Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length

BYLINE: By MICKEY MEECE
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; PRATICALLY SPEAKING; Pg. 4
LENGTH: 903 words
A SMALL company in Jacksonville, Fla., came up with a novel -- and sensitive -- solution when two crucial employees had trouble making the commute to its new headquarters across town.

As Derek Mercer, the founder and chief executive of the company, Vurv Technology, tells it, the employees' supervisor came to him with the suggestion that the company buy two good used cars and give them to the workers outright.

Mr. Mercer said he agreed, and immediately approved the $5,000 expenditure for each car.

Seven years later, the two employees, Tim Gunter and Renee Richmond, are still with Vurv, a developer of human resources software. The company itself has grown from about two dozen employees in those days to about 300 and is now in yet another building.

In looking at the alternative, Mr. Mercer said, it would have cost the company more than the nearly $10,000 it paid for the automobiles to find and train replacements, not to mention the ground it would have lost with customers.

''I felt that they were good employees and responsive to the customers,'' Mr. Mercer said, and thus a valuable asset to the company.

Mr. Gunter, who helped clients with software issues, said he was barely six months on the job at Vurv when the family car broke down. He had to ask a neighbor for a ride to work that day, and he feared his new job was at risk.

That same day, Vurv bought him the used car.

''It wasn't the nicest car,'' he said. ''It wasn't the prettiest car. It wasn't fresh off the lot with new-car smell. But boy, did my overwhelming feeling of dread go from that to enlightenment. This is what this company is about. This is what Derek is about.''

At that point, Mr. Gunter said: ''I was just hooked. The 80-hour weeks we worked after that never meant anything. It was give and take. I was giving and the company was definitely giving back.''

Ms. Richmond, who helped companies deploy Vurv's software, was a single mother of two in 2000. Her Chevrolet Cavalier, with 270,000 miles on it, ''finally took its last breath,'' she recalled. ''I lived 45 miles away from the office, so I had quite a hike back and forth.''

Her supervisor, who is no longer with the company, and Mr. Mercer knew of her troubles, she said, and at her annual evaluation offered to buy her a car instead of giving her a $3,000 raise. They also helped her find the right car, a Diamanti, and paid $4,500 for it, she said. She told them to work out an installment so she could pay the difference. They never did.

And then she got a second pleasant surprise: her raise started showing up in her paycheck as well.

''A company that takes care of their employees,'' Ms. Richmond said, ''it definitely is returned to them tenfold because their employees are going to take care of them and do a good job.''

Creativity and sensitivity meshed with good business sense at Vurv, and that is a crucial aspect of problem solving, according to Glenn Okun, clinical professor of management and entrepreneurship at the Stern School of Business at New York University. ''Entrepreneurs must remember that resources have costs that must be borne by the firm,'' he said.

Small-business owners should approach such instances analytically, Professor Okun said, examining risk and opportunity. Act as if you are a third party interested in financing your own company, he suggested, and then decide how to proceed.

Especially now, when economic times are tough, Professor Okun said, business owners will have to weigh unexpected outlays against the knowledge there will be potentially less revenue coming in and less credit extended by lenders and investors to smooth rough patches. In this environment, he said, ''problems get magnified, even if the firm is solid.''

The solution at Vurv was a balancing act of trying to help employees while not hurting the bottom line.

The same was true for the Transtec Group in Austin, Tex., which helps public and private agencies in street, highway, airfield and seaport projects. Dan K. Rozycki, its president, recalled what happened when an employee had to get out of her apartment after a relationship broke up. ''In a matter of days,'' Mr. Rozycki said, ''we helped her find a new apartment and we furnished the whole place from sofa to spatula.''

The company has done so many things for employees, he said, that ''it's hard to remember stuff we've done over the years.''

''When you're small and flexible and put co-workers first,'' he said, ''stuff just happens, but nobody records it or thinks it's that shocking.''

When another employee had serious personal problems, he said, the company offered and paid for the professional therapy.

And when a new employee from China needed to learn how to drive, colleagues took him for driving lessons and helped him shop for a car.

In addition, he said, over the years, the company has learned how to avoid common pitfalls that could fester as problems. Asking for raises is often tricky for employees and employers, Mr. Rozycki said, ''so we give out raises every Jan. 1 to everyone.'' No one has complained in the last seven years, he said.

As to industry conferences, he said, the company decided to invite every one rather than select a few so that no one felt left out.

