Baltimore County : Innovation + Job News

Baltimore biotech firm Ocular Proteomics LLC is seeking its first round of financing within the next six months, for $3 million to $4 million in venture capital. While a closing date for the round has not been determined, the decision follows a $1.2 million federal grant the biotechnology startup recently won to begin clinical trials on macular degeneration diagnosis and treatment. The startup last month moved from Towson to UMB BioPark for larger laboratory facilities.

The venture capital financing will be used for clinical trials, marketing and new hires, according to director of business development Joshua Hines.

The $1.2 million grant comes from the National Eye Institute and National Institutes of Health, and runs for  two years, from May 2013 to May 2015. Next year, the company will apply to renew the grant and, if successful, would receive $1.5 million per year for up to five years.

The $1.2 million grant enables Ocular to start clinical trials for ophthalmic diagnosis based on the company’s discovery of biochemical markers in the vitreous of the human eye. The trials will be held at three locations -- Baltimore, Chicago and Cleveland – and will involve 200 patients with macular degeneration.

Dr. Bert M. Glaser, Ocular’s chief scientific Institutes of Health officer, founded the company in 2009. Dr. Glaser heads the National Retina Institute, of which Ocular is a spinoff.
 
Age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness among adults. An estimated 15 million Americans have macular degeneration, of whom 2.5 million have the advanced form that threatens their eyesight. If not treated, the disease inevitably leads to blindness.
 
There is no cure for macular degeneration but there is an injectible medication that stops the progression of the disease in about one-third of the patients on whom it is used. However, a patient must wait six months to a year before knowing if the medication is effective. Based on the biomarkers, the company’s focus is to determine if the patient will respond to the medication before then.
 
The privately-financed Ocular has two full-time employees. It is looking to hire two laboratory technicians within the year, and is also seeking up to three college students who are interested in unpaid internships doing eye research.
 
Source: Joshua Hines, Ocular Proteomics LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash

Blue Wave Semiconductors Inc. is going after its first funding round of $500,000 next month. The Baltimore County developer of products for semiconductors, located in the incubator bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park in Catonsville, expects to close the round by the end of this year. It is seeking funding from angel investors and will use the money to expand sales of its product line in Europe and Asia.
 
“We have many products for the international market. We want to increase sales of existing and future products,” says founder and CEO R.D. Vispute.

Blue Wave is also awaiting approval of up to $4 million in federal grants this year, from the U.S. Department of Defense, National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Award and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The grants are intended for product development, not sales.
 
Blue Wave makes microelectronic and nano-electronic tools for semiconductors that academic and private research centers and laboratories use.
 
“Our core expertise is extending research abilities in nano and electric material. We expand the number of materials available for R&D,” Vispute says.
 
The company has developed a dozen physical and chemical tools for the R&D market. It has already received grants totaling $2.3 million from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, to develop radiation hard coatings for space application; National Science Foundation, for nanomaterials development; and Maryland Industrial Partnership.
 
Blue Wave grew out of research by Vispute, a research scientist in the physics department of the University of Maryland College Park. Founded in 2000, he moved into the UMBC incubator in 2004.
 
In 2011, Blue Wave entered into a partnership with Seki Technology to expand product sales. From 2011 to 2012, sales almost doubled, to $1.1 million. Estimated sales for 2013 are $1.6 million.
 
Clients include the U.S. Department of Defense and the universities of Maryland and California, as well as national laboratories in Singapore, Germany, Australia and India. On the private side, clients include Sylvania R&D Lighting Division, Pixelligent Technologies, General Motors and BAE Systems.
 
Within the next six months, the company is nearly doubling its current staff of six to hire up to four employees in engineering and nanotechnology. It is a finalist in the 2013 Maryland Incubator of the Year. The award will be announced later this month.
 
Source: R.D. Vispute, Blue Wave Semiconductors Inc.
Writer: Barbara Pash

Hunt Valley software developer Revelytix this month is selling its first product to process and manage massive amounts of data, known in the field as big data. Since last year, Revelytix has been transitioning into the big data space, and the release of Loom Dataset Management for Hadoop is the culmination of that process.
 
