Entrepreneurial ecosystem in greater Spokane traverses complicated terrain

Thursday, 21 April 2022 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared in the Journal of Business on April 21, 20211. by Virginia Thomas

While funding opportunities have slowed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Spokane’s startup community remains active, bolstered by employees located throughout the U.S. and events that bring attention to new companies, some market observers here say.

According to information from proprietary market data software subscription platform PitchBook, more than $51.6 million went to startups in the Spokane area in 2021. That’s less than half the $107.6 million in funding startups here received in 2020.

Of those funds committed in 2021, nearly half—$25.3 million—was venture funding.

Steve Rector, chief investment officer at Spokane-based Cowles Ventures LLC, says that while there’s no shortage of startups to fund, cash flow to investments has slowed as investors have been more hesitant to part with their money while the pandemic persisted through a second year.

“People are preserving cash in some of the uncertainty,” Rector says. “I was a little more protective during the last 18 to 24 months, just until we got a better handle on where things were going.”

Cowles Ventures is the venture-capital arm of Cowles Co., which owns the Journal of Business through its subsidiary, Northwest Business Press Inc.

Tom Simpson, managing member of angel fund Kick-Start, president of the Spokane Angel Alliance, and president and CEO of Ignite Northwest, says that data from Pitchbook should be taken with a grain of salt.

“PitchBook data is not complete because you don’t have everything disclosed,” Simpson says. “I would be careful about drawing a meaningful conclusion and saying the Spokane region suddenly is less interesting because of a decline.”

According to PitchBook data, startups that received the greatest amount of funds in 2021 include:

•Coeur d’Alene-based additive manufacturer Continuous Composites Inc., which received $18 million in venture funding in June.

•Coeur d’Alene-based cyber security company Gravwell Inc., which raised about $7 million total from two seed funding rounds in 2021.

•Spokane Valley-based real estate startup Doorsey Inc., which raised $4.1 million in seed funding in November.

Simpson says it’s important to note the number of new startups receiving investments versus the number of follow-on investments.

In 2021, four new startups – Vega Cloud Inc., Doorsey Inc., Treasury4 Inc., and Ruumr Inc. – received funding. No new startups received funding in 2020, according to PitchBook data.

Rector says Cowles Ventures invested in two new companies in 2021—Spokane-based fintech software startup Treasury4 Inc. and Vega Cloud, which is a Liberty Lake-based software maker.

So far in 2022, investors have infused more than $7.7 million into local startups, according to PitchBook. Most of that came from a $7 million venture funding round to Spokane-based spice maker Spiceology Inc. from San Francisco-based venture capital firm Jackson Square Ventures and other undisclosed investors.

Rector says investments in Spokane-area startups are likely to recover somewhat in 2022.

“Overall, in the markets and the venture space, we’ll probably see some upticks in ’22, just because we are getting out of some of the uncertainties that were clouding us in 2020 and 2021,” Rector says.

Simpson says future successful companies could be born from local startup events, which also maintain the momentum of the community.

Sparks Weekend, to be hosted this year by Ignite and LimeLyte Technology Group Inc. from April 29 to May 1 at the Catalyst Building, at 601 E. Riverside, provides new startups with resources to launch, Simpson says.

“It’s a three-day event where people with ideas for brand-new businesses present their ideas on Friday evening,” Simpson says.

About 40 presenters will be winnowed down to 10 finalists, who will be paired with mentors to work on creating a minimum viable product, conducting market research, and refining their busines model. On Sunday, competitors will present their final plans to a panel of judges. One winner will receive $50,000 in investment capital.

“That’s something that’s been very fruitful in the ecosystem here in Spokane,” Simpson says. “For example, Spiceology was the winner of a predecessor to Sparks Weekend, which was called Startup Spokane. Kaspien, several years ago, was the product of the same business plan competition.”

Spokane Valley-based e-commerce company Kaspien Holdings Inc. is an example of a company that has benefitted from some effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Simpson says. It has increased employee numbers by hiring people to work remotely. Other startups in the Spokane area also are likely to grow this way, Simpson says.

“The broader acceptance of remote work has really helped Spokane,” Simpson says. “In the past, sometimes Spokane was at a disadvantage for recruiting. Now, we can recruit people to work for emerging Spokane companies, though the workers may live elsewhere. It’s benefitting the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Spokane in two ways—more talent coming in, and the ability to attract a broader base of talent, though the workers might not live in Spokane.”

