The April 16 WSJ.com featured a story on the use of avatars and virtual assistants in health care. The story mentioned Spokane's Next IT and its "Ask Ann" tool developed for Aetna Insurance. (The WSJ may require a subscription to read the full story.) Notably,…
Your truly, the Office Hours scribe, appeared today on KHQ.com, interviewed by Dave Cotton. Topic was today's Spokesman.com story on Spokane inventor John Adrain, who has developed the Bed Bunker, a gun safe meant to be hidden under one's mattress. Here's the video. Now you…
A good app may be worth $30,000 in prize money. And Spokane-area Itron Inc. is taking part in a nationwide effort to find and reward the best apps that use and analyze energy use. Itron has positioned itself as a major component as the nation…
Ambassadors Group is putting up for sale its Spokane headquarters, a 133,000-square-foot building and surrounding property near the Spokane International Airport. The building and 11 acres of land are listed for $13.3 million. Ambassadors, which promotes cultural-immersion trips for students, said today it would move…
The annual Greater Spokane Inc.-sponsored Agora Awards will be announced May 30. Here are the nominees in the five categories: For additional information on the awards, the GSI link has it. Small nonprofit Christ Kitchen Greater Spokane Substance Abuse Council (GSSAC) Inland Northwest Community Foundation…
Good weather and the annual home show. Your weekend awaits. The annual Spokane Home Builders Association's Premier Home Improvement Show kicked off earlier this week and runs through Sunday at the Spokane County Fair and Expo Center. Tickets are $8.00 with kids 12 and under…
Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc. announced on Thursday its new Lewiston manufactuing plan is producing digital relays that are being shipped globally. Since 1982 privately owned SEL has operated out of a growing Pullman, Wash., campus. Thispast January it opened a 100,000-square foot Lewiston production center.…
Fatbeam, a Post Falls-based telecom provider, has signed a deal to provide the Yakima School District a high-capacity fiber-optic network, along with lit fiber services. The eight-year contract comes to over $2 million, a Fatbeam release noted. Like other districts, the Yakima district is using…
Post Falls-based Command Center, Inc. announced on Wednesday it's restating its financial statements from 2010 and 2011. The company provides temporary and on-demand staffing. A press release said company auditors concluded financial statements for 2010, and the interim periods ended April 1, 2011, July 1,…
An OfficeHours roundup of coming events: On Thursday April 12, from 6 to 8 p.m., the Greater Hillyard Business Association is holding its monthly gathering, with guest Wes Ward of iZigg Mobile Media. Ward will lead a discussion on how mobile marketing is changing how…
Today's business news story is an update on progress at the near-downtown mixed use development, Kendall Yards. (Story may require Spokesman.com access to read it in its entirety.) The project has, up to now, been focused exclusively on building out the residential half of the…
Last week a group of Spokane area postal workers and their backers gathered downtown to voice opposition to plans that would shut down hundreds of post offices and dozens of processing centers across the country. The Postmaster General has said those cuts are needed for…
Spokane city officials have launched a “certified site” program that will help planners, landowners or commercial developers find information quickly on area properties. Owners of commercial or industrial land can submit information to the city to review if their properties meet environmental, zoning and utility…
Proctor & Gamble hates their freedom. Specifically P&G hates its workers' freedom to stream music and movies on company computers. The big company announced on Thursday it will block net access for workers who try to use the Pandora music service or the Netflix streaming…
Don't get Ultraviolet mad. The women's group called Ultraviolet has come out swinging at Facebook, saying the media and social network company has shown immense gender blindness. The Ultraviolet announcement on Thursday demanded Facebook appoint at least one woman to its board before the company…
Hecla Mining Co. has made management changes at the troubled Lucky Friday Mine. Ed Sutich has been named vice president and general manager of the underground silver mine in Mullan, Idaho. He replaces Jeff Jordan, who has moved to Hecla’s corporate office as vice president…
Is Spokane County very dependent on exporting its products? That's a subjective call. Today's story on Sen. Maria Cantwell's (D-Wash) visit to Spokane to boost support for reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, raised the question of how many jobs depend on exports. The numbers are…
Population decline in rural Idaho intensified in 2011, new U.S. Census Bureau estimates show. More people left the state’s rural areas between mid-2010 and mid-2011, and more counties lost population than at any other time since the 1980s. Eighteen of the 33 rural counties saw…
Area post office workers will hold a rally Thursday in downtown Spokane, protesting planned cuts they say will degrade mail service. The rally, organized by the American Postal Workers Union, starts at 4:30 p.m. at 10 N. Post. It’s meant to call attention to pending…
Verizon Wireless is bringing more 4G to the Inland Northwest. The company announced its 4G LTE network will be available in the next few weeks in Cheney, Deer Park, Mica, Valleyford, Bonners Ferry, Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls, Rathdrum and Stateline. Faster is better, or at…
The OfficeHours blog is nowhere near sad to report the demise of the QR code. It's the squiggly little black-white pattern found on some store products or on assorted items. It was supposed to change how people bought products or obtained services. And yes, it…
It's not a bad idea to brush up on your knowledge of proxy statements, especially if you have any stock in Spokane-based Ambassadors Group (symbol: EPAX). Two shareholders, Bandera Partners and Lane Five Capital Management, have each filed preliminary proxy statements, indicating they may or…
The Port of Quincy has sold 12 acres in its industrial park to Amway, the giant direct-sales company that distributes thousands of household products. The company, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., plans to build a 48,000-square-foot extraction and concentration facility to process ingredients for nutritional…
Today's SR business section carried a story about the Red Lion Hotels board thinking about .... a number of options, including possibly selling the operation. The key question we had: how many people work for Red Lion in Spokane. Answer: 350. If there was a…
AmericanWest Bank, based in Spokane, has acquired Southern California-based Security Business Bank, in a deal involving a cash payment of $26 million. Security has four locations in San Diego. This is AmericanWest's first move into Southern California. Scott Kisting, chairman and CEO of AmericanWest Bank,…
The Spokesman-Review business team follows economic development in Spokane and the Inland Northwest.
| Dec. 2012 | Nov. 2012 | Oct. 2012 | Sept. 2012 |
| Aug. 2012 | July 2012 | June 2012 | May 2012 |
| April 2012 | March 2012 | Feb. 2012 | Jan. 2012 |
