Starbucks Corp. will sell a second movie - this one produced by National Geographic Films, Bloomberg reported today.

The film, called “Arctic Tale,” follows the coffee chain's sales last year of “Akeelah and the Bee.”

Bloomberg reported that Starbucks will share the profits from “Arctic Tale,” a story about a walrus pup and a polar bear and the impact of global warming, said Ken Lombard, head of Starbucks’ entertainment division.

Starbucks will market the movie at 6,800 stores in the U.S. and Canada and sell DVDs of the film later.

Two of the nation's largest airlines, United and Continental, today raised fares by up to $14 roundtrip.

The airlines said they were upping their fares to compensate for higher fuel prices.

United raised its domestic fares by $2 to $5 each way and Continental raised its fares by $2 to $7 each way.

Those fare increases follow increases last week by Delta Air Lines and other carriers of about $5 each way. Previous attempts to raise farea industry-wide were rescinded when all carriers failed to go along.

Analysts said this round of fare increases may be sticking.

The Associated Press reported this afternoon that a former Schnitzer Steel Industries exec has paid $40,000 to settle bribery allegations.

The Securities and Exchange Commission had charged Si Chan Wooh of Tacoma, the former executive vice president, with violating anti-bribery provisions. The SEC alleged that from 1999 to 2004, Wooh paid more than $200,000 in cash bribes and other gifts to managers of government-owned steel mills in China to induce them to purchase scrap metal from Schnitzer, the AP reported. According to the commission, Schnitzer made $6.2 million in profit from the sales.

Wooh agreed to pay $40,000, including interest and penalties, without admitting or denying the allegations.
Schnitzer paid millions more to settle related charges.

Boeing rival Airbus today won 22 more orders for its A350XWB aircraft, its competitor to Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

The orders came from Brazilian carrier TAM Linhas Aereas. TAM was one of the airlines that originally ordered Airbus' A350, which Airbus abandoned in favor of the A350XWB.

The airline is also ordering four additional Airbus A330-200s.

TAM had ordered 10 of the A350s in 2005. Airbus scrapped the plans for the A350 when some of its best customers criticized it for lagging behind the 787 in technology and efficiency.

Airbus now has 254 orders and commitments for the A350XWB compared with firm orders for Boeing's 787 of 584.

By 8:15 a.m., eight people sat outside the 38th Street AT&T store waiting to pony up at least $499 for iPhones that go on sale at 6 tonight. They came equipped to sit, stand and pace for another 10 hours: Chairs, blankets, laptops, iPods. The iPhone can only be purchased at AT&T stores.

So why spend the day on a strip mall sidewalk to buy a phone?

"I’m known at work as a gadget guy. I’ve been told if I didn’t have one by Monday, don’t bother coming to work," said Jeff Haws, 48, of Gig Harbor, who'd arrived at 7 a.m.

Tiffany Fortune, 30, said she wanted to be sure the store wouldn't run out.

The first thing she plans to do with hers?

"Rub it in my neighbor’s face."

Calypso Marine, a Greek Shipping Company, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Tacoma earlier this week in connection with illegally dumping oily waste at sea.

The company agreed to pay a $1 million criminal fine as part of the plea agreement, according to a news release from the U.S. Coast Guard.

The illegal dumping practices were discovered in an investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Portland and in Kalama, on the Columbia River.

The shipping line calls at the Port of Portland and does not visit Tacoma.

The ship's record book indicated that the vessel properly disposed of all oily waste. However Coast Guard inspectors located hidden pipes that allowed the vessel to bypass approved oily waste procedures and pump large quantities of harmful pollution directly into the ocean during overseas transits.

=> Read more!

Turn on the fans people, because the DVD rental market rivalry is heating up.

Online DVD rental leader Netflix is lowering its monthly fee for one its most popular prescription plans by $1, the company announced today, to match a reduction made by rival Blockbuster earlier this month.

The Associated Press reports that Netflix is now charging $13.99 per month to rent up to two DVDs at a time, down from $14.99 previously. The service mails another DVD after subscribers return one of their other discs in postage-paid envelopes.

The price cut comes less than three weeks after Blockbuster began charging $13.99 per month for the same kind of plan. Dallas-based Blockbuster charges $14.99 per month for a two-DVD-at-a-time program that gives subscribers the flexibility of returning movies to a store instead of through the mail.

=> Read more!

American Airlines will advance delivery of 47 Boeing 737-800 aircraft it had ordered in March by as much as three years, the airline said today.

The first six of those fuel-efficient aircraft will be delivered in the first half of 2009.

American will replace 20-year-old MD-80 aircraft with the more fuel-stingy 737s.

American's move to accelerate deliveries of 737s comes at a time when its Texas rival, Southwest Airlines, is delaying some deliveries of 737 to allow its passenger growth to catch up with its acquisition of new planes.

Southwest had been using its new aircraft in large part to expand its network while American plans to use its 737 to replace less efficient planes.

Contractors will begin laying concrete for Sea-Tac Airport's 8,500-foot third runway beginning in mid-July.

That date is about three weeks later than orginally planned, but the delay isn't expected to materially affect the runway's opening date, now scheduled for November next year.

The runway project from conception to completion will have taken some 15 years by the time the first plane lands on it next year.

A coalition of cities and neighborhood organizations challenged the runway project repeatedly in court, and the runway's actual construction has taken more than three years.

The paving will require some 133,000 cubic yards of concrete and 35,000 tons of asphalt. The runway concrete will be about 17 inches thick to withstand the pounding it will receive from planes landing at high speed.

The most difficult and sensitive part of the project is now behind the contractors. That phase required acquisition and demolition of homes on the airport's west side and cleanup and rerouting of several creeks in the area. Bringing the land surface up to the level of the airport's other two runways required thousands of dump truck loads of soil to be brought from off-site areas and the construction of huge retaining wall to keep the soil in place.

At last report, the runway's construction and associated environmental mitigation activities was budgeted at $1.2 billion.

Though Northwest Airlines has canceled more than 10 percent of its flights nationwide over the last few days because of pilot shortages, weather and air traffic control problems, those problems haven't spread to its Sea-Tac flights.

The airline has maintained its flight schedule here without resorting to outright cancellations.

According to records compiled by Flightstats.com, the Minneapolis-based airline has canceled none of its own flights from Sea-Tac this week and only one code-share flight, an Alaska Airlines flight to Anchorage today that carries passengers from Northwest, American and Continental as well as Alaska's own.

Southwest Airlines, seeking to restart its profit growth engine, today added six new daily non-stop flights to its Seattle schedule including four daily flights to Denver.

The Dallas-based airline also added one additional daily roundtrip between Seattle and San Jose and Seattle and Sacramento in California.

The low-cost carrier trimmed its Seattle-Chicago schedule by one flight, leaving three round-trips daily.

The additions to Southwest Seattle schedule are among dozens of changes the airline made Wednesday. Those changes are aimed at returning Southwest to traditional profit growth.

The new flights will encounter plenty of competition.
Three airlines, United, Frontier and Alaska, for instance, fly the Seattle-Denver route now. United, which has a huge Denver hub, dominates the route with a 48 percent market share. Alaska is in second place with a 25 percent share, and Frontier is just a few percentage points behind with a 20 percent share, according to Farecast.com.

On the California routes, which Southwest already competes, it is in second place versus Alaska. Alaska now has 60 percent of the Sacramento traffic. Southwest has 33 percent. In San Jose, Alaska has a 64 percent market share versus Southwest's 29 percent.

Southwest, which is noteworthy for its unassigned seating scheme, also hinted at a press conference that it may soon adopt a different seating plan. The airline experimented with pre-assigned seats in San Diego for several months before returning to its traditio seating scheme.

We posted two weeks ago that Starbucks would be expanding lunch offerings with items such as curried chicken and Asian sesame-noodle salads.

Now a story from Reuters fills in more of the lunchtime fare: a tomato mozzarella salad, a "fiesta salad" with chicken, corn and black beans, with regional fare to include albacore tuna penne, champagne pasta salad and bowtie pasta with goat cheese in addition to the curry chicken and sesame noodle salads.

Want a parfait? Starbucks also plans to start selling two yogurt-based ones, as well as a raspberry mocha Frappuccino and an iced raspberry mocha nationwide.

The new food, Reuters reported, comes as the No. 1 coffee shop chain faces steeper competition from chains such as McDonald's Corp. that are improving their coffee offerings.

Remember that lawyer-rating site launched last month? Well, Avvo.com will have a lot fewer ratings given some changes being made by the Seattle company.

Now attorneys with only minimal info gathered from their bar association will have non-numbered ratings (no concern/attention) instead of a number that previously ranged from 1 to 10. The numbers will only come into play, said spokeswoman Paula Gottlob, when additional information is added, such as other accomplishments, publications, etc.

A lot of that info comes when lawyers claim their own profiles, something more than 2,500 have done, Gottlob said. The site also has seen more than 100,000 unique visitors as of Monday, she said.

I asked if the rating changes had anything to do with the lawsuit filed in mid-June that claimed the rating methodology was error-prone and manipulation.

“No. We’ve been making changes to the site since day one,” she said, pointing to the switch made June 6 – the day after the launch – of one rating category, from “trustworthiness” to “professional conduct.”

You can find CEO Mark Britton’s blog post on the topic here.

A new study commissioned by the State of Alaska and Canada's Yukon Territory says a rail link between Alaska and the existing Canadian and U.S. rail network is financially feasible.

While such a new rail line would in large measure serve mining interests in the Yukon, Alaska and British Columbia, it would also potentially siphon off container traffic now moving through Puget Sound ports.

Don't count on that competition soon, though. The preliminary price of the new line is $10.5 billion, and construction could take years even if the money were quickly available.

Making the rail line happen will require a public-private partnership of huge proportions. No one is yet stepping forward, but more studies are probably in the works soon.

Four companies were recognized today for their business leadership in Pierce County at the annual Spotlight on Business Awards presented by Heritage Bank and the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber.

They were:

Large business. Rainier Connect: A Tacoma telecommunications company offering local, long distance, cable television and high-speed Internet service.

Medium business. Forza Coffee Co.: A Gig Harbor coffee company expanding in the South Sound.

Small business. Three Chicks Catering: A catering company based in Tacoma that provides boxed lunches, party platters and banquet food.

Non profit. Fair Housing Center of Washington: A Tacoma civil rights agency that addresses discriminatory practices in housing and encourages diversity.

If your nest egg includes, let's say, 100 share of Boeing stock worth about $9,500 at today's selling prices, you'll be getting a check from Boeing sometime in September for a grand total of $35.

That check is your share of Boeing's new prosperity, a quarterly dividend of 35 cents a share.

The dividend is payable Sept. 7 to shareholders of record at the close of business Aug. 10.

Apple gave consumers a surprise today: the company announced that iPhone customers will pay less for service than other phone users.

AT&T Inc.’s calling plans for the phone will cost $59.99 to $219.99 a month, spokesman Michael Coe said.

Similar plans for other phones cost $65 to about $225, according to AT&T’s Web site.

Apple may be charging less to avoid scaring off potential customers with the price of the phone itself, which at as much as $600 is eight times the cost of Samsung Electronics Co.’s BlackJack.

