Kittitas County Almanac 2008

A supplement to the Daily Record

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2 - Kittitas County Almanac 2008

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THE DAILY RECORD’S 2008



























Table of Contents

04 Economic development at the crossroads

10 City, county invest at airport

14 A field of opportunity

20 High-tech manufacturing in our future?

24 Business recruitment success

29 Alto’s cuts out a market niche

34 CWT puts roofs over our heads

36 No longer playing games

38 Third generation guides Cle Elum’s Shoemaker Manufacturing

40 A ready-to-build industrial park

44 Local waterski makers outfit world’s best

49 Pautzke Bait: Proven performance

52 Custom saddles stand test of time

57 Great wine from great grapes

63 Small brewery keeps up with big demands

PublisherMatt Davison

EditorJeff Robinson

Design EditorPatrick Moore

PhotosJoe Whiteside, Don Gronning, Mike Johnston, Amanda Umberger, Chance Edman

WritersChance Edman, Michael Gallagher, Don Gronning, Mike Johnston, Mary Swift, Jeff Wilson and Fritz Glover

Printed and published byThe Daily Record401 N. Main Street, Ellensburg WA 98926(509) 925-1414

2008 Almanac — Made in Kittitas County

VideoSee exclusive video from local manufacturers online at www.dailyrecordnews.com


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Made in Kittitas County

According to 2004 spread-sheet detailing Kittitas County manufacturing

companies provided by the Economic Development Group of Kittitas County, there were 193 manufacturing businesses located here.

No new survey was available when we approached this year’s Almanac topic — Made in Kittitas County — but many changes have happened on the local economic landscape in the past four years. Some businesses on the 2004 list are no longer in business. Some new businesses have come here recently and several others have expanded their operations.

The past 18 months have seen

an increasing hue and cry for more, better paying jobs in the categories of light industrial, high tech and manufacturing in Kittitas County.

In this publication we will attempt to examine what the county’s assets are for attracting more industry. Our central location, a sound transporta-tion infrastructure, relatively less expensive land when compared to the West Side, and a highly educated workforce easily come to mind. We’ll also try to identify some of our area’s key challenges such as a lack of ready-to-go, properly zoned buildings and sites and a lack of a concentrated, focused effort at recruiting new

manufacturers.Additionally we will profile

some of the county’s manufac-turing success stories — some of which you probably knew about, and a few you probably didn’t.

We here at the Daily Record feel a sense a kinship with our local manufacturers. After all, we proudly count ourselves among them. Six days a week (excluding a handful of holidays) 52 weeks a year the paper manufactures about 6,000 products that go into this market — the daily newspaper, which brought this Almanac into your home or business.

That’s nearly 2 million manufactured products but

that total doesn’t include the many special publications we produce including this Almanac, the monthly real estate guide, the quarterly Four Seasons and Home & Style magazines, the annual Past & Present commemorative edition for the rodeo and fair and the many commercial printing jobs we do.

We’re proud of what we do and we’re even more proud to have been doing this success-fully for nearly 100 years.

We look forward to documenting the many changes to come on the local economic scene for another 100 years and beyond.

Enjoy.

� - Kittitas County Almanac 2008

Communities explore future paths to manufacturing, high-tech jobs

By MIKE JOHNSTONsenior writer

Ellensburg Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Ron Cridle-

baugh tells it this way:In the last six to eight

months, two out-of-area businesses looked closely at Ellensburg and the Kittitas Valley as a relocation site.

A total of about 20 jobs would result if they could quickly move into structures, with one business needing an approximate 5,000-square-foot, modern building as a backup data storage center.

“They actually contacted us and said they liked the size of our community, they liked what the area had to offer and one liked the hotel-motel capacity we had because of the 150 employees it would bring here for two weeks of training and testing twice a year,” Cridlebaugh said. “A lot of the pieces were in place to make it happen.”

Yet, there were no buildings immediately available at the time that fit their require-ments, he said.

“It wasn’t a ton of jobs, but it actually meant new jobs coming to our community. We just weren’t ready,” Cridle-baugh said. “Perhaps if a building had been up ... “

The momentum is growing,

he said, to make sure the community is ready in the near future to accommodate new industrial businesses.

Cridlebaugh said in the past two months various economic development groups in the county, chambers of commerce, city and county government officials, Central Washington University

representatives, real estate and development firms and individual businesses have put much higher on their agendas the need to retain and grow local businesses and recruit new ones to the area, including manufacturing and light industrial firms.

“Everyone seems to be wanting to see positive things happen,” Cridlebaugh said. “They don’t want to miss any more opportunities.”

Some local developers have moved ahead on their own, establishing a business parks for industrial customers. The Ellensburg Business Development Authority and the Economic Development Group of Kittitas County are seeking to build a second multi-use building in Kittitas County’s Airport Industrial Park for leased business space.

n Manufacturing — 710n State government — 3,200n State educational services — 2,840n Federal government — 160n Local government — 2,070n Leisure and hospitality — 2,240

n Construction, natural resources, mining —1,370n Retail trade — 1,710n Local government educational services — 840n Transportation, warehousing, utilities —310n Wholesale trade — 530

— Source: Don Meseck, regional labor econo-mist, state Employment Security Department.

Economic development at the crossroads

Quick job facts

Average number of jobs in Kittitas County in 2007 for:

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The county has signed up new firms wanting leased land for operations in its industrial park.

In addition, the Economic Development Group of Kittitas County is re-evalu-ating how it operates as it seeks a new director, and the Ellensburg City Council is discussing the city’s role in increasing industrial land availability and how to streamline the processing of building permits for new industrial ventures.

A countywide economic development summit is being planned for late April or early May that will bring together all major


Dustin Smart, an employee of Composites Atlantic Limited, assembles harnesses and wiring to a cargo hold light fixture at the Ellensburg Business Incubator Building. The firm has operated the off-site component assembly site in Ellensburg since March 2003. Composites Atlantic has plans to enlarge its Ellensburg work in the near future. The Ellensburg site has five employees, including Central Washington University students.

� - Kittitas County Almanac 2008

business development players to possibly chart a new, proac-tive course, Cridlebaugh said.

“Right now, we’re on the cusp of really making things happen,” Cridlebaugh said. “Maybe our efforts in the past have been somewhat piece-meal. Now people want to come together and find ways for all the groups to move forward in a cohesive way that really produces results.”

From top downTo move forward in a unified

way will take change, and local businessman William Meyer believes it must start with the actions of those in community leadership positions — namely the Ellensburg City Council, Kittitas County commis-sioners and officials at Central Washington University.

“Our economic diversity will improve if people in positions of power establish policies and programs that create visible change,” said Meyer, an optometrist in the Kittitas Valley since 1976, in a prepared statement.

He said local government leaders must make as a consistent policy through all government operations the priority of supporting and retaining private businesses and welcoming new ones.

This must come from “the top down,” he said, and permeate how local govern-ment operates.

“If our local government people are not saying loud and clear we are interested in attracting new businesses, why should existing businesses invest in that same effort?” Meyer said.

Meyer has served on the Ellensburg Downtown Task Force and been a member of the Ellensburg Chamber of Commerce Board and tourism committee, the Ellensburg Business Development

Authority Board, the Economic Development Group of Kittitas County Board and is a founding director of Kittitas Valley Bank.

Meyer said the top employers in the county are local and state government, including CWU, and this can lead to government becoming “economically content” with less drive for economic development.

The renewal of economic growth efforts must begin with heavy, local government involvement and leadership, and then local businesses will notice the change and lend more support, Meyer said.

If and when the local economic summit takes place as reported, Meyer said he’d like to see as a result political leadership recognizing the value of economic planning and development, plans for one or two industrial parks, an effective, properly staffed and funded economic devel-opment entity, and a plan to periodically re-examine

the community’s economic development goals.

“It’s time for the govern-mental entities to not only talk the talk but, most importantly, walk the walk,” Meyer said.

Come togetherEllensburg City Council-

woman and Mayor Nancy Lillquist said the council in February and March has conducted public meetings with representatives of the major economic development groups in the Kittitas Valley to help spark more coopera-tion in business recruitment, including manufacturing, light industry and high-tech firms.

“We are trying to support that effort and define what the city can contribute to that effort,” Lillquist said.

The controversial debate about major, big-box retail stores in the city, the recent resignation of the executive director of the Economic Development Group of Kittitas County and questions

about the use of city surplus lands in west Ellensburg for industrial sites has prompted the city council’s re-examina-tion of its role, she said.

The focus, Lillquist said, is on the city’s potential industrial lands, its part in supporting partnerships with economic develop-ment groups and the need to streamline the city’s develop-ment and permit processes for new business sites.

“The question is how can we refine on the city’s process to make business investments in Ellensburg more attractive?” she said.

The city, since 1989, has operated its business incubator program through the Ellensburg Business Development Authority, or EDBA, which also has led the way to construct a multi-purpose business building at the county airport.

The incubator allows new or expanding businesses to grow and develop in the incubator


Larry Brester, director of engineering for Hobart Machined Products Inc., stands in front of the company’s portion of the Ellensburg Business Development Authority building it leases at the Kittitas County Airport Industrial Park. The firm, based at Hobart, Wash., expanded to the Ellensburg site in October 2002, and is making plans for business expansions. The firm makes aerospace components for rockets that launch satellites. It has seven employees in Ellensburg.


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building to the point where they can add employees and establish their own business locations in the community.

Lillquist said the council is looking at the role of the EBDA and how the city can strengthen its activities in cooperation with other business recruitment and promotion groups.

