that ctinues to grow. there are plenty of compaes out there offering services but obviously we have grown a lot faster than our competition and the market because whea customer realizezes what a great deal they have gotten and what kind of level of s service they have gototten from astrum zoeller they will tell their friends and neighbors and then suddenly the whole neighborhood go solar. you got someme attention on fox

news lately. i will ask you a questn silar to whahat they asked you. ishis feasible without a permit subsidies? considering that municipals will not subsidizing their does it remain a viable business? subsidies are e in place right now and they are considered less than what they were when we ststarted selling to home owners in 2008. we are based in maryland. let's say, in maryland, the crcredit that you could have gotten, the grant from the state in 2008 was $10,000. today is $1,000. tomorrow, it will be zero. right now, subsidies are in place and they are necesry for the homeowner, but very soo thosose will go away. the cost of the panels themselves are dropping in line with the incentives. >> we have tgo to brbreak, but before we say goodb a and vice to other companies, at was the most important thing that you

had to do to keep up with that rapid growowth? >> focus on hiring the right people build a great team and keep your standard time for you hire. >> good advice. >> focus, like a laserer. as you diversify. hire the right senior management people. and established challenges as they ase. always take care of your customers. >> congratulations to you both. if you get 7% next year, you will be ahead of the curveve wh most companies. thanks for joining us. when we come back, we will have our roundtable. lots of hot topics to disss this week.

>> i it may be vacation time for some but we have had a busy newsweek.. we are happy to welelcome jonathan allen n and the washshington business journa's ben fischer. welcome. jonathan allen, congssional budget office not being optimistic this week. if anythining, try to get everyone to take nototice. ey say this fiscal l cliff is serious, people. wh is the message? >> what is interesting is a two- prononged message. one isf you get rid of the sequesestered -- >> let's go back to explain. forhose who may not havbeen paying attention, januaryy 1 when tax cuts are set to

expire spepending cuts are set to go into effect, the perfect storm that could really huhurt the economy. >> two parts here. you have theax increases that would on january 1 if nothing is done. th you have t the cut t that would put into place as part of the debt limit t dealal last year, so w what you would get is a huge defit reduction. instead of $1.10 trillion, you wowould have maybe $600 million. however, cbo says debt reduction ---- what ththey say essentially is deficit t reduction is not all th good in this space because if you letoth those things happen, the economomic recovery would be interrupted. >> but here is theig but -- i should preface this. you teasase me earlierer today about almost making paul rn cry.

we were talking about his father and how proud he would bebe to see him where he is today. i thought the point whe he would really cry is when this dget hawk had to talk aut doing away with the sequestered. even if we do not h have the alternrnative for budget cuts, called off until we figure somemeing g else out. tea pay people have got to hit the idea. >> it is not just tea party people that hate the idea. when they put the idea together, the ideaea of was that sequester would be so bad, we would have to do someing. strarangely, they y do not have any better plan than they did when year ago for something thathe republicans and democrats can agree to. >> they also said was going to be so b bad because thiss is our punishment. have to do thisis. now they say, may not? kickhe can down the curb? >> w when sosomebody is allowed to pick tir own punishment, it is

always not the best in t world. i think they need to do something to avoid this fiscal clift because of exactly what the cbo is s saying, -- >> but who knows what? >> basically, you do nothing, taxes down, -- s tas up, spending goes down, and any recovery going on would be haed. >> ben fischer, i will not ask youo go on line and tell us what s should be done to fix this mess, but there are concerns of the job losses in the defense indury. you covevered a big sale this week, one companbeing sold to an ohio company. tell us about the salee of sunrise. doesn'n't mean that wewe lose all those jobs based in our area? >>he sun rise seor livining acquision is once a big story at the same time, something that most rular consumers will not noce in eir everyday lives.

