The crack of the major league bat is a little sharper, a little more fierce, a tad more intimidating, and that sound is almost within reach of El Pasoans.

Richard Fleager, an El Paso Electric executive with ties to the company's former Chief Executive Officer David Stevens, has resigned.

W. Martin Yung has made it to the final rung of his almost 28-year climb at JDW Insurance. Yung, 51, recently was named chief executive officer at the large El Paso insurance brokerage where he began as a salesman in 1984.

“The Hispanic phenomenon in this country is totally underappreciated and underserved,” Bill Sanders, an El Paso real estate investor, says. “It’s one of the main drivers for job and economic growth.”

The founders of two of El Paso's largest companies have been cashing in on their large company stock holdings in recent months.

First as a member, and now chair, of the Texas Transportation Commission, Houghton has brought miles and miles of new roads and infrastructure to the region. The De la Vegas have crossed the international border with their hearts, minds and business sense, building clinics and hospitals to care for the poorest of the poor, and creating world-class educational institutions.

Vincent Castro and David Saucedo want to help El Paso's young entrepreneurs and young executives build their businesses and at the same time help build El Paso and its next generation of leaders.

El Paso Opera's David Grabarkewitz will speak at an opera convention today in Memphis, the birthplace of the blues.

But he'll be 8,100 miles away in Bhutan.

Junius Gonzales, UTEP's provost and vice president for academic affairs, has been elected to the Executive Committee for the Association for Public and Land-Grant Universities' Council on Academic Affairs.

Cecilia Levine has rubbed elbows with Pope John Paul II, the premier of China and powerful political leaders and economic advisers across the United States and Mexico.