She said the council is interested in what the city can do to lessen the time involved for a new industrial or manufacturing business to gain required permits for a business site.

Also being explored is having pre-approved sites ready for nearly immediate construction with major infrastructure improve-ments already in place.

“A lot of business folks don’t want to wait and face the uncertainty of going through a process that seems to them like an unnecessary delay,” Lillquist said.

Task force neededKittitas County Commis-

sion Chairman Mark McClain said despite a somewhat fragmented approach in the past to economic development throughout the community, many in recent months have become “excited again” about the potential to bring new businesses to the county along with jobs that can support families through a more united effort.

“It’s great to see all the economic development groups come together, but just having the groups together is just the begin-ning,” McClain said. “Something new has to happen.”

The new thing he proposes is a task force that has the expertise and experience to give a wide range of immediate help to a

business wanting to relocate in the county. Instead of having to go to several agencies or groups for help, McClain wants to see that assistance rolled into one.

“And it can’t be about more government involvement,” he said. “Getting more govern-ment involved means more bureaucracy and, usually, more costs and more time and more delays and frustra-tions for business,” McClain said. “Business people don’t want to be involved with more government.”

He envisions the task force as having direct links with local government officials to quicken the permit process. The task force also would know how to address poten-tial pitfalls ahead of time to make a business move to the county easier.

“The whole attitude, the whole philosophy can’t be ‘here are the rules you have to meet,’ but it must be ‘this is how you can do it,’” McClain said. “We have to turn up the volume on having a ‘can-do’ attitude throughout all local governments and in our communities.”

He said he’s supportive of the concept of developing Eureka Park (see information elsewhere in this publica-tion) on county airport property as a research, business and industrial park, as envisioned by Fritz Glover.

Central Washington Univer-sity’s partnership in the park is crucial, McClain said.

He also would like to explore the possibility of attracting the Yakima-based Perry Technical Institute to have a satellite campus on airport property, possibly for aircraft maintenance classes.

These could complement Central’s flight technology program at the airport, he said.


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City, county invest at airport

Manufacturers are welcome


Don’t tell Kittitas County Commissioner David Bowen that county

government and the city of Ellensburg haven’t done much to attract new or existing businesses to the county, including potential manufacturers.

Bowen said the city and county, since 1998, have made more than $9.5 million in infrastructure improve-ments to welcome and attract businesses to the 1,300-acre county airport north of Ellensburg.

The funds came from city and county revenues and state and federal grants and matching funds. The work involved new water and sewer piping and new roadways, including up-to-date connec-tions for fiber-optics, natural gas, telephone, electrical power and the Internet.

“The airport property is

our main economic devel-opment project; it’s county government’s focus for new businesses and helping existing ones,” Bowen said in a recent interview. “That and the (fairgrounds).”

The new Bowers Road connection from the airport west to Reecer Creek Road was completed in 2006 and creates a more direct commercial truck-traffic route

to and from Interstate 90 without going through Ellens-burg or side roads, he said.

Plans are in the works by the county for an eastward Bowers Road extension to Look Road to create a truck route that steers heavy trucks away from downtown Ellensburg.

In December 2007, all land-use requirements were met to create binding site plans for

350 acres of airport property that’s available for non-aeronautic and non-grazing activities, namely leases of land for businesses.

The 350 acres, which includes existing business leases, is what Bowen and county Airport Manager Kelly Carlson call the Airport Indus-trial Park.

The binding site plans allow businesses to easily lease

Kittitas County is exploring adding new, private aircraft hangars for lease at the county’s Bowers Field airport, like the one above, and looking to the possibility of an airport condominium development where hangars are next to condos for residents’ use.

Kittitas County Almanac 2008 - ��


City, county invest at airport

lots at a variety of sizes and construct their own buildings within a reasonable period of time, with hookups for services and infrastructure ready.

There are 10 existing business and state-agency leases at the park that take up about 30 acres at this time. They annually bring in $160,000 in lease payments to the county.

Some of the existing lease-holders at the airport include the state Department of Natural Resources, Midstate Aviation, Central Washington University’s flight technology program, Kittcom, Cascade Pallet, Elmview services, Miller Refrigeration, the Ellensburg Business Develop-ment Authority and others.

“Right now there is quite a bit of long-term potential for leased land at the airport to create jobs and tax revenue,” Bowen said. “I envision an expanding mix of light indus-trial activity and heavier indus-trial businesses coming in.”

Good locationBowen said he also believes

high-tech firms, distribution centers, warehouses and regional business offices will be attracted to the location in light of its easy access to major cross-state highways and ready-to-build upon lots

Bowen said his hope is that an office complex for a regional or national business may be attracted to relocate at the airport and bring family-wage jobs with them.

“They’re running out of space in Puget Sound and lease costs are high over there,” Bowen said. “We have a great quality of life here that’s a big, positive factor in our favor. We’re also at the center of the state with easy access to I-90, I-82 and (U.S.) Highway 97 for any business dependent on transportation and distribution.”

Carlson said building costs at the airport are much less expensive than in Puget Sound, and the quality of the local work force is good.

On the airport side of business, there are 12 private airplane hangar leases and two, large leased hangars for the airport’s fixed-base operator, Midstate Aviation. Plans are in the works for the county to build eight additional private-plane hangars for lease.

Airport condos?Carlson said the Airport

Advisory Committee has been discussing the possibility of promoting the development of airport condominiums with hangars next to each unit for easy use by condo residents.

Midstate Aviation is one of the largest of the entities leasing facilities from Kit-titas County at Bowers Field near the Airport Industrial Park. It also is the fixed-base operator of the Bowers Field airport.

The Ellensburg Business Development Authority, in cooperation with the Economic Development Group of Kittitas County, is planning to gain funding and construct a second multi-purpose building, like the first one above, for leased space at Kittitas County’s Airport Industrial Park.


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This fly-in community would be attractive to retirees with private planes and incomes that support the planes.

In addition, she said the Ellensburg Business Devel-opment Authority and the Economic Development Group of Kittitas County are planning to construct a second multi-purpose indus-trial building with which to attract new businesses. The existing building has three business tenants.

Carlson said the avail-ability of leased land at the airport hasn’t been aggressively marketed in the past, and that is expected to change this year with help from the Economic Development Group, the Ellensburg Business Devel-

opment Authority and the Ellensburg Chamber of Commerce.

She said the groups will assist the county in getting the word out to prospective businesses on the avail-ability of leased land and the pluses of locating in the the Kittitas Valley. That “word” will include Web site information, pamphlets and working with the state Department of Community, Trade & Economic Develop-ment to be on lists used by developers when looking for new industrial or manufac-turing sites.

“This is the year to get our message out any way we can,” Carlson said. “We want people to realize what a real gem we have at the airport,” she said.

�� - Kittitas County Almanac 2008

A field of opportunity

A vision for economic development at county airport

Background: Kittitas County is poised for both economic and popula-

tion expansion. Currently, both job creation and job growth are lagging. If this imbalance continues, there will be a reduc-tion in business tax revenue that will adversely affect the delivery of government services to the community.

More importantly, the citizens and public officials of our county are clamoring for well paying employment opportunities. The resources to create employment and sustainable job growth are present and available, but we seem unable to focus our positive collective energy on a common endeavor. We need to dream together.

Vision: By assembling experienced people and powerful partners, a dynamic collaborative research and business enterprise can operate in the Kittitas Valley on a large, well-located parcel of county-owned property. The venture can

include mutually beneficial participation by private business, local government entities, and representatives from higher education. It is anticipated that participants in this research, development and business park will have a strong commitment to collab-oration, which will provide each with financial benefit, as well as a competitive business advantage.

Projects similar to this vision are very successful in other parts of the country. Although each is different, common elements include private businesses working in collaboration with a univer-

sity or other educational body to develop mutually benefi-cial products and business activities.

The missing ingredients: There are insufficient local business development initiatives; and we lack the required commercial and industrial infrastructure to attract entrepreneurs and businesses to relocate to Kittitas County.

With few exceptions, there is no lure, no source of energy inviting and encouraging business formation in the county. Today, relocating a business or establishing a new business within the

county can be a complicated, perplexing, and time-consuming process.

In short, the invitation to come to Kittitas County needs to be extended in a more comprehensive and coordi-nated manner.

On the other hand, there is no shortage of business potential. The cost to do business in the Puget Sound area continues to escalate in almost every expense category. If Kittitas County is to move to the next level of comprehensive and sustain-able community develop-ment, it must strengthen existing employers, attract

Fritz GloverContributing writer

Fritz Glover stands near the west Bower’s Field entrance sign with the undeveloped Airport Industrial Park in the background, the location where Glover envisions Eureka Park.


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new employers and provide the infrastructure necessary for both.

A strategic vision and an energetic commitment to position Kittitas County as the research and business devel-opment engine in the heart of Washington is required.

Eureka Park represents that vision and commitment.

The ‘park’ visionEureka Park: The 325-acre

Eureka Park would be located within the 1,200-acre Kittitas County Airport grounds. The setting could feature such amenities as permanent green space buffers, exten-sive wooded areas, activity trails, sidewalks, ponds and a natural waterway.

Its master plan would incorporate a “campus like” environment that could differ-entiate the park from other real estate developments. Building sites available for qualified users would range in size from 1 to 20 acres. Land would be available for acqui-sition by means of purchase or long-term lease. (See the accompanying site plan.)

Future plan: It is imperative that the scope of the plan for Eureka Park demonstrates Kittitas County’s vision and commitment to business development. It must repre-sent the most creative in such planning.

