Something must have been in the water at Finneytown High School in the mid-1970s.

One graduate, General Electric Co. CEO Jeff Immelt, already has reached the highest levels of American business. And another might be on his way: Brad Alford, who was promoted last month to CEO of Nestle Brands Co., a newly created unit of Swiss chocolate giant Nestle SA.

The unit oversees snacks such as Nestle Crunch, nutrition items such as Carnation Instant Breakfast and beverages such as Taster's Choice and Nescafe.

Alford, who went from Finneytown to Miami University and then to Indiana University for his MBA, will continue to work out of the Swiss company's U.S. headquarters in Glendale, Calif. He had been head of Nestle USA's confections and snacks unit.

The big screen

The Imax theater in the vacation haven of Gatlinburg, Tenn., has been closed for almost two years. But a recent bankruptcy filing in Cincinnati shows its connection to the IMAX at Newport on the Levee in Northern Kentucky.

The theater closed after only 27 days when it couldn't find a name sponsor, reports the filing from 3D in the Smokies LLC. It was owned by Ron Roberts, the former Cincinnati Business Committee executive director who also owns the Newport project.

Roberts personally loaned $277,290 to the Imax effort in Gatlinburg, mostly to buy start-up equipment, according to the filing. He said there is no connection between the projects in Gatlinburg and Newport on the Levee, where several proprietors have said they are suffering financially.

"Everybody could be doing better," Roberts said.

But the Ghosts of the Abyss is posting good numbers, and several blockbuster films such as the Matrix are scheduled to hit the big-screen format this year, which should be promising for the theater, he said.

Outside expertise

Two restructured city of Cincinnati loan funds should give hope to small-business owners of getting faster and easier loans.

The new funds, approved two weeks ago by City Council, still receive about $1 million a year in city funding. But they'll be managed outside of City Hall.

One of them, the $600,000 Grow Cincinnati Fund, will be managed by the Grow America Fund, a New York-based group that manages similar funds across the country. The second, the $150,000 MicroCity Loan Fund, will be managed by the Greater Cincinnati Microenterprise Initiative, said Alicia Townsend, manager of the city's small-business division.

"It's going to look more like a normal bank loan," Townsend said. "We'll work to originate them and we'll have a part in the loan decision, but we're not going to do the day-to-day paperwork."

E-mail cpeale@enquirer.com