Business Pulse Magazine: Fall 2013

NW Business Expo + Conference, October 17

Doug Thomas continues the legacy at BCS

MAGAZINE MAGAZINE Fall 2013

$10Women Whatcom’s

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Dr. Marcy Hipskind, CEO $30 Million Family Care Network

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There’s A World Of Possibilities Out There.

And the women featured in this issue are showing us just that.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

68

LAND USE: Here’s a dilemma to pond-er

Retiree Joe Remenar in rural Blaine dug this pond in his empty field.

Government has told him his wildlife habitat must go. “They told me it could harm the environment.” What has the state’s Growth Management Act wrought? Read a revealing 7-article look at land use issues, especially rural—a political firestorm with lots of hot-button opinion.

Personally Speaking

12

Doug Thomas’s business is cold, but he runs it with warmth. i.e., He revealed a collegial style, filled with compliments, that prevails at Bellingham Cold Storage’s huge refrigeration complexes. Thomas broaches topics of local business concerns. “Balance the checkbook,” he said.

Proactive City Haul

22

Which among Whatcom County’s cities is on a major-enticements binge to attract business and industry, especially Canadian trade? Its retail sales have grown over 41 percent since 2012.

Sumas thrives by its slogan: “Open for Business.”

scrap-metal mavens

62

The Parberrys welcome scrap metal in every shape imaginable, as big as semi-truck cabs, as small as aluminum cans, mixed with lawn mowers, motors, tools, large or small, they buy it all (and then sell it, mostly abroad). Your junk is their treasure at Scrap-It. Or, if you need a place to store, they offer Stow-It, too.

$400 million women in business

30

We gathered six women for a special photo shoot downtown, and put a seventh on the cover. Special, because they lead commerce that accounted last year for sales in the neighborhood of $400M, ranking them in our Top 75 free-market companies (March issue). Follow their stories through power supplies, mutual fund investment, family medical practice, pipe fittings, construction equipment, facility maintenance, and soap-making.

On the Cover Dr. Marcy Hipskind left private practice with others and co-founded Family Care Network. As president, she has led the path for a $30-million operation of 10 clinics in Bellingham, Blaine, Everson, Ferndale, and Lynden.

(Cover image by Michelle Manson) 4 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

Adminstrator Chandra Ridenhour (left) and Dr. Marcy Hipskind at Family Care Network. (Photo by Mike McKenzie)

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 5

TABLE OF CONTENTS

20

And the winner is….

This month, the Whatcom Women in Business organization names its annual Professional Woman of the Year from among six finalists. Lynne Henifin was a finalist in 1999 and award-winner in 2008. Since then she’s been an active member, now president, as WWIB raises money for scholarships, mentoring, and charities. Read their story that kicks off a series on women running their show.

“I don’t believe there are any barriers for women to own/operate businesses these days. Henifin said. “As a self-employed woman, the sky’s the limit!”

We engaged three sharp, young local women to bring it home – free-lance writers Tara Nelson, who served as project manager, and Sherri Huleatt, and our Western Washington University summer intern majoring in visual journalism, Lydia Love.

Karina Cooper who writes novels about witches (sorta, they’re paranormal), and Marsha Manthey who grows Christmas trees. A couple of

Lynne Henifin (left) and Jessica Brearley Northwest Safety Signs Inc. (Staff Photo) 20-somethings, restaurateur Laila Yusufali and medical gel manufacturer Julia Jacobson, represent the up-and-coming.

And Cathy Hayward-Hughes tells a ‘fishy’ story of a fulfillment shipping business that just keeps growing.

These profiles offer insights into the pursuit of dreams, the financial

roller-coaster, the ingenuity, and marketing acumen.

(Read more comments, and some tips for women starting out, by Henifin and other stories in Pulse Plus on our website, www.BusinessPulse.com.)

Guest Columnists

92—102

This month, the state’s competitive disadvantages due to over-regulation….The state’s $4.4 million failure in its attempts at “green,” Moving energy cleanly, safely by train….The technique for delivering company’s bad news….Employee engagement through Lean….and 5 tips for extending the life of your computer.

Managing Editor: Mike McKenzie Graphic Designer: Michelle Manson Subscriptions: Janel Ernster Administration: Danielle Larson Feature Writers: Steve Hortegas Sherri Huleatt Lydia Love Tara Nelson Dave Brumbaugh

6 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

M A G A Z I NE The Publication of The Whatcom Business Alliance

Special Contributors: Roger Almskaar Big Fresh Media Gerald Baron Randall Benson Don Brunell Ed Kilduff Tony Larson Todd Myers Erin Shannon Cover Photo: Michelle Manson Photography: Steve Hortegas Lydia Love Michelle Manson Mike McKenzie Tara Nelson

and Courtesy Photos: Roger Almskaar Big Fresh Media/Tech Help Birch Equipment Brambleberry County Council and Port Commission Candidates Ed Kilduff PrimeLending NW Management Services Whatcom Women in Business Ad Sales: Catherine Sheard Randall Sheriff

For editorial comments and suggestions, please write editor@businesspulse.com Business Pulse Magazine is the publication of the Whatcom Business Alliance. The magazine is published at 2423 E. Bakerview Rd., Bellingham, WA 98226. (360) 671-3933. Fax (360) 671-3934. The yearly subscription rate is $20 in the USA, $48 in Canada. For a free digital subscription, go to businesspulse.com or whatcombusinessalliance.com.

Entire contents copyrighted © 2013 – Business Pulse Magazine. All rights reserved.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Business Pulse Magazine, 2423 E Bakerview Rd., Bellingham, WA 98226.

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Dave Adams, President Emergency Reporting

Randi Axelsson, Sales Manager Silver Reef Hotel, Casino & Spa

Janelle Bruland, President / CEO Management Services NW

Kevin DeVries CEO Exxel Pacific, Inc.

Andy Enfield Vice President Enfield Farms

John Huntley President / CEO Mills Electric, Inc.

Sandy Keathley Previous Owner K & K Industries

Paul Kenner Executive VP SSK Insurance

Becky Raney Owner/COO Print & Copy Factory

Jon Sitkin Partner Chmelik Sitkin & Davis P.S.

Doug Thomas President / CEO Bellingham Cold Storage

Greg Ebe President / CEO Ebe Farms

Not Pictured: Guy Jansen, Director Lynden Transport, Inc.

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LEADING OFF Tony Larson | President, Whatcom Business Alliance The Whatcom Business Alliance is a member organization made up of businesses of every size and shape, from every industry. The WBA enhances the quality of life throughout Whatcom County by promoting a healthy business climate that preserves and creates good jobs.

Women in business, land use abuse, and candidates’ Q&A O

ctober is national Women in Business Month. What better time to focus on strong local women who have built or now operate significant local businesses that contribute greatly to the economic and civic prosperity of Whatcom County.

In this issue, we call this honor roll the $10 million women. They all have inspiring stories. Not only are they job creators, but they give back in generous portion and demonstrate commitment to making Whatcom County a better place to live, work, and play. It’s also worth noting two of them are board members of the Whatcom Business Alliance (WBA)—Jane Carten and Janelle Bruland.

Speaking of strong women, I personally thank County Council Member Kathy Kershner, the Chair of the Whatcom County Council. She recently sent a letter to Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy regarding a lawsuit filed against Rader Farms Inc., of Lynden.

As one of the top raspberry and blueberry farms in the United States, Rader Farms is well respected in their industry and in our community. Brad Rader is a board member of the WBA. In 2005, the Raders purchased 10 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

property previously used for dairy farming with the intent of restoring it and planting berries. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars cleaning up environmental problems, including two large manure lagoons and silage bunkers.

Whatcom County Council Chair Kathy Kershner ges after EPA on behalf of local berry farm.

They certainly weren’t expecting legal action from Whatcom County. Fast forward eight years and beaucoup legal bills, and we still have prime agricultural land sitting unproductively while the full power of the EPA and Department of Justice bear down on Rader Farms. Under the lawsuit, filed Aug. 29 this year, the EPA could seek several penalties, including an order to pay civil fines of up to $32,500 a day, retroactively from 2005.

To her credit, Kershner wrote the EPA and DOJ a scathing letter that

stated, in part, “There is a clear difference between maintaining the strongest possible environmental standards and knowingly killing jobs and businesses.”

She went on to call upon these agencies to drop all action against Rader Farms, Inc., saying, “I will be working with my Congressional delegation to see to it that not one more job is lost to your agencies.

Running a business that creates jobs and employing workers who work hard for a wage to feed their children are not to be compromised at any time by any government agency in this economy that you have so willfully helped stifle.”

While that letter will likely fall on blind eyes, my hat is off to the honorable Kathy Kershner.

The Rader Farms lawsuit is part of a bigger challenge that expanding businesses and land owners face. We delve into it deeply in these pages. Has growth management gone too far? Does the GMA allow local communities to apply common sense to local challenges?

Are we applying common sense to these issues?

Are we balancing the original goals of the GMA in its interpretation and application, such as: • Encouraging economic development; • Promotion, retention and expansion of existing businesses and recruitment of new businesses; • Enhancing natural resourcebased industries; • Protecting property rights of landowners from arbitrary and

discriminatory actions, and • Encouraging the availability of affordable housing.

Many argue, justifiably, that these goals are no longer considered.

One of the $10 million women featured this month has a company interested in expanding its manufacturing facility in order to consolidate their out-of-state workers into Bellingham. That means more local jobs. They can’t get it “permitted.” These are the kind of examples business leaders cite over and over when they refer to our area as an unfriendly business climate.

This is compounded by planning staffs focused on stopping projects that don’t meet regulatory criteria vs. creatively assisting business owners and property owners in meeting their objectives.

Perhaps the Whatcom County and Bellingham planning departments ought to take some guidance from the City of Sumas.

You’ll read herein positive things about what Sumas is doing to create a business-friendly climate.

answer yes or no to each question, then gave them some space to explain. What I found interesting was that they all answered the yes/no questions the same. So, their real answer is in the details.

Particularly interesting were candidates’ takes on a resolution passed by the Whatcom County Democratic Party at their July 2013 meeting. In it, among many things, they called for: 1. The rejection of ALL industrial, commercial, and residential uses of the remaining natural lands and waters on and adjacent to Cherry Point.

2. To encourage party members to request that the current legislative bodies with jurisdiction over those specific lands and waters rule that such uses are not and shall not be permitted.

In addition, the party called its members to ACTIVELY oppose ALL development at or near Cherry Point. This is a departure from

simply opposing and calling for activism regarding the construction of a shipping terminal. They are saying no more development in the only area in Whatcom County zoned for heavy industrial. An area that already employs nearly 2,000 high-wage workers.

Even the candidates endorsed by the Democratic Party seemed to distance themselves from this resolution. However, we leave it to you to interpret the answers.

If you’d like to hear directly from the candidates, particularly relating to business and economic issues, the WBA and Whatcom small-city Chambers of Commerce will host a candidates forum as part of the Northwest Business Expo on Thursday, Oct. 17, 12:30 p.m. in the Event Center at Silver Reef. There is more information about that event in this issue or on our website.

Enjoy!!

Here is a company interested in expanding its manufacturing facility in order to consolidate their out-of-state workers into Bellingham. That means more local jobs. They can’t get it “permitted.”

Voters have the opportunity to decide this November which local candidates will best serve them.

Read carefully the few direct questions we sent to candidates for what I believe to be the two most important races in this election —the Whatcom County Council and the Port of Bellingham Commission.

We required the candidates to

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 11

TITLE

Personally Speaking ... with

Doug Thomas D

Interview with Mike McKenzie, Managing Editor Photos by Lydia Love, WWU Visual Journalism Summer Intern 12 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

oug Thomas is a second-generation president and CEO of Bellingham Cold Storage’s 800-customer showcase Port of Bellingham client.

He didn’t intend to follow in his father’s footsteps, and in fact went to great lengths to avoid it. But it beat shoveling fertilizer, gravel pits and even the stock market roller-coaster.

tee. When he concisely phrased a position statement about fairness and consistency in the local business environment for attracting new or expanding commerce, the WBA board dubbed it The Doug Rule.

Enjoy learning about that, and many insights into Thomas’s view of corporate responsibility from this visit across his desk overlooking a wondrous waterfront backdrop.

These days, Thomas works at running a positively-charged work environment, travels the world as an industry ambassador (most recently Australia), and serves on boards at his beloved Wazzou and with WhatcomInterview Business Alliance and photos as chair of its by advocacy commitMike McKenzie

The stock market crashed in October of 1987 right before I graduated from Washington State University, and I wanted to be a stock broker. I’d gone to the University of Hawaii in finance to polish off that part of my education.

I’d been working in a gravel pit

Starting a career that wasn’t the pits

in Skagit County. I would begin work early, and then take off for Seattle for a late afternoon interview. After several unproductive months, I suddenly had, in a oneweek period, four professionalworld offers.

“It’s a bit short-sighted to believe that money just falls out of the government sky somehow, magically.”

Three were in financial-advisory type positions. Because of the stockmarket crash I got a little less bold and accepted an offer with Allstate to enter an accelerated management training program in Seattle, Chicago, and later in Ohio.

After 2 ½ years there Allstate undertook country-wide consolidation of 13 regional operational data centers into two data cen-

ters. Seattle was one of the first to go; 715 people had jobs there, and all but 10 of us lost them.

We transferred to Hudson, Ohio, where half of the company’s North American business went through that data center.

Moving up in BCS without favor I met with a gentleman named Jack Wagner, now the CEO with Whidbey Island Bank, and at the time CEO of Talbot Investment Company, the parent company of both BCS and what is now the Barkley Company. After some discussion about working where my father was CEO, he said, “I hear good things about you and if you’re as good as they say you are, then great, and if you’re not, then we’ll fire you.”

If you put it that way it sounds like a challenge.

Still, I wanted to be a regular Joe. No special treatment. Dad said that was no problem. I came on

as the special projects coordinator and worked with Mike Clausen, our chief engineer. We reconstructed the fish house, then the blast-freezing areas, and we built another warehouse. During 1992-93 we put in new fish house freezing tunnels that were dated to the ‘50s-‘60s.

I got into marketing next, visiting and interacting with customers, and then took over as VP of operations in ’95, managing all the operations side and all the capital projects at both plants until becoming president in January of ’99.

Not everything is fishy Seafood brings at least 50 percent of our volume, and about 55 percent of our value. Certainly higher in value on a per pound basis than the average product that we handle. Compare the king salmon to blueberries. The blues are very good business—about 40 percent—and we love the growers. But where the value of an IQF (individually quality frozen) blue-

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processing.

Later we had more processed green peas and various vegetables common to Skagit and Whatcom County.

Naturally, once we had the faciliExecutive Assistant Sharon Rouse sits right outside of CEO/ ties in place President Doug Thomas’s office juggling schedules, messages, and Doug’s world in her 29th year with Bellingham Cold Storage. for the foods and local vegetables, berry is maybe a couple of dollars it became really easy to have the a pound, the king salmon is problocal seafood harvest come here ably $10.50 a pound. for freezing and processing.

Trident Seafoods and Rader Multitude of customers, Farms (raspberry, blueberry) rank and the largest is….? solidly and consistently in the top In our whole operation we have two or three customers, year after more than 800 customers. year. By volume Campbell’s Soup Our first customer was not a is the largest, by far. They’re doing seafood customer, oddly enough. It close to 90 million pounds a year was Stokely-Van Camp’s vegetable with us.

d i a n e p a d y s p h o t o g r a p h y. c o m

14 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

From minesweepers to freezers Shipyards started BCS in 1941.

Archie Talbot was a visionary guy.

He secured the lease for our main property with the idea of building wooden-hull minesweepers. They built dozens, and then the war came to an end. So in 1946 the cold storage started.

Industrial refrigeration gained momentum—rather than salting and icing product all the time, using actual ammonia refrigerant.

The refrigeration business migrated itself into the footprint of the old shipyard. When we ran out of space we built our first warehouses up at Orchard Street in 1979.

We’ve built several more up there.

Today, Orchard Street has as much cold storage capacity as our original Squalicum Waterway facility.

From soup to nuts We’ve had all kinds of things in here over the years.

[visual exposure] photography that captures a sense of place

Soup, nuts, varieties of fish.

Halibut and black cod and salmon. Crab…king and Dungeness and opilio (snow) and Santoya out of Chile. Squid out of Falkland Islands.

“We (in industry) are more sophisticated and thoughtful than many give us credit for….Some people just don’t give the whole concept of a healthy business community deep enough thought. Especially if you have a bunch of really comprehensivelyresponsible businesses.”

We had English Bay Batter at one point, the cookie dough that comes in a tub. We used to serve the cruise ship business for both Seattle and Vancouver.

As a deep-water dock, we handle a lot of shipping. We shipped millions and millions of French fries to Europe during a potato drought. We ship product to Russia every year about September.

Chahotka, a region of Russia located up on the northeastern Siberian coastline, has just a few weeks of free water each year; the rest of the time they’re iced in. We send them anything and everything – pork, beef, hot dogs, cabbage, pickles, potatoes, onions, apples, all kinds of different equipment, snowmobiles, outboard motors, boats, med supplies, clothing, chain saws….

Providing positive leadership In my position I’m trying to just make sure everybody feels like they’re being paid attention to, appreciated, getting what they need, getting complimented when they deserve it, getting help when

they need it, getting reminded when they need it. Mostly I like going around and catching people doing the right things, and recognizing them for it.

My managers tend to operate in that same fashion. I’m not someone who puts up with managers or supervisors acting like a tyrant, crusty, or negative. That’s just not the way to treat people.

Importance of the upcoming Port election The Commissioners set the tone for the staff….(and) the accounting distribution of the Port and the culture of the Port.

If the commission wants to be a private development company for 10 or 15 years, then the Port tends to act like that. The commission can direct the staff to be accommodating to transportation infrastructure that private industry and private individuals can’t otherwise provide for themselves, like airports, ferry terminals, train stations, waterfront port facilities.

If that becomes their core focus again, then I think that’s actually better for us from an economy standpoint.

Top Port priorities …Infrastructure and transportation facilities are appropriate for the Port to focus on. That brings with it the potential for a very robust economy of commerce and tourism and movement of various goods and services.

The Port should have all of that ready and open for businesses to move in and take advantage of.

And all just an hour from Mount Baker, or five minutes from going down to untie your boat and enjoy all the beautiful things about Whatcom County.

What about an opposite view?

Like it or not, we need a certain amount of business inertia headed in a positive way with responsible

All of the soups for North American customers go through this warehouse at the Squalicum Parkway facility. BCS processes about 50-60 trucks of soup daily.

good-citizen companies to help keep the whole community healthy and viable.

Serving on NW Youth Services, on Boys & Girls Club, and any number of organizations over the years I’ve seen the nonprofit side.

I put on my fund-raising hat when I’m there, and I say, OK, let’s go get my buddies from various solid businesses…and make our pitch.

Well, if we didn’t have those companies to lean on, then…all those charitable organizations would struggle if all they had was money coming from local, state, or federal government funding sources.

But the local government doesn’t really have any money either unless they have reliable businesses producing jobs, and commerce, and B&O tax, providing enough income for their employees to go out and buy a home, and pay real-estate taxes, which in turn comes back to the community in the form of tax revenues.

It’s a bit short-sighted to believe that money just falls out of the government sky somehow, magically.

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 15

ner consistent with a good corporate citizen.

Because what you do is way more important than what you say you do.

BCS workers Ishmael McIntash (left foreground) and Jose Reyes weigh and sort salmon by size and type, in this case silver salmon We’re from an Alaska fishery. also not operating a Industry and environment nuclear reaccompatibility tor down here. We have nice clean buildings that look spiffy. We’re BCS has come from a comhandling food, after all. mitment to being a responsible business that is not here to damAn elephant in the room: age the environment. Our very The Doug Rule business model relies on keep(Editor’s note: This evolved ing our facilities and operations from consensus among the board neat, clean, and tidy so that we of directors of the Whatcom can continue to have…sustainable Business Alliance during its (products) to come back year over organization retreat last sumyear over year. mer centered on articulating and The last thing we want is the summarizing the WBA’s advoenvironment damaged, and then cacy positions. Thomas heads the wonder why the fish aren’t coming group’s advocacy committee.) back or the local berries are conIf a company can come in tracting a related disease or defiand satisfy all of the rules and ciency. We (in industry) are more regulations currently in place, and sophisticated and thoughtful than they’re going to be good actors, many give us credit for…. and they’re going to adhere to Some people just don’t give everything that’s expected of all the whole concept of a healthy business community deep enough thought. Especially if you have a bunch of really comprehensivelyresponsible businesses.

existing businesses, I don’t see how we can’t be in support of them exercising their right to start a business, to stay in business, or to grow in business.

What gets me is when people identify after the fact that this is something they don’t want, so let’s devise some new rules, regulations, and roadblocks that weren’t previously in place, and prevent this business from coming into Bellingham/Whatcom County and setting up shop.

“I don’t think it’s radical to say that if somebody follows the rules they should be allowed to do something.”

That does a couple of things.

One, it doesn’t seem quite fair. It’s misleading to have all the rules on the books, and when the company decides to locate here you throw another three or four hurdles in front of them. Or just keep giving them a moving target.

The other thing it does, it projects to the rest of the world that

A ‘Doug Rule’ illustration

Any ‘evil corporation syndrome’ tag for BCS? We’ve been really careful to do what I think is the right thing while offering good deeds for the community without being prompted or asked.

(Editor’s note: Thomas spoke modestly and quietly when asked about the company’s many philanthropic contributions.)

There is value for everyone involved when you act in a man16 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

The concept is, I always like the dry cleaner scenario. Let’s say there’s a dry cleaning service that decides they want to locate here in Whatcom County someplace. And they come up and they read through the rules, and the regs, and the codes, and the WACs, and the CFRs, and all the appropriate things they have to do.

And they determine that this is going to be a suitable place to do business: I can comply with everything on the books. I can fulfill my employee relations obligations.

I can pay my taxes. I comply with the storm-water management requirements—my on-site water retention and bio-filtration swales—and every other hurdle that is currently expected. I can do all the things I have to do functionally and remain in good standing with the community.

Then, for whatever reason, someone decides within the community that they don’t want another dry cleaning company to come to Bellingham. They use chemicals. They steam clean things, and I don’t like the steam heating up the air. Whatever it happens to be. Whatever their whole objection thing is.

this is a passively-aggressive community towards anything new when it comes to business, unless you’re on the inside.

You think the “hall-pass businesses” don’t have any storm water coming off their roof? Maybe there’s an environmentally protective halo over those buildings.

