Bert Caldwell

A surprise veto by Gov. Mike Lowry is sitting around the capitol in Olympia like an unanswered, ringing telephone. Two weeks ago, Lowry rejected legislation that would have turned back efforts by major long-distance carriers to simplify the dialing of phone calls within Eastern and Western Washington. The measure, SB5156, had swept through the House and Senate by overwhelming margins after intense lobbying on both sides of the issue.

Itron Inc., Puget Sound Power & Light Co. and a California maker of wireless information systems have agreed to form a new company that would sell cost-cutting services to the utility industry. Still in the planning stages, the as-yet unnamed venture would combine technologies developed by Itron and San Jose-based Metricom Inc. that gather information from utility meters using handheld, mobile or stationary equipment arrayed in a network. For example, said Puget spokesman Earl Dunn, a new system could be used to read meters several times a day, making it possible to set rate schedules that would encourage electricity use during nonpeak hours.

Fourteen Spokane-area companies are among the 150 largest private enterprises in the state of Washington, according to the May issue of Washington CEO magazine. The list is prepared by the Arthur Andersen accounting firm in a venture co-sponsored by the magazine and U.S. Bank of Washington. Nine-hundred companies were surveyed as part of the information-gathering effort. To be included, companies must employ 25. If companies did not respond, information was gathered from other sources.

Washington Water Power Co., in a precedent-setting transaction, will supply 70 megawatts of electricity to the Northwest Aluminum Co. in The Dalles, Ore. The deal represents the first break away from the Bonneville Power Administration by one of the region's nine smelters, which buy thousands of megawatts of energy from the federal power-marketing agency. It also shows how vulnerable rate hikes and other measures have left the once dominant agency. An aluminum company decision to buy from anyone else would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

1. Yellowstone's pipeline in the foreground has been blocked by removing a valve. In the background, a tanker truck unloads unleaded gasoline bound for the Spokane-North Idaho market. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review SPOKANE EDITION CAPTION: A valve has been taken out of the Yellowstone pipeline to prevent gasoline from going any further. A tanker truck in the background awaits fuel to be shipped from Montana to the Spokane area. 2. A tanker rolls along the Clark Fork River from Missoula to Thompson Falls. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

A second-generation cellular telephone system could be operating in Spokane by early next year, according to officials with one of two groups that will provide the service. Jerry Brantley, executive vice president of MainStreet Wireless, said the new personal communications services, or PCS, will provide higher quality at less cost than existing cellular networks.

Consumers and corporations, not governments, are driving economic globalization, noted economist Murray Weidenbaum told a Spokane audience Thursday. Weidenbaum, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, said pacts like the North America Free Trade Agreement are secondary to everyday decisions in the marketplace. "Individual businesses are the prime actors in the world economy," he said.

Efforts to make the U.S. Small Business Administration smaller could cost Spokane its district office, but Deputy Director Larry Billin said Wednesday closure would be a "last resort." The Clinton administration has outlined a plan for downsizing the agency that calls for reducing manpower nationwide by about 500, out of a total work force of 3,600, Billin said.

Regulators should set rate caps, then allow utilities to earn whatever profits they can without sacrificing customer service, Washington Water Power Co. officials say in recently filed documents. Such a system would ensure electricity rate stability for small customers. At the same time, it would give utility managers the flexibility to compete with new entrants in the market for wholesale and major industrial customers, WWP says. The company's comments were made in response to a Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission inquiry launched in January.

John Wallace is something of a weight lifter. But the Moscow native doesn't pump iron, his burdens are $2 billion portfolios of stocks and bonds that he tosses daily in his role as portfolio manager for Oppenheimer Funds.

The LeMaster & Daniels accounting firm has doubled the size of its Spokane Valley operations with the acquisition of Schroeder, Simmons and Lochmiller, P.S., Managing Partner Robert Burton said Tuesday. The transaction, effective last Saturday, also brings the Spokanebased firm's total employee complement to about 200 in its offices around Eastern Washington and North Idaho, he said. LeMaster & Daniels is already among the 50 largest accounting firms in the United States, based on revenues.

