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Contributors
Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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Women entrepreneurs, who will represent half of all new small businesses in the U.S. by 2009, say technology is a key factor in the success of their business.
In a nationwide survey commissioned by FileMaker, Inc., and conducted by Greenfield Online, 83 percent of women-owned businesses with fewer than 100 employees reported that technology is key to the success of their business.
Among the findings:
• 39.3 percent said “the business takes more of my time than I expected.”
• 43 percent said they have “made less money than I thought I would.”
• 35.8 percent said their business “requires more capital” than expected.
• 35 percent said that running their own business “is more stressful than I expected.”
• 61 percent said the primary reason they started their own business was “independence/to be my own boss.”
• 13 percent said they started their own business because they “needed more convenient hours because of my family.”
• 8 percent said that “making more money” was the primary reason for starting their own business.
• 51 percent of the businesses use database software to organize and manage important business information.
• 68 percent percent of women business owners listed websites as one of their top two leading sources of information about new technologies; 55 percent said publications; 15 percent cited a technology consultant.
• 77 percent say “most business software is easy enough for small businesses to use.”
Tacoma-based Rainier Pacific Financial Group, parent of Rainier Pacific Bank, reported today that its board of directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.065 per share of common stock.
The dividend will be paid on June 11 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on May 28. This is the company's fourteenth consecutive quarterly cash dividend.
Rainier Pacific stock, trading as RPFG, closed at $20.41 in Friday trading, down 27 cents. The stock is up 2.92 percent so far this year.
I just pulled this LA Times story off the news wire. The upcoming contract negotiations between the PMA and Longshore Union are coastwide and therefore affect the PMA and Longshore members right here in Tacoma.
Read on:
The dockworkers’ union and shipping lines said Thursday that they have agreed to early labor contract talks in hopes of reaching an early settlement and avoiding the rancor that had shut down West Coast ports for 11 days in 2002.
The joint statement by the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents 74 cargo carriers, terminal operators and stevedore companies that operate on the West Coast, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents maritime laborers at 29 seaports, was a change in tone from 2002. The current labor contract expires in 2008.
“The PMA and its member companies are committed to good faith negotiations with the ILWU that will result in a win-win contract for management, for workers and for the U.S. economy,” said Jim McKenna, maritime association president.
Robert McEllrath, president of the dockworkers’ union, said that his organization “likewise is committed to good faith negotiations and is hopeful that the parties can reach a conclusion to negotiations without transportation disruptions from either side.”