Apple expects the iPhone to become one of the company’s main businesses along with the iPod media player and Macintosh computers, which each ring up more than $10 billion in sales a year.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is one of six airports nationwide testing a security bin advertising program at its passenger checkpoints.

Under the program, a Florida company, SecurityPoint Media, will furnish new plastic security trays complete with advertising messages affixed to the inside for use at the airport.

The company will also furnish the Transportation Security Administration check points with plastic rolling carts on which the empty trays can be returned to the start of the security line for reuse.

In addition, SecurityPoint is furnishing new stainless steel tables where travelers can load the trays with their purses, laptops, shoes and the contents of their pockets before passing through the metal detectors.

The new equipment, which SecurityPoint will furnish free in exchange for the advertising exposure, will be in place before the Independence Day holiday.

Among the companies negotiating to buy ad space in the bins is Zappos.com, an Internet shoe company.

Last week business columnist Dan Voelpel wrote about an eco-friendly playhouse designed and built by the staff of BCRA, Tacoma's largest architectural firm.

The playhouse was auctioned off Saturday evening as part of Dinner and Playhouses Under the Stars, a fundraiser for the Children’s Museum of Tacoma.

The pirate ship brought in quite a treasure – $6,100. It was the highest ticket item sold at the auction, which raised $117,000 in total.

An Amtrak train with an on-time performance record so miserable that it earned the nickname "Coast Starlate" may finally get a boost.

Amtrak and the Union Pacific Railroad, on whose tracks the Amtrak's Coast Starlight runs for most of the distance between Los Angeles and Seattle, have reached a new on-time agreement.

That agreement calls for Union Pacific to limit what the railroad industry calls "slow orders" that cut train speeds for track maintenance.

The Coast Starlight, once a premier long-distance train, in recent years has become a chronic non-performer because of those slow orders. In some years, its on-time performance was measured in single-digit percentages.

The train's problems mostly occurred between Portland and Sacramento because of seemingly endless maintenance work on Union Pacific's line. The train sometimes was delayed so long that its crew "timed out," reached its maximum allowable duty day, before it reached a crew change terminal forcing Amtrak to bus a new crew to the location where the train stopped.

The Starlight's poor performance is in contrast to that of Amtrak trains on the Cascade Corridor between Vancouver and Portland. Those trains typically operate punctually.

Don't count on immediate punctuality. Union Pacific and Amtrak signed the deal last week. Tonight the Starlate was running nearly 3.5 hours late into Tacoma.

Our East Pierce reporter Eijiro Kawada sent this in today:

Washington officially has joined a multi-state effort to encourage merchants to begin collecting sales tax over Internet and mail-order purchases.

At a meeting Saturday, Washington joined 21 other states that have signed an agreement to radically simplify the collection of sales tax, according to a press release from the state Department of Revenue released today.

While these out-of-state sellers cannot be compelled to collect sales tax, more than 1,000 of them have agreed to do so in the 22 states, the press release said.

After several years of debate, Washington’s Legislature passed a law this year and paved the way for the state to join the group. Local brick-and-mortar retailers supported the bill, while some cities that feared losing tax revenues from the change opposed it.

Washington’s full membership in the multi-state group will be effective July 1, 2008. The out-of-state retailers who are part of the agreement can start collecting sales tax from Washington customers starting next month, but aren’t expected to do so until July 1 next year.

If you're flying on Alaska Airlines this week, don't be startled if you're flight attendant is wearing a uniform that looks like it just emerged from a time capsule.

The airline, which is celebrating its 75th year in 2007, will equip some of its flight attendants this week with vintage uniforms that recall a more free-wheeling time in the airline's history.

Then, flight attendants jobs didn't include such serious tasks as dealing with potential terrorists and making quick turnarounds at their destinations.

They served substantial meals and were responsible for carrying out the airline's current marketing schemes.

Thus such emerged uniforms such as the Russian cossack outfit when the airline began flying to the Russian Far East, the Miss Kitty saloon hostess look that enhanced the airline's Gay Nineties promotion.

If you're memory's foggy about such eccentric outfits or if you're too young to have seen them, here's a taste:

Airbus today signed two more commercial aircraft orders as its momentum from the Paris Air Show continued unabated.

European low-cost carrier easyJet signed a contract for a new order for 35 additional Airbus A319 narrow-body jets.

EasyJet operates the world's largest fleet of A319s in it's intra-European network.

Meanwhile, Saudia Arabia's National Air Service said it has signed orders with Airbus for 38 A320 aircraft worth $2.4 billion.

The aircraft will be used to operate new domestic and international routes.

If you're one of the holdouts on Comcast's analog cable system, you've no doubt recently received a bunch of offers from the cable provider to convert your service to digital.

The pitch say the deal is so good that its' "an offer you can't refuse."

Is Comcast just joshing, or does that statement mean what it hints: If you don't accept our deal, we'll shut down your analog signal and convert you to digital and charge you big time for the privilege?

Comcast spokesman Walt Neary says no need to worry. The cable provider has no plans to cut off its analog customers.

But at $1 month the digital is a good deal with more features and the ability to access hundreds more movies, some of them free and others at additional cost. Neary said.

The only hitch: In most cases, you'll have to get a set-top box to enable your TV to handle the digital signals.

After Airbus left Boeing in the dust in the Paris Air Show order derby, it may seem petty to question how that effete European operation beat the hometown concern so soundly.

But here are some things to consider:

*Many of the orders Airbus rounded up for its A350XWB weren't really new orders at all. The big air show XWB customers such as Qatar and US Airways were the same customers who previously had ordered the A350. Airbus got to count those A350 orders the first time those airlines made them a couple of years ago and then again when they converted the 350 orders to XWB orders after Airbus dumped the A350 design in favor of the XWB design.

*The missing ingredient in the whole order picture is price. Did Airbus generate copious orders with fire sale prices? Or did it sell them a near retail? Detroit's Big Three propped up sales for years with highly discounted fleet sales to rental car companies and with subsidized lease rates. Only time will tell if Airbus can generate profits at the prices it set for the planes it sold.

*Did Airbus compensate carriers burned by the two-year-delivery delay of their A380 superjumbo jets by offering them extra planes free or at highly discounted prices? Sure beats paying them cash up front and defers the cost of compensating them to future years.

Boeing announced an average list price increase for its commercial airliners of 5.6 percent today, the day after the Paris Air Show ended.

If you're among the rare few who can afford a new Boeing 747-8 as your personal jet, you'll shell out another $17.5 million today for your jet. Today's list price: $300 million. Yesterday's price: $282.5 million.

Prices for the best-selling 737-800 jumped from $75 million to $79 million.

Almost no one pays the list prices. Given the right combination of circumstances: ready cash, a big order and a limp market, airlines routinely get big discounts from the sticker prices that can range up to 40 percent in rare cases.

Here are some example prices from Boeing's new list in case you're out shopping:

737-700 $67.5 million
737-900ER $85.0 million
747-8F $297.0 million
767-300ER $157.5 million
777-200LR $256.5 million
787-8 $167 million

John and I were coming back from lunch with Comcast spokesman Walt Neary at Pacific Grill when we spotted this:

KFC is using these types of trucks around the country to advertise their new chicken bowl and now they've hit the streets of Tacoma. They are part of a nationwide trend toward more "traveling" advertising. You might see other companies including the Point Defiance Zoo on trucks cruising around town.

The KFC trucks have a string of about four advertising panels that circulate and then the panels are lifted and you see larger-than-life version of the bowl with a biscuit, cheese, corn, mashed potatoes, chicken and gravy.

Two small grants and a matching contribution from the Tacoma Lodge of the Knights of Pythias will jump start the restoration of the damaged parts of lodge's 1881 vintage hall.

Historic Tacoma is coordinating and seeking funding for restoration of Castle Hall in the Knights of Pythias Hall at 926 Broadway. The organization received a $1,000 grant from the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation's Valerie Sivinski Preserves Fund and a $2,000 from the Colonial Dames of Washington. The Lodge will match those grants with $3,000 of its own.

Beginning in late summer artisans will clean and restore painted panels, fix water-damaged plaster and repaint surfaces on the southeast balcony of the second floor hall.

The work will be a demonstration project for the group's effort to raise $50,000 to completely restore the ceremonial room.

Kent Station has added additional stores to its lineup, including Bath & Body Works and Famous Footwear, according to a press release.

The growing shopping center also landed Aerosoles, a shoe store, Bella Home & Garden and Kent Station Dentistry.

Aerosoles and Bella Home already have opened, to be followed by Famous Footwear in August, Bath & Body Works in September and Kent Station Dentistry in July.

In my story last week about the Spirit of Washington dinner train coming to Tacoma, I noted that the GrandLuxe Rail Journeys also planned to use Tacoma Rail's tracks out to Eatonville.

Well the train has arrived.

The luxury train rolled into Eatonville this morning. Mount Rainier is one of the last stops on a tour of Northwest parks for the train's 140 passengers.

The travelers spent today at Mount Rainier and will have dinner back on the train. It will leave for its final destination - Tacoma's Freighthouse Square – at 4:30 a.m. Friday.

For anyone wanting to take a sneak peak at this "cruise ship on rails," it should pull into town at about 8:30 a.m., according to GrandLuxe's vice president of operations.

Look for a story on the rail line and its new Tacoma connection in Saturday's paper.

The LeMay Automobile Museum board of directors has appointed Larry Smith to the museum's steering committee.

Smith is currently President and CEO of Autometric Collision, a multiple location body shop business and the only Mercedes-Benz approved shop in Michigan. He also serves as the Chairman for the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance in Troy, Michigan.

Smith’s background with the automobile industry and classic car collecting offers additional expertise to the Museum’s collecting and development efforts, said museum President and CEO David Madiera.

“Larry’s knowledge of classic cars, his extensive relationships in the community of enthusiasts, his promotional skills and his passion for our project make him a wonderful addition to our leadership team,” Madeira said.

In addition to Smith’s current roles with the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance and Autometric Collision, he has also chaired and managed the art and auction committee for the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance. Smith has also been an art judge at numerous events including the AFAS art show at the Pebble Beach Concours and has served as a car judge at most major concours including the Louis Vuitton Classics in Paris, London, and Amelia Island.

The Port of Tacoma aims to buy Tacoma Power's defunct steam plant, which is on the East Blair Peninsula.

The property is at 1101 Taylor Way. The port plans to pay $7.65 million for it.

The commission votes this afternoon whether to finalize the purchase of the property. The piece fits with the two dozen other parcels the port aims to acquire on the peninsula.

The port may be buying the land, but the plant itself was sold in February to Calbag Metals Co. The company recycles scrap metal and paid $540,000 for the shuttered facility.

The plant contained metals such as aluminum, brass and steel as well some power plant parts that the company planned to sell.

Columbia Bank will conduct its second annual Shred Fest on Saturday, June 23rd, at three South Sound branches.

In an effort to help prevent identity theft, Columbia Bank customers and non-customers alike are invited to bring up to 100 pounds of sensitive documents to be shredded. Shredding services are being provided by LeMay Mobile Shredding.

