Monopolize and manipulate. Those are the antitrust accusations and charges of privacy invasion, and even illegal conduct, being tossed at Google and Facebook by a group of state attorneys general, a coalition of newspaper publishers and members of Congress, all of whom want to bring the tech giants to heel in one way or another.

But a suit against Google and its subsidiary YouTube by a Seattle-based firm whose business includes managing receiverships may prove equally interesting to watch as it unfolds.

And now add the suit filed Monday by Washington Atty. Gen. Robert Ferguson and attorneys general from three other states focusing on Google’s collection of local data that can be used to target advertising as well as build internet-user profiles, even those users who had acted on Google’s agreement to let them opt-out. Ferguson said, bluntly, Google’s conduct “is not only dishonest, but it’s also unlawful.”

The suit by Revitalization Partners, likely the first of its kind by a court-appointed receiver, alleges Google and YouTube infringed on a trio of patents held by a Bellevue-based company named AudienceScience Inc., which actually went out of business five years ago. 

Al Davis
Revitalization PartnersRevitalization Partners’ co-founder and principal Al Davis said his firm discovered more than 30 AudienceScience patents after being appointed by the court to manage the receivership process, which involves finding the best solution for the highest possible return for creditors.

A determination of patent infringement would likely mean financial penalties for Google and YouTube, though Revitalization Partners’ suit does not include a request for a specific dollar judgment.

But Ferguson’s suit specifically asks that Google be ordered to disclose the profits it made from using the tactics alleged and give it all back as well as pay a $7,500 fee for each violation. That would mean uncovering Google’s profits from the activity.

Davis noted that AudienceScience invented and patented many of the “foundational technologies” used across the digital advertising industry today, including the industry’s first of what are called “behavioral targeting products.” That means targeting advertising based on both user history and page views.

AudienceScience was a Bellevue company known for building software and tools designed to help major marketers buy digital ads programmatically, using a combination of automation and data. It closed its doors after it lost its long-time client Procter & Gamble.

“Now that we’ve received the necessary approvals from the Washington State receivership court to pursue litigation, we are in a position to execute and potentially recover a significant amount of value for creditors using these and other patents,” Davis said.

If you’ve ever had the sense akin to something like catching someone peeking in your bedroom window when, for example, ads for various San Diego hotels suddenly appear on your desktop after you’ve been looking up the website of a hotel in that city, you’ll understand what technology of user information to empower advertisers is all about. And why the effort to control it as an example of privacy invasion is beginning to attract such attention at the highest levels.

And how much the major tech companies have made off of providing information to advertisers on where visitors to the internet seek information, should that sort of financial information ever be ferreted out, could prove interesting to the attorneys general, publishers, and Congress in determining actions to impose limits on the activities of the tech giants.

Ferguson’s suit seeking specific profit information would be a key step in determining that information on the riches gleaned by actions increasingly viewed as privacy invasion and patent infringement.
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According to material unveiled in the past few days in the case brought in Texas by the coalition of attorneys general, Google manipulated the system of buying and selling online display ads and deceived advertisers. Google dominates the online system for buying and selling online display ads.

If courts affirm such manipulation charges, it would mean more than just other media entities seeking to have their ads reach consumers were harmed but also consumers in general since such action inevitably leads to fewer product choices.

In fact, the Revitalization Partners suit against Google and YouTube isn’t the first on behalf of a small tech firm alleging Google infringed on its patents.

Coincidentally, another former Bellevue company named VoIP-Pal.com Inc. has over the past few years filed suits against Google, Amazon, Facebook, and other major tech companies alleging violation of the patents it holds on what’s known as Voice-over-Internet Protocol.

VoIP-Pal is a publicly-traded corporation that is actually a penny stock (hovering at a few cents a share) because it has never been able to monetize the technology of its patents and likely won’t unless the courts order the big tech companies to pay for using what VoIP-Pal contends it holds the patents for. It owns a portfolio of such patents.

