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Business Today

Enterprise Florida chief finalists chosen

By wire services
Published September 23, 2005

A successor to outgoing Enterprise Florida chief Darrell Kelley is expected to be chosen by Nov. 1, and six finalists have been named for the top job of the state's public-private economic development organization:

Pam Dana, director, Gov. Jeb Bush's Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development.

Susan Pareigis, director, state Agency for Workforce Innovation.

John Adams, CEO, Laredo (Texas) Development Foundation.

Carson Jones Hooks, president, Hampton Roads (Va.) Economic Development Alliance.

Donna Hrinak, senior counselor, Miami law firm Steel, Hector and Davis (now merged with the Squires Sanders & Dempsey law firm) and former ambassador in Latin America.

George Weise, vice president of global trade compliance, JPMorgan Chase Vastera in Virginia and former U.S. Customs Service commissioner.

The Labor Department on Thursday increased the number of job losses attributed to Katrina to 214,000, with 103,000 coming in just the last week. Some private economists think as many as a half-million people were thrown out of work by Katrina and they are forecasting the nation's unemployment rate, which had fallen to a four-year low of 4.9 percent in August, will climb when the September report is released Oct. 7.

BP Products North America, the owner of the Texas City, Texas, refinery where an explosion killed 15 people in March, received a record $21-million fine Thursday from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The federal agency that oversees workplace safety is considering whether to refer violations to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, said John Miles Jr., an OSHA administrator.

The main whistleblower in the accounting fraud at HealthSouth Corp. has received the longest sentence. U.S. District Judge Robert Propst sentenced former finance chief Weston Smith to 27 months in prison, ordered him to pay $1.5-million in forfeited assets and spend one year on probation after his release. Propst also sentenced former HealthSouth investments vice president Will Hicks to two years of probation.

L. Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz, the former Tyco International executives convicted of stealing $600-million, arrived at a prison Thursday and were given ID numbers, prison-issued clothing and an orientation about life in the New York correctional system. They arrived by bus at Downstate Correctional Facility in Fishkill, N.Y., one of three reception centers where male inmates stay while being evaluated and waiting to be assigned a full-time prison.

London's black taxis, the bubble-topped, bug-eyed icons of British life, will soon be rolling off the assembly line and heading to the United States.

"We think we have something special to offer: a little bit of London in cities like Washington," said Roger Atkins, an executive at LTI Vehicles, which manufactures the uniquely English taxis in Coventry, an industrial city 100 miles north of London known as the "Detroit of Britain."

With the British market virtually saturated with black taxis - more than 20,000 are on the streets of London - company officials said they are concentrating on expanding to international markets, from China to Mexico to Kuwait, but first and foremost to the United States.

Price could be an obstacle. The cars cost about $52,000 - twice what a new Crown Victoria, popular among U.S. cab companies, goes for.

"We know it's a niche market," Atkins said.

DISNEY BOOTED FROM AIRPORT FLOOR: Walt Disney World workers can no longer greet tourists on the arrival floor of the Orlando International Airport, a decision airport officials made after limo and taxi drivers complained it gave the theme park resort an unfair advantage.

FREE GAS FROM MITSUBISHI: Mitsubishi Motors Corp. will give U.S. customers free gasoline for a year to help clear out 2005 models and halt a 30 percent sales decline. Buyers will get gasoline debit cards for between $1,500 and $2,500 during the offer, which runs through this month.

NO MORE LOW-CARB CEREAL: General Mills Inc. is yanking its low-carbohydrate Total Protein cereal because of sluggish sales, a sign the Atkins diet trend has waned. "Consumers are back to a more normal approach to weight management," chief executive officer Stephen Sanger said.

Information from the Washington Post and Bloomberg News was used in this report.

[Last modified September 23, 2005, 02:45:59]