Austin Business Journal articles from March 1992

Austin Business Journal archives from March 1992

Which candidates best for business? (candidates for November general elections in Austin, Texas)
March 2, 1992... It's primary time in Texas. Voters will head for the polls March 10 to cast ballots aimed at weeding the political fields at the national and state levels in preparation for the November harvest known as the general elections. Most voters in...

'Lamm's Law' on health care. (Colorado ex-governor Richard Lamm, now director of the Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues at the University of Denver)
March 2, 1992... Former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm says the United States doesn't have a health care crisis. It has a societal crisis. Lamm served as governor for 12 years, from 1975 to 1987, and near the end of his terms earned the nickname "Governor Gloom"...

Ads that target like smart bombs. (SRI International's VALS Program, which examines consumers' values and lifestyles that lead them to buy what they buy)
March 2, 1992... Advertisers are looking into your head as much as your pockets these days. And that glance has them categorizing you to take the best possible aim with commercials. SRI International is a California research firm that built the VALS...

Half of all firms to be woman-owned. (Austin has the highest concentration of woman-owned businesses of any city in Texas)(includes related article)
March 2, 1992... Within the next 10 years, there's a 50-50 chance that when you ask to speak with the company's owner, it won't be a masculine voice that answers. Estimates are that by 2000, half of all businesses will be woman-owned. And that percentage could...

More jobs, big layoffs: employment numbers show Houston stalled in 1991. (Texas Employment Commission statistics) (Texas Trends)
March 2, 1992... HOUSTON -- As the national recession tightened its grip on Texas last year, Houston's economy slowed to a virtual stall. The post-bust rebound of the late 1980s started to run out of steam, and Houston's employment trend line barely eased into...

Bankrupt Hunt brothers face racketeering claims. (pattern of bankruptcy filings alleged against Nelson Bunker Hunt and Herbert Hunt, their families and Hunt-related business enterprises) (Texas Trends)
March 2, 1992... Trustees seek court's OK to file conspiracy charges against family DALLAS -- Bankruptcy trustees for Nelson Bunker Hunt and Herbert Hunt say they have uncovered an alleged "pattern of bankruptcy fraud" by the brothers, their families and...

Control of F.W. pension fund sparks debate. (proposed ordinance that would shift control of the retirement board and its fund to Fort Worth, Texas council) (Texas Trends)
March 2, 1992... FORT WORTH -- City employees and retirees are at odds with city officials over a proposed ordinance that would shift control of the retirement board -- and its $600 million fund -- to the council and staff. The ordinance would reverse the...

Beer companies expect robust sales this year. (South Texas breweries) (Texas Trends) (Industry Overview)
March 2, 1992... South Texas breweries expand in anticipation of big demand in 1992 SAN ANTONIO -- South Texas beer makers are brewing up big expansion plans for 1992. Despite a slow 1991 for much the nation's beer industry, officials at Pearl Brewing Co.,...

Tranquil millions: computer seller made his fortune by building business his own way. (Bill Hayden's CompuAdd Computer Corp.) (Texas Trends) (Company Profile)
March 2, 1992... AUSTIN -- Bill Hayden has learned a thing or two in his life. One is that the friends you've had the longest, the ones you knew when you were struggling for a buck, are the best. Another is that having more than two million bucks can disturb...

Austin lawsuit slams #1 U.S. retailer. (Wal-Mart Stores Inc.)
March 9, 1992... Attorneys for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are combing through legal tangles rooted in the retailer's refusal to remove from its shelves a line of popular hair-care products. The products, a hair spray and a conditioner bearing the trademark Paul...

Doctors map cure for health-care woes. (patients' right to choose health care)
March 9, 1992... Physicians have their own plan for health-care reform -- let the patient decide. The American Medical Association, the largest physicians group in the United States, has proposed a program based on free enterprise to give patients "choice,...

Bankers point path to a new prosperity. (Industry Overview)
March 9, 1992... It's a brave new world in banking. Or maybe not. Although the Texas banking industry has taken a roller coaster ride of boom and bust over the last decade, the regulations that financial institutions are supposed to do business under have been...

Beware lookalike bills for Yellow Page ads. (fraudulent solicitation of advertising)
March 9, 1992... Just because you let your fingers do the walking doesn't mean you're traveling with Ma Bell. Local businesses across Texas report they have been, or almost were, fooled into paying for space in telephone directories they never see by companies...

Forecast: 27,100 new Austin jobs.
March 9, 1992... Growing technology manufacturers, government and service industries will provide 27,100 new jobs in the Austin area in the next two years, according to a study by the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce released last week. The chamber's 1992-93...