Generally, that’s what our WBA board labeled as the Doug Rule.

I don’t see how we can’t support something, if they followed all the rules and did everything they’re supposed to do, and fully intend to satisfy everything that’s expected of them.

Importance of advocacy In our Whatcom Business Alliance we shouldn’t be bashful about stating a very rational, logical, practical-responsible viewpoint on those things. I don’t think it’s radical to say that if somebody follows the rules they should be allowed to do something.

But it’s become radical. How dare you have the audacity to say that if you follow the rules you ought to get a permit? That’s our world (in Whatcom County).

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Value of reasoned group voice The one thing that our WBA board has all been on the same page about is that we don’t need to go out there foaming at the mouth, in some radical way. We have to present a very logical, professional, pragmatic, objective position on various things. And then most people who have either painted us into a corner or with a certain brush will be surprised that this group is actually capable of compassion, capable of philanthropy, capable of doing things without being oppressively required to, doing good things without being told, or reminded.

The WBA operates a little different than some might expect. It’s a very thoughtful group of very polished business leaders already

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WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 17

doing a lot of good things for the community, employees, customers, and serving on all kinds of philanthropical boards—because it’s the right thing to do. They love this community.

My personal view on politics is that we need to be somewhere down the logical, practical middle, and maybe leaning a little bit more toward the side of balancing the checkbook. But certainly not radically one way or the other. I would like to see us balance the checkbook and live within our own means as a first priority, and then apply common sense, practicality, and logic to everything else.

Doug Thomas does a 360 in his father’s work world During the interview for Personally Speaking in this edition, Doug Thomas wove a story of how he avoided working for his father’s companies after the first job in his youth. Doug intended to steer his own ship, and instead wound up steering the shipping, freezing, storage, and other services of Bellingham Cold Storage – just as Stew Thomas had done before him as president and CEO. The circuitous loop from fertilizer bins to ice houses, in Doug Thomas’s own words: When I graduated from Washington State and the University of Hawaii in 1987, I had kind of made up my mind that I wasn’t going to go work for my dad’s company.

I worked for a couple of my dad’s companies when I was in grade school and high school, sweeping docks and shoveling ice. One was a fertilizer company in Burlington. I’d go inside these 180-ton fertilizer bins with a big steel rod, and dislodge all the coagulated nitrogen fertilizer from the little crevices in the top of the bins. And when I came out with all the nitrogen fertilizer stuck to my sweaty face I looked like Casper the Ghost.

18 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

Conflicting interests v. open arms Issues are so divisive, and special-interest groups have become so separate that we don’t get anything done. This gridlock is causing us to slowly waddle toward insolvency as a country, and a community at the local level. It’s not necessary.

Burlington is a good example.

Their government leadership has figured out totally how to get it done. They have folks from every walk of life, every side of the aisle, but they’ve decided that first, they’re going to make enough revenue to pay for everything

Jokingly some of my co-workers suggested, “It figures, the owner’s son gets all the easy jobs….” I knew they were just making fun; however, that statement resonated with me and I decided from that point on that I would eventually venture out on my own. I decided, hey, Dad, I love ya, but I don’t want a reference and I don’t want you to open any doors for me. I’m just going to see if I can’t do this myself.

My father had owned Agri-Chem fertilizer company in Burlington between 1974-‘87 and had some real estate holdings and what-not.

Stew also had been in the cold storage business since starting his career in Portland (Ore.) with Terminal Ice & Cold Storage in 1958. He ran the Burlington cold storage operation from 1965-‘74, and he and the Talbots (founding family of BCS) were friendly competitors. Later, Jim Talbot asked Stew to serve on the BCS board; he came to Bellingham once a month for 13 years, then moved up here full-time when he sold his fertilizer company to Con Agra and agreed to become BCS’s president and CEO in 1987.

When he transitioned to chairman of the board in January of ’99, I took over as president and CEO. Stew remains active on our board for meetings 7-8 times a year.

they want to buy. They do that by inviting businesses in to be responsible and follow standard rules. With a well-thought-out master plan, look what’s happened there in Skagit County. Burlington is way ahead of everybody. They welcomed everybody with open arms, but with a reasonable list of conditions and an attitude that if you follow them we’ll go out of our way to help you be successful.

But that’s scary to some people.

Conversely….Skamania is broke Look at Skamania County – the other end of the spectrum, boasting of being the most environmentally-protected county in the state of Washington. The problem is they don’t have any money.

They can’t pay for roads, and all the different public infrastructure that the community needs.

The problem in their mind was not that they didn’t have enough profitable/contributing business in the community. No, their thinking was, “We are not getting enough subsidies from the federal government.”

Where do they (tax subsidies) come from? Well, they come from tax dollars. Where do those come from? Those come from businesses and individuals who pay more than their fair share of taxes in other communities that are not in Skamania County. Is it okay to lean on them as your primary funding source to help meet your public needs?

That just doesn’t seem right.

There’s some big disconnect on that whole thing. It’s hard to step back and make the connection that tax money doesn’t actually come from the big-government mother ship when it really comes from hard-working, responsible, honest individuals and businesses in Boise, Dallas, Phoenix, Blaine, Boston and Topeka, etc.

It’s not hard to see why so many wind up thinking that the

mother ship is the one earning and providing the cash/subsidies.

Especially when we have leadership at the highest level making statements like, “You didn’t make your business successful, the government made your business successful” Whew!

Industry-related travels Currently, I’m chairman of my international industry association— the International Association of Refrigerated Warehouses—and formerly served as the chairman of the World Food Logistics Organization in 2003-‘04.

This has involved representing BCS and our region and our country within our industry all over the world the last 15 years.

Congratulations to the Whatcom Women in Business Finalists!

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Family and non-work life Also, I serve on the Foundation Board of Trustees—the fund-raising arm—and the Board of Governors for Washington State University.

Previously I was on the athletics advisory board.

My wife Sandy finished college recently through the WSU distance-degree program. She had started at Skagit Valley Community College, but then we had our daughter and Sandy chased her around to every event for 10-15 years. In 2010 Sandy received her degree in political science and history. She was a Presidential Leadership Award recipient—one of four featured at graduation and asked to stand in front of their entire class to have her inspiring path to completion reported by the university Provost.

Our daughter Lauren is a senior at WSU. She’s learning fashion merchandising, and was an intern at Nordstrom this past summer.

She’s president of her sorority, and we’re very proud of her!

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Read the entire 1-hour interview with Doug Thomas in Pulse Plus at www.businesspulse.com

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 19

Whatcom Business Alliance

Member News

Fostering Business Success and Community Prosperity

year it was listed as the No. 4 mortgage lender in the nation in purchase units by Marketrac.

Two WBA board members among Inc.’s Fastest Growing

Cathy Digby, Sr. Loan Officer (Photo courtesy of PrimeLending)

Digby joins PrimeLending PrimeLending’s Bellingham office has added Cathy Digby as a senior loan officer. She brings more than 30 years of mortgage industry experience to the position, having served previously at Windermere Mortgage as a loan officer.

With the addition, the Bellingham branch has grown to a staff of eight in its first two years under branch manager Josh Zanstra. PrimeLending, a PlainsCapital company founded in 1986, based in Dallas and has about 290 locations in 41 states, and more than 2,800 employees in the residential loan sector. Last 20 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

Management Services NW and Saturna Capital appeared recently on Inc. Magazine’s 500/5000 list of fastest-growing companies in the U.S. The CEOs of the two businesses, Janelle Bruland at MSNW and Jane Carten at Saturna, both serve on the WBA board of directors. (Read about them in the feature celebrating Whatcom County’s $10 million women during national Women in Business Month.)

MSNW reported growth of 104 percent over the last three years (Inc.’s measuring criteria), ranking them No. 3,155, reporting more than $10 million in sales for 2012. Through September they had 293 employees. Of those, 123 work in Whatcom and Skagit Counties.

Bruland’s company also appeared at No. 11 on the Puget Sound Business Journal’s Top 25 list of women-owned businesses in Washington (based on minimum 51% ownership). All of the 10 companies ranked higher came from the Seattle-Tacoma metro area. MSNW was the only one located north of Seattle.

SATURNA CAPITAL, employeeowned and now comprising three subsidiaries, ranked No. 3,707 on Inc.’s list based on a reported 72 percent growth since 2009.

Managing more than $4 billion in assets, the company exceeded $42.5 million in revenue during 2012 with 71 employees (59 in Whatcom County.

Randi Axelsson finalist for business women’s award Whatcom Women in Business announced its top nominees for the annual award of Professional Woman of the Year, and WBA board member Randi Axelsson joined the final six. She is sales manager at Silver Reef Hotel Casino Spa, and she sits on the WBA board of directors. The winner will be announced Oct. 22 at the awards dinner and auction fundraiser.

Willows Inn draws elite talent chefs at First Harvest The Willows Inn on Lummi Island, co-owned by managing partner John Gibb with West Shore Hospitality, commanded two sellout nights of specialmenu dinner for its recent 2nd annual First Harvest led by coowner/head chef Blaine Wetzel.

By his invitation, The Willows Inn presented four of the most prominent chefs in America and one from Peru.

The event highlighted the works of 6-time James Beard Award winner Grant Achatz from Chicago where his restaurant Alinea has been ranked frequently as No. 1 in the U.S.

and as high as No. 6 in the world; Dominique Crenn from San Francisco (Atelier Crenn), a past winner of Iron Chef on TV; Christopher Kostow from St. Helena, Calif. (The Restaurant at Meadowood), a two-time James Beard Award winner this year; Virgilio Martinez from Lima, Peru (Central Restaurante), who holds a law degree and has led the opening of restaurants in three countries, and Justin Yu from Houston (Oxheart), a semifinalist this year for James Beard’s Rising Star Chef.

SSA Marine testifies in King County Craig Cole, a consultant for SSA Marine on the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal project in Cherry Point and former Whatcom County Council chair, testified at the King County Council recently when the national AFL-CIO endorsed the project.

Cole commented, “Labor groups throughout Washington and Oregon have been on board from the very beginning and we were thrilled to see the National AFL-CIO follow that lead. We asked council members to acknowledge…(that) these projects will bring jobs and resources to our region, and to let the process play out without preemptive judgment.”

The planned multi-commodity export facility brings estimates of 1,250 permanent family-wage jobs at full operations, and to generate about $140 million in economic activity annually in Northwest Washington. The terminal will adhere to high environmental standards and will advance the balance of trade using American products to create American jobs, according to Cole.

WBA Events The WBA Board announced two prominent keynote speakers for upcoming events. Former NBA executive Bob Whitsett will speak on teamwork and leadership Oct. 17 at the annual NW Business Expo & Conference.

Nationally-known investment advisor Jim Paulsen with Wells Fargo Bank headlines the WBA’s first economic update and fore-

NWBUSINESS EXPO+Conference

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Educational Seminars 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.

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Details are on the website: www.nwbusinessexpo.com or call 360-746-0418

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Whatcom Business Alliance The Publication of The Whatcom Business Alliance

cast event Nov. 14. Both events take place at the Event Center at Silver Reef.

For ticket and sponsorship information, call 360.746.0418, or visit www.whatcombusinessalliance.com. *** The WBA publishes member news on www.

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Submit news to Editor@businesspulse.com

Fostering Business Success and Community Prosperity

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 21

Profile: City of Sumas

Rod Fadden, supervisor of utilities for the City of Sumas, at its $1.1 million ballpark.

Sumas: ‘Open for Business’ Visionary planning—such as heavy-load roads, tax breaks, and streamlined processing—provides a unique model attractive to Canadian markets and other new businesses Article and photos by Steve Hortegas

I

s Sumas becoming the model for businessfriendly communities in Whatcom County? The little city’s big slogan would suggest as much.

Sumas says it is “Open for Business.” The city has ample land, cheap power, fast-track permitting, and zero impact fees–all with a customer-based focus.

Business and civic leaders recently gave Sumas a solid “A” for their opinion of how business-aligned their city is, using words like “user-friendly,” “open” and “welcoming.”

22 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

Facts and numbers back up the grade. Home construction is up, population has grown, the downtown is revitalizing, and manufacturing is thriving. With a reported 36.7 percent retail sales increase for the first quarter of 2013, Sumas had the greatest year-over-year jump among local communities.

Throughout the recession, the city weathered the storm without laying off staff or cutting services. What’s working here that isn’t working elsewhere in Whatcom County?

Some life-long Sumas residents and members of the Chamber of Commerce offered frank and experienced takes on business in

Edited by WWU Summer Intern Lydia Love

Sumas in an interview setting for Business Pulse. Their answers were eye-opening.

A bit of history helps set the table: Mayor Bob Bromley, a second-generation owner of Bromley’s Market, along with Rod Fadden, the supervisor of utilities for the City of Sumas and owner of a business in town, pointed out how the city’s roots shaped its entrepreneurial, adaptive, and survivalist attitude.

Sumas became a major railway hub for the region about 150 years ago: the profile comprised a customs office, sawmills, logging operations, 11 saloons, and 2,000 people. Most of that evaporated

with the national economic depression during 1893-1897.

Sumas resident Jack Post discovered gold in 1897 just north of Mt. Baker and spurred a population boom. Sumas became an entrepreneurial supply center for prospectors, providing hospital care, shops, equipment, food, and clothing.

The 1920s brought another spike. Prohibition heightened security—and commerce—at the nearby Canadian border. The Sumas Roundup featuring horseracing, bulldogging, and roping attracted tens of thousands of participants each year from around the nation.

About 10,000 came from Canada.

The Great Depression and then World War II shut down the Sumas Roundup, and a proud little town dwindled to between 600-750 population, and it remained that way for about 50 years. A resurgence occurred during the ‘80s and ‘90s with renowned country performers like Faron Young, Jim Reeves, and Loretta Lynn filling the Wee Drop Inn, and bars and dance halls like the Desperado, Maple Leaf, Barkerville, and Long Jake buoyed the economy in the 1980s and early ‘90s.

Still, land values dropped, the dollar fell in the 1990s, night life waned, and 9/11 brought increased border security that slowed Canadian shopping traffic.

Sumas found itself with a pointin-time opportunity to forge an even-keeled future–and become a

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The Sumas Panel For the article on how the City of Sumas has turned itself into probably the friendliest area in Whatcom County for attracting business and commerce, regular contributor Steve Hortegas lined up a panel of city leaders who are life-long residents.

The contributors to this outstanding look at what a forward-thinking community can do to provide incentives and boost its image, economy, and life style: • Bob Bromley, mayor and second-generation owner of Bromley’s Market IGA • Rod Fadden, City of Sumas utilities supervisor and a real estate developer • David Davidson, former city manager and now associate director for WWU’s Border Policy Research Institute (BPRI) • Dodd Snodgrass, an economic development specialist at the Port of Bellingham • Richard Van Diest, owner of RCI Construction • The entire Chamber of Commerce

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 23

model of business savvy for all of Whatcom County.

But how did that happen?

In a word, manufacturing.

Bromley credits major industry with stabilizing Sumas’s economy.

“The history of Sumas has either been real high, or real low.

It hasn’t been a straight line,” Bromley said. “By the ‘80s, we knew we could no longer rely on commercial and retail business, and we needed a manufacturing and industrial base to stabilize our economy.”

The Port of Bellingham and then Mayor Bob Mitchell partnered to establish an industrial zone that integrated with Sumas’s Foreign Trade Zone designation.

The Port also acquired federal funding for a heavy-haul, allweather road built to specifications that allow for heavier truckloads in and out of Canada.

Canadian trucks carrying 145,000 pound loads (compared to U.S. trucks that max out at 105,000 pounds) can cross the border, drive onto the special heavy haul roads, and pull right up to the manufacturers’ buildings without having to unload at the border and reload onto lighter U.S. trucks.

Companies like Wood Stone (hearth stone ovens) and Elenbaas

(feed mill) set up or expanded their operations in the ‘80s.

Others like National Energy Systems (power plant operators) and IKO (asphalt shingles) came in the early to mid-‘90s. Today, among others, Sumas has Canyon Industries (hydroelectric turbines), Aggregates West (heavy hauling), Puget Sound Energy (co-generation power plant), and lumber operations Cedarprime and Teal Jones (remanufacturing mills) and SOCCO (lumber drying).

“Sumas has the highest ratio of industrial property in the county, much of it buildable and turn-key.

Sumas has a can-do attitude. They want things to run smoothly and quickly, so it’s easy doing business in Sumas.”

Dodd Snodgrass, Port of Bellingham economic development specialist

In 2007 the U.S. Border Patrol, needing a larger site and more land, chose Sumas for its sector station for coverage through the North Cascades all the way to Ross Dam. Now more than 110 agents work, fuel, reside, and participate in the community services and events.

Dodd Snodgrass, an economic development specialist at the Port of Bellingham, calls Sumas a gateway to international trade.

“We work with a lot of communities, and Sumas has the highDavid Davidson, former Sumas City Manager, continues est ratio of industrial cross-border interests as assistant director of Western’s property in the county, Border Policy Research Institute 24 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

much of it buildable and turnkey,” Snodgrass said. “Sumas has a can-do attitude. They want things to run smoothly and quickly, so it’s easy doing business in Sumas.”

David Davidson, the associate director for Western Washington University’s Border Policy Research Institute (BPRI) and formerly the Sumas City Manager for 13 years, points to “attitude” from the top.

“It is so clear to me that it boils down to the elected officials,” Davidson said. “They set the tone.

Many own their own businesses— a grocery store, drug store, auto parts store, and so on—trying to make the most of it.”

The business poll confirmed that the city leadership and staff is perceived as the most responsible for the positive business climate.

“Our entire attitude is, ‘We are here to help you.’ No one likes to be hindered by City Hall.

Our whole process is expedited compared to others,” City Works Director Fadden said in a long dissection of what sets Sumas apart from the Whatcom County norm.

Sumas departed from that norm with an innovative move recently by joining the Whatcom Business Alliance—the first city in the county to join that organization dedicated to improving the business climate through and through.

“In the end, we are more like a business partner and we run the city more like a business,” Fadden continued. “When a business inquires about Sumas, they get 100 percent of our attention. At our first meeting, we make them feel welcome and bring together all relevant parties such as the mayor, utilities, immigration attorneys, Port of Bellingham, and Small Business Development Center.

“If they are Canadian, we’ll help them learn how to do business here. Once established, we make sure things are going well for a company and see if they need anything else.”

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Gary Jones (left), who owns the company SOCCO that dries about 84 million board feet of lumber annually, said that Sumas building a heavy-haul road at the border makes it “10 times easier” for Canadians to bring products into the U.S. He’s seen here with Sumas Mayor Bob Bromley (center), owner of the local IGA market, and Richard Van Diest (right), owner of RCI Construction.

have to run around the county.

Sumas’s City Hall handles 99.5 percent of all permits, with the exception of the Northwest Clean Air Authority for industrial siting.

And Sumas’s smaller size allows for quicker responses.

Davidson also heralds Sumas’s

business foresight.

“The city did some up-front, district-wide environmental analyses at their own expense. Now if a developer walks in, they save money on studies, and the permit is more predictable. Sumas developed a permit standard that was used as

Business incentives in Sumas “Our entire attitude is, ‘We are here to help you.’ No one likes to be hindered by City Hall.”- Sumas Utility Superintendent Rod Fadden In that light, City of Sumas offers: • Lowest power rates in the county • No impact fees • No city B&O tax • Free business licenses • Rapid permitting response time with 99.5% handled at City Hall • Predictable savings due to city-paid, pre-building environmental studies • Heavy haul roads allowing heavier Canadian loads to directly offload in industrial zone without having to unload at the border and reload onto lighter US trucks • Job force larger than labor force, providing jobs for the region • Stabilized sewer rates (City of Abbotsford provides service) • Lower Infrastructure costs stemming from Port and State grants and loans • 90 acres of industrial land available from City (80) and Port (10) • City owned cable TV offers low rates and 57 channels 26 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

a model by the State Department of Community Trade and Economic Development,” Davidson said.

“It abides by the law, but established minimum timelines for each stage of the permitting process, compared to others using maximum timelines for each stage due to their backlogs. There is never a predetermined outcome, but when someone walks in the door, they will have a more rapid, less expensive, and more predicable permitting process.

They will know exactly where they will be at each stage.”

Example: A major company recently wanted to add a 4,000-square-foot building on their property. Their manager came in, and by the time he was done chatting with the police chief about their golf game, Fadden handed the manager a permit as he was about to leave.

Richard Van Diest, owner of RCI Construction, commented, “There’s not all the red tape that other municipalities have. Sumas is very pro business, and we believe it’s not just what’s good for one, it’s what’s good for all. Eventually, everybody is helped.”

Besides faster permitting, Fadden and Snodgrass detailed some of the cost savings in Sumas. It has the lowest power rates in the county acting as its own power utility, with the ability to buy power directly from Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). At 4.4 cents per kilowatthour, one manufacturer figures it saves $30,000 a month. Plus, rates have not gone up in 10 years.

Sumas charges no impact fees for parks, streets, schools, traffic and fire protection, other than hook-ups for water and sewer. A 1,500-squarefoot homebuilder saves about $22,000 in fees, and a major business can easily save $100,000.

The city pays 70 percent of the cost to retrofit inefficient equipment through its partnership with BPA. There is no city B&O tax and business licenses are free.

Sewer costs are stabilized since Sumas does not own or operate a sewer system, thanks to its partnership with the City of Abbotsford, B.C. Infrastructure costs run low because Sumas proactively pursues the Port’s Small City Economic Development Fund and the state of Washington’s Community Economic Revitalization Board grants and loans to companies that want to build on Sumas industrial land.

“Water, sewer, and electric rates are low in comparison to other cities in Whatcom County, Fadden said. “As a result, residents also benefit with attractive rates.”

Some 3 million people live within 20 minutes of Sumas’s center, and 200,000 cars and 3,500 foot travelers pass through Sumas each month, according to the City’s data collection.

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Sumas drinking water was voted the best in the state in 2012, and in January the city came in sixth in the lower 48 states for natural artesian water. Industrial water is available and attractively-priced since Sumas took steps in the 1990s to secure ground-water permits.

The city has 80 acres of industrial land available (some padready) and another 10 acres from the Port. The abandoned gas stations from the 1990s have given way to new businesses such as the thriving Edaleen ice cream store, and some shipping companies.

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because nobody ran a wire out to Sumas, and a subscription costs just $34 a month for 57 channels.

