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A power networking session and champagne reception will be held Oct. 6 at The Peninsula Club in Cornelius in honor of Business Today’s 2010 Top Women Business Leaders. The sixth annual event recognizes the contribution of women in business in the Golden Crescent. Former winners include Realtors Abigail Jennings, of Lake Norman Realty, and Diane Honeycutt, of Team Honeycutt in Concord; Pat Horton, president of Cabarrus Bank & Trust; Robin Smith of Lake Norman Chrysler Jeep Dodge; Dakeita Vanderburg Johnson, CEO of Southgate Masonry & Lumber in Concord; and Ginger Griffin of Ginger Griffin Marketing and Design in Cornelius. Business Today columnist and UNCC instructor Cheryl Kane will conduct the power networking sessions, after which the 2010 winners will receive their awards, complete with champagne toasts. The event, which starts at 6 p.m., is $12.50 to attend, Visa and MasterCard accepted at time of reservation. More info: Phone BusinessToday at 704-895-1335 or email nebiztoday@gmail.com for more information. Registration opens at 5:30 p.m.
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Heart Group of the Carolinas, with offices in Concord and Albemarle, has merged with Sanger Heart and Vascular Institute. The practice will now begin operating under the Sanger name. |
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More than 100 Denver area business owners will meet at Verdict Ridge Golf Club Sept. 16 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. for the annual Denver Area Business Association networking luncheon. Non-members are invited to attend the event which will honor long-time Denver business leader Joe Turbyfill and his wife Jean. Michael Thompson, director of corporate communications for the Charlotte Bobcats, will discuss overcoming adversity in the business world. The cost is $17 for pre-registration at www.dabanc.org or $20 at the door. More info: Denis Bilodeau, dbilodeau@aquestainsurance.com |
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Jim Trogdon, the chief operating officer for NC DOT, will be the featured speaker at a Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce luncheon Friday at NorthStone Country Club. Trogdon will discuss local road improvements including HOT lanes, commuter rail and the diverging diamond interchange planned at Exit 28 on I-77 in Cornelius. Tickets are $16 for members and $20 for non-members. More info: 704-892-1922. |
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During its 2009-2010 fiscal year, Rowan-Cabarrus Community College was awarded $2.654 million in grant funding from public and private organizations. From July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010, the 21 grant awards produced a single-year grant-funding record for the college. Funded projects include scholarships for students with financial need, a major updating of RCCC’s IT infrastructure, the JobsNOW certificate programs, initiatives to develop new curriculum, and programs to help students quit smoking and assist local citizens adversely impacted by changes in the tobacco industry.The funding agencies include the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Margaret C. Woodson Foundation, the Blanche and Julian Robertson Family Foundation, the North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund, the North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund, the North Carolina Community College System, the Proctor Foundation, and the N.C. BioNetwork. |
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| LAWRENCE |
What does a professional planner really do to help clients?
Let’s say you want to hold a customer appreciation event but you want it to be more than just a party. Your company’s reputation is on the line. You have to make a decision whether to leave this important function to a professional or to unskilled hands? In this case, a planner can be a valuable asset |
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| DeMAO |
In the last of this three part series, Sherre explains how reviewing your current involvements can help you achieve your goals through putting you in direct contact with your ideal target market, in direct contact with those who could refer you to your ideal target market, or to help you gain needed support or resources for growing your business. |
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Since the dawn of mankind we have been buying and selling “stuff”, and over the centuries a predictable pattern has developed between buyers and sellers. The buyer-seller dynamic can spell “commission catastrophe” for the sales professional who lacks the artful skill of effective questioning. |
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Blue Harbor Bank rides out choppy economic waters |
By Dave Yochum
Jim Marshall’s original plan at Blue Harbor Bank was to break even sometime after the bank’s second year of operation. The president and CEO of the start-up Mooresville bank says that’s still the plan, despite the current economy.
“We actually see the glass as half full,” he said, explaining that the bank is not saddled with bad loans of any sort. “So therefore we’re out there building some nice solid relationships while other banks are focused on some of those problem loans,” Marshall said.
