The property owners of Benton and Franklin counties didn’t miss a beat when it was time to pay property tax bills on some $31.5 billion in real estate in April, when the first of two payment deadlines came due.The county treasurers who collect taxes say collections were normal, despite widespread...
Wearing a mask saves lives and saves jobs.And all across the state, Washington employers are leading by example in the fight to stop the spread of the coronavirus.From Seattle to our small towns, workers are masking up before starting their shifts on manufacturing floors, in restaurant kitchens, construction sites and...
The jobless rate fell sharply in June across Washington and in the Tri-Cities as local economies partly reopened under the Safe Start program, according to figures released July 21 by the Washington Employment Security Department.In the Tri-Cities, unemployment fell to 9.1%, down three full points from the 12.3% rate posted...
A Pasco company specializing in hauling chemicals, de-icers, pesticides and more has a new ownership group led by the insurance agent who covered its business for decades.Chad Messerly and his partners, Brian May and Morgan Haynes, bought Harms Pacific Transport Inc. in a deal that closed July 1.The sellers were...
A Kennewick tech startup is transforming the way businesses process their payment transactions, even as coronavirus shutdowns and restrictions threatened its business model.“It’s interesting because we’re focused on brick-and-mortar transactions, so when Covid hit, we thought we were dead,” said Jeff Payne, BlockChyp’s chief technology officer. BlockChyp designs payment terminals...
Terry Brown and his wife, Annie Ackerman-Brown, didn’t develop a business plan or research how they could best help young people in mental anguish when they launched BlessedbyKess.Faith led them to create the nonprofit, which uses virtual reality, or VR, technology to help Tri-Citians reduce stress and improve mental health....
The greater Tri-Cities enjoys a strong technology pulse, but the most readily accessible statistics are scant on the evidence. Brenton-Franklin Trends data, for instance, doesn’t carry one “technology” indicator out of the 175 available. This state of our knowledge is largely due to the difficulties in measuring the economic impact...
A material science pioneer at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is one of three to be named a 2020 distinguished scientist fellow by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.James “Jim” De Yoreo’s award includes $1 million in DOE funding over three years to pursue new research.De Yoreo is...
The pandemic has altered daily life in many ways, some of which may long outlive the current shutdowns.Technological innovations over the past several years have allowed employees to work from home — a shift that was already well underway before the pandemic, but one that has been kicked into hyperdrive...
A $1 million Battelle donation aims to improve STEM education to better prepare the next generation of scientists in the greater Tri-City area.The grant will help launch a regional STEM Nexus that will develop and fund experiential learning programs for underrepresented, underserved students in rural communities.A science, technology, engineering and...