''What it really comes down to,'' he said, ''is we're trying to create the ultimate workplace. We believe you can do the right thing and be profitable.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: ELECTRONIC HUMAN RESOURCES (78%); HUMAN RESOURCES (78%); BUSINESS SOFTWARE (55%); SINGLE PARENTS (50%)
GEOGRAPHIC: JACKSONVILLE, FL, USA (90%) FLORIDA, USA (90%) UNITED STATES (90%)
LOAD-DATE: April 3, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: When Renee Richmond had trouble commuting to Vurv Technology's new headquarters, the company bought her a car. (PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS LIVINGSTON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

913 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
April 2, 2008 Wednesday

Late Edition - Final

Paid Notice: Deaths PARKER, FRANK L., III
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Classified; Pg. 25
LENGTH: 151 words
PARKER--Frank L., III, of Rye, New York, died March 30 in Stamford, CT. He was 54 years old. The cause of death was heart attack. Mr. Parker was a graduate of Northfield Mount Hermon School and Denison University. Mr. Parker was an entrepreneur, starting a refillable custom glass bottled spring water business in New York and California. He was the president of So Clear Beverages LLC which also markets and distributes artisinal snack foods from Maine. Prior to that, he was an Anheuser Busch wholesaler in Bronx and New York counties. He is survived by his wife, Anna, and his daughters, Emily and Sarah, who loved him deeply and will miss him greatly. Calling hours at the Graham Funeral Home, Rye, Wednesday between 4-8pm. Mass of Christian Burial, Church of the Resurrection, Rye, Thursday 10:00am. Donations to Denison University Alumni Memorial Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 716, Granville, OH 43023
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: DEATHS & OBITUARIES (92%); STUDENTS & STUDENT LIFE (88%); WHOLESALERS (87%); BOTTLED WATER (87%); BEVERAGE PRODUCTS (87%); SCHOLARSHIPS & GRANTS (71%); SNACK FOOD INDUSTRY (69%); ALUMNI (65%)
COMPANY: ANHEUSER-BUSCH COS INC (58%)
TICKER: BUD (NYSE) (58%); BUD (PAR) (58%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS332431 METAL CAN MANUFACTURING (58%); NAICS327213 GLASS CONTAINER MANUFACTURING (58%); NAICS312120 BREWERIES (58%); NAICS111199 ALL OTHER GRAIN FARMING (58%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (79%) NEW YORK, USA (94%); CONNECTICUT, USA (88%); CALIFORNIA, USA (87%) UNITED STATES (94%)
LOAD-DATE: April 2, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Paid Death Notice
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

914 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
April 2, 2008 Wednesday

Late Edition - Final

NBC to Revive a Mainstay of Early TV
BYLINE: By STUART ELLIOTT
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; ADVERTISING; Pg. 7
LENGTH: 1090 words
AS NBC looks to the future of its prime-time programming -- shifting to a 52-week schedule from a calendar that runs from September through May -- the network is borrowing a page from the past in asking advertisers to become involved sponsors of shows.

At a presentation on Wednesday afternoon, senior executives of NBC, part of the NBC Universal unit of General Electric, will describe how they are seeking to make advertisers into long-term partners rather than just sell them 30-second commercials.

One example is a new deal with the Liberty Mutual Group insurance company that is centered on a pair of two-hour TV movies to be broadcast under the banner of the company -- ''Liberty Mutual Presents,'' for example.

The movie plots are intended to complement a campaign for Liberty Mutual that was introduced in 2006 by Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos in Boston, which carries the theme, ''Responsibility. What's your policy?'' The scripts, which Liberty Mutual will help develop, will discuss subjects like taking responsibility for one's actions and deciding how to do the right thing.

NBC Universal will promote the movies on its various networks and Web sites as well as during NBC's coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics and on Election Day in November. Liberty Mutual will advertise them, too.

The first movie, called ''Kings,'' is likely to appear in early September, said Stephen G. Sullivan, senior vice president for communications at Liberty Mutual in Boston, and the second, still not titled, will probably be shown in early 2009.

Mr. Sullivan described ''Kings'' as a ''fast-paced, contemporary drama, kind of like 'The West Wing' set in a kingdom,'' and inspired by the biblical story of David.

''Kings'' is a pilot for a potential series, meaning that its performance in the ratings and with critics will help determine if it joins the NBC schedule with regular episodes. The cast will include Ian McShane, perhaps best known as the profane Al Swearengen on the HBO series ''Deadwood,'' and a young Australian actor, Christopher Egan.

