September 2016
Volume 15 • Issue 9
State OKs sale of 230 acres of prime Pasco real estate BY KRISTINA LORD
editor@tcjournal.biz
Science & Technology
CBC offers students internships in tech industry Page 15
Real Estate & Construction
Pasco adding single-, multi-family homes Page 25
Education & Training
WSU looks to attract more women to engineering page 43
he Said It “There is a big difference between running and owning a company.” - Bill Bailey, managing director, Polestar Technical Services, Richland Page 19
A chunk of prime Pasco real estate is back on the auction block after no buyers stepped forward to snatch it up last year. The state Board of Natural Resources authorized the sale of more than 230 acres of vacant state trust land in Pasco earlier this month. The five parcels range from 21 to 103 acres and are valued at more than $5.5 million collectively, according to the state. The parcels are residentially zoned and located south of Interstate 182, between roads 68 and 84 and Argent Road. Chiawana High School is just south of the property. The minimum acceptable auction bids will range from $680,000 to just over $1.2 million based on a recent appraisal. The state may have priced the land too high last year, said Bob Redling, spokesman for the state Department of Natural Resources. The minimum acceptable bids last year ranged from $512,000 to $2.66 million, but the 230 acres were divided into nine parcels compared to five parcels this time around, Redling said. “This area needs to have a major arterial through it and developers might have to do it. It might fall to them and we didn’t build it into the price,” he said.
State-owned since statehood
Pasco officials say the state should have released the land back to the city years ago. “If the city limits were an archery target or a target of some sort, this property would be at the bull’s eye. It’s right in the middle,” said Rick White, Pasco’s community and economic development director. Because the property has been owned and managed by DNR for 127 years — since Washington became a state — Pasco, population 70,560, has grown up around it. uAUCTION, Page 36
Brett Crusselle, 33, of Pasco, landed a full-time job as a nuclear chemical operator for Washington River Protection Solutions in June after earning his degree from Columbia Basin College’s nuclear technology program.
CBC’s nuclear tech grads find jobs in their own backyard BY KRISTINA LORD editor@tcjournal.biz
A pastry chef traded his apron and kitchen for protective gear to work at the Hanford nuclear reservation tank farms. Just how does a pastry chef become a nuclear chemical operator? For Brett Crusselle, it meant a tough two years of classes in the nuclear technology program at Columbia Basin College. Crusselle, 33, of Pasco, graduated in the spring and landed a full-time job at Richland’s Washington River Protection Solutions, which employs 14 program graduates. “I have a family and I wanted a more stable job,” he said. It’s a route 99 graduates have taken at
the Pasco college since the first class graduated in 2011 with two-year associate of applied science degrees in three areas: non-licensed nuclear operator, radiation protection technician, and instrumentation and control technician. One-year certificates also are available.
Coffee shop brainstorming
Seven years ago a physicist and a college dean met at a Starbucks to sketch out a plan to train skilled workers for jobs waiting in the Tri-City nuclear industry. “The next thing we knew we had a program up and running,” said Lloyd Keith, human performance improvement manager for WRPS in Richland. uNUCLEAR, Page 16
Businesses have options under new overtime rule, experts say BY KRISTINA LORD editor@tcjournal.biz
New federal overtime rules may have some small businesses nervous as the date it takes effect looms. But Tri-City experts encourage smaller mom-and-pop businesses not to worry. “I really think the big focus here is to know what the law is and to know you have options,” said attorney Scott Boyce of The Cicotte Law Firm in Kennewick. The U.S. Department of Labor’s new federal overtime rule changes the salary and compensation levels necessary for administrative, professional and executive
level workers to be exempt from overtime. The rule goes into effect Dec. 1. Under the new rule, employees making less than $47,476 per year, or $913 per week, will be eligible for overtime for working more than 40 hours per week. That’s up from the current threshold of $23,660 annually, or $455 per week. The new rule will automatically make 35 percent of salaried workers eligible for overtime pay, according to the Department of Labor. Not everyone supports the change, including the Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce. uOVERTIME, Page 41
PLEASE DELIVER TO CURRENT Occupant Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business 8919 W. Grandridge Blvd., Ste. A1 Kennewick, WA 99336
PRESORTED STANDARD U.S. POSTAGE PAID PASCO, WA PERMIT NO. 8778