For example, VoIP-Pal contends Amazon’s Alexa calling and messaging service uses VoIP-Pal’s patented technologies to direct voice and video calls and messages is an infringement on one of its patents. It doesn’t take much imagination to envision how much revenue would flow to VoIP-Pal from a court decision requiring Amazon to pay VoIP-Pal for Alexa’s technology.

The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, after several years of deliberation, approved all the patents for the various technologies in the company’s portfolio and the entity known as the Patent Trials and Appeals Board, in an unusual decision favoring the “little guy,” rejected the challenges by the big tech companies to the validity of VoIP-Pal patents.

Observers of these types of litigations relating to patent infringement actions against the major tech firms know there’s a quiet desire not to have a suit by a small firm come before one of the Silicon Valley Federal judges.

But the federal judge in West Texas has a track record of the ruling, in patent infringement cases, in favor of the patent holder. VoIP-Pal recently moved its corporate headquarters to Waco, TX.

Two men who teamed with close business partners to build companies that became national leaders in their industries, a member of one of Seattle's most prominent families, and a woman who guided one of the region's best-known law firms will be the 2017 honorees of the Puget Sound Business Hall of Fame. The event celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.

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The four whose lifetime of contributions to business will be celebrated at the Business Hall of Fame banquet on May 4 at the Seattle Waterfront Marriott are: Judith (Judy) Runstad, Carl Behnke, Artie Buerk and Don Nielsen.

 

Judy Runstad 

--Runstad, an attorney who became the first female managing partner of a major Seattle law as co-managing partner of Foster Pepper and went on to chair the Federal Reserve Board as well as serve two governors by chairing special commissions and serve on the boards of three public companies.

                                                    

 

Carl Behnke  

--Carl Behnke built the second largest Pepsi dealership in North America. Then he subsequently partnered with his wife, Renee, to create Sur La Table, which bills itself the ultimate place for kitchen exploration and discovery and had grown to one of the nation's largest specialty cookware companies by the time they sold it in 2011 to an international investment bank. Behnke's late uncle, David (Ned) Skinner, is a Hall of Fame laureate.
          
                                               

 

Artie Buerk 

--Buerk, who became known as the "catalyst of ventures and connector of people," had many high points in his career. But a key one was when he partnered in the late '70s with old friend Chuck Barbo to build Shurgard into a nationwide storage company. Barbo was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.

 

 

Donald Nielsen 

--Nielsen, who teamed with Kirby Cramer to co-found what became the world's largest contract biological and chemical research and testing company, Hazleton Laboratories Corp. Nielsen joins Cramer, his frequent business
partner over the years, in the Hall of Fame. Cramer was inducted in 2009. 

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The Puget Sound Business Hall of Fame was launched in 1987 by Puget Sound Business Journal and Junior Achievement of Greater Puget Sound to be patterned after the National Business Hall of fame that had been created a decade earlier by Junior Achievement and Fortune Magazine.

After the first Seattle event, where eight honorees included four who had been inducted into the national Business Hall of Fame so were automatic inclusions in the local Hall of Fame, I was asked by several business leaders who wondered if we would have enough prospects to carry on for very many years.

The question has been answered many times over in the three decades since then and the induction of the 2017 foursome will bring to 122 the number of business leaders who have been singled out for the honor. Past honorees have represented virtually every business sector, and while many were lawyers by profession who moved into the top ranks of business and made their impacts, Runstad is the first laureate to be honored for her contributions as an attorney.

Thus the vignettes of each of the laureates that are the feature of the banquet have, because of the extensive research that goes into each of the videos produced by KCPQ-13 as a key partner with JA and PSBJ, have contributed to an understanding of the business history of this region.

And the Q-13 videos, as well as the profiles contained each year in the Business Journal'sspecial editorial section focusing on the Hall of Fame event, represent the history of the Puget Sound business community through the collective stories of the laureates.

The laureates are chosen by a selection committee chaired by Business Journal Publisher Emory Thomas and includes JA Washington President David Moore, Q-13 Vice President Pam Pearson, as well as Neil McReynolds, John Fluke, past laureates Herb Bridge, Woody Howse and the undersigned.

Runstad served on corporate boards, a variety of gubernatorial commissions and, perhaps most prominently, was on the board, and in 1997 chaired, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She was chair of the conference of chairs that year.

