CJW Medical Center has signed a contract with Hemo Concepts, Inc., to implement a state-of-the-art Integrated Blood Conservation (IBC) program and a Bloodless Medicine and Surgery Program. By reducing the need for donor blood and transfusions, the initiative will cut costs and improve patient outcomes.

"Blood conservation combines good medicine with good business," says Dr. James Zocco, cardiac surgeon at CJW Medical Center. "We want to provide our patients the highest quality care possible and they are better off not having costly blood transfusions unless it is absolutely necessary. This program will also help to reduce the potential risks associated with blood transfusions. In addition, bloodless medicine and surgery will also address the needs of patients who object to the use of blood transfusions during their treatment."

Defense Supply Center Richmond is adopting the "One Pass Pricing" (OPP) methodology in a bid to cut red tape and reduce the time it takes to deliver spare parts. The supply center is responsible for supplying more than 1.2 million repair parts to the U.S. Air Force.

Contracts without OPP typically require lengthy negotiations between the government and private industry at different locations and over the telephone, fax machines or through the mail for extended periods. "The pricing process has been bogged down for years," says Rodney Bonner, an administrator of the new program. "With the push to increase long-term contracts coverage and improve material availability, one pass pricing helps DSCR get the right items on contract quicker and improves our ability to support the warfighter."

The new collaborative process brings stakeholders together to look at supporting documentation and develop preliminary prices. The approach has proven successful with existing suppliers like Sikorsky Aircraft Company. Process days to add items to a contract were reduced from 157 to 34 days, while the associated steps decreased from 44 to 13.

MeadWestvaco Corporation will close its packaging plant in Warrington, Pa., in a move to cut costs through operational efficiencies. The facility produces visual and paperboard packaging for the personal and beauty care industry. Some production will transfer to other MWV Packaging facilities.

Said Mark S. Cross, senior vice president of MWV Packaging in a prepared statement: “The decision to close our Warrington facility is based on careful analysis of our operations and the need to create a more efficient operation that will strengthen our presence in the personal and beauty care packaging market.”

Genworth Financial, Inc., has introduced LifeHarbor, a group guaranteed income annuity product. LifeHarbor helps protect an investor's retirement plan by providing an income guarantee while allowing investors to remain invested in a mutual fund or Exchange Traded Fund portfolio. The product is designed to meet the needs of consumers who have planned well for retirement but remain at risk of outliving their retirement savings due to market fluctuations, longevity, inflation and other unforeseen events. With LifeHarbor, investors will receive income for life, even if the markets have depleted their portfolio below the specified account.

"The concept of taking an insurance guarantee and adding it to a managed account product is at the forefront of our industry. Investors get the best of both worlds - the income stream from the insurance guarantee and the disciplined investment approach with our managed account product," stated Ronald Cordes, chairman of AssetMark Investment Services, a Genworth subsidiary. Read more.

Capital One Financial Corp. has reported net principal charge-offs of $342.3 million for its U.S. credit card business, while delinquencies of 30 days or more totaled $2.65 billion. Automotive added another $71.4 million in write-offs and $1.68 billion in delinquencies.

Commented Credit Suisse, which rates the stock an "outperform": "Overall, it appears that April losses and delinquencies are trending flat with the previous month. Given management's commentary on the last quarterly earnings conference call, we would expect May and June to show continued deterioration in credit trends." Read more.

In 2001, Kevin Gerber was designing technology solutions from his basement. Today Gerber's company, Packet360, is an industry leader. Inc. magazine recently ranked Packet360 as the 36th fastest growing private company in the United States, with three-year growth of 2,692 percent.

Headquartered in Glen Allen, Packet360 has 40 employees and 21 technology partners that include Cisco Systems, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard. The company specializes in integrated technology systems that increase productivity and flexibility while reducing costs. Gerber anticipated the demand for consolidated technologies several years ago, when he was working as a consultant.

The 13-year-old Virginia Biotechnology Research Park is reaching "critical mass" and is poised for take-off, president Robert Skunda told the Virginia Venture Forum earlier today. While the biotech complex has attracted its share of American businesses and institutions, it may be foreign companies that take it to the next level.

The biotech park has made impressive achievements in its brief history, especially considering that Richmond has never been considered a major star in the biotech galaxy. Within the park, there are 44 private companies, four Virginia Commonwealth University research institutes, four state labs and five not-for-profit organizations – and that doesn’t include VCU’s medical campus next door where tens of millions of dollars of medical research takes place each year.

The biotech park, which now has nine buildings and 1.1 million square feet of commercial space, has incubated 63 companies (19 from VCU), of which 31 have "graduated." Three have become publicly traded companies. Companies at the park are attracting more early-stage and venture investment capital than ever before.

The business world has been touting teamwork for decades, and yet managing and leading groups hasn't gotten any easier.  In fact, the higher you go in organizations, the tougher it gets. Here's a case in point I think you might "enjoy."

Picture this -- you've been working with a team of superstars for months, but you're just not getting the results you need. Everyone is starting to feel the heat. Your team leader, Lenny, just quit (or was fired) or something, apparently because he took it upon himself to talk to some bigwig outside the group about a big deal he was working on. Then whoever shot off his mouth and naturally word got back to the powers that be.

Team meetings haven't been all that great either. Starting last spring, people seemed to trickle in and leave whenever they felt like it. Sometimes they missed the important stuff; maybe their minds were elsewhere. Lenny said that he tried to tell them what was going on back then, but somehow he didn't make his point very well or waited until too late in the meeting. Whatever the reason, it turns out to have been the beginning of the end.    

If you want to spot the up-and-coming technology companies and other key players in the Richmond region, the Greater Richmond Technology Council awards banquet last night was the place to be. Synergy Systems, a logistics software company,  won the Council’s “Emerging Company Award,” while Obetech, a life sciences company, won the “Innovation Award.”

Emerging Company Awards
Synergy Systems is dedicated to synchronized enterprise – creating the customized environment in which companies can proactively respond to workforce, supply-chain, inventory, and other needs in an automated and coordinated way. The company's innovations will forever change the way manufacturers, retailers, service centers, and suppliers conduct their business. 

Innovation Award
Obetech aims to diagnose, prevent, and treat obesity caused by adenovirus-36, a common human virus. The firm sells diagnostic tests that determine adenovirus-36 infection, and it is developing vaccines for prevention and anti-virals for treatment of virus-induced obesity.

Albemarle Corp. expects to save $2 million a year by moving its headquarters from Richmond to Baton Rouge, La., company officials told financial analysts and investors in Houston earlier this week. That’s over and above the savings generated from Louisiana state incentives.

About 30 executives and support staff with an annual payroll of $7 million will leave Richmond this summer, depriving the city of a Fortune 1000 company and the bragging rights that goes along with it. The relocation of the specialty chemicals company hasn’t caused much of a stir here because the move can be seen as a natural consequence of the transition of executive leadership from the Gottwald family, which owns a dominant interest in the company, to a new generation. Additionally, there were obvious advantages to locating the headquarters near the company’s main chemical operations – much as Altria moved its headquarters from New York City to Richmond to be closer to its Philip Morris USA operating unit here.

But the latest revelations raise questions about Richmond’s competitiveness as a relatively low-cost headquarters location. At least one major city in the Southeastern U.S., it appears, is an even lower cost location.