First Lady Laura Bush and President George W. Bush are moving back to Dallas when the president’s term expires in January, the Associated Press is reporting.

The AP says the first lady’s press secretary confirmed Wednesday that the couple are purchasing a home in Dallas.

Neither Laura Bush nor her press secretary elaborated on the home’s exact location. The First Lady previously told CNN the couple would spend their weekdays in Dallas and the weekends at their ranch in Crawford — a small town outside of Waco that has gained national recognition due to George Bush’s numerous visits to the ranch during his presidency.

San Antonio-based Valero Energy Corp. is one of 13 companies operating in Texas that have been approved by the Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers’ Compensation (TDI-DWC) to self-insure for workers’ compensation claims.

The approval is for a one-year period under the TDI-DWC Self-Insurance Regulation program.

These 13 companies collectively employ approximately 26,500 employees in Texas.

Under Texas law, certain large, private companies can self-insure for workers’ compensation claims, while retaining the protection of the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act for the company and for its employees. To qualify, a company must have a minimum workers’ compensation insurance unmodified manual premium of $500,000 and meet other requirements subject to annual review.

In addition to Valero, the following companies received renewals of existing self-insurance certificates:

AAA Cooper Transportation, Dothan, Ala.

American Electric Power Company Inc., Heath, Ohio

Associated Wholesale Grocers Inc., Kansas City, Kan.

E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., Wilmington, Del.

Emerson Electric Co., St. Louis

FedEx Freight East Inc., Harrison, Ark.

Guardian Industries Corp., Auburn Hills, Mich.

Hyatt Corp., Chicago

International Paper Co., Memphis, Tenn.

The Sherwin-Williams Co., Cleveland

Unique Staff Leasing I Ltd., Corpus Christi

VF Corporation, Greensboro, N.C.

For more information on applying to the Self-Insurance Regulation program, visit TDI’s Web site at www.tdi.state.tx.us/wc/si/index.html.

Solomon “Sol” Casseb III of San Antonio has been appointed by Gov. Rick Perry as judge of the 288th Judicial District Court of Bexar County for a term to expire at the next general election.

Casseb is an attorney at Casseb and Pearl Inc. He is a member of the South Texas Collaborative Family Lawyers Association and past chairman of the State Bar of Texas Grievance Committee. Casseb received a bachelor’s degree from St. Mary’s University and a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin. He replaces Lori Massey who retired in October.

BBVA Compass has expanded its brand reach in San Antonio as a result of the recent conversion of LNB (formerly Laredo National Bank) bank branches to the BBVA Compass brand.

The conversion brings seven former LNB branches under the Compass umbrella.

All San Antonio locations are expected to be rebranded as BBVA Compass branches by the end of the year, and all Compass branches in the lender’s six-state footprint will be rebranded by the end of the first quarter of 2009.

In a prepared statement, David Davis, regional retail executive for Compass for South and Central Texas, said several of the banking centers are in parts of town where the lender did not previously have branches.

“We want to be as convenient as possible to those who live and work in San Antonio and these locations will help us continue to better serve our customers,” Davis said.

BBVA Compass, a subsidiary of Compass Bancshares Inc. of Birmingham, Ala., has total assets of approximately $61.5 billion. It operates 579 branches across a six-state Sunbelt Region, including Texas, Florida, Colorado, Arizona, Alabama and New Mexico.

Compass Bancshares is a wholly owned subsidiary of Spanish bank Bilbao Vizcaya Argentario S.A. (BBVA) — a financial services group with more than $750 billion in total assets, 47 million clients, 8,000 branches and approximately 112,000 employees in more than 30 countries.

Software and information technology firm dNovus RDI has been acquired by a Florida company for $38 million.

Kforce Inc. (NASDAQ: KFRC), a professional staffing and solutions firm based in Tampa, Fla., purchased San Antonio-based dNovus with plans to move further into the federal government sector where dNovus is already a prime contractor. dNovus provides applied information technology services to the federal government and currently operates in 17 states. The company had revenue of $32 million for the 12 months ended Sept. 30.

