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Contributors
Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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A Folsom, Calif., waste company, Waste Connections Inc., announced today it is acquiring Pierce County's Harold LeMay Enterprises Inc., the Pacific Northwest's largest independent waster hauler.
The announcement of the sale comes some eight years after the death of the company's founder, Harold LeMay.
In addition to his business prowess, LaMay was best known as the owner of the world's largest private car collection. LeMay owned 2,409 vintage autos, trucks and other vehicles when he died in 2000.
A private, non-profit group is raising funds to build a museum near the Tacoma Dome to display his collection.
The sale is expected to close sometime in this year's fourth quarter according to Waste Connections.
Waste Connections provides garbage and trash collection, transfer and disposal services in secondary markets in the western and southern U.S. The company has 1.5 million customers in 23 states.
No acquisition price was disclosed. LeMay Enterprises had annual revenues of $100 million. It serves customers in Pierce, Grays Harbor and Thurston counties.
"This represents the single largest acquisition for Waste connections and solidfies our leading position in Washington," said Ronald J. Mittlestaedt, Waste Connections chairman.
The California company also announced that it has agreed with LeMay affiliates to acquire their interests in Pierce County Recycling, Composting and Disposal LLC. Waste Connections already is majority owner of Pierce County Recycling.
The last time I was in Starbucks to get a morning latte, I got a green receipt back with a stamp at the bottom indicating I could come back for an iced beverage in the afternoon for $2. It was part of a new promotion the company was trying in the Puget Sound area.
It seems that Starbucks is taking its promotion national. The coffee company said today that it is now offering its morning customers any iced grande beverage for $2 after 2 p.m.
The price is a big cut from the normal price of most grande-sized iced drinks. A grande iced latte, for example, costs about $4. To get the discount, customers must present a receipt from their morning Starbucks visit, The Associated Press reports.
The promotion was previously only offered in Seattle, Chicago and Miami. The company said it is taking it nationwide beginning today to answer consumers’ calls for more value at the chain, which has seen traffic drop as gas prices rise and consumer spending falters. It runs until Sept. 2.
The Navy may accept Boeing's offer to accelerate by a year the initial deliveries of its P-8A sub-hunting aircraft.
The aircraft, based on the Boeing 737 commercial airliner and built in Renton on a special assembly line, could be delivered in production form to the Navy as soon as 2012.
Boeing is now building five test aircraft for the Navy to check out the airframe modifications and electronics in the new, two-engine patrol aircraft.
Boeing expects the Navy will buy at least 109 of the new planes and that other governments will buy dozens more.
The first production aircraft had been scheduled for delivery in 2013.
The Navy recently has had airframe fatigue issues with its present fleet of subhunters, Lockheed's P-3. Those issues would make it advantageous to accelerate production of the replacement aircraft.
US Airways has told Crain's Business News that it will likely join JetBlue Airways in selling passengers pillows and blankets.
JetBlue announced Monday it will sell the blanket and pillow sets for $7 to passengers. It will discontinue providing blankets and pillows free.
The blankets and pillows which passengers buy will be theirs to keep after the flight.
US Airways has been a pioneer in unbundling their services. The airline is planning to charge passengers $2 for soda, bottled water and juices aboard its flights.
US Airways flies to Phoenix, Las Vegas, Philadelphia and Charlotte from Sea-Tac Airport.
Delta Air Lines says it will offer airborne Internet services on many of its flights beginning later this year.
The Atlanta-based carrier has contracted with Aircell to install air-to-ground Internet capability on more than 300 mainline aircraft.
The service will cost travelers who plan to use their laptops, smartphones or personal digital devices on board $9.95 for a trip of three hours or less and $12.95 for longer trips.
The Aircell system uses a network of cellphone towers to provide connections to the aircraft. Other carriers such as SeaTac's Alaska Airlines plan to use a different system using satellites to connect their passengers to the Net.
The satellite system is superior for airlines such as Alaska because it provides connections over the ocean and in remote areas where there are no cell phone towers.
