Maryland Business

Maryland Women’s Heritage Center celebrates its grand opening  Saturday and is located in a beautiful ground floor section of the renovated 39 West Lexington luxury apartment homes in downtown.

If you’re wondering how the nonprofit got such a sweet space (2,400 square feet in the historic Baltimore Gas & Electric building), it’s certainly not because it can afford it. The space is being donated by David Hillman, CEO of Southern Management, which owns the property.

The generosity of local businesses didn’t stop there for the heritage center, which is an educational center featuring exhibits and historical information on dozens of Maryland women (including Harriet Tubman and Shoshana S. Cardin) and their achievements. Take a peak inside, and everywhere you look, you’ll see something that has been donated.

Sherwin-Williams Co. donated the paint, CertaPro Painters did the painting, Signs by Tomorrow of Baltimore donated all the signage. All the construction materials and labor (the space took about four months to complete) was donated by Lewis Contractors, Commercial Interiors Inc., CAM Construction Co. and Wilmot Modular Structures Inc.

Lastly, Cho Benn Holbak+ Associates donated the architectural services.

The center, which began as an idea back in the early 1980s as an outgrowth of the Maryland Women’s History Project, is also entirely staffed by volunteers. Its one paid employee, Executive Director Jill Moss Greenberg, had a lot to do with hustling for all the donations that got the center up and running.

The center’s influential executive board of directors — which includes former First Lady Frances Hughes Glendening, former First Lady Kendel S. Ehrlich and First Lady Katie Curran O’Malley — also doesn’t hurt.

The Maryland Women’s Heritage Center hopes to make its permanent location in a space 10 times as big as the one it’s in now so it can house a theater and permanent exhibits on influential Maryland women. But I think that’s probably gonna take some actual dough…

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How much do you walk every day? Are you perhaps one of those women who carry their heels in a bag and walk to work in more comfortable shoes? (I, for one, am guilty of that during the warmer months and wear my flip flops everywhere I possibly can.)

Well, if so you might want in on a contest that’s part of a promotional campaign being run by Baltimore-based Warschawski for its client GOR-TEX. The company, which makes waterproof/breathable fabric, has partnered with Soles4Souls, a charity that provides shoes to people in need, to launch the “How Far Can One Pair Go?” national shoe drive and footwear promotion.

The campaign encourages consumers to donate shoes or money to the charity from now until Dec. 31 at select retail partners or online at www.howfarcanonepairgo.com. Gore will also donate $5 to Soles4Souls for each pair of shoes made with the GORE-TEX brand technology purchased through the website during the campaign (up to $10,000 total). As of Sept. 23, $400 has been donated to the charity.

The contest requires entrants to submit a short essay (no longer than this post) on how far you walk every day. The winner and a friend will travel with Soles4Souls to give away shoes during a distribution trip in June. Ten runners up will get a free pair of GOR-TEX shoes.

Seeing as Baltimore was voted one of America’s top walking cities (I’m assuming that’s because of the Inner Harbor where it’s less likely to get run down by a Mack truck barreling down a narrow city street), I’d expect to see some strong representation here on this front. Let’s show those San Franciscans (voted best walking city) that ridiculously steep hills aren’t the only elements that make a good walking story.

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Klaus Fritsch, co-founder of Morton’s The Steakhouse, was in Baltimore and Annapolis this week promoting the restaurant’s new cookbook, and I had a chance to speak with him Thursday.

Although this is the second Morton’s cookbook in three years, Fritsch, who is the author, said it will likely be the last. Or at least as long as he’s still around, it will be.

“We had a great reception from the first one, so we did a second,” he said.

“But I just don’t think there’s room for a third,” he added, pointing out the recipes in the books are also used in Morton’s restaurants.

After all, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

All right, it’s not quite like that — after all these ingredients don’t come cheap, and sometimes the hassle of making the meal doesn’t outweigh the cost of going out. But what is interesting to note is the release of the cookbook also comes at a time when some Morton’s diners are turning to eating more meals in, according to Fritsch.

While that may be nice for cookbook sales, it doesn’t change the fact that dining room sales have decreased. But Morton’s isn’t alone, said Fritsch.

“Of course we’re affected by [the economy], but everybody has been,” he said. “Everyone’s having deals now to counteract that and so are we… But we’re an expensive place, let’s face it. On the other hand, if you really want a good steak, you’ll still go out for it.” Read the rest of this entry »

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This week, the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship announced its “Tickets Fore Charity” campaign in which local charities can sell tickets and keep 75 percent of the proceeds while the remaining 25 percent goes to the tournament’s local charitable donation.

It’s an age-old practice (selling Girl Scout cookies as a kid comes to mind), but the concept is new to the annual PGA seniors tour stop at the Baltimore Country Club. And when faced with an economy that’s seeing declines in both spending on sporting events and charitable contributions, this fund raising campaign is getting two birds with one stone.

