Business Ethics

MARYLANDERS know now where the $24.5 billion pension system buck stops: with Comptroller William Donald Schaefer, who also serves as chairman of the system's board of directors. Mr. Schaefer knows as well as anyone that he now bears sharply focused responsibility for restoring the shaken system's operation to professional standards. In recent months, he has taken important steps to bring an appallingly dysfunctional, money-losing system under control. In January, he will announce a new, top-to-bottom review of the system's operation.

First Mariner begins work at Crofton site A groundbreaking was held in Crofton recently for the first of four new branches that will double the presence of First Mariner Bank in Anne Arundel County this year. Edwin F. Hale Sr., chief executive officer of First Mariner, was joined by 33rd District Dels. Janet Greenip and Robert C. Baldwin for the ceremony at the site on Route 3, where the branch is scheduled to open in April. Founded in 1995, First Mariner has 42 automated teller machines and 24 full-service branches, including offices in Annapolis, Glen Burnie, Pasadena and Severna Park.

Salary: $80,000 Age: 64 Years on the job: 30 How he got started: Adams began his career as a high school teacher with a degree in theology. He was asked to teach a career development course to his students that focused on exposing them to different types of jobs. He ended up teaching career development for 10 years at the high school level. Adams then left teaching for a few years to work in business management but went back, this time instructing college students in career and job development for seven years.

CREATIVE FINANCING: The Morgan State University contracting irregularities, as described by legislative auditors, take creative financing to new heights. According to a report in The Sun, Morgan staff engineered the padding of one contract bid to pay cost overruns on several others in violation of state procurement rules. A university contracting official has resigned, but this isn't the first time Morgan has run afoul of state rules on financial matters. Faculty at Morgan's Earl G. Graves School of Business and Management should offer a brush-up course in business ethics to those overseeing school finance and construction projects.

Japan, after its latest financial scandals, had better recognize that it has grown too big and too intertwined with the world economy to operate in isolation. It is folly to expect a prospering society based on cozy networking among its powerful interest groups to turn itself, willy-nilly, into something Westernized, open and free of xenophobia. After all, its present system has brought dazzling prosperity. But Japan, for its part, should realize that its major partners can tolerate only so much deviation from accepted norms of commerce, corporate practice and business ethics.

Martha Stewart's company, stung by her indictment two weeks ago, has not done enough to distance itself from her as a part of a strategy to prosper again, experts said yesterday. Stewart resigned as chief executive and chairwoman of the board of directors June 4, hours after pleading not guilty to federal charges of lying to investigators who were investigating her December 2001 sale of stock in drug maker ImClone Systems Inc. Stewart's successors are a longtime company executive and money manager.

Maryland's new labor secretary will be Leonard Howie, an official at the state Department of Human Resources, the state said Monday. Gov. Martin O'Malley said in a statement that he was "confident in Leonard's ability to connect Marylanders with the jobs and skills they need to compete. " Howie steps into his new job Oct. 8. Former Labor Secretary Alexander M. Sanchez left in May to work for Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, with Scott R. Jensen filling in as interim secretary since then.

The high-tech future of vo-tech arrives in Howard County's high schools today-- pushing the county to the forefront of the national transformation of vocational education.With the start of the school year today in Howard, Anne Arundel, Carroll and Baltimore counties, the Howard school system will forsake traditional vocational-education programs for a glitzy, state-of-the-art program focusing primarily on high-technology careers.Under the new vo-tech program -- aimed at upgrading career education and aligning it with the work world of the 21st century -- auto mechanics and wood shop have been dropped for "energy, power and transportation" and "construction and manufacturing."

The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., (NYSE:HIG) recently announced it is making its award-winning AARP-branded auto insurance program available through Dean Insurance Agency in Bel Air. Dean Insurance Agency was chosen after satisfying a number of eligibility requirements, which included: demonstrating a commitment to community service; meeting a high-level of business and ethics standards; and completing a training program designed to...

WASHINGTON -- While most U.S. women like their jobs, they're stretched to the breaking point trying to juggle family, work, child care and other pressing concerns.That's the consensus from a first-of-its-kind survey of America's working women, distributed by the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor. First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton joined Vice President Al Gore and Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich in a news conference yesterday to discuss survey results.More than 250,000 women responded to the "Working Women Count" survey, which polled women on issues such as equal pay, job advancement, and child and health care.