LOCAL BUSINESS
Jo-Ann to open 800th store
Hudson-based Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores will be opening its 800th store on Thursday.
The store in Slidell, La., will join eight other stores across the country with openings this week, including Couer d’Alene, Idaho; Corbin, Ky.; Louisville, Ky.; Muscatine, Iowa; Red Wing, Minn.; St. Louis; Sault Sainte Marie, Mich.; and Selinsgrove, Pa.
“Reaching our 800th store is a testament to the hard work of Jo-Ann team members around the country, our customers’ passion for crafting and sewing, and their appreciation of our retail concept as a one-stop creative destination,” said Travis Smith, chief executive officer and president for Jo-Ann, in a prepared statement.
Free energy seminar
Large businesses served by Ohio Edison, Toledo Edison and The Illuminating Co. are invited to a free educational seminar about saving money through electric choice and planning for upcoming capacity price changes.
The events are being offered by FirstEnergy Solutions, a subsidiary of Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. and an electric generation supplier.
The events will be held from 8-11 a.m. April 10 at the Hilton Garden Inn, Toledo-Perrysburg in Perrysburg, April 11 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Akron-Fairlawn and April 17 at FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland.
To register, go online to www.fes.com/summit or call 330-315-6939.
GOJO again sponsors jet-cars
Akron-based GOJO Industries said it was again the title sponsor for the Hanna Motorsports jet-car drag racing team.
“The involvement of GOJO in motorsports underscores our longtime relationship with people who work on automobiles as professionals or as do-it-yourselfers,” the company said.
Hanna Motorsports races a three-car team of jet dragsters, including the GOJO Firebird. It holds the world speed and elapsed time records for jet funny cars, with a quarter-mile best of 5.42 seconds and 296 mph.
Oil, gas event in Massillon
The Stark County Oil and Gas Partnership will host “Choose Stark” from 1 to 6 p.m. Thursday at the Knights of Columbus Hall, 988 Cherry Road NW, Massillon.
The event will offer a forum from 1 to 4 p.m. and a networking reception from 4 to 6.
Choose Stark will focus on how oil and gas industry firms known as midstream entities and subcontractors are targeted.
Cost is $49 for members, $59 for nonmembers and $100 for membership and a ticket. Sponsorships are available at $200 and $400.
For more information, call 330-451-6207 or go online to www.choosestark.com.
Picketing at Northfield
Union workers from the Akron area picketed Monday morning outside Northfield Park horse track to protest the construction of the new Hard Rock Rocksino Northfield Park.
Jeff Hathaway, business manager with Plasterers’ and Cement Masons’ Union Local 109, said local union workers are not being used on the project. Laborers’ International Union Local 894 and International Union of Operating Engineers Local 18 also joined the protest, he said.
Hathaway said the unions will continue the protest each morning and urged its members to visit the Thistledown racino in North Randall instead of the Hard Rock facility.
Gilbane, the general contractor, declined comment.
New contract for B&W
Babcock & Wilcox Co. said its Power Generation Group received a contract for a desulfurization system for a 270-megawatt coal-fired station for Interstate Power and Light Co. in Lansing, Iowa. The dollar value was not disclosed.
wall street
Dow drops 62 points
The Dow Jones industrial average closed Monday at 14,452.06, down 62.05 points, or 0.4 percent, with Boeing Co. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. leading the losses that included all but eight of its 30 components.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index shed 8.06 points, or 0.6 percent, to 1,552.10. Financial companies led declines among the index’s 10 industry sectors, while telecommunications was the best performer.
J.C. Penney Co. Inc. shares rallied after upbeat comments from an Oppenheimer analyst and as an analyst at ISI Group said the retailer could transform its 300 stores into something akin to a real-estate investment trust that could lease space to others.
The Nasdaq composite fell 11.48 points, or 0.4 percent, to 3,237.59.
Global markets were jolted by news that Cyprus will receive $12.9 billion of financial aid but with heavy conditions.
Compiled from staff and wire reports.