Good afternoon!

Benchmarks Sensex and Nifty resumed their rally on Wednesday after falling in a single session as global markets awaited a widely expected decision from the U.S. Federal Reserve on interest rate policy. Sensex closed at 56,816, up 1,039 points, and Nifty gained 312 points to 16,975.

And after? Here’s a look at the latest market updates today!

3:30 p.m.: Sensex zooms 1,047 points to 57,863 and Nifty closes 311 points higher at 17,287.

3:15 p.m.: JPMorgan cuts Indian stocks to ‘underweight’, cuts MSCI EM index target

JP Morgan downgraded Indian stocks to “underweight” and cut its full-year forecast for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index as geopolitical tensions stoked inflation worries, rattling global financial markets.

The brokerage, which previously had a “neutral” rating on Indian equities, cited a host of factors including a weaker rupee and its impact on growth, a surge in commodity prices such as oil, potential portfolio outflows and the domestic monetary tightening cycle. . READ MORE

15:00: Jet Airways services to resume soon: Jalan-Kalrock Consortium

The Jalan-Kalrock Consortium, new promoters of beleaguered Jet Airways, said on Thursday that the airline’s scheduled services would restart soon. The consortium, in a statement, said “restart activities are progressing well.”

“We are working closely with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on the approval process and timelines to prove the flight, after which the certificate of Air Operator (AOC) of Jet Airways will be revalidated with the resumption of scheduled services shortly thereafter,” the Jet team said. READ MORE

2:50 p.m .: IOC gave a nod to invest Rs 7,282 cr in developing the CGD network in 9 areas

On Thursday, Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) secured an investment approval of Rs 7,282 crore for the development of City Gas (CDG) distribution network in 9 geographies. Approval was granted to the company by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) in the 11th round of CGD bidding, the oil company said in a regulatory filing. READ MORE

2:12 p.m.: market check

Sensex zooms 1,236 points to 58,053 and Nifty gains 340 points to 17,314

2:07 p.m.: Sensex’s biggest losers in the afternoon session were PowerGrid and NTPC stocks, falling as much as 0.62%.

1:39 p.m.: Moody’s cuts India’s growth estimate for 2022 to 9.1%

Moody’s on Thursday cut India’s growth estimate for the current year to 9.1% from 9.5% earlier, saying the high fuel and fertilizer import bill could limit government investment spending.

In its Global Macroeconomic Outlook 2022-23 (March 2022 Update) titled: Economic growth will suffer as fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine deepens, the rating agency said growth in India is expected to be 5.4% in 2023.

1:00 p.m.: Titan Company stock hits record high

Titan Company’s share rose 5.14% to an all-time high of 2,720 rupees in the afternoon session. The stock had closed at Rs 2586.95 in the previous session.

12:34 p.m.: market check

Sensex climbs 1146 points to 57,962 and Nifty gains 338 points to 17,314 in the afternoon session.

12:32 p.m.: The market capitalization of BSE-listed companies stands at Rs 260.27 lakh crore.

12:27: This Jhunjhunwala stock receives a buy call from Motilal Oswal, a 23% rise expected

Shares of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed Star Health and Allied Insurance Company rose 3% in early trading today after brokerage firm Motilal Oswal hedged the stock with a call to buy .

The financial services company has set a target price of 750 rupees, which is 23% higher than the current market price of 609 rupees.

Jhunjhunwala and his wife Rekha are the company’s second largest shareholders with an 18.21% stake. Safecrop Investments India LLP is the main shareholder with 47.77% of the capital.

Star Health shares rose 3.83% during the day to 632.4 rupees on BSE. READ MORE

11:45 am: Paytm stock slips 3% after Macquarie cuts target price

Shares of One 97 Communications fell more than 3% today after global brokerage Macquarie cut its price target for the share.

Macquarie has once again lowered its price target for Paytm. From Rs 1,200 in November last year to Rs 700 last month, the target price has been reduced to Rs 450. The foreign brokerage has reduced its price target for the big digital company citing regulatory headwinds , including a decrease in the probability of obtaining a banking license.

11:24 am: Expert quote

Niraj Kumar, Chief Investment Officer, Future Generali India Life Insurance, on the rise in the US Federal Reserve

“The Fed has embarked on a rate-hike cycle and guided aggressive normalization, as it sees it as the ultimate tool to normalize high inflation. The aggressive rate-hike outlook came in response to the US witnessing runaway inflation exacerbated by rising commodity prices driven by geopolitical tensions and supply disruptions and posed with downside risks to global growth.

