Now available in our Speaker Presentation Library, our recent webinars have been recorded:
INP 2021 Winter Webinar: Retail & Restaurant Recovery
Heather Thomson – It’s a Tall Order
Josh Wade -Hospitality Survival Strategies
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INP 2020 Winter Webinar:The Importance of Digital Inclusion
Monica Babine: Setting the Stage
Russ Elliott: State Programs & Resources (WA)
Eric Forsch: State Programs & Resources (ID)
Mike Kennedy: A Provider’s Perspective
Debra Hansen: Broadband Action Teams: How to Engage Your Community Utilizing the BAT Model
Broadband Action Team (BAT) Information Sheets
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INP 2020 Fall Webinar: 2020 Regional Economic Outlook
Sam Wolkenhauer: Inland Northwest Labor Market Trends (ID)
Ajsa Suljik: Inland Northwest Labor Market Trends (WA)
John Mitchell: 2020 Regional Economic Outlook-COVID, Zooming & Resilience
Webinar Recording—> Click here!
This article first appeared in the Journal of Business on January 14, 2021. By Patrick Jones, executive director of the Institute for Public Policy & Economic Analysis at Eastern Washington University.
Supply side said to have greater effect as listings fall short of local demand
Ever thought it’s those out-of-towners who have driven up housing prices here recently? You probably aren’t alone.
After all, the median house price for resale has climbed from approximately $284,000 to $330,000 over the past four quarters.
That $46,000 represents a 16% bump, a steep one for buyers. Spokane’s median price, while still considerably lower than the state value, cruised upward at a slightly higher pace than Washington’s median, which rose 14% over the past 12 months. (Supporting data is available on Eastern Washington University’s Spokane Trends website.)
Prices reflect many forces, both demand and supply. The key drivers of housing demand are income, financing, and population. Incomes here have moved upward in the past few years, but at a rate not too far from historical rates. For sure, mortgage rates have plummeted, leading some homeowners to consider trading up and some renters to consider buying.
Population growth, too, has surged over the past four years, relative to the past two decades. And like most western U.S. cities, Spokane’s population has expanded largely due to migration.
Local families continue to keep OB-GYNs busy, but in the larger scheme of things, it is migration that moves the population needle. For example, from April 1, 2019, to April 1, 2020, the number of heads in Spokane County rose by 7,350. Of those, 85% can be attributable to net migration.
Net migration accounts for the difference between those who move in and those who move out. Over the past five years, the number of county residents here due to net migration has been slightly more than 25,000. That’s a large jump from the prior five years.
Has it been just me who has seen more out-of-state license plates on Division Street or Interstate 90 since the pandemic struck? Observations from behind the wheel are not optimal research techniques. Thankfully, we can look at a public data series: driver’s license surrenders tracked by the Washington state Department of Licensing.
The surprise result for the first 11 months of the year: out-of-state license surrenders have dropped. From January through November the Department of Licensing reports about 7,700 new residents from outside of our state exchanging driver’s licenses. That total is down from 9,160 and 10,830 for the first eleven months of 2019 and 2018, respectively. So much for casual empiricism.
In retrospect, that shouldn’t be too surprising. The early months of the pandemic’s outbreak put a hard stop to mobility in this country.
A comparison of license surrenders in the second quarter of this year with the second quarter of 2019 is startling: 104 this year versus 2,360 last year.
Undoubtedly, the low numbers from this year are due to the closure of state offices for a good part of the quarter. Yet the third quarter, when obstacles to reregistering ostensibly were removed, didn’t compensate for the prior quarter. Licensing data show a gain of little more than 200.
In sum, the continued discovery by those from out-of-state, so strong in the recent years, shifted gears in 2020.
Yet, inflows might still be strong from movers within the state. The U.S. Census tracks annual flows from county to county in the U.S, compiled over five-year intervals. The most recent period is 2014-2018. It clearly shows the flow of Washingtonians to our county to be considerable.
Over that interval, the ratio of new residents to Spokane from Washingtonians to those outside of the state was just slightly below even. That is, a few more new residents have recently come from outside the state than from the other 38 counties in Washington.