The event will be held at Columbia’s Spanaway, Auburn and Gig Harbor branches from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. In addition to shredding services, the bank will offer information on preventing identity theft and other types of fraud directed at consumers and businesses.

For more information, including the types of documents that are recommended for shredding, as well as Shred Fest location addresses, visit www.columbiabank.com.

A Kvichak product

Kvichak Marine Industries is building a new manufacturing facility – set to employ about 100 people – in Kent.

The company builds aluminum boats and now working on a contract with the Coast Guard that includes crafting 250 new patrol vessels, according to a news release from enterpriseSeattle, a economic development agency in King County.

The company will move into its new Kent digs – a 55,000-square-foot facility – by the first of July. Kvichak has another facility in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood. That facility employs about 130 people.

enterprise Seattle worked with Kvichak to help plan the company's expansion.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. today issued a special alert concerning counterfeit cashier's checks drawn on Timberland Bank of Hoquiam. The bank contacted the FDIC recently to report that bogus checks bearing the institution's name are in circulation.

The counterfeit items display the routing number 325170754, which is assigned to Timberland Bank, but are dissimilar to authentic cashier's checks. The counterfeit items display a security feature statement embedded within the top border, which has rounded corners. A "NOTICE TO PURCHASER" regarding an indemnity bond is located in the top-center area.

Authentic checks have a tan wood-grain background with green lettering and red check numbers. The bank's telephone number, 360-533-4747, is displayed between the bank's name and address in the upper-left corner.

A computer problem at United Airlines' headquarters halted most United departures nationwide for about two hours this morning, the airline confirmed.

At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, eight United flights scheduled to leave between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. today were delayed as long as three hours and 33 minutes, according to FlightStats.com, which tracks arrivals and departures nationwide.

United flights from Sea-Tac to Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and Toronto were reported more than 15 minutes late departing during that three-hour period.

Some United flights handled by partner airlines were unaffected by the computer outage.

Though the computer was running again by 8 a.m. Pacific time, the delays are likely continue to domino through United's system throughout the day, because the initial groundings caused planes to arrive at their destinations late, thus delaying later flights.

At Sea-Tac, for instance, though the computer problem was cured, five of 11 United departures between 9 a.m. and noon were showing late departures.

In the fine print department, here's a little-known change that could leave you sitting at the gate if you're inclined to press the deadlines for checking in at the airport.

Alaska and Horizon airlines have changed the baggage check-in cutoff times at some major airports where summertime traffic is especially heavy.

Instead of the usual 40 minutes before departure cut-off time for checking bags, Alaska has changed that cut-off time to 45 minutes before departure at Denver and Las Vegas.

For Horizon, which ordinarily will accept checked baggage up to 30 minutes before departure, the airline has lengthened that period to 40 minutes at Portland and Seattle.

In Mexico, instead of the usual 60 minutes, the check-in cutoff time is now 90 minutes before departure in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Technical and professional employees at Boeing's Wichita plant voted Tuesday to decertify a Seattle-based union as their representative.

The vote was 353 to retain the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace and 408 to decertify the union.

The main issue in the election appeared to be the failure of the union to obtain participation in Boeing's Employee Incentive Plan for union members in the last contract.

That incentive plan pays bonuses based on the company's financial performance in the last year. Employees in the plan in recent years have received thousands of dollars in payments because of Boeing's rising fortunes.

SPEEA still represents 740 engineers at Boeing's Wichita plant.

SPEEA-represented employees in the Seattle area participate in the incentive plan.

The state Department of Financial Institutions will announce later today that it has ordered the closure of a Renton escrow company.

The state contends that Exceptional Escrow Corp. used funds held in trust to cover operational expenses. Exceptional Escrow has offices in Renton, North Bend and Bonney Lake.

A spokesman for Exceptional Escrow was unavailable Tuesday.

With its funds frozen, the company is no longer conducting business. The state has appointed a receiver – Olympia attorney Brian Budsberg – to investigate the remaining assets of the company and develop a plan for disbursement to customers.

Boeing is asking its suppliers to restart their production lines making parts for the company's C-17 military transport plane.

Boeing told them to halt production earlier this year after no new orders appeared for the four-engine transport being built in Boeing's Long Beach, Calif. plant.

In seeking a restart and betting its own money to order new parts, Boeing is making an educated guess that there are more orders out there for the plane. The Bush administration hasn't included more C-17s in its military budget request this year, but there is considerable interest in Congress to place orders for at least 10 more of the aircraft.

In the meantime, NATO is expected to order four of the planes to be shared among European nations, and the British are reportedly interested in more C-17s because the four they've used are working well.

Thousands of jobs could disappear in California and elsewhere if the C-17 production line shuts down. The C-17 is the last large aircraft being built in California, once a state overflowing with aircraft factories.

I was at Buffelen Woodworking down in the Tideflats this morning. CEO Joe Guizzetti was nice enough to show me around.

The 94-year-old company has found its niche – and a way to compete against low-cost manufacturers in China – in high-end doors.

In fact the company is now working 3,000 doors for a new resort in Maui. Other interesting things to note:

• The country's renewed interest in Craftsman-style homes has been a boon for the company, which makes Craftsman doors complete with details such as leaded glass windows.

• Buffelen just completed a $5 million investment in new CNC machines that help the company do smaller orders and even produce single, custom doors. Previously, the smallest order the company would accept was for at least a few hundred.

Pioneer Financial Services of Lakewood announced Monday that it has been acquired by MidCountry Financial Corp. Pioneer's 19 retail offices, consumer lending facilities and online lending site will become the military division of MidCountry Bank. Terms were not disclosed.

Pioneer provides financial services and education exclusively to military personnel. MidCountry Financial Corp. is a financial services holding company located in Macon, Georgia, and its national subsidiaries include a consumer finance company, a mortgage division, an equipment leasing company, an insurance agency and MidCountry Bank, a federal savings bank, which has assets of more than $1 billion.

Pioneer President and CEO Tom Holcom said the new Pioneer will be able to provide military customers “access to a broader range of traditional bank services in the future - something previously unavailable to many 'un-bankable' military families.”

Pioneer is located locally at 12930 Pacific Hwy. S.W . in Lakewood.

Overshadowed by the race to win big airliner orders between Boeing and Airbus, a Boeing joint venture, Aviation Partners Boeing, is winning big in Paris.

Aviation Partners Boeing makes fuel-saving winglets for Boeing airliners. Those winglets, which can cut fuel consumption by as much as five percent on the airliners on which they're installed, are becoming almost standard equipment on new and recently built Boeing aircraft.

Delta Air Lines announced today that it will retrofit 63 aircraft in its fleet, 767-300ERs, 757s and Next Generation 737s with the wingtip extensions from Seattle-based Aviation Partners Boeing.

In addition to saving fuel, the winglets improve an aircraft's takeoff performance, lengthen its range and bolster its payload capability.

On the larger 767-300ERs, for instance, the winglets will increase the aircraft's range by more than 400 miles, beef up its payload by 12,000 pounds and potentially save the airline some 290,000 gallons of aviation fuel per aircraft per year. At about $1 million to buy and install a set of 767 winglets, the payback from fuel saved alone is quick, said Delta.

Delta joins American Airlines, Austrian and LAN in equipping its 767s with the winglets. Continental, Alaska, Southwest and dozens of foreign airlines are already equipping their existing fleets with the winglets and ordering new planes equipped with them from the factory.

Boeing's ever-growing order book for its game-changing 787 Dreamliner aircraft is having an unintended but beneficial consequence for its chief rival, Airbus.

With 787 production virtually sold out for the next six years, airlines looking for mid-sized aircraft soon are turning to Airbus' A330 twin-aisle jet.

Several airlines have ordered A330s this week to cover their near-term needs for more capacity. Thai Airways, for instance, today ordered eight A330-300s to supplement its existing fleet of 12.

Fly Asian Express signed a contract to purchase 15 A330-300s from Airbus today. The first of those aircraft will be delivered to the airline in the third quarter of 2008. The aircraft will fly under the name AirAsiaX on long haul, low-cost flights to and from Asia.

In a big order Monday, Phoenix-based US Airways included 10 A330s in its big order with Airbus. The A330s will help bridge US Airways' long haul capacity needs between now and 2013 when the first of its efficient, long-haul A350XWBs enter service.

Boeing had fought for the US Airways order, but didn't have a plane that could serve the airline's needs until the first 787s could be delivered five or six years from now. The 787 production line is sold out, and Boeing's 767's design is a decade older than the A330's.

Meanwhile, Boeing chalked up more orders for the 787 today with an order from International Lease Finance Corp. for 50 more Dreamliners. The ILFC order also included ordrs for 10 737 Next Generation single-aisle jets. Boeing and ILFC also disclosed that the leasing company earlier this year had ordered two 787-8s and one 777-300ER but hadn't disclosed the purchase at the time.

It’s called “Jump Start Your Business.”
And it’s free.

The Seattle office of the Small Business Administration will conduct a series of workshops next week, June 25-29, helping small business proprietors learn some basic – and a few advanced – skills.

Workshops will be held daily at the SBA Education and Training Center at 2401 Fourth Avenue, Suite 450, in Seattle.

Among other titles, the workshops include: “Business Law Essentials,” “How to Connect With the Government Marketplace, “Bookkeeping and Taxes” and “Building your Web site.” Topics also include business plans, taxes, marketing, financial statements and pricing.

Registrants are welcome to attend any or all of the workshops. For a full schedule or to register, visit www.sba.gov/wa/seattle/ or call 206-553-7310.

Nick-N-Willy’s take-n-bake pizzas shops are moving into the area bringing what Puyallup franchise owner Joan Templin describes as a "gourmet" version of the bake-at-home pie.

The Puyallup shop has been open for about a month.

The next stop: Tacoma's Proctor District in the space formerly occupied by Subway. We'll tell you more when we get details.

Nick-N-Willy's World Famous Pizza was founded in 1989 in Boulder, Colo. The company started offering franchises in 2001.

=> Read more!

Lights! Camera! Summer!
The kids may be looking forward to another installment in the life of Harry Potter - but we’re more interested in Henry Potter, the character played by Lionel Barrymore in the classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Which is one of our favorite business-related movies.

What’s yours?

We’re conducting a poll. What’s your favorite movie where the plot turns in the world of business?
It might be anything from “Office Space” to “Citizen Kane.”

We’ve developed a list. Join us. Vote for your favorite. Tell us why you’re right.

And look for the results in Sunday’s business section in The News Tribune. (Personally, I don’t see how anything can beat “Glengarry Glen Ross.”)

Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group Scott Carson said today the successor to Boeing's ever-popular 737 won't likely take to the skies before 2015.

Carson, speaking to reporters at the Paris Air Show, said he wants engine technology to advance further before committing Boeing to designing an all-new single-aisle aircraft. Boeing has sold more than 6,000 737s, making it most popular jet airliner in history.

Using presently available technology, he said, Boeing could build a single-aisle plane that would be about 15 percent more efficient that the 737, but he wants an game-changing plane to be at least 20 percent more fuel efficient than the 737.

Aircraft engine makers are testing several advanced engines for single-aisle planes including geared turbines, unducted fans and advanced conventional engines.

