Nov 06, 1995

EvansGroup

Seattle-based EvansGroup Public Relations, the largest PR firm in the state, has acquired Communication Northwest Inc., a local agency specializing in crisis and public affairs counseling for financial institutions, high-tech firms, health care providers, professional service firms and agricultural producers. Communication Northwest President R. Danner Graves will join EvansGroup Public Relations as executive vice president and general manager of its Corporate Communications division. He will report directly to Andy Hopson, president of EvansGroup Public Relations. Graves brings with him two employees and eight clients with nearly $500,000 in business. EvansGroup Pubic Relations, a division of Salt Lake City-based EvansGroup, hopes to have $10 million in billings by the year 2000. The company purchased Hartman Public Relations in May.

IDD Aerospace

James Van Osdol, previously general manager of the Redmond-based Illuminated Displays Division of Bell Industries, has been named president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of directors following its acquisition by IDD Aerospace Corp., a manufacturer and designer of lighted displays, keyboards and integrated switch panels. The division will now be known as IDD Aerospace, a subsidiary of the French company Groupe Intertechnique.

Clover Park Technical College

Tacoma's Clover Park Technical College (CPTC) will honor the first group of graduates in the state to have met requirements for a new technical degree. The graduation ceremonies will be held at 2 p.m. Nov. 3 in the Lakewood Senior Center located on the CPTC campus. Three students from the Accountant Program and 22 students from the Environmental Technician Program will be awarded technical degrees. Clover Park is the first technical college in the state to offer technical degrees in any of its training programs. At least 15 of the college's 67 programs will offer such degrees by mid-1996.

Sun Sportswear

Mike Kovacs has been named vice president of manufacturing at Sun Sportswear, a Kent-based designer and imprinter of casual garments for children and adults. Previously, Kovacs served as director of manufacturing and as plant manager. Before joining Sun Sportswear in 1991, he was vice president of engineering at MicroDisk Services in Woodinville.

CF2GS

Seattle advertising agency CF2GS has hired six people and promoted one member of its staff. Recent hires are: Joelle Stocks, account executive; Sheryl Saks, production manager; Nani Paape, production manager; Stacie Sauder, traffic coordinator; Nicole Michels, creative assistant; and Michele F. Green, accounting assistant. Todd Myers has been transferred from the Portland office to be an assistant media buyer.

Francis & Co.

Dale L. Gerboth has joined Francis & Co., a certified public accounting and management consulting firm based in Seattle, as director of accounting and auditing services. Gerboth previously was a lecturer in accounting at University of Washington, and prior to that, a principal and partner at Arthur Young/Ernst & Young, New York. He has also held management positions with the American Institute of CPAs and the Research and Technical Activities Division of the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

Whitman College

Whitman College has promoted John Bogley, previously associate director of admission in charge of the Seattle office, to director of admission for the Walla Walla university. Bogley is a former student of the college and graduated magna cum laude from Whitman in 1985. Following graduation, he served three years as a Whitman admission officer. He then spent five years as director of admission at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma before returning to Whitman.

Tree Top

Tree Top, a grower-owned cooperative with plant facilities in Selah, Cashmere and Wenatchee, has acquired dried apple processing company Sun Ridge Foods Inc. of Sunnyside. The management teams of both companies are currently working out a plan for the most efficient merger of the two operations.

The Fearey Group

Seattle-based public relations and marketing communications firm The Fearey Group has appointed Michael Flynn as account executive. Flynn formerly worked as public relations coordinator at the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce and as sports writer and stringer for The Bellingham Herald.

National Frozen Foods

Dick Grader, vice president of sales for National Frozen Foods Corp., a Seattle packer and processor of frozen foods, has been appointed a board director for the American Frozen Institute in McLean, Va. Grader has been involved with the American Frozen Food Institute for many years, most recently as chairman of American Frozen Foods "5 A Day Program." He is also current chairman of the Western Frozen Foods Convention. National Frozen Foods also announced that Don Rees, its director of retail sales, has been appointed board director of the National Frozen Food Association, Harrisburg, Pa. Rees currently serves as the co-chairman of the 1996 National Frozen Food Convention.

E. Kent Halvorson

Two new employees have joined E. Kent Halvorson Inc. of Redmond. Mike Tihista has come on board as a project manager in new construction and Kelly Shyne has joined as a project manager with the tenant improvement division. Tihista has over 18 years of experience in civil, commercial and industrial projects, in both the public and private sectors. He holds a degree in building construction from the University of Washington. Shyne has over 15 years of experience in the construction industry, with expertise in class A office space, business centers, medical offices/hospitals, and high-tech clean rooms.

Puget Sound Safety Summit

The Puget Sound Safety Summit will meet Wednesday with guest speaker John von Volkli, president of Team FA.CT. He will speak about ways to facilitate positive communication between parties affected by the workers' compensation process, especially speeding the return of injured employees back to the work place. The meeting will run from 9 a.m. to noon in Conference Room C of the Aerospace Machinists' Industrial District Lodge No. 751 (9125 15th Place S., Seattle).

