Latest news with #Farren
Time Magazine
10-07-2025
- Business
- Time Magazine
America's Best Midsize Companies of 2025
I n the U.S., large companies dominate headlines and industry discussions, but mid-sized companies, which have revenues between $100 million to $10 billion, undergird the economy. To provide a comprehensive view of that economic foundation, TIME and Statista have created the second annual list of the best mid-sized companies in the U.S., ranked by employee satisfaction, revenue growth, and sustainability transparency. The list includes both the core and upper mid-market segments; the upper threshold of $10 billion annual revenue aims to capture the most influential players within this category, along with the emerging leaders. But these are not startups. 'The average age of a mid-sized company in the U.S. is about 34 years,' says Doug Farren, the managing director of the National Center for the Middle Market at The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business. 'They're really at a sweet spot where they have enough years of experience, sustained success, to be able to expand into new markets, introduce new products and services. A lot of them are thinking about ways that they can innovate and grow.' These businesses, based locally and regionally, make up the backbone of many communities, according to Farren, and over 90 percent of mid-size businesses are private. 'Most of these companies tend to be in the supply chains of larger and smaller companies,' Farren says. 'The automotive industry, for example, [has] 3,000 to 5,000 suppliers who just make parts for automotive manufacturing in the U.S., and they're all mid-sized companies themselves.' Technology and life sciences are the two fastest growing industries in the mid-market, echoing a much larger trend of U.S. tech dominance and leadership in drug innovation. In the tech space, Airbnb took the top spot in this year's list, followed by Hubspot, the first customer service platform to integrate ChatGPT. TIME and Statista used 2023 financial data for the list, during which Airbnb had an annual revenue of $9.9 billion, but last December, the company reported a 2024 annual revenue of $11.1 billion, putting it on the precipice of becoming a large-cap company. In its first quarter 2025 letter to shareholders, the company wrote that it's been laying the groundwork for long-term growth and its 'next chapter,' while navigating changing global regulations around short-term rentals. This involves a redesigned Airbnb app that allows users to book services and experiences. Intuitive (no. 13), a leader in surgery robots, is behind the robotic surgical system used in the world's first fully robotic lung transplant at NYU and first robotic heart transplant at Baylor. 'Since the pandemic, we've seen life sciences really take off,' Farren says. 'Things like testing centers, laboratories, not necessarily big pharma, but places that support that industry, [have had] rapid growth.' In May, Intuitive received an extended FDA clearance for colorectal surgery, and its first quarter revenue of $2.25 billion was 19% higher compared to the first quarter of 2024, with much of the growth due to more robotic surgeries. New Balance is the top apparel, footwear, and sporting goods company (at no. 3), thanks to the popularity of comfy 'dad-shoes', and collabs with athletes and buzzy brands like Miu Miu, Loro Piana, and Ganni. In 2024, it reported $7.8 billion in sales, and projects to reach $10 billion in sales in the next few years. The private Boston-based brand launched a 'Made in USA' line in 2024 with 70% of its products hand stitched in domestic factories across Massachusetts and Maine. But despite domestic manufacturing, tariffs are a major concern for many of the midsize U.S. companies on the list. 'Sourcing is a global activity,' says Farren. Which means imposing tariffs in hopes of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. is 'not that simple…You have to find new suppliers…but it won't be quick, and it won't be cheap.' —Charlotte Hu See the full list below.
