During the Town Council meeting on Monday, October 21, Easton Utilities received support for two unrelated resolutions specific to forming a municipal alliance and requesting approval for the extension of utilities needed to serve the future Shore Regional Medical Center. 

Being that there are only five municipal electric utilities operating in Maryland, forming an alliance will combine the shared interests and joint positions on legislative and regulatory issues uniquely impacting their collective operations and ultimately the ratepayers. The purpose of the alliance is to create solutions to problems affecting the operation of municipal electric systems, especially at a time when energy issues continue to be at the forefront of policymakers’ agendas. 

“This alliance will provide us a stronger platform as we work together for the general improvement of ratepayer systems and to promote the exchange of successful ideas and experiences,” stated Kurt Fuchs, Manager of External Affairs for Easton Utilities.

Easton Utilities also requested approval to proceed with the extension of utility infrastructure necessary to support the demands of the new Shore Regional Medical Center. Per Article IV of the Charter for the Town of Easton, approval from the council is required for any extensions, additions or improvements to the utility plants and systems should the cost exceed two million dollars. 

“We are excited to support the construction of this tremendous project as well as sustain the future operational needs, and are committed to providing safe, reliable utility and broadband services,” stated John E. Hines, Vice-President of Electric and Utility Projects for Easton Utilities. 

Easton Utilities is a community-owned, not-for-profit utility and telecommunications company operating the Electric, Natural Gas, Water, Wastewater, Cable Television, and Internet services for the Town of Easton and portions of the surrounding area. Please visit www.eastonutilities.com or call 410-822-6110 to learn more. 

 Easton Utilities recently celebrated significant service anniversaries achieved by fourteen employees. “We appreciate these individuals for their dedication to delivering safe, reliable utility and broadband services with a focus on customer satisfaction” said Vicki L. Petro, Vice President of Human Resources for Easton Utilities. “We pride ourselves on our retention and attribute it to our culture and the strong sense of community we have here.”

40 years

• Lonnie Larmore, Purchasing & Inventory Supervisor

30 years

• Nick Greenhawk, Asst. Supt. of Plant & Interconnection Operations
• Jamie Whitby, Supt. Water Supply and Wastewater Pumping

20 years 

• Terri Bennett, Marketing Coordinator
• Will Cottingham, CAD/ESRI Specialist I
• John Hines, Vice President, Electric and Utility Projects
• Jason Jenkins, Electric Distribution Work Coordinator
• Kevin Morris, Power Plant Mechanic II
• Paul Odenwald, Supervisor of Velocity Tech Support

10 years

• Jake Bryan, Supt. of Water Distribution & Wastewater Collection
• Mike Kidd, Computer Operations Specialist II
• Conner Satchell, Installer IV
• Paula Taylor, Manager, Customer Experience
• Claire Tyndall, Customer Service Supervisor

Oyster Girl Oysters, LLC is pleased to announce that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted utility patent number 12,102,066 to Lawrence Rudner and Willem Roosenberg for their innovative approach to flipping oyster cages. The patented system, titled “Aquaculture Biofouling Management using Axle Guided Cage Flipping,” introduces a method designed to inexpensively reduce labor and improve efficiency in maintaining oyster farms.

Growing oysters in surface cages has become increasingly popular due to faster growth rates, improved flavor profiles, reduced predation, and easier monitoring. However, biofouling—the accumulation of marine organisms on submerged surfaces—poses a significant challenge. This buildup can hinder water flow, impede nutrient access, and obstruct oyster growth. Regular cage flipping has proven effective in combating biofouling by exposing fouled surfaces to air, which dries out and removes attached organisms, but requires great physical labor and significant time. To be effective, floating cages should be flipped every week during the peak growing season.

In contrast to usual approaches involving intense labor, the newly patented Oyster Girl Flipper features a longline of aquaculture cages, a flipping ramp attached to a workboat, and hard plastic cages equipped with a float on one side and a hollow axle on the other. As the workboat moves parallel to the longline, cages seamlessly ascend the ramp, and gravity flips them, addressing the biofouling issue. No extra staff is required.

Pamela Getson, President of Oyster Girl Oysters, LLC, commented on the innovation: “The Oyster Girl Flipper represents a significant leap forward in oyster farming technology. By streamlining the cage flipping process, we’re not only improving efficiency but also enhancing the quality of our oysters. This innovation aligns perfectly with our commitment to sustainable aquaculture and producing exceptional oysters for our customers.”

Funded by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Chesapeake Oyster Alliance’s “Oyster Innovation Awards” provided seed money to develop the prototype into a working system. Tanner Council, Senior Manager of the Chesapeake Oyster Alliance, stated, “By automating the flipping process, the Oyster Girl Flipper can reduce the physical demands of cage maintenance, potentially making oyster farming accessible to a broader range of individuals.”