Sumas’s entrepreneurial and adaptable spirit is another factor in its success, Fadden said. In years past, Sumas scratched its head on how to encourage more of those 200,000 annual bordercrossing vehicles to stop – and shop–in Sumas. Today the game has changed.

“There are increased retail sales, but they often are the result

28 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

“Our entire attitude is, ‘We are here to help you.’

No one likes to be hindered by City Hall.”

Rod Fadden, City of Sumas superintendent of utilities

of e-commerce,” Fadden said.

“Canadians shop on line and order from companies like Amazon, who ship everything from books to tires to car parts all to seven shipping

businesses in Sumas.

“Shipping a book to Abbotsford takes one month, compared to three-day delivery through Sumas.

People come from Canada around the clock to pick up their goods, to avoid paying the GST (goods & services tax) and local sales tax, and when they return here they often load up with our milk and cheese.”

Even the farming has changed.

The stalwart dairy industry is making room for a major Canadian blueberry grower who is buying hundreds of acres of dairy farms for millions of dollars.

So what does all this mean for Sumas? Jobs.

“The job force is now larger than its labor force, meaning Sumas is providing jobs for the entire region,” Snodgrass said. “A further benefit from increased utility revenue is that, by law, some of those monies can go into the Utility Enterprise Fund which allows transfers into the general fund.”

Fadden said, “Population has grown to 1,445. Builders report 78 new homes during recent years and the increased property tax base has allowed more amenities like a youth center and new $1.1 million dollar ballpark, for which we only paid $130,000.

“In short, Sumas is perfect for a young family to drive a little and save a lot.”

Van Diest at RCI Construction agreed that Sumas is a great place for a young family to start out.

“Many think Sumas is too far out.

But it’s not. I do business all over the state,” he said, “and Sumas is a great place to do business—and the best kept secret in the world.

“For those who don’t like doing business elsewhere in the county, I say to them, ‘Come to Sumas!’”

Steve Hortegas is the principal for Hortegas Research in Bellingham (www.

HortegasResearch.com). He conducted the original stakeholder research for Sumas’s revitalization efforts.

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$10 Million Women in Business

In a class of their own Fueling the Whatcom County economy

By Mike McKenzie, Managing Editor

A

round the nation during October, the business world celebrates its female owners, CEOs, and workforce during Women in Business Month.

The staff at Business Pulse thought it would be revealing to delve into the women running businesses throughout Whatcom County. And it was.

The top producers brought in around $400 million in sales during 2012.

30 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

That surfaced when we started with our own list of local Top 75 Private Companies, published in our last edition (July). About 10 percent are owned, co-owned, founded, or run as chief executive officer by women.

In this section youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll read profiles of the seven who appeared on that prestigious Top 75 list, one of the best economic indicators in our region that celebrates success stories in the community. Six represented the $10 Million cover theme, and another is knocking on that door for next year.

BORSARI LEADS THE WAYâ&#x20AC;Ś.

Leading the lineup is Grace Borsari, founder, board chair and CEO of Altair Advanced Industries, a member of the Alpha Group headquartered in Bellingham. She reported about $250 million for her company in 2012 revenues, with around 400 employees in Whatcom County.

Altair serves as the licensed sole manufacturer of Alpha power supply units. It produces and distributes: telecommunications and alternate energy powering products for the broadband, wireless, and data industries; utilities

$400 MILLION lineup: Profiles of seven who appeared on the prestigious Top 75 Private Companies list, one of the best economic indicators in our region that celebrates success stories in the community.

(Photo by Mike McKenzie)

and industrial applications, and alternative energy solutions in a wide range of industry sectors.

The company has a factory in Suwanee, Ga., also, and contracts with several manufacturers in other countries.

Borsari obtained a degree in business and visual arts at a trade school (1969) in her homeland Switzerland. Her first profession was behind a camera, not a desk.

“I was always pulled to the outdoors,” she said, “and photography was a good fit for that. An office would have driven me crazy.”

To beat a deadline for an expir-

ing travel visa, she traveled from Bern to Canada. And stayed. There over a few years, she became and remains active at golf and rock climbing, and as a certified ski instructor, and a licensed pilot with ratings for jets, helicopters, and gliders.

By happenstance, she helped a company that started in a spare facility in British Columbia and grew into the thriving Alpha conglomerate based in Bellingham.

Alpha Group estimates that it corners about 85 percent of market share in its solutions for industries across countless countries world-

wide. “I like to say that the sun never sets on the Alpha Empire,” Borsari said.

It all began when partner Fred Kaiser received a call from an acquaintance who was a cable TV operator. He needed a backup power supply. Kaiser, an electrical engineer (and formerly a Business Pulse cover story), set to work creating it.

Borsari helped grow that business several ways. In the beginning, she created the Alpha logo, which remains visible these 37 years later on virtually every cable TV pole. She managed purchasWHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 31

$10 TITLEMillion Women in Business ing, inventory, assembling circuit boards, silk screening, and basically all of the production side.

And she assembled control circuit boards as they built the large power-source units on the floor of a rented warehouse.

“I like to say that the sun never sets on the Alpha Empire.”

Grace Borsari, Alpha Technologies and Altair

All of that opened the door to Bellingham where she moved to start up her first manufacturing facility, Altair Advanced Industries, now a fixture of 35 years. She also serves on the board for nonprofit NW Innovative Resource Center, which assists start-up entrepreneurs and inventors.

One of the things the partners remain most proud of is that they started with no capital. “We never even took a bank loan,” Borsari

said. They were paid in advance upon contracting the product, and reinvested sales revenue to build more. Today, the front lobby of Alpha Technologies displays several human-sized and larger iterations of the original concept of back-up power units.

Reflecting on the beginnings, Borsari recalled a humorous moment from a trip in recent years to Colorado. In the Denver area a museum presents a history of CATV, displaying units used throughout the cable television industry.

While looking at the exhibits, Borsari came across one of their original Alpha units. She noticed one tiny red spot in particular on the trim pot. “To hold the little voltage adjustment in place required glue that was red. It was expensive, so I bought the cheapest red fingernail polish I could find and glued it with that. And there it was, on one of our original products. I had to laugh.”

Profiles of seven who appeared on the prestigious Top 75 Private Companies list, one of the best economic indicators in our region that celebrates success stories in the community Others featured from among the Top 75 private sector producers in Whatcom County and their ranking and 2012 sales range include: • Jane Carten, president and CEO in the founding family of Saturna Capital (No. 20, about $42 million); • Kathleen Gundel, CEO and co-owner with her husband of Specified Fittings (No. 22, $25M-$30M); • Marcy Hipskind, CEO and co-founder of Family Care Network who represented the theme of our salute on the cover (No. 23, $25M-$30M); • Sarah Rothenbuhler, CEO and co-owner of Birch Equipment (No. 50, $12M-$15MM) • Janelle Bruland, Owner/ CEO of Management Services NW (No. 59, more than $10 million) Primed to join the $10 million women is Anne-Marie Faiola, CEO and founder of Brambleberry (No. 69, $7MM-plus) Enjoy their remarkable stories of assent in the local business community….

32 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

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$10 Million Women in Business

Dr. Marcy Hipskind. (Photo by Michelle Manson)

Family Care Network: Multiclinic business model leads to $30 million/300 jobs

By Tara Nelson

O

ne Bellingham physician practices with a mission to keep the idea of a family doctor alive and well–at least in Whatcom County–in this era of specialization across the health-care spectrum.

That doctor is Marcy Hipskin at Family Care Network, which she helped start up from humble beginnings and grew to generate a whopping $30 million in revenue last year with more than 300 employees.

Health care in America is a vastly different landscape today than it was in our grandparents’ day.

Take, for example, the family physician like Dr. Hipskind. Family medicine, unlike specialized fields of medicine, involves caring for 34 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

graduate degree from Washington State University. But it wasn’t until after she earned her masters in health administration at University of Washington that she decided to go to medical school at Washington University in St. Louis. She later completed her residency training at the University of Colorado medical school as well.

“I’ve always had an interest in health and systems,” she said.

“When you grow up in a medical family, you’re always exposed to the healthy point of view. A lot of people don’t get that chance.”

After graduating, Dr. Hipskind joined a small practice in Bellingham on D Street with a few other physicians. Over the years, they discovered that while owning a private practice allowed for more freedom, it was a lot more efficient to combine administrative and billing operations with other practices. And so in 1999, after working in a small practice for 18 years, Dr. Hipskind and her associates decided to merge and create Family Care Network, one of the largest independent and locallyowned businesses in Whatcom County today.

Dr. Hipskind took the role of president for the organization.

The title “president” is a bit of a misnomer, she said. “I’m really a managing partner in a large group practice of family physicians.”

As one might imagine, managing a group of doctors can be a chal-

a patient over the course of their lifetime and helping them in more comprehensive ways.

Preventative care used to be what routine visits to the family doctor were all about. Whereas the No. 1 health concern in America used to be acute illness, it is now chronic disease, which requires certain behaviors to occur to prevent and change.

That is Dr. Hipskind’s passion with patients.

A selfproclaimed “perpetual student,” she grew up in (left to right) Medical Director and VP of Quality, Dr. Bertha Safford; Bellingham Clinical Services Manager and registered nurse (BSN) Nancy Stothart; and earned Heart Failure Care Manager and registered nurse (BC) Jessica Schroeder, her underand Care Management Coordinator and registered nurse Julie Fox.

said the network plans to add another clinic in Skagit County at the end of the year.

She agreed to appear on the cover of this edition, standing front LPN Gwen Langstraat (left) checks the blood pressure of and center on behalf co-worker Alicia Portee, a patient services representative. of Women in Business Month. A visit to the lenging thing to do. But it’s also company’s administranecessary to facilitate and oversee tive offices revealed an all-female needed changes in the support staff, and across the street one of systems, and find ways to streamthe clinics had mostly women, as line business practices. well (one male doctor appeared, “In the years prior to coming and he was new on staff). together, it was easier to function In spare time, Dr. Hipskind as an independent business, but it loves to travel and experience is now more efficient to do it this all outdoor activities germane to way,” she said. “Most of the chalthe Northwest. After the photo lenge running an organization lies shoot for the cover, she traveled in defining how you want it to to Greece the next day. The travel work and then figuring out how to bug is ironic, given that her Web actually make it work.” bio states that her favorite quote is, “The real voyage of discovery “Most of the challenge consists not in seeking new landrunning an organization lies scapes, but in having new eyes.”

She’s mother to two grown

in defining how you want it to work and then figuring out how to actually make it work.”

children, and her extended family comprises all of her associates at FCN she’s worked with ever since returning home from college 32 years ago.

Regarding what drives her business philosophy, Dr. Hipskind said it helps that she grew up in a medical family—her father was a physician, and her mother was a social worker and child development specialist—so she always had an interest in health. She said also felt strongly about preserving the value of the family physician in America, something she fears is becoming increasingly forgotten about in today’s world.

“The thing that makes it really work is the passion to preserve family medicine, which is really just taking care of people over their lifespan, developing a relationship to help people through their medical illnesses, and also through preventative care and helping them learn to live their life in a healthy way.”

Dr. Marcy Hipskind, president of Family Care Network

Fortunately for Dr. Hipskind, she quickly realized that what’s critical to taking care of patients is similar to what’s critical in managing staff and colleagues: listening, finding out what they care about, accountability, and learning how to engage people.

Dr. Hipskind now spends about half of her time practicing as a family physician and half of her time overseeing larger operations of the business. Family Care Network has more than 300 employees, and serves about 100,000 patients through 10 different medical offices in various Whatcom County locations, plus one medical testing center. She

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 35

$10 Million Women in Business

Jane Carten (Business Pulse file photo)

Saturna continues to grow under Carten’s leadership

By Tara Nelson

O

n January 1, 1988, Jane Carten sat down and wrote a letter to her mother, the late Markell Kaiser, one of the founding co-owners of Saturna Capital Corporation. In it, she advised Mrs. Kaiser that she was looking for a new chief investor and thought her mother would be “a very nice asset” to her company, “Kaiser Co.—Fads And Fashions, a small-but-growing company that imaginarily buys little companies that we notice are on the move.” During Carten’s tenure at the imaginary Kaiser Co., she acquired Esprit, Benneton, and 36 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

Coca-Cola. Not a bad start for a 13-year-old girl.

Today, Carten’s letter, along with hand-designed business cards, is framed in her office overlooking a beautiful courtyard, perfectly-manicured grass, and water fountains in downtown Bellingham—just across the street, coincidentally, from where her grandfather, an eye, nose and throat specialist, opened his medical practice during the 1940s.

Carten now serves as the president and CEO of Saturna Capital, a company headquartered in Bellingham with offices in Malaysia, Reno, and Chicago.

Here’s another thing to know about Carten: She oversees the day-to-day operations of one of the world’s largest Islamic mutual fund managers. Last year Saturna Capital reported a bit over $42 million in revenue stream, while managing

about $4 billion in assets under management—a common tool for measuring volume of business in a financial services firm.

Recently the Institutional Investor News selected Carten as one of the 13 “Rising Stars of Mutual Funds,” an award that distinguishes the foremost, upand-coming mutual fund industry professionals. She serves on the executive board of the Whatcom Business Alliance.

And when she’s not volunteering on a host of community associations like the Mount Baker Theatre, or speaking at Western Washington University’s spring commencement ceremony as Young Alumna of the Year, or socializing with Facebook CEO and author Sheryl Sandberg (Lean In) at her home in Los Angeles, Carten is fine-tuning her finance game with books like Warren Buffet’s Invests Like A Girl And Why You Should, Too. Sure, the title might elicit some smirks, but these books are no joke.

Just take a look at a few of the stats: Women, on average, are 45 percent more likely to trade less than men do, be less optimistic than their male counterparts, and shun risk more than men. Studies show that women also put more time and effort into researching possible investments.

“The world of finance has historically been male-dominated, but it doesn’t have to be,” Carten said.

“And I think that’s changing. There are perspectives and skills both men and women bring to financial analysis and to the management of a company. That said, being a woman in Islamic finance presents unique challenges as well.”

Being in male-dominated industries is nothing new to Carten.

One of four girls in her family, she jokes maybe her parents needed another boy. In her early college years, she had set out to become a pediatrician and had taken chemistry courses. She later switched

majors to another male-dominated field of study—computer science.

In fact, one of Carten’s first jobs at Saturna was wiring computers in the building.

“I know this business because I’ve done every job in this business,” she said. “I’m also really good at crimping cable.”

And it just so happens that for Carten, the worlds of finance and medicine aren’t so different.

“Investing can be very exciting, but you also get to help people in ways that no one else can,” she said. “We’re kind of like doctors in that people tell you things that are really personal and confidential.

And you can literally help people change their own lives. It’s similar to a doctor watching their patients get healthier.”

company. Saturna also frequently hosts “Lunch & Learn” continuing education classes for their employees with everything from yoga to business ethics.

“We’re looking to get rid of our soda machine as well,” she said.

When asked about the legacy she hopes to instill in the company, she said she looks forward to continuously improve and collaboratively find ways to offer better solutions every day.

“It can be challenging in a mar-

ket-based business because there are a lot of things beyond your control,” she said. “It is also exciting to grow the business, educate people and offer them really great products at a reasonable price.

However, the most important thing I’m doing is taking a company run by a very strong and charismatic founder (her father, Nick Kaiser, still chairman of the board) and turning it into a company that can stand the test of time and be here for many more generations.”

“I know this business because I’ve done every job in this business. I’m really good at crimping cable.”

Jane Carten, Saturna Capital

Sitting at her desk, Carten paused to show a video by a group called “The Community Yoga Project,” featuring a long-haired, bearded man demonstrating “Chair Yoga” as he calls it. The video was forwarded to her by an employee and incorporates yoga stretches into simple exercises one can do without getting up from the computer-no surprise given that Saturna works hard to instill a workplace culture that encourages healthy lifestyles and employee feedback.

“It’s so Bellingham,” she said.

“But it feels really good.”

From an “endless fruit bowl” in the break room offering employees free, fresh fruit, free gym memberships, 100 percent health care coverage, and 50 percent off season ski and snowboarding passes, Carten said she has taken an active role in facilitating health and wellness initiatives within the

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 37

$10 Million Women in Business

Cathy Gundel (Business Pulse staff photo)

A $30 million pipeline: Gundel keeps Specified Fittings on up-turns after many turn-downs

By Tara Nelson

W

hen Kathy Gundel and her husband, Greg, wanted to open a pipe fabrication company in the early 90s, all the local banks they asked for financing said “No.” Although Greg had plenty of experience in pipe fabrication from working for a Canadian company many years and Kathy had experience owning and operating an accounting business in Ferndale, the couple didn’t have enough assets for the bank to consider collateral.

So on a wing, a prayer, and Kathy’s masters of public accounting degree from the University of Washington, the couple borrowed against everything they had and used credit cards to start what is 38 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

now known as Specified Fittings.

Last year the company did about $30 million in the business of manufacturing and selling customized pipe fittings to companies across the United States, Mexico, and Canada, as well as some overseas businesses. And as it so happens, they frequently get phone calls from the same banks -sometimes the same banks that had refused to help them in the beginning–asking if they’d like a loan.

“They ask us to borrow money all the time now,” she said. “But we don’t like to borrow money unless we have to.”

Call it poetic justice if you like, but Greg will tell you the company owes a lot to his wife, the woman who made the smart business decisions that brought financial stability to their company in the beginning. That financial stability,

in turn, earned the trust of vendors and banks to allow them to borrow money later for strategic investments and facility upgrades and to continue to grow.

“She allowed me to go out and do my sales and work with production managers to make the product while she shepherded the little money we had until we got past our growth curve,” Greg Gundel said.

“The credibility Kathy brings to the company has a lot to do with why we’re successful today. Very, very few companies have someone as good as her, particularly in the beginning when they’re most needed.”

Specified Fittings operates a 55,000-square foot facility on 12 acres at W. Smith Road and Guide Meridian, and recently acquired another 25,000-square-foot plant on three acres from a former competitor in Stevensville, Montana.

Kathy Gundel said they easily could expand their capacity at their Bellingham location, but they are held back by space constraints on the property and growth-management regulations.

“We’re continuing to grow,” Kathy said. “Our sales just continue each year. Even during the 2009 recession we continued to stay steady, which was very fortunate.”

Kathy, however, credited at least half of their success to her husband’s management of their team and the company’s customer service goals.

“Greg is extremely service-oriented,” she said. “He’s really taught the sales people if you can get something done today, do it. Don’t wait until tomorrow. I think that’s helped us as well.”

However, as Greg Gundel said, “I sell. We have a guy who makes things. But we’d be nowhere if not for the way Kathy runs the company. I can make any presentation and bid I want to, but she knows how to say no to it if it isn’t the best thing for us.”

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$10 Million Women in Business

Sarah Rothenbuhler (Photo courtesy of Birch Equipment)

Building from the Ground up

By Tara Nelson

D

uring the late 1980s in Whatcom County a storm was brewing on the horizon. Birch Equipment rentals, a small, local company, had successfully captured a good percentage of the heavy-equipment rental market in the Northwest, but that was all about to change.

In a period of time now known

by Birch employees as the “Birch Bermuda Triangle,” long-time management had left and a national equipment rental corporation had its eyes on acquiring the company. When the owners said no, the national corporation made a not-so-subtle vow to run Birch into the ground.

Eventually, the rivals reached a deal in which the national corporation would buy a portion of Birch Equipment. Company officials toured the facility, got to 40 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

know the business practices and staff, and then backed out of the deal at the last minute. Soon after, the company set up a store down the street using Birch’s customer, equipment, and staff information.

“We were in a hole and we just dug ourselves out of a hole....Our motto was at first survival, and now it’s continual improvement.

That’s still our motto, you can never stop.”

Sarah Rothenbuhler, co-owner and CEO of Birch Equipment

Morale was at an all-time low and the company, as the rival promised, was headed into the ground. They were quickly losing money, staff, equipment, and market share.

Enter Sarah Rothenbuhler, teller

of this tale, a 28-year-old at the time who had a minority ownership in the company. She had grown up in her family’s contractor business in Bellingham and had returned to Birch Equipment after interning and working as part of the public relations team for The Seattle Seahawks. While in high school and college, she spent her summer breaks working on construction sites in Alaska and as a mechanic’s assistant at Birch Equipment.

Inspired by team strategies she learned by working with football teams, Rothenbuhler thought she had the ability to turn the business around and set it on the right course.

“Birch Equipment had had a great run with great customer service-oriented people, but they were headed in a downward spiral with no healthy systems for remaining staff or equipment to fall back on,” she said. “The other stockholders seemed pleased that I would take on this problem.

“Looking back it was clear they figured I’d run the company into the ground more quickly so equipment and property could be liquidated or transferred on.”

Rothenbuhler, instead, didn’t run the company into the ground.

In fact, by 2001, she had gained enough traction and righted Birch Equipment’s course enough to get bank support that would buy out all other stockholders.

Last year they did $15 million in sales. Services and equipment divide about equally among industrial and manufacturing, commercial contractors, and infrastructure projects with government and military clients – about 90 percent of the business. The other 10 percent comes from home improvement needs. And they’ve expanded their service area to a 3,000-mile radius that stretches from Southeast Alaska to the Dakotas.

Their retail business also provides construction accessories from safety gear to spill containment products and booms. On the

rental side of the business model, Birch ranks 93rd in the nation for equipment rental companies, according to the Rental Equipment Register’s industry magazine.

Not bad for a small, independent Northwest company that was about to die during the 1990s.

“We were in a hole and we just dug ourselves out of a hole, using systems we built from underneath the ground up and bringing in good, quality people,” she said. “Our motto was first survival, and now it’s continual improvement. That’s still our motto, you can never stop.”

Rothenbuhler said her primary focus is the overall health of the company, its direction, and establishing and supporting goals with the Birch Equipment management team through system improvements, and customer and community development.

She said that each year, Birch Equipment contributes more than $100,000 to community organizations in Whatcom, Skagit, and Island counties and the Greater Sitka, Alaska, area. The company covers everything from youth organizations to animal rescue groups to hospitals, homeless shelters, disaster relief organizations, and the arts.

“I work with amazing people,” she said. “Each and every one of us work really hard to be the best at what we do, and we enjoy doing it, and being a positive part of our families and communities. I really do get to work with some of the best, smartest, hardest-working people in the industry in the form of co-workers and customers.”

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WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 41

$10 Million Women in Business cessful regional facility management companies in the nation with $10.2 million in business last year, 280 employees, and more than 100 subcontractors.