The plan should act as evidence to businesses throughout the region that Kittitas County is committed to business development. But planning and develop-ment should include not just current and future airport operational requirements and Eureka Park; it should include a much broader range of land uses appropriate to the community as well.

The current airport master

plan revision should be redirected to include elements such as:

• Attractive and easily maintained landscape architecture.

• Open space preservation.• Riparian preservation.• Recreation areas. • Future university activities.• Future retail and commer-

cial development.Plans should also include

the purchase of adjoining privately owned lands, especially those to the west and north that remain largely undeveloped at this time.

Challenges: Because of

Central Washington Univer-sity’s financial and political strength and the fact that its employees are in decision-making positions on the two local economic develop-ment boards, CWU plays an unusually powerful role in determining the success of any regional economic venture.

One of the notable achievements during the past several years has been the improvement of working relationships between CWU and the local community. We are all benefiting. Collabora-tion on this exciting project would be consistent with the

recent changes.However, CWU’s involve-

ment in Eureka Park is not required. Other institu-tions such as Washington Technology Center, Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute, Big Bend Community College, Yakima Valley Community College, and Perry Technical Institute are already involved in our region and are potential partners.

Either individually or in combination, they could actively and directly supply the crucial educational elements needed for a


Central Washington University this year expects to gain federal nonprofit status for its CWU Research Foundation, an entity that can help spark economic development locally and in the region, including help to manufacturers of new products.

The foundation in summer 2007 received its state nonprofit status and is poised to attract grants and funding in partnership with public agencies and private businesses for research projects, according to Wayne Quirk, Central’s provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.

“The foundation has the

ability to form partnerships with private companies and federal and state agencies,” Quirk said, “and from that undertake work that points the way to economic development.

“It’s ready with the expertise and experience of Central’s faculty when the opportunity arises.”

CWU gained more than $10 million in research project dollars in the 2006-2007 school year, and the nonprofit foundation would help further connect the university to do research that can lead to new technologies that come up with unique products, materials, parts, energy systems, high-tech devices or new manufac-turing processes.

In turn, this research can

lead to new manufacturing opportunities and new, local jobs.

Formation of the founda-tion was undertaken, Quirk said, in consultation with economic development groups in Kittitas County. He said an oversight committee with representatives of the groups will advise on the foundation’s direction.

The foundation also is a factor that can help attract new faculty and retain existing faculty: it allows for the funding of creative, innovative research.

Quirk said once federal nonprofit status is gained, the foundation will embark on major projects, including establishing the location of a research park somewhere in Kittitas County.

CWU launches nonprofit research foundation

Can also assist manufacturers seeking new products


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successful endeavor.Summary: There are obsta-

cles, issues and hurdles to overcome; yet this is true for any innovative project with multiple partners. All of these challenges can be resolved.

The long-term benefits of a venture like Eureka Park make it an exciting opportunity that requires the energy, commit-ment and concern that are already the hallmarks of our community.

—Fritz Glover owns a commercial pear and apple orchard and has resided in Kittitas County for almost 20 years. Prior to moving to Ellensburg, Glover worked in corporate administration

in the United States and overseas. Glover received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and his MBA from Harvard Business School.



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High-tech manufacturing in our future?Smaller firms may be attracted here


Jim Armstrong, an eight-year member of the Economic Development

Group of Kittitas County, looks into the near future and believes smaller, highly technical manufacturing firms could be on the county’s economic horizon.

“Yes, we have challenges to meet in attracting businesses here, but there is a new recognition that we have definite strengths that would draw these businesses here,” Armstrong said. “These are small companies doing some highly technical, highly skilled work with metals or compos-ites and plastics.

“This could be tremendous for our community.”

Armstrong said the county currently has a diverse array of manufacturing firms upon which to build, from large ones, which are major employers, to the small, in-the-garage operations that produce quality products.

Yet there is much room to grow more manufacturing companies and jobs, he says.

He acknowledges that efforts in the past to actively seek out new industries for the county “have not been what they should have,” but he believes that will soon change.

First, there’s an effort to more boldly put forth the positives of the local area: Central Washington University and all its resources, faculty, students, staff and research

capabilities; being at a major transportation hub at the center of the state; being close to the Puget Sound region; having a skilled work force; low crime; an outstanding quality of life without traffic gridlock; excellent recre-ational opportunities in all directions; and, by West Side standards, lower land prices.

“We need to do a much better job of marketing ourselves,” Armstrong said.

The community might not attract huge information technology complexes as has been the case in Grant County with its lower power rates and lower land prices, but he said smaller firms may come, many needing an initial location to expand research or

perfect a product or manufac-turing process.

These firms may deal with specialized, high-tech tools, components or parts.

The area also would be a good one for research compa-nies developing specialized biotechnology applications, Armstrong said, including medical instruments, monitors and a host of other possibilities.

From that research could also come spin-off products that could be made here in Kittitas County, Armstrong said.

“We are increasingly looking more attractive to these kinds of companies compared to sites farther east,” Armstrong said. “It all means a great

potential for more, highly-skilled and well-paid jobs being established right here.”

He mentioned that a small, high-tech, carbon fiber composites business is now in the Ellensburg Business Development Authority’s business incubator, and an aerospace parts tooling firm has a shop in the EBDA’s multi-purpose building at the county airport.

Changes neededThe changes that he believes

must occur for improved recruitment of high-tech businesses include:

• Strengthened leader-ship and improved staffing of economic development groups that will coordinate

The Ellensburg Business Development Authority operates the Ellensburg Business Incubator Building and program where small businesses can add employees and grow to a point where they can seek to re-establish themselves at their own locations in the community.

Kittitas County Almanac 2008 - 2�

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their efforts in a unified way to actively recruit new firms and retain and expand existing firms.

• Development of pre-approved business reloca-tion sites, whether leased or purchased, and a streamlined permit process supported by local cities and county government.

• Heightened support and involvement from local governments in recruitment efforts, including increased funding support of economic development groups.

“We can’t operate on a shoestring and get the results the business community and residents want, and what the city and county are looking for,” Armstrong said.

The community will, at some point, need to seriously consider establishing a port district. Such districts, by state law, can collect taxes for development of new business relocation sites and pay for infrastructure improvements needed by new firms in making a move to the community.

“I believe Kittitas County is one of only four counties in the state that doesn’t have a port district,” Armstrong said. “It really puts us behind in having the revenue we need to attract business. We’re at a disadvantage.”

Reaching outEllensburg Chamber of

Commerce Board President Bob Hansen said the county-wide economic development summit coming later this spring will help address the strengths and weaknesses in the community’s efforts to retain and recruit businesses.

Plans are in the works, he said, to send teams repre-senting the local develop-ment groups to the Puget Sound area for direct talks

with companies that develop industrial and manufac-turing buildings and larger complexes.

The development and construction companies will be told what’s available in Ellensburg, the Kittitas Valley and the county.

“Those bigger companies looking for large amounts of cheaper land and low-cost power will probably go farther east, but there are a whole lot of smaller companies that don’t need that and just want to get out of Puget Sound,” Hansen said. “That’s where we come in.”

The Ellensburg chamber, he said, is working with the city of Ellensburg on more streamlined permit processes for new businesses that will go hand in hand with any companies attracted to the area.

“If those companies can make it pay to move here, they’ll send their people over here,” Hansen said.

High-tech manufacturing in our future?


Charlotte Tullos, chair-woman of the Economic Development Group of Kittitas County, said community business development organizations and local governments are in the midst of seriously re-examining how they operate to assist local companies and draw new ones to the area.

Tullos said representa-tives of the Ellensburg Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development Group of Kittitas County, the Ellensburg Business Development Authority, the Ellensburg Downtown

Association and local governments have had meetings since December to develop new strategic plans.

“It’s been a very positive experience,” Tullos said. “Each group is examining what it does and where each fits in the overall effort. We’re definitely going to be stronger after this.

“We are positioned to move forward.”

She said the economic development group is working on grant funding and plans for a second multi-purpose business building at the Airport Industrial Park for indus-trial and manufacturing firms to lease.

Positioned to move forward

MCT


Cedar Mountain Woodwrights started a little more than 10 years ago with a dream of providing unique, high quality pieces that have includ-ed display fixtures, furniture, custom cabinetry and millwork. I have long been frustrated by the low quality of many of today’s products. I wanted to provide a source for well crafted, long lasting items that meet the desires of our clients and reflect the philosophy of our shop.

During our early years we outfit-ted 2-team stores for the Seattle Mari-ners, provided fixtures and cabinetry for several import furniture stores in Seattle, and created some unique fur-niture and fixtures for the Mid Colum-bia Library in Kennewick.

Custom cabinetry and creative design has kept us busy in the valley in recent years building a wide range of mostly craftsman style cabinets and furniture. We utilize many styles of furniture making in a wide range of wood types, including salvaged lum-ber and beams. Our finishes feature nature-friendly wax-oils as well as wa-ter borne finishes and stains.

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Special thanks to the community and local builders that have helped make our business successful. We look forward to serving you in the future.

2� - Kittitas County Almanac 2008

Business recruitment successIt takes time, persistence, funding, staff and ready-to-go sites


Once a manufacturing business contacts the Grant County

Economic Development Council in Moses Lake indicating it’s looking for help relocating in Grant County, the staff swings into action.

Essentially, if the business doesn’t have a relocation site, the staff will quickly produce a packet of information tailor-made to meet the relocation needs as outlined by business.

In the packet will be detailed information on two to three specific sites ready for construction or buildings available to be moved into. The sites can be anywhere in the county, including in any one of 10 port districts and in all county cities.

