Baltimore Alliance

The Greater Baltimore Alliance yesterday said yesterday that it had named a 31-year-old entrepreneur and consultant as the No. 2 executive at the economic development organization, positioning him for the top job when the group's leader leaves in six months. Christian S. Johansson will assume the role of executive vice president July 7 and become a potential successor to President and Chief Executive Ioanna T. Morfessis, who will step down Dec. 31 to start her own business. The regional business group, whose mission is to lure and retain businesses, still intends to conduct a national search for a replacement for Morfessis, said John A. MacColl, GBA board chairman and vice chairman of insurer St. Paul Cos. Inc. But he and Morfessis, who announced her resignation in April, left little doubt that Johansson had made a strong impression on GBA leadership.

Colleges unite to form business training resource Carroll Community College, with Greater Baltimore Alliance and five other community colleges, has formed the Greater Baltimore Business Training Network, a partnership offering to businesses resources for training employees. Under the partnership, a business seeking training resources could contact Greater Baltimore Alliance, which would work with the business to match its needs to the community college or private agency best equipped to meet them.

USF&G Corp. told employees yesterday it will keep the headquarters of its F&G Life Insurance subsidiary in the Baltimore area rather than moving it to either Florida or Tennessee.The decision means that Baltimore will retain 90 white-collar jobs and a 36-year-old unit of the $14.6 billion corporation. Moreover, it marks a psychological victory in the state's efforts to keep key businesses in the wake of recent defections by Procter & Gamble Co., Bausch & Lomb Inc. and others."The significance here is that F&G Life is part of a national company, and we want to see those operations both stay and grow here," said James T. Brady, secretary of the state's Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED)

A delegation including Carroll County Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge is in New York today to market the Baltimore area. The two-day sales mission, which ends this evening, was organized by the Greater Baltimore Alliance, an economic development group that is also sending representatives. "This will give us a great opportunity to promote the positives of the Baltimore region - our educational systems, libraries, open space and parks, the professional ball teams and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra," said Gouge, a Greater Baltimore Alliance board member.

The Danaher Corp. announced yesterday that it will relocate one of its divisional headquarters from Lancaster, Pa., to Hunt Valley by the summer. The Professional Tool Division, a subsidiary of the $3.2 billion Danaher Corp. based in Washington, is expected to make the move by June and have a work force of 80 employees at its new site. "This is yet another prestigious company making another significant investment and putting a strategic business unit here," said Ioanna T. Morfessis, president and CEO of the Greater Baltimore Alliance.

David M. Gillece, one of the architects of the Greater Baltimore Alliance, yesterday was named chairman of the organization he helped create. Gillece, president of commercial real estate firm Colliers Pinkard, took over leadership of the development organization the same day that the group voted to change its name to the Greater Baltimore Economic Alliance - a name he hopes will be abbreviated to the Economic Alliance rather than another jumble of...

Baltimore is the place to be if you want to fly cheap, see a good doctor and earn a top salary. A report comparing the city and surrounding counties with 19 other metropolitan areas in the nation also shows that crime remains a problem and employment growth lags. The Greater Baltimore Committee and the Greater Baltimore Alliance teamed with the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies to update a report they compiled two years ago. It shows that Baltimore has made gains among the more than 90 categories measured, but so have all the other areas.

If the Washington-Baltimore region plays host to the 2012 Summer Olympics, it can expect an economic windfall of more than $5 billion, according to a study released yesterday by the local group trying to bring the Olympics here. The study said $5.32 billion in direct and indirect spending would be pumped into the economy during the Olympic year. The U.S. metropolitan areas competing for the Games in addition to Washington-Baltimore are San Francisco, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, New York, Los Angeles and Tampa-Orlando, Fla. The United States Olympic Committee is expected to name a U.S. candidate city in October 2002.

In its loudest statement yet that it wants to be a more vocal player in shaping the area it serves, the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors announced that it is giving $250,000 to the Greater Baltimore Alliance.The "investment" in the GBA, an organization of private and civic leaders formed to promote Baltimore and its surrounding counties, will be $50,000 a year for the next five years. It is the largest gift by the board to any one organization."To me, this is one of the things that I am most proud of that I got the board to do," said Gilbert D. Marsiglia, outgoing president of the board of Realtors.

American Healthways Inc., a Nashville, Tenn.-based provider of disease and care management, said yesterday that it will open a health care call center in Howard County that is expected to bring more than 200 jobs to the region over the next two years. The publicly traded company, which reported revenue of more than $165 million in fiscal 2003, provides services to more than 800,000 people and the 50,000 physicians who care for them, in all 50 states. "This is a big deal for us," said Nick Balog, vice president of central operations.