Image consultant starts adult etiquette classes


Monica Brandner is expanding her image-consulting business, Image By M. Brandner, to include classes for adults in the business community.

Brandner says her new classes for adults will focus on appropriate dress, nonverbal communication, handshaking, thank-you notes, basic dining, and confident networking.

For the past two years, her business has held etiquette classes for children and teens. It will continue to offer those classes along with the new adult classes, she says. Topics that her classes have been covering include telephone and cell phone etiquette, introductions, conversational skills, personal care, posture, party manners, thank-you notes, and dining skills.

Brandner's website says children's classes range in price from $38 to $55. A two-day teen boot camp is $125. Adult classes will be $35 to $75.

Brandner works part time for Alaska Airlines as a customer service trainer. She says she developed an interest in image consulting while living in Alaska, where she "became a student of people who were prospering in their personal and professional lives." She recently self-published a book on the topic, titled "My Style, My Way."

Elevated Photography moves, adds offerings


Northwest Elevated Photography has moved from a home office to 1,000 square feet of leased space at 10015 N. Division, on Spokane's North Side.

The business, featured in a Journal article last spring, uses ground-controlled elevated cameras to make bird's-eye-view photographs. Adam Worden, who co-owns Northwest Elevated Photography with his wife, Leslie, says much of the commercial photography the company has done so far has been for real estate agents who wanted to show aerial views of listed properties without the expense of an aerial photographer.

Now, the business is expanding to include other types of commercial photography. The company also will begin offering classes in photography, social networking, and business development, primarily for real estate agents, he says.

Worden says he has obtained certification from the state to teach continuing-education classes for real estate professionals and will contract with other certified instructors who will teach classes through the company as well.

Rapid Refill opens third outlet here

Spokane Valley-based Dab of Ink LLC, doing business as Rapid Refill, has opened a third store in the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area, leasing about 750 square feet of space at 327 W. Third in downtown Spokane.

Gwen Druckerey, manager of the new store, says Rapid Refill buys remanufactured ink and toner cartridges for copiers and printers, mostly from a concern in California. It sells Epson, Brother, Canon, Dell, Lexmark, and Hewlett-Packard inkjet cartridges, and toner cartridges for all those brands plus Sharp, Xerox, and Samsung, at prices that are 30 percent to 70 percent less than retail prices for new cartridges, Druckerey says.

Tony Kiepe owns the company, she says.

The first Rapid Refill store opened four years ago in Coeur d'Alene, and the company added a second store, in Spokane Valley, three years ago, Druckerey says. The Coeur d'Alene store, at 615 W. Hubbard, has about 750 square feet of leased space. The Spokane Valley outlet is more than double that size, at 1,600 square feet, and includes a production facility for refilling inkjet cartridges. Druckery says the three locations have a total of seven employees in addition to the owner.

Barnes, grandson start On-Top Realty

Spokane-area commercial real estate veteran Orville Barnes says he and his grandson, Nick Barnes, have started a full-service real estate brokerage, On-Top Realty Inc., and are looking for an office space for the business.

"We will be recruiting salespeople who have been in residential sales and will try to hook up with a builder or two if we can and represent them," says Barnes, 83, who has been involved in commercial real estate management and development here since 1956.

He says he changed the name of his former business, Barnes Consulting Co., to On-Top Realty to establish the brokerage. He adds that he and his grandson own the business equally, although he is president and managing broker and his grandson is corporate secretary.

Barnes says he agreed to participate in the venture after his grandson approached him about it, saying it takes two years to become a managing broker. Nick Barnes, he says, had been working with his homebuilder father, Ron, owner of Shamrock Construction & Maintenance Co., before he decided he wanted to get more involved in the listing side of the real estate business.

"He thinks I can teach him a little about commercial real estate, but the biggest part of it, at least initially, will be residential," Barnes says.