San Francisco Business Times articles from October 1997

San Francisco Business Times archives from October 1997

Kaiser revamps state strategy: Health-care provider puts alliances under microscope.
October 17, 1997... Kaiser Permanente is rethinking its revolutionary plans to create alliances with other health-care systems from the Bay Area to Sacramento and Los Angeles. The Oakland-based health-care giant has postponed plans to form a massive alliance in...

Rocky marriage: developer, city clash in tale of power and politics.
October 17, 1997... Developer, city clash in tale of power and politics From the day the first shovel of dirt turned at Bishop Ranch Business Park, developer Alex Mehran and San Ramon have been locked in a quarrelsome marriage of convenience. The quarrel has...

Troubled SyQuest to pump $35M into advertising. (SyQuest Technology Inc.)
October 17, 1997... Banking on the theory that to make money you have to spend it, Fremont's SyQuest Technology Inc. will pour upwards of $35 million into a marketing campaign it hopes will return the company to profitability. The beleaguered removable hard...

PacificCare, Sutter ink sweeping $150M pact. (PacifiCare Health Systems Inc.; Sutter Health System)
October 17, 1997... PacifiCare of California, the state's second-largest HMO, and Sutter Health, one of Northern California's largest hospital systems, have agreed to a precedent-setting, $150 million a year managed-care contract that covers all of Sutter's 26...

Bay area is midwife to IPO baby boom. (San Francisco Bay Area, California; initial public offering)
October 17, 1997... The Bay Area, long a maternity ward for new companies, delivered more than half of the state's initial public stock offerings during the third quarter. The Bay Area was responsible for 15 of the 29 offerings registered between July 1 and Sept....

Made in America: NUMMI taps US exec for no. 2 spot. (New United Motor Manufacturing Inc.)
October 17, 1997... NUMMI, the 13-year-old General Motors-Toyota joint venture, has elevated an American to the No. 2 position at the company - the highest post ever held by a U.S.-born employee. The new lieutenant is Gary Convis, 55, who was named executive vice...

Bad connection: customers tire of long 'deals.' (San Francisco Bay Area, California)
October 17, 1997... Earl Lowe, owner of Northgate Automotive in San Rafael, is sick and tired of the long-distance marketing blitz. A few months ago, Lowe got a call from someone claiming to represent AT&T. The man said he could save Northgate Automotive some...

Alameda may get cheaper cable through city hall. (California)
October 17, 1997... With the shackles of regulation loosened following the Telecommunications Act of 1996, many cities across the country are considering getting into the cable business. Case in point: the sleepy island of Alameda, where an $8 million fiberoptic...

Peninsula firm makes $80M Brazilian connection. (Redwood Shores, CA-based Farinon Division; deal to connect cellular networks)
October 17, 1997... A Redwood Shores microwave radio company has landed an $80 million deal to connect cellular phone networks in Brazil. Farinon Division, which is the microwave arm of Florida-based Harris Corp., has won a three-year contract with BellSouth and...

Women executives take center stage as telecommunications industry wars play out: new AT&T exec aims to make local connections. (Lois Hedg-peth, president of 14-state western region)
October 17, 1997... Lois Hedg-peth may need her trademark witty, bone-dry sense of humor in the months ahead, as she attempts to convince competitors that AT&T's assault on the local phone market is no joke. Hedg-peth, 41, recently named president of AT&T's...

Telecom calls on women to serve at highest levels.(Women Executives Take Center Stage as Telecommunications Industry Wars Play Out)
October 17, 1997... Betsy Bernard was 23 years old and in charge of a central office of 60 people. She was on a fast track to the top: the only hitch was that it was 1977, and she was in the still evolving field of telecommunications. Now, two decades later,...

Australian mining firm expands presence in S.F. (San Francisco, California)
October 17, 1997... One of the world's largest mining companies is condensing its San Francisco operations in an effort to mold a new shape in the global economy. In a major corporate shakeup, Australia-based Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd. has redefined its $11...

Cell phone police: Palo Alto firm nabs high-tech crooks. (San Francisco Bay Area, california)
October 17, 1997... A Palo Alto company has built a business around putting a muzzle on the chatty crooks who illegally tap into other people's cellular phone lines. Corsair Communications' PhonePrint system has disconnected 115 million fraudulent phone calls...