If the network decides to order episodes of ''Kings,'' Liberty Mutual will have 30 days to exercise a right of first refusal to become ''the key partner in the series,'' said Michael Sheehan, chief executive at Hill, Holliday, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

The sponsorship agreement, for undisclosed terms, will extend from NBC to a sibling cable network, USA. It will also include Web sites like nbc.com; hulu.com, the video Web site that is a joint venture between NBC and the Fox Broadcasting unit of the News Corporation; and a Liberty Mutual site (responsibilityproject.com).

The Liberty Mutual site serves as a showcase for the campaign and is also home to short video films, most of them made for Liberty Mutual, that computer users can watch.

''The networks are beginning to understand they have to work with advertisers in new ways,'' Mr. Sullivan said.

''This is not an overt product sell,'' he added, comparing sponsorship with an advertiser's traditional tack of buying commercials in a spate of unrelated shows, ''because you've got the media content closely aligned with our brand.''

Branded entertainment efforts were a mainstay of TV in its early days -- and of network radio before that. Series were developed jointly by advertisers and agencies and brought to the networks, which frequently named them after the sponsors.

Thus, NBC once offered programs like ''Colgate Comedy Hour,'' ''Kraft Television Theater,'' ''Philco Television Playhouse'' and ''Dinah Shore Chevy Show.''

''We're going backward, 100 percent,'' Ben Silverman, co-chairman at the NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios divisions of NBC Universal, said, laughing.

''The 30-second spot is still very relevant, very valuable,'' he added, ''but this deal with Liberty Mutual is the centerpiece of the kind of deals we want to make going forward.''

''Digital manipulation, whether it's called TiVo or the ability to fast-forward through commercials, is one of the driving factors behind the need to rethink our relationships with advertisers,'' said Mr. Silverman, who will be among the NBC Universal executives at the presentation.

Advertisers, ''by underwriting programming'' as sponsors, he added, can ''help to deliver better-value programming to our audience.''

Another big advertiser, Ford Motor, took part in a two-hour movie on NBC in February, a sequel to the network's vintage series ''Knight Rider.'' Ford supplied cars, including the starring vehicle, a version of the Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 KR, and viewers could enter a contest to win Ford vehicles on a section of the NBC Web site (nbc.com/knightrider).

The ''Knight Rider'' movie, like ''Kings,'' was a pilot for a possible series. NBC Universal executives are expected to announce at the presentation that ''Knight Rider'' will join the NBC schedule for 2008-9.

Branded entertainment faded after the first years of TV, partly because advertisers found it difficult, as sole sponsors, to bear the increasing costs of production in the 1960s and 1970s. Another reason was the rising concerns of critics and viewers that advertisers wielded too much control over the content of the shows they sponsored.

''We've got to have a set of broadcasting standards we adhere to,'' said Michael Pilot, president for sales and marketing at NBC Universal, adding that when an advertiser makes a sponsorship proposal, ''it's got to be the right fit.''

For instance, ''you won't find us supporting cause-related marketing,'' he added, referring to advertisers taking stands on issues.

The reason networks like NBC are entertaining proposals like those from Liberty Mutual and Hill, Holliday is that advertisers ''are not asking us to be programmers,'' Mr. Pilot said, but rather ''they want to be more connected to the programming; they want a seat at the table.''

Mr. Sullivan of Liberty Mutual described ''how good NBC was to work with'' on the movies. ''As an advertiser, you appreciate that because networks haven't always treated us that way.''

When he proposed the idea to executives at another network, which he declined to identify, they were dismissive, he recalled.

That, Mr. Silverman said, was unlikely to occur at NBC.

''We have two clients, the audience and the advertiser, and we listen to both daily,'' Mr. Silverman said. ''Advertisers are asking for more of this entrepreneurial, enterprise thing, and we want to do more of it.

