Business

Skipping Past the “Helicopter in Every Garage” Phase

By Carroll Andrew Morse | May 27, 2008 |

Jay Fitzgerald of the Boston Herald reports on a long-shot but interesting economic development project for Rhode Island…Woburn’s Terrafugia Inc. hopes its futuristic car-plane business takes off in Massachusetts. The maker of the hybrid car-plane contraption – which theoretically will both drive on roads and soar through the sky – plans to meet with officials…

The Con-Victim’s Choice

By Justin Katz | May 4, 2008 |

Even conservatives may have difficulty finding fault with this The Federal Reserve Board moved yesterday to place new regulations on the nation’s credit card industry that would make it more difficult for lenders to raise interest rates and give consumers more time to pay their bills. If enacted, the regulations would be the most sweeping…

The Cost of War

By Justin Katz | April 16, 2008 |

I know there’s no direct connection, but I couldn’t help but think of those complaints about the cost of the Iraq war to the state when I read this bit of rare positive news: A California aerospace company is scouting locations in Rhode Island in order to open a facility to build armored boats by…

Wanted: Everything You Aren’t, for Nothing You Understand

By Justin Katz | February 21, 2008 |

Just to see what’s going on out there, I ran a Monster.com job search for the first time in years. I had forgotten how completely unqualified the ads can make you feel. That seems to be the result when corporate HR departments are given more twenty words to describe a job opening. A made-up example:…

We’ve Gotta Talk

By Justin Katz | January 25, 2008 |

Mark Patinkin makes a reasonable point — one that is often leveled in an accusatory tone at conservatives: Stanley O’Neal, the ex-head of Merrill Lynch, was booted for losing billions betting on the garbage now known as sub-prime loans. His punishment? An estimated $161-million sendoff package. The issue isn’t even that he didn’t deserve it,…

Is There More to this Providence Fruit Building Thing?

By Marc Comtois | January 17, 2008 |

As an admitted antiquarian, I’ve never met an old building I didn’t think should be preserved and re-used. But that’s just me and I recognize that–beauty being in the eye of beholder–not everyone thinks that the Providence Fruit and Produce Company Warehouse (more here) was worth preserving, restoring or reconfiguring. OK, fine. But what troubled…

What a Career Ought to Be

By Justin Katz | December 24, 2007 |

“A hobby that got out of hand.” That’s what Ron Voake, of Norwich, a Vermonter of the old sort, says regarding his booming business as a wooden toy maker: Mr. Voake, the owner of Vermont Wooden Toys, has been deluged with orders from customers leery of buying toys made in China after millions of toys…

The Dream Interferes with the Life

By Justin Katz | December 7, 2007 |

On Dan Yorke a few minutes ago, Trisha Smith — the controversial owner of the Post & Naughty store in Portsmouth, whose landlord is threatening to cancel her lease if she doesn’t stop courting customers outside her store, as it were — mentioned that she has lost her day job. (The company owner, as it…

To Build Hi-Tech Businesses, You Need a Middle Class

By Carroll Andrew Morse | February 15, 2007 |

Natalie Myers has an interesting article in this week’s Providence Business News about some local business leaders hoping that hi-tech modeling and simulation becomes a boom industry in Rhode Island…Steve Swenson stands next to a plasma screen showing an unmanned air vehicle landing on an unmanned boat while skimming the ocean’s surface. The images are…

Rhode Islander Nails Popular Science Award

By Marc Comtois | November 28, 2006 |

Heather M. Lightner in the Jamestown Press: Every year the editors of Popular Science review thousands of new products and technologies in order to find 100 breakthroughs in 10 different categories: automotive, computing, gadgets, home entertainment, personal health, aviation and space, engineering, home, recreation, and general innovation. This year, in addition to the “Best of…