By Peninsula Daily News staff
and The Associated Press
THIS WEEK’S NORTH Olympic Peninsula business meetings (all are open to the public):
Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce — Weekly luncheon meetings are held Mondays at noon in the second-floor meeting room of the Red Lion Hotel, 221 N. Lincoln St.
Today’s (Monday’s) guest speaker will be Mike Rainey, executive director of the Makah tribe, to update the chamber audience on programs and activities of the Makah. The tribe is based in Neah Bay.
Luncheon tickets are $15 and can be purchased from the meeting room cashier.
For those not having lunch, there is a $3 participation fee that includes a beverage.
Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce — Weekly luncheon meetings are held Mondays at noon at the Port Townsend Elks Lodge, 555 Otto St.
Featured speaker today (Monday) is Jim Rough, founder and president of Port Townsend-based Dynamic Facilitation Associates.
“Dynamic Facilitation releases the innate creativity of people. In the face of difficult issues, people rise to the challenge, pull together, and create practical, unanimous solutions,” according to Dynamic Facilitation Associates’ website, tobe.net.
Monday’s lunch will be catered by Jordini’s, and the meeting sponsor will be Kitsap Bank.
Forks Chamber of Commerce — The chamber’s Wednesday luncheon meetings are on hiatus for the summer and will resume with a chamber business meeting Sept. 4.
North Hood Canal Chamber of Commerce — Representing the “Emerald Towns” of the Hood Canal, Quilcene and Brinnon, the chamber usually meets monthly on the third Monday but is on summer hiatus through this month.
Gatherings will resume in September with a mixer at Cove RV in Brinnon.
Port Angeles Business Association— Breakfast meetings are Tuesdays at 7:30 a.m. at Joshua’s Restaurant, 113 DelGuzzi Drive, Port Angeles.
This Tuesday’s program topic has not been announced.
There is a $2.16 minimum charge by Joshua’s for those who do not order breakfast.
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PA’s First Federal names new chief banking officer
PORT ANGELES — Kelly Liske has been named executive vice president and chief banking officer of First Federal.
“Kelly’s education, hands-on experience and collaborative managerial style will be instrumental in enabling us to achieve our strategic initiatives,” said First Federal President and CEO Larry Hueth.
Liske is responsible for direction and management of commercial, mortgage and consumer lending; commercial and consumer deposit products; and nondeposit investments.
She also directs bankwide sales and customer service efforts.
Liske joined First Federal in 2006 as branch manager in Port Townsend and later was promoted to commercial relationship manager.
She has more than 18 years of experience in banking and earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Western Washington University.
Liske resides in Port Townsend with her husband and children.
She is a board member and treasurer for the Port Townsend Kiwanis Club, co-chair for the
Christmas for Children program and is involved in other civic organizations.
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New ownership
PORT ANGELES — Ed and Jocelyn Baier have purchased Mobuilt RV, 2372 E. U.S. Highway 101.
Ed has been an employee of Mobuilt since 1995.
The business offers RV service and supplies.
Other long-term employees include Teresa Dupuis and Chad Joslin.
For more information, phone the Baiers at 360-457-4101 or visit www.mobuiltrv.com.
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PT writer active
PORT TOWNSEND — Port Townsend writer Bill Mann is featured in the Aug. 5 issue of the tabloid Globe.
“It’s the 36th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death,” said Mann, a former music critic for the Montreal Gazette, “and I was asked for my selections of Elvis’ Top 10 movies.”
Mann’s choices (“Viva Las Vegas” was his top pick) also are mentioned on the Globe’s cover.
Recently, he wrote a column for the Huffington Post’s Canada edition that drew more than 700 comments and remained on the homepage for several days.
It concerned Americans’ lack of knowledge about Canada and referenced several experiences in Port Townsend (not mentioned by name).
Mann, who was MarketWatch.com’s Canada columnist for several years, recently spoke to the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce about Canada and Canadian visitors.
Mann also continues to work as senior media analyst on Norman Goldman’s nationally syndicated progressive radio show, which originates in Los Angeles.
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Bank’s profitable 2nd quarter
SEATTLE — Sound Financial Bancorp Inc., the holding company for Sound Community Bank, has reported net income of $1.1 million for the second quarter of 2013, or $0.43 per diluted common share.
“We are pleased to report another strong quarter in terms of earnings as well as continued improvement on asset quality,” said President and CEO Laurie Stewart.
Sound Community Bank has North Olympic Peninsula locations at 110 N. Alder St. in Port Angeles and 541 N. Fifth Ave. in Sequim.
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Two new LMPs
PORT ANGELES — Licensed massage practitioners Kristine Betz and Michele Scott have joined the staff of Northwest Massage and Holistic Healing Center.
Betz studied massage at Ashmead College and is experienced in Swedish massage and pregnancy massage ,with a speciality in deep-tissue massage.
Betz also has certification in aromatherapy from the Jimm Harrison Phytotherapy Institute.
Scott graduated from the Port Townsend School of Massage Therapy in 2000.
She has training in therapeutic massage and has based her career on helping people with injury treatment.
Her specialization is deep-tissue and therapeutic massage techniques.
Northwest Massage has locations in Port Angeles at 620 E. Front St. and in Sequim at Sequim Gym, 145 E. Washington St.
For more information, phone the business at 360-417-6851.
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Wind Rose party
SEQUIM — Wind Rose Cellars, 143 W. Washington St., will celebrate its second anniversary with a party from 7 p.m. to close this coming Saturday (Aug. 10).
