Business briefs

Mac's Smokehouse relocates to Shawneetown

Mac's Smokehouse has closed its Silver Springs Road location in Cape Girardeau and moved to Shawneetown, near the border of Cape Girardeau and Perry counties.

The new location is at 271 Shawneetown Road, two miles from Highway CC.

David McAllister, who has moved four times since he first opened in Pocahontas in 1992, said he bought an 80-year-old bar and opened the new Mac's there in mid-March. It has 115 seats, which is a much larger space than what he had in Cape Girardeau. That location could only seat 44.

"I couldn't expand," he said of the relocation. "It wasn't because business was bad. We just outgrew the facilities. It was getting to the point that we had people just standing in line."

Chan's Chinese Restaurant sold

Peter Chan has sold his popular Cape Girardeau Chinese restaurant. The new owner is Nicky Liu. Liu had been a cook at Chinatown Buffet, where he worked for his uncle.

Liu, 25, has also been a cook at Chinese restaurants in New York, New Jersey and Hong Kong.

"Peter wanted to retire," Liu said. "I wanted to buy it, and he said yes."

Liu said he will be making some modifications to the menu, and is in the process of adding a new stove.

The name of the restaurant is now the New Chan's. "I wanted customers to remember the old name but add something new," Liu said.

Big River Telephone expands service, distributes phone books

Big River Telephone, a Cape Girardeau-based telecommunications provider, is expanding its service area. According to Kevin Keaveny, vice president of engineering and operations, Big River is establishing several new network hubs in order to broaden the types of products it provides.

The hubs will deliver integrated high-speed data and voice, DSL and enhanced IP services, Keaveny said. The new locations are in Jackson, Eureka, Farmington, Washington, Perryville, Fredericktown, Ste. Genevieve and Marble Hill.

New telephone books from Big River also were unveiled and distributed recently. The book has a large-scale print for easier reading, a reverse directory and state and local contact numbers.

"We are very pleased with the way this year's book turned out," said Kevin Cantwell, Big River Telephone president. "We wanted to update the appearance of the book while keeping the convenience and simplicity of last year's edition. It's easy to read, plus it's small enough to keep a copy of it in your car."

The new phone books were delivered to residents of Cape Girardeau and Jackson and mailed to rural residents of Cape, Scott and Bollinger counties. Copies of the book are also available at Big River Telephone's office at 24 S. Minnesota and at the Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce.

Business innovation center under construction in Cape

When renovations on a former church education building are complete this summer, Southeast Missouri State University will have a new business innovation center. The project is estimated to cost $850,000.

"The whole concept is to create an environment to nurture and help realize innovations, to help inventors and developers commercialize their ideas," said Buz Sutherland, director of the Small Business Development Center.

The innovation center also ties in with the university's plans to nurture life-science industries as part of a long-range plan to develop a research and technology park on the university farm bordering Interstate 55.

Sutherland's office -- currently in Dempster Hall -- will relocate to the renovated building. The facility also will house a number of other programs on the first floor to help business and industry. The office of Dennis Roedemeier, who is spearheading the development of the technology park, will be in the former church building.

The federal Small Business Administration likely will have an office in the building, Sutherland said.

The second floor will house the professional development program, and the third floor of the building will serve as a business incubator, providing office space for start-up businesses. The businesses will be able to rent space at less-than-market rates and share secretarial services and office equipment, Sutherland said.

There's enough room to house about 11 businesses, he said.

Positive job market anticipated in area

Southeastern Missouri employers expect to hire at a steady pace during the second quarter of 2005, according to the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.

According to the survey, 27 percent of the companies interviewed plan to hire more employees from April to June, while 7 percent expect to reduce their payrolls. Another 66 percent expect to maintain their current staff levels.

"Southeastern Missouri employers have stronger hiring intentions than in the first quarter when 13 percent of the companies interviewed intended to add staff, and 10 percent planned to reduce headcount," said spokesperson Peggy Gates.

For the coming quarter, job prospects appear best in construction, durable goods manufacturing and transportation/public utilities. Employers in non-durable goods manufacturing and services voiced mixed hiring intentions. Hiring in wholesale/retail trade, finance/insurance/real estate, education and public administration is expected to remain unchanged.

Sikeston company markets worldwide

SIKESTON -- Larry DeWitt started business at ground level and stayed there. DeWitt couldn't be happier about that. Staying at the ground level has put him at the helm of a growing company that is making a difference in the environment.

Originally owning a lawn and garden business, DeWitt began looking for a product that would control weeds yet allow plants to thrive.

"Using plastic for weed control was a safe and economical solution, but I was looking for a better solution," recalled DeWitt, a graduate of Southeast Missouri State University with degrees in horticulture and landscape design.

Experimenting with a variety of textiles, DeWitt discovered that woven polypropylene did it all. The fabric allowed plants to grow organically -- the water and nutrients could flow through but the weeds were held in check. In 1974, DeWitt began production of the cloth. By 1978, the lawn and garden business went by the wayside as his production facility took up more and more of his time, becoming his full-time career.

Today, the DeWitt Company produces about 10,000 acres of permeable ground cloth annually. It is used across the United States and around the world from Costa Rica to Japan.

The company has spun off several auxiliaries for horticulture and other agriculture needs. There are various configurations of DeWitt's trademark Weed Barrier along with other products including Row Cover, Thermal Blanket, N-Sulate and various site drainage products.

