Wind Winds Up

Washington, D.C. - Gregory Wetstone has overseen government affairs for the American Wind Energy Association, a Washington trade group, for a year.

"Nonstop action," he says of his tenure.

The action will stay intense in the near term. Next week, Wetstone expects a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on his group's most important legislative priority, a long-term extension of the wind energy production tax credit (PTC). The subsidy provides an income tax credit of two cents per kilowatt hour for electricity produced by windmills. Since its creation in 1992, the PTC has expired on three occasions, each a big setback for the wind business. It's set to expire again at the end of this year.

Wetstone predicts the PTC will make it through the House, as it did when that body passed a broad energy package in December. Prospects look difficult, however, in the U.S. Senate, where partisan maneuvering and disputes over funding offsets have caused the PTC to twice fall short of passage in recent months. (See: "Why The Energy Bill Will Die.")

Full story at Forbes.com

Beltway Tech Stocks: Bottom's Up?

Washington, D.C. - Working from BB&T Capital Markets' northern Virginia office, stock analyst Michael Lewis has spent the last six years building up a network of government and defense contacts.

"I tell investors that, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what our ratings are, what our price targets are," says Lewis. "Our value proposition to the investment community is what we're hearing at the Pentagon and on [Capitol] Hill."

At an event hosted last week by the National Defense Industrial Association, a trade group, Lewis heard from high-level budget personnel at the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps about their 2009 priorities. One conclusion Lewis drew from the event: Funding threats to information technology projects, which have dogged several big tech services stocks, may be diminishing.

Lewis tells us that none of the military's budgeters on the panel explicitly said cuts to information technology projects were off the table, but at the same event a year ago, there was talk of scaling back on technology in favor of immediate concerns (like fighting two wars). Not this year.

"[Information technology] wasn't even brought up," says Lewis. "That was very surprising."

Full story at Forbes.com

Day & Zimmermann: Mission Possible

Harold Yoh has been chief executive for 10 years at Day & Zimmermann, a closely held engineering and construction concern. He admits he still occasionally struggles to describe his work.

"The cocktail party question of 'What do you do?' isn't the easiest one to answer," he jokes.

A quick glance at Day & Zimmermann's business description reveals why. The 107-year-old outfit, headquartered in Philadelphia and ranked 317th on our annual list of America's largest privately held companies, provides services as varied as storing 600,000 tons of ammunition, providing temp staffing of technology workers and maintaining nuclear power plants.

But one thing Yoh, 47, doesn't labor to explain is recent sales growth. Revenues in 2007 were $1.9 billion, up a robust 36% from $1.4 billion in 2006. This year, Yoh indicates, Day & Zimmermann should make it well past the $2 billion mark. Day's business mix seems to be working, however difficult it is to explain at cocktail parties.

Full story at Forbes.com