She was on the board of directors of Wells Fargo & Co., Potlatch Corp. and Safeco Corp.

She chaired two gubernatorial boards, serving as co-chair of Gov. Gary Locke's Washington Competitiveness Council, and Gov. Christine Gregoire's Global Competitiveness Council, and served as a board member of a half dozen other gubernatorial councils.  

Buerk teamed with Barbo to take a self-storage business they had, renamed it Shurgard, and built a nationwide brand, raising $750 million for expansion through what was described as "a vast constellation of brokered deals." 

He helped take the company public in 1994 then moved on, three years later co-founding the private equity firm, Buerk Craig Victor, which became Buerk Dale Victor and is now Montlake Capital. 

Despite his successes in the corporate world, many will say Buerk will be best remembered for his support of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurism. His own view is that "My whole life has revolved around startups and small businesses, the engines of the Northwest economy." 

That lifelong involvement eventually led to the entrepreneurial center at the University of Washington being named the Arthur W. Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship in honor of both his involvement and of the $5.2 million gift from the Buerks to finance its future.

Nielsen partnered with Kirby Cramer in 1969 to launch Environmental Sciences Corp., a $200,000 startup in a garage. Over the following 14 years, after moving the company to Vienna, VA., the two built what they renamed Hazleton Laboratories Corp., into the world's largest contract biological and chemical research and testing company.

They took Hazleton public in 1983 and it was purchased in 1987 by Corning, which kept Nielsen on as president until 1992, when he retired and turned his focus to education reform, which has remained his focus as he has become a sought-after opinion leader and author on education change.

Behnke, as CEO, guided ALPAC as a Pepsi dealership that, but the time it was purchased by Pepsi, had become the second largest dealership in the nation with revenue in excess of $130 million annually. Then he teamed with his wife, Renee, to build Sur La Table into a national company. He sits on various corporate boards, as well as chairing the Skinner Corporation. The names Behnke and Skinner being among the best-known business and philanthropic families in the region.

Behnke's resume is filled with community and philanthropic involvements, as is the case with the other laureates. It's important to note that laureate selections are based solely on contributions to business and the economy, since other organizations and events focus on philanthropic contributions, although community involvement is part of the life commitment of most laureates chosen over the years.