Irish Times
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Farren Away - Frank McNally on how the dreaded phantom ‘Flann' picture struck again
Long-time readers of this column will be aware that there exists in literary circles a widely circulated photograph purporting to be of Flann O'Brien in Dublin's Palace Bar, circa the early 1940s, but that is in fact of the poet Robert Farren. It's a very convincing Flann photo, unless you're a certified Flannorak who knows, for example, that the real-life man behind the pseudonym, Brian O'Nolan, did not wear glasses. O'Nolan was indeed a Palace regular. He may well have been there on the day in question, out of shot. I'm beginning to wonder if the rascal didn't take the picture himself and mislabel from mischief. As portrayed, Farren is the very image of a comic novelist and newspaper satirist, stroking his chin while reading the paper, with the hint of a conspiratorial smile. He looks more like what Flann should have looked like, arguably, than O'Nolan himself could ever manage. READ MORE Hence the appearance of the picture even on some of Flann's own books, as well as in the review pages of this newspaper, and more recently on the wall of the Devonshire Arms in London, where as noted here last year (Diary, November 2nd), a new portrait of Flann had been based on the Farren photograph. This column had always escaped the imposture until now. Then, last weekend, while we were temporarily distracted, the phantom struck again. By coincidence, on the day in question, the Diary was about a book Flann once planned to write, but didn't. Then I opened my paper next morning to find the column illustrated by the dreaded picture Flann could have been in, but isn't. Of course, we changed it online as soon as possible. The poor subeditor, meanwhile, faced the usual disciplinary procedures (he refused the blindfold and died like a soldier, in fairness). But it was too late for the print edition, in which, like a master-con man, Farren once again successfully posed as Flann. As also noted here before, the recurring misidentification is in one way an apt tribute to O'Nolan, a man who spent his career pretending to be other people, first in a long series of fake letters to The Irish Times and later in a literary career conducted under multiple pseudonyms. [ The Phantom Flann – An Irishman's Diary about the framing of Brian O'Nolan for a photograph he wasn't in Opens in new window ] But his now inextricable photographic relationship with Farren is also beginning to resemble the plot of one of his own short stories, the gothic horror tale Two in One. That features a pair of taxidermists, the narrator Murphy and his loathed boss Kelly, whose constant bullying goes too far. One day, Kelly accuses his employee of having neglected to include a tail on one of his stuffing jobs, which happens to be a Manx cat. Murphy snaps and in a moment of rage, beats Kelly to death. Then, in panic, he conceives a daring plan to cover up the murder. Using all his professional skills, he will skin Kelly, preserve the hide, and wear it when the need arises, posing as the dead man. For a while, it seems he has committed the perfect crime, his disguise fooling even people who knew Kelly well. But he has overlooked something, and soon a terrible realisation descends: 'The mummifying preparation with which I had dressed the inside of the skin was, of course, quite stable for the ordinary purposes of taxidermy. It had not occurred to me that a night in a warm bed would make it behave differently. The horrible truth dawned on me the next day when I reached the workshop and tried to take the skin off. It wouldn't come off! It had literally fused with my own! And in the days that followed, this process kept rapidly advancing. Kelly's skin got to live again, to breathe, to perspire.' After that, one thing leads to another. The police call one day, investigating the whereabouts of Murphy. Eventually, they arrest 'Kelly', who is in fact Murphy, for the latter's murder. At the end of the story, Murphy sits on death row, charged in effect with killing himself: 'Even if I could now prove that Murphy still lived by shedding the accursed skin, what help would that be? Where, they would ask, is Kelly?' Not that the real-life Brian O'Nolan and Robert Farren would have killed, never mind stuffed, each other. Writing as Myles na gCopaleen in this newspaper, O'Nolan did enjoy the occasional joke at Farren's expense, but they were not rivals, so it wasn't personal. If anyone got under Farren's skin, or vice versa, it was his fellow poet, Patrick Kavanagh. They were on the opposing sides in what has been called 'the poetry wars of 1941', which pitched Kavanagh's modernists against the traditionalists, led by Farren and Austin Clarke. Poetic differences aside, Kavanagh also envied Farren's job in RTÉ. If not his skin, he would have liked to wear his rival's State-sponsored salary. Kavanagh's ultimate revenge was to include Farren alongside Austin Clarke and others in The Paddiad (1949). The poetic equivalent of a drive-by shooting, that was set in another Dublin pub, The Pearl, to which most of The Palace set had by then relocated.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Town Pride State College becomes first storefront from Calder Way Pop-Up program
