LINTHICUM – The monthly breakfast of the BWI Business Partnership was as much a celebration of where it has been as it was where it is headed.  When it started in 1985, the group’s mission focused on getting employees to and from work around the area.  It has since expanded to advocate for education, workforce development as well as enhanced connectivity through rail, transit and highway systems.  The Partnership’s guest speaker, President James Pitts of Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems, affirmed the importance of transportation in stating that his company is the largest private-sector employer in Anne Arundel and the largest industrial company in the state (11,000 staff in Maryland).  Pitts, also chairman of the Maryland Business Roundtable for Education, called attention to the need for cultivating young people to solve transportation and other challenges.  “We need creative thinkers who challenge orthodoxy and are open to new ideas.”

Driving home the celebratory atmosphere, the Partnership named the following awardees: Carl Balser, Howard County’s Transportation Chief, as recipient of the Vision award; and the National Security Agency as Employer of the Year, which was accepted by Deputy Director John (Chris) Inglis.  Of course, I can neither confirm nor deny that anyone from NSA was actually there, and the award was bestowed with the cryptic phrase “Johnny gets an ice cream cone.”

L to R: NSA’s Deputy Director Chris Inglis, Chairman of BWI-BP Tom Osborne, NSA’s Kay Hill and BWI-BP’s Linda Greene