The Washington Employment Security Department has issued an analysis of the role of the military in the state’s economy.
Economists Dave Wallace and Paul Turek have found that military related jobs are “particularly important to local areas such as Kitsap and Pierce counties,” and that the impact comes both from direct employment and procurement.
“Seattle,” for instance, “is hardly impacted by military employment, but received almost half of the nearly $5 billion in military contracts awarded to Washington in 2006."
Among the findings:
• 4 percent of Department of Defense personnel were employed in Washington in 2005.
• Military employment Washington, both active-duty and civilian, marked 71,440 positions in September, 2005.
• Kitsap and Pierce counties totaled nearly three-fourths of the state’s military employment in 2005.
• Fort Lewis generated 26,662 positions in 2005, and McChord Air Force Base 4,916.
• 49 percent of the military jobs in the state were in Pierce County; 30 percent in Kitsap County; and 7 percent in Island County. Other positions were filled in Spokane, King, Snohomish and Spokane counties.
• Throughout the state, 34 percent of military-related employment is civilian.
• In 2005, 13 percent of all jobs in Pierce County could be classified as military-related. In Kitsap County, the figure was 24.9 percent, and in Island County, 32.8 percent.
To view the full report, visit www.workforceexplorer.com.

Airbus got a jump on Boeing out of the starting gate today in the every-other-year commercial airplane order derby at the Paris Air Show.

The European manufacturer's orders announced today were significant but not unexpected. Most came from Mideast airlines that were long-time Airbus customers who had signaled their intent to order more Airbus planes.

One Mideast from came from Emirates of Dubai, which ordered eight more superjumbo A380s bringing the number A380s it has ordered to 55.

Qatar Airways ordered 80 A350XWBs, Airbus' rival to Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. The airline also ordered three A380s and three A320s.

The airline was an original customer for the A350, but had delayed reconfirming its order after Airbus repeatedly redesigned the aircraft to better compete with the 787.

Jazeera Airways signed an order for 30 narrow-bodied A320s, and two orders for the A320 came from Nouvelair, a charter operator in Tunisia.

The day's biggest order came from Phoenix's U.S. Airways which ordered a total of 92 planes from Airbus including 22 A350s, 60 A320s and 10 A330s. Airbus had provided USAir with a $250 million loan to help it through bankruptcy.

Meanwhile Boeing announced an order of 40 more 737-900ERs from Indonesia's Lion Air and another order from General Electric's leasing arm for seven 777 freighters.

Emirates did not pick between the 787 and the A350XWB for its mid-sized jet preferring to make its design decision when the A350XWB is more fully designed.

There's a rare worker who hasn't considered calling in sick on a particularly sunny day.

The last time I played hooky (before I became incredibly responsible and gainfully employed by The News Tribune, of course) my thoughtful co-workers stopped by to bring me some chicken noodle soup. But I wasn't there. Oops.

Ceridian Lifeworks, a Minnesota-based provider of Employee Assistance programs, recently asked human resource managers to share the most bizarre reasons employees have given for missing work.

Among them:

- I was trapped in my house by a skunk.
- I have head lice.
- The barometer was too high.
- The neighbor's dog died in front of my garage, and I couldn't get the door open.
- I couldn't open my garage door because the power went off.
- My car tires were repossessed, and my car was up on blocks.

=> Read more!

Starbucks Corp., the world’s largest coffee-shop chain, will start selling curried chicken and Asian sesame-noodle salads that cost about $6 at its U.S. stores.

Starbucks plans to offer four or five varieties of salads at 4,400 company-owned cafes in 22 U.S. cities, spokeswoman Tricia Moriarty said today. Starbucks has added warm breakfast items such as eggs Florentine and lunches including ham and cheese sandwiches to expand sales beyond coffee, Bloomberg News reported.

If each store sells seven or eight of the new salads a day, it would increase sales at older locations by 1 percent, Sharon Zackfia, an analyst with William Blair & Co., wrote in a note today. The company is working to accelerate sales after two consecutive years of slowing profit growth.

Three rival Washington shipyards have reached an agreement that may end a long political and legal wrangle over a contract for four new state ferries.

Tacoma's Martinac Shipbuilding, Todd Pacific Shipyards Corp. of Seattle and Nichols Brothers Boat Builders of Freeland have agreed to submit a single, joint bid on the ferry contract, the three shipyards announced today.

The agreement calls for Todd, the largest of the three shipyards, to be the prime contractor for the four, 144-auto ferries. Martinac and Nichols Brothers will be subcontractors.

The shipyards have fought both in the Legislature and in court to clarify the rules under which the state Department of Transportation awarded the contract.

Todd appeared to have won the contest two years ago, but Martinac appealed the DOT's disqualification of its Tacoma shipyard from the bidding and won before an administrative law judge.

The Legislature, anxious to get the long-delayed ferry project moving, this spring passed legislation giving the three yards 30 days in which to agree on a unified bid.

The state had budgeted $342 million for the four-boat project.

The state added one bank in the first quarter – for a total of 100 – and assets at all state banks rose $3.4 billion to $68.8 billion, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said today.

Past-due loans rose slightly from 0.54 percent of total loans to 0.6 percent.

Return on assets rose from 0.97 percent to 1.11 percent, and net interest margin fell from 4.85 percent to 4.47 percent.

The FDIC also reported that single-family home permits fell 9.5 percent in the first quarter, as compared to the first quarter in 2007. This comes after a 32 percent decrease in the 4th quarter. Multi-family building permits were up 123 percent, following a 26.1 percent decrease.

Loans for commercial real estate increased over the fourth quarter, as a percentage of total capital, while residential real estate loans decreased.

Shares of Expedia Inc. rose as much as 9.2 percent after Theflyonthewall.com said Chairman Barry Diller may take the company private. Expedia denied the report, according to Bloomberg News.

Diller is working on a $30-a-share buyout, the Web site said today, citing an unidentified source. He plans to spin off Expedia’s TripAdvisor unit and cut about 400 jobs, Theflyonthewall.com said. Expedia is valued at about $7.7 billion.

The report is “absolutely not true,” said Expedia spokeswoman Audrey Lincoff. “Expedia is not going private, we are not spinning off TripAdvisor and we are not eliminating jobs.”

Andrea Riggs, a spokeswoman for Diller, called Expedia’s denial “correct.”
Shares of Expedia, based in Bellevue, Washington, rose 68 cents, or 2.8 percent, to $25.14 at 1:08 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading.

Inflation is on its way back. Blame gasoline. And groceries.

An 8.2 percent increase in gas prices led a 5.3 percent increase in the special aggregate index for energy in May in the Tacoma-Bremerton-Seattle area, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. Since November 2006, gasoline prices have risen by 35.9 percent.

The household energy index edged up 0.1 percent from April to May, and was 6.4 percent higher than a year ago. Shelter prices decreased 0.5 percent in May, but increased 4.5 percent over the year. Within shelter, the “rent of primary residence” index residence increased 0.9 percent for the month, and rose 6.1 percent over the year.

Grocery prices increased 0.7 percent in May, and compared to a year ago are 6.4 percent higher.

In the West, overall prices rose 0.5 percent for the month, with gasoline prices up 7 percent.

Nationally, overall consumer prices increased 0.6 percent in May. A 10.4 percent increase in the index for motor fuels was partially offset by declines in the indexes for new and used vehicles and for public transportation. Gasoline prices nationwide rose 9.5 percent for the month, and as of May, the price of gasoline was 4.0 percent higher than the peak recorded last July.

Continental Airlines this week said it is deferring delivery of six new Boeing 737 jets until 2010 because demand is slackening in the U.S. for air travel.

Continental will still take delivery of 24 Boeing aircraft in 2009. The Houston-based carrier meanwhile is trying to sell or lease 15 of its older 737s to other airlines to slow its increase in capacity.

Some analysts say the Continental move could be a harbinger of a slowdown in the industry.

Boeing has had two years with 1,000-plus orders, and the company has won 429 orders so far this year, so this small deferral isn't calamitous news.

It may be, however, a indication that the huge upswing in orders for both Airbus and Boeing has peaked and that orders may soften to more normal levels.

Amazon has heavily marketed the final Harry Potter book due out next month. But it's not going to make the company any money.

CEO Jeff Bezos said today that even though the online retailer has taken more than a million pre-orders for the “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows,” it won’t make a profit.

Amazon’s handling of the book — a $17 discount off cover price, a free shipping offer and guaranteed on-time delivery — showed yet again that the company is willing to take a hit to cement customer loyalty, The Associated Press reports.

Bezos hammered on Amazon’s “customer-centric” approach during the company’s annual meeting in Seattle.

A Seattle lawyer has sued Avvo.com, a Seattle start-up that rates lawyers on a scale of 1 to 10. (Avvo launched its site last Tuesday.) The suit, according to a press release, claims the rating methodology is prone to error and manipulation.

Avvo CEO Mark Britton, also a lawyer, told me Thursday afternoon that rating attorneys is a First Amendment right. "Assuming the Constitution is still alive and well and the idea of serving consumers is a good one, we will continue," he said.

In defending the site (and its subjective ratings) last week, Britton said good lawyers would love it. Steve W. Berman, the lawyer who filed the suit, is about as good as it gets at Avvo. He has a rating of 9.3.

Avvo pitches itself as a consumer tool, though the potentially controversial ratings get pretty big play (kind of like Zillow’s Zestimates) on a lawyer’s profile page. What do you think? Would a rating help you find a lawyer? Have you looked up your own lawyer yet?

Compared to the rest of the country, we borrow more to buy a car around here and we’re better at paying-off our loans.
Therefore, our credit score is higher.

Credit bureau Experian reported this week that the average credit score for Washington car-loan borrowers without any late payments was 714; and 613 with at least one late payment.

Nationwide, the average for on-time borrowers was 703; and 605 with a late payment.

The average car-loan borrower in Washington had $16,644 on the books, while the nationwide average was $15,654.

The Foremost properties, a complex of four buildings at a key downtown Tacoma intersection, is under contract to be sold to a new buyer.

The sale has not yet closed, said Laura Fox of GVA Kidder Mathews, who listed the property, but the new buyer has put down a substantial amount of earnest money and intends to carry through with the purchase.

The new buyers have commissioned Fox to seek tenants for the building.

"It's a highly visible building right where the Link (light rail) turns off Pacific Avenue," she said. The buildings are located at South 25th Street and Pacific Avenue, directly across Pacific from the downtown Jack-In-The-Box fast food restaurant.

"I can see it being office and retail, maybe a brew pub, but we're open to all uses," she said.

Powder Coating Systems Inc. occupies about 16,000 square feet of the 60,000-square-foot complex. Powder Coating President Gregg Taylor said he's had indirect contacts with the prospective new owner about staying in the building.

Fox didn't disclose the new owners' identity or the price they've offered. The buildings were on the market for $3 million.

The dairy building, which features large floor-to-ceiling windows facing Pacific Avenue, was built in 1928.

The prospective buyers have until next March to close the purchase, but Fox believes the sale will happen much sooner.

I've been getting a call on my wireless phone from an 866 number several times a day.

