Telecommuting

The much-debated intercounty connector highway between Montgomery and Prince George's counties locked up two important endorsements yesterday.A governor's advisory committee put finishing touches on a report recommending that the $1.1 billion highway be built, and Maryland's transportation secretary, John D. Porcari, added his support.Even if the state intensifies support for carpooling, telecommuting, express buses and other types of mass transit, "there's still a need for some kind of east-west road," Porcari said.

Advocates for better child care for working families need to convince employers that stronger families mean stronger companies, a leading expert told a Hunt Valley forum yesterday, because international competition and political conservatism are making traditional rationales harder to sell."

This is an edited excerpt of a Chicago Tribune editorial, which was published Friday. FACING a storm of criticism, Labor Secretary Alexis Herman has backed away from a letter put out by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that says employers are obligated to assure safe working conditions for employees who work from home. But she has yet to say whether the policy has been rescinded. It should be, as befits one of the most harebrained ideas to come from Washington in years.

Consulting firm wins several contracts in U.S.Caras & Associates Inc., a Columbia consulting firm specializing in alternative dispute-resolution systems, has received contracts from General Cable in Atlanta; NBC in Fort Myers, Fla.; People Inc. in Williamsville, N.Y.; Heinz Pet Products in Lawrence, Kan.; and Tyson Foods in Arkansas, Oklahoma, North Carolina and Mississippi.Meeting Planners wins contract for conferencesEllicott City company Meeting Planners Inc., in partnership with ARCCA Inc. of Rockville, has won a contract from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments to plan, manage and promote nine telecommuting conferences through next year.

Information Resource Engineering Inc. said yesterday that it has received a patent on its new secure portable modem, a product the company said will promote telecommuting by making it easier for stay-at-home workers to affordably scramble transmissions to their offices."

...0TC W. B. Doner is entering the age of telecommuting to help lure some top talent to Baltimore.The advertising agency plans to let media purchasers, who buy time for broadcast ads and space for print ads, to work from home three days a week using computers and technology provided by the agency.Doner says the move helped sway three key new hires to come to Baltimore to work as associate media directors: Teresa Porterfield Darby, a veteran of the well-known advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather; Myra Williams, another Ogilvy veteran and Circuit City senior broadcast buyer; and Jim Privet, who ran his own New York City marketing firm.

Federal officials shut the government down as Hurricane Sandy crashed ashore late last month, but NOAA employee Holly Bamford remained hard at work. While heavy rain and wind lashed her Silver Spring office, the National Ocean Service manager oversaw a massive real-time operation to monitor storm damage in coastal waterways - from debris in the Port of New York to shifting beaches on the Delmarva Peninsula - from the comfort and safety of her Montgomery County home. The government's efforts to promote telecommuting - intended to trim costs, ease traffic congestion and improve worker satisfaction - are also boosting productivity during major storms.

Ford plant times restroom breaks You know things are tense at work when management starts timing restroom breaks. But Ford Motor Co. is doing just that. In a memo that was distributed last week to workers at Ford's truck plant in Wayne, Mich., plant managers said too many of the factory's 3,500 hourly workers are spending more than the 48 minutes allotted per shift to use the bathroom. The extra-long breaks are slowing production of the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator sport utility vehicles that are built there, the company said.

Frederick d'Alessio, Bell Atlantic's main man in Maryland, said it took a few days to recover from the disappointment when the company's gamble on buying the nation's largest cable TV company came up snake eyes.But in a recent interview, the president of Bell Atlantic-Maryland sounded anything but despondent about the demise of the Tele-Communications Inc. deal last month. He seemed to be coping rather well, in fact."We're working right now on other possibilities," he said. "You can be sure other things are in the works."

We must act to ease congestion I commute to work on Route 22 and frequently encounter excessive traffic. On Thursday morning a solid line of cars stretched from before Harford Community College through Churchville. This approximately 1-mile stretch of road usually takes about two minutes to drive, but took nearly 20 minutes. It was not because of an accident or school buses, but was caused by congestion from traffic lights and heavy volume. If even a modest number of new BRAC families decide to move to Bel Air and commute to Aberdeen Proving Ground, this will cause significant traffic problems.