The company's production plant has about 100 employees.

Power plant proposal presented to city

NEW MADRID -- A technology of the future could become a reality within a year if funding and construction fall into place.

Charles McCoy, representing MSEnergy, recently presented the drawing of a prototype cold molecular fission reactor to the New Madrid City Council. He explained the process it would use to produce electricity from water.

The process, called cold molecular fission, splits water molecules using electrolysis. The hydrogen then becomes the fuel and the oxygen the oxidizer to power a turbine generator.

McCoy said the company would construct its prototype plant on about 5 acres of land near the northwest edge of New Madrid. The initial plant would generate seven megawatts of electricity of which two megawatts would be needed to power the plant and the other five megawatts would be sold.

"This is cheaper than coal or nuclear power," he said, adding there are no harmful byproducts such as carbon dioxide. "In fact it has no byproducts and is a totally closed system."

McCoy said the company is working with government officials on grants that would fund the proposed $18 to $20 million project. Ideally, he said, construction could begin in June with the plant up and running within a year.

The plant would initially require 12 to 24 workers to operate the facility round-the-clock, McCoy said.

The proposed location is one of the sites earmarked by the city as industrial property for development owned privately by Hunter Enterprises.

Firm buys video packaging product line

SCOTT CITY -- Blair Packaging Inc. has acquired the Mercury label videocassette packaging product line from Ohio-based NEXPAK. The asset purchase includes the intellectual property rights, patents and machine tooling for the Mercury soft vinyl VHS packaging line as well as several other vinyl-based packaging products.

Blair Packaging also purchased the company's vinyl case production lines, which the Southeast Missouri manufacturer has begun moving to its Scott City production plant. Production from this new product line is expected to start this month.

Governor touts tort reform legislation at Cape

Flanked by local doctors and lawmakers, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt touted a new tort reform law at a ceremonial bill signing March 28 in Cape Girardeau at Saint Francis Medical Center.

The Cape Girardeau stop was the last of the governor's visits around the state in advance of his plans to sign the legislation in Jefferson City.

Blunt said the law makes sweeping litigation and medical malpractice reforms to address what he said was a medical crisis in Missouri.

"This legislation sets a new standard in our efforts to prevent physicians from being forced from Missouri because of soaring medical malpractice costs while at the same time ensuring businesses will be able to flourish without the threat of job-killing legal awards hanging over their heads," Blunt said in a statement.

But many Democrats and trial lawyers contend the legislation simply makes it harder for injured Missourians to obtain justice and money.

The bill takes effect Aug. 28.

Under the legislation, most lawsuits must be filed in the county where the alleged injury or wrongdoing occurred. The provision is designed to cut down on venue shopping in which attorneys try to file suit in the county where they believe jurors will be most sympathetic to their claims. The legislation also limits the money juries can award victims. It caps punitive damages at $500,000 or five times the actual damages, whichever is greater.

Governor signs workers' comp restrictions

JEFFERSON CITY -- Culminating a long effort by Republican lawmakers and business groups, Gov. Matt Blunt on March 30 signed into law legislation he said will fix "fundamental problems" in Missouri's workers' compensation system.

Blunt said the expansive changes, which will take effect Aug. 28, will lower workers' compensation costs for Missouri employers and make the state more competitive with other states in luring jobs.

"We had to address the fact that workers' compensation costs in Missouri exceed workers' compensation costs in other states," Blunt said. "That hurts economic development in our state."

Organized labor groups label the law as a betrayal of the state's commitment to protecting injured workers and urged Blunt to veto it. Although labor officials helped craft a compromise bill that won Senate approval, the final measure reflects the more business-friendly position preferred by the House of Representatives. Republicans hold solid majorities in both chambers, and the bill passed largely along partisan lines.

One of the bill's major changes will require an employee to prove their job was "the prevailing" cause of an injury rather than "a substantial" factor, the lower threshold set in existing law. In other words, even if work contributes to an injury, an employee won't be eligible for workers' compensation benefits unless work is proven the main cause.

Other provisions of the law will require the administrative law judges that preside over workers' compensation disputes to construe state laws neutrally instead of giving the benefit of the doubt to workers, as is currently the case.

Administrative judges will also be subject to performance reviews and periodic re-appointment to office.

The measure also would reduce or eliminate benefits for workers who violate company policies on drug and alcohol use and limit attorney fees in workers' compensation cases. Workers who are fired for unspecified misconduct after an injury would lose all benefits.

Noranda acquires metal company

MARSTON -- Noranda, the largest Canadian mining company, announced in mid-March it would acquire the 41 percent of the nickel producer Falconbridge Ltd. it does not already own, in a stock swap worth $2.49 billion, according to an article in the New York Times

Noranda, based in Toronto, has an aluminum production facility in New Madrid's St. Jude Industrial Park near Marston. The company said it had ended negotiations to be acquired by China Minmetals, which is owned by the Beijing government. In September, China Minmetals offered to buy Noranda for about $4.7 billion.

Keith Gregston, Noranda president and general manager at the Marston facility, said it would be "business as usual" for the local operation. He did note both Falconbridge and Noranda would be stronger as a result of the acquisition.

With an hourly workforce of 889 and 230 salaried workers who operate the Marston plant 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Noranda is one of Southeast Missouri's largest employers.

-- From staff reports