Jon Eliassen, who retired from Avista Corp. in 2003 after 33 years on the job, now is both chairman of Itron Inc. and interim president and CEO of Red Lion Hotels Corp. That has got to be like working full time plus.

The changes Eliassen already has made at Red Lion reflect his experiences. In 15 years of staying at "a great hotel"in New York City, the Park Lane, while meeting with Wall Street analysts for Avista, Eliassen had dinner at the hotel just twice. "We were always someplace else," and meetings would last until 7:30 or 8 at night, he says. Breakfast, however, was another matter.

"A good, hot breakfast buffet is great, because you can go down from your room, get coffee, grab the paper, get breakfast, and go," says Eliassen. Red Lion now is emphasizing breakfast-inclusive room rate options and is bringing 120- to 150-room hotels into the chain even if they don't have full-service restaurants, but offer hot breakfast and limited lunch and dinner service. These days, many guests are away from their hotels at dinner time, Eliassen says. The chain also is shooting for more group and corporate business because "it comes at a higher price point" than individual travel, he says.

In the first quarter, Red Lion broke six straight quarters of declining revenue per available room. Eliassen has hired four new top executives, including Harry Sladich, former chief of the Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"People tell me, 'You don't know anything about the hotel business,' and I say, 'I don't have to know anything because I've hired good people,'" Eliassen says.

Eliassen knows a lot about Itron. He's been on its board since 1987, when Washington Water Power Co., Avista's predecessor, still owned more than half of the company. Up until Jan. 1, when he became chairman, Eliassen was lead director and met with former Chairman LeRoy Nosbaum once a month. He thinks that as chairman, he won't add many hours to the 300 or so a year he already was spending on Itron business.

Itron is a world-leading company that has installations in many countries, lots of cutting-edge products, and a presence in numerous competitive markets. Still, Eliassen says it isn't the board's role to "dive into the weeds" on the specifics of product design. "We work with the executives on strategy and risks," he says.

Eliassen, who began a 3 1/2-year tenure as leader of the old Spokane Area Economic Development Council two months after he retired from Avista, is so busy he reminds me of former WWP Chairman and CEO Wendell Satre, who guided Key Tronic Corp. through a difficult period and helped put printer maker Output Technology Corp. on the path to repay creditors in full, plus interest, during a stay in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Eliassen's first job at WWP in 1970 was to set up the books for Water Power Improvement Co., which bought abandoned homes here, had them remodeled, and sold them, getting them back on the grid and improving the economy. "I was always visible and around the senior executives," Eliassen says. Kinsey Robinson, who became WWP's president in 1939, was one of those senior execs. Later, "Paul Redmond taught me the importance of being on other companies' boards. I was lucky enough to be involved with all of our unregulated businesses."

Eliassen, who is 63, wants to stay active for the next six to eight years at companies and on their boards.

"The word 'retirement' is overblown," he says. "Careers are an evolution of different things at different times. Doing nothing is not an option."

Maybe so, but he concedes, "I wouldn't have known how to design a career like this."