Sign up for Feb. 21 Miami Herald Small Business Forum

Prepare your best pitch for the Miami Herald’s Small Business Forum, Feb. 21 at the south campus of our sponsor, Florida International University.

In addition to how-to panels and inspirational stories from successful entrepreneurs, our annual small business forum will include interactive opportunities with experts to learn about financing options and polish your personal and business brands.

During our finance panel, audience volunteers will be invited to explain their financing needs to the group. During our box-lunch session, they will be invited to pitch their business or personal brand to our coaches.

Those who prefer just to listen will be treated to a keynote address by Alberto Perlman, co-founder of the global fitness craze Zumba. Panels include success stories from the local entrepreneurs who founded Sedano’s, Jennifer’s Homemade and ReStockIt.com; finance tips from experts in small business loans, venture capital, angel investments and traditional bank loans; and insiders in the burgeoning South Florida tech start-up scene.

Plus, it’s a real bargain. $25 includes the half-day seminar, continental breakfast and a box lunch.

Register here.

Program

8 a.m.

Registration and continental breakfast, provided by Bill Hansen Catering

8:30 a.m. Welcome

Host: David Suarez, president and CEO, Interactive Training Solutions, LLC

•  Jerry Haar, PhD, associate dean & director, FIU Eugenio Pino and Family Global

Entrepreneurship Center

•  Alice Horn, executive director, Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE South Florida)

•  Jane Wooldridge, Business editor, The Miami Herald

Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge Overview:

•  Nancy Dahlberg, Business Plan Challenge coordinator, The Miami Herald

8:45 a.m. Session I – Success Stories

Moderator: Jerry Haar, PhD, associate dean & director, FIU Eugenio Pino and Family Global

Entrepreneurship Center

Speakers:

•  Jennifer Behar, founder, Jennifer’s Homemade

•  Matt Kuttler, co-president of ReStockIt.com

•  Javier Herrán, chief marketing officer, Sedano’s Supermarkets

10 a.m. Session II – All about Tech

Moderator: Jane Wooldridge, Business editor, The Miami Herald

Speakers

•  Susan Amat, founder, Launch Pad Tech

•  Nancy Borkowski, executive director, Health Management Programs, Chapman Graduate School of

Business, Florida International University

•  Chris Fleck, vice president of mobility solutions at Citrix and a director of the South Florida Tech Alliance

•  Charles Irizarry, co-founder and director of product architecture, Rokk3r Labs

11:15 a.m. Keynote

Speaker: Alberto Perlman, CEO and co-founder of Zumba® Fitness

Introduction: Jane Wooldridge, business editor, The Miami Herald

11:45 a.m. Session III – Show me the money: Financing your small business

An interactive session featuring audience volunteers who will be invited to make a short investment pitch before a panel, including experts in microlending, SBA loans, traditional bank loans, venture capital and angel investing. Audience volunteers should come prepared with a two-minute presentation that includes details about current backing, how much money they are seeking and a brief synosis of ow that money would be used.

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Charlie Crist's wife loses custody of two teenage daughters

The ex-husband of former First Lady Carole Crist has been granted full custody of their two daughters, after alleging that she abandoned them and hasn’t returned messages in nearly two years.

“She’s completely abandoned them,” Todd Rome said of his former wife of 14 years in a brief telephone interview Friday.

He said Mrs. Crist, married for four years to former Gov. Charlie Crist, has not seen or spoken to her 14- and 16-year-old daughters since June 8, 2011, and that even simple tasks like getting her signature on documents has become a challenge.

Mrs. Crist and ex-husband Rome had joint custody until Feb. 1, when a family court judge in New York granted him temporary full custody. Rome said he may seek full custody permanently.

“She probably will not fight it, because she didn’t fight this one,’’ he said.

Neither Charlie nor Carole Crist could be reached for comment Friday, and a local lawyer for Mrs. Crist said they would have no comment.

“This is a domestic situation, which is private,” said Sam Heller, her lawyer. “Unfortunately, Mr. Rome has been untruthful throughout this process.”

The court records in New York are not public record, and Rome, CEO of Blue Star Jets in Manhattan, declined to provide a copy of the custody order. He did, however, read the judgement of the phone to the New Times in South Florida, which first reported the ruling.

