News and Events

July 31st, 2010

Fifteen years ago, the American dream looked like a long shot for Milwaukie High School's class of 1990, when five years out of high school most members still faced uncertain job prospects.

Fifteen years ago, the American dream looked like a long shot for Milwaukie High School's class of 1990, when five years out of high school most members still faced uncertain job prospects and a shapeless future.

But at least some of those who showed up for the class's 20th reunion in Portland last weekend proved that persistence and hard work still deliver a home, family and middle-class life, even when the odds seemed stacked against them.

In 1995, Milwaukie High graduate Mercedes Cochran Cook, already married with two children, seemed mired too deep in obligations to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. Classmate Stacey Baker seemed to have squandered her college degree on a receptionist job for a shoe company, and Jonathan Heiden was scrambling from job to job as he tried to support his wife and daughter.

Today, Cochran Cook is a professional actress, Baker has traveled around the world outfitting athletes for the Olympics, and Heiden has a stable job driving a garbage truck, earning enough to support his family and buy a home.

"I figured out how to make a living doing what I love in Oregon," says Cochran Cook. "I'm pretty proud of that."

A team of Oregonian reporters in 1995 set out to track down graduates of Milwaukie High's class of 1990 to see how well a typical Oregon high school prepared young people for their next stage in life, whether work or college. The team chose Milwaukie because it was, in almost every way, average for the state, including demographics and size.

Reporters interviewed 132 of the graduates, a little fewer than half. Five years after earning their diploma, most were single, renting an apartment and, if working full time, earning about $19,000 a year. Twelve owned homes, a third had married, and 27 had children. About 29 percent were still living with their parents, and 23, or about 18 percent, had earned a four-year college degree.

Five years later, in 2000, The Oregonian surveyed 54 Milwaukie class members who attended their 10-year reunion. Though not a scientific or representative sample, the survey showed that at least a majority of that group had built stable middle-class lives during a time when the economy was booming.

Two-thirds were earning more than $31,000 a year, and one in five more than $45,000. Three out of four were married, and more than two-thirds had children and were buying a home.

A week ago, about 100 of the 38-year-old Milwaukie alums gathered Friday and Saturday for their 20th reunion. Some of them met Friday at Macadam's Bar & Grill in Southwest Portland. Dressed casually in jeans, shorts, halter tops and polo shirts, they knocked back drinks and shared photographs of their children, some of whom are now in high school.
 
The young adults are part of Generation X, a group that grew up with high divorce rates and Reagan-era materialism and came of age along with the personal computer. Some in that generation made fortunes in the high-tech boom during the Clinton years, and some went bust when the tech bubble burst.

Mercedes Cochran Cook told the Oregonian in 1995 that it was important for her to marry early. "I wanted to get married and stay married because my parents were divorced," she said.

But she didn't let her marriage and children block her quest to become an actress. She embodies the class of 1990 motto: "If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it."

Today, she uses the stage name Mercedes Rose to earn a living acting in television, in commercial and training films, and in doing voiceover for video games, such as Princess Rosalina for Super Mario Galaxy.

She works out of her Carlton home, as does her husband, Jeremiah Cook, a massage therapist. They are raising three children and celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary a week ago.

"I couldn't be happier," she says. "I've worked really hard to get here and feel like I've earned it."

Five years after leaving Milwaukie High, Stacey Baker wasn't sure what she wanted. She had earned a bachelor's degree in French from Pacific University in Forest Grove and was living with her mom while working as a receptionist for Adidas America.

Over the next 14 years, she worked her way up in the corporation, from managing data to managing apparel to outfitting athletes.

She traveled widely to choose apparel designs for athletes and teams, including trips to Sydney in 2000 and to Athens, Greece, in 2004 to outfit U.S. competitors in the Olympic Games.

She left Adidas last November to outfit teams for Brand Athletics, a sports apparel company in Tigard.

She rents out a condominium that she owns and lives in a house that she's buying in North Portland. Baker, who has remained single, says her career has been demanding but rewarding.

"For someone who never knew what she wanted to do," she says, "I have been gifted beyond the imagination."

Jonathan Heiden considers himself fortunate, too, especially given how he struggled with authority at Milwaukie High, where he was kicked out twice, and had his first daughter five years out of high school.

In those early years, he bounced among jobs, from a pizza restaurant to a grocery store warehouse to an airline catering service. He finally got some traction working for a printer, but he lost that job when business plummeted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Then, about eight years ago, he got a job driving trucks for a Gresham waste management company. "It is not recession-proof, but it is recession-resilient," he says. "We are Americans. We generate trash."

