Baltimore Based

Baltimore-based Under Armour Inc. is planning to add 350 employees at a site in walking distance of its waterfront headquarters, significantly increasing its city work force at a time when it is aggressively expanding into new markets. The sports apparel company expects to open offices in a building now used as a warehouse and freight terminal in Locust Point. Baltimore developer Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse has a contract to purchase the 7.2-acre property, between Beason Street and Key Highway, and wants to do a $14.2 million renovation if it can get zoning approval.

Advertising Carton Donofrio Partners announced that Carrie Gardner and Ryan Mach have joined the staff of the Baltimore-based Mid-Atlantic regional marketing communications agency as account leaders. Vertis Communications appointed James G. Foley as senior vice president of human resources for the Baltimore-based agency. Banking and finance M&T Bank announced the administrative vice president appointments of Janice L. Biennas, regional manager for Baltimore and Chesapeake Private Client Services, and Michael A. Cihak, area sales manager.

RPM Inc. of Ohio said yesterday that it completed its acquisition of Baltimore-based DAP Products Inc. and DAP Canada Corp. for $290 million in cash.Dave Reif, vice president of finance for RPM, a sealant manufacturer whose brands include Rust-Oleum and Zinsser, said it will be "business as usual" for DAP's employees and customers.He said DAP will continue to be based in Baltimore under the leadership of President and Chief Executive Officer John McLaughlin, and no layoffs or plant closings are planned.

Shares of Baltimore-based Caliber Learning Network Inc., a money-losing, development-stage distributor of education and training programs for working adults, rose as much as 21 percent yesterday in their first day of trading.The company rose $2 to finish at $16 as 1.6 million shares changed hands on the Nasdaq stock market. Earlier, the stock touched $16.88. The company and selling shareholders sold 5.7 million shares, a 47 percent stake, at $14 each, raising $79.8 million. The sale gave Caliber a market capitalization of about $168.

Gertrude Stein, seminal Baltimore poet and post-modern counterweight to this town's Poeish ways, once measured Charm City so: " ... Nothing really can stop any one living and feeling as they do in Baltimore." In doing so, Stein distinctively framed that maverick streak in Baltimore's literary arts which even today blooms as unexpectedly as Bradford pears up Charles Street.Certainly generations of these poetic "culture workers" (a term popularized by the late and much admired Baltimore poet Joe Cardarelli)

New Orioles slugger Joe Carter needed a home for the season, Winona Ryder wanted $800 sheets on her bed and the Saudi royal family ordered a freshly killed lamb for dinner.Playing hostess to Baltimore's famous visitors isn't always easy, but Melanie Sabelhaus isn't complaining. The former sales manager for International Business Machines Corp. who started out offering her Owings Mills guest house to executives 11 years ago now heads up sales for a multimillion-dollar company that provides lodging in 17 U.S. cities and London.

In what will be its first vessel construction project, Baltimore Marine Industries Inc. has signed deals with two marine transportation companies to build up to eight $3 million barges.Baltimore Marine entered into an agreement with Vane Brothers Co. of Baltimore and Elk of Marine Transportation Inc. of New York to sell each up to four double-hulled barges.Each company has a contract with Baltimore Marine for two 250-foot-long, 30,000-barrel-capacity barges, and each has an option for two more.

New positionsMacomber, DiCarlo, Showers appointed at Ajilon ServicesAjilon Services announced the appointments of Patricia Macomber as director of training and employee development and John DiCarlo and Dan Showers as senior account managers for the Towson-based international information technology staffing and consulting firm.Macomber will help develop long-term business strategy and formalize training and development. Formerly a trainer/coordinator for TESSCO Technologies nc., she holds a graduate education degree from George Mason University.

New positions* D. R. Brasher, Columbia-based architects and planners, has appointed Alyce H. Kirk vice president of marketing and public relations. She is a published author on the subject of marketing architectural services and was formerly the director of marketing for Marks, Thomas & Associates.* The Collateral Group, a Woodlawn design and printing firm, has chosen John Kehoe senior account executive.Advertising and PR* Hanlon & Partners announced that Kaycee MacDougall has joined the Baltimore agency as a copywriter.

Shortly after lunch, they gathered in the middle of the sewing room floor, surrounded by workbenches piled with cut, unstitched material. Most knew they would finally hear what they had long suspected."