Ryan Arnold, director of regional entrepreneurial strategy at North Idaho College and co-manager of the Northwest Entrepreneur Competition, says entrepreneurial events are a good way for startups to find funding and other resources.

At the Northwest Entrepreneur Competition, hosted virtually on April 13 by North Idaho College and Spokane’s University District, more than 50 student teams competed for a total of about $44,000 in awards.

In addition to funding and feedback from judges, such events provide networking opportunities. Arnold says many entrepreneurs have a small network or none at all.

“Events like these oftentimes are a sort of clearinghouse for that, where they’re not only competing, but they’re meeting new people, they’re meeting their own peers that are going through the same issues, and they’re building their own entrepreneurial network,” Arnold says.

The Northwest Entrepreneur Competition has been hosted by North Idaho College annually for about 15 years, Arnold says. In that time, the entrepreneurial ecosystem here has flourished, he says.

“What we’ve found over time is that Spokane as a region has gotten more complex as far as the ecosystem goes,” he says. “We’re doing a good job of cooperating across state lines. The ecosystem is starting to work together a lot better, more cooperatively.”

Even before the Northwest Entrepreneur Competition came along, the startup community here was connecting higher education institutions with startup investment opportunities.

“You see this in the building growth of Spokane’s University District, for instance—the physical form of these spaces and places next to the downtown core,” Arnold says. “We were trying to attract talent and resources. But now, that talent and resource is here. Those buildings and spaces are here. With that comes the opportunity to just keep building and growing.”

Arnold says startups in the health sciences, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing sectors in particular have seen significant growth here.

Rector says Spokane startups have been receiving more attention from investors based outside of the Inland Northwest.

“We’re attracting some good, strong attention nationally with some of the companies that were started here,” Rector says. “I’ve got a couple of different venture groups in the Bay Area and a couple in the Seattle area that are much more inquisitive as to what we’re doing over here.”

2021 Manufacturing Economic Impact Report for the State of Idaho

Tuesday, 15 March 2022 / Published in News + Updates

The Idaho Manufacturing Alliance (IMA) has released their 2021 Manufacturing Economic Impact Report for the State of Idaho.

This is a report of the economic footprint of Idaho’s manufacturing sector for the year 2020. The sponsor is the Idaho Manufacturing Alliance and authored by the Vandal Impact Center. The student authors are Jacob Spence, Christopher Giddings, Josh Gehring, and Keegan Opdahl. The faculty advisor is Steven Peterson, who has conducted over 150 studies on nearly every Idaho industry in his career1. The study was completed in November 2021.

IMA partners with the University of Idaho and Alturas to fulfill a long-time organizational goal of formally highlighting how important manufacturing is to the Idaho economy. IMA’s three main activities are to connect, support and promote manufacturing.

Download full report here.

Civic pride and apathy are topics of upcoming Inland Northwest Partners spring webinar

Wednesday, 09 March 2022 / Published in News + Updates

March 9, 2022 (FAIRFIELD, Wash.)—Inland Northwest Partners (INP) is accepting registrations for their 2022 Spring Webinar. Philadelphia author and urban planner, Jeff Siegler, will be sharing a new approach to help restore people’s relationship to their town and foster a sense of pride in their communities. The webinar, “Civic Apathy and Civic Pride”, is Wednesday, March 23 from 9:00 am-11:00 am. Cost is $20 for INP members and $30 for non-members. Register at www.inwp.org.

 

“Regardless of a town or city’s size, residents’ apathy can be a challenge. Too often, it is the same people who show up and address their community’s needs”, says INP Executive Director, KayDee Gilkey. “This webinar will provide small, simple steps that can be taken by communities to increase civic pride.”

 

Jeff Siegler grew up in a struggling rustbelt city and understands the devastating cost of civic apathy. After obtaining his Masters in Urban Planning from Virginia Commonwealth University, Siegler went to work on Main Street, first as a downtown manager and Business Improvement District director, and later as the Ohio Main Street State Coordinator.