''We live on Madison and Vine,'' he added.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: TELEVISION PROGRAMMING (90%); SPONSORSHIP (89%); FILM (89%); NETWORK TELEVISION (89%); TELEVISION INDUSTRY (78%); BROADCAST ADVERTISING (78%); CABLE TELEVISION (78%); SPORTS SPONSORSHIP (77%); CABLE INDUSTRY (77%); ELECTIONS (73%); JOINT VENTURES (70%); CAMPAIGNS & ELECTIONS (68%); OLYMPICS (50%); SPORTS (50%); SUMMER OLYMPICS (50%); ACTORS & ACTRESSES (74%)
COMPANY: FOX ENTERTAINMENT GROUP INC (84%); LIBERTY MUTUAL GROUP (84%); INTERPUBLIC GROUP OF COS INC (61%); NEWS CORP (60%); GENERAL ELECTRIC CO (57%); NBC UNIVERSAL INC (57%); HILL HOLLIDAY (56%)
TICKER: IPG (NYSE) (61%); NWS (NYSE) (60%); NCRA (LSE) (60%); GNEA (AMS) (57%); GNE (PAR) (57%); GEC (LSE) (57%); GEB (BRU) (57%); GE (NYSE) (57%); NWS (ASX) (60%); NWS (NASDAQ) (60%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS515120 TELEVISION BROADCASTING (84%); SIC4833 TELEVISION BROADCASTING STATIONS (84%); SIC6331 FIRE, MARINE, & CASUALTY INSURANCE (95%); NAICS541820 PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCIES (61%); NAICS541810 ADVERTISING AGENCIES (61%); NAICS541613 MARKETING CONSULTING SERVICES (61%); SIC8743 PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCIES (61%); SIC8742 MANAGEMENT CONSULTING SERVICES (61%); SIC7311 ADVERTISING AGENCIES (61%); NAICS336412 AIRCRAFT ENGINE & ENGINE PARTS MANUFACTURING (57%); NAICS335222 HOUSEHOLD REFRIGERATOR & HOME FREEZER MANUFACTURING (57%); NAICS335211 ELECTRIC HOUSEWARES & HOUSEHOLD FAN MANUFACTURING (57%); SIC3724 AIRCRAFT ENGINES & ENGINE PARTS (57%); SIC3634 ELECTRIC HOUSEWARES & FANS (57%)
GEOGRAPHIC: BOSTON, MA, USA (90%) MASSACHUSETTS, USA (90%) UNITED STATES (90%)
LOAD-DATE: April 2, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: A scene from a short film on a Liberty Mutual Web site, part of its multimedia campaign.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

915 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
April 1, 2008 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

Lending Plan Won Prize, But Will It Work Here?
BYLINE: By AMANDA M. FAIRBANKS
SECTION: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 5
LENGTH: 1439 words
The maroon couch was big enough to take up half the living room, but by the time the 10th woman arrived it could hold no more.

The room temperature was rising from all the body heat. Chairs were brought in from the kitchen. Even the floor was called into service.

''I'd like to start the collection,'' Alethia Mendez announced after the last of the 15 women had arrived on a recent Saturday morning.

Therese Prentice counted out crisp bills, divided them, tucked them in envelopes and recorded the amount in a flimsy green book. The next woman repeated the exercise, until all 15 had made their payments for the week.

Then the money was handed to Ms. Mendez, the group's 24-year-old banker.

''This is the way it was done in Bangladesh, so we do the same thing here,'' Ms. Prentice said. ''It's our ritual.''

The women are clients of Grameen Bank, the international organization that pioneered ''microloans'' to third-world entrepreneurs and that, along with its founder, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

But the women were not in one of the abjectly poor villages in Bangladesh where Grameen usually does business; they were in a modest two-story brick house in St. Albans, Queens.

Since the beginning of January, 11 Grameen lending groups have sprung up throughout Queens in the bank's first venture in the United States. They have lent more than $250,000, in amounts ranging from $500 to $3,000, to more than 100 women for income-generating activity like elder care, housecleaning and flower-arranging businesses.

''Of the entire U.S. population, 40 percent is underbanked, and as a result end up using payday lenders, check cashers and other, more expensive services,'' said Vidar Jorgensen, president of Grameen America. ''We're here to meet this huge need.''

If the program works well, Grameen intends to expand nationwide. But while it has flourished elsewhere, it is not clear whether Grameen's model -- which relies on peer pressure rather than collateral to make sure women repay their debts -- will work here, and whether such small loans can actually help lift its borrowers out of poverty.

''In parts of the United States it may very well work, but I have real doubts about it working in places like New York City,'' said David R. Jones, president and chief executive officer of the Community Service Society of New York.

His group gives cash grants averaging $3,000 to city residents in financial distress -- for instance, to people who have fallen behind on their rent or who cannot pay their medical bills. But Mr. Jones said that $3,000 is generally not enough to stabilize a New York resident.

Still, Grameen's experiment here is being closely watched. Elaine L. Edgcomb of the Aspen Institute in Washington, who co-wrote a 2005 study of more than 100 microlending programs in the United States, said that borrowers do ''move out of poverty, and the business can be an important contributor to that, but it's not always the only contributor.''

''For many families, the increase in income is sufficient to take them above the poverty line,'' she said.