I don't recognize the number so I never pick it up. But after the number showed up on my phone again today, I did an online search for it. And I found an interesting site: whocalled.us

The site tracks unknown phone numbers and reports what other consumers find out. I can't quite tell who's behind the site, but it's pretty interesting.

It turns out my regular caller is a persistent telemarketing company selling magazine subscriptions. Who Called Us has 98 reports on this phone number.

Jones Soda might get kicked out of Starbucks.

The coffee giant wants to make room on its shelves for more food offerings – something its customers have been asking for.

Jones Soda investors and analysts didn't take the news well. Shares of Jones Soda Co., which makes pop in crazy flavors such as bubblegum and strawberry lime, fell on a report that Starbucks Corp. will stop selling its sodas.

Jones Soda gets 3 percent of annual sales of $39 million through Starbucks and benefits from “high visibility” at the coffee shops, Mark Astrachan, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co., wrote in a note today.

Shares of Jones Soda fell 74 cents, or 4.7 percent, to $14.94 in early trading. They have gained 21 percent this year.

Starbucks may end ties with Jones Soda to free up space for drinks made by PepsiCo Inc. or its own food, said Astrachan.

PepsiCo and Starbucks have a joint venture to make bottled Frappuccino and DoubleShot espresso, and some cafes sell PepsiCo’s Izze carbonated fruit drinks.

School’s almost out, summer’s nearly here and the price of gasoline is ... wait, can this be right? ... dropping.

On Tuesday a gallon of regular-grade gas sold in Tacoma for $3.191. By today, the price had plummeted to $3.186, a full $.005 decline.

Last month, drivers were paying $3.447 – and tomorrow marks the one-month anniversary of Tacoma’s highest recorded price for a gallon at $3.459, according to AAA.
So call the kids, wake the neighbors and dust off the Hummer.

Or not.
Gas and oil futures jumped Wednesday on a government report that raised concerns that refiners aren’t producing enough gasoline to meet peak summer demand.
In its weekly inventory report, Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration said gasoline stockpiles were unchanged last week and refinery utilization fell. Analysts had expected solid increases in both measures. Imports of refined gasoline also declined.

As a result, some analysts think prices at the pump are about to stop falling.
Gasoline inventories were unchanged at 201.5 million barrels in the week ended June 8, the EIA report said. Analysts expected gas inventories to rise by 2 million barrels. Gas stockpiles are down 6 percent from the same week last year – when a gallon of regular was selling for $3.112.

Refinery utilization, which had been expected to grow by 0.8 percent, fell 0.4 percent to 89.2 percent, the second straight weekly decline. Most analysts think refineries should be using 94 percent to 95 percent of their capacity this time of year.

The Wall Street Journal says International Lease Finance Corp. plans to order 50 more Boeing 787s soon.

The aircraft leasing company, the biggest in the world, is considered a critical customer for both Airbus and Boeing. That's not only because of the size of its orders, but because it's leased aircraft often open the door for more orders directly from the airlines that lease planes from ILFC.

ILFC's Stephen Udvar-Hazy has already ordered 20 787s from Boeing, so an additional order would raise the leasing company's 787 fleet to 70. And Hazy is on the record as saying the leasing company eventually may have 100 787's in it's portfolio.

If ILFC carries through soon, the 787 order book will be more than 650 aircraft. And with the Paris Airshow coming up next week, Boeing could add even more to it's already fat backlog for the jet.

The 787 Dreamliner already has won more pre-production orders than any other jet in history. The plane is scheduled to debut July 8 and fly for the first time in late August.

Boeing's schedule calls for the plane to be delivered to its first customer, ANA, in May of next year.

The plane has already outsold some aircraft that were on the market for years, including the Lockheed L-1011, the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, Boeing's own 717 and Airbus' A380.

The LeMay Automobile Museum has added Bill Chapin, president of Chapin & Co., to its board of directors. Chapin was elected at the June board meeting held at the GM Heritage Center.

As a grandson of Roy D. Chapin, a founder of the Hudson Motor Car Company, and the son of Roy D. Chapin, Jr., former chairman and CEO of American Motors, Bill Chapin has been involved in the automotive industry his entire life.

Chapin spent 14 years with American Motors Corporation (AMC) in various positions. He spent two years on special assignment in Paris playing an instrumental role in launching Jeep Cherokee in Europe, and was named AMC’s Director of International Marketing in 1984, a position he held until leaving AMC in 1987 to establish his own automotive marketing services company.

David Madeira, president and CEO of the LeMay Museum, said Chapin "is one of those rare individuals who has vision, thinks strategically and is able to implement at an operational level. His passion for preserving automotive heritage and his ability to form strategic relationships toward that end will invaluably aid our efforts to build and promote ‘America’s Car Museum.’”

Starbucks Corp. agreed to pay $85,000 to settle claims that the company discriminated against an ex-employee with bipolar disorder and violated the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Starbucks will pay Christine Drake $75,000 and donate $10,000 to the Disabilities Rights Legal Center, which works with low-income people with disabilities, the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission said in a statement today.

Starbucks, which gave Drake “extra training and support” for more than two years at a Seattle store, told her during her third year that she was “not Starbucks material” and later fired her, the EEOC said in the lawsuit.

Brandon Borrman, a spokesman at Seattle-based Starbucks, didn’t immediately return a telephone message to his office, according to Bloomberg News.

W. James McNerney, Boeing's chief executive and a member of Proctor & Gamble's board of directors since 2003, will become P&G's presiding director.

McNerney will retain his Boeing post while leading the board at the Cincinnati-based Proctor & Gamble.

McNerney's elevation at the household products maker came after Norman Augustine, the former chairman and CEO of the Lockheed Martin Corp., said he will retire as presiding director of Procter & Gamble Co. in August, after serving 18 years on the consumer products company's board.

A presiding director acts as the key liaison with CEO A.G. Lafley, helping to set the board agenda, chairing executive sessions and communicating the board's feedback to the CEO.

Jim Hoard said today that he is withdrawing his candidacy for a port commission seat.

Six remaining candidates will vie for the seat being vacated by longtime commissioner Jack Fabulich.

"I'm dropping out for financial reasons," Hoard said. "It would be too costly to in a crowded field to get the word out."

A retired Boeing manager and college professor, Hoard is also the treasurer of Save Our Bridge, a group advocating for the preservation of the Murray Morgan bridge.

Low unemployment rates continue to make it a good time to be looking for a job – and a tough time to be hiring.

Pierce County's unemployment rate dipped to 4.4 percent in May from 4.7 percent the previous month. The state's rate remained unchanged at 4.3 percent.

Rates this low generally meant that most everybody who wants a job is working, economists say. And if you are on the hiring side, finding applicants can be a challenge.

"We're seeing that our clients are having an increasingly difficult time finding good people," said Josh Warborg, senior regional vice president with Robert Half International in Seattle.

The company, which has offices in Seattle and Tacoma, provides staffing and consulting services.

"Clients have to expect a couple things," Warborg said. "It will take longer to fill positions and it will be tougher to find exact skill matches."

Alaska Airlines' frequent flier program consistently has won accolades from its customers.

Part of Alaska's appeal is that the airline requires only 20,000 miles to earn a domestic trip. That's the lowest among the nation's major airlines.

But that advantage will be eroded beginning Aug. 1. From that date, Alaska will require 25,000 miles for a domestic flight on its system if the mileage plan member uses a reservation agent to book the trip.

The level will stay at 20,000 miles if the Alaska customer books the trip online.

The increase in mileage is designed to drive costs out of Alaska's system by reducing the amount of hands-on time it takes for a reservation to handle a frequent flier ticket.

Among Alaska's most frequent fliers, who were notified of the change in May, The reaction so far has been relatively mild in on-line forums, although some fliers complain that booking free trips with stopovers included is impossible on the Web making it necessary to call an agent.

The former Mervyn's building at the Tacoma Mall is down. There's almost no sign of it left.

But in the next three to seven days, the new building that will become a bigger, better Nordstrom will start to rise, mall manager Steve Heim said. No word yet on other new tenants coming to the shopping center, but shoppers will see a few changes to existing stores.

Teen retailer Rave was purchased by BCBG last year. All of its stores will get a new look and a new name – Parallel – in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the Tacoma Mall store is having a 50 percent off sale to get rid of its inventory.

A store employee told me on Sunday that this shop will be closed for about a month while it is remodeled. When it reopens, it will sell trendy clothes aimed at teens and 20somethings. Some of the clothes will be more upscale, she said.

The Puyallup-Sumner Chamber of Commerce expects to name a new executive director within two weeks, the chamber's president said today.

Ethan Offenbecher, the chamber president, said the civic organization has received half-a-dozen applications from applicants qualified to do the job. That number will be winnowed to three from which the chamber's board will select a new executive director.

The new director will replace George Chappell who will retire from his chamber post on June 30.

"George was a very good fit for the chamber," said Offenbecher. "He injected new life and energy into the organization."

During Chappell's tenure, the organization successfully changed its name from the East Pierce County Chamber of Commerce to the Puyallup/Sumner Chamber of Commerce.

Chappell is moving to Minnesota, said Offenbecher, to be closer to his extended family. Chappell had been at the chamber for about two years.

A farewell reception for Chappell is scheduled for June 19 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Liberty Theater.

Offenbecher said he expects the new executive director will start on or before July 15.

Hotel occupancy in the Tacoma area fell 1.9 percent in April, compared to a year before, while the rate statewide rose 4.2 percent. In the Tacoma area, 66.2 percent of rooms were occupied. The Everett area was the only other region in the state to show a decrease in occupancy, at 8.7 percent, said Bellevue hospitality consultant Wolfgang Rood on Monday.

Statewide, 70.8 percent of rooms were occupied.

The average daily cost of a room rose 8.2 percent – to $71.44, the state's lowest average cost – in April, compared to a year before, while hotels statewide saw a 9.7 percent increase – to $123.26. All state regions reported increases in price, Rood said.

Downtown Seattle saw the highest increase, at 11.1 percent, to $164.49, while the Spokane area marked the state's lowest increase at 5.2 percent, to $94.98.

Air France debuted it's newest connection to North America today with the inauguration Paris-Sea-Tac service.

Air France will the route daily departing Sea-Tac Airport at 4:55 p.m. and arriving in Paris the next day at 11:40 the next morning.

The return flight leaves Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport at 1:20 p.m. and arrives in Seattle at 2:35 p.m. the same day.

Air France will fly the route with a 219-seat Airbus A-330-200 aircraft.
Seattle is Air France's 13th U.S. gateway. The Port of Seattle, Sea-Tac's owner, worked for years to entice Air France to begin service.

The airline offered Air France substantial discounts on fees and monetary help with promotional activities as an incentive to bring the airline to the Northwest.

Air France is Sea-Tac's fourth carrier serving Europe non-stop. British Airways flies from here to London; Northwest has non-stop service to Amsterdam. SAS provides a daily flight to Copenhagen.

Candidate filing week – which ended Friday – yielded nine candidates for the two port commission seats.

Seven people are vying for the seat to be vacated by long-time port commissioner Jack Fabulich. And downtown cafe owner Bernard Tuma has challenged incumbent commission Clare Petrich for her spot.

