Savannah’s first Walmart Neighborhood Market opens at 7:30 a.m. today on Abercorn Street just north of Wilshire Boulevard — but if you’re expecting the typical Walmart-sized store, you’re in for a surprise.

At just 42,000 square feet, the market is roughly a quarter the size of its supercenter counterpart down the road, making the full-line grocery store easier to navigate and check out, the company says.

A relatively recent concept for the retail giant, the store format launched in 1998 is designed to provide quick and convenient shopping for groceries, pharmacy items and general merchandise. The market is a first for Savannah, but there are more than 600 Walmart Neighborhood Market stores nationwide.

Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the new store offers fresh produce, meats and pantry staples as well as brand names and organics.

“While we’re not as big as your standard Walmart, we’re much bigger than the average Walmart grocery department, so we have a huge selection, all at Walmart’s everyday low prices,” said store manager Ricky Gable.

For example, customers will find a full-service deli, featuring applewood smoked meats and freshly prepared pizzas ready to bake.

“You can also order a customized, bake-at-home pizza that’s built for you while you wait, great for busy moms and dads on their way home from work,” Gable said. “We’re really excited about providing Savannah residents with their first Neighborhood Market. He said that the store has created 100 new jobs.

In addition to groceries, Gable said, customers will find health and beauty aids, pet products and cleaning supplies. They will also be able to shop more than 7 million products on Walmart.com and have them shipped free to the store for pickup.

Gable, who opened a new Walmart Neighborhood Market in LaGrange last year, said Walmart.com customers especially liked the fact that the pickup and financial services department was located at the front of the store.

“And everyone loves the convenience of the drive-through pharmacy,” he said.

Gable began his Walmart career in 1995 as an hourly employee at a store in north Georgia.

ABOUT THE NEIGHBORHOOD MARKET

• The new Walmart Neighborhood Market site consists of nearly 7 acres north of Wilshire Boulevard at Abercorn Street, 1 acre of green space south of Wilshire at Abercorn and approximately 2.4 acres of future development property south of Wilshire next to White Bluff Road.

• The main building is 42,000 square feet. An adjacent convenience store with fuel pumps takes up another 750 square feet. The market has 189 parking spaces and sidewalks along all street fronts. Landscaping is designed to screen the rear service area of the building.

• After a brief ribbon-cutting at 7:30 a.m. today, the store will be open 24/7.

• Road improvements include a southbound turn lane and traffic signal at White Bluff Road and a northbound turn lane onto Wilshire from Abercorn.

WORKING AT WALMART

Applicants interested in careers at Walmart can apply at a store’s hiring kiosk or online at Walmartcareers.com.

A few years ago, local leaders and city officials began a quest to make Savannah a better place for businesses by implementing a more streamlined approach for those looking to do business in the city.

Those efforts are paying off, according to Julie McLean, city engineer and director of developmental services.

The city processed more than 1,600 new business approvals and issued more than 1,700 building permits in 2015. Those building projects were worth about $405 million — a new record for the city, McLean said Tuesday.

“It’s exciting. That’s a lot of dollars being invested in our community and equates to a lot of jobs, too,” McLean said during the Savannah Area Chamber and Small Business Council’s SMART Luncheon on Tuesday at the Savannah Morning News.

Commercial projects accounted for 44 percent of the new approved businesses, followed by home occupation and short-term rentals.

“It works to about seven new businesses a day, so that’s great that we have such a vibrant city,” she said.

The biggest of those commercial projects were the Mariner Grove Apartment complex on President Street at a construction cost of barely more than $35 million; the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Weston Dyson building at $31.9 million; and the West Mulberry Apartments at almost $21 million.

“Since (the recession) it’s been steadily increasing, and I’m really excited to say that we finished 2015 almost 20 percent beyond the prior peak year,” she said of the permit revenue, adding that the bulk of the projects have shifted from residential to commercial.

“At $405 million we’re way above what we ever had for construction activity in the community before the recession,” McClean said. “It’s really encouraging.”

She said the new year doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.

Just before Christmas the department received the largest building permit plan submittal in its history — 4,400 pages submitted for developer Richard Kessler’s $130 million Plant Riverside hotel on the west end of River Street.

“It’s actually about one-third of all the work we permitted in 2015, so it’s kind of mind boggling for one project,” she said.

While Kessler’s hotel project won’t be completed for some time, 28 new hotels opened in the Savannah area last year. With tourism continuing to grow, everyone will have to work together to ensure the success of the city, said Bridget Lidy, director of tourism management and ambassadorship, who also spoke at Tuesday’s luncheon.

In 2015, the department helped to implement fair guidelines for short-term rentals — which accounted for about 22 percent of the new businesses approved last year — and the Savannah Serves program, which consists of 12 uniformed ambassadors stationed throughout downtown to help residents and visitors with information or services.

“It’s a partnership. It’s the city working with developers, with residents and with citizens in order to make sure we’re doing everything we can to make the community the best it can be,” Lidy said.

During 2015, she said, her department worked with tourism industry professionals and residents to ensure that everyone had a positive experience while maintaining historic preservation and balancing the numerous factors that make Savannah unique.

“One thing we’ve learned is that if we try to build something for visitors and residents don’t like it, it won’t be successful,” she said.

Atlantic Foot & Ankle Specialists buy doctor’s practice

Dr. Ido Friedman, who owned Southern Foot & Ankle Center in Savannah, has sold the center to Atlantic Foot & Ankle Specialists but will stay with the new owners, who have a newly renovated office at 803 East 68th St.

Friedman will join Atlantic Foot & Ankle on Feb. 1.

“I’m happy to see that my patients will continue to have uninterrupted podiatric care,” Friedman said. “Atlantic Foot & Ankle will have all patients’ records on hand to ensure continuity of care. Additionally, the patients will benefit from Atlantic Foot & Ankle Specialists’ advanced technologies as well as their extensive referral network.”

Patients can make an appointment at the new location by calling 912-355-4557.

Kroger raises $57,000-plus for local food banks

Savannah-area Kroger customers and employees contributed more than $47,000 in just six weeks to Kroger’s 2015 Can Hunger campaign and an additional $10,000 to a second initiative that benefited America’s Second Harvest Food Bank of Coastal Georgia and the Manna House Second Harvest Satellite in Hinesville.

From Nov. 15 to Dec. 24, Kroger customers supported the annual Can Hunger campaign by purchasing $1, $3 and $5 icons to benefit Feeding America food banks.

The Atlanta division as a whole collected $850,900 during the 2015 campaigns.

“Each year the support from our customers and associates across the Atlanta Division is overwhelming,” said Kroger spokesman Glynn Jenkins. “And it is with their help and generosity that we are able to continue to provide food for those who are less fortunate.”

