You know all of those very specific things that we, as parents, are supposed to do (or not do) to help our children grow up to be smart, kind, well-rounded individuals? Well, here’s the thing: I don’t always do them. In fact, there are some that I’ve never done and probably never will.
Let’s take TV, for example. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children older than 2 years old watch only one to two hours of quality programming a day and that children under 2 years watch none. I blew those standards the minute a neighbor sent me, a semi-frazzled mother of a colicky newborn, home with a natural little kid-friendly barbiturate she called a “Baby Einstein video.”
The way that lion puppet made my son finally giggle after months of endless crying was all the proof I needed to ditch my pre-parenting notion that TV was child poison. Would child poison inadvertently teach my daughter to recognize all 26 letters of the alphabet and their sounds at 18 months old after watching Leapfrog’s “Letter Factory” with her brother only a handful of times?
I think not.
Quite honestly, I don’t quite understand how TV has received such a bad reputation. SpongeBob SquarePants, in particular, is often fed to the wolves for his negative influence on children. Yet, my children’s senses of humor, almost as critical to someone of Irish descent as learning the alphabet, seemed to increase fourfold after just a few episodes.
In my opinion, Mr. SquarePants is sorely underrated and highly misunderstood, especially in the arena of educating our young ones on comedic intelligence.
As much TV as I allow my children to watch, this childhood obesity thing has not even come close to knocking on our door. I know that I am supposed to maintain my position as the junk food police, but I have to admit that I don’t mind peddling the good-tasting bad stuff on occasion just to try and slide a little meat in between their skin and bones. I am especially vulnerable to leaving my food police post while talking on the phone, a loophole in this system that my children are all too aware of.
“Mom seems fairly lost in conversation.  It’s time to proposition her for the sugary cereal.” In fact, one day I looked down after a particularly engaging chat on the phone to realize that my 3-year-old had goaded me into unwittingly opening eight containers of Play-Doh. D’oh!
And then there’s playtime. Somehow children playing under foot as mom goes about her daily duties has morphed into a societal expectation of mom as daily lesson planner, constant playmate and all-around cruise director. Although I by no means leave my children completely to their own devices (though one might think such a thing while attempting to walk through our house on most days), our favorite game to play together is “Do the Real Laundry,” our favorite lesson is “This Is How You Refill the Soap Dispenser,” and my favorite directive is “Please go find something to do.”
Oddly, I had a hard time accepting my own refusal to partake in the new-age, mom-as-concierge lifestyle until a friend shared her own thoughts on the subject. “I didn’t become a parent to play all day,” she offered. Hmm, neither did I. So, I decided that there’s nothing wrong with finally cashing in on all of those times that my own parents promised me I could do whatever I wanted once I was the grown-up. I’ve opted to be the parent and leave most of the friend stuff up to my children and their peers. I even eat chocolate alone in a dark corner on occasion without offering any to the children, just because I can.
Overall, I try to maintain some ongoing sense of parental decorum, yet there are those moments when I am just as content to toss said decorum out of the nearest window.
“Don’t worry about your homework tonight; let’s just finish it tomorrow.” “Cake for breakfast?  Sure, why not.” “You brushed your teeth this morning; I think you’re fine.” “You know, let’s just buy one more pair of Velcro shoes; I’m not sure when that fine motor skills thing is going to start working out for you.”
Anyway, thanks, it feels good to finally get all of that off my chest.

Shannon and her husband Michael are raising three children in Sylvania.
E-mail her at letters@toledofreepress.com.

