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Business
Anderson stands behind Quality Roofing with integrity, experience
By Craig Howard, News EditorShare:  
February 28, 2011 —
Contributor's Corner
In addition to building homes - and lives - on a solid foundation, Duane Anderson reminds people not to forget about the importance of a good roof.
Anderson had just recently returned to the Spokane area from a two-year mission to Alberta, Canada when he began work in the local roofing business as a salesman in the fall of 1997.
"It's a fun industry," Anderson said. "Things change from day to day."
Not wanting to "just be the boss behind a desk," Duane Anderson, owner of Quality Roofing, makes it a point to scale rooftops alongside his employees. That's Duane in the red hat. Contributed photo.
One major change for Anderson occurred in 2007 when he decided to start his own company called Quality Roofing. Despite a slew of new responsibilities, one thing has remained the same - Anderson continues to emphasize trust and accountability while dealing directly with each client.
"I enjoy working with people, from my employees to the builders to the homeowners," he said. "Things like integrity and professionalism are important to me."
Despite being based in Spokane Valley, Anderson and his crew can be found across the greater Northwest region, from Ellensburg to Post Falls. Referrals generate much of the new business.
"The days of working just in Spokane Valley are long gone," he said.
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Business
Humility, steady work ethic stand as pillars in Kunz’s Empire
By Craig Howard, News EditorShare:
January 31, 2011 — Editor's note: Contributor's Corner is a new monthly feature spotlighting local businesses that support the Latter-day Sentinel. This month's Corner focuses on Chris Kunz and Empire In-Home Services.
When you've herded cattle and hauled hay bales under the southern Idaho sun, the task of refurbishing a shaky washing machine can seem like a stroll in the shade.
Chris Kunz, owner and proprietor of Empire In-Home Services, now rounds up rumbling Maytags, Frigidaires and Whirlpools as one of the most respected appliance repairman in the greater Spokane area. Even though he has been working in the field for over 20 years, Kunz can trace the success of his business to his days as a youth in Bear County, Idaho, working on the family farm.
Chris and Sylvia Kunz are members of the 15th Ward in the Spokane Valley Stake. Chris has been repairing appliances in the Spokane area for the past 20 years and currently owns Empire In-Home Services. Photo by Craig Howard.
"It was a great place to grow up," he said. "It was where I learned how to work. I spent most of my time out in the fields."
When he was 15, Kunz's family moved to Spokane. He recalls it as a tough transition for a kid accustomed to rural life - but sports and a steady work ethic helped Kunz find his footing. He lettered in football, wrestling and track at Ferris High School.
While at Ferris, Kunz attended LDS early morning Seminary and one day, found himself in trouble with the teacher for being a bit disruptive. He was assigned to sit next to a girl named Sylvia.
"I was so intimidated, I was afraid to talk," Kunz said.
After Kunz served a two-year mission in California, he returned and married the fellow student who quieted him down. Chris and Sylvia will celebrate 32 years of marriage this July. They have five children and three grandkids.
Sylvia works as the bookkeeper for Empire, but Chris said she is more like the heart of the company.
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Business
Bountiful Baskets brings affordable produce to local tables
By Craig Howard, News EditorShare:
October 4, 2010 — Makeshift orchards are sprouting up all over the Inland Northwest.
Each Saturday, residents gather in Liberty Lake, Spokane Valley, the South Hill and other area locations to harvest fruits and vegetables for a bargain price. It may be the suburbs, but the produce featured through a nonprofit program called Bountiful Baskets Food Co-op can transform an average parking lot into the sort of festive farm that rivals anything in the rural heartland.
Launched in May 2006 by Arizona residents Sally Stevens and Tanya Jolly, Bountiful Baskets began as a way to help families save money on healthy food. From two locations and 120 clients in its first year, the program has grown to over 70,000 customers in seven states.
Mike Godek and his wife Marjorie serve as volunteer site coordinators at the Bountiful Baskets distribution location in Spokane Valley. Photo by Craig Howard.
