FLUOR WINS $455 MILLION CONTRACT.  Irving-based Fluor Corp. has been awarded a $455 million engineering, procurement and construction contract for a refinery project in Portugal, the Galp Energia's refinery conversion project.  When completed in 2010, the project is expected to produce 2.5 million tons of diesel oil, gasoline and kerosene per year.

DRAEGER WINS $1 MILLION CONTRACT.  The State of Connecticut will spend nearly $1 million to replace breath analysis devices used by police to test suspected drunk drivers.  State officials signed a contract with Draeger Safety Diagnostics of Irving for 150 new devices.  A state police spokesman says theses devices are more technologically advanced than the seven-year-old breath analysis device that Connecticut currently uses.

IRVING ISD’S IRVING.NET WINS AWARD.  Irving ISD, in conjunction with the Irving.Net adult classes, won a Bronze Award for its delivery of Adult English Literacy and Civics classes in five Irving ISD schools for the 2007/2008 grant year – Austin Middle, Townsell Elementary, Irving High, Nimitz and M.C. Lively.  Irving.Net successfully met over 65 percent of the adult performance measures for the state.  The program served over 300 parents last year offering classes in English and Computer Literacy.  Irving.Net will continue its community wide mission of improving the literacy levels of adults.

GLORY HOUSE CATERING RECOGNIZED BY DIVERSITYBUSINESS.COM.  DiversityBusiness.com, the nations’ leading business-to-business internet site, recently named Irving-based Glory House Catering as one of the top businesses in the United States.  This is the 9th annual listing of the Nation’s top businesses by DiversityBusiness.com.  The companies listed on the Top Business Lists represent the Nation’s top multicultural earners and challenge the long-held notion that a privately held business is small or insignificant.  The winning companies will be honored at a special awards ceremony at DiversityBusiness.com’s “9th Annual Multicultural Business Conference” taking place April 29 – May 1, 2009 at the Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Orlando, Florida.

LOCAL HOUSING MARKET THIRD BEST IN NATION.  Texas continues its trend of weathering the recession better than most other states.  The state’s major metropolitan areas top the nation in home price appreciation over the last year.  Austin–Round Rock leads the country’s largest core-based statistical areas (CBSA) in home price appreciation with a 3.7 percent increase in 2008, according to First American CoreLogic.  Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown experienced a price appreciation of 3.3 percent over the last year, putting it right behind Austin–Round Rock.  Dallas-Plano-Irving homes appreciated 1.92 percent and San Antonio’s homes 0.17 percent, placing them third and fourth respectively in the nation.

ALLSTATE NAMES FIELD VP FOR TEXAS.  Allstate Corp, which has a regional office in Irving, has appointed Phil Lawson the new field vice president of Allstate Insurance’s Texas Region.  Lawson will oversee the insurance company’s operations in Texas.  He previously had been field vice president of Allstate’s Florida region and president of Allstate Floridian Insurance Co.  Allstate is the second-largest home and auto insurer in Texas and serves one million households with close to 4,000 agents and employees in the state.

BAE SYSTEMS NAMES DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS.  BAE Systems has announced that David Winter has been named Director of Operations of their Irving facility. 

DEVRY NAMES PRESIDENT.  Simon Lumley has been named president of the Irving campus of DeVry University.

LA QUINTA NAMES OFFICER.  Irving-based LG Management LLC has named Rajiv Trivedi to the position of Executive Vice President of franchising and Chief Development Officer for La Quinta.