Investors beware: The smell of a correction is heavy in the air. Even after the “Flash Crash” on May 6, there are serious signs that the market is just beginning to recognize the current weakness in economies around the world, including that of the United States.
Considering that we may very well be standing on the precipice of a substantial market correction, investors would be wise to consider this time to take earnings out of the market and begin accumulating cash positions.
After all, we’ve had a very nice run since the stock market bottomed in March  2009. Fourteen months and more than 70 percent later, the market appears to be recognizing that there has been little or no real economic recovery to justify current prices — a fact we have reminded readers of for nearly a year.
Among other indicators, commodity prices are especially insightful about current economic weakness. The prices of oil and base metals have proven weak, and gold, despite hitting all-time highs earlier this month, has shown weakness since, as have gold stocks. Even Jim Sinclair, a precious metals specialist and perhaps the authority on gold, has admitted in recent commentaries that gold may be in for some tough times ahead.
Proving particularly troublesome for commodities are the recent worries about Exchange Traded Funds (ETF)s. In many cases, investors are beginning to study ETFs more closely, and are finding that, in many cases, they did not own what they thought. In some cases, they own nothing at all — except the promise of some unknown counterparty.
ETFs have been getting significant attention — and not the good kind — since the Flash Crash, as they were among the biggest losers. Of all the trades that were nullified by exchange officials following the May 6 turmoil, ETF trades accounted for more than 70 percent.
The basic concept having to be relearned following the Flash Crash is that technology (e.g.: computerized trading) and derivatives (e.g.: ETFs) simply do not mix. [Note: ETFs fall in the category of derivatives because share prices in ETFs are derived from the prices of underlying securities. However, shares in ETFs do not represent actual ownership of a portion of the fund’s holdings.]
Oddly enough, this mix of derivatives and technology comprised the essence of portfolio insurance (a product that has since gone by the wayside) in 1987. For those who don’t remember, portfolio insurance played a huge role in the 22 percent single-day decline on Black Monday in October of ’87.
When it comes to investments, it is our opinion that there is only one computer with the capacity to make sound decisions, and it is found between the ears. After all, financial markets are not the study of mathematics, on which all complex trading algorithms are based. The financial markets are a study of behavioral psychology, and must be treated as such.
More than a year ago we wrote, but feel obligated to remind readers, that the only people who benefit from exotic new financial products (e.g.: ETFs, CDOs, CMOs) are the financial engineers who get paid to design them and the brokers who sell them. Quite frequently, even the designers fail to understand the implications of their inventions, as do most of the reps getting paid to push these products on the unsuspecting public.
We continue to feel that this will come out as a result of the SEC’s investigations into major Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs, UBS, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup (which owns Smith Barney along with Morgan Stanley), Credit Suisse and Merrill Lynch. When the dust finally settles, the public will also be keenly aware of these firms’ [lack of] fiduciary responsibility that allowed them to get rich at the expense of their clients.
Obviously Goldman Sachs seems to be an especially strong focus of attention from regulators, and the firm will probably fare far worse than many of its peers. Judging by everything that has come out so far about this major Wall Street player, it seems they brought it on themselves.

Dock David Treece is a stockbroker licensed with FINRA. He works for Treece Financial Services Corp. and also serves as editor of the financial news site Green Faucet and as a business commentator for Toledo Free Press. The above information is the express opinion of Dock David Treece and should not be construed as investment advice or used without outside verification.

In the presence of a talented musical performer, you feel as if you are a part of the production. It sucks you in; it flows through you. Watching a talented business performer has this same awe-inspiring effect.

Yes, if you’re fortunate enough to candidly observe an impressive business professional do his work, you are left speechless, feeling jealous, or genuinely inspired. As he moves through his day, it is like he is using his tasks as pegs in a climbing wall.

Each task this professional completes serves as a peg in the wall, giving him the needed grip to pull himself upward. His seamless transition between the completion of one task and the starting of another appears to be effortless; the look on his face indicates he seems unaware of how fluidly he moves between items.

One minute he is answering his phone with a casual, confident tone, and the next minute he is finishing a report, clicking the print button, and swiftly dealing with his incoming emails. He never dwells on any one item; he just glides through the items in his path. Like a skilled climber, he does not dread the next step, he eagerly anticipates and reaches for the next peg in the wall.

Watching him work, you see no separation between the motion of his body and the agile awareness of his mind; you see only a calm, confident motion. The focus in the eyes of this true professional and the calm steadiness seen in his face makes it seem more like dancing than working. His genuine enjoyment of work leaves you wanting whatever it is he has.

The truth is we all can perform like a professional performer in our workplace, but only if we are willing to practice, self-evaluate, and commit ourselves to the requisite work.

Please note, nobody is going to carry you, and it is not the responsibility of your employer to motivate you. You have to want it for yourself; you have to want to become the best — a true professional.

Developing professional excellence requires you to notice that everything boils down to a cause and effect relationship. Yes, every effect you experience started with some sequence of causes. Therefore, changing your experiences requires understanding (and changing) its causes.

