BJ’s sales up; Kohl’s sales down

Two retailers with stores in Rhode Island reported differing results yesterday for the key December selling season. BJ’s Wholesale Club (BJ:NYSE) said that comparable store sales increased 3 percent last month, including a contribution from the sale of gasoline of 1.7 percent. Overall, BJ’s said sales reached $1.03 billion in the month but were hurt by the snowstorms in the Northeast that cost the company about 1 percent in sales. Kohl’s Corp. (KSS:NYSE) said comparable store sales for the five-week period that ended Jan. 5 decreased 11.4 percent from the similar period a year ago. The company said last year’s reporting calendar had an additional week.

KVH gains General Dynamics award

KVH Industries Inc., of Middletown, said yesterday it is one of five companies named “Supplier of the Year” by General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada at an award presentation at the company’s facility in Illinois. KVH provides tactical navigation systems to General Dynamics for a variety of military vehicles. In a statement, KVH said the award recognizes “excellence in several performance areas, including on-time delivery, responsiveness to technical information requests, repair status updates, quotes and other monthly performance metrics.”

Brown Bookstore to undergo renovation

Suffolk Education, based in Boston, will do a five-month renovation of the Brown Bookstore in Providence that will start in March and be completed in August. The campus store will remain open during the work on the 20,000-square-foot historic building on Thayer Street.

Astro-Med markets new recorder

Astro-Med, Inc., of West Warwick, has introduced a new two-channel portable data recorder. The Dash 2EZ+ is the newest model in the company’s Dash family of portable data recorders. Enhancements include a higher frequency response, faster chart speeds and the addition of Ethernet and USB 2.0 for uploading data to a computer. Weighing 4.5 pounds, the device is intended for applications in the automotive, electric utility, pulp and paper, metals manufacturing, chemical plant, steel mill and other industries where portability is required. Astro-Med is a manufacturer of high-tech specialty printing systems, electronic medical instrumentation and test and measurement instruments employed around the world in a wide range of industrial and scientific test and measurement applications.

EMC unveils new storage network system

EMC Corp., of Hopkinton, Mass., has introduced a new flexible, available and scalable storage area network system for small and medium businesses. The new system can be deployed, expanded and reconfigured in VMware infrastructure and traditional IT environments with no application downtime. The CLARiiON AX4 can scale to 60 terabytes of capacity and can store, manage and protect data from up to 64 high-availability Windows, Linux, Unix, NetWare and VMware Infrastructure hosts simultaneously.

Identity Solutions gets contract

Stamford, Conn.-based L-1 Identity Solutions, Inc., a provider of identity systems and services, announced that its fingerprint services division, Integrated Biometric Technology, has received a three-year contract from the California Department of Social Services. Estimated revenues under the contract are about $17 million over the three-year term. The department expects to process and enroll more than 300,000 California daycare workers, who all must have criminal-record clearance including fingerprinting, through IBT as part of this program.

Vermont firm gets wind turbine orders

Distributed Energy Systems Corp., of Barre, Vt., a developer of wind power technology, has received orders for seven wind turbines for use in Alaska and the Northeast region of the United States. Four of its advanced 100-kilowatt systems were sold to the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative, a utility responsible for providing power to 53 villages. The other three were ordered by Sustainable Energy Developments Inc., an Ontario, N.Y.-based company, currently developing wind projects with businesses, municipalities, residences, schools and farms in the Northeast.

Regulators seek update on Vermont Yankee

Federal regulators want more information from Entergy Nuclear about its analysis of certain safety components at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon. During a three-hour technical hearing Tuesday in Washington, D.C., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission asked Entergy engineers about the aging and stress on feedwater nozzles inside the plant. “Entergy wants to use the calculations, which we’re not very comfortable with,” NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said after the hearing. “We still need more information. How did they arrive at their conclusions? They’re going to have to provide more information,” he said. Entergy applied for a 20-year-license for the plant two years ago but the NRC has repeatedly asked for more information. Sheehan said there is no timetable set for the NRC to issue a decision on the license extension.

Weymouth company buys The Air Group

Weymouth, Mass.-based Sentient Jet Holdings, LLC, a full-service private aviation company, has acquired The Air Group, Inc., an aircraft management company, headquartered in Van Nuys, Calif., to expand Sentient’s presence in the Southern California market. In combination with the recent agreement by Sentient Flight Group, LLC to acquire the aircraft management operations of TAG Aviation USA, Sentient is now the leading manager of aircraft in the country. Steven Hankin, Sentient chief executive officer, said, “This acquisition further strengthens our aircraft management experience and provides us with one of the largest and highest-quality fleets for charter customers. With The Air Group’s new facility in Teterboro, N.J., and the planned opening of a new facility in Van Nuys in the spring of 2008, we also gain access to top-notch facilities for our clients at two important airports.”

Mass Turnpike to offer alternative fuels

The Massachusetts Senate has approved a measure requiring the state Turnpike Authority to come up with a plan to offer alternative fueling stations on the roadway. The measure calls for the agency to make alternative fuels available at each of the highway’s existing fueling stations and service plazas by the year 2014. The measure was included in the Senate version of a sweeping energy bill passed Wednesday night. Another amendment approved by the Senate would require the MBTA and regional transit authorities to come up with a system to streamline the purchase of alternative-fuel vehicles. The Senate version must be reconciled with the House version approved in December.

Metro-North ridership sets record

The Connecticut Metro-North commuter rail line says ridership on all three lines last year broke 80 million for the first time. A Metro-North spokesman says the New Haven line accounts for about 46 percent of the total, with the rest on the Harlem and Hudson lines. Besides more passengers, Metro-North boasted a 97.7-percent on-time performance, meaning trains arrive within six minutes of their scheduled time.