The zoning, infrastructure improvements and other land-use requirements have all been previously taken care of at the sites.

The same up-to-date land-use, lot and utilities informa-tion the cities, the county and ports have is also possessed by the GCEDC.

A packet can be put together within a day of being contacted by a client.

Jonathan Smith, manager of communications and research for the Grant County Economic Development Council, or GCED, said

the council also will set up meetings with city, county or port district officials to give the client further assistance.

“We do our best to give our clients a one-stop location for nearly all he needs,” Smith said. “Large companies usually don’t want people to know, at least initially, about a possible move. There’s much confiden-tiality in our services.”

Years of laying the founda-tion of strong partnerships

with local cities, port districts and the county, as well as with local business groups and utilities, has yielded a string of successes in bringing new firms to Grant County, he said.

The 10 port districts — including Moses Lake, Ephrata, Quincy, Royal Slope, Mattawa and Warden — have the authority to levy property taxes. This revenue is used to develop business sites for lease or for sale, leaving little that a

new company must do in the way of permit processing.

The funds also are used to construct roads, improve communication and utility systems and, in many other ways, meet the infrastructure needs of locating businesses and their buildings within port district boundaries.

“The districts are crucial to encouraging business develop-ment,” Smith said.

For example, the port of

IPZ designation is option


Kittitas County may not attract companies the likes of Yahoo! or Microsoft, but it needs to map out what assets it does have that manufacturing or high-tech firms may be looking for.

Julie Anderson, senior policy adviser for the state Department of Community, Trade & Economic Devel-opment in Olympia, said communities should take time to examine what are their positive factors that can attract businesses.

“It’s crucial for commu-nities to build on their material assets and what gives them a competitive edge that businesses are looking for,” Anderson said. “Yet they also need to be innovative and think about

how to diversify their future business base into new areas that, perhaps, they’ve never dreamed about.”

Understanding how an area’s economy presently works can lead to setting a new course on where a community wants to be in the way of new business recruitment or retaining existing ones.

She said communities can use traditional business bases, like agriculture, and add new ways of doing business, such as attracting firms to the area that offer value-added products from ag commodities or new uses for traditional ag products.

The same can be true for manufacturing, Anderson said.

She invites communities that have significant tracts of developable property to consider applying to the state to form an Innovation Partnership Zone. The IPZ designation can lead to

grants or other support to help encourage the develop-ment of “industry clusters” in a specific geographic area.

Anderson said these clusters are much like what’s created in a research park.

To qualify for the state designation, applicants must partner with a research, workforce training and a globally competitive company in close proximity. The goal would be to form a cooper-ative, research-based development, or park, that will lead to new, commer-cially viable products and jobs.

Applicants must be a nonprofit development council, a port district, workforce development council, city or county government.

“These zones can become magnets to attract manufac-turers to your community,” Anderson said. “The result are jobs.”

Time to map assets


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Business recruitment success

Ephrata in the past three years has attracted businesses including a firm that builds the top portion of wind farm turbine towers, resulting in jobs for 180 people.

Another: the port of Quincy in 2007 saw the opening of two, huge data centers for Yahoo! and Microsoft on port land. A third is under construc-tion by Intuit on private lands near port property and was assisted by the port.

When the three are fully built out, they should total 125 jobs with salaries at $70,000 to $75,000 a year.

Smith said planning for the sites started before the so-called dot.com crash, and didn’t end with that industry’s downturn.

Another plus is that Grant County PUD offers very competitive power rates for

large, industrial users. Yet things don’t happen

overnight.“There’s sometimes years

of planning and hours of staff work involved behind a successful effort to help a business come to Grant County,” Smith said. “There’s also the risk of investment in buildings knowing if we don’t build it the chances are they won’t come.”

Smith said the successes being experienced now are the result of long-term planning, maintaining strong community partnerships and wise investments.

“You need real patience to keep at it,” Smith said. “Especially keep planning and building those relationships, even when results are not immediate.”

Kathryn Stevens / Wenatchee World

Will Lacey, a YAHOO! site operations technician from Dallas, Texas, works on an underground wire system in the YAHOO! data center as people toured the facility during the grand opening for the YAHOO! server farm in Quincy recently.

2� - Kittitas County Almanac 2008

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By MICHAEL GALLAGHERassistant editor

As quiet as the whisk of a blade or the rustle of fabric, Alto’s EZ Mat Inc.

has produced a line of mat and quilt cutting products and provided steady employment in Ellensburg for almost three decades.

“We’re not retail, we’re not in the public,” said Sam Albright, who owns the business with his wife, Ren.

Albright’s father, Alto, started the business in Kirkland, but moved it to Ellensburg.

“I went to school here in the 1970s. My father started making the mat cutters in Kirkland in the mid-1970s. We found the old hotel across from the train station and we’re there in the 1980s and ‘90s.”

The business is now located at 703 N. Wenas.

Alto’s originally produced a variety of mat cutters for do-it-yourselfers who cut the mats for their own picture frames.

“In the 1970s there was no competition,” Albright said. “Over the years there’s become more and now there’s not as many do-it-yourselfers.”

About eight years ago Alto’s came up with a product that cuts quilting fabric. It allows precision and speed.

“We made a way to simplify the cutting,” Albright said. “It cuts a lot of pieces quickly and accurately.”

The quilting line now tops 50 percent of Alto’s sales, and is the growth segment of the company.

While the products may differ, both fit within the company’s main objective.

“We make tools that people can use,” Albright said.

Production and salesAt its Ellensburg facility,

Alto’s workers assemble components that are produced by other firms to the company’s specifications. Suppliers are in Yakima and California. The carry bags come from China.

“Every product is hand made,” Albright said. “We watch everything to make

sure it goes together right. We guarantee everything.”

Production is pretty steady over the course of the year, Albright said, with the busiest time coming before the spring and summer fairs and shows.

Alto’s relies on product demonstrators at fairs and quilt shows to bring its products to the public. The demonstrators, which are independent from Alto’s, purchase the items at wholesale and sale at retail. The company has exclusive contracts with the demonstrators.

Albright said the company needs the person-to-person interaction of a demonstrator showing people how to use the product.

Alto’s cuts out a market niche

Founded: 1974Employees: six to sevenLocation: EllensburgProduct: mat cutting and quilt cutting systemsArea of distribution: nationwide

Alto’s EZ mat Inc.

Ren and Sam Albright hold a box for the Quilt Cut 2 in their factory on March 10.


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“Our products are demonstration products,” Albright said.

The company is also adjusting to a market where people turn to the Internet to research a purchase. Albright said they are putting together a demonstration video for the Web site.

Albright said quilters of all ages are Web savvy, and are very network oriented, which means it’s important for Alto’s to reach its customers in places like quilt shops where quilters gather.

One trend that is a challenge for any small manufacturer is the push toward the cheapest product possible.

When a decision is made purely on price, it is hard for a small manufacturer to compete, Albright said.

“People expect to find something cheaper and cheaper,” Albright said. “It kills a small store’s ability to compete.

Ellensburg is well-situatedAlbright said Alto’s could be located

anywhere, but one of the benefits of being in Ellensburg in the proximity to Interstates 90 and 82.

“We work with UPS, FedEx and different freight lines,” Albright said. “Ellensburg is great that way. All shippers want freight coming out of here because all have freight coming into here. They want your freight.”

Ellensburg’s location would make it a good spot for other small companies, Albright said.

“One of our suppliers out of Yakima wanted to move here, but received no incentive to do so and moved to Richland,” Albright said.

Although Albright’s has been in


Rex Nickerson assembles the board for a Quilt Cut 2 product on March 10.


Almost every day someone asks me if this is the best time to buy a home.

The answer I always give them is:

“The best time to invest in a new home is when you find the one you

really want to live in.”If you are ready to start looking for your new home

please give me a call. I can show you any home listed on the NW Multiple Listing Service. That includes just

about every home in the Real Estate Guide.

~ Larry

Thank you to all who worked so hard on the new renewable energy center.

49 PG Inc.A-1 PetroleumAllied SecurityBoogie Man MusicBrad & BurkeBy Design RockeriesCatlin Electric, Inc.Cedar Mountain WoodwrightsCentral Valley Glass, Inc.CWU - Anthropology Dept. & StudentsClaffey’s PaintingCoal Mountain Construction LLCCougar Creek Timber Frame LLCCountry Construction/Masonry Inc.Cruse & AssociatesCummins Service

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885556.ALM.08.cnr

business in Ellensburg for 28 years, Albright said no one involved in economic development has ever spoken to him about what it takes to succeed as a small manufacturer.

Sam and Ren Albright own the business but Alto is still involved as an adviser, Ren Albright said.

Future plansAlbright expects the quilting line to

continue to grow in importance for the company. Alto’s holds a patent on the product and does not face any competi-tion at the moment.

“Our goal is to be as steady as possible,” Albright said.


Sam Albright, president of Alto’s, demon-strates how specially designed molds are factory finished by drilling holes for other pieces and assembly on March 10.




Local truss company serves wide radius

By CHANCE EDMANstaff writer

Basic necessities in life are food on the table and a roof over our heads.

Rick and Debra Scheer don’t own a corner hoagie stand, nor do they plan to. Instead, their business is committed to keeping the roofs over our heads from crashing down.

The Scheers own Central Washington Truss in Ellens-burg located on Vantage Highway.

CWT designs and manufac-tures triangular-shaped wooden trusses that support the roof of a building.

Making a truss requires precise measuring and planning from top to bottom. The first step is measuring a house on site. Builders usually send dimensions to CWT, but in order to avoid errors, CWT employees do their own measurements to verify what the builders sent.