He lives in Battle Ground, Wash., with his wife and three children in a home they bought 10 years ago.

"For the way I came out of high school," Heiden says, "I did really great."

As might be expected, last week's reunion also drew class members who have built remarkable careers after bolting out of the starting gate after high school commencement.

Shannon Kmetic, who was completing her second year of law school when The Oregonian caught up with her five years out of high school, is a Clackamas County prosecutor and founder of a nonprofit helping children affected by neglect or abuse called Angels in the Outfield.

Michael Juhala may have traveled the farthest to last week's reunion. He earned a college degree, played American-style football for a year in Europe and married an Austrian woman. They have two boys and live in Frankfurt, Germany, where Juhala runs the European operations of a staffing and consulting business. The 6-foot-6-inch former athlete hopes to return to Portland in a few years and establish a nonprofit to pay public school sports fees for low-income students.

Nathan Gamble, a Milwaukie valedictorian and student president at Oregon State University, worked 10 years for Cyber Dialogue, an Internet company based in New York City. He then earned an advanced degree at Stanford University and went to work for Yahoo, which he recently left to join a small startup company that rents textbooks to students. He lives in San Francisco.

"I'm very happy with the journey I've had so far," he says.

--Bill Graves 

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July 31st, 2010

COMPLAINT DESK: An agency promised full-time jobs at Safeway, then never paid in full, they say.

A dozen Oregonians say a temp agency hired them to work warehouse jobs at Safeway Inc.'s Clackamas campus with promises of higher wages and full-time jobs if they stayed on at least 30 days.

Many of the workers had been job-hunting for months and snapped up the graveyard or weekend shifts scrubbing Safeway's bakery floors, cleaning heavy equipment and scanning grocery inventory.

But the workers say the agency hasn't paid up.

As far back as March, workers notified their Safeway supervisors they weren't receiving paychecks from Aptitude Staffing Solutions of Pleasanton, Calif. Eventually, workers say, they alerted four supervisors, including one who told them that it wasn't Safeway's problem because it had paid the temp agency.

Even so, workers told The Desk, Aptitude continued filling Safeway jobs as recently as June.

The grocer's spokesman, Dan Floyd, called the topic a "legal issue" and would say only that Safeway is no longer working with Aptitude and had fully paid the agency for the workers' time.

"We are not a joint employer in this circumstance," Floyd said in an e-mailed statement. "We have fully paid Aptitude for the services of the workers and are demanding that they fulfill any obligation they have to the temporary workers."

But the state says not so fast.

Although the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, which has received three complaints, has made no final rulings, it says Safeway could be responsible if workers' claims are verified.

"If these people indeed worked at Safeway, I can't imagine that Safeway wouldn't be liable," said Christie Hammond, administrator of the state's wage and hour division. "Safeway should be concerned because, probably, they'll be on the hook for those unpaid wages."

The state will demand payment from Aptitude, she says. But if that doesn't work, the agency would have to turn to the client.

Darren Errol Lawson, who workers say was their main contact at the temp agency, and other Aptitude representatives did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.

Brookes Gulleff, who says she worked through breaks to complete her inventory job, made dozens of attempts to reach Lawson and his colleagues, to no avail. The 28-year-old says she's owed nearly $900 for work at the grocery distribution warehouse between June 30 and July 12.

She'd heard from Aptitude soon after posting her résumé on Craigslist. Her unemployment benefits had run out a few weeks earlier, and she jumped at the chance to earn $13.75 an hour.

Gulleff, who hasn't found another job since, isn't sure how she'll pay next month's rent. "When I told my boss at Safeway about it she said, 'Safeway's a big company; we'll make sure you get paid.'

"Obviously, that didn't happen."

In addition to the dozen workers owed money, two others told The Desk they got checks only after three weeks of phone calls to Aptitude. State law requires employers to issue final checks on a worker's last day or potentially face a penalty that includes paying the worker's daily hourly wages for 30 days until the final payment is received.

The wage claims of the 12 workers seeking payment range from $88 to $1,164, totaling at least $6,300.

The California Department of Industrial Relations also is investigating two wage complaints against Aptitude. One seeks $1,348 in late-payment penalties; the other, $4,500 in unpaid wages.