Kforce expects the purchase will produce a future cash benefit of $8 million. At the same time, dNovus delivered $3 million in working capital at the time of closing, company officials said.

The acquisition will be financed with debt. Kforce currently has $42 million in debt outstanding.

It’s the first acquisition Kforce has completed in nearly two years, and one that could push the company’s government services segment over the $100 million revenue mark in 2009, said Kforce CEO David Dunkel in a prepared statement. dNovus has 250 employees, based mostly around San Antonio, Austin, and Washington, D.C.

Joining Kforce Government Solutions (KGS) division through dNovus are former company president Glen Shaffer, a retired U.S. Air Force major general and the one-time intelligence director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Shaffer will become an executive vice president with KGS, said division President Larry Grant, in a prepared statement.

As the acquisition was closing this week, Kforce instituted a plan to buy up $75 million worth of common stock in an effort to increase the value of shares still trading in the open market. Kforce had already approved a $50 million stock repurchase plan in February, and spent about $28 million on 3.2 million shares as of Sept. 30. Kforce shares, which closed at $6.80 Nov. 28 before the repurchasing plan was announced, closed Tuesday at $7.06. The stock had traded as high as $11.55 over the past year.

Formerly known as Research Dynamics Inc., dNovus was founded in 1989 and specializes in providing information technology services to military and government customers.

Local chief financial officers are anticipating adding staff during the first quarter of 2009, according to the most recent Robert Half International Financial Hiring Index.

The hiring of full-time accounting and finance professionals in the San Antonio area is expected to increase as 9 percent of local CFOs surveyed say they plan to add staff during the quarter while 5 percent anticipate reductions in personnel.

The net 4 percent increase is up one point from the area’s fourth-quarter 2008 forecast and three points above the national average.

The local results reflect a two-quarter rolling average based on interviews with 200 CFOs from a stratified random sample of companies in the San Antonio area with 20 or more employees. More than 1,400 CFOs were queried for the national data.

“Even though weakness in the economy is affecting hiring in many fields, accounting and finance expertise in key functional areas remains in demand,” says Max Messmer, chairman and CEO of Robert Half International. “While no job category is completely immune to economic changes, professionals skilled at identifying cost efficiencies and enhancing profitability are a perennial need for firms of all sizes.”

Robert Half has been tracking financial hiring activity in the United States since 1992.

Robert Half International was founded in 1948 and is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

New York-based JPMorgan Chase has announced that it will keep the Washington Mutual regional operations center open in San Antonio.

Greg Hassell, spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, says the center is a vital site for the financial services company.

“It’s a beautiful facility with a hardworking, dedicated staff,” Hassell says. “San Antonio has a very talented and hardworking workforce, which is very good with customer services.”

Hassell says the bank values these types of employees, adding that although the cost of doing business in San Antonio is positive and attractive, what the bank really values is the quality of the local workforce.

The center currently employs 1,800 people.

Hassell says JPMorgan Chase will also keep open its own call center, located in Westover Hills in Northwest San Antonio. That center housed some 2,500 employees, prior to the Washington Mutual (WaMu) acquisition earlier this fall.

The news of the fate of the regional centers here comes in the wake of a round of job cuts announced this week by JPMorgan Chase. Hassell says about 4,000 employees were told that their jobs were being eliminated in the short-term and that they would be released no later than Jan. 30.

An additional 5,200 employees, he says, have been told that they are in transition roles and that their jobs will be ending at different times during 2009.

“They will be paid double their salary during the transition time. All other employees have been told that their jobs will be continuing,” he says.

No significant job reductions are expected for San Antonio, Hassell says. He adds that the lender expects to close some of its Texas branches next year but will transfer employees from those shuttered branches to other locations that remain open.