It might be the case that the pandemic has changed that relationship, making it relatively easier for residents of Evergreen State counties to move here than those from hundreds of miles away.
In fact, among the top 10 U.S. counties contributing to in-migration here over the 2014-2018, period, seven were in Washington. Ranked by size of their flows, these were: Snohomish, King, Benton, Grant, Pierce, Stevens, and Lincoln counties.
Of the two out-of-state counties, one, not surprisingly, is neighboring Kootenai County, and the other, perhaps surprisingly, is Maricopa, Arizona. Though not a county, Asia as a whole rounded out the top 10.
Most of us have heard anecdotes about neighbors or friends of friends who have moved here from the central Puget Sound area. Many of the accounts describe the new residents as remote workers. That arrangement may well be part of the new normal for our economy and in particular for tech workers.
If so, these new neighbors symbolize a hope held by many in the economic development community: Someday Spokane will benefit from an arbitrage of labor from high-cost to lower-cost urban centers.
It is this observer’s hunch that current movement from other Washington counties has mirrored the decline of out-of-state new residents in 2020.
As a consequence, fingers can’t be pointed at Seattleites for the dramatic run-up in housing costs. Until we have data for 2020, we simply won’t know.
Attempts to explain housing prices solely to increased demand, however, miss half of the equation, perhaps the greater half. The supply side must be considered. Here, as has been widely noted, the offering of Spokane homes has been lowest on recent record.
The Washington State Real Estate Research Center, source for some of the housing data on Spokane Trends, tracks the number of listings by quarter in the county. For Q3 2020, the most recent quarter for which data are available, the count stood at 558. Compare that with 1,158 listings in Q3 2019, or 2,562 listings in Q3 2015.
Population has grown, incomes have grown, financing has gotten much more favorable, yet supply has diminished. Clearly this is a textbook case for rising prices.
The supply of homes (listings) rests on two sources: the number of local households selling their homes and the number of new homes coming onto the market. Spokane Trends doesn’t track the latter, but does follow residential building permits, typically viewed as a leading indicator. (See indicator 2.3.3.) The graph clearly shows a peak in 2016, followed by a decline of 500 permits into 2019.
The reasons behind the decline are numerous.
They include: difficulty in securing land, the cost of developing lots, a tight labor pool in the building trades, and the rising costs of construction, especially lumber. Some of these forces might see some relief relatively soon, but others will take longer to resolve.
That is, unless hundreds of current Spokanites decided to sell and move to a different place. That doesn’t seem to be in the offing now. The pandemic has kept local residents place-bound, too. Once our community reaches a safe threshold of vaccinations, I don’t expect a big outflow. Continued low supply, growing popularity from outside the region, continued low financing costs, and no significant rise in departures imply rising home prices for the foreseeable future.
For the last few months, the Port of Lewiston has become an important transportation center for wind turbine components being barged up the Columbia and Snake rivers. After being barged from Port of Longview, in Washington, to the Port of Lewiston, the components will be trucked to Alberta, Canada.
Because the Port of Lewiston is at the end of the navigable Columbia Snake River System, it serves as a transportation corridor for commodities exported from Idaho or cargo imported to the interior of the U.S. and Canada.
The wind turbines are shipped in pieces to the Port’s dock, which was expanded as part of a 2013 capital investment project made possible by federal and state grants, and then trucked north using U.S. Highway 95 to the Canadian border. The wind turbine components will be assembled to make 42 new wind turbines.
The Port of Lewiston is an advocate for renewable energy sources such as hydroelectric power as well as wind power. Wind turbines work to harness the power of the wind and turn it into energy. When the wind blows, the turbine’s blades spin clockwise, capturing energy. This triggers the main shaft of the wind turbine, connected to a gearbox to spin. The gearbox sends that wind energy to a generator, converting it to electricity. Wind power generation helps to create a clean, renewable way to power our world.
Both blades and tower components have been barged and stored on Port property before being trucked to Canada.
