Business People

In short, environmentalists love it, business people call it oppressive, and the politicians just think the whole thing's a pain. But one way or another, state and regional officials warn, the mandates of the Clean Air Act amendments are here to stay - and if you do business in the Philadelphia area, you'd better start planning for them now. That was the message spread Tuesday at a special seminar sponsored by the state Department of Resources...

Hollywood's Favorite Heavy: Businessmen on Prime Time TV and Spitting Image: The 1987 Movie Awards are two television specials worth making a special effort to see. Their aim is to break away from the usual TV subject matter, and they resoundingly succeed. Hollywood's Favorite Heavy will air at 10 tonight on WHYY (Channel 12). Rich with clips from TV series and comments from producers and scriptwriters, it attempts to prove that business people are getting a bum rap on TV. The hour is so entertaining that it probably won't matter much whether that's true or not. Spitting Image presents the marvelous Spitting Image puppets in a satirical Academy Awards ceremony.

Orange Japanese Koi fish swam in a little blue-vinyl pool while their owner, Nancy Wisner, made a sales pitch for water-gardening products. At booths a few feet away, representatives of insurance agencies, local colleges and computer companies hawked their wares with color props, brochures and that old standby, candy. Welcome to Business Expo '92, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey, where more than 75 businesses from the area advertised their companies.

While his classmates at Monsignor Bonner High School in Drexel Hill were reading World History II and Catcher in the Rye, Paul Dunn was reading magazines such as Muscle and Fitness. "I was not doing well in high school, but I was well-versed in the physical-fitness field in terms of operations and types of equipment to buy," Dunn recalled. Not surprisingly, Dunn didn't earn any accolades from his alma mater. But his subscription to Muscle and Fitness has paid off. Today, Paul Dunn is the president of Gold's Gym in Springfield, a health- and-fitness center that is projecting gross revenues of $1 million this year.

Gov. Ridge (center) speaks with Stephen Barrar (right), owner of Twin Oaks Garden Mart and the Republican candidate in the 160th state House District, after a meeting yesterday with business people on reform of worker compensation. The meeting was at the Concord Beverage Co. in Concordville.

Some of the survivors of the crash of the Miss International U.S. Pageant put on a show at the Beach Club on Delaware Avenue last night. The young women decided that $7,500 in prize money raised from business people be donated to city-run programs for AIDS and the homeless.

Spring, the season of rebirth, is likely to bring new life to the debate over Mantua's proposed sign ordinance. The measure, a small section of the Land Development and Use Ordinance, was introduced in December after much heated discussion and planning by township officials. The winter's snowstorms put action on the proposal on hold, but officials and business people now say they're ready to address the issue. A resolution is not far off, said Mary Beth Lonergan, a consultant for the Waetzman Planning Group who wrote the ordinance for the township.

Centrum Shoppes in Cherry Hill would appear to have a fine location for a small shopping strip. It is tucked into a corner at Brace and Haddonfield- Berlin Roads, and, by car, Interstate 295 is only a couple of minutes away. Indeed, the Woodcrest Shopping Center, located on the other side of I-295, was teeming with business yesterday morning. But at Centrum Shoppes, the parking lot was 90 percent empty. The problem: A road and sewer project has snarled traffic along Haddonfield-Berlin Road since July, making it difficult to reach many businesses.

For the first time, Philadelphia will host the Inc. 500 conference. Yesterday Mayor Rendell and Gov. Ridge announced the prestigious gathering scheduled for May 7-9. It's expected to attract 1,000 business people, many of them chief executives, from across the country. The Inc. 500 is a list of the nation's 500 fastest-growing, privately owned companies, and is published each October by Inc. magazine. The list consists of small-to-mid-size companies. Most of the firms are generally unknown to the public.

Yeadon business people were told last week that three planned road- renovation projects during the next year could have major effects on businesses in Yeadon. In a special meeting with the Yeadon Businessmen's Association Wednesday night, John Capuzzi, Borough Council president, outlined the three projects, including the dismantling of the Church Road bridge. Lansdowne Avenue is to be widened from Providence Road to the Fitzgerald- Mercy Division of Mercy Catholic Medical Center.

Suzanne Hayes has been hired as vice president of client services at Innovative Print & Media Group, a Phoenixville provider of print, promotional products, creative and marketing communications services, direct mail and fulfillment. She had been vice president of operations for Excerpta Medica, a global healthcare marketing agency and a division of publishing giant Elsevier.   Ricoh Americas Corp., a Malvern technology company, has promoted Martin Brodigan to chairman and CEO. He succeed Kevin Togashi, who is taking on a new role within Ricoh Group in Japan.

PITTSBURGH - Charles "Teenie" Harris had a photographic mission: going beyond the obvious or sensational to capture the essence of daily African American life in the 20th century For more than 40 years, Harris - as lead photographer for the influential Pittsburgh Courier newspaper - took almost 80,000 pictures of people from all walks of life: presidents, housewives, sports stars, babies, civil rights leaders, cross-dressing drag queens....

Managing money doesn't get easier with age. Workers often hit their peak earning years only to be pulled in several directions. Beyond basic expenses, there may be college-age children or aging parents who need financial help. It can be a lot to balance as retirement savings should take on more importance. The problem is that many people fall prey to the myth they can juggle it all month-to-month, on the fly. "What happens with the tens of thousands of consumers we talk with every month is they've gotten into the habit of bad habits," says Mike Croxson, president of CareOne, a debt-counseling company.

PLAYING A downward-spiraling drunk in the art house picture "Everything Must Go" isn't where you expect to find Will Ferrell on the eve of the summer season. Truth be told, it wasn't his first choice. Ferrell loves his serious turn in "Everything Must Go," but he came to it only after pitching several ideas for mainstream, bigger-budget comedies, including an "Anchorman" sequel. There were no takers. A sign of how radically the business has changed, and how quickly.

Emily Cashman walked out of the Franklin Institute on Saturday afternoon and from the top of the steps "I-spied" the podlike green buggy across the street, turned to her father, Bill, and said, "Let's do that!" They had no schedule to keep. It was one of those sweet and weightless cotton candy days for a 5-year-old girl and her father, who live in the Northeast, to go downtown and enjoy the city. So her father said, "Why not?" Even though he didn't know exactly what he was agreeing to do. "I thought it was a motorcycle," Emily said.