Cupcakes from That Takes the Cake will be served, and Ruby Jean will provide live music.
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Sequim eatery adding dinner to its offerings
SEQUIM — Nourish, a new restaurant that is emphasizing “delicious flavors, healthy nutrients, environmental awareness and an inviting atmosphere,” announced that it has added dinner service.
Nourish is now open for lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and dinner from 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Summer outdoor barbecues are held from noon to 6 p.m. each Sunday during the warmer months.
Family-style roasted dinners will be available Sundays in winter.
The menu will be ever-evolving, depending on what’s local, fresh and in-season, but will loosely follow a theme.
The restaurant is located at 101 Provence Lane (off of South Sequim Avenue) at the base of Bell Hill, the site of the original Cedarbrook Lavender & Herb Farm.
For more information, phone 360-797-1480 or visit www.nourishsequim.com.
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Makah tribal member gets new EPA stint
SEATTLE — Makah tribal member Jim Woods will continue as the region’s senior tribal policy adviser to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for another two-year term.
Woods will continue to work with more than 271 tribes in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington as part of an intergovernmental personnel agreement with the Swinomish tribe originally signed in 2011.
“I am grateful to the Swinomish tribe for their continuing strong support of Jim,” said Dennis McLerran, EPA regional administrator in Seattle.
“Our region has by far the largest number of tribal governments in the nation, and Jim has been key to helping us fulfill our trust responsibilities.”
Before his appointment to EPA, Woods was senior policy adviser to the Swinomish tribe, focusing on environmental policies, natural resource policies and treaty rights.
He previously led the Sustainable Resource Management division for the Makah Tribal Council.
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Homebuyer class
SEQUIM — A two-part first-time homebuyer class will be Tuesday and Wednesday, Aug. 13-14, at Sequim Community Church, 950 N. Fifth Ave., from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Michele Adkisson of Eagle Home Mortgage will be keynote speaker.
The free class is sponsored by the Washington State Housing and Finance Commission.
Refreshments will be provided.
Classes fulfill HUD requirements, with a certificate issued by the state. The certificate is required for many new homebuyer programs.
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Starbucks speedup
SEATTLE — Starbucks said it has reached a deal to partner with Google to offer its coffee-shop customers up to 10 times faster network and Wi-Fi speeds.
Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
The upgraded service will be rolled out to stores over the next 18 months.
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Appetite for autos
DETROIT — General Motors, Toyota and Honda posted particularly strong sales in July, with most major automakers enjoying the second-best month since 2007 as Americans indulged their voracious appetite for pickup trucks and smaller cars.
Toyota outsold Ford in July for the first time since March 2010.
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Intel executive says decline in traditional PC sales will continue
SAN FRANCISCO — Intel Corp., whose processors run more than 80 percent of the world’s personal computers, said the decline in the traditional PC market will persist as consumers shift to tablets and other mobile devices.
“What you’re seeing is a transition of the classic PC market into these kinds of things,” Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith said in an interview on Bloomberg TV.
“If you think about the PC as being a classic computer that you might have used two or three years ago, I think that device declines.”
The California-based chipmaker, which has its largest operations in Hillsboro, Ore., now has chips that are designed to power tablets, smartphones, laptops that convert into tablets, and thin notebook computers, giving it a chance to make up for slumping PC sales and regain ground it has lost to competitors in those new markets, Smith said.
Intel executives who had said tablets were “consumption devices” that would be bought in addition to PCs — not as replacements to traditional desktops and laptops – are now saying the company’s growth depends on low-power chips for portable devices.
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Oil train safety rule delayed by one year
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has delayed by nearly a year a plan to boost safety standards for the type of rail car involved in a fiery explosion that killed at least 47 people in Canada last month.
Officials began work on the rule more than a year before an oil train derailed and exploded in Quebec on July 6 — but the rule was never put in place.
The proposal by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is intended to fix a dangerous design flaw in a rail car commonly used to haul oil and other hazardous liquids from coast to coast.
The soda-can shaped car, known as the DOT-111, has come under scrutiny from safety experts because of its tendency to split open during derailments and other major accidents.
The structure of the tank car is not believed to be a factor in the derailment in Canada, which is under investigation.
But transportation experts say the car’s underlying design makes it prone to damage and catastrophic loss of hazardous materials. Read more atcolumbian.com.
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Feds give laid-off Boeing workers bigger financial cushion
SEATTLE — Thanks to a federal program lined up by their unions, local workers laid off during the current dip in employment at Boeing Commercial Airplanes will enjoy a financial cushion that’s much, much plumper than what the average unemployed state resident gets.
“Compared to what Joe Worker gets when they get laid off, our members have a pretty extensive safety net,” said Connie Kelliher, spokeswoman for the International Association of Machinists.
The U.S. Department of Labor has approved Boeing workers — union or nonunion, production workers or engineers — laid off between April 2012 and June 2015 for a package of benefits that includes drawing unemployment pay for up to 2½ years, rather than the regular six months.
The Labor Department ruling also means that if laid-off Boeing workers need to travel, say to California, for a job interview, the government will reimburse 90 percent of the costs.
If they relocate for a new job, the government will pay 90 percent of their moving expenses and provide an additional lump-sum relocation allowance of up to $1,250.
The package of benefits was approved under the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, designed to assist U.S. workers who have lost their jobs as a result of overseas trade or outsourcing.
