While attention has focused on the limited H1N1 flu vaccine supply needed to inoculate at-risk populations, a shortage of approved virus-filtering respirators has federal and state public health officials across the country scrambling to ensure adequate numbers throughout the flu season.

The shortage of the face protectors, known as N95 respirators, also has Maplewood-based 3M Co., along with other respirator manufacturers, scrambling to meet the booming global demand.

“We are definitely seeing unprecedented demand for N95 respirators,” said 3M spokesperson Jacqueline Berry. “We’ve increased production, added shifts and are running our operations 24/7.”

In addition, over the last two quarters the company has announced investment of $40 million to increase manufacturing capacity in the United States and Singapore. In the third quarter just ended, the company reported that increased demand for N95 respirators and other masks contributed an additional $80 million in revenue. Other health-related products, such as hand sanitizers, added an additional $20 million in the quarter, according to the company.

The Centers for Disease Control recently released guidelines to help prevent transmission of the H1N1 flu to health care workers while conserving limited supplies of N95 respirators. The CDC guidelines urge health care facilities to use a multilevel approach to minimize the risk. Among the recommendations were reducing exposure to infected individuals, use of physical barriers in the health care environment, employee vaccinations when available and minimizing the use of N95 respirators.

The recently released guidelines have state agencies scrambling to catch up.

The Minnesota Department of Health earlier this spring called for the use of surgical masks that are now deemed not effective against H1N1, although they have been used for protection against regular seasonal flu, according to John Linc Stine, assistant commissioner for health protection. “The Department of Health is a couple of days away from updating its guidelines,” in accordance with the new CDC guidance, Stine said.

The Minnesota Nurses Association, which had sent a letter (PDF) earlier this week, prodded the state again Thursday, issuing a statement calling on the Department of Health to recommend the N95 respirator or other federally approved personal protection devices for health care workers.  “Minnesota's Department of Health may be putting nurses' health at risk amidst a pandemic influenza outbreak," the statement said.

Recognizing that some hospitals in larger urban areas face shortages of the respirators, state health officials are developing guidelines to ensure limited supplies are not used up before the end of the flu season. Some hospitals are telling the department that they do not expect an adequate supply of the respirator until the first quarter of next year, Stine said.

It’s been a busy few weeks for U.S. Bancorp Chairman and CEO Richard Davis and his team. Good news seems to follow good news, and the momentum just keeps building.

On Oct. 21, the fifth-largest U.S.-based bank (by assets) reported third-quarter earnings, driven by acquisitions, with record total net revenue of $4.3 billion and total loan growth up more than 9 percent.

At the end of October, the Minneapolis bank added to its growth-oriented acquisition portfolio when it picked up an additional nine failed banks from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) by acquiring the banking subsidiaries of FBOP Corp. of Oak Park, Ill.

Then earlier this week, USB flexed its balance-sheet strength once again when it announced that it will opt out of the six-month extension of the Transaction Account Guarantee Program (TAGP).

The current program, which is in effect through Dec. 31, provides full insurance coverage from the FDIC on non-interest-bearing transactional accounts with balances of more than $250,000. Effective Jan. 1, FDIC insurance will be limited to $250,000 per transactional account.

“The decision to opt out of the extension of the TAGP is a reflection of U.S. Bancorp’s strong capital and liquidity position,” the company said in a prepared statement. “U.S. Bancorp previously announced the redemption of the $6.6 billion of preferred stock issued under the U.S. Treasury’s Capital Purchase Program (TARP) and the repurchase of the 10-year warrant issued to the U.S. Treasury in conjunction with the TARP program, effectively concluding the company’s participation in TARP.”

Growth through acquisition of troubled banks is part of a strategy Davis reiterated in the Q3 earnings release when he touted the bank’s “continuing ability and desire to strengthen and expand our businesses by capitalizing on opportunities that present themselves during this downturn, positioning us to capture incremental growth as the domestic and global economies recover.”

The acquisitions are “not opportunistic in the sense they happen to fit with our long-term, well-articulated strategy,” said Richard C. Hartnack, vice chairman in charge of all consumer banking. “We look at our 24-state footprint and ask what markets do we have the opportunity to grow market share, earnings growth, client service,” he said. Key targets for the bank are Arizona, California, Nevada and the Chicago metropolitan area.

Driven in part by their growth and in part by competitors disappearing, U.S. Bancorp now ranks fifth nationally in terms mortgage origination, up from 22nd before the market downturn began two years ago, he added.