They're not a band of brothers because, while the Seattle area's three long-respected senior Irish bankers are friends, they are also competitors. But Dineen, Fahey and Patrick, all first named Patrick, are a breed of bankers who have always gauged success by how they did business, rather than how much business they did. As Scott Jarvis, director of the banking-oversight state Department of Financial Institutions, put it: "If we had more folks in the industry like them, we would have less to talk about when it comes to troubled institutions." Reflecting on what happened in their industry as real-estate lending activities began to unravel five years ago and climaxed with the crash that occurred four years ago next month, they collectively shake their heads. The three recall thinking, as they watched the sub-prime mortgage fiasco heating up from their respective vantage points, that "something was really wrong. All agree that, as the banking industry and the economy recover, they have concern that what Patrick Patrick points to as "the fatal inclination that you have to grow," coupled with greed, could lead to history repeating itself. Pat Fahey and Patrick, both now 70, were in retirement at that time after careers building successful banks and turning around troubled ones while Pat Dineen, 71, was a couple of years into the successful launch of Puget Sound Bank, where he was chairman, following his retirement as U.S. Bank's president for Washington. But those memories of retirement are now fading for both Fahey and Patrick as they are immersed in troubled-bank turnaround efforts, Patrick presiding as president and CEO over the comeback of Seattle Bank, where he has brought a $50 million local-investor capital infusion, and Fahey as CEO of First Sound Bank. Both Patrick and Fahey, called from retirement in 2008 as the crisis hit home, found frustration in their first comeback involvements. Patrick took the president/CEO role at deeply troubled Towne Bank in Mesa, AZ, and sank a lot of his own money into the project, only to find it was too far gone to save. And Fahey, then a board member of Frontier Bank in Everett, was pressed by its board as the bank's bad-loan portfolio swelled to oversee the effort to turn it around. But ineptitude (not his words) on the part of regulators scuttled what would have been a successful private-equity capital infusion. Fahey and Dineen were both key statewide executives of Spokane-based Old National Bank before it was acquired by U.S. Bank in the late 1980s. And after his retirement from U.S. Bank, Dineen was succeeded by still another Irishman, Ken Kirkpatrick, who had spent his entire career with the bank. Fahey and Dineen offered some surprisingly candid observations that the aggressive lending of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and basically pressure from certain members of Congress on the two government-sponsored enterprises whose job it was to own or guarantee mortgage obligations, were key parts of the problem. "I think it's fair to say that political and Congressional pressure certainly 'encouraged' Fannie and Freddie to fuel the flood of unconscionable loans that were securitized and sold into the secondary markets, causing further fueling of the 'housing bubble,'" Fahey said. "I have seen video of President Bush and Senator McCain calling for a reigning-in of Fannie and Freddie, and then-Chairman Barney Frank of the House Committee on Financial Services rejecting that notion, asserting that they were doing a fine job," he added. Dineen's view from afar at the time was that "Fannie and Freddie spent an inordinate amount of time lobbying congress. They were in the big time themselves while common sense lenders like Wells Fargo and others trying to slow the growth of Fannie and Freddie, were thwarted by Congress and by the two financial entities who had no interest in slowing down." Patrick also suggested that the seizure of ill-fated Washington Mutual in September of 2008 and is fire sale to JPMorgan Chase were the result of the FDIC deciding to "make an example of someone." "Needless to say they (WAMU) had more than their share of problems and issues - but scapegoats were needed as the 'face' of the problems," Patrick added. " Unfortunately Lehman and WAMU had their photos taken for the necessary posters." Patrick has been doing turnarounds for almost 30 years, starting with Seattle-based Prudential Savings during the savings & Loan crisis of the early '80s, then Seattle's Metropolitan Savings in 1990. As far as concerns about "could it happen again," Patrick suggests that "not only could it happen again, but it's happening now in spades, with pricing again irrational in terms of institutions making term loans at rates that are inappropriate and too much is being lent against some projects, especially multi-family." "That market is almost out of control, from my perspective," Patrick adds. "One thing is for sure: de ja vu must be exciting for some." Fahey agrees, saying "the raging boom in apartment construction and lending may well be a looming problem." "Added to that is the burden of over-reactive legislation and regulation that will very likely stifle lending that could and should be done, as well as cause increased costs that will be passed on to borrowers and consumers of financial services," Fahey adds. "Aggressive banks are looking for growth opportunities and there is only so much real growth potential out there,"Dineen said. "Growing strictly by taking business from your competitors generally indicates that you are doing something a little more aggressive." "Bankers and lenders have short-term memories," Dineen chuckled.

 

"A lot of good my handicapped placard does me since nine times out of 10 times, I can't find an unoccupied handicapped-parking spot," says Thorsen. "And when I hang around waiting for someone to leave, I see obviously non-handicapped persons get in their cars and drive away."

 

Thorsen promises to start a campaign, in the time he has remaining, "to marshal volunteer forces to shame these scofflaws. I'm smart enough to mount a statewide enforcement strategy to curtail these selfish actions."

 

There is a growing irritation at what is seen as "as tremendous amount of abuse" of handicapped placards issued by the state and the sense that the increasing cost of parking in downtown Seattle is leading to illegal use of the placards.

 

Thorsen sent me an email last week after running across a column on the Internet that I did in early 2011 that was aimed at highlighting what actions have been taken, and what hasn't been done, to address the placard-abuse problem..

 

 

And reaction of those like Thorsen, as well as ordinary citizens who are merely irritated on behalf of the handicapped, has led to efforts on the part of the City of Seattle to consider seeking action by the Legislature. As yet the City Council hasn't been able to reach accord with various stakeholders on what form the suggested legislation should take.

 

But a key step toward agreement on a proposal to the Legislature may come Monday when Seattle City Council representatives meet with the head of the Governor's Commission on Disability Issues and Employment, an entity Seattle officials view as an essential partner in any effort to get tougher legislation.