The first Bountiful Baskets set up shop in Spokane this spring. There are now five distributions sites in the area, including one in Spokane Valley at McDonald Elementary School. Two couples from the Evergreen Ward in the Spokane East Stake - Mike and Marjorie Godek and Todd and Ellie Folsom - volunteer as site coordinators. Their duties involve showing up early to sort the fruits and vegetables that arrive courtesy of a Charlie's Produce truck.
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Business
Local invention totes benefits of managing diabetes
By Craig HowardShare:
September 20, 2010 — Books and notepads are not the only essentials Staisha Drager carries with her as a student at Brigham Young University.
A Type 1 diabetic, Staisha manages her condition with the help of a cadre of supplies that accompany her everywhere on the Provo campus. An automated insulin pump stabilizes her blood sugar level while items like test strips, backup insulin and emergency snacks are stored away in a unique carryall that serves as an encouraging reminder to "stay well."
Larue Drager (right) invented the Staiwell Backpack in 1999 to help her daughter Staisha (left) organize and carry supplies that help with management of her Type 1 diabetes. Photo by Craig Howard.
The Staiwell Backpack was invented in 1999 by Staisha's mother, Larue, a resident of Spokane Valley and a member of the Pines Ward in the Spokane East Stake. The idea came about after previous containers proved bulky, inefficient - or both.
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Business
Spokane Valley empty nester enjoys new career
By Tanya Smith, Staff WriterShare:
August 9, 2010 — Cheryl Boisen worked in a myriad of interesting part time jobs while raising her children in Spokane Valley, but she never really had a career.
As an avid skier and sports enthusiast, she enjoyed working at Lulu's Ski Shop for 12 years where her employer would work around her busy "mom" schedule. She also worked as a ski instructor while her kids hit the slopes or were at school. She coached softball at one point and worked at Carver Farms for a while. But raising her kids and supporting her husband in his career was always top priority - until all the kids left home 10 years ago.
Cheryl and her husband Erick, retired from the Spokane Valley Fire Department, raised their four kids in Spokane. Cheryl was born and raised in Southern California and moved here when she married her husband, a Spokane native, over 40 years ago. When their nest was finally empty, Cheryl missed the kids, but not for long.
Pictured: Cheryl Boisen. Submitted Photo.
She felt sad when that first football season started because she missed taking her girls to buy their homecoming dresses. She missed going to see the football games. "But then I got over it," she said. "I knew this next phase of my life was going to be a great adventure for me and for my kids."
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Business
Utah native finds right key at local Steinway Gallery
By Craig Howard, News EditorShare:
July 26, 2010 — Along with an impressive array of classical and contemporary compositions - featuring music from Bach to the 5 Browns - the Steinway Piano Gallery in Spokane Valley is home to a rambling rendition of the University of Utah fight song, courtesy of proprietor Kevin Rindlisbacher.
Originally from Riverton, Utah, Kevin Rindlisbacher moved with his wife and five children to the Spokane area in 2005. After two years in the Spokane Valley Mall, Kevin relocated the Steinway Piano Gallery to a site off Interstate 90 and the Evergreen exit in 2008. Photo by Craig Howard.
That's not to say that the Riverton, Utah native does not welcome customers from his alma mater's most significant rival, although if the store colors were ever to change, red would likely win out over blue.
"A lot of my friends here in Spokane went to BYU," he said.
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Business
Stewart & Associates Wins Entrepreneurial Spirit Award
By Tanya Smith, Staff WriterShare:
July 19, 2010 — Greg Stewart, CPA and founder of Stewart & Associates and member of the Riverside Ward in the Colville Stake, walked across the stage in the Grand Pennington Ballroom at the Davenport Hotel on June 2 to receive a prized honor
amongst Spokane area business owners.
Spokane's chamber of commerce, Greater Spokane Incorporated, has been presenting The AGORA Awards for the last quarter century. Being honored with an AGORA has become a mark of business excellence over the years.
