Business Journal-Portland articles from May 1995

Business Journal-Portland archives from May 1995

PGE wants to alter storage method for Trojan waste. (Portland General Electric Co.; spent nuclear fuel rods at Trojan Nuclear Plant)
May 26, 1995... Portland General Electric Co. wants to move the spent nuclear fuel rods from its shuttered Trojan Nuclear Plant to a metal and concrete storage cask at the site. Utility officials say the new storage method will adequately contain radiation,...

Port starts negotiations with Cascade General. (Port of Portland)
May 26, 1995... Local firm wins battle, but debt, loss of tanker repair work fogs shipyard future Against the backdrop of an uncertain worldwide ship repair market, Cascade General Inc. will likely become the sole contractor of the Portland Ship Yard as...

Rouse may add to Pioneer Place mall. (Rouse Co. plans another shopping center in Portland, OR)
May 26, 1995... The Rouse Co. is mulling plans to build another trendy downtown shopping center across the street from its wildly successful Pioneer Place. Rouse is considering a five-story retail development on the parking lot east of Pioneer Place,...

IMS deal puts cash in Cadence's coffers. (Integrated Measurement Systems Inc.; Cadence Design Systems Inc.)
May 26, 1995... A Beaverton maker of engineering test systems is floating an initial public stock offering for just shy of $33 million. But its California-based corporate parent will be the big beneficiary. Integrated Measurement Systems Inc. of Beaverton is...

Sharp will house multimedia research lab in Camas.
May 26, 1995... Sharp Corp. plans to build an $8 million multimedia research laboratory at its Camas campus that will eventually employ 100 workers. Sharp officials said construction will soon begin on a 54,250-square-foot lab at subsidiary Sharp...

Rep. Brian calls for toll road linking I-5, 99W. (Rep. Tom Brian)
May 26, 1995... A Tigard legislator has devised a shortcut to finance one leg of the controversial westside bypass freeway - turn it into a toll road. Amendments to Senate Bill 626 by Rep. Tom Brian (R-Tigard) authorize a 3.5-mile toll road connecting...

Qual-Med drops Medicaid in three counties. (Qual-Med Oregon Health Plan Inc.)
May 26, 1995... Heavy losses force insurer to drop 2,300 enrollees Stung by the loss of more than $700,000 in one quarter from its Medicaid plan, Qual-Med Oregon Health Plan is getting out of the Medicaid business altogether in Multnomah, Washington and...

Hyundai joins stampede of chipmakers coming to Oregon. (Hyundai Electronics Inudstries Company Ltd.)
May 26, 1995... Despite its claims a few weeks ago that too much publicity had soured company officials on a Eugene site, Hyundai Electronics will build its first factory ever outside of Korea in the Willamette Valley university town. The first U.S. plant...

Marketer remakes Schmidt/Westerdahl in his image. (Dale Robley, buyer of advertising agency Schmidt/Westerdahl Group Inc.)
May 26, 1995... The unexpected call that Thursday night in February 1990 was debilitating and confusing to Dale Robley. Could he actually be hearing right? It was Mark McNeely and Scott Marshall, the two people who ran Cole & Weber, telling him that because of...

McCaw's backing, merger boost fledgling OneComm. (Craig McCaw)(Small Business Enterprise)
May 26, 1995... Having Craig McCaw invest $1 billion in your wireless telecommunications venture is akin to having Michael Jordan announce he'd like to play shooting guard for your team right before the playoffs begin. "It certainly made the phone ring,"...

Hands-on management spurs hotel chain's growth. (Northwest Lodging Inc.)(includes related article)(Focus on Hotels & Business Travel)
May 26, 1995... Northwest Lodging strives for happy customers - even if it means a free room When the Ramada Inn and Convention Center at the Portland airport received the 1995 Oregon Governor's Employer Safety Committee Award last March, the honor meant...

Unions key in shipyard deal. (Portland Ship Repair Yard)
May 19, 1995... As negotiations over the Portland Ship Yard continue, a single behind-the-scenes powerhouse is emerging in the debate: organized labor on the waterfront. While there are still technically two bidders - Cascade General and Nassco - vying to...

Microfield sets $6 million IPO. (Microfield Graphics Inc.; initial public offering)
May 19, 1995... A Beaverton company striving to earn a profit making an electronic version of a traditional white board plans a $6 million public stock offering. Microfield Graphics Inc. plans to sell 1 million shares at an asking price of $6 a share. It...

Air quality bill may burden employers. (commute-reduction program)
May 19, 1995... Commuter police may be result of legislative proposal Local business owners, welcome to the brave new world of the commuter police. A bill passed by the House Natural Resources Committee would impose a new mandate on large- and mid-sized...

Interest in all things American broadens importing of books. (Vietnam)
May 19, 1995... HANOI, VIETNAM - After leading a group of American tourists through the quiet, tree-lined hamlet of My Lai, where the most nightmarish crimes of the Vietnam War were committed, Truong Thien Huong turns to the sun-scorched, Bermuda shorts-clad...