126 turbine blades and 168 tower components have been shipped on 21 barges of this project.
This project is important to so many, especially during this COVID-19 time. The crew that is shipping these turbine components was mobilized to our area and is helping to fuel the local economy. The Port of Lewiston is a public organization serving the citizens of Nez Perce County as an economic development district, intermodal transportation center and facilitator of international trade.
“The success of this inland shipping route will foster future opportunities for the Port of Lewiston and the Valley as a whole,” General Manager, David Doeringsfeld, commented.
This article first appeared in the Journal of Business on October 22nd, 2020. . Written by Natasha Nellis
Spokane-based wholesale cooperative URM Stores Inc. has purchased the former Northwest Bedding complex on the West Plains to accommodate ongoing growth, as the organization expands west of the Cascade Mountains.
Located at 6102 S. Hayford Road, just west of the Amazon Fulfillment Center and north of West Plains Building Supply, the newly acquired property includes two warehouses with nearly 140,000 square feet of floor space—one with 117,900 square feet of space and the other with 16,000 square feet.
The structures will be used as additional staging and storage space, says Mike Winger, vice president of store development.
“It gives us some flexibility to better utilize the main URM facility,” he says.
A commercial change-of-use application on file with Spokane County shows tenant improvements in both structures are valued at about $12.4 million. URM purchased the 13.8-acre property for $3.7 million in September, according to Spokane County Assessor’s Office records.
The recently acquired Hayford Road structures previously operated as a boat manufacturer, Sun Runner, from 1977 to 1991 before transitioning into a Northwest Bedding manufacturing facility, says James Black III, Realtor with NAI Black who handled the transaction. The property has been vacant for roughly two years.
The expansion comes on the heels of a double-digit growth in revenues during the most recent fiscal year.
In its 2020 fiscal year ended July 31, the company experienced double-digit sales growth and closed out the year at a consolidated annual revenue of $1.3 billion, up 13% compared with 2019 revenue, Winger says.
Much of that growth is attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic, as more people cook at home and drive up sales at grocery stores, which in turn drives up sales at the wholesale cooperative, he says.
“The way the virus has impacted the restaurant trade has really changed people’s eating habits, and a lot of our retailers have experienced significant sales growth because people are now going to the grocery store and buying a lot of that center-store grocery product,” he contends.
Winger says it’s likely the new facilities will operate with a limited staff, as the facility is intended to be used as a temporary dry food storage facility. However, he adds, the significant growth and demand the company has seen this year has led to over 80 new hires at the URM headquarters, and the company is looking to add 30 to 35 additional employees before year’s end.
URM currently has over 670 employees.
In addition to eliminating periodic expenses related to off-site storage during the holiday seasons, the new facilities give URM expanded storage capabilities that Winger says will allow the company to better serve its growing client base in the large Pacific Northwest metropolitan areas.
“With the growth of our company, we’ve been pushing our trade area farther west,” says Winger. “Now, we service grocers over in the Seattle and Portland area.”
He adds that as more retailers are added to the company’s roster, the demand for specialty products could increase. The new facility will help to accommodate those products that the company headquarters, at 7511 N. Freya, currently doesn’t now.
Further, he says the grocery industry is continuously evolving, with new products being added every day, organic products growing in popularity and diversity, and ethnic foods growing in demand.
The new space will give the company the flexibility to accommodate those needs in the future as the company’s retailer base diversifies, he contends.
During the holiday season, the distributor often rents additional space to store the candy and other holiday treats the member companies only stock seasonally, Winger explains, so having the additional space will cut that expense.
The West Plains facilities currently are undergoing tenant improvements to ensure that the buildings are up to date with code requirements, he says. The buildings also aren’t connected to city water or sewer systems, and instead operate on a private well, so the company is inspecting them to ensure the life safety systems are operational, he adds.
Winger says improvements are slated to be completed by spring 2021.
“We have, for some time, been looking to see how we could expand our existing warehouse facility. We’re somewhat limited because we have the railroad property to the west of us and we have streets on either side,” he says of the company’s headquarters on Freya Avenue.
