Business Journal-Portland articles from December 1996

Business Journal-Portland archives from December 1996

Key GOP lawmakers question 3% power surcharge. (Oregon Republican legislators)
December 27, 1996... Fee emerged from Northwest regional energy review Oregon Republican lawmakers are questioning a key tenet of a new regional energy plan that was supposed to be a blueprint for restructuring the Northwest electrical industry. Two state...

Kitzhaber includes OGI in engineering funding. (Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber; Oregon Graduate Institute)
December 27, 1996... The Oregon Graduate Institute may get some of the recognition - and responsibility - backers claim it deserves with Gov. John Kitzhaber's new plan to boost engineering education in the state. Kitzhaber announced Dec. 20 that he's earmarking...

Biting the bullet at BPA. (Bonneville Power Administration)
December 27, 1996... Randy Hardy spent the year struggling to redefine Bonneville's role Nineteen ninety six was not a particularly enjoyable year for Randy Hardy or the agency he leads. Memorable, yes. Fun, never. Bonneville Power Administration was on the...

End of an era. (buyout of Thrifty PayLess)
December 27, 1996... Thrifty PayLess CEO Gordon Barker finds himself out of a job after buyout Gordon Barker gives a eulogy for a career spanning three decades with Thrifty PayLess Inc., abruptly ended by corporate buyout. "I've got quite an education in the...

Rough-water swimmer. (Orca Capital owner Norm Duffett)
December 27, 1996... Norm Duffet's ability to read the financial waters pays off for Orca Capital When Norm Duffett blew out his knee in 1980, he knew what sport to substitute for long-distance running. Duffett, who worked near the home of San Francisco's...

The alterpreneur. (alternative medical services)
December 27, 1996... Steve Gregg launches Alternare to provide access to therapies traditional medicine ignores Much of the mainstream health care business is controlled by protocols that don't make sense in the view of Steve Gregg. He equates those protocols...

Wired to Wall Street. (GST Telecom pres. and CEO John Warta)
December 27, 1996... GST Telecom's John Warta has proven adept at landing funding for network expansion Nineteen ninety-six was the year of telecommunications on Wall Street, and one of the big winners there was an unassuming guy in an aloha shirt from...

Intel inside and out. (former Intel Corp. site manager Keith Thomson)
December 27, 1996... Keith Thomson raises the chip giant's profile in Oregon Keith Thomson spent 1996 putting a face on Oregon's largest industrial employer. Thomson has served for the past two years as site manager for Intel Corp.'s 9,500 Oregon employees,...

Garden Botanika sows new marketing seeds. (Garden Botanica Inc.)
December 27, 1996... Retailer sales jump with addition of cosmetics line SEATTLE - November was a surprisingly fertile month for Garden Botanika Inc., which reversed a pattern of weak numbers by posting heady gains in same-store sales. The Redmond-based...

Continuing high price of PCs does not compute. (personal computers)
December 27, 1996... There's something wrong in the personal computer business. While shopping this Christmas, I was in and out of several consumer electronics retailers and saw very few PCs below the $1,200 level. Complete packages with monitor included often...

Where to draw the bottom line. (impact of corporate ethics on company performance)
December 27, 1996... Wall Street rapid-fire accounting system doesn't factor in the long-term value of ethics Good ethics is good business, right? The rationale supposedly goes like this: Over the long term, the marketplace tends to reward good companies,...

Schnitzer close to purchase of Columbia Business Center. (Schnitzer Investment Corp.)
December 20, 1996... The largest industrial park in metropolitan Portland may soon change hands. Portland-based Schnitzer Investment Corp. plans to purchase Columbia Business Center in Vancouver, say sources in the real estate industry. The complex transaction...

Oregonians plunk down $500,000 in soft money. (campaign funds)
December 20, 1996... [TABULAR DATA OMITTED] WASHINGTON - The fuel for the spending race between Democrats and the Republicans during this election year came from American corporations and wealthy individuals, including nearly $500,000 from Oregonians. For...

MedPartners buying clinic to boost local presence. (MedPartners Inc.)
December 20, 1996... PacifiCare of Oregon is negotiating to sell its Oregon City-based McLean Clinic to MedPartners Inc., a publicly traded physician network that is expanding in the Northwest. PacifiCare has owned the seven-physician clinic since 1989, when it...