JPMorgan Chase acquired Seattle-based WaMu’s banking operations from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Sept. 25, 2008, for about $2 billion and assumed the lender’s troubled mortgage loan portfolio.

The acquisition gives JPMorgan Chase a network of more than 5,400 branches.

Chase is the consumer and commercial banking brand of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) — a leading global financial services firm with assets of $2 trillion and operations in more than 60 countries.

The Alamo Community Colleges (ACC) is collaborating with the Asociacion Nacional de Universidades Tecnologicas in Mexico to increase faculty and student internship exchange programs between Mexican technical universities and American community colleges.

Working with the American Association of Community Colleges, ACC will be the lead American community college in facilitating the exchange process, which will be funded by the U.S. and Mexican governments.

Beginning this week, the Alamo Community Colleges will provide a faculty development and leadership training course in San Antonio for 50 Mexican technical college instructors during the month of December. ACC will also deliver a National Association for Workforce Professional Certification course for 40 workforce professionals from Mexican technical universities. This is tentatively scheduled for spring 2009.

The ACC and the Universidad Tecnologica de Tulancingo will continue promoting distance learning opportunities and faculty and student exchanges. ACC will also collaborate with the State of Hidalgo and the Mexican Department of Higher Education to promote the second annual Global Conference on Economic and Workforce Development, to be held in fall 2009.

“These international partnerships are valuable, not only in terms of culture and education, but also provide an important new revenue source to help diversify our funding base,” says Bruce H. Leslie, chancellor of ACC. “In today’s global community, our international partnerships truly make educational and business sense.”

The Alamo Community Colleges consist of five colleges serving the Bexar County area: Palo Alto College, St. Philip’s College, San Antonio College, Northeast Lakeview College and Northwest Vista College.

XPEL Technologies Corp. reported net earnings of $250,262 on revenue of $2,377,614 for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2008. That compares to net earnings of $384,461 on revenues of $1,972,063 for the prior-year period.

XPEL’s CEO Nuno Ferreira says many of the decisions made in the second and third quarters have had “an immediate positive impact on our profitability.”

“While some of the decisions have been difficult, we now have a streamlined organization that enables us to focus on new and existing revenue channels in a more cost-effective manner,” Ferreira says.

San Antonio-based XPEL (TSXV: DAP.U) reported a net loss of $3.3 million for the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2008, compared to a net loss of $162,758 for the prior year period.

The loss was due in part to discontinued operations of approximately $251,000 as well as non-cash expenses such as stock compensation, amortization expense, the impairment of goodwill, non-recurring legal fees and the settlement of a lawsuit.

When adjusted for these items, the net loss was $327,129 compared to adjusted net income of $312,055 for the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2007.

XPEL Technologies designs and distributes a line of automotive paint and headlamp-protection kits through a network of global dealers.

The most successful Houston sports franchise is no more.

The Houston Comets, which captured the first four consecutive championships of the Women’s National Basketball Association, is to be dissolved by the league after a search for a new ownership group came up empty.

The demise of the team will result in the loss of 37 jobs.

Djacarda Richard, a Comets spokeswoman, said Tuesday that the office staff will continue to work temporarily until the franchise winds down operations.

“We had been talking to two different ownership groups but couldn’t make it happen,” she said.

The league will conduct a dispersal draft for the Houston players later this month.

Leslie Alexander, the original owner of the Comets who also owns the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets, sold the team to furniture store owner Hilton Koch in 2007. The team moved from the much larger Toyota Center to Reliant Arena for the start of the 2008 season and attracted an average of 6,585 fans per game.

The WNBA took over the fragile franchise from Koch in August.

Tom Garrity, former president of the Houston Aeros minor league hockey team, took over as president to oversee day-to-day operations and assist the league in its search for potential new owners. Garrity replaced Bob McGahie, who resigned in March, two weeks after being appointed president and chief operating officer.