So, look at your worthy goal, then break it down into its tasks. If you are going to double your sales, you will need to either find twice as many customers, or you will need to have your existing customers buy twice as much stuff. Therefore, you need to get more efficient with your time, more effective with your presentations, or a combination of the two.

How do you do get better at these things? The answer should hit you with a resounding, “duh.” You become a professional the same way anybody in the world becomes a professional — through repetition, practice, and self-evaluation.

Stop looking for some mystical chant that you can recite while waving a magic wand, and start critiquing your skills, your ability to move through your tasks, and your effectiveness in your workplace. Evaluate yourself, make adjustments, and keep practicing, practicing, and practicing.

It amazes me how few people actually plan out their day in advance. How can you start a day without a specific plan? How can you expect to get better at something if you do not practice? How can you know how to achieve a goal if you do not first break it down into a list of accomplishable tasks? How can you know if you’re doing your best if you are not evaluating your own performance?

Yes, the answers you seek are sitting in plain sight. They are simple, and require good, old-fashioned hard work. With proper repetition and practice, you’ll stop stressing out about the length of your to-do list. Completing the items on your to-do list will become, with repetition, practice, and self-evaluation, mere stepping stones you glide over as you progressively climb towards your goal.

Compiled by Keith Closson from Toledo Police Department reports and AREIS. (Click on image to enlarge.)

When soldiers arrived at Don and Sharon Belkofer’s front door on May 18 and told them that their son, Tom, had been killed in Afghanistan, they didn’t believe it. They didn’t even know he was there.

“You think you’re in another world,” Sharon said. “You think you’re in a movie watching something like this happen.”

Don and Sharon tried to persuade the soldiers that they had come to the wrong house; their son wasn’t even in Afghanistan. He wasn’t going to be deployed until October.

Belkofer

The soldiers almost believed them. But the truth was, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas P. Belkofer of Perrysburg had been sent to Afghanistan for two weeks for advance training so he could better lead his men when they arrived in October.

He was killed when enemy forces attacked his convoy with a vehicle-born improvised explosive device. He left behind his wife, Margo, and daughters Alyssa, 15, and Ashley, 11.

His father, Don, said that of his three children (all boys), Tom, the middle kid, was the most outspoken.

“Tom always let you know how he felt,” he said.

“He had a very strong sense of right and wrong,” added Sharon, saying that he would challenge anything he thought was wrong. This could often be perceived as his trying to buck the system.

He flourished at the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), in which he enrolled while attending BGSU. He met his wife in ROTC and graduated with a degree in architectural design.

His father called him a “jack of all trades.”

“We used to laugh about it,” he said.

“He was full of life,” Sharon said. “Everything he did, he did to the utmost.”

She described him as happy-go-lucky, remembering his dimples.

She also said Tom believed strongly in what America was doing in Afghanistan. She said he held a deep respect for the Afghani culture, but also hoped the people he worked with would be able to learn from the West. During his first deployment, from 2005-2006, he helped with the process of setting up an Afghani financial system so government employees — including soldiers –– could get paid. At that time, most Afghanis did not have bank accounts. Tom wanted to show people how they could save the money they earned.

He would tell his parents stories about Afghanis he met who would become committed to the U.S. Army, going out of their way to protect the American soldiers.

Don and Sharon said they hope people will remember Tom’s love for his country, dedication to his family, and faith in God; he was always an active church member.

He once told his wife that if he died early in life, he hoped it would be while fighting for his country.

He always told his parents not to worry about him, downplaying the risks of his work.

They struggle with the grief.

“It’s very tough,” Don said.

“You get angry, you want to take it out on somebody,” Sharon said. “You hurt. You cry. You never get to see them again. But there’s so much pride, as well.”

“We just have to leave it in God’s hands,” she concluded.

Congressman Robert E. Latta issued the following statement: “Our thoughts and prayers are with LTC Belkofer’s family, friends, and fellow soldiers as they mourn his loss. LTC Belkofer was a true hero, as he fought to protect the security and peace of the United States. LTC Belkofer’s death is a stark reminder that the freedoms and liberties we hold dear as a nation come at the highest price, and we will never forget LTC Belkofer’s ultimate sacrifice for our country.”

