Colfax Corporation, a global leader in fluid-handling solutions, is doing its part to lower the cost of transporting petroleum. At the 2008 Global Petroleum Show, the Richmond-based company unveiled a new line of "rotary positive displacement screw pumps" for handling high- and low-viscosity fluids that require high pressure boosts in the transport of crude oil.

"Rotary pumps have been the standard in delivering high-efficiency, low-maintenance solutions for critical fluid handling in the past," said CEO John A. Young in a press release. "But the perception that screw pumps mean higher expense is simply outdated, preventing oil transport companies from taking full advantage of their significant benefits for energy savings and reduced environmental impact in these applications."

When Tabitha Geary founded the first professional memory archiving business in the U.S. in 2005, her biggest challenge was finding the right words to communicate what her company does. "It's not scrap-booking," says Geary, founder and CEO of Tabitha Geary Company (formerly OK Picture This, Inc.). "We preserve and archive memories."

An additional challenge was differentiating her company from online utilities like Shutterfly and Kodak Gallery, which produce photo-books from digital images uploaded by their customers. The difference: None of the online photo-book utilities can handle non-digital images like 19th century photogravures, old platinum prints, newspaper clippings, letters, invitations, or any of the host of memory items that a family collects over several generations. 

"We're not in the photo printing business," says Geary in an online profile published by the Venture Forum. "Our competition doesn't digitize images, they handle the digital images sent to them by customers ... Archiving memories is really the best description of what we do."

Virginia Commonwealth University's Reanimation, Engineering and Shock Center, VCURES, has been awarded a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Army to study new technologies for optimizing wound healing and limiting wound infections.

The study builds on VCU's discovery that a naturally occurring hormone, Androstendiol, has the ability to combat bacterial, viral and fungal infections, and protect against lethal radiation poisoning.

"These findings have significant clinical implications for today's military where extremely severe and complex wounds are much more prone to infection," said Robert E. Diegelmann, one of the senior researchers in the project, in a press release. "These infections and delayed healing jeopardize both life and limb."

Besides helping U.S. soldiers, the research could benefit veteran and civilian populations, trauma and burn victims, patients having delayed wound healing problems, and patients at risk for nosocomial, or hospital-acquired infections. 

Dominion has announced plans to sell its Dominion Peoples and Dominion Hope natural gas distribution companies to Babcock & Brown Infrastructure Fund North America, a San Francisco-based infrastructure fund, for $910 million. The transaction, expected to close in 2009, is subject to adjustments to working capital and capital expenditures.

In announcing the deal, CEO Thomas F. Farrell II offered no explanation for why the company was disposing of the companies, which serve markets in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. But the news follows an announcement earlier this week that Dominion was selling natural gas drilling rights in Pennsylvania and West Virginia for $552 million. Proceeds from that sale, Farrell said, would "help fund our electric and natural gas growth projects."

Bacon's bottom line: It appears that Dominion is redeploying its energy portfolio, trading in assets generating lower rates of return for assets generating higher rates of return. Dominion hasn't announced any major acquisitions recently, but it is proceeding with construction of a coal-fired power plant in Wise County, and Farrell has confirmed that the company very much wants to add a third nuclear generator to its North Anna complex – a very expensive proposition.

The economy may be slowing down but someone forget to tell Estes Express Line. The Richmond trucking company, which boasts a fleet of 30,000 tractors and trailers and 200 terminals, continues to expand.

In March the company filled in the last piece of its national footprint with the addition of 13 terminals in the Upper Midwest. Now it is opening an Estes Air Forwarding “Global Solutions” office in Charleston, S.C. The new facility will be the focal point in the company’s initiative to capture ocean-borne container traffic.

“Research shows a continued growth in ocean traffic, and more so, the use of U.S. trucking to move this cargo inland from the ports,” says Gary Weekley, managing director of international. “Estes Air Forwarding is positioning itself to support this continued trend.” More.

Alec Depcynski, a staff writer for BizSense, has put some shoe leather into his reporting on business conditions in Carytown. By his count, 22 of the 164 store fronts in the Cary Street retail corridor are vacant – making a vacancy rate of 13 percent.

Using a Thalhimer retail report as a yardstick, he concludes, that's higher than every single submarket in the Richmond region. Vacancy rates range from 3.1 percent in the Regency area to 8.2 percent in the Willow Lawn submarket.

But no one seems alarmed. Frances Daniel, owner of Mrs. Marshall's Carytown Café, said, "There's always turnover. That's the one thing about this area ... People are always going in" and filling up the vacant buildings. Businesses will always be buying space in Carytown because of its history and its vibe, she told Depcynski. "It's still the coolest shopping district around."

Blockbuster Inc. has dropped its bid for Circuit City Stores Inc. after completing its review of the money-losing Richmond company's books.

Jim Keyes, CEO of the Dallas-based video rental company, issued a terse statement: "The company decided it was not in the best interest of Blockbuster shareholders to acquire Circuit City." He offered no explanation.

But Keyes reaffirmed his thinking that led him to make the $1.3 billion offer. According to a Blockbuster press release, the company still believes in the idea of bringing media content and electronic devices together under one brand. The company will pursue that strategy through its stores "as a way to diversify the business and better serve the entertainment retail segment."

Ironworks Consulting, a management and Web consulting firm, has launched a global extranet for the Richmond-based Christian Children's Fund, a not-for-profit that has assisted more than 13.2 million children since its founding in 1938. The project was highlighted on the corporate blog for Microsoft Corp.'s SharePoint software, which Ironworks used to build the Web site.

With a workforce scattered across 33 countries, CFF's old intranet faced significant problems disseminating and sharing information. The organization also wanted to create a platform for improving social networking and organizational connectivity. The CCF hired Ironworks to develop and implement a new CCF extranet, known as "The Hub," all employees worldwide could use.

To determine the organization's needs, Ironworks held a number of requirements sessions with the different internal groups to help determine site columns, content types and understand CCF’s internal taxonomies. The use of high-level categories such as "Groups" and "Offices" as well as flyout menus enables users to quickly identify relevant sub-sites and drill down to find needed information. The extranet also allows users to select English, French, Spanish or Portuguese as a preferred language setting.

At the 8,000-member Faith Landmarks Ministries church, parishioners can shop for books and CDs, grab a latte at the coffee shop and attend rock concerts. As with other mega-churches in the Richmond region, reports Chris Dovi with Style Weekly, it's getting hard to tell where worship and fellowship leave off and commerce begins.

"As more churches expand their ministries beyond the Sunday-morning service and the restrictive confines of the modest, pew-lined sanctuary," writes Dovi, "the line between noprofit church and unregulated enterprise is blurring."

The Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center recently performed the Richmond area's first da Vinci sacrocolpopexy -- a minimally invasive surgical procedure designed to correct pelvic organ prolapse. More than 120,000 cases of uterine and vaginal vault prolapse are surgically treated in the United States yearly.

Prolapse occurs when the connective tissues or muscles within the body cavity are weak and unable to hold the pelvic and vaginal tissues in their natural orientation. Traditional surgery required a prolonged hospital stay and a recovery time of six to eight weeks, along with increased pain for patients.

The da Vinci robot performs the complicated operation laparoscopically, requiring only four very small incisions. Patients can return to regular activities, including work, within two weeks. Read more here.