diff -N ConnectionManager.java
--- /dev/null	1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0000
+++ ConnectionManager.java	19 Sep 2013 01:26:32 -0000	1.1
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@

+package org.lcsim.hps.conditions;
+
+import java.io.File;
+import java.io.FileInputStream;
+import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.sql.Connection;
+import java.util.Properties;
+
+public class ConnectionManager {
+    
+    private static ConnectionParameters connectionParameters = new ConnectionParameters();
+    
+    static {
+        setupFromProperties();
+    }
+    
+    private ConnectionManager() {        
+    }
+    
+    public static void setConnectionParameters(ConnectionParameters connectionParameters) {
+        ConnectionManager.connectionParameters = connectionParameters;
+    }
+    
+    public static ConnectionParameters getConnectionParameters() {
+        return connectionParameters;
+    }
+    
+    public static Connection createConnection() {
+        return connectionParameters.createConnection();
+    }
+    
+    public static void setupFromProperties() {        
+        Object obj = System.getProperties().get("hps.conditions.db.configuration");
+        if (obj != null) {
+            String config = obj.toString();
+            Properties p = new Properties();
+            try {
+                p.load(new FileInputStream(new File(config)));
+            } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
+                throw new RuntimeException(e);
+            } catch (IOException e) {
+                throw new RuntimeException(e);
+            }
+            connectionParameters = ConnectionParameters.fromProperties(p);
+        }
+    }
+}