Former dog warden Tom Skeldon loves people, not animals.
And while he believes that cost him his job with the county, he still believes the lesson he learned from his father was right.
Phil Skeldon was the first paid director of the Toledo Zoo. One day, the young Tom Skeldon noticed the gibbon, Blondie, and her baby were gone.
The elder Skeldon said the apes had died and no one knew why. He invited him to the autopsy.
When Tom started crying during the procedure, his father delivered a message that would help shape his career.
“Look at it; you respect these animals, you take good care of them, you treat them well, you learn from them, someday you may earn your living from taking care of animals like this, but you don’t love animals,” his father said. “Because if you love animals, you are going to get your heart broken all the time and you won’t be able to survive. You won’t be able to do the job and make the decisions that are required.”
Skeldon lived by this message in the U.S. Air Force, where he trained dogs in Vietnam, and later as he directed a small zoo in Wilmington, Del., trained dogs in the Philippines and served as Lucas County Dog Warden.
Even though he resigned Jan. 31 amid media and political pressure for euthanizing too many dogs, including pit bulls, he is still worried — about people.
He has a warning.
“This spring, summer, fall, here in Toledo, there will be a number of people mauled, maimed, disfigured and there may be somebody killed by a pit bull,” Skeldon said. “Now, it never happened in the 22 years I was dog warden, and part of that is luck, but part is that we had created a persona where the people with these dogs knew there would be consequences.”
Ohio law says “dogs commonly known as pit bulls” are inherently vicious and subject to certain regulations. The law went into effect three months before Skeldon became dog warden in October 1987.
Toledo’s law — recently declared unconstitutional by Judge Michael Goulding — limits residents to owning one “pit bull” or “pit bull” mix and requires owners to keep their animal leashed and muzzled when not on their property. A violation is a first-degree misdemeanor offense, which is compromised by the judge’s ruling, Skeldon said.
“Some little kid is going to pay the price,” he said. “The word is out in the City of Toledo — the dog warden is no longer enforcing the laws and we can do what we want.”
Not a good pet
Skeldon is also worried about the Toledo Area Humane Society board reversing its long-standing policy on adopting pit bulls. The first pit bull was recently adopted; a second adoption is in the works. Skeldon said this new policy, coupled with the city’s vicious dog law being in limbo will make the pit bull problem worse.
John Dinon, executive director of the humane society, said several safeguards are in place before a pit bull is adopted, including an industry-standard temperament test and pre-adopt visits. The staff also educates potential owners about the city and state laws.
Dinon serves on the Lucas County Dog Warden Advisory Committee, which has been asked to draft a new dangerous dog ordinance.
“We expect to have a draft ready next week,” Dinon said May 19.

Tom Skeldon

“We are really looking at dog behavior and owner responsibility. We want it to be preventative.”
Dinon said when Skeldon retired and Julie Lyle took his place, people might have worried about public safety. But they don’t need to be.
“We are really working hard to be a safe community … the deputies are still the same folks,” he said.
Lyle said her staff is only enforcing the state law, not the city law, which limits her options. For instance, state law allows for owning more than one pit bull.
“We need people to use caution when they see stray dogs. We need people to alert us to problems. We cannot solve problems if we don’t know about them.”
She used to work for the humane society in Marquette County, Mich., where pit bull adoptions were allowed. The Lucas County dog pound is not adopting out pit bulls, but it provides a limited number of pit bulls to the humane society.
“We offer ones that we consider safe, no health problems and no behavioral issues,” Lyle said.
Skeldon said no one can convince him that pit bulls make good family pets.
The No. 1 biting dog is the pit bull and, since 1982, there has never been a year where pit bulls didn’t account for about half of fatal and disfiguring attacks, he said.
“Pit bulls are bred to grab ahold, hang on, shake and not let go. They are bred to kill. And they are very, very good at it.”
Skeldon said he can train dogs, including pit bulls, but the average person who gets a pit bull is not a professional.
“Many people who have pit bulls view them as renewable resources, throwaway dogs, a means to an ends whether that is protecting my drug house, winning in a dog fight, just having the macho, toughest dog in town or breeding them to sell them to people who want them for those reasons,” Skeldon said.
Dawn Capp, director of Chako Pit Bull Rescue in California, said pit bulls have historically been called the “nanny dog” because they are good with children. She grew up with pit bulls. Her siblings rode their dogs like horses.
But dogs are dogs, Capp said, and parents should always watch children around any type of dog. She had a friend whose son ended up in the ER because of a Chihuahua.

