UNC sends 50 to bask in Baldrige honor
When a contingent from the University of Northern Colorado’s Kenneth W. Monfort College of Business visits Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to accept the prestigious 2004 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, its schedule will be jam-packed with luncheons, award ceremonies and alumni receptions. The 50 people will include Monfort faculty and alumni, business executives, and state officials, including Gov. Bill Owens.
“Everyone going had something to do with helping us over the last year,” said Joe Alexander, dean of the Monfort College of Business. Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to present the award to Alexander.
The Baldrige award includes a grant that covers travel costs for Monfort’s contingent.
CEO’s balancing act gains national notice
Christy Bieber Orris, chief executive of Boulder-based ATEK Manufacturing, was featured in a recent “Work & Family” column in The Wall Street Journal about female chiefs who run companies while having children.
Orris, “who has more than doubled ATEK’s revenue since 2000 to $67 million, actually stepped up business travel during her pregnancy,” the column noted.
“When her first baby was born three months before she finalized a big acquisition, her authority as an executive allowed her to organize her schedule to suit her needs. On one hand, childbirth and infant care ‘forced me to delegate,’ she says; she quit traveling for six months and handed many duties to her No. 2, Kay Phillips. But she also continued to work from home. Her customers didn’t even know she had had her baby until she told them by phone a few weeks later,” the column said.
Most in state below credit-rating average
Young Coloradans have lower credit scores than their peers elsewhere in the U.S., but their scores improve as they age, according to the credit-rating agency Experian. Eighteen- to 29- year-old Coloradans have an average credit score of 634 compared with 637 for their peers nationally. For 30- to 39-year-olds, Coloradans carry an average score of 653 versus 654 for the country as a whole. But the 40- to 49-year-olds in the state, with an average score of 679, pass their peers at 675.
People older than 70 boasted the best scores, 751 in Colorado and 747 nationally. That age group carried the least nonmortgage debt, an average of $6,500. Baby boomers carried the most at $21,256.
Eating with the fishes gives exec an idea
Landry’s Restaurants Inc. raised more than a few eyebrows when it bought the bankrupt Ocean Journey Aquarium and announced plans to add a seafood joint back in 2003.
But when the restaurant opened last week, at least one restaurant consultant predicted patrons wouldn’t mind dining on fish while sitting alongside a 200,000-gallon aquarium teeming with sea life.
“It’s not like they’ll be serving Flipper,” said Tom Miner, a principal at Technomic, a Chicago restaurant consulting firm.
Landry’s chief executive Tilman Fertitta was of a similar mind-set. “I really don’t think people are going to put two and two together.”
He finds the concept intriguing nonetheless.
“If you had a restaurant where you could point to the aquarium and pick out the fish you wanted to eat, it would work,” he said. “They do it with lobsters.”
The key, he said, would be filling the tanks with run-of-the- mill menu fish.
“You wouldn’t want to do it with the pretty fish.”
Jewish group enjoys strong fundraising
Annual fundraising campaigns at local Jewish charitable federations around the country have not been a growth industry in recent years, but that’s not the situation in Denver.
Since arriving in 2002, Doug Seserman, chief executive at the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado, has seen the annual campaign grow 51 percent.
The Forward, a weekly Jewish newspaper published in New York, reported the federation had pulled in $10.1 million in its recent annual campaign – up $3.4 million from 2001, with steady growth each year.
Flight attendant sees trouble for airlines
Marsha Marks, author of “Flying by the Seat of My Pants: Flight Attendant Adventures on a Wing and a Prayer,” told The Denver Post recently that in spite of double-digit pay cuts, she still loves her job for a major airline she declines to identify.
Yet, she said that “legacy” airlines such as United and American face a challenge because passengers are disappointed that their service has deteriorated but don’t have the same expectations of small discount airlines.
Another observation from Marks, who is based in Savannah, Ga.: “I think flight attendants are surly these days, on the legacy carriers. They remember when they didn’t worry about their pensions.”