“The children’s needs haven’t been met,’’ Rome’s New York lawyer, Mark Heller, told the New Times. “She won’t answer calls. Her lawyers won’t answer calls. And we had no choice but go to family court.”

Reached by phone as he was driving with his daughters, Rome said he has no explanation for why Mrs. Crist, 43, cut off contact with his daughters. He then passed the phone to his wife of four-plus years, Vanessa Rome.

“Anything that needs a co-parent signature becomes a complete ordeal, because she doesn’t answer,’’ Mrs. Rome said of Mrs. Crist. Mrs. Crist used to visit her daughters every other weekend in New York City.

Mrs. Rome said Mrs. Crist had no patience for the girls any time they complained about something.

“She doesn’t like to discuss anything or be called out, so if they say anything that rocks the boat she’ll say, 'Okay, bye. I have to go,’ and hang up.”

The former governor has in the past spoken warmly of his stepdaughters — he called them “our children” in 2009 — but Mrs. Rome said “he wanted no part of them.” When in Florida during 2010, the girls constantly found themselves bored at political fundraising events with no one to talk to. Mr. Crist, she said, also had no tolerance for any hint of unpleasant teen behavior.

“He would say, 'I’m not coming to dinner with you with that attitude,’” she said. “Often they were left alone in the hotel room to order room service.”

Mr. Rome has been outspoken in his criticism of his ex-wife’s parenting and in 2011 sued her for failing to pay support. The New York Post wrote about one late-2011 court hearing attended by the Crists. The Post quoted a judge noting that their divorce agreement requires no child support for the daughters living in Manhattan and, “I also can’t make her visit her children.”

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Stripping mom halts school assembly

ALBANY — Police say a parent who got on stage and started to strip during an upstate New York school assembly is facing child endangerment and lewdness charges.

Albany police say they arrested 24-year-old Aydrea Meaders at the North Albany Academy at about 10:30 a.m. Friday.

They say school staff told them the assembly was halted and the cafeteria cleared after Meaders began dancing onstage and took off some of her clothes.

She's charged with seven counts of endangering the welfare of a child and one of public lewdness.

An Albany City Court clerk says Meaders was arraigned Friday afternoon and ordered held on $3,000 bail. She doesn't have a lawyer yet.

The North Albany Academy is a pre-kindergarten through eighth grade school in the Albany district.

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South Florida trade shattered records in 2012

It was a golden year for international trade through the Miami Customs District in 2012, as South Florida’s airports and seaports handled a record $124.73 billion worth of trade and cracked into the nation’s Top 10 customs districts for the first time.

But the Miami district’s top exports and imports were also golden. Since 2009, gold from countries such as Colombia, Mexico, Guyana and Peru has been South Florida’s top import as skittish investors bought the precious metal, pushing its price to lofty heights. In 2012, gold also became the top export of the Miami district, which includes airports and seaports from Miami to Key West.

Last year the district imported a record $7.25 billion worth of gold — a 42 percent increase over the previous year, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data analyzed by WorldCity, a Coral Gables media company that focuses on U.S. connections to the global economy.

But almost as quickly as the gold arrives, it is shipped out, primarily to Switzerland and to other European countries in smaller amounts. Last year the Miami district exported a record $7.93 billion worth of gold.

The gold business is a “relatively recent phenomenon,’’ Ken Roberts, president of WorldCity, said at a Trade Connections event in Coral Gables Friday that analyzed the past year’s trade numbers.

Global economic uncertainty, he said, has driven people to the safety of gold and that has pushed up prices. Not only are central banks buying gold; so are many jittery investors.

Miami became the nation’s leading importer of gold in 2009 but imports only totaled $2.14 billion then. Over the past 10 years, the Miami district’s gold imports have increased by 2,420 percent and gold exports are up a whopping 13,433 percent. That corresponds with a huge run-up in the price of gold over the past decade — gold prices increased from around $300 an ounce in mid-February 2002 to $1,730 an ounce in mid-February 2012.

But the volume of gold trade through Miami also has increased.

Roberts noted that overall, Miami district exports increased to a record $73.3 billion, up nearly 6 percent from the previous year, and imports totaled a record $51.4 billion — a 17 percent increase.

