Business Journal-Portland articles from August 1997

Business Journal-Portland archives from August 1997

Exec comp: here's the bacon they brought home. (Portland, Oregon executives)
August 1, 1997... Steering a multibillion-dollar sneaker company in the face of nagging human rights allegations is apparently worth less in the executive marketplace than erasing the memory of home siding that sprouts mushrooms. That's why Mark Suwyn, chairman...

US West faces long road back. (US West Communications Inc.)
August 1, 1997... Four years after record numbers of US West Communications Inc.'s customers began complaining to state regulators, the threat of competition and continued pressure from regulators has sent the company a signal that it is beginning to take...

Ad shuffle: KVO grows, fuel takes hit. (KVO Advertising and Public Relations)
August 1, 1997... Key transitions transformed two of Portland's highest-profile media agencies in the last week. KVO Advertising and Public Relations expanded via merger while fuel Inc. announced the departure of one of its founding partners, Diane Barasch. KVO...

Port braces for I-5 bottleneck. (Oregon)
August 1, 1997... Moving air and water cargo during 'the nightmare' If getting there is half the fun, it ought to be a regular Mardi Gras when repair work starts on the Interstate 5 Bridge. Get ready for massive gridlock. Commutes that normally take minutes...

Security firms alarmed by proposal. (police response in Portland, Oregon)
August 1, 1997... Portland's decision on police response could set tone for nation The eyes of the security and alarm industry are focused squarely on Portland. The Portland Police Bureau plans to bring an ordinance before the City Council, perhaps as early...

Technological solutions to bolster 'Smart Forest'.
August 1, 1997... A Who's Who of high-tech and public-sector executives have joined to find ways to apply technology for the good of the community. A cadre of execs from Merix Corp. CEO Debi Coleman to investment banker Norm Duffer to Superintendent of Public...

VC's ardor for Oregon cools after hot first quarter. (venture capital firms)
August 1, 1997... Venture capitalists chopped their Oregon investments by nearly half in the second quarter, compared to Q1, accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand said. But the fall is no cause for alarm, said Gary Homsley, a senior manager with Coopers & Lybrand's...

After 18 months, Benaroyas resell Beaverton complex.
August 1, 1997... After buying a Beaverton business center 18 months ago, Seattle's Benaroya family has turned it around for a handsome profit. The Benaroyas, a wealthy family long-active in real estate investment, sold the Murray Business Center on July 28 to...

Rolling in (frozen) dough. (food technologist Jana Taylor)
August 1, 1997... An empire built upon the much-abused cookie Jana Taylor is one tough cookie. A food technologist and home economist, Taylor founded Jana's Classics from her home in 1984. It wasn't as though she had a lot of spare time on her hands. When she...

Hollywood fire victims bounce back. (Patty and Brian McGee)
August 1, 1997... A determined couple re-open their lampshade business within weeks of terrible blaze Patty and Brian McGee were at home on the morning of March 6 when they heard the news. "One of my customers called; he'd seen it on TV," Patty McGee...

Integrated Measurement Systems. (proxy report)(Company Profile)
August 1, 1997... NASDAQ: IMSC 9525 S.W. Gemini Drive, Beaverton, Ore. 97008 Integrated Measurement Systems Inc. produces engineering test stations and software to help integrated circuit manufacturers test and characterize digital electronic devices. The...

Nike dishes off ad business to W&K rival. (Wieden and Kennedy; Goodby, Silverstein and Partners)
August 8, 1997... Sneaker giant Nike Inc. has added a second ad agency to slap swooshes into the collective consciousness of the U.S. It's the folks who slap milk mustaches on celebrities. Company officials say the move is no slight to long-time advertising...

The I-5 silver lining: expanded rail system? (expected traffic during repair work on Interstate-5 Bridge)
August 8, 1997... Can the mother of all traffic jams also be the mother of invention? Repair work on the Interstate 5 Bridge, scheduled to begin September 16, will choke traffic flow down to three lanes on the heavily used bridge. Fixing the hardware that raises...

Doctor group lands $15M in VC deal. (Physician Partners Inc.; venture capital firm First Union Capital Partners)
August 8, 1997... Physician Partners Inc. has snared $15 million in private financing to help the new, 300-doctor-strong venture expand and build the home-grown competitor. The financing is among the largest venture capital deals announced locally. It's also...