"The Agora" was a marketplace in ancient Greek city-states where merchants sold their goods. GSI's annual formal AGORA Awards ceremony honors businesses in a variety of categories. Stewart & Associates received 2010's Entrepreneurial Spirit Award for their own entrepreneurial success and the help they offer to struggling businesses.
"We actively pursued the AGORA Award because we wanted to show a level of excellence for services offered to small businesses," said Stewart.
Greg Stewart, founder of Stewart & Associates, receiving The Entrepreneurial Spirit AGORA Award. Contributed Photo.
Being honored with the award was especially exciting to Stewart and his staff because they had been told in the past that an accounting firm was just too boring to win. "We were able to prove a hundred dollar bill could be just as exciting as other products," he said.
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Business
Employment Training Works! June 2010
By Jim Rundlett, Guest ContributorShare:
June 7, 2010 — Note from the publisher: "Employment Training Works!" is a new monthly feature in the Latter-day Sentinel focusing on programs offered by the local office of LDS Employment Services. This month's installment features information on the LDSJobs.org Web site by Jim Rundlett, a volunteer at the agency.
Me in 30-Seconds - The key to your future
The Church's new employment Web site, LDSJobs.org, is not just another job board. Yes! It has jobs. It also has the ability to allow employers to search for qualified candidates to fill job openings.
When you create your LDSJobs.org account, you have to answer a lot of questions. Then you are faced with even more questions. "Me in 30-seconds," power statements, skills, education, work history, even which languages you speak. These employment people are really nosey, aren't they? Do they really need all of this information?
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Business
Hayden family finds adventure, education on cross-country journey
By Gloria Warnick, Staff WriterShare:
June 1, 2010 — Following in the footsteps of her parents, the former Hollie Edwards and her husband Brandon Cox of Hayden Idaho are on a cross-country tour to promote their business and provide their family with a face-to-face education of how fellow Americans built our great country.
The Cox family pictured here embarking out on their cross country journey in their brightly colored van. Contributed Photo.
In a journey that began May 1 in a colorful touring van , the family of seven, with five children ages 2 months to 8 years, have visited the well-known Mt. Rushmore and the little known, but free, Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, South Dakota. Yet the highlight of the tour so far has been their Mother's Day visit to the restored Nauvoo Temple and surrounding city.
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Business
BYU graduate captures moments with Big Picture Scrapbooking
By McKay Allen, Guest ContributorShare:
May 3, 2010 —  Stacy Julian has a bachelor's degree in Exercise Physiology from BYU. Now she runs the largest scrapbooking education Web site in the world out of her home in Spokane.
And to her it makes perfect sense.
"It's all the Holy Ghost," she says.
Things just sort of fell into place. Scrapbooking for Stacy Julian began as a young mother's hobby - but eventually people were paying her to speak about it and write about it. She wrote for a magazine called "Creating Keepsakes" for four years. After that, she started her own magazine in 2002 called "Simple Scrapbook."
"It got to the point where as founding editor of the magazine I was required to travel to events," she says. "One year I was invited to South Africa to talk about scrapbooks and I thought 'It's a once in a lifetime thing."'
But the next year the same group invited her to speak in South Africa again.
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Business
Employment Training Works!
- April 2010
By Jim Rundlett, Guest ContributorShare:
April 19, 2010 —
Employment Resource Services - A reliable haven in an uncertain job market
Note from the publisher: "Employment Training Works!" is a new monthly feature in the Latter-day Sentinel focusing on programs offered by the local office of LDS Employment Services. This month's installment provides an overview of the organization by Jim Rundlett, a volunteer at the agency.
For over three decades and through a variety of economic climates, Spokane LDS Employment Resource Services has been assisting church members and non-members in the Spokane area.
In addition to providing job referrals, the office provides resume writing assistance, counseling, career workshops, self-employment training, career fairs, and entrepreneurial seminars - all with a staff of two professionals and a rotating staff of employment missionaries.
