Call for a new awareness campaign about SIDS (6-24-09)

They were Seattle’s dynamic doctor duo, two young physicians moved by the pain of those whose infants had died unexpectedly and unexplainedly, who undertook a national campaign that led to research, changed medical and law-enforcement practices and gave “crib death” a medical name.

It was in the mid-‘60s that Dr. Bruce Beckwith and Dr. Abraham Bergman, both in their early 30’s and each connected with both Seattle’s Children’s Orthopedic Hospital and the University of Washington Medical School, began the long campaign to bring what they helped name Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) out of the darkness.

YMCA national CEO sees future as time of changes for Y (6-19-09

Neil Nicoll, president and CEO of the YMCA of the USA, would rather focus on what kind of Y evolves after the nation’s current economic turmoil passes than spend time wringing his hands over the challenges his non-profit is weathering better than most non-profits.

And he sidesteps the opportunity to be critical of the fact that non-profits seem to be the only entities not getting stimulus or bailouts in any of the plans that have rolled out of Congress and the Administration.

VC turmoil may leave entrepreneurs in need of angels (June 10, 09)

Turmoil over the continued viability of the venture capital business model, coupled with a maturing collegiality among angel investors, has created an interesting and challenging dynamic for potential entrepreneurs, one that could have implications for economic recovery.

Amidst a chorus of critics who contend the venture capital model is broken, Seattle venture capital leader Andy Dale says a course correction is under way for the industry while the managing partner of what has been one of Washington State’s most successful VC firms says it’s too late.

Two CEOs model willingness to shed short-term focus

The growing dynamic tension between the goals of short-term profits vs. sustainable performance has the heads of public companies casting about for a compass to guide them across the new business landscape. They might look to the model of a couple of CEOs of Seattle-area companies to point the way.

The way isn’t always easy, as Costco Wholesale CEO Jim Sinegal found last week in the reaction of analysts and the market to his strategic decisions for his company. Meanwhile, Alaska Air Group CEO Bill Ayer, the same day Sinegal was taking his hits, outlined at a luncheon speech what he called the “simple principles” that guide his leadership decisions, suggesting that the path shouldn’t be that hard.

Guru of nurture marketing uses farming metaphor to guide strategy (May 27, '09)

The guru of customer nurture is fond of quoting early movie siren Mae West to explain how some companies can succeed, even in difficult economic times, while others fail.

“Out of site is out of mind, and out of mind is out of money, honey,” recites James P. (Jim) Cecil with a smile as he suggests that the Hollywood star’s quote was never more appropriate for businesses than in this troubled economy.

Buiness innovator's quest to patent hydrogen-fueled dirigible (May 20, '09)

Rinaldo Brutoco, who made his fortune as a young entrepreneur in the ‘70s then founded a think tank focused on bringing the best of business thinking to benefit society, is now committed to hastening the world’s transition to what he predicts will be a hydrogen-fuel economy.

Brutoco contends that such a transition is vital to freeing the nation from dependence on oil. And to help achieve that, he has filed a patent application for a hydrogen-fueled dirigible, an airship with a semi-rigid frame, a mode of transportation whose time may have come again, he thinks.

Nosbaum offers reflections on career at the helm of global-player Itron

LeRoy Nosbaum, who guided what has arguably been, over the past decade, the most successful public company in the state of Washington, is now in the process of winding down his involvement. But the imprint he left on Spokane-based Itron Inc. is likely to be felt well into the future of a firm that’s become a major global player in the energy field.

The company Nosbaum guided, until retiring as CEO in March, saw its share price rise from $4.37 in the fall of 1999 to just over $105 last August while its annual revenues grew from less than $200 million in ’99 to $1.9 billion for fiscal 2008.

Fund targets tech transfer from campus to commercialization

James Torina and Patrick Murphy, who just closed the necessary funding for their seed-stage venture fund called The University Funds, aren’t the first entrepreneurs to look to partner with research universities to bring promising technologies from the campus to commercialization.

But they may have come along at just the right time to meet a need that research universities have to demonstrate that they are not just academic institutions but also important partners for their states, creating new businesses and jobs.

YouthCare celebrates its years of caring for homeless youth

When the first refuge for street kids in the Western United States opened in Seattle in 1974, it was a three-bed facility for runaways and was known simply as The Shelter.

 A decade later, by which time the non-profit had become as Seattle Youth and Community Services, it had attracted the attention of two of Seattle’s prominent business leaders, who decided it was a cause that deserved broader support from the community.

Milt Kuolt influence still felt in legacy he built (4-22-09)

Bill Ayer was a twenty-something entrepreneur less than two years into trying to make a go of his tiny two-plane Air Olympia airline when he decided to approach Milt Kuolt about buying him out.

Kuolt, who had recently launched his own start-up airline, Horizon Air, after building Thousand Trails into a successful public company that basically launched the campgrounds industry nationally, wasn’t interested.

Cheri Marusa: Small-town housewife making a difference

(April 15, '09)

If you believe that America’s uniqueness is in being a place where one person can make a difference, then you you’ll want to meet Cheri Marusa, a housewife and a fourth-generation Cle Elum, Washington, resident who makes a habit out of making a difference.

Two years ago, her long campaign on behalf of bringing enhanced medical service and improved medical care to her Upper Kittitas County community culminated in an unlikely $2.7 million appropriation from the Washington Legislature. Some who know her joked that she had simply worn the legislators down with her repeated appearances outside their office doors.

 Helen Thomas concerned about new Obama news-conference approach

(April 8, 2009)

Senior White House correspondent Helen Thomas is concerned that President Obama’s move to reach beyond mainstream journalists in determining who gets to ask questions at his televised news conferences could turn them into scripted theater.

Thomas, who was in the Pacific Northwest with CBS senior White House Correspondent Bob Schieffer for the 35^th annual Edward R. Murrow Symposium where they both received lifetime achievement awards, expressed her concern on at least three occasions during the two-day event.