The members of the Board of Public Works — left to right, Treasurer Dereck Davis, Gov. Wes Moore and Comptroller Brooke Lierman — listen Wednesday to Attorney General Anthony Brown, who was speaking by video, describe a settlement with the ex-developer of a state property in Baltimore. Photo by Josh Kurtz.

Political leaders said the steep settlement payment the Board of Public Works authorized Wednesday to the former developer of the abandoned State Center redevelopment project in Baltimore is a worthwhile investment and an opportunity to protect the state from potentially greater damages.

The board, consisting of Gov. Wes Moore (D), State Comptroller Brooke Lierman (D) and state Treasurer Dereck Davis (D), voted unanimously to pay $58.5 million to State Center LLC, ending a complicated and years-long dispute over the fate of the 25-acre state-owned office complex in Midtown Baltimore.

Officials described the settlement as a chance to take a fresh approach to redeveloping the strategically located property and putting to rest a controversy over a stalled project that has vexed four governors.

“This was not simple,” Moore said. “This has been a long-term challenge. I’m excited about what it’s going to mean for the future of Baltimore City. I’m excited about what it’s going to mean for state residents. I’m excited about what it’s going to mean for Maryland.”

The payment — with $40 million to be delivered to the developer next month and another $18.5 million to be doled out by July 1, 2025 — will settle all claims from a 2016 lawsuit against the Board of Public Works (BPW) and several state agencies. The suit was filed when then-Gov. Larry Hogan (R) in 2016 announced the state would go to court to terminate the proposed $1.5 billion redevelopment project. State Center LLC then counter-sued.

The redevelopment plan had been floated and debated since 2005, during the administration of then-Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R), and the BPW first approved the project in 2009, under Gov. Martin O’Malley (D). State Center, which runs parallel to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard through the spine of the city, consists of five ugly high-rise office buildings built in the middle of the last century that housed several state agencies.

The long-stalled State Center complex in Baltimore has been the subject of false starts, lawsuits – and a $58.5 million settlement Wednesday. Photo by Bruce DePuyt.

Addressing the BPW by video Wednesday, Attorney General Anthony Brown (D) said the state could have been on the hook for more than $200 million in damages if the developers’ case against the government had gone to trial — due in part to “changed circumstances” from recent court decisions on other property disputes.

“This is really a risk-benefit assessment, as are all settlements, of course,” Lierman said. “This could be a much, much higher number if we were to litigate and potentially lose — even partially lose.”

Lierman also took a swipe at Hogan, saying “the high-dollar amount [of the settlement] illustrates the wrong-headedness of the previous administration’s approach.”

Davis, the state treasurer, who routinely asks sharp questions about proposed state settlement payments, said he had no hesitation supporting this one, in part because of the state’s potential legal exposure.

“I think I’ve been a pain about most settlements, but in this case, I’m in favor of what’s been done here,” he said.

Mostly, though, officials sought to emphasize how the settlement now frees the city and state to begin shaping a new vision for the parcel, which Lierman, a Baltimore City resident, repeatedly called “prime real estate,” near academic institutions, cultural centers, medical facilities and residential neighborhoods.

Moore said several state and city agencies will begin meeting regularly, to come up with a plan for the property. Hogan originally envisioned turning the land over to the city government, but that transfer was halted by the litigation. Even so, city officials have hired a planning consulting firm to help them develop a mixed-use plan for the land.

“Today is simply just not about a legal matter,” Marvin James, chief of staff to Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D), told the BPW members. “Today is about your commitment to investing in Baltimore City.”

Due to the decaying conditions at the State Center buildings and the expectation that the property would eventually be redeveloped, at least 3,300 state workers have already been moved to offices in downtown Baltimore over the past three years. Fewer than 5,000 government employees remain, spread out over seven state agencies, though they, too, will eventually relocate.

Earlier this month, four State Center office buildings were closed for a few days, and workers told to telework, after elevated levels of legionella, a highly contagious strain of pneumonia, were found in one of the buildings, WBAL-TV reported.

by Josh Kurtz, Maryland Matters
November 20, 2024

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: [email protected]. Follow Maryland Matters on Facebook and X.