Cheap labor: high-tech CEOs. (Oregon software industry wages)
August 8, 1997... Oregon software bosses earn far less than peers elsewhere Software companies, beware. Wage inflation may have been tough here in recent years, but it's only likely to get worse. Oregon software industry wages still lag behind national averages....

No matter how heavy, Chappell's lifts it; Portland moving company has been doing the hardest jobs right for 25 years. (Chappell's Trucking Co.)
August 8, 1997... As U.S. Bancorp drastically cuts its Oregon ties following transfer of ownership to Minneapolis' First Bank System Inc., dozens of service-related Portland companies are scrambling to make up for the business they stand to lose. Not Chappell's...

Equity Group ready to roll out expansion strategy. (Equity Group Inc. Realtors)
August 8, 1997... As a prelude to expansion into the Vancouver and Willamette Valley markets, Equity Group Inc. Realtors will move its headquarters next year from the Sunset Corridor to Southwest Portland. Kurt Dalbey, co-owner of the residential real estate...

Challenges aplenty for a rising star: Tanya Van Court brings youth and experience to her new US West post. (director of local network operations for US West of Oregon)(Interview)
August 8, 1997... Tanya Van Court aims to fix US West Communications Inc.'s line repair and installation service problems that have led record numbers of the company's customers to complain to state regulators. New to the job but quickly becoming an old hand, Van...

If you fear technology, look before you lodge; hotel industry checks out self-service check-in systems.(Focus on Meetings, Conventions and Hotels)
August 8, 1997... Instead of a courteous human, guests checking into some hotels across the country are now being greeted by touch-screen computers or rows of keypads. The lodging industry has decided to take a second look at self-service check-in systems, an...

Bottoms up! (hotel bars in Portland, OR)(Focus on Meetings, Conventions and Hotels)
August 8, 1997... Hotel bars are a wonderful place to drink because they have an inherent sense of adventure. Most of the patrons are supposedly out-of-towners, and there's always the chance of running into someone famous. In Portland, as in any big city, the...

Liquid gloves: Milwaukee's Bio-Safe seeks market acceptance, FDA approval for protective hand lotions.(Small Business Savvy)
August 8, 1997... Bio-Safe Enterprises is squirming its way into the industrial market with a skin protection lotion that deactivates the common cold. It isn't simply the lotion's effect on colds, though, that will make or break it. Bio-Safe's founder, Howard...

Protocol Systems Inc. (Proxy Report Excerpts)(Company Profile)
August 8, 1997... NASDAQ: PCOL 8500 S.W. Creekside Place, Beaverton, Ore. 97008 Protocol Systems Inc. designs, manufactures and markets patient-monitoring instruments and systems utilizing design and software concepts allowing hospitals to address needs for...

Oversight lacking on lottery's $1.3B. (accountability for Oregon lottery division)
August 15, 1997... As Oregon's schools, parks and libraries facing funding crises are made to account for every penny, hundreds of millions of dollars generated by the state's lottery division pass through the bureaucracy each year with little oversight as to how...

Telecom deal links Jubitz, Texas chain. (joint ownership of SmartShop by Jubitz Corp. and Rip Griffin Truck Service Centers)
August 15, 1997... Portland-based Jubitz Corp. has joined with a Texas truck stop chain to field a new $13.6 million venture which will offer high-speed voice and data telecommunications services to the trucking industry. Dubbed SmartStop, the Portland-based...

Trophy towners could fetch $50 million. (Portland Center Apartments)
August 15, 1997... One of Portland's most recognizable residential highrise complexes - downtown's three-tower Portland Center Apartments - has been put up for sale, Bruce Rubin, president of longtime co-owner PaineWebber Properties, confirmed this week. Rubin...

Doctor group grows, but at what cost? (Physician Partners Inc.)(Company Profile)
August 15, 1997... Recent infusion of $15 million venture capital money aids group expansion, forces a public stock offering The idea for Physician Partners Inc. hit Tim Dupell in December 1994 when he was buying stock in a physician venture that was doing an...

Tektronix puts Phaser on stun, lands big Korean deal. (Tektronix Inc. to sell solid ink printers to Samsung Life Insurance and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance)
August 15, 1997... Tektronix Inc. is adding a bit of color to the Korean insurance business. That's because the Wilsonville-based color printing and imaging division of Tek has just inked a deal to sell 2,500 of its Phaser 350 solid ink printers, valued at $8.4...