 

Now a consultant, Siegler travels nationally and internationally to assist communities in their efforts to restore civic health. He places the focus on making our towns into places residents can be proud to call home rather than on economic development and tourism. Siegler founded the civic pride consulting firm, Revitalize, or Die and is a co-founding partner of Proud Places. He is currently in the process of writing his first book, titled Your City is Sick.

 

INP members meet quarterly to share common economic challenges and solutions within the eastern Washington and northern Idaho region. Topics can include technology, financing community initiatives, forging regional partnerships, civic capacity-building, business expansion and retention strategies, and talent attraction. INP often partners with local chambers or state organizations for value-added training.

For more information about INP meetings or becoming a member, visit inwp.org or email [email protected]

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Inland Northwest Partners (INP) is a non-profit organization focused on enhancing the long-term vitality of a two-state region through its core offering of educational meetings, programs, and seminars. More than 300 business and community leaders from eastern Washington and northern Idaho are members. INP is also part of a regional collaborative known as the Inland Northwest Economic Alliance (INEA), a consortium of fourteen economic development agencies. To learn more, visit inwp.org.

 

The Role of Public Policy in Rural Community Economic Development

Wednesday, 03 November 2021 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared on survivalbusiness.com on October 16, 2021. By

By Paula Jensen

My husband is a mechanic. The tools of his trade are important to his work. He has a large toolbox with many drawers lined in soft black padding. His tools lay clean and organized inside each drawer for easy access when he needs the right tool for a job. Yet, when things get busy tools don’t get wiped clean, and they don’t get put back into that organized toolbox. This is when frustration levels rise, every job gets harder, and jobs take longer because he’s looking everywhere for the right tool.

Like a mechanic needs easy access to the right tools, our local community economic development (CED) organizations need easy access to the right tools — like public policy. In most rural communities, the development organization is the one group responding to the local needs that neither the market economy nor government is fully satisfying. These development organizations are working mostly alone to create solutions for housing, daycare, business retention and expansion, workforce issues, leadership development, and other quality of life issues. One organization cannot effectively tackle all these local issues alone. If the role of public policy is not in place to support development, then local frustration levels rise, every project gets harder to do, and progress takes longer because development leaders can’t grab the right tool from the toolbox.

Nine components of community and economic development

I was community coaching in a small town recently with twelve local leaders. This group represented city council members, county commissioners, and the economic development board of directors. We were mapping out their community and economic development model.

This model included the components of:

  1. business attraction
  2. existing business
  3. entrepreneurship
  4. workforce/education
  5. infrastructure
  6. quality of life
  7. leadership development
  8. storytelling/branding
  9. role of public policy

As each person was journaling their lists of activities in the nine areas, the mayor asked me for an example under the column labeled, “Role of Public Policy”. To prompt his brainstorming, I asked, “To support community economic development, have you hired a code enforcement officer or implemented the Municipal Gross Receipts Tax?”

As we worked together that evening, the group named two activities under the role of public policy – 1) Implementing Zoning and 2) Code Enforcement. Those are both good supporting public policies. Yet, as I looked over their collective work, it concerned me that a room with many elected officials could only name two public policies to support development. In that moment the story I told myself was, elected officials don’t know their role in public policy when it comes to supporting development.

So, what’s missing that could help elected officials connect the dots between the role of public policy and community economic development?

Goals of community development

A first step toward connecting those dots may be to define and understand development in your community. In addition to the nine components of the development model I listed above, below are a few general goals of any typical development organization:

Goal 1. Building Greater Community Capacity and Quality of Life

Goal 2. Nurturing Pride, Self-Reliance, and Leadership

Goal 3. Enhancing Skills and Attracting a Quality Workforce

Goal 4. Developing Businesses that are Responsive to Social and Economic Needs

Goal 5. Fostering Balanced, Fair, and Sustainable Economic Development

Example public policies to support community economic development

A next step is to explore public policies other communities are implementing to achieve their goals. Some examples of existing policies include:

  1. Investing in workforce attraction/retention incentives
  2. Prioritizing financial investments for paid staff of local housing, chamber, and economic development organizations, along with joint agreements on desired impacts
  3. Implementing a city sales tax, Municipal Gross Receipts Tax or lodging tax
  4. Implementing discretionary tax formulas to support housing improvements and business development
  5. Implementing local Main Street beautification and façade programs
  6. Creating an ecosystem of supporting local business to increase local sales tax
  7. Investing in quality-of-life and recreational amenities
  8. Utilizing Tax Increment Financing
  9. Prioritizing Planning & Zoning
  10. Owning or supplementing local daycare facilities.