Once measurements are

finalized, the design begins. Being in the truss business

since 1975 when he was in high school, Scheer remem-bers drawing up plans with a pencil and straight edge. Times have changed in the industry and now he and his employees use a computer program to build a virtual house with a foundation and walls to get a visual of what size and kind of trusses will be needed.

When the virtual house is built on the computer program, Scheer sends it to his employees in the front office who engineer trusses to support the roof.

Last year, CWT moved $3.5 million in sales and it averages between $3-$4 million a year.

“We had a great year last year,” Scheer said. “We’re hoping this year will be just as good.”

Measurements are sent to cutters in a large warehouse that buzzes with saws all day. Cutters work quickly, breaking a sweat as they haul long pieces of wood onto the cutting board where preset measurements speed up the process.

Saws rip through the wood as cutters piece them together to form the trusses. Joints are

CWT puts roofs over our heads


tacked together, then flipped and tacked again before being sent through a metal roller to tighten and align the truss.

CWT owns three trucks that deliver trusses to construction sites. The trucks typically need oversized load permits because the trusses can be as wide as a mobile home.

CWT services a large portion of Washington from Moses Lake to Lake Chelan to Tri-Cities and upper Kittitas County. Crews can ship out as many as eight loads a day depending on how far drivers are traveling.

Once a load arrives at a construction site, CWT sets the trusses in place with mounted cranes on each truck that extend 70 feet in any direction. It usually takes about an hour or more to get the trusses in place.

Truss installation generally is the third step in the construction process. Builders lay concrete and erect walls before they’re ready for trusses. After the trusses are firmly in place, a building is sheeted and roofed to allow plumbers and electri-cians to do their jobs.

Engineers have to consider a variety of factors when designing trusses. A truss headed for an Upper County home may differ from an Ellensburg home in its weight-bearing capacity due to heavier snow loads. Engineers have to consider that in the Upper County and design a sturdier frame than perhaps other homes that may not see that volume of snow.

“We have to make sure our trusses bear all the way through a wall and down to the floor,” Scheer said.

CWT gets its raw materials, which is

tons and tons of lumber, from local mills in Washington. The business employs 20 people year-round and increases to 34 in the summer when homes are usually springing up around the area.

Rick Scheer moved the business to Ellensburg from Yakima in 2000 with two partners. He bought out the last of the three owners about a year and a half ago to become the sole owner of the business.

“We’re very excited about our business,” Scheer said.

CWT puts roofs over our heads

Central Washington Truss

Founded: 2000Location: Vantage Highway, EllensburgEmployees: Winter: 20, Summer: 34Product: Trusses for new homes and buildingsArea of distribution: Central Washington

Central Washington Truss owner Rick Scheer stands in front of one of his distributing trucks on Vantage Highway.


No longer playing games

By MARY SWIFTstaff writer

CLE ELUM — Comtronic Systems, a Cle Elum-based company, is

a world-wide leader in developing debt collection technology.

But the company’s begin-ning was much more modest.

The year was 1980.Jeff Dantzler, the company’s

founder and president, was 17 and busy turning out computer games in the dining room of his parents’ Kent area home.

The games sold for $10 to $15 a shot — and Dantzler had a following.

“I used a lot of students for beta testing,” he says. “People loved to come to my house.”

A year or two later — “I was 18 or 19,” Dantzler says — he developed a program to manage real estate. At the time, Dantzler believed it would help his father manage property he owned.

Dantzler’s dad never used it (it turns out he isn’t as computer literate as his son). But the product hit a nerve with others.

“I wrote what was the first commercially avail-able property management product,” says Dantzler. By then, he was a student at Bates Technical College studying computer science. While he’d been able to market his games at night, and sold thousands, marketing the property

management program meant taking some time off from school. It was worth it. The new program sold for $99, a substantial amount more than what he was getting for games.

In 1983, Dantzler came out with a loan collection program for banks.

“I was getting $350 for the loan collection program and, by then, also for the property management program,” the now 45-year-old Dantzler says. “We probably sold close to 3,000 property manage-ment systems and 1,500 loan collection products. The prices kept going up.”

By the time he sold that product line, those products were going for $2,000 apiece.

Dantzler had bigger dreams to pursue.

After finishing a two-year degree, he’d done a two-year stint as a programmer for another company, a job he quit in 1985, he set out intent on building his own business.

It was the year he intro-duced Debtmaster, a debt collection product that speeds up collections by enhancing efficiency.

In the 20-plus years since, the company has sold about 1,800 of the systems which sell for from $6,000 to “many, many times more,” Dantzler says.

Sixteen years ago, Dantzler made a major move, uprooting Comtronic Systems from leased space in Federal Way and relocating to Cle Elum.

He’s fallen in love with the area while on recreational visit and wanted to move his family here. The location, just an hour and a half from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, wasn’t unreasonable from a logistics standpoint. And there was an additional appeal: the prospect of keeping good employees by relocating them to an area where housing was affordable.

Of the 10 employees who moved with the company, eight stayed on permanently in the Upper County.

“An employer wants an employee to be stable,” Dantzler says. “Part of stability is owning a home. We had mostly single employees, fresh out of college. So they

didn’t have a double income, which was what was required to buy a home in the Seattle market. When they came to this area there were houses everywhere from $59,000 to $79,000. They jumped right in. Today, someone starting out here probably needs a double income. At the time, it was the right move.”

His employees weren’t the only ones who benefited from a more affordable real estate market.

“I was not only able to afford a house, but the office,” Dantzler says.

Today, the firm has 19 employees, an annual payroll of close to a million dollars, and occupies 8,000 square feet of a 12,000 square foot

Computer programming skills turned into serious business for Cle Elum business founder

Jeff Dantzler, Comtronic Systems founder and president.


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No longer playing games

building Dantzler had built, in three stages, in downtown Cle Elum. An engineering firm leases the additional 4,000 square feet.

“In two years we will probably be looking for more space,” Dantzler says. But he adds a note of caution. “At the same time, if we’re headed into recession, we just don’t know.”

Only about 5 percent of the company’s sales are in Washington state with about 10 percent in Canada and the remaining 85 percent in other areas of the country. About half of that is on the East Coast, he says.

In 2006, the company — which has won a number of awards in the industry — shocked the market by coming out with new technology. Dubbed “CallThru,” it’s an innovative debt collec-tion system.

“It’s a fully integrated system that manages an entire collection agency or bank,” Dantzler says. “It manages all

communication, inbound and outbound. We control the phone system and every-thing that goes on.”

Collections, Dantzler says, is a numbers game, which is why creating a system that uses sophisticated routing to help identify and connect with debtors in a consistent, efficient manner is important.

“In collections, you spend 80 percent of your effort trying to collect from the top 20 percent most likely to pay,” Dantzler says. Because collection agencies are paid on commission, after a few calls on smaller accounts agents usually move on, concentrating time and energy on account more likely to produce a bigger payday.

CallThru keeps after even small accounts.

“People who cannot pay all their bills pay the bills of those who pester them the most,” he says. “This program will call you until hell freezes over.”

Dantzler says CallThru is first of a kind although one competitor has announced its going to come out with a product.

“This product typically sells for $60,000 to $120,000,” he says. “It’s been on the market for 18 months. It’s been going well but slower than what we projected. It’s a huge product and has a huge poten-tial to grow dozens and dozens of jobs in Kittitas County.”

Comtronic Systems

Founded: 1980Employees: 19Location: 205 N. Harris Ave., Cle ElumProducts: Sophisticated debt collection technology including Debtmaster and CallThruArea of distribution: nationwide


Third generation guides Cle Elum’s Shoemaker Manufacturing

By MARY SWIFTstaff writer

CLE ELUM — For John Hein, director of opera-tions for Shoemakers

Manufacturing Co. in Cle Elum, business is a family affair.

For Hein and his family, Shoemakers isn’t just a business — it’s a legacy.

The company manufactures residential, commercial and industrial grills, registers and other products for heating and air conditioning systems.

Founded in 1947 in Seattle by Bill Shoemaker, it moved to Roslyn four years later to take advantage of the labor force made available by the Upper County’s diminishing mining industry.

In 1954, Rudy Hein, a former mineworker, went to work for Shoemakers. Two years later, he and his wife, Patti, bought the company.

Rudy Hein, John’s grand-father, was involved in the business until his death in 1992. Jerry Hein, John’s father, joined the company in 1972 and remains its chairman. Patricia Hein, John’s mother, is the CFO. His oldest sister, Claire Nicholls, handles marketing.

“It’s neat because it’s carrying on the family legacy,” says John, who graduated from Cle Elum-Roslyn High and went on to earn a business degree at Washington State University.

“But it is also overwhelming. You don’t want to be the generation that doesn’t take it to is next level.”

Even as a child, the now 28-year-old Hein was enamored

of the operation.“I followed my Dad and

Grandpa around here since I was 4 years old,” he says. “My Dad and Grandpa were engineers. They designed the tooling that made the product.

“I always loved it,” he says. “But nobody goes through high school thinking, I’m going to work in sheet metal.’”

The competitive lure of the business drew him back after college.

“I’ve always been competi-tive and like the challenge of figuring out how to be better than the competition. This, being the family business, is icing on the cake. It would be fun to hand over the reins to the fourth generation and sit back and watch,” he says.

The company produces more than 18,000 different kinds of heating-and cooling-related products.

“We sell to distributors who put kits together to sell to customers who put HVAC systems into a house,” Hein says. “We are nationwide but our largest markets are on the West Coast.”