Founder and CEO Michael Lang calls Hadoop a “data lake,” into which clients’ data is dumped. Created by Yahoo engineers in 2005, it is a free, open-source software platform that supports systems with thousands of nodes, in the jargon, of data. Yahoo, Facebook, eBay and IBM, among others, use Hadoop for data storage.
 
Loom Dataset, the new product, is intended to keep track of and manage a company’s data in Hadoop. Loom was launched as a beta product last February before putting it on the market.
 
“Whenever you have open-source software, there are always capabilities and feature gaps that many businesses want. We built software that runs with Hadoop and adds value,” says Lang. 
 
Lang founded Revelytix in 2007.  So far, its primary customer has been the U.S. Department of Defense. With the launch of Loom, however, the company is aiming for the commercial market although it will continue working for the federal defense department.
 
Loom is priced by size of the enterprise system. A “starter kit” for small enterprises using 20 Hadoop nodes costs $35,000 to $40,000; for larger enterprises using 1,000 nodes,  $500,000 to $1 million, according to Lang. Revelytix has partners that service Loom, including Spry, Knowledgent, Hortonworks, Global IDs Inc and HP Squared LLC.

“The ability to process big data is life or death for large enterprises,” says Lang.
 
Revelytix is a private company with a staff of 19. Lang expects to hire more staffers in the future depending on sales of Loom.
 
Source: Michael Lang, Revelytix
Writer: Barbara Pash

Startup Spotkick this week is introducing its first product, cybersecurity software. Located at an incubator on the University of Maryland, Baltimore County campus, the cybersecurity service provider is releasing three versions of the software it uses for its own clients. All the software, so far unnamed, is found on Spotkick's website and one of the versions is free.
 
CEO and founder Eric Fiterman says the free version is staying on the website for the foreseeable future. There is a fee for the other two versions, standard and premium. 
 
“Not all businesses can afford services like ours and other providers,” he says. “We want to make it accessible to them.”
 
All three versions are designed to take inventory of a company’s computer system and provide a report of vulnerabilities, although at different levels of complexities. The software is web-based, with users filling out a profile online. Reports are delivered online as well.
 
“Different companies have different levels of exposure based on factors like the age of their computer system,” Fiterman says.  “We run inventories of different capabilities depending on what clients want. We look for things that are hidden or hard to find.”
 
Fiterman calls the free version a “walk-through” that gives users an idea of their exposure to cyber risks like getting hacked or having their data compromised.  
 
The standard version, a flat fee whose price is likely to be under $49, has detailed information about where the user’s system is most vulnerable and to what kinds of cyber-risks. The premium version, likely under $79, not only identifies the risks but provides options on how to protect the system and even counter-attack.
 
Fiterman, a former U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agent whose specialty was cyber crimes, founded Spotkick in 2011. It was the first startup accepted into the then-newly formed incubator known as the Northrop Grumman Cync Program. The program is the result of a partnership between UMBC and Northrop Grumman Corp.
 
Fiterman says Spotkick will continue to market its cybersecurity services to clients, among them the U.S. Department of Defense, Northrop Grumman and other Baltimore area startups.
 
“We have service contracts and are generating revenue,” he says, although he declined to give a figure. 
 
The privately financed startup has a staff of five. Fiterman will hire at least two more developers this year.
 
Source: Eric Fiterman, Spotkick
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 

Baltimore County's Roseda Beef expects to hit $5 million in sales this year thanks to the expanded distribution of Ripken Gourmet Burgers.

Named after baseball’s Hall of Fame and former Baltimore Orioles baseball star Cal Ripken Jr., the burgers will help bring in an extra $2 million in sales, says Mike Brannon, vice president of Roseda Beef. The number of outlets for the burgers nearly doubled in one year, from 173 stores last year, when the product was originally introduced, to more than 400 stores last month.

Located at Roseda Black Angus Farm in northern Baltimore County's Monkton, Roseda Beef makes and markets the frozen and boxed burgers. Roseda Beef is part of Roseda Black Angus Farm and Old Line Custom Meat Co., a meat processor located in a 17,000-square-foot plant at 1600 South Monroe St. in Southwest Baltimore. 
 
Brannon says the Ripken burgers, priced at $10 per box for four six-ounce patties, is a first for the company. “It’s a big undertaking, our first pre-packed, co-branded product,” he says.
 
