Multicultural Diversity Symposium

The Western Pennsylvania Diversity Initiative hosted a workshop this morning at the City-County Building to provide guidelines on how to communicate successfully in the ever more common multicultural workplace.

Linda Stucky is president of ClearlySpeaking, employed by corporations to work one-on-one with non-native employees. She says native speakers have more than a passive role to play and can enhance understanding with compassion and patience.

People coming here to work or study are dealing not only with a new language, but with cultural differences, says Stucky.

Helping non-native speakers encompasses the rhythm, rate and melody of English, says Stucky, as well as pronunciation of sounds and overcoming accents that are hard to understand.

The goal of the Western Pennsylvania Diversity Initiative is to attract, retain and hire a diverse workforce.

Private Sector Disaster Preparedness

The University of Pittsburgh is hosting a lecture today on disaster preparedness for businesses, nonprofits and other institutions.

Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Foundation President Brent Woodworth is an organizer for several disaster responses such as the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995, the September 11 World Trade Center attack, and Hurricane Katrina.

Woodworth says he hopes to share several ideas to improve Pittsburgh’s disaster resiliency, which includes increasing communication and cooperation between city government and private sector entities.

He says for example, although Starbucks usually charges for its wireless Internet service in Southern California, the company allows free access in times of emergency.

Technology is always improving, says Woodworth, and keeping up-to-date with communication systems is also very important for a disaster response.

The talk, titled “Metropolitan Regions at Risk: The Role and Responsibility of the Private Sector in Disaster Risk Reduction,” is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. at Pitt’s Posvar Hall.

Pittsburgh Hosts Eurasians for Business Conference

The City of Pittsburgh is hosting 18 executives and professionals from many former Soviet satellite nations as part of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s "Special American Business Internship Training" (SABIT) Program. Each year the Commerce Department selects cities to host these delegates, and Philip Cynar, spokesman for the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, says this time Pittsburgh was picked for its global attention the past couple of years.

President of the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce Barbara McNees says Pittsburgh was a good choice “because of the [city’s] economic transformation story,” along with “similarities to these countries being industrial and having to make some transformation around their economy.”

The SABIT program builds relationships between foreign not-for-profit businessmen and helps teach American business and management practices.

“What they are really looking for from us is to hear about our public/private partnership, how we put our organization together, how we function,” McNees says. “They’re really looking at organization structure so that they can go back to their communities as business leaders and make that model work for them.”

As part of the trip, delegates from Armenia, Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Ukraine also met in Washington, D.C. and Raleigh. The delegates arrived in Pittsburgh yesterday and remain until Thursday. McNees says they will learn business practices from the Pittsburgh Executives Association, Allegheny Conference on Community Development, the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, and the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance.

Seminar in Preparation of G20 Trade Expo

A small business development organization is giving local businesses the opportunity to meet representatives from G20 countries. Mary McKinney, Director of the Duquesne University Small Business Development Center, says business owners can learn whether there products are appropriate to export elsewhere, and if so, learn how to do it. She says there are also opportunities for businesses that already actively export goods. An information seminar will be held on August 6 at 9:00 AM at Rockwell Hall on the Duquesne campus for more information about the expo, which takes place on September 22. McKinney says it's a great opportunity to establish long-term ties with other countries.

Mayor Ravenstahl Meets With President Of The Slovak Republic

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl met today with Ivan Gasparovic, President of the Slovak Republic. The President was hosted by U.S. Steel, which does business in Slovakia. They met to discuss the Visa waiver program that would enable trade between Slovakia and the U.S. to move faster. U.S. Steel officials cited an instance where it took 3 months before they could ship their products back to the U.S.

2 Grants awarded to College Students

The Pennsylvania Assistive Technology Commercialization Initiative or PATCI (Pat-Key) is a grant program run by the Technology Collaborative as a way to fund new start up companies run by College students. The two part grant program focuses on Quality of Life and assisted living technologies. Two Student Teams, one from Penn State Main Campus and Lehigh University received $30,000 grants to fund their new companies.
The Lehigh University team is developing a product that will make it easier for elderly people to plug and unplug appliances with the help of magnets.
The Penn State team is developing a Wireless Sensor Network for health care Facilities. For example, if a nursing home patient who needs monitoring leaves their room the nurses would be alerted to that.
The first part of the grant system gives money to teams to develop their ideas, and the second part delivers a $30,000 dollar grant to implement and start to manufacture the product. Nine teams took part in the first stage of the project with only 3 teams applying for the second stage of the grant.

Lockheed Martin to create 135 jobs in Johnstown

Lockheed Martin announced it will be bringing a supply chain business from Greenville, South Carolina to Johnstown starting in September. The Supply Chain will be located across the street from the existing Lockheed Martin AeroParts inc. The relocation will occur over a three month period ending in November. The supply chain business will bring an expected 135 jobs to the region with an average salary of $60,000.