Dawn Capp

“Pit bulls are basically dogs,” Capp said. “You just have to remember they have a terrier lineage and a pit dog lineage. It is important to evaluate that individual dog is a match for your family.”
Bred to kill
Skeldon was told by his superior, County Administrator Michael Beazley, not to speak to the press during the tumultuous year that led to his resignation.
But he had a lot to say.
When Skeldon became dog warden, he asked then-Lucas County Prosecutor Anthony Pizza about enforcing the law.
He was told if a vicious dog is improperly confined and he comes upon it, don’t leave the situation until the owner has put the dog away correctly or the dog is seized.
In that first year, Skeldon and his staff seized about 350 pit bulls, the next year, 140 and then 90, until it was down to 50 in 1993. It then began to rise again because of an increase in gang and cocaine activity.
“We were lionized for our stance on protecting the public and then we became the villains for doing what we have been doing since 1987,” he said.
Skeldon said the recent pit bull attacks in Toledo, including the one April 18 when a girl on the East Side was badly bitten, are a precursor for what is to come. As dog warden, he responded to pit bull bites each year, but they usually didn’t happen until May, when the weather generally gets nicer.
“On the street in Toledo, what is being enforced, and not being enforced, is pretty quickly known by people who would like to break the law,” he said.
In an editorial in Animal People newspaper, Merritt Clifton commended Skeldon for cutting the volume of shelter killing of dogs in Lucas County by 77 percent —  a little better than the improvement in the national rate during the same years.
He wrote that critics “howled” that 54 percent of the dogs Skeldon killed in recent years were pit bulls. Yet the national figure in 2008 was 58 percent and, under Skeldon, the Lucas County rate of killing pit bulls per 1,000 people was 2.9, compared to 3.2 for the U.S., he said.
Skeldon was also outspoken on spaying and neutering when it was unacceptable for animal control directors to tell people to fix animals, Clifton said. Skeldon also fought against the use of the decompression chamber, which was a painful, although efficient, way to kill a large amount of dogs at one time.
“Tom was very much instrumental in changing that paradigm — trying to find ways to give animals a chance that might not otherwise might not have them,” Clifton told Toledo Free Press.
The choice
Skeldon, 62, is settling into retirement. He will receive his first Social Security check next month — something far from his mind during the media storm last year.
“It was harder on my family than me, my brothers, sisters and wife,” he said. “We are a big family and none of us have ever gotten rich serving the people of Toledo, but yet we have served the people of Toledo for four generations.”
Lucas County Commissioner Ben Konop said he doesn’t regret pursuing the dog warden and his policies. Change was needed.
“We are definitely heading in the right direction. I would say that Ms. Lyle has come into a very difficult, difficult situation and has done a really remarkable job in a short amount of time. Just in a month, the live release rate has gone up from about 39 percent to 54 percent.
“My concern with the dog warden is that too many adoptable dogs were getting killed and the killing of these dogs had no relation to public safety. What Julie has demonstrated in her first month is that reducing the kill rate at the pound and public safety are not mutually exclusive. You can do both.”
Konop does not have pet because of a policy at his condo. He said his childhood dog, Ernie, was adopted from the pound.
Skeldon said Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken took him to lunch in November and asked him to resign.
“Gerken sat me down at lunch and said, ‘It is not going to stop. They are just going to hammer you and hammer you and hammer you.’”
“The only politician who stood up for me, even in private, was Pete Gerken,” Skeldon said. “I didn’t get any other backing. Privately, some people who were not in my chain of command would give me a smile or a hug, but not come out publicly and say anything.”
Gerken said Skeldon served several commissioners, who found his work to be professional. He was dedicated in his view that the job was law enforcement, which he was told to do.
“I don’t fault him for not going beyond the charge. His mission was always to keep people safe,” Gerken said.
Skeldon said he wanted to retire at the end of 2011 to make sure he had a good enough nest egg to send his 17-year-old daughter  to college. He and his wife, Fanny, adopted Danielle because they couldn’t have children after his exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam.
“I am not rich, but I am OK,” Skeldon said. “The house is paid for. We have always lived frugally. Both cars are paid for.”
What helped is Skeldon paid $200 per paycheck from 1992 to 2001 to buy his federal government time and military time. So instead of retiring with 22 and a half years, he retired with 31 and half.
One of the first things he did after retiring as dog warden was take off to the Philippines, where he served two tours in the Peace Corps.
“I stayed at my wife’s cousin’s house, went scuba diving twice per day, ate a lot of good food,” he said.
When he returned, he felt like he was stealing. He was used to getting up and going to work every day. These days, he is sleeping better, though.
“I would find myself watching the news at 11 and getting a little uptight before I went to bed, but then I would say to myself, ‘Wait a minute, you aren’t going to work tomorrow. You don’t have to deal with the union, you don’t have to deal with the politicians, you don’t have to deal with the press and you don’t have to deal with the drug dealers’.”
Barb Knapp, president of Ohio County Dog Wardens Association, said Skeldon is still the go-to person for pit bulls and court cases. She gets calls from dog wardens asking for him.
“Everybody makes dog wardens out to be dog haters … you need to have rules for people who own these type of dogs; the people are the ones who are going to make these dogs mean,” she said. “Our job, and people seem to forget that, is to protect the public.”
Knapp has seen older pit bulls who act sweetly, but lunge at other dogs when they walk by.
Skeldon is afraid that is going to become more prevalent in Toledo — or worse, pit bulls will also lunge at human beings.
“I love people — that was probably my undoing,” Skeldon said.

