• Study Begins to Identify Key City Personnel Issues
• Orioles Lunch to Feature Fresh Faces and Fun
• Challenges to Baltimore's Tech Growth: Finding Talent and Space, Entrepreneurs Tell GBC
• Expert Sees Baltimore as Stronger Competitor Among Site Locators
• GBC UPDATES:
  • Arthur Andersen to Display Unique Offices on March 29
  • Chicago Had its Big Cows, Baltimore to Have Big Fish
  • Work-Life Flexibility is Key to Employee Satisfaction
• GBC MEMBER NEWS:
  • Red Cross' Miller to Direct Seattle Quake Relief Fundraising
  • University of Baltimore Partners with Baltimore Police to Offer Forensic Science Degree
  • David Nevins Named President of Regional Sports Network
  • Northrop Grumman Wins $4.5 Million Army Contract
• Rendell Reflects Upon Urban Revitalization on May 2
• Celebrate Baltimore's Vitality at the GBC Annual Meeting on May 10
• Transportation is Focus of March "Issues & Answers"
  
  

Study Begins to Identify Key City Personnel Issues

One month into the GBC-Presidents' Roundtable study of city personnel management practices, study participants have begun identifying key human resources issues that require focused attention from city managers.

The issues include a wide range of subjects such as the use of technology in personnel management, grievance processes, and recruiting, hiring and promotion policies. The study was launched at a February 7 orientation meeting at the GBC offices.

Since then, 40 volunteer executives have been working on two subcommittees. One subcommittee is reviewing the city's overall personnel management structure and operations. The other is reviewing legal issues related to the city's personnel management. Subcommittees have conducted interviews with a significant number of managers and employees working in the Department of Personnel and in human resources capacities with other city agencies.

Leading the study, which was requested by Mayor Martin O'Malley, are L. John Pearson, president and CEO of the Baltimore Life Companies; Arnold Williams, managing director of the accounting firm of Abrams, Foster, Nole & Williams, P.A.; and Kenneth Banks, president of Banks Contracting Co.

The subcommittees are chaired by Tom Healy of Riggs, Counselman, Michaels & Downes, Inc. and Harriet E. Cooperman of Saul Ewing LLP.

Study leaders are seeking to forward preliminary recommendations to Mayor O'Malley in early April.

The estimated $40,000 cost of the study is being funded by The Abell Foundation, The William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund, The Baltimore Community Foundation, The Morris Goldseker Foundation of Maryland, Inc., and the Greater Baltimore Committee.

Orioles Lunch to Feature Fresh Faces and Fun

Slide in to the 2001 baseball season with a home run at the GBC's 23rd Annual Lunch with the Orioles on Wednesday, April 4. This year's event, located at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore, focuses on the young, new faces on the Orioles roster such as Cy Young award-winning pitcher Pat Hentgen. Favorites Cal Ripken, Jr. and Brady Anderson and the rest of the Orioles team will also be there to greet their faithful fans.

Sponsored by Harborplace/The Gallery and Guilford Pharmaceuticals, the 2001 Lunch with the Orioles promises to be packed with audience participation-style activities, featuring a pitching cage, autographed postcards, exhibits from both the Babe Ruth and Cal Ripken Museums, enhanced video presentations, raffles and prizes.

The cost for GBC members is $75 per person, and $750 per table of ten.

Challenges to Baltimore's Tech Growth: Finding Talent and Space, Entrepreneurs Tell GBC

Approximately 40 technology entrepreneurs discussed the business needs of growing high tech firms with GBC leaders at a Feb. 28 reception and meeting. The meeting was chaired by GBC board member Douglas Becker, chairman and CEO of Sylvan Learning Systems, and hosted by the GBC Board of Directors.

The GBC offers "tremendous opportunity" for small, growing companies to connect with the corporate leaders of the region, Becker noted. "The lifeblood of the growing economy is going to be the smaller businesses that grow into the large business leaders of the future."

Becker told entrepreneurs that, when it comes to crafting public policies and strategies to strengthen Greater Baltimore's business climate, "the GBC is the 'get it done' place."

As elsewhere, Baltimore's top challenge in nurturing a growing technology industry is developing, attracting and retaining workforce talent, said the entrepreneurs. Key issues range from connecting inner city residents with the high tech job market to getting the region's university students excited about staying, living and working in Baltimore.