First Tee of Baltimore, however, will be the only charity benefiting from that 25 percent of charity ticket sales. In the past, First Tee, the Kennedy Krieger Institute, Union Memorial Hospital and the Baltimore Community Foundation have each typically received $100,000 annually from the tournament since the pros began playing here in 2007.

According to Steve Schoenfeld, the tournament director,  the other charities are all still aligned with the tournament as beneficiaries.

“We chose to include The First Tee for the 25% share of the TICKETS Fore CHARITY program because it was a PGA TOUR initiative that founded The First Tee years ago and it is near and dear to our business (obviously),” Schoenfeld wrote in an e-mail. “In fact, The First Tee is tied in to the TICKETS Fore CHARITY program at all of the events that Championship Management…runs.”

OK, I understand that. But if I’m working for one of the other charities, I see a recession that’s both taking a toll on charitable donations nationally and slowing spending at sporting events — and I’m wondering how much the golf tournament will still be able to help out with its donation this year.

Seems like this program would be a good opportunity for those charities to both try and make up the difference and help themselves by boosting ticket sales (and thus attendance and spending at the event) by participating in the fundraiser, too.

And in the end if it all comes out in the wash as “CEG Senior Players Championship matches ticket sales and charitable contribution from last year, despite a down economy,” well that’s why they call it a win-win, isn’t it?

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If you’ve ever hoped to see a CEO attempt the cha cha, you’ll have your chance a few Saturdays from now.

And don’t worry, it’s all for a good cause – beyond entertainment.

The Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel will host the Alzheimer’s Association’s Dancing with the Stars-themed gala on April 5.

Here are a few of the Baltimore-area businesspeople, chosen for their community leadership, who are scheduled to compete:

• Dr. Majid Fotuhi of Life Bridge Health, Brain & Spine Institute, and wife Bita

• Heather Keller, nurse, yoga instructor and one of Baltimore magazine’s 2008 top singles

• Peter Rabins, M.D., Johns Hopkins University, and wife Karen

• Molly A.G. Shattuck, wife of Mayo Shattuck III, CEO of Constellation Energy, and a former Baltimore Ravens cheerleader

• Samuel Ross, M.D., CEO of Bon Secours Health System, and wife Carolyn

• Diane Lyn, co-host of 101.9 Lite FM’s Baltimore’s Morning Show

• Brandy Washington, daughter of previous winners Meadow Lark and former Washington Redskin Joe Washington

The dancers will take lessons prior to the event, and will have the choice of performing a Latin or ballroom number.

They can win trophies, of course, but the most prized reward: online votes from friends, family and colleagues, which cost one dollar each and benefit the association. Last year online votes totaled $88,000. At the time of this post, just over $2,600 was raised.

If you’d like to see the spectacle up close, tickets are $300 per person and corporate sponsorships are available.

JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor

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A story about a Baltimore nonprofit is included in a newly published collection of Oprah Winfrey’s favorite articles from her magazine.

The nonprofit, named The Red Devils, borrowed its name from “The Red Devil to Hell with Cancer – and Back,” a book by breast cancer survivor Katherine Russell Rich, who got her title from the cancer drug Adriamycin, which is bright red and nicknamed “red devil.”

Rich’s book caught Winfrey’s eye, and she featured the group in the October 2006 issue of O magazine. Now, the story is included in “O’s Guide to Life: The Best of O, The Oprah Magazine” which retails for $29.95.

The Red Devils provides transportation to and from medical appointments, housecleaning, delivering meals and drug co-payment help for breast cancer patients and their families.

If you’re interested in supporting the group:

-Registration for the group’s biggest fundraiser, the annual Red Devils Heart and Sole Stroll, has begun. The walk is scheduled for the morning of Sunday, June 8 at Centennial Park in Howard County.

-February 9 from 11a.m. – 6p.m. is the group’s “Sweet Shopping” fundraiser at Belvedere Square, located at York Road and Belvedere Ave. Merchants will donate a portion of the day’s proceeds to The Red Devils.

JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

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Did you read Marc Fisher’s column in Sunday’s Washington Post, “Helping Those You Can, Because You Can“?

I did, and I have to say, I found it moving. For those of you who didn’t, Fisher writes about two successful businessmen who each sponsored a class of poor schoolchildren in D.C., providing them with emotional and financial support through college.

Here’s a short excerpt:

Twenty years ago, [George] Kettle had stood before sixth-graders at a Southeast Washington school and announced that “I’m the whitey from Virginia” who promised to pay whatever it took to send every child in the room to college.

Many kids at Winston Educational Center that day had little idea what Kettle’s commitment really meant, but two decades later, the students to whom Kettle devoted hundreds of hours and $600,000 are more successful than not. A few ended up on the streets, but most are managers, teachers, police officers.

Is piece uplifting? Definitely. But that’s not what struck me.

Ed Wilczynski (who took up the practice after Kettle) told Fisher that “people who know how to get things done have an obligation to step in when the system isn’t working.”

Do you agree? Do successful businesspeople who can “get things done” need to take control of a floundering educational system?

JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor 

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