Maryland Business

Maryland won't challenge a federal court decision striking down the state's "Fair Share" health care act, ending a two-year effort to force Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to pay more for employee health care, Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler said yesterday. Gansler - who made the announcement standing alongside representatives of the O'Malley administration, the comptroller's office and labor groups that pushed for the first-of-its-kind law - said he concluded that an appeal was likely to fail.

To fix or to flack? To patch or to peddle?It's the marketer's dilemma. In a world of limited resources, should you massage the product to perfection and hope it sells itself? Or drill the ad campaign and worry about quality when you get the chance?In selling Maryland as a business address, packaging is starting to get as much attention as product. Some would say more attention."I thought to myself, where is the marketing element of the department? And I came here to find that it was fairly low, among the various agendas," said Richard C. Mike Lewin, Maryland's new secretary of the Department of Business and Economic Development.

Every Maryland economic development official knows the fable, learned at his mother's knee, of MBNA Corp. and the vanishing bank jobs.How MBNA grew deep roots in Maryland. How it founded a promising credit-card business in the early 1980s. How Maryland lawmakers capped interest rates and forced MBNA to risk negative real returns -- basically losing money after inflation.And how MBNA emigrated to a brighter land -- Delaware -- where it employs 8,000 and pelts its environs with greasy gobs of money.

A quarterly poll suggests that some companies have soured on their expectations for Maryland's economy and on their view of the state as a business home. But more than a third of those surveyed still rated Maryland "business-friendly."In the survey, conducted by the University of Baltimore, 21 percent of companies queried described Maryland as "anti-business" or "business unfriendly," up from 15 percent at the end of 1997. The percentage of companies rating Maryland "business-friendly" fell from 51 in late 1997 to 43 now.Possible reasons for the change, said analysts at the university's Maryland Business Research Partnership, were the recent resignation of James T. Brady as Maryland economic development secretary and the apparent leveling off of Maryland's job growth.

A tight labor market is squeezing Maryland's economy, which is showing signs of cooling off, economists say.The University of Baltimore, in its Maryland Business Climate Survey, looked at how 250 businesses performed in the first quarter.The survey, which was conducted by the university's Maryland Business Research Partnership, found the percentage of businesses reporting higher sales and more employees dropped substantially for the quarter.The proportion of firms with increased revenue fell from 66 percent in the fourth quarter of 1997 to 59 percent in the first quarter of 1998.

T. Talbott Bond Co. is growing. Sales for the office-equipment seller should swell by 20 percent this year, said President Henry M. Bond, and the Baltimore County-based company's work force of 350 will expand, too."We're adding equipment sales reps, supply sales reps, services sales reps, field technicians," Bond said. "Our base has just exploded."Bond seems to be part of a trend.Many other Maryland companies intend to hire workers, according to a new survey. Of 250 employers contacted late last year by the Maryland Business Research Partnership, 38 percent reported a "high probability" of expanding employment this year.

Baltimore's leading business group is touting the economic benefits of bringing casino gambling to Maryland, but has stopped short of endorsing such a move.The Greater Baltimore Committee released a study yesterday suggesting that 10 casinos in Maryland -- including five in the Baltimore area -- would generate $435 million in tax revenues and create more than 12,000 new jobs statewide."There is strong evidence it would have a major economic impact," said GBC Chairman Frank P. Bramble, chief executive of First Maryland Bancorp.

Heat and noise have been the main products of the legislative debate over Maryland's business climate lately. A business-sponsored research group tried yesterday to shed a little more light.The Maryland Business Research Partnership published what it called the most detailed report yet on this state's status as a place to employ and be employed.As befits the increasingly competitive trade of interstate business recruitment, the study offers precise evaluations of Maryland's prospects that even a bookie could love.

Young people who enter the work force immediately after graduation from high school have poor writing, reading and communication skills, according to findings of a new survey by the Maryland Business Roundtable for Education.The University of Baltimore's Maryland Business Research Partnership surveyed 970 employers statewide. Among the results announced Wednesday:* Sixty-nine percent had problems with employees' writing and reading skills.* Seventy-three percent said students' communication skills were lacking.

In an effort to expand the pool of home-grown talent for cutting-edge employers, four universities are proposing an ambitious plan to double the number of Maryland college graduates who specialize in information technology within five years.The plan -- called the Maryland Applied Information Technology Initiative -- will be presented today to the Maryland Higher Education Commission. The panel will be asked to endorse a request to the governor to budget $2 million to get the program started next year.