IRS Dehasslers Inc. to go national. (Company Profile)
March 9, 1992... They say necessity is the mother of invention. For Leonard Mednick, necessity scared him into an invention he hopes will make him a wealthy man. Mednick is bringing IRS Dehasslers Inc. to Austin after more than two decades of cutting across...

Get the loan before you go house hunting. (Focus: Mortgage Lending)
March 9, 1992... The way most people buy a house is exactly backwards from the way they should do it, according to real estate and mortgage specialists. You know the stereotype: Husband and wife drive around some Sunday afternoon and discover a neighborhood...

Urban homesteading rebuilds neighborhoods. (Focus: Mortgage Lending)
March 9, 1992... When Gus Tzortzakis moved into his home on Bennett Avenue in February, he was very different from the hundreds of other Austinites who also moved into houses last month. Tzortzakis paid only $1 for his. Tzortzakis had been trying to buy a home...

Austin labels recording big successes. (Focus: Austin Music) (Industry Overview)
March 9, 1992... Money makes its own kind of music Austin is fond of calling itself the live music capital of the known universe, so it should come as no surprise that the city is home to 52 independent recording labels. "The prolific number of bands here...

Mental hospitals reel from abuses. (Industry Overview)
March 16, 1992... Publicity about abuses within the psychiatric hospital industry has shaken public confidence, say insiders who fear a backlash could damage more than facility revenues. "All of this attention and negative media coverage has had an impact on...

No yen to bash Japan. (Austin businesses profit in the Japanese market)
March 16, 1992... Several Austin retailers say they have no time for the current popular trend of Japan-bashing. They're too busy raking in the yen. While many American business people peg the whine meter when it comes to discussing the barriers to entering the...

Small business gets most drug abusers.
March 16, 1992... Drug prevention programs in big companies are good for those companies but bad for small business because drug abusers rejected or fired by big firms will wind up working for small companies that are ill-equipped to recognize and deal with their...

Bankers react to compensation limits. (Industry Overview)
March 16, 1992... Banking officials around the country are asking if the federal government is attempting to set bankers' salaries. The question arises from a clause in recent legislation that recapitalized federal deposit insurance. But the U.S. senator who...

Mental health an on-the-job concern. (Focus: Mental Health)
March 16, 1992... Many employers rank the mental health of employees equal in importance to their physical well-being. Poor mental health can jeopardize workplace safety and adversely affect job performance and productivity. Mental health afflictions include...

Bank One launches initiative to capture small-business loans. (Bank One of Texas)
March 16, 1992... A major Austin bank is taking it to the streets in an attempt to get money to small businesses. Bank One of Texas is placing executives in branches across the city to try and reach out to businesses with annual sales of $10 million or less....

Austin retirement communities hit with rash of foreclosures and sales. (Focus: Retirement Planner)
March 23, 1992... A Des Moines, Iowa, company that manages and develops retirement communities nationwide recently took over the management of an elegant, three-year-old retirement community in Austin called The Renaissance. If not for the Des Moines company...

Inc. 500 companies reveal success secrets. (companies rated by Inc. Magazine as fastest growing)
March 23, 1992... The leaders of Austin's four fastest growing, privately owned companies agree there is one major rule for success -- don't follow rules. In a world drowning in how-to books that stress experience as a key ingredient in a successful business,...

Bank of West expanding to San Antonio. (San Antonio, Texas)
March 23, 1992... Austin's Bank of the West is trying to acquire a successful San Antonio bank and do battle with the big boys. The Bank of the West's parent corporation, BancWest Bancorp, has filed with the Texas Department of Banking to acquire the...

Dallas firm hot over GSD&M lottery contract. (Tracey-Locke Ornelas)
March 23, 1992... When Roy Spence learned the advertising agency he founded, GSD&M, had won the Texas lottery contract, he knew somebody would be offended by whatever campaign was invented. But he didn't know he would also have to battle his peers....

Retiree's dilemma: to buy or lease? (Focus: Retirement Planner)
March 23, 1992... There is no lawn in George Carlyle's future. Nor is there much concern about whether the paint is going to start peeling this summer or whether the value of his home is headed up or down. George Carlyle, you see, is retired. One of the things...

The end of a traumatic era. (improvement of real estate market in Austin, Texas) (Industry Overview)
March 30, 1992... In what could be an indication of the Austin real estate market's improving health, a bank subsidiary created to unload foreclosed land has been dissolved because its job is essentially completed. Bank One Texas officials say Bonnet Resources...