Much of the planned work is cosmetic, adds Winger. Additionally, the structure’s roof will be replaced, portions of the steel panel wall will be repaired, and the loading docks will need to be repaired or replaced to be properly sized for the company’s trucks, he says.
URM’s flagship distribution center on Freya Street is 680,000 square feet. According to the company’s website, its distribution center receives over 400 inbound truckloads weekly and ships over 450 outbound truckloads a week.
Its headquarters were established in Spokane in 1926. Since, the company has steadily expanded its space, with its last addition occurring in 2014 when the company added 77,000 square feet to its perishable groceries space.
URM services members in Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon. Its offerings include dry groceries, frozen food, ice cream, deli foods, dairy products, fresh meat, general merchandise, and health and beauty aids.
The 99-year-old cooperative is a member-owned food distributor to grocers that include Center Place Market, Family Foods, Harvest Foods, Huckleberry’s Natural Market, Rosauers Supermarkets, Super 1 Foods, The Markets LLC, Town & Country Markets Inc., Yoke’s Fresh Market, and Northwest Grocers.
The company also provides supplies to two URM Cash & Carry stores.
Next year URM Stores will celebrate its 100th year, says Winger.
This article first appeared on October 8, 2020 in the Journal of Business. Written by Natasha Nellis.
Company to boost sales, engineering jobs this year
Tamarack Aerospace Group Inc. is continuing its rapid expansion, having nearly tripled its space at its Sandpoint headquarters.
The company has added 3,500 square feet of office space and an additional hangar to its 14,000 square feet of space at 2021 Industrial Drive, near the southern edge of the Sandpoint Airport. The addition of a third hangar, which company President Jacob Klinginsmith estimates is about 5,600 square feet, brings the company’s total hangar space to roughly 23,000 square feet.
“The big-picture objective with the expansion is making room for R&D,” he says. “As a technology company our intent and plan is to take our game changing technology and do it on other platforms.”
The company manufactures and installs active winglets, which are designed to be attached to wingtips to boost fuel efficiency by increasing lift and reducing drag.
Currently, the winglets are designed to be installed on Cessna CitationJets, but Klinginsmith says Tamarack is exploring expanding the product to fit other types of aircraft, from the CitationJets up to Boeing airplanes.
With the addition of more research and development space, the company also plans to hire five sales and engineering employees, with the expectation of hiring an additional five engineers by year-end, according to a company press release.
Tamarack has 27 employees.
Klinginsmith declines to disclose sales figures, but says he expects this year’s sales will be up compared with last year.
“The economy has really increased the demand for charter flights,” he says. “People are looking for less contact with others, so our charter customer base is growing. People are looking at adding winglets to get more out of their aircraft.”
He adds that the increasing popularity of charter flights has bolstered the company’s sales.
Earlier this year, the company also established its first international outpost at the London-Oxford Airport. Tamarack partnered with Jet Maintenance International, an airline-based asset management company based in Alexandria, Virginia, to lease an 18,000-square-foot hangar on the airport property.
Spokane-based Spiceology has secured a $4.7 million round of Series A funding, led by grocery and retail executive Ty Bennett with participation by Kickstart Funds III and IV, a group of angel investors and the Cowles Co., which publishes The Spokesman-Review.
“I have been an investor in Spiceology since the early days and had the privilege of watching the company elevate above the thousands of small spice purveyors in the market,” Ty Bennett, founder and former CEO of Jacent, said in a statement. “I look forward to bringing my retail and grocery experience to the table to help Spiceology continue to delight customers and find new ways of meeting customers where they shop.”
The privately held spice company will use the funding to bring process automation to its SpiceLab operations, and advance its sales and marketing efforts. The SpiceLab is where spice blends are formulated and packaged with the company’s trademarked “periodic table of flavor” labels, according to a company release.
Series A funding is the first round of investment funding after seed funding. It typically involves venture capital firms and is for startups that have established growth.
