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   Maryland Companies Exchange Views on the Current Meltdown
Top Area Leaders Suggest Seizing Opportunity in Down Market

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 Over 200 Maryland executives came together at Baltimore’s Museum of Industry to hear various perspectives on “What’s Next?,” how business can survive during the current economic crisis.  The unique RMI forum brought together leaders from government, academia, labor and business to discuss their views on how companies should respond to the current economic meltdown. 

“This is a time to get back to basics, lean your operations and conserve cash,” said Aris Melissaratos, Senior Advisor to the President at the Johns Hopkins Enterprise Development Office.  Melissaratos provided unique insights based on his 30 years of private sector leadership with Westinghouse and Thermo Electron, Inc and most recently as the chief commerce czar for the State of Maryland.  He advised firms to take this time to get positioned for the next wave.  “With every crisis, there is an opportunity,” he said.

With 30 million Americans unemployed and as corporate giants like AIG, Bear Stearns, Wachovia, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Ford, Chrysler and General Motors facing potential bankruptcy its been difficult to see anything but gloom and doom.  “We engaged over 10 Maryland trade groups and brought some great leaders together to help us think about what we can do during this turbulent time,” said Mike Galiazzo, Executive Director of the Regional Manufacturing Institute (RMI) and organizer of the forum.  “I know that RMI’s small to medium-sized manufacturers are hurting and hearing from these leaders helped to shed some light on what they can do to get through this.

There were a few bright spots and good role models.  “We’re actually enjoying 300% growth in profitability this year,” said Drew Greenblatt, President of Marlin Steel Wire Products.  The small Baltimore city based-firm, provides precision steel wire baskets for major multinational factory operations.  “We’ve taken nothing for granted as we’ve gone to every vendor and asked for discounts,” said Greenblatt.  “We’ve also cranked up advertising campaign,” he said.  “Now is the time to get positioned for the next wave,” he said.  It seems to be paying off.  Meanwhile, Greenblatt is buying more technology and conserving cash and weather storm.

Lion Brothers, a Baltimore County manufacturer also seems to be better adjusted that most.  “We’ve always taken a tight balance sheet approach, which has kept us well positioned for ups and downs in the economy,” said Susan Ganz, President of Lion Brothers.  Lion Brothers has taken the opportunity to adapt their technology approach from large users to smaller ones allowing them to stay nimble and relevant.  “We’re in a position to take some tactical approaches involving R&D acceleration and new patents to help clients,” she said.  “This helps us further bond with our clients and help reduce their pain during the down swing,” said Ganz.

The bright spots were tempered by the workforce knowledge gap lying ahead.  “We know that a key factor in America’s future success will be its comparative knowledge advantage,” said Yash Gupta, Dean of the Carey School of Business at Hopkins.   There was a lively discussion about America losing its knowledge advantage as American schools continue to demonstrate mediocre performance compared to our competitors.  “We’re going to higher 1500 workers over the next two years,” said Chris Foster, Director of Strategic Partnerships with Northrop Grumman.  These jobs will go to those with advanced degrees to provide high end value to our firm,” he said.

Gupta feels that these kind of high end jobs are critical to America’s future, but we are not prepared.  “There are three ingredients to our future success: 1) smart people; diverse views and networks,” said Gupta.  “Unfortunately, we will continue to feel the pinch on finding the high end workers for tomorrow’s knowledge economy,” said Gupta.  “And that is a big problem for America,” he said.

Others taking part of the discussion included U.S. Congressman John Sarbanes, Laura Gamble, President of the Maryland branch of  Bank of America, Bob Caret, President of  Towson University, Jay Hancock, columnist with The Baltimore Sun and Augie Chiasera, President of Greater Baltimore at M&T Bank.

Melissaratos just is coming out with a new book on how America can better compete in the 21^st Century.  He provided some guidance to the incoming Obama Administration, emphasizing that the U.S. must do a better job of coordinating its research and development investments within U.S. agencies.  “We need to be on the higher end of the supply chain and do a better job of commercializing technologies coming out of our research labs,” he said.  Melissaratos is critical of federal agencies like NIH and DOD which are silo-based and their lack of coordination is hampering U.S. productivity by a lack of integration and shared information.  “It’s critical for our future.  We need partnerships with agencies to provide new growth for new markets,” said Melissaratos