As with the Oregon workers, Carmen Meuter of Brentwood, Calif., heard from Lawson after posting her résumé on a job-hunting site. Soon after, Aptitude lined up the 70-year-old physical therapist with an in-home health care agency. Last August, she started working four hours a week, she says, filling out timecards that were signed by the health care agency and then faxed to Aptitude. That system worked for the first few months, she says, but as her caseload built up to 30 hours a week, the paychecks stopped coming.

"I had bills that I'd gone to work to pay," says Meuter, who's suing Lawson in small-claims court hoping to get the $4,500. "I've cried many tears about this."

On various social-networking sites, Aptitude bills itself as an employer 600-strong that uses "the most advanced recruiting technology combined with tenured industry-experienced staffing executives."

But Meuter says she visited Aptitude's Pleasanton office and found little save a cubicle that the receptionist says Lawson visits infrequently to pick up mail.

David McMullen, 40, chuckled at those claims of "advanced recruiting technology." On many days, the Portland man says, Lawson would call and tell him how many shifts Safeway needed and have McMullen round up a group of friends and fill the slots.

"I was doing Lawson's job and working at Safeway, and I didn't get paid for either," says McMullen, who says he's owed $450.

McMullen heard about the Safeway jobs from a friend in early May and called Lawson. He was told to show up at the Safeway warehouse the next day at 4 a.m., and he did, spending $30 on the cab ride to Clackamas from his downtown Portland home.

"I was doing everything I could to get there because he'd promised a full-time job," says McMullen, who says he once climbed into a hydraulic lift to scrape pipes clean near the ceiling. "And I'm afraid of heights. Everyone wanted to work hard for this guy because he said Safeway would keep the good people."

McMullen and the other workers say they were promised part-time shifts that could evolve to full time. They say Lawson consistently talked up the hourly wages -- $11 to start, $12 after 30 days.

McMullen says his first paycheck was late, then the next two were on time. He says he worked several more weeks and never saw another check. He says he left the job for good after his boss pressured him to work overtime -- even after weeks of complaining to her that he hadn't been paid.

McMullen had given Lawson's number to a friend, Charlotte Delgado, and the temp-to-hire offer sounded perfect to the single mom who said she'd just started a program helping homeless families find permanent housing.

"I talked to (Lawson) at 10 p.m. and started at the bakery the next day at 4 a.m.," says Delgado, adding that she was often among the six to eight workers Lawson needed to fill weekend shifts. "He sent me to work and didn't even know my last name."

Delgado and two of her friends say they worked several shifts -- many involving overtime -- before providing Lawson W-4 tax and I-9 immigration status forms. Federal law requires employers to have those forms before employees can start work. Delgado says she received her employee handbook and other training information a week later.

Delgado says she received only two paychecks in May and worked the entire month of June, including at least eight hours of overtime, without reimbursement. She figures she's owed about $1,600.

"We worked our butts off for them in hopes of getting a job," says Delgado, who says she complained to her Safeway boss June 11. "I still would really like to work for Safeway."

Have a complaint? Contact Laura Gunderson at The Desk: 503-221 8378 or twitter

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July 31st, 2010

Evidence shows credit-card rewards aren't good for us in the long run. Here's what you can do to wean yourself off them.

I like rewards as much as the next dog. In fact, I have three free airline tickets sitting on two different pieces of plastic just waiting to be redeemed.

But after reading studies on the costs of these cards, I'm seriously considering rejecting rewards-card caching from here on out. You might too.

Last week, Federal Reserve Bank economists in Boston released a study reasserting what other economists increasingly contend -- credit card rewards aren't good for our economy.

They're especially bad for anyone not using one of these cards. Cash and debit-card users end up subsidizing these rewards, effectively paying $150 a year to credit-card wielders in the form of merchant swipe fees, the study found. The average credit card user, in the meantime, reaps nearly $1,500 from those of us paying with greenbacks or debit.

The new study pointed out that since low-income Americans make up the bulk of cash-paying customers and high-income Americans disproportionately wield reward credit cards, we all unwittingly are engaging in a daily transfer of income from the poor to the rich.

Thanks, again, to the banks. The same ones who used overdraft fees -- most often incurred by the poor -- to subsidize free checking.

We're all caught up in it and letting it happen, possibly to our individual financial benefit but to the detriment of the overall economy.

Evidence is piling up that these fees are too high -- generally, the highest in the world. We might be better off with fewer rewards and lower prices. Increasingly, this mantra is coming from the arm of our government that oversees our money, the Federal Reserve.

