Regional Business News

"A lot of people are looking for service and distribution businesses," Storer said. "They’re less interested in manufacturing, less interested in retail."

From this former mining town of 2,400, the company chalked up $358 million in revenue last year selling new and used cars and trucks, parts and accessories, Smith said.

Boise-based ProClarity Corp. has entered into a partnership with Understanding K.K. that will make its ProClarity Analytics Platform available to the Japanese market. Understanding K.K. will act as the primary distributor of ProClarity 6 in…

"If this can keep up we are going to become the venture capital hub in the western United States sans the West Coast," said Brad Bertoch, chief executive officer of the Wayne Brown Institute, a nonprofit that helps businesses find venture funding. "It shows that we have really bucked the trend of that tech downturn."

"It really speaks to the expertise of the company from an innovation standpoint, from a technology standpoint," Parker said. "Micron is on the cutting edge of technology, and our ranking signifies that. And if you look at it from the standpoint of our size or number of employees we have or the R&D dollars spent versus some of the other folks in the top 10, it becomes really quite a dramatic achievement."

Timber industry survivors describe themselves as more nimble and resourceful after the 1990s cataclysm. But if they are to hold onto their current foothold, they say, they must go further along one of two paths: Chase pennies-per-unit economies by competing in global commodity markets, or try to exact bigger price premiums by offering niche products and branding.

"It seems likely that (the Clipper turbine) will improve the economics of wind energy," Gray said. "Any time a new turbine of that size from a new manufacturer comes to market, that’s a significant event."

"I think the region continues to be undercapitalized at the early stage," Alberg said. "There’s enough activity that there is a need for more capital."

"Target industries you would like to have and structure specific incentives to get them to reinvest or invest here," he said.

Although Severs expects ISR to generate little commercial revenue until 2007, he has a plan for marketing to the computer industry. He anticipates first approaching smaller makers of computer servers, then developing further ISR’s initial contacts with giants such as IBM, Dell, and Apple.