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (WTAJ) — A downtown retail experiment aimed at supporting local entrepreneurs has reached a new milestone as Town Pride State College becomes the first business to transition from the Calder Way Pop-Up program to a permanent storefront. The store's grand opening is set for April 5 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 240 E. Calder Way, inviting the community to celebrate the latest addition to the downtown shopping scene. The Calder Way Pop-Up program, launched in June 2024 by the Downtown State College Improvement District (DSCID) and Comet Properties, provides a low-risk retail space for small businesses to test their concepts and build customer bases. Each vendor gets a limited run in the space, but the goal is to help them transition into a long-term location. Town Pride State College, owned by Lisa Farren, joined the initiative in September 2024. During her time in the pop-up space, Farren refined her business model and gained a loyal customer following, paving the way for this expansion into a full-time storefront. 'This is more than a grand opening—it's a success story,' Kendra Kielbasa, retail and business advocate for DSCID, said. The Calder Way Pop-Up remains active, continuing to serve as an incubator for new businesses. More vendors are expected to follow in Town Pride's footsteps, further strengthening the downtown economy. For more details on the pop-up program and upcoming vendors, visit Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Farren's Pub planning business ‘renaissance' in move to Inman Building
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) — A fixture in the Champaign restaurant industry is beginning a new chapter in a new location. Farren's Pub and Eatery announced that it is relocating to the historic Inman building at 17 East University Avenue. The relocation was described by owner Carolyn Farren as being a 'renaissance' and 'reinvention' for her business and part of the restoration of the Inman's vibrancy by the building's owners. St. Joseph community remembers Trooper Thompsen with volleyball game fundraiser 'We are delighted to welcome Carolyn and the whole Farren's Family to the Inman. Farren's quality and thorough sense of community match our values which make for a perfect pairing,' said Collin Carlier, CEO of Inman owner Royse+Brinkmeyer. 'We are also excited to welcome locals and visitors to the Inman as we continue restoring the vibrancy of this incredible building was designed to bring over a century ago.' Farren's will relocate to the Inman after six years in the former Radio Maria restaurant. Part of the renaissance owner Carolyn Farren spoke of includes a new theme that 'honors tradition while embracing evolution.' The theme is described as 'revival' that incorporates vintage decor, nods to the Prohibition era and a speakeasy-style ambiance. New features will include expanded menus and dedicated areas for private events, corporate gatherings and community celebrations. Each event space will be named after a legendary figure in the Inman's history. Eleanor Roosevelt, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole and Jeanette Rankin are a few people who were once hosted by the Inman. 'Everyone is excited'; Decatur dancers take on first NBA performance 'Farren's has always been about community, great food, and warm hospitality,' Carolyn Farren said. 'This move to the Inman is a revival of everything we stand for — a celebration of our history, a fresh take on tradition, and an invitation to rediscover what makes Farren's unique.' Farren's will celebrate their relocation with a grand opening event featuring live music, exclusive tastings and special promotions. The date for that event has not been announced. Event reservations are being accepted at this time. People can email events@ call 217-359-6977 or visit Farren's website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Boston Globe
18-02-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
Mass. (un)vaccination: A new wave of vaccine skepticism threatens readiness for the next pandemic
