Firms

chambersburg@herald-mail.com CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - A Mechanicsburg, Pa., firm will get first crack at doing a feasibility study on the future of Chambersburg Area Senior High School after a vote Wednesday night by the Chambersburg School Board. Instead of voting outright to recommend the hiring of one of three firms in contention for the contract, the board instead voted to rank the three and authorize the administration to begin negotiations with Crabtree, Rohrbaugh Associates.

Hagerstown Paint and Glass Co., Overhead Door Co. of Hagerstown, Overhead Door Co. of Martinsburg, W.Va., and Overhead Door Co. of Cumberland, Md., recognized their employees recently for accomplishments in 2002. Employees receiving tenure awards include, for 25 years: Roger Byrd, warehouse manager. Jerry Rohrer, assistant general superintendent. Mike Spiker, project manager/estimator. Terry Toms, counter sales. For 15 years: Jeff Cecil, install assistant.

chambersburg@herald-mail.com CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - Three architectural firms were back before the Chambersburg School Board Tuesday night, not so much selling designs for an expanded high school, but their ability to adapt to the district's needs. "We're not really buying a design. We're buying a firm," said School Board President Stanley Helman. "The designs are important only in seeing what they can do. " The board intends to hire a firm to study the feasibility of a ninth- through 12th-grade campus on the site of the existing school and district-owned property across McKinley Street, a total of about 37 acres.

Technical Innovation Center Address: 11400 Robinwood Drive, TIC Suite 223, Hagerstown Director: Chris Marschner Phone: 301-790-2800, ext. 399 Web address: www.technicalinnovationcenter.com The new year will bring new opportunities at Hagerstown Community College's Technical Innovation Center (TIC), as the center completes 4,000 square feet of new lab space to accommodate biotech firms. TIC, the county's full-service business incubator, helps early-stage technology firms grow and thrive during the firms' first years of operation.

The Washington County Board of Education on Tuesday approved a bid for $557,280 for design services for the Maugansville Elementary School replacement project. Board members accepted the proposal despite some concerns that a low-bid policy could diminish quality of work. In a separate vote, the board agreed to changes in how it selects architectural and engineering firms. The new policy, which passed Tuesday night on first reading, would emphasize choosing outside firms based on quality considerations.

Winter holds pleasant promise for Hagerstown-area job seekers, according to the First Quarter Employment Outlook Survey by Manpower Inc. "In our survey of hiring intentions for the January/February/March period, 17 percent of the firms queried plan staffing level increases, 3 percent project reductions and 80 percent expect no changes during the winter months," Bob Jeffers of Manpower said. Wintertime employment opportunities are foreseen in durable and nondurable goods manufacturing and wholesale/retail trade.

For the fourth time in five years, financial services firm Edward Jones ranks highest in investor satisfaction with full-service brokerage firms, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Full Service Investor Satisfaction Study. Edward Jones also ranked highest in investor satisfaction in 2005, 2006 and 2007. The study measures overall investor satisfaction with full-service investment firms, based on six factors: account offerings, convenience, commissions and fees, financial adviser, investment performance and account statements.

HAGERSTOWN A plan to create "wet labs" at Hagerstown Community College for start-up biotechnology and life science firms got a boost from the Washington County Commissioners on Tuesday. The County Commissioners voted unanimously to give HCC $450,000 toward the project. Of that amount, $250,000 will come from the current fiscal year's budget. The commissioners plan to allocate the remaining $200,000 in fiscal year 2008. HCC President Guy Altieri said six private wet labs and one common lab would be built as an addition to the Technical Innovation Center at the college.

MARTINSBURG, W.VA. - The state and regional Emergency Telecommunicator's Conference, sponsored by the West Virginia Enhanced 911 Council, will be held from Sept. 30 to Oct. 3 at the Martinsburg Holiday Inn. Emergency 911 staff from West Virginia and surrounding states in the region will participate in training seminars and continuing education classes as they relate to emergency-911 services. The telecommunicators will have an opportunity to network with one another and explore new technologies.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - The Berkeley County Commission is expected to make a decision by Sept. 18 on which architect will help remodel the county courthouse. Representatives from three firms were interviewed in a closed session Thursday, according to County Administrator Deborah Sheetenhelm. She said the county had allocated $150,000 last year and another $150,000 this year toward the remodeling. Once an architect is hired, Sheetenhelm said the firm would conduct a space allocation study of the building.

