Business Journal-Portland articles from April 2000

Business Journal-Portland archives from April 2000

No welcome mat for this Stranger.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... The arrival of a stranger has ignited a Portland weekly newspaper war. Willamette Week and The Stranger, the hip and outrageous Seattle weekly scheduled to debut in Portland in June, are squabbling over what the newcomer is going to call...

Creative center lands historic site for hub.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Portland's Creative Services Center will sport a historic building in a trendy location. Now all it needs are a few more tenants. The Portland Development Commission has begun negotiations for the center to occupy the Kalberer Building at...

Port, EPA supporters debate Superfund casualty forecast.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... With a Superfund listing looming on the horizon, business along a 5.5-mile stretch of the Willamette River will suffer a slowdown, say officials at the Port of Portland. The slump could make the planned sale of the Portland Shipyard and...

Homegrown SEI may sow seeds nationally.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... When Kevin Tanner asked for a volunteer to discuss Self Enhancement Inc.'s mission, all 25 of his students raised their hands. As their hands went up, it became obvious that Tanner had somehow convinced the Ockley Green Middle School pupils...

It's the principle of the thing--principal plus interest.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... As a shareholder, how much would you be willing to spend to keep a union rabble-rouser from ever working again for the company whose shares you hold? If you are a shareholder in Precision Castparts, you may be able to find out what management...

Get ready for a retail tangle as Best Buy attacks Portland.
April 7, 2000... In his 28 years operating Standard TV and Appliance, Bill Gander has seen major competitors come and go. So he's not prone to hysterics when a new electronics chain rolls into town. Still, he acknowledged that Minneapolis-based Best Buy Co....

German unit drives firm's rail-car sales.
April 7, 2000... The Greenbrier Cos. Inc. strategy to penetrate Europe is starting to take shape, say company officials and analysts who cover the Lake Oswego rail car maker. In September, the company completed a deal to purchase a manufacturing plant in...

The Numbers Game.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... The Numbers Game Business women use internet for consumer activity Entrepreneurs more likely to purchase...

Insider Trading.
April 7, 2000... Insider Trading The buying and selling of stock shares by area executives Cyrus Tsui President Lattice Semiconductor Shares to sell: 87,500...

Concentrex customers access new e-services.
April 7, 2000... * Sagent Technology Inc., a Mountain View, Calif. provider of e-business intelligence solutions, and Portland's Concentrex Inc. formed a strategic application service provider partnership to enable Concentrex customers to access the updated...

Wave Rock Communications Inc.
April 7, 2000... * Wave Rock Communications Inc., Portland, is relaunching Anvil, a free online magazine (http://www.anvilmedia.com) that will explore timely news, issues and trends relevant to internet business, marketing, communications and technology. Kent...

iMotors.com.
April 7, 2000... * iMotors.com, an internet used car retailer, introduced its service in Oregon with the opening of its first delivery center in downtown Portland. Portland becomes "another important market opening for iMotors, further cementing the company's...

Bioject Medical Technologies Inc.
April 7, 2000... * Bioject Medical Technologies Inc., Portland, the leading manufacturer of jet injection devices for needle-free drug delivery, and the Animal Medical Center introduced a DNA-based vaccine treatment for melanoma in animals. Previous clinical...

AVI BioPharma.
April 7, 2000... * Patrick Iversen, Ph.D., senior vice president of research and development for AVI BioPharma will present preclinical data today at the 91st annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, highlighting the effectiveness of the...

Williams Controls Inc.
April 7, 2000... * Portland-based Williams Controls Inc. announced an agreement in principle to sell the agriculture equipment business of Hardee Williams Inc. and Waccamaw Wheel Williams Inc. for approximately $2.9 million in cash and notes, plus the...

MedicaLogic Inc.
April 7, 2000... * MedicaLogic Inc., the Hillsboro-based online healthcare information provider, has scheduled a special share-holders meeting to approve its pending merger with Medscape Inc. and to approve its pending stock-swap acquisition of Total eMed Inc....

West Coast Bancorp.
April 7, 2000... * West Coast Bancorp paid $5.4 million to settle a lawsuit. The Lake Oswego company said it expects the settlement to result in an after-tax charge of $3.2 million, or about 21 cents per diluted share. The plaintiffs had claimed damages against...