“When you start out with a small business, you as the owner are wearing all the hats and as you continue to grow, you have to make the decision to delegate some of those responsibilities to other people on your team.

Otherwise you can’t grow.”

Janelle Bruland (Photo courtesy of NW Management Services)

Cleaning up: Bruland leads janitorial service from 10 cleaning jobs to $10.2 million enterprise by being bold, letting go, and giving back

By Tara Nelson

A

sk Lynden native Janelle Bruland how she went from owning a small office cleaning business to running a multi-million dollar regional facility management company and she’ll probably make it sound easy.

But Bruland’s core strategies, as simple as they may sound, take a divergent approach to more conventional business thought. And if those approaches were able to help rank her business 59 out of the top 75 private companies in Whatcom County perhaps it’s worth paying attention to.

42 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

For example, according to Bruland, if you want productive employees, the business must work hard to ensure they have a healthy balance of work, play, and flex time. If you want to lead the company toward success, you have to learn to work together and know when not to micromanage. Finally, if you want to build your business, find out what your customer’s needs are before you start marketing your services to them.

Bruland started the company as a basic office cleaning business in 1995 with just 10 employees cleaning 10 buildings in Whatcom County. In less than 20 years, Bruland has grown the business into one of the largest, fastest-growing, and most suc-

Janelle Bruland, CEO, Management Services NW

Two years ago she earned an award that almost always goes to somebody in the Puget Sound/ King County region—the Women Business Owners (WBO) Nellie Cashman Woman Business Owner of the Year Award. It honors women who have “enhanced the status of women entrepreneurs through their vision, perseverance, and fearless, relentless leadership in business and the community,” by definition of the WBO. Today Management Services Northwest services companies from Washington, Oregon and Idaho, with everything from light bulb replacements to lighting renovations, landscape maintenance and snow removal to carpet cleaning, electrical, office cleaning, interior and exterior painting, just to name a few. Bundling services together also helps save individual business owners time and money because they can call one company instead of several different contractors.

“We’re a one-call source for all your facility service needs,” Bruland said.

When asked what kind of business philosophy helped her achieve success, Bruland said it was finding the right people and being bold. Bruland said she thinks a lot of small businesses get stuck because they can’t relinquish wanting to control every aspect of the business.

“When you start out with a small business, you as the owner are wearing all the hats and as you continue to grow, you have to make the decision to delegate some of those responsibilities to other people on your team, otherwise you can’t grow,” she said.

Being bold means making bold moves when the time is right.

Bruland said for example in 2009, when the economic recession hit hard, they made a decision to follow through on their plans to move into a larger 7,200-sf facility near Grandview Business Park.

“That was when everyone was saying hunker down and don’t spend any money,” she said. “But

making the purchase of our new facility during the recession was the right decision for us.”

Bruland also believes in giving back to the community, something she said was instilled in her by her parents from a young age. Not only is she active on several community boards, she encourages her employees to get involved as well.

“My parents have been such a great example of work ethic, integrity and giving back to the

community,” she said. “I remember when I was a child and my dad would put a quarter in my hand for the offering plate at church, and I watched him and my Mom give back in so many ways, through helping someone in need to volunteering on various community boards. That and all the time and energy my parents gave to the things that mattered to them. It really resonated with me and influenced who I am today.”

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 43

$10 Million Women in Business

Anne-Marie Faiola (Photos courtesy of Bramble Berry)

Cleaning out the competition: Bramble Berry Soap rides social media to $8 Million plateau

By Sherri Huleatt

A

nne-Marie Faiola is a self-taught, soapmaking, social media producer extraordinaire.

As the CEO and founder of Bramble Berry Soap Making Supplies in downtown Bellingham, she expanded her customer base across the country and her social media reach across the globe in just 15 years.

She utilizes an in-house web TV set-up and multiple social media sources to supply customers with a constant information stream and customer-service feedback formats.

This all began when she was 16 and she checked out a series of books from the library on soap44 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

making, then worked tirelessly to master her new hobby. At 18, she began selling soap wherever she could—at craft shows, gyms, friend’s houses—everywhere.

After nine months of trying her hand as a correctional officer (at that point she had aspirations of joining the FBI), Faiola decided her personality—and favorite hobby— were too bubbly for the inmates, so she took a gamble by transforming her love of crafts into a full-time career.

“If I could quit the job I hated and make $1,000 on the weekend doing something I loved,” Faiola said, “then I thought I could inspire other women to quit jobs they weren’t suited for and make money doing the things they loved, too.”

After charging $15,000 on her credit card to start her new busi-

ness and unloading a semi-truck’s worth of soap making supplies into her home, Faiola was ready to get Bramble Berry off the ground in 1998.

Since making $60,000 in sales the first year, Bramble Berry has seen double-digit growth every year since—even during the recession. The company now rakes in more than $8 million in annual revenue, and boasts 56 tightknit employees—all of which are required to be soap-making experts. They offer more than 2,500 products, including candles, cosmetics, and bath-and-body essentials, and a 16,000 square foot warehouse located downtown.

This year Bramble Berry was ranked in Business Pulse as one of the top privately-owned businesses in Whatcom County, No. 69, for the 2012 sales cycle and is on track to top their output this year.

Much of this continued growth can be attributed to the Internet.

Faiola is a social media powerhouse, and she uses her expertise online to connect with and expand her customer reach every day.

“Fifteen years ago there was no way to talk to all your customers at once, but now that can happen with the click of a button,” she said.

“Fifteen years ago there was no way to talk to all your customers at once, but now that can happen with the click of a button.”

Anne-Marie Faiola, owner, Bramble Berry, who uses newsletters, “Soap Queen” blog, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Instragram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn for customer services

Faiola, known as the “Soap Queen” on her blog, is adamant that social media should be used to help clientele—not to throw

sales pitches at them. She blogs every day with recipes, advice, and company-related news. “We try very hard to make every person delighted and happy to do service with us,” she said. “We use our learning platforms, like You Tube, as part of our customer service platforms. Our social media experience should augment our customer service experience.”

Bramble Berry’s social presence is so effective, in fact, Faiola discovered that some of her competition was using her YouTube tutorials to train their own staff.

“All of our learning resources set us apart from our competition.

You won’t find anyone else in the industry doing the videos, blogs, and tutorials that we do.”

In addition to personally responding to customers through Instagram, Facebook, and a variety of other channels, Faiola has three employees working nearly fulltime on social media. She said if you’re trying to get your business off the ground and into social networking, email newsletters are the No. 1 way to connect with your customers. Blogs, Facebook, and Twitter are the runners-up.

Social media isn’t a one-way street for Faiola, though. Her staff uses online customer feedback to

source new products, design new recipes and techniques, refine their customer service experience, and carry out easy-going conversaFaiola at the soap counter tions with as many customers as they can.

Faiola said, “I am genuinely interested and excited to learn more about our customHandmade soap ers and their lives and we ture where male business leaders use social media to help refine the dominate, there’s a lack of female customer experience.” companionship because there are As a successful woman in fewer women managing large, business, mother of two young successful businesses than men. children (one just a few months “Being self-employed is absoago), wife, and author of a new lutely fun and exciting and gruelsoap-making book, Faiola admits ing and heartbreaking, and has to facing her fair share of difficulsuch highs and such lows that for ties. On top of balancing work and many people it can be lonely,” family, Faiola said that in a culsaid Faiola. “That’s why it’s so important to find other people that you can talk to about business and bounce ideas off of.”

This devotion to building Take care of your mind and body. Being in business is a marathon relationships is clearly reflected not a sprint. Keep your energy high, work out regularly, and fuel at Bramble Berry.

Out of all of your body with healthy foods. When you keep your stress level in Bramble Berry’s successes, Faiola check, you can overcome any hurdle that presents itself. If you said she’s most proud of the reladon’t take care of your body, you’ll get burned out. tionships built within her team Leaders are readers. To be innovative, you need to stay on top of and their dedication to the comnew information relevant to your field. There’s no excuse not to pany and each other. “It’s truly read the latest and greatest material. All of the resources you need an honor to have people work for to be an expert in your career path are out there for you to devour me,” she said. “Every day they and learn. come in, I feel honored.”

Faiola’s tips for business women

1 2 3

Surround yourself with people who are better than you. Ask yourself: do the people around you invigorate and inspire you? Do they encourage you to learn and grow? You need to surround yourself with friends, colleagues, and mentors that inspire you to be a better person; this will help sling shot you to success.

Sherri Huleatt is a free-lance writer in Bellingham and a frequent contributor to Business Pulse.

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 45

Women in Business Month

Women succeed in Whatcom County on many fronts

By Business Pulse Staff

BUSINESS IS GELLING: Julia Jacobson, (left background) 25-year-old president/ CEO of NEXT Medical Products, bought her company in July 2012 and employs all women except one—a fitting story for National Women in Business Month.

Here, she joins Margarita Elias in collecting 100 of the single-dose gel packets off of a conveyor belt.

(Photo by Lydia Love) 46 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

I

n celebrating outstanding women in business, our reporting team—project manager Tara Nelson, free-lance writer Sherri Huleatt, and WWU summer intern Lydia Love—didn’t stop with the upper echelon in sales.

In scouring for the inspirational, the sensational, the unusual, and the solid business stories of Whatcom women owners/CEOs, they delivered a variety of other stories that exemplify extraordinary achievement.

Those range from articles about

witches (sorta, they’re paranormal) and growing Christmas trees (it’s that time of year, the string of holidays stretching from Halloween to New Year’s); from restaurants to medical gel manufacturing, and a shipping distribution company that can’t stop growing.

Six profiles offer insights into the pursuit of dreams, the financial roller-coaster, the ingenuity, and the marketing acumen of women running businesses, and what they give back to the region’s economic community.

As this series came together, we of course knew that we could only scratch the surface.

Six profiles offer insights into the pursuit of dreams, the financial roller-coaster, the ingenuity, and the marketing acumen of women running businesses…. the inspirational, the sensational, the unusual, and the solid business stories of Whatcom women owners/CEOs (who) exemplify the extraordinary.

Search as we might, we could not find any statistics kept by county, state, or national organizations about how many women own or run businesses in Whatcom County. We do know, as just one example, that Nancy

Steiger—featured in our magazine last year—is CEO of the largest employer in the county, Peace Health St. Joseph Medical Center.

Appropriately, the series begins with the Whatcom Women in Business, a nonprofit organization, and its president Lynne Henifin, who runs three businesses. Each year in October the WWIB holds its large fundraising auction and awards dinner in

conjunction with National Women in Business Month.

Many other names appeared on a list of a large network of successful women operating in real estate, health care, food from restaurants to coffee to baking, jewelry, cosmetics and hair salons, and a multitude of home-based businesses.

We salute them all. And present you with six.

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WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 47

Women in Business Month

Henifin

exemplifies and leads the mission of Whatcom Women in Business

By Mike McKenzie

G

rowing up, Lynne Henifin, who has ownership in three Bellingham businesses, always had entrepreneurial business activity going on around her in eastern Washington.

Therein lies her gravitation toward helping other women with their business pursuits, whether it’s her daughter Jessica, or the Whatcom Women in Business organization where she serves as president, or the women they mentor and give scholarships to. WWIB stages its annual awards dinner in October to raise money for those scholarships (see the finalists on page 49 for the Professional Woman of the Year Award).

At one point Henifin’s father had one of the world’s largest collections of old radios, collateral from a mail-order business selling radios. A brother’s gig: punch boards and pull tabs like the lotteries use. Sister and mother: a Mail by the Mall store in the Tri Cities area.

48 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

Lynne Henifin (left), president of Whatcom Women in Business and owner of three businesses, enjoys working with her daughter Jessica Brearley, who is director of sales and marketing for one of them, Northwest Safety Signs. (Photo by Mike McKenzie)

Lynne married into a similar background; her husband’s family had private businesses in ranching, logging, and his father’s construction company that started in the ‘50s. Lynne and her husband Jaime worked in that company, and took ownership of Henifin Construction in 1999 when his father retired.

“Family succession plans,” Lynne said, describing her upbringing and trail to her busi-

ness world. At the center lay another common thread: “There was always diversity.”

She continues the family trend.

Branching out of construction, she owns two other businesses, and manages 20,000-square-feet of rented properties in Henifin Plaza.

In construction work, the Henifins had discovered a niche. Signs.

“We saw a need for certain specific signs, and nobody around here was making them,” Lynne

said. “Regulatory signs, like for traffic control.” Northwest Safety Signs Inc. was born in 1992.

Then last year, with daughter Jessica Brearley as director of sales and marketing, another tentacle grew from signage—Northwest Custom Signs & Graphics. The year that the Henifins transitioned into Henifin Construction, 1999, the WWiB selected Lynne as a

finalist for their prestigious award as NW Safety Signs was thriving.

Nine years later, the group named Lynne the Whatcom Professional Woman of the Year.

The next year she joined the WWiB. “I wanted to help start the scholarship program,” she said, a program that since has provided more than $20,000 in tuition for college women on a business track.

Lynne Henifin hadn’t begun in that direction. She studied nutrition at Huxley State College, and then earned a degree in environmental health at Western Washington University. She worked for the Whatcom County Health Department a few years, overseeing nutrition with the WIC program (women, infants, and children).

Eventually, private business

FINALISTS FOR WWiB ‘professional WOMAN OF THE YEAR’

(All photos courtesy of Whatcom Women in Business)

Karen Barlean CFO, Barlean’s Organic Oils

Michelle Kuss-Cybula Principal, Fairhaven Middle School

Randi Axelsson Hotel Sales Mgr., Silver Reef Hotel Casino Spa

Anny Havland Exec. Producer, Talk It Up TV Co-founder, Neighborhood Mortgage

Cheri Kulti Exec. Director, YWCA

Bridget Cantrell Author, speaker, expert witness, and licensed mental health counselor

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 49

became the axis of her career. A familiar trend has developed there —family succession. “We made a conscious personal family choice around 2004-5,” she explained, “to move from a larger construction company direction to a smaller regional model.”

Henifin Construction’s core clientele features remodels and speculative houses, utilizing complete trade services (that diversification thing again) in general contracting—projects such as the exterior painting of Peace Health St. Joseph Medical Center. Jace Henifin, a son, works as supervisor and project manager of excavator operations.

Another son, Zack, might join the family succession plan someday. But he’s busy these days with pro basketball. He’s a 6-feet-6 forward who played for Western’s national championship team two years ago, and he is in an Australian league after first playing a season in Romania.

50 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

The sign companies extend now from the original safety concept

“The organization doesn’t center on promoting itself —members aren’t eligible for the awards—it centers on giving back to others….

Scholarships. Mentoring programs. Donations to charity….”

Lynne Henifin, president of WWIB, speaking of its mission

to canvas and full banner. “Any signage except electrical,” Lynne said. “We’ve done things like manage the rolling slowdowns on the I-5 corridor when the bridge fell through in Skagit County, to signage for a wedding event at Evergreen Gardens.”

Her business operations feed

another of Lynne Henifin’s traits.

“I don’t like the board or corporate aspects of big business. I like making decisions quickly, logically, without committees.”

Variety spices her work motivations, including leadership within the WWIB. “I love the core values,” she said. “The organization doesn’t center on promoting itself – members can’t become a finalist or award winner—it centers on giving back to others in a variety of ways. The scholarships.

Mentoring programs. Donations to charity from the money we raise at the banquet and auction.”

That event, honoring women in the Whatcom community, takes place October 22 at the Event Center at Silver Reef.

“It feels so good to be part of a group of women willing to share their business acumen with others,” Lynne said, “and to celebrate successful women in our community.”

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Women in Business Month

Cathy Hayward-Hughes Photo by Lydia Love

Work Ethic Results in $3.5 Million Company

By Tara Nelson

C

athy HaywardHughes has come a long way from working on fish processing boats as a teenager in Southeast Alaska to running a $3.5 million frozen foods shipping company just north of Ferndale today, Crystal Creek Logistics.

Hayward-Hughes earned her degree in industrial technology from Western Washington University and since then she has more than 30 years of experience in operations management. But it was the work ethic she learned while slinging fish as a child that spawned her success.

Hayward-Hughes was born and raised in Kenai, Alaska, pop.

7,000, a village that had few income opportunities at the time other than fishing. She began 52 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

working at age 12 on processing boats and got her first foreman job at the age of 18. No one questioned her age as long as she could do the work, and the work was no problem for HaywardHughes. Her family owned and operated a 37-foot commercial troller during the summer months.

She described her fishing crew experiences as “fantastic” because they exposed her to young people who were in college and had dreams. “It was the heyday of crabbing in Kodiak, Alaska, during the early 1970s,” she said. “You could go to any packing plant and get in line, and the foreman would grab a few people from the line each day. If you survived four days you were considered one of the old crew. If you survived a season, you were an expert.”

Back on her family’s boat in the summer, her father would pore over job applications, taking time to show Hayward-Hughes and

her sister how to review them. A record of success was important.

In those days, resumes were typed by hand on a typewriter and her father would hold each sheet up to the light to look for corrective fluid and over-struck typos.

He would reject those, figuring if someone would send in a sloppy resume, they’d take the same sloppy approach to their work.

“Kodiak was my training ground,” Hayward-Hughes said.

“It was full-on real life, with ups and downs, unpredictable events, and constant excitement. This was training like no other and it made it possible for me to excel at each job and then move on to a better job as rapidly as possible. My dream was always to have a job of my own.”

Fast forward a few decades and she not only has a job of her own, but a company of her own to boot.

Her office is filled with lush green tropical plants and Buddha heads, lending to the calm, cool-headed workplace culture she encourages.

Hayward-Hughes had started fulfillment work, shipping for other companies, while vice president of operations at SeaBear Seafoods in Anacortes. When the company found itself with more capacity than needed, instead of letting that capacity sit idly Hayward Hughes saw an opportunity to ship products for other companies. Not only did the move help cover SeaBear’s base costs, it allowed them to build a yearround employee base that supported the holiday spike in sales.

A few years later, she and a consultant she met at SeaBear, Mike Bradburn, teamed up to open Crystal Creek Logistics in 2007. His experience lay in business development and real estate. Their first major client was Vital Choice, a local wild Alaskan seafood and organics company that ships frozen food through e-commerce, and they rode Vital Choice’s wild success to their own.

Crystal Creek now employs up

to 35 in the peak summer season, and provides shipping services for 29 companies in the U.S. and overseas that have on-line sales of a variety ranging from children’s toys with edible lacquer, to novelty beer candy, to frozen salmon, vitamin supplements, and pet food.

“My dream was always to have a job of my own....

It’s hard to feel pride about your work when someone is micromanaging you all the way through.”

Cathy Hayward-Hughes at Crystal Creek Logistics

“Twenty-nine clients might seem like a small number, but they can get up to 6,000 orders in a single day, and that’s just from one client,” Hayward-Hughes said.

Business increased so fast that

two years ago Crystal Creek relocated to a 41,000-square-foot warehouse in the Grandview Business Park, space formerly occupied by Ocean Kayak/Johnson Outdoors, nearly tripling in space.

CCL recently added facilities in Hastings, Neb., and Richmond, Va. Overall, the company now has nearly 1 million square feet of distribution/warehouse space. One company saves almost $500,000 a year on shipping because of that.

Hayward-Hughes likes to employ a “self-directed” work team, hiring self-managers rather than having managers who constantly supervise. “This requires hiring people with a fairly high degree of emotional maturity and work ethic,” she said. “But I think most people enjoy working more when they feel a certain responsibility and are allowed to find their own solutions. It’s hard to feel pride about your work when someone is micromanaging you all the way through.”

Finding and recruiting the best employees can be more or less difficult based on fluctuations in the economy. Ironically, it’s most difficult to find skilled employees when the economy is strong because fewer people are looking for work.

“Bellingham traditionally has been a great market from an employer’s perspective,” she said.

“In Nebraska, where we have our central facility, unemployment is very low and it’s very difficult to recruit. It’s been a real eye-opener for us having three locations.”

Retention follows hiring as the next challenge. “The best people can work pretty much anywhere so you have to work to keep a good reputation,” HaywardHughes concluded. “And you keep a good reputation by fostering a healthy environment for your employees, valuing your employees, and encouraging their involvement.”

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WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 53

Women in Business Month

Julia Jacobson

Young Entrepreneur building NEXT best thing Article and Photos by Lydia Love

N

EXT Medical Products company is a small, women-owned business in Bellingham that manufactures medical ultrasound gel.

Julia Jacobson, 25, CEO and president of NEXT, works out of the manufacturing plant on Marine Drive in Bellingham.

Eight employees help run the daily operations, all women except one.

Jacobson, who is from New Jersey, graduated from Princeton University in 2010 with an anthropology major and she traveled the world for two years. Her father has decades of experience in the medical manufacturing business. After he retired he asked Julia if she wanted to go into business with him.

54 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

the business in July 2012 and named it NEXT. Jacobson’s business is separate from the companies that preceded it and NEXT is the only one making its medical line of gel.

NEXT received a loan from Jacobson’s mother to purchase the business in Bellingham. Jacobson’s father still operates as her adviser in New Jersey with some of the management team, but Julia is running the business from Bellingham.

At NEXT, it takes two days to make the ultrasound gel, and sometimes longer depending on container size. Some equipment came in the manufacturing plant, and Jacobson bought a new holding tank for $7,500.

“We’ve tripled capacity,” she said. “So in terms of production we added another large tank so we can produce a lot more gel, faster.”

The Larsons own the building on Marine Drive and remain Jacobson’s landlords, and she gets advice from Gene Larson from time to time. “Gene developed the formula for our gel, so he’s taught me all about ultrasounds,” Jacobson said.

The medical, ultrasound gel for diagnostic and therapeutic care sells directly to most of the hospitals and clinics in the area. Since customers have to pay for their own shipping, NEXT has a selling point as the only West Coast ultrasound gel manufacturer,

Jacobson had been an intern at her father’s previous company and was familiar with the medical world. “My sister and I used to go to trade shows with him, so we know the industry; we’ve kind of grown up in the industry,” Jacobson said.

They heard about a company called Sonotech founded in the early 1990s by Peg and Gene Larson, who live on Lummi Island.

Sonotech was sold to Magnaflux in 2008, a division of Illinois Tool Works.

The Larsons manufactured industrial and medical gel, but their facility was going to close, so Jacobson acquired Gel product at NEXT

Jacobson said.

Smaller hospitals have made up the majority of their sales, but now NEXT goes after larger customers with the goal of doubling sales. “We’re making moves and we are in discussions for a few big contracts,” Jacobson said.

“Once you start talking and [people] realize you know what you’re talking about, it’s not a problem.”

