Best financial sourse

This is a weekly roundup of promotions, appointments and employee accomplishments in the Birmingham metro area. For more People on the Move, check out the Birmingham Business Journal’s print edition each week. Send announcements to ccrawford@bizjournals.com.

ACCOUNTING

Ralph Summerford, founder and President of Forensic/ Strategic Solutions, was recognized recently by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners with the 2010 Cressey Award. This award is the ACFE’s highest honor which recognizes a lifetime of achievement in the detection and deterrence of fraud.

Ross Mendheim, CPA and shareholder at Barfield Murphy Shank & Smith accounting firm, recently presented at the ACEC Tri-State Convention in a session entitled “Health Care Reform for the Business Owner.”

INSURANCE

Allstate exclusive agency owner Willie Robinson in Hueytown and owner Nicky Reed have been designated a Premier Service Agency for 2010.

LEGAL

Attorney David Donaldson of Donaldson Guin LLC was quoted in a front-page story in the New York Times about HUD Chief Andrew Cuomo. Donaldson handled a high-profile case involving deceptive mortgage-premium practices.

Jay V. Shah, an attorney with Haskell Slaughter Young & Rediker LLC, was a featured speaker at the American Bar Association annual meeting in San Francisco. Shah was a part of the panel presentation “Anatomy of Business Law: ABC’s of an IPO,” presented by the ABA Young Lawyers Division on Aug. 6. Shah is a member of Haskell Slaughter’s Transactional Practice Group, representing clients in a variety of business and finance matters with a particular focus on securities offerings and periodic reporting. He also practices as part of the firm’s International Law and Immigration practice team and has a working knowledge of Gujarti and Spanish.

NONPROFITS

The Muscular Dystrophy Association has named Jerry Farris Jr. of Pinson the recipient of its 2010 Robert Ross Personal Achievement Award for Alabama. He also is a finalist for the 2011 national award. Farris will accept the Alabama award during the local broadcast of the 2010 MDA Telethon on Sept business card templates. 6 on WVTM, NBC, Channel 13 HD, in Birmingham.

REAL ESTATE

Shelly Terry, a sales associate with RealtySouth Acton Road office, earned the Certified Residential Specialist designation from the Council of Residential Specialists, an affiliate of the National Association of Realtors. She also recently earned the Short Sales and Foreclosure Resource certification from the NAR.

SENIORS

Jody Linton launched Caring Transitions of Birmingham to provide seniors and families transition, including senior moving, downsizing and estate sales. Linton was involved with health care management for years and then worked in hospice.

UNIVERSITIES

Karen Sparks, University of Alabama professor and founder of Urban Business Incubator, met with teens from the Birmingham area recently and encouraged them to graduate from high school and get their diploma in a motivational speech at the Taco Bell “Graduate to Go” Business Camp at the Sheraton Birmingham Hotel.

Professor of Chemistry Charles Watkins is the 2010 recipient of the Ellen Gregg Ingalls/UAB National Alumni Society Award for Lifetime Achievement in Teaching. In his 40-year UAB career, Watkins served for 10 years as the associate dean for the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, which became a part of the new UAB College of Arts and Sciences in 2009. He also spent 10 years serving the University Honors Council, the advisory body that interviews and selects students for the University Honors Program.

Assistant professor Ho-Wook Jun from the UAB Department of Biomedical Engineering has received a National Science Foundation Career Award. The $407,000 award benefits Jun’s research into a bioactive hybrid nanomatrix for intervertebral disk regeneration.

Donna Arnett, professor and chair of epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, has been elected leading scientific officer for the American Heart Association’s Greater Southeast Affiliate.

Source

Compare health insurance plans and insurance rates on family and individual health insurance. Free health quotes and more.

ISTS Worldwide Inc. on Wednesday named Akash Jain its first president.

The company, which has U.S. headquarters in Fremont, focuses on retail and payments technology.

In this new role, Jain will be responsible for growing the business in rest of the world outside of North America, strategy and development of IP, heading India business and delivery operations high risk personal loans.

ISTS said Akash has more than 22 years of professional experience in the software services industry, working with companies including MasterCard and Reliance.

Click here to read the press release.

Source

Making it easy to find the right instant payday loan. No fax, hassle free cash advance loans from $100-$1500 in less than 1 hour.