Spiceology, founded in 2013, was recently named to Inc. Magazine’s list of the 5,000 fastest-growing companies in the nation. It ranked 1,081 on the list with a three-year revenue growth of 423%.
The company has steadily grown its operations by creating recipes and how-to videos for customers as well as collaborating with chefs and food influencers on new product lines.
At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Spiceology experienced an uptick in spice sales as more people began preparing meals at home.
Bennett has joined Spiceology’s board of directors. The company also hired Roger Landrum as senior vice president of global supply chain and operations, the release said.
Landrum was formerly the senior director of supply chain, risk management and procurement at Litehouse Foods, a Sandpoint-based $300 million salad dressing and herb manufacturer.
“Spiceology’s formula is focusing on quality and innovation at scale. By doing so, we’re bringing life into a very tired category that’s sorely in need of a fresh alternative,” Chip Overstreet, president and CEO of Spiceology, said in a statement.
“There’s nothing more core to our lives than eating, and we bring smiles to people’s faces when they realize how much better every meal can be with a simple sprinkle of Spiceology goodness.”
This article originally appeared on KXLY.com by Derek Deis
COLVILLE, Wash. — Buildings made with cross laminated timber are already commonplace in Europe, but it’s a relatively new concept here. So to say Russ Vaagen, whose family has owned Vaagen Brothers Lumber for more than 70 years, is excited about his new venture would be an understatement.
“We could put this as the mass timber capital of North America eventually,” said Vaagen, the CEO and founder of Vaagen Timbers.
Cross laminated timber is an eco-friendly, wood panel product made from gluing layers of lumber together. Vaagen says it’s kind of like a Lego set.
“We’re actually putting together a kit that a builder can do very rapidly, high quality and goes together the same way every time,” explained Vaagen. “And so, it’s going to speed construction time up, it’s going to provide a much higher quality build, we’re going to be much more energy efficient.”
Vaagen Timbers can build its CLT panels up to 60 feet wide with varying depths. And Vaagen says it’s one-fifth the weight of steel and concrete with the same structural strength.
“So we’ll have a lighter, more nimble building. It’ll also be much better equipped to handle seismic shifts.”
And Vaagen says it can be used for all sorts of applications, including, “Mid-rise structures for commercial buildings, apartments and even homes.”
CLT panels start with pieces of lumber on the finger jointer machine.
“We take knives and we make a set of fingers. And they do just as it says, they joint together. And then we use pressure and an adhesive to tie those together,” said Vaagen.
After the wood is planed, it goes to the layup line, where Vaagen says those pieces of lumber get turned into panels.
“So we take four feet of wood, we lift it up all together, put it on the conveyor, goes and gets a layer of glue.”
A set of vacuums then lifts and places each additional layer.
“Sets it on top of that glued layer 90 degrees to the other layer, comes back through the glue, gets another long layer set back on it.”
The now heat cured panels then get cut by giant saws on the CNC line.
“We’re cleaning the cuts, we’re making the connections to go panel to panel if we’re doing a wall or a floor system,” said Vaagen.
After sanding, they’re ready to be shipped to customers.
One of the first places you’ll be able to see Vaagen Timbers’ CLT put to use is in Spokane’s Perry District, where Blockhouse – Life is building a 14 unit modular structure using CLT.”
“So we’ll make boxes basically that can be repeatable, but they can be customized,” said Vaagen. “And it’s modular. So ultimately, you could pick it up and move it and put it someplace else.”
Vaagen says Spokane, and Washington as a whole, are poised to be leaders in CLT and mass timber products. And that has him excited about Vaagen Timbers’ potential for growth.
“There’s just no losers. Everybody wins. And we’re going to be offering incredible structures for people to build with for years to come.”
Long before the era of COVID-19, Laura Kasbar was a Spokane mother who merely wanted to find a way to address her children’s autism.
Almost by chance, she noticed that video lessons would help, particularly with a child who doctors had declared would never speak.
Nine years later, in 2011, her son Max was mainstreamed, and her Gemiini Systems, still based in Spokane, has become a worldwide leader in online distance learning for people with autism, Down syndrome, dyslexia, speech delay, stroke and other issues.