Most interesting, said Roberts, is that the Miami District made its move into the ranks of the nation’s Top 10 Customs districts, by value of trade, at a time when the U.S. economy has been sluggish. But 30 percent of Miami’s trade is with South American, Central America and the Caribbean, and many of the Latin economies have been relatively resilient throughout the U.S. downturn.

Brazil remained the Miami district’s No. 1 trading partner in 2012 with $16.4 billion in total trade — a 6.4 percent increase.

“Brazil has had a tremendous decade and they’re a little smug about it,’’ said Scott Miller, a senior adviser at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies and former director of global trade policy at Procter & Gamble. “It’s a tough place to do business and they know it and don’t seem to want to do much about it.’’

Miami traders acknowledge that restrictions and high tariffs make the Brazilian market difficult, but Latin America’s largest economy is so big and diverse that it’s still very attractive. Brazil also is the top source of international visitors to Miami-Dade County.

Colombia, with $9.89 billion in trade with the Miami district, was the 2012 runner-up, and Switzerland, with $8.8 billion in trade with South Florida, was third.

But trade statistics only tell part of the story of international commerce.

Miller pointed out that increasingly, world trade involves the exchange of components rather than finished goods. If one takes out oil, he said, half the world’s trade is in components.

He pointed to Apple’s iPhone, which is made in China from U.S. and Japanese chips, a screen from Malaysia and other components from around the world. “So many things today are made in the world,’’ rather than manufactured start to finish in one location, said Miller. “What is really being done is that we make things together.’’

Every iPhone that is imported into the United States, he said, adds $178 to the U.S. trade deficit, but that doesn’t take into account all the jobs created by Apple’s inventions and design development, its sophisticated customer service system and its marketing apparatus.

“Stop looking at trade as a competition,’’ he said. “It’s a mutually beneficial exchange.’’

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Jackson Health System dismisses trauma petition

Jackson Health System announced Thursday it has filed a notice to voluntarily dismiss its petition for a state hearing that included a suggestion that the state revoke the provisional license for the trauma center at the Kendall Regional Medical Center.

The Florida Health Department is trying to craft a new statewide standard for determining how many trauma centers an area needs.

In a memo to county political leaders, Jackson Chief Executive Carlos Migoya called it “a strategic decision on the future,” meaning it will focus instead on the Florida Health Department’s plan to craft a new statewide standard for determining how many trauma centers an area needs.

The Health Department is holding a hearing next Wednesday in its offices in Doral to get South Florida feedback on how much need there is for trauma centers.

In January, Jackson filed a petition with the state demanding a hearing on why the state had turned down its request for additional trauma centers at Jackson North and Jackson South while the state had granted provisional licenses to facilities like Kendall Regional — licenses that a judge had ruled were granted improperly.

Some county commissioners expressed concerns that Jackson was opposing the Kendall operation.

The state responded on Jan. 31 that Jackson’s petition was invalid and demanded that Jackson show cause by Feb. 14 why the petition shouldn’t be dismissed. Jackson instead decided to voluntarily dismiss it.

In his memo sent Wednesday, Migoya said that Jackson will focus on drafting the new rules. “We intend to provide the medical evidence, expert advice, written testimony and community support to buttress the positions that will best serve our residents.”

Jackson has consistently maintained that the region is best served by having only one trauma center — its Ryder center at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

The HCA hospital chain, which owns Kendall Regional, has been aggressive in applying for new trauma licenses and has received several provisional certifications.

On Thursday, the Health Department notified another HCA facility, the Orange Park Medical Center near Jacksonville, that that it “did not meet the standards” for a provisional center and ordered its trauma operations to cease immediately.

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Nikita Black Badge Exclusive Promo

Nikita has long been one of the most dynamic and rewarding dramas on television. It's also consistently been one of the most underrated. But you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone that isn't coated in a thick layer of goosebumps after watching ETonline's exclusive new promo for the upcoming episodes!

RELATED - TV's Saddest Death Scenes

Featuring first look footage from the next two all-new episodes, Black Badge and With Fire, the two-minute sneak peek opens with a bang, and ends in a fiery blaze.

RELATED - What's Next on The CW's Arrow?

