Washington Business Winter 2018 | Washington Business

washington business editorial staff Kris Johnson, Publisher Jason Hagey, Executive Editor Bobbi Cussins, Communications Manager What’s Ahead Brian Mittge, Staff Writer/Photo Editor Brian Temple, Digital Media Coordinator awb officers Michael Senske, Chair of the Board Pearson Packaging Systems, Spokane Bridging the Divide Jason Hagey, Executive Editor Tim Schauer, Vice Chair MacKay Sposito, Vancouver Jim Reed, Secretary/Treasurer Banner Bank, Bellevue Wendy Sancewich, Immediate Past Chair RSM, Seattle awb leadership team Kris Johnson, President Gary Chandler, VP, Government Affairs Jason Hagey , VP, Communications Greg Welch , Director of Finance Sean Heiner , Director of Membership Stephanie Hemphill , Director of Member Relations & Events PO Box 658, Olympia, WA 98507-0658 T 360.943.1600 F 360.943.5811 www.awb.org Letters are welcomed, but must be signed to be considered for publication. Please include contact information for verification. Reproduction of articles appearing in Washington Business magazine is authorized for personal use only, with credit given to Washington Business magazine and/ or the Association of Washington Business. Articles written by outside authors do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of AWB, its officers, staff or members. Products and services advertised in Washington Business magazine are not necessarily endorsed by AWB, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of AWB, its officers, staff or members. Washington Business magazine is the official quarterly publication of the Association of Washington Business. The annual subscription rate is $24.00, and individual copies may be purchased for $3.95. For subscription requests and magazine purchases, please contact the Association of Washington Business, P.O. Box 658, Olympia, WA 98507. washington business is designed by: Daniels-Brown Communications T 360.705.3058 www.danielsbrown.com advertising inquiries may be directed to: Kelli Schueler, AWB washingtonbusinessmag.com Every month, the state Employment Security Department publishes a new color- coded map showing the unemployment rate in each of Washington’s 39 counties. Except for September when it inched up slightly, the jobless rate has been steadily falling since peaking at 10.4 percent during the recession. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s not falling as fast in some places. Counties where the unemployment rate is lowest are shown on the map as white. Counties where it’s a little higher are gray. And counties where the number is highest are blue or dark blue. A glance at the map during any given month over the last several years has shown a white pocket in the middle-left portion (the central Puget Sound region), a large swath of gray down the middle and lots of blue and dark blue at the corners. It’s a visual representation of the simple fact that rural Washington hasn’t recovered at the same rate as the urban areas. By now, this is no surprise to most observers. After several years of relatively little attention, the uneven economic recovery is attracting notice from Washington’s leaders, including state agency officials and elected officials in all four caucuses of the Legislature. In March, some of them attended AWB’s first Rural Jobs Summit, a day-long gathering at our office in Olympia. In October, 250 people came to Moses Lake for our second summit on the issue, including 23 members of the Legislature. The agenda included discussion of issues like water, rural broadband, access to capital and tax policy. In this month’s cover story (page 36), contributing writer Richard Davis examines those same issues in detail and points out that Washington is not unique. Other states are experiencing the same tale of two economies, with thriving metro centers and struggling rural communities. Because there is not a single cause of the problem, there is no “silver bullet” solution that will solve it, Davis learned. It’s going to take a spray of “silver buckshot.” This is also the issue where we feature the winners of AWB’s annual Manufacturing Excellence Awards (page 30). The awards were presented Oct. 5 during Manufacturing Week and the winners received write-ups in a special section of the Puget Sound Business Journal, which has partnered with AWB on the awards for the past two years. Other highlights include a Q&A with Avista Utilities President Scott Morris (page 20) in which Washington Business writer Bobbi Cussins covers everything from Avista’s pioneering “smart cities” partnership called Urbanova to the acquisition by the Canadian utility Hydro One, a feature from staff writer Brian Mittge on the STEM Institute at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (page 45), and much more. I hope you enjoy reading. winter 2018 5

Washington Business Winter 2018 | Washington Business | Page 5