Roseda Beef sells fresh meat under its own name to restaurants and grocery stores like Graul’s Market, a local chain. “We raise cattle and sell strip and tenderloin. But selling the ground beef is a challenge. The Ripken burgers enable us to sell more of the middle meat,” says Brannon.
 
Roseda Beef and Ripken signed the deal in 2012. A portion of sales goes to Ripken himself and to the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation. Ahold USA’s Giant Food grocery chain  is the exclusive outlet for the product because, says Brannon, “Ripken had a relationship with Giant through his community baseball projects.”
 
Ripken burgers were originally sold in 173 Giant stores in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Sales were so strong that this spring the product was introduced into more than 200 stores in Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia as well. In the latter two states, the stores operate under the name Martin’s Food Market. Brannon says there is a possibility of expanding to even more Ahold USA stores in the future.
 
Roseda hired the Florida-based Studio Spear to organize and conduct a social media and public relations campaign. The campaign kicks off this month, officially designated as National Hamburger Month and the start of the “grilling season,”  Brannon says.
 
Ripken is scheduled to promote the product through appearances at a Little League baseball clinic at his Aberdeen Stadium and an end-of-summer picnic to be held at the Roseda Black Angus Farm.
 
A contest for tickets to attend the picnic will be held this summer via Giant and promoted on the Ripken baseball website that becomes operational the end of this month.
 
Source: Mike Brannon, Roseda Beef
Writer: Barbara Pash

The state is hiring more than 400 staffers as it proceeds to implement the federal health program known as Obamacare.

The Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, a key element in the plan, is hiring more than 300 people around the state, of which 107 are in the Baltimore metro and Anne Arundel County region, to operate a program that enrolls individuals and small businesses in the exchange. The exchange is also hiring another 75 to 100 people to operate its central call center. These positions are in addition to the 70 jobs announced earlier whose staffers would be involved in setting up the exchange itself.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, required that each state set up a marketplace for the public and health insurers. In 2011, the Maryland General Assembly created the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, an independent state agency, to fill that role. The state is beginning to roll out programs in the state, starting with the Connector Program, which signs up people for the plan, and the call center.

The Connector Program enrolls individuals and small businesses in the exchange. Enrollment for individuals officially begins Oct. 1, and for small businesses on Jan. 1, 2014. The program is hiring staffers, called navigators and assistors, to guide individuals and small businesses through the health insurance options in the exchange. Training for staffers will begin in July and August in anticipation of the official enrollment dates.

The exchange has hired six healthcare vendors to set up the Connector Program in regions around the state. Leslie Lyles Smith, the Health Benefit Exchange’s director of operations, says each vendor has its own hiring practices and application deadlines may vary. Job-seekers can visit the exchange website for the names of the vendors in the regions. Smith says vendors may be contacted directly.

The exchange is spending approximately $24 million, split among the vendors, to set up the program.

Besides the six vendors for the program, nearly 50 subcontractors will support their efforts. Vendor positions include training development and delivery for the Connector Program and staffing and running the central call center, named the Consolidated Service Center. The center is scheduled to open in August. Smith says the state will announce the vendor awarded the call center contract in a few weeks.

Besides the over 400 employees being hired to operate the program and call center, the exchange itself is continuing to hire staffers and vendors for other, future programs. The exchange website has job listings under the “careers” category and instructions to apply. Requests for vendors is on the website under “procurement” along with information about vendors who have already been awarded contracts.
 
The Maryland Health Connection is the exchange’s online portal for the public to get information about its programs, health insurance and tax credit, and enrollment. Smith says the exchange is also launching a social media campaign, tentatively set for May, as a way to inform the public about the healthcare options.
 
Source: Leslie Lyles Smith, Maryland Health Benefit Exchange
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 

Towson engineering startup Sustainable Infrastructure of North America LLC is going after its first round of angel funding of $115,000 by the middle of this year. The startup will seek to close on its second funding round of $500,000 by the end of the year. The company's goal is to have raised $1.3 million by early next year, primarily from investors and loans and, possibly, its first product. 
 
Founder and Owner Tom Greene, says the money will be used to produce aesir, a computer system intended to replace existing bridge inspection equipment. By 2015, he plans to produce another four aesirs.
 
