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If the technology startup world is about whom you know, the Gavin family sure has benefited from its contacts.

Brothers Tim and Tom Gavin are not only former co-workers and current tech CEOs, but they have used their family ties to build two financial services software businesses by encouragement and a fair amount of ribbing.

“If you ask our mother, she likes Eze better,” said older brother Tom, CEO of South Boston’s Eze Castle Software.

Eze Castle is working as a big brother for Tim’s young financial research management software company, Boston’s Code:Red Inc., providing a bit of capital and a lot of relationships in the handshake-heavy financial services field. But the two say their businesses are more than just linked by blood and money.

“We obviously try to keep work and personal stuff separate, but the beauty of it is our businesses are highly complementary,” Tom said.

Tim was the first Gavin of the six boys and two girls to be employed at Eze or Code:Red. He was referred to Eze founder Sean McLaughlin by a sister who was middle-school friends with Sean’s sister.

Tim was the third Eze employee in 1996 and eventually brought on Tom who “was laboring in the salt mines of consulting.”

Together, the two helped take the company developing software for traders and investment banks from its early startup phase to having a sizable presence in the financial services world with about 120 employees. (Tom and Tim joke that much of that growth came from Gavin and McLaughlin relations.)

But by the time 2004 rolled around, Tim ­— then an executive vice president working on strategic initiatives ­— was ready to break out on his own.

“I basically was with Eze from the beginning and I said I really wanted to do the same thing on my own,” he said low fee cash advance. “But it was difficult to leave.”

He and another former Eze executive, Dwight Wyatt, who happened to have come to the company through Tom, started up their own financial services software shop. But the ties were not completely broken, as Eze provided an undisclosed amount of cash to the venture.

“The amount of money Eze put in was more for the relationship than for the funding,” Tim said. “As a startup there weren’t clients that were ready to jump on board. But when you’re trying to go off to a client and say, ‘Hey, we have a big brother behind us with Eze Castle,’ that makes them comfortable.”

Tom and Tim find a way to work with each other that attempts to transcend the business partnership. The two companies are liberal with their employees’ career tracks, allowing talent to flow back and forth depending on an individual’s interests and talents. They also share sales leads, even advocating for the other business in their sales pitches.

While Tim would not say what the future is for the 19-person company­­ — Eze aligned with Bank of New York in 2006 and now employs about 350 people­ — he hope’s to model big brother’s success.

The U.S. Department of Labor has awarded the West Kentucky Workforce Investment Board a $250,000 regional innovation grant to establish plans for promoting economic growth for an area consisting of nine counties in Western Kentucky and one in Tennessee.

The grant will be implemented by the West Kentucky Workforce Investment Board’s Leadership, Education and Economic Development team, which includes representatives from 27 Kentucky and Tennessee organizations.

The organization is focused on the growth of the region’s energy, advanced manufacturing and health care sectors.

The project encompasses the Kentucky counties of Caldwell, Christian, Crittenden, Hopkins, Livingston, Lyon, Muhlenberg, Todd and Trigg, plus the Tennessee county of Montgomery electronic check payday advance.

Financial impact?

According to the most recent U.S. Census data, Atlanta has 500,000 workers who telecommute on an occasional basis, 297,000 who telecommute at least one day per week, and 350,000 who say they have jobs that are conducive to telecommuting and they would like to, but their employer doesn't offer it.

Mike Williams, director of programs and employers services for the Clean Air Campaign, is working on the 350,000 employees who say they want to telecommute but can't currently convince their employer. Here are some of the statistics he uses — culled from CAC's own case studies — to convince managers of the bottom-line benefits of teleworking:

• 88 percent of teleworkers report increased morale.
• 80 percent of managers agree.
• 65 percent of teleworkers say they're less likely to look for another job online payday loan. More than half the managers agree.
• 74 percent of teleworkers report increased productivity.
• 85 percent of managers say productivity increased or stayed the same.
• 20 percent was the average increase in productivity reported.
• 96 percent of teleworkers say working remotely has not decreased their work quality.
• 91 percent of managers agree.

Source: Clean Air Campaign

Emergent BioSolutions Inc. has received two federal grants worth more than $4.5 million to continue development on two vaccines.

The Rockville-based biotech was awarded the grants by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one being a three-year allotment for its botulinum vaccine program and the other a five-year allotment for its next-generation anthrax treatment vaccine.

The latter, a blend of a compound and Emergent’s federally approved BioThrax anthrax vaccine, has been tested in early human clinical trials. The grant funding will provide for further animal testing, as well as manufacturing capabilities for alternative formulations fo the vaccine.