Julia Jacobson, CEO, NEXT Medical Products Company

NEXT is going through the U.S. government certification process to become eligible for Small Business Association loans and loans for women-owned businesses if necessary. That apparently is unusual for her product.

At the trade shows she’s been to, attendance is well-mixed between men and women, she said that hasn’t been the case at the industry conferences. “I’m definitely the youngest by about 20 years and I’m one of a handful of females in a room of 120 middle-aged men,” she said.

People tend to remember her when she’s the only young woman in the room, and want to know what she’s involved with. “Once you start talking and [people] realize you know what you’re talking about, it’s not a problem,” she said.

So what’s next for NEXT? Jacobson hopes to launch a sterile gel by 2014, a gel that can be used if it comes in contact with bodily fluids. NEXT eventually would like to bring to market an ultrasound gel that can go inside the body, and they already have government approval for those gels made from formulas inherited from the Larsons. Jacobson said that production would be more time-consuming, but also would increase sales.

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Women in Business Month

Laila Yusufali

Laila Yusufali: six years, three restaurants…and she’s just 28 Article and Photos by Tara Nelson

W

hen Squalicum High School graduate Laila Yusufali opened Black Pearl seven years ago on Barkley Boulevard, she didn’t exactly plan on the business blossoming into what it’s become today. Now with an everexpanding menu and three locations in downtown, Barkley Village, and Bakerview Plaza, she stands among Bellingham’s most enterprising 28-year-olds.

Black Pearl has grown from its humble beginnings as a bubble tea shop that Yusufali opened in 2007 in a tiny shopping complex on Barkley Boulevard. Bubble tea is an exotic fruit beverage that originated in Taiwan and has since expanded to many Asian coun56 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

what people liked. Laila said a lot of the menu was inspired by her desire to eat a balanced diet that wasn’t always boring.

Later, when her father realized how well the business was going, he quit his job and went to work for her as well, assisting with accounting, payroll, and finding ways to keep costs down in the kitchen. Momentum kept building and in 2010, she opened a new 1,500-square-foot restaurant and added more Thai items, like Pad Thai and curries, as well as vegetarian dishes.

“I knew the downtown area would have a lot of college students so I wanted to have items that were affordable and with plenty of vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options,” Yusufali said.

“Those things are very popular right now.”

Her plan worked. In 2011, KOMO 4 News voted Black Pearl the best vegetarian restaurant in Bellingham.

Laila Yusufali moved when her parents came to Bellingham from Los Angeles in 1992 so the family could do business in Vancouver.

That business her dad had planned didn’t pan out, but the family stayed in Bellingham anyway because of the cost of living at the time. After different business ventures, her mother’s passion for cooking led them into investing in a couple of food trucks in Skagit County.

tries as well as the United States.

It can be milk, juice, or tea-based and can include fruit-flavored jelly balls or tapioca pearls.

The almost immediate success surprised even Yusufali herself.

She made profit her first month in business. At first customers wanting bubble tea could also order some light entrees or appetizers. But Yusufali said she soon started offering more menu items to keep customers excited about coming back.

During the first two years she enlisted the help of her mother and began adding new healthy options to the menu, including pho and vermicelli bowls. The two tested and developed Mongolian Beef: Mongolian beef vermicelli bowl with fresh recipes and found out herbs, vegetables, lettuce and a rice vinegar and lime dressing.

Laila’s favorite dishes (and why she likes them) 1. Drunken chicken. “The name comes from the use of Chinese cooking wine. This is a dish I love to present to people because when I put it out, it always gets a lot of oohs and ahs. It’s just such a beautiful dish.”

2. Vermicelli bowl. “This is my hands-down favorite and I eat one every single day. It’s something I feel so proud to serve because it’s delicious but it’s also so good for you.”

3. Pho. “Pho is comfort food. We take 15 hours to boil our broth and it’s just so incredible when the flavors of the bones, ginger, garlic, star anise and cinnamon and all come together.”

Drunken Chicken

“My mom is probably the best cook I know,” Laila said.

“She’s from Guatemala, but when she met my dad in California she quickly learned his kind of food, which is Middle Eastern food, and she became so good that all my dad’s Pakistani and Sri Lankan friends would want to come to our house for dinner.”

“It’s funny, a lot of my friends say they’re on their third baby and I like to say, ‘Yeah, I’m on my third restaurant.”

Laila Yusufali, owner, Black Pearl

She said it was those same cooking skills and adaptability her mother handed down that helped Yusufali learn a multitude of cooking styles and flavors. Another influence on her restaurant’s menu was traveling through South East Asia in countries like Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, and India.

From Vietnamese Drunken Chicken to bun noodle (vermicelli noodle bowls), to Pho noodle soup and Pad Thai, she said she finds the underlying principles to be the same: fresh and minimal ingredients prepared well with the best

spices and seasonings. She added most of the menu items are a blank canvas that leaves it up to you, the eater to decide what flavors should be pronounced. Hoisen sauce can be added for sweetness.

Spicy chili oil for heat. Lime juice for tartness, and fish sauce to bring out the saltiness of the dish.

Earlier this year she opened her third restaurant with a much larger kitchen that allowed her to expand the menu even more and add complex dishes that aren’t easily found elsewhere, including a crispy and savory Vietnamese Drunken Chicken made with Chinese cooking wine.

When asked how a 22-year-old with virtually no business plan, no bank loan, and no business experience chose to delve into the restaurant business, Yusufali said she couldn’t really explain.

“I never expected I would even have one restaurant, and now I have three, but once you have a system down it’s possible,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about the possibility of franchising and I have a lot of ideas, but I definitely want to keep expanding.

“Maybe also get married and have some kids as well. It’s funny because lot of my friends say they’re on their third baby and I like to say yeah, I’m on my third restaurant.”

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WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 57

Women in Business Month TITLE

Karina Cooper

One Steampunk novel at a time Article and Photo by Lydia Love

W

hat do you get when you cross fear of the unknown, politics, a bit of business, and an opportunity for love?

Paranormal romance, of course.

Karina Cooper, 31, has been writing paranormal romance novels in Bellingham since 2011.

When it comes to sales numbers, the general romance market blows science fiction and fantasy books out of the water, Cooper said.

Cooper has two book series on the market: The Dark Mission series and the St. Croix Chronicles.

The business side of writing is very complex, and Cooper said she couldn’t make it without a literary agent helping her wade through all the publishers and contracts.

“Publishers are in it to get the best deal for themselves, so me and my agent really need to be 58 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

in it to get the best deal for me,” Cooper said.

Once a publisher is chosen and a contract agreed upon, months can pass before a contract gets signed and finalized, and many months after that before payment arrives.

The business side of writing can take up so much time, Cooper said, so she prefers to spend her time writing instead of dealing with the numbers. She said it usually takes up to four years for a writer to build earning power.

“There is money in writing, you just have to be smart about it,” Cooper said.

Paranormal romance as a genre has dropped off in the traditional market in favor of contemporary novels, a trend that can affect the numbers greatly. But in the digital market, paranormal romance remains strong enough to keep sales up.

Cooper has completed her Dark Mission series, which includes five novels and three novellas set

in post-apocolyptic Seattle where witches are seemingly the cause of everyone’s problems. Cooper’s witches aren’t the stereotypical pointy-hat and broomstick witch; rather, they are truly paranormal with a mix of history, politics, and fear.

“They’re stigmatized because they’re different and unexplainable, whether it’s psychic or firestarting,” Cooper said. “(Those traits) are just abilities, and the fact that they’re called witches is more a view of humanity rather than actual witches.”

To develop the characters, she said, “I kind of took the world’s history with witch hunts and said, ‘Well, why were they targeted?’

The Salem witch hunts were political, and with the villages in Africa it was fear and superstition. When something bad happens and people need someone to blame, anyone who isn’t normal is an easy target.

In The Dark Mission books Cooper writes about people who can call lighting out of the air, see the past, the future, and the present and one witch functions as a battery for others’ power.

“I will always keep a romance line going, simply because it pays better—and that’s just good business sense.”

Karina Cooper, romance novelist

Avon, an imprint of Harper Collins, published The Dark Mission series and the first two books of the St. Croix Chronicles in the traditional market. Then Cooper switched to Carina Press, an all-digital publisher. “I think no matter what,” she said, “I will always keep a romance line going, simply because it pays better—and that’s just good business sense.”

Cooper said numbers have

not come back to indicate how digital compares to traditional print markets. She has produced three books and a novella in The St. Croix Chronicles, paranormal romance with a steampunk aesthetic, with six books planned for the series.

Steampunk incorporates a love of classic Victorian elements, fast-forwarded to the future, and it can include adventure, danger and romance. “[Steampunk] is a group of people, an aesthetic, and within that group of people are all kinds of businesses,” Cooper said.

Architects, authors, musicians and designers all have a place in a steampunk community. Bellingham has hosted a Steampunk Festival in the Fairhaven District each of the last two summers.

Cooper’s first book in the series, Tarnished, won the RT Reviewers Choice Award for the best steampunk novel of 2012.

“My eye is on the money in the long term, but I do love it. So I’m doing a job that I love and it’s really, really hard work,” Cooper said. “I would much rather write what I want to write and hope that it gets out there, even if it does slow down my business acumen.”

Cooper’s novels can’t technically qualify as happily ever after romances because there is still danger and room for disaster.

None has ended in a wedding, but Cooper calls them “happily for nows” that usually contain love, commitment, or (twice) a marriage proposal.

The future is uncertain and the numbers aren’t always clear but when it comes to romance novels, you can be sure Karina Cooper is already one chapter ahead.

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WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 59

Women in Business Month

Marsha Manthey

The business of Christmas trees: Work begins in July Article and Photo By Lydia Love

C

hristmas ribbon and gift wrap become available in stores as early as August, but preparing Christmas trees for December starts even earlier, according to Marsha Manthey, who has been running Manthey’s Christmas Treeland for 31 years.

Co-owned with her husband, Dan, their tree farm on Axton Road in Bellingham covers 21 acres and grows around 25,000 trees. Work begins on the trees in July—just before the growth hardens on the pine.

Mantha’s to-do list includes tying up the top branch of the tree, shearing the rest of the branches, pruning the tips, and taking branches off the bottom to mow the grass. “This is something that you have to work in for a while before you’re going to get a 60 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

sellable tree,” Manthey said.

Manthey and her husband spend about six months a year tending to 11 types of trees, and, she said, “There is always something to be done.”

“In this economy, you’re just trying to keep [prices] down so everyone can afford trees.”

Marsha Manthey, co-owner of Manthey’s Christmas Treeland

Douglas fir is the fastest growing tree and takes 5-to-6 years to reach 7 feet. The slower growing varieties can take 10-to-12 years. Other trees in the Christmas Treeland include Noble fir, Nordman fir, Norway spruce, Scotch pine and many other varieties of firs, spruces, and pines.

Prices for trees are kept simple; they’re priced solely by the type of tree, with Noble firs, Grand firs and Nordman firs the most expensive at $30.

“In this economy, you’re just trying to keep [prices] down so everyone can afford trees,” Manthey said.

Whatcom County is home to about 25 tree farms, and Manthey’s Christmas Treeland has been going strong since 1982.

“There’s other tree farms, but there’s enough business for everybody. You’re gonna sell what you’re gonna sell each year,” she said.

Manthey and her husband plan to continue the tree farm business as long as they’re physically able.

Whenever they decide to stop, they’ll still have at least 10 years of trees to care for that are already planted.

“If we have to start paying or hiring people to come and do the work, then it’s really not going to pay or the prices are going to have to go up to reflect that,” she said.

The tree farm is officially open the day after Thanksgiving until Dec. 23, but occasionally they have people wanting to choose a tree earlier or stragglers coming to find a tree at the last moment.

December is a long month in the Manthey household, though the work started during summer, followed by baking cookies in October to put in the freezer for customers, and prep work in November to gather greens for wreaths and swags.

The Douglas fir is Manthey’s favorite, she said. Given all of their time-consuming work in Treeland, the Manthey’s usually don’t have time to put a tree up until the week before Christmas. But because they start the Christmas season early, they also extend it a little longer than usual as well.

She said, “I’ve been known to have [my tree] up until the first of February.”

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TITLE Scrap It/ Stow It Profile:

Brian Parberry and donated truck (Photo by Mike McKenzie

Scrap-It/Stow-It: recycling, demolition, and storage Lisa and Brian Parberry find treasures within huge scrap metal recycling industry

By Dave Brumbaugh

W

hen a homeowner recycles newspapers, cans, and milk cartons, it’s a simple process of placing the material into the correct bin. When somebody brings in scrap metal, it’s a lot more complicated.

For starters, what type of scrap metal are we talking about? There are non-ferrous metals, such as aluminum, copper, brass, lead, and stainless steel. Then you have ferrous metals such as steel, iron, and tin. They may come from heavy 62 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

equipment, car bodies, appliance and much more.

Fortunately, Brian Parberry knows plenty about scrap metal recycling. He is the third generation of a family with a Whatcom County recycling business. Since 2010, Parberry and his wife Lisa have owned and operated Scrap-It on Slater Road in Ferndale, just a mile west of I-5.

They also own and operate a container rental-and-sales company, Stow-It, at the same site.

The different types of scrap metal make up only one aspect of the recycling industry that has seen major changes in recent

years. To discourage thieves from bringing stolen goods, especially cars and other motor vehicles, Scrap-It takes a photo of everything brought into its 30,000-square-foot facility for recycling. That would make an incredibly thick photo album.

For instance, they receive many donated vehicles, including trucks as large as semi’s. The delivering driver’s identification is checked every time, and Scrap-It cooperates with law-enforcement agencies for corroboration and verifications.

Starting next January 1, the state will begin licensing scrap

metal recyclers. “I don’t want the shady stuff,” Lisa Parberry said bluntly in addressing the No. 1 problem of the scrap metal recycling portion of their business.

To discourage thieves from bringing stolen goods, especially cars and other motor vehicles, Scrap-It takes a photo of everything brought into its 30,000-square-foot facility for recycling.

provide demolition services if at least 75 percent of a structure’s materials are recyclable.

A classic case study: The company dismantled the 10,000-square-foot bleach plant building, the pulp storage warehouse, and the pulp screening room of the former GeorgiaPacific tissue mill in Bellingham.

Scrap-It recycled more than 3 million pounds of scrap metal from the structures and aban-

doned equipment inside those three compounds.

Scrap-It also removed the dryer at Darigold’s milk plant in Lynden that was destroyed by a 2012 fire.

Scrap-It’s rapid growth locally follows the trend nationally.

According to an economic impact study done for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, the scrap recycling industry is responsible for more than 460,000 U.S. jobs and generates over $87

Environmental measures also are important now in scrap-metal recycling. For example, plenty takes place at Scrap-It before a vehicle is crushed, shredded, and baled. Tires are taken off and recycled through another company.

Oil, gasoline, and anti-freeze are drained into special containers.

Automobiles are the most recycled consumer products, according to industry reports; a car at the end of its useful life is not destined for a landfill, but for a recycling facility like Scrap-It. But Scrap-It handles a great deal more than vehicles, thanks to a large assortment of backhoes and other equipment on the former ReComp of Washington site. About 70 percent of its scrap volume comes from commercial customers. Many utilize Scrap-It’s drop boxes, which enable safe and secure storage of scrap metal.

Another huge commodity, stacking roof-high in one massive warehouse on the grounds, is cardboard. Brian Parberry said he recently bought a huge supply of cardboard boxes with the intent of selling them off to somebody who specializes in recycling cardboard, essentially serving as a broker.

Scrap-It’s repertoire includes expertise in demolition. They will

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 63

billion annually–a figure comparable to other large mainstream industries such as cosmetics or milk.

Steel is by far North America’s most recycled material. The electric arc furnace, the most cost-efficient steel mill design, was developed to operate exclusively on recycled steel instead of iron ore. Steel has no memory, so it can be consistently and easily recycled with little or no loss in quality.

Despite remarkable growth

(and long hours for the Parberrys) in just three years, Scrap-It isn’t slowing down. The company is leasing another 27,000-squarefoot building at the site. This will hold a new machine that can create standardized bales from a variety of recycled materials, including aluminum, plastic, paper and cardboard. “Bales that are the same size are much more efficient to transport,” Brian Parberry said.

The new building should be

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operational by the end of this year, he revealed. This would enable waste disposal companies to bring their recyclables to Scrap-It. “Our ultimate goal,” he said, “is to handle curbside recycling for the county.”

The Parberrys also have been quite successful with their other business, Stow-It, operated on the same site. Stow-It rents and sells containers ranging in length from 8 feet to 53 feet, offering delivery, pickup, and relocation of them with its specialized trucks and trailers. Most containers are 8 feet wide, but wider containers are available.

Stow-It primarily serves commercial customers, including stores, refineries, and general contractors in the building industry. Its service territory includes Whatcom, Skagit, Island, and San Juan counties, and the Olympic Peninsula. The business started with 50 containers and now has 300.

Stow-It’s customers have learned that container units provide a safe and secure method of storing products, equipment, documents and much more for flexible lengths of time. They’re particularly popular with contractors as on-site storage for excess building supplies, construction materials, electrical supplies, tools and small equipment “We bought 100 containers in the last three months,” Brian Parberry said.

The metal recycling remains the core business, and buyers from Scrap-It crop up from all around the world, from as far away as Indonesia and other Asian businesses creating high demand for the metal.

It underscores the old adage that one person’s junk, if it finds its way to Scrap-It and the Parberrys, will become somebody’s treasure. Even if it has to cross oceans first.

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 65

NW Business Expo & Conference

Whitsitt, political candidates highlight Expo 2013 S

pecial keynote speaker Bob Whitsitt, a County Council candidates forum, and specialty-topic breakout sessions highlight this year’s largest showcase of business in Whatcom County, the annual Northwest Business Expo & Conference on Oct. 17.

Seattle, as well as completion of the Rose Garden Arena. He maintains a consulting career with businesses in a wide range of sectors on topics of achieving goals.

Eight candidates vying for four seats on the Whatcom County Council will take questions from the audience, starting at 12:30 p.m. This takes place about the time ballots are mailed out, and just a few The event takes place at noon in the new Event weeks away from election day–one of their last public Center at Silver Reef in Ferndale. appearances before votes are cast.

Whitsitt, formerly an NBA general manager 17 Whatcom County Chambers of Commerce will years including the Seattle SuperSonics and Portland co-sponsor the candidates forum with the Whatcom Trail Blazers, negotiated the acquisition of the Seattle Business Alliance.

Board of Directors Seahawks for Paul Allen when Whitsitt was president In addition to the usual wide array of displays inPresident Dave Adams, Emergency Reporting of the team (1997-2005). Washington CEO Magazine vendor booths, the event staged by Business Pulse Axelsson, Sales Manager has referred to him as the “most influential figure in Magazine will offer special presentations onRandi various Silver Reef Hotel, Casino and Spa Northwest professional sports.” subjects that have daily impact on business,Janelle such as President / CEO Bruland, Management Services Northwest Whitsitt, remaining a Seattle resident for many one on social media.

Jane Carten, President / CEO years, led the public funding effort of $300 million Capital The NW Business Expo & Conference hasSaturna stepped for a new football stadium and exhibition center in up expectations yet again toKevin a larger DeVries, President / CEO Exxel Pacific, Inc. location by scheduling even more Greg Ebe, President / CEO events for its 27th year. Ebe Farms Enfield, Vice Still the longest-runningAndyevent ofPresident Enfield Farms its kind, the expo invites business Brian Gentry, Manager Community & Business Services leaders and decision-makers from Puget Sound Energy all over the county and beyond to John Huntley, President / CEO Mills Electric, Inc. discover what’s new, trending, and Guy Jansen, Director working in the business community.

Lynden Transport, Inc. A sellout of tables and booths Sandy Keathley, Owner K & K Industries is likely, and registration is open Paul Kenner, Executive VP at 360-746-0410 and www.

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oin us at the biggest business to business networking and prospecting Expo of the year north of Seattle. There is no better opportunity to build your business, learn from other business owners and network with Whatcom County business leaders.

Highlights include: • More than 60 business exhibitors • Biggest Business to Business Expo north of Seattle • Business seminars and presentations • WBA Speaker Series featuring Bob Whitsitt

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• WBA Leadership Reception

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WBA Political Forum 12:30 p.m.

Meet Whatcom County Council candidates

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WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 67

Growth Management Act A Private-Property Pond and Habitat: Endangering the Environment?

Retiree Joe Remenar in rural Blaine dug this pond in his empty field.

Government has told him his wildlife habitat must go. “They told me it could harm the environment.” What has the state’s Growth Management Act wrought? Read a revealing 7-article look at land use issues, especially rural— a political firestorm with lots of hot-button opinion.

Has the

Growth Management Act Gone too far?

68 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

Case after case, property owners appeal that their constitutional rights have been usurped Compiled by Mike McKenzie, Managing Editor and Business Pulse Staff

T

he state’s predominant law governing land use, the Growth Management Act, has become a topic of entangled protestation and legalese.

Individuals go to court over it. Counties sue over it. Citizens debate it, often hotly. And often without regard for the law or the Constitution of the United States.

Groups form, and oppose one another vehemently, over how to manage urban sprawl, and rural containment, and in general the way individu-

als and businesses want to use their private property under protection of state and federal rights.

When examined thoroughly

by Business Pulse from various viewpoints, the one thing that stood out most is that sometimes at the center of all the commotion are situations that, boiled down, appear—as one elected official put it—silly.

It gives cause to scratch your head and wonder what’s really up.

Let’s make a point about common sense, common good, and commandeering. Please forgive, for illustration’s sake, an exaggeration (or is it?).

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 69

Growth Management Act Joe Remenar lives on rural property near Blaine. He created a pond in a clear, empty field on that property. It was the centerpiece for his vision of a natural habitat. He shored up flora surrounding it. See the nice, pretty picture?

Birds came to this new refuge— geese, ducks, blue herons, and bald eagles seeking field mice. Bullfrogs showed up, and other wildlife, too, including snakes and coyotes.

Then Joe decided to build a small shed to keep groundskeeping farm implements in. He sought a building permit from Whatcom County. In the process, he identified the spot where the building would “set back from the pond.”

The County permitting personnel responded: What pond? There’s no pond on that property.

He explained, happily, what he’d created for nature’s sake by simply moving dirt (not adding any) and letting water fill in naturally (not adding any). The response came back: “The pond is on designated wetlands. Fill it in.”

“It is my hope that the Dunlap v. Nooksack decision sends a message to all government—beyond the little hamlet to the north.”