The recent deal adds another 113 branches in California, 32 in Illinois and two in Arizona. Before the acquisition, U.S. Bancorp operated 570 branch offices in California, 75 in Arizona and 127 in Illinois, according to news reports. The bank had already demonstrated an appetite for deals a year ago, when it picked up the deposits of a pair of California banks, PFF Bank & Trust and Downey Savings and Loan, that boasted a combined $12 billion in assets.

And the bank is getting positive reviews on Wall Street. Last July, Frederick Cannon — chief equity strategist at investment firm Keefe Bruyette & Woods, which specializes in financial institutions — put a spotlight on U.S. Bancorp’s growth opportunity. "Of the large-cap banks, we believe that USB is in the best position to roll up a large number of failed banks through FDIC-assisted deals," Cannon wrote to clients.

Then in early October, Keefe Bruyette banking analyst David Konrad upgraded the stock to “outperform” from “market perform” and set a price target of $28, up from $21. And this week Sandler O’Neill analyst Scott Siefers upped his rating to a “buy” from a “hold,” citing the bank’s “safer capital profile” than its peers. In a note to clients, he called the bank “solidly profitable,” and “one of the best-managed banks in the country.”

U.S. Bancorp’s stock (NYSE:USB) has recovered from a March 6 low of $8.75 to close Wednesday at $23.07.

A team of University of Minnesota researchers have been awarded $2.2 million grant from the federal stimulus bill to study whether certain bacteria can be used to produce biofuels, bringing the U a total of $211 million so far in federal stimulus funds.

This is the latest in a series of 226 grants the University has been awarded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The U of M has been awarded a total of $122 million in direct grants and an additional $89.3 million in federal stimulus funds from the state's share for economic stabilization.

The University is “a $3 billion enterprise, with $600 million to $700 million in federal research funds annually,” according to Richard Pfutzenreuter, U of M Chief financial officer. He described the importance of the stimulus funds supporting new research activity that otherwise would not have been undertaken. “These funds are not replacing other funding, they are incremental,” he said. “Every week we see more” stimulus funds awarded to the University.

The grants are spread among 17 different departments. The Institute of Technology leads so far, with 43 grants totaling $51.9 million. The Medical School has received 84 grants totaling $24.4 million and the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Department is the next largest recipient with 10 grants totaling $21.8 million.

The University is using more than half of the $89.3 million in State Fiscal Stabilization Funds (money received by the state and subsequently appropriated to the University) to moderate tuition for resident undergraduates system-wide for two academic years. As a result, this year’s tuition and fees for resident undergraduates will not increase more than 3.1 percent or $300.

Another portion of the stabilization funds were allocated for job retention, and the University estimates that over the next two academic years, about 65 temporary jobs will be created and about 245 jobs retained.

The announcement last week that Larry Wackett, distinguished McKnight Professor in the university’s College of Biological Sciences, and BioCee Inc., a start-up company based on the university’s St. Paul campus, were picked among 37 Deparment of Energy grant recipients nationwide.

They will be studying the feasibility of producing fuel using Shewanella bacteria. The hydrocarbon-producing bacteria, capable of surviving in frigid Antarctica, could become an oil producer within 10 years if the federally funded research project proves successful, according to a statement announcing the award.

The grant will be combined with $550,000 contributed by the U of M’s Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment, BioCee Inc. and the university’s College of Biological Sciences.

The projects announced last week represent the first round of an expected $400 million in renewable energy projects. A total of $151 million in grants, including the U’s biofuels grant, will be administered by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy across the United States.

Two weeks earlier, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu named a University-led consortium and two others to share up to $24 million for wind energy research and education.

Through the end of September, more than 3,200 grants totaling $2.4 billion and an additional 192 contracts and loans, totaling $191.5 million in stimulus funds, have been awarded across Minnesota.

In the face of recent market surveys revealing consistently downbeat prospects for the holiday shopping season, Minnesota’s big national retailers, Target and Best Buy, are taking nothing for granted as they gear up for the crucial retail period.

Target is starting its holiday promotions early, aggressively cutting prices on some popular toys and best-selling books and offering free shipping to some online shoppers. Best Buy is using Twitter, Facebook and a separate teen-oriented website to reach out to younger shoppers.

But the two mega-retailers have decidedly differing approaches in how they talk about their expectations. Gregg Steinhafel, Target’s chairman and CEO, issued an upbeat outlook for the third quarter that just ended and will be reported later this month. But he is less upbeat about the coming holiday shopping season. “We remain cautious in our expectations for fourth quarter results,” he said in the statement.

Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn struck a more optimistic tone at a recent Media Day event outlining his firm’s holiday season plan. “We are hiring more people this year for seasonal sales than we did last year. We’re going to have better year-over-year performance this year than we did last year. We are trusting the trends we see,” he said.

But retailers are facing a decidedly cautious consumer, according to several recently release surveys. The National Retail Federation survey of 8,431 adults revealed U.S. consumers plan to spend an average of about $682 on holiday-related shopping, a 3.2 percent drop from last year’s $705.

Two-thirds of Americans (65.3 percent) say the economy will affect their holiday plans this year, with the majority of these consumers saying they’re adjusting by simply spending less (84.2 percent). People also will be shopping for sales more often (55 percent), using more coupons (41.7 percent) and putting up last year’s decorations (34 percent). Many Americans also will make changes in gift-giving, planning to buy more practical gifts (36 percent), buying a joint gift for kids or parents (17.3 percent) and making more gifts themselves (16.7 percent).

That glum shopping outlook was echoed by two other recent surveys. A Consumer Reports survey of 1,000 adults found two-thirds of U.S. adults plan to spend less this holiday season and 6 percent say they still are carrying debt from last year's holiday purchases.

Chicago-based market researcher Performics found a similarly cautious outlook in a survey of 300 online shoppers with 60 percent expecting to spend less this holiday season, 30 percent planning to spend the same and only 6 spending more. More women (66 percent) plan to spend less this year, but fewer than half (48 percent) of men reported the same intentions to cut spending, according to the survey. The online shopper survey also found that nearly one in five shoppers had begun their holiday shopping in September.

Also trying to jump-start the holiday shopping season, Target.com kicked off its holiday free-shipping promotion on Sunday, two weeks earlier than last year. The effort covers more than 100,000 online items when shoppers spend $50 or more. In addition to expanding the number of items available for free shipping by 50 percent this holiday season, Target.com also will offer a 15 percent discount on all furniture orders of $125 or more through Dec. 20.

In addition to traditional advertising media, Best Buy is trying to reach a core market, teen buyers, through social media such as Facebook and Twitter as well as a separate website focused on young shoppers. “That’s where they are. Let’s go find them,” said Barry Judge, chief marketing officer at Best Buy.

Former Medtronic CEO and Minneapolis resident Bill George believes that the financial market meltdown was the result of “sub-prime leadership” at many of the nation’s failed financial institutions.

As a member of the board at Goldman Sachs, George occupies a ring-side seat in observing the financial market turmoil. Currently a teacher at the Harvard Business School, he also believes a culture split within business schools is feeding short-term thinking within the financial industry.

Also on the board of Exxon Mobil, George brings a global perspective and broad business experience to his writing, teaching and speaking as well as a blunt and outspoken perspective. Recently in town to promote his newest book, “7 Lesson for Leading in Crisis,” George shared with me his perspective on, among other topics, the recent market meltdown, rethinking risk and failures of leadership among. Following are excerpts from Parts 1 and 2 of a recent interview in my newsletter, RiskRewardNews.com.

On failed leadership and risk:
“The biggest risk corporations take is to have weak board governance and the wrong leaders at the helm. We thought we could take risk out, but we failed to assess the human risk and the fact the models didn’t reflect reality. Typically, they’re history-based, and the history was way too short, five to 10 years.”

“I’ve never believed in institutional risk, and you don’t see me sitting on any boards — Goldman becomes the closest to it — that’s taking significant institutional risk. It’s a destructive act, not responsible, to put the whole company at risk. Think of the worst thing that could actually happen that could destroy the place. Like at Medtronic -- what if we had a software glitch ... that went across all of our products, it could destroy the company and harm people dramatically.”

The problems within the financial industry “have long roots. So you can’t look at [current Citigroup CEO] Vikram Pandit you can barely look at [Pandit’s predecessor] Chuck Prince. You have to go way back. [Former CEO] Sandy Weill’s the one who created this culture. He’s not a bad guy, but he didn’t create a culture of sound risk management.”

On the culture split within business schools:
“There is a split in almost every business school ... The values course is over here, the finance course is over there and never the twain shall meet. I don’t worry about the people going into the corporate side, going to work for Procter & Gamble or General Mills. I worry about people motivated by short term gratification to make a lot of money.”