“Fran does not let any challenge hold her back—she is a fierce advocate for her clients and she gets results,” Girard said. “Her dedication to public service is truly extraordinary, and we are deeply grateful.”

Qlarant announced today that Christine Leister, CPA, CGMA has been promoted to become the company’s Chief Financial Officer. She is a finance, accounting, and business management executive with over 30 years of progressive experience in government contracting. During her career, she has been involved with service providers, product manufacturers, construction firms, and healthcare industries.

“It’s a privilege to have the opportunity to lead our outstanding Finance team here at Qlarant,” said Leister. “I’ve been lucky to have been a part of a number of impressive organizations during my career, but Qlarant is quite unique. The people and mission-driven culture here make our role in Finance feel that much more vital. It’s not just about keeping the business on track and thriving, it’s about supporting both the business and the Qlarant Foundation’s important work.”

Prior to her promotion, Ms. Leister was Director of Accounting at Qlarant for over 3 years. Before joining Qlarant, she held the position of Controller with multiple firms including Federal Resources where she was involved in a period of major growth going from $72M to over $500M in revenue. She also held the positions of Chief Financial Officer for Jerome Parks Companies in Annapolis, Maryland and President at CCE LLC.

“I look forward to working with all of our leaders in achieving the vision of strategic growth that’s been developed,” said Leister. “We have strong financial and professional controls which makes it not surprising that we’ve been around more than 50 years. Qlarant is truly a company of ‘Best People. Best Solutions. Best Results.’ It is a fantastic place to work and I look forward to continuing my career here.”

“We are excited to promote Christine Leister to our leadership team,” said Qlarant CEO Dr. Ron Forsythe, Jr. “Over the course of her career, she has been a major part of enabling companies to take the next step in their growth. We’ve come to rely on her knowledge and perspective during her years with Qlarant and we look forward to what’s coming next for her and the company.”

Ms. Leister holds two Bachelor of Science degrees in Accounting and Business Administration (Finance) from the University of Delaware. She is also a certified Global Management Accountant and Public Accountant.

About Qlarant: Qlarant is a not-for-profit, nationally respected leader in fighting fraud, waste, and abuse, improving program quality, and optimizing performance. The company uses subject matter experts and innovative data science and technology to help organizations see risks, solve problems, and seize opportunities. Qlarant provides customized solutions for state, federal and commercial industries across the nation. The Qlarant Foundation— the mission arm of the organization—has provided over $6 million in grants to charities throughout Maryland and the District of Columbia. Qlarant employs nearly 500 people and has a 50-year record of accomplishment improving the performance of some of the Nation’s most important programs. Headquartered in Easton, MD, Qlarant has offices throughout the country. Qlarant is a five-time winner of the Best Places to Work award. For more information, visit www.qlarant.com or contact [email protected]

Penny Young-Carrasquillo has joined the University of Maryland Chester River Health Foundation (UM CRHF) as its first Major Gifts Officer. In this role, Young-Carrasquillo will seek charitable donations and grants from individuals, businesses and foundations to support patient care services at University of Maryland Shore Medical Center at Chestertown. 

UM CRHF is the fundraising arm of the Chestertown hospital, which is a member organization of University of Maryland Shore Regional Health and University of Maryland Medical System. Gifts to the foundation further the hospital’s mission by supporting needed medical equipment; facility improvements and expansions; community education; and scholarships for nursing and support staff’s continuing education and advanced certifications.    

A Howard County native, Young-Carrasquillo received her bachelor’s degree in sociology from University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and her master’s degree in professional writing from Towson University in Towson, Maryland. She has worked in fundraising and communications for more than 20 years in Maryland, Virginia and Florida. Most recently, she spent five years as chief development officer for the Council on Aging of Volusia County, Florida. Young-Carrasquillo and her husband now live in Centreville, Md.

“Penny will play an essential role in advancing our hospital’s mission through philanthropy,” said Libby Woolever, Board Chair, UM CRHF. “Our hospital has achieved accreditation as a geriatric emergency department and an Age-Friendly Health System, and also is a member of the Healthy People 2030 initiative, which sets data driven, national objectives to improve community health.”

