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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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Few can escape the long tentacles of the nation's withering housing market – not Pierce County, not the Simpson Timber Company, and not even the Port of Tacoma.
At the port's annual breakfast this morning, Executive Director Tim Farrell noted that the housing market drives much the port's container volume.
(Think Home Depot and Target importing their products from Asia via the port).
Thus the housing downturn is hurting the port's business as well. So far this year container volume is down by 6 percent and imports are down by 10 percent.
Meanwhile, the declining value of the dollar is significantly boosting the export cargo headed out of Tacoma.
"Every container right now is leaving full," Farrell told a packed room at the Hotel Murano in downtown Tacoma.
"Customers have export cargo ready to go – they just can't find containers to put it in," Farrell said.
Earlier this year many anticipated the nation's economy to pick up by the end of this year.
Farrell is less optimistic now.
"I wouldn't expect a significant improvement in the economy until mid-2009," he said.
In addition to Farrell's port update, the port also used the annual gathering to recognize the work of some its partners.
The port honored:
- The Tacoma Urban League for work with its youth conservation corps
- The City of Tacoma, Schnizter Steel and the Cascade Land Conservancy for preserving open space in Northeast Tacoma
- IKEA for its investment in Frederickson
- And the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, Marine View Ventures, the tribe's economic development company, and SSA Marine for its coordination with the port on plans to build a container terminal on the Blair Waterway.