New Parker’s store opens on Hilton Head Island

Savannah-based Parker’s convenience stores have opened a new retail location on Hilton Head Island, S.C.

The company’s 43rd store — and first on Hilton Head Island — is located on Highway 278 at 165 William Hilton Parkway. The new location features a hot deli that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. Highlights include a full breakfast bar as well as Southern fried chicken tenders, macaroni and cheese and other classic favorites.

“We’ve had tremendous success with our stores in Bluffton and Port Royal,” said Greg Parker, company president and CEO. “Our new Hilton Head Island location is a direct response to consumer demand.”

Parker’s operates convenience stores in South Carolina in Bluffton, Port Royal, Okatie, Hardeeville and Pritchardville.

“Coastal South Carolina is a major growth area for Parker’s,” Parker said. “We opened new stores in Hardeeville and Bluffton in December and have plans to open additional stores in the coming months.”

“I got straight A’s,” I heard a young neighbor exclaim.

There are two remarkable things about this statement. One was that Jimmy was sitting at my breakfast room table enjoying a plate of pancakes with five much younger boys who had slept over at my home for my youngest son’s birthday party.

Jimmy is the kind of charming, gregarious child who likes to join the fun. So, when the boys came back in for pancakes from playing in the front yard, Jimmy came along, too. There were plenty of pancakes to go around, and he was perfectly polite about being there.

The funny part is that Jimmy literally found an open door and walked through it.

Entrepreneurs know that finding open doors and walking through them is a critical life skill. Andy Cabistan, co-founder of local startup Watson, is one such entrepreneur. I have enjoyed witnessing Andy “walk through” the doors of events at The Creative Coast and, as a result, find his co-founders, identify business models and further develop the Watson communication and collaboration tools.

Back to my breakfast table. There was a second remarkable thing about Jimmy’s comment that also reminds me of Andy and other successful entrepreneurs: Jimmy’s confidence.

“Wow, Jimmy, that is awesome,” I replied. “I am so proud of you and thrilled to hear you are tackling middle school with no trouble.”

“Well, all A’s and B’s,” he replied.

No slowdown of the pride and no apology. Sort of like “Straight A’s” and “all A’s and B’s” are the same thing.

Then Jimmy added, “My Spanish teacher gave me an 84. She is really mean.”

Again, no explanation that an 84 is actually a C. I marveled at how the confident, enthusiastic youngster had originally announced, “I have straight A’s” when actually he had A’s, B’s and a C.

I smiled and explained that there are lots of mean people in the world: “Luckily, for most situations, mean people can only make our lives more difficult, but they usually can’t stop us. I hope you can focus on the Spanish class and get that 84 to the A you seek.”

His eyes brightened. “I can do that,” he said. I loved the commitment and realized his original statement was as much a goal for the future as it was a report of the past.

The moral I wished to learn from Jimmy’s conversation was that confidence is the beginning, perhaps middle and end to all things great.

The first step is to believe that something great is attainable. I hope Jimmy never loses his confidence and continues to find himself sitting around tables where he can thrive because of doors his smile opens. I hope he continues to see himself as a high achiever.

The trick for a founding CEO is to follow Jimmy’s footsteps and claim greatness: “We will raise $100,000 in our Kickstarter campaign,” or “We are closing on a $40,000 convertible note in March” or “We will do $1 million in sales this year.”

The successful CEO, however, will then break down the steps needed to reach the goals and measure progress along the way. Successful CEOs do not simply “wish” success to happen — they make it happen. They don’t have time for “mean” people who get in the way or make it difficult to succeed.

Successful CEOs simply move forward, relentlessly, until goals are achieved.

In his article “Why High Confidence Is Crucial for Entrepreneurs,” Sangeeta Bharadway Badal explains, “You recognize opportunities and initiate action. While uncertainty may plague others — who endlessly weigh the potential value of an opportunity, gauge the complexities in the environment and fall prey to ‘analysis paralysis’ — a resilient self-belief leads you to act. And act quickly. You are so confident in your ability to control the events in your life and to manage your environment effectively that you know you will succeed.”

However, he also warns, “Sometimes overconfident entrepreneurs make decisions in haste. The challenge is to help entrepreneurs use their confidence to open doors and achieve goals rather than to overreach.”

Andy, in his pursuit of creating, launching and building a Savannah-based training and consulting company, has a firm and effective grasp on the confidence concept. Likewise, Jimmy, with his mouthful of pancakes and his newfound focus on improving his Spanish test scores, is also well on his way to a bright and successful future.

Bea Wray is the executive director of The Creative Coast, a not-for-profit organization that promotes the creative and entrepreneurial community within the region. Bea can be reached at 912-447-8457 or bea@thecreativecoast.org.

HARTFORD, Conn. — General Electric announced Wednesday it will move its headquarters to Boston, leaving the sprawling suburban Connecticut campus it has called home over the past four decades for a technology-rich city it says better fits its ambitions as an innovation leader.

Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said GE, one of the best known companies in corporate America, wanted to be “at the center of an ecosystem that shares our aspirations.”

Wednesday’s announcement comes three years after the $130 billion high-tech global industrial company said it began considering a new composition and location for its headquarters, and more than seven months after the firm threatened to leave Connecticut, complaining about the state’s tax environment.

The move was mourned in Connecticut, but Massachusetts officials rejoiced.

“We won Powerball today here in Boston by having GE come here,” Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said. “For two decades, we’ve had companies move out of our city. Now we have companies moving into our city.”

Several states had been competing to lure the company from Fairfield. GE announced in June it was thinking about a move since Connecticut lawmakers passed some controversial business tax increases. The General Assembly later scaled back some of the increases after other companies, including Aetna Inc. and the Travelers Companies Inc., voiced concerns.

Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy also met with GE executives and offered an incentive package.

“Of course we are disappointed, and we know that many in Connecticut share that frustration,” Malloy said in a joint statement with Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman. “While GE’s headquarters may be leaving, I have been assured that the company will continue to have many employees working here in Connecticut. Equally important, GE will continue to work with and support many smaller businesses throughout our state.”

The company employs about 5,000 people in Connecticut, including 800 at the Fairfield location. It’s unclear how many will remain in the state.

Seth Martin, a GE spokesman, said the Boston location will become home to 200 corporate employees and 600 digital industrial product managers, designers and developers. He said an unspecified number of corporate employees will stay in Connecticut and be moved to GE’s offices in Norwalk.

GE plans to initially move headquarters employees to a temporary location in Boston, starting in the summer of 2016. The full move is expected to be completed in several steps by 2018.

A cheer went up in the Massachusetts House of Representatives Wednesday afternoon when Speaker Robert DeLeo announced GE’s decision. DeLeo earlier told reporters he was unaware of any legislation that would be required to facilitate the move.

