Manufacturing

John Norris Renneburg Sr., former president and owner of a Canton machinery manufacturing company, died of a bleeding ulcer Monday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. He was 93. Mr. Renneburg was born and raised in Baltimore and lived for 83 years in his Midvale Road home in Roland Park until moving to the Brightwood retirement community in Lutherville a decade ago. He was a 1929 graduate of the Gilman School and earned a bachelor's degree in politics from Princeton University in 1933.

Men and women wearing hairnets, hard hats, safety glasses and bright-orange vests wended their way through Domino Sugars' Baltimore refinery Tuesday - there to look, not work. The manufacturing engineers and engineering students toured Domino as part of an international conference in town this week, a chance for boosters to get people thinking of Baltimore-area manufacturing in present and future tense rather than past. The Society of Manufacturing Engineers says new-wave manufacturing - 3-D printing, specifically - is one reason officials decided to meet in Baltimore this year.

The so-called chemist for a weight-loss doctor appeared in federal court yesterday and admitted his role in an illegal drug manufacturing operation that produced the club drug Ecstasy, prosecutors said. In U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Gerard G. Galvez, 37, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to manufacture Ecstasy for cooking up millions of dollars' worth of the illegal drug. The maximum sentence for the crime is 20 years in prison. It was unclear how yesterday's plea would affect the case against Dr. Robert M. Keenan, 45, who ran Elite Weight Management Center in Towson.

STX, which built its business through innovation on the lacrosse field, aims to play in a larger but more slippery arena - the ice rink. The Baltimore-based sports equipment maker plans to introduce a line of ice hockey sticks and protective equipment by late 2014. The company, based in Pigtown, has begun building new office space and posting job openings to prepare for the launch. It's a rare foray into a new business for STX, which developed the first plastic lacrosse head in 1970.

Your recent stories last week about the closing of Sparrows Point and the Maryland Port Authority's purchase of new cranes from China were sad in many ways ("Gloom hangs over Sparrows Point mill," June 5). This state does not care about manufacturing, even though it could be the foundation of the region's economy. Maryland does little to encourage an industry that at one time helped this country lead the world. Instead, the state purchases $40 million worth of equipment from China, a country that really should give us the cranes, since they will be used primarily to unload cheap Chinese consumer goods and to load raw materials we are exporting to China.

Consumer confidence is weakening as manufacturing and exports, two engines of the recovery, are stalling, reports showed yesterday."The economy is not really gaining momentum, but not losing momentum," said Peter Cardillo, director of research at Westfalia Investments.The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index declined 84 in early April from 85.9 in March, a sign that post-election euphoria has worn off, analysts said.Industrial production was unchanged in March, stalled by a storm that paralyzed the Atlantic coast, the Federal Reserve System reported.

The double whammy of the recession and Pentagon budget cuts hit J. Alexander Doyle's small manufacturing company hard -- real hard."Our employment and sales fell 30 and 35 percent, respectively, during the past year and a half," said Mr. Doyle, the owner of Micro Machining Inc., a precision-tool manufacturer in Woodlawn that employs 34 workers and grossed about $2.25 million last year.His company is hardly the only manufacturer in the state that has suffered in recent years. Mr. Doyle, president of the Maryland Manufacturers Association, a division of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, said a lot of other factories -- big and small -- have been struggling.

Allen Case, a founder of Case-Mason Inc. in Joppa, collapsed and died Dec. 15 as he was leaving his office to pursue one of his favorite pastimes -- goose-hunting on the Eastern Shore.Mr. Case, 64, of Warren Manor Court in Cockeysville drove himself to Fallston General Hospital complaining of a headache and was taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he died of a brain aneurysm.As an organ donor, Mr. Case helped three other patients.A native of Quincy, Mass., Mr. Case was a 1945 graduate of the St. Paul's School for Boys and then attended the Johns Hopkins University, where he joined the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity.

Terumo Medical Corp., a Japanese maker of disposable medical products that has a major manufacturing facility in Cecil County, announced that the plant is undergoing a $27 million expansion.The project will permit Terumo to produce several new product lines and provide 29 new jobs, according to the Maryland Department of Economic and Employment Development. Terumo currently employs 478 workers at its 417,000-square-foot plant, which is in Elkton."The Terumo Medical Corp.'s goal is to eventually produce 80 to 90 percent of Terumo Corp.

Automated equipment producer F&M Manufacturing Inc. of Westminster will add 75 employees to its current 100, partly because of a state loan from the Board of Public Works that will help the company build a plant to consolidate its five locations.The $375,000 loan will cover only part of the $3 million price tag on the 80,000-square-foot manufacturing and headquarters site in the West Branch Trade Center in Westminster. Construction is expected to be completed by early August.F&M Chairman Dana Edward Caro said the new jobs will be divided equally between engineering and manufacturing.