The aesir system will contain three-dimensional, ground-penetrating radar, laser profiling and digital imaging. The system will be mounted on top of a van that is driven on or under a bridge. Scanning the bridge in a 3-D format allows the inspector to find defects below the surface, where deterioration typically starts.
 
The system’s data will then be analyzed to pinpoint where and what the problems are, and to compare it with previous bridge inspections for rate of deterioration.
 
Greene says technology like 3-D and lasers already exists, and aesir will integrate it into a single system. A Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPs) grant for more than $400,000 is funding development of the system Greene says.
 
There are more than 600,000 bridges in the US, of which about 159,000 are in urban locations. The bridges must be inspected annually or every two years depending under whose jurisdiction – local, state or federal – they fall.
 
Greene expects to price the aesir, which can be used multiple times, at about $400,000. He will initially market it to government agencies and, subsequently, to engineering firms that are often hired to inspect bridges.
 
“The infrastructure is aging while the traffic is increasing. You have the same number of bridges from the 1970s but traffic volume is six times greater and trucks are much bigger,” he says.
 
Greene founded Sustainable Infrastructure in 2011. A year later, the company moved into the TowsonGlobal Business Incubator at Towson University. The company has a staff of three.
 
“Aesir has potential use in tunnels but right now we’re focusing on bridges,” he says.
 
Source: Tom Greene, Sustainable Infrastructure of North America LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Northrop Grumman Corp. last month expanded their Cync cybersecurity  program with three new companies, including the program’s first international one. The three firms joined the five companies currently at bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park in Catonsville.

The folowing three companies entered the Cync program:

• iWebGate is relocating its headquarters from Perth, Australia, to Maryland. It is developing a multi-tenant security-tested network between private networks and the Internet;
• DB Networks, of Silicon Valley provides behavioral analysis of database security equipment. It intends to grow its mid-Atlantic region; and,
• Baltimore's Light Point Security, which is working on protecting corporate networks from web-based malware.

Northrop Grumman and UMBC jointly select the companies for the 18-month long Cync program, which began in 2011.
 
Chris Valentino, director of contract research and development for Northrop Grumman Information Systems in Annapolis says the program is for early-stage companies to grow and develop their cybersecurity products. He identified global security, data analytics and technology as areas that are of particular interest. Valentino says he also considers how the product fits into Northrop Grumman’s portfolio.
 
Northrop Grumman pays for Cync program companies’ office space and equipment at the UMBC incubator. Its own entrepreneur-in-residence at the incubator works with the companies on business plans and marketing.
 
Valentino says the Cync program is getting requests from companies outside the U.S. and elsewhere in the country. “They wanted to expand to Maryland specifically for the Cync program and to work with federal government,” he says of the companies.
 
Northrop Grumman provides a link to potential customers in the federal marketplace. “Our intention is to partner with the companies,” he says.
 
Ellen Hemmerly, executive director at bwtech@UMBC, says there are more than 100 companies in the research and technology park. Of these, two-thirds are early-stage companies that are participating in one of its three incubators. Bwtech’s cybersecurity incubator has 35 early-stage companies and another 10 companies that are more mature businesses.
 
Of the 35 early-stage companies, eight are participating in the Cync program. She says that when the Cync program was established, there was not an absolute number set on the number of companies that could participate.

"We projected five to six companies at any one time, and we are staying within that framework.”
 
Sources: Chris Valentino, Northrop Grumman Information Systems; Ellen Hemmerly, bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park
Writer: Barbara Pash

Motifworks Inc this month entered into a partnership with Microsoft to promote its cloud platform, Windows Azure. This is the first partnership between the White Marsh cloud, mobile application and data analytics company and Microsoft.
 
Motifworks’ contract is for one year and renewable, CEO Nitin Agarwal says.
 
Motifworks provides the technical help to companies using Windows Azure. Motifworks follows up on companies in the area that have contacted Microsoft about Windows Azure.
 
Agarwal says Mofitworks’ goal is to sign up at least two companies for Windows Azure during the year of the contract.

“Companies lack skill sets in new technology like cloud and mobile. We help them fill that gap, and bring their product to market faster,” Agarwal says. “Rather than develop their own departments, it’s become more acceptable to outsource.”
 
