Chief Operating

BALTIMORE Chief operating officer for city schools resigns Carlton G. Epps, the chief operating officer of Baltimore City public schools, has resigned from his position, school officials said yesterday. Epps resigned Monday afternoon, according to a school spokeswoman who declined to give further details. Epps could not be reached for comment. As COO since October 2003, Epps directed the maintenance and renovation of school facilities. He also was responsible for student transportation, school police and cafeteria operations, and served as one of three top administrators under city schools chief Bonnie S. Copeland.

Howard County schools deputy superintendent of operations Ray Brown is retiring from the system effective Jan., 1, Howard County officials said Wednesday night. New Superintendent Renee Foose named Brown deputy superintendent in August, a month after her tenure began. A former schools chief operating officer, Brown replaced Mamie Perkins, who announced her retirement in July. Among Brown's duties were to oversee the school system's state-mandated Bridge to Excellence plan and its strategic planning.

Hechinger Co., a Landover-based chain of home-improvement stores, said yesterday that its chief operating officer, Stephen E. Bachand, had resigned to become president and chief executive of a large Canadian chain of tire stores.Mr. Bachand's departure means that Hechinger's chief executive, John Hechinger Jr., will take a more active role in the day-to-day operations of a company with an increasingly trimmed-down management structure.Mr. Hechinger said yesterday that he would not replace Mr. Bachand as chief operating officer.

Mildred A. Wiest, a retired Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. operator, died Aug. 24 of heart failure at her Essex home. She was 101. The daughter of a fertilizer company worker and a homemaker, Mildred Hesse was born in Baltimore and moved with her family in the early 1920s to Crisfield, where she graduated from high school. She later moved to Highlandtown and went to work as an operator for C&P Telephone Co. in the 1920s, and eventually was promoted to chief operator in Essex.

Gray Kirk/VanSant Advertising & Public Relations of Baltimore has named a new chief operating officer, culminating a series of new hires in the $90 million agency's efforts to restructure.Jeff McClelland, the new COO and executive vice president, comes to Baltimore from McAdams, Richman & Ong in Philadelphia, where he was president and chief executive officer. McClelland, 34, led a management team which boosted MR&O's revenues 100 percent in a one-year period, said Roger Gray, president of Gray Kirk.

Howard County's chief operating officer confirmed yesterday that he will leave the school system in January to work for the state and oversee distribution of special-education funding for Baltimore City public schools. Raymond Brown, a former assistant state superintendent who has worked in Howard County for six years, will become a member of the state's Intensive Management Capacity Improvement Team, or IMCIT. Brown will oversee special-education finance. His duties will require him to monitor how special-education funding is dispersed to meet federal and state mandates.

Giant Food Inc. said yesterday that its next chief operating officer will come from J. Sainsbury PLC, the British grocer that owns half of Giant's voting stock.The appointment of Michael W. Broomfield as Giant's chief operating officer marks the first time a Sainsbury executive has been chosen to fill a top management job at Giant Food, said Giant spokesman Barry F. Scher.In taking the job, Broomfield will resign from Sainsbury after 35 years and from Giant's board of directors. He will succeed Alvin Dobbin, who will retire March 1.Sainsbury, the major grocer in Britain, owns 20 percent of the nonvoting shares of Giant and controls four of nine board seats.

In the latest shake-up of its top ranks, the Rouse Co. announced yesterday that its vice chairman and chief operating officer had retired, effective immediately. Jerome D. Smalley, 53, stepped down from the position he assumed in September after 23 years with the company. Officials at Rouse said Smalley will not be replaced and that his departure allows the Columbia company to reduce corporate overhead. "We have been looking for ways to be more cost-efficient and when Jerry wanted to retire, we decided the structure that we put in place would work OK," said David L. Tripp, Rouse vice president of investor relations and corporate communications.

Rouse Co. elevated three of its top executives yesterday and for the first time in its nearly 60-year history created the position of chief operating officer.The naming of Douglas A. McGregor to COO and vice chairman and the promotion of its top financial and commercial development officers to executive vice presidents also paves the way for an eventual top-management succession.Jeffrey H. Donahue, Rouse's chief financial officer, and Jerome D. Smalley, head of commercial development, had been two of eight senior vice presidents at Columbia-based Rouse.