 

Together, elected officials and economic development leaders can connect the dots between the role of public policy and community economic development by visioning for the future, naming the local needs, setting some goals, and innovatively developing public policy as a tool to create a thriving rural community.

About the Spokane region, Education & Workforce, Quality of Life

Thursday, 14 October 2021 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared on advantagespokane.com on October 11, 2021.

As the economy shakes out, new and growing businesses are deciding where to locate post-pandemic. For most, the availability of skilled, trained and ready-to-work employees is a priority — if not the No. 1 criteria.

“This is going to come down to talent,” says Gary Ballew, GSI’s vice president for economic development. “We already see a scarcity of workers across the country. The ability for companies to be successful is the ability of the community to grow, attract and retain talent.”

Reliable, relevant data helps focus the search — so you know whether a community has the talent pipeline your company needs. In Spokane County, the numbers have been good and steadily getting better:

  • High school graduations. At 86.02% in 2019-’20, Spokane County’s high school graduation rate has been rising steadily for the past decade. It’s remained consistently higher than the statewide rate (83.91% in 2019-’20).
  • College attendance. In 2019, 71.2% of Spokane County residents 25 and older had attended college. That total percentage includes 40.2% of residents who had attended some college, on their way to earning a degree, or earned an associate’s degree. (That rate was higher than the state and U.S. averages.) That total percentage also includes 19.5% of residents who had bachelor’s degrees, and another 11.5% with graduate or professional degrees.
  • Civilian labor force participation. Spokane County offers the largest labor market in eastern Washington and northern Idaho. At 61.89% in 2019, the percentage of  Spokane County’s total civilian labor force — the number of employed people plus the those actively seeking work — had been rising steadily since 2015.

Advantage Spokane’s regional Data Center is packed with searchable information about talent, the business climate, infrastructure and utilities, transportation and other factors key to decision-making.

Key data curated for businesses is also easy to find on a free interactive web tool called the Vitals (the source of the talent-related data above). It’s a tool built for businesses throughout Washington and those looking to locate in the state. The Vitals bring together more than 30 key economic indicators in Washington counties or MSAs, and at the state level. The indicators reflect regions’ progress related to economic recovery, talent, business environment, infrastructure and connectivity, entrepreneurship and innovation, and place and community.

The tool makes is part of Washington in the Making, a framework for the state’s post-pandemic economic recovery created by the AWB Institute.

Commitment to education

In Spokane County, the strong numbers related to talent reflect a regional, long-term commitment to developing a talent pipeline that matches employers’ needs.

It starts with education.
The Spokane region is home to public and private colleges and universities attended by nearly 80,000 students. The county’s 14 school districts and 60 private schools provide charter programs, STEM academies, skills centers and bilingual programs in addition to high-quality K-12 education.

The region also supports training programs that ensure that the engaged, ready-to-work people in our labor force learn the skills and grow the talents that new and growing businesses need.

High quality of life

But Ballew notes that it’s just as important to be able to attract and keep skilled and talented people around, in addition to supporting quality education and training programs.

Ballew said he’s seen quality-of-life issues become more important for employers and workers, starting even before the pandemic. But now, many have experienced a shift in perspective; they’ve looking for qualities like shorter commutes and easy access to lakes, rivers, forests and mountains.

“COVID accelerated a lot of shifts,” Ballew says, “and that was one of them.”

And that important change is another good reason to consider the good life in Spokane.

Life sciences startups in Eastern Washington find a welcoming ecosystem away from big cities

Thursday, 23 September 2021 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared in GeekWire on September 18 2021. Article by

The biotech and healthtech community in Eastern Washington has a loyal base of startups that laud their local connections and the support of a tight-knit group of entrepreneurs.

That’s a message echoed by several of the region’s CEOs and founders recently at the East West Life Science Summit, a meeting sponsored by industry group Life Science Washington.

“We have long-standing relationships and community built in this region that allows innovators to advance ideas and network and connect in a way that you just don’t get in more urbanized areas,” said Georgina Lynch, co-founder of Appiture Biotechnologies, which is developing ways to diagnose autism by measuring light reflexes in the eye. She is also an assistant professor at Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine in Spokane.

