Bert Caldwell

Cavanaughs Hospitality Corp. Wednesday announced the purchase of its first Idaho property, the Westbank Holiday Inn in Idaho Falls. The 142-room hotel, to be renamed Cavanaughs on the Falls, brings to 10 the number of hotels operated by the Spokane-based company. The seller was Ron Keil of Portland. Terms were not disclosed.

A subsidiary of Washington Water Power Co. has filed for patent protection on several aspects of its fuel cell technology, the vice president in charge of the project said Wednesday. Kim Zentz said Avista Laboratories wants a patent examiner to review the design, materials and process that have been developed over the last two years at the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute. The company's filing covers seven different areas, but the examiner could award fewer or more patents, she said.

As competitive threats emerged, stock of Itron Inc. dropped Monday to its lowest level in more than a year, before rebounding somewhat on Tuesday. Shares of the Spokane maker of automated meter-reading equipment lost one-third of their value between Dec. 4, when they closed at $21.50, and Monday morning, when they briefly dropped to $14.25.

Don't hang up! Mike Kuhn, president of Dakotah Direct, is overseeing the rapid expansion of his company. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

U S West Communications Group has asked Washington regulators to cut rates for some business customers in Spokane. The change, if approved, would be the first made by U S West in response to mushrooming competition for business calls in Washington. Spokeswoman JoAnn Ficca said the Spokane market is the most competitive in the state for local line service, with four other companies either on line or soon to be.

Andresen

Gregory Green has resigned as president of Nextlink Washington, effective Jan. 1, but will continue to provide consulting services to the telecommunications company. Green has been with Nextlink since March 1995, when the Bellevue-based company purchased Tel-West Central Services, which he founded in 1991. Nextlink provides local dial tone services in competition with US West Communications Group. The company has already built a fiber-optic system downtown that Green said will be extended next year to the South Hill hospitals, the Spokane Industrial Park and parts of the North Side.

Lucky companies working through the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute could be hearing soon from angels on high, as in finance. The institute has hooked up with the Northwest Capital Network, a clearinghouse that matches start-up companies looking for financing with investors - also called angels - willing to put capital into such risky ventures. Terry Chambers, manager of SIRTI's Digital Technologies Center, said the network includes about 850 angels. By working through the network, they protect their anonymity until they have selected a business in which they might want to invest.

Superior Court Judge Kathleen O'Connor approved a $11.3 million settlement Thursday of all claims related to fires that swept through several Eastern Washington areas in October 1991. The funds, already on deposit in a Spokane bank, will help compensate more than 400 victims of flames that claimed 114 homes, livestock and 36,000 acres of timber and grassland. There were two fatalities, including a woman who was seven months pregnant.

Utilities scrambling to position themselves in an increasingly competitive market can't overlook reliability, says the interim administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration. Jack Robertson, who was in the agency's Spokane office Tuesday, called electricity the currency of the 21st Century. Common household appliances and high-tech machinery alike demand an uninterrupted flow of electrons, Robertson said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Tuesday released a letter criticizing quality assurance at the Bayer AG plant in Spokane. The facility manufactures more than 100 products for treating allergies. Although no products have been recalled as a result of the FDA's findings, Bayer spokesman Don Hyman said some production has been interrupted and customers are being directed to alternative suppliers until problems at the plant, which employs 260 people, are overcome. "There have been shortages," Hyman said.

Cavanaughs Hospitality Corp. has extended its hotel empire into the heart of downtown Spokane with the purchase of the 342-room Ridpath Hotel. The acquisition announced Monday brings to 1,700 the number of rooms the Spokane-based chain owns or operates in an area extending from Kalispell, Mont., to Seattle. Terms of the Ridpath deal were not disclosed. The sellers, said Cavanaughs President Don Barbieri, are a group of Portland and Seattle investors who acquired the hotel in 1988.

Deregulation of the electric utility industry will have a powerful foe in Rep. Larry Crouse in the upcoming session of the Washington Legislature. The Spokane Valley Republican, who chairs the House Energy and Utilities Committee, said Monday he has shelved plans to introduce his own deregulation bill, and won't hold hearings on any others that originate in the lower chamber.

Thousands of you didn't buy Washington State University football season tickets did you, and now you won't be sitting in the Rose Bowl New Year's Day. Not feeling bad yet? Well, back in September even fewer of you purchased one-year certificates of deposit offered by the State National Bank of Garfield that promised to adjust the rate of interest upward with every Cougar win.

If you buy power from any one of the dozens of public utilities in the Northwest, you are already a winner. Utility managers meeting in Spokane Tuesday said they want to keep it that way. But with the Bonneville Power Administration due to launch a "subscription process" next year, many expressed concern that the outcome would not be best for their members.

Dogear president Bob Kirkpatrick works out of his home in Spokane. Photo by Liz Kishimoto/The Spokesman-Review

The Composite Group of Funds will add 23 jobs in Spokane as its parent, Washington Mutual Bank, and newly acquired Great Western Bank merge their mutual fund portfolios. Composite President Bill Papesh said the new jobs will include administrative, accounting and customer service positions. The workers will be accommodated on the second and third floors of the Washington Mutual Building, he said. The hires will bring total Composite staffing in Spokane to 89.

Washington Water Power Co. will keep its wires to itself, thank you. The Spokane utility will not join other Northwest utilities next spring when they ask federal regulators to approve formation of a new organization that would control the region's transmission systems. WWP officials two weeks ago told backers the company was no longer interested.

All in the family. Alan Ross, president of an 80-year-old Spokane printing business, plans to pass on the family business to his son. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

U S West should get little more than half of a proposed rate increase, and none of that should come from residential customers, Washington Assistant Attorney General Rob Manifold said Thursday. In testimony filed with the Washington Utility and Transportation Commission, Manifold said the phone company should be allowed to collect $37 million covering depreciation of its equipment, but not another $30 million the commission staff has suggested be approved. If accepted by the three commissioners, who can override staff, the recommendation would add $3 to monthly residential phone bills. Businesses would pay an additional $2 per month.

Washington Water Power CEO Les Bryan, center, and Anne Marie Asxrthy and Al Fisher, get a chuckle out of a remark by WWP chairman Paul Redmond at Thursday's discussion of plant to cope with future problems like last year's ice storm. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Carnette and Cameron Ball are shown with their children Marc, 3, and Scott, 6. Photo by Shawn Jacobson/The Spokesman-Review

Washington Water Power Co. has upgraded its call center and decentralized management to better respond to weather emergencies such as last November's ice storm, according to a report released Tuesday. "Energy Emergency Response," prepared by the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission, assesses changes made at WWP and Puget Sound Energy in the wake of severe storms last winter. Outages caused by freezing rain Nov. 19 lasted as long as 13 days in some areas served by WWP. As many as 100,000 customers were powerless at one point.

Top officials from Washington Water Power Co. and Inland Power & Light Co. will meet today to begin negotiating a new agreement separating their service territories. The existing 25-year pact expires next year, but the two utilities already compete for new business in areas where service rights are uncertain. Each is forbidden to target customers already served by the other.