Brian T. Hodges, Pacific Legal Foundation that helped gain a favorable ruling for a farm family

Wait, what? Joe must, by interpretation of a regulation, tear up his hand-made natural habitat because it is threatening to the environment?

That’s the exaggeration (or is it?).

In finite detail, far too complex and lengthy for discourse here (but you can watch it on a viral You Tube video—“Tales of Tyranny” posted by the Freedom Foundation), the County, abiding 70 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

by interpretation of the controversial state Growth Management Act (GMA), has sent an individual into a lengthy, expensive morass of legal entanglements for digging a hole in his backyard. (An exaggeration. Or is it?)

“I’ve spent about $5,000 dealing with this,” Remenar said in a telephone conversation with Business Pulse. “The main thing is, I had no idea there was wetlands on the property. The realtor didn’t mention it.

The previous owner who built the house didn’t. Even the paperwork on the property didn’t.”

This case example of outcomes involving individual property owners—in Joe Remenar a wrestling match Blaine property owner with the County’s complex and appar“…While property may be reguently arbitrary lated to a certain extent, if Critical Area Ordinance (CAO), regulation goes too far it will be or the local hearing examiner, or recognized as a taking.” courts that referee these disputes— To wit: here’s another case is but one of a slew. that has drawn widespread media Slew is an ironic description of attention, stretching over a a seemingly endless trail of dis10-year period of a couple fightputes, since many of the property ing and prevailing against the owners caught in the web of envigovernment for perceived rights ronmentalism rules feel, for sure, to develop their own property: slain in terms of their personal and meet Marilyn and Kipp Dunlap in U.S. and State constitutional rights.

Nooksack.

True, that—many of the cases Excerpts of a blog written by that Business Pulse researched Brian T. Hodges of the Pacific far and wide (statewide, not just Legal Foundation, described on Whatcom County, including a its website as a “donor-supported landmark over-ruling in King legal watchdog,” details the County) spin at their core back dilemma that could become a to a renowned, oft-quoted statelandmark case for others: ment by former Supreme Court The Dunlaps are cattle farmJustice Oliver Wendell Holmes:

ers who own land in the City of Nooksack. Over the past decade, the city imposed increasingly strict land use restrictions on the Dunlaps, refusing to let them build a house larger than 480 square feet on their residential parcel, and closing off an access road to their farm. The impact has been devastating for farming—their livelihood.

They can’t even spread manure to grow their own feed anymore!

The Dunlaps did not roll over.

They (fought) against the city’s unreasonable land use restrictions for close to a decade (with) multiple appeals and lawsuits. After the Court of Appeals issued its (favorable) decision, the Dunlaps wrote….: “When the government makes the decision to do something and you speak against it they tend to steam roll right over you. It takes a long hard effort to try to stand up for your rights when you’re dealing with the government.

Nobody wants to help or wetlands,

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Washington Growth Management Hearings Board: Eastern Washington Panel: Chuck Mosher, Administrative Officer

Raymond L. Paolella, Board member

Appointed in July 2012, he has more than 40 years of federal, state, and local governmental management, policy, and planning experience. He is a graduate in business and technology from Oregon State University (1965), with an MBA from Portland State University (1972). He is from Portland, Ore., but has lived in East Wenatchee since 2003.

Appointed in 2008 for a six-year term, he is the attorney member of the board. Paolella has extensive experience in land use, environmental law, real estate, and municipal law affairs.

Western Washington Panel: Nina L. Carter, Board member

William Roehl, Board member

Appointed in March 2009, she brought more than 20 years in public and non-profit sector management, public policy, and environmental conservation in Washington state.

She was born and raised in the Philippine Islands and now lives in Olympia with her husband Dr. Thomas B. Rainey.

Appointed in June 2008 to a six-year term, he served on the Whatcom County Council from 1979-‘91 as a member of the planning and development committee. He resides in Bellingham with his wife Kelli Linville. He has recused himself from hearings affecting the County Council.

Central Puget Sound Panel: Margaret Pageler, Board member

Cheryl Pflug, Board member

Appointed in 2004 and reappointed for a second sixyear term in 2010.

Appointed to in May 2012. During her legislative career she used her health-care experience to help improve health outcomes while reducing unnecessary costs.

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 71

TITLE Management Act Growth get involved. In fact, everyone tends to abandon ship….We really appreciate how the Pacific Legal Foundation stepped in and helped us in our case with the City of Nooksack. Thank-you PLF.” It is my hope that the Dunlap v. Nooksack decision sends a message to all government—beyond the little hamlet to the north. I am happy to see this very important decision is not going unnoticed.

The beat goes on. Smith Gardens, a Bellingham fixture for more than 100 years, and an individual neighbor fight to prevent regulators of urban planning from down-zoning their property in a move that would depreciate property values, hurt business, and in a distant future possibly even take away some of their land. (Re-read Justice Holmes.)

About three years ago Tom Fenton, a property owner at the

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corner of Blaine Road and Birch Bay/Lynden Road, received some clean landfill left over from a utility contractor’s project. Fenton stockpiled it on his property and obtained proper fill-and-grade permitting to perform some development of his property.

As the work began on a Saturday a drive-by sighting by a non-government person led to a report that runoff from the site “might reach a county ditch,” according to a report in literally reams of documents about this case. Fenton received a “stop work order.”

These tales pour in, by the dozens. Regardless of sides, and who, ultimately, will be adjudicated right or wrong, the many strident viewpoints and actions of a few political appointees…and who-knowshow-many local and state government officials, indicate something obviously has gone awry.

Over time, the County, after at first upholding Fenton’s protest, re-examined the site numerous times and finally deemed that the heap of dirt was too close to a legally-defined protected area, i.e., wetlands, and the fight was on.

It’s still on. Fenton has spent six-figure personal dollars and lost to rulings by the County’s hearings examiner and by the County Council. He might sue and take it to court. Word is out that a large number of entities in a similar situation, either with private or business concerns, are primed to file suits in Superior Court.

They intend to challenge, Continue on page 74...

Planning goals of original GMA (Edited/Condensed by Business Pulse) The following goals guide the development and adoption of comprehensive plans and development regulations of those counties and cities required to or choose to plan under RCW 36.70A.040. The following goals are not listed in order of priority: (1) Urban growth. Encourage development where adequate public facilities and services exist or can be provided efficiently.

(2) Reduce sprawl. Reduce inappropriate conversion of undeveloped land into sprawling, low-density development.

(3) Transportation. Encourage efficient multimodal transportation systems based on regional priorities, and coordinated with county and city comprehensive plans.

(4) Housing. Encourage the availability of affordable housing to all economic segments of the population, promote a variety of residential densities and housing types, and encourage preservation of existing housing stock.

(5) Economic development. Consistent with adopted comprehensive plans, promote economic opportunity for all citizens of this state, especially for unemployed and for disadvantaged persons; promote the retention and expansion of existing businesses and recruitment of new businesses; recognize regional differences impacting economic development opportunities, and encourage growth in areas experiencing insufficient economic growth— all within the capacities of the state’s natural resources, public services, and public facilities.

(6) Property rights. Private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. The property rights of landowners shall be protected from arbitrary and discriminatory actions.

(7) Permits. Applications for both state and local government permits should be processed in a timely and fair manner to ensure predictability.

(8) Natural resource industries. Maintain and enhance natural resourcebased industries, including productive timber, agricultural, and fisheries industries. Encourage the conservation of productive forest lands and productive agricultural lands, and discourage incompatible uses.

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(9) Open space and recreation. Retain open space, enhance recreational opportunities, conserve fish and wildlife habitat, increase access to natural resource lands and water, and develop parks and recreation facilities.

(10) Environment. Protect and enhance the state’s high quality of life, including air and water quality, and the availability of water.

(11) Citizen participation and coordination. Encourage involvement in the planning process, and ensure coordination between communities and jurisdictions to reconcile conflicts.

(12) Public facilities and services. Ensure what’s necessary to support development adequately at the time the development is available for occupancy and use without decreasing current service levels below locally-established minimum standards.

(13) Historic preservation. Preserve lands, sites, and structures that have historical or archaeological significance.

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Growth Management Act Continued from page 72... according to multiple sources, what they perceive as loose, agendadriven, illegal interpretations of the GMA and its attendant hearings board, and/or the local hearings examiner and county government.

“Turn the heat up on them,” is the way one source put it.

These tales poured in to Business Pulse, by the dozens.

Regardless of sides, and who, ultimately, will be adjudicated right or wrong, one thing is certain: The strident viewpoints and actions of a few political appointees (often with little background, experience, or expertise in either land use or related legal areas), and who-knows-how-many local and state government officials, indicate something obviously has gone awry.

Reach more than 50,000 leaders in print and digital

Call Randall Sheriff at 360-746-0417 or email randall@businesspulse.com

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The Publication of The Whatcom Business Alliance

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Visit the website or call for details! www.WhatcomBusinessAlliance.com 360.746.0418 Fostering Business Success and Community Prosperity 74 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

Perception becomes reality.

Individual property rights regarding land use have been revealed as put upon and shredded, in the name of preserving raw nature—not just in Whatcom County, but all around the state. Farmers appeal to the hit they take in this scenario.

Expanding businesses, likewise.

And, as reported here, sometimes just ordinary, individual denizens.

A regulatory state act that had, at its center, a noble concept more than 20 years ago, and that has displayed many moving parts since changed its focus considerably, is under fire.

One county government official said of the perceived deterioration of the GMA’s intent, “It’s gotten silly, really.” Much harsher, one of the beaten-down individuals who is suing said, “It’s evil.”

Spending most of this year whittling away at GMA Hearings Board rulings that they are “out of compliance,” the County Council dealt with more than 30 specific charges, and narrowed it to three.

But on those three—Smith Gardens among them—the Council has backed off for now.

“We’ve sent a message,” Council Chairperson Kathy Kershner said. “These are matters of personal property rights, and those are for courts to decide.”

It brings to mind yet another Oliver Wendell Holmes quote: “The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky.”

Tell that to the folks in this story….

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Growth Management Act

Analysis: Whatcom County’s rural lands—for nature and people?

By Roger Almskaar Professional Land Use Consultant (32 years)

R

ural land planning and regulation has been Whatcom County’s major land-use issue during the last three years, with emphasis on rural. It rarely makes headlines.

Yet, a recent spate of blog rants and “talking point” letters to the editor in newspapers have accused the Whatcom County Council majority of “fighting” the state Growth Management Act (GMA; RCW 36.70A). They contend that the County is squandering scarce public money in fending off legal challenges from supposedly publicspirited citizens and organizations.

“Special-interest, advocacy groups prize the aesthetics of pristine, unchanging rural landscapes over actual use of these lands for low-density housing and occasional business areas, believing rural land is meant to be preserved and looked upon, not lived on and used.”

The ongoing rancorous arguments over rural lands demonstrate 76 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

that many citizens, including some decision-makers, really don’t know much about the meaning of “rural lands.” Whatcom County is now in compliance on almost all GMA matters, except a handful of rural land topics. And, achieving compliance is a daunting Roger Almskaar task for a large, Land Use Consultant diverse county like ours in which even cial significance for production of reasonable people agricultural products, timber, or will disagree. the extraction of minerals.”

By law, Whatcom County and Thus, lands zoned for commerits cities must plan under the cial farming are not “rural lands.”

GMA. In framing this law, the Most rural lands do not include legislature stated that conserva“prime ag soils” in any real sense; tion of rural lands and resources hardly anybody could make a fulland the facilitation of traditional time living by farming on most rural lifestyles and businesses are rural-area soils. critically important to the qualAccording to Whatcom County ity of life of present and future Planning staff data, rural lands Washingtonians. make up less than one-third of the This includes: 1. Environmental protection, 424,744 acres of unincorporated 2. Economic vitality, and area subject to county regulations 3. Protection of our consti(133,400 acres, or 31 percent). tutional property rights (U.S. and Resource lands measure 65 percent State).

(276,318 acres), and urban growth The GMA defines rural areas as areas, i.e., land outside of cities, “...all lands which are not within comprise 4 percent (15,026 acres). an urban growth area and are not The purpose of the rural eledesignated as natural resource ment is to provide ample space for lands having long-term commerlow-density housing, mainly at

5-to-10 acres per home, and parttime farming and forestry, while also protecting natural resources, such as water supplies and salmon habitat. Rural areas include business areas compatible with the rural landscape, such as Hinote’s Corner, Deming, Custer, and others.

Washington’s Legislature adopted findings in RCW 36.70A.11, recognizing the important economic role that rural lands play: “…That to retain and enhance the job base in rural areas, rural counties must have flexibility to create opportunities for business development. Further, the legislature finds that rural counties must have the flexibility to retain existing businesses and allow them to expand. The legislature recognizes… that many businesses in rural areas fit within the definition of rural character identified by the [county government].”

Given this background, where do all the appeals, criticism, and vitriol come from? The answer is special-interest, advocacy groups largely based and staffed in Seattle, local urbanophiles, and a few rural folk. They prize the aesthetics of pristine, unchanging rural landscapes over actual use of these lands for low-density housing and occasional business areas, believing rural land is meant to be preserved and looked upon, not lived on and used.

For example, a local government-appointed group, charged with advising how water ought to be managed in Whatcom County, recently recommended priorities for our future water use.

“Independent Rural Living” got zero votes, the lowest of 26 priorities. Harvestable game, forestry, and human safety also got very low rankings.

Ranking at the top: “Open space, aesthetics, pristine.”

To this mindset, people who want a traditional rural lifestyle or business represent an obstacle to a radical preservationist agenda.

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CAPR upholds Constitutionally-based property rights

By Roger Almskaar President, CAPR Citizens Alliance for Property Rights (CAPR) is a regional grass roots organization, founded in rural King County in 2003 and including 14 counties in Washington and five in California. The Whatcom Chapter was formed in 2009 mainly for two reasons: • First, many rural residents and business people had become increasingly frustrated with the perception of an evermore onerous, expanding, and complex maze of local, state, and federal regulations. CAPR believes that many of the new rules seem arbitrary and excessive, stifling the long-held personal and business plans of many residents, and often slashing land values—frequently with no positive results for the community.

• Second, the former County Planning Director and former majority of the County Planning Commission appeared to push a massive down-zoning of rural lands to carry out anti-growth, radical, preservationist agendas.

Whatcom CAPR is not a special interest group; it and other chapters simply try to retain and some times restore the property rights guaranteed to all citizens by both

federal and state constitutions.

These rights are not just about land use, but also include land values, buildings, printing presses, TV stations. etc.

Also, CAPR supporters see themselves as rational environmentalists and conservationists, practicing long-term stewardship with the resources that we as individuals, and the community, i.e., the public, are responsible for. The frontier days are gone; we know our society needs regulations to protect private and public property and the environment.

Finally, CAPR believes that the vast majority of Americans want the same thing as CAPR: reasonable rules for land use and business – clear, concise, and that actually accomplish their public purpose.

CAPR will continue to work with government and other like-minded groups and individual toward this goal. Our county, state, and nation pay a very high price in lack of economic vitality and opportunity due to the current “octopus” of rules.

Many have been adopted without genuine concern for conflicts with other rules, or whether the consequences unduly harm citizens, or achieve the purported goal; the latter often goes unstated.

Reach more than 50,000 leaders in print and digital

Call Randall Sheriff at 360-746-0417 or email randall@businesspulse.com 78 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

M A G A Z I N E

The Publication of The Whatcom Business Alliance

With our great natural beauty and outdoor recreation opportunities in Whatcom County, it’s not surprising that some moving here want to stop anything new to operate on our rural lands—to “save us from ourselves.” Also, we must keep the weekend drive up to the ski slopes scenically pure.

Why else do Seattle-based Futurewise and its lawyers work so hard to circumvent the carefullydeliberated and reasonable decisions of our own elected officials?

In fact, they advocate draconian regulations aimed at freezing our rural economy and rural landscape, and at beating down our individual goals and opportunities.

It’s the opposite of “planning as if people mattered.”

Rural lands, according to the GMA, are to be designated by elected county officials – not Seattle-based attorneys working for narrowly-focused advocacy groups.

That law has been, in recent years, thwarted in several mainly-rural counties by such groups, and by political appointees on the state’s GMA Hearings Board.

This quasi-judicial panel is supposed to pass reasonable judgment on appeals of local GMA plans and rules. But it’s dominated by former officers and lobbyists for preservationist groups, and retired government employees. Some are not shy about the connection; two former hearings board members are currently state directors for Futurewise! Most hearings board members have no relevant private sector experience.

The board’s decisions often ignore the GMA’s requirement of balance among its 13 goals, strongly emphasizing environmental goals while ignoring economic, property rights, affordable housing, and other goals. Hearings Board decisions frequently get overturned by real courts of law.

In fact, Whatcom County has been successful in obtaining reasoned, fact-based decisions only

by suing in Superior court, where facts and the letter of the law carry more weight than private agendas.

These continuing assaults on Whatcom’s rural economy and living have blocked the plans of many rural businesses and landowners. Some businesses have closed or moved; some have been down-zoned to low density residential. Longer-term impacts will not be known for some time. And the attacks go on.

“Most hearings board members have no relevant private sector experience.

Decisions often ignore the GMA’s requirement of balance…, strongly emphasizing environmental goals while ignoring economic, property rights, affordable housing, and other goals.

Hearings Board decisions frequently get overturned by real courts of law.”

On a larger scale, Whatcom County and its cities must complete by 2016 their growth planning for their next 20-year period.

The next major issue will be water rights and usage, already in play by Futurewise and local activists as a bludgeon against rural residents.

The future of traditional rural lifestyles, property rights, and the economy of Whatcom County will be decided during the next 2-3 years. At issue: Traditional and diverse Whatcom County rural lifestyles, or pristine pastoral preserves?

Roger Almskaar has been a Land Use Consultant in Whatcom County for 32 years, helping private parties analyze sites and obtain permits, such as short plats, zoning, and critical areas. He is president of the local chapter of the Citizens’ Alliance for Property Rights (CAPR).

From 1981-2005, Almskaar also was a licensed realtor and commercial broker (‘88-’05). He was a planner for Whatcom County from ’71-‘81, drafting the county’s first Shoreline Management Program (adopted 1976).

He graduated from the University of Washington (’69), majoring in history with a minor in geography and four courses in geology.

Almskaar has long been active in county and state land use and political affairs, first with the local and state realtor associations, and now with CAPR and the local Building Industry Association (BIA). He helped found the Whatcom chapter of CAPR in 2009. He has testified to government entities at all levels, and has organized public meetings and classes on land use and environmental topics.

In 2009, the BIA awarded Almskaar its Daryl McClelland Award. In 2010 he received the local realtor association’s Partner of the Year Award. Since leaving county employment he has served on several Whatcom advisory committees, including the Critical Areas/Shoreline Update and Code Scrub Committees.

Almskaar was born in Mount Vernon, grew up in Seattle, and moved to Whatcom County in 1971.

A father of three adult children, he lives in Bellingham. Because of the breadth and depth of his experience and understanding in land use and community planning issues, Business Pulse extended him the opportunity to dissect the extremely complex issues of the Growth Management Act and state hearings board on behalf of the staff.

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WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 79

Guest Column: Growth Management Act Ed Kilduff | Environmental Consultant Ed Kilduff lives in San Juan County and has been an environmental consultant for more than 20 years, including projects in Whatcom County. Primarily, Kilduff has worked on environmental cleanups for the Navy and the Department of Energy in California and Washington, where he is licensed as both a hydrogeologist and engineering geologist. He earned a BS in geology and mathematics from Tufts University, an MS in geophysics from the Colorado School of Mines, and an MS from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Kilduff has been involved in the founding and running of several businesses, and he is a board member of the Common Sense Alliance, a nonprofit community group based in San Juan County dedicated to environment, community, and economy. He frequently writes and speaks on environmental issues.

Growth Management Act has created explosive growth... in planning profession W

ashington State’s Growth Management Act (GMA) was adopted in 1990 ostensibly because the Washington State Legislature wanted to: “…Recognize the importance of rural lands and rural character to Washington’s economy, its people, and its environment, while respecting regional differences. Rural lands and rural-based economies enhance the economic desirability of the state, help to preserve traditional economic activities, and contribute to the state’s overall quality of life.”

In reality, nothing could have been further from the truth. The GMA came not to praise rural lands, but to bury them.

Was the GMA the culmination of some great rural rights struggle, the Green Acres equivalent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? No. Its genesis wasn’t rural at all. The GMA was a Trojan horse for urban planners, who aggressively promoted the specious notion that we can’t live without them – that the antidote to unmanaged and uncoordinated growth is unmanaged and uncoordinated bureaucracy.

The fact is that much of what makes up “rural character” is unplanned, or even substandard.

The one-lane bridge, the funky house, and neighbors coming 80 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

together for a barn-raising occur out of necessity and ingenuity, not planning.

Recently, I attended an event at my local history museum.

Nostalgic tales were told, including one about a fire in the early 1900s that wiped out the home and livelihood of a local family.

Our early-20th-century forebearers sprang into action; 50 men moved an unused house from one side of our island to the burn site on the other; neighbors prepared food;

“The GMA was a Trojan horse for urban planners, who aggressively promoted the specious notion that we can’t live without them —that the antidote to unmanaged and uncoordinated growth is unmanaged and uncoordinated bureaucracy.” friends donated clothing, and in short order the family was back in business with a new home.

The sentimentality of the retold tale had a palpable effect on the

history museum audience that wondered aloud why that sort of thing doesn’t happen anymore.

Answer – because much of the spontaneous generosity of idyllic rural life is now illegal.

We can’t just move houses, raise barns, or even sometimes prepare food for large gatherings without government permission.

It’s deliberate. On its website, the Washington Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA) has a link to a 24-year-old document describing the origins of the GMA. Toward a Growth Strategy for Washington was developed at a planning conference in late 1989. It says we should be “working toward a central vision of the desired future.”

Local control and individuality are “inconsistencies undermining effective planning … [w]ithout a mandate to plan and to do so cooperatively, local governments take a piecemeal, reactive, and adversarial approach to resolving mutual impacts.”

The APA document recommended that the GMA incorporate nine points. I won’t repeat all of the points here, but they will be depressingly familiar to anyone who has bumped up against GMA believers. With a hint of things to come, the authors even announce that “The degree of consensus achieved at our conference was surprising in view of the

great diversity of circumstances throughout the state.”

