Business Journal-Portland articles from June 1996

Business Journal-Portland archives from June 1996

Competition jolting the utility industry; Clark considering nation's largest open market test. (Clark Public Utilities)
June 28, 1996... A swarm of electricity suppliers may soon be buzzing around Clark County. Bruce Bosch, the innovative general manager of Vancouver's Clark Public Utilities, said he is crafting a plan to give all his customers a true choice over their...

Northwest Natural may add electricity to its offerings. (Northwest Natural Gas Co.)(Competition Jolting the Utility Industry)
June 28, 1996... Dick Reiten, CEO-in-waiting at Northwest Natural Gas Co., is trying to figure out if the gas company should enter his old business - electricity. Under Reiten's tutelage, the gas company recently launched a three-month strategic planning...

Camas attracts Japanese filter maker Advantec. (Camas, Washington; Advantec MFS Inc.)
June 28, 1996... Camas has landed a $12 million factory and 50 new jobs. Advantec MFS Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of a Tokyo-based corporation, intends to build a 48,000-square-foot factory in Camas to produce membrane filters. The filters are thin,...

Pendleton idles 100; work goes to Mexico. (Pendleton Woolen Mills Inc.)
June 28, 1996... Feeling pressure from offshore manufacturers, Pendleton Woolen Mills Inc. is closing its Sellwood manufacturing plant and for the first time shifting some of its production work tO contractors in Mexico. Pendleton will begin laying off its...

Pacific Cataract jumps into crowded excimer laser market. (Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute)
June 28, 1996... A Chehalis, Wash.-based eye surgery outfit that uses excimer lasers is pushing a new wave of competition in ophthalmology. Pacific Cataract & Laser Institute, with nine offices in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, is one of several area...

PacifiCorp to open 150-employee service center downtown.
June 28, 1996... PacifiCorp will add about 125 jobs in Portland by opening a consolidated customer service center on the south side of downtown. The Portland-based utility will close 96 customer service counters at field offices in its seven-state territory,...

Designing a reputation for excellence: Ziba Design lets its hallway full of awards speak for themselves.(Small Business Savvy)(Company Profile)
June 28, 1996... Ziba Design lets its hallway full of awards speak for themselves Portland-based Ziba Design is one of the world's most recognized industrial design firms, yet it has never placed an advertisement, made cold-calls to find new clients or...

Starbucks betting Japanese have a yen for double lattes. (Starbucks Corp.)
June 28, 1996... SEATTLE - Since its initial announcement last year of a move into Asia, Starbucks Coffee Co. has been quietly brewing a strategy to develop latte culture in Japan, the chain's first market outside North America. In the fall, Starbucks...

Intel Corp. (Proxy Report Excerpts) (Company Profile)
June 28, 1996... 2200 Mission College Blvd., Santa Clara, Calif. 95052 Intel Corp. is the world's leading microprocessor supplier. The California-based company has operations around the world, including plants in Washington County, Oregon. Its products group...

Nike puts mark on Atlanta Olympics. (Nike Inc.; 1996)
June 21, 1996... The company named for the Greek goddess of victory is going for the gold in Atlanta's Olympics - the marketing gold. Nike Inc. has invested in a downtown Atlanta command center, a parking structure-turned-retail haven, a World Wide Web site...

Labor shortage spurs high-tech wage hikes.
June 21, 1996... The law of supply and demand is driving up wages in the Silicon Forest. As Intel Corp. and other big high-tech manufacturers hire as many as 100 new employees a month, smaller companies are feeling the crunch. Some are bidding up wage and...

Coffee People sips at expansion plans; new execs target Denver, Los Angeles sites. (Coffee People Inc.)
June 21, 1996... Coffee People Inc. has big plans brewing. The 19-store regional chain of gourmet coffee houses is ready to go national, said Jim Roberts, cofounder and chief executive officer. Roberts has hired two seasoned executives with track records for...

Will multiscreen theater be new star at Mall 205?
June 21, 1996... Hoping to draw larger crowds, the managers of Mall 205 sense the lure of the silver screen. Sixteen to 18 silver screens, to be precise. Management is considering pumping more than $5 million into a major renovation that would update the...

RadiSys to open multibus design center in U.K. (RadiSys Corp.)
June 21, 1996... Embedded systems maker RadiSys Corp. is opening a 10-person engineering design center in the United Kingdom to serve $24 million in European business it acquired earlier this year in a deal with Intel Corp. "We want to make sure we have some...

Hollywood Video expansion includes three regional offices.
June 21, 1996... Chain wants more than 500 video stores by year-end Hollywood Entertainment Corp., which can turn a vacant building into a new video store in less than a day, is revamping its management to keep pace with its lightning growth. New zone...

