Published March 2005

Business Briefs

Dream Dinners expects 2005 growth
in revenue, franchises
Dream Dinners finished 2004 with a 50 percent growth in revenue over 2003 and projects a 60 percent increase in revenue this year, according to the Snohomish-based company, which was a founder in the “assemble-and-freeze dinners” industry.

In less than three years, Dream Dinners has transformed the company from a single rented catering kitchen to a 66-store national franchise, company officials said, adding that they expect a 250 percent increase in the number of franchises by the end of 2005, with plans to open over 90 additional stores.

“Our mission is to nurture families by restoring the tradition of the family dinner hour,” said Tina Kuna, Dream Dinners’ chief financial officer. “It is gratifying to bring this service to so many communities nationwide.”

As a result of its rapid expansion, Dream Dinners has quadrupled its staff and hired former Starbucks Coffee Co. Director Brooke McCurdy as the company’s chief operating officer.

“This is a real coup to have someone of Brooke’s caliber on board,” Kuna said. “She is uniquely suited to help take Dream Dinners to the next level in our strategic growth (plan).”

Cascadia foundation receives
grant for low-income outreach
The Cascadia Community College Foundation recently received a $10,000 grant from the Harvest Foundation to be used by the Bothell school’s Workforce Resources Center to continue outreach to low-income residents in Woodinville, Kirkland and Redmond.

A private, family organization, the Harvest Foundation provides funding primarily in the areas of social services and education in Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Idaho and Montana.

“This is very rewarding work,” said Katrina Hall, housing grant coordinator. “We are helping pull together educational and employment resources for families facing real hardship. We really appreciate the support of the Harvest Foundation.”

Under the terms of the grant, staff from Cascadia conduct outreach activities to seven public housing sites with 197 units. Youth and adults receive support and assistance in order to finish school, receive job training and find employment.

MILA, WorkSource
partner to recruit staff
MILA Inc., the Mountlake Terrace-based marketer of home mortgage financing, has formed a partnership with WorkSource Washington to recruit hundreds of workers in the coming year to staff the firm’s expansion into a newly purchased Lynnwood office building.

The first of several hiring events with WorkSource was presented Feb. 18 at the Embassy Suites in Lynnwood. Recruiters anticipate 120 job openings need to be filled in April, including both professional and entry-level employees. This is the beginning of a long-term hiring phase for the company.

“We plan on adding more than 300 associates during 2005,” said Kent Hoepfinger, a MILA recruiter, who said the hiring was spurred by MILA’s “phenomenal” growth in the past three years.

Many of the positions are for MILA’s new facility at the CRS Corporate Centre, located adjacent to Embassy Suites in Lynnwood and just a few miles away from MILA’s corporate headquarters in Mountlake Terrace.

Rin Causey, president of the Snohomish County Workforce Development Council, said the partnership between MILA and WorkSource is great news for job seekers.

“MILA is a fast-growing company with good jobs, competitive wages and benefits, and opportunities for advancement,” Causey said.

WorkSource, a partnership of business, government agencies, colleges and nonprofit organizations, provides services to help businesses cut recruitment costs and save time. Most services are available at no cost.

SonoSite reports
first full-year profit
SonoSite Inc. reported it reached a milestone in 2004: its first full-year profit.

The Bothell-based hand-held ultrasound device company said Tuesday that it had a before-tax profit of $3.7 million for 2004.

Getting to profitability allowed the company to report tax refunds it received before it was profitable, something that accounting rules prevented before.

Adding that $19.3 million tax benefit gave the company a profit of just under $23 million for the year. SonoSite lost $1.8 million in 2003.

On a per-share basis, the company had a profit of $1.46, after a loss of 12 cents the year before.

For the fourth quarter, SonoSite reported pretax profits of $3.5 million, up from $2.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2003. Factoring in the tax benefit, per-share profits went to $1.53 from 15 cents.

Revenue surged 37 percent in 2004, to $115.8 million from $84.8 million. The company attributed that to customer enthusiasm for SonoSite’s Titan system. The company launched the hand-held ultrasound unit in 2003 and has continued to upgrade the software for it.

