Business in brief: Grant will fund antenna research
A Liberty Lake tech startup has landed a $148,000 federal grant to work with Gonzaga University faculty on wireless equipment innovation.
LHC2 Inc., which includes one former engineer who started Vivato Inc., won the grant through the federal Small Business Innovation and Research program.
Bob Conley, one of the founders of Vivato, which was a Spokane Valley wireless technology development company until it closed its doors in 2005, is a principal at LHC2.
The SBIR grant will pay for research on “smart” antenna systems that look to reduce interference and improve the performance of broadband wireless communications.
It also will fund up to three undergraduate electrical and mechanical engineering students’ research at Gonzaga through this summer.
Also involved as a principal in LHC2 is antenna designer Royden M. Honda, who has obtained a number of patents on smart antenna structures.
– Tom Sowa
Kellogg
Mining company plans exploration
New Jersey Mining Co. has raised $1.74 million for the exploration of gold, copper and silver properties in the company’s portfolio.
The company plans to drill at two sites near Murray, Idaho, this summer to learn more about the copper-silver deposits. In addition, the mining crews are working on a ramp to reach mineralized veins at the company’s Golden Chest Mine, also near Murray.
The firm’s Silver Strand Mine, about 20 miles northeast of Coeur d’Alene on Forest Service land, should begin production later this year, officials said.
– Becky Kramer
BOISE
Tamarack Resort charges weighed
A federal grand jury is meeting in Boise to consider criminal charges against troubled Tamarack Resort.
Juan Beccerra, an FBI special agent in Salt Lake, says the investigation is focusing on a dispute between the resort and the U.S. Forest Service over a road that allows public access to the Boise National Forest.
That road also leads to Poison Creek, Poison Lake and Lone Tree peak.
Beccerra says it’s too early to say that charges are forthcoming.
Tamarack CEO Jean-Pierre Boespflug says the resort has done nothing wrong. He says crews even improved access when they rerouted the road across private land.
Boespflug, whose ski and golf resort is facing a series of financial and legal troubles, called the grand jury inquiry a waste of time.
– Associated Press