Drake Precision Dental Laboratory has hired FingerPaint Marketing Inc. to create a sales catalog showcasing Drake’s products and services. In addition, FingerPaint will design a Web strategy to enable customers to order Drake’s products electronically.
“Given that the dental-product market is approaching $9 billion, we are excited that we’ll be able to lend our expertise to Drake to help them capitalize on their industry’s growth,” says Ed Mitzen, owner of FingerPaint quick pay day loan.
Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Drake is based in southwest Charlotte. It provides crowns, bridges, dentures and other dental products to dentists.
FingerPaint Marketing is a marketing and advertising agency based in Saratoga Springs, Fla.
Jack Gold has resigned as executive director of San Francisco Architectural Heritage.
Gold, who led the organization for two years, will return to Providence R.I., where he owns a home and his partner lives. His last day is March 25.
“I deeply appreciate and value Jack’s two-plus years of service here at Heritage. Jack joined Heritage during a period of significant transition and helped stabilize and strengthen the organization,” said Heritage President Charles Olson.
Gold said he was “proud of the organization’s accomplishments during the past two years.” While at Heritage, Gold advocated for the new Proposition J, the legislation that established a new more powerful Historic Preservation Commission cash advance no faxing. He worked to attract younger members and grew the Heritage board by 50 percent.
Heritage, founded in 1971, is an advocacy and education organization whose mission is to protect and enhance San Francisco’s unique architectural identity. It owns and operates the historic Haas-Lilienthal House Museum at 2007 Franklin Street.
In a little less than a month's time, upscale fashion retailer and tailor Larrimor's has settled in to its new Downtown location, a few blocks away from the space it called home for almost 70 years.
"This is a much better space," Larrimor President Tom Michael said Friday during a tour of the new store. He's married to Lisa Michael, the third-generation of family ownership for Larrimor's.
"Our retailer friends who come in here say the light is just incredible," Lisa Michael said. "We worked hard to maintain visibility and let the natural light flow through."
The store was in the Union Trust Building for some seven decades, and moved March 1 into One PNC Plaza at the corner of Wood Street and Fifth Avenue. The site is a former PNC branch that relocated to Three PNC Plaza, the new 23-story office, hotel and condo building around the corner.
Larrimor's was started by Lisa Michael's grandfather, Harry Slesinger, in 1939. Her father, Carl, succeeded him, and she proudly shows off catalog photos from years past, with her father as a model.
"My mother got to pick the female models who appeared with him," she said.
The store was in the middle of three trunk shows Friday, as well as the open house it is holding through March 27, to welcome longtime and new customers to the new location.
From designers like Burberry, Nat Nast and Hugo Boss on the menswear side, to Nina McLemore and Ciniza Rocca in women's clothing, Larrimor's has kept the lines customers got to know at its previous Downtown store, as well as its store in Mt fast payday loan. Lebanon at the Galleria. Milliner Jennifer Copeland and jewelry designer Carol Lipworth were on hand Friday as well to show off their custom, handmade pieces.
"When people come in here, they're really wowed," Tom Michael said of the new space.
The long, glass-walled store doesn't feel much like the bank that once occupied the space, save for a cylindrical elevator shaft that the Michaels redesigned as a functional display area.
The store retains its traditional tailoring services, with men's suits that are "made to measure." As always, customers can specialize items like pockets sizes and styles, jacket linings, and other features.
"We want people to leave here and look great, and feel like they look great," Tom Michael said.
For her part, Lisa Michael wants new visitors to Larrimor's to realize that, while many items are indeed high-ticket, the store has something for everyone. Many of the women's clothing items, for instance, are designed to be "day-to-dinner" wear that can easily transition from the board room to a banquet.
"We've really been pleasantly surprised by how easily we've taken to the new space," Tom Michael said.
Mayer Electric Supply has opened a new office in south Alabama, according to a release issued by the electrical supplier Thursday.
The new location in Calvert will be the 16th in Alabama and the 51st in the Southeast region for the company. It will go by name Mayer-Mobile North.
In a press release, Mayer President Wes Smith said the site is well-positioned to serve the growing Mobile region, which has attracted a number of new industrial companies in the last several years bad credit personal loan lenders.
The new location will be less than a mile from the state’s new ThyssenKrupp plant.
The percentage of workers with virtually no savings is growing, and the outlook for a financially stable retirement is dismal, according to a report released last week.
In 2010, 27 percent of workers have less than $1,000 stashed away, compared with 20 percent in 2009, according to the annual Retirement Confidence Survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
Of the workers with some form of savings, 54 percent said they had less than $25,000. The same percentage said they needed at least $500,000 for retirement. But just 46 percent have calculated how much they need in retirement.
The nonprofit institute, along with market research firm Mathew Greenwald and Associates, surveyed 1,153 U.S. workers and retirees ages 25 and up in January.
