Gaithersburg

Company: Qiagen. Location: Germantown, Gaithersburg. Employees: 1,000 locally; 4,000 globally. In her master's thesis presentation in October, Rowaida Gaffar made the case for implementing a paperless lab notebook system at a biomedical company. That company, Qiagen, is her employer, and she had spent the past two years studying for a degree in business administration on its dime. Now that she has graduated, her project is becoming a reality: From Qiagen's Gaithersburg office, she's...

Tom Sheahin stepped down as the Seneca Valley boys' basketball coach last year, but he didn't wait long to get back on the sideline. Sheahin had never had the chance to coach his 13-year-old son Jordan, always too busy with his own team to take a hands-on role. With no high school team to steal his attention, he took over the squad at Urbana Middle School and spent a rewarding season drilling a group of youngsters in the fundamentals. "That's priceless to coach your own son," said...

A Montgomery County Circuit Court lawsuit accuses past and current leaders of a 100-church evangelical denomination of covering up sexual abuse of minors, forcing small children to "forgive" abusers and ostracizing families who wouldn't hide the alleged crimes. The lawsuit filed Friday adds more accusers and more accused to a complaint filed last fall against Sovereign Grace Ministries, a movement founded in the 1970s in Gaithersburg. Among those named now is co-founder Larry Tomczak, who was...

Montgomery County crash investigators could never determine the exact speed Fernando J. Valenzuela was driving the night he rammed a Honda Civic into two men walking along a street, killing one of them. But evidence from the scene offered chilling clues. The hood was crumpled. The windshield was demolished. The belongings of the two victims — Billie Jay Genies and brother James Robert Genies — were scattered after impact. "It knocked both of the brothers out of their shoes,"...

Local office brokers say Sodexo , the global services firm, is considering moving its U.S. headquarters out of Gaithersburg, setting off a competition among property owners, developers and local governments looking to land the company's 550 to 570 local jobs. Sodexo operates in 80 countries and has more than 413,000 employees worldwide, with global headquarters outside of Paris. The company offers all manner of on-site services to corporate, government, defense and academic clients.

Economic activity is beginning to stir in the Gaithersburg and Germantown areas, led by the construction of new apartments. The two communities, which make up the northern end of the Interstate 270 technology corridor, saw a spurt of growth in the 1970s after the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Energy Department established headquarters there, and many contractors sought space to be nearby. Development slowed in recent years, following the recession. But Gaithersburg's downtown is...

A controversial Gaithersburg ordinance making it illegal for anyone to seek work or hire workers on most city streets, sidewalks and parking areas was deemed unconstitutional in an opinion released yesterday by Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler. In a 46-page opinion, Gansler and Assistant Attorney General William R. Varga wrote that the city's anti-solicitation ordinance, which went into effect last year upon the opening of a day-laborer center in Gaithersburg, is not narrowly tailored enough to...

Gaithersburg standout Billy Brown was taken by ambulance to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital during the first quarter of Friday's 35-0 loss at No. 3 Quince Orchard due to an irregular heartbeat, according to Trojans Coach Kreg Kephart. Kephart said that Brown, a senior who plays wide receiver and defensive end and is considered one of the Washington area's top players, was going to spend the night in the hospital for observation. "I just hope he's okay," Kephart said. Brown was...

Lansana Keita is not the most physically imposing football player. Asked his height and weight, the Churchill senior quarterback is quick to respond, "Officially or unofficially?" Just 5 feet 9 and 175 pounds, Keita still finds plenty of ways to make things happen. He rushed for two touchdowns and threw for another Friday night, leading the 19th-ranked Bulldogs to their first postseason victory in seven years, 24-6 over visiting Gaithersburg in a Maryland 4A West Region semifinal.

Two years after bacteria caused Gaithersburg to shut down its biodiesel pumps, the city is using the fuel again. Gaithersburg refilled its biodiesel fuel tank at the Public Works Department pumping station in May after stopping the biofuel program in November 2008 when a bacterial buildup in the fuel tank began clogging the filters on the city's trucks, haulers and street sweepers. For the past two years, the department has been researching how to improve biodiesel storage and maintenance for the vehicles...

