LOCAL BUSINESS
Pearce Engineering joins GPD
Akron engineering and architectural firm GPD Group has acquired an Akron-based electrical engineering firm.
Pearce Engineering and its three employees have joined GPD, allowing the company to broaden its electrical engineering service capabilities, the company said.
Pearce provides professional services for power transmission and distribution systems for municipal power organizations, private utilities, commercial and industrial clients.
Privately held GPD, headquartered in Akron, employs 440 people, with offices in Cleveland, Columbus, Marion, Youngstown, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Louisville, Phoenix and Seattle.
B&W vice president to retire
Mary Pat Salomone, Babcock & Wilcox Co. senior vice president and chief operating officer, will retire at the end of June after 31 years with the company, the Charlotte-based energy technology and manufacturing company announced Monday.
Salomone is a graduate of Youngstown State University and held top leadership posts at Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group in Barberton and at B&W Nuclear Operations Group. She was president and chief executive officer of Marine Mechanical Operation when B&W bought the company in 2007.
She will continue as CEO of Nuclear Production Partners, a joint venture of B&W and the U.S. Dept. of Energy that manages the Y-12 National Security Complex and Pantex Plant.
Area Fortune 500 members
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. is ranked 137th on this year’s Fortune 500 list of the nation’s largest corporations.
The Akron tire maker is the largest company ranked by revenue in Northeast Ohio and the seventh largest in Ohio, according to the May 20 edition of the magazine. Goodyear had $21 billion in revenue in 2012; the company was ranked at 126 a year ago.
Ohio’s largest corporation by revenue is Cardinal Health; the Dublin firm is ranked 19th largest in the nation with $107.6 billion in revenue last year.
FirstEnergy Corp. in Akron is ranked 181st overall with $15.3 billion in revenue; J.M. Smucker Co. in Orrville is ranked at 452 with $5.5 billion in revenue; and the Timken Co. in Canton is 493rd nationally with $5 billion in revenue.
Wal-Mart Stores took the top spot nationally with $469.2 billion in revenue, followed by Exxon Mobil at $449.9 billion.
MEDIA
Paying for YouTube?
YouTube this week will announce a plan to let some video makers charge a monthly subscription, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed sources.
The overwhelming majority of videos on YouTube, a unit of Google, will remain free, but the plan will let the company’s partners try out a second source of revenue, analogous to the flexible pay walls that some newspapers and magazines have adopted.
There will be subscription channels for children’s programming, entertainment, music and many other topic areas. Some channels will cost as little as $1.99 a month.
These won’t be channels in the television sense of the term; rather, they will consist of libraries of videos on demand, much like the thousands of free channels already on YouTube. Some of the video makers who have worked with YouTube on the subscription option want to convert existing fans to paying customers; others hope to distinguish themselves by selling archives of old TV episodes.
MANAGEMENT
Wendy’s gets CFO
Wendy’s Co. named a former Kellogg’s snacks division chief as the fast-food chain’s chief financial officer. Todd Penegor, 47, will join Wendy’s in June and will succeed Steve Hare as senior vice president and chief financial officer on Sept. 1. Penegor most recently was president of the Kellogg Co.’s U.S. snacks division. Hare will retire after five years with the company. He plans to provide consulting services to Wendy’s through the end of the year.
COLLEGES
More tuition discounts
Private nonprofit colleges are offering students tuition discounts of 45 percent, on average, in response to a changing financial environment that stems from the weak economic recovery.
Price reductions, designed to boost attendance, were at an all-time high in 2012 and outpaced the rate during the recession, according to a study of 383 private, nonprofit four-year schools, released by the National Association of College and University Business Officers. More than 50 percent of schools responding to the study suffered a loss or maintained freshman enrollment between the fall of 2011 to the next year.
Compiled from staff and wire reports.