Ad campaign seeks to soften H-P's image. (Hewlett-Packard Co.)
December 20, 1996... Hewlett-Packard Co. wants to tell consumers that engineers are people, too. H-P's marketing division in Vancouver is launching an advertising blitz to show how its ink-jet printers fit into everyday life and put a face on its engineers. The...

Japanese manufacturer chooses Canby for plant. (Shimadzu U.S.A. Manufacturing Inc.)
December 20, 1996... A subsidiary of a multibillion-dollar Japanese maker of test and industrial equipment will soon build a $10 million facility in bucolic Canby. Shimadzu U.S.A. Manufacturing Inc. plans to build a 54,000-square-foot assembly plant just south...

Energy review leaves residential exchange unresolved. (Bonneville Power Administration)
December 20, 1996... BPA payment cuts could lead to 15 percent rate hike Despite the hoopla over the recently concluded governors' review of the Northwest energy system, one messy dispute was left on the table. The 20-member panel failed to resolve a bitter...

Crime doesn't pay, and neither does being a public defender. (salaries of public defenders)
December 20, 1996... At Metropolitan Public Defender Services Inc., lawyers are finding they have something in common with their clients - poverty. Starting wages for lawyers are as low as $12.75 an hour at the agency, which, as a private nonprofit handling...

Vancouver hospital jumps into mental health market. (Southwest Washington Medical Center)
December 20, 1996... Additional outpatient services give residents another choice Southwest Washington Medical Center is adding outpatient mental health services, pitting its services against others offered in the community and giving residents a choice for some...

Spirit Mountain Casino hotel expansion begins.
December 20, 1996... Spirit Mountain Casino has broken ground at Grand Ronde on a $5 million to $6 million 100-room hotel addition to the casino, expected to be ready for guests by late summer. The casino, opened in October 1995 by the Confederated Tribes of the...

Telecom's busiest year: legislation fueled merger feeding frenzy.
December 20, 1996... As the year winds down, it's time for people in the telecom industry to stop, catch their breath and take a look back at what has been the busiest year in the industry's history. Deregulation, made official by the federal Telecommunications...

Watumull will buy Lake Oswego Commerce Center. (Watumull Properties Corp.)
December 20, 1996... Hawaii's Watumull group has agreed to buy the Lake Oswego Commerce Center for $7.3 million, executive J.D. Watumull said. Watumull Properties Corp. will buy the center from clients of The RREEF Funds, the San Francisco-based adviser that...

Merry manager. (Santa Claus)
December 20, 1996... Despite his jolly image, Santa Claus means business when it comes to running his organization It was a harsh winter's day just weeks before Christmas, and the usually bustling Doll Division at Santa's Toy Shop had shut down. Every available...

Warehouse liquidation spurs retail concept. (Vintage West clothing store)
December 20, 1996... At Vintage West, clothes from the '60s and '70s are brand new Seize the day? Or several decades? Blake "Big Daddy" Davi, co-owner of the 5-month old Vintage West clothing store in downtown Portland, opted for both when he wound up with about...

Oregon lands the chips, but not the sauce. (Kikkoman Foods Inc.'s passing off of Corvallis, OR, in favor or Folsom, CA, as the site for a new sauce factory)
December 20, 1996... Kikkoman Foods Inc. has selected Folsom, Calif., as the site for its new $35 million soy sauce factory over a site in Corvallis. The press hoopla in the Golden State, including a statement from Gov. Pete Wilson, is way out of proportion for a...

John Zupan runs grocery business at full throttle.(Company Profile)
December 13, 1996... John Zupan, president and chief executive officer of Zupan's Market, has a need for speed. Zupan rises at 5 a.m., spends an hour on an exercise machine, and then pours his energy into building his business. The 51-year-old Zupan, who worked...

Surgery centers stitch up healthy niche in Oregon.
December 13, 1996... Entrepreneurial surgeons are opening their own shops, trimming some work away from hospitals Doctors might not make house calls anymore, but in more and more cases, surgeons are inviting patients to come to their own surgical offices to have...

Wine barrels get flavor of Oregon oak.
December 13, 1996... Lafayette businessman brings French tradition to Oregon customers Rick DeFerrari is up to his neck in Oregon oak. The 29-year-old entrepreneur has carved out an unusual niche preparing strips of wood - called staves - for use in wine barrels....

