September 2009

Welcome to eFYI, your exclusive monthly e-newsletter from Greater Louisville Inc. - The Metro Chamber of Commerce. As one of our valued partners, you can count on eFYI to cover the topics and issues of most interest and benefit to you. Share your comments and ideas with us any time at VFisher@greaterlouisville.com.


BEST, GlowTouch make Inc. 500
Grant to aid stem-cell research
Downtown Louisville arena lands conventions, transportation grant
Forbes: Louisville good place for working moms
Jewish Hospital opens Northeast campus
List of area's largest employers shows some vitality in downturn
Louisville-area employers recognized for 'flexibility'


BEST, GlowTouch make Inc. 500

Blue Entertainment Sports Television (BEST) and GlowTouch Technologies have been named to the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies.
The ranking is based on year-over-year sales growth from the previous three years.

BEST, a division of Louisville-based Blue Equity LLC, is a sports and entertainment management, marketing and production company.
Louisville-based GlowTouch Technologies provides information technology application development, business-process outsourcing and IT infrastructure services. Read more.


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Grant to aid stem-cell research

A University of Louisville Medical School program focusing on cell-transplant research is the recipient of a $1.6 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Defense.

The funds will primarily go to support research into adult stem-cell transplant technology at U of L's Institute of Cellular Therapeutics. The money will be passed through the National Foundation to Support Cell Transplant Research.

The institute's director, Dr. Suzanne Ildstad, and her team have made some major breakthroughs in bone-marrow transplant technology.

Their discoveries have helped make it possible to safely transfer marrow from one person to another without life-threatening rejection. That holds the promise of permanently treating or curing autoimmune diseases and blood disorders affecting millions worldwide. Read more.

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Downtown Louisville arena lands conventions, transportation grant

The new downtown Louisville arena won't open until November 2010, but already it has landed two large conventions.
Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear recently announced that the 24th annual Global National Youth International Conference will come to the arena and the Kentucky International Convention Center in July, 2011.

More than 12,000 people are expected to attend the convention.

Beshear also announced that the North American Youth Conference, held by the United Pentecostal Church International, will use the arena and the convention center.

The event, which will be held in August, 2013, is expected to bring about 20,000 people to Louisville.

In addition to the announcement about the conventions, Beshear also said that Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government has received a $3 million Transportation Enhancement Grant from the state of Kentucky to enhance architectural features, streetscapes and lighting along Second Street, between Main Street and River Road, near the arena. Read more.


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Forbes: Louisville good place for working moms

Forbes magazine has named Louisville the 11th-best city in the United States in its ranking of the Top 50 states for working mothers.
The rankings looked at factors such as income, unemployment rate, cost of living, quality of health care, number of pediatricians, school quality, spending per pupil, childcare, violent crime and property crime rates, and the number of public parks. Read more.


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Jewish Hospital opens Northeast campus

Jewish Hospital Medical Center Northeast recently opened for business.
The $7.6 million medical center includes around-the-clock emergency services, outpatient cancer treatment services, holistic medicine, cardiac services and occupational health services.

The center also provides advanced diagnostic medical imaging services, including MRI, PET/CT, CT, fluoroscopy, full-field digital mammography, nuclear medicine, X-ray, ultrasound and DEXA/bone density screening. Read more.


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List of area's largest employers shows some vitality in downturn

Louisville lost 27,000 jobs between mid-2008 and mid-2009, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsfigures released last week.
That's hardly unexpected during the most severe recession in 80 years. What is unexpected is that work-force data from Louisville's largest employers show surprising economic vitality amid a mosaic of expansion and contraction.

Business First's 2009 list of the area's largest employers includes information from 40 large, Louisville-area, private-sector employers. The data show that overall employment is down, but only slightly.

Of the 33 companies that appear on both this year's list and the 2008 list, the total number of employees for 2009 dropped by 2,104, or 2 percent, to 95,271 people from 97,375 last year. Read more.


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Louisville-area employers recognized for 'flexibility'

Greater Louisville Inc. was one of more than twenty Louisville-area businesses to receive the Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility.
The awards are presented through a partnership among the Families and Work Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for a Competitive Workforce, and the Twiga Foundation.

Employers had to describe their workplace flexibility, and employees rated the workplaces through a survey. To win an award, employers had to score in the top 20 percent of U.S. employers being considered for the award. Read more.