"The money goes from cash users to card users and low income to high income," said Fumiko Hayashi, a senior economist who studies payments at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. "I don't think that's a good way to keep the system."

How does this happen?

Payment networks (Visa Inc. and MasterCard) and card-issuing banks together set fees for each card use. For simplicity's sake, I'll call them swipe fees. They average 2 percent of each credit card transaction. But they vary widely, depending on the type of card, retailer and other add-ons. And they're much lower for PIN-initiated debit cards.

The fees are charged only when a card is swiped. But in reality, research shows, we all pay for them in the form of higher priced goods, whether we use cards or cash.

Michael Hass, who owns a company that provides card-processing equipment and billing to retailers, advises retailers to do just that.

"I tell them to look at their business plan," said Hass, owner of PDX Enterprise Solutions. "Account for a 3 to 5 percent increase in all of your prices to accommodate for the fact that you now have to accept credit and debit cards."

Now, large merchants such as Wal-Mart have some negotiating power over these fees. In fact, a lawsuit by Wal-Mart led to a settlement reducing fees on debit cards. Those particular fees have not increased since, experts say.

But smaller merchants -- coffee shops and ma and pa stores especially -- have no such leverage. They can't really shop around for lower fees. They also are beholden to "no surcharge" agreements imposed by Visa and MasterCard, prohibiting them from imposing minimum purchases or surcharges for credit cards.

Yet card use is so pervasive, if merchants refuse them, they risk running off their wealthiest customers.

"They have you in a virtual stranglehold," said Carl Singmaster, owner of Belmont Station beer shop in Portland.

We're made aware of these fees only if the merchant imposes a surcharge, which is prohibited.

Yet we've become so used to the convenience of plastic and the allure of those "free" airline tickets that some of us have become zealots about surcharges.

In June, a user on Yelp.com started an online chat on the matter. The user, "CS," said he gets outraged when merchants violate card agreement policies prohibiting surcharges and minimum price settings.

A user named "Leo T" chimed in, providing a link to a page on MasterCard's website where customers can report merchants that break those agreements.

"I try to report as many places that I see doing it," Leo writes, "because it's not fair to the consumer."

Singmaster knows. Last year, Belmont Station imposed a $5 minimum payment for card sales, only to have a customer turn him in to his card processor. That company, Global Payments, threatened to fine Singmaster $5,000 unless he stopped the practice.

Now, each of his 1,200 makes of beer has a card price and cash price that's 4 percent lower because the agreements allow cash discounts.

"We're just trying to find a happy medium," said Singmaster, who paid $2,225 in swipe fees in June.

Even as technology has improved, merchant fees have increased.

One reason behind the increase is certain: to pay for rewards.

Remember, competition among credit card issuers is intense. Think of how many card solicitations you get. The banks have to offer more perks to get you to use their card. And they have.

The fees "are designed by Visa and MasterCard to attract banks that issue cards," says Aneace Haddad, a payment industry veteran who blogs on industry issues. "The retailer has no say in the matter. Yet it is the retailer that pays."

We do, too. In more ways than one. Between 1995 and 2004, Visa's interchange fees grew from 1.21 percent to 1.71 percent, notes Allan Shampine, vice president of Compass Lexecon, an economics consulting firm in Chicago. At the same time, direct-mail solicitations jumped fivefold, he said.

Of course, not all of that junk mail comes from card companies. But it's no stretch to conclude that higher fees have led to more marketing, which is not a boon to either consumers or the environment.
 


Essentially, we're taxing ourselves to market to ourselves, regardless of what we pull out of our pocketbook. We're also paying extra to provide us free things that we could save for by ourselves, earning interest all the while.

We're regularly swiping ourselves in the foot.

Janis Martin, who owns Tanuki restaurant in Northwest Portland, wishes conscientious Portlanders would think sustainably when they pay as much as they do ordering food.

"People ask me where are your eggs from, where do you get your pork, where are my chickens from," she says. "Then they pull out a rewards card from Citibank. No one cares about whether their credit card is sustainable. The fact is, it takes money out of the local economy, and it's largely going to big banks."

At least she uses a local card servicer, Portland Merchant Services, to keep its markup in the local market.

Congress finally addressed the matter last month, albeit indirectly. The new financial overhaul law allows merchants to set $10 minimums for credit card purchases (Colleges and federal agencies can limit amounts charged on cards). It also tasks the Fed with regulating merchant fees from debit and prepaid cards, a move some analysts predict will cut bank profits by 3 to 8 percent.