Massachusetts offered GE incentives up to $120 million through grants and other programs, while the city of Boston offered up to $25 million in property tax relief, according to the mayor’s office. Additional incentives include $1 million in workforce training grants; up to $5 million for an “innovation center” to help forge relationships between GE and Massachusetts research institutions and schools; and assistance to eligible employees looking to purchase homes in Boston.

Connecticut Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said GE is shifting its business model away from heavy industry and financial services to technology. He said the relocation has “nothing to do with taxes or even business costs and shouldn’t be seen as a referendum on Connecticut’s economy.”

Others in Connecticut disagreed, worried the announced move will further hurt the state’s reputation despite efforts to attract out-of-state companies and change the tax structure.

“We’ve got to make the environment here more attractive. I know that that doesn’t sound real sexy, but that’s the reality,” said Joe Brennan, CEO of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association.

GE said its new headquarters will be in the Seaport District of Boston. To offset the cost of the move the company said it will sell its offices in Fairfield and at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City.

LOS ANGELES — Trips to the veterinarian leave Joy so scared, she gets sick.

The black Lab-mix dog shakes and shivers, her heart rate jumps, her blood pressure spikes, her temperature rises, her eyes dilate and she cowers under anything she can get beneath.

After trying vet after vet for 14 years, the dog’s owner Debby Trinen of Sandpoint, Idaho, has finally found relief for Joy’s stress from a new approach to veterinary care called “fear-free.”

The fear-free movement aims to eliminate things in the vet’s office that bother dogs and cats — like white lab coats, harsh lights and slippery, cold exam tables — while adding things they like.

For example, a fear-free clinic “will have a big treat budget,” said Dr. Marty Becker, the initiative’s main cheerleader and the vet chosen to introduce it to the country. All the dogs and cats at his North Idaho Animal Hospital, where Joy now gets care, have space on their files to note favorite treats, from Easy Cheese to hot dogs.

About 50 practices across the country have gone fear-free, Becker said. Later this year, the initiative will start certifying veterinary professionals. The certification takes about 12 hours of online instruction. The movement hopes to register as many as 5,000 people this year.

Hospital certification could start in 2018, followed by animal shelters and homes, Becker said.

Heather Lewis of Animal Arts in Boulder, Colorado, which has been designing animal hospitals since 1979, says there are many ways to make veterinary offices more pleasant for pets. Among them:

— Paint walls in pastels and have staff wear pastel scrubs and lab coats. To an animal’s eyes, a white lab coat is like a bright glowing beacon and can be scary.

— Remove old fluorescent lights. Dogs and cats have better hearing than humans, and the buzz from those old fixtures can bother them.

— Consider alternatives to lifting animals up on to high exam tables with cold, slippery metal surfaces. Some clinics, like Becker’s, use yoga mats for animal exams.

— For background music, choose classical. Becker and Lewis like collections called “Through a Dog’s Ear” and “Through a Cat’s Ear.”

A fear-free vet might also use sedatives or pheromones — chemicals secreted by animals that serve as stimulants for many things, including mating — rather than muzzles or restraints to keep animals calm during treatment, Becker said.

“Twenty-five to 30 percent of pets need sedation,” Becker said.

Becker introduced veterinarians to the fear-free initiative at the North American Veterinary Community convention last year. He’s presenting version 2.0 at the 2016 conference beginning Saturday in Florida.

Becker, chief veterinary correspondent for the American Humane Association, has written 22 books and is doing the 23rd on the fear-free initiative.

One fear-free center is the Bigger Road Veterinary Center in Springboro, Ohio.

“We designed this clinic to look like you were going for walks in the park,” said Dr. John Talmadge. “Support beams look like maple trees. I don’t know if we’re fooling any pets but the exam rooms look like cottages and it looks like blue sky on the ceiling. It has a very inviting feel.”

He also expanded from 2,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet so he’d have room for better senior care and pain management. And for owners making end-of-life decisions for their pets, the clinic offers a private area.

“There is nothing more important than making that last treatment dignified and calming,” Talmadge said.

Becker says the fear-free initiative is important because stress and anxiety cause so many problems for pets, both physical and mental.

“Once pets know fear and anxiety and stress, you can’t undo it,” he said, adding, “You can see it. You can smell it because dogs are stained with their own saliva from licking themselves. You can hear it and feel it.”

Stress and fear can lead animals to hide the symptoms that prompted the vet visit, and may even alter their test results, said Richard A. LeCouteur, a veterinarian with a specialty in neurology and a professor emeritus at the University of California at Davis’ School of Veterinary Medicine.

Talmadge says the fear-free approach is proving popular. “We have more than doubled our business through that clinic since opening (in April) and are well ahead of where we thought we would be,” Talmadge said.

As the Savannah International Trade & Convention Center continues to attract larger groups, the need for additional hotel rooms on Hutchinson Island has grown proportionately, prompting the center’s governing authority to commission a feasibility study and hire an outside consultant to explore all options.

At Wednesday’s meeting, trade center authority Chairman Mark Smith indicated plans should be ready for presentation within the next few weeks.

“I’m anticipating a called meeting later this month at which time everything will be clear and we’ll begin to move forward,” he told reporters after the meeting, which included an executive session to discuss “real estate issues.”

The authority paid PKF Hospitality Research of Atlanta $100,000 in mid-2014 for the feasibility study, the first comprehensive attempt to develop a strategic plan for convention business in Savannah since 1992, when the trade center was still a concept.

In March last year, PKF presented the authority board with its findings, indicating that Hutchinson Island will need at least another 300 hotel rooms if the trade center is to grow its convention business.

The best way to achieve that, according to the study, would be through an expansion of the already existing Westin hotel property, Mark Woodworth of PKF Hospitality told the authority.

“The addition of 300 hotel rooms on the island will enable trade center management to compete more effectively for a greater number of regional conventions and perhaps a few more national meetings,” Woodworth said, adding that if talks with the Westin prove unsuccessful, the trade center authority should consider talking with developers about a freestanding, 300-room hotel on land just west of the trade center.

Armed with the study results, the board in June agreed with Smith’s request to hire consultant Bill Moeckel of Moeckel & Co., a real estate investment and advisory services company specializing in the hospitality industry.

“Bill’s job for us has been twofold,” Smith said. “He has been participating in talks with the Westin and looking at other options.”

Asked why the authority has received no public updates on the ongoing talks, Smith cited a confidentiality agreement he signed with the Westin.

“Give me a few more weeks and everything will become clear,” he said.

Smith said he expects 2016 to be “a watershed year” for the trade center.

“In addition to adding new hotel rooms on the island, this is the year in which we have to renew our agreements with all area municipalities to impose and collect hotel/motel taxes,” he said.

Smith said each municipality can choose whether to collect hotel/motel taxes, but, as the municipality also gets a cut of the money collected, it benefits them as well. Currently, only the municipalities of Bloomingdale, Thunderbolt and Vernonburg, which have no hotels, don’t collect the taxes.