Finding enough good working space for technology companies is another critical issue.

Other key issues cited by meeting participants include providing good technology infrastructure; internet privacy; and developing a regional strategy for tech industry growth.

Expert Sees Baltimore as Stronger Competitor Among Site Locators

During the last six years, the Baltimore region has emerged as a stronger competitor in the business site location sweepstakes, economic development consultant Brad McDearman told members of the Leadership Class of 2001.

McDearman, a site location expert who also assisted the Greater Baltimore Committee and the Greater Baltimore Alliance in producing the State of the Region 2000 Report, was a featured speaker at the Leadership's February 26 day-long orientation on the region's economic development.

Greater Baltimore "was eliminated early" in a typical site location process prior to 1995 due to poor relative performance and a state business climate that was generally perceived as poor, McDearman said.

Now, the emergence of quality of life as a key site location factor and Baltimore's improving national image as a trendsetter has raised its competitive profile, he said. The Inner Harbor, the National Aquarium, Camden Yards and PSINet Stadium, the Power Plant, and the development of Inner Harbor East and Canton all strongly reinforce the "trendsetting image."

Image is vital to site locators in the 21st century. "The quality of place is primary," said McDearman. Meanwhile, Greater Baltimore's improved regional teamwork and stronger focus on business climate and economic development are leveraging the region's strengths of location and lifestyle.

The bottom line in the 2000s, however, is that businesses will go where the talent goes. What is important is not the location decisions of firms, but the location decisions of educated workers. "They want a place that "'gets it,'" said McDearman.

Click here for more on McDearman's comments.

GBC UPDATES:

• Arthur Andersen to Display Unique Offices on March 29
  
  Experience the unique, ultramodern working environment of Arthur Andersen at the GBC Business After Hours networking reception on Thursday, March 29. Located in Baltimore's renovated Power Plant, Arthur Andersen is devoid of traditional offices and filing cabinets. Employees instead work in a large open space with portable offices, and hold meetings in conference room lofts in this innovative "Office of the Future."
  
  The reception, to be held at Arthur Andersen's offices at 601 East Pratt Street, begins at 5:30 p.m. The cost is $25 per person for GBC members and $40 per person for non-members.
  

• Chicago Had its Big Cows, Baltimore to Have Big Fish
  
  "Fish Out of Water," a new public art exhibit that will begin this spring, will serve as the city's "anchor activity" for tourists this summer, according to Jay McCutcheon, vice president of Downtown Partnership. He told the GBC Hospitality & Tourism Industry Group recently that the first fish of the exhibit will be unveiled on April 26, in conjunction with Baltimore's waterfront festival.
  
  Inspired by Chicago's recent "Cows on Parade" project in which artists created distinctively-decorated life-sized models of cows, "Fish Out of Water" will include more than 200 six-foot long fish that will be transformed into unique works of art by local artists and then placed throughout downtown Baltimore.
  
  Downtown Partnership, as well as the City of Baltimore and an advisory board made up of 15 local, civic, arts, business, and governmental leaders are working together to coordinate "Fish Out of Water" and related events. Fish can be sponsored by local organizations, individuals, or by anyone else with an interest in becoming involved at a cost of $3,750 each.
  
  Click here for more information on the exhibit.
  

• Work-Life Flexibility is Key to Employee Satisfaction
  
  Organizations with more than 5,000 employees lose an average of 25 percent of those employees annually, according to Mariann Powers, a senior consultant with Marsh USA. Each lost executive costs an organization $20,000, Powers told more than 50 GBC members at the March 7 Business Education Seminar, sponsored by LifeBridge Health.
  
  Traditional workplace benefits are changing quickly in order to lower costly employee turnover and increase retention and recruiting efforts. A 1996 poll found that 87 percent of employees would work harder for a company that is willing to help them deal with personal problems. To accommodate this growing desire for work-life flexibility, many organizations are adding non-traditional benefits such as flex time, onsite day care and stock options to their compensation plans.
  
  Click here for a list of some of these benefits trends.
  

