Business in brief: Spokane Valley café to close
Percy’s Café Americana, a Spokane Valley landmark, will close its doors Monday after staying in business for most of the past four decades.
Owner Patricia Kroetch said the restaurant, at 10512 E. Sprague Ave., has lost its lease.
The mall’s owner, University City Shopping Center, will lease the space to another business owner, Kroetch said.
Started in the late 1960s by her father as The Golden Hour, the restaurant and lounge became a frequent gathering spot for Valley residents.
In the 1980s, after her father left the business, Kroetch and her late husband, Greg, took it over. She renamed it Percy’s after her father, Percy Howell.
Kroetch said she is looking at other locations and may reopen Percy’s elsewhere.
Boeing eyes cuts in defense unit
Seattle – The job ax at Boeing is set to fall on the defense division, which until now has largely been spared companywide employment reductions.
The head of Boeing’s Integrated Defense Systems, Jim Albaugh, told employees in an internal message Monday that IDS will have to cut about 1,000 jobs because of Pentagon budget cuts.
Boeing spokesman Dan Beck said Tuesday that no further details are available. It has not been decided how many of those cuts will affect the Puget Sound region, which has 7,000 IDS employees.
Former GM CEO gets $10 million
Detroit – Former General Motors Corp. Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner will retire Aug. 1 with a pension and benefit package the automaker valued at more than $10 million.
Wagoner, 56, who was ousted by the Obama administration on March 30, will get $1.64 million in benefits annually for each of the next five years, plus an annual pension of $74,030 for the rest of his life, according to company documents filed Tuesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Wagoner, who spent 32 years with the company, can also choose to cash out his company-provided life insurance policy at $2.6 million, according to the filing.
The benefits are worth about half the $22.1 million value that the company placed on Wagoner’s retirement package at the end of 2008.