The Comets dominated the fledgling league when it began operations, winning the first four WNBA titles from 1997-2000, led by its talented trio of players: Sheryl Swoopes, Cynthia Cooper and Tina Thompson.

The folding of the Comets franchise leaves the San Antonio Silver Stars as the only remaining WNBA team in Texas. The Silver Stars are owned by Spurs Sports & Entertainment Inc., which also owns the San Antonio Spurs team in the NBA.

Texas Transportation Federal Credit Union in San Antonio has merged with Greater TEXAS Federal Credit Union, headquartered in Austin, as of Dec. 1, 2008.

Greater TEXAS FCU assumed all of Texas Transportation FCU’s assets, rights, property, shares and liabilities. The building owned and used by TTFCU at 6318 Callaghan Road has become a branch of GTFCU and has been remodeled with new signage that now reads: Greater TEXAS Federal Credit Union, Texas Transportation Branch.

Texas Transportation FCU was established in 1954 to provide financial services to the employees working for the Texas Department of Transportation, San Antonio District, and their families. As of June 30, 2008 Texas Transportation FCU had 2,247 members, and $12.9 million in assets.

The merger provides the members of TTFCU with additional financial products and services such as home mortgages, online banking, bill pay services, student loans, and longer term share certificates. GTFCU will continue to provide personalized financial services to their new TTFCU members.

This is the fifth credit union to merge with Greater TEXAS Federal Credit Union over the years. GTFCU currently has nine underserved areas in Austin, Dallas, Arlington, Bastrop, College Station, Bryan, Houston, and Edinburg and serves over 150 Select Employer Groups. GTFCU has 62,000 members and over $320 million in assets.

Retail electric competition has helped put downward pressure on the price of electricity for Texas consumers, according to a new study.

Intelometry Inc., a Houston-based consulting and software company serving the energy industry, compared the price of service in the regulated rates of three electric utilities from 1995 to 2001 with the price of service in competitive markets in Texas from 2002 through August 2008. The study found that the primary price component analyzed in the study (the cost of power generation) decreased as much as 13 percent in the latter period, following the inception of retail electric competition in 2002.

“Ultimately, we found retail electric competition to be good for Texas,” says Jeff Merola, a vice president with Intelometry. “Our goal was to achieve a fair and accurate comparison between what residential customers in Texas paid for electricity before and after competition began.”

The study notes that the overall price of residential electric service has increased since 2002, but it attributes the increase to factors other than retail competition, notably the significant increase in the price of natural gas. The price of natural gas in August 2008 was more than three-and-a-half times the fuel’s price in January 2002.

Sterling Bancshares Inc., the parent company of Sterling Bank in San Antonio, has received preliminary approval to participate in the U.S. Department of Treasury’s voluntary Capital Purchase Program. Under this program, Sterling Bancshares intends to sell to the government approximately $125 million in senior preferred stock and related warrants.

The federal government’s capital purchase program authorizes the U.S. Treasury to purchase preferred shares issued by banks as part of an effort to bolster their capital positions.

During the second quarter of 2008, Sterling took a $3.7 million impairment charge as result of increasing its provision for loan losses related to an energy industry borrower. Sterling said its total exposure to the borrower is $29.2 million, including a $20 million loan and the obligation to purchase $9.2 million in loans from another lender.

At end of the third quarter of 2008, according to Sterling officials, the lender’s capital levels were still above “well-capitalized” regulatory guidelines.

Headquartered in Houston, Sterling Bancshares (NASDAQ: SBIB) is a bank holding company with total assets of $4.5 billion and 59 branches. In the San Antonio area, Sterling Bank has eight locations, including one branch in Helotes.

Fitch Ratings has confirmed its AA+ rating for San Antonio’s electric and gas systems revenue bonds, Series 2008A, issued on behalf of CPS Energy.

The rating was initially assigned to the bonds on Sept. 23, but the bonds did not price due to market conditions.