Cedar Grove sniffs out odor problems

State-of-the-art technology and the world's most effective odor-detecting instrument -- the human nose -- are joining forces to combat a smelly situation at the Cedar Grove composting operation near Maple Valley. Cedar Grove, one of the nation's largest composters, bags and sells compost as fertilizer. It's an attractive alternative to chemicals, but odors from the operation have created a big problem for area residents. "When you dig into [the 360,000 tons of yard waste rotting on-site] and try to move it around, it releases terrible odors," says Dic Gribbon, an inspector with the Puget Sound Air Pollution Control Authority. Cedar Grove is spending more than $1.6 million to construct and install an odor-abatement system that works on the principle of bio-filtration. Air is drawn through the decomposting material and forced through finished compost, allowing microorganisms to eat the odorous material. More than five miles of piping buried underneath a 3-acre composting area capture the odors, which are then routed through a 10,000-square-foot, 4-foot-deep biofilter by six huge 75-horsepower fans. A community group has been formed to advise PSAPCA and Cedar Grove on the effectiveness of the new technology, because there is no rigorous chemical method of analyzing odors. "The nose is still best," says Gribbon.

Ocean pollution guidelines to be drawn up

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than 100 nations agreed Friday to establish guidelines for increased protection of the world's oceans from land-based pollution, although no new legally binding commitments were established. Both government and non-government delegates from 102 countries, including the United States, at the two-week United Nations Environmental Program conference on protecting the marine environment, also agreed to try to develop in the coming years a binding treaty addressing the flow of persistently toxic organic pollutants into oceans. The delegates acknowledged that such pollutants -- including certain pesticides, DDT, PCBs and dioxins -- are a major threat to marine life because of their long-lasting toxicity and the fact that they travel widely in the oceans. In a broadly crafted program of action, the conference delegates urged the development of a legally binding global treaty for the reduction or elimination of these chemicals and in some cases an end to their manufacture. But R. Tucker Scully, director of the State Department's office dealing with marine environmental issues, acknowledged the phaseout of such chemicals will be difficult. The hope is that discussions on a treaty might begin by 1997, he said. The guidelines for a more aggressive worldwide approach to dealing with land-based pollution of oceans is "the launching of a long-term process" toward reduced ocean pollution from land-based sources, said Scully. The action plan was aimed at providing "practical guidance" to nations on how to deal with the most critical threats to coastal waters such as discharge of sewage, pesticides, fertilizers and persistent organic pollutants, the participants said.

Sustainable building for beginners

Want to learn more about the latest alternative construction technology and sustainable building practices such as straw bale construction, steel framing and stressed skin panels? The Solid Waste Management Division of Snohomish County Public Works is giving a beginner's introduction to sustainable building on Nov. 28 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., in the downstairs auditorium of the Everett Public Library, at 2702 Hoyt Ave. A free slide show and lecture will include information on job site recycling, using recycled content materials, and the use of environmentally friendly building systems. John Doyle, who has 20 years of construction experience and is on the board of the Eco-Builder's Guild, will teach the class. Doyle has worked 10 years for the Seattle office of the Washington State Energy Office, supervising training and education in residential construction codes as well as alternative construction. Call (206) 388-6489 for more information or to sign up.

No reprieve for mistakenly marked trees

BEND, Ore. (AP) -- Forest Service officials admit they mistakenly marked about 150 old-growth ponderosa pine trees for harvest but say nothing can be done to correct the error. Crown Pacific loggers began harvesting the seven-acre area near Sisters on Thursday, Forest Service spokeswoman Tori Robert said. The trees average more than 30 inches in diameter. The Forest Service has known of the mistake since July but hasn't been able to revise the sale contract. "We don't have the authority to unilaterally take trees out of the contract," said Roberts. The sale was intended to remove trees infested with dwarf mistletoe, a parasitic plant that deforms conifers. Healthy trees, however, were marked for logging along with infested ones. The Forest Service asked Crown Pacific to modify the contract, but the company refused. The mistake was made public by Paul Dewey, who has been fighting the Forest Service over the Walla Bear timber sale since 1985. He said there is nothing he can do now because the trees would be down by the time a temporary restraining order could be obtained.

Seattle gets grant for water quality

The Washington state Department of Ecology has awarded the city of Seattle a $250,000 Centennial Water Fund grant to conduct water quality monitoring of chemical, physical and biological attributes of the Cedar River and South Fork Tolt River watersheds. The information attained will identify and prioritize restoration projects, such as culvert replacement and streambank stabilization, that are expected to improve water quality, and enhance fish and aquatic habitat. For additional information, contact John Glynn at (206) 649-7033 or Mary Getchell at (360) 407-6157.

First timber sale under N.W. plan set

ESTACADA, Ore. (AP) -- The first U.S. Bureau of Land Management old-growth timber sale under the Northwest forest plan will be southeast of Estacada. The 42-acre Wild Prune sale will be bid at auction on Nov. 29 at the BLM's Salem district office, said Dick Prather, the agency's Cascade area manager. The old Douglas fir, hemlock and red cedar timber is within the 13 percent of federal forests earmarked for logging and timber management under the plan. The forest plan took effect this year as part of a Clinton administration compromise to resolve a court injunction over protection of spotted owl habitat. The owl was listed as a threatened species in 1990. Prather said there are about 6,500 acres of trees 200 years and older in the South Fork Clackamas River drainage but the sale parcel is an isolated area surrounded by younger trees. The sale is estimated to yield more than 3.7 million board feet of timber.