COEUR DALENEThis is my mid-life crisis, Alan Perkins says with a grin as he rambles down Coeur dAlene Lake Drive in a 10-miles-to-the-gallon, look-at-me yellow Hummer H2. The 41-year-old self-described eco-geek environmentalist it

Enrollment in the University of Idaho Coeur dAlenes geographic information systems certificate program has risen rapidly as demand has climbed in the Spokane-Coeur dAlene area for GIS-trained employees.The program trains students in the a

Despite a several-year decline nationally in the number of applicants to master of business administration (MBA) programs, schools here say interest in the degrees is strong and growing.Eastern Washington University, which offers an MBA program

A Post Falls development company says it plans to build a four-building office, warehouse, and automotive-business complex there, and has started work on one building already.The company, Doerfler Development, plans to construct four, multiunit

Attention Wal-Mart foes and fans: Pace yourselves. It could be a long fight.City of Spokane officials say Wal-Mart Stores Inc. must go through many steps before its proposed 186,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter at the northeast corner of on

Force Communications Inc., a Plano, Texas-based maker of fiber-optic products and high-speed Internet modems, says it hopes to hire about 20 more employees this year at the assembly and distribution facility it opened in Spokane Valley last located

The white-hot condominium market has prompted another property conversion, this time on the North Side, where Gib Brumback plans to convert a 46-unit apartment complex on the Five Mile bluff into condominiums. The project is the latest in a new

Tidymans LLC, which operates a grocery-store chain based here, has sold three of its Spokane-area supermarket buildings to a Western Washington real estate investment group for a total of $8.45 million.Tidymans President and CEO Mike Davis

Willis Group Holdings Ltd., one of the worlds largest insurance brokerages, plans to open an office here next week that will be managed by Curtis Taylor, former top executive here for Marsh, one of Willis competitors.The New York publicly a

A more aggressive use of annexation covenants and the creation of a port districtboth lightning rods for community debate here in the pastare two of the strategies that new Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession says hell push as he seeks to bolster a