Commerce

IMAGINE this scenario: After a media blitz from the Wall Street Journal on taxation, Congress establishes a Tax Reform Commission to recommend reductions in tax burdens. After the usual dividing of government appointees between the legislative and executive branches, Congress decides that ALL the non-government members of the commission come from the business establishment, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, etc. They toss in a token advisory committee to advise but not to vote.

If you have not had time to wade through the complete text of the recently approved North American Free Trade Agreement, the North Penn Chamber of Commerce might be able to help you out. An eight-page summary of the 1,000-page-page agreement is available from the chamber. It may be of particular interest to businesses capable of exporting selected high technology and consumer goods to Mexico or providing technical services that could be used in building Mexico's infrastructure, according to chamber president Tom Bacheler.

JOE MAHONEY liked nothing better than to chill out at his condo in Stone Harbor, N.J., where he could escape the pressures of his role as an executive of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. "He could relax there and do what he wanted to do," said his wife, the former Patricia McElwee. "He wasn't always able to do that here. " Joe wasn't a beach person; he didn't fish or boat. But the salubrious sea air and sun of the small beach community lent the right atmosphere for taking it easy.

Delaware County's top economic development post has been filled by J. Patrick Killian, a former chief aide to U.S. Sen. John Heinz. The county's Economic Development Oversight Board voted unanimously yesterday to appoint Killian, 42, of Havertown, to be director of commerce. He will be paid $80,000. Killian succeeds Thomas C. Rapone, who resigned last month after less than a year to become Massachusetts commissioner of corrections. The oversight board was formed a year ago in the wake of a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development audit that said at least $1.6 million was misspent by the Delaware County Partnership for Economic Development.

Want to protest Gov. Corbett's budget? You won't have to go far. Corbett is scheduled to speak to the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. at the Prince Music Theater on Chestnut Street, between Broad and 15th streets. A handful of groups are expected to protest, while registration to attend the event is open until the end of the day Monday. Go to greaterphilachamber.com or call Brynn Primavera at 215-790-3630 to register to attend and to submit questions for Corbett.

When Mayor Goode took office in 1984 he made a constructive organizational change by splitting the duties of city representative and director of commerce into two positions and appointing Dianne L. Semingson and David W. Brenner, respectively, to fill them. Now that Mr. Brenner has submitted his resignation, effective Sept. 30, the Committee of Seventy has questioned whether the mayor has authority under the City Charter to name a successor. In a letter to City Solicitor Handsel B. Minyard the committee said: "We would appreciate an explanation from your office of the legal justification, if any, of having two appointees formally sharing one charter-authorized position.

A negative spirit might focus on all the reasons why the post of commerce director and city representative for Philadelphia is not a perfectly plum job right now. You'd be working for a term-limited mayor with an FBI investigation clouding his every move. That mayor has a somewhat frosty relationship with the city's corporate sector. For all the city's cultural and historic assets, its business climate remains dampened by stubborn high taxes and an entrenched pay-to-play political culture.

The Lower Bucks County Chamber of Commerce is offering a leadership development program for the third consecutive year. Designed to encourage new leaders from within the community, its participants will learn about the important issues facing the county and meet with business and community leaders. The program also encourages participants to assume leadership roles within their business and community. Co-chaired by Robert Cormack, executive director of the Bucks County Industrial Development Corp.

"A Atlanta on a le sentiment que les choses ont en train de bouger, mais Philadelphie est plus Europeeanne. " Just nine hours after setting foot in Philadelphia, Francis Lecul, mayor of Amiens, France, was pronouncing it good - in at least one respect. "In Atlanta you feel things are on the move," he said, with a Gallic intensity that propelled his voice through the buzz in the reception room at the Four Seasons Hotel. "But Philadelphia is more European. " And a more European way of life, he explained, is a better way of life.

Thomas C. Rapone of Drexel Hill is Delaware County's new commerce director at a salary of $80,000 a year. Rapone, 39, the U.S. marshal for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and a former warden of Delaware County Prison, was appointed by the new Economic Development Oversight Board that the County Council has established. At a news conference Thursday, council Vice Chairman Ward T. Williams, who is also secretary of the oversight board, said Rapone's main job would be to map a new economic development plan for Delaware County in the 1990s.