Radio plays new tune after year of Bay Area changes. (San Francisco Bay Area, California)
October 17, 1997... Throw away nearly everything you know about Bay Area radio, because 12 months of industry mergers, frequency swaps and format switches have rewritten all the rules. The Business Times' List of the 25 Most Popular Radio Stations in the Bay Area...

An online river runs through it. (online bookseller Amazon.com Inc.)(Biz)
October 17, 1997... SEATTLE - While Wall Street is closely watching the competition between online bookseller Amazon.com and new online entrant Barnes & Noble, executives of the Seattle company are concentrating on a bigger hurdle: Getting the thousands of browsers...

Web advertising grows.(Biz)
October 17, 1997... BOSTON - Although advertising on the Web is growing faster than you can say "cost per thousand," it's such a new medium that tried and true marketing approaches sometimes work and sometimes don't. Dollar estimates vary, but most observers say...

Bill Gates. (talks about the Internet and its future)(Biz)(Interview)
October 17, 1997... Software giant Microsoft Corp. was a bit slow to pick up on the Internet explosion. But once Microsoft chairman Bill Gates grasped its significance, he threw the company's vast resources behind an effort to "embrace and extend" the Internet's...

ISDN lines: passe on fast lane? (Integrated Services Digital Network)(Biz)
October 17, 1997... More. Better. Faster, faster. That's the mantra of Internet users whose now-whetted appetites have made them eager for online information. It's a vicious cycle: applications attract users, who demand better programs, and quicker. Like Tom Cruise...

Internet success stories. (businesses in the Internet)(Biz)(Cover Story)
October 17, 1997... Visionaries Tell Their Stories of How They Are Making Money On The Internet. PHOTODISC: ONE SHOT AT A GOOD IMPRESSION SEATTLE - By 2000 Mark Torrance pictures half of PhotoDisc Inc.'s revenues coming from its Internet site. That's...

Internet security: fear of buying on the Internet: coming in for a soft landing?(Biz)
October 17, 1997... The way Henry Messenger figures it, he's about as likely to be ripped off using his credit card to buy goods or services over the Internet as he is buying goods and services at a traditional retail outlet. That is to say, not very likely at...

Job growth: boom times end soon. (San Francisco Bay Area)
October 24, 1997... The job and population growth which have fired the region's resurgent economy will take a sharp drop after 2000, according to the Association of Bay Area Governments. After the turn of the century, there won't be as many new jobs lining Bay...

Old Navy ready to drop anchor. (The Gap leases store space in Pacific Center, San Francisco, CA)
October 24, 1997... The Gap is expected to dock its flagship Old Navy store in San Francisco's Pacific Center. A lease for the battleship-sized 75,000-square-foot store, expected to be completed any day, would be the largest Gap store anywhere. The 15-year...

Creature feature. (Tippett Studios to sign multi-picture deal with Walt Disney Co.)
October 24, 1997... Disney deal pulls Berkeley studio into big leagues Berkeley's Tippett Studios, the special effects company behind the soon-to-be-released sci-fi action flick "Starship Troopers," is close to creating an even bigger splash in the movie industry...

Bechtel plugs into global chip-factory boom. (forms joint venture with Greene Engineers)
October 24, 1997... Bechtel Group has joined forces with true of the top designers of high-tech facilities to compete for contracts on the world's massive semiconductor plants. The alliance between subsidiary Bechtel Industrial and South Carolina's...

Younger Swig proving real estate runs in the family. (Kent Swig forms BHS/Whnitney Cressman Management Services)
October 24, 1997... Kent Swig is emerging from his family's considerable shadow to plant his own flag in San Francisco's real estate landscape. Last week, Swig, the grandson of legendary local real estate mogul Benjamin Swig, shook hands on a partnership with San...

Power moves. (Enron Corp. acquires Bentley Co.)
October 24, 1997... Energy giant Enron plugs into Bentley Enron is bolstering its aggressive march into California's deregulated electricity market with the acquisition of the Bentley Company, an engineering firm based in Walnut Creek. Houston-based Enron is...

