Business memo 3/25/02

Famous Barr captures awards for sales, service

Famous Barr has been awarded the top performing store in its division, said Sharon Ebersohl, general manager of the store located at Westfield Shoppingtown West Park.

Ebersohl said that the Cape Girardeau retailer won the prestigious award among all 43 stores in the division, which includes Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky and parts of Illinois.

The award, presented to the store on March 19 in St. Louis, is based on sales, customer service and inventory numbers.

"It's very prestigious in our company to get that," Ebershol said. "We're very proud of the local store. The employees here do a lot of hard work and are very dedicated. They have so much pride in everything that they do."

There are 164 employees at the Cape Girardeau Famous Barr.

Housing construction at highest in three decades

Housing construction, bolstered by low interest rates and good weather, climbed in February to its highest level in more than three years.

Builders broke ground in February on 1.77 million housing units, at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, which was 2.8 percent more than in January, the Commerce Department reported last week.

February's larger-than-expected increase pushed housing construction to its highest level since December 1998 and followed a strong 7.4 percent advance in January, even bigger than the government previously reported.

All of the strength last month came from single-family home construction, which rose 7.4 percent to a rate of 1.46 million in February, the highest level in more than 23 years.

Genesis Transportation gets Platinum award

Genesis Transportation was presented a Platinum award by Great West Casualty Co. as part of the 2001 National Fleet Safety Award Program. The award went to dispatcher Matt Steffens, safety director Kathy Ringwald and Dan Hotop, the C.M. Brown and Associates Inc. agent. The owners are Sandy and Moose Meystedt.

The Fleet Safety Award Program drew over 400 entries from across the country. Carriers were recognized for achieving a low preventable accident frequency per million miles of operation. The Fleet Safety Award Program recognizes fleets in similar operations (truckload and less than truckload) with awards based on their year-end preventable accident results. The carriers then received a Platinum, Gold, Silver or Participatory award.

Court urged to make ageism tougher to prove

The Supreme Court confronted the job safety fears of America's graying workers on Wednesday in a case that asks whether older employees have the same legal clout as minorities in discrimination claims.

The justices, who have lifetime appointments, are being urged by companies to make age bias suits tougher to prove. If the court does so, employers would have more leeway in cutting jobs.

The case turns on whether a 1967 law that bars on-the-job age bias allows lawsuits on grounds that an employer's action had a disproportionate impact on older workers. Justices have already settled that impact suits are allowed under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on a worker's gender, religion or race.

-- From staff, wire reports