“Thanks to the hotel/motel taxes, which are designed to support our trade center, we’ve never cost Chatham County taxpayers a dime,” he said.

Smith’s third goal for 2016 is to find a more equitable solution to sharing the costs of the operations of the water ferries that shuttle passengers back and forth between River Street and Hutchinson Island.

One option brought up last year was to turn the ferries over to Chatham Area Transit, which already staffs the operation of the boats and recently completed a $1.6 million CAT intermodal center on Hutchinson in anticipation of future development on the island.

But Smith would like to see a number of options developed, including some that would involve cost sharing, rather than “all or nothing” propositions.

In other trade center business, Smith introduced Sherrie Spinks as the center’s new general manager.

A graduate of the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, Spinks has been with the Georgia World Congress Center as its chief financial officer for more than 15 years. She replaces longtime trade center general manager Bob Coffey, who announced his retirement last month.

Coffey will remain with the trade center in a consulting role.

Foundation seeks nominations for preservation awards

The Historic Savannah Foundation is accepting nominations for the 2016 HSF Preservation Awards, which recognize individuals and organizations that demonstrate excellence in historic preservation.

The deadline for nominations is Monday, Feb. 29. All entries must be hand-delivered or postmarked by this date. Winners will be announced at the HSF Preservation Awards Luncheon on Thursday, May 5.

The awards recognize projects or individual achievements within the areas of restoration, rehabilitation, new construction, stewardship, craftsmanship and archaeology. Projects must have been completed within the last three years and may include projects previously nominated but not selected.

General evaluation criteria include quality and degree of difficulty; degree to which the nominee’s project or effort is unusual or pioneering; and the ultimate positive impact the project or effort has on the community.

Nominations are open only to foundation members. Self-nominations are acceptable.

The nomination form and full details on eligibility, submission criteria and key dates can be accessed at http://www.myhsf.org/advocacy-education/awards/ .

A jury of local professionals will select the winners.

For more information, contact Danielle Meunier at 912-233-7787 or dmeunier@myHSF.org.

Financial services firm joins international group

GFG Strategic Advisors, with an office in Rincon, has become a full member firm of M Financial Group, a financial services design and distribution company with more than 140 member firms in 37 states, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates.

GFG, based in Milledgeville, has three offices in southeast Georgia and became a provisional member firm of M Financial Group in November 2013. The firm provides life insurance and annuity income solutions and retirement and estate planning for affluent families, individuals and business owners.

For more information, go to www.gfgstrategicadvisors.com or www.mfin.com.

Digital boot camp set for Feb. 11

A digital marketing boot camp will be hosted by the University of Georgia Small Business Development Center on Thursday, Feb. 11, at Savannah Technical College, 5717 White Bluff Road, Room 7126.

The event is designed for small-business owners who want to learn to integrate technology and marketing in the digital space to increase profits and gain customers. The program includes a combination of general sessions and concurrent breakout sessions. It will cover marketing tactics you can use today as well as help in developing a strategy to harness the power of digital marketing tools.

The cost is $49. The session will run from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. with lunch included.

To register and for a detailed program description, go to www.georgiasbdc.org/digital or call 912-651-3200.

Local dignitaries and company executives for Israeli-based Bram Industries Ltd. cut the ribbon Wednesday to open Bramli USA, a manufacturing plant and distribution center at 300 Telfair Road in the Georgia Commerce Center.

The Savannah manufacturing facility is the first in the United States for Bram, a leading manufacturer of plastics for such clients as Target, Home Depot, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Amazon and The Container Store.

“We are thrilled to open our first USA production and distribution facility in Savannah,” said Ran Carmeli, managing director of Bram Industries.

“Being part of the Savannah community is a great opportunity for our company, and we look forward to making it a successful venture for both Bram Industries and the local community.”

Publicly traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Bram operates through subsidiaries and jointly controlled companies and specializes in developing, manufacturing and marketing injected plastic products. Bramli USA joins four existing plants — three in Israel and one in France.

The company brings a capital investment of $3 million and 60 new jobs to its facility here.

The Savannah plant will begin by producing several styles of plastic storage bins and expand to eventually encompass many of their products. Other major U.S. companies for whom they manufacture products are include Walmart, Dollar General, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.

Against a backdrop of whirring machinery, Savannah Mayor Eddie DeLoach welcomed Savannah’s newest manufacturer and promised his continued support; Carmeli thanked the Savannah Economic Development Authority for its help throughout the process; and company owner and CEO Eli Bramli thanked his father Haim, who began the business on a shoestring in 1950.

“This latest strategic development now gives us a production presence in the United States, Europe and Israel,” he said.

Bram has had a presence in the U.S. for about 10 years, Bramli said, with a distribution warehouse facility in New Jersey that it has consolidated to Savannah.

“It is an exciting day for Bram and an exciting day for Savannah,” said Trip Tollison, SEDA President and CEO.

“Bram is an internationally recognized company known for the quality of their work and products, and Savannah is the perfect place for them to locate as they continue to grow their United States market.”

Bram is the second major Israeli firm to put down roots in the area.

Israeli quartz countertop manufacturer Caesarstone recently built its third manufacturing plant – the first outside Israel – in Richmond Hill, investing between $70 million and $100,000 million and creating from 180 to 200 new jobs. By the time the plant’s first line started in April of last year, Caesarstone had already announced an expansion.

Marketing your business doesn’t have to be complicated, yet it can be overwhelming to create and implement a strategy when new trends and better technology innovations continually emerge.

In addition, targeting your audience is more challenging when consumer attention is fragmented across websites, social media platforms, search engines, media outlets, apps, industry listings and more.

As we enter the New Year, this is the perfect time to set your course. Here are some tips to help simplify and guide your marketing strategy. These are basic, tried and true methods that consider lessons learned and emerging trends.

Focus on your strengths

First, keep it simple and do it well. Sure, big companies like Coca-Cola can afford to be at the forefront of every medium and new marketing technology. A local business has to be more selective.

Focus on your strengths rather than spreading out and diluting your efforts and resources. When you do a few things well, it allows you to take bite-size pieces of the new and emerging trends.

Social media

It’s free and easy to use, but don’t neglect it. Make sure you have accurate and current information to put your best foot forward.

If you aren’t going to use social media to engage with customers, then maybe you shouldn’t use it at all. Social media still seems to be best for engaging and updating current customers, pushing special offers and keeping your business top of mind.

Keep information brief

Who wants to be overloaded with information? Your customers don’t need TMI (too much information). Having TMI in one message does not mean you are going to effectively engage someone. Simplify your customer’s experience by getting straight to the point and having one clear call-to-action.

Target your audience

When you narrow your target audience and consolidate your targeting data, you can simplify your message and speak more directly to those most likely to respond. It is important to have your data all in one place so you can analyze, utilize and monitor it.

