The San Bernardino County Sun from San Bernardino, California • Page 31

The Sun 0 i i i ni r-r MONDAY August 7, 1989 Business schools in bidding war for finance instructors dusinessun By LOUIS UCHITELLE The New York Times according to a report in Business Week. Grossman declined to discuss his compensation. "I am embarrassed by the whole topic," he said. Not surprisingly, the high salaries being paid are shaping the career choices of students. Economics professors say that many of their bright young Ph.D.

candidates are being drawn away from important specialties like labor economics or macroeco-nomic theory by the lure of $60,000 starting salaries to teach finance in business schools as assistant professors. Typically, new economics Ph.D.'s See INSTRUCTORSBack page Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Until a few years ago, finance pro-fessors were lucky to get near $100,000 a year in salary, although like other academicians in fields valued by business, some routinely earned big sums as consultants. Nowadays, however, they are in great demand to teach a favorite business school subject. And Wall Street adds to the demand by recruiting executives from among finance professors who are used by the firms to think up and carry out complex trading strategies.

Each semester brings new tales of professors won and lost. The Sloan School, for example, lost Professor Robert Merton to the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration last year, although MIT tried to hold him with a compensation package worth more than $130,000, Thurow said. (Harvard will not disclose the winning offer.) And Wharton, perhaps the most aggressive bidder in recent years, lured Professor Sanford J. Grossman away from Princeton University in the most celebrated deal of them all. Grossman, who starts at Wharton in September, will receive $250,000, A bidding war has broken out among the nation's business schools for finance professors.

The demand for such experts, who explain how Wall Street's markets work, has pushed pay for the top finance professors well past the $150,000 mark and sometimes past $200,000. "We're all in a kind of competition for these people, and we are raising the salary level as we bid," said Lester Thurow, dean of the Sloan School of TOURIST TALK: San Bernardino is using its new toll-free telephone number to lure Little League families to town. The number is being distributed to families arriving this weekend for the Western Regional Little League Baseball playoffs. Installed to capture tourist inquiries following the Miss Teen USA Pageant, the number initially received little use because CBS refused to broadcast it during the July 25 telecast. The ball players come from 13 Western states.

The number ill help their families follow them and their team standings, said S. Daniel Stark executive director of the San Bernardino Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We know we've got it available for use, and we know it's going to help in getting these parents to stay here instead of Colton or Riverside," he said. SAVVY SHOPPING: Nordstrom is taking service to another level. On Aug.

26, the high-fashion department store will bus interested shoppers from San Bernardino to its Montclair store for a one-day shopping excursion. Advertised in a mailing to some credit card customers, the excursion costs $15 a person. That buys a round-trip ride (50 miles), continental breakfast in San Bernardino and buffet lunch at the store. Nordstrom has staged similar trips elsewhere in Southern California, but this is a first for the Montclair Plaza Nordstrom. Seattle-based Nordstrom, a 58-store chain, is known for its emphasis on service.

The Montclair store is its only one in the Inland Empire. LEND AN EXEC: Area United Way organiza i ij p.e tions are looking for community-minded volunteers to lead fund-raising drives. Officials of the 2 Arrowhead United Way and the United Way of Redlands Area are looking for executives to donate 10 weeks of their time hitting up corporations for donations. "The Loaned Executive Program" accounted for more than 65 percent of I If Photo by WALLY SKALUThe Sun Precinct Reporter publisher Brian Townsend, 30, attributes his newspaper's success to "the growth in advertising and in the area we cover." Black-owned papers a story of success the money raised last year by the organizations. And, the groups say, as the area continues to grow, so do the needs of the community service groups that depend on United Way for funding.

Information: Arrowhead United Way, (714) 884-9441 and United Way of Redlands, (714) 793-2837. WILLARD WEARY: Don't have time to sit through NBC weathercaster Willard Scott's birthday greetings? There's another way for travelers get weather forecasts. American Express has teamed with the private weather service firm Accu-Weather to offer a toll telephone service providing weather information for more than 600 locations around the world. 1-900-WEATHER offers 24-hour information on local conditions plus three-day forecasts for hundreds of ports of call. Besides major and mid-size cities, the weather service offers forecasts for vacation spots such as Aspen, Disneyland and Yellowstone Park, and for such unlikely destinations as the moon.

Cost: 75 cents a minute. DELUXE BUS: A luxury commuter bus that features a bathroom, kitchen and cellular phone has made its inaugural run between Rohnert Park and downtown San Francisco. Execucoach Inc. President Mark Wixom is betting that executives will be willing to pay $149.95 per month for a seat $40 more than the cost of riding Golden Gate Transit. "I think it's the same ideology that prompts somebody to buy a Porsche instead of a Chevrolet.