When six middle-school students and one adult were arrested outside St. John’s Jesuit High School on May 15, no gunshots were fired, according to police reports.

Toledo Police Chief Mike Navarre confirmed this in a May 20 phone interview.

“I talked to the officer who was there, and he said there were no shots fired,” Navarre said.

There have been comments from local users of social networking sites that a woman at the scene of the May 15 incident was grazed by a bullet and that police were “covering up” the incident.

“Frequently we get reports that shots were fired, and often those reports are erroneous,” Navarre said. “I can’t control rumors.”

Navarre also said he was not aware of any internal investigation was being conducted into the rumored shooting.

The students, none of whom attend St. John’s Jesuit, were arrested for rioting after a fistfight in the parking lot escalated. The fight broke out as the students were leaving an open dance hosted by St. John’s Jesuit.

Brad Bonham, the high school’s principal, said the event was chaperoned by about 20 parents, about 15 high school students and six police officers.

He said the high school has hosted these open dances for about four years.

Patty Mazur, communications director for Toledo Public Schools, said she had no knowledge of guns being involved in the incident.

Auto sales increased as home foreclosures decreased in Lucas County during the first four months of 2010, according to the County Clerk of Courts Bernie Quilter.
A total of 34,628 new and used cars were sold in the county during the first four months of 2010 based on the number of titles issued. That figure does not include exempt sales or duplicate or replacement titles. Exempt sales are vehicles purchased for police and fire departments or nonprofits.
The increase in auto sales appears to be continuing into May, said Quilter after looking at the number of titles issued to date this month.
“Our office is a good barometer of the local economy indicated by the number of auto sales and home foreclosures,” Quilter said. “We’re seeing the economy making a swing with the increase in auto sales and decrease in foreclosures. It’s encouraging news.”
The county received nearly $550,000 in sales tax revenue from new and used car sales for the first quarter of 2010. That represents an increase of about $209,450 or 62 percent more than the amount for that period in 2009.
“The first quarter was encouraging. It gives us a fighting chance to make up for the loss in sales tax,” said Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken. “We’re hoping we’ve hit bottom and we’re taking a position to hold the line on the budget for the balance of year.”
Retail sales tax revenue from the State of Ohio was down 6 percent in the first quarter compared to the same period in 2009, according to Gerken.
The trend continued in April with $210,406 in revenue for the county from auto sales received in 2010 compared to $124,250 in April 2009.
The county has received more than $760,200 in sales tax and interest from auto sales in the first four months of 2010, according to Quilter. That represents an increase of $295,564 in the past two years.
Reports from local auto dealers seem to support the increase the county has experienced.
“Supply is not meeting demand,” said Tom Schmidt, president of the Ed Schmidt Auto Group in Maumee and Perrysburg. “It’s unusual for it to happen so quickly and we hope it’s part of the recovery that will be sustainable.”
Schmidt said his auto group doubled its sales of Volkswagon vehicles last year and are doubling sales so far in 2010. Volkswagon increased sales by 39 percent in April and 38 percent year-to-date in 2010 compared to the same periods in 2009.
The dealership can’t keep the new GMC Acadia and Terrain models in stock because they are selling so fast, he said. GM total vehicle sales increased by 13 percent in the first four months of 2010.
“We’re up about 30 percent year-to-date over last year. We’re in a great position with the products we have, such as the Camaro, Equinox, Malibu and Traverse models,” said Joe Mehling, general manager of Dave White Chevrolet & Acura in Sylvania.
Dave White Chevrolet doubled its sales in March and April from last year and has already sold more cars so far in May than during the entire month last year, Mehling said.
“We’re seeing more people in our showroom this year than ever before,” said Bobby Jorgensen, president of Kistler Ford in Toledo.
Jorgensen said sales at Kistler are up 18.6 percent for the first four months of 2010 from the same period last year. Ford Motor Company’s sales were up 33 percent in that same period.
“We’ve seen a lot more interest and sales in the past few months after typically slow months in January and February,” said Denny Amrhein, managing partner of Charlie’s Dodge in Maumee and Grogan Towne Chrysler Dodge Jeep in Toledo.