Rudner and Roosenburg plan to make the refined blueprints freely available to individual oyster farmers in order to increase access to this technology for small-scale operations. Oyster Girl Oysters was recently supported to further refine the system through the SOAR Resiliency Fund. Lawrence Rudner commented, “Based on our experience using the Oyster Girl Flipper at the Oyster Girl Oyster farm, we believe we can next significantly reduce the entire format of the system.”

Sally McGee from The Nature Conservancy added, “We are excited to support this project through the SOAR Resiliency Fund for its potential to increase small-scale farm efficiency.”

Easton, Md. Qlarant Capital announced today that it has finalized an investment agreement with AgileDD, an enterprise AI company based in Houston, Texas.

AgileDD offers an AI platform to capture information from domain-specific and technical documents with scale, precision, and security that markets need. This product solves a common problem surrounding the inordinate amount of time it takes to research and review hundreds of pages of technical content. The AgileDD human-in-the-loop AI platform enables end-users to automatically capture pertinent information accurately from unstructured documents and allows them to arrive at answers or reach conclusions much faster and with more reliability.

Qlarant and AgileDD will collaboratively build a healthcare program integrity and compliance review application using Large Language Models (LLMs) and user-supervised AI models on the AgileDD platform aiming to automate some of the manual investigative and review processes required in the field. The program enables better productivity and a discriminating advantage to its users.

“Our investment in AgileDD is a perfect fit for both organizations. Qlarant has over 50 years of experience in the healthcare space plus expertise in predictive modeling.” said Qlarant CEO Dr. Ron Forsythe, Jr. “AgileDD is uniquely poised in the AI market and has developed a powerful AI platform. This phase of fundraising will enable AgileDD to fast-pace onboarding new customers who are either already in pilot phase with AgileDD or on a waitlist eager to use AgileDD’s platform.”

“The addition of these new customers will increase AgileDD’s revenue to approximately $3 million by 2025 and maintain 3x year over year growth rate that will put them in an ideal position for upcoming priced rounds,” noted Dr. Forsythe.

The human-centric platform uses generative and supervised AI to transform technical documents into precise, trusted insights while boosting productivity, informed decision-making, and strategic innovation.

The immediate market potential for AgileDD’s platform include: Department of Defense, Health Insurance, Health Plans, Hospitals, Medicare Administration, Recovery Audit Contracting, State Medicaid Administration, Social Security Administration, Utilization Management, and Veterans Health Administration Marketplaces.

“From the initial proof-of-concept to the actual implementation with clients, this platform continues to impress,” observed Holly Pu, Vice President of Qlarant Capital. “In one single use case, we identified over $3 million in cost savings. This is a game-changer in terms of time, money, and most importantly, solutions.”

AgileDD was co-founded by Dr. Amit Juneja, CEO. With a PhD in Machine Learning from the University of Maryland, College Park, Juneja has spent over 15 years spearheading AI and full-stack projects across diverse sectors.

Dr. Juneja’s career highlights include: enabling US manufacturing plants with deep learning-based visual quality inspection at IBM; leading $5 million in US Defense contracts for speech recognition, document information capture, and natural language processing; and spearheading the development of a major Internet of Things (IoT) application at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

“AgileDD is very excited to partner with Qlarant to make a huge impact in the healthcare industry with the scale and precision that our platform brings to the enterprise.”, said Dr. Juneja. “Qlarant brings to this partnership their leading position and top notch domain expertise in the medical review, program integrity, and fraud investigation, and more. The human-centric nature of our AI platform will benefit immensely from Qlarant’s expertise to revolutionize the healthcare compliance workflows with AI”.

About Qlarant Capital

Qlarant Capital generates world-class innovation by backing daring health care industry entrepreneurs that can build the future through technology, while creating synergy among their portfolio companies.

Using a unique blend of “people + technology” has driven the growth and success of Qlarant as a health and technology company since 1973. Qlarant Capital offers support for early stage programs and organizations in line with its strategic mission. Qlarant Capital provides funding, along with over 50 years of experience and expertise, to promising programs with a solid pre-existing framework. Qlarant Capital also provides input for product development, machine-learning engineering, executive recruiting, sales, marketing, and regulatory compliance guidance.  For more information visit Qlarant.com or contact [email protected]

About Agile Data Decisions, Inc. (AgileDD)

AgileDD is a deep-tech startup that has developed and commercialized a human-in-the-loop AI platform to enable enterprises to capture immense value from their highly technical and domain specific documents with scale and precision. AgileDD has active customers in production in energy and mining domains and the platform development has been funded additionally by US Air Force and angel investors. AgileDD is currently investing the proceeds from the recently completed fundraise in sales and marketing efforts to scale the utilization of the AI platform by enterprise customers. Visit https://www.agiledd.com to request a demo or contact AgileDD at [email protected].

Qlarant announced today the appointment of Ms. Amanda Neal as the Executive Director of Qlarant Foundation. Having served for over 8 years on the Qlarant Board an most recently as the Qlarant Foundation Chair, Ms. Neal has provided valuable insight and leadership to the organization. In recognition of her unique skills and contribution, she will now serve the Foundation in a leadership role as part of the Qlarant executive team.

