The Biz Buzz

The News Tribune Business Team will keep you updated on what's happening in the South Sound and beyond. Check here for news about economic development, aerospace, shopping and much more.

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Got something to say? Here's the place to say it. We welcome your comments on what's going on in business in the South Sound that we should be discussing, reporting or analyzing here on our blog or in the pages of The News Tribune.

Contributors

Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.

C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.

John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.

Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.

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Get the most up-to-date news, insights and analysis of Tacoma, Pierce County and South Puget Sound business.
Monday, June 30th, 2008
Posted by C.R. Roberts @ 02:24:44 pm

The 130-member Lakewood Rotary installed a new president Saturday night at the Tacoma Country & Golf Club.

Joel Feldman, who succeeds Bob Zawilski, is the 53rd head of the group, according to a release issued today.

Also at the gathering, Tony Robinson was honored as Rotarian of the Year, and Bill Amblad was named as the Bernie Ootkin Humanitarian Award recipient. This is presented only to a non-Rotarian each year.

Other officers installed by Dave Covey, assistant governor of the 5,200-member Rotary district, were Greg Horn, president-elect; Ben Sclair, secretary; and Astrid Arola, treasurer. Directors include Dave Guttu, Clint Johnson, Janine Messenger, Paul Guy, Bill Potter and Paul Wulfestieg. Three individuals completing their term as directors were Duncan Cook, Mary Covelli-Johnson and Steve Mazoff.

Categories: General
Posted by C.R. Roberts @ 01:36:12 pm

Take your pick. Which is which? One Wal-Mart logo is from the first two years of the company, 1962-64; another hails from 1968-81; and the third is the newest, which should be in and on stores by this fall.

I'll post the answer as a comment.

Categories: Shopping
Posted by C.R. Roberts @ 11:39:58 am

I just had a call from Laura Gardner Smith at Macy's western headquarters, and she tells me three Puget Sound Macy's are slated to add an in-store FAO Schwarz outlet beginning this fall.

The three: Southcenter, Northgate and Downtown Seattle.

The Northgate store will dedicate 250-300 square feet, Downtown Seattle about a thousand, and Southcenter was still being decided. Look for The Seattle store to open Nov. 5 and the others as early as October.

"We don't have Tacoma down yet," she said.

Categories: Shopping
Posted by Devona Wells @ 09:24:29 am

Retail giant Wal-Mart reportedly will be remaking its logo and giving its name a tweak. According to The Associated Press and Wall Street Journal, Wal-Mart will begin replacing logos on the front of its stores this fall -- a new look already being revealed inside its stores. The logo last saw an update in 1992, according to the AP.

And for all the grammarians out there particularly interested in punctuation, Wal-Mart's hyphen will apparently be getting the boot.

Here's some of what the AP reported over the weekend:

"This logo update is simply a reflection of the refreshed image of our stores and our renewed sense of purpose of helping people save money so they can live better," spokesman Kevin Gardner said in a written statement.

Gardner said he had no other information about the change. However, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that the new look would include eliminating the hyphen in the company's name, now shown as a star at its more than 3,600 U.S. stores. The new logo would show company's name in white letters on an orange background, followed by a small starburst, the Journal reported, based on an artist's rendering filed with planning officials in Memphis, Tenn.

The revamped logo comes as Wal-Mart continues to tweak its image after facing criticism from union-led groups and local communities across the nation opposed to big-box store developments. In the time since, the company has launched a marketing campaign highlighting its environmentally focused practices and efforts to make health care more affordable for customers through a discounted prescription drug program.

Categories: Shopping
Posted by John Gillie @ 08:13:27 am

Northwest regional airline Horizon Air will eliminate all flights to North Bend-Coos Bay and Klamath Falls in Oregon beginning Oct. 11 in a move to trim unprofitable flying from its schedule.

"Despite our best efforts to adjust flight schedules and fares in order to make these routes financially viable, consistent profitability has proved to be elusive," said Dan Russo, Horizon's vice president of marketing and communications. "The astronomically high fuel prices have only made the situation worse, and so we find ourselves with no choice but to reduce our losses by taking this action."

The end of Horizon Air service won't leave the two airports without a carrier. SkyWest, flying as United Express, serves both airports with daily flights to San Francisco.

The diminishment of air service, however, is expected to be particularly difficult for the two relatively isolated cities that depend on tourism for much of their business activity. North Bend is the gateway to the southwest Oregon cost and to the internationally famed Bandon Dunes link-style golf courses at Bandon. Klamath Falls is the close to Crater Lake National Park.

The airline will also trim its Seattle-Portland schedule from the present 31 flights daily to 24 by Oct. 26 as it retires its 37-seat Bombardier Q200 turboprop aircraft from its schedule earlier than anticipated, the airline announced today.

The dozen Q200s will be retired by Oct. 28 instead of by April 2009, the original target for their retirement, the airline said.

The airline will also begin removing CRJ-700 jets from its fleet in September as it moves to a fleet of all 74-passenger Bombardier Q400 turboprops.

The airline is moving to the Q400, of which it now has 34 because the aircraft is the most fuel efficient in its fleet. Standardizing on a single type of plane will also help Horizon trim maintenance and staffing costs give it more scheduling flexibility.

Horizon is attempting to cut its fuel consumption and eliminate unprofitable routes as it tries to cope with ever-higher fuel costs. For the airline industry as a whole, fuel costs have risen more than 75 percent this year.

SeaTac-based Horizon announced numerous other schedule changes in a press release:

Medford-Portland: The current five daily flights (two Q400s and three Q200s) will be reduced to four (two Q400s and two Q200s) from Aug. 25 through Sept. 6 and then become two Q400s and two CRJ-700s starting Sept. 7, increasing seats by 11 percent compared to today.

=> Read more!

Categories: General, Aerospace, Tourism
Posted by John Gillie @ 07:56:17 am

SeaTac's Alaska Airlines has equipped 19 gates at Sea-Tac Airport with diesel-powered heating and cooling units in a move designed to save some 1.1 million gallons of jet fuel every year.

The diesel units will run instead of aircraft auxiliary power units, small turbines that traditionally power a jet's heating, ventilation and cooling systems on the ground. The diesels will use 10 percent of the fuel that the APUs do, according to the airline.

Alaska intends to equip gates at other major airports in Anchorage, Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco with the diesel units, increasing annual fuel savings to 2.4 million gallons.

The new units cost about $65,000 each, but their payback period is just 18 months based on fuel savings.

The airline also announced that it has fitted fuel-saving winglets on all of its Boeing 737 fleet that are capable to handling the vertical wing extensions.

Those blended winglets, made by Seattle's Aviation Partners Boeing, save about 100,000 gallons of fuel per year per plane.

Categories: General, Aerospace, Tourism