Amrhein said used car sales have been doing well and he expects new car sales to improve with the introduction of new vehicles from Chrysler later this year. Sales for Chrysler increased 25 percent in April from that month in 2009.
Auto sales increased worldwide by 20 percent in April and by 17 percent for the first four months of 2010 compared to the same periods in 2009, according to Automotive News.
Foreclosures down in 2010
Lucas County has seen a drop in the number of foreclosures in the past three months. The county has recorded 227 fewer foreclosures in the first four months of 2010 compared to that period in 2009.
“People are using the system to save their homes,” Quilter said.
Lucas County recorded an all-time high of 4,160 foreclosures in 2009, compared to 4,093 in 2008 which had increased significantly from 858 in 1998.
The county’s decrease in home foreclosures runs against the national trend. Foreclosures increased nationwide by 7 percent during the previous quarter and by 16 percent over the first quarter in 2009, according to the online foreclosure marketing firm Realty Trac.

Keith Burwell, president of Toledo Community Foundation, said he had “no illusions that I’m walking into a meeting and in a day and a half I’m walking out with a suitcase of cash.”
He and about 200 other leaders from automotive communities attended a May 18 conference in Washington, D.C., hoping to find solutions for communities struggling with the changing automotive environment.
The conference, called “Auto Communities and the Next Economy: Partnerships in Innovation,” was sponsored by the Brookings Institute, a nonprofit think tank based in D.C.
Burwell was right — no suitcase of cash — but May 19 he said it was a “very good meeting.”
“The day’s effort was worth it,” Burwell said.
Frank Calzonetti, vice president for research and economic development at UT, also attended.
“It was good to have two Toledo folks in the same room,” Burwell said.
Detroit was the best-represented auto community at the summit, and Burwell acknowledged the reality of the city’s problems, but said Toledo’s issues also need to be addressed.
“Detroit’s not the only auto community in the country,” he said.
Burwell said he hopes Toledo’s size will encourage federal government agencies to consider the city for grants.
Detroit is so large its problems seem overwhelming, he said, and Toledo is smaller, but big enough that its problems and solutions to those problems will have an observable impact.
“We’re hoping to position Toledo as an ideal location for the federal government to look at” for economic development, Burwell said, “because our unique size positions us well.”
“It was critical for me to be there,” he said.
Calzonetti said UT is “very much committed to the diversification in the future of the economy,” and its presence at the conference was also important.
“We need to see what type of programs are out there [and] who we can partner with, form teams to address a very serious problem of the changes in cities affected by the restructuring of the automotive industry,” he said in a May 19 phone interview.
“There’s going to be a new normal,” said Rich Martinko, director of both the university transportation center and the intermodal transportation institute at UT, said in a May 19 phone interview. “That’s going to take cooperation between a number of partners: the government, the private sector, philanthropists … and, of course, research universities.”
Ed Montgomery, White House director of recovery for auto communities and workers, announced at the meeting that the Environmental Protection Agency will clean up 60 former General Motors sites in 19 communities, Burwell said.
Martinko said $800 million in federal money would go toward cleaning up and “retrofitting” old General Motors sites.
Burwell called this the “first big step” in revitalizing auto communities like Toledo.
He said Montgomery did not reveal locations and he didn’t know how many would be near Toledo.
Burwell said the Ford Foundation announced that it would put $200 million into auto communities for economic development.
“We are hoping that Toledo can benefit from these proposals,” Burwell said.
Burwell said the administration gave a clear message: first, that federal agencies are talking among each other, and second, that the administration is hoping to create partnership among public, private and philanthropic organizations.
“In the past, it was hard to get just public-private [partnerships],” Burwell said. He said the connection between all three was new.
Martinko said one speaker at the conference called for an “enlightened cooperation.”
“That means that everybody has to understand the other person’s point of view,” Martinko said. “You have to understand the situation and cooperate with each other.”
“The first real key to making progress is understanding the situation, and that was really the theme of the conference,” he said.