Port holds the course with skeleton crew. (Port of Oakland)
October 24, 1997... With a shipload of critical projects waiting to be unloaded, the Port of Oakland continues to sail with a depleted senior management team - in some cases, half a year after managers jumped overboard. The holes have left some in city government...

Medical group calls on 150 doctors to improve its health. (Brown & Toland Medical Group)
October 24, 1997... Brown & Toland Medical Group, already a dominant force in the San Francisco market, is taking a huge step southward by affiliating with close to 150 doctors on the Peninsula. The 1,250-doctor group, led by CEO Michael Abel, M.D., signed a...

Cash-rich REIT snaps up Williams-Sonoma flagship. (Federal Realty Investment Trust acquires 150 Post St. Building in San Francisco, CA)
October 24, 1997... A Florida-based real estate investor is plunking down $20.5 million to acquire 150 Post St., the San Francisco flagship for retailer Williams-Sonoma Inc. The deal, driven by the bull stock market, was expected to close this week. Real estate...

Vivus' sales inspired by its Muse.
October 24, 1997... Vivus Inc. has been reaping rewards from the January launch of its male impotence treatment, Muse, netting more than $100 million in product revenues and nearly $31 million in net income through Sept. 30. The Menlo Park company, on a wild...

Safeway rings up sale of former East Bay office.
October 24, 1997... A group of investors has bagged part of the former Safeway headquarters in downtown Oakland for a little over $3 million, slightly less than the $3.6 million asking price. The group, Eight Ways Associates, is comprised of local and...

Vallejo's Marine World gets in life raft with Premier Parks. (Marine World Africa USA)
October 24, 1997... In spite of a drop in attendance at Marine World Africa USA, the city of Vallejo is getting ready to turn the theme park over to Premier Parks, the operators hired to revitalize the near bankrupt amusement venture. With two weeks left in the...

There's money to be made on high tech's nuts and bolts. (San Francisco Bay Area machine shops experience acute shortage of machinists)(Industry Overview)
October 24, 1997... Bill DeWald's company needed a machinist so badly that it spent thousands of dollars on newspaper ads, radio spots and even bought an ad on a movie screen. More than 300 people responded and duly sent their resumes to the Fremont machine shop....

Anne Bakar. (chief executive officer of Telecare Corp.)(Interview)
October 24, 1997... Name: Anne Bakar. Title: President and CEO. Company: Telecare Corp., the $55 million Fremont-based mental health care company. Background: Venture capital associate, Montgomery Securities; senior soilware industry analyst, Woodman,...

High-quality design cracks new market. (Blue Marlin)(Company Profile)
October 24, 1997... Erik Stuebe and his San Francisco-based vintage baseball hat and apparel manufacturing company, Blue Marlin, are batting over .300 this season, but neither Stuebe nor his loyal fans would ever think of success in terms of baseball stats. Both the...

Miller rises to the top in male-dominated industry. (Diane Miller, chief executive officer of Miller/Thompson Constructors Inc.)(1997 Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies)
October 24, 1997... Diane Miller, president and CEO of Miller/Thompson Constructors Inc., says she has built this year's fastest-growing private company by surrounding herself with the best people. The San Francisco company, which specializes in underground...

No-frills diet healthy for property buyers. (FowlerShore & Flanagan)(1997 Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies)(Company Profile)
October 24, 1997... FowlerShore & Flanagan is one of the largest apartment owners in the country, but you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in the real estate industry who's ever heard of the Sausalito-based company. Anonymity has its advantages, though. While real...

Customizing gives firm a clear window on profits. (The Clear Choice)(1997 Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies)(Company Profile)
October 24, 1997... Bruce Duncan has a clear vision for the Clear Choice, the home improvement business he started in his garage. With a background in selling home remodeling products, Duncan thought he could do a bigger and better job than the average hardware...

Demand for execs paves way for recruiter's growth. (The Hamel Group Inc.)(1997 Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies)(Company Profile)
October 24, 1997... Helping health-care and high-tech companies recruit and retain workers is helping the Hamel Group enhance its own work force. The Oakland-based recruitment advertising and human-resources communications specialist, riding the crest of a red-hot...

