New Russell Investments Chief Executive Officer Andrew Doman has given boosters from Tacoma and Seattle until the end of May to make their best and final offers to win Russell's headquarters.

Doman told Russell employees at a company "town hall meeting" today that he expects to make the decision where to locate Russell's headquarters by the end of this year's third quarter, said Russell spokeswoman Jennifer Tice.

The two cities are fighting for the jobs and the prestige that comes with being the headquarters of a financial advisory business with a worldwide reach.

Russell until last week employed about 1,100 workers in Tacoma. It laid off an unspecified number because of deteriorating business conditions.

Russell was founded in Tacoma and now has its headquarters here. The company last year sought proposals from cities and developers for its new headquarters.

The company had promised to make the decision by the end of 2008, but delayed the decision when internal turmoil linked with the collapse of worldwide markets hit the company.

Tacoma has offered $148 million in incentives if the company remains here. Seattle has several buildings available at reasonable prices because of the loss of such major tenants as Washington Mutual.

The nation's largest thrift, WAMU, collapsed under the weight of sub-prime loans last fall and was bought up by JPMorgan Chase. The New York-based bank is laying off thousands of workers in WAMU's Seattle headquarters and has put its headquarters building on the market.

Sitecrafting -- a Tacoma-based Web design and web application development company -- announced plans Wednesday to open a second office in Spokane this summer.

Brian Forth, the company's president, is a graduate of Gonzaga University and said he sees opportunities for business growth in Eastern Washington.

“I’ve thought for several years that Spokane was really the type of community where our company could participate and thrive,” says Forth. “We’re excited to bring our web technology expertise and service ethic to town."

Sitecrafting plans on sending two of its 22 employees to the Spokane office, including General Manager Mike Ash, a seven year SiteCrafting veteran.

The office will open with a team of five and expects to grow to as many as 10 employees in the first year.

Forth was recognized this year as the University of Washington Tacoma Milgard School of Business Small Business Leader of the Year.

TrueBlue, Inc. recorded a net loss of $5.3 million -- or 12 cents per stock share -- for the first quarter, according to earnings numbers released by the company today.

That compares to the profit of $8.8 million that the company reported for the first quarter of 2008.

The Tacoma-based staffing company's first quarter revenue was $224 million, down 31 percent from the same time period last year.

"Our bottom line results were better than expected due to aggressive and well executed cost management throughout the organization," TrueBlue CEO Steve Cooper said in a news release.

"Our first priority is to provide exceptional customer service at each of our brands. At the same time, we are scaling costs to match current demand for our services," he said.

The company closed 40 branches in the first quarter, leaving them with 810 branches in operation.

The developer creating an up-scale urban village on the site of the former Asarco copper smelter this week took a long-simmering dispute with a labor union and an activist group to federal court.

Point Ruston LLC filed a suit Tuesday naming the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters and the Jobs with Justice Education Fund as defendants.

The suit accuses them of threatening activities, interfering with contractual relations and business activities, trespassing, property damage and making defamatory and false statements.

Point Ruston is redeveloping the former Asarco copper smelter site near Point Defiance Park into a mixed use residential, retail and business development. Ultimate costs of the development could exceed $1 billion.

Representatives of both the Carpenters and Jobs with Justice said they have not yet been served with the suit and they were not yet fully prepared to respond to the accusations.

"We're mostly a volunteer organization," said Jobs with Justice organizer Jake Carton. "We'd like to have an elected leader of our organization respond when we have more details."

Carton said he was concerned about The News Tribune's objectivity in reporting the story because Point Ruston advertises its development in the paper.

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A dozen people spoke their minds at a Tacoma City Council public hearing Tuesday night. The subject: whether the council should facilitate a $3.5 million loan from federal Housing and Urban Development funds that would benefit the LeMay Automobile Museum.

Of the 12 speakers, only one spoke against the measure – and he supported the museum itself, but not its proposed location.

