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Summer 2024

Business

Summer 2003

Thriving in Rural America: Ochs uses computer technology to stay on family farm

Wanted: Person with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts to help design and create software programs; location: Dusty, Washington, population 10.

These are just the kind of person whom Jon Ochs, president, CEO, and founder of Eureka Software, Inc., may soon be looking to hire for the multimedia communications company he runs from his family farm in very rural Eastern Washington.

“We actually have four employees that are here all the time, so it is no longer a mom and pop business,” he says, sitting on the porch patio among his wife’s flowers and scratching the head of his large and rather relaxed dog, Amber. … » More …

Summer 2003

The best organizations are run by lovers

Counseling psychologist Allen Johnson has been called everything from a “headpeeper” and “bug doctor” to a “shrink.” He takes issue with the latter label. In reality, he says he’s “an expander.”

He believes in the human capacity to create a better, more joyful world. It’s a message he gladly shares with others in his conversations, seminars, and two books, This Side of Crazy and The Power Within: The Five Disciplines of Personal Effectiveness.

After completing a doctorate at Washington State University (’85 Coun. Psych.), he spent six years as the principal organization and leadership development consultant for ICF Kaiser, an international, 3,500-employee construction and engineering … » More …

Summer 2003

Eliminating chaos: “Organization isn’t about shifting things around”

Laura Leist Bishop is organized. She says she always has been. That’s doesn’t mean her office is tidy all the time. But ask her for anything, and she can find it. At home everything is arranged in her kitchen-canned food in one area, appliances in another. Clothes are in the closet. Garden implements line one wall of her garage, athletic gear another.

Because she is organized, she manages her time better. She knows what needs to be done tonight to be ready for tomorrow. Sometimes she plans three days ahead. “Because I do that,” she says, “I’m able to accomplish a lot.”

As president of … » More …

Summer 2003

The friends you keep & the wealth you reap

People evaluate information through social interaction with others.

There’s an old saying that you can be judged by the friends you keep. But do your friends also affect your wealth?

Ever notice how a group of people who spend time together, whether in a social group or work environment, tend to develop similar tastes, interests, and lifestyles? The reason is that people evaluate information through social interaction with others. This is especially true for topics you may consider to be difficult. Many people consider financial decision-making to be hard. Should I contribute to my retirement plan at work? How much should I contribute? What should … » More …

Spring 2007

Phyllis Campbell: Being about forever

Someone recently told Phyllis Campbell ’73 that she had the perfect resume to run for governor.

In her office high above 5th Avenue in Seattle, Campbell tells me this with a mixture of amusement and certitude. Running for political office is the last thing she’s interested in.

“You can print that,” she says. “I’ll never run for political office.

“I value people who do,” she adds, “but that’s not my calling.”

Politics, after all, is so short-term.

Campbell shows me, with obvious pleasure, the medal that represents the Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award with which she was recently honored. Campbell’s relationship to Washington State University, which … » More …

Winter 2004

Cutting out the middle, building income

Craig Meredith wants to help Ethiopian coffee farmers become competitive in a world market. He’s using his knowledge as an agricultural engineering to assist growers in Yirgacheffe in Southern Ethiopia’s Rift Valley,  where some 445,000 farmers produce premium arabica coffee beans.

“Ethiopian coffee is 60 percent of the nation’s gross national product,” says Meredith, a resident of Post Falls, Idaho. “It is the second-most-traded commodity in the world behind oil.” However, Ethiopian farmers are some of the world’s poorest in a country where the per capita income is $100 per year, according to the office of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Meredith got involved … » More …

Summer 2007

A lavender landscape

The landscape west of Sequim has, no doubt, always been beautiful. There’s an obvious advantage to having the foothills of the Olympics on the near horizon. But add fields of lavender, and you have jaw-drop stunning.

Beauty is obviously a constant here. But where Cathy ’68 and Leeon ’68 Angel planted their lavender seven years ago, dairy cows once grazed. And not too long before that, you might have seen a band of Clallam people heading across the meadow toward the Dungeness River to fish. Or north toward Sequim or Dungeness bays to dig shellfish.

Lavender is a recent development around Sequim. By the … » More …

Summer 2007

Hops & beer

Raising the raw ingredients for beer can be just as complex and interesting as growing grapes for wine, says Jason Perrault '97, '01. Like grapes, hops have different varieties and characteristics. Perrault, fourth-generation heir to a hops-farming legacy, runs a hops breeding program for Yakima Valley growers, helping to ensure that Washington continues to provide three-quarters of the hops grown in this country.

» More ...
Spring 2003

Keeping busy in the bus business

After nearly three decades as a successful high school teacher and coach, Peg Motley launched Wheatland Express Charters & Tours in 1988. The venture proved to be a whole new ballgame.

The Pullman entrepreneur, mother of four, and grandmother of six had dabbled in other enterprises. While teaching in Spokane, she and her husband made and sold Country Style Horseradish. When they moved to Pullman, she opened Drop Your Duds, a self-serve laundromat. But the 1955 Washington State University alumna and Cottonwood, Idaho native, knew “zero” about buses.

“Initially, I was intimidated by their size,” she admits as she walks between two white-and-blue buses parked … » More …