Rock City promotes Harris to president
The Lookout Mountain tourist attraction See Rock City has promoted Susan P. Harris to president and chief operating officer of the 84-year-old business.
Harris, a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources, joined Rock City in 2008 as director of human resources and organizational development. In her new role, she will serve as an executive leader with full responsibility for operational, cultural and financial performance of a privately held, multi-site hospitality company.
“Susan Harris has inspired the culture of our organization by raising the performance of our staff to the highest level,” said Bill Chapin, CEO of Rock City Gardens. “She has earned her additional responsibilities as the COO.”
Harris is a member of the Rotary Club of Chattanooga, and serves as a board member of the Chattanooga Theatre Centre and the Chattanooga Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, and is also a past board member for the Chattanooga chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management. She previously worked as director of human resources for Express Financial Services and director of people development for Chattanooga Group.
Sullivan is finalist for Dallas city manager
Maura Black Sullivan, the chief operating officer for the city of Chattanooga under Mayor Andy Berke, is a finalist to become city manager in Dallas.
Sullivan became chief operating officer for the city in January after previously serving as interim executive director of the Memphis Housing Authority.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said the five candidates to become City Hall’s next chief executive include Sullivan along with Dallas Assistant City Manager Mark McDaniel, former CPS Energy executive Jelynne LeBlanc-Burley, Tulsa City Manager Jim Twombly and Tacoma, Wash., City Manager T.C. Broadnax.
Whoever gets the job will run the Dallas’s daily City Hall operations and help oversee 13,000 city employees.
VW Passat wins top safety honor
The Chattanooga-made 2017 Volkswagen Passat with standard front assist braking has been named a top safety pick by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Volkswagen of America also said Thursday that the 2017 Jetta, when equipped with optional forward collision warning and autonomous emergency braking (front assist) and Xenon headlights, has earned a top safety pick+ rating from the institute.
In addition, the 2017 Volkswagen Golf 4-door, Golf Alltrack, Golf GTI 4-door and Golf SportWagen, when equipped with optional front assist, were named top safety picks, the company said.
The 2017 award is issued to vehicles that have earned good ratings in IIHS tests evaluated in five categories: frontal impact moderate overlap; frontal impact small overlap; side impact; roof strength; and head restraints.
Wholesalers cut stockpiles, clearing way for new orders
U.S. wholesale businesses cut back their stockpiles while sales rose in October. That’s a trend that could boost demand for factory goods in the months ahead.
The Commerce Department says that wholesale inventories fell 0.4 percent, the largest drop in eight months. Sales rose 1.4 percent.
Higher sales and a drop in inventories are good signs that consumers and businesses are spending more, and that wholesalers are clearing out a backlog of goods. That suggests they will have to order more goods to meet future demand.
Washington state sues Monsanto over PCBs
Washington has become the first U.S. state to sue the agrochemical giant Monsanto over pervasive pollution from PCBs, the toxic industrial chemicals that have accumulated in plants, fish and people around the globe for decades.
Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced the lawsuit at a news conference in downtown Seattle Thursday, saying they expect to win hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars from the company. The company said the case “lacks merit.”
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were used in many industrial and commercial applications. Monsanto produced them from 1935 until Congress banned them in 1979.
Murdoch to buy Europe’s Sky
Rupert Murdoch may get all of European broadcaster Sky after all after the U.K. phone-hacking scandal scotched a previous effort.
Sky said Friday that Murdoch’s entertainment conglomerate 21st Century Fox has reached a preliminary deal to buy the rest of Sky for 10.75 pounds ($13.60) per share, the equivalent of about 11.2 billion pounds ($14.1 billion).
Fox already owns just over 39 percent of Sky, and the deal price values the entire broadcaster at 18.5 billion pounds.