 

Toby Olson, executive secretary of the commission, says he began meetings with Seattle officials earlier this year on finding solutions to reduce the abuse of disability parking placards and strengthen enforcement for disability parking violations.

 

Seattle officials say they are confident about an agreement that will lead to a bill in the 2013 legislature, but that any proposal must take cognizance of state budget constraints.

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Disabled citizens are entitled to park at not only parking spots reserved for the handicapped, but also city-operated paid parking spots without charge. City officials estimate that 40 percent of downtown and First Hill parking spaces are occupied by vehicles displaying handicapped-parking placards.

 

"The police department and state transportation people "estimate that as many as 50 percent of the placards are being illegally used," City Councilman Tim Burgess told me for the 2011 column, noting that amounts to 20 percent of the total parking spots in those areas.

 

State law makes it illegal for anyone but the person to whom the state permit and placard are issued to use placard, tabs, or license plates if the disabled person is not in the vehicle. "You can't let your friends or family borrow them for their own use," advises the state website.

 

Over the past year, the Seattle Department of Transportation has been working with stakeholders, including the Seattle Commission for People with DisAbilities, on putting together a plan that could be submitted to the 2013 Legislature for action.

 

SDOT and the DisAbilities Commission agree on most steps to address the problem, though the commission disagrees with shortening to four hours the time a vehicle using a handicapped placard can park downtown.

 

Interestingly, one of the issues both the city agency and the commission agree on is that the law needs to be more strict with physicians who issue the placards.

 

The Seattle Police Department says that many physicians distribute parking placards "for reasons that may not comply with state criteria" and a key suggestion is adding the name of the issuing physician on each placard.

 

Another person who ran across my column on the Internet sent me an email some months ago saying he did a test with his own doctor following knee surgery from which he explained he is "now walking without discomfort."

 

"I asked my doctor if I could get one of those permits for disability parking. She smiled wryly and said 'well..hmmmm...I suppose you qualify'. WHAT! I can walk without trouble and it is that easy to get a permit for phantom knee pain that was corrected months ago?"

 

City of Seattle, in fact, is apparently asking the King County Medical Association to admonish members about the integrity role in issuing handicapped permits.

 

Interestingly, ala Dick Thorsen's suggestion of mustering volunteers, the use of volunteers to patrol downtown areas in search of handicapped-parking abusers is already legal as a result of legislation a few years ago. Cities in nearly two dozen other states have already adopted a version of using volunteers to help address the problem.

 

In some places, trained volunteers are authorized to issue citations for infractions. But the commission also suggested the volunteers could record the license plate numbers of cars displaying expired placards, or operated by obviously non-handicapped drivers.

 

The idea of using volunteers and authorizing them to issue citations for illegal use of handicapped placards was discussed last fall, but City Council representatives were advised by the city's legal department that further legislation would first be necessary. 

 

For sure the commission and City Department of Transportation agree increased enforcement and higher penalties are essential to curbing abuse, and imposition of harsher penalties, particularly for those caught using a placard issued to someone who has since died.

 

Noting that Seattle police report that finding placards being used that are registered to a person who is deceased is "one of the top methods of abuse," the commission says unequivocally the cars of such drivers should be impounded.

 

The Seattle City Council obviously has much on its plate, including budget issues and things like the proposed new Sodo arena. But the issue of stealing handicapped-parking spots, which is of course what cheaters are doing, deserves to be looked at long enough to frame a legislative proposal since the legislators will only act if they think it's important enough for Seattle to ask.

 

John Buller and H. Stuart Elway, long-time players in the old top-down process of decision-making in Seattle and Washington State, are embarked on separate initiatives whose basic message is that things won't work that way in the future.

 

Both hope to spark new forms of civic engagement aimed at broader inclusion in charting the region's next chapter, but that "broader inclusion" may come in fits and starts, and face challenges before broad acceptance.

 

Buller, a business and civic leader for the past 30 years, summarizes it as "The Seattle Way has to be replaced by a recognition that social media has made the world flat rather than top-down so we have to make discussions about our future much more broad-based."

