Business Announcements for the week

The Westside Welcome Club of El Paso has a new executive board of directors for 2011-2012. Mara Price will serve as president, Patricia Puentes as first vice president, Nancy Sandroni as second vice president, Joanne Cook as third vice president, Andy Scott as treasurer, Patty Chamales as recording secretary, Susan Ballard as corresponding secretary, and Ruth Puentes as advisor.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo a total of $142,451 in federal grant funding for Tigua tribal initiatives. HHS awarded $99,970 to fund a sustainable language project in the El Paso region. TxDOT awarded the money to construct a vehicular parking area for the Tigua Indian Museum and Cultural Center.

Students who meet the eligibility requirements of the Reserve Officer’s Training Corps or ROTC programs at civilian colleges will be eligible for a conditional scholarship. Each local legislator may appoint one scholarship student, and two scholarships will be available by appointment of the governor’s and lieutenant governor’s office. Each student may receive up to $10,000 for the 2011-2012 academic year. The scholarship program is available through the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

The Compassionate Care Fund is seeking individual donors, service clubs, sports teams, churches, businesses, and professional organizations to commit to help one family by fulfilling a list of items based on their unique needs. Each week, the social workers at University Medical Center and El Paso Children’s Hospital identify families who have no other resources. Information: Victor Guerrero (915) 521-7229 ext. 2991.

The El Paso Convention and Visitors Bureau was awarded the Gold Service Award by Meetings & Convention Magazine for the third year in a row. The award honors convention and visitor bureaus that have excelled in professionalism, dedication and service. They are evaluated based on the professionalism of staff, their provision of information on local hotels, assistance with ground transportation planning, guidance on local attractions, and services as a resource to provide access to local vendors. Winners will be featured in magazine’s November issue.

The Rotary Club of El Paso donated backpacks to all of La Fe Preparatory School’s 32 fifth grade students. Each of the brand new backpacks also contains school supplies. Many of the school’s students reside in the historically low-income Segundo Barrio community. Founded in 2007, the school was recognized as exemplary by the Texas Education Agency in 2011.

CF Jordan Construction, an El Paso-based commercial construction and construction management company, was awarded the Silver Award for the recent Safety Through Exemplary Performing scoring by the University of Texas System - Office of Facilities Planning and Construction. CF Jordan received the award for exceptional results during a six-month period for the University Parking Garage II at UTEP. The UT System offers safety awards to recognize projects that have demonstrated outstanding safety performance and met the requirements of scoring criteria.

Jorge Szewc has joined Varay Systems as support technician II. Szewc previously worked at Best Buy as part of the Geek Squad in the role of senior in-store technician. Varay Systems is a locally owned IT support system.

The University of El Paso at Texas is partnering with Coca-Cola Refreshments. The seven-year contract, effective Sept. 1, will make Coca-Cola the main beverage vendor for university employees, students and visitors. The partnership includes about $600,000 per year for scholarships and other university needs provided by Coca-Cola. The company had a previous partnership with UTEP that lasted 45 years.

The American Chemical Society has named Luis Echegoyen, Ph.D., the Robert A. Welch professor of chemistry at the University of Texas at El Paso, as one of its 2011 Fellows for outstanding accomplishments in chemistry. Echegoyen, a society member since 1973 and a leading physical organic chemist, has been at UTEP since 2010, and is the former director of the chemistry division of the National Science Foundation. He is the first UTEP faculty member to receive the award.

Baby Café de Ciudad Juárez opened in the Sede Hospital General de Zona No. 6 in Juárez on Thursday. The café, along with the El Paso Baby Café, serves the needs of women who are breastfeeding or are interesting in doing so. The free drop-in centers are open three days a week, with no appointment needed. Both are licensed under the umbrella organization of The Baby Café Charitable Trust, U.K. The El Paso branch is a community program of the Texas Tech University Heal Science Center’s Gayle Greve Hunt School of Nursing.

The Texas Department of Transportation has made $281,374 of funding available for the purchase of vehicles and/or vehicle related expenses for organizations providing transportation services for elderly individuals with disabilities in El Paso, Brewster, Culberson, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis and Presidio counties. The public is invited to attend TxDOT’s annual meeting Thursday at the Texas Department of Transportation Conference Room, 13301 Gateway Blvd. West, to receive detailed information about the application process.

Members of the El Paso Convention and Visitors Bureau traveled to Arlington, to make a formal bid presentation to host the United States Bowling Congress Open Championships in 2015. If successful, the USBC estimates El Paso will be visited by more than 100,000 bowlers and guests over a 150-day period. An estimated $75-million economic impact is expected.

El Paso MHMR’s Crisis Emergency Services was awarded a five-year re-accreditation from the American Association of Suicidology. The center was recognized for its gold standard of care in the field of suicide and crisis intervention by the AAS, the country’s premier organization offering accreditation to crisis centers.