Raytheon Co., a Massachusetts-based defense contractor with a Rhode Island production facility, has put almost 900 air-to-air missiles for U.S. and allied air forces in storage because they’re missing a major component – motors, Bloomberg News reported last week. more

Paul Skoczylas grew up around kielbasa. By age 8, he was lending a hand at Central Falls Provision, his family’s Polish sausage shop, and through high school and college he was working there full time during the summers. Photos from the period show him in front of the oven, holding a rack of sausages, wearing a T-shirt with “kielbasa kid” stenciled across the chest. more

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. subsidiary Richline Group Inc. will acquire Albuquerque, N.M.-based Rio Grande from The Bell Group Inc. effective Jan. 1, the company announced Friday. more

Business activity in the U.S. expanded in December for a second month, easing concern that a lack of progress on the federal budget would prompt a slump in manufacturing. more

LeachGarner, a Berkshire Hathaway company, has completed the acquisition of the Findings Inc. and Fuller Findings businesses from Findings Inc. The businesses will operate as part of the General Findings division of Leach Garner, the company announced Wednesday. more

Lifetime Brand Inc. has acquired the business and certain assets of Cumberland-based housewares designer and manufacturer Easy Aces Inc., which operates under the name Fred & Friends. more

It’s a recipe for economic stagnation business leaders in Rhode Island know only too well – companies with jobs open, a lack of skilled workers to fill them and a stubbornly high unemployment rate, currently at 10.4 percent. more

What makes Amgen Inc. a leader in community involvement and volunteerism is its core values in creating a holistic work/life balance, according to Bill Flaherty, a database administrator who has worked at the biomanufacturing facility in West Greenwich for 10 years. more

It’s a third-generation, family-owned business started in 1931, at a time when selling “off-quality seconds” yarn and closeouts was a hugely successful line of business. more

The NanoSteel Co., a non-structured steel materials designer, has tapped Craig Parsons as its new president of the automotive business, the company announced Wednesday. more