However, with the Fed hinting that the economy is on solid footing and growth is strong, we believe the rate hike cycle will be much better managed this time around. From the perspective of Indian markets, while the impending Fed rate hike has already led to strong selling by FIIs in recent months, the strong support from DIIs has largely mitigated the impact of the sell-off. FIIs. We believe markets will take this rate hike cycle in stride as the outlook remains strong despite inflationary headwinds and navigates from unknown to known territory.”

11:10 a.m.: Market breadth is positive with 2280 shares up versus 872 down on BSE.

10:54 a.m.: MARKET UPDATE

Sensex zooms 1000 points to 57,814 and Nifty gains 283 points to 17,257.

10:23 am: Indiabulls Housing Finance stock rises 9%

Shares of Indiabulls Housing Finance rose more than 9% today after the company announced on March 22 that its board would consider raising funds through bonds, in one or more tranches, on a private placement basis. READ MORE

9:36 a.m.: Expert quote

VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said, “The Fed’s rate hike of 25 basis points was in line with market expectations. The Fed’s projections of six more hikes this year are hawkish and therefore the smart rally in the markets with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq posting increases of 2.24% and 3.17% respectively was a bit unexpected.

The explanation is that the market was oversold and the resulting short cover pushed the indices higher. The market gained confidence from Fed Chief Powell’s statement that “the US economy is very strong and well positioned to handle tighter monetary policy.”

Short hedging in India, too, will lift the markets today. REITs are going long after a long stretch and weakness in Crude will support the market. There is upside potential in financials, particularly in high-quality private banks where REITs have been strong sellers.”

9:20 a.m. Top winners

All Sensex shares are trading in the green. HDFC, Axis Bank, Bajaj Finance, Kotak Bank, Asian Paints, Kotak Bank, HDFC Bank and IndusInd Bank are top Sensex gainers in early trade, rising 3.14%

9:15 a.m.: Opening of the green market

Sensex opens 850 points higher at 57,667 and Nifty rises 226 points to 17,202.

8:40 am: global updates

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 518.76 points, or 1.55%, to 34,063.1, the S&P 500 gained 95.41 points, or 2.24%, to 4,357.86 and the Nasdaq Composite added 487.93 points, or 3.77%, to 13,436.55.

Sensex rises 1,000 pts, Nifty ends above 16,950; UltraTech, Axis Bank, top HDFC winners

8:37 p.m.: EXPERT CITATION

Prashanth Tapse, Vice President (Research) of Mehta Equities, said: “Nifty is poised to start the day on solid footing as global equity markets posted solid gains on a triple boost, as the slightly hawkish stance of the US Fed, the ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. transaction reports, and China hinting at an economic stimulus. Nifty options data for the March series suggests that the benchmark is likely to be in a trading range of the 16000-18000 area. The maximum call OI is at 18000 followed by a strike price of 17000. So the 17000 mark will be the crucial resistance area for Nifty.”

8:35 am: Action FII and DII

Foreign institutional investors (FII) bought shares worth Rs 312 crore on March 16, and domestic institutional investors (DII) bought shares worth Rs 772.55 crore, according to the provisional data available on NSE.

8:30 am: SGX Nifty

The Indian stock market is expected to open in the green today as SGX Nifty traded 259 points higher at 16,894.80.

The Singapore Stock Exchange is considered the first index of the opening of the Indian market.

8:15 a.m.: Market on Wednesday

Benchmarks Sensex and Nifty resumed their rally on Wednesday after falling in a single session as global markets awaited a widely expected decision from the U.S. Federal Reserve on interest rate policy. Sensex closed at 56,816, up 1,039 points, and Nifty gained 312 points to 16,975.

Prior to the previous session, the Indian stock market rallied for five consecutive sessions. UltraTech Cement, Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank and HDFC were among Sensex’s top gainers, rising 4.69%.

The BSE mid cap and small cap indices gained 417 points and 395 points respectively.