Memorial Hermann has reduced its carbon footprint by trading in disposable containers for reusable sharps containers.

The 3,200 bed, 11-hospital health care system launched the Sharps Management Service using Bio Systems reusable containers by Stericycle Inc. (NASDAQ: SRCL). Each reusable container keeps an average of 600 disposable sharps containers from going to a landfill.

Marshall Heins, chief facility services officer at Memorial Hermann, said the shift means Memorial Hermann will no longer buy disposable containers.

“With more than 1.4 million patients visits a year, there are hundreds of thousands of pounds less plastic and cardboard going to landfills,” he said. “Equally important is managing the regulatory compliance and avoiding hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs since we implemented the program in 2006.”

Between April 2009 and March 2010, Memorial Hermann diverted 138,627 pounds of CO2 from 232,610 pounds of plastic and 19,982 pounds of cardboard. Such a carbon diversion is the equivalent to 7,138 gallons of gasoline or 2,622 propane cylinders for home barbecues.

Source

Just hours into its public debut, the highly anticipated, glowingly reviewed, social media aggregating iPad application called Flipboard crashed.

The new app promises to create a "personal magazine" by bringing in content from Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. But when a sea of eager downloaders tried to log into their various social media accounts on Tuesday, the requests overwhelmed Flipboard’s servers.

Users encountered error messages that said, "Due to overwhelming interest we are currently limiting the rate at which we are accepting new Facebook and Twitter connections." Flipboard urged users to follow its Twitter account, @flipboard, for updates on the status of the server delays, saying, "We promise it will be worth the wait."

Flipboard’s solution is still pending. As it works to add more server capacity, the company is set to debut a new version of its software that will create a wait list for users trying to connect to their Twitter and Facebook accounts. When the app is ready for users to sign in, it will send them e-mails notifying them that they’re next in line.

Though Flipboard encouraged patience, Twitter users sounded off on their frustrations installment payday loans.

"Has Flipboards 15 mins of fame come and gone? The backlash begins!" said one Twitter user.

Many blamed tech blogger Robert Scoble for creating too much hype about Flipboard. He posted nearly 30 tweets on Wednesday about the new iPad app.

"24 hours later, where is @Scobleizer after destroying the launch for @flipboard? Too much hype too soon. I hope @flipboard can recover," tweeted another user.

It’s not the first time that incredible demand has overwhelmed an app or website.

Twitter famously displays its "Fail Whale" several times a month, as it is routinely over capacity. The company said Wednesday that it is building a new data center in Salt Lake City that it will move into later this year.

Apple’s Store app crashed last month on the day it launched, as iPhone 3GS users bombarded it with requests to buy a new iPhone 4.

And users looking for information online about Michael Jackson’s death last summer caused a host of websites — including mighty Google — to crash or slow down to a crawl. 

Source

Daily parking in Honolulu is nearly $2 more than in downtown Manhattan, according to a survey out this week.

The median price of parking for one day in Honolulu is $32.75, ranking the city second on the list of most expensive cities in which to park.

Honolulu’s daily prices were more than the $31 median found in Manhattan but not as much as the wallet-crippling $40 forked over in New York City’s Midtown area.

The median monthly rate for an unreserved stall in Honolulu rose 4.7 percent, or $10, to $222.33 in the 12 months ending in June compared with the preceding year.

This year’s median monthly rate made downtown Honolulu the ninth most expensive area out of 44 major metropolitan markets surveyed by commercial real estate firm Colliers International no fax payday loans.

Midtown New York topped the list with a median rate of $538.

Nationwide, the average price for monthly parking was $161.56, up 1.1 percent year over year.

With the economic recovery unfolding in slow motion, parking rates are expected to show little change over the next 12 months, Colliers said. Rates are expected to trend upward beginning in the second half of 2011, however.

Source

Alaska Airlines said that more than half of its airplanes have been equipped with Wi-Fi capability.

In May, the airline, a subsidiary of Alaska Air Group Inc. (NYSE: ALK) of Seattle, said it plans to have its entire fleet equipped with Aircell’s Gogo inflight internet service by the end of the year. Initially free, after July 31 the price goes up to a minimum of $4.95 per flight.

Alaska said Wi-Fi has been installed on 55 of its Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) 737-800s and 10 of its 737-900s cash advance loan. Its two remaining 737-900s should have Wi-Fi installed by the end of this month, Alaska said.