“But I think [the current market turmoil] will be a wonderful crucible experience for this new generation of business leaders ... to realize the world is not about picking up gold lying in the streets ... to realize that models or the latest financial techniques aren’t everything. You’ve got to build yourself to be a leader. To paraphrase [GE CEO] Jeff Immelt; there’s no way you can truly prepare to become a CEO. What you’ve got to do is learn how to learn from your experiences and quickly adapt.”

3M is building a new research and development facility in Bangalore, India, that will focus on producing products "in India, for India."

The Minnesota-based manufacturer has five manufacturing plants in India, the Hindu Business Line reported earlier this year.

"Building this new innovation lab is part of our growth strategy for India," Inge Thulin, executive vice president of 3M's international operations, said in the company's statement.

The facility is expected to be finished by the fourth quarter of 2010.

Target is outsourcing its mobile-phone departments to Radio Shack, the Business Journal reports.

A subsidiary of RadioShack took over mobile-phone sales in about 100 Target stores last month. The new kiosks are branded Bullseye Mobile Solutions and will show up at all 1,700 Target stores next year, a spokeswoman said.

A judge has granted class-action status to current and former Wells Fargo tech support workers who say they're owed money for unpaid overtime, according to Finextra, which tracks the financial technology community.

A group of employees filed a complaint in 2008, alleging that they worked on the bank's software and hardware more than 40 hours per week and were not paid for their extra hours.

The law firm representing the class, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, estimates 3,000 employees may be eligible to participate. The suit covers claims under federal, California and Minnesota law.

A Wells Fargo spokeswoman forwarded a response from the company to MinnPost this morning:

"Wells Fargo believes that people are our competitive advantage.  We are committed to compensating all of our team members appropriately and in accordance with state and federal law.  We dispute the allegations in this lawsuit, and we will vigorously defend ourselves in this matter. This recent order was a procedural, case management decision that did not involve the merits of the case."

Target Corp, announced a reorganization of its downtown Minneapolis headquarters-based marketing organization today that results in the elimination of about 85 positions.

The move represents about 8 percent of the total marketing organization and about 0.5 percent of the downtown Minneapolis headcount, according to Kari Thompson, director of communications for Target.

The company employs about 350,000 people across all its locations.

Thompson would not quantify the cost of the restructuring nor the anticipated savings. “This was not done to cut costs. It was done to evolve our world-class marketing function,” she added.

“As a part of our normal business practices, Target routinely evaluates all areas of the company to ensure our organizational structure is effective, efficient and nimble, and that our staffing levels meet the changing needs of our business,” the company said in a prepared statement.

Affected employees “will continue to receive their full pay and benefits through December 14, after which they will receive a comprehensive separation package based on their years of service,” the company said. “As part of that package, Target also will provide these employees with 12 months of continued Target health care benefits in addition to 12 months COBRA benefit, and outplacement support to assist them in transitioning to their next position.”

Thompson said there were no additional marketing program expense cuts and indicated that the reorganization resulted in specific functions being reduced or eliminated, but she declined to offer more details. Target had recently announced aggressive price cuts up to 50 percent on select toys through the holiday season, and its annual Black Friday sale, beginning the Friday after Thanksgiving at 5 a.m., is promoted on the company website as a two-day sale with “our lowest prices ever.”

The company earlier this month had indicated that net retail sales for the five week period ending Oct. 3 had grown 1.3 percent versus a year ago sales, but comparable year-over-year same-store sales declined 1.7 percent for the month of September. The company projected it would exceed Wall Street estimates of $0.43 earnings per share for the third quarter ending Oct. 31 as a result of better-than-expected retail segment profitability and the strong September sales trend.

However, the company remained “cautious” on the fourth quarter, according to a company statement. Thompson declined to comment on the outlook for the holiday shopping season.

A multibillion-dollar military contract awarded to UnitedHealth Group this summer is now in limbo after the U.S. Government Accountability Office upheld a competitor's complaint, the Business Journal reports.

Humana Military Healthcare filed a protest after UnitedHealth won the $21.8 billion contract in July to administer military health benefits. The GAO's decision was disclosed in an SEC filing Wednesday, but the decision is sealed under a protective order with few public details.

Humana previously issued a statement claiming that the Department of Defense appeared to use different criteria and procedures for awarding the contract than those listed in its original request for proposals.

“UnitedHealth Military & Veterans Services made a very strong proposal to the Department of Defense," Lori McDougal, CEO of UnitedHealth Military & Veterans Services, said in a statement today. "We will continue to participate in the process as the Department of Defense determines how to implement GAO’s recommendations."