Ron Buchanan and Sherrie Hibberd are the glue that holds this operation together. Ron spends a great deal of time on the road. In addition to nine local stakes in Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington, his territory also includes additional stakes in Alaska, Western Montana, Central Washington and the Hermiston Stake in Oregon. He also oversees volunteer offices, staffed by employment missionaries, in Anchorage, Coeur d'Alene, Kennewick, Moses Lake, Missoula, Moscow, Sandpoint and Yakima. With Ron's schedule, vehicles and suitcases don't last long.
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Business
Arc development director works to provide opportunity, support
By Craig Howard, News EditorShare:
April 19, 2010 — The sky over Spokane Valley was growing a darker shade of gray with each passing minute last Saturday morning.
Brian Holloway, a member of the Pines Ward in the Spokane East Stake, works as the director of Development and Communications for The Arc of Spokane, a local nonprofit agency that advocates for people with developmental disabilities. Contributed Photo.
The overcast conditions and impending rain did not bode well for the third annual Community Fun Run scheduled for the Centennial Trail at 9 a.m. Even so, volunteers and staff with The Arc of Spokane, a nonprofit agency sponsoring the event, remained focused on the job of checking in participants and shuttling the crowd to the 3-mile course on a scenic path bordering the Spokane River.
Brian Holloway, director of Development and Communications for The Arc, was among the hundreds in attendance on Saturday. Back in 2008, Holloway had seen a small gathering of around 50 people brave the snow for the inaugural run. As another less-than-ideal weather front settled in on this year's proceedings, Holloway talked about the value of moving beyond exterior hurdles.
"You really need to get past the superficial," he said.
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Business
The Brass Plates turns page at new location
By Craig Howard, News EditorShare:
December 21, 2009 — Roger and Leanne Pugh thought they would stop by the local LDS bookstore after attending a wedding at the Spokane Temple on Saturday.
The couple from Ephrata drove up to the former home of The Journal on 32nd Avenue in Spokane Valley, only to find that the business, now known as The Brass Plates, had moved to a site on Sprague Avenue near Sullivan Road.
With the crisis averted, the Christmas shopping could begin.
Residents throughout the Spokane Temple District are learning to navigate their way to the store's new location - still just five minutes from the temple - after The Brass Plates moved in early July. Rob and Cori Wright of the East Valley Ward in the Spokane Valley Stake purchased the retail venture from The Journal owners this summer and began work on renovating a 1,000-square-foot space next door to Rob's business, Wright Brothers Sunrooms, at 15704 E. Sprague Ave.
Inside view of The Brass Plates LDS Bookstore. Photo by Craig Howard.
So far, customers say the transition has been a good one.
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Business
Missoula mom finds success with vinyl lettering
By Tanya Smith, Staff WriterShare:
November 30 2009 — Missoula stay-at-home mom Heather Burnham had been looking for a way to make a little extra cash since her husband is a full-time student and unable to find part-time work these days. Fluent in Spanish as a second language and a skilled American Sign Language interpreter, Burnham did not want to leave home to join the workforce because staying at home to raise her kids herself was just too important.
Many moms in similar situations have turned to their hobbies to make a little extra income from home but Burnham, a member of the Missoula Third Ward in the Missoula, Mont. Stake, admits she's not very "crafty". "I can sew but not well enough to turn a profit," she said.
A couple years ago Heather was introduced to vinyl lettering. She loved it because she could decorate her "rental white" apartment walls without damaging them. When she heard about so-and-so's sister or friend who produced vinyl decals from home she thought it was something she could do.
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Business
Island dance - Hawaiian native brings Hula to Spokane
By Sarah Moss, Staff WriterShare:
November 30 2009 — There were no sandy beaches, palm trees or tropical breezes at Spokane's West Central Community Center earlier this month , but there was a charity performance by the Northwest Hula Company.
 Sheri Maier (pictured left), the owner and founder of the company, is a long way from Hawaii where she was born and raised. The grayer and colder it gets around here, the farther it seems from the surroundings of her homeland, yet Sheri, who also graduated from BYU-Hawaii, is very closely in tune with her native Hawaiian ancestry, and has spent the last few decades celebrating it.