For more information about UM CRHF, please contact Penny Young-Carrasquillo at (410) 810-5660 or visit umcrhf.org.

About University of Maryland Shore Regional Health 

A member organization of the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS), University of Maryland Shore Regional Health (UM SRH) is the principal provider of comprehensive health care services for more than 170,000 residents of five counties on Maryland’s Eastern Shore: Caroline, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne’s and Talbot. UM SRH consists of approximately 2,000 team members, including more than 600 health care providers on the Medical Staff, who work with community partners to advance the values that are foundational to our mission: Compassion, Discovery, Excellence, Diversity and Integrity. For more information, visit https://www.umms.org/shore.

About the University of Maryland Medical System

The University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) is an academic private health system, focused on delivering compassionate, high quality care and putting discovery and innovation into practice at the bedside. Partnering with the University of Maryland School of Medicine and University of Maryland, Baltimore who educate the state’s future health care professionals, UMMS is an integrated network of care, delivering 25 percent of all hospital care in urban, suburban and rural communities across the state of Maryland. UMMS puts academic medicine within reach through primary and specialty care delivered at 11 hospitals, including the flagship University of Maryland Medical Center, the System’s anchor institution in downtown Baltimore, as well as through a network of University of Maryland Urgent Care centers and more than 150 other locations in 13 counties. For more information, visit www.umms.org.

Oyster Girl Oysters, LLC is pleased to announce that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted utility patent number 12,102,066 to Lawrence Rudner and Willem Roosenberg for their innovative approach to flipping oyster cages. The patented system, titled “Aquaculture Biofouling Management using Axle Guided Cage Flipping,” introduces a method designed to inexpensively reduce labor and improve efficiency in maintaining oyster farms.

Growing oysters in surface cages has become increasingly popular due to faster growth rates, improved flavor profiles, reduced predation, and easier monitoring. However, biofouling—the accumulation of marine organisms on submerged surfaces—poses a significant challenge. This buildup can hinder water flow, impede nutrient access, and obstruct oyster growth. Regular cage flipping has proven effective in combating biofouling by exposing fouled surfaces to air, which dries out and removes attached organisms, but requires great physical labor and significant time. To be effective, floating cages should be flipped every week during the peak growing season.

In contrast to usual approaches involving intense labor, the newly patented Oyster Girl Flipper features a longline of aquaculture cages, a flipping ramp attached to a workboat, and hard plastic cages equipped with a float on one side and a hollow axle on the other. As the workboat moves parallel to the longline, cages seamlessly ascend the ramp, and gravity flips them, addressing the biofouling issue. No extra staff is required.

Pamela Getson, President of Oyster Girl Oysters, LLC, commented on the innovation: “The Oyster Girl Flipper represents a significant leap forward in oyster farming technology. By streamlining the cage flipping process, we’re not only improving efficiency but also enhancing the quality of our oysters. This innovation aligns perfectly with our commitment to sustainable aquaculture and producing exceptional oysters for our customers.”

Funded by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Chesapeake Oyster Alliance’s “Oyster Innovation Awards” provided seed money to develop the prototype into a working system. Tanner Council, Senior Manager of the Chesapeake Oyster Alliance, stated, “By automating the flipping process, the Oyster Girl Flipper can reduce the physical demands of cage maintenance, potentially making oyster farming accessible to a broader range of individuals.”

Rudner and Roosenburg plan to make the refined blueprints freely available to individual oyster farmers in order to increase access to this technology for small-scale operations. Oyster Girl Oysters was recently supported to further refine the system through the SOAR Resiliency Fund. Lawrence Rudner commented, “Based on our experience using the Oyster Girl Flipper at the Oyster Girl Oyster farm, we believe we can next significantly reduce the entire format of the system.”

Sally McGee from The Nature Conservancy added, “We are excited to support this project through the SOAR Resiliency Fund for its potential to increase small-scale farm efficiency.”

Easton, Md. Qlarant Capital announced today that it has finalized an investment agreement with AgileDD, an enterprise AI company based in Houston, Texas.