Trouble is, merchants pay lower swipe fees on debit cards. Congress did nothing to limit the higher swipe fees for credit cards.

Other countries have. Australia's central bank cut the fees by nearly half a percentage point in 2003. At the time, MasterCard warned that credit card use and merchant acceptance of the cards would decline, says Shampine, the Lexecon consultant who's studied the fees. Instead, both the volume and value of credit card transactions increased. So did credit card balances.

The Reserve Bank of Australia concluded that the removal of interchange fees saved merchants more than a billion and lowered prices across the economy by one- to two-tenths of a percentage point.

That might not sound like much. But if U.S. prices fell by that proportion, the average household would pocket an extra $500 to $1,000 a year.

Whaddya know. That's the cost of one or two airline tickets!

You have to hand it to the big banks. They've lulled us into thinking merchants are gouging us, that we have the right to use our credit card with impunity and reap free rewards or cash back.

In reality, we're transferring the cost of this privilege to anyone paying cash or even using a PIN-verified debit card, which experts say is the least costly method of payment.

"The people to blame are you and I," says Shane Kash, a barista at Palio Dessert & Espresso House in Portland, which imposes a $5 card minimum. "We allow it to happen."

To stop it isn't exactly attractive. Why avoid using a rewards card when it makes complete financial sense to do so, when you actually gain some of that extra money back? I'll be wrestling with that question myself.

Scott Schuh, co-author of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston study, said, "The quandary the consumer has right now is that, ironically, if they don't know that this cost is being imposed on other cash users, then using a credit card and wisely paying off the balance each month and getting the rewards is a sensible personal financial plan." Schuh hopes his study shows consumers that "that very sensible plan has consequences for cash users that may not be acceptable to all card users."



Brent Hunsberger: 503-221-8359
 

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July 30th, 2010

Regulators took down two more struggling Northwest banks on Friday, both with presences in Portland.

Regulators took down two more struggling Northwest banks on Friday, both with presences in Portland.

LibertyBank of Eugene, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, closed its doors for the last time Friday. The privately held institution, owned in part by the prominent Pape family of Eugene, had nine branches and $768.2 million in assets.

Home Federal Bank of Nampa, Idaho paid the FDIC a premium of 1 percent for Liberty's more than $799 million in the deposits. Liberty's branches will reopen Monday as branches of Home Federal.

In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, Home Federal Bank agreed to purchase approximately $419.7 million of Liberty's loans and other assets.

To the north, regulators seized Cowlitz Bank of Longview, Wash., selling its remains to Heritage Bank of Olympia. Cowlitz Bank had $529.3 million in total assets and nine branches, three in the Portland area under the name Bay Bank.

The Cowlitz and Bay branches will reopen Monday as branches of Heritage Bank of Olympia.

Heritage paid the FDIC a premium of 1 percent for the $513 million in deposits at Cowlitz. In addition to assuming the deposits, Heritage agreed to purchase approximately $329.5 million of Cowlitz's loans and other assets.

The FDIC will retain the remaining assets for later disposition.

Both banks fell victim to the recession and residential real estate crash. Like most community banks in the Northwest, Liberty and Cowlitz loaned heavily to developers and homebuilders, a niche that proved disastrous when the housing sector declined.

LibertyBank lost $22.7 million in 2009, compared to earnings of $3.9 million the year before. It was the only net operating loss in the bank's history, the bank said in its 2009 annual report.

Cowlitz lost $12.2 million in the quarter ended March 31. The bank was founded in 1991. It's Bay Bank affiliate operated branches in Portland, Wilsonville and Vancouver.

Both banks tried to save themselves. Both had tried to minimize their exposure to residential development. Liberty had reduced its development loans by $126.4 million, or 57 percent, it stated in its 2009 annual report.

Cowlitz charged off more than $46 million in bad residential construction debt since 2008.

Both had also tried to raise new capital. The Pape family did put $2 million into Liberty Financial Group, LibertyBank's parent company, in late 2008.

But it wasn't enough.

In recent weeks, The FDIC had issued to both Liberty and Cowlitz so-called "prompt corrective action letters," which are in effect public ultimatums demanding immediate improvement.

The FDIC estimates that the Liberty takeover and sale will cost its deposit insurance fund $115.3 million.