Appiture is one of several startups in the region fostered by WSU’s tech transfer office — though not all WSU spinouts stay.

Well before its public offering last year, WSU neurosciences spinout Athira Pharma made the move to the Seattle area, as has Cancer Targeted Technology, which is developing diagnostics and therapeutics for prostate cancer and has a licensing deal with pharma giant Novartis.

But companies that stay are rewarded with a lower cost of living for their workers and a stable employee base in a region with a less hectic pace of living than larger cities, said Shade Needham at the meeting.

“Once somebody finds the right position they don’t leave, and so there’s very low turnover,” said Needham, who owns Alturas Analytics, a contract research organization that performs chemical analyses for drug companies. The company is located in Moscow, Idaho, adjacent to the Washington border.

Parrots CEO David Hojah, left, poses with a man using an AI-enhanced assistive parrot device, perched on wheelchair at right, to assist with vision. (Parrots photo)

Proximity to Seattle and the region’s recreational options are also luring an increasing number of tech companies to Spokane, such as Seattle-based pet company Rover, which has an outpost in the city.

Tech activity bolsters the larger startup ecosystem in the Spokane region, an area of about 500,000 people. Startups can tap into institutions such as Greater Spokane Incorporated, a business development organization, Startup Spokane, and the Health Sciences and Services Authority of Spokane County, a Washington state-funded group that issues grants to the life and health sciences research industry.

Last December, WSU launched a Spokane-based incubator for early stage life sciences companies. Spinout Space in Spokane (sp³nw) provides lab and office space for startups including H Source, a marketplace for hospitals to buy and sell medical products from each other, and clinical genetic testing company Allele Diagnostics.

Startups have also been buoyed by early stage funders in the region such as entrepreneur Tom Simpson, who sold his e-commerce company Etailz for $75 million in 2016. He has backed dozens of Spokane-area startups as CEO of Ignite Funds and president of the Spokane Angel Alliance.

Spokane entrepreneur and angel investor Tom Simpson. (Ignite Northwest Photo)

Since 1921, Spokane has been home to a company now called Jubilant HollisterStier that is manufacturing components for COVID-19 vaccines. The contract research organization is a subsidiary of global company Jubilant Pharma.

Eastern Washington has the talent pool and early-stage funding opportunities to support more life sciences growth, said meeting attendees.

“You can get very well connected here very quickly,” said Parrots CEO and founder David Hojah. Hojah received funding from Simpson and other backers to launch his eight-employee startup developing assistive technologies for people with multiple sclerosis and other conditions. Parrots also recently won second place at a Novartis-sponsored competition for its tech device to support vision, which looks like a parrot.

Hojah previously lived in Boston and recently moved to Spokane from Seattle. So far, his impression is positive: “It’s the connection, the people, the vibes and the energy.”

Several other Spokane-area companies were highlighted by speakers at the summit.

  • Swabbing a dog for a genetic test. (Paw Prints Photo)

    Paw Print Genetics services dog breeders and veterinarians with nearly 300 genetic tests for over 350 different dog breeds. Founder and CEO Lisa Shaffer received an undergraduate degree from WSU and returned years later as a genetics professor. She co-founded Signature Genomic Laboratories, a Spokane-based genetic testing company for children with developmental disabilities that sold for $90 million in 2010. Paw Print, founded in 2012, had 40 employees in 2020 and was growing.

  • Medcurity makes it easier for healthcare organizations to comply with federal privacy and security laws through an online series of queries resembling Turbotax. Last summer the startup raised $500,000 from Seattle’s SeaChange fund, on the heels of $737,00 from Washington Research Foundation.
  • Photon Biosciences leverages its technology for ultra-sensitive imaging of biological materials and is developing an at-home test for contamination of blood platelet donations. The WSU spinout has landed grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health totaling $415,000, matched locally by the Health Sciences and Services Authority of Spokane. CEO Chandima Bandaranayaka previously rose from research intern to business development manager at VMRD, a 40-year-old Pullman-based diagnostics company.
  • S2 Media manufactures and sells materials for culturing microbes. In 2019 the company secured $750,000 in funding from “local investors” to expand production in its 5,000-square-foot operation. The company was founded in 2015 by microbiologist Stephanie Bernards, who has a master’s degree from Eastern Washington University and is a former quality assurance manager at Jubilant HollisterStier.
  • Crimson Medical Solutions is led by co-founder Stephen Bone, who graduated from WSU in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering. Crimson is making an organization system for IV lines to reduce medical errors. The three-employee, three-intern company has received grant funding from Greater Spokane Incorporated.