Loan forgiveness allows graduates to give back If you owe more than $100,000 for the loans that financed your college and graduate school education, you face some stark choices when you enter the workplace. How do you pay off that debt and also meet your daily and monthly obligations, much less start a family? Far too many recent graduates confront that dilemma. Loan forgiveness enables these people to work for the government or a nonprofit at a lower salary, fulfilling their lifelong goal of helping others and making this a better society.

A group of Maryland business leaders announced a partnership with the Baltimore school system yesterday to encourage students to take harder high school classes. The Maryland Business Roundtable for Education is trying to double the number of high school students statewide who complete the requirements of a federal college scholarship program for low-income families. Only a third of the state's high school graduates - 25,000 - meet the requirements of the Maryland Scholars program. The roundtable wants 50,000 meeting the requirements by 2011, and it is beginning its push in Baltimore.

Under Armour, the athletic-apparel company, is plowing millions into its Glen Burnie distribution center, upgrading the computers, expanding the capacity and accelerating the turnaround times. Unfortunately, there's not enough of this kind of investment going on to replace the flagging housing industry as an economic booster. Some analysts lauded last week's bullish report on March business investment, saying it portends faster economic growth and possibly a takeoff from a "soft landing" engineered by the Federal Reserve.

Maryland won't challenge a federal court decision striking down the state's "Fair Share" health care act, ending a two-year effort to force Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to pay more for employee health care, Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler said yesterday. Gansler - who made the announcement standing alongside representatives of the O'Malley administration, the comptroller's office and labor groups that pushed for the first-of-its-kind law - said he concluded that an appeal was likely to fail.

Timothy O'Donovan Evans, a linguist and former coordinator of the Maryland Business Center China, died of cancer Wednesday at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington. The former Ruxton resident was 38. Mr. Evans was born in Baltimore and raised in Ruxton. He was a 1986 graduate of Loyola High School, where his fluency in Spanish, German and Portuguese earned him the school's top language award. "Even though he had an amazing memory and a natural gift for languages and politics, he still managed to watch a lot of terrible TV shows when we were in high school," said Steven R. Porter, a friend since seventh grade.

Growth. Congestion. Rising electric rates. The uninsured. As governor, Martin O'Malley will face a variety of tricky - and sometimes divisive - issues that matter to companies and consumers alike. And the Democrat will do so with the knowledge that many business leaders favored his opponent. The Maryland Chamber of Commerce's political action committee and the National Federation of Independent Business both endorsed Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. for another term. "It's very clear that the business community loved Governor Ehrlich," said Richard P. Clinch, director of economic research at the University of Baltimore's Jacob France Institute.

Maryland's manufacturers aren't huge BGE fans -- a group of them is fighting the utility in court over natural gas rates -- but don't hold your breath waiting for them to cheer on legislators trying to rein in electricity increases. "They're very concerned when any government begins to treat any business in a way that just doesn't look fair, because they're worried they could be the next," said Michael Powell, an attorney representing the Maryland Industrial Group, a key supporter of energy deregulation in 1999.

In what has become an annual rite, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. is back to hectoring certain business leaders for not adequately boosting his political agenda. Speaking at a luncheon last week sponsored by Maryland Business for Responsive Government, he specifically chided the Maryland Chamber of Commerce for not strongly supporting the proposed state takeover of 11 Baltimore public schools. Apparently, these advocates for business had the temerity to see the takeover as primarily a partisan issue.

Speaking to a friendly crowd of business leaders, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. gave a preview of how he plans to recapture the support of the moderates and independents who made him Maryland's first Republican governor in a generation. Ehrlich has traditionally made the annual luncheon of Maryland Business for Responsive Government his first major address after the General Assembly session, and this year his remarks focused his case for re-election as a pro-business moderate who has invested in the environment, education and economic development.

A one-bedroom apartment in Maryland will run about $700 a month, the students were told - plus, there are car payments, entertainment expenses, and insurance and utility bills. "Ladies and gentlemen, I am telling you the truth. I am not lying, embellishing or exaggerating," said Magellan Westbrook, 35, ticking off living expenses to a classroom of ninth-graders at Milford Mill Academy this week. "These are true numbers, and I'm not done yet ... because we still have to eat." That's $400 more on the chalkboard list.