Sportscasters to honor Weaver

Local resident Rob Weaver has been named the Sportscaster-of-the-Year for the 2011-2012 season by the Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association.
Weaver has been the voice of Jay County sports on WPGW radio station in Portland for 36 years. He has also covered games for Union City, Blackford, South Adams, and Fort Recovery during that time.
Weaver will receive the award on April 13, 2013 in Indianapolis.

Leadership workshop at John Jay
LEAD-ECI, a leadership institute serving East Central Indiana, and the John Jay Center are teaming up to offer a workshop on leading multi-generational teams on Aug. 30 from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.
The four-hour program will focus on equipping participants with the ability to be more effective leaders and team members through understanding the diversity of a multi-generational workplace. The four major generational groups will be discussed and participants will learn how to facilitate effective collaboration between all four groups.
Cyndi Davisson, Director of Professional Development at IU Health – Ball Memorial Hospital, will facilitate the program, which costs $30.
The registration deadline is Aug. 27.

Company expands
Marujan LLC, a Tier 1 Honda automobile supplier, is planning to expand its operations in Winchester.
Marujan, a subsidiary of Marujun Co. LTD, Japan, and formerly known as Tomasco Indian, will invest $21.78 million dollars to expand the 127,000 square foot facility in Winchester. The expansion, announced Tuesday, is expected to create up to 50 new jobs by 2015.

Franklin Electric acquires company
Franklin Electric Co. Inc. of Bluffton announced on Thursday that it has completed the acquisition of Cerus Industrial Inc. of Hillsboro, Ore.
Franklin Electrric has agreed to pay $25.7 million in an all cash transaction to gain 100 percent of Cerus’ outstanding stocks. Cerus, which designs, manufactures and distributes motor controls, motor starts, contractors, protection devices and variable frequency drives, made about $14 million in sales in 2011.

Wells names new economic director
Tim Ehlerding became the executive director of Wells County Economic Development Corp. on Monday.
Ehlerding, who is replacing Mike row, has previously worked as the director of business development at the construction firm Michael Kinder and Sons Inc., Fort Wayne, and a building program manager and capital campaign manager for Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne.
An Angola native, he has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Purdue University.
CVS earnings rise
CVS Caremark, Corp. saw its second-quarter earnings rise 18% from last quarter. The chain, which has branches at 802 N. Meridian St. in Portland and 1130 S. Main St. in Dunkirk, raised its full-year adjusted earnings guidance for the third time this year to include the pharmacy business that has been driven away from Walgreen Co. and to CVS. Walgreen Co. had left pharmacy-benefits manager Express Scripts Holding Co., due to contract disputes at the beginning of the year, causing its customers to find a pharmacy elsewhere.
Walgreen Co., which has a branch at 124 W. Votaw St. in Portland, has since resolved its differences with Express, but CVS still expects to keep about 50 percent of the business that they picked up from Walgreen’s during the dispute.

McDonald’s sees sales dip
The global sales figure for McDonald’s Corp. dipped in July, giving the chain its worst showing in nine years. McDonald’s, which has a branch at 618 N. Meridian St. in Portland, hadn’t seen a global sales dip since April 2003. The figures had grown each year since then, even through the recession.

Improving
The home sales market for this corner of the state is improving, according to the Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly.
 The months’ supply of inventory in the MLS area, which includes Adams, Allen, Huntington, Jay, Wells and Whitley counties, was at 7.6 months in June, down from 9.2 months a year ago. Five to six months of inventory is considered a balanced market; above that, the advantage is to buyers and below that, it’s a seller’s market, the weekly reported.

In the 12-county Business Weekly coverage area, closed sales for the first half of the year were up in Allen, DeKalb, Elkhart, Kosciusko, Noble, Steuben, Wabash, Wells and Whitley counties from the same period in 2011; and down in Adams, Huntington and LaGrange counties.  Steuben County showed one of the most impressive gains, with closed sales up 18.9 percent and median prices up 26.6 percent.

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