Contractor

James Robert "Bobby" Sherman, a general contractor and avid outdoorsman, died Friday of cancer at his Sykesville home. He was 74. Mr. Sherman, the son of farmers, was born and raised in London, Ky. He moved to Baltimore in the 1940s with his mother, who came to work in the city's war plants, and attended city public schools. Mr. Sherman had worked in the construction industry for years and was the owner and operator of Sherman Builders, a commercial and residential construction company.

In a unanimous vote, the City Council gave preliminary approval Monday to a bill that would require businesses getting large city contracts or financial support to hire 51 percent of new workers from Baltimore. "My council colleagues believe this is a fair thing to do," Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young, the bill's lead sponsor, said after the vote. "We have an unemployment rate of 9.6 percent. We need to get Baltimore City to work. There are qualified people in this city that can do these jobs.

Buschman Construction Co. recently was honored with two Contractor of the Year Awards from the Maryland Improvement Contractors Association.Buschman Construction received its award for the Gill project in Marriottsville in the category of "Best Large Addition" and the Wensil project in Elkridge for "Best Kitchen Remodeling."BUILDER CITEDFOR WORKGoodier Builders of Ellicott City was selected by the National Association of Home Builders to receive the gold medal award of excellence in the category of "11-50 Units."

FLIR Systems' government-contracting arm is more than doubling its space in Howard County as it prepares to start assembling threat-detection devices. Gov. Martin O'Malley visited the company in late February to discuss concerns about the employment effect of the federal government's sequestration budget cuts. Now, FLIR says, it feels more confident about expansion because funding for its programs is less uncertain. "With budgets beginning to get resolved, it makes decision-making for us in the future somewhat easier," said David Cullin, chief technology officer of FLIR Government Systems, FLIR's government-contracting division.

I was appalled to learn recently how the three young children of my neighbors on Henrietta Street in Federal Hill were put at risk of lead poisoning. The law allows only contractors who are certified to remove lead-based paint. In this renovation, a certified contractor won a contract for the paint removal and then scooted around the EPA requirement by subcontracting the work. The subcontractor was not certified, and indeed failed to take the required precautions. Lead-based paint dust and debris were spread over the property and neighboring properties.

City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young's office violated city policy by using the services of a computer contractor hired by the Department of Transportation without negotiating a separate contract, according to a report this week by the city's inspector general. According to inspector general David N. McClintock, Young's chief of staff asked transportation officials if the computer contractor could work on the council's website shortly after Young took office in February.

I just got word that ManTech International Corp. , a publicly traded defense contractor, is holding a career open house this Friday. It will be held at the BWI Airport Marriott , from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The company, which provides technology and services for national security programs, is seeking to fill more than 400 open positions that require various levels of security clearances. The new positions are for locations in the Baltimore-Washington area, including a new facility that's opening in Aberdeen in March.

A Circuit Court judge has ruled against a contractor who claimed Baltimore County owed the company $1.4 million in a dispute over construction of the County Detention Center. Judge Judith C. Ensor rejected the appeal from George Moehrle Masonry Inc., a company based in Frederick, and affirmed the decision of a county hearing officer, who had awarded the company $72,603. According to a statement from the county, Moehrle had a $3 million contract for work to be performed in 2004 and 2005.

Lawrence P. "L.P. " Martin, a Catonsville contractor, died June 21 of a heart attack at St. Agnes Hospital. He was 55. Lawrence Phillip Martin was born in Catonsville and raised in the community's Paradise neighborhood. He was a graduate of Catonsville High School and what is now the Catonsville campus of the Community College of Baltimore County. He worked in the automotive department of Montgomery Ward before taking a construction job with Cearfoss Construction Co., where he worked for a decade before establishing L.P. Martin Contracting in the early 1990s.

Robert James Mitchell, a retired Baltimore County building contractor and a one-time trainer for the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, died Wednesday of a cerebral hemorrhage at his home, "Dogwoods," in Glen Arm. He was 81. Aside from a stint at Fort Benning, Ga., Mr. Mitchell spent his whole life in Maryland. Born in the Forest Park section of West Baltimore. Mr. Mitchell was the son of Robert John Mitchell and Leona Edna Brooks. His mother was a descendant of John West, a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the first government of English colonists in North America.

