Kiger's Notebook

Crenlo laying off 17 workers

Crenlo, which employs more than 600 workers at two locations in Rochester, has announced the imminent layoff of 17 hourly employees, according to news reports.

Crenlo's last major layoff was in 2009, when it laid off 193 employees during a rough fiscal year. The company recalled more than 140 of the laid-off workers, though about 30 were later laid off again.

Crenlo, which has two plants in Rochester, is a manufacturer of steel frame cab enclosures and rollover structures for equipment in the construction, agriculture, and commercial equipment markets. It also produces a line of electronic equipment enclosures.

The company was founded in Rochester in 1951. It is owned by International Equipment Solutions, an affiliate of KPS Capital Partners of New York City. That is the second owner since its local owners sold the company to an Illinois company, Dover Corp., in 1999.

Is House of Bounce bounced out?

Changes seem to be happening at The House of Bounce at 6301 Bandel Road. The popular children's play spot with its large inflatable bounce features and toys has been closed all week.

Calls to the center and to the owners, Sue and Ed Hiatt, have not been answered. Its website didn't offer any explanation and then the website itself became inaccessible as of Thursday.

While no one from the business has been available to answer questions, the business did recently sell the inflatables that it previously rented out to customers for parties.

It's difficult to say what might be happening at the four-year-old Rochester business.

The Hiatts sprang into action with the operation in the fall of 2008, and the store has been the site of many birthday parties and playgroup outings since then. It first opened at 2535 U.S. 14 West and then bounced to its current address behind the KTTC-TV station in 2009.

With more than 18,000 square feet of space and 28-foot-high ceilings, the Bandel Road location seems to be a good fit.

I'll keep tracking this to see if this is just a brief hiatus or something else.

IBM - No raises in 2012 for most of Global Tech. Services

Big Blue sent out an employee e-mail to its massive Global Technology Services unit this week saying don't expect any raises in 2012, particularly if you are an exec.

GTS has a big presence in Rochester, which just announced creating five of the top ten world's fastest computers. Business Insider reported on this and then Computerworld followed up on it.

Any local IBMers have comments on this? Is it accurate? How big of a deal is this, if at all?

 Here's the email that Business Insider released:

GTS Employees,

The Employee Salary Program takes into account a number of elements, including compensation competitiveness in markets we serve, our ability to attract and retain people with skills we need, our business performance, and other employee investments.

It is essential for a services business to provide value-added services to clients at competitive price points.  Our objective is to ensure a competitive labor cost structure while moving aggressively into areas that are strategic to our clients and require innovative solutions.  This is fundamental to driving clear return on investments for our clients and to increase opportunities for all IBMers.

To balance our ability to remain competitive with the need to invest in people who have high-demand skills, there will not be a broad-based salary program in GTS in 2012.  Instead, we will target the 2012 investment to skill groups or focus areas as identified by each GTS line of business, based on local market needs.  These decisions do not affect the significant investments IBM makes each year in talent in addition to salary, including bonus programs, recognition, promotions, and skill development.

Your manager or leadership team will communicate additional information to you over the next few weeks.

Bob Zapfel
General Manager, Global Technology Services, North America                  

Richard A. Patterson
General Manager, GTS SO Delivery - Americas

Here's some from Computerworld's story on this:

IBM this year won't be awarding pay raises to its executives or to many of its workers.

The company said it is only giving pay raises to workers with high-demand skills that the company needs.

IBM typically awards raises during the mid-year period.

"There are targeted skill groups of employees that are eligible for salary increases in 2012," said Trink Guarino, an IBM spokeswoman. "No executives will be eligible for salary increases."

Business Insider Tuesday published an internal IBM memo announcing the action that was sent to employees from from Global Technology Services executives.

One IBM employee, who didn't want to be identified, said he believes the lack of pay raises "is part of IBM's hyper-aggressive plan to meet its 2015 roadmap."

That IBM roadmap lays out an aggressive growth strategy, which calls for increasing the company's earnings per share by $20 by 2015.

The employee noted that the company has been spending billions in stock buybacks, but says it can't afford pay increases.