Grameen's distinguishing feature is its mandatory weekly meetings at which borrowers learn money management skills from their banker and from one another and must make their payments in front of everyone else in the group. If one person defaults on a loan, Grameen will not call a lawyer or a collection agency or confiscate any assets. Instead, no one in the group will be eligible for a new loan.

''You have 30 eyeballs who are looking at you and making you accountable,'' said Myriam Pericles, a 41-year-old first-generation Haitian-American, who will use her $3,000 loan to expand her computer consulting business. She was a little skeptical about the process. ''Maybe all this works in Bangladesh, but this is America, where people are different -- our value system gets warped, our word is not our bond.''

Nicole Brown, 30, who immigrated from Jamaica as a child, is using her $2,000 loan to start a day care business. ''I didn't have it in my head to start my own business, but if you want to be great in life, you have to have your own stuff,'' she said. She added that she was drawn to Grameen through her sister, Wendy Brown, who is using her $3,000 loan to expand her apartment-cleaning business, Meticulous Cleaning Service L.L.C.

As the other group members looked on, Wendy Brown, 36, made her first payment on the $3,000 loan: $60 toward principal, $6 for interest and $2 toward a savings account. If she makes all her payments, she will retire the debt within a year and be eligible for another loan. ''It's very simple, as opposed to getting it through a normal bank and going through the red tape and getting denied,'' she said.

Grameen America's managers, who are based in Jackson Heights, say that all the women in Queens are paying back their loans on time. But adapting its model to the United States has not been easy.

While Grameen officially requires a home visit to verify that borrowers are truly poor -- they must fall below the United States Census Bureau's poverty line, currently defined as $21,027 for a four-person household with two children -- some borrowers at the St. Albans meeting still had not received a visit. Grameen organizers said last week that all borrowers would receive home visits in the next few weeks.

Finding potential borrowers has been another challenge.

''Here, the women are not working in the community where they are living,'' said Shah Newaz, the general manager of the Jackson Heights office, who has worked with Grameen for 26 years all over the world. It is hard to meet with the women ''because they are not in their houses in the daytime, and in the evening they are very tired and preparing meals, taking care of children and getting ready for the next day.''

Grameen aims its loans at women, saying it has found them more responsible than men and more comfortable with the group model. So far, the Queens operation has lent only to women.

But the organization says it will lend to men here, and is aware that it cannot discriminate on the basis of gender. ''We want a female candidate, but in the U.S. you can't say that in advertisements,'' Mr. Newaz said. ''That is a problem.''

The idea behind Grameen Bank began in Bangladesh in 1976, when Muhammad Yunus, an economics professor, lent a total of $27 to a group of 42 women in Jobra, a southern village. All of the women repaid their loans. Since 1983, when Mr. Yunus formally founded Grameen, it has lent $6.8 billion to 7.4 million Bangladeshis; 97 percent of its borrowers are women.

Mr. Yunus tried to start a microlending program in the United States in 1985, when he was invited to rural southern Arkansas by Bill Clinton, who was then the governor. But the program Mr. Yunus helped start, called the Good Faith Fund, failed. The group lending model never caught on. If given the choice, ''any human being on earth would want to borrow as an individual rather than as a group member. It didn't work very well in this country,'' explained Mary Houghton, founder of ShoreBank, who helped advise the Arkansas experiment.

Another microfinance organization, Accion USA, which has lent money to more than 20,000 people since 1991, also attempted the group lending model in its early days. ''We found that the group methodology did not work well because there was a general lack of trust among potential borrowers and an unwillingness to guarantee another person's loan,'' said Bill Burrus, president and chief executive of Accion USA. The organization has since adopted a more traditional individual lending model in almost all cases, and its default rate has ranged from 4 to 7 percent in recent years. Grameen says its default rate in Bangladesh was less than 1 percent, though higher in times of flooding.

Grameen America is aiming to reach 21,000 borrowers within five years, the number that its organizers say would allow it to break even. To improve its chances of success, it relies upon dense social networks, the kind often found in immigrant communities, to help form its groups of borrowers. The center in St. Albans consists predominantly of Caribbean and African-American women.

Not long ago, they would wait out winter afternoons between cleaning jobs on subway platforms, unable to afford lunch or dinner.

''We'd starve until we got home,'' Nicole Brown said. The sisters, who had moved back in with their mother, did not want to ask for more help from her, so they turned to Grameen.

''Last year, I had $3 in my pocket,'' Wendy Brown said. ''This loan could help be the turning point.''