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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Ambassadors Group announces layoffs

Spokane-based Ambassadors Group Inc. said it will lay off about 50 workers as it deals with declining interest among parents for its travel-education offerings.

The company, which arranges worldwide travel for students and professional groups, has about 270 Spokane workers.

They are jobs in nearly every department, CEO Jeff Thomas said. The cuts will occur this month, the company said. The firm has 34,583 net enrolled participants for travel programs this year, compared to 42,548 enrolled for 2008 programs at the same time last year.

In regular trading Friday, Ambassadors stock fell $1.35 to $9.54 per share – a drop of 12 percent.

Tom Sowa

Sterling Savings, IT-Lifeline sign deal

Spokane-based Sterling Savings Bank has signed a contract with IT-Lifeline to use that company’s workplace recovery center.

Privately held IT-Lifeline provides both backup data restoration services and disaster recovery. Based in Liberty Lake, it has contracts with large and midsize financial institutions both in this part of the Inland Northwest and along the West Coast.

Sterling Bank has chosen IT-Lifeline as its base of operations for any possible disaster recovery. In cases of a major disruption or catastrophe, bank IT officials would head to the Liberty Lake center and use its resources to restore data and business operations.

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Sterling Vice President David Klatt said it makes sense for the bank to base its recovery center close to its headquarters in Spokane.

At the same time, the bank also uses other remote locations for its data systems and backup operations.

“Systems data recovery is best done remotely so that recovery is not subject to the same environmental threats (that are causing the key disruption),” explained Klatt, Sterling’s vice president for information technology governance and security manager.

Tom Sowa

Ammunition maker cutting work force

ATK, an ammunition maker, is trimming 70 to 80 hourly and salaried employees at its Lewiston plant. The company began telling employees on Thursday and expected to finish the notifications by Monday, said Amanda Covington, a spokeswoman for ATK in Salt Lake City.

Another 70 to 80 employees who work at an ATK ammunition making plant in Anoka, Minn., are losing their jobs, Covington said.

The change will leave about 850 employees at ATK, the third largest manufacturer in the region.

ATK began ramping up production to reduce a “lengthy” backlog of orders in 2006 for sport and law enforcement ammunition and has made significant progress in trimming the volume of outstanding orders, Covington said. Lewiston Tribune