicle. ESR was one of only nine companies out of 436 large and small businesses to qualify in as many as 14 of the 17 designated Functional Areas.

More Funding for AAACVB
Approved by Gov
Senate Bill 11, the Anne Arundel County Tourism & Economic Development Act of 2009, has been signed by Gov. Martin O'Malley. The legislation provides the Annapolis & Anne Arundel County Conference & Visitors Bureau (AAACCVB) with a dedicated source of revenue funded through county hotel tax receipts.
The mandated revenue stream will be phased in at a rate of 7% of total hotel tax receipts for fiscal years 2010 and 2011. The level will increase to 8% in 2012 and 12.5% in 2013. It will cap at 17% in 2014 and remain at that level for each subsequent year.

Cornerstone Acquires Nova
Records Management
Cornerstone Records Management has completed its acquisition of the assets of Nova Records Management. "Nova gives us a very attractive platform from which to grow our business in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic markets," said Steven Sisney, president and CEO of Cornerstone.
Cornerstone opened two new facilities in California during the second half of 2008 and is opening a records storage center and a separate media vault in the Denver area this month. The company will continue to operate as L.A. Records Management in the Los Angeles area, Cornerstone Records Management in the Denver market and Nova Records Management in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic markets.

Trusant Garners DoD Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Award
The Department of Defense (DoD) honored Columbia-based Trusant Technologies, a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) firm for providing essential technologies to the warfighter while exhibiting excellence in DoD contracting.
The SDVOSB Achievement Award recognizes outstanding business acumen and success in federal procurement, the company's dedication to hiring veterans and service-disabled veterans, and the demonstrated support of the veteran and disabled-veteran community.

Incentives Help Keep BoxTone in
Howard County
Columbia-based BoxTone, a supplier of BlackBerry technology, was contemplating relocation to Pennsylvania before the state Department of Business & Economic Development (DBED) and Howard County stepped in with incentives to keep the company local.
The company received infusions from both offices of $25,000, for a total of $50,000. The money resulted in the company moving into a new, larger office last month in the same building it has been located in on Stanford Boulevard, allowing Boxtone to more than double its employee roster to 60 workers.
BoxTone sets up, monitors and maintains vast networks of BlackBerry smartphones. The investment helped the company address a pressing need as it hired dozens of employees to handle new business it has garnered from Fortune 500 companies.