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Diane Mastrull

Ed Hille/Philadelphia Inquirer
Sherman Barton (right), president of VE Source LLC, in Shrewsbury, N.J., stands with partners Christopher Neary (left) and Robert Pao (center). VE Source is a certified service-disabled veteran-owned small business that manufactures military clothing and is trying to compete for defense department contracts.

Disabled vet battles for military contracts for his small business

Diane Mastrull The Philadelphia Inquirer

Last updated Friday, May 25, 2012 - 5:47pm

PHILADELPHIA — They were 12 hairy years in Sherman Barton’s life. The Burlington County, N.J., resident worked in military intelligence for the U.S. Army in Germany and Italy from 1972 to 1984, getting shot three separate times while hunting terrorists, he said.

The personal toll was vast, including the loss of two ribs, a part of his lower intestines and some hearing, along with three broken neck vertebrae, ankle stiffness and instability, muscle weakness and depression.

Those injuries earned Barton an honorable discharge and classification by the Department of Veterans Affairs as having “a 100 percent permanent and total service-connected disability.”

Business, Disabled vets, Small business, Veterans, Military Read more Comments

David Swanson/Philadelphia Inquirer
Entrepreneur Edmond Dougherty, founder of Ablaze Development in Villanova, Penn., creates prototypes of inventions to prove they work. The Villanova University professor dons eyeglasses made with oil-filled lenses whose prescription is adjusted by turning knobs, a product targeted at developing countries.

Seeing possibilities: Prototype developer driven to create gadgets

Diane Mastrull The Philadelphia Inquirer

Last updated Friday, April 13, 2012 - 5:23pm

PHILADELPHIA -- By way of introduction to his offices in Villanova, Edmond Dougherty stops at a desk cluttered with gadgets: various shapes of plastic, a model quadcopter, a linear induction motor and squares of foam sandwiched by metal film.

"It's almost like an island of broken toys," said the president of Ablaze Development Corp.

Except that it's all for serious business -- for clients ranging from the U.S. military to a variety of private companies.

Business, Invention, Technology Read more Comments

Clem Murray/Philadelphia Inquirer/MCT
Evan McIntyre, marketing director and showroom manager for Diamond Tool, holds a ceremonial shovel. Never mind the glad-handing elected leaders and corporate executives - it's the shovel that's the star of the show at groundbreakings.

In building slump, ceremonial shovels relegated to toolsheds

Diane Mastrull, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Last updated Friday, January 14, 2011 - 4:39pm

PHILADELPHIA -- Sure, the economy has been rough on construction workers. But all those idled carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and masons have sidelined another critical component of the building process that never gets much attention:

The ceremonial shovel.

Never mind the glad-handing elected leaders and corporate executives -- it's the shovel that's the star of the show at groundbreakings. How else are the featured guests supposed to hoist dirt to officially launch a project?

But with little being built since the recession's ignoble debut in December 2007, groundbreakings have been rare events. That has meant a sorry time for the ceremonial shovel.

Business, Construction, Economy, Recession Read more Comments