Proceeds from the 2008A bonds will be used to refund outstanding Series 1998A bonds for savings. The bonds are now expected to price the week of Dec. 8 for $218.6 million.

Fitch has also confirmed the AA+ long-term rating on CPS Energy’s outstanding senior bonds value at $2.9 billion and its outstanding subordinate bonds totaling $402 million. The company received a F1+ rating on its outstanding commercial paper valued at $450 million. The rating outlook is stable.

Bethesda, MD-based WellNet Healthcare has opened an office in San Antonio as part of its plans to expand its reach in the Southwest.

The office is located on the city’s North Side, at 18838 Stone Oak Parkway. It has a staff of six employees, including Dr. Dan Van Ackeren — who heads up the office. The office will serve Texas as well as Oklahoma, Colorado and New Mexico.

“We’re entering the Texas/southwestern marketplace simply because this region of the country, like all others, is in desperate need of health-care reform management,” says WellNet President Keith Lemer. “Businesses that provide employee benefits to workers are finding it extremely difficult to contain costs.”

Lemer adds that his company looks to help businesses in the region lower their expenses while keeping workers healthy.

Health care, Lemer says, is the only area of a company’s balance sheet where it doesn’t know what is driving the costs or how to control those costs.

Eventually, Lemer says he would like to open independent offices in the other states that will be served by the San Antonio office.

“It would be my pleasure to open independent offices in those areas. If the market calls for it, after we write the business we expect to write, we will certainly do so,” he says. “We expect to add significant revenue and life count to our block.”

WellNet Healthcare is a privately held company that designs, implements and administers employer-sponsored health benefits with a focus on controlling costs and improving member health.

The company offers rigorous data analysis, pharmacy-benefit management, health-management and medical-management services.

In addition to the new San Antonio location, WellNet has offices in Philadelphia; Atlanta; Chicago; Cleveland; New York; Portland, Ore.; and Trenton, N.J. The company serves some 250 clients around the country.

Skanska USA Building Inc.’s San Antonio office has been honored for its work on the Bell County Jail project by the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) of South Texas.

Skanska won the Merit Award in the Institutional Category for the recently completed jail project that included a 630-bed, 177,000-square-foot jail annex.

The award was presented during the 2008 Annual Excellence in Construction Competition. The event recognizes the finest construction projects in the industry that exhibit high standards in workmanship, superior quality and excellent safety records for general contractors, specialty contractors and supplier members.

“This award is a direct result of our hard working and dedicated team,” says Brian Freeman, Skanska USA’s area general manager for Texas. “We are proud to be recognized by the ABC with this honor.”

Skanska is a international construction company based on Stockholm, Sweden.

The U.S. economy has been in a recession for all of 2008, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based organization dates business cycles, basing its decisions on the consensus of economists. The expansion that ended in December 2007 began in November 2001, the NBER said.

The NBER based its conclusion, in large part, on measures of gross domestic product and gross domestic income.

The organization said in its statement: “Many of these indicators, including monthly data on the largest component of GDP, consumption, have declined sharply in recent months.”

Leading diabetes expert Dr. C. Ronald Kahn will speak Tuesday, Dec. 2, at the 7th Annual Presidential Distinguished Lecture series at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Dr. Kahn is with the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, where he has helped define the molecular mechanisms of insulin interactions at the cellular level. His address is titled “Tracking the Metabolic Syndrome to its Molecular Origins.”

Dr. Kahn has spent much of his career studying the question of how insulin communicates with cells to perform its many functions. Insulin is the key hormone that controls blood sugar levels in the body.

The lecture will begin at 11 a.m. in the UT Health Science Center Auditorium, Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Campus, at 7703 Floyd Curl Drive in the South Texas Medical Center. It is free and open to the general public.

The Public Utility Commission of Texas has established what interest rates should apply when reimbursing utility customers after they’ve been overbilled.