Just as his grandfather and father were, Hein is a hands-on presence in the plant that turns out 20,000 grills and registers each day during its busy season.

“Employees see me out on the floor at least four hours a day. When my dad is in town he goes out too — and distracts them more than anything else,” John says with a grin.

The business moved from Roslyn to Cle Elum in 1969 to gain more production space. At the time, the 35,000 square foot building it occupied

seemed more than enough for the future, Hein says.

“The thought was that we would never need more space,” he says.

Time proved that assump-tion wrong as demand for the company’s products grew.

The company’s facilities, spread along the south side of First Street, now total 182,000 square feet.

The business has 125 employees, 19 of whom have been with the company 20 or more years.

“We have a strong employee base,” Hein says. “Our culture is, we demand excellence from our people and our production. Our product line is considered the Cadillac of the industry. When you buy a Shoemaker product you’re buying the top of the line.”

The family-run business is also family friendly: one shift, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., nights and weekends off, incentive pay for employees who don’t miss work and a week off between Christmas and New Year’s.

If attendance has been good, that week is paid time off.

“We’re tied to the housing industry,” Hein says.

“When we’re busy, it’s 150 employees.“

Hein says the downturn in the housing market is the company’s biggest challenge for 2008 and 2009. I think it’s going to be the middle of 2009 before it ratchets back up again.”

The biggest change in the industry is the cost of doing business and the offshore competition from China, Vietnam “and a little bit from Mexico” producing systems for “cookie cutter houses,” he says.

“But the commercial market is strong right now — grocery stores and strip malls that serve the houses that have been built. So we redirect our effort. Where we have room to grow is in the commercial market.”

As for the company’s future, don’t plan on any major moves away from Kittitas County. The Hein family’s roots are planted deep.

“I want it to be in Cle Elum, in Kittitas County,” Hein says. “I want to keep us in this area.”

See video of the Shoemaker’s manufacturing process at www.dailyrecordnews.com

Shoemakers Manufacturing Co.

Founded: 1947Years in Kittitas County: 57 (moved to Roslyn in 1951)Location: 618 E. First St., Cle ElumNumber of Employees: 125 Products: Residential, commercial and industrial grills and registers and other items for heating and air conditioning systemsArea of distribution: Primarily on the West Coast although the company does distribute nationally


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A ready-to-build industrial parkDevelopers: lots fill a definite need


Robert Terrell believes his Center Point Business Park on Dolarway

Road offers the only private, ready-to-build-upon lots for purchase by light industrial firms in Kittitas County.

“If there’s another one somewhere else, well, I don’t know about it,” said Terrell who is part of The Alliance Develop-ment Group of Ellensburg LLC that is constructing the park east of Ellensburg’s west inter-change to Interstate 90.

Work began about a year ago and all infrastructure for the first nine, one-acre lots should be complete by the end of April. Terrell said two lots are already sold and three other firms are interested in buying, too. He said business owners can make their own arrangements to construct their buildings or the Alliance will build to suit.

Bob Hansen, the RE/MAX Community Realty broker representing the business park, said Center Point takes in more than 80 acres, and a second short-plat is being developed on another set of lots.

“It will have all that’s needed for someone to come right in, everything a business owner would want,” Hansen said. “Water, sewer, roads, curbs, natural gas, fiber-optics and Internet.”

Hansen said the devel-opment group examined business needs in the Ellens-burg area and concluded light industrial facilities were sorely lacking and

would be in demand. “That’s why we’re rolling the

dice, so to speak, to find out if it’s all going to work,” Terrell said.

Hansen said Center Point Business Park lots, which are up for purchase, complement the lots that are available for lease from Kittitas County at the Airport Industrial Park north of Ellensburg next to Bowers Field. The airport park lots also are ready for construction.

Hansen said Center Points offers the ability to combine lots and configure them to meet specific needs: three, five, 10 or higher in acreage.

Terrell, also head of Terrell Brothers Construction LLC, said he’s been in the construc-tion and development field for 30 years or more and believes Ellensburg is at a crucial point in regard to further economic

development.He said changes are needed,

in his opinion, in how Ellens-burg is seen in relation to welcoming new business, including manufacturing and high-tech products. He said Ellensburg has a reputation for not being as “business cooperative” as it could be.

Terrell said significant increases in 2007 in utility costs and boosts in fees for a variety of development requirements and mitigations have made it more expensive to locate a business in Ellensburg.

He said a firm considering to purchase a Center Point lot recently tallied up all the costs, including city permit and mitigation fees, and decided to go farther east to Quincy or Moses Lake.

“The increasing costs can be handicap,” Terrell said.

Firms that must locate in

Ellensburg for a definite reason will come, he said, but if they have options to go elsewhere the costs here are going to be a big factor in their decision.

“All these costs keep compounding against devel-oping something that’s afford-able,” he said.

Terrell said the city needs to expedite changes to the city zoning code that deal with what activity is permitted to take place within the light industrial designation — changes that will allow more high-tech development, fabrication and manufac-turing to occur in the zone.

He said he has a client who has a high-tech activity and is interested in a lot, but the current zoning definition doesn’t exactly fit his activity.

“I’m just saying the city should try to be a little more business friendly,” Terrell said.

Center Point Business Park on Dolarway Road, above, offers the only ready-to-build-upon lots for purchase to light-industrial customers in Kittitas County, according to one of its developers, Robert Terrell of Ellensburg.


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Local waterski maker outfits world’s bestBy CHANCE EDMAN

staff writer

Creed Kidder likes to keep a low profile with his business.

No reason in particular, although his product isn’t exactly in high demand around Kittitas County.

That’s because professional water skiing isn’t necessarily the hot ticket in this area.

Kidder’s company, D3 Custom Waterskis, is a high-end competition water ski manufacturer known world-wide by the who’s who in water skiing.

Some of the best water skiers in the world ride Kidder’s skis. His company sponsors several pro skiers like Marcus Brown and Freddy Krueger. Krueger broke two world records in the same year recently and was named 2004 World Cup Champion in men’s jumping. Brown rides Kidder’s slalom ski “Nomad,” which is a custom-made ski ranging in size from 62 to 69 inches long.

“It gets more attention out there,” Kidder said of when his skiers win. “He gets on the podium and takes a picture with his skis right there.”

D3 employees can produce eight to 10 skis a day. It’s an exact process as each ski is made to fit precise measurements.

Kidder also makes jump and trick skis in his Ellensburg warehouse. Few are sold locally, but Kidder is never opposed to making a spur-of-the-moment sale.

Most, however are distrib-uted across the U.S. and even to international vendors in

places like Germany. Kidder estimated a third of sales come from retail, a third from U.S. customers and a third internationally.

Word of mouth helps spread the word about his products, but by now, most upper level waterskiers know of D3.

Kidder’s dad, Denny Kidder, has been in the waterski business for more than 40 years and still works part time, primarily on research and development of new technologies.

Kidder’s ski “Nomad” has changed five times over the last three years, minor changes the average water skier wouldn’t notice.

“If we can improve on what we already have, we will (make changes),” Kidder said.

Skis cost $1,025 apiece. Bindings are $150 apiece, $300 for a pair.

The company recently came out with a new boot design, which is made overseas and assembled in Ellensburg. Scott Oltman, one of a few local customers, says D3’s products are leaders in the industry.

“They’re keeping right up with the technology. Their new boot design is pretty

incredible,” Oltman said. Despite making world-class

waterskis, Kidder can find everything he needs in Ellens-burg to keep his business

going, except for the special-ized products like resin and carbon graphite.

Kidder starts with a piece of durable foam made from

D3 Custom Waterskis

Founded: 2002Location: EllensburgEmployees: 7Products: professional level waterskisArea of distribution: worldwide

Creed Kidder, president of D3 Custom Waterskis, checks one of his presses in his shop in west Ellensburg.


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polyurethane shaped like the appropriate ski that feels like styrofoam. It’s very light and can endure a beating when covered with carbon, which is the next step.

Once sheeted in the black, cloth-looking material, a sticky, sap-like substance called resin is scraped over the surface. The resin must soak through the carbon to the core of the ski.

A lightweight graphic is then placed over the ski before it’s taken to a press where it is cooked at 160 degrees for 20 minutes. The excess graphic is cut and filed off the edges. Kidder then measures the ski to make sure it fits specifications.

Any ski not up to par is sold for a discounted price, so employees are

careful to achieve near perfection every time. Final touches include a polish and drilling holes for bindings.

Jump skis used for lauching off ramps on the water are 84 to 92 inches long. Trick skis are shorter and wider at 40 to 45 inches long. Each ski length is custom made to fit the height and weight of its rider.

D3 makes more than 2,000 skis a year.Kidder set up shop in Ellensburg about

six years ago. His dad owned Kidder Skis in Auburn before the business moved to Ellensburg and Creed took over.

As the weather warms, business is starting to crank back up for the year. Winter months starting in September or October are typically slow for Kidder and his staff, but orders pour in through the summer.

Sometimes Kidder will manufacture similar items for outside companies. He has done skateboards, wakeboards and now makes guitar parts for a private company.

Local waterski maker outfits world’s best

D3 Custom Waterskis are made to fit specific dimensions of their riders. Here a stack of Nomads wait to be shipped out.


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Pautzke Bait: Proven performance

Third generation running bait business

By DON GRONNINGstaff writer

Casey Kelley recently returned from a business trip to Wisconsin. But in Kelley’s business, work and play

can be the same thing.“We were back there doing some fishing

for brown trout,” says Kelley, who is president of Pautzke Bait Company, one of Ellensburg’s most well-known firms and maker of the famed “Balls O’ Fire,” a trout bait made from salmon eggs.