But before the clip comes to a close, Ryan poses an all-important question to Nikita: Is Division inherently bad or is the elite ops agency only as bad as the people in charge?

Tune in Fridays at 9 p.m. to see how Nikita answers that question!

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Devout Catholic SI mom sues city for not allowing daughter to attend class over religious exemption

A devout Catholic mom on Staten Island is suing the city, saying her daughter was barred from attending class because the Board of Education wouldn't recognize her religious exemption from receiving required medical vaccinations.

Dina Check, of West Brighton, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city accusing it of prohibiting her 5-year-old from attending PS 35 on Tuesday -- because of the family's belief that forced immunization violates important tenets of their faith.

"To inject invasive and unnatural substances into this divine creation is showing a lack of faith in God and His way," Check says in the lawsuit."Life is a gift from God, and the body is a marvelous work of divine creation to be reverenced as a temple of God."

The controversy was caused in part by a paperwork snafu - because her daughter already had been granted an exemption from vaccination on religious grounds by state health officials when she attended a YMCA preschool, Check says in the suit, filed in Brooklyn federal court this week.

To make matters worse, Check says she made repeated complaints to city school officials about the issue - only to see them fall on deaf ears, the suit says.

Despite her impassioned pleas asking officials to correct the paperwork error and list her daughter as being exempt from medical treatment on religious grounds, she received nothing more than a litany of e-mails from the Education Department denying her requests, the lawsuit claims.

Some of the correspondence Check sent to education officials quotes various passages of Scripture, Canon law proclamations from the Vatican, and contains earnest pleas asking the authorities to respect the family's religious beliefs.

In the lawsuit, Check also notes that her family physician had given a formal opinion that because the child suffers from immune deficiencies and gastrointestinal problems, immunization posed a medical risk for the girl.

But city school officials rejected that argument, too, ruling that the child's condition was insufficient to warrant exemption from vaccination based on medical grounds, the suit claims.

The suit charges that city school administrators violated laws that exempt children with deeply-held religious beliefs from receiving vaccines.

Check has asked a federal judge to intervene and force the city schools to exempt her daughter from future medical treatment. She also asks for unspecified damages.

mmaddux@nypost.com

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American Airlines, US Airways announce merger

After a nearly yearlong courtship, the union became official Thursday: American Airlines and US Airways have formally announced plans to merge.

An early morning announcement by the airlines confirmed reports widely circulated after boards of both companies approved the merger late Wednesday.

The move brings stability to one of Miami-Dade County’s largest private employers more than a year after the airline and its parent company filed for bankruptcy protection, leaving the fate of thousands of employees — and the largest carrier at Miami International Airport — in question.

According to the Thursday announcement, the deal was approved unanimously by the boards of both companies, creating the world’s biggest airline with implied market value of nearly $11 billion, based on the Wednesday closing price of US Airways stock. The airline will have close to 100,000 employees, 1,500 aircraft, $38.7 billion in combined revenue.

The deal must be approved by American’s bankruptcy judge and antitrust regulators, but no major hurdles are expected. The process is expected to take about six months, according to a letter sent to employees Thursday by American CEO Tom Horton.

Travelers won’t notice immediate changes. The new airline will be called American Airlines. It likely will be months before the frequent-flier programs are merged, and possibly years before the two airlines are fully combined. The new airline will be a member of the oneWorld airlines frequent flier alliance.

And for Miami travelers, it’s unlikely that much will change at any point. American and regional carrier American Eagle handled 68 percent of traffic at the airport last year, while US Airways accounted for just 2 percent. American boasts 328 flights to 114 destinations from Miami.

“We don’t expect any substantial changes at MIA if the merger occurs because our traffic is largely driven by the strength of the Miami market and not the airlines serving it,” said airport spokesman Greg Chin.

American has said for more than a year that its long-term plan calls for increasing departures at key hubs, including Miami, by 20 percent. That pledge has already started to materialize; in recent months, the airline has added new service to Asuncion, Paraguay and Roatán, Honduras.

During its bankruptcy restructuring, about 400 American employees lost jobs, leaving American and its regional carrier, American Eagle, with 9,894 employees in Miami-Dade County and 43 in Fort Lauderdale. US Airways has few employees in the area.