Despite Beretta's threats that the company would leave Maryland if new gun laws were passed and signed by Gov. Martin O'Malley, Beretta USA has no current plans to abandon its headquarters in Prince George's County.  In a statement sent to The Baltimore Sun Monday, Beretta USA board member and general counsel Jeffrey K. Reh said the company would not let the new law interfere with completing its contract to supply the U.S. Army with pistols....

As he traveled through Baltimore to promote his jobs agenda on Friday, President Barack Obama found himself sitting near a 29-year-old man who was uncertain how to reset his life after being released from prison two years ago. In one of the few spontaneous moments of the president's visit, Marcus Dixon - father of two boys - told Obama how he connected in 2011 with a workforce development group called the Center for Urban Families, put his life...

President Barack Obama told several hundred people gathered at a Baltimore manufacturing plant on Friday that he would keep his administration focused on the economic recovery -- despite a series of political scandals that have rocked the administration in recent days. Obama spoke at Ellicott Dredges in broad terms about lifting the middle class by investing in infrastructure. He pressed lawmakers on Capitol Hill to work together despite partisan gridlock that has stymied progress on economic initiatives proposed by either party, but he offered little in the way of new ideas to address unemployment.  The president spoke to about 800 people at Ellicott Dredges at an event that drew most of the state's elected leaders, including Gov. Martin O'Malley, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and most of the state's congressional delegation.

Morton "Jerry" Baum, founder and executive director of the Fund for Educational Excellence and a retired clothing manufacturing executive who was a tireless champion of city public schools, died May 5 from complications of Parkinson's disease at his Roland Park home. He was 87. "I first met Jerry in the 1980s when he was executive director of the Fund for Educational Excellence," said Brian C. Rogers, chairman of T. Rowe Price, who had served as a member of the organization's board.

Rep. Donna F. Edwards slipped into the F-35 cockpit - a stationary demonstration model - and gave the jet a simulated spin, trying out the controls, shooting down enemy aircraft over the Chesapeake Bay and executing a celebratory roll. "This feels so cool ," said Edwards, a Prince George's County Democrat. "OK, let's land this thing - give somebody else a chance. " This hands-on version of show and tell, held in Linthicum on Thursday, is part of a public-relations campaign for the most expensive weapons program in the nation's history.

Remember the 1980s? It was to be the decade of Japanese dominance. A post-Jimmy Carter America would be unable to compete with the efficient Japanese jobs machine. Aging technology, lazy management and high-cost labor would ensure America's rapid demise at the hands of the ascendant Asian economic superpower. History records a very different evolution, however, including a prolonged economic slump that continues to haunt the Japanese economy to this day. At the onset of a new millennium, many pundits predicted it would be the Chinese who would dislodge America from its dominant economic perch.

TRANSFERRING TECHNOLOGY from the laboratory to the manufacturing floor is the goal of a not-for-profit organization just getting under way in Maryland. The Foundation for Manufacturing Excellence is intended to strengthen the productivity of small and medium-sized manufacturers by improving their use of available technology.History: During the 1980s Maryland lost a significant number of manufacturers due to fierce competition from foreign manufacturers and from the economic development efforts of other states.

Albert Weitzman, philanthropist and founder of Display Craft Manufacturing Co. Inc., died Saturday of complications after surgery at Sinai Hospital. The Pikesville resident was 73.With his mustering-out pay from World War II, Mr. Weitzman founded the architectural woodworking and fixtures firm in 1946."

Sol Kramer, who turned a Depression-era 15-cent balsa toy airplane business into a leading wholesale hobby empire, died of pneumonia April 24 at Hospice by the Sea in Pompano Beach, Fla. The former Pikesville resident was 96. Born in Baltimore, he was the son of Lithuanian immigrants. His father, Morris, was a Saratoga Street tailor. His mother, Dora, was a homemaker. Mr. Kramer was a graduate of the old Robert E. Lee School and received his diploma from City College at age 14. "He and his brother, Lou, belonged to the Junior Birdmen of America, a model airplane club promoted by the Hearst newspapers," said his son, Dr. Karl Kramer of Coral Gables, Fla. "His brother was really the airplane builder.

Household-product maker Sun Products said it will lay off 53 people next month at its manufacturing plant on Holabird Avenue in Southeast Baltimore. Spokeswoman Kathryn Corbally said the cuts, planned for May 13, are a result of the Connecticut-based company "realigning the manufacture of products with the customer base. " She wouldn't specify which products. The company's brands include laundry detergents such as all and Wisk, fabric softeners and dish detergent. Gerry Setley, vice president of the International Chemical Workers Union Council, which represents many of the plant's 350 workers, said the company is shifting its laundry detergent production across North America.