Savvy Vietnamese distributor sells Gates as Ho Chi Minh of software. (Microsoft CEO Bill Gates)
May 19, 1995... HANOI, VIETNAM - Bill Gates never went to Vietnam. But if he did, he would encounter a soul mate in Nguyen Xuan Nguyen, the hyperkinetic, unabashedly capitalist-minded deal maker who helped Microsoft enter the inner sanctum of the Vietnamese...

Prevailing-wage bills bandied about in Salem. (Oregon)
May 19, 1995... A consensus plan by hard-hat unions and contractors to salvage Oregon's embattled prevailing-wage law has run into political potholes in Salem. Associated General Contractors, which assembled a broad coalition last year to reform the law,...

BPA has trouble extricating itself from web of agreements. (Bonneville Power Administration)
May 19, 1995... Breaking up is hard to do - especially when you spurn a foreign government or an independent power producer. Attempts by the Bonneville Power Administration to break off power purchase agreements have landed the hydroelectric agency in hot...

Controversial mental health triage site plan re-emerges. (Multnomah County, Oregon)
May 19, 1995... A much-disputed proposal to start a $5.2 million central triage service for the area's mentally ill is headed for review by Multnomah County commissioners May 30. This is the second time talk of a triage center has surfaced. The first was in...

Lobbyist describes booming high-tech's needs. (Jim Craven; Oregon's high technology industry)(Interview)
May 19, 1995... The woods are getting denser by the day in Oregon's Silicon-Forest. Billions in new chip plant development have been announced by familiar players such as Intel Corp. and newcomers to the area such as Sumitomo Sitix. Software ventures are...

Out of the corporate pond. (Bart Bonime of Go Fish Company Ltd.)
May 19, 1995... Bart Bonime leaves Columbia Sportswear, wades into own firm It came down to a question of equity. Boredom was certainly never a work-related malaise for Bart Bonime. Balancing his unusual role at Columbia Sportswear as advertising and...

Cellular vendors take sides in digital technology duel.
May 19, 1995... Users caught in crossfire until a standard emerges The Quest to upgrade the nation's cellular telephone network from analog to digital technology is picking up static from clashing technologies. On one side is an existing transmission...

Cascade Corp. (proxy report excerpts)(Company Profile)
May 19, 1995... 2020 S.W. Fourth Ave., Portland, Ore. 97201 Cascade Corp. makes and sells hydraulic and industrial machinery and equipment used in materials handling applications. The products include hydraulic cylinders, carton clamps, paper roll clamps,...

Cornell Oaks being sold by ITT Hartford. (office and industrial park; ITT Hartford Group Inc.)
May 5, 1995... ITT Hartford will sell off a prime chunk of Sunset Corridor real estate to an employee-led group backed by David Rockefeller and a wealthy Saudi family. The Hartford, Conn.-based insurer has decided to peddle Beaverton's Cornell Oaks...

Nike laces up Vietnam factories. (Nike Inc.)
May 5, 1995... 'Wild Man' Southrey quietly sets up shop in land of $35-a-month labor HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM - Nike Inc. is planting its feet in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, opening as many as five new sneaker factories south of Ho Chi Minh City by...

Hospitals stay healthy on managed care diet.
May 5, 1995... Oregon hospitals are getting leaner on a diet of managed health care, but they still have heaping plates of revenues and muscular profits. Fewer Oregonians are spending fewer nights in hospitals. Increasingly patients are having more...

Southern, Eastern Oregon businesses face area code change.
May 5, 1995... Oregon businesses have a year to inform their customers worldwide that Oregon will soon have two area codes - and everybody hopes the switch goes smoothly. The area from the coast to Portland and Salem and as far east as Mt. Hood Meadows...

Small-bookshop owners feel overwhelmed by superstores. (Portland, Oregon)
May 5, 1995... The final chapter of Conant & Conant Booksellers ended with a sidewalk sale on store fixtures and owner Roy Conant lamenting the plight of small, independent bookstores. Four years after moving his business downtown from Sandy Boulevard,...

Area code switch wreaking havoc with international calls.
May 5, 1995... Some Washingtonians aren't getting overseas faxes, calls Hans Hingst, vice president of marketing for Bellingham, Wash.-based Ryzex Re-Marketing Inc., wanted his firm represented at a Singapore trade show. The trouble was, his faxes...

Ackerley showing signs of improvement. (Ackerley Communications Inc.)
May 5, 1995... Seattle - Ackerley Communications Inc. might just want to plaster the news on several of its billboards. After struggling through the recession in the 1980s and racking up at least a decade of losses, the Seattle-based company has put...

Washington export plunge mirrors Boeing's decline.
May 5, 1995... Seattle - Washington state's exports plunged in 1994 for the second straight year, dropping by $3 billion, or 11 percent, largely because of a drop in Boeing sales. Local-origin exports fell to $26.2 billion, the lowest dollar volume since...