Among the seven are a few names that I haven't announced in the paper: Don Johnson, vice president and general manager of Simpson Tacoma Kraft; Jerry Thorpe, a former Metro Parks and Port of Tacoma commissioner; and Paul Carroll.

The latter I couldn't find any information about.
The heightened interest in port seats is a marked difference from the last election I covered. Then commissioners Ted Bottiger and Dick Marzano each had one challenger and commissioner Connie Bacon ran unchallenged.

One reason for the heightened interest is that this is the first open seat the port commission has had in years. But I'm curious what else might be prompting so many to run .... We'll soon find out.

The LeMay Automobile Museum appointed Sandra Kasky Button to its steering committee at the June 2007 board meeting. Button serves as chairman of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, one of the most prestigious concours in the world.

Button has played an important role in coordinating the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance for over two decades and served as the event’s first full-time Executive Director until 2002 when she was named Concours Chairman. She has also been involved in the creation and growth of related events such as the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance, Pebble Beach RetroAuto, and the Pebble Beach Motoring Classic.

The latter event is an exclusive tour for classic cars which begins in Kirkland and ends at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. The Museum is a key sponsor of the Motoring Classic.

David Madeira, president & CEO of the LeMay Museum, said “Sandra is a true enthusiast and her important role in the classic car community, her commitment to excellence, her fundraising abilities and network of contacts make her an invaluable addition to our steering committee.” said Madeira.

Button and her husband are car collectors and participate in automotive events around the globe, including the Mille Miglia, the 100 Millas Sport Argentina, and the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. She also attends and often officiates at numerous car shows, rallies.

Russia's largest airline today said it will buy 22 787 Dreamliners from Boeing to replace its aging fleet of mid-sized jets.

The deal was worth $3.5 billion at list prices. The deal represents another reversal for Aeroflot, which had been among the first airlines to get in line for the super-efficient twin-jet.

But Aeroflot last year delayed signing a formal contract so long that Boeing told the Russians it could no longer guarantee the coveted early delivery slots without a signature on the dotted line.

Reports from Russia then said that while the airline wanted the planes, the government, unhappy with the Bush administration, had stayed the deal's consummation.

After Boeing withdrew the early production slots to award them to airlines that had signed deals, Aeroflot then said it would order the mid-sized A350XWB from Boeing's rival Airbus instead. But there's still no firm deal penned with Airbus.

Note: the renewed commitment from Aeroflot to Boeing still isn't a firm order, but Boeing said Saturday that it expected to get the deal signed shortly.

Meanwhile, Boeing and Russian aircraft maker Sukhoi signed a new agreement under which Boeing will help the Russian planemaker with flight and maintenance crew training, spare parts management and supply and production of flight and maintenance manuals for Sukhoi's Superjet 100.

The Superjet 100 is a regional jet that will rival jets from Brazilian manufacturer Embraer and Canadian jet maker Bombardier in the 75-100-passenger range.

A vintage steam locomotive derailed on the Tacoma Tideflats Friday morning as it attempted to negotiate a curve at slow speed.

The 62-year-old former Reading Railroad 4-8-4 steam locomotive left the rails near East 11th Street and Alexander Avenue about 11:30 a.m. Friday. The curve may have been too sharp for the big locomotive to negotiate, said railroad workers.

Golden Pacific Railroad had stored the locomotive on tracks owned by Tacoma Public Utilities' Tacoma Rail. Thomas Payne, Golden Pacific Railroad's general manager, was operating the locomotive when it derailed with a Tacoma Rail observer on board, said Chris Gleason, a TPU spokeswoman.

Tacoma Rail employees worked Friday afternoon to realign the rails and get the locomotive back on the tracks.

Golden Pacific last summer and fall operated tourist excursions from Tacoma's Freighthouse Square to Frederickson.The phone number listed on the tourist railroad's Web site was reported to be disconnected Friday evening.

Washington employers and workers will save $315 million over the next six months as the Department of Labor & Industries declares a “rate holiday” for certain premiums paid to a workers’ compensation fund.

Letters will be sent to Washington employers on Monday detailing the reductions and new rates for specific businesses.

The reduced rates – with reductions averaging 34 percent – will be in effect through Dec. 31.

The reduced rates will include those paid on third-quarter and fourth-quarter workers’ compensation reporting forms.

L&I spokesman Robert T. Nelson on Friday said the department chose the rate reduction “as the simplest way to return some of the money.”

The savings come at time when the state’s economy is robust, which has led to increased employment, which has led to increased cash entering L&I accounts. Also, Nelson said, the return on investments has grown.
“The State Investment Board has done a good job of investing our money,” he said.

For more information, visit www.lni.wa.gov.

A new, upscale grocery store is coming to Gig Harbor at the end of this month.

HarborGreens will offer shoppers the produce section of a Tacoma Boys with the deli and high-end grocery departments of a Metropolitan Market.

Wine lovers take note: "We will probably have easily 1,500 different labels in our wine section," said Chad Roy, co-president of the company. Roy worked at Tacoma Boys for 12 years and ran the Sixth Avenue store for the last nine years.

Roy says the 9,000-square-foot grocery store will have a full deli and meat department as well as flowers, perennials and seasonal items such as Christmas trees.

The store, located at 5225 Olympic Drive, opens June 29.

Less than halfway through the year, Boeing has opened up a huge lead over Airbus in the annual commercial airplane derby.

As of the end of May, Boeing orders totaled 407. Airbus checked in with 201. Since then, Boeing has added 22 more to a 429 net total.

The best-seller in the Boeing line is the 737 with 192 new orders including 15 new orders last week from AirTran Airways of Orlando and seven 737 orders from an unidentified customer.

Boeing's popular 787 Dreamliner is second with 136 orders. The 777 is in third place with 60 net orders followed by the 767 with 36 and the 747 with 5.

=> Read more!

Former NBC Nightly News Anchor Tom Brokaw will emcee Boeing's July 8 rollout of its 787 Dreamliner, Boeing announced today.

The signing of Tom Brokaw for the ceremonial debut indicates just how much importance Boeing places on its premiere of the composite, super-efficient airliner.

Already Boeing has booked Qwest Field and its 50,000 plus seats for a remote television venue for Boeing employees, families and retirees to watch the ceremony. That's in addition to the 30,000 787 workers, customers and journalists expected to watch the debut in person in Everett.

And the company has arranged for satellite feeds to its own and its supplier plants for those who want to view the ceremonies there.

Don't be surprised if the company brings in some name entertainment to enhance the usual soaring music that accompanies such a rollout.

Just last week in Vancouver, for instance, Boeing and Air Canada hired Canadian diva Celine Dion to sing half a dozen tunes during a Boeing-Air Canada-sponsored dinner for international airline executives.

An Ohio-based truck parts manufacturer is closing its Tacoma and Seattle operations and laying off 115 workers.

Commercial Vehicle Group said the company will complete the shutdown by the end of the year and transfer activities to other United States plants.

The facilities produce interior trim items for heavy-duty trucks and boats. CVG spokesman John Hyre said 113 workers are employed at the Seattle plant at 701 S. Orchard St. and two are employed in the Tacoma warehouse at 401 Alexander Ave. on the Tideflats.

"The decision to close the Seattle (and Tacoma) operation was not easy," said Jerry Armstrong, president of CVG Global Truck. "We have contacted the employees as well as government and community leaders to explain the situation and why this step is necessary.

Hyre said the company has acquired several other operations in the last two years, and the closure is related to an effort to optimize the company's operations and make the best use of all its facilities.

The company said the cost of the shutdown will be about $3.2 million. CVG expects annual savings of $1.9 million beginning in 2008 from the realignment of facilities.

Weyerhaeuser Co. announced today it has agreed to sell its veneer factory in Elma to Murphy Co. of Eugene, Ore.

“We are pleased to reach mutually agreeable terms with Murphy Company” said Cathy Slater, vice president of Weyerhaeuser’s veneer technologies. “Our dedicated associates continue to safely operate the mill and meet our customer needs. We anticipate that the sale will be completed within the next 45 days.”

Terms weren’t disclosed. The facility, which has 60 workers, can produce 165 million square feet a year of 3/8-inch green and dry veneer.

Murphy Co. is a forest products company producing plywood and veneer. It recently announced it would start up an engineered wood facility in Sutherlin, Ore. this fall.

Indian gaming revenues in the Northwest rose nearly 14 percent last year to $2.08 billion, a report from the National Indian Gaming Commission says.

The region's tribal gambling revenue increase mirrored the national figures for Indian gaming results. Nationwide, total tribal gaming operations brought in $25.1 billion in 2006, up more than 11 percent from 2005.

The commission, which oversees tribal gaming operations, doesn't break down results by state or by tribe, but rather by region. The commission's Region 1, Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington, reported revenues of $2,080,337,000 from 45 operations in 2006. That's a 13.7 percent increase over $1.829 billion in revenues from 49 operations in 2005.

Nationwide, tribal gambling took in the most money, $7.67 billion, in the commission's Region II, California and Northern Nevada.

The highest growth region was Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas where 92 operations took in $2.12 billion, up 22.7 percent from the year before.

"The continued growth is eye-opening considering the tribal gaming industry is still relatively young," said Phil Hogen, the commission's chairman.

The non-Indian commercial gaming industry remains slighty larger than the Indian industry with revenues of $32.4 billion last year, according to the American Gaming Association. That non-Indian industry, however, grew more slowly, up 6.8 percent, than tribal operations last year.

Boeing's new product rollouts are an experience to behold. Part Disney, part Fourth of July parade, part Hollywood premiere.

And since Boeing doesn't want anyone to miss the debut of its 787 Dreamliner, it's outdoing itself for the auspicious July 8 (7-8-07) unveiling of the first example of what has become the most successful product Boeing has yet to produce.

Consider:

The company and the Seahawks will be holding a televised coming-out party for the 787 at Qwest Field. Boeing's 60,000-plus Washington employees have been invited as well as retirees and one guest per invitee. Seats are limited to 50,000, so reply soon.

A more exclusive group, airline customers and aviation journalists from around the world as well as key 787 workers will get to see the rollout (or roll-in as it more accurately should be called) first-hand. The painted first plane will be staged outside Boeing's Everett plant, and the giant doors will be rolled away to reveal the plane to the dignitaries inside.

The ceremonies will be broadcast both internally to other Boeing and supplier sites and to the public at large on DirectTV Channel 576 and DishNetwork, channel 9601.

The rollout is scheduled for mid-afternoon with the pre-rollout program starting a 3 p.m.

BusinessWeek magazine has named Labor Ready one of its Top 100 Hot Growth companies for the second year in a row.

Tacoma-based Labor Ready provides temporary staffing services from its locations around the country and in the United Kingdom.

BusinessWeek compiled its list from all publicly-traded companies with annual revenues of $50 million to $1.5 billion, according to a news release from Labor Ready.

Companies are ranked according to their results over the last three years in sales and earnings growth as well as return on invested capital.

Labor Ready CEO Steve Cooper said that "lower skilled jobs are projected to be the fastest growing opportunities over the next ten years."