Some firms' trash turns into Concept's treasure. (Concept Systems Design Inc.)(1997 Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies)(Company Profile)
October 24, 1997... Jim Mezey took a product that appeared headed for the technology dustbin and turned it into a multimillion-dollar business. At least, that's the short version of how Mezey, CEO and co-founder of Concept Systems Design Inc., grew the...

Image is everything for architects' fast-track clients. (Barrett Quezada Architecture)(1997 Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies)(Company Profile)
October 24, 1997... When a company grows from a frenetic little startup in a garage to a corporate giant in a few years, one of the last things on its mind is an image makeover. But as a company grows, its image is often more important to new recruits and clients...

Web browsers may be next patrons of image gallery. (Wood River Gallery)(1997 Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies)(Company Profile)
October 24, 1997... Gary Schwartz, president and CEO of Wood River Gallery, expects to sell his business in 10 years. This might sound odd, since his company is No. 40 on the San Francisco Business Times List of Fastest Growing companies. But as the market for...

Specializing in blue-collar jobs in a high-tech world. (Applied Fusion Inc.)(1997 Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies)(Company Profile)
October 24, 1997... Ron Musgrove started Applied Fusion Inc. after deciding he could do a better job of fabricating high-tech machinery than his previous employers could. That was 25 years ago. He started with $46,000, which was amassed through loans and borrowed...

Throw a good grad party, they'll be clients forever. (GET Travel Corp.)(1997 Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies)(Company Profile)
October 24, 1997... A week in Waikiki with 1,200 graduating high schoolers is not exactly every man's dream vacation, but three enterprising brothers have built a dream travel business running student tours. Ripley, David and Richard Hunter all joined the same...

A funny thing happened on the way from the airport.(1997 Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies)(Company Profile)
October 24, 1997... William F. Buckley has never been known to keep his thoughts to himself, fortunately for Rich Karlgaard and Tony Perkins. In 1986, they escorted the conservative pundit from the San Francisco Airport to his hotel and en route answered his...

TV biz pushes microwave company into prime time. (ETM Electromatic Inc.)(1997 Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies)(Company Profile)
October 24, 1997... When Tom Hayse saw CNN's Peter Arnett slipping a Baghdad bombing film out of Iraq, he saw an opportunity for his company, ETM Electromatic Inc. He figured remote television film crews needed more power to amplify their feeds to orbiting...

Software maker has designs on the oil industry. (Rebis)(1997 Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies)(Company Profile)
October 24, 1997... Like many growing software companies, the story of Rebis can be traced back to a savvy entrepreneur who saw a need and filled it. In Rebis' case, it was founding principal Dennis Row, a New Zealand-born engineer with a Ph.D. from Berkeley who...

Chevron pumping up with ATMs: oil giant to put cash machines in 6,000 gas stations.
October 31, 1997... 10 largest owners of ATM networks 1 Bank of America 7,500 2 Nationsbank 5,930 3 Electronic Data Systems 5,637 4 Wells Fargo 4,265 5 Bank One ...

A's go to bat; baseball team swings for dollars with retail stores. (Oakland A's to invest in A's On Deck retail stores)
October 31, 1997... The Oakland A's are stepping up to the plate to sell baseball merchandise. The American League club is investing in retail stores called A's On Deck, with plans to open at least four outlets in Northern California. The A's will open a...

Schwab sinks millions into sports pitch. (Charles Schwab Corp.)
October 31, 1997... Charles Schwab Corp. is teeing off on a multimillion-dollar sports marketing campaign - its biggest in history - by aligning itself with the governing bodies of professional golf and skiing. The goal: Spread brand awareness to investors who can...

California Pacific tells heart luck story. (California Pacific Medical Center's Cardiosol)
October 31, 1997... Biotech moves to bring life-saving transplant formula to market A "homemade" formula concocted by doctors at California Pacific Medical Center has had a 100 percent success rate in keeping heart-transplant patients alive. The formula also...