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| Harbor in a storm: Jim Marshall is CEO of Blue Harbor Bank, based in Mooresville |
Banks are dealing with not just an anemic economy, but lower interest rates. Lower rates tighten net interest margins for one thing. For another, they mean bankers are getting paid less on their invested short-term cash, a key profit center for a new bank.
For the first quarter of this year, Blue Harbor lost $698,000, according to routine call reports filed with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The bank lost $1.86 million during its first year of operation, for a cumulative loss of $2.56 million. Assets, however, were a strong $73 million at the end of the first quarter.
But losses include more than $837,000 in loan loss provisions, an accounting procedure that occurs on paper, not in reality. Moreover, the bank did not apply for any funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
As a general rule for a new bank, investors expect losses during the first couple of years, a large portion of which is the “provision for loan losses.” New banks set aside money in case loans go bad, even if they don’t have non-performing assets.
The bank is “putting on good assets, building solid relationships. When rates return to [higher levels], we think our profitability will be fine and on track,” he said. “What we’re trying to prevent right now is making any mistakes on the lending side,” the affable banker said.
Blue Harbor has opened a second branch, in Huntersville, adding expenses—and more opportunity for growth. He said the Exit 23 area is dynamic, and ripe for the picking. With a minimum of remodeling expense, Blue Harbor turned a former Wachovia branch into a more living room like Blue Harbor branch complete with coffee and local publications. The Wachovia branch had $100 million in deposits before it was shuttered and relocated to the other side of Interstate 77.
“The runway in front of us is tremendous,” he said, comparing Huntersville to the fast-growth Mooresville marketplace.
Marshall said consumer and commercial loans are up 43 percent compared to year-end 2008 levels, with consumers accounting for about one third of the growth and business two-thirds.
“From an assets standpoint we’re on track, from an earnings standpoint, with the lower interest rates, the margins are lower than we forecast,” Marshall said.
He would not discuss future locations, saying the bank is “digesting what we have between Huntersville and Mooresville,” where the bank has a temporary building and no plans right now to break ground on a headquarters building.
In fact, that’s sort of like money in the bank. The land Blue Harbor purchased in Morrison Plantation is now more valuable, even as first-class office space sits empty up and down nearby Williamson Road. “We can sell the property for more than we paid for it,” Marshall said. |
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| RUSSELL |
By Bill Russell
Wouldn’t it be nice to pick up a paper and read only pleasant headlines for a change? The news in Washington this week is that we have retired the national debt, unemployment in North Carolina has sunk to it’s lowest levels since 2006, and a group hug broke out in the streets of Baghdad.
Unfortunately that’s not the headlines we read. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the annual difference between what our federal government collects in tax revenue and what it spends will be $1.3 trillion this fiscal year alone. Combat troops are leaving Iraq, however, we are still a stretch from a tension free region. Closer to home, North Carolina’s unemployment rate dipped to 9.6 percent in July and has declined for five consecutive months but still remains higher than the national average of 9.5 percent. |
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| GILROY |
Many of us were chilled to the bone a few weeks ago at what Charlotte City Councilman David Howard said at a Lake Norman Transportation Commission meeting. Howard, a Democrat who has focused on inner city affordable housing issues through his position as vice president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership since 1997, was quoted several times:
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It’s a mixed bag in the luxury market. Some homes are closing at steep discounts, while some pristine homes in superb locations are closing near their asking prices.
Prices per square foot edged upward about 1 percent in Lake Norman during the second quarter vs. 2009 levels, but realized values are still off 20 percent to 25 percent compared to 2007 levels, according to Reed Jackson of Ivester Jackson Distinctive Properties in Cornelius. |
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These home sales and property transactions in the Golden Crescent were recorded by the Register of Deeds in Mecklenburg, Cabarrus and Iredell. |
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These new businesses in the Golden Crescent have registered with the N.C. Secretary of State. |
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Staff directory, emails, phone and fax numbers along with other general and subscription information |
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