Since the novel coronavirus outbreak, Gemiini has seen “an avalanche” of interest as families and school districts seek virtual solutions to real-life challenges of learning from home, Kasbar said from her home in Southern California.
The company, with about 50 employees, is run by her son Nicholas out of the Holley- Mason Building in downtown Spokane. After an initial adjustment, Gemiini has adapted to a surge in business.
Gemiini has opened its certification program to professionals and has waived the $490 fee for certification.
Gemiini is also offering schools and clinics the use of its system at no cost as long as they agree to submit the cost of the program to Medicaid.
Gemiini has proven to be a valuable solution for special education administrators, who are struggling to navigate this crisis to continue to meet the needs of special needs students and families.
For many children, “this can be the only link to therapy,” Kasbar said. “And now with COVID everyone is on that boat.
“Our team has been able to get to work immediately. Our subscription base has increased dramatically.”
Gemiini – the unique spelling is Kasbar’s tribute to her autistic twins, Max and Anastasia – was the product of Kasbar’s yearslong search for a solution.
Nicholas Kasbar is ready for a busy day at Gemiini Educational Systems located in the Holley-Mason Building in downtown Spokane. Gemiini Educational Systems, which Kasbar co-founded with his mother Laura, is a video-focused system to teach autistic children. Business is booming for Gemiini since the COVID-19 pandemic sent students home for school.
It was in 2001 that Kasbar recalled walking into a room in her Spokane home, saw all six of her children lined up in front of the television and “couldn’t really tell which were the autistic ones.”
At that time, conventional wisdom dictated the television should be turned off if autistic children were nearby. But that experience told Kasbar video was the answer.
She and her husband Brian had noticed that young Max wouldn’t make eye contact with them but would interact with the television.
“I thought, ‘I’ve got to get my mouth on the TV,’ ” Kasbar said.
That night, they made one-minute videos of a cup and Barney, the TV dinosaur.
“It was a close-up of my mouth saying the word ‘Barney’ next to the actual Barney and then saying the word ‘cup’ next to a cup. We did three sets in a row,” Kasbar said.
That night, after watching several times from his highchair while eating, Max made his biggest breakthrough.
Kasbar held up a cup and he said “cup,” his first word – 3 years and 8 months of age.
During the next decade, and with the help of her oldest son, Nicolas – who also had been on the autism spectrum – Kasbar developed the video program.
In 2012, thanks to funding from the Spokane Angel Alliance and Inland Imaging, Gemiini was launched.
Backed by studies from four universities, Gemiini serves 30,000 clients in 40 countries.
Its use of discrete video modeling, which presents only a specific piece of audio information, was showed by a Portland State University study to be 300% more effective than standard video modeling.
Kasbar was so inspired by the success of her program that she shared her experiences in a book, “Embracing the Battle: Secrets of Victory from a Warrior Mom.”
Closer to home, Gemiini has worked with former NFL star and Spokane native Mark Rypien to develop an application to address suicide prevention.
The goal, Rypien said last fall, is to connect circles of friends of persons at risk so they can better monitor their state of mind.
Lately, the main focus has been reaching children who have been isolated by COVID-19.
“It’s been pretty easy,” said Nicolas, who runs the Spokane headquarters. “After a few headaches, we’ve been able to keep going and helping people, and we’ve updated a lot of our instructions on Facebook Live to walk people through how our lessons work.”
Jim Allen can be reached at (509) 459-5437 or by email at [email protected]
First published in the Journal of Business, June 4, 2020. By Kevin Blocker.
Not even the COVID-19 pandemic has been able to blunt the tide of growth the design-build construction company Verdis is experiencing.
Since becoming a member of the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development Program in 2016, Verdis has secured 99 federal projects, 19 of which are currently active, says Sandy Young, founder and principal of the Coeur d’Alene-based company.
Verdis founder and principal Sandy Young, left, sits with senior planner Stephanie Blalack in the company’s offices in the Parkside Tower, in downtown Coeur d’Alene.