First Maryland Bancorp yesterday named Susan C. Keating president and chief operating officer of the company and its largest subsidiary, First National Bank of Maryland.Keating, 48, will oversee the $17.3 billion-asset company's corporate, retail, trust and investment-management businesses. She will also be responsible for marketing, operations and information technology as well as about 6,000 employees."Susan was the clear choice," said Frank P. Bramble, First Maryland's president and chief executive.

A high-ranking city school official, whose resume includes degrees from institutions that require little or no classroom work and which academic watchdog groups have referred to as "diploma mills," resigned abruptly Thursday after questions about his credentials were raised by The Baltimore Sun. Kevin Seawright, deputy chief operating officer with an annual salary of $135,200, said he resigned his post to enter the private sector. Schools CEO Andrés Alonso revealed the resignation in an email to school system staff Thursday, saying that Seawright "worked tirelessly during my administration to improve our responsiveness to schools.

The Anne Arundel County school system is about three years away from facing a $54 million shortfall in its health care fund for workers, despite having a current balance of $18.7 million, chief operating officer Alex Szachnowicz told the board of education Wednesday. The figures were among several Szachnowicz revealed showing that, though the system has kept costs down well enough to have millions to work with, it will probably face huge deficits once federal stimulus money runs out and state and county contributions dwindle because of predicted budget shortfalls.

15 AIG workers agree to return bonuses NEW YORK : New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says 15 employees who received some of the largest bonuses from American International Group have agreed to return the money in full. The commitments amount to more than $30 million of the $165 million in bonuses awarded this month by the troubled insurer. Cuomo says he hopes that more AIG employees will return the bonuses. He says that he expects his office will be able to recoup about $80 million of the money the insurer paid out. Last week, Edward Liddy, AIG's chief executive officer, told Congress that some of the employees were going to give the money back.

Ferris, Baker Watts' parent announced yesterday that it has replaced the Baltimore brokerage firm's chief executive and chief operating officers, three months after the firm was acquired. RBC Wealth Management, a division of Royal Bank of Canada that bought Ferris for more than $230 million, said the president of its private client group took over as president and CEO of Ferris on Monday. Jim Chapman succeeds Roger Calvert, who had been CEO since 2001 and a Ferris employee for 34 years.

DETROIT -- The pressure is on for General Motors Corp.'s newly appointed president and chief operating officer, Frederick A. "Fritz" Henderson, to drive profits at the global corporation that recently reported its worst earnings ever. But the Detroit native likes pressure. He seeks it out. "I love doing things other people think can't be done," Henderson likes to say. But the hurdles that lie ahead of Henderson, 49, who is now at the day-to-day helm of GM, are expected to be at least as difficult to clear as those the company already has crossed.

Facebook Inc. said yesterday that it hired Google Inc. veteran Sheryl Sandberg to serve as its chief operating officer, a coup in its drive to turn the popular social networking site into a major moneymaker. As Google's vice president for global online sales and operations, Sandberg, 38, ran the Internet giant's lucrative advertising arm, which generates 99 percent of its revenue and employs thousands of people around the world. Facebook has been searching for the best way to manage its rapid growth and generate advertising revenue without alienating its 66 million users.

Melvin D. Booth, Human Genome Sciences president and chief operating officer for the past three years, has resigned that post to be president and chief operating officer of another Maryland biotechnology star, MedImmune Inc.Rockville-based Human Genome said yesterday that William A. Haseltine, chairman and chief executive officer, will assume Booth's duties when he departs. Booth is expected to assume his post at MedImmune by Nov. 13, said MedImmune spokesman Mark Kaufmann."Booth has the marketing experience and caliber we need to take us to the next level as a growing biotechnology company," Kaufmann said.

Sports apparel company Under Armour named its first chief operating officer yesterday -- another step in its transformation from a startup that began in the basement of founder Kevin Plank's grandmother's house to a fast-growing company with aspirations to be a major player. The company announced that Wayne Marino, who had been chief financial officer, is assuming the COO title with responsibility for leading operational, financial, administrative and strategic planning functions. Brad Dickerson was promoted from vice president of accounting and finance to chief financial officer.