Good data can help you deliver results. Remember the 80/20 rule? Also known as the Pareto Principle, in business the rule is that 80 percent of a company’s results come from 20 percent of its marketing, including sales from advertising and search visits from keywords.

Utilize data for ad buying

Put your data to good use with programmatic ad buying, which places ads on multiple platforms. This method automatically matches high conversion leads to your business, and there is no need to manually manage individual placements.

Note that you still need to test and tweak your ads. Programmatic ad buying frees up more time for other efforts, such as curating good content relevant to your industry and customers.

Create good content that you can reuse

Larger businesses have the resources necessary to constantly generate new content for each platform, interface or audience. Unfortunately, local businesses often don’t have that luxury. It is more cost effective for a small business to create one really good piece of content and share it across multiple platforms.

E-commerce

It is taking a while for local businesses to engage in e-commerce, primarily because of the time and adjustment needed to overhaul current systems and potential impact on down time. Yet, there are numerous benefits as e-commerce platforms capture leads 24/7, take and fill orders, send email reminders and more.

Although there is some front-end work, ultimately there is a return on investment with customer orders, improved efficiency and smoother operations.

Consider these tips to help simplify your marketing, decrease confusion and establish clearer goals. In time your marketing should be more effective and focused.

This column was compiled by Karen Robertson, director of public relations and client development at Robertson & Markowitz Advertising & Public Relations, Inc. She can be reached at karen@robmark.com or 912-921-1040.

NEW YORK — Stock prices are crumbling around the world, but the usual place for investors to go for safety, bonds, can’t provide as much cover as usual.

Bonds are still doing their job this year as investors’ best friends during a downturn: They’re holding up better than stocks, cushioning the blow for balanced investors. High-quality, investment-grade U.S. bonds have returned 0.9 percent through Wednesday, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has lost 7.4 percent on worries about the strength of the global economy.

The problem is that bonds are not doing as good a job as in past downturns, and the outlook for them is dim. Super-low interest rates mean bonds don’t pay investors much for the bonds they hold or are buying now. And those bonds may fall in price in the coming months and years if interest rates increase as the Federal Reserve, as expected, continues to move short-term rates higher.

“It’s just basic math,” says Chris Philips, head of institutional advisory services at Vanguard. “We’re at different levels today, and bonds don’t have as much room to grow on the price side.”

That means it will take longer for most investors — even those with a balanced mix of both stocks and bonds — to recoup all their losses from this downturn for stocks.

The diminished expectations for bonds have investors looking for alternatives to protect their portfolios in case stocks keep falling. But financial advisers and mutual-fund providers say investment-grade bonds, known also as fixed-income investments, are still among the best options available because the alternatives carry risks of their own.

Stock funds that track the S&P 500 have lost 10.1 percent since setting a record high on May 21. Bond funds have largely held steady over that time, good enough to trim overall losses for balanced investor’s portfolios.

But unlike in past downturns — when bond funds were offering healthy returns — the protection provided this time has been only modest. The largest bond mutual fund, Vanguard’s Total Bond Market Index fund, has returned 0.8 percent in the nearly eight months since stocks began their tumble.

That same fund returned many times more than that — in a shorter time period — the last time stocks had a slide big enough for market watchers to call it a “correction.” The Total Bond Market Index fund returned 5.3 percent in just over five months when the S&P 500 was in the midst of losing 18.6 percent from April 29, 2011 through Oct. 3, 2011.

Perhaps the best example of how bonds have protected investors is the financial crisis of 2008. Bonds helped balanced investors recoup all their losses long before stock-only investors got back to whole, nearly two years in some cases.

The big difference between now and then is that interest payments on bonds are half what they were. A 10-year Treasury note had a yield of 4.65 percent in 2007, when stocks hit their peak before the Great Recession. It was at just 2.09 percent Wednesday.

Now the Fed is in the process of raising rates. That may help future bond investors by offering a better rate of return, but the bonds they hold or buy now looking for safety could become less valuable. Prices drop for existing bonds when rates rise because the new, higher-yielding bonds are more attractive.

Cash in a savings account or money-market fund will hold steady when stocks are tumbling, but the interest rates available are even lower than for bond funds.

Mutual funds that use hedge-fund like strategies to try to offer steadier returns, called “liquid alternative” funds, have proliferated in recent years, but they can charge high fees and many have limited track records.

High-yield bonds, also called junk bonds, offer higher payouts than traditional investment-grade bond funds.

But they’re issued by companies that have a greater chance of not making good on their debt. Investors felt the increased risk, painfully, last month when the largest junk-bond mutual fund had its worst day in four years.

The professional investors who manage the popular mutual funds that target specific retirement dates are sticking with investment-grade bonds, despite the muted forecasts.

Fidelity’s fund built for workers planning to retire in about five years keeps 26 percent of its portfolio in investment-grade bonds, for example. It has only a sliver, 3 percent, in high-yield bonds.

Many strategists say investors just need to get used to lower returns, not only from bonds but also from stocks, following their big gains in recent years.

Research Affiliates, which manages about $160 billion in assets, expects investment-grade U.S. bonds to return 1.2 percent more than inflation over the next decade, on an annualized basis. It’s expecting nearly the same returns for the S&P 500, 1.1 percent — but with much more volatility and sharper swings in prices.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The $510 million deepening of the Charleston Harbor shipping channel has reached another milestone.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Wednesday that the project has been approved by the federal Office of Management and Budget. That means it now moves to Congress so lawmakers can approve funding for the federal share of the work.

The budget agency’s approval signals support from the Obama administration for the harbor deepening.

The South Carolina Ports Authority and maritime interests want the harbor channel deepened to 52 feet from its current 45 feet to accommodate a new generation of larger containership. The federal government’s share of the project is just over $200 million.

“We’ll now push Congress to provide us with the tools needed to finish the job,” Graham said in a statement. “I realize that jobs, both today and in the future, are at stake with this project. Our economic future and the livelihood of thousands of people in the Palmetto State depend on getting this project done.”

Jim Newsome, SCPA president and CEO of the authority, called the development “tremendous news.”

State lawmakers have put aside more than $300 million so work on the project can continue; the state can later seek reimbursement for the federal share.

The project passed another benchmark last month when the authority and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed what is called a Preconstruction Engineering and Design Agreement.

The preconstruction work includes refining cost estimates. It’s the last planning phase for the project before actual construction and is expected to be finished by the end of the year.

The entire deepening project is expected to be completed in 2020.

LAKELAND, Fla. — The CEO of Publix Super Markets has announced plans to retire on April 30.

The Ledger reports that Ed Crenshaw announced his retirement plans in a statement Wednesday.