Washington Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn bristled Monday at last-minute changes in legislation designed to curtail the ability of several state agencies to write new regulations. While acknowledging the need for regulatory reform, she said the amended version of House Bill 1010 singles out her office by forbidding the imposition of any rules not specifically authorized by the Legislature. The provisions could prevent her from doing something as simple as requiring a receipt for payment of an insurance premium, she said.

Washington Water Power Co. paid Chairman Paul Redmond $1.36 million in 1994, largely because of earnings from the sale of Itron Inc. stock. It was the second year in a row that the sale of stock in WWP subsidiaries has lifted Redmond's total compensation above the $1 million mark. Besides being the utility's chairman, Redmond is its chief executive officer and president, a job he took in February when predecessor Jim Harvey retired.

Trading in Key Tronic Corp. stock exploded Tuesday and Wednesday, lifting volume to 20 times normal and price to levels unseen since the mid-1980s. The stock, which trades on the NASDAQ national over-the-counter market, closed at $13.63 Wednesday, up 75 cents and a new 52-week high. The price had been as high as $15.25 earlier in the day.

Economic growth in the Northwest, powered in large part by inmigration, will outstrip that for the nation as a whole for at least the next year, First Interstate Bank Senior Vice President William Conerly said Wednesday. Conerly, the bank's Portlandbased economist for the region, said individuals willing to accept less pay in return for a higher quality of life continue to enter the area. The young, well-educated immigrants are finding employment with new high-tech companies that have supplanted timber and other natural resource producers as the Northwest's economic mainstay, he said.

US West Communications has asked Washington regulators to approve plans that would eliminate long-distance tolls between Elk and Green Bluff. A separate filing by US West and PTI Communications also would allow Colville and Kettle Falls residents to place unlimited toll-free calls to each other. To replace the long-distance charges, Elk and Green Bluff residents would pay a 65-cent monthly fee. Businesses would pay an additional 90 cents.

United Security Bancorporation has filed registration materials for an initial public offering of 1 million shares of common stock. Proceeds from the offering, expected to bring $8 to $8.50 per share, would be used to support additional growth by the Spokane-based holding company, which is the parent of two banks. United Security Bank operates six branches in Stevens, Pend Oreille and Spokane counties. Home Security Bank has branches in Sunnyside and Prosser.

Inland Power & Light Co. members overwhelmingly approved a proposed merger with Lincoln Electric Cooperative Inc. at their annual meeting Saturday. Manager Richard Heitman said 92 percent of the 6,463 votes cast supported consolidation of the two member-owned utilities, which serve adjacent territories covering much of Eastern Washington. Lincoln members approved the merger by a similar margin a week ago.

A new book gives an optimistic reading on the investment potential of three Spokane-area companies that have not enjoyed the best of times lately. "The 105 Best Investments of the 21st Century," by Richard Maturi, includes Hecla Mining Co., Pegasus Gold Corp. and Washington Water Power Co. in an eclectic mix that starts with stocks in industrial companies and concludes with collectible books.

Milton Cole has taken his expertise in international marketing into the classroom. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

Evelyn Meany, president and chairwoman of the board of Pend Oreille Bank, has engineered a dramatic turnaround in the bank since 1988. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

The merger of Washington Water Power Co. and Sierra Pacific Resources will cut 118 jobs in Spokane but save ratepayers $449 million over the next 10 years. Another 254 jobs will be eliminated in Reno, Nev., the headquarters of Sierra Pacific. The companies made the disclosures Monday in a filing with the Public Service Commission of Nevada.

When Donald Roadifer died last October of AIDS, he had been on Medicaid and welfare for six months. But if he had not sold his life insurance policy for a lump sump payment two years earlier, the burden on his family and taxpayers could have been much higher.

Pentzer Corp. has acquired another company specializing in point-of-sale displays and other marketing materials. The Decker Co., based in Memphis, Tenn., joins Graphic Communications and The Form House in Pentzer's consumer products group, said President Dick Davis.