Paul Read

Best Places to Work …

Guest Commentary: Where do you stand in competition for workers?

April 11, 2024

Paul Read

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Think calm resilience in 2024

Economic Forecast Welcome

November 8, 2023

Paul Read

I think economist Steve Scranton summed it up best this year: “If times are good for you, keep doing what you are doing, but remain alert and prepared.”
My reading of a collection of articles for this supplement, written by local economists, cemented what most of us are already thinking, that the questions we had going into 2023 remain unanswered for 2024. But here’s the punchline: Fears of a full recession seem to have minimized, meaning a soft landing in 2024 is still very possible.

Wading into the mobile 'app' market

Gourami Group now has four games in Apple store, including one for Telect

April 22, 2010

Paul Read

A tiny software development company here has been scratching its way into the crowded iPhone and iPod "apps" fray, with four games now, including a promotional game it developed for Liberty Lake-based Telect Inc., while it also builds a reputation

Gold Reserve adjusts to life without Venezuelan mine

Company seeks arbitration from international tribunal after Brisas project seized

April 8, 2010

Paul Read and Paul Read

Gold Reserve Inc., a Spokane-based mining exploration company that has spent nearly $300 million on a mining project in Venezuela, says now that the Venezuelan government has seized its property there, its focus will be on fighting to get whatever

Blue Water taps green idea

Hayden concern hopes to generate power by burning sewage

March 25, 2010

Paul Read and Paul Read

Blue Water Technologies Inc., a Hayden-based concern known for its technology that removes phosphorus from wastewater, quietly has been adding to its resume the elimination of other contaminants, and now hopes to perfect a way to produce from the

IT-Lifeline, Red Lion eye disaster plan

Hotel would be makeshift call center for customers that lose data operations

February 25, 2010

Paul Read and Paul Read

Liberty Lake high-tech concern IT-Lifeline Inc. is working with Spokane-based hotelier Red Lion Hotels Corp. to offer call-center operators the space and equipment needed to get up to hundreds of workers back on line within 48 hours if their a an a

U.S. crisis put Hecla on edge

Company sought to refinance large debt as credit markets froze

January 28, 2010

Paul Read and Paul Read

Earlier this month, Hecla Mining Co. announced that its silver production had jumped 26 percent in 2009 and that surging cash flows had left the Coeur d'Alene-based company with zero debt and $100 million in cash on hand. What a difference a year a

All is glitter again in mining sector

December 23, 2009

Paul Read

At this time last year, mining executives were saying how much difference a year had made. With metals prices down and capital markets frozen, solemn executives were yearning for the days just 12 months earlier when the sun was shining on their are

Expect a slow but steady upturn

Industry-sector observers here are forecasting only modest improvements in 2010

December 23, 2009

Paul Read

So now the slow road to recovery begins. In most industry sectors, 2009 has been a year people would like to put behind them, and, after a couple of years of mostly negative indicators, observers now are offering hope that 2010 will provide at a

GSI launches strategic planning process

Group formed less than three years ago finds itself in different environment today

December 10, 2009

Paul Read and Paul Read

Greater Spokane Incorporated has launched a strategic planning process to help guide the nearly three-year-old organization through challenging economic times and what has become a shifting economic-development landscape."To paraphrase what (new