Bert Caldwell

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.

Klaus Huschke, Itron's international vice president, shows a Tepco representative the inner workings of some of Itron's products during a plant tour. Photo by Molly O'Hara/The Spokesman-Review

Washington Water Power Co. and the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute will cooperate on the development of fuel cell technology like that used in spacecraft. Together with other potential partners, said SIRTI Assistant Director John Ryan, the work could lead to construction of a manufacturing facility in Spokane.

Neither side in the weeklong strike against Kaiser Aluminum Corp. takes for granted the outcome of today's vote on a new contract. United Steelworkers of America pickets at the company's Spokane plants said Monday they are not sure modifications made Saturday in talks between the two sides address their fears about potential job cuts.

Negotiators for Kaiser Aluminum Corp. and the United Steelworkers of America retired to their corners Sunday after another round of talks yielded a potential settlement to a strike that enters its second week today. The agreement was disclosed late Saturday, after the two sides had met separately and together throughout the day in Salt Lake City.

Sunh Han throws aluminum into a crucible of the molten metal at the Kaiser Mead plant Saturday. Han usually works as a lubrication engineer at the Trentwood plant. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

County worker Pat Riley assembles a fence to keep pickets off the streets near Kaiser Trentwood planr. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

A trucker and his companion are subdued by Kaiser security at the east entrance to the Trentwood plant. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

Rick Bower, a furnace pour operator at Kaiser's Mead smelter, gives "five" to a passing motorist. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review