“It really isn’t going to affect Miami in a very major way anytime soon,” said Michael Boyd, an aviation consultant in Evergreen, Colo. “Only because US Airways isn’t a big player in South Florida.”

At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, American and US Airways combined would still only be the fifth-largest airline after Southwest, Spirit, JetBlue and Delta, a spokesman said. The two airlines have little overlap in routes from Fort Lauderdale.

Despite the lack of major changes, Boyd said the merger would be a good development for Miami.

“It should be positive for the employees and it should be positive for the communities that the airlines serve,” he said.

Robert Herbst, an independent airline analyst and consultant, said US Airways will add a “significant amount” of destinations in the Northeast, including Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

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JFK airport staffer allowed Kanye West and Kim Kardashian to sneak past security checkpoints

VLNY / Sharky / Splash News

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.

Celebrity lovebirds Kanye West and Kim Kardashian forced an airplane full of travelers to wait for takeoff at JFK after an airline employee allowed them to bypass security screening, sources told The Post.

The stars -- who were running late for an American Airlines flight – were ushered around a security checkpoint before boarding the plane from New York to Los Angeles yesterday.

But airport officials got wind of the special treatment and yanked them off the plane – giving them a private pat-down and delaying the flight by nearly an hour.

The stars arrived in JFK on a flight from Rio De Janeiro, where they were celebrating Carnivale. They cleared Customs and were through the baggage area when the airline employee gave them the unsolicited escort through a restricted area, the sources said.

Rules require all airline passengers to pass through the TSA security checkpoint at the airport.

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Now owned by top executives, Cruise Planners on course toward continued growth

With a background in travel and present-day focus on raising her two small children, Lori Jahner set out to find work she enjoyed that would give her the flexibility she needed.

The 33-year-old from Aurora, Colo. decided on Cruise Planners — American Express Travel, a home-based travel agent network headquartered in Coral Springs.

“They have so much training to offer, ongoing education, and the branded name alone is so reputable and distinctive,” Jahner said. “Out of all the ones that I kind of looked into, this is the one that was standing out. More or less, it’s just the perfect opportunity so that I can do what I love, which is raising my kids but also selling travel.”

She has plenty of company. More than 850 franchise owners around the country are actively selling travel through Cruise Planners after paying startup costs that range from zero to $9,995. Those costs cover initial and continued training, marketing and advertising programs, a website, accounting and customer management software and support from the home office.

Fueled by everyone from stay-at-home moms to firefighters and retirees, the number of franchisees has grown by 14 percent annually for the last few years.

That has not gone unnoticed by cruise lines, who welcome more voices pitching their product.

“I think they are very important,” said Camille Olivere, Norwegian Cruise Line’s senior vice president of sales in North America. “They’re big supporters of ours and they’re bringing new people into the industry — and that is something that we desperately need.”

Cruise Planners agents sold $156 million in travel and related services last year, a 16 percent increase over 2011 and 48 percent jump over 2009.

Confident in continued growth, top Cruise Planners executives bought the company late last year from Palm Beach Capital, the private equity firm that had been majority owner since 2007.

CEO Michelle Fee, who has always held a stake in the company and now owns 50 percent, said she and fellow owners chief financial officer Tom Kruszewski and chief operating officer Vicky Garcia did not want to risk Cruise Planners being taken over by another investment group that might try to make changes.

“We wanted to make sure that whatever we keep doing is in the best interest of the company,” said Kruszewski, 60.

Before, Fee said, agents often asked whether the investment company would try to sell or change Cruise Planners. She said the purchase sends a good message.

“It shows them that we’re in this with you,” said Fee, 50, who co-founded the company with two partners 19 years ago. Those partners retired in 2007.

The company has invested about $2 million in technology upgrades and equipment in the last few years, including a mobile reservations system for agents that was introduced about a year and a half ago, and a consumer mobile app for iPhones and Androids that should launch later this month.

“We just have to be cutting edge,” Fee said. “Travel is technology; we have to be there with the big guys. Not only are we matching them, but we want to be better.”

Janet Fernandez, who started her Crise Planners franchise, Cruise Impressions, last July after working in different parts of the cruise industry since 1998, said she is already taking advantage of the latest tech innovations.

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