Storm Lake-based Meta Financial Group Inc. had a net income of $673,000, or 26 cents per share, in the first quarter of fiscal 2009, which ended Dec. 31, compared with a net loss of $740,000, or 29 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Revenue for the quarter reached a record $24.3 million, compared with $15 million a year ago. Results were affected by a $9.7 million increase in fee revenue from the company’s Meta Payment Systems unit, a 177 percent increase from 2008.

In the past 18 months, Wells Fargo & Co. made $540 billion in new loans and mortgage originations, including $63 billion in commercial/commercial real estate, $123 billion in consumer and small business and $354 billion in home mortgages, said the company’s CEO John Stumpf before the House Committee on Finance Services in Washington, D.C., yesterday, the New Mexico Business Weekly reported. Stumpf also noted that in the past quarter, Wells Fargo made $72 billion in new loans, nearly three times the $25 billion it received from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program. Overall corporate expenses declined 1 percent last year, while Wells Fargo’s revenues rose more than 7 percent, he said.

RSM McGladrey Inc.’s 2009 Emerging Technology Conference will take place Feb. 25 at the Gateway Hotel & Conference Center in Ames. The event will focus on how to invest in technology strategies, with a keynote presentation by Allen Goldberg of Microsoft Corp. on “Leveraging Technology to Optimize Business Performance.” The cost is $100 per person and $50 for each additional person on a team. Learn more and register at www.rsmmcgladrey.com/events.

Gov. Chet Culver announced yesterday that the State Board of Education has accepted the final portion of the Iowa Core Curriculum required for kindergarten through 12th-grade students. The portion focuses on expectations for students in kindergarten through eighth grade in social studies and 21st-century skills, including employability skills as well as financial, health, technology and civic literacy. The Iowa Core Curriculum was signed into law May 1 of last year and must be fully implemented in high schools by 2012-2013 and kindergarten through eighth grade by 2014-2015.

Iowa State University has named four finalists in its search for the dean of its College of Design. They are Luis Rico-Gutierrez, associate dean of the College of Fine Arts and David Lewis Director of the Remaking Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh; Kate Schwennsen, associate dean of Iowa State’s College of Design; David Edelman, director of the School of Planning at the University of Cincinnati; and Christine Theodoropoulos, head of the architecture department at the University of Oregon. Each of the finalists will speak and answer questions at forums in Kocimski Auditorium over the next few weeks. Learn more at www.provost.iastate.edu/searches/design.

HNI Corp.’s board of directors has declared a quarterly dividend of 21.5 cents per share on its common stock, payable on Feb. 27 to shareholders of record on Feb. 20.