Fewer workers have saved at all — 69 percent, compared with 75 percent in 2009 — and even fewer said they were currently doing so. Just 16 percent of workers said they were very confident in their ability to save enough — the second-lowest level in the survey’s 20-year history.
But 32 percent of workers said they were very confident in their ability to invest their savings, up from 24 percent in 2009. More than half said they were somewhat confident. And with the struggling economy, unstable job market and roller-coaster stock market, 24 percent of workers said they had postponed their retirement age, up from the 14 percent in 2009. A third of workers now anticipate retiring after they turn 65.
University of Missouri farm economists told Congress on Tuesday that they expect the agricultural economy to pick up — that is, if the general economy continues to do the same.
"The biggest point we’re making is that the health of the farm economy depends on the health of the larger economy," said Pat Westhoff, co-director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at MU.
The institute’s annual report, which MU researchers have released for the past 25 years, predicted that the U.S. farm economy, which lost $30 billion last year, will spring back by about $10 billion. But, Westhoff said, "That depends on people being able to spend some money."
Farm income is predicted to rise over the next two years, mostly because growing global demand for meat will boost livestock prices. But, the report says, that rise depends on several variables, particularly energy costs, which affects the price of grain.
Pork producers, who have been losing money for more than a year, could break even this year — but that, too, depends on the global appetite for pork.
Dairy producers, who also had a disastrous 2009, could see some recovery as world dairy prices climb my credit score.
Consumers will likely see higher prices at the grocery as farm income improves, but food inflation will not reach the escalated levels of 2007 and 2008 when it peaked at 5.5 percent, according to the report. Last year, food inflation hit 1.8 percent.
While corn won’t reach the peak prices of 2008, demand for biofuels will continue to support prices, the report said. Westhoff explained that foreign demand for corn-based animal feed and ethanol mandates continue to use larger portions of the U.S. corn crop. Federal mandates require increasing ethanol use until 2015. Beyond that, corn prices will depend largely on oil prices, Westhoff said.
The report is delivered annually to the agriculture committees in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The FAPRI report comes on the heels of a U.S. Department of Agriculture analysis that predicted a similar picture for the farm economy.
"The degree of uncertainty is deeper than normal," Westhoff said.
What a shame. For people who handle credit responsibly, new credit card regulations that went into effect Feb. 22 actually hurt more than help.
I’ll tell you why, and what we can do.
The new rules, part of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act passed by Congress last May, are intended to protect cardholders and end abusive industry practices.
For example, card payments must now be applied first to the highest-interest rate balance. "Double-cycle" billing, which results in higher interest charges, is no longer permitted.
Interest rate increases on existing balances are for the most part prohibited, as are rate increases on new purchases the first year on a new card. After the first year, card issuers must give 45-day notice before raising rates on new charges.
That’s all terrific, but it does nothing for financially prudent people who pay their balances in full each month. Instead, the law is prompting card issuers — who need to make a profit to be able to grant us credit — to raise other fees for everyone to make up for an estimated $12 billion in lost revenue.
In essence, "those who manage their credit well will end up paying for those who don’t," said Nessa Feddis, an American Bankers Association vice president.
To be fair, some new rules benefit everyone, including prohibiting fees for the way bills are paid (such as by telephone) and eliminating confusing cut-off times for receipt of payments. (For a rundown of the rules, check out the Federal Reserve’s website at www.federalreserve.gov/creditcard)
Still, by making it more difficult for card issuers to charge more to those who pose a higher risk of default — and defaults are running about 10 percent — the new rules lead to an inevitable result.
"Everybody is going to feel the higher cost," said Kenneth Clayton, a senior vice president for the bankers group. Examples include more annual or inactivity fees, fewer or reduced rewards programs and, for those who carry a balance, higher interest rates.
"We seem to be going from a marketplace in which a relatively few cardholders got into deep trouble to one in which the misery is more evenly spread," said Adam Jusko, founder of IndexCreditCards.com, a card information and comparison site.
Even those with outstanding credit are being affected. "I am livid," said a reader whose Citi card will start charging a $60 annual fee (more on that later). "I canceled it immediately," he said. "Here I am with an 800-plus credit score and this is how they treat me?"
That’s the way indeed. "The new law does not address or cap non-penalty fees like annual fees or inactivity fees, which may become more common for those who do not carry a balance," said Ben Woolsey, director of consumer research at CreditCards.com, another consumer-oriented website.
"Fees, fees and more fees" are an unintended consequence of the new rules, said Bill Hardekopf, CEO of LowCards.com, another card-comparison site. Bank of America, for example, added an annual fee of $29 to $99 on some accounts, and Fifth Third Bancorp imposed a $19 inactivity fee if a card is not used in a 12-month period. Citi will begin charging the $60 fee to some customers in April but will waive it if they charge at least $2,400 a year.