Liberty is the 108th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the third in Oregon. It's failure comes seven days after the FDIC seized Home Valley Bank of Cave Junction and Grants Pass.

Cowlitz is the eighth Washington bank to fail this year.

--Jeff Manning

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July 30th, 2010

BP gas station owners across the country are divided over whether the oil giant stained by its handling of the Gulf spill should rebrand U.S. outlets as Amoco or another name.

NEW ORLEANS -- BP gas station owners across the country are divided over whether the oil giant stained by its handling of the Gulf spill should rebrand U.S. outlets as Amoco or another name as part of efforts to repair the company's badly damaged reputation.

Some who saw their sales plunge after the spill say BP has already sought a fresh start by naming an American to replace its British CEO, so why not change the name on gas station marquees to Amoco, which once stood for American Oil Co.?

But some station owners worry that a name change is risky given all the marketing dollars already spent building up the BP brand.

There is precedent for a name change. Think AirTran after the ValuJet crash and Xe Services after the killing of civilians by Blackwater Worldwide guards in Iraq.

"I think they should change the name to something else with all the problems with the oil spill," said Jerry Thomas, 64, who was filling his tank at a BP station a few miles north of downtown Cincinnati on Friday. "It's done terrible damage that's not over yet, and I think that's hurt the BP name a lot."

After the spill, set off by an April 20 offshore drilling rig explosion, some BP-branded gas stations reported sales declines of 10 to 40 percent from Florida to Illinois. BP responded by offering distributors cash, reductions in credit card fees and help with more national advertising.

John Kleine, who heads a trade group that represents distributors of BP gasoline in the U.S., told The Associated Press that interest in changing names has not reached a fever pitch, but it has supporters and is percolating among station owners ahead of their annual convention with BP executives in October.

The BP name and green-and-yellow sunflower logo replaced the Amoco name and its blue-and-red torch inside an oval logo after BP acquired Amoco in the late 1990s. Bob Dudley, the American who will replace Tony Hayward as BP's CEO on Oct. 1, worked at Amoco Corp. for 20 years.

Kleine noted that many distributors would still like BP to try to rebuild its existing brand, and two BP officials said in e-mails that the company is not considering rebranding U.S. gas stations.

In Chicago, one customer at a BP station Friday morning said he didn't think changing the name would do any good if he wanted to avoid buying gas from the company.

"I think I'd be able to put two and two together," said Jamie Toal, 40.

And at the station in Cincinnati, Charlotte Sargent, 45, said as she filled up her 1992 Buick that she doesn't care what they call the BP stations as long as they don't change the product.

"It's good for my car, and it makes it run better," she said. "It doesn't matter to me whether they call it BP or something else. I feel sorry for the people hurt by the spill, but I'm not going to stop going to BP, or whatever they call it, because of that."

BP owns just a fraction of the more than 11,000 stations across the U.S. that sell its fuel mostly under the BP banner. ARCO, a BP affiliate, is predominant in the West. Kleine said the Amoco name is no longer supposed to be used but may still exist in a few locations.

Most BP-branded stations are owned by local people whose primary connection to the oil company is the logo and a contract to buy gasoline.

Bob Juckniess, who owns 10 BP-branded stations in the Chicago area, wants the company to consider rebranding them as Amoco stations.

"The BP brand is very tarnished right now, not just the brand but the reputation as a company is tarnished," Juckniess said. "Amoco was very well-known and had a great reputation as a name and a brand."

On the other side of the debate is Jeff Miller, whose company owns, operates and supplies roughly 56 BP-branded stations primarily in southeastern Virginia.

He said that if BP invests back in its brand and customer base, it stands to gain more by keeping the name.

"When you look at all the case histories of all that have done it well, whether it is Toyota, Tylenol or Exxon, they have all reinvested in their brand and done a better job," Miller said. "If you just change the name and don't change the behavior, have you really gained anything?"

Miller said he has heard from a number of station owners who have suggested BP rebrand U.S. stations as Amoco, but he describes that as a "knee-jerk reaction."

"I think you get a better return by working on repairing your reputation than starting fresh," he said.

--The Associated Press



 

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July 30th, 2010

Northwest Pipe's board launched an internal investigation of the revenue recognition process last fall.

Northwest Pipe Co. announced Friday that it will restate its earnings dating back three years after a committee of directors and outside experts determined that certain of the company's accounting decisions were wrong.

Northwest Pipe's board launched an internal investigation of the revenue recognition process last fall. In the process, the company divulged Friday, the committee discovered other accounting problems.