The nine points include: (1) Establish a statewide vision of the future, (5) Recognize that regional issues should be resolved regionally (7) Provide carrots as well as sticks to assure compliance with state goals, policies, and standards, and (8) Recognize that certain local government decisions need to be made collectively at a regional level, or at a statewide level in order to achieve regional and statewide goals.

The GMA was never about “protecting” rural lands or even limiting sprawl. From the beginning, it was about advancing the professional ambitions of knowit-all central planners. The only growth it was meant to manage was to encourage explosive growth in the planning profession, and by that measure, it’s been wildly successful.

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Philanthropy: NW Washington Fair Foundation

New look at Fair game Scholarships, free tickets for ag education

By Business Pulse Staff

F

olks in rural Whatcom County take their agriculture education quite seriously. The latest example is a new foundation tied to the annual showcase Northwest Washington Fair, subsidized wholly by businesses and private donors.

A seed idea sprang up about three years ago during the Fair Centennial celebration to, as stated in the NW Washington Fair Foundation’s mission statement, “financially support agricultural education, and the enhancement and preservation of the NWWF.” With just one major fund-raiser during this first year the foundation raised nearly $100,000 and already underwrote three college scholarships to Whatcom County college

or tech school students studying agriculture or a related field.

The first scholarship recipients of $1,000 apiece: Henry Lancaster, Bret DeGraaff and Jan Wolfisberg were the recipients. The foundation intends to increase the number next year to five.

It became clear their fair could use a nonprofit source for special-needs funding of children attending the fair, for scholarships, and for a community agricultural center.

The first major project is a community agricultural center and museum that will provide a permanent home to the farming-forlife exhibit. Another idea for this facility includes fair and agricultural museum exhibits and part-

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nering with the Lynden Pioneer Museum to share exhibits.

Melissa Bedlington-Kleindel, president of the NW Washington Fair Foundation, said that most other fairs have foundations and it became clear their fair could use a nonprofit source for special-needs funding of children attending the fair, for scholarships, and for one giant project lying ahead in midand long-term planning.

The first annual fundraiser, “Come on & Take a Ride,” drew more than 250 from the community neighborhoods and businesses all around the county. This fundraiser will take place every year, Bedlington said, and is scheduled again during Spring 2014.

Bedlington-Kleindel leads a board of directors also comprising Randy Bode as vice president, Julie Enfield as secretary/treasurer, Marv Tjoelker and Deane Sandellas as Fair board members, and Debbie VanderVeen.

The foundation had a long list of donors in 2013, led by Founding Patrons $5,000-and-above donors Sid and Margaret Baron, Jim Hale, LTI, Tony Pechthalt, and Karen and Darrell Timmer.

Other donor levels included a cleverly-conceived $2,013 in commemoration of the founding year, attracting 24 donors. Three donors contributed $1,000 and eight donated $500.

WWU intern Lydia Love contributed reporting to this article.

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WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 83

Political Candidate Questionnaire Results

QA &

1

with Port Commission and Whatcom County Council Candidates

Do you have private-sector business experience that makes you qualified to help direct one of the region’s largest organizations with strong impact on the business climate of Whatcom County?

Ken Bell: YES

As owner and CEO of Best Recycling, I’m familiar with what’s necessary to direct large organization’s. BR operated 4 recycling facilities in 3 states and one in Vancouver, B.C. I’m currently engaged in shipping materials out of Antarctica for Lockheed Martin and the National Science Foundation and we’ve worked in Adak, Alaska, Greenland and the Yukon Territory of Canada.

I’ve shipped containers through ports in Washington, California, Louisiana, New York, New Zealand, Chile, Greenland and Antarctica. We’re also involved in clean up. I understand port operations, the infrastructure necessary to attract port jobs and how to create a working waterfront.

84 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

Port Commission Candidates

Mike McAuley: Yes

I have been a business owner since 1999. We must be very careful to distinguish between the port supporting business and operating like a business, because many people think the port is a business.

The port is not a business. I have worked tirelessly to evaluate each part of port operations in order to support only those activities that are core to the port mission. I have a clear and solid record of effort, support and votes proving I have the best understanding of our port and its role in our regional economy.

Renata Kowalczyk: Yes Dan Robbins: Yes I have owned or partnered seven successful businesses and served on nine boards. I have signed leases and contracts and employed over 100 people in a given business. Living in the Bellingham community my entire life (and) my job creation experience in several businesses more than qualifies me as a commissioner for the Port. I know firsthand how to create and retain jobs in this community.

I have acted as mentor to prospective new business owners as a volunteer for SCORE for the past ten years, and as chapter chair for the Bellingham SCORE chapter—counselors to America’s small business.

2

For over a decade I worked for some of the largest corporations in the financial services sector. My focus was on serving business clients, and I developed strategies and tools for those clients to maximize their financial potential, both directly and indirectly through process improvement. Since moving to Bellingham, I have worked with businesses to find capital resources and plan for success. My extensive experience in business and financial management, process improvement, and development of strategic partnership, combined with my commitment to this community I’m proud to call home, makes me uniquely qualified to help direct the Port of Bellingham.

Do you believe that the Port’s No. 1 mission should be economic development?

Ken Bell: Yes

Mike McAuley: Yes

The Port by statute (RCW 53.06.030) is tasked with the “development and improvement of commerce and business common to all port districts.” We must operate and maintain terminal and transportation facilities to create economic development. Job one is to promote and support existing business, followed by creating the environment for new growth. We are to provide the tools to fill in the gaps where our existing customers lack expertise or resources. We must give companies a clean place, free from future liability, to locate. We are to partner with business to create economic opportunities.

Yes, but not exclusively. Economic development is one of two goals for the Port and it cannot exist in a vacuum. I support the Triple Bottom Line approach to business, where people/planet/profit is the guiding principle. I believe that such an approach represents the future of the world’s business climate. We all enjoy a relatively high quality of life here, with many natural and manmade experiences to enjoy. In order to sustain the quality of life we have grown accustomed to, where we have good jobs and a healthy environment, we must all recognize the needs of our future.

Dan Robbins: Yes

Renata Kowalczyk: Yes

Yes, because the Port of Bellingham’s mission is to provide the central transportation and economic development needs of the region. Job creation and retention is the mission of the Port, and I support that mission.

The economic development, transportation terminals, stewardship, and public access are additional focuses of the Port which I also support.

The State of Washington passed the Port District Act in 1911, recognizing that our economic vitality is largely dependent on access to water. That Act allowed counties and regions to form port districts, and elect commissioners to govern districts for the economic betterment of our communities. Those districts’ primary purpose is for economic development, a sentiment reflected in our own Port’s core mission: “To fulfill the essential transportation and economic development needs of the region while providing leadership in maintaining greater Whatcom County’s overall economic vitality.”

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 85

Political Candidate Questionnaire Results

3

Do you agree that the Port should continue acquisitions to expand with assets that compete with the private sector?

Ken Bell: No

Mike McAuley: No

One reason I’m running: the Port acquired the office building where my office is located. As I view the GP site it is clear we should spend our resources elsewhere. For that kind of money we could have improved facilities for current tenants and increased marine services. Logos Bible Software recently announced the building of office space downtown, an indicator private capital is available for office space.

The port should be creating a working waterfront. Also we need to explore privatization options with parking operators near the airport—not viewing them as competitors but as allies in smooth airport operations.

Washington’s ports were created and exist to support the private sector with carefully and specifically targeted use of tax dollars. Yet, ports are the only agencies with statutory authority to operate like a business, directly compete with the private sector, and tax you to do it. I disagree with that and do not support it. With a new commission supporting me, I have a list of assets to evaluate that, if they are not reasonably justified as core to the port’s mission, then they should be surplused. My motto: We don’t create jobs, we support those who do.

Dan Robbins : No

Renata Kowalczyk: No

The Port should only do what the private sector can’t. The Port is the catalyst that paves the way for the private sector to flourish in the community. The Port should not be in competition with the private sector. I feel the Port can acquire land and construct buildings to help the private sector, but not compete with them. Eventually, all assets, except land, should be sold to the private sector to operate if possible.

The Port of Bellingham should not compete with the private sector; rather, wherever it can, the Port should support private sector enterprises in its role as an economic development entity. To that end, the Port can support our commercial fishermen, foster new and expanding businesses, and continue to provide water access to businesses that rely on water for commerce.

Additionally, the Port can fill a needs gap by constructing the infrastructure and buildings necessary for industry and manufacturing that the private sector would not be able to develop on its own, thereby supporting businesses that create jobs and growth.

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The Whatcom County Democratic Party adopted a resolution by a 39-9 vote that states, in part, “We propose and support the rejection of all industrial, commercial and residential uses of the remaining natural lands and waters on and adjacent to Cherry Point.” That is the county’s only area zoned for heavy industrial use because of the prime port location, potentially providing a strong employment, wage, and tax base. Do you agree with that resolution—rejecting ALL uses

County Council Candidates

Kathy Kershner: No The resolution is too extreme in limiting all uses.

In order to have a healthy community, we must plan for jobs, housing, and the many needs of our families such as retail, roads, public services, and recreation. A healthy community also includes a healthy environment, but when we are focused solely on the environment, and neglect the other factors that contribute to a healthy community, we jeopardize our success in creating a plan that works. Industry has the capacity to create family wage jobs, which allow families to buy homes, pay taxes, and otherwise participate in their community’s economic engine.

Bill Knutzen: No We have a public process that needs to be followed whereby projects are judged according to strict environmental standards that are in place. Then all the factors can be looked at, and the council will vote on the facts. It seems too many folks don’t want any projects in our Industrial Zones, and that they alone should be Judge and Jury .

Please socialize with us on Facebook at both the Business Pulse Magazine page and the Whatcom Business Alliance page.

Barry Buchanan: No While there is a lot of controversy over the proposed terminal, there are many potential uses we can pursue at Cherry Point. A economic viability study of uses like renewable energy (wind, etc.), industrial support for the BP refinery, other bulk commodity shipping opportunities, manufacturing, etc. should be done to determine potential uses. We must use our identified employment lands and develop viable economic strategies for our county.

Rud Browne: No The decision about any development at Cherry Point will be governed by section 20.88 (Major Project Permits) of the Whatcom County code. No current or prospective County Council member should be supporting any resolution for or against the project until after the process is completed. This project is still under review and the County Council is required by law to act impartially. The Council must avoid taking any position about the project until the Environmental Impact Statement and any required mitigation proposals etc. have been submitted. No county council member can do more. I will do no less.

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Political Candidate Questionnaire Results Ken Mann: No I respect the Lummi’s concern over their possible burial grounds, but a knee-jerk, blanket ban on all industrial, commercial, or residential uses for the entire area is an extreme and irresponsible position. I would never support that as a Councilmember.

Ben Elenbaas: No As stated, Cherry Point is the only land in Whatcom County that is zoned for heavy industrial use. While I respect the Lummi Nation, these lands have been bought and sold previously with little or no intervention by the tribe. I view Heavy industrial and port type areas resource lands just as critical to our community as Ag or Timber lands. These lands provide jobs and economic benefits, including tax revenue that are essential components of viable communities.

Carl Weimer: No I am committed to keeping an open mind regarding all possibilities at Cherry Point (as required in such a quasi-judicial setting) until the Environmental Impact Study is completed and I can review all the studies and associated information.

To support this resolution would go against my legal responsibilities to keep an open mind.

2

Michelle Luke: No I can’t make sense of rejecting all uses going forward. The existing industries in this zone— BP, Phillips 66, and Alcoa— have proven to be not only job creators for family wage jobs, but supporters of many non-profit organizations and providing a stable tax base. The local workforce takes pride and has won awards in their respective stewardship of the shoreline and uplands in this industrial zone. Supporting businesses such as these supports many important economic foundations such as home ownership, college education, as well as ensuring a stable tax base.

You have been endorsed officially by either the Whatcom County Democrats or Republicans. How will this weigh into your decisions; can you serve in a non-partisan role and vote for or against the will of your constituents even if it flies in the face of the position of the political party that endorsed you?

Kathy Kershner: Yes

Barry Buchanan: Yes

If the citizens of Whatcom County put their faith and trust in me to serve another term, it is my intention to serve everyone with the same integrity and humility that I demonstrated during my first term on the Council. I believe it is my job as a representative to seek information, listen to all concerns, seek more information, and make a decision based on a careful review and consideration of the facts. I know that I will not please everyone who endorsed me all the time, but I am committed to making the best decisions and finding good solutions.

I have served on the Bellingham City Council, another non-partisan office. I always put the will of the contituency before political party ideolology.

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Q&A Bill Knutzen: Yes

Rud Browne: Yes

For the last four years I have represented ALL the citizens of Whatcom County whether they had an R or D after their name, as well as any other affiliation. The problems we face at all levels of government go beyond party lines, and we need leaders who can work collaboratively for the good of the citizens they represent. I feel that I have done that over the last four years and will do it for the next four, as well.

I started with nothing and built a 360-person company spread across five countries. I was only able to achieve this because I am fiscally conservative and have a genuine interest in listening to everyone. I always tried to understand all sides of issue before I made the many tough decisions I have been faced with during my business career. I appreciate the almost 300 endorsements I have received from a broad range of Democrat, Republican, and Independent individuals and organizations, but none of them will ever cause me to waver from making what I think is the right decision.

Ken Mann: Yes

Ben Elenbaas: Yes

Yes, and that is WHY I prefer local, non-partisan government. I stand by my record as an independent, open-minded, and responsible Council member. I have frequently voted against the wishes of folks who endorsed me the first time. ALL of them (and more!) have endorsed me this time. People appreciate a leader who listens with an open mind and then explains his/ her reasoning regarding a decision. Frequent communication and transparency is the key.

It is a non-partisan position; as such I sought the endorsement of the Whatcom Democrats. They elected not to endorse my candidacy; however the body was not unanimous, as I did receive some endorsement votes. I was endorsed by both the Whatcom Libertarians as well as the Whatcom Republicans, proving that I am not a one-sided candidate. Political affiliation has not been a problem for me in the work I have done on the Whatcom County Planning Commission, as most county matters do not follow party lines. Therefore I don’t see partisanship becoming an issue.

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WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 89

Political Candidate Questionnaire Results

A &

Carl Weimer: Yes

Michelle Luke: Yes

I am formally endorsed by multiple organizations and hundreds of individuals. In the past eight years on the County Council I am sure I have probably voted against the desires of nearly all of them at one time or another. If groups or individuals think an endorsement is somehow purchasing my vote on any particular issue, they better think again. In my mind, endorsements are only a vote of confidence that my leadership and greater experience will lead to what the endorser believes will be better decisions than my opponent would make if she was elected.

The local Republican Party endorsed me and respects my campaign message, simply asking how they can help. Other endorsements: the small-city mayors, Libertarian Party, Farm Bureau, Sheriffs Guild, Fire District 7, and Realtors Association.

Democrats and Republicans have worked on my campaign. Everyone who held endorsement interviews received the same message: I will (a.) make decisions taking into account all Whatcom County citizens; (b.) remember who earned the tax dollars that the Council is asked to spend; (c.) be an active representative working to ensure that regulations and policies achieve what they are intended to, and nothing more or less.

3

Q

Do you consider yourself pro-business? We have published information that supports the idea that Whatcom County is unfriendly toward business. Please comment on why that is, and state your ideas to help create a better business environment.

Kathy Kershner: Yes

Barry Buchanan: Yes

Businesses need to know that their investments will not be wasted when they locate to or expand in Whatcom County. They need stable, predictable regulations and land use policy. They need a “how can we help you?” attitude when they apply for a permit to build or expand. Businesses need an educated workforce, and they need their community to support and recognize the important role they play in creating healthy communities. They are the economic engine and the job developers. Let’s put the Welcome sign out for Whatcom County businesses!

Whatcom County has, among other problems, a customer service issue when businesses seek permits and other help from county staff. We need to change the culture of “NO” to one of “How can we help you?”

Bill Knutzen: Yes

Rud Browne: Yes

We have rules and regulations that constantly change for someone with a Business Plan. This makes planning difficult or impossible. Some of this comes from the federal or state, as well as local regulations.

We need a council person who is willing to stand up to create rules and regulations that are fair and equitable, and then be willing to defend them. I have done that over the last four years and will continue to in the future.

I built and operated a substantial company; this taught me that government can impose costs on businesses that create much more disincentive to create jobs than taxes alone. Uncertainty, Delays and Administrative burden: These costs are harder to predict and are more burdensome than taxes. I have been affected by more rules and regulations than I can remember. I will use my business experience to provide our County Government administration with insight on the impact the County rules and procedures have on the business community and will vote for policies that make it easier to do business in Whatcom County.

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A Ken Mann: Yes

Ben Elenbaas: Yes

This is a serious problem. The biggest government obstacles to a pro-business environment are uncertainty and delay. The permitting process must be clear, efficient, and consistent. We have to improve the language of our code whenever we can, and we have to train our staff at PDS to work collaboratively with applicants. The attitude should be helping them get to “yes.” Skagit County and EDASK have been eating our lunch. We need to compete. Businesses will not invest in a County if the risks of regulatory uncertainty and delay are too great. That is our problem now.

As a small business owner, I think this idea exists because Whatcom County has been a place where businesses have not been given the ability to grow and prosper. Decisions have been made by past councils and carried out by our local bureaucrats who have not created any certainty that business owners will be able to run their operations successfully (think Caitec USA Corp., Krause Manufacturing). I will work to bring that certainty to the council, an approach which values business and economic viability as much as environmental health and preservation—as that is the true definition of sustainable.

Carl Weimer: Yes

Michelle Luke: Yes

I do not agree that Whatcom County is unfriendly to business, but there is more we could do to help existing businesses expand and new businesses locate here. We need to continue to support Executive Louws’ efforts to make permitting within the County more efficient and predictable. We need to use the limited amount of business development money we have to support a well-coordinated and respected effort, such as Skagit County has with EDASC. And we need to work with the cities to ensure that an adequate supply of commercial and industrial land is available to serve our growing population.

Businesses require a level of certainty for sustainable long-term success. A business needs consistent zoning and regulations to support its capitol investments. As a Planning Commissioner, working with our codes and guiding documents for almost four years, I can tell you that there is no functioning strategy for a vibrant business community in Whatcom County.

Our opportunity lies within our Comprehensive Plan that is under review and updating. This is the time to change our culture effectively by balancing our economic capability with our beautiful natural environment. This will happen only with a local government willing to do the work.

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WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 91

Guest Column: Crisis Management Gerald Baron | Crisis Communication Consultant Gerald Baron has worked with Fortune 100 companies and government agencies at every level. He writes the blogs CrisisComm for Emergency Management and crisisblogger.com. He owned Baron & Company, a Bellingham marketing and PR agency, and founded PIER System, the world’s leading supplier of crisis communication technology.

Communicating Bad News: How Paula Deen Can Provide a Powerful Lesson I

t’s easy to convey good news. But what about when you are announcing major layoffs? Or, you discovered a trusted employee has been embezzling? Or, you just got hit by big fines from OSHA or the air pollution authorities?

two months before it became a public issue. If she had dealt with the bad news at that time, chances are she would have survived with sponsors and TV network deals intact.

Sticking your head in the sand is the most certain way of turning the issue into a crisis. Particularly in this time of Internet-spiked transparency and disclosure, secrets are hard to come by, and when they are exposed the backThis is known as “issue manlash is usually devastating. agement.” Most business crises No one wants to draw attention are “smoldering;” smoke, but no to bad news that otherwise would fire yet. That makes issue mannot be noticed. Walking that tightagement closely related to crisis rope between being open, honest, management. Too many crises and trustworthy without fanning emerge to threaten the very existhe flames is one of the most diftence of an organization because ficult challenges in issue and crisis those in charge did not deal with management.

The best guidance is them when they were smolderto focus your communication on ing, choosing instead to hide their those most important, and vigiheads in the sand and hope that lantly monitor your key stakeholdthe problem would go away. ers to know what they know, how Paula Deen provides a case in they are responding and identify point. Her testimony in court in rumors that may be emerging. which she admitted to using racist Think about the people who language to employees occurred matter most for the future of your organization.

Tips for dealing with bad news: Usually there are far fewer of the 1. Never stick your head in the sand. really important 2. Never make it worse than it needs to be. people than most 3. Identify those people who matter most. realize, and that 4. Be honest, open, transparent, and complete. far too often 5. It’s not about you—it’s about those affected. those people are ignored when 92 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

trying to deal with issues or crises. If you are communicating openly and honestly with those people, even if the news media do a hatchet job on you, you can maintain your trust through your open and direct communication.

Identify them in advance, know how you will talk to them, and then avoid the bunker mentality and get out in engage even when it is uncomfortable.

Trust is essential. You need your employees, customers, donors, regulators, suppliers, and other critical people to trust you. Ironically, a crisis is often the best opportunity to build trust. Problems and how they are resolved show character, and character is what others are looking for when things are on the line.

There is no better guide to building trust than the ancient rule that says treat others as you would have them treat you.

It’s not about you.

If in communicating bad news you do not show that you care about those affected, nothing else will matter. British Petroleum (BP) CEO Tony Hayward was a brilliant leader who made a bad mistake in the gulf oil spill when he said “I want my life back.” There were people who died, thousands economically impacted and terrible damage to wildlife and the environment—all of which he talked about all the time. But when he

made it about him even for a second, it was all over and he was soon gone.

Sticking your head in the sand is the most certain way of turning the issue into a crisis. Particularly in this time of Internetspiked transparency and disclosure, secrets are hard to come by, and when they are exposed the backlash is usually devastating.

It is essential that you communicate compassion and empathy.

Recognize when someone is hurt, and express genuine apologies.

Even inconvenience should not be brushed aside. Trust is built above all when people perceive in your

character, through your actions and words, that your first concern for anyone and everyone affected by the events and less about its impact on you, your future, and your organization.

What could Paula have done differently? After testifying in court, she should have recognized that it was only a matter of time before her testimony about use of unacceptable racial slurs to employees would become public.

She should have contacted her most important relationships— employees, sponsors, network executives—and told them what happened in court and that she expected it to become public.

She should have expressed directly to them her sorrow and regret, recognizing above all the pain and hurt such language can cause in a work environment and to the people she offended. She should have apologized to all the employees subjected to that work atmosphere. She should have told

what specific actions she was taking to avoid this kind of language and work atmosphere. All that could have been done quietly, out of the media and social media glare.

Then, if and when it did become public, she would be able to convey exactly what she had already done to address the problem.

Perhaps her reputation would still have taken a hit—such violations of generally accepted societal values carry a heavy price. But, it is far more likely she would have survived it and for many, their trust, confidence and respect would have increased.