Five years after the COVID outbreak sparked a frantic push for vaccines to build what public health officials called 'herd immunity,' a growing number of Americans don't want to be part of the herd. The rapid COVID vaccines rollout was credited with saving millions of lives. While scientists and health officials hailed it as a triumph of science and logistics, a potent mix of politics, fatigue, and misinformation has taken hold in recent years, leaving much of the public wary. Advertisement Health care providers, who strongly recommend vaccines as safe and effective, said such hesitation and outright resistance to vaccines has become disturbingly common even in Massachusetts, a state at the forefront of the campaign to develop and distribute COVID vaccines. Indeed, a Boston Globe data analysis shows vaccination rates in the state, which have long surpassed the US average, have now dropped below those of the nation for COVID — and even more dramatically for flu, where vaccine uptake has fallen by half among those 19 and younger. Most alarming to doctors and health officials in Massachusetts is a decline in immunization for serious childhood diseases, such as measles and mumps, that were largely suppressed through vaccines. The motives for those refusing vaccines vary. They range from a sense that past exposure to vaccines or COVID continues to convey immunity to a belief that health officials overstated the value of the shots to the embrace of discredited internet conspiracy theories that government leaders were using vaccines as levers of political control. Farren, who said she's considering homeschooling her daughter in part to avoid school vaccine requirements, questions their effectiveness and objects to the 'sheep mentality' behind inoculation drives. Related : She's far from alone. Only about 22 percent of adults in Massachusetts and 23 percent nationally received the most recent booster this fall and winter, federal and state data show as of late January. By contrast, in the year after shots first became available in 2021, more than 82 percent in Massachusetts and nearly 70 percent of US adults were fully vaccinated. Advertisement 'I don't think vaccines help,' said retired school teacher Diane Grady of Swampscott. Grady similarly was vaccinated during the outbreak, bowing to what she now calls 'scare tactics,' but has stopped lining up for COVID or other vaccines in recent years. 'I got on the bandwagon during COVID only so I could see my grandchildren,' she said. The new vaccine resistance dovetails with the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., confirmed by the Senate last week as President Trump's new secretary of health and human services. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, told senators he is merely 'pro-safety' and now believes vaccines play a critical role in health care. But the mainstreaming of once-fringe anti-vax beliefs by Kennedy and others calls into question whether the nation, still grappling with the aftermath of COVID, can rally to blunt the next health threat. Related : 'Not everyone's willing to accept my recommendations,' said Dr. Hugh Taylor, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, who practices as a family physician in the North Shore town of Hamilton and urges his patients to get vaccinated. 'It's not hard to find people who've heard different opinions about vaccines on the internet or even at the grocery store or a soccer game.' Much of the COVID vaccination falloff can be attributed to the reality of broader immunity, said Jen Kates, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Most American adults got shots during the pandemic, many contracted COVID, and deaths from COVID have declined. Advertisement 'The majority of people in the US don't feel the need to get the vaccine,' Kates said. 'They don't feel at risk. They feel COVID is over.' A Moderna COVID-19 vaccine was loaded into a syringe during a vaccine clinic in Brockton in 2021. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff Plenty still believe in vaccines, of course, and have been keeping up with their COVID booster shots, which lower the risk of contracting severe disease or long COVID even if they don't prevent all infections, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Salem resident Steve Burrell, 82, a retired truck driver who walks and lifts weights, has received every recommended COVID booster. 'You get used to it,' said Burrell, a former Air Force medic. 'One of the first things that happens in the service is you get bombarded by shots.' Researchers in Massachusetts and beyond are readying new vaccines to fend off diseases from bird flu to cancer. But scientists say the disconnect is striking between their capacity to mount a response to a viral outbreak — demonstrated in the COVID vaccine deployment — and the public's willingness to accept it. Related : 'Our technical ability to make vaccines for new pathogens has exceeded the political and social instruments we have to make sure they're adopted in the population,' lamented Dr. Peter Hotez, director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. Vaccine advocates point to Operation Warp Speed, which mobilized the production of COVID shots in record time, as a crowning achievement of the first Trump administration — 'one of the greatest success[es] of American ingenuity,' said Dr. Ashish Jha, who served as White House COVID-19 response coordinator in the Biden administration. Navy doctors, nurses, and corpsmen from Virginia took buses up to Boston on orders from FEMA to give COVID vaccinations to thousands of people at the Hynes Convention Center in April 2021. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff But as a backlash grew against what many saw as excessive government actions to contain the pandemic — mask mandates, lockdowns, and school closings — Trump and much of the Republican Party stopped trumpeting Operation Warp Speed and COVID vaccines. That cemented a partisan divide in vaccine attitudes, extending now beyond COVID to other shots, even some embraced broadly before the pandemic. Advertisement The share of the US population getting flu shots has declined to less than 45 percent this season from more than 50 percent in the 2019-2020 season. The current percentage nationwide is the lowest in more than five years. And for influenza, the vaccination rate in Massachusetts is at 37.2 percent as of late January, below the national average. In the South Shore Hospital emergency room, Dr. Will Tollefsen, who led the East Weymouth's health system's campaign to stand up COVID vaccination centers in 2021, sees more unvaccinated patients now. 'The pendulum has swung,' said Tollefsen, chair of emergency medicine at South Shore Health. 'Many didn't get a COVID booster,' he said. 'Some say, 'I don't want a flu shot,' even though they got it in past years.' Dr. William Tollefsen, chair of the department of emergency medicine at South Shore Health, made his rounds at the system's hospital in Weymouth. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff With thousands of families declining shots, the number of kindergarteners vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella — shots typically required by public school districts — has dropped 2.3 percentage points nationally and 0.8 percentage points in Massachusetts since the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 school years. Inoculations against other serious illnesses have likewise seen declines — of 2.4 percentage points for polio nationally and 1.1 points in Massachusetts and 2.6 points for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis nationally and 1.2 points in the state in the same period. The Globe's analysis of state data shows worrying variations among races, ages, and regions in Massachusetts, suggesting demographic gaps in vaccination during the pandemic have returned. Advertisement Two in 10 white residents in the state have been vaccinated against COVID this season, but only one in 10 Black residents, 9.3 percent of Latinos, and 14 percent of Asian Americans. Massachusetts health officials made special outreach during the pandemic to boost vaccination rates in rural parts of the state and underserved urban communities. They established mobile vaccination sites, went door to door to tout the vaccine, and communicated to residents in Spanish, Haitian, Creole, Arabic, and other languages. Related : Now, however, a vaccination divide has reemerged. 'Across all demographics — white, Black, Hispanic, Asian — vaccination rates are down,' said Greg Wilmot, president of NeighborHealth, which runs nonprofit health centers in East Boston, the South End, Winthrop, Everett, and Revere. 'But the gap is greater for Black and brown communities. The urgency that existed in 2021 is not there.' There are also wide discrepancies in regional data. Twenty-four percent of residents in suburban Middlesex County, north and west of Boston, have gotten the latest COVID booster, but just 12 percent of those in Bristol County in southeastern Massachusetts got that shot. The data echo political leanings in November's presidential election. While the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris bested Trump by a more than 2 to 1 margin in Middlesex County, the former vice president edged out her Republican rival only narrowly in Bristol County. All of this is disheartening to many in the biomedical community in Massachusetts. Moderna, a Cambridge biotech, fielded one of the two messenger RNA vaccines and now has a crop of new vaccines under development. Pfizer, which distributed the other mRNA vaccine, produces key ingredients at a sprawling plant in Andover. A third vaccine, sold by Johnson & Johnson, was based on science from the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Dr. Dan Barouch, a Harvard Medical School professor who heads the Beth Israel lab, said Operation Warp Speed offers two lessons in preparing for the next pandemic. 'We learned that the rapid development, the rapid testing, and the rapid approval of vaccines in the face of a raging pandemic is possible, and provides inspiration for the future,' Barouch said. 'However, we also learned that the sociopolitical climate and public acceptance of the vaccines is absolutely critical for the vaccines to work.' Sonybel Quinones cheered as registered nurse Esther McCollin handed vaccination cards to her husband after they received COVID-19 vaccinations in Roxbury in March 2021. Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff Share your memories of moments from the pandemic here: Robert Weisman can be reached at
