IN BRIEF
The Tri-County Workforce Investment Board has named Quality Life Services as Butler County's 2012 Employer of the Year.
Quality Life Services is a family-owned company that operates eight nursing homes and a pharmacy in Western Pennsylvania.
Started in 1973, the company has almost 320 employees in Butler County and another 730 in surrounding counties.
The company is a member of the workforce investment board and industry partnership program, participating in the WIB Board and co-chairs the Butler County Health Care Consortium.
Quality Life Services offers continual training to its staff and often opens this training up to other consortium members. In addition, the company offers a community Certified Nursing Assistant program.
Harrisville woman named to boardPITTSBURGH — Kathy Sisler, a tax supervisor, has been elected to the board of directors of Malin Bergquist Charities, the nonprofit organization created by employees of the Malin Bergquist & Co. accounting firm.Sisler has been an assistant bursar of a private college and the controller of a manufacturing company. She was also the controller of an international architectural firm with operations in Dubai and India.She is a former finance committee member of the Butler Chapter of the American Red Cross, and former board director of the National Association of Female Executives in Pittsburgh.She holds a bachelor of arts in accounting from Grove City College and has been licensed as a CPA since 1985.Sisler lives in Harrisville.
Lucas Energy in Houston, Texas, has picked former Butler man Anthony Schnur as CEO.Schnur, 47, is a 1983 Butler High School graduate.He attended Butler County Community College and graduate in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in business administration.He earned his master's in business administration in 1997 from Case Western University in Ohio.Schnur is the son of Agnes Widenhofer of Butler and the late Vernon Schnur.Schnur has served as chief financial officer, treasurer and secretary of Lucas Energy since Nov. 1, and takes the place of William Sawyer, company co-founder and CEO since 2009.Schnur and his wife, Sue, live with their three children in The Woodlands, Texas.<B>Regional house sales still climbing</B>PITTSBURGH — RealSTATs reports the region's real estate market continued to climb in November with 2,054 homes sold in Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Washington and Westmoreland counties for $331.5 million.All counties saw increased sales with Allegheny County accounting for more than half of the region's dollar gain of $30.3 million followed by Butler County, which saw home sales increase by $11 million. Dollar gains in Westmoreland, Washington and Beaver were $6.1 million, $5.9 million and $4.6 million, respectively.The number of existing homes sold rose 19.6 percent in the region, from 1,587 in November 2011 to 1,898 last month. Spending for these sales increased by $55.4 million, or 24.6 percent, from $225.4 million to $280.7 million.Three of the five counties saw average new home prices fall while Butler County's increased more than 10 percent to $372,572 and Westmoreland County's increased 1 percent to $295,652.<B>Feds, peanut butter plant reach deal</B>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A peanut butter plant shuttered by a widespread salmonella outbreak has been given the go ahead to start harvesting a bumper crop of prized eastern New Mexico Valencia peanuts next week under an agreement that ends a tense, months-long standoff with federal regulators.A consent decree filed in federal court Friday says Sunland Inc. can reopen its plant in Portales if it hires an independent expert to develop a sanitation plan, which then must be approved by the Food and Drug Administration.Conditions at the plant, which is the largest organic peanut butter producer in the country, prompted the FDA in November to use new authority for the first time to revoke the company’s operating certificate without a court hearing. The action came after the plant was linked to a salmonella outbreak that sickened 42 people in 20 states this fall.Friday’s filing reinstates Sunland’s food facility registration.