The 8(a) program is a nine-year business development program that provides business training, counseling, marketing, and technical assistance to small businesses that have applied and then been accepted to the program.
Verdis has a greater ability to secure federal work with certifications as both a woman-owned business and an 8(a) operation. The federal government’s goal is to award at least 5% of all federal contracting dollars to small businesses and women- and minority-owned businesses.
Now doing business in 13 western states, Verdis recently secured its largest federal contract to date, an almost $4 million project in Alaska, where Young is from originally.
A 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck south central Alaska on Nov. 30, 2018, continues to generate engineering and construction repair work through the federal pipeline.
Despite the flourishing federal work, Young says one of the requirements of 8(a) status is to maintain local work in the community. While she declines to disclose the firm’s annual revenue, she says close to a third of all income is generated by local projects.
Deemed as an essential business, Verdis anticipates annual revenue to double in 2020 over 2019. First-quarter revenue alone this year exceeded calendar year 2019, she says.
The company forecasts a nearly four-fold increase in revenue by 2022, compared with 2019 earnings, Young says.
“We’ve been able to self-perform much of our work, which is a big deal for an 8(a),” she says. “Very few firms do both engineering and construction. We seal fish ladders, rip up rails in powerhouses at dams, and restore old buildings and windows.”
With 25 employees, Verdis occupies roughly 2,000-square feet of space in a second-floor suite at Parkside Tower, located at 601 E. Front. It’s the company’s fifth location since its founding in 2007, Young says.
A vice president of construction, Colin Meehan, oversees five project superintendents and six members of a field-personnel team, constituting the firm’s largest concentration of employees.
Young, who is 64, moved to Idaho from Alaska in 1997 and spent the next decade working in Kootenai County’s community development department. Along the way, she met her late husband, Gary, who worked as the director of community development for the city of Post Falls, she says.
The two married in 2006, and the following year, Young says the couple began the process of going into business for themselves.
“He had been in business for himself for a while; he was a licensed landscape architect,” she says. “He’d say, ‘It’s not as easy you think, not every hour is billable.’ I remember sitting on a plane—we were going on a trip somewhere—and telling him, ‘Let’s do it.’’’
In the basement of a building in Post Falls, the couple set up an independent development and planning operation.
“Fortunately, because of our public-sector jobs, people knew us,” she says. “There weren’t many planners around, so we got a few clients right out of the gate.”
Young says the company steadily grew. Landscape architecture work quickly expanded, and Verdis began using subcontractors for civil engineering projects.
In 2012, Verdis was granted woman-owned business status through the SBA, but the business didn’t qualify for the 8(a) program due to the couple’s combined assets, she says.
Then, in 2014, Gary Young contracted cancer and died the following year. It was his death that allowed Verdis to qualify for 8(a) status, she says.
“On his death bed he said, ‘Get the 8(a). I want you to kill it. I don’t want to have to worry about you,’’’ Sandy Young says, fighting back tears.
Reflecting on that time, Young says the business took off as she poured herself into work as way to deal with the grief.
“That wouldn’t have happened if I would’ve had a spouse at home, right?” she asks rhetorically. “Who doesn’t want to be home at night?”
Young says she bought a new car and “hit the road” religiously in an effort to generate new business.
“Honestly, it seemed like such a longshot because you’re sitting there trying to sell your capability, and I really didn’t understand the world I was in,” she says. “We didn’t have any idea how to put a bid together, we didn’t know what we were going to do. We were designers.”
As Young tried to recruit clients, she was asked if Verdis did construction work. Upon answering no, she was met with a consistent message: Come back when you do.
“Three times I heard that. The fourth time I was asked, my answer was, ‘You bet we do,’’’ she says. “I came back and told staff we’re going to figure this out.”
A year later, Verdis secured its first federal contract, a $327,000 Kachess River Bridge project in Cle Elum, Washington, Young says.
Stephanie Blalack, a senior planner with Verdis, has a perspective about Young and the firm, unlike any other employee. She is the company’s first hire.