CORRECTIONS.
April 7, 2000... * Pioneer Square in downtown Portland was not, as reported last week, sold. The. square is a city-owned park. A story in The Business Journal, written by a staff writer for The South Florida Business Journal, should have said that several...

Promise of AVI's cancer vaccine luring millions.
April 7, 2000... The emerging pharmaceutical company SuperGen Inc. has upped its stake in Portland-based AVI BioPharma Inc. in a deal that could eventually total more than $100 million. In a contract signed Tuesday, the San Ramon, Calif., company has...

Oregon Steel's dispute no big hit with union.
April 7, 2000... A dispute between Oregon Steel Mills and the labor union representing workers at its mill in Pueblo, Colo., has all the makings of a drama, according to the United Steelworkers of America. The union staked out corners on Southwest Broadway...

Glasgow will oversee Madrona's local office.
April 7, 2000... Former Portland executive Will Glasgow will open a Portland office for Seattle's Madrona Venture Group, boosting the chances that local technology companies will be able to tap the firm's $250 million venture fund. Madrona, known for its...

Emerald Solutions-ZCom deal appears imminent.
April 7, 2000... Emerald Solutions Inc. is in the pre-initial public offering quiet period, but that doesn't mean the company is standing still. It just means the company isn't talking about its plans, such as its agreement to purchase ZCom, a Portland web...

Oregon trying to pump up agriculture industry.
April 7, 2000... Got an agriculture-related story to tell? Then the Agri-Business Council of Oregon wants you. The council has hired Metropolitan Group to work on a campaign to give a higher profile to Oregon agriculture, the state's seventh-largest...

M's will require more than new digs to draw.
April 7, 2000... The Seattle Mariners may have their work cutout if they are to reach the team's attendance goal of 3.2 million fans in Safeco Field's first full season. The team will promote a greatly increased player payroll, fresh new faces on the...

Power study says region needs to boost capacity.
April 7, 2000... Although a new report says the Northwest may suffer power-supply problems in the next few years, observers say area businesses should be a little cautious, as opposed to alarmist. Most dramatically, the Northwest Power Planning Council's...

Buzzsaw's strategy a VC winner.(receives seventy-five million dollars from venture capital)(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Five-month-old Buzzsaw.com Inc. of San Francisco has received the largest single infusion of venture capital among companies rushing to put the building design and construction business online. That's good news for Portland-based Timberline...

Transwestern buys three downtown properties.
April 7, 2000... A Chicago-based real estate investment company targeted Portland for one of its early forays into portfolio diversification. Transwestern Investment Co. purchased three mixed-use, office and retail buildings in downtown Portland as part of...

Ex-GST CEO says debt, losses bedeviled him.(Joe Basile of OnSite Access)(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Earlier this year, Joe Basile was starting to look toward the other side of the fence and liking what he saw. "The grass was definitely greener on the other side of the fence," said GST Telecommunications Inc.'s ex-CEO. So, he crossed...

Cost of Vancouver Clinic's freedom is 'substantial'.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... The Vancouver Clinic has split from Phycor, the Nashville, Tenn.-based for-profit physician management company that bought the 80-member practice three years ago. Its independence came at a price. The doctors took out a loan from Bank...

Clinton and Congress agree on options bill.(stock options may be excluded from overtime calculations)(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman traveled to Capitol Hill to endorse legislation that would overturn her departments ruling that profits from stock options must be included when calculating overtime pay for rank-and-file employees. Many...

Portland's Lucy.com bids for tennis sponsorship.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... The Sanex WTA Tour is expected to name a North American sponsor soon, and the online women's apparel store Lucy.com is a leading contender. Lucy.com recently became a partner of the tennis association and is in talks with the tour to hash...

Stiffer penalties needed to stop office-supply fraud.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... The Federal Trade Commission recently slapped a $500,000 fine against Ultra Ribbons, whose 700 telemarketers sold computer ribbons, printer cartridges and other office supplies from a Southern California boiler room. The Ultra Ribbons...

Linda Wright.(vice president of U.S.Bank)(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... PERSONAL INFORMATION Name: Linda Wright Organization: U.S. Bank Title: Vice president and Northwest regional manager, community development What we do: Financial services holding company Education: Portland State...

Growing up with George.(George Fox University)
April 7, 2000... George Fox University gets creative in funding its expansion In 1989, Western Seminary provost Jim Sweeney asked then-George Fox president Ed Stevens if he would like to have Western's graduate psychology department--faculty, library and...