Crenshaw, 65, is a grandson of Publix founder George W. Jenkins. He began his career with the Lakeland-based chain as a stock clerk in 1974. He was named CEO in 2008.

Crenshaw will remain a member of Publix’s board of directors, which asked him to succeed his cousin and former CEO Charlie Jenkins Jr. as chairman.

Publix has 1,113 stores in six states throughout the Southeast. The Ledger reports that last year, Publix reported $30.6 billion in sales.

Todd Jones, 53, will serve as Publix’s president and CEO after Crenshaw’s retirement. He succeeded Crenshaw as president in 2008.

WASHINGTON — The income gap in major U.S. cities goes beyond the trend of rising paychecks for those at the top: Pay has plummeted for those at the bottom.

Many of the poorest households still earn just a fraction of what they made before the Great Recession began in late 2007. Even as the recovery gained momentum in 2014 with otherwise robust job growth, incomes for the bottom 20 percent slid in New York City, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Washington and St. Louis, according to an analysis of Census data released Thursday by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

“It’s really about the poor losing ground rather than these upper-class households pulling away,” said Alan Berube, a senior fellow at Brookings and deputy director of its metropolitan policy program.

Consider Cincinnati, home to such major companies as Procter & Gamble and Macy’s that are associated with middle class prosperity. Its bottom 20 percent earned just $10,454 in 2014. After inflation, that’s 3 percent less than what they earned in 2013 — and 25 percent below their incomes when the recession started eight years ago.

Cincinnati’s top 5 percent of earners made at least $164,410 in 2014, a figure that has increased since 2013, though it remains 7 percent below pre-recession levels.

The consequence is a widening income gap. The top 5 percent earned 15.7 times what the bottom 20 percent did in Cincinnati. Nationally, this ratio was 9.3 — the same as in 2013. Before the recession, the ratio was 8.5.

The poorest have clawed back some of their earning power since the economy officially began to recover 6½ years ago. But the analysis suggests that strong job growth and modest pay raises have failed to pull millions of Americans back up the economic ladder.

The findings also complicate plans by presidential candidates to combat inequality because it’s unclear how tweaking tax rates on the wealthy — the Democrats largely favor increases, the Republicans cuts — will boost pre-tax incomes for the poorest. Congressional Republicans have discussed increasing tax cuts for low-income workers without children as a way to address the absence of wage growth. It’s a plan, President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, that “we can all support.”

Brookings found that the income gap was highest in Boston, where the top 5 percent made 17.8 times what the bottom 20 percent did. But that gap appears to reflect the large population of college and graduate students in a city containing Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and many other leading institutions of higher education.

New Orleans, where pay for the bottom 20 percent also declined, had the second-worst ratio at 17.7. Atlanta came in third-worst at 17.5 and Cincinnati fourth.

At the other extreme, incomes for the bottom 20 percent of earners jumped in Provo, Utah, where the ratio is a low 7.8. They also improved sharply in Denver despite above-average levels of inequality in that area.

Persistent income disparity has become increasingly visible in the housing market. Brookings found that the bottom 20 percent of residents in the Washington, D.C., area — who earn just $21,230 — would need to spend nearly half their income on housing.

That analysis dovetails with findings released Thursday by the housing nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners. Its “Make Room” campaign found that 11.4 million families — about 26.4 percent of all renters — devoted at least half their income to rent and utilities, a share that has steadily increased over the past decade.

The largest jump occurred in the Jacksonville, Florida, metro area. More than 28 percent of its renters devoted half their income to housing in 2014, a share that has increased by a third over the past decade. In Los Angeles and New Orleans, nearly a third of all renters spent a majority of their income on housing.

A surge in apartment construction has done little to help address this problem because in many metro areas, a large proportion of new apartments are concentrated at higher-income levels, according to a report released in December by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

The median rent on a newly built apartment was $1,372 a month in 2014, about $500 more than what about half of renters could afford without meeting the government’s standard for being considered financially burdened.

One of the newest and largest heavy-lift cranes that Manitowoc Cranes manufactures, the 650-ton capacity MLC650, was shipped out from Georgia Ports’ Ocean Terminal late last year on its way to Australia.

Dale Deurschmidt, transportation specialist for Manitowoc Cranes, supervised the movement of the huge machine after its components arrived at the Savannah shipping terminal on 35 flatbed trucks. The MLC650, headed for Australia, was the first to move through the Port of Savannah.

Manitowoc was founded in 1902 as a shipbuilding and repair facility in the lakeshore community of Manitowoc, Wis. Since then, the company has grown and diversified, entering the lattice-boom crane business in the mid-1920s. Today, Manitowoc’s crane business — which features its own brand as well as Grove, National Crane and Potain — is an international leader in heavy lifting.

Because Ocean Terminal is a wheeled cargo facility with ease of access, it is able to handle a range of shipments, including forest products, steel, industrial and farm equipment, automobiles, project shipments — such as the MLC650 — and such heavy lift cargo as components for Mitsubishi and Kia Motors.

“It’s the perfect complement to our Garden City container facility, allowing area businesses an opportunity to deliver their goods to the world’s stage as well as to import those parts needed for production,” according to GPA spokesman Robert Morris.

It’s also the port through which the 3rd Infantry Division moves its equipment on deployment and is one of a dozen or so deepwater ports throughout the country designated “of military significance.”

Refrigerated group goes green

Reefer Express LLC, a local transportation logistics group focused on refrigerated cargo, has upgraded its lift equipment in use at Georgia Ports’ Garden City Terminal, replacing four liquid propane lifts with new, electric-powered lifts.

“We have to protect what we have,” said Rick Redding, Reefer Express general manager. “We only have one environment, and if we don’t protect it now, we won’t have it.”

Unlike the lifts they replaced, the four new electric lifts made by Hyster and distributed by LiftOne don’t produce any emissions, improving air quality for employees and customers.

Gary Page of LiftOne estimates converting a rider lift truck from liquid propane to electric in a 2,000-hour-per-year application results in the annual carbon reduction of approximately 20,000 pounds.

“That’s the equivalent of driving from New York City to Los Angeles approximately seven times,” he said.

In addition to being good for the environment, the new lifts are good for business in that they require less regular maintenance and have less downtime. They don’t use engine oil, transmission fluid, radiator fluid or filters that must be changed regularly.

Savannah’s Garden City Terminal now offers 104 refrigerated container racks, powering more than 3,200 refrigerated boxes at a time. Each refrigerated container rack avoids the use of more than 53,000 gallons of diesel each year, for a total of 5.5 million gallons saved each year.

Reefer Express, which includes Atlantic Container Services and Coastal Great Southern, plans to replace their remaining four propane-powered lifts with electrified versions before the end of the year.

“We’re following the lead of Georgia Ports Authority with sustainability,” said Tony Noles, owners’ representative for Reefer Express, adding that the issue is a personal one for him.