Among the comments:

• A representative form Associated General Contractors of Washington said, “We’re in support of the LeMay Museum and the HUD loan.” His reasoning: Construction will create private sector jobs.
• Likewise, a representative from the county Building & Construction Trades Council said “This is a signature project. We urge you vociferously – and that’s from a roofer.”
• LeMay board member Carl Anderson said the museum will be “the best thing that has happened to Tacoma in 100 years.”
• The lone if moderate dissent came from a man who asked where visitors to the Tacoma Dome, located near the proposed museum, would be able to park during events. He asked how much the project would cost, and noted that the museum would be trapped between a freeway, railroad tracks and the Dome. He suggested that the facility be relocated at the site of the former railroad shops, a few blocks away.

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If you commute northward on Interstate 5 may have noticed a new landmark of sorts going up just north of the Puyallup River bridge in recent days.

The tall, white cylindical structure is a cryogenic air separator, or "cold box" in industrial gas industry jargon.

The device at Praxair's Fife plant is used to separate oxygen, nitrogen and argon from the ordinary air we breath by cooling that air it super low temperatures.

Here's the explanation from Praxair about how the separator works:

The process begins with the intake of huge volumes of air from the atmosphere. The air is compressed and purified before entering the cryogenic equipment package. The air is cooled to about -300°F (-185°C) and then, relying on different boiling points, separated into its elemental components in the form of liquid oxygen, argon and nitrogen.

The new tower at 215 feet is as tall as downtown Tacoma's Washington Building or the Key Bank Tower, but it's only 14 feet in diameter.

The new separator is expected to go into operation sometime this summer after the construction work is completed and tests are done on the equipment, said Nigel Muir, a Praxair spokesman.

In the meanwhile, the construction project is providing about 20 temporary jobs at the plant. The plant permantly employs about 25 workers.

Praxair's Fife plant supplies industrial gases to industries in Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho and British Columbia.

Those gases are used in oil refining, pulp and paper making, medicine and frozen food production among other industries.

The new separator, built overseas and brought by ship to Tacoma, will increase the plant's energy efficiency and output, said Muir.

Federal Way's Weyerhaeuser Co. will freeze temporarily its company match of employee 401K retirement savings contributions beginning May 1.

The timber and housing giant announced the change in a filing Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Weyerhaeuser has been battered by the weak housing market. It has shuttered more than a dozen mills in the Northwest, Canada and the Southeast and laid off hundreds of workers as demand for lumber remains stagnant.

The company has already laid off a large percentage of its Federal Way headquarters staff in a move to bring expenditures in line with income.

A weakened travel market, tighter financing and leaner defense spending priorities took a bite from Boeing Co.'s first quarter bottom line today.

The Chicago-based company early this morning reported net profits of $610 million, just half the $1.21 billion Boeing made in the first quarter of 2008.

Those earnings amounted to 86 cents a share, 10 cents less than the 96-cents-a-share average analyst estimate reported by Zacks Investment Research.

"The expanded global economic downturn is presenting unprecedented challenges in our commercial airplane markets," said Boeing Chairman Jim McNerney in a statement released early today.

"We believe we are better positioned than most companies to withstand the ongoing pressures of this economy, and we are not hesitating to take necessary actions to preserve our financial strength and maintain our ability to invest and grow in the long term," he said.

Here's what's negatively affecting Boeing's results:

* A planned reduction in the production rates of its highly profitable 777 twin jet from seven a month to five a month beginning next year. The plane is built in Everett.

* A freeze on a previously planned increase in production rates for the 767 and 747 commercial aircraft programs.

* A reduction in the price escalations that Boeing programs into its earnings for commercial airplanes. Lower demand for aircraft is reducing the prices the company can ask for new orders. Those new orders in the first quarter fell dramatically from last year. The company reported 28 gross orders in the first quarter, but lost previous orders for 32 aircraft, mostly 787s.

* More modest declines in defense earnings from operations, which were down 18 percent in the quarter.

On the positive side, McNerney noted that Boeing still has a commercial airplane order backlog of $266 billion, more than seven times its commercial airplane division's projected 2009 revenues.

The lower results brought changes in Boeing's projections for full-year income. The company now forecasts revenues at between $68 and $69 billion, unchanged from prior forecasts.

But the company said full year earnings are likely to decline to a range between $4.70 and $5.00 a share. That compares with prior projected earnings of $5.05 to $5.35 a share.