"Our customers are primarily small businesses, and small businesses account for half the private domestic product and create more than 60 percent of the net new jobs each year," he said. "We believe we are well positioned to sustain our growth and continue to provide great returns for our shareholders."

The state Utilities and Transportation Commission today approved proposals from the state’s three private-electric companies to remove a federal power system credit from their residential customers’ bills effective June 7.

The companies asked the UTC to allow them to end the monthly credits to their customers because the Bonneville Power Administration stopped making payments to the utilities. BPA took the action in response to a recent federal court ruling.

The benefit appeared as a credit on private electric residential and small-farm utility customers’ bills. The private-electric companies have not increased the amount they charge for electricity, but without the federal credit, customers will see higher bills.

“We have no practical alternative to eliminating the billing credit,” said Mark Sidran, UTC chairman.

The commission’s actions do not affect municipal utilities, such as Tacoma Power, or public utility districts. The three private-electric utilities serve 1.2 million households representing 45 percent of the residential customers in Washington.

Puget Sound Energy customers will see their bills increase by an average of $10.28 a month.

The three-member commission regulates the rates and services provided by the state’s three private electric utilities. Along with PSE, which serves 995,000 customers, the others are Pacific Power, with 124,000 customers in the Yakima and Walla Walla areas, and and Avista, serving 227,700 customers in Eastern Washington.

This week marks the second annual National Business Etiquette Week as proclaimed and celebrated by the Protocol School of Washington (D.C.). And in our own way, we'd like to celebrate by offering a week's worth of basic business etiquette advice.

Today: Basic table manners

• All those knives and forks? Start from the outside and work your way in: On the left are the fish fork, dinner fork and salad fork (or salad fork and dinner fork, depending on the number of courses); to the right come the cocktail fork, soup spoon, fish knife and dinner knife.

•Your dessert fork and coffee spoon are above the plate. That’s your bread on the left and your water (and wine) on the right.

• Leaving the table during the meal? Place your napkin on your seat. Dinner all done? Leave your folded napkin to the left of your plate.

• Elbows on the table? Only between courses. Need to remove something from your mouth? Use the same utensil you used to bring it to your mouth – never use your napkin. Chew with your mouth closed. Butter only the piece of bread you’re about to eat.

• Pass food with the opposite hand – left hand passes to the right, right hand passes to the left. Same goes with receiving something that's passed.

• The best way to win a fight over the check is to arrange payment privately with the captain, head waiter or cashier before the meal begins.

• If somebody makes a mistake: Say nothing. Good manners is a matter of making people feel comfortable.

Tomorrow: Gifts

CB Richard Ellis has brokered the sale of the Forest Cove Apartments, a 388-unit Federal Way apartment complex. The sale, announced today, totaled $32 million, or $82,474 per unit.

"Multiple offers were received from a wide range of value-added buyers, due to the market’s appetite for product in this size range," the company said.

Broker Jim Claeys, CB Richard Ellis senior vice president, credited the sale to the rising cost of new construction, the lack of available land and demand for multifamily housing that "is as high as we’ve ever seen."

The seller was Forest Cove 388 LLC, a private real estate management company managed by Randall Realty of Portland, Ore. The buyer was Forest Cove LLC, owner and operator of properties in the Seattle area.

California developer Mike Bartlett has hatched a new plan to give a new life to one of downtown Tacoma's most prominent eyesores, the Luzon Building.

Bartlett says he now plans to incorporate the six-story brick structure into a new office and retail structure that will fill the parking lot he owns between the Luzon and the Rainier Pacific Bank Building on Pacific Avenue.

Bartlett late last year was poised to turn the former bank building at South 13th Street and Pacific Avenue into a mixed use residential and retail structure. But construction bids greatly exceeded estimates, thus putting the building's resurrection on ice once more.

"The initial estimates for construction were $3.2 million. The construction bid came in at $5.2 million as a stand alone building. It just wouldn't work," he said.

Bartlett said the new structure would have four floors of office space with large individual floors that businesses find desirable. The building would also incorporate 215 parking spaces and 15,000 square feet of retail space on Pacific Avenue and uphill on the Commerce Street side of the building.

A Tacoma engineering firm is now working on plans to shore up the Luzon and to repair the deteriorating vaulted sidewalks around the building.

Philippine Airlines announced today it is increasing its order for Boeing 777-300ER aircraft by two planes.

The airline exercised its purchase rights obtained in March when it ordered two of the twin-jet, long range aircraft. The airline plans to lease two additional 777s from GE Commercial Aviation Services.

Philippine is one of Boeing's oldest customers with a present fleet that includes five Boeing 747-400s and three Boeing 737s. The airline is the oldest in Asia, having flown its first flight on March 15, 1941.

Alaska Airlines saw its passenger traffic increase by 5.7 percent in May, but that increase didn't quite match its capacity increase for the month.

The airline has seen its traffic grow for the last three months, but not as fast as its capacity. The airline, however, was only .4 percentage points short of matching its performance measured by load factor (percentage of seats filled with paying passengers) that it achieved in May 2006 despite a 6.2 percent increase in capacity.

That year-to-year difference was much larger in prior months this year.
In April, for instance, the difference in load factor from the same month in 2006 was 2.7 percentage points. In February, the figure was 2.9 percentage points.

Other legacy airlines delivered higher load factors in May, but many of those had either shrunk their capacity or increased it only marginally.

United Airlines, for instance, cut available seat miles by .5 percent in May and saw its load factor increase from 83.8 percent to 84.6 percent compared with May 2006.

Southwest Airlines, which like Alaska, grew its capacity substantially in May (+8.1%), saw its load factor drop to 74 percent form 76.8 percent in May 2006.

Southwest has told its investors it may throttle back its expansion because it threatens to outrun its traffic increases.

Alaska hasn't mentioned cutting back its plans to grow its capacity. If it can keep its expansion in available seats more in step with its traffic increases as it did in May, it may be able to continue its growth unabated.

The LeMay Automobile Museum has appointed Dominic Dobson as director of corporate development. Dobson has served for two years on the museum's steering committee, and is the founder of Motion Research Corp., created in 1993, which developed the world’s first wireless, mobile head-mounted display systems that are used in both commercial and consumer sports applications

As director, he will oversee corporate sponsorship at the museum.

Dobson has spent more than two decades competing in motor sports events as a driver, with success at Sebring, LeMans, Daytona and Indianapolis. He also served as vice president/general manager for PacWest Racing Group, and has created and managed various racing teams.

He also served as the former president of Cavallino Holdings, Ltd, a collection of historic automobiles, primarily European post-war race cars and rare road cars.

Museum President & CEO, David Madeira announced Dobson’s appointment by saying: “Dominic brings his world-class automobile experience to America’s Car Museum and can provide contacts around the world that will help us build the world’s foremost auto museum. We’re delighted to have him lead our Corporate Development efforts.”

Dobson currently resides in Seattle, Washington on Mercer Island with his wife Kristen and their two children.

Add cereal to the list of things you buy that will now cost more.

General Mills Inc. said on Tuesday it would raise cereal prices to match increases by competitors.

General Mills spokesman Tom Forsythe said customers should actually see lower prices per box, but the boxes will be smaller, so the effect is a price increase of a few percent.

The maker of Wheaties and Lucky Charms has been looking for a way to boost profits on its cereals. It sold as much cereal during its most recent quarter as it did in the same period a year ago, but at lower prices because of promotions.

Profits have been squeezed by higher prices for fuel and ingredients such as oats.

Forsythe said General Mills cereals often appeared more expensive on the shelf because of their larger box sizes, and the switch to smaller boxes will make them appear more competitive, even with the increased price per ounce.

This week marks the second annual National Business Etiquette Week as proclaimed and celebrated by the Protocol School of Washington (D.C.). And in our own way, we'd like to celebrate by offering a week's worth of basic business etiquette advice.

Today: Business cards

It’s best to use both hands, thumbs up, to present your card. When receiving a card, use both hands and take a moment to study it. Show sincere interest. Make the other person feel important.

“You should not write on it. You read it, and you thank the other person graciously,” says Tacoma etiquette consultant Judie Guthrie.

“You should study the one you receive very carefully before you put it away,” says Beth Willis, director of corporate development at World Trade Center Tacoma.

If you have received several cards at a meeting, it is appropriate to line them vertically on the table before you, so that you might refer to them.

The worst thing to do: There’s a South Sound executive who, on a business trip to Asia, was seen midway through a meal picking his teeth with the card he had just received from a potential client.

Tomorrow: Fundamental table manners

Tacoma's Topia Technologies today rolled out a version of its newly developed "Skoot" technology designed to help troops deployed overseas communicate more easily with their families at home.

Topia is donating thousands of USB thumb drives preloaded with its Skoot software to troops being deployed to war zones.

That software, coupled with Topia's electronic infrastructure, will allow soldiers to send nearly unlimited amounts of data to friends and family via what Topia calls "Private Family Networks."

Those networks meet Defense Department rules regarding electronic communications security while allowing troops and their families to share files too large for conventional e-mail networks.

"We've successfully tested Skoot with files as large as 65 gigabites," said Janine Terrano, Topia founder and CEO. "That's the size of 10 full-length feature movies," she said.

Skoot avoids security issues that have caused the Defense Department to restrict troops' access to such public sites such as MySpace and YouTube.

Only persons specifically invited to view the files by the sender will be able to do so under Topia's Private Family Network plan.

Topia is beginning its "Operation TroopSkoot" with soldiers deploying from Fort Lewis though the company expects to expand the program to include other posts throughout the country. The company needs local partners such as military related civic organizations that can distribute the thumb drives to the troops and their families and provide training for their use. The company held an inaugural training session today for military families at the Sheraton Tacoma Hotel

Candidate filing week started Monday in Pierce County. The first day yielded a new (to me at least) candidate for the Port of Tacoma commission.

Bernard Tuma, 47, filed to run against incumbent Clare Petrich, who is campaigning for her fourth term. Tuma is the only person yet who has filed to challenge Petrich.

In a quick phone interview this morning, Tuma said he doesn't have a particular issue with Petrich, but that he does believe that incumbents need to be challenged.

"I believe voters should have choices for every race and incumbents shouldn’t be given a free ride," he said.

The owner of the Aroma Cafe in downtown Tacoma, Tuma has also served on the Metro Parks Tacoma commission, the Tacoma Arts Commission and the North End Neighborhood Council.

Three others announced their candidacy earlier this spring for the seat being vacated by long-time commissioner Jack Fabulich.

You can check in on whose filed to run for elected positions on the Pierce County Auditor's Web site. It's updated twice a day. Filing week ends Friday.

That plus-sized Boeing 747 you may have seen lately at Boeing Field or at Everett's Paine Field is now legal.

The Federal Aviation Administration granted the enlarged 747, called the Dreamlifter by Boeing, its final certification this week.

The Dreamlifter, created by removing the top of the fuselage from a Boeing 747-400 and substituting one with a larger diameter, was designed to carry large subassemblies - wings and large parts of the fuselage - of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner from factories in Italy, Japan, South Carolina and Kansas to Everett for final assembly.

The planes are being modified in Taiwan. Ultimately, Boeing will have four in its fleet, shuttling around the world.