Heinz Sets Sustainability Goal

Pittsburgh-based Heinz says its greenhouse gas emissions will drop 20 percent by 2015. The company announced several initiatives it's pursuing to reduce energy consumption, water usage, transportation and waste. At an Oregon facility, the company plans to convert potato peels from Ore-ida products into biofuel. Spokesman Michael Mullen says this would be the first time potato peels would be converted into energy. Heinz believes it could eventually generate enough energy to heat 4,000 Oregon homes during the winter.

Other initiatives include using more eco-friendly packaging in Heinz's Boston Market product line, and lighter-weight aluminum cans. Heinz also wants to grow tomatoes in new locations like China, Egypt and eastern Europe in order to lessen the number of miles the company needs to travel to ship tomato paste to its customers.

Pittsburgh May Get New Sister City

What began as a series of trade missions to Mexico may lead to a new sister city relationship for Pittsburgh. A group of volunteers is working on building the relationship with Aguascalientes, a fast-growing industrial center in central Mexico. The sister city effort evolved from a grant Duquesne University received last year to promote trade between the Pittsburgh region and Mexico. Volunteers with the sister city group will have a display table at the Pittsburgh Folk Festival at the convention center this weekend. A similar group is simultaneously displaying information about Pittsburgh at the annual St. Marcos Festival in Aguascalientes.

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh businesses are preparing to leave Monday for their second trade mission to Aguascalientes and Jalisco, Mexico. Participating businesses include those in the tool and die, medical devices, and software industries.

Brent Rondon with Duquesne University's Small Business Development Center says the sister city relationship would help foster business, educational and cultural ties. Pittsburgh does not yet have a sister city in Mexico. Rondon hopes the relationship can be formalized by sometime next year.

Bill Would Encourage Brownfield Redevelopment

House Bill 2353 or the "Business in Our Sites" program has been passed by the State House and moved to the State Senate where it awaits approval. The bill would increase spending by 100 million dollars. Representative Vince Biancucci, who sponsors the bill, says the program has improved the state economy. The program encourages redevelopment of current brownfield sites by providing grants to interested businesses. Biancucci says 27 firms are currently waiting for a decision on their grant requests. He believes Governor Ed Rendell would sign the bill because the "Business in our Sites" program was part of his initial economic stimulus package.

Alcoa May Create Aluminum Industry in Greenland

Pittsburgh-based Alcoa may expand into Greenland. Talks with Greenland's government began last year on building an aluminum smelter in their country. Now, Greenland's Parliament has agreed to enter the second phase of studies on the project.

Greenland is attractive to Alcoa because of its potential for hydroelectric power. A company spokesman says Alcoa is looking to expand to other countries as the worldwide demand for aluminum continues to rise. Greenland currently does not have an aluminum industry.

Alcoa has narrowed its focus in Greenland to the rural town of Maniitsoq. The company will study the feasibility of locating a smelter and hydroelectric power plant there, as well as the potential environmental, economic and social impacts of this kind of project. A similar project in Iceland has divided residents there. Some say it's providing economic benefits to the country; others say it's destroying what had been pristine land.

Alcoa Foundation Awards $1.2 million

The Alcoa Foundation has awarded $!.2 million to three Pittsburgh non-profits, bringing its total for the past five years in Allegheny County to $11 million.

$600,000 goes to the August Wilson Center for African American Culture now under construction downtown. The grant will be used for permanent exhibits and for the currently touring exhibit of Teenie Harris photos with an accompanying dance performance--both will wind up at the center's opening in 2009.

The Carnegie Library will put its $400,000 toward improving childrens' sections in several branches and for renovations and new construction on the North Side and in the Hill District.

$200,000 will be used by the Children's Institute to study the feasibility of an "Environmental Pediatric Room" --a "clean room" with reduced toxins and exposures. Autistic children would live there for a few weeks to a few months. Friends and family could go in and out, enjoying the clean air, water and organic food in a beautiful setting. Dr. Scott Faber said the hope is the children would undergo biomedical change in that environment, especially de-toxifying chemicals and heavy metals in their bodies. There could be improvements in the immune system, language and socialization, along with a decrease in repetitive behavior patterns.

American Eagle Tries to Woo Students

American Eagle Outfitters is trying to convince young people that Pittsburgh has good jobs for them. The company is opening its South Side headquarters to students from North Allegheny High School tomorrow to let them have a peek at what it's like to work there. It's in cooperation with the Pittsburgh Regional Compact, an initiative to connect employers with workers of the future. The Compact is run by the Allegheny Conference on Community Development.

Paul Leger, the Conference's Senior Vice President for Workforce Development, says tomorrow's visit will hopefully get the message across that American Eagle doesn't just need retail workers; there's a lot more to the company, including accounting, marketing and information technology. He says students who like what they see at American Eagle will get a better idea of what they need to study in order to work there.

Leger says the Pittsburgh Regional Compact wants to work with other businesses willing to let high school students come in for a tour. The Compact is hoping to connect 3,000 students with local workplaces this year.