The Times from Munster, Indiana • 37

rrTTT7 i OS 5 Check your investments' performances mm lITfeJ largest Inside Inside Td) III) (OT Lake County Illinois Edition Paratransit hearings planned Planning Commission responds to criticism from disabled briefcase Public hearings 10 a.m. May 13 in the council chambers of East Chicago City Hall, 4525 Indianapolis East Chicago. 6 p.m. May 13 on the first floor of the Lake County Government Center, 2293 N. Main St, Crown Point 10 a.m.

May 14 at the NIRPC auditorium, 6100 Southport Road, Portage. 6 p.m. May 14 at the NIRPC i auditorium, 6100 Southport Road, Portage. 10 a.m. May 16 in the lower level council chambers of Michigan City Hall, 100 East Michigan Michigan City.

with enough opportunities to be involved with paratransit planning and funding. The hearings will be held during the week of May 13 in Lake, Porter and La-Porte counties. Public comment on the funding proposals also is being taken until May27. The commission has proposed an amendment to its 1997 federal transportation funding request for federal Section 5309 funds which will cover the cost of a new bus for the Gary Public Transportation Corp. and improvements to its Metro Center and Maintenance building.

It also requests funds to replace of one vehicle each for Opportunity Enterprises, Portage Township and LCEOC. Additionally, the amendment requests federal funds for Section 5307 mass transportation projects sponsored by the commission for LCEOC, TradeWinds Rehabilitation Center Inc. and Opportunity Enterprises. Action on the amendment will be taken by the commissions executive board meeting at 11 a.m. on May 28.

Public comments can be made in writing to Jackie Anders, NIRPC, 6100 South-port Road, Portage, 46368. BY ANDREA HOLECEK Times Business Writer PORTAGE Five public hearings have been scheduled on the proposed funding of Northwest Indiana transit and paratransit services. In the wake of controversy on how paratransit providers have handled requests for transportation from the disabled community, the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission scheduled a second round of hearings. The commission has been criticized recently for not providing the public -m pre 1 News for area businesses Groundbreaking Friday at SL James Hospital CRETE A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for 3 p.m. Friday for The Villas, St James Hospital and Health Centers' new assisted living facility in Crete.

The facility will be built adjacent to St James' extended-care facility, The Manor, 1251 E. Richton Road, Crete. Consisting of 60 one-story units, the Villas will be clustered into five neighborhoods, three of which will target residents in need of personal care and supervision. The remaining two neighborhoods will house early-stage Alzheimer's residents. The facility is scheduled to open in January of 1998.

For more information, call (708) 672-1100. Peoples Bank hosts mortgage program Banking representatives will present a homeowner mortgage education program using the Fannie Mae lending materials to help people with low incomes buy a home with as little down as 3 percent. The program meets for two hours at four sessions, May 6, 8, 14, and 15, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Participants completing the course qualify for a discount in closing costs, free credit report and discount appraisals.

For more information, call Peoples Bank at (219) 836-9875. Chicagoland Small Business Expo at Navy Pier in May CHICAGO The First National Bank of Chicago will cosponsor the 1997 Chicagoland Small Business Expo with Crain's Small Business, presented by the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Small Business Administration, May 1 and 2 at the Navy Pier Festival Hall in Chicago. The expo will feature 15 seminars and workshops to assist small-business owners in managing and expanding their businesses. Topics range from marketing and public relations to using the Internet.

A May 1 luncheon will highlight fllinois's celebration of Small Business Week. Ten Illinois small businesses will be recognized for their outstanding contributions as individual business owners, small-business advocates, exporters and young entrepreneurs. For more information, contact the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce Expo hotline at (312) 494-6761. Honesty important to hiring managers Hiring managers seem to value veracity over verbal skills, according to a recent survey. Close to a third of executives rated honesty and integrity as the most critical qualities in a job candidate.

This represents a major shift from the results of a similar survey conducted in 1990, in which verbal skills were ranked first At that time, honesty received only 7 percent of the vote. The survey was developed by Robert Half International die world's largest staffing-services firm specializing in the accounting, finance and information technology fields. It was conducted by an independent research firm, which polled 150 executives from the nation's 1,000 largest companies. In the 1990 survey, 38 percent of executives ranked verbal skills as the most critical factor during a job interview. Enthusiasm received the second-highest score in both surveys, favored by 24 percent of those polled in 1990, and 29 percent today.

NEW YORK (AP) Selected foreign exchange rates, New York prices. Rates for trades of $1 million minimum. Black Industrial Supply crosses state line to serve customers Company will maintain its Chicago warehouse to avoid Indiana's prohibitive inventory tax. BY SHARON PORTA zl Times Correspondent HAMMOND It's been years since the steel mills were shuttered on Chicago's east side. Yet it wasn't until recently that a 104: year-old company, Black Industrial Supply moved to Hammond to be closer to the industrial market it now serves.

"We used to be in the midst of industry," said Thomas Wechsler, president. "But most of our growth is in Indiana, and we're moving to be closer to our big customers." The company recently signed a 15-year contract to lease the former C.A. Stephan location at 3600 Calumet Ave. C.A. Stephan has moved to a new location in East Chicago.

