RBS ex-chairman supports current CEO

George Mathewson, former chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, the owner of Providence-based Citizens Financial Group, yesterday rejected calls for RBS chief executive officer Fred Goodwin to step down after he resorted to a rights offer to shore up capital. The bank needs Goodwin’s “very high” management skills for “several more years” to see it through the $23-billion acquisition of parts of ABN Amro Holding NV, Mathewson told Bloomberg News. Even so, Mathewson said he was “surprised” by how much risk RBS took on in U.S. mortgages, leading to more than $15 billion of write-downs, and said the timing of the purchase of ABN Amro was “wrong” as credit markets seized up last year. “He is definitely the right person to take the bank forward, because what they need to do now is run the business well,” Mathewson said, adding it would be “really bad news” for RBS if Goodwin left, even though “there’s been a lot of antagonism in the city towards Fred Goodwin over the last few years.”

Verizon investing $86 million for expansion

Verizon said yesterday that it is making a capital investment of about $86 million in new network technology to expand its FiOS fiver-optic cable TV service to more communities in Rhode Island. The company said it is also expanding its Providence-based Fiber Solutions Center, where at least 50 more union-represented technicians and customer-service representatives will be hired. A total of 350 new jobs have been created since the center opened in 2006. The company also will upgrade its high-speed Internet service, based on DSL technology, to Cranston, Hope Valley, Jamestown, Narragansett, Pawtucket, Providence, Tiverton and Weekapaug.

Airport police have new emergency system

The Rhode Island Airport Police at T.F. Green Airport said yesterday that they will install a new emergency notification system to aid in communications during emergencies and security breaches. The system, supplied by PURVIS Systems Inc., based in Middletown, will allow airport officials to establish immediate contact with emergency units nationwide. Airport police Chief David Hayden said, “Since our work at T.F. Green presents a myriad of security issues, we required a communications system that would allow us to extend our reach beyond the members of our own unit, while enabling us to inform key officials in other airports nationwide.”

Babcock Power, ThermoEnergy to partner

Babcock Power Inc., of Danvers, Mass., and ThermoEnergy Corp., a Little Rock, Ark., diversified technologies company that has a 20,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Worcester, Mass., have signed a memorandum of understanding to commercialize ThermoEnergy’s zero air-emission power plant design. Based on pressurized oxy-fuel combustion technology, the system converts coal, natural gas, oil, and biomass into energy with near-zero air emissions. In addition, it captures carbon dioxide in a clean pressurized form ready for sequestration or beneficial reuse. Babcock and ThermoEnergy engineers will begin work immediately to complete the data needed to design, construct and operate a large-scale pilot plant at a host site.

Rock of Ages names Labonte as CEO

Rock of Ages Corp., of Concord, N.H., has announced that Kurt M. Swenson will retire as chief executive officer on June 30 and will be succeeded by president and chief operating officer Donald Labonte, 46, who joined the company in 1980 as a production worker. Swenson, 63, has been CEO since 1984. Rock of Ages is the largest integrated granite quarrier and manufacturer of finished granite memorials and granite blocks for memorial use in North America.

Pratt & Whitney to power Korean F-15Ks

East Hartford, Conn.-based Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Corp. company, has been awarded a contract to provide engines to power new F-15K fighter jets for the Republic of Korea Air Force. Pratt & Whitney will provide engine kits to Samsung Techwin for local assembly under the terms of the contract. Pratt & Whitney’s F100 is the sole propulsion system for F-15s of the U.S Air Force, Japan Self-Defense Force and Israel Defense Force. It has been powering F-15s since first flight in 1972, and for the past 36 years.

Bill would protect endangered right whales

A U.S. Senate committee has passed a bipartisan bill introduced by Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Massachusetts’ John Kerry that aims to protect endangered right whales from ship strikes. The Ship Strike Reduction Act of 2008 would establish speed limits for specified vessels that travel through the migratory paths of North Atlantic right whales. Snowe said the bill will ensure that the lobster industry doesn’t bear the full responsibility for protecting the right whale when ship strikes are the top cause of human-induced right whale deaths. Lobster harvesters are being forced to buy new rope for their traps to comply with new rules aimed at protecting the whales, which migrate from the southern United States to the Gulf of Maine each summer.

Hannaford offers overseas surgery option

As more Americans choose to have medical procedures performed at lower cost outside the United States, the Scarborough, Maine-based Hannaford Bros. supermarket chain has begun offering employees the option of getting hip and knee replacements at a hospital in Singapore. Even when airfare and hotel charges for the employee and a traveling companion are factored in, the company could save thousands of dollars per procedure, said Peter Hayes, who manages health benefits for 27,000 workers, including about 7,000 in Maine. A hip replacement that can cost $40,000 to $60,000 in the United States ranges from $10,000 to $15,000 in Singapore, he said. He added that almost all workers he surveyed were open to traveling for health care as long as the quality equaled that of U.S. hospitals.

Saco considers rules for small wind turbines

Saco, the first Maine municipality to erect a city-owned wind turbine, is considering a set of rules to establish standards for small residential wind turbines. The ordinance under consideration would limit the capacity of residential windmills, as well as require people to have at least half an acre for each turbine. The turbines could be placed on single-pole towers no higher than 100 feet.

Mount Snow ‘greening up’ its snowmaking

Aiming to “green up” its snowmaking operations, Mount Snow ski resort near Dover, Vt., says it plans to install more than 150 more energy-efficient fan guns, boosting its total to 261. The guns, which run on electricity and use on-board compressors, will be installed this summer along well-trafficked trails. Combined with 101 of the guns installed last summer, they will eliminate the need for 16 diesel compressors and save about 200,000 gallons of diesel full annually, according to Kelly Pawlak, Mount Snow’s general manager.

Sugarloaf will use cooking grease as fuel

Sugarloaf ski resort in Carrabassett Valley, Maine, is expanding a program to run its off-road vehicles on a fuel that includes cooking grease. Sugarloaf has bought 500 gallons of biodiesel fuel that came from waste vegetable oil from its many restaurants. The fuel will be mixed with 10,000 gallons of diesel, resulting in a mix that will be used in the resort’s shuttle buses, grooming equipment and other off-road vehicles. A Sugarloaf ski patrol employee collected the vegetable oil from the resort’s restaurants during the winter and took it to Bean’s Commercial Grease in Vassalboro, producers of GreenBean Bio Fuel.