Brandishing brand names: advertising exec seeks to turn JohnsonSheen into top branding agency in Northwest. (JohnsonSheen Advertising)
June 21, 1996... Pat Johnson has never been content to stand still for long. "The best never stand still," she says. At 30, Johnson is president of her own advertising agency, founded as The Ad Department, dementedly, she says, on April 1, 1991. "I was...

Westin Hotels chairman meets his goals. (Juergen Bartels)
June 21, 1996... SEATTLE - One year ago, Juergen Bartels blew into Seattle, vowing to shake up the somnolent Westin Hotels & Resorts chain with dramatic growth and soaring profits. Now, on his first anniversary as owner, the German-born chairman contends...

Business lobbies edging toward real estate tax. (includes related article on Oregon's proposed real estate transfer tax)
June 14, 1996... Affordable-housing boosters may win crucial support from Oregon's homebuilder and banking lobbies for a $95-million-a-year state tax on real estate sales. A statewide coalition has crafted a compromise proposal for a 1 percent real estate...

New venture capital funds take root; former Shaw associates forming new funds. (Herb Shaw and Alan Dishlip)
June 14, 1996... Former Shaw associates forming new funds Herb Shaw and Alan Dishlip stood at the side of venture capital veteran Ralph Shaw for years. Now Ralph Shaw's former lieutenants are independently forming their own venture capital funds that will...

Hemstreet's tort reform comes home. (Shilo Inns owner Mark Hemstreet)
June 14, 1996... Mark Hemstreet's vision of tort reform may have flopped at the 1995 Legislature, but it's working quite nicely at his own Shilo Inns chain. In 1994 - when Hemstreet was spreading around campaign donations to win laws restricting civil...

Medicaid HMO FamilyCare seeks to expand into commercial market.
June 14, 1996... A home-grown HMO is trying to branch out from the Medicaid market to offer health insurance to businesses and individuals. Since February 1994 FamilyCare and its subsidiary Evergreen have offered a health maintenance organization for Medicaid...

Extended-stay hotel chains zero in on Portland market.
June 14, 1996... Homewood Suites, Homestead Village prepare to build hotels in the region The rapidly growing extended-stay component of the lodging industry has discovered the Portland market. Hotel chains specializing in serving business travelers for a...

Fujitsu plan for big chip delays Gresham project. (Fujitsu Microelectronics Inc.'s production of a 64-megabit computer chip)
June 7, 1996... Opening of Fujitsu Microelectronics' $1 billion expansion in Gresham will be delayed six months as company officials hustle to upgrade the plant to produce a new style of memory chip. Fujitsu officials say the opening - originally set for...

Does local tax deter jobs? (business taxes)
June 7, 1996... Business pushes cuts in city, county taxes As school supporters mount a heated petition drive to hike Multnomah County's business tax, a task force of business and government leaders has proposed slashing business taxes to lure more jobs...

Metro committee warns of self-induced recession. (2040 Means Business Committee)
June 7, 1996... The Portland area risks a "self-imposed recession" if Metro doesn't loosen the urban growth boundary, says a business advisory committee hand-picked by Metro Executive Mike Burton. The 2040 Means Business Committee, composed of corporate and...

FedEx, Emery set expansion, but will it be there overnight? (Federal Express Corp.; Emery Worldwide)
June 7, 1996... The booming air cargo business has Federal Express Corp. and Emery Worldwide ramping up warehouse expansions at the Portland International Airport. San Diego-based Airport Centers Inc. wants to develop two new warehouses at Portland...

Web search firm Excite buys Portland's Kirkwood Interactive. (Excite Inc.; Kirkwood Interactive Design Co.)
June 7, 1996... Kirkwood merges with Excite's City.Net operation Mike Kirkwood, president of Portland-based Kirkwood Interactive Design Co., has sold his company for an undisclosed sum to the same California company that last year bought City.Net, a...

Expanding Gage Industries will move division to Tigard. (Relocation of one of Gage Industries Inc.'s divisions)
June 7, 1996... Plastics maker expects 30 percent staff increase Plastics maker Gage Industries Inc. of Lake Oswego plans to relocate one of its three divisions to Tigard, setting the stage for expansion of all three operations, President Jeff Gage said....

Going through Chapter 11 in style. (profile of Jay Jacobs Inc. CEO Rex Steffey)
June 7, 1996... New executive proves good fit for Seattle clothier In the summer of 1994, Jay Jacobs found himself putting the company that bears his name into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Seeking advice, he telephoned his old friend and fellow...

Credit union growth ignites bank offensive. (growth of credit union services)
June 7, 1996... The rhetoric is getting hotter in the bank-credit union skirmish DISPATCH FROM THE FRONT: The decades-old war of words between banks and credit unions is escalating, and no end to the battle is in sight. With credit unions across the nation...