What to do? Comparison-shop for the best deals — there are still many — using the sites mentioned above. As Clayton of the ABA said, "no customer is a prisoner to their card," and a customer can switch to a better one.
The U.S. economy continued to improve modestly in February despite uncharacteristically severe weather in many regions of the country, the latest Federal Reserve report on economic conditions reports.
Nine of the Fed’s 12 regional banks — including the New York Bank which encompasses Buffalo and Upstate — reported in the U.S. central bank’s Beige Book survey that economic activity improved last month.
Two districts, St. Louis and Atlanta, reported a more mixed performance and one district, Richmond, Va., was snowed under by winter storms.
The survey is a collection of anecdotes compiled by the Fed to give policy makers a feel for conditions across the country as they prepare for the next meeting on March 16 to plot monetary policy strategy.
Among the survey’s findings: Credit conditions have not improved and businesses still are unable to obtain credit, which is a critical factor behind the sluggish pace of growth creditreport.
Also, loan demand remains weak and banks are sticking to tight standards.
There were no signs in February of an improving labor market, though the pace of layoffs slowed.
Consumers appeared somewhat more willing to spend, the survey found, and demand for services was generally positive.
Manufacturing activity was stronger, but worries persisted about whether it was a result of customers restocking their shelves and unlikely to result in sustained improvement.
By the time it marks its first year this May, Branson Airport will be reachable by air service from seven cities — compared with one today.
Earlier this month, Denver-based Frontier Airlines announced new flights between Denver and Branson beginning in April. Then last week, Branson Airport officials announced that scheduled charter flights will begin serving five new markets in May on the newly minted Branson AirExpress.
"Things are expanding and growing like we hoped they would," said Branson Airport Director Jeff Bourk.
The $155 million privately developed airport opened last May. AirTran Airways would not discuss passenger loads on its daily flights between Atlanta and Branson, but spokesman Christopher White said the airline was "very happy" with its first year of service.
Bourk said AirTran provided a link to the eastern United States through its Atlanta hub, and Frontier will provide low-cost flights to destinations west of the Ozark entertainment venue. The new charter service, by contrast, will be more of a regional feed from Houston; Austin, Texas; Terre Haute, Ind.; Des Moines, Iowa; and Shreveport, La.
"Scheduled public charters are not unique," Bourk said last week. "What makes it unique is the relationship between … our community here and their airports out there and their communities."
Introductory fares on Branson AirExpress will start at $39 one way for the Terre Haute, Shreveport and Des Moines markets, and $49 one way for Austin and Houston travelers. It will be operated by ExpressJet Airlines using 50-seat Embraer ERJ-145 jets.
Terre Haute, which has been without commercial air service for more than a decade, is looking forward to the business, said airport director Dennis Wiss.
"No. 1, it’s activity," Wiss said. "We need the activity at the airport. We stand to make a small amount of revenue. If this model works, we hope to expand and add more flights."
In Des Moines, airport officials helped put Branson AirExpress in touch with Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino, which will help "mitigate some risk," said Roy Criss, a spokesman at Des Moines International Airport payday loans with no fax.
Branson provided data showing about 1,200 Iowans visit the Missouri resort area each week during its peak season from May 17 to Dec. 11, Criss said. To make the air service profitable, he said, it would have to capture only one-sixth of that, or 200 passengers a week.
A secondary benefit is that travelers would be able to connect through Branson to cities such as Austin and Houston, he said.
If the Branson charter service demonstrates strong demand, Bourk said, a commercial airline could step in and take over one or more of the routes.
"We are not an airline," he said. "That is a very important distinction. We are trying to prove these routes to other airlines. If somebody wanted to come in and take the Houston route, a major airline, we would be happy to see that happen."
The Branson Airport opened during one of the worst commercial aviation slumps in U.S. history. But Bourk said the low fares and the affordable nature of Branson had helped offset the recessionary effects.
Branson airport officials expected as many as 300,000 passenger boardings in the first year of operation. Airport officials did not provide actual figures by late Friday.
Meantime, passenger numbers have climbed 55 miles away at Springfield-Branson National Airport.
In 2009, passenger numbers grew 4 percent at Springfield-Branson, despite an 11 percent cut in its flight schedule. No other airports in the region were seeing growth, said airport spokesman Kent Boyd.
Boyd credits low fares, the growth of Allegiant Air in the market, the relatively strong performance of the southwest Missouri economy and the heightened awareness of the new passenger terminal at the airport.
Bourk said Springfield-Branson served business travelers "very well," but it is not the type of service that will bring leisure travelers into the market.
He is hoping the new charter service will help to do that.
Powered by WordPress -- XHTML 1.0