On the Wisconsin outing Kelley caught

some 15-pound fish, a pretty good size for a trout, but he wasn’t satisfied. “We were going after 25-pounders,” he says.

Kelley still has the competitive spirit of the professional athlete that he was and it shows. It wasn’t that long ago he was playing professional baseball for the Los Angeles Angels organization. He played three years for them before injuries forced him from the game.

Kelley is still competitive but now the outlet is the family business. He came aboard as head of sales, marketing and advertising for Pautzke Bait Company in 2001, then took over as president and CEO in 2004.

Pautzke Bait was started by Kelley’s grandfather, the late Otto Keith Williams, who died at home in Ellensburg at the

age of 88 last year. The Pautzke Bait company was named

for Williams’ uncle, Ernie Pautzke, who started the company. Pautzke died in 1938 and Williams bought the recipe for cooking salmon eggs from his aunt for

Pautzke Bait Co.

Founded: 1934Location: 800 Prospect St., EllensburgEmployees: Three full time, 30 when cookingProducts: Premium eggs, cures, scents and attrac-tants for trout, salmon and steelhead fishing.Area of distribution: North America and Mexico


Pautzke Bait: Proven performance

$50 when he returned from the war in 1946.

The first year was difficult. Williams cooked and bottled more than 200 jars of eggs but didn’t sell any. The next year was a little better but it wasn’t until Williams’ wife, Marnie, suggested dying the eggs red that sales took off.

“After three or four years of business, I bought her a Cadillac,” Williams told a Daily Record reporter in a 2004 interview.

Williams semi-retired from the company in 1988, although he still was a presence around the business, jokingly telling people he was the janitor. The Williams’ adult children, Gerry, Chris and Paula managed the company before turning the company over to Casey in 2004.

A 22,000-square foot, state-of-the-art facility was built in 1991. It is there that the salmon eggs are turned into Pautzke bait through a natural cooking process with secret ingredients and all.

“There is a magic number, a few ingredients we add,” says Kelley. The process is done in the fall.

“Last year it took six days,” says Kelley. A crew of about 30 processed 80,000-100,000 pounds of salmon eggs, turning out 3,000 36-jar cases daily. The eggs are mainly king and chum salmon eggs and the majority come from the Great Lakes region.

Pautzke products amount to about 90 percent of the bait eggs market, says Kelley, with the popular Green Label Balls O’ Fire amounting to 75 percent of Pautzke sales.

“They’re our bread and butter,” says Kelley.

Since Kelley has been at the helm, the company has branched out into other products, such as scents, cures and corn bait.

“We’ve diversified some,”

said Kelley. In the late 1980s a new form of dough bait came on the market.

“The dough bait took a bite out of our business,” said Kelley.

But the company has battled back, making new products to go along with its Balls O’ Fire eggs. In all there are 35 Pautzke products, including a line of Liquid Krill that anglers have had success using in both fresh and salt water.

Like all Pautzke products, it is an all-natural product, with no artificial ingredients. It is made from krill shrimp and also comes in a gel form.

But Balls O’ Fire bait still work well. No tackle box is complete without a jar of Pautzke eggs in it, says outdoor columnist and Central Washington Univer-sity professor Jim Huckabay.

“Everybody uses Pautzke bait,” says Huckabay. “It’s a rule.”

Huckabay says he started using the salmon eggs as a youngster. He has taught classes where students who worked at

Pautzke during the egg cooking and would come to class with the red-dyed hands.

Lee Davis is a fisherman who started using Pautzke bait about three years ago.

“Somebody had suggested it,” says Davis, who fishes year round. Fish are attracted to the color red, says Davis, so trying the salmon eggs seemed like a good idea.

“Sometimes I fish them alone and sometimes I use them with something else,” he says. Either way, he usually fishes the eggs about two feet from the bottom.

The price of gas has Kelley a little concerned about the upcoming fishing season. He worries that some anglers may stay home this season rather than pay the high gas prices.

But Kelley also sees an opportunity. One of Pautzke’s competitors cut out the distributers, selling directly to large stores.

“That opens up opportuni-ties for us,” he says. “Distribu-tors want something to sell.”

Kelley says being able to react to the market is one of the things Pautzke Bait Company simply has to do.

“You kind of have to roll with the market,” he says. One thing he is not worried about is the quality of his product, which is made in Kittitas County.

“As long as there is fishing, Pautzke Bait will continue to provide premium products and service,” he said.

Contributed photosGerry Williams fills some jars with Pautzke salmon eggs, a process known as paddling the eggs.

This is what the finished product looks like. Pautzke’s Green Label Balls O’ Fire have been used for trout fishing since ‘Dad’ Pautzke started cooking the salmon eggs for use as trout bait.


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IN THE Home appreciation in Washington continues to out-perform the rest of the nation with year-to-year price increases every quarter since the spring of 1995. Interest rates are low and housing inventory is at a good balance for buyers and sellers alike.

Contact your Kittitas County Real Estate Professional for more information on the LOCAL Real Estate Market.


Custom saddles stand test of time

By DON GRONNINGstaff writer

You have to drive a little ways out of Ellensburg to get to Don Bacon’s

Leather Shop. It’s about 10 miles out of town, in the horse country near Naneum Road, north of the Vantage Highway.

“It makes it handy being out here for people to bring their horse out to fit a saddle,” said Andy Bacon, 32, the eldest son. The spacious driveway allows plenty of room for a horse trailer.

There are a variety of things to buy at the leather shop, which offers retail clothing as well as repairs and custom leather work. A steady stream of customers came by the weekday this reporter stopped by.

“How much does he want for that?” asks one man pointing to a used saddle in the shop on consignment. “$700,” said Andy. “Tell him I’ll give him $500,” said the man.

Don Bacon, 70, is the founder of the leather shop. He came to Kittitas County from Arizona in 1968. He says he got his start working with leather as a youngster. He had polio when he was young and spent quite a bit of time indoors.

“I started doing this in ’48,” says Don. “This is what I would do when the other kids were out playing.”

He started by hand tooling leather wallets and belts.

“The more I did, the more

people wanted,” he says. “It’s all I’ve done for 60 years.”

He is self taught, learning by repairing and doing. He perfected a method of carving photographic likenesses on pieces of leather, developing special tools and dyes to complete his pictures of animals in their natural surroundings.

Carving on leathers is different from just drawing on paper, he says.

“You can’t just erase it when you make a mistake,” he laughs. A picture of a deer standing in the grass that he carved for his mother in 1959 shows the detail in the grass that required a special stamp to get it just right.

The decorative carving lead to more utilitarian work, such as saddle and tack repair.

“I probably repaired saddles for 20 years before I made one,” he said. “You can learn a lot from repairing them.”

His first saddle, fully tooled

sold for $275. Such a saddle now would fetch $5,000 — $6,000, he says.

Bacon saddles hold their value. He tells of a story of a saddle he built in 1973.

“It sold for $375,” he says. The customer rode the saddle until health problems forced him to stop riding. “He rode it for 18 years and sold it for

$750,” says Don.These days Don is mostly

retired, leaving the leather work to his sons Andy and Frank.

The brothers grew up around the saddle shop, sweeping and cleaning and eventually working their way up to repairing and then building saddles.

Building saddles just one of the activities of versatile leather shop

Don Bacon’s Leather Shop L.L.C.

Founded: 1968 in EllensburgLocation: 1492 Thomas RoadEmployees: four Products: Custom saddles, horse tack, holsters, leather goodsArea of distribution: Primarily in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, although the company does distribute many other places and internationally.

The foundation for a Western saddle is called a tree. Here Frank Bacon shows one of the trees that a Bacon saddle will be built upon.


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“Andy made a knife case when he was about 8,” says Don proudly.

“I grew up around it. I’ve done it my whole life,” says Andy.

“We started by cleaning up and doing small repairs and it went from there,” said Frank, 30.

They didn’t go to a saddle making school, says their mother, Gabe. They still put in an apprenticeship with Don that was probably worth 10 schools and Gabe recognized it.

“After they had graduated high school, I printed some diplomas,” she said. She figured nearly 20 years apprenticeship should be acknowledged.

The younger Bacons handle most of

Andy Bacon shown with a pair of custom chaps that he made. Holsters, chaps, saddles and other leather goods are some of the items made and repaired at Don Bacon’s Leather Shop.


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the work of the business now, although both Don and Gabe are regulars around the shop, visiting with customers and making themselves useful.

There are quite a few custom Bacon saddles built in the shop. The base price for a handmade Bacon saddle is $2,700. The price rises with the amount of tooling and silver that is added.

“They’re truly custom saddles,” says Frank. Customers bring their horse out to have the saddle fitted to the specific horse.

While the custom saddles are the prestige product, most of the shop’s work is with smaller projects.

“Most of the business is building new stuff such as breast collars and reins,” he says, with a fair amount of repair work.

The business has gotten by for years by word of mouth. They don’t even have a catalog, let alone a Web site, although that may change soon.

“We’ve been thinking about getting a Web site,” said Frank. While they sell most

of their goods in Kittitas County, they also send saddles and tack around the North-west, as well as farther away to places like Alaska and Canada. “We even sold a couple saddles to a person in Georgia,” says Don. A Web site seems like an inevi-table progression for the business.

Don says the business seems to go in cycles. Now they are in a cycle where people like more ornate gear.

“People like fancier stuff now,” says Don. “If my dad saw some of the stuff we make now, he’d have a fit.”