Diving Brief:

• Labor Secretary Marty Walsh deployed new regulatory proposals for the first time in nearly 40 years to change the Davis-Bacon Act, which sets the prevailing wages that contractors must pay workers on federal projects.
• While a association of construction employers said the changes represent “more special-interest pork” for unions, which President Joe Biden supports, Walsh claimed the changes would do the exact opposite. “This action is an example of the federal government being a good steward of taxpayers’ money,” Walsh said on a conference call Friday. “As President Biden said during the State of the Union, when we invest in our workers, we build an economy from the bottom up and the middle.”
• Labor groups and unions applauded the announcement, saying it would be pprotect the wages of construction workers and protect them from exploitation.

Overview of the dive:

The Davis-Bacon Act, originally passed in 1931, uses salary surveys administered by the DOL to set the prevailing salary in the location of a federally funded project. It affects $217 billion in federal spending a year and 1.2 million construction workers.

But the process can be complicated and time-consuming for contractors and has raised concerns that it distorts wage rates.

Under the current process, at least 51% of surveyed salaries must fall within an “same or similar” range. If they are not, the weighted average – as opposed to a simple average – of all salaries is used. This means that more frequent occurrences of low wages could lower the overall rate.

“The problem … is that these weighted averages don’t reflect the actual wages paid to actual workers on actual construction projects in this local community,” said Jessica Looman, acting administrator of the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division during of the briefing.

To remedy this, the DOL’s proposal would revert to the system used until 1983, when the last changes to the law were made under the first administration of President Ronald Reagan. At that time, the redesign was considered a blow to organized labor.

Under the proposed unique configuration, if the 51% threshold is reached, this is the salary in effect, as now. But if not, the new rule would allow only 30% of the same or similar salaries to be used. If this bar cannot be reached, then a weighted average will be used.

And this is where construction employer groups have called fault.

“The process for determining what a going wage rate is is already archaic, and this proposal dates back 40 years,” said Ben Brubeck, vice president of regulatory, labor and state affairs at Associated Builders. and Contractors, in an interview.

Brubeck said ABC, the majority of whose 16,000 contract members are non-union stores, has been advocating for Davis-Bacon reform for years, the current proposal unfairly favoring unionized work.

“Under the 30% rule, union rates will prevail more often,” Brubeck said. “When this happens, unionized contractors are more competitive. But if the government determines that the wage is below the union rate, that’s a problem for them, because they can’t compete on wages, because they’re locked into a union contract.

Instead, Brubeck suggested using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to determine prevailing wages for a given position and location.

“We’ve been suggesting for decades to go do something that’s scientifically modern and can be done more frequently, and that will result in higher wages for workers around the world,” Brubeck said.

Comment period

Labor and union groups hailed the potential rule change.

“NABTU commends the Biden administration for today’s proposal to bring the 41-year-old Davis-Bacon Act regulations into the 21st century,” said Sean McGarvey, president of the Trades Unions Group. of North America, in a press release. “The proposed updates to the regulations will restore the law’s bipartisan goal of protecting the hard-earned wages of construction workers and, in doing so, protect them from exploitation.”

An anti-retaliation clause was also included that would protect workers who report employers for non-compliance. DOL said it was opening a 60-day comment period for comments on the new rules.

At ABC, Brubeck said the group would fight longer, while opposing floating rules in their current form.

“A 60-day comment period is too short for the first major reform in 40 years,” Brubeck said. “We will ask for an extension.”

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – It has been two years of construction for the new State Archives Building and Federal Courthouse in Midtown Harrisburg.

“COVID has come and it’s slowed down but I think towards the end of this year they’re supposed to finish according to construction people, sometimes they come over for a beer,” said Ricardo Suarez, owner of Anastacia restaurant and bar.

His restaurant is located between the new archives and the courthouse.

“When I bought this place in 2006, it was a bad neighborhood. They were killing people. It was a mess,” Suarez said.

Yet he invested half a million dollars in renovating the place. And now the rest of the region is teeming with opportunity.

“You look at how much land is already in development or under contract for something and that’s a good chunk of it, areas between Reilly and Maclay streets,” said Nicole Conway, executive vice president and general counsel. of Vartan. Group.

The Vartan Group saw the potential years ago, building The 1500 Condominium.

“Just because there was a fair amount of vacant land and parcels and it’s such a great location to get in and out of town,” Conway said.

Cafe 1500 has closed due to staffing issues and business disruption, but Crawdaddy’s Restaurant and Bar is ready for new foot traffic once construction is complete.

