Idaho Business Review, Boise articles from July 2009

Idaho Business Review, Boise archives from July 2009

Blue Cross of Idaho honors firms for employee wellness.
July 1, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff Report Blue Cross of Idaho has awarded Healthwise and First American Title Holding Company with Awards of Excellence in the insurance provider's 2008 Corporate Wellness Challenge. Sixty-three companies and their...

Employee Retention Focus of July employer workshop in Meridian, Idaho.
July 1, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff Report Selecting the best job candidates and retaining top employees as the economy recovers is the focus of a July 14 employer workshop sponsored by the Department of Labor Employer Association of Ada County. Kandy...

Boise-based Thornton Oliver Keller Commercial Real Estate reports increased home lot sales.(Financial report)
July 1, 2009... Byline: Dani Grigg Builders are starting to purchase developed home lots again, said Ryan Cantlon, a land brokerage specialist for Boise-based Thornton Oliver Keller Commercial Real Estate. He said his group has completed sales of...

Melaleuca to create Idaho Falls distribution center.
July 1, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff Report Idaho Falls-based Melaleuca has laid out plans for a $3.5 million, 38,000-square-foot manufacturing plant for its instant powdered drinks and distribution center. CEO Frank VanderSloot said the new distribution...

Boise-based SolutionPro partners with Utah data centers for great disaster recovery.
July 1, 2009... Byline: Zach Hagadone SolutionPro, a Boise-based IT firm that provides data protection and colocation solutions, has partnered with Salt Lake City-based C7 Data Centers to expand its disaster recovery offerings. David Baldwin, Vice...

Meridian-based Western States Cat opens Hayden location.
July 1, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff Report Western States Cat has opened a new $10 million, 55,000-square-foot facility in Hayden. Our goal with this project was to build something good for the community that supports the service, sales, parts, and...

Boise solar firm now an Earthsponse dealer.
July 2, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff Boise-based Treasure Valley Solar is now an Elite Dealer with alternative energy products supplier Earthsponse, enabling it to sell, install and offer maintenance contracts for a range of solar products, including water...

Idaho unemployment hits 8.3 percent.
July 2, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff Idaho businesses hired fewer people last month than they have during June for the last decade, pushing the forecasted seasonally adjusted unemployment rate up another half percentage point to 8.3 percent, the Idaho...

Recession slows migration from Idaho's rural communities.
July 2, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff The national recession not only reduced migration to Idaho from other states and countries in 2008, but it slowed the exodus of people from Idaho's rural communities, new U.S. Census Bureau estimates indicate. ...

Applications for Zions women's grants due July 31.
July 2, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff The application deadline is July 31 for Zions Bank's "Smart Women Grants." The $3,000 grants are available to female candidates who excel in a variety of fields. One grant will be offered in each of the following...

Idahoans on the Move: July 6, 2009.
July 6, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff New Hires Fisher's adds employees Fisher's Document Systems has announced three new additions to its staff. Brad McCain recently joined Fisher's as an account manager. He was born and raised in the Treasure Valley...

Meridian resident is state truck driving champion.
July 6, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff Jeffrey Halford, of Meridian, is the best professional truck driver in Idaho, after competing in a statewide event sponsored by the Idaho Trucking Association. Halford, who drives for Con-way Freight, received the...

Forbes puts Boise in top 10 pay-raise cities.
July 6, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff The Boise metropolitan area is No. 6 on Forbes magazine's list of 10 metro areas where wages increased the most. The list, published online last week, looked at data from the Brookings Institute and Moody's...

Boise company wins $36 million contract for I-84 widening.
July 6, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff Concrete Placing Co. of Boise is the apparent low bidder for a contract to widen Interstate 84 between Cole and Broadway in Boise. The company's bid came in at $35.9 million. Two other contractors bid on the...

Idaho Press-Tribune: Gunstream under investigation.
July 6, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff Jerry Gunstream, president of the Nampa-based Coldwell Banker Commercial Gunstream & Associates commercial real estate firm, is under investigation in connection with his business dealings, the Idaho Press-Tribune...

Bad signs for commercial real estate in Idaho, nationwide.
July 6, 2009... Byline: Dani Grigg There's trouble brewing in commercial real estate. Here's the situation: Say you bought a building for $1 million in 2005. At the time, you could get a loan for 75 percent of the value, so you paid $250,000 down...

Travel expenses take dip amid recession cuts.
July 6, 2009... Byline: Brad Carlson Reduced spending on business travel and on executive relocations as the economy stays sluggish impacts the Owyhee Plaza Hotel and Paragon Corporate Housing in different ways. At the Owyhee Plaza in downtown Boise,...