The company estimates that the adjustments required as a result of the restatement would reduce previously reported aggregate net income of $91,591,000 for the period from January 1, 2005 through June 30, 2009 by approximately $17 million to $22 million. It's latest 10k report will reflect revised figures back through 2007.

The flap illustrates the complexity of corporate accounting and how individual judgement calls often loom large in how companies keep their books. Northwest Pipe's issues boiled down to when, in the production process, it recognized the cost of steel, which in turn determined when the company would recognized related project revenue.

Northwest Pipe officials could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

The accounting probe has made it impossible for Northwest Pipe to file its quarterly and annual financials in a timely fashion. As a result, Nasdaq stock market officials informed Northwest Pipe in May that it would suspend trading of the company's stock.

Northwest Pipe appealed to Nasdaq, explained its accounting problems, and convinced the exchange to continue trading its stock.

Former Northwest Pipe CEO Brian Dunham submitted his resignation in April, in part, due to the ongoing accounting investigation. He was replaced by Richard A. Roman, who has served on the company's board since 2003.

Dunham, a former Coopers & Lybrand accountant and former chief financial officer of Northwest Pipe, remains president of the company.
 
Jeff Manning 

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July 30th, 2010

The Bingen, Wash., company will develop as many as 56 of its Integrator surveillance and reconnaissance planes.

Fast-growing Insitu Inc. landed a $43.7 million contract Thursday from the Pentagon to develop the military's next generation of remote-controlled spy craft.

Insitu, a Boeing subsidiary with its headquarters in the Columbia River Gorge town of Bingen, Wash., beat out several competitors for the contract to develop its Integrator surveillance and reconnaissance drone.

The company will spend two years making improvements to its design and testing early models, then is expected to start full-scale production in 2013.

The contract calls for up to 56 Integrator systems.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have used Insitu's ScanEagle unmanned air system, which serves a similar function to the Integrator system, since 2004.

News of the contract spread quickly around the Bingen area Friday

"I know they've been working hard for it and on pins and needles, so I'm happy for them," said Marsha Holliston, manager of the Mount Adams Chamber of Commerce. The chamber represents the western end of Klickitat County, where Bingen is located.

Holliston said the company's effect on the community has been profound. Insitu has grown exponentially; it had four employees in 1994, 30 in 2004 and 360 in 2008, when it was acquired by Boeing.

Today it employs about 700 people, mostly in offices scattered throughout the Columbia River Gorge, including facilities across the river in Oregon.

"I'm not going to say (local businesses) are thriving, but they're certainly not closing their doors like they are in other communities because of (Insitu's) generosity," Holliston said.

Trish Leighton, the central coordinator for the Columbia River Fellowship for Peace, says it's unfortunate that the area's economy relies so heavily on a company that creates drones used for war.

"In this area, we have really intelligent engineers," Leighton said. "I think that we can use that intelligence to create some other kind of economy. They don't have to do robotic warfare."

The Insitu drones aren't armed like the better-known Predator drones, but used primarily for surveillance.

Company spokeswoman Jill Vacek said it is too early to say how the new contract would affect employment and operations.

A year ago, Insitu CEO Steve Sliwa said the company would search for a prospective new site in the gorge to accommodate expanded production.

Vacek said Friday that the company is still looking.

" Down the road, we may condense and move our facilities closer together, but it's still in the early planning stages," she said.
 
-- Elliot Njus

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July 30th, 2010

The sale -- for an undisclosed price -- requires the approval of the auto manufacturers.

Ralph Martinez, who owns Town & Country Dealership Group announced today that he has agreed to buy Gladstone Honda and Gladstone Nissan from Mike Ralls. The two dealerships in Gladstone will be closed and reopened as Town & Country Honda and Town & Country Nissan. The dealers would not disclose the sale price.

Martinez currently operates four dealerships in Milwaukie and Wilsonville.

The sale must be approved by the auto manufacturers. If it is -- as anticipated -- Martinez said he's optimistic there would be smooth transition for employees.

"They're running pretty lean right now," he said, "We anticipate increasing the employees there if we do go in."
 
-- Laura Gunderson

 

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July 30th, 2010

The barge builder's work, to be completed by October, involves removing or capping 17,000 cubic yards of soil laden with asbestos, metals and other toxic contaminants.

After 15 years of planning, Portland barge-builder Zidell will begin cleaning up contaminated soil on its South Waterfront property in August, the company and state regulators said.

