Minorities And Women

Catonsville home care business named to top 100 in region Linda Cromwell, president and CEO of Catonsville-based Being There Senior Care, was among those selected for the 2012 Top Minority Business Enterprise Award. Cromwell was among the 100 women and minority business owners in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the District of Columbia honored during a May 4 ceremony at the University of Maryland University College. She was also among the top 100 women and minority business owners in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the District of Columbia for 2009.

It would be tempting to call the 2012 election the year of the woman - if only for the record number headed for the U.S. Senate and their instrumental role in re-electing President Barack Obama - but it was also the year of the Latino, the African-American and the young. That's the coalition that helped Mr. Obama, and that's the election result that ought to worry Republicans most. Once the GOP gets past some respectable period of mourning that comes from losing a national election to an incumbent president at a time of persistently high unemployment, they are going to have to do some serious soul-searching.

WAS Cleopatra black?That question, posed recently on the cover of Newsweek,encapsulates the raging debate over multicultural education in America. Mainstream academicians say the movement mangles history. Aggrieved minorities and women claim that history texts are full of glaring omissions, cultural stereotypes and misrepresentations of their histories.These accusations ring true to me as an African American. I grew up in the District of Columbia and am Hugh B.Priceold enough to have attended segregated schools and witnessed the onset of integration.

Robert L. Wallace, CEO of Baltimore-based Bithgroup Technologies, has spent more than two decades building a minority-owned business into a multimillion-dollar success and writing and lecturing about entrepreneurship. The Cherry Hill-born mechanical engineer recently was tapped to head a new, 25-member advisory council created by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to help improve the city's minority- and women-owned business enterprise program. Wallace, who attended city public schools and earned an MBA from Dartmouth College, worked for DuPont and IBM in Baltimore in the 1980s before starting his company, which is now located in Mount Vernon.

The Maryland chapter of the ACLU is conducting a survey of 13 Annapolis-area private clubs to see if they have minorities and women in their membership, the group announced yesterday. Under a 1991 law, the city grants liquor licenses to private clubs only if they have bylaws that do not discriminate against race or gender. No information is available on whether more minorities and women belong to clubs as a result of the law. "This seems to me to be the natural follow-up question: Has the law made a difference?"

A federal commission studying the slow progress of women and minorities in the workplace says breaking the so-called glass ceiling is an economic priority that the nation can no longer afford to ignore.The 4-year-old Glass Commission, which went out of business at midnight Tuesday as it completed its work, also urged the federal government to strengthen anti-discrimination laws and increase efforts to eliminate internal barriers to the advancement of minorities and women.The commission also advised American firms to actively support affirmative action and diversity programs.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court refused yesterday to interfere, for the time being, with California's sweeping ban on government affirmative action programs that give special benefits to minorities and women.In a one-sentence order, and without dissent, the court said it would not block implementation of the controversial California initiative, called Proposition 209, during the time the justices ponder a constitutional challenge to it by civil rights groups.The court appeared not to have been convinced that minorities and women would soon suffer dire effects in state jobs, college admissions or public contracts if Proposition 209 continues to be enforced in coming months.

The Black Police Officers Association of Anne Arundel County has endorsed Democrat Theodore J. Sophocleus for county executive.In a two-paragraph letter sent Friday to Mr. Sophocleus' headquarters in the 100 block of Crain Highway, the Severn-based officers' organization cited the Democrat for his "balanced approach of economic realism, understanding of social needs, and the administration of principles of inclusion necessary to serve our county."The letter was signed by the organization's president, Officer Charles R. Ravenell, and its vice president, Officer Brian Fleming.

County Fire Administrator Steven Halford boasted of his record of moving women and minorities into management positions when he promoted 35 firefighters yesterday.But a look into the number of minorities and women in the county EMS/Fire/Rescue shows that the department still has a way to go.Yesterday's promotion ceremony raised one woman to the rank of captain -- the fourth in department history -- and one African-American and one woman to the rank of lieutenant. Two other women and two minorities were promoted within the firefighting ranks.

The head of the Maryland Minority Contractors Association says the organization will continue to campaign against Kurt L. Schmoke's bid for a second term as mayor of Baltimore.Members of the association picketed outside the B&O Railroad Museum on June 21 while Schmoke was announcing his candidacy. The organization has also passed out thousands of fliers accusing the Schmoke administration of failing to enforce the city's minority set-aside law.The fliers say: "Thanks to Mayor Schmoke, minority and women businesses are in financial trouble!"