“I’m an outdoorsman, and I don’t want to go somewhere that isn’t healthy. From a business standpoint, it’s better and healthier for our employees and customers.”

Senior business reporter Mary Carr Mayle covers the ports for the Savannah Morning News and savannahnow. She can be reached at 912-652-0324 or at mary.mayle@savannahnow.com.

Following are the ships expected to call on Georgia Ports Authority’s Garden City and Ocean terminals this week. Schedules are supplied by GPA and are subject to change.

TERMINAL VESSEL ETA

GCT MAERSK WEYMOUTH Today

GCT MAERSK DETROIT Today

GCT MAERSK WOLFSBURG Today

GCT HS MOZART Today

GCT KAAN KALKAVAN Today

GCT ZIM HAIFA Today

GCT BUFFALO HUNTER Today

GCT SILVER VENUS Today

GCT HERMA P Today

GCT JPO VULPECULA Today

GCT MAERSK KAWASAKI Today

GCT MAERSK KOKURA Today

OT STAR LOEN Today

GCT NYK ORION Saturday

GCT MAERSK KALAMATA Saturday

GCT CMA CGM MAUPASSANT Saturday

GCT CHARLESTON EXPRESS Saturday

GCT MOZART Sunday

GCT EVER LYRIC Sunday

GCT MAERSK SOFIA Sunday

GCT MAERSK GEORGIA Monday

GCT MAERSK KENSINGTON Monday

GCT XIN DAN DONG Monday

OT TALISMAN Monday

GCT NYK DIANA Tuesday

GCT ZIM ALABAMA Tuesday

GCT HELSINKI BRIDGE Tuesday

OT CARMEN Tuesday

OT GRANDE LUANDA Tuesday

GCT JPO TAURUS Wednesday

GCT HANJIN HAIPHONG Wednesday

GCT CPO NEW YORK Wednesday

GCT MAERSK KURE Wednesday

GCT APL QATAR Wednesday

GCT KAETHE P Wednesday

GCT OOCL KAOHSIUNG Wednesday

GCT ARIAN Wednesday

GCT MOL MISSION Thursday

GCT CMA CGM LAVENDER Thursday

GCT MAERSK KARLSKRONA Thursday

GCT MSC RACHELE Thursday

GCT YM PORTLAND Thursday

GCT OCTAVIA Thursday

GCT ST LOUIS EXPRESS Thursday

GCT CMA CGM PARSIFAL Thursday

OT TAMESIS Thursday

OT BASIC PIONEER Thursday

OT GENCO LANGDUEDOC Thursday

Armstrong online grad program recognized

In a report published Tuesday, U.S. News & World Report ranks Armstrong State University one of the top universities in Georgia and number 53 in the nation on its 2016 list of the Best Online Graduate Education Programs.

“Our faculty is doing a great job creating and delivering online graduate courses that engage and challenge our students,” said Janet Buckenmeyer, dean of the College of Education. “We feel very good about the ranking and that we are recognized by peers across the country for the quality of our graduate education programs.”

Armstrong offers Master of Education degree programs in early childhood education, curriculum and instruction, reading specialist education, adult education and special education.

Pipeline company donates to Treutlen House

The Treutlen House at New Ebenezer, a nonprofit ecumenical ministry for children and families, has received a $5,000 gift from Kinder Morgan Inc. to buy mattresses and furniture.

Treutlen House programs address issues of abuse, neglect, abandonment and other family problems through preventive and therapeutic services to children and their families.

“It is our mission to lead children, teens and families in crisis to a wholeness in spirit, mind and body so they may be more productive to themselves, their family, their community and their world,” said Kristen Wert, executive director, Treutlen House. “Having a corporate sponsor like Kinder Morgan makes our mission more achievable.”

NAWIC announces Jan. 26 chapter meeting

The Coastal Georgia National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) will have its monthly chapter meeting at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 26, at Savannah Coffee Roasters, 215 W. Liberty St.

Attorney Jamie F. Clark will discuss estate planning.

Registration begins at 11:30 a.m., and the meeting will begin at noon. The cost is $20 for members, $30 for guests and will include lunch.

RSVP to Candace Forkner at cforkner@pioneersavannah.com.

Apex Broadcasting becomes official station of RBC Heritage

HILTON HEAD ISLAND — Apex Broadcasting has signed a three-year agreement to become the official radio stations of the RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing.

“The tournament is an economic driver and distributes funding to the charities who help improve the lives of local residents. It is the type of event we want to be associated with,” said Apex General Manager Mike Buxser.

Apex’s sponsorship will include original radio content about the RBC Heritage throughout the year. Weekly Heritage segments and a golf-themed show named “Lowcountry Links” are planned for Apex’s three stations: 104.9 The Surf/WLHH, SC 103/WVSC 103.1 and easy fm 106.5.

Many business owners may have heard of and implemented lean production principles — a method for eliminating waste — or Six Sigma, a data-driven approach to eliminating defects, but practitioners haven’t combined Six Sigma with lean until recently.

Companies such as GE, Coca-Cola and IBM — even the U.S. military — use Lean Six Sigma not only as a way to focus on efficiency and growth but also to serve as the foundation for innovation.

Before the merger of Lean and Six Sigma, companies did one or the other. Six Sigma uses the DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve and control) method to reduce defects. Lean, derived mostly from the Toyota Production System, focuses on cycle time reduction by eliminating non-value-added steps.

However, while most people think of lean and Six Sigma as ways to improve processes, they are both really complementary.

Lean Six Sigma principles can be applied to any business, whether it’s a manufacturing company or a service industry, and will force you to look at every process in your organization through a different lens. Implementing these principles can help your business in a variety of ways, including:

• Cost reduction: Lean Six Sigma can help employees manage their time effectively, resulting in a more efficient business and more productive employees. It also aids in analyzing and finding solutions for long cycle times.

By helping you gain a new perspective on business operations, such as customer activities and product processes, you can eliminate unnecessary steps and significantly decrease costs, leading to greater profits. In fact, research has shown companies can save as much as 5 percent of net revenue from a healthy Lean Six Sigma program.

• Increased customer satisfaction: Customers who don’t return to a business do so because of dissatisfaction with the service and poor employee attitude. However, most companies don’t know they have a dissatisfied customer until that customers takes their business elsewhere.

Lean Six Sigma focuses on improving the customer experience and better serving their needs through the supply chain and all areas of customer activity. This leads to repeat business, positive word of mouth and better sales.

• Improved earnings: Lean Six Sigma stresses the importance of efficiency and clarity of goals between management and employees. This increases productivity, decreases errors and streamlines processes for a better bottom line.

• Employee motivation: Organizations that are willing to fully engage with employees have consistently demonstrated increases in productivity. By empowering employees to be a part of the solution and to take ownership of their work, company leaders can create a climate that encourages engagement and success.