Whether the jury will feel sympathy for Vernon W. Hill 2d, the ousted founder of Commerce Bank, and his legal quest to wrest $17.2 million in golden parachute benefits from the bank remains to be seen. In federal court Thursday, Hill explained why he didn't fight his June 28, 2007, firing from the banking empire that he had built from one storefront in Marlton in 1973. "This was my bank," Hill said in U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler's Camden courtroom. "It was obvious to me that the best thing for the bank was for me to leave.

From the testimony, everyone agreed that former Commerce Bank chairman, president, and chief executive Vernon Hill, ousted in the summer of 2007 from the bank he founded, deserved to receive the "golden parachute" provisions negotiated in his employment contract. Everybody, that is, except the regulators, including the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the board of governors of the Federal Reserve. The question in court now is whether officials of Commerce Bank, now TD Financial Group, tried hard enough to persuade the regulators.

JOE MAHONEY liked nothing better than to chill out at his condo in Stone Harbor, N.J., where he could escape the pressures of his role as an executive of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. "He could relax there and do what he wanted to do," said his wife, the former Patricia McElwee. "He wasn't always able to do that here. " Joe wasn't a beach person; he didn't fish or boat. But the salubrious sea air and sun of the small beach community lent the right atmosphere for taking it easy.

Jesse Hill Jr., 86, a civil rights leader and businessman who became the first black president of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, died Monday. Mr. Hill had a close relationship with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and helped make sure his legacy would be remembered, according to Steve Klein, a spokesman for the King Center, where Mr. Hill served as chairman of the board of directors from 1979 to 1993. Mr. Hill was born in St. Louis. He graduated from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo., with a degree in mathematics and physics, and earned a master's in actuarial science from the University of Michigan.

ATLANTA - Jesse Hill Jr., a civil-rights leader and businessman who later became the first black president of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, died Monday. He was 86. Hill had a close relationship with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and helped make sure his legacy would be remembered, according to Steve Klein, a spokesman for the King Center, where Hill served as chairman of the board of directors from 1979 to 1993. "He was very instrumental in developing the growth of the King Center and really a giant in Atlanta civic affairs," Klein said.

Steven J. Greenwood, 44, an e-commerce executive and Bruce Springsteen fan who boasted of having seen the Boss in concert almost 100 times, died Saturday, Dec. 8, of congestive heart failure at Carolinas Medical Center in Pineville, N.C. Mr. Greenwood made his home in Royersford for about a decade before moving this year to Fort Mill, S.C., for a job. He had not been feeling well recently and went into the hospital; doctors were unable to...

Rolling hills. Meandering streams. Stone fences. Covered bridges. Vermont? New Hampshire? Try instead the lush Brandywine Valley of Chester County, where those who live in Philadelphia and its environs can find the perfect "staycation" destination. Before the kids can say "Are we there yet?", you're there. No airfare, no packing, no expensive hotels, just gorgeous scenery, art, spectacular night-sights, the fruit of the vine, and even mercantile sightseeing. The Brandywine Valley begs to be discovered, or rediscovered.

Passing the Barnes Foundation's sprawling new parking lot one recent afternoon, I was surprised to see half the spaces were empty. By evening, however, the joint was jumping, the lot was full, and many female visitors were wearing skyscraper heels, rather than the sensible flats of the serious museumgoer. That's when it hit me that the real motive for cramming the lot onto the Barnes' tiny site was to help the gallery promote itself as a party venue. The Barnes is not alone in chasing after the lucrative events business.

SAN GABRIEL, Calif. - Medical records could determine whether U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson will be charged in two weekend fender-benders that led to his hospitalization after police found him slumped behind the wheel of his vehicle in the Los Angeles suburbs. Bryson suffered a seizure Saturday afternoon, Commerce Department officials said Monday, but it wasn't clear whether the medical episode preceded or followed a hit-and-run collision. Bryson, 68, was driving alone in a Lexus in San Gabriel, a community of about 40,000 northeast of Los Angeles, when he struck the rear of a vehicle that had stopped for a passing train, authorities said.

Albert F. Paschall Jr., 58, retired president of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce, died of pneumonia Monday, May 28, at Wuesthoff Medical Center in Melbourne, Fla. Mr. Paschall retired June 30, 2011, after 25 years as booster and advocate for the chamber and its member businesses. He used the writing and speaking skills he learned early on as a newspaperman to bolster his various causes. Although he told family and friends he did not want to be remembered as the man who moved the King of Prussia Inn, Mr. Paschall was the force behind that complicated project.