Mayor to honor 13 businesses for service

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Thirteen area businesses will be honored by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake Monday afternoon for their commitment to community service.

Gene Bracken, executive director of communications for the Greater Baltimore Committee, said his organization partnered with Rawlings-Blake’s office and the Baltimore Development Corp. on the 2011 Mayor’s Business Recognition Awards to credit companies’ work in outreach to the community out of the belief that Maryland’s largest city is the lynchpin of the region’s economic strength.

“As a regional organization, we recognize that it’s very important to any region that its core urban area be vibrant,” Bracken said. “All of these businesses recognize that the vitality of Baltimore City is very important to the strength of our region.”

The companies to be honored range from major multinational firms, like Bloomington, Minn.-based accounting firm McGladrey, to small local companies like Baltimore-based roofing contractor Dunlap & Sons Roofing Inc.

Martin P. Brunk, managing partner for McGladrey in Baltimore, said his office is being rewarded for working with charities, including the Salvation Army and the Maryland Food Bank, this year. He said his office, which relocated from Timonium to Harbor East in 2009 in part to engage more directly with Baltimore’s urban community, is planning another charity effort during this month’s holiday season.

“I expect we’ll have somewhere close to about 60 people going to the Salvation Army to help out during the workweek,” Brunk said.

While just five of the award-winning companies are headquartered in Maryland, and only four of those businesses are headquartered in Baltimore, Bracken said all of the recipients demonstrated “extraordinary commitment” to the Baltimore community.

“These winners are obviously not the only businesses that are involved in the community, but they represent a large segment of employers that are very committed to the community,” said Bracken. “The criteria isn’t where they’re headquartered, the criteria is what work they have done to improve the Baltimore community and life in the city.”

Patricia Dunlap, president of Dunlap & Sons, said the biggest contribution for which her company is being awarded is its hiring practices.

“We hire a lot of inmates coming out of prison and out of halfway houses,” Dunlap said. She said she sees employment for ex-offenders as a form of rehabilitation.

Bracken compared the community service awards to last month’s Bridging the Gap Awards, which recognized woman- and minority-owned businesses in the Baltimore metropolitan area.

“Just as we recognize minority business achievement every year, we think it’s important to recognize work in the community that … emanates from the business sector,” Bracken said. “We think that recognizing business service to the community is worthy of an annual award.”

With Monday’s awards luncheon, the Mayor’s Business Recognition Awards will mark their 37th consecutive year of recognizing businesses for their work in Baltimore. The event will be held at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore at the Inner Harbor at noon.

AWARD WINNERS

Arris Inc., Baltimore

BB&T Corp., Winston-Salem, N.C.

Constellation Energy Group, Baltimore

Dunlap & Sons Roofing, Baltimore

Heery International Inc., Atlanta

Kaydon Ring & Seal, Baltimore

KPMG LLP, New York

McGladrey, Bloomington, Minn.

Northrop Grumman Corp., Falls Church, Va.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, New York

SC&H Group LLC, Sparks

Southern Management Corp., Vienna, Va.

Wells Fargo Bank, Sioux Falls, S.D.