GBC MEMBER NEWS:

• Red Cross' Miller to Direct Seattle Quake Relief Fundraising
  
  Frank Miller, executive director of the American Red Cross Central Maryland Chapter, has been assigned to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Operation for Washington State, headquartered in Seattle. He is directing fundraising efforts to help provide relief for victims of the Feb. 28 earthquake. Miller began his temporary assignment on March 2 and is expected to return to Baltimore later in March.
  

• University of Baltimore Partners with Baltimore Police to Offer Forensic Science Degree
  
  Beginning in September 2001, the University of Baltimore will partner with the Baltimore Police Department to offer a new Bachelor of Science degree in Forensic Studies. The program will prepare graduates for careers as police officers, forensic science specialists and criminal investigators.
  
  Students who have earned the necessary certification and acquired the skills to testify in legal proceedings will graduate "field-ready" in either police science, which emphasizes evidence gathering and investigative work, or forensic science, focusing more on scientific evidence and laboratory work.
  
  Click here for more on this story.

• David Nevins Named President of Regional Sports Network
  
  David H. Nevins, president of Nevins & Associates, was named president of Home Team Sports on March 2. The regional sports network serves the Baltimore/Washington region and was recently acquired by Comcast Corp.
  
  Nevins, former chairman of Maryland Public Television, will remain president of Nevins & Associates, a public relations, marketing and advertising agency that serves such clients as WMAR-TV and Comcast, Mid-Atlantic Division.
  
  In conjunction with the announcement, Comcast also announced plans to change the name of Home Team Sports to Comcast SportsNet, which serves nearly 5 million households in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina.
  

• Northrop Grumman Wins $4.5 Million Army Contract
  
  The Baltimore-based Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector of Northrop Grumman Corp. is part of a team that has been awarded a $4.5 million contract from the U.S. Army's Communications and Electronics Command.
  
  Northrop and BAE Systems of Blackburn, United Kingdom, will supply digital intercom systems for Army vehicles. The two companies have jointly supplied more than 14,000 of these systems under earlier contracts.
  

Rendell Reflects Upon Urban Revitalization on May 2

In working to restore accountability and efficiency to Baltimore City government, Mayor Martin O'Malley drew on the model of Philadelphia in the 1990s when the city eliminated its $1.2 billion deficit. The architect of Philadelphia's efforts was The Honorable Edward G. Rendell, Mayor of Philadelphia from 1992-1999. Philadelphia's experiences during this time are documented by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Buzz Bissinger in his book, A Prayer for the City.

Rendell will be in Baltimore on Wednesday, May 2 to comment on "The Future of American Cities," based on his knowledge of Philadelphia's own revitalization efforts. The event, co-sponsored by the Greater Baltimore Committee, The Leadership, and Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, will take place from 7:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. at the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel. The cost for GBC members is $20 per person, and $35 for non-members.

Celebrate Baltimore's Vitality at the GBC Annual Meeting on May 10

Join Baltimore's business leaders and Mayor Martin O'Malley at the 2001 GBC Annual Meeting on Thursday, May 10 to welcome Francis B. Burch, Jr. as the new GBC chairman, to honor outgoing Chairman John Morton III, and to induct new officers and members onto the GBC Board of Directors. During the event, the GBC will provide a preview of ways that it can build on recent efforts in crime reduction, government efficiency, and the Hippodrome restoration to play a key role in broader economic revitalization in the city and the region. Experience and enjoy the new, luxurious Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel, and celebrate the business vitality that is driving Baltimore's emergence as the nation's urban trendsetter in the 21st century.

The event begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront. The cost for GBC members is $100 per person, and $1,000 per table of ten; for non-members the cost is $125 per person and $1,250 per table of ten.

Transportation is Focus of March "Issues & Answers"

Transportation is the focus of "Issues & Answers" programs in late March. Guests at the end of the month include Edward "Ned" Carey, chief of staff of the Maryland Aviation Administration; James White, executive director of the Maryland Port Administration; and Mark Riso and Dan Pontious, executive director for the Maryland Highway Contractors Association and director of the Baltimore Regional Partnership, respectively.

April programs will review the final two weeks of the legislative session, including a recap of this year's major legislative issues.

"Issues & Answers" airs weekdays on the Comcast Cable network at 7:24 a.m., 9:24 a.m., 10:24 a.m., 11:24 a.m., 5:24 p.m., 7:24 p.m., and 9:24 p.m. Click here for a complete schedule of guests.