Campbell

A key hire at Textron

Textron last week hired Scott Donnelly, the 46-year-old head of General Electric’s aviation unit, as chief operating officer, setting off questions about how long Lewis Campbell, 62, would remain chief executive of the Providence-based conglomerate.

Campbell has “no near-term plans to retire” and Donnelly’s appointment is not a sign of putting a succession plan in place, said Karen Gordon Quintal, director of public relations.

She did say about Textron’s retirement policy: “a normal retirement age of 65 is expected.”

The chief operating officer job had been vacant for several years. Textron decided to fill it now to allow the company to recruit a high-caliber executive and add to the company’s bench strength. Donnelly will run Textron’s manufacturing units, sit on the executive committee and report directly to Campbell. He will start immediately and work from Textron’s headquarters in downtown Providence.

Donnelly was with GE for 19 years and had been chief executive officer of GE Aviation, the world’s biggest jet-engine maker, since July 2005.

His appointment caught the interest of Wall Street analysts, who have been watching Textron’s provision for loan losses in its finance divisions and its struggling share price. The stock (TXT:NYSE) closed Thursday at $47.84 a share and is off 33 percent this year.

Rob Stallard, an analyst for Macdquarie Research Equities, agreed that Donnelly’s appointment adds to Textron’s management depth.

Stallard wrote in a research report, “In the near term, we do not see this as a sign that CEO Lewis Campbell is set to retire, although we believe having a quality manager like Donnelly as a potential successor is clearly helpful.”

Lead-paint ruling boosts stock prices

The stock in Sherwin-Williams Co. (SHW:NYSE) plummeted in 2006 when a Rhode Island court found the company, and two other former makers of lead paint, liable for as much as $2.4 billion to clean contaminated buildings. The verdict, the first to hold the companies liable for harm caused by products sold decades ago, erased about $1.8 billion in Sherwin-Williams market capitalization.

Last Tuesday, when the Rhode Island Supreme Court overturned the verdict, Sherwin-Williams stock got a bounce, gaining 6.4 percent to close at $48.86 a share. Since then, it has settled back to close Thursday at $47.53 a share. Another publicly traded company named in the lawsuit, NL Industries, (NL:NYSE) saw its stock gain 4.6 percent to $9.97 on Tuesday before ending the trading week at $9.72. The third company is Millenium Holdings LLC.

Sherwin-Williams, based in Cleveland and the largest U.S. paint retailer, still faces similar cases in Ohio and California.

Panel to review approval process at Quonset

New companies continue to locate at Quonset Business Park. For example, Dave’s Marketplace plans to open a supermarket at the new Quonset Gateway being built at the entrance to the park in North Kingstown.

Before leaving the State House for the summer, however, the Rhode Island Senate voted to create a study commission to review the project approval processes for the Quonset Development Corporation, which oversees the business park.

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. James C. Sheehan, D-Narragansett, created a nine-member study panel that will report its findings and recommendations to the Senate and the governor by the end of January. The study commission is an outgrowth of disagreements between the QDC and the Town of North Kingstown over the proposed gateway project.

Currently, no statutory conformity process is in effect that requires the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation or its subsidiary, the QDC, to ensure that any development plans conform with the requirements of the State Guide Plan or to the comprehensive plan of the community in which any project is being developed, said Sheehan.

The study panel, once formed, will do a comprehensive study of the existing review and approval processes that are in place for EDC, QDC and the Town of North Kingstown for projects located at Quonset. The panel also will review the role of the State Planning Council in such projects and will make recommendations for amendments, changes and improvements that might be made to clarify the review and approval processes.

The commission will be composed of three senators, three members from North Kingstown to be named by the Town Council president, a representative of the QDC, a representative of the EDC and a representative of the Statewide Planning Program to be named by the director of the Department of Administration.

‘A nice marriage’ for metals manufacturers

Engineered Materials Solutions, once part of Texas Instruments’ metals division in Attleboro, acquired Hood & Co., of Hamburg, Pa., last week to expand its thermostat metals and parts business. Hood was privately owned. Terms of the acquisition were not announced.

Eric Olson, chief executive officer and president of Engineered Materials, said, “Hood has a very strong presence in the heavy-gauge thermostat metals and parts manufacturing side of the business, while for many years EMS has been the leader in the lighter-gauge disc-grade materials and parts segments. This is a very nice marriage of technological expertise and strengths. It increases our ability to serve our customers across product lines and it will allow our customers to streamline their purchasing and supply line practices.”

Hood has 90 employees and does all of its manufacturing in Pennsylvania. It has warehouses in Pennsylvania, Texas, Puerto Rico, France and Taiwan. The business will continue to operate in Pennsylvania, under the Engineered Materials Solutions name.

EMS is a subsidiary of the Wickeder Group of companies, a privately held company with headquarters in Wickede an der Ruhr, Germany. EMS employs more than 330 workers and has annual sales in excess of $180 million. Wickeder and EMS, both pioneers in the production of clad metals by cold-roll bonding, have grown in parallel for almost 100 years. Wickeder was founded by Bernhard Bauer in 1913 under the name Wickeder Eisen- und Stahlwerk GmbH, Praezisionszieherei und Kaltwalzwerk.

The roots of EMS are in General Plate Co., which was founded in 1916 by Rathbun Willard. The company evolved into the clad-metals business of Texas Instruments. TI’s metals business was acquired in 2000 by Blue Point Capital Partners, based in Cleveland, and became Engineered Materials Solutions.

Opening and closing at the same time

In the same week that Starbucks announced the closing of 600 stores nationwide, the coffee chain opened a new store in the lower level of T.F. Green Airport, part of an expansion of retailers that eventually will include a Brooks Brothers clothing store and a Wolfgang Puck restaurant on the upper level.

The coffee shop quickly became a hit.

“There were folks in line right after it opened,” said Patti Goldstein, a spokeswoman for the airport. “It’s in the area where the baggage claim is and where the meeters and greeters gather, so it’s a good spot.”

Starbucks Corp. (SBUX:NASDAQ) is based in Seattle, Wash. The world’s largest coffee chain said it would close 600 stores in the United States and lay off 12,000 employees because sales have been pinched by consumers cutting back in the slow economy.

John Kostrzewa is the Journal’s business editor. Send anecdotes to pjbiz@projo.com.