Dallas-based La Madeleine says mais oui to the Washington market. The French country-themed bakery/cafe will increase the number of stores here from its current eight to a total of around 31 over the next three to four years, including two next year, one in the Kingstowne section of Alexandria and another in Gaithersburg. Why? Washington is full of 25- to 45-year-old, well-compensated, highly educated women, which are La Madeleine's core customers. In Maryland, possible new locations include Chevy...

THU 09 "The Submission" A white playwright finds success when he submits his work as a black woman to a national theater festival in Jeff Talbott's play, produced by the Olney Theatre Center. Contains mature themes. Opens Thursday at 7:45 p.m., continues Friday at 7:45 p.m., Saturday-Sunday and Wednesday at 1:45 and 7:45 p.m. Through June 9. Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Rd., Olney. 301-924-3400. www.olneytheatre.org . $38.50-$63.50. Rockville Art League show A juried exhibit of...

Virginia S. "Ginnabeth" Butts, 73, a Navy wife who was vice president of Management Recruiters Inc., a Gaithersburg headhunting firm that she and her husband ran in the 1980s and '90s, died April 19 at her home in Gaithersburg. The apparent cause was a heart attack, said her daughter, Allison Roulier. Mrs. Butts specialized in the placement of civil and environmental engineers. At the time of her death, she did part-time bookkeeping through Heymann, Suissa and Stone, a Rockville accounting firm.

Thursday, May 9 "Ride the Riverside" fundraiser, registration is open for the June 8-9 bike ride to benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Routes are 30 miles to more than 100 miles over one or two days. Visit www.bikemsdc.org for details and registration information. "Wings of Fancy," the popular live butterfly and caterpillar exhibit is back. Open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily through Sept. 22. Brookside Gardens Conservatory, 1500 Glenallan Ave., Wheaton.

Though Monday's Montgomery County interdivision baseball game between No. 8 Gaithersburg and Sherwood marked the regular-season finale, both teams saw it as the perfect tuneup for the upcoming postseason. Instead, a back-and-forth game that lived up to the playoff-like atmosphere sputtered to a 2-2 tie after eight innings, a call made by the umpires with darkness and rain looming in Sandy Spring. "When two teams like this lock horns, the last thing you want to see is it end in a draw,"...

Passing on the keys to the ‘Passive House' What is believed to be the Washington area's first "Passive House" — a super-insulated, airtight structure that uses 90 percent less energy than a comparable conventional home — has a pending sale after first being purchased less than two years ago. The owners, Ian and Lydia Kline , bought the clapboard-sided, four-square Craftsman-style house on Bethesda's North Chelsea Lane...

As he trudged back toward the school to change out of his uniform, Stefan Houston acknowledged that, yes, this was the most tired he had been after a Clarksburg game this season. The Maryland recruit shined on defense, returning an interception for a touchdown, and on offense, scoring twice more including the game-winner in the final minutes, but it was the outpouring of emotion that left Houston exhausted after he led Clarksburg to a stunning 26-21 victory over Gaithersburg in a meeting of Montgomery County playoff...

Dentists from Gaithersburg are preparing to travel to Kenya in February to set up dental-care programs for children and families in the Nyumbani Children's Home and Nyumbani Village. Paul Niesen, who practices in Olde Towne, and Larry Fields, who recently retired after three decades of general practice in Gaithersburg, will lead a six-member team. The dentists will provide "desperately needed" care for 600 children and their caregivers at the home and village, Niesen said. The children's home is an orphanage in...

A Gaithersburg man has been arrested on charges of sexually abusing two children in a day-care center, Montgomery County police said. David Fernando Javier Zarayasi, 66, the husband of a day-care provider in Montgomery Village, was arrested and charged on March 14 with two counts of sexual abuse of a minor, police said Thursday. No information was immediately available on why the news was announced more than a month after the arrest. Detectives were alerted to the case by the mother of a 3-year-old...