Black distributes maintenance equipr; ment to heavy processing industries such as steel mills, oil refineries and chemical plants, for companies like Amoco U.S. Steel Group and LaSalle Steel Co. Despite Wechsler's enthusiasm about moving to Indiana, he couldn't sever completely the company's ties to Chicago be; cause of Indiana's controversial inventory" tax. "Hammond's economic development de-1 partment is trying to get us to close the; Chicago office and move into the city's en-; terprise zone," Wechsler said. "But we have; over $3 million in inventory, and we're-keeping that in Chicago to shelter it fronl the inventory tax." The James Black Hardware Co.

was founded as a retail hardware store back in 1893. The family that currently owns the company assumed control in 1949. Although the company's primary customers were mainly tankers and ore carriers that sailed the Great Lakes, the company eventually shifted its focus to the industrial market. "Today, we are more geared toward heavy-processing companies," Wechsler said. "We moved to this location because there seems to be a vacuum of good indus-, trial suppliers in this area." Although the company has moved away See SUPPLY, Page E-2 I i Michael Gard The Times Tom Walstra welds in one of the workshops at United Tractor in Chesterton.

The company has been awarded a grant to install heat sensors which will monitor energy usage and heat loss in their workshop areas. United Tractor gets grant to cut costs State program helps small manufacturers upgrade, improve energy efficiency. energy efficient upgrades to enhance their competitive edge in the marketplace. It also benefits the local economies and environment through the conservation of energy resources. The grants were awarded through the Energy Policy Divison's Small Business Energy Initiative.

This program offers three types of grants targeted at businesses with 100 employees or fewer. The Industrial Energy Efficiency Program grants help small manufacturers improve the energy efficiency of their production process or facility. The Urban Enterprise Zone energy grants help small businesses located in one of Indiana's 18 urban enterprise zones improve the energy efficiency of their facility or production process. See GRANT, Page E-2 work. The total cost is $32,300.

"What we're doing is installing a computer system with sensors on all of our heating units," said Lisa Mas-som, the company's accounting manager. "It will regulate the energy that we're using for our heating system." The company's heating expenses are about $50,000 a year, Massom said. "We estimate the new system will save us about 10 percent or $5,000 a year in heating expenses," she said. United Tractor plans to start the work in June and it should be complete in August. United Tractor, with gross revenue of $10 million a year, manufactures industrial and aircraft towing tractors.

It has 50 employees. Alex Yovanovich, commerce department spokesman, said the Industrial Energy Efficiency grant program helps private businesses make BY CARMEN McCOLLUM Times Business Writer CHESTERTON United Tractor will begin a major energy efficiency project this summer that will help the firm cut energy expenses and make it more competitive. The Indiana Department of Commerce awarded the company a $25,840 Industrial Energy Efficiency grant to install a hew energy-management system for more effective control at its tractor manufacturing facility. The grant is for 80 percent of the LJ 17 DOW INDUST. 6812.72 773.64 if AMERICAN SAVINGS ANNOUNCES INCREASED EARNINGS: MUNSTER AMB Financial the parent holding company for American Savings, FSB today announced net income for the quarter of $234,000, up 173 percent over the first quarter 1996 net income of $86,000.

On a per share basis, net income was $.24 compared with $.08 for the same period in 1996. Annualized return on assets for the quarter was 1.04 percent and return on equity was 6.17 percent, up from .47 percent and 5.40 percent in the first quarter of 1996, respectively. The primary source of the increased earnings for the 1997 period was the increase in net interest income. Net interest income increased by 45 percent, or $264,000 versus the same quarter last year, due to net loan growth of $14.6 million and a $4.5 million increase in investment securities. The company's average interest-fate spread remained constant during both periods, while the net interest margin increased 48 basis points to 4 percent from 3.52 percent Times staff and wire reports NYSE 404.71 LASALLE DEAL IS FINAL: HAMMOND -Quanex Corp.

reported that it completed the sale of LaSalle Steel Co. to a subsidiary of Niagara of Buffalo, N.Y., in a stock for cash deal valued at about $65 million. The value is subject to adjustments following an audit of the final balance sheet. Quanex, which wants to focus more on its aluminum business, will use the proceeds to pay down debt and to invest in its other operations. LaSalle joins a stable of other companies in Buffalo, Chattanooga, Tenn.

and Midlothian, Texas that make Niagara the largest cold-finished steel bar producer in the country. LaSalle's bars are pulled through a die or turned or polished to achieve more uniform dimensions, smoother surface and stronger metallurgical properties. Cold-finished bars are used in shock absorbers, hydraulic fork lifts and even as the guide in a computer printer that the printing head slides along. The company employs about 390 people and has plants in Hammond and Griffith. 0b NASDAQ 1227.14 In U.S.

Currency dollars per Britain (Pound) 1.6226 .6163 Canada (Dollar) .7182 1.3924 China (Yuan) .1201 8.3249 France (Franc) .1731 5.7770 Germany (Marc) .5838 1.7130 Greece (Drachma) .003681 271.65 Hungary (Forint) .0056 180.05 Italy (Lira) .000587 1703.00 Japan (Yen) .007928 126.13 Mexico (Peso) .127340 7.8530 Poland (Zloty) .3195 3.13 Spain (Peseta) .006926 144.39 Switzerland (Franc) .6835 1.4630 Associated Press Trying out her wings Kathy Pavelko, left, a Northwest Airlines pilot, shows daughter Sarah, 15, around her office the cockpit of a Northwest DC9 jet at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Wednesday. The pair got a jump on Thursday's 'Take Our Daughters to Work Day' when they flew Northwest Right 502 together from Minneapolis to New York. While still undecided, Sarah is considering a career as a commercial airline AM EX 543.36 More reports, E-2, E-3 Jul..