“I actually live in the area, so I’m super excited for what’s to come in downtown and downtown Harrisburg. I see a lot of things happening and it’s going to be really great for the restaurant,” manager Remaua Kemp said.

According to the United States General Services Administration, it is estimated that by summer the courthouse will be largely complete and that the exterior of the building will be finished by winter.

The latest snapshot of the Salt Lake County apartment market might look attractive to real estate developers and investors, but for average renters, it could be more dire than ever.

Even with a record 12,367 new rental units under construction in the county and another 9,665 in the pipeline, vacant and available apartments remain at an all-time high — 2% or less — and rents are climbing 10% or more a year.

All of this speaks volumes about the demand for rental housing in Utah’s most populous county, even with a historic increase in supply, conditions for renters are not expected to ease until perhaps 2024 or at least. -of the.

Last year saw “the tightest rental market in our history,” said James Wood, a senior economist at the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, which released new research Wednesday on the apartment boom. Yet even as builders jostle, the dramatic increase in the number of additional units this year is unlikely to slow the rise in rents.

Of the nearly 150,000 rentals currently in Salt Lake County, approximately 3,000 are currently vacant. That’s the lowest in 20 years, according to Gardner’s study, and includes everything from bachelors to three-bedroom units, which now fetch average rents of $1,301 a month.

One in three Utahans rents, and soaring prices for homes for sale leave them with little choice, Wood noted. With skyrocketing construction costs, rising interest rates and other economic trends, “we are worried about affordability.”

And with the county’s median home sale price now reaching $585,000 in Salt Lake County, Wood said, renters could be even more stuck. “I worry about the long-term future.”

Affordability “gets trampled”

Developer Dan Lofgren, with Cowboy Partners, said the long-standing axiom of spending no more than 30% of income on housing costs “is well in the rearview mirror”. Even lifestyle renters who choose to rent when they could buy, he said, are spending a greater share of what they earn on housing.

While a traditional supply and demand analysis suggests that building new apartments would eventually slow rising rents, Lofgren said, “the exact opposite is happening.”

“It’s a tough market to understand,” said the veteran apartment developer. “There’s all this new production; yet affordability continues to erode.

Several key trends appear to be driving the mismatch.

Soaring costs of building materials such as wood, steel and concrete currently make it difficult to build apartments at lower unit prices. This adds to a trend of building luxury apartments, especially in downtown Salt Lake City, where rents are 30-40% higher than in the suburbs.

“We build at the high end,” Lofgren said, “so affordability is what gets trampled on.”

Cowboy Partners recently opened the 21-story Liberty Sky, Salt Lake City’s first luxury residential skyscraper, with 272 units ranging from studios to two-bedroom apartments.

Its well-appointed homes and amenities — and those of several other luxury towers rising downtown — attract many foreigners drawn here for new jobs, said Mark Jensen, executive vice president of real estate firm Colliers International. .

“It’s what they expect,” Jensen said, “and the rents they’re encountering in Salt Lake seem affordable.”

More luxury

With occupancy virtually guaranteed for years to come, the majority of these new multi-story apartment complexes sprouting up on the Wasatch waterfront are also staples for investors, Jensen said. Immense volumes of capital continue to flow into multifamily real estate from out of state and overseas, as the state’s quality of life and job growth keep its economy going. booming.

A decade ago, the investment broker said, $500 million in investment sales in apartment complexes in Salt Lake County was considered a stunning one-year record.

“In 2021,” he said, “we made just under $2.3 billion.”

This, in turn, has a pronounced effect on existing, cheaper rental housing, which policy experts sometimes refer to as “natural” affordable housing. Between 2014 and early 2017, Jensen said, investors bought more than 40,200 rental units, renovated them and then rented them out with an average monthly rent of $264 per month.

It also pushes the current apartment building mix to the upscale, with rents generally out of reach for those earning the average Utah salary.

“We’re going to see a lot more high-end housing,” Jensen said.

Rising rents have forced thousands of residents to seek cheaper housing in the suburbs, often with longer commutes. For thousands more, it brought them one step closer to a financial precipice.

The burdens increase

In Salt Lake County, according to federal data, about 20% of renters spent more than 30% of their income on housing in 2009. In 2018, that number rose to 41%, or nearly 60,000 renters,

Against these gigantic economic forces, government policies aimed at encouraging the construction of more affordable housing do not seem to make a huge difference. Of about 300,000 rental units statewide, according to Wood, about 50,000 offer some kind of rent subsidies, through tax credits.