The company focuses on the financial, legal, retail, education and management sectors. Most clients pay a monthly fee, but some pay per project. Clients include Sears, SafeNet, Global Scholar, Wellscape, Lender Processing Service and local technology startups.
 
Since Agarwal founded Motifworks in 2010, the company has almost doubled sales every year for the past three years. He expects to double sales in 2013. It pulled in $1 million in revenue during fiscal year 2012.

Mofitworks has two offices. In Bangalore, India, it employs 40. The White Marsh virtual office has a staff of seven. The company is hiring two staffers with Microsoft expertise for its White Marsh location.
 
Source: Nitin Agarwal, Motifworks Inc
Writer: Barbara Pash

TechGuard Security LLC, a woman-owned startup in Baltimore County, is launching its first product for the international market. Bandura Box cybersecurity software will be available through the Catonsville startup or its new wholly owned subsidiary Bandura LLC.
 
“We are still incorporating features needed for an international market and learning the import/export laws. No price has been set,” says Bandura and TechGuard CEO Suzanne Magee.
 
TechGuard provides cyber services, products and training, and research and development to protect and support national initiatives, including the defense, financial, healthcare, retail and energy sectors. Customers include a large financial organization in Chicago, regional banks, a grocery wholesaler, technology companies and members of the nuclear power industry.
 
In 2000, Magee founded TechGuard in St. Louis, Mo., where it still has an office. In 2004, she relocated the company headquarters to Maryland to be closer to federal government clients and because the state encourages entrepreneurship.

“I have locations elsewhere but Maryland is unsurpassed for entrepreneurs in the country. I found a system and a network of talent and financial backing,” she says.
 
Magee is opening a TechGuard office in Oklahoma City, Okla., in June. In 2010, Magee moved TechGuard into the incubator bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park. 

TechGuard produces security products that uses a security perimeter defense to block Internet addresses from a particular country with the click of a mouse. Magee says she is focusing on two products: Bandura Box and a product for the domestic market called PoliWall. Priced from $5,000 to $50,000 depending on capacity, PoliWall is sold through TechGuard and Bandura.
 
TechGuard has a staff of about 100, nearly half of whom were hired earlier this year. Bandura has a staff of five. Magee is looking to hire an additional 20 staffers -- cybersecurity professionals, preferably certified in various cyber specialties – to be split between the two companies.
 
TechGuard is privately financed. For Bandura, Magee is considering partner-investors and/or a financing round to raise approximately $2 to $5 million in the next six months to further PoliWall and to reach a global market for Bandura Box.
 
Source: Suzanne Magee, TechGuard Security LLC and Bandura LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Light Point Security LLC this year expects to launch its first product, Light Point Web Enterprise, a secure web browsing solution for company networks. The startup is collaborating on commercializing the product with Northrop Grumman Corp. through a program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County incubator in Catonsville.
 
“Northrop Grumman is helping us to develop and polish our product,” says Chief Operating Officer Zuly Gonzalez, who cofounded the startup with CEO Beau Adkins. Both are former National Security Agency employees.
 
Light Point takes a non-traditional approach to cybersecurity. Unlike the standard detection-based approach to determine if a website is safe or infected, Light Point uses an isolation-based approach to protect company networks from web-based malware.
 
“We assume all websites are malicious and we treat them exactly the same way – virus or safe – so there is no way for a malware site to get into a computer and infect the corporate network,” says Gonzalez.
 
Light Point’s proprietary software uses virtualization and cloud technologies to isolate and enclose each employee’s browsing sessions. “We prevent the network from getting infected by preventing websites and web content from even getting on the computer,” she says.
 
Founded in 2010, Light Point Security moved into the Cyber Incubator at bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park last year. The company has tested different versions of its product, including an earlier version that rented space for customers through a cloud service provider. The current version allows the customer to run the product on its own network or its own cloud space.
 
“The idea is to give them control,” says Gonzalez.
 
Light Point is planning to sell the product through a yearly subscription fee of $40 to $50 per employee. It will market the product to commercial enterprises, primarily medium- to large-sized companies, and expand to government agencies in 2014.
 
Gonzalez says that Northrop Grumman is helping the company commercialize its product with technical and business advice.
 
