Offit

Consider it among the rarest specimens in the increasingly harsh world of finance: a new bank that is solvent, growing and stable.It is called OFFITBANK, after its chief executive, Morris Offit, a Baltimore native who, among numerous other professional and philanthropic activities, is chairman of the board of the Johns Hopkins University.Though a financier's name adorns the stationery, this isn't a bank in the style of J. P. Morgan & Co. or Mellon. Rather, Mr. Offit said using his name (rather than the more staid original idea, Investment Management International)

Johns Hopkins University President William C. Richardson is departing, and all the university needs is a successor capable of administering a $1.5 billion budget, supervising 18,000 employees and raising $900 million by the millennium.The new president also should prevent warfare between the Homewood campus faculty and the medical faculty in East Baltimore, keep federal research dollars flowing and assure undergraduates, whose tuition is $18,900, that the university really does care about them.

Herbert V. Corbett, 89, collected, studied mineralsHerbert V. Corbett, past president of the Baltimore Mineral Society, who kept 8,000 tiny mineral samples in egg cartons in the basement of his Northeast Baltimore home, died Thursday of lung cancer at Franklin Square Hospital. He was 89.As a hobby, beginning in the 1960s, Mr. Corbett and his wife, the former Geneva Kneiple, studied minerals with such a passion that they kept his-and-her microscopes in the living room of their Acadia home and specimens of copper on the walls instead of pictures.

Ted Offit has never piloted a bobsled on a bone-rattling run or felt the terror of leading with his face just inches from the ice on a skeleton sled. But as a lawyer and accountant who has brokered deals for countless companies, Offit is helping guide the once-golden U.S. Olympic bobsled and skeleton team back on track in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics. "I'm the one with no background in the sport," the Marylander said, joking, when asked about his qualifications to serve on the eight-member board of directors of the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation.

Charles S. Ezrine, a Baltimore entrepreneur who was thwarted in his effort to bring After Six Inc. to Maryland, has joined in a suit against the Philadelphia tuxedo maker charging that it is interfering in his efforts to set up a firm to distribute formal wear.The suit, filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, comes three weeks after Mr. Ezrine pulled out of a deal to buy After Six and move it to the recently closed Gleneagles rainwear plant in Bel Air.He said the persistent and aggressive opposition by the union representing the company's workers in Philadelphia was primarily to blame for the deal's failure.

If all goes as planned tomorrow, the trustees of the Johns Hopkins University will name Dr. William R. Brody, a 52-year-old biomedical engineer, entrepreneur and former Hopkins department chairman, as president.The move will end the 15-month odyssey to determine who would guide the campus into the 21st century.Dr. Brody, currently provost of the University of Minnesota Academic Health Center, will bring a deep knowledge of health care administration to Hopkins at a time when the East Baltimore medical campus is changing the way it is financed and operated.

University of Florida President John V. Lombardi withdrew yesterday from consideration for the presidency of the Johns Hopkins University, saying he still wanted to finish the job he had started in Gainesville nearly six years ago.The position had been essentially Dr. Lombardi's to take, Hopkins and Florida higher education officials said. The decision clearly dismayed Hopkins administrators and faculty members, many of whom offered positive reviews after meetings with Dr. Lombardi last week.

Laura Paul, two days past her due date with her first child, was standing in a freezing drizzle outside Ben's Furniture City near Golden Ring Mall Thursday. But the only thing cold about her was her anger."It makes you furious when you have a child on the way and you are ready to birth a baby and you have no crib and the room is empty," the 28-year-old Overlea woman fumed. "You feel swindled."Ms. Paul, who put down a $450 cash deposit on a crib and other nursery furniture last November, was one of at least 50 Ben's customers who were left with no merchandise, no refunds and no information after owner Morris Lancer abruptly shut the business March 6, leaving no explanation except a sign in the window.

As law firms across the country cut back, Offit Kurman has grown. Rapidly. The firm, founded in Towson 25 years ago, doubled its revenue from 2008 to 2011 — a period that included the worst-in-decades recession — and added dozens of employees as it expanded its reach across the Mid-Atlantic. Now Offit Kurman employs about 170 people and expects to keep growing, said Ted Offit, managing principal of the firm and one of its founders. A lawyer and certified public accountant, Offit, 56, lives in the Glyndon area of Baltimore County with his wife, Risa.

DURHAM, N.C. - Loyola may have awakened a sleeping giant in lacrosse Friday night. Unranked Duke exploded for five fourth-quarter goals and held on to beat No. 4 Loyola, 9-8, at Koskinen Stadium. Duke (3-4) broke the game's final tie with two goals in a 55-second burst from Josh Offit and Christian Walsh to go up 8-6 with 8:45 remaining. Although Loyola (4-2) twice cut the deficit to one, on goals by Pat Laconi and Justin Ward, the latter coming with 1:13 left, the Greyhounds couldn't get the equalizer.