EdCC receives $96,000
to grow health-care programs
The Snohomish County Workforce Development Council awarded $96,000 to Edmonds Community College to expand its allied health certificate programs and fund two other projects this spring that will begin preparing students for health-care careers.

The grant allowed the college to enroll 15 additional students in its patient care technician certificate program. The grant also funds projects that reach out to English as a Second Language speakers and high school students.

A “Vocational English as a Second Language for Healthcare” class will prepare students to enter Allied Health Education programs. It will introduce medical and health-care terms, provide an overview of health-care occupations and the human body and teach computer basics such as keyboarding, e-mail, Internet and Word and Excel software.

The High School and Beyond Project, a partnership between Seattle Biomedical Research Institute and local school districts, will introduce high school students throughout Snohomish County to science careers through hands-on discovery at a research lab. Students from Mukilteo, Edmonds and Everett school districts will visit SBRI’s BioQuest Learning Lab in March.

For more information about the college’s allied health education training, call 425-640-1017, go online to http://ahe.edcc.edu or send e-mail to alliedhealth@edcc.edu.

Cingular to lay off another 160
Cingular plans to lay off another 160 people in the Puget Sound area by early April as the company continues trimming its work force after buying AT&T Wireless late in 2004.

Including the early February announcement, Cingular has indicated it will let go of more than 400 employees in Bothell, Redmond and Seattle this year.

Cingular spokeswoman Anne Marshall said layoffs will continue through the next 12 to 18 months. The layoffs won’t be limited to specific departments and will include management positions.

Overall, the nation’s largest wireless company plans to reduce its national work force by about 10 percent, or about 7,000 jobs.

Marshall added that employees who lose their jobs will get at least 60 days notice and severance packages. The severance will be based on their tenure and position with Cingular or AT&T Wireless.

FDA approves Nastech’s
vitamin B-12 nasal spray
Nastech Pharmaceutical Co.’s vitamin B-12 nasal spray has received the Food and Drug Administration’s approval, creating a new option for patients with multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease and AIDS.

Those conditions and other diseases can cause vitamin B-12 deficiency, which can lead to anemia, intestinal problems and nerve damage.

Approval of the spray, called Nascobal, also brings a $2 million payment to Bothell-based Nastech from Questcor Pharmaceuticals, which will market and sell the product.

In 2003, California-based Questcor paid Nastech $18 million for the rights to Nascobal. The deal came after Nastech ended a previous partnership to market the drug.

Nastech will continue to make Nascobal in a gel and spray form at its New York manufacturing plant. That work eventually may shift to Nastech’s Bothell facility.

SpringHill Suites by Marriott
rates high in customer service
The SpringHill Suites by Marriott in Bothell recently was presented with five individual awards from Marriott International at its annual conference in Orlando, Fla. Among the awards included were Best in Staff Service, Best in Hotel Guest Recognition, two top awards for Best in Suite Seasons Breakfast Buffet and the Gold Circle Award for Best in Overall Guest Satisfaction.

The awards are based on surveys completed by hotel guests after their stay, rating their experience on every aspect of the hotel. The surveys are compiled by Marriott International, and the top-scoring hotels are recognized for their commitment to the guest experience.

The SpringHill Suites, located at 3850 Monte Villa Parkway, is an 84-room, all-suite property.

Northwest Biotherapeutics
plans cancer-treatment testing
After its near-closure less than a year ago, Northwest Biotherapeutics plans to restart patient tests for at least two of its experimental cancer treatments.

The small biotechnology firm announced in late January that the Food and Drug Administration had approved new tests on DCVax-Prostate, a potential treatment for prostate cancer.

DCVax-Prostate, the company’s lead product, uses dendritic cells — specialized white blood cells that stimulate the immune system to fight cancer cells — to specifically target tumors. The treatment has no known toxic side effects, unlike chemotherapy, and may be particularly useful for patients with early stage cancer, said Alton Boynton, the Bothell company’s co-founder and president.