Of those units currently under construction or on the drawing board, about 3,500 will be subsidized, a relatively high number in recent years.

Wood noted that while affecting most renters, Utah’s housing issues are greatest for those with lower incomes. He said he was encouraged that the Legislative Assembly recently approved its first major round of housing funding aimed at helping those earning 30% or less of the average median income.

“These people,” Wood said, “face a housing crisis every day.”

Indian researchers had thought of a unique method that tackles two of the biggest environmental problems: sand conservation and plastic reduction.

The team at Sona College of Technology, Salem, Tamil Nadu, have developed new technology that will both save the country’s second most used natural resource – sand – and help reduce the landfills created by plastic bottle waste, like hitting birds with a rock according to The Weather Channel.

To do this, “the invention of green technology” will replace up to 70% of the sand in the concrete with shredded plastic used in the construction of their infrastructure.

“Our invention successfully uses recycled plastic waste to partially replace fine aggregates or natural sand in the manufacture of paving stones and precast bricks,” said lead inventor Dr. R Malathy, also Dean (R&D) and Professor in the civil engineering department.

The technology has just been patented by the Indian Patent Office.

Turning plastic waste into usable building materials

Sand is an essential ingredient of our lives and the main raw material from which modern cities are made, which is why the most important but least appreciated product of the 21st century has sparked a “wave of violence” in the world. world, wrote the BBC.

“Believe it or not, the world is facing a shortage of sand,” the website says. “How can we run out of a substance that is found in virtually every country in the world and seems essentially limitless?”

In India, almost 70 million tonnes of sand are consumed every year to meet the country’s infrastructure needs, and this consumption is increasing by 7% annually, India Today reported. “At the same time, more than 5 million tonnes of plastic are consumed each year, of which only around a quarter is recycled and the rest ends up in landfills,” the website says.

As a basic element of construction, sand is indeed essential in all parts of the world, and in fact the planet is covered with it. However, the extraction of billions of tons of sand per year has aggravating impacts on the planet and therefore on people’s lives.

Also Read: Deepwater Horizon Disaster Spill Endangers Dolphins

Tackling the two global environmental problems

The team of inventors from Sona College have developed a technology that converts recycled plastic waste into a usable building material to partially replace the traditional concrete ingredient.

“This groundbreaking invention will hopefully help control the depletion of the global stockpile of sand and limit plastic waste,” said Chocko Valliappa, vice president of the Sona Group of Education Institutions. The researchers, including Dr. R Malathy, Dr. SRR Senthil Kumar, N Karuppasamy and K Dhinesh Babu, were granted the patent “Effect of Recycled Plastic Waste as Partial Replacement of Fine Aggregates in the Manufacture of Paving Stones” in 2019. The team won the patent final in early 2022.

Waste bottles (polyethylene terephthalate) collected in Salem were ground to a size below 4.75 mm in large machines. Engineers succeeded in replacing 70% of the natural sand while equaling the resistance of the tri-arch pavers according to the IS 15658-2006 code.

“By using plastic waste and dramatically reducing the use of natural sand, our patented technology offers significant environmental and cost benefits,” said Dr. SRR Senthil Kumar, Principal of Sona College of Technology.

Also Read: Regions Previously Untouched by Fires Face Extreme Risks by End of Century

President Prof. AKW Jayawardane (left) and Vice President Sharham Muhseen

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Commercial Bank PLC has announced the appointment of a new Chairman and Vice Chairman effective March 1. The current Vice President, Prof. AKW Jayawardane will be the new President, succeeding Justice K. Sripavan who is retiring, while Sharham Muhseen will be the new Vice President.

Justice Sripavan was appointed Chairman on December 21, 2020 as he joined the Board in April 2017. Prof. Jayawardane has been a member of the Commercial Bank Board since April 2015 and was appointed Vice Chairman in December 2020.

Jayawardane served as Vice Chancellor of the University of Moratuwa until November 27, 2017 and is a Senior Professor of Civil Engineering as well as a highly regarded academic. He was Dean of the Faculty of Engineering for six years at the University of Moratuwa.

He holds a PhD in Construction Management and an MSc in Construction from Loughborough University of Technology, UK and a BSc Eng. Civil Engineering degree with first class honors from the University of Moratuwa.