“While her presence as a board member will be greatly missed, we are thrilled to welcome Amanda in her new role” says Qlarant CEO Dr. Ron Forsythe, Jr. “The Qlarant Foundation has a profound impact on our community and has become a significate component of the overall organization. Having Amanda at the helm will continue to ensure its success.”

From her previous role as Donor Relations Coordinator for Beebe Medical Foundation in Lewes, Delaware, Ms. Neal has experience executing multi-million dollar, capital fundraising campaigns; designing and implementing donor stewardship programs; and managing system-wide patient feedback programs. Her prior healthcare experience includes serving as the Director of Contracting and Procurement for United Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Ms. Neal has deployed her skills as a certified Six Sigma Green Belt, a Six Sigma Lean Professional, and a Change Management Specialist in multiple industries, including legal, information technology and finance. She has a bachelor’s in Communications from the University of Maryland and, prior to joining the Qlarant Foundation Board, Ms. Neal served on the Board of Associates for Kids Peace Foster Care in Baltimore, Maryland.

The Qlarant Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Qlarant, Inc. It provides over $400k annually in grants to a variety of charities across Maryland and the District of Columbia. In 2024, 23 different groups received monetary support from the Foundation. To date, the Foundation has funded over $7 million in grants and continues to expand each year.

“The work done by our grantees is exceptional and often quite humbling,” notes Ms. Neal. “The dedication and commitment of each group is astounding. It’s quite a difficult decision to allocate funds each year—so many groups have impact on the community and clearly deserve our support”.

As the current Vice Chair of the Qlarant Foundation, Lamont Thompson will serve as Chair until confirmed to officially fill the new vacancy in November. Lamont brings a wealth of experience and insight, and under his leadership, the board will continue to thrive and guide the Foundation to even greater heights.

About Qlarant

Qlarant is a not-for-profit, nationally respected leader in fighting fraud, waste, and abuse, improving program quality, and optimizing performance. The company uses subject matter experts and innovative data science and technology to help organizations see risks, solve problems, and seize opportunities. Qlarant provides customized solutions for state, federal and commercial industries across the nation.

The Qlarant Foundation— the mission arm of the organization—has provided over $7 million in grants to charities throughout Maryland and the District of Columbia. Qlarant  has a 50-year record of accomplishment improving the performance of some of the Nation’s most important programs. Headquartered in Easton, MD, Qlarant has offices throughout the country and employs over 500 people. Qlarant is a five-time winner of the Best Places to Work award. For more information, visit www.qlarant.com or contact [email protected]

Grand Opening In Historic Downtown Easton, Maryland | Friday, September 27th, 2024
Featuring Expertly Curated Authentic Furniture, Art, And Accessories, Mcm Lovers will want to Sit And Stay!

For TJ Hindman, the owner of The Modern Bulldog, it’s all about the aesthetic. By day, Hindman spent nearly 20 years in the medical aesthetic business and spent nights, weekends and every moment of his free time scouring the country for uniquely precise MCM finds. The avid collector’s passion is on display in the newly created space in Downtown Historic Easton Square which officially opens on Friday, September 27, 2024.

The Modern Bulldog features work by MCM iconic names like Alvar Aalto, Charles and Ray Eames, George Nakashima, Hans Wegner and more. The mood is set thanks to lighting by Baltimore’s own Jones Lighting Specialists and luminous sheers by Drapery Contractors Incorporated — all housed in Blue Point Hospitality Group property. Each vignette in the gallery is a moment. The art, furniture, sculpture, accessories, décor are lovingly curated and considered for seasoned and newer collectors alike.

“When I started collecting mid-century modern pieces, I knew I had to work my way up,” says a reflective Hindman. “I dreamt of the day that I might own and Eames chair and thought ‘wow, I made it.’ Today, I’m pinching myself that I’m now able to share pieces so dear to my heart with so many at The Modern Bulldog.”

Also dear to Hindman’s heart and the inspiration for the name, “The Modern Bulldog”, was the Frenchie, Beatrice, he shared with husband and noted interior designer, Jay Jenkins (Crosby-Jenkins Associates). Married for 14 years, the couple share homes in both Easton and Baltimore, Maryland. Hindman, a Pittsburgh, PA-native earned his degree from the University of Pittsburgh. In addition to an insatiable appetite for all things MCM for homes, he also collects classic cars and vintage Rolexes. It’s easy to spot him rolling around town in a vast array of vehicles with his newest modern bulldog, Poppy Jane.

Adds Hindman, “I often say my store is just like my dog. They are both playful and full of energy and very friendly.

The Modern Bulldog
12 Washington Street
Easton, Md 21601
(443) 239-6668

HOURS:
Thursday and Friday 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
Saturday 10:00 am-4:00 pm
Sunday 11:00 am – 3:00 pm
Or By Appointment

www.themodernbulldog.net

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