The Energy Consultant Who Does It All

Washington, D.C. - Like any big industry, energy has an array of trade groups representing its various sectors and sub-sectors inside the Beltway. Biofuels, coal, gas, oil, nukes, solar, wind, utilities of various stripes: They all field associations that jostle for position on energy policy.

Since 1981, Jeffrey Serfass has made a living in this milieu. The approach behind his $2 million (revenues) Washington consultancy: connect the dots.

"We have a significant network of companies and spheres of knowledge that allow us to uniquely bridge the entire gamut from fossil fuels to renewable energy," says Serfass, 62.

Suitably, Serfass' company carries a rather non-descript name: Technology Transition Corporation. In addition to corporate and government consulting, the 12-person, for-profit outfit manages trade groups, notably the National Hydrogen Association and the internationally focused Partnership for Advancing the Transition to Hydrogen. Serfass heads both organizations.

Full story at Forbes.com

Sensors, Spooks And Titanium

As with all Forbes company lists, our 2007 list of the 100 Best Mid-Cap Stocks In America has its share of outfits that should interest investors or others looking at Washington, D.C., from a business perspective. The table below lists seven.

Bargain hunters, don't get too excited. These companies hail from the defense and aerospace sector, which has enjoyed a terrific run over the past four years. Thus, the stocks look expensive relative to valuation history and, with two exceptions, projected growth rates.

That will not stop us, however, from sticking our necks out and tagging a couple of these stocks as attractive.

Full story at Forbes.com

Transformer

Washington, D.C. - Terry M. Ryan has made a career of getting big Beltway organizations through moments of change.

In 1991, after 10 years in the U.S. military, he was hired by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to advise it on adjusting to a post-Cold War world. Later, he helped set up a new Department of Defense office aimed at rejiggering airborne reconnaissance to use more unmanned aircraft. When he went to the private sector in the mid-'90s, he took the top job at defense engineering concern Adroit Systems. In three years, he presided over a tripling in Adroit's sales, to $43 million, and its acquisition by SRA International in 2003.

Now a senior vice president at Mercury Computer Systems (nasdaq: MRCY - news - people ), Ryan, 48, must pull another rabbit out of the hat. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass., Mercury makes systems for processing high-volume data. Among its specialties: software that can convert big data sets into 3-D images, and systems that pull together information from different kinds of computer chips (digital signal processors, graphics processors and so on). Just under half the company's $224 million in fiscal 2007 sales came from defense customers, primarily big contractors like Lockheed Martin (nyse: LMT - news - people ), Northrop Grumman (nyse: NOC - news - people ), and Raytheon (nyse: RTN - news - people ).

Yet despite those companies' booming fortunes, Mercury's own defense business sagged 15% for the year ended in June, a decline the company blamed in part on federal funding shifting to "more immediate" needs. (Translation: Iraq.)

Full story at Forbes.com

Getting Burned

Washington, D.C. - As the table below indicates, Wall Street has cooled on the coal business lately. Particularly hard hit, in share price terms at least, have been two concerns, Headwaters and Rentech, specializing in turning coal into liquid fuel.

At a Wednesday hearing on Capitol Hill, those two companies pleaded for Washington to nurture the fledgling coal-to-liquid industry.

“Oil price volatility continues to discourage potential [coal-to-liquid] investors,” Robert Freerks, Rentech’s (amex: RTK - news - people ) director of product development, told the House Committee on Science and Technology’s Subcommittee on Energy and Environment. “Congress should enact policy to help reduce risk and encourage investment in these plants.”

“Until we get the first few plants built, there’s tremendous resistance from the private capital market,” agreed John Ward, Headwaters' (nyse: HW - news - people ) vice president for marketing and government affairs (note: half of Headwaters’ sales come from residential construction materials).

As we’ve observed elsewhere, (See: "Its Not Easy Being Green"], Washington tends to stand by long-shot energy technologies, even after the stock market has given them the thumbs-down. But the members at today’s hearing weren’t an easy audience.

Full story at Forbes.com