The airline added that Aircell “will expand its network by early 2011 to provide Gogo inflight internet service on key routes to, from and within the state of Alaska.”

Alaska Airlines and sister airline Horizon Air fly nearly half of the passenger traffic at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Source

The regular lunch crowd waiting to enter Crown Candy Kitchen at North 14th Street and St. Louis Avenue may soon find another reason to visit the block.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony is set for July 29 to launch the fully renovated Crown Square, a residential and commercial development in the 2600 and 2700 blocks of North 14th.

The development, offering 80 residential units and 35,000 square feet of commercial and retail uses, spans 27 buildings and 2½ acres of green space.

The developers, two nonprofit community groups, are optimistic the $35 million project will bring more traffic to that once-booming north St. Louis neighborhood and help lead a renaissance for the area.

"This is the biggest project that we’ve ever been involved with," said Sean Thomas, executive director of the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group, which teamed up with the Regional Housing and Community Development Alliance.

"It is very close to being ready," Thomas said. "Work to reopen the street is the last component to be finished."

In fact, those two blocks of North 14th will be reopened to vehicular traffic for the first time in 33 years. The buildings there had fronted on a failed pedestrian mall since 1977, when urban planners believed that was the best way to attract business to the neighborhood.

However, prospective shoppers and clients of businesses along what was called the 14th Street Mall didn’t like parking behind the buildings and having to walk around to the front doors.

So most businesses along the pedestrian mall eventually closed.

In 2005, the Regional Housing and Community Development Alliance and Old North St. Louis Restoration Group decided to partner to redevelop the mall, which had become an eyesore.

The buildings were acquired over almost two years, from late 2005 through summer of 2007, for about $2 million, developers said.

Funding for the project came from a variety of sources. The development alliance provided a $2 million predevelopment loan. Another $12 million came from state and federal tax credits, and the rest through individual and institutional contributions.

Thomas said he was especially encouraged about the development’s prospects because nearly 70 of 80 housing units in the redevelopment area already have been leased to tenants.

"The challenge now is in leasing out the commercial spaces," he said. "But we have been getting a lot of interest. We want to get them out here to see it and look at the possibilities."

At least one restaurant and some retail businesses are in discussions with real estate agents for the developers, Thomas said.

Two new businesses already have moved into Crown Square, even as the work continues outside on the street. Norah Ryan has opened her law office there, and Therapy, a women’s clothing store, is preparing for its grand opening soon.

Ryan said she was happy about deciding to move her office from Clayton to Crown Square.

"There’s a wonderful sense of community, and a lot of things are going on here," she said.

Ryan, who was familiar with the neighborhood, said the full impact of the redevelopment struck her while taking a friend on a driving tour of the city last fall. "I thought, ‘Wow! That’s pretty neat.’"

And she said her new office was just the right size for her law practice, at about 900 square feet of renovated space.

Thomas acknowledged that a fear of crime has kept some businesses and clients away from the neighborhood for years. But he noted that crime rates in the area had gone down in recent years, and that many of the area’s residents were actively involved in Neighborhood Watch and other programs to keep the area safe.

Thomas said he could foresee a day when the development would rival the neighborhood’s heyday of the 1920s through the early 1950s. In addition to small businesses, that stretch of North 14th once had the first J.C. Penney store in the St. Louis area, he said, adding that the area also had Woolworths and J.J. Newberry’s five-and-dime stores.

"You could argue that this was the main street of a small town, and it could become that way again," he said.

E.M. Harris Construction Co., based in St. Louis, began work on the residential part of Crown Square late in 2007. Restoration of the commercial buildings began in 2008. The project was named in honor of Crown Candy Kitchen, which has anchored the neighborhood for years.

The buildings in Crown Square date from as old as 1860 to the 1920s. Developers restored each building to the era in which it was built, Thomas said.

"This project reflects what cities actually look like — they evolve and change over time," he said.

Source

Based locally and working internationally, McCarthy Building Cos. and Alberici Corp. got through the recession’s first year on their deep backlogs of commercial construction contracts.

But now St. Louis’ Big Two of general contracting expect leaner times ahead as they cope with the worst economic downturn in decades.

Commercial construction is a lagging economic indicator, meaning that recessions hurt general contractors later than most companies during tough economic times. Thus general contractors are among the last to recover when the economy improves.

