Just last week, one of the reporters in the Journal newsroom wondered out loud just how long Ambassadors Group could keep operating while losing money consistently. 

The answer to his question came more quickly than I would have guessed. Earlier this week, Ambassadors Group, which offers travel programs primarily to students, announced that it would cease operations at the end of this year. It’s finishing out its 2015 travel programs and will refund any money paid toward 2016 trips. 

I wrote the Journal’s last in-depth story about Ambassadors’ attempt to right its ship. The story appeared in our Aug. 29, 2013, edition, six months after a major proxy battle among shareholders followed by resignations from the company’s top executives Jeff and Margaret Thomas. 

Anthony Dombrowik met me at the company’s corporate headquarters on the West Plains. He was serving as interim CEO at the time, and he talked about the company’s plans to cut expenses in an effort to stay ahead of the declining enrollment in its travel programs and the corresponding declining revenues. 

But to varying degrees, the company already had been operating in a cost-cutting mode for about five years at that time, and the story had a similar feel to others we’d written where Ambassadors felt like it was about to turn a corner.

Dombrowik and I met at the company’s 133,000-square-foot headquarters building on the West Plains. The building already had been put up for sale—Northwest Farm Credit Services eventually bought it—as the company was using only half the space. Walking the halls and common areas, it was clear then that the company was a fraction of the size it had been in its prime.

Regardless, Dombrowik expressed optimism about the company’s future. He said he expected the company to be able to maintain staffing levels at around 200 people and that the declines in program enrollment finally would trough out. 

His predecessors had hoped for similar turnarounds, and like them, Dombrowik’s hopes for the company never came to fruition. When the company moved its operations to a downtown office space from its former corporate headquarters in May, it had fewer than 100 employees.

While that figure is substantially smaller than it once was—the company employed 300 people in 2008—it still makes Ambassadors a significant employer in the Spokane market, and it’s unfortunate that those jobs will dissipate. 

I’ve wrung my hands in this space before about the loss of publicly-traded company headquarters in the Inland Northwest. Due to closures (Coldwater Creek), acquisitions (Sterling Bank), and moves (Coeur Mining), 10 public companies now are based in the Inland Northwest, about two-thirds of the number that had been here prior to the recession. 

While it’s not exactly surprising to hear Ambassadors’ news, it is unfortunate to see the company going away. I hope it’s the last to do so, at least for a while.