State Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed a consumer protection lawsuit against janitorial services company National Maintenance Contractors, which has 17 affiliate franchisees in the Tri-Cities.National took advantage of immigrants with limited English proficiency and promised them the independence of business ownership, Ferguson said in a news release. But instead,...
Executive Director, Downtown Pasco Development AuthorityNumber of employees you oversee: 6 – four full and 2 part time.Gustavo Gutierrez-GomezPlease describe the Downtown Pasco Development Authority and the Main Street program:The Downtown Pasco Development Authority (DPDA) is a nonprofit that runs with Main Street tax credit money, which means someone buys...
By NewswiseNationwide unemployment fell to 6% in March, according to an April 2 U.S. Department of Labor report. The strongest gains were in leisure and hospitality, and construction. The news was better than expected, but aggregated data doesn’t always tell the full story, according to economists at Washington University in...
Is a pandemic a good time to join a new club?The women who make up the Tri-Cities Newcomers Club think so.Don’t let the club’s name throw you off. It isn’t strictly for newcomers. It’s a group designed to help women meet one another through social activities and special interest groups.And...
PFLAG’s Benton-Franklin chapter offers several training sessions every month for employersJanie Romine remembers the time she was counseled byadministrators against openly talking about her gay son with her colleagues. It taught her a valuable lesson: the workplace is notinclusive and supportive by default.“That was a glaring example of discrimination of...
By D. Patrick Jones“Women hold up half the sky,” ChairmanMao Zedong famously uttered, when discussing the role of women in the Chineserevolution. Since then, the phrase has become a rallying point for many women.Do they hold up half of the economic sky in the greater Tri-Cities? Some dataare available to...
By Danielle Kane We’ve all heard the stereotypes:millennials are entitled. Gen Xers are slackers. Baby Boomers can’t adapt. AndGen Z? So far, the youngest generation to enter the work force has beenpigeon-holded as “too obsessed with themselves to produce quality work.”But, when we dig deeper, we find thatthe labels that...
The Evergreen State is among the top 10 best states forfemale entrepreneurs.That’s according to FitSmallBusiness.com, a digital business publication.Washington ranked No. 4 on the list after Texas (No. 1),Ohio (No. 2) and Minnesota (No. 3). FitSmallBusiness.com said the state is well positioned to be the next Silicon Valley, thanks to...
Columbia Basin College’s 2019 Martin Luther King Jr. Spirit Award winnerCompany/business/agency: U.S.Department of Energy’s Office of Science – Pacific Northwest SiteOffice/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (DOE-SC/PNNL)Tell us about your team: PNSO is a small staff of 30-plus people. Iwork with a team of five scientists and engineers. Kimberly L. Harper, Physical...
By D. Patrick JonesDiversity comes in many dimensions — gender, sexual preference, racial/ethnic makeup, to name a few. This column takes up one — racial and ethnic diversity — in part because it tells such an interesting story for the two counties.First, let’s state the obvious: Benton and Franklin counties...