Hawaiian developer rides wave of new building into S.F. (Myers Corp.; San Francisco, California)
October 31, 1997... A prominent Hawaii-based developer has entered the race to begin downtown San Francisco's first big office project this decade with plans for a major tower near the heart of the financial district. A partnership led by the Myers Corp. has...

A bad case of ill will: Marin hospital's 12-year feud is heading to court. (Marin General Hospital)
October 31, 1997... After months of skirmishing, the two opposing sides at Marin General Hospital have declared war. The key question now is whether one antagonist, the Marin Healthcare District Board, has the funds to wage a protracted and costly legal battle....

Endangered species sighted: pair of developers nests in Berkeley. (Patrick Kennedy and Avi Nevo; Berkeley, California)
October 31, 1997... Two developers are working to replace an aging building and parking lot in Berkeley with more than 200 apartments. In separate projects, Berkeley developers Patrick Kennedy and Avi Nero are planning to build a total of 202 apartments in...

Restaurant boom eating a hole in supply of top chefs.(Business Meetings and Hospitality: Holiday Focus)
October 31, 1997... Behind the kitchen doors of some of San Francisco's hottest eateries a staffing crisis is stirring. From the Peninsula to Post Street, restaurants are having a hard time hiring, thanks to the recent growth spurt in new restaurants all hungry...

Companies plan to party at home for the holidays.(Business Meetings and Hospitality: Holiday Focus)
October 31, 1997... Don't be nervous about attending your company's holiday party this year. Chances are that you won't have to diet to fit into your tux, eat puffs of pastry filled with exotic delicacies that you can't pronounce or get directions to an...

Lufthansa finding plenty of green on the Emerald Isle. (Deutsche Lufthansa AG)
October 31, 1997... Lufthansa airlines has answered the call from Bay Area companies to ship their wares to Ireland. The airline started a direct cargo flight this month from the San Francisco International Airport to Shannon, Ireland, in response to growing...

Richmond drug firm seeks quick cure for its financial ills. (Neurobiological Technologies Inc.)
October 31, 1997... Neurobiological Technologies Inc. is close to running out of cash, and without help it could run dry by early next year. The Richmond-based drug-discovery company lost nearly $7.4 million in the fiscal year ended June 30, and close to $1.3...

Banking goes Hollywood. (investment bankers rely on entertainment to spice up their conferences)(Business Meetings and Hospitality: Holiday Focus)
October 31, 1997... If you want to be among a select few serenaded by country superstar Willie Nelson, or part of an intimate group entertained by comic Dana Carvey, you don't necessarily need Hollywood connections. A good relationship with your investment banker...

Contractor piggybacks on booming S.F. office market. (CIC Associates lands eight projects)
October 31, 1997... A small East Bay general contracting firm is racking up big numbers by tapping into the torrid San Francisco office market. CIC Associates, based in Oakland, has landed eight projects totaling some 500,000 square feet in the past two months....

Exec's departure may put wrinkles in Clift makeover. (Clift Hotel)
October 31, 1997... Plans to give San Francisco's Clift Hotel a needed face-lift could be put on ice following the resignation of a key executive in charge of updating the hotel's image, local hospitality insiders said. Jerry Inzerillo, the dynamic president of...

Full house at Moscone has conventions heading south. (Moscone Center)(Business Meetings and Hospitality: Holiday Focus)
October 31, 1997... San Francisco may be a great place for a convention, but Anaheim, San Diego and Las Vegas are starting to look better. Convention attendance in the Bay Area is estimated to fall about 15 percent in 1998, according to The List of the 25 Largest...

Keith Guericke. (Essex Property Trust Inc. president and CEO)
October 31, 1997... Name: Keith Guericke. Title: President and CEO. Company: Essex Property Trust Inc., the $1 billion real estate investment trust, in Palo Alto. Education: Bachelor of science degree in accounting from Southern Oregon College, in Ashland....

A safe time to take the plunge? (technical recruitment firm Core Media Connections Inc.)(Company Profile)
October 31, 1997... The demand for high-tech talent has soared in the past several years, creating a white-hot market for software engineers and other technology experts. Thanks in part to the hiring frenzy, Core Media Connections Inc., a three-year-old technical...