As the money from the two-year federal stimulus program dries up, many Maryland companies have received solid shots-in-the-arm from their multimillion-dollar contracts or awards, say executives with those businesses.

The $58.7 million grant that Hughes Network Systems won in August to provide high-speed satellite Internet service in rural areas nationwide has allowed the Germantown business to add sales, installation and call-center employees, said Mark Wymer, Hughes vice president of consumer marketing.

“It’s a nice-sized grant for us,” he said. “The program has been met with great enthusiasm by the consumers and small businesses we serve. ... They are in areas of the country that don’t have high-speed Internet services.”

While the board overseeing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds is not slated to disband for two more years, a good chunk of the money has been awarded. But many companies have not yet actually received all of those funds.

In Maryland, $6.3 billion in contracts, grants and loans has been awarded to businesses, nonprofits and public entities from 2009 through March, according to figures from the U.S. Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. But only about half of that, $3.1 billion, was received by those parties as of March.

About the same amount had been awarded to Virginia through March. Washington, D.C., received more at $5.4 billion, while California topped all states with $30.1 billion. Nationally, $264.2 billion had been awarded as of March, according to federal figures.

Johns Hopkins University was the top private recipient in Maryland with $252.1 million in awards through March, according to federal figures. The large majority of those funds was in grants, with $235 million, plus $17 million in contracts.

The Baltimore university has used stimulus funds to “underwrite the cost of pioneering research in areas as diverse as muscle-wasting diseases, cancer, substance abuse and the origins of the universe, research that promises to reap important and lasting societal benefits for years to come,” President Ronald J. Daniels said in a statement on the university’s website.

Utility Baltimore Gas & Electric received the second-most funds, $205.6 million. SAIC-Frederick and Baltimore builder Whiting-Turner Contracting were next with $191 million and $64 million, respectively.

Rockville market and survey research company Westat, also among the top private recipients of stimulus funds in Maryland, was awarded $58.2 million from 2009 through March. But not all of that is direct awards, as the total does not reflect subcontracting, said Dee Schofield, marketing director of Westat.

“It’s obviously good to get these contracts and grants. The stimulus has been very valuable to us,” Schofield said. “But the awards are a relatively small part of our overall budget.”

Westat’s annual revenue is about $500 million. Hughes’ revenues last year topped $1 billion.

Westat’s awards include $10.7 million from the Department of Health and Human Services last year to implement a network for its health information technology research center.

After the money runs out, it would be good to see such projects continued in some fashion, Schofield said. “The work has been valuable to our clients,” she said.

The grant awarded to Hughes, which is administered by the federal Department of Agriculture, pays the company for each new subscriber signed up, to as many as 105,000. Hughes has attracted more than 75,000 subscribers across the country so far, Wymer said Thursday.

“That’s spread fairly uniformly across the 50 states,” he said. “It’s mostly residences, but there are some small businesses.”

About 1,000 customers are in Maryland, Wymer said.

Some 104 jobs will be created through the Hughes program, which is more than many projects have generated, according to the federal recovery site. But Wymer said he wasn’t sure about that number, which could include employees already in the company that work on the project.

More than 14 million American households and small businesses do not have access to land-based broadband, according to federal figures.

Making the list

Two Maryland projects made the White House’s list last year of 100 stimulus projects that are “changing America.” One was a $21.9 million award to replace a bridge on Interstate 695 in Baltimore, which officials say is creating 200 jobs.

The other is a $15 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration for improvements to a terminal at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport that will allow aircraft to move more efficiently, as well as for information technology communications and environmental controls.

One Maryland project made a list of 100 stimulus projects that “give taxpayers the blues” by Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. The stimulus program has increased government spending while not resulting in lower unemployment, according to the senators’ report.

“Some projects accomplish such questionable goals as putting in new windows at a vacant government building, replacing a new sidewalk with an even newer one, or money for a park that is only accessible by boat or plane,” the senators’ report said.

The Maryland project noted in that report was a $364,000 grant awarded to Silver Spring communications and design business Palladian Partners in 2009 to develop a website highlighting what National Institutes of Health researchers were doing with stimulus money. This year, Palladian was acquired by Ann Arbor, Mich., research nonprofit Altarum Institute.

Another Maryland company, Smartronix of Hollywood, developed the recovery board’s website.

Besides adding and retaining thousands of jobs, the $787 billion Recovery Act has cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans and laid a “foundation for sustainable economic growth and job creation,” according to the White House report.

kshay@gazette.net