Force Communications Inc., a Plano, Texas-based maker of fiber-optic products and high-speed Internet modems, says it hopes to hire about 20 more employees this year at the assembly and distribution facility it opened in Spokane Valley last located

The white-hot condominium market has prompted another property conversion, this time on the North Side, where Gib Brumback plans to convert a 46-unit apartment complex on the Five Mile bluff into condominiums. The project is the latest in a new

Tidymans LLC, which operates a grocery-store chain based here, has sold three of its Spokane-area supermarket buildings to a Western Washington real estate investment group for a total of $8.45 million.Tidymans President and CEO Mike Davis

Willis Group Holdings Ltd., one of the worlds largest insurance brokerages, plans to open an office here next week that will be managed by Curtis Taylor, former top executive here for Marsh, one of Willis competitors.The New York publicly a

A more aggressive use of annexation covenants and the creation of a port districtboth lightning rods for community debate here in the pastare two of the strategies that new Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession says hell push as he seeks to bolster a

Inland Imaging, the Spokane areas largest provider of radiology services, has taken initial steps to enter the fast-growing Phoenix market, and is considering expanding into also-hot Las Vegas, says top executive Steve Duvoisin.In Phoenix, it

Spokane Industries Inc., a longtime manufacturer in Spokane Valley, says that after a shaky start to the decade, it now is breaking sales records, hiring more people, and forging a place among the top steel foundries in the U.S.Spokane new with

The Edmonds, Wash.-based Washington Association of Mortgage Brokers has announced its support of pending legislation that would require mortgage loan officers to be licensed and would expand the state Department of Financial Institutions over the

Dont look now, but paper checksthose symbolic instruments of financial empowermentare slipping away toward that same graveyard of technological obsolescence as the slide rule, the typewriter, and the record player.Financial institutions

COLFAX, Wash.Sixty miles south of Spokane, a small bank is hatching some big ideas.Bank of Whitman, based in this small farm town but with 18 branches in its system, is preparing to raise its profile in the Spokane market by opening a branch