“These are both important countermeasures that address critical biopreparedness requirements of the U.S. government,” said Daniel Abdun-Nabi, president and chief operating officer of Emergent BioSolutions (NYSE: EBS) payday loans in one hour http://payday-badcredit.com. “We believe that, with continued government support, we will be able to successfully advance these product candidates towards commercialization.”

Emergent recently announced $16 million in funding from Rockville-based nonprofit Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation and the U.K.-based charity Wellcome Trust for a new joint venture the local company formed with the University of Oxford to develop a tuberculosis vaccine.

The Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship is partnering with Baltimore-area nonprofits to help the organizations boost fundraising efforts.

The golf tournament, taking place Oct. 6-12 at the Baltimore Country Club in Timonium, is offering $22 discounted daily tickets to nonprofits. The tickets are discounted from $27 apiece.

Through the program, the nonprofit will keep $10 for each ticket sold. The tournament will keep $10 and the remaining $2 will be paid in taxes.

Organizations interested in participating must submit documents proving their nonprofit status.

This year’s tournament — one of five majors on the PGA’s Senior Champions Tour — comes to Baltimore Country Club’s East Course for the second time after a 17-year stint in Dearborn, Mich., with Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) as its title sponsor.

Baltimore’s Constellation Energy Group Inc (NYSE: CEG) struck a deal two years ago to take over as the lead sponsor to bring the tournament to town 500 fast cash payday loans.

Following last year’s event, $400,000 in profits were distributed to the Kennedy Krieger Institute, First Tee of Baltimore, Union Memorial Sports Medicine and the BGE Community Assistance Fund.

Proceeds from this year’s event will once support the same four organizations.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde welcomed as “encouraging'' comments by European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet this week playing down prospects of further interest-rate increases.

Speaking a day after French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked if it was “reasonable'' for the ECB to have raised its benchmark rate, Lagarde said it was vital European policy makers “be attentive to the economic growth situation.''

The ECB raised its benchmark rate to 4.25 percent, the highest in seven years, on July 3 after inflation accelerated to a 16-year high in the 15 euro nations. With growth slowing, Trichet today repeated he has “no bias'' on further moves.

“What seems encouraging to me are the comments of Trichet,'' Lagarde said in an interview with Bloomberg Television at an economic forum in Aix-en-Provence, southern France. “He has said clearly that with the rate as it is he thinks the goal of price stabilization can be attained.''

Sarkozy, who has repeatedly attacked the Frankfurt-based bank for focusing too much on inflation and not enough on growth, yesterday asked delegates at a Paris meeting of his Union for a Popular Movement party “if it was reasonable to raise rates while the Americans have rates at 2 percent.''

Fed, ECB Gap

The U.S. Federal Reserve has cut its key rate seven times since September to 2 percent in a bid to avert recession, while the ECB left its unchanged until the past week amid surging consumer prices cash advance usa payday advance. Lagarde today called the gap “considerable'' and blamed it for leaving the euro “overvalued'' against the dollar. The euro has climbed 8 percent against the dollar this year.

The comments of French officials carry greater weight after France on July 1 took over the presidency of the 27-nation European Union, meaning it will help shape the EU's agenda and policies for the rest of this year.

Speaking at the same forum as Lagarde, ECB President Jean- Claude Trichet today rebuffed the criticism of politicians and said the bank would do what is necessary to control prices and anchor inflation expectations.

“We're not pre-committed and will do what is necessary to ensure price stability,'' he said. “We have a mandate that was given to us by European democracies, of price stability.''

Still, Lagarde noted German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck's July 1 comment that the ECB should consider the effect on growth of higher interest rates. “I rejoice that my German counterpart, who was considered an apostle of the orthodoxy of monetary policy, also started believe that the risk to growth of too-high interest rates has to be taken into account,'' she said.

Source

A coalition of business and property owners in south Sacramento has sued the county over its approval of a permit for a new solid-waste transfer station at the former Florin-Perkins Landfill.

The Power Inn Alliance, which claims to represent more than 600 local business and property owners, filed the suit in Sacramento County Superior Court. The suit alleges the county violated the California Environmental Quality Act by not requiring an environmental impact report before issuing the permit.

Power Inn Alliance executive director Jerry Vorpahl said in a written statement that the county should have required upgrades, including a covered facility for processing waste. The suit also alleges the county should have considered impacts on global warming and investigated whether the landfill is consistent with the county's general plan cash advance loans cash advance in one hour.

The landfill, on Florin-Perkins Road south of Jackson Highway, closed in 2005 after state and county environmental regulators accused it of operating violations. The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board fined the former managers $650,000.

San Jose-based Zanker Road Resource Management Ltd. signed an agreement with the property owners to manage the site as a solid waste transfer station.

Source