PEOPLE

CONTENTS:

• Finding Military Records
• Executive Excess Report
• Washington Post: The Region's Highest Paid Executives

FINDING MILITARY RECORDS

The Poynter Institute, in Florida, is a school for journalists, future journalists and teachers of journalists. They've obviously been paying attention to current events, because their Web site offers an article by cyber-journalist Jonathan Dube about how to find military records. The page links to military.com, where you can search a database of over 20 million files, as well as the National Archives, where you can choose one of dozens of databases to search.

Note that military.com requires a free registration. However, if you don't allow the site to send you newsletters, you won't be allowed to register. And, to be honest, the "Buddy Finder" at the site gave me only some false hits. But perhaps the veteran you're seeking is one of the 20 million in the database; it's worth a try.

The article also provides information on off-line resources.

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32&aid=70316

EXECUTIVE EXCESS REPORT

Released for Labor Day 2004, this report profiles CEO pay and political contributions for the 15 companies that outsourced the most service jobs in the U.S., including Citigroup, Oracle, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Intuit, SBC Communications, Time Warner, General Electric and American Express. At the 50 firms that outsourced the most, the report shows average CEO compensation increased by 46 percent in 2003, compared to a 9 percent average increase for CEOs at other large companies. In addition, CEOs of the 69 companies that sponsored this summer's Democratic and Republican National Conventions enjoyed raises of 52 percent in 2003.

The report is the 11th annual CEO pay study by The Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy. The Institute for Policy Studies is an independent center for progressive research and education in Washington, D.C. The mission of Boston-based United for a Fair Economy is to spotlight economic inequality.

Read a summary of the report, or download the entire report in .pdf format.

http://www.faireconomy.org/press/2004/EE2004_pr.html

WASHINGTON POST: THE REGION'S HIGHEST-PAID EXECUTIVES

The Washington Post reported in August that median salary and bonus for Washington, D.C. 's 100 highest paid executives rose 15 percent to almost $1.5 million in 2003 after declining in 2002 and 2001.

There is a good deal of data available on this Web site, but navigation can be confusing. To go straight to the numbers, scroll down for links on the right side of the page under Charts and click on Top Compensation Packages, Top Salaries, Superlatives (Biggest Earners by Industry and Biggest Bonuses) or Trends. Under Industries, you can look at the numbers in Aerospace, Biotechnology, Information Technology or Telecommunications.

Under Compensation Report, the follow the link to Board Members, Executives and Family Members Can Still Benefit, which covers "side deals" such as consulting or lobbying work. The controversy over treating stock options as expenses is examined in Expense Issue Draws Mixed Views from Companies.

And if you want to learn how the Washington Post calculates executive pay, click on Survey Estimates Values of Options, Excludes Exercises, which details the report's methodology.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3628-2004Aug15.html

Pam Patton

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