2 Gov. Martin O'Malley plans to announce today the appointment of Christian Johansson, a Harvard University-educated entrepreneur who has run a Baltimore-based business and government alliance, as the state secretary of business and economic development. Johansson, who must be confirmed by the Senate, would replace David W. Edgerley, who resigned in December to pursue a career in the private sector or education. O'Malley has sought to reorganize the Department of Business and Economic Development, a process that emphasized efforts for the biotechnology industry and international trade and consolidated some functions.

Provident Bankshares Corp., the largest remaining Baltimore-based bank, squeezed by competition and losses, announced yesterday that it is selling itself to New York-based M&T Bank Corp., a dominant player in the Mid-Atlantic that is working to expand its foothold in a city where its name adorns the biggest sports stadium. The $401 million stock deal could lead to some layoffs among Provident's 1,660 employees as the banks merge operations and eliminate redundant operations, according to banking analysts and consultants.

Steven Soifer, New York-born, moved to Baltimore in 1994 to take a job as associate professor of social work, University of Maryland, Baltimore. He has taught community organizing, community economic development and social action, and helped create three nonprofit organizations. 1 An electric car that works: "When I get a new car, I guess I'll have to go with a hybrid, unless I can get one of those electric cars that the governor of California is driving around. I can't think of anything more important to reduce my carbon footprint."

Advertising * gkv announced the appointments of Meredith Gilbert and Haley Ulloa as assistant account executives for the Baltimore-based marketing firm and named Johnny Vo as associate manager for GKV REACH, the agency's social marketing division. Finance * Wealth Advocacy Partners appointed Stephanie I. Dignan as a financial representative in the Sparks-based insurance and estate planning services firm. She had been with Metropolitan Life and is active with National Association of Female Executives and is a certified financial planner.

A union representing hotel workers is planning to hold a series of forums about development in Baltimore, focusing on the relationships among city subsidies, development and jobs. Unite Here, a hotel and restaurant workers union with 5,000 members in Maryland - about 2,200 of them in Baltimore - will hold the first discussion at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at 7-9 Mulberry St. Roxie Herbekian, associate director of the Mid-Atlantic Region of Unite Here, said the focus of the talks would be, in part, to make sure communities affected by major developments in the city have a chance to weigh in on the process.

Forget working at the mall, life-guarding or filing paperwork. For 30 Baltimore students, their summer job is about finding their entrepreneurial spirit. And many of them believe that getting paid to craft a business plan is not a bad way to spend a summer. "I wish this was a real job," said Tamia Jones, 17, a rising senior at Northwestern High School. Jones and other classmates are becoming budding entrepreneurs through a new component of the city's summer employment program, which secured jobs for more than 6,500 students this year.

Charlotte Truesdell, a patron of music and a lover of art and cooking, died July 5 in her home in Baltimore. She was 86. She died of natural causes, said a sister, Audrey Halperin of Atlantis, Fla. Mrs. Truesdell lived in Baltimore for more than four decades. She played host to and fed dozens of classical musicians visiting Baltimore. The former Charlotte Brudno was born in Boston. She attended Cambridge Junior College, and after receiving a degree in mathematics, went to work as a mathematician for a Massachusetts Institute of Technology lab, where the work focused on radiation.

Advertising Trahan Burden Charles has appointed Brent Burkhardt as executive vice president and managing director of public relations for the Baltimore-based regional advertising agency. Vertis Communications appointed Charles Miotke as president of the Baltimore-based direct marketing unit of the national print advertising and direct marketing solutions provider. Banking and finance Northwestern Mutual Financial Network named Kelly Whitson as a financial representative in its Baltimore office.

Alliance DrFirst, a Rockville-based electronic prescribing and medication reconciliation company, entered into a strategic alliance agreement with Medical Information Technology Inc. to provide hospitals with comprehensive patient medication history and electronic prescribing of discharge and outpatient medications. Acquisitions Blue Sky Factory, a Baltimore-based e-mail marketing service provider, acquired Blogarithm, an online service connecting Internet users with blog and RSS syndicated content.

Baltimore-based Under Armour Inc. is planning to add 350 employees at a site in walking distance of its waterfront headquarters, significantly increasing its city work force at a time when it is aggressively expanding into new markets. The sports apparel company expects to open offices in a building now used as a warehouse and freight terminal in Locust Point. Baltimore developer Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse has a contract to purchase the 7.2-acre property, between Beason Street and Key Highway, and wants to do a $14.2 million renovation if it can get zoning approval.