Hula has been compared to storytelling through dance, almost like it is its own form of sign language. The movements are a departure from the trendy, sharp, hip hop dance moves so prevalent on television today.
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Business
BYU Management Society promotes ethics, community involvement
By Craig Howard, News EditorShare:
August 3, 2009 — Zags, Huskies, Eagles - and even Utes - are welcome at meetings of the BYU Management Society.
Eric Enloe, a BYU graduate and treasurer of the Spokane chapter, makes it clear that the Cougar fight song is not included at the group's monthly luncheons and topics like Danny Ainge's jump shot or LaVell Edwards' offensive patterns don't top the discussion agenda.
"It's not intended just for BYU alumni," Enloe said. "It's meant to be a service organization that promotes ethics and morality in business."
Established in 1977 by Brigham Young Dean Merrill J. Bateman, the society originally consisted of friends and graduates of the BYU School of Business, now known as the Marriott School of Management. The organization now includes around 6,000 members in 40 cities throughout the U.S. as well as chapters in 10 other countries.
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Business
Is It Time To Start Your Own Business?
By Sherrie Hibberd, Employment Specialist, Spokane Regional Employment OfficeShare:
July 27, 2009 — How crazy do you have to be to start a business in these difficult economic times? Just ask Chris and Gary Swiss who recently opened a new restaurant called, appropriately enough, Crazy G's.
When Gary, an engineer for semiconductor companies in California and Arizona, retired he and Chris decided to move to Spokane to be near family.
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Business
Senior Helpers steps up with support, reinforcement
By Craig Howard, News EditorShare:
July 6, 2009 — Mike Godek arrived at the home, ready to listen, prepared to help.
An elderly woman had been caring for a husband with Alzheimer's and wasn't sure where to turn. The couple wanted to stay in their own home, but the increasing demands of caregiving were taking their toll. A nursing home seemed like the only solution.
Godek then walked through the benefits of a company called Senior Helpers. A caregiver could be assigned to the home, providing support with day-to-day tasks from shopping to food preparation. From two hours a week to around-the-clock care, the assistance could be flexible, depending on conditions in the home.
"She cried when I left," Godek said. "She said, 'Thank you so much for helping us.' It's those kinds of situations that make all the work worthwhile."
Mike Godek launched the Spokane branch of Senior Helpers in August of 2006. The company specializes in providing in-home care for seniors, allowing them to maintain a level of independence in their own homes. Photo by Craig Howard.
It was the same sort of gratitude that Godek saw at a North Carolina senior center while serving on a full-time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Godek and his companion would volunteer for a few hours a week at the site, lending a hand with meals and delivery of bread donated from a local bakery.
"It was great to see them smile," Godek said.
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Business
Local LDS bookstore begins new chapter
By Collette Bise, Staff WriterShare:
June 8, 2009 — If you find yourself looking for The Journal, LDS Bookstore -recognized for years as the Inland Northwest's shopping stop for LDS literature, music, greeting cards and a remarkable assortment of CTR mementos - you may have to relocate your bookmark.
The Brass Plates, formerly The Journal, was recently purchased by Cori and Rob Wright of the East Valley Ward, Spokane Valley Stake. The store itself is still located less than a mile from the Spokane Temple at 13221 E. 32nd St., Suite 5.
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Business
Spear Home Selling Team builds on principled foundation
By Craig Howard, News EditorShare:
June 8, 2009 — As a former coach, Mark Spear understands the importance of an effective pre-game pep talk.
These days, as president of the Mark Spear Home Selling Team, Spear is in his best Vince Lombardi mode as the real estate industry emerges from one of the most challenging chapters in its history. In the midst of nationwide news about foreclosures, shaky lending practices and a housing market gone sour, Spear remains optimistic that there are brighter days ahead.
Mark Spear (left) and his son, Jon, are the pillars of the Mark Spear Home Selling Team, a Spokane Valley-based real estate company established in 2003. Photo by Craig Howard.
"It looks like it's beginning to turn the corner," Mark said.
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