They feel a need to rise above the common man and become unique," he said. The $120,000 coach has smoked windows, a blue Naugahyde dashboard, carpets and a microwave oven. Newspapers and nonalcoholic beverages are free, as are one-minute calls on the cellular phone. 4 Inland Empire weeklies attract variety of readers By P.G.TORREZ Sun Business Writer my mini ii INSIDE BUSINESS with a black population estimated at 110,200 or nearly 8 percent, to have four black weeklies, said Joseph Co-ley, president of the West Coast Black Publishers Association and publisher of the Bakersfield News Observer. "They seem to be surviving, but it is unusual," Coley said of the four papers.

Typically, it is only large metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles or Houston with sizable black populations that are able to support more than a couple of black weeklies, he said. Coley said the competition such as that in the Inland Empire would hurt him. "I know in my city, I couldn't stay alive," he said. Gloria Macias Harrison, publisher of a small chain of area news weeklies, including El Chicano and the Rialto Record, said the fact that two of the black-owned papers have been around so long may have encouraged the others. "They all have their different constituents and audience," she said.

Two blacks, William Jacocks, a community activist and Rialto-based small business consultant, and Vivian Nash, vice president of the residential construction firm of Dukes-Dukes Associates in San Bernardino, agreed. "I think the Precinct Reporter See PAPERSBack page The black press is alive and well in the Inland Empire. The San Bernardino-Riverside area is home to four black-owned weekly newspapers. The oldest is the San Bernardino-based Precinct Reporter, which just celebrated its 24th anniversary. The youngest is the 2'2-year-old Westside Story, also of San Bernardino.

Business at the papers ranges from healthy to break-even, the owners say. Because the papers are private, family-owned operations, the owners declined to discuss revenues. But Brian Townsend, the 30-year-old publisher of the Precinct Reporter, confirmed that his weekly will gross more than $350,000 this year. In number of pages, the weekly has grown 15-20 percent since the beginning of 1988, he said, now averaging 30 or 32 pages an issue. "It's a reflection of the growth in Hardy and Cheryl Brown publish the Black Voice in Riverside.

FINANCIAL HEALTH: Corporate stock plans can choke employees' financial future unless they take care to diversify. Investors Portfolio. PageE2 SLEEPING GIANT: Toyota Motor Japan's conservative giant, wants to democratize its workplace and boost employee creativity. Page E3 PACIFIC RIM: Indonesia is diversifying its economy and increasing government spending, making 1989 the Year of Growing Quickly E4 All four weeklies, including the San Bernardino American News and the Riverside-based Black Voice, are distributed free at homes, shops, liquor stores and churches. Owners' families often share the responsibility for writing, editing, selling advertisements, make-up and distribution.

It is rare for an area this size, advertising and in the area we cover," Townsend added. With a weekly circulation of 55,000 in the San Bernardino Valley, Ontario and Pomona, the Precinct Reporter is the largest of the four papers. The other papers claim a weekly circulation ranging from 5,000 to 7,500. By the numbers Statistics from the Inland Empire economy Building contracts II II 11 II II Bank, officials anxious for bailout Area groups back compromise to stop uncertainty San Bernardino Riverside Tangible capital Three of six San Bernardino County-based savings and loans have tangible capital below the 3 percent benchmark required by the proposed savings and loan bailout bill. utive of Empire Bank in Ontario.

By MARK VEVERKA Sun Business Writer I Jan. to June '68 fl Jan. to June '89 residential The biggest disagreement waged by Congress over the compromise proposal passed early Saturday morning had little to do with Lawmakers had been at odds over whether costs should be included in the federal budget, which would require an exception to the balanced budget amendment, or counted separately. So urgent was the need for a bailout measure, that Jett says he was willing to concede some advantages to thrifts. The compromise passed by Congress establishes separate rules for determining how much capital an institution must keep on reserve.

The ratio of "tangible capital" basical- SeeBAILOUTBackpage Total Est Est assets tangible percentage (billions) capital of tangible (millions) capital Redlands 720 41 5.6 First 137 Ontario 114 19.2 16.9 Lift Savings Bank 71 3 4.6 Arrowhead Pacific SB 60 -30 Secure 48 3.6 Residential Bankers and thrift executives in San Bernardino County agree on at least one thing: The bill to ball out the savings and loan industry is better than no bill at all. Both groups say they can support a savings and loan bailout compromise despite its flaws. Without passage of the bill, the entire financial industry would wallow in uncertainty until the problems were fixed. "We've got to get the thrifts, and the thrift industry, into good shape," said Richard Jett, chief exec 1 2 In millions of dollars Source: Srwirtunort Information Strvlcet, Austin, Texas Source: F.W. Dodg Group.

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