And obviously, IBM continues to cut large numbers of jobs, including many in Rochester. It ominously refuses to release any numbers citing competitive reasons, despite the fact that many of its competitors do release numbers like that.

 

 

Last call at Syler's/ Break Room

As the holiday weekend kicks off with burgers on the grill, it is the finale for one Rochester bar and grill.

Today is the last day of business for Syler's Tavern, formerly known as The Break Room, at 1635 U.S. 52 N. When the doors close tonight, that's it.


"We did have a good run," says owner Troy Wing ruefully on Friday.  "Unfortunately, when you look at things from a financial perspective and they don't look good, you've got to make some tough decisions. That's the position we're in right now."

A team of 17 people work at Syler's.

Wing originally opened The Break Room in 2004. That building had housed two short-lived businesses in quick succession in the two years prior.

The Break Room became known as a laid-back bar that often offered live music. It is where the always sold-out Americana Showcase began before it outgrew the venue and moved to the Rochester Civic Theater.

However, the abundance of similar night spots in Rochester made it difficult in recent years, so Wing decided to try a new approach.

In January, he revamped The Break Room and re-named it as Syler's Tavern. He expanded its menu to make it more welcoming to people looking for a full meal as well as a drink.

As part of that approach, he tried to get a permit for a patio. His request was denied at first, but the Rochester City Council reversed that decision and gave Syler's a green light at its most recent meeting on Tuesday.

Wing, who testified at Tuesday's meeting, says it wasn't the patio dispute that caused him to pull the plug on Syler's.

In the end, it was simply not enough money was coming in the door.

"We tried moving 'up market,' but the rate of expansion here is incredible," he says. "Every time something new opens, there's a little less of the pie for the rest of us to eat."

Best Buy action

Here's a breakdown of a few unrelated Best Buy items that relate to Rochester:

• Best Buy's founder Richard Schulze announced today that he is stepping down as chairman after an investigation found that he knew that the CEO was having a relationship with a female employee and failed to alert the audit committee.

The company also said that despite the fact that its audit committee found that then-CEO Brian Dunn violated company policy by having a 'close personal relationship' with a female employee, he gets a severance package worth about $6.6 million.

• Schulze is very familar to Rochester. His Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation donated $49 million bucks to Mayo Clinic in 2007 to create the Schulze Center for Novel Therapeutics on the 19th floor of Gonda Building.

His foundation also gave a $2.5 million matching grant to the Hope Lodge.

• And remember, Rochester's south Best Buy store closed up shop for good on Saturday.

The store was built and opened in the Shoppes on Maine commercial development in September 2008.

This is part of the closing of 50 stores the company previously announced as a move to strenghten the struggling Big Box retailer.

• Brad Anderson, a retired CEO of Best Buy (To be clear, not the one who had the inappropriate relationship to spurred Schulze to step down), is speaking at Mayo Clinic Quality and Systems Engineering Conference that runs from today to Wednesday in Rochester.

Anderson, who started at Best Buy as a commissioned salesperson and rose to the company's highest position, will discuss how staff at all levels can lead.

I want your IBM stories - past, present and even future

While I have written many, many things during my years at the Post-Bulletin, they have never been my stories.

The columns, stories and even blog postings have always come from the people of Rochester and the surrounding areas.

Now I'm considering trying to tell a story that can only happen with your help.

IBM has long been a major part of Rochester. During its years here, Big Blue has gone through many changes, corporatewide as well as locally.

I'd like to map out the evolution of IBM during its almost 60 years in Rochester, mainly from the employee's perspective. And taking it a step beyond, I'm interested in local impressions of what IBM's future in Rochester might look like.

I'd really like to speak to any past or current employees and contractors willing to share their memories and thoughts on local IBM culture changes from the Fortress Rochester days of the AS/400 to the dark days of the 1980s to the resurgence when the "elephant was taught to dance" on to the time of Blue Gene, Watson and the PureSystems.

To form a complete picture, the hope is to have a full discussion with many people with different experiences about IBM's successes and innovations as well as about the tough times and the layoffs.

As a massive company that is an international technology leader, its evolution is a complex story.

I'd like to try tell as much of that story as possible through the words of the southeastern Minnesota people that have and are living it.