Light Point Security is a finalist in the InvestMaryland Challenge in the IT category, and will hear by mid-April if it has won the $100,000 prize. The startup is privately funded. The cofounders, who are the startup's two employees, are considering an angel financing round of, perhaps, $500,000, in the future.
 
Source: Zuly Gonzalez, Light Point Security LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 

Oculis Labs Inc this month is releasing the new version of PrivateEye Enterprise for businesses. To kick off the release, the Hunt Valley cybersecurity company is offering a free 30-day trial package available through its website.
 
“We wanted a product for enterprises like health care firms and banks that have records with financial and personnel information they want to keep private,” says founder and CEO Bill Anderson.
 
In 2011, the nine-person firm released PrivateEye, a cybersecurity program for individual users. A standard web cam in computers and tablets is set to recognize the authorized user’s face. The user can instantly blur the screen by turning his/her head. Alternatively, the program can be set so that the face of anyone who enters the user’s area pops up on the screen.
 
“We are using motion sensor and face recognition technologies to protect company information,” says Anderson. “A person who comes into my office, who comes up behind me cannot read the data.”
 
All versions of PrivateEye and PrivateEye Enterprise have racked up more than 10,000 users in 30 countries, according to Anderson. PrivateEye Enterprise uses the same technology as PrivateEye but, based on users' comments, focuses on companies. The new version lets their IT departments manage and control security measures.
 
PrivateEye costs $20 per user. For PrivateEye Enterprise, a small company of, for example, 50 users, pays $60 per user; a large company of about 1,000 to 2,000 pays $30 per user. These are one-time fees; there is no annual charge.
 
Anderson founded Oculis Labs in 2007 to solve a problem that anti-virus and encryption technology did not address. “You need to secure the last two feet of the Internet  — the distance from the computer screen to the user’s eye,” he says. “Security spending is wasted if anyone —  insiders and strangers — can look at what’s on a person’s screen.”
 
In 2009, Oculis Labs issued its first product, Chameleon, a software program that allows the user to read a classified document privately, even in a crowded room. The program tracks the authorized user’s eye movement. To the user, the words appear in their normal format. To anyone else looking at the screen, the letters are garbled and the words unrecognizable.
 
Developed for the intelligence community, Chameleon’s users are government agencies in that community and the US Department of Defense. Chameleon costs thousands of dollars per program.
 
Oculis Labs is privately financed. Two angel funding rounds raised $3 million. It has received $100,000 from the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development and $75,000 from the Maryland Technology Development Corp. It has also received funding from In-Q-Tel, a not-for-profit venture capital firm whose purpose is to invest in technology to keep the Central Intelligence Agency current.
 

 
Source: Bill Anderson, Oculis Labs Inc.
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is hiring 450 people in Baltimore County's Woodlawn as the federal agency preps for Obamacare.

CMS is hiring health insurance specialists, actuaries, medical officers, nurse consultants, management analysts, office support, social science research analysts, IT specialists, human resources specialists and auditors. Applicants must apply through the federal job website for the positions. CMS employs nearly 4,000 in its Woodlawn office. 
 
Helga Weschke, chief of the division of business development in the county department of economic development, says the hiring is spurred by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which will start taking effect next year and be fully operational by 2020.
 
CMS administers the federal Medicare program and partners with state governments to administer Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and health insurance portability standards.
 
Weschke says that the county is hiring people on an ongoing basis until 450 positions are filled. Some are new positions and others are existing but vacant positions.
 
“CMS is authorized to hire 450 in Maryland because the Central Office is in Woodlawn,” an area in Baltimore County, says Weschke. “CMS has regional offices around the country,” for which an additional 750 jobs are being filled.
 
CMS has a special category for US military veterans. If released from active duty during within the last three years, they can find job descriptions and information about CMS career opportunities at the CMS website.

Weschke says job-seekers should be aware that the way the federal jobs website works, one posting may represent 10 or 20 job openings. New jobs are posted frequently.
 
Source: Helga Weschke, Baltimore County department of economic development
Writer:  Barbara Pash

Baltimore County closed reservations for an information session last week about upcoming jobs and contracting opportunities at Sparrows Point Shipyard and Industrial Park when demand overwhelmed the room’s capacity.