Idaho-based J.R. Simplot Co.'s IT department honored in magazine.
July 6, 2009... Byline: Brad Carlson J.R. Simplot Co. Chief Information Officer Roger Parks and the company's IT department have been named by CIO Magazine to the publication's 2009 list of 100 organizations that are using information technology in the...

Smart growth advocates criticize Idaho's stimulus spending.
July 6, 2009... Byline: Simon Shifrin Idaho failed to invest in future transportation needs like public transit and bike paths and spent too much on building new roads in its use of federal stimulus money, according to a national report released last week...

Clarification.(Correction notice)
July 6, 2009... In the Idaho Business Review cover story on short sales on June 29, the story should have stated that real estate agent Heidi Griffith was an agent with Meridian-based Realty Executives of Treasure Valley. Realty Executives was one of the first...

Idaho State University expands degree programs for energy jobs.
July 6, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff Two new course offerings this fall at Idaho State University are geared toward turning out graduates qualified to work with energy systems. Both two-year Associate of Applied Sciences programs, the Energy Systems...

Commentary: Idaho's dominant party, part two.
July 6, 2009... Byline: Steve Ahrens This is the way it is.......... Every winter, Boise skies turn brown in December and January. Every spring, rain creates fuels that cause forest fire dangers. Lack of rain creates tinder-dry conditions that...

Will Canyon County be driven to accept emissions testing?
July 6, 2009... Byline: Roxanne Gail Beach Terry Moore began doing emissions testing in 1990 at Rocky Mountain Collision and claims he owns the oldest emissions testing station in Meridian. It has been tweaked over the years through scientific data to...

Staffing agency plants garden, takes on other projects to help area's unemployed Idaho workers.
July 6, 2009... Byline: Gaye Bunderson Like Michelle Obama and Eleanor Roosevelt, the staff at ProPeople planted a garden. The employees aren't using the same World War II moniker given the renowned Victory Garden at the White House. They've instead...

New firm in Boise helps fill business's need for finance professionals.
July 6, 2009... Byline: Gaye Bunderson Businesses need accountants and bookkeepers and that need won't be trending down anytime soon. In fact, according to Laura Schroeder, division manager of the newly opened Ajilon Finance, a staffing firm, the need is...

Building Permits.
July 6, 2009... BUILDING PERMITS CITY OF CALDWELL PERMIT/TYPE    OWNER    BUILDER    LOCATION    VALUE BC09873-new    not listed    J.R. Walker    5207 S...

Idaho Real Estate Briefs: July 6, 2009.
July 6, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff VIH Cougar Helicopters opened recently at 4800 W. Aeronca St., Boise, where it occupies 3,077 square feet of office space and 5,800 square feet of hangar space. The company plans to establish a base in Boise for its...

Bid Briefs.
July 6, 2009... Riverview Cemetery additions, Coeur d’Alene. Bids 10 a.m. July 6 to City of Coeur d’Alene. Eagle Middle School tennis court surfacing, Eagle. Bids 10 a.m. July 7 to Meridian School District. Eagle High School tennis court...

Contracts.
July 6, 2009... Thorco, Inc., is the apparent low bidder for an intersection signal project in Post Falls. Bid not listed. Wimer Corporation is the apparent low bidder for an alumni residence center elevator addition, Moscow. Bid: $428,094. Kloepfer,...

Boise's American Propane Exchange keeps the flame on the barbecue.
July 6, 2009... Byline: Gaye Bunderson Now is the time of year when many people dust off the grill and start eating meals hot off the barbecue. To make sure an empty tank doesn't put a crimp in any summer suppers, there's a business in town called...

Bout of corporate skepticism leads man to found Idaho-based ShavWet.
July 6, 2009... Byline: Gaye Bunderson Bobby Porter devoted years of his life to selling products he firmly believed in. But a 2004 recall of knee and hip replacement products by the company he was then employed at, Sulzer Orthopedics, damaged his belief...

Treasure Valley foreclosures stay high in June.
July 7, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff With Ada County foreclosure numbers rising to new highs and Canyon County foreclosure numbers starting to decline, the total number of Treasure Valley foreclosure starts seems to be at a plateau. According to data...

Idaho Small Business Development Center and Boise State team up for no-cost energy evaluations.
July 7, 2009... Byline: IBR Staff Beginning this fall, the Idaho Small Business Development Center and Boise State University will offer no-cost energy evaluations through a grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Boise State students from a...

Feds offer Nordic Windpower $16M loan guarantee to support Pocatello turbine plant.
July 7, 2009... Byline: Zach Hagadone Nordic Windpower, a Berkeley, Calif.-based wind turbine manufacturer with an assembly plant in Pocatello, is in line to get a major boost from the federal government, after the company announced last week that it has...