• Strategic planning: Beyond a company’s business plan and mission statement, Lean Six Sigma can help focus on areas of improvement. For example, if your business strategy is to compete on cost, Lean Six Sigma can be used to improve processes, increase yields and successfully manage the supply chain.

Whatever your strategy happens to be, Lean Six Sigma can help make your company the best at what it does.

Lee Campe is an adjunct professor at Georgia Institute of Technology’s Scheller School of Business and president of Performance Excellence, Inc. Contact him at lee.campe@scheller.gatech.edu or 404-894-8786.

NEW YORK — Yes, this is scary.

Stock prices plunged again Friday and are down 8 percent in just two weeks, an unprecedented slide for a start of a year.

The vicious drops feel even more unsettling because they’re such a departure from the placid and strong returns that investors had been enjoying for years. Like vacationers returning from a warm beach to a slushy commute to work, the shock of change is making something already painful even more so.

Now investors just need to get used to it, analysts say.

“It was easy for many years,” says Bill Barker, portfolio manager at Motley Fool Asset Management, whose three mutual funds control about $600 million. “That was not an accurate display of what happens in the market all the time.”

The painful return of big price swings serves as a reminder that investing in stocks can be harrowing, especially if investors focus on the day-to-day moves.

That’s not to say investors can’t still win over the long term. Over the past 12 months, an investor in an S&P 500 index fund has lost nearly 5 percent, including dividends. But over five years, they are up a total of 60 percent, and over 10 years, they are up 79 percent.

It’s just that analysts expect the volatility to continue. The remarkably calm stretch from late 2011 through last summer was an anomaly.

From 2012 until last summer, investors basked in a market where the Standard & Poor’s 500 rarely had a bad day. The widely followed index fell more than 1 percent less often than Los Angeles has rainy days, about 8 percent of the time. During that span, the S&P 500 also completely avoided a “correction,” which is what traders call a sustained drop of 10 percent.

It wasn’t until this past August when the S&P 500 snapped into its first correction in nearly four years, felled by concerns about China’s slowdown and the fragility of the global economy. The worries have resumed this year. The S&P 500 fell back into a correction, and it has already had six days where it’s lost more than 1 percent.

That means the S&P 500 has had that big a drop in 22 percent of the trading days since Aug. 20, more than the historical average.

But when looking at the last five years as a whole, the recent spurt of volatility has merely pulled the market back to “normal.” The S&P 500 has had a 1 percent drop in 11 percent of trading days in the last five years, the same as its average over the last 50 years.

The latest big drop came Friday, when the S&P 500 sank 2.2 percent and at one point was down as much as 3.5 percent.

Besides China’s sharp economic slowdown, analysts see other reasons for volatility to continue. Tensions in the Middle East are high, and the plunge in prices of oil and other commodities are raising concerns about global economic growth and decimating the profits — and share prices — of materials producers.

What makes the volatility even more painful to endure is that many analysts are forecasting stock returns to be lower this year and in the coming years than in the recent past. So investors are facing the prospect of higher risk without much higher reward.

The forecast for big swings could encourage some investors to try to time the market, attempting to jump in to catch stocks when they’re rising and jump out during downturns. That’s usually not a good idea, even for pros.

Strategists at Goldman Sachs’ investment management division wrote in a recent report that it’s better to remain a long-term investor, and not become a short-term trader.

“The vast majority of traders — including most macro hedge fund traders — have failed to capitalize on such moves,” the strategists wrote.

Stan Choe’s work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/stan-choe .

Digital marketing boot camp scheduled

A digital marketing boot camp set for Feb. 11 at Savannah Technical College is designed for small-business owners who want to learn how to integrate technology and marketing in the digital space to increase profits and gain customers.

The interactive sessions taught by Georgia SBDC digital marketing experts will include information on how to:

• Optimize your website and make search engines work for your business.

• Use social media to cultivate brand ambassadors.

• Examine the powerful applications made possible by broadband technology.

• Tap into the mobile marketplace.

• Effectively utilize paid online advertising.

• Learn about free tools to improve traffic to your website.

• Use photos and video to promote your products and educate your customers.

Sessions will run from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. with lunch included for $49 at Savannah Technical College, 5717 White Bluff Road, Room 7126.

To register and see a detailed program description, go to www.georgiasbdc.org/digital or call 912-651-3200 with questions.

Step Up awarded grant for operating expenses

The Benoona Fund of RSF Social Finance has awarded Step Up Savannah a grant of $10,000.

The funds will be used for general operating expenses, supporting Step Up’s work to reduce poverty through workforce development, wealth building, advocacy and education.

RSF Social Finance is a nonprofit financial services organization dedicated to transforming the way the world works with money. In partnership with a community of investors and donors, RSF provides capital to non-profit and for-profit social enterprises addressing key issues.

For more information, go to www.stepupsavannah.org.

Wells Fargo beats 4Q profit forecasts

Retail banking giant Wells Fargo & Co. said its earnings were flat in the fourth quarter because loan growth and expense reductions were not enough to offset struggling oil and gas loans.

Wells Fargo earned $5.71 billion in the last three months of 2015, unchanged from the same period a year earlier. On a per-share basis, Wells earned $1.03 per share versus $1.02 per share a year earlier. Like many companies, Wells has been buying back its own shares, which makes its per-share results go up even if overall profits are flat.

The company’s results were in line with analysts’ forecasts, with the average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.02 per share.

Wells Fargo reported losses of $118 million on loans to oil and gas companies, and now has $114 million in commercial loans that are 90 days or more past due, compared with $47 million a year earlier.

Nine Savannah hotels have received the Augo Club Group’s Four Diamond Award, the organization announced Friday.

Only 25 other hotels in Georgia received the award, which is for hotels that are “refined, stylish with upscale physical attributes, extensive amenities and a high degree of hospitality, service and attention to detail.”

The Savannah hotels that received the rating, along with the year they opened:

• Andaz Savannah (2011)

• Ballastone Inn (1997)

• Hamilton-Turner Inn (2000)

• Kehoe House (2011)

• Mansion on Forsyth Park, Autograph Collection (2006)

• The Bohemian Hotel Savannah Riverfront, Autograph Collection® (2011)

• The Brice (2014)

• The Gastonian (1986)

• The Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort and Spa (2001)

No Savannah hotels got the 5 Diamond Award, but The Lodge at Sea Island (St. Simons Island) and The Cloister (Sea Island) did.

“The difference between AAA and other hotel rating systems is that AAA is the only organization that sends full-time, professionally trained evaluators, to inspect properties on an annual basis,” said spokesman Garrett Townsend. “Our inspector visits are unannounced so they will receive the true guest experience.”

Each year, AAA reviews more than 28,000 hotels, resorts, historic inns and bed and breakfasts.