Due to high interest in the 100 jobs and an unspecified number of subcontractors for which SKW Constructors will begin hiring this spring, county officials are holding additional information sessions for job seekers in March and April. Reservations must be made in advance through the Maryland Workforce Exchange.
 
Based in Virginia Beach, Va., SKW Constructors has a contract with the state of Virginia for the $2.1 billion Elizabeth River Tunnels project. SKW Constructors is a consortium of Skanska USA Civil Southeast Inc., Kiewit Infrastructure Co. and Weeks Marine Inc.
 
SKW Constructors’ spokeswoman Jessica Murray says hiring will begin this spring and continue as the project progresses.
Murray says SKW Contractors is hiring the following positions: carpenters, concrete finishers, electricians, laborers, mechanics, reinforcing ironworkers, structural ironworkers, surveyors and truck drivers. The company will provide on-the-job training for carpenters, concrete finishers, reinforcing and structural ironworkers, and surveying.

The project is expected to take five years total, about half of that time in Sparrows Point and the other half in Virginia. 
 
“It’s a huge project,” says Murray of the construction of a tunnel and other transportation-related construction in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. She says Sparrows Point was chosen for the first half of the project because “the old factory works great for us.”

According to Leila Rice, public affairs manager of Elizabeth River Crossing, Sparrows Point was chosen because "it was the closest proximity on the East Coast [that had the capability] of making tunnel sections the size we needed."

Elizabeth River Crossing is overseeing the Elizabeth River Tunnels project and other transportation-related work such as a highway extension and repair of another tunnel. Rice expects the project to be completed by 2018, after which her company will operate and maintain the tunnels.
 
At Sparrows Point, workers will pour and manufacture concrete tunnel sections. When finished, they will be floated to Norfolk, Va., and installed next to the existing but congested almost one-mile-long tunnel that runs under the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth. The two tunnels will each become one way.
 
SKW Constructors has already spent $5 million on 57 Baltimore area subcontractors to prepare Sparrows Point for making the tunnel sections. 
 
Helga Weschke, chief of the division of business development in the Baltimore County department of economic development, says SKW Constructors will have an on-the-job training program for apprentices. For subcontractors, she says it is seeking in particular minority- and women-owned companies and small businesses in order to reach goals to qualify for federal funding.
 
“If they fall into one of the three categories, they have to go through the Virginia certification process even if they have Maryland certification,” says Weschke.
 
Sources: Jessica Murray, SKW Contractors; Helga Weschke, Baltimore County department of economic development; Leila Rice, Elizabeth River Crossing
Writer: Barbara Pash

My Hopeful Journey this year is expanding its market from individual users to businesses and associations. The Baltimore County lifestyle website is offering fee-based corporate memberships to clinics, pharmacies, mind-body programs and online communities as a way to reach more women.

Last year, founder Lisa Drouillard launched a free iPhone application, called the Infertility Survival Kit, to accompany the website. She also launched an app on adoption.

Harford County resident Lisa Drouillard founded the company, located at the TowsonGlobal Business Incubation at Towson University.

For corporate members, Drouillard creates a customized website and mobile application, along with a six-month free membership in My Hopeful Journey. Corporate members can co-brand the site with their logos, message and website links. A basic package costs $500.

"It is a value-added service for their members," she says.

My Hopeful Journey grew out of Drouillard's personal experience of five years of infertility treatments. As a full-time working woman, she found it difficult to keep track of daily tests and medication dosages during treatment.

My Hopeful Journey has an organizer to record appointments, medications, tests, procedures and natural tracking like body temperature. It includes content like resources, blog, task list and journal. Drouillard is continuing to market directly to individuals, who can access the website for free. Users can also sign up for a premium option with customized reports and downloadable documents, for $6 per month.

My Hopeful Journey has over 1,000 users. The Survival Kit app, downloadable from the Apple app store, has over 500 downloads since its launch less than two months ago.

Funding for My Hopeful Journey is private, supplemented by prize money the company has won in different business and pitch competitions.

“Infertility is a very complex, emotional situation. I wanted to share my personal journey, what I went through and what inspired me,” says Drouillard, who has a three-year-old daughter. “I can’t tell you how many people have contacted me to say how much they needed this website.”
 
Source: Lisa Drouillard, My Hopeful Journey
Writer: Barbara Pash