The work, to be completed by October, involves removing or capping 17,000 cubic yards of soil laden with asbestos, metals and other toxic contaminants.

It's the first phase of the company's $20 million, state-mandated plan to clean up its 30-acre site and associated Willamette River shoreline, contaminated by a century of industrial use.

The project includes a two-foot soil cap over a future "greenway" along the site. Zidell's contractors will ship 5,000 cubic yards of soil from contaminated "hot spots" to a landfill and bury other soils in containment cells under the route for a planned light-rail line to Milwaukie.

Zidell's more controversial plans for river-related work are still under review by federal regulators. The company's property arm, ZRZ Realty, has applied to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a permit to replace and replant the rubble strewn riverbank and cap contaminated sediment in the river.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is reviewing that application for potential effects on five runs of threatened wild salmon and steelhead, with an opinion expected by Sept. 15.

The company plans to conduct the river-related work next year to meet it's timeline with Oregon regulators and to set the stage for construction of the Milwaukie light-rail line and a new light-rail bridge across the Willamette.

-- Scott Learn

 
 

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July 30th, 2010

Adults and kids can swing through the air, cross wobbly bridges and walk tightropes high in the evergreens near Hagg Lake.

GASTON -- Fifty feet in the air, David Bowles  and his sons swung from tree to tree, navigating a labyrinth of ladders, wobbly bridges, tightropes, tunnels, zip lines and rock walls, without falling once.

"You know you're perfectly safe, but you don't want to be the guy dangling from the safety wire 40 to 50 feet in the air if you fall. I tried not to look down," Bowles said. The Bethany resident spent Father's Day with his three sons, ages 16, 18 and 20, at the newly opened Tree to Tree Adventure Park, a five-acre aerial obstacle course woven amidst the trees near Hagg Lake.

"There's something for everyone," Bowles said later. "It was a good bonding experience. I don't know if they thought their dad could do it," he added with a laugh.

The park grew from an idea Marissa Doyle had three years ago, inspired by a friend's park, Adirondack Extreme, in New York.

"This is the only park of its kind west of the Mississippi," said her father, Gerry Beres,  who with his wife, Julie, and two of their adult children and their families moved from upstate New York 15 months ago to design, build and open the park.

"We thought this would be something that people in Oregon would love," said Julie Beres,  who handles marketing and communications for the park. "Oregon is very similar in natural beauty to upstate New York."

Laid-back tunes playing from the Tree to Tree center accompany zip lines zipping, safety lines clipping and laughter. The courses are surrounded by nature trails and wildlife, tucked into lush evergreen forest.

SYNERGO, a local builder of "challenge courses,"  built the park into the trees, constructing a team-building course, kids' course and an upper-aerial obstacle course. The park caters to groups, corporate challenges and individuals looking for "thrills and chills without the spills!" according to the park website.

Before they swing through the trees, park goers are outfitted with a helmet and safety harness, always attached to thin wire cables that can hold up to 10,000  pounds.

Tree to Tree guides are scattered throughout the forest, giving directions at different points.

Admission, ranging from $25 to $39, is based on height, not age. To be permitted on the upper aerial course, participants must be able to reach 6 feet, 6 inches. Children must be able to reach 5 feet to venture on to the kids' course.

Blue helmets bobbled throughout the kids' course earlier this month, when about 100 summer campers from the Sheridan School District  visited on a field trip.

Clipping his two safety lanyards onto the wire cable stretched between two trees, 10-year-old Justin Rawlings bravely stepped from the tree post to a wobbly wooden plank, dangling 15 feet in the air.

"I went through all the obstacles," he said. "Then I got to the wall and got scared."

But Justin climbed across the wall as students shouted affirmations into the tree tops: "You can do it, come on. You got this."

After Justin completed the course, district coordinator Maria Austin  asked him, "Do you know how proud I am of you? I just wanted you to try one step further than you were comfortable with and you did it."

Austin said she organized the trip to expose the children to challenges they have never experienced and to teach them to work together. "They are dependent on each other when they're up in the trees," she said.

Since opening Memorial Day weekend, the park has been busy, said Julie Beres. "Making reservations is really necessary by now."

Doyle said the park is what she hoped it would be: a place for adventure and challenge.

"A lot of people walk up here frightened, but we talk them through it, and you can see it in their faces when they step off the course, she said. "They had fun."

-- Colleen Stewart



 

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