Business Briefs

Greater Ocean Township Chamber of Commerce will hold its holiday luncheon Dec. 20 from noon to 1:30 p.m. at Manhattan Steakhouse, 2105 Route 35 north, Oakhurst section of Ocean Township. The cost is $25 for nonmembers, $22 for members, and $5 extra for walk-ins. Menu choices will be steak, chicken or salmon. Ricky Riccardi will provide musical entertainment, and door prizes will be distributed. For more information, call the Chamber at (732) 728-1888.

Visiting Physician Services, Eatontown, announced that Denise Schaff, Toms River, has joined its staff as a nurse practitioner. She will treat elderly and homebound patients in Ocean County. Prior to joining Visiting Physician, Schaff was an adult nurse practitioner in wound care with Wound Healing Associates, Moorestown and Stratford. She has more than 17 years’ experience in the nursing and health care field, and has worked at several New York hospitals. Visiting Physician Services is a physician-based organization that provides house-call services to elderly and homebound patients in Monmouth, Ocean, Union, Middlesex, Essex and Somerset counties.

The law firm of Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith, Ravin, Davis & Himmel announced that Cipora Winters, of Elberon, has been named partner of the firm in its litigation department.

Winters concentrates her practice in matrimonial law. She is a graduate, magna cum laude, of Brooklyn (N.Y.) College, and received her law degree from Columbia University School of Law, New York City. She is a member of the Matrimonial Section of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America–New Jersey. Winters is also a member of the Monmouth County Bar Association and its Family Law Section, and the New Jersey State Bar Association and its Family Law Section and Young Lawyers Committee. She is admitted to practice in New Jersey and New York.

Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith, Ravin, Davis & Himmel has offices in Woodbridge and Roseland. For more information, call (732) 549-5600 or visit the firm’s Web site at www.greenbaumlaw.com.

Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith, Ravin, Davis & Himmel has offices in Woodbridge and Roseland. For more information, call (732) 549-5600 or visit the firm’s Web site at www.greenbaumlaw.com.

Radio station WMGQ Magic 98.3, New Brunswick, switched to an all-holiday format as of Nov. 22 at 12:01 a.m. and will continue through Christmas day. According to Tim Tefft, program director and “Afternoon Drive” host, the decision to make the switch earlier was done to accommodate listener demand for more holiday music. The play list will include traditional holiday music and holiday hits by Magic 98.3 artists. The station is owned by Greater Media, which owns 18 radio stations in Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia and New Jersey.

Monmouth County Freeholder Thomas J. Powers recently received the 2004 Joshua Huddy Distinguished Citizen Award from the Monmouth Council, Boy Scouts of America. The award was established in 1974 to “recognize those who show truly outstanding devotion to their fellow man.” It is named for Capt. Joshua Huddy, Colts Neck, a Revolutionary War militia hero. He was eventually captured and imprisoned on a British ship and later hanged in what is now the Borough of Highlands.

Powers was raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., and moved his growing family to Matawan Township (now Aberdeen) in the 1960s. He became active in the community, seeking and winning election to the Township Council, a position he held for 10 years. He then sought and won the mayoralty and served the township as its senior executive for four years. He was elected to his first term on the Board of Freeholders in 1981, and has been re-elected six times.

Powers served with the U.S. Army in the Special Services unit. He is active in the Irish-American community and has membership in the Friendly Sons of the Shillelagh, the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of the Jersey Shore, and the Irish Federation. He resides in Wall Township with his wife of 45 years, Barbara. The couple are the parents of six and the grandparents of 17.

John Erickson, chairman and CEO of Erickson, was recently honored by the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging for “extraordinary leadership as a visionary, developer, and philanthropist committed to advancing the field of aging services.” The award was presented during AAHSA’s annual conference in Nashville. The Erickson company is based in Catonsville, Md., and owns and manages Seabrook, Tinton Falls, a facility for middle-income individuals age 62 and older.

John and Nancy Erickson, founders of Cedar Crest, Pompton Plains, and Seabrook, Tinton Falls, were recently named “2004 Philanthropists of the Year” by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Maryland Chapter. The couple will be honored at a National Philanthropy Day awards ceremony in November. Erickson is the chairman and CEO of Erickson, a firm that manages and develops campuses for middle-income individuals age 62 and older. The couple has helped hundreds of students receive desperately needed education, and are supporters of the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Partners In Excellence scholarship program for urban children wishing to attend Catholic city schools. The Erickson’s have given a multiyear gift totaling $800,000, and through the couple’s generosity, 800 scholarships are being given to inner city students. The Erickson family has also provided support to another scholarship program, Baltimore’s Children’s Scholarship Fund (CSF), and as a result of the family’s support, 780 students are helped through the CSF. The couple is helping underwrite the start-up cost for NorthBay, a new outdoor education facility in Cecil County, Maryland, to house more than designed to address the educational standards for middle school science set by the Maryland Department of Education.