AgileDD offers an AI platform to capture information from domain-specific and technical documents with scale, precision, and security that markets need. This product solves a common problem surrounding the inordinate amount of time it takes to research and review hundreds of pages of technical content. The AgileDD human-in-the-loop AI platform enables end-users to automatically capture pertinent information accurately from unstructured documents and allows them to arrive at answers or reach conclusions much faster and with more reliability.

Qlarant and AgileDD will collaboratively build a healthcare program integrity and compliance review application using Large Language Models (LLMs) and user-supervised AI models on the AgileDD platform aiming to automate some of the manual investigative and review processes required in the field. The program enables better productivity and a discriminating advantage to its users.

“Our investment in AgileDD is a perfect fit for both organizations. Qlarant has over 50 years of experience in the healthcare space plus expertise in predictive modeling.” said Qlarant CEO Dr. Ron Forsythe, Jr. “AgileDD is uniquely poised in the AI market and has developed a powerful AI platform. This phase of fundraising will enable AgileDD to fast-pace onboarding new customers who are either already in pilot phase with AgileDD or on a waitlist eager to use AgileDD’s platform.”

“The addition of these new customers will increase AgileDD’s revenue to approximately $3 million by 2025 and maintain 3x year over year growth rate that will put them in an ideal position for upcoming priced rounds,” noted Dr. Forsythe.

The human-centric platform uses generative and supervised AI to transform technical documents into precise, trusted insights while boosting productivity, informed decision-making, and strategic innovation.

The immediate market potential for AgileDD’s platform include: Department of Defense, Health Insurance, Health Plans, Hospitals, Medicare Administration, Recovery Audit Contracting, State Medicaid Administration, Social Security Administration, Utilization Management, and Veterans Health Administration Marketplaces.

“From the initial proof-of-concept to the actual implementation with clients, this platform continues to impress,” observed Holly Pu, Vice President of Qlarant Capital. “In one single use case, we identified over $3 million in cost savings. This is a game-changer in terms of time, money, and most importantly, solutions.”

AgileDD was co-founded by Dr. Amit Juneja, CEO. With a PhD in Machine Learning from the University of Maryland, College Park, Juneja has spent over 15 years spearheading AI and full-stack projects across diverse sectors.

Dr. Juneja’s career highlights include: enabling US manufacturing plants with deep learning-based visual quality inspection at IBM; leading $5 million in US Defense contracts for speech recognition, document information capture, and natural language processing; and spearheading the development of a major Internet of Things (IoT) application at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

“AgileDD is very excited to partner with Qlarant to make a huge impact in the healthcare industry with the scale and precision that our platform brings to the enterprise.”, said Dr. Juneja. “Qlarant brings to this partnership their leading position and top notch domain expertise in the medical review, program integrity, and fraud investigation, and more. The human-centric nature of our AI platform will benefit immensely from Qlarant’s expertise to revolutionize the healthcare compliance workflows with AI”.

About Qlarant Capital

Qlarant Capital generates world-class innovation by backing daring health care industry entrepreneurs that can build the future through technology, while creating synergy among their portfolio companies.

Using a unique blend of “people + technology” has driven the growth and success of Qlarant as a health and technology company since 1973. Qlarant Capital offers support for early stage programs and organizations in line with its strategic mission. Qlarant Capital provides funding, along with over 50 years of experience and expertise, to promising programs with a solid pre-existing framework. Qlarant Capital also provides input for product development, machine-learning engineering, executive recruiting, sales, marketing, and regulatory compliance guidance.  For more information visit Qlarant.com or contact [email protected]

About Agile Data Decisions, Inc. (AgileDD)

AgileDD is a deep-tech startup that has developed and commercialized a human-in-the-loop AI platform to enable enterprises to capture immense value from their highly technical and domain specific documents with scale and precision. AgileDD has active customers in production in energy and mining domains and the platform development has been funded additionally by US Air Force and angel investors. AgileDD is currently investing the proceeds from the recently completed fundraise in sales and marketing efforts to scale the utilization of the AI platform by enterprise customers. Visit https://www.agiledd.com to request a demo or contact AgileDD at [email protected].