Berkeley County Council on Thursday passed over the lowest bid for security cameras and instead awarded the contract to a local firm offering a warranty. On a 3-2 vote, the council awarded the contract to Inwood, W.Va.-based RCS Security Inc., which bid $40,273 for 45 cameras and mounting brackets for the new public safety building. County Council President Anthony J. “Tony” Petrucci joined council members Jim Barnhart and Elaine Mauck in voting to award the contract to the Inwood firm.

The clothes Abraham Lincoln wore to Ford's Theater, the flag on Iwo Jima, Stonewall Jackson's uniform, pre-Columbian textiles and hundreds more artifacts like them have been spread across tables in a small shop in Ranson. Textile Preservation Associates has been conserving artifacts and preparing them for display since it was opened in 1987 by Fonda Thomsen. Cathy Heffner came on board in 1989 and bought the business from Thomsen in 2007. A 1976 graduate of Brunswick (Md.) High School, Heffner's participation in a work-study program in National Park Service conservation labs during her senior year led to a full-time job as a textile conservator with the agency.

Where one business has closed, another has opened. Scott Electric, a large wholesale electrical distributor and supply business based in Greensburg, Pa., opened a Hagerstown branch in the 18043 Oak Ridge Drive building long used by Flameless Heating Supply Inc. Scott, which was a supplier for Flameless until it closed last fall, now has five employees working out of the Hagerstown facility and wants to hire three more, said John Forish, general...

Believing in his employees to the very end, Lynn Bowers used to encourage them, saying their small Hagerstown company could compete like “a Davy in an industry of Goliaths.” But last year, after struggling through the worst economy many of today's business leaders have ever seen, Bowers had to tell his remaining 12 workers at Flameless Heating Supply Inc. the heartbreaking news. The heating, air conditioning and electrical supply business that his grandparents founded five decades ago was closing forever in October 2012.

As the longtime president of a Hagerstown furniture manufacturing company, David C. Beachley has seen a lot of curves and sharp edges in the numbers that define his business. The worst of the extremes in the number of people he employs has come fairly recently. “We went from 65 to 14 (workers) pretty quick during the recession,” Beachley said late last month. “It was pretty rough there for a while.” But now, because of big changes in the kinds of furniture his employees were willing to learn to make, Beachley Furniture Co. Inc. has not only survived the recession, but is hiring again.

The Hagerstown firm of Bushey Feight Morin Architects has been chosen to design the new “West City” elementary school, which is expected to open in August 2016. The Washington County Board of Education voted unanimously Tuesday night to award the design contract to the firm, which submitted the low bid of $932,287 for the architectural and engineering services for phase one of the new school. Purchasing Supervisor Lisa Freeman told the school board that Bushey Feight Morin Architects designed the new Maugansville Elementary School, which opened in 2008.

The Northwest has the spotted owl; Jefferson County has the spotted turtle. A 3-2 vote Thursday by the Jefferson County Commission to rezone a 34-acre tract owned by Jefferson Asphalt on W.Va. 51 west of Charles Town might threaten the habitat of the turtle and some rare plants in the Altona Marsh, according to spokespersons from the Nature Conservancy, West Virginia Division of Natural Resources and the Conservation Fund Commissioner Walter Pellish, who made the motion to grant the rezoning, was supported by Patsy Noland and Jane Tabb.

West Virginia University Hospitals-East officials recently accepted a $12,500 donation from the law firm of Jackson Kelly PLLC in support of the $3 million Time Saves Lives capital campaign. In mid-November, WVUH-East launched the public phase of the major gifts fundraising campaign to assist in underwriting facility and service enhancements at City Hospital in Martinsburg and Jefferson Memorial Hospital in Ranson, W.Va.

A presentation set to take place during the Hagerstown City Council meeting Tuesday has the potential to influence the vision and subsequent redevelopment of the city's struggling downtown in a big way, according to a local attorney. Representatives of Sora Development, a multi-faceted real estate development firm based in Towson, Md., will be at City Hall to talk about developing some type of public-private partnership and a comprehensive redevelopment plan for downtown Hagerstown, said attorney D. Bruce Poole, who will be representing the group.

The owner of the former Municipal Electric Light Plant wants to tear down the blighted building in Hagerstown's East End just as badly as city officials do, he said last week. David Harshman, the property's owner since 1996, said on Dec. 26 that he and his demolition contractor, Bud Williams of Lycoming Supply based in Williamsport, Pa., have put in “hundreds of hours” in the past few years trying to make the project work. “We're not here to make controversy at all,” Williams said.