Business

Jeffrey Barner has opened doors for guests at Baltimore’s Hilton Inner Harbor for the past 16 years — since the hotel opened after the city spent millions to finance its design and construction. It’s become increasingly hard for the bellman to offer a warm greeting, he said, when others doing the same job in nearby cities make at least $10 more per hour. Dozens of the hotel’s roughly 200 unionized workers gathered Friday and voted not to extend their contract with the city-owned Hilton as they push for wage increases and better working conditions.

Jerk At Nite built a following in Washington, D.C., with two restaurants but its path to establishing a presence up the road in Baltimore has seen its share of detours. The Jamaican restaurant first ventured into the city in 2021 with a location in the Rosemont neighborhood. Owners Kadeem Todd and Denville Myrie decided to close the location after about a year and move to another spot in Pigtown.

The time of villains has come. Disney’s classic baddies are getting their own theme park land at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida. The company first teased the potential for a villainous takeover at the last D23 Expo in 2022 as part of a series of “blue sky” projects that it was contemplating, but not sure would come to fruition.

The morning after her business won a competition, Jessica Grigsby still couldn’t believe she won. Grigsby is the owner and sonographer at First Sight Frederick, which provides expectant parents and families with high-quality ultrasound images of their unborn child. The company won the an award for new companies at the S.H.E. Pitch competition at Hood College Wednesday night.

After nearly four years of discussion, and a week after a Baltimore sanitation worker died of heat-related causes, proposed state regulations to protect workers from heat stress are nearing the final stages of review. The proposed regulations were published by the Division of Labor and Industry on July 26, starting a 30-day public comment period. A hearing has been scheduled for next Friday, Aug. 16, and barring any major changes, the new rules could be in place by early fall.

One of Greater Baltimore’s largest cybersecurity companies has moved its headquarters to Denver just a year after raising over $190 million in venture capital. Blackpoint Cyber will retain a presence in Columbia focused on research and development. The formerly Howard County-based firm works with third-party companies that remotely manage the day-to-day operations of a company’s internet technology infrastructure.

Aerospace veteran Robert “Kelly” Ortberg becomes Boeing’s new CEO on Thursday with a singular mission: restoring the reputation of a U.S. manufacturing icon. That enormous goal will involve thousands of daily decisions that will determine whether Boeing can earn back the trust of regulators, airlines and the public; end persistent production defects; deliver aircraft on time and consistently to customers large and small; and stop burning cash.