Credit unions taking bigger market share.
March 30, 1992... Although they are two very different creatures, banks and credit unions find themselves foraging for the same sustenance these days -- consumer loans. According to bankers and banking industry analysts, credit unions are drawing a growing...

District judge tells Wal-Mart to clear shelves. (temporary injunction prohibiting Wal-Mart Stores Inc. from selling Paul Mitchell of Texas Inc. products)
March 30, 1992... An Austin-based distributor of popular hair-care products hopes a temporary injunction does what a temporary restraining order allegedly did not do -- keep Paul Mitchell products off Wal-Mart's shelves. Lisa Palermo, vice president of...

Home-sale contracts to require mediation. (Texas Real Estate Commission votes to adopt new forms for home buying and selling transactions)
March 30, 1992... Home buyers and sellers in Texas will soon be signing contracts that mention and recommend a way to settle any dispute that arises. On March 17, the Texas Real Estate Commission unanimously voted to adopt the new forms for transactions occurring...

Farm Credit Bank to go after its bad loans. (10th district of the Federal Farm Credit Banks Funding Corp.)
March 30, 1992... The few will have to suffer for the good of the many, leaders of a farmers' bank were told recently. Officials from the 10th Farm Credit District told stockholders at a recent meeting in Austin that one of the main goals for the next year is...

Fakes, frauds and ripoffs an ongoing threat. (American Institute of Banking-Austin holds seminar on most common ways of absconding with money)
March 30, 1992... The first defense for the money you put in the bank isn't the guard with the gun or even the loan officer who determines if a potential borrower will be able to repay a loan. It's the teller you do business with every day. To improve those...

Golf worth more than $71 million a year to Austin. (Golfers Guide to Austin)
March 30, 1992... Golf may be the only game whose players simultaneously praise it as heavenly and damn it as worthless. But golf is far from worthless. In fact, it's worth more than $71 million a year to Austin. The Scots playing gowf(*) on the Royal and...

Legends: granddaddy of pro sport. (Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf) (Golfers Guide to Austin)
March 30, 1992... The oldest event on the Senior Tour turns 15 this year. And for Austin, this gangling teenager has brought many rewards. The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce estimates that more than $3 million circulates through the local economy each year...

Golfsmith International: Austin clubmaker leads the field. (Golfers Guide to Austin) (Company Profile)
March 30, 1992... The early history of Austin's Golfsmith International is well-known. Starting operations out of a basement, it has become the world's largest assembler of golf club components. But these days, Golfsmith executives aren't reminiscing in the...

Golfing retailers' sales in the rough. (Golfers Guide to Austin) (Industry Overview)
March 30, 1992... Polyester's out, big heads are in. At least that's the story if you're a golf-focused retailer. Austin retailers say the stereotyped days of golfers are gone. Players no longer roam the links clad in black-and-yellow-checked polyester...

Company man: Hemminghaus knows Diamond Shamrock from the ground up. (CEO Roger Hemminghaus) (Company Profile)
March 30, 1992... SAN ANTONIO -- Five years ago, shortly after Diamond Shamrock Refining & Marketing Inc. was spun off from its parent company, Chief Executive Officer Roger Hemminghaus proposed that the new company build a $50 million hydrocracker at its McKee...

Licensing race challenges developer's track record. (Kansas' Woodlands horse racing track; R.D. Hubbard)
March 30, 1992... DALLAS -- Horse racing enthusiasts in Kansas have a word of warning for their friends in Texas: What R.D. Hubbard promises and what R.D. Hubbard delivers are not always the same. Three years ago, Hubbard promised to make Kansas' first horse...

The lure of mass litigation: attorneys build careers rounding up plaintiffs and filing multiple suits.
March 30, 1992... HOUSTON -- Television news cameras rolled in January as Houston plaintiff attorney Rick Laminack filed 50 lawsuits against the makers of silicone breast implants. The publicity instantly vaulted Laminack to national notoriety in what may become a...

Take my wine, please! Moyer's Texas bubbly is turning heads. (Henri and Calista Bernabe's Moyer winery in South Central Texas) (Company Profile)
March 30, 1992... SAN ANTONIO -- When even Texas wine connoisseurs look down their noses at the sparkling wine produced in state, it's hard for a Hill Country winemaker to gain acceptance. But the Moyer winery in South Central Texas believes it is making...

Muffuletta madness: Schlotzsky's wants to serve coast to coast. (sandwich) (Company Profile)
March 30, 1992... AUSTIN -- A local company is selling America with a sandwich influenced by the Italians, French, Spaniards, Greeks and Eastern Europeans. Schlotzsky's is recruiting "regional developers" to market its franchises -- complete with revised menus...