Or as Elway puts it, :the whole social media thing has the potential to bring us full circle to the original way Democracy got started."

But both would agree that bringing social media integrally into decision making in a manner that doesn't permit a few strident bloggers or vested-interest Internet sites to drown out the crowd ironically requires some strategy and structure.

 

Elway, whose Elway Research Inc. with its interactive polling and opinion-tracking has been a key initiator in helping shape business, policy and governmental decisions since 1975, is seeking to attract interest in what he refers to as "The Next Northwest," though his focus has really become "The Next Washington."

Buller, a member of the board of the Washington Athletic Club and the incoming chair of Seattle Seafair, is one of the Next 50 Ambassadors, a group of civic leaders seeking to promote a series of events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the six-month run of the Seattle World's Fair.

 

But he's carried the idea into an appeal to dramatically embrace social media to gather an array of visions for the region's future, not merely input from established groups.

While Buller is focused specifically on Seattle 50 years hence and Elway's focus is geographically broader, they are both seeking to not just stir interest in discussing the future but in igniting a desire for broad-based involvement in shaping that future.

 

And both agree that social media is the factor that will negate reliance on the old top-down way of making decisions and that, in a sense, a matured social media can represent a return to the way Democracy itself was born - with all having an equal voice in the decisions.

 

Buller is a Nebraska native who came to the University of Washington in 1965 to play basketball, but injuries and illness shortened his career after he led the freshman team in scoring. He wound up as a graduate-assistant coach while he got his MBA.

 

Among his leadership positions, Buller served as senior vice president of marketing at The Bon Marche/Macy's, vice president of alumni relations at UW, head of the local organizing committee for the 1995 NCAA Final Four and CEO at Tully's Coffee.

 

Elway launched his company soon after getting his doctorate in communications from the University of Washington in 1975. His Elway Poll is the only independent, non-partisan, on-going analysis of public opinion trends in Washington state and the Northwest.

 

Buller and Elway have appeared in recent months before various town-hall and organization meetings to tout the need for the region to focus on mapping a plan for the future, each focusing on his ideas for defining the future. But both concede there hasn't been a rush to seize the initiatives they are offering.

 

Both lament the current state of discourse and suggest that the absence of broad involvement in the conversation is a key reason.

 

"We're having this great debate about the role of government and it's being conducted in the most partisan atmosphere imaginable," notes Elway, most of whose research and focus has been on policy matters and government.

 

What he is seeking to achieve with his "Next Northwest" is having a "systematic, statewide conversation about changing expectations for government and institution." Social media would ideally have a large role in those conversations.

 

Buller is even more forceful. "Journalism has turned into spinism. People tend to find the medium that supports their version of the world and they don't need to talk to anyone who disagrees."

 

"We aren't really discussing Seattle's next 50 years," Buller says, suggesting that current debate about the proposed new arena and its possible impact on the Port of Seattle's future are perfect examples of sound-bite decision-making for the near-term without extending to "long-term, do we want to be a global city or a regional city."

 

Buller, has created both a concept document and creative brief to help guide groups, formal or online, wishing to initiate discussions on "The Next 50 - Changing the Way Seattle Looks at the Future."

 

Buller's and Elway's shared vision of the need for a vision, or visions, merits broader attention, particularly in the social-media arena that they understand will be vital to any meaningful discussion.

 

That attention has thus far proved elusive. Or as Elway quipped ruefully, "I can't find the financial support to carry this out so I guess I'll have to win the Powerball to complete it."

When the Puget Sound Business Hall of Fame was created 25 years ago to recognize business leaders from the past who had contributed to the economic growth of the region, some quietly expressed concern that the event might soon run out of past leaders to honor.

 

A quarter century on, as Junior Achievement of Washington and Puget Sound Business Journal prepare to induct four new laureates into the Hall of Fame, it's become clear that the region had no shortage of business leaders to celebrate.

 

In fact, while the event retains the name "Puget Sound," it has grown in the past couple of years to include Eastern Washington business leaders among those eligible for selection.

