Horror Stories Underscore Need For Accurate Employee References

A Puget Sound daycare hires a man who assaults a developmentally disabled girl and when the mother confronts the daycare operators, she is told a previous employer didn’t provide references for fear of being sued.

A Florida man fired by his previous employer for bringing a gun to work gets a new job where he shoots to death three co-workers. Again, the specter of legal reprisal silences the former employer.

In North Carolina, a commuter airline crash kills 20 passengers after the pilot’s former employer, leery of litigation, withholds knowledge of the aviator’s tendency to panic in an emergency.

These are some of the stories the Association of Washington Business lobby hopes will persuade Gov. Gary Locke to sign into law newly enacted legislation granting immunity to employers who provide accurate employee references.

“Currently, most public and private employers don’t provide employee references for fear of getting sued,” AWB President Don Brunell says in a letter urging Locke’s endorsement.

Organized labor has objected to the legislation, charging that it weakens protections against blacklisting and fails to protect against “reckless disregard for the truth.”

In his letter, the business lobbyist said employees and employers both are ill served by the present law. “If an employer has any question at all about an applicant and can’t get clear information, they won’t risk hiring them,” argues Brunell. “And co-workers are put at risk when an employer can’t learn if a prospective employer is dangerous or unstable.”

Nice guys don’t always finish last

Will the spotlight spoil Kerry Killinger?

Two years ago, when Washington Mutual Savings Bank’s chief executive officer came back to Spokane from Seattle to keynote this area’s annual real estate forum, the media snubbed him.

But then, just one year ago this month, Killinger’s bank was named America’s most admired savings institution in a Fortune magazine poll of thousands of industry executives and analysts.

Next, scarcely seven months ago, Killinger completed a merger that transformed Washington Mutual into the nation’s largest thrift institution.

And finally, only last week, Killinger reached a $10-billion agreement to buy No. 2-ranked H.F. Ahmanson & Co., latest in a string of 22 acquisitions destined to make his bank the seventh-largest financial combine in America, with assets of $150 billion serving 6 million households.

Now, suddenly the former unassuming Spokane investments broker is a media darling.

The native Midwesterner came to town as manager of mutual funds for Murphey Favre Inc. in the mid-1970s. He was executive vice president of the century-old Spokane-based Murphey Favre when the pioneer investments firm was acquired by Seattle-based Washington Mutual in 1982.

The rest is history.

Speaking from the perspective of a newsman who has spent more than three decades covering Spokane business, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. During his years in Spokane and more recently in Seattle, Kerry Killinger has distinguished himself as one of the most down to earth, forthright, approachable and personable business superstars ever to come this way.

Carriage house to become bridal chapel

The historic Patsy Clark mansion’s carriage house will be converted into a bridal chapel.

Steven Senescall, co-owner of the mansion and Patsy Clark’s restaurant, said the growing popularity of the historic landmark with wedding planners persuaded him to make the move. The carriage house currently houses four apartment units.

Senescall said that following the conversion, which will restore the interior of the sturcture to its original overall configuration, the carriage house chapel will accommodate up to 150 wedding guests. “That’s more than double the number we can handle now,” he said.

Senescall said that since buying Patsy Clark’s two and a half years ago, he and his partners have spent more than $150,000 upgrading the property. The mansion has operated as a restaurant for 15 years. “When we got in here,” Senescall says, “the roof leaked, the paint was gone, and the landscaping looked like the Adams family lived here.”

The mansion, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was designed by celebrated Spokane architect Kirtland K. Cutter for mining magnate Patrick “Patsy” Clark a century ago this year.

Local firms grab Mariners stadium work

Economic ripples from a new $417-million Mariners stadium under construction in Seattle are reaching some firms in Spokane.

Max Kuney Co., prime contractor for pilings anchoring the stadium and subcontractor for concrete, has contracts totaling $14 million. By way of comparison, Max Kuney, the company’s chief executive officer, says the contractor erected the Spokane Opera House a quarter of a century ago for less than $6 million.

Inland Empire Drywall Supply is providing all of the drywall, steel studs and insulation in the stadium. Shirley Branson, president, said the amount of the contract won’t be finalized until construction is further along.

Spokane consultant Mike Siefferman has been retained by the joint-venture general contractors as construction manager for all electrical work in the new ballpark.

Contractors broke ground last spring and construction is on track for a July 1999 grand opening.

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes a notes column each Wednesday. If you have business items of regional interest for future columns, call 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review