Improving Performance
It was a beautiful day flying from Minneapolis to Boston. I had landed at Logan Airport about 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. No problem, this was back in the early ‘90s, when I worked for Digital Equipment. I walked to…
News
Banks build success on customer relationships
In an age of massive mergers and acquisitions, it is more important than ever to identify a banking partner with the optimal mixture of tradition and community customer relations. Hallmark to our business climate in New Hampshire, providing insightful customer…
Open For Business
In the western New Hampshire city of Claremont, where City Hall sits inside the local opera house, the course of local politics has not always been harmonious. In one recent year, 2001, the city council had fired four city managers…
Norton On Real Estate
I was recently enjoying one of my favorite pastimes (hint — it has 18 “elements,” involves walking and takes about four hours). I was with a banker, a trust officer and an import-export broker. The latter asked me where I…
Health insurance bill kills community rating
After a 90-minute floor debate, the New Hampshire House earlier this month voted 280-89 to pass Senate Bill 125, a measure pushed by Gov. John Lynch that undoes most of the touted reforms of SB 110, a measure that has…
Small businesses can benefit from fraud examination
It may be difficult for the small-business owner to identify with the huge dollar amounts of fraud recently uncovered at such companies as WorldCom, Enron and Tyco, just to name a few. It may even be more difficult to believe…
SBA fills in funding gap for Nashua start-up
It took 2-1/2 years and nine different banks before Christine Pedzik got her small-business loan. “After the eighth try, I was almost about to give up,” said Pedzik, 40, of New Boston. But thanks to the New Hampshire office of…
NLRB changes its mind about non-union Weingarten rights
In June 2004, the National Labor Relations Board overruled its 2000 decision in Epilepsy Foundation of Northeast Ohio and held that employees not represented by a union are not entitled to the presence of a co-worker during investigative meetings/interviews that…
Can your business protect the data it collects?
There recently have been many disturbing data security breaches. Some have been high-tech (transaction data intercepted in the payment system) and some have been amazingly low-tech (laptops and tapes were stolen; rogue employees sold protected information). But one thing is…
When less is more: enforcing non-compete agreements
In May, the New Hampshire Supreme Court issued a decision in Merrimack Valley Wood Products Inc. v. Near, a case that served to further define when non-competition agreements are enforceable under New Hampshire law. Past court decisions have established under…