sunrise senior living isis a chain that owns and operates assisted living homes i various falities throughout ththe country. health care reit out of toledo but the company. what they're really about is their ownership in 125 facilities. they intend to spinn off an opoperating unit that will still have the sunrise brand and name and people managing e homes. >> there is the important part. based on your reporting, they say we arere still goi to have the same managers in place, the same peoe running it. do youou anticipate job losses for our region based on the sale? not defense cuts but an importt area of growth our region. >> it is d difficultlt to predict the fure.. the executives of the new company saidhere would n not b a contractual oblation r whoever owns this new company to keep the brand and workers but there seems to be a consensus that even when sun

ris nenearly bankrupt financiallyduring the recession, the strengthh of the company s the brand, the people on e ground running these homes. they are very well regarded. the ce sd why would d you want to buy a mercedes and turn it into a yugo?o? >> they had some counti problems that t led to their stock going from being very malleable -- i think you quoted $40 a share. their sale price is how much? >> $1$14.50. >> you that is a lot because it was worth almost nothing and thenhe ceo turn n things around. what did he ? >> he hadad turned around previous companies in the past. he came on in 2008, the first new blolood in management for a long time. at the time, the company w facingultiple problems on varirious frfronts. it was a cssicurnaround story. at the time, they owned a much

larger portfolio. anything that was not solid he sold, and took t cash proceeds from something they had in germany, other margiginal properties touout the u. sold those and t turned aroround and gave t the money to bank of america and other lenders that coululd have pressed much h hardrder and cald the fall on e company. >> i learn fr your reporting in assisted living, it is about location locatio location. they have a good reputation with the people that use tir servrvices a in they are in the ght locati to keep things going. we have one e more talkingng -- topic to talk about peer we will talk aboutut that and we come back. we will talk about the women inducted into agusta. >> last week, t white house gave federal agency's guidance as to compare their i.t. . budget request for 201014. omb called for agencies to cut to & from the average of what

they spend on i.t. for 2010 through 2012, but they should also include p plans for possible reinvestments of 5% and 10%. itit was said these cuts would bring the spendingng on technology to the lowest levell in years, so what are some of the obvious consequences? profit margins should shrink as agencies become more interested in better value. companies will comte with small businesses as they all chase smaller opportunities. technologies that purpoedly save agencies money, such as cupp computing, should have strong growth. across companies investigating efficiencieses. nono one c say they d

>> we are bk wi our business roundtable to talk about the week's hot topics. we arere here with ben fiser and jonathan allen. i hate to do this to two sy people b but idmit i ask you to read an article, just to inindulgee me. i thohought it was fascinating.g. a woman was profiled, i admit i've never hea of when she was announced. darla moorere t the second woman that will be wearing green at auguststa next t to conondoleezezza rice. turns out s is fascicinating busineness woman. jonanathan, tell us a a littlele bit about her. >> the big thing that folks want to know is s she isis basically --- had turned around her husband's company cald rainwater.

she had beeeen a banker, turned that aroun she ended up being a philanthropist. she gives a lot of money to researchch for diseases that he had, has been involved heaeavily in education in south carolina, his buddies with thfolkthat run the master's. >> she golfs but it was not her life caller to get into augusta. >> how many women would be loved to play at augusta who are actually serious golfefers, but she is jt a friend of hootitie johnson? >> richard rainwater was h highly respected asn investor. he married darla moore and she tripled his earnings. what didid you take away from the article about darlrla moore? >> the first thing i took away,y, i had not heard ever before

that either. i think i should have. 1520 years ago, she was orchestrating, replacingng the c ceo of columbia hca, richard scott now the governor of florida. >> we knknow him as rick scott. she wasas pushing him out of buness. >> she was making in the longer the ceo of a very large comny. he apparently thoughhe wasn fi c control. >> she did the same thing to t. boone pickens. >> absolutely. she had been mixing it up for two decades now. knowing h augusta runs things whenhey cided to let women into the club, they took two from the cream of the crop, i would say, did it on their own teterms. >> based on what i read, those men better be ready. she does py, b it is not her burning paion. >> if i i and ese guys, i am

thinkiking, if you are not upping your g game,arla moore is gog to c come by anand kick your butt. >> i have tohrow in my favorite thing from t article. she origiginally came from washington and worked for strom ththurmond and then the rnc. thenen she rlized that washington was just borrowed power. she wanted to go to the business levevel, wre they have reaeal power. >> the question is, wh is burning tree gng tstartt admitting women? burng te, call us. let us know. >> jonathan allen, b ben fcher thanks for jning us. the number of the weakest two and it involves our areas national ranking. we will tell y about that after the break. [ male announcer ] we've made verizon fios even easier to switch to -- and harder to resist. because now you can upgrade to fios internet and tv for a super-low $79.99 a

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>> our number of the week is two, our regions rating g on the top 50 markets according to financial health. a score below 70 indicates that the distress. guess what? the washington area is at 77.14, surpassed only by boston, with 77.42. that is all for