Catonsville home care business named to top 100 in region Linda Cromwell, president and CEO of Catonsville-based Being There Senior Care, was among those selected for the 2012 Top Minority Business Enterprise Award. Cromwell was among the 100 women and minority business owners in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the District of Columbia honored during a May 4 ceremony at the University of Maryland University College. She was also among the top 100 women and minority business owners in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the District of Columbia for 2009.

Wading through swamps and running up mountains taught Patrick McCormack more than how to survive punishing conditions without much food or sleep. His grueling Army Ranger training, along with several deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan , taught the Ellicott City native important business lessons as well. "It takes a lot of discipline to run your own company," said McCormack, 29, who owns custom drum maker MapleWorks Drum Co. in Millersville. "You don't make it through [Ranger] school unless you have the drive and motivation to do what you have to when someone is not watching over you. " McCormack, a member of the elite Ranger corps from 2000 to 2007, recently began promoting his veteran-owner status in online business directories and on the company's website.

WASHINGTON - A Cabinet that looks like America. That's been the goal for recently elected presidents as they put together their administrations. Barack Obama's team is coming into focus in a slightly different light: It looks, to a remarkable degree, like him. The president-elect says he wants to recruit "Americans of great intellect, broad experience and good character." He's fleshing out his White House and administration with men and women who reflect his racial heritage, cultural background and intelligence.

Rep. Danny K. Davis leads a House subcommittee that has long arms -- control over federal employee issues, the Postal Service and the District of Columbia. The subcommittee's legislative agenda has not been set, but Davis announced one benchmark this week: Increase the number of women and minorities in the Senior Executive Service, the most elite segment of the federal bureaucracy. "When I leave as chairman of this committee, I don't intend for the numbers to be the same as they currently are," Davis said in an interview.

Mayor Martin O'Malley attacked yesterday a state initiative to direct government contracts to minority-owned businesses as "falling way short" and angrily dismissed a state-funded sewer project as not adequately engaging companies owned by blacks. After a heated debate with his staff, O'Malley and the Board of Estimates deferred a $33 million sewer upgrade contract because only about 9 percent would have been awarded to minority-owned subcontractors, far below the city's targets. Governments set minority- and women-owned business goals on major contracts to direct a portion of tax money to companies that have experienced past discrimination on public works projects.

Q: If an employee received an annual performance evaluation and does not agree with the rating, is it required that the worker sign the form and then address their concerns in it? Or should an employee refuse to sign the evaluation until the supervisor and the employee come to some agreement of a fair evaluation? S.D.H., Baltimore A: You need to review your company policy to determine the appropriate steps to address a grievance. For the most part, a signature, unless stipulated on the form or in the policy, typically indicates that you acknowledge receipt of the evaluation, not necessarily your agreement with the ratings.

Q: If an employee received an annual performance evaluation and does not agree with the rating, is it required that the worker sign the form and then address their concerns in it? Or should an employee refuse to sign the evaluation until the supervisor and the employee come to some agreement of a fair evaluation? S.D.H., Baltimore A: You need to review your company policy to determine the appropriate steps to address a grievance. For the most part, a signature, unless stipulated on the form or in the policy, typically indicates that you acknowledge receipt of the evaluation, not necessarily your agreement with the ratings.

WASHINGTON -- The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, speaking for an array of civil rights and women's groups, unleashed a counterattack yesterday against those determined to end affirmative action in the United States.He made it clear who his target was."The new Republican congressional majority is using affirmative action to divide our nation for political gain," he said.Mr. Jackson, leader of the National Rainbow Coalition and a possible presidential candidate next year, urged President Clinton to show "bold and fearless leadership" on behalf of the movement set in motion some 40 years ago by "white judges" to lift the burden of social and economic inequities from the backs of minorities, and later women.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs have moved away from unemployment or welfare by borrowing a few thousand dollars - even as little as $500 - to set up their own small business. Several years ago, Diane Barrett Holloway, a single mother and out-of-work pastry chef, used a $5,000 loan from a local women's economic agency in Silver City, N.M., to start a restaurant in an old storefront, cooking for customers with a scavenged pizza oven and serving them on a half-dozen mismatched tables.

Mayor Martin O'Malley often proudly points to his policy of awarding more city contracts to minorities and women as one of his administration's chief accomplishments. Statistics and testimony provided at a City Council committee hearing yesterday in City Hall demonstrated a far less rosy assessment of the program's success -- although contracts involving two major city departments have not been added. The city's Bureau of Purchases reported on $293 million among the contracts awarded in fiscal year 2004, which ended June 30. But only 7.8 percent of those contracts, or $23 million, went to minorities and women.