Boeing had operated the Dreamlifter under a temporary certificate while it was completing testing and working out some issues with the design, including a reported problem with flutter at certain speeds and configurations.

The Dreamlifter has a cargo capacity of 65,000 cubic feet, more than twice the volume of Boeing's ordinary 747-400 freighter.

An Oregon company, Evergreen International, is operating the Dreamlifters for Boeing.

Machinists Union workers have reached a tentative agreement in Spokane that could end a short strike at a former Boeing plant there.

Workers at Triumph Composite Systems struck Friday after they and the company failed to reach agreement on a new contract. Monday, the company and the union reached a tentative settlement that only needs worker approval to go into effect.

The workers in Spokane are members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District Local 751, the same outfit that represents some 20,000 Boeing workers in Western Washington.

The Triumph plant supplies Boeing and Airbus with composite parts such as air ducts and floor panels for their commercial airliners.

With Boeing winning record orders and making record profits, it seems the Machinists may drive a hard bargain this summer as they negotiate for a new contract at the big B.

Their militancy at Triumph may be a clear sign to Boeing that they're willing to spoil Boeing's party this year with a strike if they don't get a generous deal.

Weyerhaeuser announced today that it has completed the sale and transfer of its Canadian building materials distribution assets to Platinum Equity of Los Angeles, Calif. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

The sale includes all of the company’s distribution centers in Canada: Brampton, Ontario; Calgary, Alberta; Dartmouth, Nova Scotia; Edmonton, Alberta; Kelowna, British Columbia; Montreal, Quebec; Ottawa, Ontario; Quebec City, Quebec; Regina, Saskatchewan; Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Sudbury, Ontario; Timmins, Ontario; Winnipeg, Manitoba; St. John’s, Newfoundland; Sussex, New Brunswick; Langley, British Columbia.

Weyerhaeuser said it will maintain a significant presence in Canada following the sale. The company will continue to employ about 3,500 Canadian employees — producing and distributing softwood and hardwood lumber, engineered wood, oriented strand board, plywood, and pulp-across the country.

Weyerhaeuser is still in preliminary negotiations for ten U.S. building materials distribution sites in Louisville, Ky.; Memphis, Tenn.; Nashville, Tenn.; Green Bay, Wis.; Kansas City, Kan.; Oklahoma City; Omaha, Neb.; Newton, Kan.; Boston, Mass.; and Buffalo, N.Y.

Washington gas prices continued to fall today, nearly a dime since they hit a Washington high two weeks ago.

AAA Washington reports the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gas in Washington today was $3.348 a gallon. That's down from $3.445, the all-time state record average on May 21.

Washington still lags behind the national average, which was $3.158 today, according the AAA. Spokane continues to post the lowest average metro gas prices in the state with an average of $3.268 a gallon.

Tacoma gas prices averaged $3.321 a gallon for unleaded regular, down more than five cents a gallon a month ago. Bellingham continues to post the highest metro prices, $3.481 a gallon.

Illinois still has the highest gas prices in the country with a gallon of regular selling for $3.459 on average.

Three states, New Jersey ($2.952), South Carolina ($2.939) and Tennessee ($2.995) sell have averages below $3 a gallon.

I've seen even lower myself in the last few days.

Check out this station in St. Bernard Parish, La.

This station is one of a few open in the still-heavily hurricane-damaged area adjacent to New Orleans. It sits within sight of a huge, flame-belching refinery.

It's a lesson in Economics 101. Ready supply plus slack demand = low prices. Still not enough incentive to move back to the neighborhood where 50 percent of the homes are still trashed and most retail activity has disappeared.

Caffeine junkies who go to Starbucks for their daily fix will get a nonstop dose of Paul McCartney’s “Memory Almost Full” on Tuesday as the coffee company’s new record label releases its first CD.

Starbucks Corp. estimates that some 6 million people will be among the first to hear the new album as they line up for their lattes in more than 10,000 stores in 29 countries, where it will be playing on continuous loop throughout the day, The Associated Press reported.

=> Read more!

A 60-seat dinner-style theater will be part of a new bar and restaurant being constructed in the shell of a downtown Tacoma building that once housed a notorious downtown Tacoma adult theater.

Ron Gintz, chief operating officer of the Gintz Group, the new owner of the 1908-vintage Bonnell Building at 755 Broadway said the featured movies will change under the new ownership, but the theater, updated and reconfigured, will remain.

The Gintz Group bought the building from the wife of legendary Tacoma adult entertainment mogul Jerry Holt last summer. The building had housed a adult theather and bookstore since the '70s.

The theater-style seats will be removed and replaced by tables, chairs and booths. The theater will show second-run films and will be available for live shows and corporate meetings, he said.

The theater will be part of a new "Broadway Speakeasy" that will include a bar and an informal restaurant. The remainder of the building will be divided into residential comdominium units and two Commerce Street retail spaces.

This week marks the second annual Business Etiquette Week as proclaimed and celebrated by the Protocol School of Washington (D.C.). And in our own way, we'd like to celebrate by offering a week's worth of basic business etiquette advice.

Today: The handshake

To begin, make and maintain eye contact. Smile. Keep your hand straight out, with fingers extended, not bent. Meet the other person’s hand web-to-web.
A good handshake should be firm and dry, not limp - and not so strong that the other person's hand would feel clamped.

“A handshake is your five-fingered resume,” says Tacoma etiquette
consultant Judie Guthrie.

Maintain eye contact and do not look around the room for someone more important than the person you are greeting.

Except for close friends or in special circumstances, a hug is inappropriate.

Tacoma’s best business handshake: Columbia Bank President and CEO Melanie Dressel.

Tomorrow: Business Cards

Multicare Health System is hosting a grand opening Sunday for its new outpatient facility in Gig Harbor.

The facility merges "the latest in medical technology with healthy lifestyle services," according to a news release from the hospital.

In addition to music, face painting and what have you, the event also includes exercise mini-classes put on by the Gig Harbor YMCA staff.

The opening runs from noon through 4 p.m. at 4545 Point Fosdick Drive.

Washington Mutual Inc., the biggest U.S. savings and loan, said subprime mortgages it originated this year were performing better than those issued last year due to tighter lending restrictions, Bloomberg News reports.

“What I’ve seen so far in the way of first payment defaults, early payment defaults and early delinquencies suggests materially improved performance over what we saw out of the ’06 book of business,” Chief Executive Officer Kerry Killinger said today at a Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. conference in New York.

“That would confirm the belief that we’ve had that underwriting standards have been improved and pricing has improved in the subprime products in ’07 versus ’06.”

Late payments on subprime home loans, which are made to borrowers with poor credit ratings or high debt burdens, led to 437,500 U.S. foreclosure filings in the first quarter, a 35 percent increase from a year ago, according to Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc.

During the period, Seattle-based Washington Mutual’s home loan division posted a $113 million loss as the company took steps to reduce terms that make subprime borrowers more likely to default.
Washington Mutual said in April it expects the home loan unit to return to profitability by yearend.

Households in the Seattle metropolitan area spent an annual average of $54,027 in 2004 and 2005 – fully 20.3 percent more than the $44,928 spent by the typical American household. So says a report out this week from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While Puget Sounders spent their money as did typical Americans for things such as food, housing, transportation and healthcare, we did spend a smaller share on clothing.

Housing accounted for 32.4 percent of our expenditures hereabouts, similar to the national average of 32.5 percent. In Miami, Floridians paid 39.3 percent, the nation’s highest.

In this area, we spent 61.4 percent of our money on shelter (which includes rent or mortgage, property taxes, repairs and such). Utilities, fuels and public services came cheap, at 15.8 percent of the total, compared to 21 percent spent nationwide.

Transportation took a 17.6 percent bite of our budget around here, with 41.6 percent of that going to the purchase of our vehicles. To use public transportation, we spent 9.1 percent of our transportation budget, well ahead of the 5.5 percent national rate.

We ate with 12.8 percent of our total budget ($6,904), of which 56.6 percent went to groceries and 43.3 percent to restaurants, take-out and catering.

As to clothes, we spent $1,833, or 3.4 percent of the total budget – down from the 4.1 percent national average.

Noting an operating environment that is “more challenging than it has been in recent years,” Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair warned Thursday that regulators and bankers “need to ensure that new global capital standards do not threaten the safety net.”
That net stretched during the first quarter as bank income fell.
The income fell, the FDIC said, because of “the housing slump, unfavorable interest rate conditions, slower growth in the U.S. economy and higher levels of problem loans.”
Net income among FDIC-insured banks fell from $36.9 billion in the first three months of 2006 to $36 billion in 2007.
“Higher expenses for credit losses at large banks and narrower net interest margins at smaller institutions posed the biggest challenges,” Bair said.
Meanwhile, banks in Washington continued to report better results than banks nationwide.
According to the report:
• Just over 60 percent of commercial banks in the state reported earnings gains, where 85 percent reported higher earnings a year before.
• Nearly 11 percent of commercial banks were unprofitable, up from 5 percent.
• The return on assets, a widely recognized yardstick of earnings performance, fell to 1.31 percent from 1.33 percent. Nationwide, ROA fell from 1.38 percent to 1.25 percent.
• Nationwide, only 38 percent of insured institutions reported an increased ROA.
• Total deposits among state commercial banks rose from $30.4 billion to $36.7 billion.
• Loan quality at commercial banks improved in the state, with 0.26 percent of assets not performing, down from 0.33 percent. Nationally, loan quality fell as troubled loans increased from 0.47 percent to 0.54 percent.
• Net charge-offs of loans and leases at all insured institutions nationwide totaled $8.1 billion for the quarter, a 48.4 percent increase over the same quarter in 2006.
• As the number of commercial banks in the state rose from 76 to 83, so did the number of people employed rise from 10,600 to 11,469. Nationwide, the number of commercial banks fell over the year by 111, to a total 7,380 at the end of March.

In its latest alert to taxpayers, the Internal Revenue Service this week warned of an e-mail scam intended to fool people into believing they are under investigation by the agency’s Criminal Investigation division.

The e-mail purporting to be from IRS Criminal Investigation falsely states that the person is under a criminal probe for submitting a false tax return to the California Franchise Board. The e-mail seeks to entice people to click on a link or open an attachment to learn more information about the complaint against them. The IRS warned people that the e-mail link and attachment is a “Trojan Horse” that can take over the person’s computer hard drive and allow someone to have remote access to the computer.

The IRS urged people not to click the link in the e-mail or open the attachment.

Similar e-mail variations suggest a customer has filed a complaint against a company and the IRS can act as an arbitrator. The latest versions appear aimed at business taxpayers as well as individual taxpayers.

The IRS emphasized that it does not send unsolicited e-mails or ask for detailed personal and financial information online. Additionally, the IRS never asks people for the PIN numbers, passwords or similar secret access information for their credit card, bank or other financial accounts.

Recipients may forward questionable e-mails to phishing@irs.gov. Since the establishment of the mail box last year, the IRS has received more than 17,700 e-mails from taxpayers reporting more than 240 separate phishing incidents. To date, investigations by TIGTA have identified host sites in at least 27 different countries, as well as in the United States.