Rogar International of Toledo was named to the 12th Annual Inner City 100 ranking of the fastest-growing inner-city companies in the country. The local manufacturing firm was ranked 83rd, making the Inner City 100 list for the first time.
The Inner City 100 ranking is complied by the not-for-profit Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), founded in 1994 by Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School. The 12th Annual Inner City 100 was announced May 5 in Boston and will be published in the June issue of Bloomberg Businessweek.
“We are delighted to celebrate businesses like Rogar International that are playing a critical role in revitalizing America’s urban communities,” said Mary Kay Leonard, president and CEO of ICIC. “The Inner City 100 companies exemplify the remarkable potential that exists within our inner cities and the road to future economic recovery.”
The ICIC’s aim is to foster economic growth in inner cities and identify high-growth inner city companies ranked by their compound annual growth rate from 2004-2008.
Rogar, which does business as Hansen Machine & Tool Company, was one of only four companies in Ohio selected for the list with one in Columbus and two from Cleveland.
Rogar achieved a standard growth rate of 98 percent and 18 percent for the five-year period from 2004 to 2008. The private, family-owned business generated $2.9 million in sales in 2008 with 11 full-time employees.
“As a small business in Toledo, it’s a big deal to be recognized as one of the top 100 inner city firms in the country. It shows that hard work and diligence pay off,” said Ken Clark, controller at Rogar.
Clark said that it took a combination of having a skilled work force, automated machinery, engineering management and attention to detail in the production of parts for its customers to make the list.
Hansen Machine & Tool makes components for jet engine ignition systems for the B-1 Bomber and Blackhawk helicopters used by the U.S. military. One part, the jet igniter shell, is the equivalent of the spark plug in a gas engine and creates the spark that makes jet engines run.
The company is a Tier 1 supplier to Champion Aerospace, GE Unison, and Williams International, companies that have Department of Defense contracts, Clark said.
“We maintain stringent high-quality control by tracing the materials, metals used in aerospace applications, through the production process. We can trace each part back to the original lot of material to determine if there was any problem with the material or manufacturing process,” Clark said. “We have 23 years in business with no issues.”
Hansen has a history of making parts for the U.S. military, including prisms used in sites for periscopes in World War I and aviation parts used in World War II. The company was founded in 1907 by Niels Hansen.
The company also produces the delivery systems that deliver molten glass from the furnace to glass molding machines that make bottles, jars and glasses for Toledo-based Libbey and Owens-Illinois.
Hansen uses technology to achieve its edge in the market, according to President and CEO Ron Clark.
“We have utilized lean manufacturing techniques, cellular CNC (Computer Numeric Control) machines and machining centers to give us the competitive edge in production, quality and price,” he said.
Clark worked for 25 years at Champion Spark Plug in Toledo serving as head of cold form engineering and plant manager of the Aviation Division. He knew the Hansen family and its company from doing business with them at Champion.
Don Hansen, the last of the original founding family, had some health issues and was looking for someone to take over and continue operating the business.
“I decided it was time to make a move,” said Ron Clark.
He and a colleague from Champion, Roger Burditt, purchased the company from Hansen in 1988. Burditt, who worked in engineering and design development at Champion for 21 years, now serves as vice president and general manager of Rogar and manages the manufacturing operation.