Will two downtown Hiltons equal one magnet hotel?(Statistical Data Included)
April 7, 2000... All around town, Spring is in the air. And so is a little dust. Anyone who traversed the Southwest Sixth Avenue transit mall downtown this week probably noticed that more sunlight is hitting the street around Southwest Taylor Street. Just...

Gamble may eventually Pay off for Northern Bank.(Northern Bank of Commerce shareholders reject initial buyout offer)(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... When it comes to chutzpah, there's no beating the minority of shareholders in Northern Bank of Commerce who sank a proposed merger with Cowlitz Bancorporation. NBOC is losing money losing deposits and losing the confidence of regulators....

EX-NIKE EXEC OPENS OFFICE.(Ron Parnham joins Pondel/Wilkinson Group)(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Former Nike Inc. investor relations officer Ron Parham has set up office to provide similar services to local companies on a consulting basis. Parham has teamed up with Pondel/Wilkinson Group, a national firm based in Los Angeles. The...

DONATIONS IN VANCOUVER.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Ed and Mary Firstenburg, founders of First Independent Bank in Vancouver, Wash., recently donated $1 million to The Community Foundation for Southwest Washington. The gift joins an existing endowment the Firstenburgs have funded in The...

ON THE RIGHT FOOT.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 7, 2000... Albina Community Bancorp said 1999 turned out to be the first profitable year for the community bank, which serves inner North/Northeast Portland. The bank holding company generated earnings of $102,000 for 1999, and its subsidiary, Albina...

Lane's employees to switch from butter to olive oil soon.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Anyone who has heard that Lane Marketing Communications of Portland has snagged the $1.3 million account to promote olive oil for the Madrid, Spain-based International Olive Oil Council has to be wondering: How'd they do it? A good word...

GEORGE IS COMING TO TOWN.
April 7, 2000... George Stephanopoulos, President Clinton's former right-hand man in the White House, is coming to Portland to speak at the American Advertising Federation's District XI Conference April 14 at the Hilton. Stephanopoulos, who now appears on...

RADIO AWARD WINNERS.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Radio spots for KKSN-FM, AAA of Oregon/Idaho, The Oregonian and Doc Martens were the big winners in the firstever Radio Creative Awards. The awards were presented before a sellout crowd of 520 people at the Year 2000 Radio Day luncheon, at...

ATLANTA COMPANY BUYS WEB DEVELOPER.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Atlanta-based Landacorp last week acquired the Portland-based Interactive Health Division of High Technology Solutions. Since the acquisition, IHD, known locally as Multimedia Resources Inc., has changed its name to iHealthMedia.com. The...

Firms paying recruiters bonuses to find lawyers.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... How hot is the demand for some lawyers? Hot enough that some recruiters are being offered very large bonuses for finding clients the right kind of legal talent. Allen Barteld, chief executive officer of The Associates, a Portland-based...

TIES WITH AUSTRIA STRENGTHENED.
April 7, 2000... Stoel Rives has taken on an international flavor these days, particularly the taste of Austria. Stoel Rives partner Christopher Hermann was recently appointed honorary consul of the Republic of Austria for Oregon and Idaho. He will...

CHAFFIN JOINS INTERNATIONAL GROUP.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Local attorney Mary Chaffin bas become an affiliate member of Legal Counsel International, an alliance of international business and legal counsel. Her practice with the group will focus on financial law and business with the Russian...

LIBERAL ARTS, LAW GO TOGETHER.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Who says an English degree isn't valuable? Actually, most of my extended family had that opinion when I flirted with the idea for about a week during my freshman year in college. Little did they know that I would have been positioning myself...

Service is the thing.
April 7, 2000... Pat Hanlin's company is the voice behind the merchant. And now, Milwaukie-based LiveBridge Inc. is positioning itself as the voice behind the dotcoms that have sprung up to sell everything from books to luxury automobiles. The company...

US West hopes for top-tier status through merger.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... The view from the executive offices at US West Oregon is a little better these days. Larry Huss, vice president in charge of Oregon operations, hasn't stopped worrying about the service-quality issues that have nagged the company over the...

Integra Telecommunications flies into fast lane.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... In late-1997, OGI Telecomm was a small business with less than 20 employees. It was spending a few million dollars on some new equipment and nursing ambitions of becoming something more than just a provider of telecommunications services to the...

