Blast off: Baton Rouge-based advertising firm Rockit Science Agency announced today the opening of a London-based office in England. “This is our first step toward globalization of the agency, with United States expansion under way,” says CEO Brad BonGiovanni in a prepared statement. Over the past two years the agency has expanded work in the Gulf South, Texas and the Pacific Northwest, and says it will continue to oversee United States operations out of the Baton Rouge office, where the agency began more than 10 years ago. Some of the firm’s more well-known clients include the United States Navy, Texas Oil and Gas Association, EATEL, the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, and NASA.
On the rise: President Barack Obama has chosen Elisse Walter, one of five members of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to become chairman of the agency. Chairman Mary Schapiro will leave next month after a tumultuous tenure in which she helped lead the government’s regulatory response to the 2008 financial crisis. Walter will take over at a critical time for the SEC, which is finalizing new rules. She can serve through 2013 without Senate approval because she has already been confirmed to the commission. The Associated Press has more on this story here.
The last word: The Supreme Court is leaving in place the corruption conviction of a former Louisiana congressman who hid money from bribes in his freezer. The justices today rejected without comment an appeal by former Rep. William Jefferson, who is serving a 13-year term in federal prison. The Louisiana Democrat was convicted in 2009 after FBI agents investigating allegations of corruption found $90,000 in cash hidden in Jefferson’s freezer. A federal appeals court upheld all but one of the 11 counts on which a jury convicted Jefferson.