Investment deals in Idaho exceeded $5.2 billion in 2020; Kootenai companies see increase despite pandemic

Tuesday, 25 May 2021 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared in the Spokesman Review on May 21, 2021. By Amy Edelen [email protected](509) 459-5581

 

Kootenai County companies saw an uptick in investment despite the pandemic last year, according to a recent report by the Idaho Technology Council.

The council’s 2020 Idaho Deal Flow report, released earlier this week, tracks private funding, public market transactions and mergers and acquisitions.

North Idaho had 10 company mergers and acquisitions and 26 private investment deals last year totaling $164.3 million, according to the report.

Companies in Kootenai County garnered more than $67.7 million in funding from investors last year.

Ryan Arnold, director of regional entrepreneurial strategy at North Idaho College, said Thursday that 2020 was an interesting year for North Idaho’s business community.

At the onset of the pandemic, the region’s startup activity was expected to decrease, but the opposite occurred as more entrepreneurs took risks and developed business ideas, Arnold said.

“We saw an uptick in entrepreneurship activity,” he said.

North Idaho is now on the map as a viable area to obtain funding and conduct business, in part, because of its proximity to Spokane, Seattle and Boise, Arnold said.

“Overall, it feels like a good time to be here,” Arnold said.

Statewide, the number of investment deals dropped slightly to 151 last year, compared with 154 in 2019. However, the overall amount of capital invested increased to $5.2 billion last year from $4.4 billion in 2019.

Coeur d’Alene-based Tractor Beverage Co. last year was among the state’s top 10 private placement deals, a round of investment through a private offering . The specialty soda company completed an $18.5 million round of venture funding from investors in 2020.

“Our equity raise completed in April 2020 has enabled Tractor to continue its growth in the industry and helped us achieve a 475% increase in revenues in 2020,” Dan Kerker, CFO of Tractor Beverage Co., said in an email.

Seven Kootenai County-based companies raised more than $1 million in funding last year. GarageSkins Inc. is one of those companies, raising $1.2 million in December in a deal led by Central Texas Angel Network.

GarageSkins founder Rick Medlen moved from Oregon to Liberty Lake last year and is leasing 60,000 square feet of space at 5405 W. Riverbend Ave. in Post Falls for a new production facility, with plans to take the company’s garage door overlay system to market in July.

Medlen developed a concept of thin, wood veneers adhered to lightweight foam that attaches to metal garage doors via strong earth magnets, transforming the appearance to high-end wood carriage doors without need for alterations.

“I have found North Idaho to be incredibly welcoming to new businesses,” said Medlen, adding the business community has been supportive of the company’s production facility.

It’s been typical to see late-stage funding for North Idaho startups, meaning established companies are receiving larger amounts of investments, Medlen said.

“Companies showing true growth and great year-over-year increases can expect a ready investor market,” he said.

Contemporary artist explores new beginnings

Thursday, 29 April 2021 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared in the Lewiston Tribune on April 29, 2021 By Elaine Williams For Inland 360

Moscow newcomer one of several featured in Little Pink House Gallery’s latest show

The aftermath of a fire that leveled most of the Whitman County town of Malden last fall dominates the artwork “Renewal,” by Moscow artist Jill Kyong.

An image of blackened, leafless trees is repeated on three separate, rectangular, wood boxes created by Kyong, one of the artists featured in a show also named “Renewal” opening Saturday at Genesee’s Little Pink House Gallery.

“I like the roof-peak effect that all the tree branches overhead made,” Kyong said.

Kyong cut a house-shaped opening beneath the limbs in each box. She placed one charred ellipsoid of wood, fashioned to look like a stone, in each. One is black, symbolizing the ruin of the fire. Another is white on top of black, representing the snow that covered Malden in late fall. The third is black with a green leaf peeking out from the bottom, showing life after destruction.

