Briefcase – March 23, 2012

NONPROFIT NOTES
Little Kids Rock and the Bohemian Foundation presented more than 300 guitars to Poudre School District at an assembly at Lopez Elementary School. Bohemian Foundation is providing a $375,000 grant to Little Kids Rock to brings its free and innovative music program to PSD, making PSD the first Little Kids Rock school district in Colorado. Little Kids Rock with use the grant to leverage its mission, music industry relationships and resources to donate $1 million worth of instruments, lessons and curriculum over the next three years. Little Kids Rock trained 28 Poudre School District teachers how to run a modern band practice last month.

The McWhinney Foundation recently made a donation to Book Trust. The contribution will help to buy approximately 5,000 books for low-income students in the Thompson School District for the 2012-2013 school year. Book Trust is a nonprofit youth literacy group based out of Fort Collins. The McWhinney Foundation has been a supporter of Book Trust since 2006.

KUDOS
The American Rental Association recognized Robin Event Rental of Loveland at the Rental Show 2012 in New Orleans last month. The award is given to rental stores that commit to the industry by improving their business through a remodeling, rebuilding or renovation project. After starting in a garage in 2007, Robin Event Rental moved into a 1,000-square-foot space in 2009 then to a 4,700-square-foot building last year. The company carries all types of party rental supplies.

SPONSORED CONTENT

Federal District Court Rules Corporate Transparency Act Unconstitutional . . . But Most Small Businesses Must Still Comply

Lyons Gaddis Real Estate and Business Attorney Cameron Grant shares important details of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA).

Columbine Poudre Health Care won the HomeCare Elite award, placing it in the top 25 percent of Medicare-Certified home health agencies based upon data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. The rating system is based off of publicly available data from Home Health Compare and measures quality of care, patient improvement and financial performance. This is the fourth time Columbine Poudre Home Care has won the award.

Colorado Women of Influence LLC received the 2011 All Star Award from Constant Contact Inc., a marketing adviser for small organizations. The award is given out annually to Constant Contact Customers who show exemplary marketing results. Colorado Women of Influence ranked among the top 10 percent of Constant Contact’s customer base.

Roche Constructors received an Eagle Award in the Commercial $10-25 Million category of the Associated Builders and Contractors Excellence in Construction Awards for their work on Target Store No. 2717 in Lakewood. The award was presented to Dale Cook, Director of safety and health for Roche at the 22nd annual Excellence in Construction Awards celebration in Phoenix. The awards program was developed to honor innovative and high-quality merit shop construction projects.

Connecting Point was ranked on Nine Lives Media’s MSPmentor 200 North America Edition list, a first-time list identifying North America’s top 200 managed services providers. The MSPmentor 200 North America Edition is based on data from MSPmentor’s global online survey. The list recognizes top-managed service providers based on annual managed services revenue growth, revenue per employee, managed services offered and customer devices managed.

Insurance agency Brown & Brown Inc. released its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2011 and reached its goal of attaining $1 billion in total revenue. Total revenue for the 12-month period was recorded at $1,014,000,000. Brown & Brown is a full service insurance agency that offers commercial property & casualty, workers’ compensation, employee benefits, contract bonds, professional liability and personal insurance coverage lines.

NEW PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
Integris Partners recently advised Vision Graphics Inc., a commercial printing company, in the acquisition of Eagle: XM Inc. Eagle: XM is a marketing service company, using media across multiple marketing channels in order to create and execute on a single, focused marketing plan. In addition to the services gained by the acquisition of Eagle: XM, Vision Graphics provides business marketing support services, including 1:1 marketing, variable data, web-to-print, digital and sheet-fed printing, UV, large format, mailing and fulfillment.

PROJECTS
Drahota was selected to be the general contractor for a new Bank of Colorado in Sterling. Construction of the 8,740-square-foot building is currently underway. This marks the fifth building Drahota has built for Bank of Colorado.

Bartran Construction chose Interior Life of Fort Collins to design their new model home in the Sidehill neighborhood, located northeast of Drake and Timberline. The home will be open for public viewing in May and may be seen by appointment through Joey Porter of The Group.

MISCELLANEOUS
MKK Consulting Engineers Inc. announced their new memberships in both the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and the Building Owners and Managers Association. AASHE is an association of colleges and universities working to create a sustainable world. BOMA is composed of members who represent nearly 80 million square feet of commercial real estate in the Denver area.

Over 800 students and staff attended a week of training, teaching and networking at the 14th Winter Colorado Wildland Fire & Incident Management Academy at Aims Community College in Greeley. Forty different courses were offered to provide future leaders of Colorado’s fire departments with the leadership tools needed to serve in command positions. The course was sponsored by a grant from the Fireman’s Fund through the IMA Insurance Group and the Colorado State Forest Service, which covered the majority of the tuition fees.

The Education & Life Training Center is inviting Larimer County community members and businesses to donate their used, 2004 or newer, PCs and laptops March 10. ELTC rebuilds donated computers, then resells them at a significant discount to low-income students and to the public. Donations can be made from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 401 Linden St. in Old Town Fort Collins. For additional information, contact Shane Greenwood at 970-482-4357.

If you have an item to share about name changes, new products or business news of note, e-mail it to Mariah Gant at mgant@ncbr.com, or mail it to Briefcase at NCBR, 155O E. Harmony Road, Fort Collins, CO 80525.