Huber's expansion means more Spanish coffees. (restaurant)
August 15, 1997... After serving more than 2 million Spanish coffees and an estimated 1500 tons of turkey, the oldest restaurant in town has decided it's time to grow. Huber's restaurant is finishing a new addition that will increase the seating in its dining...

It's Kaiser vs. labor in battle for profits. (Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc.)
August 22, 1997... The 270 radiologists who hit the picket lines to win a better contract with Kaiser Permanente are just characters in the latest skirmish in a painstaking penny-pinching war that dates back to at least 1990. That's when the hierarchical Kaiser,...

Microsoft in venture with Intel, AT&T. (investments in eFusion; AT and T Ventures Corp.)
August 22, 1997... eFusion, a year-old company whose products combine Internet and voice transmissions on the same phone line, just received a big infusion of cash. The Beaverton-based Intel spin-off announced completion of its second-round financing and also...

New concerns lead to tighter OEDD controls. (Oregon Economic Development Department)
August 22, 1997... The 1997 Oregon State Legislature has approved a 13-member task force consisting of legislators, business and lay people to oversee spending practices of the Oregon Economic Development Department (OEDD) during the next biennium. John Watt,...

Spieker ready to ink reported $70M deal. (Spieker Properties Inc.'s acquisition of Nimbus Corporate Center)
August 22, 1997... Publicly-traded Spieker Properties Inc. is buying Nimbus Corporate Center, one of the largest business parks on Portland's west side, informed sources say. Parties to the deal declined to comment, but the sources - some identified, some not -...

With little fanfare, Videoland prospers. (video rental store chain)
August 22, 1997... Founder Victor Cianci keeps a low profile and doesn't want shareholders While the fast-growing Hollywood Entertainment Corp. gets all the national attention, a smaller video rental store chain just down the road in Wilsonville from the video...

Utility "choice" project attacked as ill-conceived. (Portland General Electric and PacifiCorp. customer programs)
August 22, 1997... To gain information about how the electric industry would operate in an open, deregulated market, Portland General Electric (PGE) and PacifiCorp have proposed programs that would allow selected customers to choose their own electricity suppliers....

Group pushing for flights to NY lands investors. (AIRPortland Inc.)
August 22, 1997... AIRPortland Inc., a start-up airline founded by a group of local business people, is a half-million dollars closer to getting aloft. Now, all it needs is another $27.5 million, two passenger planes, and 300-plus employees. Those facts don't...

Goliaths giving ground to Davis in phone battle. (long-distance telephone companies)
August 22, 1997... WASHINGTON - With more than $60 billion in revenue at stake, the nation's largest long-distance telephone service providers are losing customers to hundreds of smaller upstarts. Over the past decade, the smaller carriers' share of toll revenue...

Objective: raising our foreign trade image. (interview with World Trade Center of Portland chief Charles Allcock)(Interview)
August 22, 1997... World Trade Center chief Allcock says it time for Portland to play in the big leagues As the president of World Trade Center Portland, Charles. Allcock helps set the stage for international trade deals. The decade-old trade center is the first...

Landlocked? Sail into the floating home market.(Focus On: Real Estate)
August 22, 1997... Prices are rising almost as fast as the Willamette That gentle rocking guests experience when they drop by to visit Doug Courtneay and Sue Cantrell isn't an earthquake. It's simply part of everyday life when you're the owner of a floating home....

The argument for infill: to build or not to build? (rowhouses)(Focus On: Real Estate)
August 22, 1997... Rowhouses delight planners, anger some residents Last fall, Marty Sucec was astonished. She had just seen a proposal by the City of Portland's Planning Bureau for Southwest Portland, including her Multnomah neighborhood. The draft map called...

Urbanization pushes up Vancouver home prices. (Vancouver, Washington)(Focus On: Real Estate)
August 22, 1997... The days of bargain-basement real estate deals in Clark County have come to an end, as the area begins to look more and more like another Beaverton. For many years, Clark County was a refuge from the higher-priced real estate on the Portland...

Union Station plan brings small town to the city. (Portland, Oregon Housing Authority's program of establishing a housing community near Union Station)(Focus On: Real Estate)
August 22, 1997... Community center anchors N.W high-density project Christine Poston would give her quiet little kingdom on the waterfront for a video store closer to home. But pretty soon, she might not have to. The Housing Authority of Portland is about to...