“I hired Steph out of college (2004) when I still worked for Kootenai County,” Young says. “When I jumped ship, I brought her with me.”
Says Blalack, “She was a phenomenal boss at the county, so when she left in 2007, I was just devastated.”
Seven months later, Young reached out to her with a job offer.
“I was 25, 26, and I’m thinking of leaving my government job? My parents were like, ‘Are you crazy?’’’ says Blalack.
“But I just had this feeling that I knew she was going to make it,” she says. “If it were anybody else, I would not have left my government job.”
Contact author at [email protected] or 509.344.1267
First published in the Spokesman Review, Sun., May 29, 2020. By Adam Shanks.
In an executive order issued Thursday, Mayor Nadine Woodward established the Restaurant and Retail Program, which eases the city’s regulations on how and when a restaurant or retailer can expand onto a neighboring sidewalk or parking lot.
Woodward’s executive action complements the efforts already taken by the Spokane City Council, which earlier this month waived application fees for businesses that want to set up on a sidewalk or curbside, and revised city law to reduce the lag time between application and permit approval.
“We felt it was really important to allow businesses that are opening in Phase 2 to increase their capacity. … If you know anything about those businesses, that profit margin is so slim, it is very difficult for many of them to operate at 50%,” Woodward said.
As Spokane entered Phase 2 of Gov. Jay Inslee’s Safe Start reopening plan last week, its restaurants were allowed to open at 50% capacity. In response to business owners’ concerns that this would still hinder profitability, the city has scrambled to relax rules and allow restaurants to spread outside, increasing the number of customers they can serve at any one time and improving their odds of operating in the black.
The city’s new program is also aimed at helping retail businesses, which face similar limits, including operating at 30% of normal capacity during Phase 2.
Under the program, clusters of restaurants and businesses can also apply to have a street closed by applying for a special events permit.
Outdoor seating will still be subject to the 6-foot social distancing rules between tables that apply to restaurants in Phase 2, but outdoor customers will not count toward their occupancy limit. The Elk Public House in Browne’s Addition was the first to apply for a special events permit, which is under review by the city. If approved, it would close down the small section of South Cannon Street for use by The Elk and neighboring restaurants.
The Elk Public House was the first to apply for a special events permit that would close a small section of South Cannon Street for use by the Elk and neighboring restaurants in Browne’s Addition. COLIN MULVANY/ THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
The city launched a new page on its website Thursday that provides details about the regulations.
In addition to sidewalk cafes – in which tables are set up on the sidewalk directly outside a restaurant – the city is also encouraging businesses to apply for a streatery or parklet permit. A streatery is an outdoor seating area that encompasses up to two parking spaces at the curbside in front of a restaurant or a nearby loading zone. A parklet is effectively the same thing, but open to the public, not just customers of a specific restaurant.
Under Woodward’s order, the city will consider granting variances to the normal requirements of a sidewalk cafe or streatery, as long as they meet basic safety requirements and still conform to the requirements of Inslee’s Safe Start program.
The order was swiftly and unanimously ratified by the Spokane City Council on Thursday. The program is set to sunset at the end of 2020, but could be rescinded earlier if it becomes unnecessary or extended if needed.
Earlier this month, the council also asked the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board to relax restrictions that force a restaurant’s outdoor alcohol sales to directly connected to its premises. The temporary standard would allow restaurants that share space in a closed-down street to sell alcohol, the sales of which are a vital piece of many establishments’ profitability.
The liquor board has already temporarily eased some rules during the stayhome order, including allowing the sale of premixed cocktails to go from licensed restaurants.
During the pandemic, it’s allowing restaurants to apply for an extended floor plan that stretches outside, but “floor plan revisions must be adjacent and contiguous to a licensed premise,” and “areas of responsibility must not be communal or shared with other licensees,” according to the liquor board’s guidance.
“They are eager to work with restaurants to make what adjustments they can,” said Councilwoman Lori Kinnear, who has spearheaded the council’s efforts to ease restrictions on restaurants and retailers.
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