Quality Control

John Clifton Belt, a retired quality control manager and antique auto enthusiast, died of cancer Sunday at Mercy Medical Center. The Manchester resident was 68. Mr. Belt was born and raised on his family's Reisterstown farm. After graduating in 1955 from Franklin High School, he became a driver for Koontz Creamery Inc. and later was promoted to a position at its Reisterstown Road plant. In 1970, he became manager of Howard Johnson's ice cream plant on Reisterstown Road, and then spent the last decade of his career, until retiring in 1986, as quality control manager for Morning Star Foods in Frederick.

Raymond E. Harris Jr., a retired quality-control supervisor and singer, died Tuesday of bone marrow cancer at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The longtime Hampden resident was 86. Mr. Harris was born in Baltimore and raised on Singer Avenue in Hampden. He left Polytechnic Institute to help support his family during the Depression. "He started out with absolutely nothing. He scrubbed floors so his family could eat," said Patricia Harris, a daughter-in-law. "As a young man, he was active in sports, especially softball and basketball.

BlueHippo Funding LLC, a Woodlawn computer sales and finance company facing lawsuits and government investigations into its advertising and telemarketing, announced yesterday that it would launch a new quality control program. The company made no reference to the complaints in a news release, but said that its new "best practices" program would "set high industry standards in customer disclosure, quality control, service and, where necessary, complaint resolution." "In the past, in some instances, we have not done a good job at explaining all of our practices, and there's a lot of misinformation in the public domain.

Howard Wilson "Will" Lochte, a retired chemical engineer who had worked for the National Aeronautical and Space Administration, died of prostate cancer Saturday at his Towson home. He was 73. Born in Syracuse, N.Y., he moved to Baltimore with his family in 1943. He was a 1950 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School and earned a bachelor's degree in 1954 from Loyola College. He earned a master's degree in chemical engineering in 1958 from the Johns Hopkins University and a master's in physics from Drexel University in Philadelphia in 1962.

FOR THE FIRST five years of his coaching career, Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz made a combined salary of about $50,000 and drove around in an old, beat-up Subaru that had more than 200,000 miles on it. "I would get secretaries cigarettes, ride players to the airport," Schwartz said. "It was tough, but gradually I worked my way up, breaking down film for Phil Savage when he was a quality control coach in Cleveland. And then Bill Belichick eventually let me break down the scouting film."

Leo George Kirchner Jr., a retired quality control engineer at Diecraft Inc., died Friday of a stroke at St. Joseph Medical Center. The longtime resident of Lutherville and Cockeysville was 85. Born and raised in East Baltimore, Mr. Kirchner graduated from Polytechnic Institute and earned a degree in drafting from what is now known as the Maryland Institute College of Art. He worked for several area companies, including Black & Decker Corp., and was an air raid monitor during World War II in the Baltimore area.

Wheels fell off a Maryland Transit Administration bus last night for the 18th time since August, forcing investigators, who thought they had the problem nearly licked, to scramble anew for answers. The bus on the 77 line was carrying 16 passengers south on Wilkens Avenue at 5:20 p.m. when its two right rear wheels came off near Rolling Road in Catonsville in Baltimore County. No injuries were reported. One of the 200-pound wheels rolled 10 feet forward onto a grassy embankment. The other toppled over beside the bus. Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari last night ordered every bus reinspected before being allowed back on the streets.

Virginia R. Holland, 65, quality-control clerk Virginia R. Holland, a quality-control clerk and community volunteer, died Wednesday of lung cancer at her Elkridge home. She was 65. Since 1971, Mrs. Holland had been a billing and quality-control clerk for the John H. Harland Co., a check-printing company, in Annapolis Junction. Mrs. Holland worked in personnel and recruitment for the Glenn L. Martin Co. in Middle River from 1956 until 1966, when she left to raise her children. Virginia Foltz was born and raised in Middle River and was a graduate of Kenwood High School.

Westminster girls soccer coach Bryan Shumaker took an inventive approach before this season began: He told his players to take fewer shots. "We've been more concerned this year with the quality of our offensive chances as opposed to the number of them," Shumaker said. "The finishing is an emphasis, but not so much just finishing, but how you finish and where you are going to finish from. We had games last year where we might have 25-30 shots, but no quality chances. I don't know if it's working, but I'm not going to argue with it yet."

WASHINGTON - Genentech Inc., the world's oldest biotechnology company, was cited by the Food and Drug Administration for quality-control lapses, most related to production of its Pulmozyme drug for cystic fibrosis. The FDA sent the warning letter, dated Dec. 14 and released yesterday, to Dr. Susan Hellman, Genentech's chief medical officer, based on an inspection of company facilities in South San Francisco, Calif., from Aug. 7 to Aug. 24. Genentech used expired material to manufacture Pulmozyme in January, the FDA said in the letter, and failed to obtain approval before distributing two bulk lots of Pulmozyme that had been contaminated and then refiltered.