Kyong is relatively new to Moscow, and this is the first time her art is being shown in the periodic exhibits painter Ellen Vieth holds in her Genesee gallery. “Renewal” is one of two Kyong pieces that will be on display.

“What distinguishes Jill’s work is her ability to translate things she sees in nature into refined and graceful sculptural pieces,” Vieth said. “She has a keen eye for simplicity.”

Kyong’s work often simultaneously explores hope and loss. She frequently encodes not-so-subtle messages into her wood “rocks.”

In the work “Growth,” she tackled the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was recently convicted of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

In the piece, five small, green shadow boxes line the bottom edge of a large piece of gray wood. A black stone and a white stone sit together in the middle box. In the two boxes to the right are single black stones. In the two to the left are single white stones.

Inspiration for the piece hit when she was on a walk with her husband and spotted green tufts of grass sprouting in a line out of hard pavement.

The work will not be on display at the gallery as it was recently sold to a private buyer. As profound as the backstory is, Kyong didn’t share it with the buyer and only recently posted it on social media because of her view that labels and context can prevent people from experiencing art on their own terms.

It doesn’t matter to her if people purchase what she does because the colors match the paint on their walls or if they discern its deeper messages. Similarly, Kyong seeks out classes to learn new methods.

“If I have an idea, I try to figure out how to do it,” she said. “I’m not just in one lane of how it could be done.”

Kyong, 49, is a Korean-American who came to the United States after being adopted. The direction she is pursuing with her art unfolded over decades.

In college, she earned a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree focused on iron casting. That perspective still informs what she does in a number of ways, she said. Part of her criteria for her 3D works is that they look good from all angles.

The turn she took toward wood happened during a 20-year hiatus from art while she was raising two children and doing bookkeeping for her sister’s restaurants in Chicago, a job she still performs remotely. She built sturdy, custom furniture for the house she and her husband purchased in Little Rock, Ark.

After their children were grown, she returned to art in 2018, mostly using wood. She had started to establish herself in Arkansas where two galleries carried her work and she taught woodworking at the Arkansas Art Center. Then her husband, Jeff Kyong-McClain, a historian specializing in China, accepted a job as an instructor and administrator at the University of Idaho and the couple relocated.

Kyong’s concepts frequently begin with photographs of nature that she refers to as she sketches ideas on an iPad using the program Procreate.

“I like it because I can move things around,” she said.

Her garage is where she does finish work, and a large share of the cutting and carving happens at a private Moscow woodshop, where she works with artists she met at Artisans at the Dahmen Barn in Uniontown.

“There’s all this work that goes on out there (at the woodshop) that’s nationally and internationally known,” she said.

In addition to saving her the expense of tools, the woodshop is also a place where she can get feedback and help from other artists.

As smoothly as the transition of moving to Idaho went, Kyong is still working through challenges, like finding galleries that are the right fit for her pieces. Her works typically cost more than $1,000 because of the large investment in time and materials. Each of her wooden stones, for example, took about 30 minutes to craft through a process involving multiple rounds of sanding.

The Art Spirit Gallery of Fine Art in Coeur d’Alene represents her and is planning a June exhibit that features Kyong and other Moscow-area wood artists.

“(I want) people to see that art made from wood is more than the hobby their grandfathers used to have,” she said.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: “Renewal,” contemporary art exhibit.

WHEN: 10 am. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sunday and May 8.

WHERE: Little Pink House Gallery, 157 N. Elm St., Genesee.

OF NOTE: Face masks are required at the gallery.

The show includes new work by Ellen Vieth, Kendra Bulgren, Karen Filden, David Herbold, Stacy Isenbarger, Aaron Johnson, Jill Kyong, John Larkin, Lauren McCleary, Jean Arnold and Noah Schuerman. Arnold, a first-time exhibitor at the gallery, will show two works from her Malden series, both reflections on the 2020 Babb Road Fire. A portion of the sale proceeds from the works will be donated to the Whitman County United Way Fire Community Relief Fund.

Recordings of recent INP webinars now online

Wednesday, 03 March 2021 / Published in News + Updates

 

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

Webinar Recording—> Click here!

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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!

New residents are just one factor in rise in Spokane home values

Monday, 01 February 2021 / Published in News + Updates

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.