The leather shop has provided a living for the Bacon clan for quite some time now, with quality work one of their hallmarks. Their custom saddles are truly some of the best products made in Kittitas County.

Andy Bacon splits a piece of leather in preparation into turning it into a set of reins.


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Cave B Winery makes wine from ground to bottle

By CHANCE EDMANstaff writer

GEORGE — Cave B Estate Winery transformed more than 100 acres of

land along the Columbia River east of Ellensburg into one of the area’s premier wineries.

Founder Dr. Vincent Bryan purchased 500 acres of land in 1980 with the intent to plant a large vineyard, not necessarily a winery. The land matches the conditions of some of the world’s best grape growing regions in Europe with its proximity to a large river and its steady supply of plenty of sunshine year-round.

So beginning in the 1980s, Bryan set out to build Champs de Brionne Winery on 60 acres of vineyards. The winery turned into Cave B in 2000 and now uses grapes from more than 100 acres of vineyards.

Cave B opened a tasting facility in 2002 and soon had to expand into a basalt building called The Roundhouse due to a growing number of visitors. Wine tasting costs $5.

An adjacent room called The Cellar was carved out of the hillside. A cool room with elegant lighting, Cave B holds barrel tastings in The Cellar where visitors can sample wines straight from the barrel as directed by staff members.

Cave B grows 16 different varieties of grapes on its property which it turns into 17 different varietals of wine. Cave B’s most famous blends are its Bordeaux blends,

including the Cuvee du Soleil. Another well-known wine is the 2006 Blanc de Blanc, one of the state’s few methode champenoise sparkling wines.

Because it grows and picks its grapes by hand, Cave B’s staff chooses only the best fruit for its wines.

“The best fruit gives us the best wine,” Winemaker Freddy Arredondo said. “You

Great wine from great grapes

Cave B Estate Winery

Founded: 2000Employees: Year-round: 2, Seasonal: 10+Product: 17 varietals of wineLocation: GeorgeArea of distribution: statewide

A guest samples a wine from the Cave B tasting room Feb. 28. Cave B makes 17 varietals of wine.

Here in the cave, winemaker Freddy Arredondo talks about the fermenting process and the specific kind of oak barrels used to hold the red wines.


1852

104 E. 4th 925-4191 2008 KITTITAS COUNTY

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1974

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Steward & WilliamsTribute & Cremation Center

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can’t make great wine from mediocre fruit.”

Grapes begin to grow in the spring and are harvested in the fall months. Arredondo and Cellarmaster Hector Saldano Osuna are the only year-round employees of the wine-making operation. Come time to pick grapes, Arredondo hires an additional three or four employees.

Each vine makes about eight to 10 pounds of grapes. Some vines have been in the ground for more than 30 years. Arredondo can tell a differ-ence between grapes from an experienced vine as opposed to a young vine. Younger vines tend to produce tart grapes that vary in taste. Older vines have exacted their grapemaking, as Arredondo puts it, and become more consistent as the age.

Cave B produces about 5,000 cases of wine a year. It takes about a ton of fruit to make 120 gallons of wine, or 50 cases. The grapes Cave B doesn’t select for its own wine, it sells. SageCliffe is an eco-friendly resort where the skins and seeds left over from pressed grapes used to make white wines are used by restaurant chef Fernando Divina to make a variety of items.

Estate wineries, those that grow their own grapes on site, are rare in Washington, according to Arredondo. Most wineries purchase their fruit from other vineyards, many of which are located in Walla Walla and elsewhere.

Arredondo loves the ability to control his winemaking from the ground to the bottle. He can keep a close eye on his grapes every day and know what to expect when it comes time to turn them into wine.

“It’s an absolute convenience, I love it,” Arredondo said.

The sugar percentage, acidity and pH levels of grapes are vital to producing good fruit and thus good wine.

Cave B makes 17 varietals of wine. These bottles are stored in homemade racks, ready to be opened for wine tastings.

The entrance to Cave B Winery is easy to miss on the way to The Gorge Amphitheatre off Interstate 90.

Vineyards surround SageCliffe’s Cliffehouses, which are luxurious accommodations rented by visitors with one of the best views around.


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But in the end, the physical taste of a grape can overrule negative readings Arredondo might get from a grape. The entire process to grow a grape takes about three months.

Once Arredondo and his staff bottle the wines, they usually sell it to distributors on the West Side and locally as well. Cave B purposely avoids distributing to big chain markets because it would prefer to remain in boutique shops and restaurants.

Arredondo is excited about some new wines coming soon. Cave B will be offering varietals of a Stainless Steel Chardonnay in the near future along with a Cabernet Franc.

Production should remain the same in the foreseeable future, Arredondo says, but he isn’t opposed to expanding as demand dictates.

SageCliffe’s pool is expected to be open this summer. The pool is built into the hillside with all indigenous rock and boasts an incredible view.


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Small brewery keeps up with big demandsBy JEFF WILSON

staff writer

For Greg Parker, brewing beer once meant hanging out with his friends, imbibing and tracking mud in and out of his garage. But the days of brewing 155 gallons of kit beers have turned into overseeing a business that now sometimes struggles to meet its demands.

And that is just fine with him.“February should be our

worst month and it’s going to be a record month for us,” Parker, who owns and operates Iron Horse Brewery, said. “I’m blown away. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing and it’s kind of scary where this could go.”

While there have been a number of microbreweries popping up all over the state, and the Northwest region for that matter, over the last decade or so, only one has chosen to call Ellensburg home.

Iron Horse Brewery, started in 2004 by Jim Quilter, has been working hard to estab-lish itself amidst that boom. But keeping its roots in the Kittitas Valley, and catering to the taste buds of the locals has not changed.

And Parker says that will never change.

“I grew up in a small business family so I wanted to get a small business going,” he says. “It was highly beneficial that the guy who had started this had 25 years of brewing experience. He showed me some of the tricks.”

After buying into the existing business and sharing a four-month partnership, Parker bought out Quilter and

has been running the brewery himself ever since. And the brewery has seen some considerable change.

In January, Iron Horse saw significant growth compared to March of 2007. Toward the end of February of this year, sales were about 30 percent above the previous month.

“We’ve doubled over the last nine months and another 30 percent since last month,” Parker said. “And we have some big customers in the works. And it looks like that is going to push it even higher.”

The brewery produced 500 barrels of beer in 2007, which translates into 15,500 gallons of the tasty stuff. Based on the numbers from the first months of 2008, Iron Horse is

on pace to turn out 750-800 barrels but Parker is thinking it will end up closer to 1,000 once the year comes to an end.

Part of that is due to the microbrew boom that has been going on in the area for the last 10 years — that and the fact that Parker spends half of his week out selling his product, and has the help of two other full-time employees to push the product.

“That’s what is different about us,” Parker said. “We have a sales force and that’s what is driving it. We’d still be in here doing last year’s sales numbers if it wasn’t for that.”

Parker and his team are actively walking into bars each and every week selling

Iron Horse Brewery

Founded: 2004 Location: 1000 Prospect Street, Ste. 4, EllensburgNumber of employees: 5Products: Six year-round beers, Rodeo Extra Pale Ale, Loco-Motive Imperial Red Ale, Cream Ale, Brown Ale, India Pale Ale and Quilter’s Irish Death. Seasonal beers are also available on a limited basis.Area of distribution: Iron Horse beers are available throughout Central Washington and Northern Idaho in bottle form in markets and stores or on tap in select watering holes, or at the brewery itself.

Sam Scotchmer measures out a portion of hops pellets as he begins the brewing process.


Small brewery keeps up with big demands

their beer. And it’s been working.

As of now, Iron Horse beers are available in Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Wenatchee, Leavenworth, Yakima, the Tri Cities, Spokane and, of course, Kittitas Valley. The brewery does spill over into Northern Idaho but for now, the emphasis is on Washington.

However that might change.At one point, Iron Horse

was getting most of its brews into bars in kegs. But that is also changing as Parker says the number of bottles of beer ending up on supermarket and grocery stores shelves is coming close to equaling the amount of beer sent out in kegs to bars and restaurants.

“Ironically, if people stop drinking yellow beer, all the breweries in this state would be brewing 10-times what they are brewing now,” Parker said. “But the big boys (Budweiser, Miller, Coors) take a pretty big chunk out of our sales.”

That could change this spring and summer as brewers are forced to deal with an impending hops shortage that has some experts predicting much higher prices for microbrews.

But that doesn’t seem to

put a dent into what Parker has been building since buying Iron Horse just about a year ago.

Located off of Dolarway Road on the west side of Ellensburg, Parker is expanding the brewery as fast as possible. And the produc-tion rate is not the only thing that has grown.

Iron Horse is in the process of remodeling its brewery, specifically adding a tasting room at the current location. There are plans to expand to downtown Ellensburg with a full-blown brewpub, complete with restaurant and gift shop.

And the number and kinds of brews will change as well. While Parker will keep the current six beers in the rotation, he said he plans on adding some new brews into the mix over the next couple of years.

“This is the real-deal as far as micros go,” Parker said. “I try to stress that when I’m out and about. This is as real as it gets. And we’re not going to change that. And we’re not going to go anywhere either. Ellensburg is our home and we will continue to brew our beers here as long as people around here choose to drink them.”

After transferring a mixture into the fermentation tanks, Iron Horse’s Sam Scotchmer monitors the fermentation process.

Scotchmer hoses out a lauter tun while brewing a batch of beer.Scotchmer rakes out the spent grains left over from the mash.

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Documents

Kittitas County Almanac 2008