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WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 93

Guest Column: Government Regulations Erin Shannon | Director, WPC for Small Business Erin Shannon became director of the Washington Policy Center for Small Business during January 2012. She has an extensive background in small business issues and public affairs. The Center improves the state’s small business climate by working with owners and policymakers toward positives solutions.

This column was co-written with State Representative Norma Smith

Regulatory reform efforts designed to boost State’s competitiveness and to grow jobs I t is no secret that when it comes to the cost of doing business, our state is at a key competitive disadvantage compared to other states.

For years businesses large and small have consistently complained our state’s layers of complex regulations make it difficult to focus on operating and growing. Instead employers find themselves mired in the minutia of trying to understand and comply with regulations that are often costly, confusing, outdated, duplicative, contradictory, and unnecessary.

A decade ago Boeing executive Alan Mulally famously declared that Washington’s business climate “sucks.” Mulally went on to specifically cite our state’s burdensome regulatory and permitting process. Not much has changed since Mulally’s colorful remark.

And what is true for Washington’s key anchor employers is just as true for entrepreneurs trying to launch a new enterprise, or sole proprietors trying to grow their business.

Last year a report by the Kauffman Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes and studies entrepreneurship, revealed small business owners in 94 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

Washington peg our state as having the nation’s 10th least-friendly business regulations. Similarly, a survey by Chief Executive Group of 650 CEOs cited Washington’s “regulatory snares” as a factor in our state’s ranking as the 13th worst state for business.

“A business in Washington must sift through a growing maze of laws, regulations and administrative processes at all levels of government—federal, state and local….(and) small businesses find it difficult to pay the costs of staff, experts, consultants, attorneys in order to comply.”

A report from the Washington Economic Development Commission

More recently Forbes’ “Best States for Business 2012” ranked Washington’s regulatory climate the 12th worst in the nation, and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University ranked Washington 13th.

The Washington Economic

Development Commission issued a report earlier this year identifying the “five key economic drivers for ensuring job creation and competitiveness.” Among the five: regulations, which the WEDC notes are “overly burdensome” in our state and impact the business climate.

The report states, “Regulatory processes impose costs of doing business, and significantly influence investment behavior, location decisions, startup activity, expansions and hiring.”

Echoing what the business community has been saying for years, the WEDC explains: “A business in Washington must sift through a growing maze of laws, regulations and administrative processes at all levels of government—federal, state and local. This system burdens the regulated entity in terms of money and time delays and particularly small businesses who find it difficult to pay the costs of staff, experts, consultants, attorneys in order to comply.”

The Commission’s report concludes, “Washington’s overly burdensome regulatory system must be addressed as a top economic development priority” and offers a series of recommendations to create a “smarter regulatory system” that will boost the state’s competitiveness and create jobs.

The State Legislature acted on

these recommendations during the 2013 Session, passing four bills that will make our state’s regulatory system “smarter”—all signed by the governor.

HB 1591/SB 5679 directs certain key state agencies to review existing rules with the goal of improving the processes for licensing, permitting, and inspections, in a manner that reduces the regulatory burden on businesses without compromising public health and safety. The objective is to streamline the regulatory process and make rules less burdensome for businesses.

HB 1818/SB 5765 establishes a pilot program to bring together businesses from a specific sector (starting with manufacturing) within a geographic locale with the multiple layers of government—city, county and state agencies. Together, they will inventory all regulations, laws and processes, making recommendations to streamline regulations and reduce the regulatory barriers impacting that sector. The goal is to reduce the amount of time it takes businesses to conduct their interaction with government so they have more opportunity to create jobs.

HB 1757/SB 5718 provides legislative oversight for the development of a one-stop portal for businesses. It specifies the agency in charge of developing the portal for businesses to learn about regulations, obtain licenses, pay taxes, and more. This has been a goal of the state for decades, but no specific entity has been tasked with ensuring its implementation.

HB 1403/ SB 5680 requires specified state agencies to post on the state’s Business Licensing Service the information a business owner needs to complete an application for any business license, permit and inspection issued by the state. This is a short-term solution as we move toward a one-stop business portal, making it easier for employers to obtain the

licenses, permit and inspections required for their business.

These four bills will not fix our state’s massive “overly burdensome regulatory system.” But they will make it better. They target problem areas with sound solutions and are good steps in making our state a better place to live and do business.

Improving the state’s competitiveness will foster job creation, which will breathe new life into

our economy and generate more revenue for our state.

Representative Norma Smith represents the 10th legislative district. She is a member of the Washington Economic Development Commission, ranking member of the House Technology & Economic Development Committee and primary sponsor of the four regulatory reform bills that were passed by the legislature and signed by the Governor.

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Guest Column: Railroad Traffic Safety Don C. Brunell | President, AWB Don Brunell is the president of the Association of Washington Business, the state’s oldest and largest business association with more than 7,800 members representing 700,000 employees as both the state’s chamber of commerce and the manufacturing and technology association. About 90 percent of members employ fewer than 100 people.

More than half employ fewer than 10. For more about AWB, visit www.awb.org.

Railroads move America’s energy safely and efficiently F

or activists intent on stopping all use of fossil fuel, train safety has become their cause du jour.

After all, if you can block transport of fossil fuels, you can choke off their use.

If the activists succeed, it’s not clear how we will heat and light our homes and schools, get to work, run businesses, keep the hospitals operating, stock grocery stores, or harvest crops — but apparently, that’s an inconvenient question for another day.

America’s rail system has undergone a transformation over the last 40 years. In 1970, the once grand railroads of the northeast were dilapidated, and the iconic Penn Central railroad was in collapse. The PC was losing more than $1 million a day; poorlytrained dispatchers literally lost trains throughout the system.

When the flow of red ink became a flood, managers started deferring maintenance.

Derailments became the norm. To reduce accidents, speeds on large sections of track were reduced to 10 mph. Freight traffic slowed to a crawl. It was the low point of the American rail system.

Today, the picture is very different.

According to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), U.S. trains carried goods and peo96 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

ple more than 740 million miles last year. Rail has once again become a major commuter option, logging more than 20.5 billion passenger miles in 2012.

Rail traffic plays a major role in trade, and trade plays a major role in Washington’s economy. Per capita, we are the nation’s top exporter.

As technology and oversight have improved, the railroads have amassed a good safety record, even as rail traffic has increased.

The FRA reports that in 2012 there was one derailment for every 582,167 miles traveled, one fatality per 82 million miles, and 2.65 accidents at rail crossings for every million miles traveled.

Our state Department of Transportation states in a publication, “Rail is a safe and efficient way to move both people and goods. Freight trains reduce the number of large trucks on our congested highways, and for passengers, it is more than 23 times safer than traveling by car.”

Why are these statistics important?

Rail traffic plays a major role

in trade, and trade plays a major role in Washington’s economy.

Per capita, we are the nation’s top exporter. The potential is even greater today because Montana and Wyoming coal, which is cleaner than many other varieties produced around the world, is in demand.

Exporting coal from Washington and Oregon would add more than 11,000 new jobs and $115 million in payroll. Just one oil terminal in Vancouver, Wash., could generate up to 250 construction jobs and up to 120 permanent full-time positions, primarily from the local community.

The bottom line is, if we don’t build the shipping terminals here, the trains will simply go through Washington to Canadian ports, taking the jobs with them.

To enhance safety, railroads have invested heavily in technologies that provide advance notice of potential problems. Some of these technologies include wheel impact detectors, wheel journal detectors, and detector cars that X-ray the rails for metal defects.

These and other technologies have significantly reduced derailments over the past 20 years.

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) reports that 99.9977 percent of all rail-shipped hazardous materials, including oil, reached their destination without an accident-related spill last year

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;and that railroads spill less liquid hazmat product than trucks or pipelines.

Multiple federal agencies regulate the movement of hazardous materials by rail, including the Federal Railroad Administration, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the Transportation Security Administration. The federal government also requires railroads to route hazardous materials on lines posing the least safety and security risk.

Will all this guarantee that there will never be an accident? Of course not.

But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important to keep things in perspective so we can make informed judgments about issues that are important to us all.

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Guest Column: Lean Practices Randall Benson | The Lean Heretic Randall Benson is a management consultant, author, and Lean master working out of Whatcom County. You can visit his blog “The Lean Heretic” at www.leanheretic.com, and his website at www.bensonconsulting.com.

Lean’s unsung advantage: engaging employees M

uch has been written about the advantages of Lean. You’ve probably read about dramatic improvements in customer response times, huge reductions in work in process, superior quality, and higher productivity. These gains are documented across all economic sectors.

What is less understood is Lean’s beneficial impact on employee engagement.

This area demands our attention. Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace indicates that 70 percent of employees in the United States don’t like their jobs and therefore usually become less productive because of emotional disconnect. This massive disengagement represents a strong threat to our work force.

Lean, while certainly not the sole answer, can be a significant contributor to improving engagement.

Three factors account for Lean’s impact on employee engagement: 1. Removing hassles and roadblocks.

2. Creating flow.

3. Fostering exploration in otherwise routine work.

Let’s see how it works.

First, Lean reduces non-value time and effort by identifying and eliminating waste. Most of that 98 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

waste represents hassles and roadblocks that frustrate employees, wastes their effort, wears them down, and keeps them from doing their best work.

Employees in Lean organizations universally report that their work is easier and significantly frustration-free, while resulting in soaring productivity and output. I have surveyed hundreds of employees over the years and can report that the vast majority would never voluntarily go back to a

When I help employees participate in continuous improvement, I notice heightened commitment, imagination, creativity, and inventiveness. pre-Lean workplace.

Second, Lean creates flow—a steady and continuous process, without disruptions or excessive anxiety. Lean flow has a palpable cadence or rhythm, predictable and entraining, the opposite of typical chaotic and disruptive work places.

Flow creates a certain tranquility and peace of mind. Many employees notice and remark on this somewhat mysterious property.

They overwhelmingly prefer work

environments where flow is present.

Finally, Lean continuous improvement gives employees the ability to explore ways to enhance their processes. Employees have the ability to explore and experiment with new approaches, not just endlessly executing someone else’s design.

This is Lean’s most significant contribution to employee engagement. Evolution expert Charles Pasternak identified the need to explore as man’s most powerful (and exquisitely human) motivator.

Not surprisingly, given the recent Gallup report, Stanford professor James March pointed to “exploration” as the critical missing “mode” in mature organizations.

To the extent that the continuous-improvement approach gives employees access to exploration, it engages them. Engagement runs deep, tapping into their strongest drives. When I help employees participate in continuous improvement, I notice heightened commitment, imagination, creativity, and inventiveness.

Lean provides a means of expression for every employee’s need to explore and apply.

Many years ago, Toyota admired the Ford production system, but saw a fundamental flaw in its lack of respect for employees. Toyota attempted to remedy Ford’s weakness. They result was a continuous-improvement continue on page 101...

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TITLE Guest Column: Free-Market Environmentalism Todd Myers | Environmental Director, Washington Policy Center The Washington Policy Center is an independent, non-partisan think tank promoting sound public policy based on free-market solutions. Todd Myers is one of the nation’s leading experts on freemarket environmental policy and is the author of the 2011 landmark book Eco-Fads: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism is Harming the Environment. His in-depth research on the failure of the state’s 2005 “green” building mandate receives national attention. He recently became a contributor to The Wall Street Journal.

Politics overrides the environment: failed “Energy Freedom” loans C

onsider the choices you face in how to use your hard-earned savings.

You could use it to give your child a better education. You could give it to charity to help the poor. Or you could spend it to help the environment, buying renewable energy. Finally, you could put it in a bank and let them lend it out to others.

In the State of Washington, politicians chose that final option, lending our tax money out at favorable rates to companies to start “green” businesses. Rather than choose projects that would provide a return on the investment, the money was used to promote a political vision of what the economy should look like.

Not surprisingly, that approach has failed miserably, according to a new report from the state Department of Commerce.

The so-called “Energy Freedom” loan program provides another example of why Washington’s politically-driven environmental policies have failed to actually help the environment.

Released on Sept. 26, the report analyzed the state’s four “Energy Freedom” loans. One company receiving a loan opened just before the release of the report, making it impossible to analyze its success or failure. The other three loans, however, paint a stark picture.

100 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

All three are failing or have failed. Here is the record.

Inland Empire Oilseeds: Late last year the company declared bankruptcy for the second time in three years. The company still owes taxpayers more than $3 million on its loans.

Natural Selection Farms: Owing

In the State of Washington, politicians chose that final option, lending our tax money out at favorable rates to companies to start “green” businesses…. Not surprisingly, that approach has failed miserably, according to a new report from the state Department of Commerce. taxpayers more than $400,000 on its loan for its oilseed crushing facility, the company skipped payments in 2012 and will not make any in 2013. These payments are deferred until June 1, 2018.

DeRuyter and Sons Farms: The family operation received nearly $2 million in tax money to build

an anaerobic digester, recovering methane to create renewable energy. The project, however, is losing money and under reorganization. One report noted the project “ceased being profitable at the end of 2012 as the return...dropped from 6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour to 3.5 cents, below the break-even [point] of 6 cents.” The project still owes taxpayers more than $700,000.

Of the $10 million loaned by the state, $4.4 million is at risk from these three companies. Even if the state recovers some payments, it will still likely lose money on these politically chosen loans.

For those who care about protecting the environment and improving the economy, these examples hold some harsh lessons.

First, politicians choose loans based on image, not effectiveness.

These companies turned to the state rather than to banks because their business plans would not have passed the scrutiny of private sector lenders. Politicians, however, are willing to turn a blind eye to obvious shortcomings in an effort to promote their own personal agendas – at taxpayer expense, of course.

Second, these loans harm not only taxpayers but the environment. Last year, the Chair of the Puget Sound Partnership Martha Kongsgaard lamented $1.7 million

in cuts to her agency. When the state loses $4.4 million on foolish loans, however, she and others who claim to care about the environment are silent.

Of the $10 million loaned by the state, $4.4 million is at risk from these three companies. Even if the state recovers some payments, it will still likely lose money on these politically chosen loans.

Politics trumps the environment when it comes to government waste.

Finally, politically-chosen projects actually harm the economy and kill jobs. Although the Commerce report lists “jobs created” under each loan, it does not indicate the number of jobs killed by taking money from successful businesses and giving it to failing businesses. Existing companies are taxed to fund companies favored by politicians, even if those companies are unlikely to succeed, as is the case with the “Energy Freedom” loans.

The free market, which harnesses the creativity of entrepreneurs while holding them to a high standard of success, is consistently superior to politicians in making smart decisions that help the environment. While the free market consistently does more with less –an environmental ethic, if there ever was one–politics does less with more, wasting scarce resources on failed efforts.

Unfortunately, Washington state has put the political approach at the center of our environmental policy and the cost is paid by taxpayers and the environment, as the “Energy Freedom” loans prove one more time.

Benson Lean Practices

...continued from page 98. approach where every employee could explore and experiment with better ways to make cars.

Toyota’s industry leadership is, in large part, a legacy of their respect for people. As the Toyota’s system morphed into Lean, we gained access to Toyota’s powerful

capabilities to engage employees.

As Whatcom County entrepreneur, inventor, and Lean advocate Paul Akers, the founder and president of international product development company FastCap LLC, said to me, “The misunderstood key to Lean is its ability to change culture.”

How could you utilize Lean to create a culture of engagement?

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WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 101

TITLETHE EXPERTS: LIFE IN THE TECH LANE ASK

5 Tips

By the Tech Help staff at Big Fresh Media

on how to spruce up that aging computer

We at Tech Help, love new, faster, sleeker hardware, but we understand the monetary constraints of constantly upgrading computers with the latest and greatest technology. If you’re pinching pennies and have a limited budget for technology, follow our five ideas about how you can extend the life of your computer, affordably.

1. Regularly clean your computer/laptop hardware Computers are magnets for dust, hair, and food particles.

The fans inside computers seem to accumulate dust and hair better than any vacuum cleaner, and according to a report from the BBC, keyboards are dirtier than toilet seats. So what do you do?

Give your computer’s hardware a thorough cleaning during a spring cleaning frenzy.

That will help prevent hardware from overheating and responding improperly, which will significantly increase the life span of your computer.

2. Refresh your operating system The most common complaint about old computers is that they are slow. This is only mildly related to age and more likely due to bad maintenance or poor software design. One of the easiest fixes to speed up that aging computer is to “refresh” your operating system. This is done by completely reinstalling Windows and other programs. Doing this can clean up any corruptions that may have occurred during the years of use which has turned into an unmanageable situation, slowing down the operation of your computer.

3. Keep your operating system and programs up to date No operating system or program is perfect. But with every upgrade, issues get patched and new features are added. That’s why you want to run Windows updates and make sure your installed software is up to date. Several 102 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM

third-party apps out there that can help you with this.

Microsoft and Apple have built-in applications that keep your operating system current.

4. Upgrade your hardware To most people, upgrading hardware sounds impossible, but it’s not so difficult to install a bigger hard drive, add more RAM, or even install a new graphics card. If you can determine the exact component that’s slowing you down, chances are there is an easier and less expensive fix than buying a new computer.

A hardware upgrade is a sensible way to fix up an aging computer. You may be able to squeeze some life out of the device, before your computer is ready for recycling.

5. Malware/Spyware/Virus scans Over the years of surfing the internet, downloading programs, and opening email attachments there is a good chance you have some sort of nefarious piece of software running on your computer that may be slowing it down. These programs usually run in the background without you even knowing and some show their true self when you have random ads popping up on your screen while you’re working. Running scans to remove these nasty bugs will help increase the performance of that aging computer (and lessen your frustration) so you can get a little more time out of it.

For more information about these apps please visit our blog http://gotechhelp.com/blog Experts at Tech Help in Bellingham, a division of Big Fresh, provide answers to the questions that are trending among clients. If you have a tech question for our experts, send an email to getanswers@gotechhelp.com

WHATCOMBUSINESSALLIANCE.COM | 103

TITLE Entrepreneur Corner

Local innovators find renewed passion, seed money with mentor support

By NW Innovation Resource Center

A

s a firefighter, Joe Noonchester was impacted when a firefighter from another state died in a structure fire because rescuers couldn’t get to him quickly and easily.

Personally affected by what happened, Noonchester took it upon himself to develop a tool that would allow firefighters to rescue each other easily, resulting in fewer firefighter deaths.

two local innovators recently– Noonchester with his Rescue Ride Systems, and Mark King with his Wallet for Life.

Noonchester said that after his first meeting with NWIRC staff he quickly regained the optimism he needed to develop his product.

“From the first meeting with the NWIRC, I got the feeling I was on the right track with my passion,” he said. “The NWIRC and their BuildIt program have given me new hope for the future and a clear idea of where I want to go.”

NWIRC program manager Heather McKendry said the organization is committed to He knew he had a good idea creating economic opportunity but without adequate help, he and jobs by supporting entresoon became exhausted with the preneurial innovation. start-up process.

“It’s the role of the NWIRC staff Enter Whatcom County’s NW to provide oversight and insure Innovation Resource Center that each entrepreneur has the (NWIRC), a group that helps entreopportunity to experience compreneurs bring their business ideas pany growth and forward momento life. The organization’s “BuildIt” tum,” McKendry said. “By utilizing program is designed specifically high-caliber experts as mentors to offer guidance to inventors and who are dedicated to understandproduct developers and help them ing the whole business, entreprecreate and grow their business into neurs can focus on their passion profitable ventures. and specialties. They benefit from The BuildIt model assisted the guidance and experience of seasoned business leaders.”

The Build It 1. Apply for the program. program takes that 2. NWIRC will join you in evaluating your business idea. mission a step fur3. NWIRC will provide a customized plan for success. ther by designating

Here’s how BuildIt works:

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help specifically for inventors and product developers.

Applicants simply apply for the program and, if they are accepted, NWIRC staff works with the developer to evaluate their business idea and provide a customized plan for success. Recently the BuildIt program also received support from local Whatcom County manufacturers willing to consult with their entrepreneurs and give advice on prototyping, materials, and manufacturing methods.

McKendry said another local BuildIt success story involved King after he went snorkeling in Hawaii and was surprised to see how many plastic shopping bags floated past him. His product started as a tool to hold plastic shopping bags for re-use and eventually morphed into a product he calls “Wallet for Life.”

And while he knew he had a successful product, he realized he needed help building the business strategy to support the product.

“He is a successful Kickstarter. com story,” McKendry said. “His original ask was for $5,000 but he ended up receiving $47,000.”

For more information about NWIRC’s BuildIt program, call (360) 255.7870, or visit the website www.builditnw.com

SCENE ON THE STREET Urban Knitting Article and photo by Lydia Love NW Handspun Yarns, owned by Meg Jobe, turns heads with this Knit Tree on Commercial Street in downtown Bellingham. The fully-knitted creations on the trunk is known as urban knitting, also called yarn bombing or graffiti knitting. The yarn and knitting industry is popular in this region, where Whatcom Weavers Guild has met for 42 years and Whatcom Knitting Guild meets each month. Several small specialty shops like this one carry materials.

In each issue we publish a Scene on the Street image that speaks to commerce in Whatcom County. If you have a suggestion or a photo for consideration, submit it with proposed content to articles@businesspulse.com.

ADVERTISER INDEX Anderson Paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Archer Halliday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Bank of the Pacific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Barkley Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Bellingham Athletic Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Bellingham Fitness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Benchmark Document Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Best Western Lakeway Inn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Big Fresh Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Brooks Property & Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Buildit NW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Chmelik Sitkin & Davis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Chocolate Necessities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 City of Sumas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Dan Robbins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Dari Tech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Diane Padys Photography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Exact Scientific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 First Federal Savings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Fitness Gear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Great Floors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Hardware Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Hilltop Restaurant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Hotel Bellwether . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Industrial Credit Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Innotech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Ken Bell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Kena Brashear Real Estate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Larson Gross CPAs & Consultants . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Laserpoint Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Metcalf Hodges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Mills Electric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 North Cascades Institute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Northwest Propane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 NW SkyFerry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Oltman Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 PeaceHealth St Joseph Medical Center . . . . . . . . 50 Port of Bellingham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Print & Copy Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Roger Jobs Motors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Saturna Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Scholten’s Equiment, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Scrap It/Stow It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Silver Reef Casino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Signs Plus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Skagit State Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Skagit Valley Casino Resort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 St Francis Health Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 St Paul’s Academy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 TAG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 TD Curran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 United Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 VSH Certified Public Accountants . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 WECU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Whidbey Island Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Whirlwind Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 The Willows Inn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Willo’s Pub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

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