Six Degrees of Alan Mollohan
Roll Call Staff
According to a tenant list, many of the residents of the WVHTC office park and the Mollohan Innovation Center have deep ties to the Congressman, including:
Information Manufacturing Corp.
West Virginia corporate records list an entity called Mineral Holding Co. as the owner of IMC; the owners of Mineral Holding Co. were Jim Cava and Robert Hytner. They sold IMC in 2007 to National Interest Security Co. Hytner and Cava are both listed as board members on the NISC Web site, but a person answering the telephone there said neither is affiliated with the company any longer.
Cava and Hytner family members and IMC employees contributed more than $140,000 to Mollohan’s campaign and political action committee since 1998. The company has landed millions in federal contracts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other federal agencies. Mollohan chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the NOAA’s budget.
IMC donated $10,000 to the Mollohan Family Foundation in 2006, according to the foundation’s tax records — the only year for which detailed records are available — and the foundation has placed interns in IMC’s offices.
IMC’s lobbyist is Robison International, and in 2008, Hytner and Cava registered in West Virginia a Delaware-based private company called Patriots III with Robison President West.
In a letter to Roll Call, West said the company is “an LLC that organized to explore plastics recycling opportunities” with “no plus ups, adds or government funds of any kind.”
The company’s address is listed as 117 E. Main St. in Bridgeport, W.Va. Cava also has a handful of other businesses registered at this address, including the accounting firm of Cava & Banko, and the sign outside identifies the property as “The Cava Building.” But a person answering the phone there said Cava does not work out of that office, and could not provide a phone number at which to reach him.
Galaxy Global Corp.
The small software and information technology company represents some of the richest patterns of mutual aid among Mollohan’s inner circle. The company was established in 1989 by Zeny Cunanan, and in 1991 she was named president of the WVHTC. Her official bio indicates that she served as president and board member of the consortium between 1991 and 1995. In 2000, she served on Mollohan’s task force for the overhaul of the foundation.
Cunanan family members have contributed just under $50,000 to Mollohan’s campaign and PAC since 1998, according to Federal Election Commission records, and the company has received $3 million in contracts from NASA since 2000 through programs that Mollohan has supported, generally with limited or no competition, according to FedSpending.org. In 2003, Cunanan’s son Rolando founded a company called Integrated Software Metrics Inc., which also had an office in the Mollohan building and received a portion of a Mollohan earmark in 2004.
The Mollohan family foundation provides a scholarship named for another of Cunanan’s sons, and Galaxy Global provides internships through the foundation.
Cunanan is also listed in West Virginia corporate records as the original vice president of a nonprofit called the Office of Law Enforcement Technology Commercialization, which lists James Estep as its president. According to its 2006 and 2007 tax returns, the organization’s only income was about $2.8 million in government grants, nearly all of which was spent to hire a single contractor — Estep’s WVHTC.
Azimuth Inc.
In the late 1980s, the Herndon, Va.-based contracting firm Electronic Warfare Associates Inc. joined the Defense Department’s mentoring program, taking on a start-up West Virginia company called Azimuth Inc. Azimuth president Craig Hartzell told a local newspaper in 1998 that the firm’s sales had risen from less than $1 million in 1993 to $8.5 million in 1997 and that half of the company’s work came from EWA. In several news stories on the company’s Web site, Hartzell credits Mollohan — along with Sen. Robert Byrd (D) and former Gov. Cecil Underwood (R) — for helping to get the company started.
Schumer Advocates for Many on Panel
Nov. 16, 12 a.m.
As Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson once said of the Joint Economic Committee, “It’s as useless as tits on a bull.” But as that panel’s chairman during the 110th Congress, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) seized the opportunity to elevate the traditionally low-profile post to the forefront of shaping policy. Read Full Article
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