Governor sets stage for tax tussle in Salem. (John Kitzhaber)(Interview)
December 6, 1996... Gov. John Kitzhaber's budget message this week was laced with lingo and logic familiar to people in business. Take advantage of the state's economic boom, he urged, by investing in the future. Invest in public schools and universities to train...

PacifiCorp's deal for Big Rivers questioned; creditors may ask judge to re-open process. (Big Rivers Electric Corp.)
December 6, 1996... PacifiCorp's bid to rescue Kentucky's bankrupt Big Rivers Electric Corp. has come under fire from major creditors and a court-appointed examiner. Examiner J. Baxter Schilling issued a scathing report three weeks ago accusing the Big Rivers...

Wafertech leads Clark County's high-tech wave.
December 6, 1996... Wafertech L.L.C., the $1.2 billion semiconductor plant rising in a pasture at the edge of Camas, is crystallizing the new high-tech vision for southwest Washington. Already home to companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Sharp and Linear...

Real estate agents fret over L-P siding liability. (Louisiana-Pacific Corp.)
December 6, 1996... Real estate agents are growing wary of their potential liability in transactions that involve the controversial faux cedar siding made by Louisiana-Pacific Corp. The L-P siding, which may mold, decay and grow mushrooms, led to a successful...

Canadian developer buys more prime Hillsboro land.
December 6, 1996... The Canadian developer who began wheeling and dealing in Sunset Corridor industrial land a year ago has made another major buy. Natale "Nat" Bosa of Vancouver, British Columbia, spent close to $3.4 million in November to buy 63 acres divided...

Retailers enjoy holiday shoppers' goodwill.
December 6, 1996... Retailers expect Santa will come through for them this year, as a good economy puts shoppers in the mood to spend. Portland-area merchants say the Christmas shopping season started with a bang. Industry watchers also have made rosy...

Investors' holiday giving starts early for PrintPaks.
December 6, 1996... Software firm garners about $5 million in venture capital Consumer software developer PrintPaks Inc. has secured more than $5 million in venture capital funding from a group of investors led by Silicon Valley-based Bay Ventures. The money...

Time is right for Schnitzer Steel acquisition move, analysts say. (Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc.)
December 6, 1996... Schnitzer Steel Industries' move to acquire Proler International Corp. will bump up its long-term growth, analysts say, despite a current meltdown in steel scrap prices. A 20 to 35 percent dent in scrap prices has prompted lower earnings...

Portland General takes leap into telecom.
December 6, 1996... Portland General Corp., which took a good, hard look at entering the telecommunications business 10 years ago and backed away, has decided that now's the time to take the plunge. In the mid-1980s, PGE employee Earl Kamsky came up with a...

Merged PSC-Spectra-Physics scans competition.
December 6, 1996... EUGENE - From supermarkets in Brazil to' factories in India, the world's developing countries are getting ready for bar-code scanning systems, and PSC Inc. wants to be their supplier. To accelerate its market-share grab, the Webster,...

Nike postpones opening of its San Francisco store.
December 6, 1996... Company has opened three NikeTowns in four months SAN FRANCISCO - Nike Inc. has postponed the opening of its showcase NikeTown store at Union Square until February, foregoing holiday shopping volume that would have garnered an estimated $5...

Key Bank seeks to become the McDonald's of banks.
December 6, 1996... Key Bank will close nine branches throughout Oregon by March as part of its campaign to become one of the first financial services companies to form a single, nationwide bank. Once the consolidations are complete, Key will have 70 branches in...

Nor'Wester Brewing affiliate taps into New York market. (North Country Brewing Inc.)
December 6, 1996... A new company affiliated with Portland's Nor'Wester Brewing Co. has started bottling its first batch of beer. North Country Brewing Inc., of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., expects to bottle about 15,000 barrels of beer annually, according to North...

Burning into Asian marketplace. (Therm Tec Inc.)
December 6, 1996... With domestic market drying up, Tualatin's Therm Tec turns to selling its incinerators overseas Dean Robbins is in the business of burning things. His Tualatin-based company, Therm Tec Inc., designs, engineers and manufactures incinerators...

Lattice shifts management gears to climb next hill. (Lattice Semiconductor Inc.)(Editorial)
December 6, 1996... Just before Thanksgiving, there was a little-noticed change in one of the area's most talented business teams. Cyrus Tsui, president and CEO of Lattice Semiconductor Inc., created chief operating officer and chief financial officer positions...