If you'd like to participate or to know more, contact me at 285-7798 or at jkiger@postbulletin.com.

Take-and-bake dough biz to close

After about two years since it first arose on the Rochester scene, a take-and-bake frozen dough business will soon close its doors.

Ads and announcements this week say that U-Bake is closing with a possible final day of around June 15. Here's some from one of those messages:

We will continue to offer BIG SAVINGS to you through approximately mid June, 2012.  Please redeem any U-Bake, Rochester gift cards promptly.  Stock up and enjoy those savings!   It has been our pleasure to serve you, and, as always, thank you for your business!

U-Bake, which is owned by Dianna Baker is located in a 2,000-square-foot spot in the Crossroads Plaza anchored by Walgreens . That's the center  where Maid-Rite recently closed and Jimmy John's gearing up to open.

The concept of U-Bake is all about conveneince. It has about 20 freezers full of frozen, bake-at-home products, including about 59 kinds of cookies, about 30 types of breads, 18 pies, 15 pizza crusts, croissants and cinnamon rolls.

It also carried specialty meats and cheeses from around Minnesota.

I'll check to see if I can find out any more on this.

 

 

Will employees picket in IBM in Roch. Tues.?

Alliance@IBM members and supporters are calling for informational pickets at IBM sites Tuesday to call attention to job cuts and off-shoring.

This is sort of a real world version of the protests held a few years ago in Second Life.

Does anyone know if any pickets or protests are planned in Rochester on Tuesday?

Or are there any counter pro-IBM events planned in response to these?

I'm interested in possibly covering if something on either side of this issue is happening here in Rochester.

Here's some the description from the pro-union Alliance@IBM group about the event:

 
IBM no longer releases headcount numbers by country because it is the evidence of massive job shifting.  The Alliance estimates that the IBM US employee population is now at 95,000 down from 132,000 in 2005. Meanwhile IBM employee numbers worldwide, especially in low-cost countries continue to increase.
 
The Alliance calls for:
• No tax breaks or incentives for companies that shift jobs off-shore and terminates US workers.

• Full disclosure of IBM job cuts and where the jobs are being shifted to.

• An end to shifting work offshore and firing US workers.

South Best Buy store to close May 12

Employees at Rochester's south Best Buy store were told this morning that the store will close on May 12.

The store is closed temporarily this morning, but will re-open Sunday for regular hours until the May closing.

The store was built and opened in the Shoppes on Maine commercial development in September 2008.

This is part of the closing of 50 stores the company previously announced as a move to strenghten the struggling Big Box retailer.

Best Buy also has a Big Box store in northwest Rochester and a mobile phone store in the Apache Mall.

Thanks to Josh Banks of Banks Photos for the pic.

Home Design Studio goes dark

While it has been for sale for a while, it looks like the once-red-hot Home DesgnStudio showroom building along West Circle Drive in Northwest Rochester is now completely cold and dark.

Staff of the Studio plus Home Improvement Professionals and the Olmsted County Lumber Mart moved out on Friday and shifted their offices to the remaining space they have in Byron.

I'll have more details soon, but this move has gotten me remembering the golden days in the fall of 2006 when this massive, multi-level 32,000-square-foot showroom opened its doors and flipped on the hundreds of fancy light fixtures made the complex glow like a spaceship at night.

Pictures from Business After Hours and Builders events held there in 2006 and in 2007 during that time show a big shiny place bustling with smiling people. Most of the folks I can indentify have long since made forced career changes, lost jobs, had businesses go under and have faced a variety of other difficulties.

That was also the same time that Rochester Market Square, another home construction mall, also opened on t he south side of the Med City. That has since retracted quite a bit and its developers finally sold it to an out-of-state corporation.

It is quite simply a bygone era. I realize how much better Rochester has fared than most during these turbulent times. However, it is my impression that most of the survivors from those days have a lot more scars today than they had then.

Moving beyond maudlin memories, I am wondering what kind of business might buy this cavernous place and what could it be used for. It is fantastic rambling showroom.

But not many businesses go that big anymore. Maybe a furniture store or an Aquarius-style dance club?

We'll see, I guess.