Also Corporate Fellow, Fellow and International Professional Engineer of Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka (IESL), CEng, FIE (SL), IntPE (SL), Fellow of National Academy of Sciences of Sri Lanka, FNAS (SL) , Founder Member of Society of Structural Engineers Sri Lanka MSSE (SL), Fellow of Institute of Project Managers, Sri Lanka, FIPM (SL) and Life Member of Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science.

Vice Chairman Muhseen was appointed to the Board in February 2021. He is a senior investment banker with extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and capital markets, which Has held a leadership position on the boards and management teams of financial institutions across Asia to help drive their corporate strategic agenda and roadmap.

During his more than 20-year career in investment banking, he has completed landmark mergers and capital-raising transactions of more than $100 billion. Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse’s Asia FIG sector team won Asset magazine’s “FIG Asia House of the Year” award for several years under his leadership. Several transactions he has led have been awarded as the best national transactions and the best capital-raising transactions in the financial sector.

He holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of Colombo, a bachelor’s degree in business administration (Hons) from Western Michigan University, and completed the corporate finance training program at JPMorgan in New York. .

Previously, Muhseen worked at top global investment banks, Credit Suisse, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan in top regional coverage roles. His most immediate previous role was as Managing Director, Head of Southeast Asia Financial Institutions (FIG) Group and Head of Asia Insurance at Singapore-based Credit Suisse. He was associate director of Deloitte.

HOUSTON, 08 Feb. 10, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Multidisciplinary engineering firm Coffman Engineers, Inc. (Coffman) announced the opening of its Houston, Texas office at 21 Waterway Avenue, Suite 300, The Woodlands, Texas. The new site enables the company to support customers in the Industrial, Oil & Gas, Healthcare, Federal Government/Military, Higher Education, Hospitality and Hospitality markets. energy.

Coffman’s second Texas office in Houston further establishes Coffman’s physical presence in the state after 20 years of supporting customers remotely. The location of the office at The Woodlands was a strategic decision to select an attractive area for employees to live and thrive in, allowing it to support customers well. The office is managed by Eric Apolenis, PE, Vice President of the Southeast Region, and locally led by Mike Crowley, PE, Senior Advisor. Mike has over 40 years of experience as a fire protection engineer in Houston and Texas. As an experienced engineer, he is responsible for expanding Coffman’s local customer base and building a multidisciplinary team.

“Coffman is fortunate to have supported clients in Texas for many years and to receive a warm welcome to Dallas. We recognize the breadth of opportunity presented in Texas and see an unmet demand for coordinated, multidisciplinary engineering services. in the Texas market. Opening the Houston office was a natural step in our expansion, strengthening our capabilities to provide quality engineering services in Texas,” said Apolenis.

Mike is supported by Dave Gramlich, PE, Senior Fire Protection Engineer. Dave returns to Houston, where his career began after several years leading Coffman’s fire protection and code consulting group in Seattle.

“It’s exciting to be part of Coffman’s growth in my hometown of Houston. Our presence is not just a business for me, but part of the region’s thoughtful progression. We look forward to strengthening our relationship.” and engage with the local community,” Crowley says.

The Houston office currently offers in-house fire protection, electrical, and low-voltage engineering services, with plans to add full multidisciplinary engineering capabilities, including civil, structural, acoustic, and mechanical engineering. .

For more information, see the announcement page at https://www.coffman.com/news/coffman-opens-office-in-houston-texas/.

About Coffman Engineers

Since 1979, Coffman Engineers has added staff and expanded into dozens of service offerings, but the commitment to innovative work and lasting relationships remains unchanged. Coffman offers in-depth and scalable multidisciplinary engineering services, including civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, fire protection and other specialties. Coffman’s 620 employees at 20 locations across the United States are dedicated to customers and the team effort needed to build a better world. Please visit coffman.com or connect on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for more information.

Contact:
Beth Shimogawa, Corporate Communications, Coffman Engineers, Inc. | (808) 687-8884 | [email protected]

Related images

Image 1: Eric Apolenis, Vice President, Southwest Region

Eric Apolenis, PE, is the Vice President of the Southwest Region and Office Manager for Coffman Engineers in Houston.