A-Ball Plumbing's gradual explosion. (plumbing supplies company)(Company Profile)
August 22, 1997... The Frutigers had a quarter of a century to prepare for take-off Jan and Kent Frutiger say they were ready for their small business to slam into high gear when it did two years ago. Sales at the couple's West Burnside store, A-Ball Plumbing,...

Barge traffic headed for all-time record. (Columbia River container traffic situation)
August 29, 1997... From canned corn to french fries to hay cubes, the volume of container cargoes moving on the Columbia River by barge has jumped by 42 percent this year. "There's just a lot more cargo available," said Bob Hrdlicka, marine director for the Port...

Chinese willing to pay extra for Northwest's cherries and crabs. (China's export industry)(Hungry Asian markets lure Oregon exporters.)
August 29, 1997... Foods that are icons of the Northwest, from Bing cherries to Dungeness crab, are finding ready buyers in China. Oregon companies, which in the past have sent a trickle of food products to China, hope that its rising standard of living and its...

Wheat Center pushes farmers to grow strains that appeal to Asians. (Wheat Marketing Center on wheat growing)(Hungry Asian markets lure Oregon exporters)
August 29, 1997... Rosie J. Dellumes picks up a tanned noodle and frowns. "Nobody likes dark noodles," says the research and development manager at Robin Hood Manufacturing in the Philippines "We need brighter noodles and texture is very important. The noodles...

Hollywood sign imbroglio: no neon, no headquarters. (Hollywood Entertainment Corp.)
August 29, 1997... Strict sign codes might sink Wilsonville's chances of housing Hollywood Entertainment Corp.'s new corporate headquarters. Already, the codes have company officials discussing other Portland-area locations. One of Wilsonville's development...

The Blues welcome PacifiCare ex-exec. (Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon; Bart McMullan)
August 29, 1997... Veteran McMullan, ousted in restructuring, touches down with Regence Dr. Bart McMullan, the ousted leader of PacifiCare of Oregon, is going to work for a competitor. McMullan joins Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon, where he'll be...

PacTrust's new tenant signs 10-year pact. (Portlanf Oregon office building)
August 29, 1997... In the largest local industrial lease so far this year, Garden Distributors NW penned a 10-year, $4 million deal for 95,000 square feet of space in PacTrust's Clackamas Station this week. The L-shaped building at 10315 Jennifer St. was recently...

Asked to choose, pramedics vote to oust Alliance. (Northwest Paramedic Alliance)
August 29, 1997... A year after paramedics ousted it, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) has returned as representative to 400 workers at American Medical Response-Northwest, defeating Northwest Paramedic Alliance in a special election. The Alliance, a...

Seattle venture cap fund prepared top invest $30M. (Encompass Ventures)
August 29, 1997... Seattle-based Encompass Ventures has closed a $30 million venture capital fund that will invest in Northwest information technology companies. The partners operating the fund, Encompass Group U.S. IT Partners I, will use it to expand on a...

Athletic Club to build $6M Hillsboro facility. (RiverPlace Athletic Club)
August 29, 1997... RiverPlace Athletic Club, the popular workout spot in downtown Portland's RiverPlace district, plans to strengthen its market presence by opening a second location in Hillsboro, parties to a real estate deal said. Developer Dennis Sivers said...

Developer slows down - to high gear. (Dave Leland; Columbia-Willamette Development Co.)(includes related article on Dave Leland)
August 29, 1997... Rejuvenated by starting his own business, Dave Leland has a new outlook on work By 1988, Dave Leland had worked himself into near-exhaustion as head of the Columbia-Willamette Development Co. "I was really tired," says Leland, now 58....

Close-caption service proves lucrative. (LNS Captioning)(includes related article on captioners)
August 29, 1997... Owners of LNS court reporting firm helping those with hearing loss Former court reporters Carol Studenmund and Robin Nodland already had one business when they decided to start another. In half the time it took to grow their court reporting...

Microsoft plans own real estate web site. (Microsoft Corp.)
August 29, 1997... If Bill Gates ever decides to sell his $60 million waterfront home, he may end up listing it on his own company's real estate Web site. Microsoft Corp. is in the early stages of developing a residential real estate site, code-named Boardwalk,...

Mentor Graphics Corp. (proxy report excerpts)(Company Profile)
August 29, 1997... NASDAQ: MENT 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Ore. 97070 Mentor Graphics Corp. designs, manufactures, markets and services electronic design automation systems and is an industry leader in the field of computer-aided engineering and...