ISP consolidation a gold mine for Marlin Group.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... The internet service provider consolidation trend has been good news for a pair of business brokers who decided to specialize in the ISP industry. David Marlin, president of Marlin Group Inc., and Jill Nelson, vice president, were working...

Watch out, or he'll be leveraging synergies ...(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... It's easy to make fun of the cliches that have sprouted like weeds in vacant cyber-lots thanks to the internet revolution. Unfortunately, it's also easy to use these hackneyed phrases. It's easy because the cliches have gained...

What you can do with a website and a credit card.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Everyone has seen the television commercials about the quaint little business owned by a peasant grandmother in some picturesque, remote village using the internet to sell her homemade wares across the globe. But how close is this to...

Largest long-distance service providers.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 7, 2000... Largest long-distance service providers Ranked by number of metro-area employees Metro-area Rank employees/ Company...

Top cellular phone dealers.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 7, 2000... Top cellular phone dealers Ranked by number of units sold in 1999 Number of Number of Number of metro-area...

Loneliness can be a downside for 'home-aloners'.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Two of the primary reasons used-bookseller Andrea Drinard decided to reenter the "bricks and mortar" world of book selling were the repetitive tasks and the isolation associated with being a "webpreneur." As an internet bookseller, Drinard...

Virtual books--or not.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Independent bookstores were hit hard during the 1990s by the growth of bookstore giants like Barnes and Noble and Borders. One indicator: Membership in the American Booksellers Association, a trade group representing independent bookstores, has...

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... COMMUNICATIONS Integra Telecom appointed April Kemp customer services director. Oresis Communications Inc. named J. Randy Shipley national sales vice president. Klemscott Communications, Printing Control, appointed Scott Serna...

Connect now with LearnLinks!
April 7, 2000... When this newspaper printed a story about the YWCA's LearnLinks program to help homeless kids with their academic work, the response from our readers was overwhelming. Mari Yerger, who runs the program for the YWCA, had volunteers calling for...

Crime & punishment in cyberspace.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Management at an extended-stay motel in Hillsboro got suspicious when the occupant in one of its rooms refused maid service. Eventually, the smell of dope wafted from the room and management decided it was time to call the police. What the...

New economy is here to stay--take advantage of it.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2000... Today, any product and almost any service of interest to consumers can be bought over the internet. Groceries, concert tickets, insurance, stock trades; the list goes on and on. The new economy doesn't stop with businesses selling to...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
April 7, 2000... There's a strong Northwest Precedent for ports working together To the editor: In a recent article and editorial about the Port of Portland's plans for West Hayden Island (March 24), The Business Journal challenged the Port of...

A look at the region's Winners & Losers.
April 7, 2000... Deborah Stewart Community development has no boundaries for Deborah Stewart, president and founder of Communi(k) Inc. A letter from a grateful employee explains how Stewart developed a program for employees to plant trees for parks,...

Putting children first.
April 7, 2000... The for-profit and nonprofit sectors in Multnomah County have teamed up to produce a wonderful program designed to get adults involved in positive ways with kids' lives. Called "Take the Time," this many-faceted project represents a long-term...

OHSU's $500M challenge.
April 14, 2000... In what will be its most expensive capital campaign ever, Oregon Health Sciences University intends to raise $500 million over the next seven years to construct new buildings and hire dozens of scientists. Most of the money, more than 50...

Builders go to court to push growth limits.
April 14, 2000... In a rarely exercised legal maneuver, the Home Builders Association and the Partnership for Sensible Growth have filed a writ of mandamus with Oregon's highest court, demanding that Metro "immediately" expand the urban growth boundary. The...

His secret to success? Easy: get an ROI of 54.(Statistical Data Included)
April 14, 2000... Amir Khazeni spent $205,000 in 1998 to buy a business unit of bankrupt Atlas Telecom Inc., a company at which he had worked for several years. Over the next two years Khazeni rebuilt the business, adding some new services and a new chief...

The big chair cools as Wynne exits adidas without successor.
April 14, 2000... Steve Wynne didn't slam the door on his way out. The former CEO of adidas America Inc. instead exited quietly on March 31, not waiting for German parent adidas-Salomon AG to name a permanent replacement. Wynne isn't the only person to say...

Lynch mob forms to hang a guy who's doing his job.
April 14, 2000... Managing is tough. There's just no two ways about it. You face a problem, you make the best decision you can and you move on. If you're right more times than you're wrong, you're probably a success. What's really a drag is to have to put...

