Chef Ngee Kitchen Jollof Rice Drive Thru at 18523 N. Frederick Ave. in the Gaithersburg S.C. shopping center will hold its grand opening on Saturday, January 25. The restaurant will be offering customers 10% of their checks and free mocktails.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown’s Securities Division joined a $17 million settlement with Edward D. Jones & Co. after a multi-state investigation revealed supervisory failures regarding customers’ transition from brokerage to advisory accounts, resulting in improper fees for mutual fund investments. (more…)
Talent is one of the most important factors influencing where companies choose to invest, expand, and grow. As competition for skilled workers intensifies, employers are embracing a broader talent strategy: one that leverages partnerships. Last week, almost 120 business leaders, elected officials, and members of Montgomery County’s business community attended the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation’s (MCEDC) panel, “The Talent Advantage: A Growth Strategy for Companies in Montgomery County, Maryland,” to hear how local businesses are capitalizing on the County’s world-class academic institutions, innovation ecosystem, quality of life, and economic development resources to attract and retain top talent.
Moderated by Dr. Anne Khademian, Executive Director at The Universities at Shady Grove (USG), the panel included executives from businesses and institutions across industries, including Lockheed Martin, TrilliumBIO, Thales Defense & Security, Johns Hopkins, Montgomery College, and AstraZeneca, who discussed their companies’ strategies for developing their workforce.
Talent as a Business Strategy
For companies competing in highly specialized industries like the defense industry, access to talent directly influences where they choose to locate and grow. For Lockheed Martin, which employs nearly 1,000 people in Montgomery County, talent is one of the primary reasons the company chose to be headquartered here.
“Talent is in the top one or two reasons why we are in the County,” said Todd Cohen, Senior Lead of Strategic Workforce Development, Lockheed Martin.
According to Cohen, Lockheed Martin begins working with partners to develop their talent pipeline well before students enter the workforce, including partnering with Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) on programs such as coding challenges. Lockheed Martin also maintains close relationships with local higher education institutions, including the Universities at Shady Grove (USG).
That local talent pipeline is also an important factor for AstraZeneca, which employs more than 5,000 employees and contractors in Montgomery County. According to Tiffany Lukis, Director of STEM and Community Engagement at AstraZeneca, the company often taps into its alumni base from Montgomery College (ranked #26 nationally among community colleges) and USG (which offers nine different public universities onto one campus), and other local institutions to fill highly technical roles.
Local Companies Are Developing Talent and Not Just Finding It
According to the panelists, investing in existing employees is just as important as recruiting new ones.
At Suburban Hospital, workforce development is closely tied to talent retention. The hospital partners with local educational institutions to provide employees with opportunities to gain new skills and advance their careers. Programs include a Certified Nursing Assistant program through Montgomery College and English as a Second Language classes.
“A huge part of our talent strategy is to prioritize holding on to our top tier talent,” said Corey Lewson, MSW, Program Manager, Workforce Development, John Hopkins Medicine.
For smaller companies, developing talent internally can be especially valuable. Lane Edwards, Vice President of Operations, TrilliumBIO, a biomarker discovery company with fewer than 20 employees based in Rockville, described the challenge of balancing the need for highly specialized expertise with the realities of building a team at an early-stage company.
“When it comes to hiring, we have to be very strategic,” Lane said. “Do we have someone who has the expertise or someone that we can build on?”
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A Cold Weather Advisory is in effect from 7pm Monday until 10am Tuesday for DC, and portions of central, northeast, and northern Maryland (including all of Montgomery County), and central, northern, and northwest Virginia.
MCPS recently spotlighted Max Nguyen, a junior at Wootton High School in Rockville, who has garnered widespread attention for his remarkable rendition of “Stick Season,” a song by musician Noah Kahan. The performance was highlighted by Kahan himself as a story on his Instagram story, which boasts over 2 million followers.
When I moved back to Northern Virginia after several years in New York, most of my old friends had moved away. I found myself rebuilding a social circle from scratch.
I had plenty of people I could connect with online, but that wasn’t translating into anyone to grab a beer with after work, play trivia with, or text when I wanted to get out of the house. Making new friends as an adult required far more deliberate effort than I remembered.
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BETHESDA, YOUR SATURDAY MORNING PLANS JUST GOT MORE CREATIVE.
Join Craft Cart at Coffee Republic on Saturday, September 26, from 11:00 AM–1:00 PM for a beginner-friendly faux stained glass experience filled with creativity, coffee and connection.
With around 1 in 5 new businesses failing within the first year and inflation making things even more difficult, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on the Best & Worst States to Start a Business in 2025, with Maryland coming in ranked 46th overall.
The winter weather has moved out of the area with most places in the DC Metro area either on the lower end or below most projections in terms of snowfall. Northern areas, like some places in Frederick and Carroll counties did see amounts on the higher end (up to 5.5 inches in upper Frederick County), but Montgomery County saw totals between a half inch and 2.5 inches. Totals across the DMV (and beyond) can be seen below, per the National Weather Service:
On Friday, January 17, a double homicide in Rockville claimed the lives of Marcell Jordan Hebron, 26, known in the music industry as Lil Xelly, and 27-year-old Leilani Marroquin. In the wake of this incident, the community has come together to support the grieving families, launching a GoFundMe fundraiser to assist with funeral expenses.
Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Services (MCFRS) responded to an incident on Sunday evening involving a pedestrian struck and trapped under a train near the North Bethesda Metro Station on Marinelli Road. (more…)
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bartaco has signed on to open its first Maryland location at 11886 Grand Park Ave. in North Bethesda’s Pike & Rose. It will be taking over the space that was previously home to Nada, which had a nearly eight year run that came to an end last September.
Back in March 224, we let you know that 255 Rockville Pike, a property in Rockville known as the Rockville Center, was sold via auction for $5.72 million. Now 255 Rockville Pike LLC has submitted an application to redevelop the property with a maximum of approximately 550 multifamily units and a Level 2 site plan applicant for the first phase of redevelopment with approximately 285 multifamily units.
Sentinel Real Estate Corp. has made a significant investment in the DC Metro Area– acquiring two recently constructed multifamily buildings for over $317 million. Among these properties is Rockwell at Crown, formerly known as Aventon Crown, in Gaithersburg’s Downtown Crown neighborhood.