 

Thus at a time when the quest for heroes in business is perhaps more important than it has ever been, the number of business leaders chosen over the years to be honored at this unique annual event passes 100 Thursday evening when the following four laureates are inducted:

 

 Jim Douglas, who created Northgate as the nation's first shopping center designed as a mall, helped launch Seafair as part of the celebration of Seattle's 100th anniversary and and became the "pitchman" for the vision that became the Space Needle, symbol of Century 21.

 

Edie Hilliard, A radio pioneer as one of the first female general managers of a major market station, who then built one of the nation's largest independent radio networks.

 

Budd Gould, founder and principal owner, and still president, of Anthony's Restaurants, who brought the essence of waterfront dining to communities from Bellingham to Spokane and Richland to Bend.

 

William Ruckelshaus, perhaps the nation's leading environmental figure of the past half century. who served two presidents as administrator of the EPA and also fashioned a career in the private sector as CEO of Browning Ferris Industries and senior vice president of Weyerhaeuser Co. He now is strategic director at Madrona Venture Group.

 

It was the late Jack Ehrig, Seattle ad-agency head and a key supporter of Junior Achievement, who in 1986 approached me, as publisher of PSBJ, about creating a local event that would parallel the national Business Hall of Fame event for which FORTUNE Magazine was the partner of JA.

 

FORTUNE chose the laureates for JA to honor in those years, producing a special insert in the magazine to introduce them to its readers and JA honored the national laureates at a prestigious annual banquet that cities competed for because it attracted some of the biggest names in business nationally.

 

In a similar manner, laureate selection became the role for PSBJ and JA produced the first banquet to honor those selected in 1987.

 

FORTUNE's rule was that honorees had to be retired from day-to-day involvement with the companies where they had built their reputations. That sounded to me like a good way to ensure there wouldn't be any lobbying on behalf of a currently active CEO so that became our rule as well. That also has changed a few years ago with the induction of Eastside business leader and developer Kemper Freeman, still very much active in his business.

 

From the outset, I populated the selection committee with people who were not only business icons in their own right, but also understood far more about business history than I did. Thus each annual selection gathering became a lesson in local business lore.

 

And it was the insight of those members of the selection committee, including from the outset longtime community and business leader Jim Ellis, who personally knew more than half a century worth of the prospects, that brought forward well-known and not-so-well-known names from the past.

 

Because of the prominence of JA Seattle in the national organization, particularly because we had built what many viewed as the best local hall of fame program in JA, it became logical for the Seattle JA leadership to seek to have the national event in Seattle.

 

That finally occurred in 1992, which happened to be the year that Steve Jobs, then between jobs since he had been edged out of Apple a few years earlier, was a laureate. But Jobs, with typical unpredictability, apparently decided he didn't care to head up to Seattle from Silicon Valley for the event and the word spread the day of the banquet that he wouldn't be there.

 

But by late afternoon, to the relief of all, it was learned that Jobs had changed his mind and would, in fact, be on hand to accept his award. Only a few insiders were aware that FORTUNE publisher Jim Hayes, a high-visibility figure at the national banquet, had telephone Jobs to advise him that if he failed to show up, his name would never again appear in the magazine.

 

The business leaders of JA Washington in 2008, led by longtime venture capital executive Woody Howse and wine-industry leader Michael Towers, began building a case for the return of the national event to Seattle.

 

But it soon became clear, as the Great Recession got its grip on the nation's financial throat, that the world had changed. National gatherings of business leaders for something like a Hall of Fame banquet, and the significant corporate financial support necessary to carry it off, soon seemed unrealistic. None has been held since then.

 

But the JA Puget Sound Business Hall of Fame remains a viable and important reminder each year of the role successful business leaders can play in representing role models for the business leaders of today and the young people of JA who will be the business leaders of tomorrow.

 

John Torrance, whose vision for a retractable-roof stadium in Seattle led to the eventual construction of Safeco Field, has come up with a detailed plan for construction of a new arena and convention center on the Seattle waterfront.

 

Torrance, a senior vice president for CBRE, the commercial real estate giant, has guided creation of a plan that would turn 88 acres of Port of Seattle's Terminal 46 into a convention center and an arena, with provisions for a new cruiseship terminal and waterfront park.  The arena could house the NBA and NHL teams that Seattle covets and the convention center would be designed to catapult Seattle up the list of convention cities.