The rates also apply to under billings and customer deposits.

The PUC says electric and telephone customers who are overbilled in Texas will be paid 3.21 percent interest in 2009 under the rates issued Monday.

In addition, PUC says customers will receive 2.09 percent interest on utility deposits. PUC says the 3.21 percent rate was set from the 90-day commercial paper rate, and the 2.09 percent rate for deposit refunds is based on the average yield on 26-week treasury bills for the past 12 months.

Unemployment Insurance benefits have been extended for seven weeks, the Texas Workforce Commission has announced. President Bush recently signed legislation providing up to seven weeks of emergency unemployment benefits to workers who have exhausted their benefits and are still unemployed. The extended benefits are federally funded and employers will not be charged for any claims paid on this extension, the TWC says.

The TWC is sending a letter to all claimants who have exhausted their benefits from the first extenstion with written instructions on how and when to make claims on this extension. The TWC is asking claimants to mail their responses in the pre-paid envelopes provided with the letter. Eligible claimants may update their address information online through paymentrequest.texasworkforce.org or by contacting a UI Tele-Center. In San Antonio the number is 210-258-6600.

The Texas Workforce Commission is a state agency dedicated to helping Texas employers, workers and communities prosper economically. For more information visit www.texasworkforce.org.

General Growth Properties Inc., the owner of two major shopping centers in San Antonio, has reached an agreement with its syndicate of lenders for a two-week extension on mortgage loans totaling $900 million.

The parties are continuing discussions on a longer-term extension.

General Growth has another $3 billion in debt that matures in 2009. Citing weakness in the credit and retail markets, the company has said it can’t be sure it will be able to refinance or extend terms on the debt.

The Chicago-based real estate investment trust has a significant presence in San Antonio. The company owns North Star Mall and is the co-owner of The Shops at La Cantera. North Star counts more than 200 stores as tenants. The Shops at La Cantera recently completed an expansion in October that added 300,000 square feet of space.

General Growth shares (NYSE: GGP) opened Wednesday at $1.15 per share. The 52-week high was $51.24 per share.

Digital Defense has introduced a new program that will help companies test the security of information systems of possible acquisition targets before finalizing the deal.

The Security Watch for Acquisitions and Transactions (SWAT) program will enable a company to identify material information-security weaknesses associated with the acquisition of another company as part of a due diligence process before a merger.

The program’s five phases include internal and external network vulnerability assessments, internal and external network penetration tests, physical security site audits, network security architecture review, and a formal out-brief session.

“Recognizing the danger inherent in rapid merger activity, we designed the SWAT program as a turnkey service to assist organizations who need to complete a merger quickly. ...” says Larry R. Hurtado, president and CEO of San Antonio-based Digital Defense.

Digital Defense offers information security programs, regulatory compliance technologies, security testing of IT products and security education offerings to financial institutions and large businesses that use Internet Protocol-based technology in their business operations.

Sunrise Solar Corp. has opened its first permanent international office in Beijing, China, which it will use to pursue solar energy projects throughout Asia.

According to a press release issued by Sunrise Solar, China is seeking to increase the availability of clean alternative energy sources, like solar power, to its growing population.

Locally based Sunrise Solar is a manufacturer of solar power cells and competes directly with Japanese and U.S. companies like First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR), Sanyo (OTC: SANYY) and Kyocera (NYSE: KYO).

Sunrise Solar Chairman and CEO Eddie Austin said in a prepared statement that the new China office is expected to open up opportunities for the company in the Asian market.

“We are pursuing an international strategy that we believe will allow us to continue to grow regardless of short-term economic issues in the United States,” Austin said.

Sunrise Solar (OTCBB: SSLR) is a developer of new and innovative solar products for personal and business use. Its goals are to commercialize and distribute these products as well as use its institutional knowledge of emerging alternative energy technologies to develop comprehensive alternative energy plans.