"Once owners start to build something, it’s very rare that they stop a project," said Greg Kozicz, Alberici’s chief executive.

As a result, Alberici had a "very significant backlog" of work for 2006, 2007 and early 2008 even as the economy cooled, and company revenue grew steadily, reaching $1.3 billion in 2008. Completion of some projects and a smaller backlog of new jobs will mean a slight revenue drop this year, Kozicz said.

"And we think ‘11 will be softer than ‘10," he said.

Alberici currently has about a year’s worth of jobs in the works, down from 18 months in more normal times.

"When the economy was roaring along at its peak, we were closer to two years," Kozicz said.

Whether commercial construction is in rebound mode is unclear, he added. The U.S. market is unique because of public stimulus spending, said Kozicz, adding that for the first time in Alberici’s 90-year history, government work makes up a "disproportionate" share of the company’s business.

"On the surface, the numbers look like recovery," he said. "But look at the mix of work and you get a question mark. The government just can’t spend money indefinitely."

By far the region’s largest construction company is McCarthy, which had more than $3.1 billion in revenue last year. Even though that amount was down $380 million from 2008, the company had its highest gross margin ever in 2009, said Derek Glanvill, McCarthy’s president and chief operating officer.

"We still had a lot of good work in the pipeline," he said best payday advance. "The bad years are yet to come. If we could stay flat over the rest of 2010, ‘11 and ‘12, that might be a good thing. That would be favorable not only for McCarthy but for the entire industry."

With projects in more than a dozen "core markets" spread across 40 states, McCarthy’s U.S. business has benefited from a recession-produced 30 percent plunge in the cost of construction, Glanvill said.

"The second thing is that the pent-up demand is starting to come slowly, with more aggressive owners starting to build," he said.

Absent "creative financing," hotel and office construction remains slow although public university construction is "steady" despite the budget stresses felt by many states, Glanville said.

"There are some bright spots but they’re few and far between and not in our traditional market of major cities," he said.

To help deal with the lean times, McCarthy is venturing into smaller cities and bidding on jobs that it would have passed on in better economic times.

"Before, if there were four projects, maybe we’d get two," Glanvill said. "Now, if there are 10 out there, maybe you swallow hard and go after eight and maybe, if you’re lucky, get one."

Len Toenjes, president of the Associated General Contractors of St. Louis, said most construction companies of all sizes are struggling to get over the recession.

A few big projects — such as the St. Louis Art Museum expansion, the Mississippi River bridge — are helping spur a slow turnaround, Toenjes said. Regardless, some area construction companies are looking for work farther from home.

"We’re going to see more of a national footprint in our construction industry," he said. "Now that we’ve learned to work out of town, I think there’s going to be more of a tendency to follow a type of work or a client regionally or across the country."

Source

Midwest BankCentre added Alex Fennoy as senior vice president and director of community development.

Fennoy will focus on starting St. Louis-area community outreach programs for the bank in lending, investment and financial education, as well as managing traditional middle market commercial banking relationships.

He has 18 years of experience in commercial banking, most recently serving as a vice president of National City Bank.

Fennoy sits on the St. Clair County Board for the United Way, mentors with Inroads Alumni and serves as finance committee chair for the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn.

Source

Gasoline prices in Florida are expected to drop again this week as crude oil prices continue their downward trend for the third straight week amid concerns that Europe’s financial crisis will worsen, AAA said.

Crude oil closed Friday at $70.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In the past few weeks, the European crisis has pushed the value of the euro down 12 percent against the dollar and is one of the major factors that has caused the price of crude to decrease. At the same time, U.S. stockpiles of crude grew for the 15th week, AAA said.

“The possibility that Europe’s financial problems will slow global demand at a time when U.S. demand is already slow to rise has investors worried,” said Jessica Brady, manager of AAA public relations no credit check payday loans. “The lack of demand can be seen in the constant increase in U.S. stockpiles of crude that are now well above 362 million barrels.

“Lower retail gasoline prices are always welcomed by consumers, and they can expect to see just that as retail prices drop again this week.”

The national average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline is $2.80, while Florida’s average is $2.79, bothof which reflect a seven-cent decrease from last week.

In Orlando, a gallon of self-serve regular averages $2.70, down 9 cents from a week ago.

Source