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Fall 2024

Business

Summer 2004

Toys, Games, and Unique Gifts: Entrepreneurial spirit drives Edmistons

Two niche markets-toys/games and a Web site for gifts-have taken husband-and-wife entrepreneurs into new territories.

Steve Edmiston is president of Seattle’s Front Porch Classics. The company creates retro-feel toys and games. Melody Wickline Edmiston has created a Web-based consumer retail site specializing in high-quality and hard-to-find gift ideas. The couple lives in Des Moines. Both are Washington State University alumni.

Before joining the game company, Steve had created a Dread Pirate game as a Christmas gift for their daughters, 12 and 8. The game eventually developed into one of Front Porch Classics’ leading products.

Melody (’84 Bus. Adm.) watched the marketing of that game, later … » More …

Summer 2004

Antique dealer can't ignore a bargain

I enjoy meeting people, doing things to feel the pulse of what’s going on in the world.”—Anita Busek ’49

 

The rumble of a passing train tells you that All Aboard Antique Co. in Puyallup is no ordinary antique shop. The store is located 12 feet from train tracks, looks like a red caboose on the outside, and has railroad items displayed throughout.

The trains shake the whole building. “No picture hangs straight for long, “says Anita Busek, 76, with a laugh. She’s one of three owners.

Perhaps it’s fitting that Busek went to college in a town named after George Pullman, inventor of the … » More …

Winter 2005

The Fixer

A new hotel in an old Seattle landmark

At Fourth and Virginia in Seattle, where Belltown meets downtown a few blocks from Pike Place Market, a trendy restaurant and residential district meets up with the city’s retail center. It’s here that hotelier Craig Schafer ’76 has made his mark.

His upscale Hotel Andra is nestled in the 1926 brick corner building once beloved as the low-cost Claremont Hotel. Built as an efficiency apartment building and retaining the same spacious rooms, the boutique hotel is touted by the likes of Fortune and Condé Nast Traveler magazines and the design industry for its appealing modern look and … » More …

Winter 2005

What I've Learned Since College: an interview with Theodore Baseler

Ted Baseler is president and CEO of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. The interview with Hannelore Sudermann took place in his second-floor office at the Chateau Ste. Michelle in Woodinville in late July. Journeying from advertising and marketing into the world of wine hasn’t been the easiest trip, but certainly one worth making, he says, as he now steers Washington’s largest wine company ahead. Baseler graduated from WSU in 1976 with a degree in communications. His wife, JoAnne, is also a Cougar (’75 Ed.), as is his daughter Andrea, who started at WSU this fall.

Look for what you want.

I took a job in advertising … » More …

Winter 2005

Brewing Up Business

The Small Business Development Center celebrates 25 years of success.

Mark Burr and his business partners, Nina Law and Skip Madsen, dreamed of owning their own beer brewing business. After a visit to Port Townsend a few years ago, the trio began to investigate buying the historic Town Tavern and turning it into the Water Street Brewing and Ale House. During the course of his research, Burr discovered the Small Business Development Center (SBDC), hosted by Washington State University, and made an appointment with Kathleen Purdy, business development specialist with the Olympic Peninsula Regional Center of the SBDC.

The SBDC is designed to help small … » More …

Spring 2005

Just Buy It! Ty Bennett capitalizes on your impulse

A shopper in the ice cream aisle pulls out a tub of mint chocolate chip and hesitates as she notices ice cream scoops hanging from a display on the freezer door. Ah ha, she thinks, it would be nice to have a real scoop instead of always using a spoon. Into the cart goes a scoop, along with the ice cream.

Shoppers don’t mind spending a few extra dollars on items that aren’t on the list, and that’s what Ty Bennett, 1995 Washington State University alumnus and pioneer in the impulse buying business, counts on.

“We didn’t invent [impulse buying]. We just reinvented it,” says … » More …

Spring 2005

The Best of All Worlds

“Never judge a person by the way they are dressed,” says Erianne Pearson. “People are people. We treat them with respect.”

That philosophy has kept Pearson in business since 1983, when The Best of All Worlds, her upscale gift and decorative accessories store, opened. One of four original partners, she’s been the sole owner for nearly 13 years. The store is on the corner of Sixth and Union streets in the heart of Seattle’s busy retail business district.

“Eriann’s a bit of a pioneer . . . certainly a survivor by independent small-business-owner standards,” says friend and client Marcia Garrett of Washington State University West.

… » More …

Summer 2009

Interesting times

We were having a long midweek dinner at Le Pichet in Seattle, a sort of anticipatory wake for the Seattle P-I, where my friend Tom had worked as a reporter for 20-some years. Tom’s pretty crusty and tends to brush even the most irksome things off with a joke.

But being a fifty-something journalist facing a post-newspaper era in a town awash in laid-off reporters, reality had started to sink in. Even so, referring to the demise of his employer and the economic times in general, at one point Tom gestured outside to First Avenue and said, “But this is no crisis. Somalia has a … » More …