Work on a $4.7 million museum at Naval Air Station Patuxent River that is mostly paid for with state and federal grants has been suspended, and a prominent construction firm was recently pulled from the project, St. Mary's County officials said Friday. Broughton Construction, a Washington-based contracting firm with offices in Baltimore, was removed from the project after county officials learned that it had purchased fraudulent construction bonds. An attorney for Broughton said the firm purchased the bad bonds unknowingly.

At this time of severe cutbacks in government funding for food stamps, early childhood education and Meals on Wheels, some Maryland legislators are hard at work looking out for the welfare of one of the world's wealthiest corporations. Under a bill advancing in the General Assembly, the Lockheed Martin Corp. would have the taxes on its luxurious Bethesda hotel and conference center reduced by approximately $450,000 a year. An earlier version of the legislation also included a $1.4 million refund for the period since 2010.

EP Henry has announced the winners of the third annual Contractors' Choice Awards, which recognizes the outstanding Hardscaping professionals and projects of 2012 across the Mid-Atlantic region, and a Joppa firm was runner up in one of the categories. Wirtz and Daughters, based in Joppa, was runner up in the Distributor of the Year category. Wirtz and Daughters has been in business 27 years and employs a staff of 28. The company offers both educational classes and field training, and also boasts extensive indoor and outdoor displays with labeled products and a retired contractor available for consultation.

University of Maryland University College may have overpaid $3.3 million to a marketing contractor, state auditors found in a review that came just before the school's president was placed on indefinite leave and then abruptly resigned. The misstep was included as an addendum in a routine review of the university's operational and financial systems published Thursday by the state's Office of Legislative Audits. Auditors noted that after the conclusion of their fieldwork — which primarily occurred March 2011 through August 2011 — "we became aware of certain significant events that necessitated additional focused audit work.

A study released Monday by a leading federal employees union finds government agencies could realize as much as 90 percent of the money they would need to save under massive budget cuts from contractors -- sparing federal workers. The study, written by University of Baltimore law professor Charles Tiefer, comes as agencies, employees and contractors are bracing for $85 billion in across-the-board federal spending cuts, known as sequestration, that will begin March 1 if Congress does not act. The American Federation of Government Employees, which published the report, has sought to shift the focus of those cuts to contractors, even as the Obama administration has sent guidance to agencies directing managers to prepare for furloughs if sequestration takes effect.

Catonsville-based Alpha Omega Technologies performs work for one federal agency, and it wants more contracts - a daunting goal for a small company in a time of tight budgets. But the head of the 25-person software firm thinks he has a leg up after months of assistance from industry veterans, introductions to federal decision-makers, advice about how to get a foot in the door with the National Security Agency, and lots of specifics about how other companies succeeded or got tripped up in pursuing and handling federal work.

A 45-year-old man doing contract work clearing trees after superstorm Sandy in a residential community in Annapolis was killed by a falling tree on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. The death is the second caused by a falling tree in Anne Arundel since Sandy entered the region. On Monday night, 74-year-old Donald C. Cannata, Sr. was killed in the kitchen of his Pasadena home after a tree smashed through the roof. In Annapolis, emergency crews first responded shortly before 1 p.m. to the 1600 block of Homewood Road for a report of an injured contractor, said Chief Michael Cox, a fire spokesman.

A Millersville electrical contractor has been ordered by the U.S. Department of Labor to pay $45,745 in back wages to workers whom the company didn't pay overtime. Asplundh Tree Expert Co., which did business as Utility Lines Construction Services Inc., denied overtime to 41 workers performing manhole inspections for working more than 40 hours week, the Labor Department said. The company also did not keep proper records of employee work hours, the agency found. The employees were required to pick up and drive company vehicles prior to arriving at a job site and then return them after their shift ended.

A British defense contractor said Tuesday that it will close its locations in Baltimore and Hunt Valley this year and lay off nearly 140 employees in reaction to a tightening market for military purchases. Cobham plc said it would discontinue the products it manufactures in Hunt Valley - equipment such as microwave receivers - and move its Baltimore operations to a bigger facility in Lansdale, Penn. All three locations are part of the company's defense electronics arm. "It is with genuine disappointment that Cobham must take these actions due to the contraction of the US defense market for our products," the company said in its statement.