Portland Schools may charge city for use of its facilities.
April 14, 2000... Portland Public Schools administrators, in a move that could accrue $2 million-plus for the district, may begin charging the city's Parks and Recreation Department for using school properties. As the district embarks on a series of...

Appraisal firm files lawsuit against board.(Oregon Appraiser Certification and Licensure Board.)
April 14, 2000... Armed with an arsenal of allegations, a Massachusetts-based appraisal firm filed a lawsuit Monday against the Oregon Appraiser Certification and Licensure Board. At about the same time, the appraisal board voted to issue a $444,500 civil...

Nike foes wrest away chunk of shoe market.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 14, 2000... * Nike Inc.'s share of the domestic market for athletic footwear dropped 20 percent in the first quarter of 2000 compared with the same period a year ago, according to SportsTrend.Info, an industry information source. But both Nike and analysts...

Chrome Data Corp.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 14, 2000... Chrome Data Corp., an independent business-to-business provider of automotive data and software for selling cars online, released the Chrome Top 10 list of cars and trucks. The data reflected web site activity by consumers using Chrome's...

Precision Castparts Corp.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 14, 2000... Precision Castparts Corp. of Portland acquired the Swiss firm Technova AG and its subsidiaries. The price was approximately $15 million. Technova produces a range of high-performance lined valves for systems designed to handle corrosive and/or...

H. J. Heinz Co.(purchases Yoshida Food Products Co.'s brand)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 14, 2000... H. J. Heinz Co., Pittsburgh, acquired the Yoshida's brand made by Yoshida Food Products Co. Limited Partnership of Portland. Sales for the brand exceed $20 million annually. Last year, Heinz acquired ABC Indonesia, the world's second-largest...

Hunt.(Hunt.com to be sold)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 14, 2000... Hunt.com is the latest mega-portal domain name to be offered for sale through GreatDomains.com, the Tigard domain-name broker. Hunt.com joins a short list of internet portal names, consisting of six or fewer letters that are suitable for...

AssetExchange.(appoints Joel Kaplan senior vice president)(Brief Article)
April 14, 2000... AssetExchange.com, the Portland online network for the acquisition and divestiture of loan portfolios, appointed Joel Kaplan senior vice president. Kaplan's role is to help expand the company's reach into the insurance industry and develop and...

MedicaLogic Inc.(forms partnership with Oregon Health Sciences University)(Brief Article)
April 14, 2000... MedicaLogic Inc., Hillsboro, the online health record firm, confirmed a strategic relationship with Oregon Health Sciences University. Under the agreement, OHSU will purchase MedicaLogic's Logician EMR software to implement initially in three...

Ford Motor Co.(uses Digimarc's technology in product advertising)(Brief Article)
April 14, 2000... Ford Motor Co. will be the first advertiser to use a technology from Digimarc Corp. of Portland to bridge magazine advertisements to specific product information within the company's web site at www.Ford.com Ford's advertisements in the July...

LiveBridge Inc.(to offer eCustomers software program)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 14, 2000... Portland companies nRealTime, a software development firm, and LiveBridge Inc., an Internet contact company are teaming up to offer clients' eCustomers "an integrated communications and customer relationship management solution able to handle...

Port of Portland.(contract with Veramark Technologies Inc.)(Brief Article)
April 14, 2000... The Port of Portland has ordered a telecommunications management system from Veramark Technologies Inc.'s Angeles Group Division. The Angeles Group Quantum Series product will be used by the port to manage a five-switch telecommunications...

Hayden Is. project foes reject port's response.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 14, 2000... The Port of Portland is set to wrap up work on a preliminary phase of a proposal to develop 827 acres of West Hayden Island. However, members of a committee that has worked on the project with the port for months say they aren't satisfied with...

Corillian bolts from IPO gate like a turtle.
April 14, 2000... Corillian Corp.'s April 12 initial public offering won't be used to illustrate the explosive one-day performances of newly minted internet stocks. And that's just fine with president Kirk Wright. Corillian's stock looked for a while as...

Willamette Ind. to make a $71M move on Mexico.
April 14, 2000... Portland-based timber giant Willamette Industries Inc. expects a $71 million cash purchase of an integrated box operations in Mexico to close by the end of the second quarter. The purchase agreement was struck with Femsa, Mexico's largest...