Image 2: Mike Crowley, PEI, Senior Advisor

Mike Crowley, PE, is Principal Consultant and Senior Fire Protection Engineer for Coffman Engineers Houston.

This content was posted through the press release distribution service on Newswire.com.

• Eric Apolenis, Vice President, South West Region

In his new role at HSC, Griffin will develop strategies to advance the company’s public policy priorities and lead Hemlock’s interactions with state legislators, executive branch departments and agencies, and other parties. key stakeholders in policy areas that include climate change solutions, manufacturing and energy policy, all of which play an important role in Hemlock’s future as a raw materials supplier to the semiconductor and electronics industries. ‘solar energy. He will also monitor and analyze legislative and regulatory policy developments, providing insight and insights to HSC’s management team and Board of Directors.

“I am honored and thrilled to join the HSC team,” said Griffin. “I look forward to guiding our engagement with state legislators on both sides of the aisle, with the Governor’s team, and with other key stakeholders to ensure the voice of HSC is heard in the halls of government from the state.”

Prior to working at LafargeHolcim, Griffin served as Legislative Director and Director of Campaign Strategy for former State Representative and Majority Leader Jim Stamas, and Campaign Director and Director of Constituent Services for former Senator of State Tony Stamas, both of whom represented the Great Lakes Bay Area in the Michigan Legislature.

“We are thrilled to have Jason on board to manage state relations for the HSC,” said Brooke Beebe, HSC’s senior vice president of advocacy and engagement. “His experience in state politics and his deep knowledge in developing innovative solutions around climate change and sustainability in energy-intensive manufacturing will make him a tremendous asset to the Hemlock team.”

“It’s an exciting time to join the world leader in the production of hyper-pure polysilicon for the semiconductor and solar energy industries,” said Griffin. “HSC’s commitment to sustainability, operational excellence and community involvement is impressive. I look forward to bringing my knowledge and experience to the table to help the company achieve its goals.

Born and raised in Northern Michigan, Griffin lives in the Traverse City area with his wife, Amanda, and their two beloved dogs, Brock Lesnar and Ric Flair. He attended James Madison College at Michigan State University, where he studied International Relations with concentrations in Criminal Justice and East Asian Studies. Griffin is deeply involved in his community, serving as president of the Andrew J. Griffin Foundation, which fully funds tuition at Northwestern Michigan College’s Great Lakes Culinary Institute. He has also served on the signing event planning committees of the Children’s Trust Fund and Habitat for Humanity. Griffin is the grandson of the late United States Senator Robert Griffin, who represented Michigan in Washington DC from 1966 to 1979 and also served as a judge on the Michigan Supreme Court.

JThis week I have decided to reprint an article first published on June 27, 2014, following Governor Kayode Fayemi’s shock election defeat to Governor Peter Ayodele Fayose in the 2014 Ekiti guber race, as it reflects the topic that has bothered me these days – the place of belly politics, otherwise known as “stomach infrastructure”, in the choice of our leaders. With the approach of the election year, it is necessary to reconsider the possibility of a rational choice in a country where nearly half the population lives on less than 2 dollars a day. Enjoy:

The most amusing thing about Nigerian analysts, the outspoken observers of our political evolution into a pseudo-democratic nation, is our shared hypocrisy in reacting to the results of foreseeable public problems. This can be seen, most recently, in our responses to the outcome of Ekiti’s gubernatorial election. In this preparation for the next presidential election, I have personally gone from an intransigent idealist to an unequivocal realist. You will recall that I even wrote, frustrated, in my Friday column at one point to congratulate Goodluck Jonathan as President-Elect for 2015 – a year in advance!

But I forgive the masses. Our politicians undermine the conditions of their uneducated and hungry supporters, educated and unemployed supporters, poor and hopeless supporters, enterprising and economically unhappy supporters and even the sick and destitute, as well as illiterate and financially handicapped dropouts who, in turn, must rely on the policies of those same politicians. There is something wrong, something incestuous and sad in there, it is what Achille Mbembe called “the politics of death”.