The test of the prostate cancer drug is expected to involve about 600 patients in dozens of sites across the United States. The company gave no predicted starting date. Already in the planning stages for later this year, however, is a phase-2 trial for DCVax-Brain, which could help to fight the most lethal form of brain cancer.

High school students
to attend Business Week
Business Week is coming to Edmonds to teach high school students about business, personal finance and free enterprise.

The 30-year-old program plans a weeklong session in March at Edmonds Community College for students from the Edmonds School District.

Washington Business Week has offered summer programs to high school students on college campuses for decades. In weeklong sessions, teens would gather to work with adult volunteers to run mock companies, and to attend seminars on business topics.

Over the past decade, it has offered programs during the school year, too, at sites around the state. The Edmonds program, which will run March 21-25, will be the first ever in Snohomish County.

Between 100 and 120 students — 20 from each high school in the Edmonds School District and as many as 20 home-schooled teens — have been picked for the program.

The program is being offered in conjunction with the Edmonds Education Association and members of the Edmonds business community. For more information, call 800-686-6442 or go to www.wbw.org.

Edmonds firm buys two hotels
The Hotel Group Inc., based in Edmonds, has acquired two new hotels after raising $20 million for a new property investment fund.

The local company’s new properties are a 266-room Doubletree hotel in Norwalk, Conn., and a 263-room Sheraton in Greenwood Village, Colo. The Hotel Group, which already had a $13 million investment fund established in 2003, owns or manages 28 properties in 10 states.

Health District honors
eateries for food safety
The Snohomish Health District in February honored local food establishments for excellence in handling food safely.

Excellence Award categories and winners are:

• Full Menu Establishment — Lanna Thai Restaurant; 7825 Evergreen Way, Everett; Lanna Thai Inc., owner; Siripong Limmahasarn, manager.
• Fast Service Establishment — Doug’s Rockin’ Hamburger House; 9819 270th NW, Stanwood; Doug and Teri Rosendahl, owners and operators.
• Limited Menu Establishment — Ella’s Deli; 21520 30th Drive SE, #103, Bothell; Elham Kordahi, owner and operator.
• Grocery Store — Darrington IGA Inc.; 1090 Seeman St., Darrington; Randy, Kevin and Shiela Ashe, owners and operators.
• School/Industry/Institution — Lakewood Senior High School; 17022 11th Ave. NE, Arlington; Leanna Davis, food service supervisor, Lakewood School District.
• Temporary Food Establishment — Sons of Norway, Masonic Center; 515 Dayton St., Edmonds; Erlene Stevenson, coordinator.

SBA extends comment deadline
for size standards
The U.S. Small Business Administration has extended the deadline for advance comments from the public on key issues relating to its small-business size standards, the rules used by the SBA and other federal agencies to determine whether a business is small.

The SBA extended the deadline by 60 days, to April 3, in response to requests from the public. Many had asked the agency to allow more time to submit comments, given the importance of the issues affecting small businesses.

In December, the SBA published a notice of the comment-seeking process in The Federal Register. The notice, an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, didn’t propose any specific changes to the agency’s size standards. However, before SBA considers a different approach to restructuring its size standards, it is seeking comments on a number of general issues that were raised by the public in response to the March 2004 proposed rule that was later withdrawn.

For more information, read the advance notice at SBA’s Size Standards’ Web site, www.sba.gov/size/anprm.html, or visit Federal eRulemaking Portal, www.regulations.gov.

Boeing announces Dreamliner
name change, large China deal
The Boeing Co. announced in late January that it is changing the name of its newest aircraft, which will now be called the 787 Dreamliner.

The announcement came as Boeing and Chinese officials met in Washington, D.C., to sign a deal worth as much as $7.2 billion to supply 60 of the new planes to six Chinese airlines.

The new number is a “continuation of our heritage with the 7 series,” said Mike Bair, head of development for the new jetliner. Every Boeing airliner since the dawn of the jet age has been designated a “7-something-7,” and 787 was the next number in line.

In addition, eight is considered a lucky number in China. And with the Chinese placing the biggest order to date for the new plane, it was only right to “give the Chinese a little bit of recognition” and announce the new designation in conjunction with the signing ceremony, Bair said.

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