Bert Caldwell

Ross Rhinehart Jr. hoses down a concrete mix that will form an underground retaining wall to trap oil. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

Stubborn regulators and soaring stock prices have scuttled a merger between two Inland Northwest banks. United Security Bancorporation and The Wheatland Bank Monday announced they were scrapping the $12.5 million transaction. Terms had called for the exchange of 2.5 shares of USB stock for each share of Wheatland stock. When the merger was disclosed in May, USB stock was selling for $13 per share.

Big shoes to fill. Outgoing Washington Water Power CEO Paul Redmond expects to have more time to fly his private airplane during retirement. Photo by Jesse Tinsley/The Spokesman-Review

Advanced Hardware Architectures Inc. is challenging the patents of a competitor that claims infringement by the Pullman company. A complaint filed in U.S. District Court Friday alleges that patents held by Stac Inc. of San Diego since 1991 do nothing more than describe what was already known. Stac designs and markets products that increase computer storage capacity and the speed at which information can be transmitted.

Washington Water Power Co. wants to give about 5,000 customers more choices on buying electricity. A pilot program would allow a random sampling of Washington and Idaho consumers to stick with the existing, regulated rate, buy at potentially lower rates fixed for one year or one month, or select a "green" portfolio of wind, conservation and other non-traditional resources, said Rates Manager Tom Dukich. WWP would be the supplier unless the customer bought or leased a specialized meter. Those households and businesses could buy from anyone, he said.

Kaiser Aluminum Corp. was given the Exporter of the Year award by the Inland Northwest World Trade Council at its annual dinner last week. The company expects to ship 27 percent of its output to 36 foreign locations this year. The share was 7 percent just five years ago. The council, which has 200 members, also recognized Eastern Washington University Professor Morag Stewart as the International Educator of the Year, and Karen Marshall for her Outstanding Individual Contribution to International Trade.

Washington regulators will hold a hearing in Coulee Dam on Thursday to find out what Eastern Washington residents consider basic telephone service, and what it should cost. The comments will become part of a Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission report to the Legislature that is due by year-end, said Bob Shirley, a telecommunications analysts with the commission. The Legislature, in turn, will use the information to help create a universal service fund for subsidizing the cost of telephone use in high-cost, rural areas, he said. For example, Shirley said, the monthly cost of providing a residential line in Coulee Dam is about $53. The commission allows US West Communications to bill $10.50 for the service.

Robert Waggoner of Rahco International stands inside the cavernous "Ruslan" transport plane packed with Rahco canal-building gear destined for Egypt. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

The German contribution to Alabama's economic development didn't start with Daimler-Benz, an official with that state's Development Office said Friday. The maker of Mercedes autmobiles trailed by almost 50 years the maker of the Redstone, Saturn and other rockets that gave the U.S. the lead in the space race, said David Echols, who spoke to an Inland Northwest Partnership meeting at Eastern Washington University.

Dave Clack

The last decade has not been a good one for investors who put their money overseas expecting returns above those available in the U.S., the chief investment officer for Tacoma-based Frank Russell Co. said Thursday. Surging domestic markets have outpaced those just about anywhere else in the world, said Randy Lert. But, he added, longer horizons indicate foreign and domestic investments will perform alike over time.

CPM Development Corp., the holding company for Central Pre-Mix Concrete Co. and Inland Asphalt Co., has been sold for $94 million to an international building materials company based in Dublin, Ireland. The transaction was announced by CRH plc Wednesday after stock markets closed. CRH trades on the London and NASDAQ exchanges. The deal closed Friday. The Federal Trade Commission had previously reviewed the transaction for potential antitrust problems.

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Northwest Nexus Inc., the region's largest independent provider of Internet service to business, has acquired Data Source of Spokane. The deal, said Data Source's Chad Skidmore, will enable the company to add new services for local customers while it also builds alliances with like-sized providers in other regions of the country. By piecing together their own "backbone," he said, Northwest Nexus and its partners can improve customer access to a national network that is periodically bottlenecked.

Boats, biological adhesion or something in between investors were tantalized with the prospects for new wealth at a forum concluding today at the Doubletree Hotel Spokane City Center. Eight companies discussed their business plans and products during a succession of presentations to venture capitalists, specialists in private placement, and "angels" with the personal financial resources that enables them to take a flier on start-up businesses. Each also had a booth in an adjoining exhibition area and one, Duckworth Boat Co., showed off a couple of its sleek aluminum jetboats in the parking lot.

Washington Water Power Co. isn't the only Northwest utility relicensing dams on the region's rivers. In the next decade, more than a dozen licenses - some covering more than one dam - come before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for renewal. Projects involved range in size from barely three megawatts to the massive dams in Hells Canyon on the Snake River.

High-stakes challenge The Cabinet Gorge Dam near Bonners Ferry is one that Washington Water Power Co. must relicense by the end of the year 2001. Photo courtesy of Washington Water Power

Attorneys Richard Eymann, Gene Annis and Darrell Scott gather Friday to announce the settlement in Riverfront Park. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Shea Construction Inc. will start remodeling the Davenport Hotel early next year, the landmark hotel's executive director said Thursday. Jeffrey Ng said the Spokane contractor was selected from among a dozen builders who submitted bids for the project, which has tantalized city residents since the former owners locked the doors in 1985. "It was a very tough decision," Ng said, because several of the bidders came highly recommended.

Want a little action on the Washington State University football team? Don't call a bookie. Call a banker. State National Bank in Garfield is offering a certificate of deposit with a yield adjusted upward with every Cougar victory.

Premera, the largest provider of health insurance in Washington, next month will throw another stitch into the bond between its two major subsidiaries. Medical Service Corp. of Eastern Washington and Blue Cross of Washington and Alaska will begin offering each other's product lines to customers in their service areas, said Premera President Betty Woods. Now, she said, potential Blue Cross customers in Eastern Washington must purchase those coverages through a separate sales office.

Key Tronic Corp. Wednesday announced an agreement with Gateway 2000 Inc. that could produce $10 million in new business for the Spokane maker of computer keyboards. Executive Vice President Ron Klawitter said Key Tronic could produce up to half of the two million keyboards shipped with Gateway computers each year. The units are priced at just under $10, he said.

Megawatts could become megabucks for tribes willing to explore the potential for a new kind of "red power," attorney and business consultant Margie Schaff said Wednesday. The tribes' unique status and the deregulation transforming national energy markets open opportunities that have yet to be fully explored, she told a Spokane gathering of tribal leaders and utility officials. Schaff said the options include everything from forming tribal utilities to creating regulatory bodies that would replace state oversight of the companies that provide not just electricity, but water, natural gas and other services as well.

United Security Bancorporation of Spokane has agreed to buy Community Bancorporation and its subsidiary, Bank of Pullman, for $12 million in cash. The deal announced Wednesday, when completed later this year, would be the third executed this year by USB. And with the purchase of five branches from Wells Fargo and the pending merger with The Wheatland Bank, the acquisition of Community will almost triple USB's branch system in just one year.