Today’s politicians would not have been blamed if their understanding of populism had not been limited to the distribution of foodstuffs while chunks of their budgets were invested in their private enterprises. We inherited a structurally flawed system with a particular class unjustly subjugated and taken for granted by the political establishment. Members of this class are the compatriots whose only dividends from democracy are the “gifts” they receive from politicians in exchange for their votes each election year. They exchange this great abstract value for a much lesser but real value, a bag of rice for example, because they are hungry and a hungry man is an irrational man. And politicians in turn, elected to redeem the welfare of the masses, deliberately avoid doing so simply to keep them dependent and asking for handouts. This is our current step. Dear compatriots, dear masses, the truth is that these “gifts” offered to you were paid for with your own public funds or are otherwise the product of an abandoned or inflated community contract. It’s your loss when a politician who tries to match the value of your vote with an equal value in the infrastructure is shown the way out. The “stomach infrastructure” only lasts for the time of the next trip to the toilet. And imagine how many trips to the bathroom you poor ignorant masses will experience in contrast to the FOUR years of looting your vote gives the politician. Understand this and see how blinded you are!

So, what future for APC? APC, to some it’s ‘old wine in a new bottle’, but being the first time the opposition has emerged with the strength to put the government in place on its toes, I am, as a citizen unimpressed by the status quo, ready to settle for another form of bottle compared to the old one which is no longer practical to carry! This is the height of my realism as a citizen in search of “open air”. I think it’s time for the opposition, for whom I have sympathy, to do politics beyond unachievable idealism. The APC needs, for the upcoming election, a credible presidential candidate on the street, identifiable by the masses: a Buhari or an Atiku or any member with their influence. These are brands that do not need to be reintroduced to the masses, being Head of State and Vice President respectively. As for the personality of these two, I have my opinions, favorable and detrimental in some respects. But I strongly believe that with a well-built party structure, especially at the grassroots, they can be renamed and managed for the greater good of Nigeria. Our political immaturity is so pronounced that if a visionary Fashola emerges as the APC presidential candidate today, with his utterly modern ideology, and opposes a robust, pocket-pocketed and destructive, Fashola will lose in a free – and (UN) fairly induced – election. It’s that simple, that brutal.

There is, however, another problem: many of our political analysts see alignment and sympathy for a political cause as compromising, because they confuse neutrality with objectivity. It’s absolute self-deception to say you’re neutral in choosing which side to promote between oppressed and oppressor, especially when the oppressive incumbent has let the people down, is insensitive to apolitical activism and deaf to the demands of a progressive society. So to say that I am neutral in my political choices means that I have no sense of perception, knowing that this crucial decision determines my well-being as a citizen. Objectivity, for me, is the ability and the wisdom to criticize one’s own when they are wrong and others when they oppress him and his family.

Also, in their analyzes of Third World democracy, our authors have shown an absolute ignorance of practicable political idealism. This is why, since they condemn Bola Tinubu as a “thief and nothing but a thief”, they cannot name an alternative capable of ousting the opposition forces led by the GEJ. As they promote impractical idealism in their quest for spotless political saints, they should be ready to be “governed” by the YEG again from 2015 onwards. It’s as simple as that.

We, the would-be urban middle class activist lobby, have no choice but a ploy to get existing members of the establishment to serve us – to compete to give us the best, the best deal , for our votes. We must join together to remind them that unless the development of rural communities and the well-being of the urban masses are given the same attention as the construction of bridges and the installation of streetlights in our cities, only money and of course “rice”, not promises, can get you to vote. of this manipulated class, largely based in villages only remembered in election years.

That’s why we have to get rid of our butts. And the price of victory, whether by the PDP or APC establishment, will not, must not, be mere sacks of rice. We must demand bridges and free zones, specialized hospitals and quality education. I am a political realist, I will be bribed but I will only be bribed with something concrete, like roads, hospitals and electricity, not sacks of rice and Maggi. And this is a message to the political elite, the Establishment-Gimba Kakanda will be at the forefront of a new bloc with new demands. If you want my vote and the vote of my bloc, come and negotiate, we speak the language of public works and economic infrastructure. This is a look back at my political education over the past few months. And political literacy is not acquired in the classroom, it is acquired in our ability to strip ourselves of polarizing feelings by making political choices.

We need to stop thinking that ‘Third World’ politics is about writing ‘deep’ articles, composing tweets and writing deep Facebook posts and yelling at ourselves about how things should be run from our air-conditioned rooms and offices. As long as we just shout and write about failing governments without struggling to infiltrate the ranks of the “laboratory politicians” whose incompetence is causing this unrest, we are complicit in the downfall of this nation. I check. I take a stand. May God save us from ourselves!