 

Torrance is unveiling his idea as an advisory panel prepares to deliver a report to Seattle City Council and King County Council on a plan by Chris Hansen, San Francisco hedge-fund manager and former Seattleite, to build an arena on property he has acquired south of Safeco Field.

 

And it also comes in the wake of word last week that the port is suffering a major loss of business to Port of Tacoma in July when three shipping lines, representing 20 percent of Port of Seattle business, relocate south.

 

Torrance suggests that the shift of major port business may help make the case that development rather than maritime represents the Seattle waterfront activity of the future. He hasn't yet discussed that with port officials or commissioners, on whom pressures to maintain the maritime focus come from longshoremen who would face the loss of jobs and traditionalists who wish to retain the working-waterfront character.

 

While Torrance's plan may seem like an eleventh-hour idea given the discussions of recent weeks about the proposal Hansen recently unveiled and has been vetting,  it's actually something he began investigating about two years ago, he says. And he's worked with architects and planners to put together detailed drawings in recent months.

 

He's already had early discussions with city and county officials and port representatives

and hopes to make contact with Hansen as well to outline the plan and seek to gather support.

 

"The Seattle area has twin needs to help ensure its long-term economic vitality. One is an arena that has the capacity to attract NBA and NHL franchises and the other is a convention center with the capacity to boost Seattle into major-league convention ranks," Torrance offered.

 

"Hansen deserves credit for coming up with a possible plan to address the arena issue but what we're hoping to do is address both arena and convention center on a potentially world-class site, without any risk of taxpayer obligation.

 

Ironically, the plan details he will be unveiling for the first time late this month before Seattle's 101 Club comes as the city prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Seattle World's Fair whose U.S. Pavilion became the arena that his father intended would be the venue to lure an NHL franchise.

 

His father, the late Torchy Torrance, knew the NHL required a 15,000-seat arena for any hoped-for franchise, and thought the new arena that would be left after Century 21 concluded would meet that requirement. But to the horror of the senior Torrance and NHL proponents, the completed facility seated 12,200.

 

It was the younger Torrance, a longtime leader in the commercial real estate industry, who first proposed a retractable-roof stadium for Seattle in the early '90s after visiting Toronto and conferring with officials there about that city's Skydome.

 

I remember when he first mentioned to me back in 1993 the idea of the retractable-roof stadium to replace the enclosed Kingdome, I was among those who muttered a quiet "good luck."

 

But Torrance is a dreamer with follow through and influence. He soon came up with the name "StarDome" for the retractable-roof concept and that helped provide a vision and thus momentum, and believers. Those included owners of the Seattle Mariners, who by the mid-90s realized the Kingdome would not be sufficient as a baseball facility into the future and began pressing elected officials for the new stadium..

 

Torrance's Terminal 46 plan may catch the interest of Seattle and King County elected officials edgy about any assurances from Hansen of taxpayer safeguards into the future. The one certainty for those public officials is that taxpayers in the county have made it clear they don't want to pay for an arena or a convention center so elected officials know not to go there.

 

While Torrance's idea for the project and in-depth discussions in Vancouver, Boston and San Diego were at his own initiative, he would undoubtedly have the resources of CBRE, a national player that is the largest commercial real estate firm in the state, to support his efforts.

 

"We hope we'd attract financing and CBE has access to a lot of clients who could wind up involved in a program to develop the site," Torrance adds.

 

Development that could create thousands of jobs and bring in millions of dollars in tourism revenue, plus open the door to two major league sports franchises, rather than continued maritime use of the pier, should be a preferred option, Torrance says.

 

While the idea for the project and in-depth discussions in Vancouver, Boston and San Diego were at his own initiative, Torrance would undoubtedly have the resources of CBRE, a national player that is the largest commercial real estate firm in the state, to support his efforts.

 

"We hope we'd attract financing and CBE has access to a lot of clients who could wind up involved in a program to develop the site," Torrance adds.

 

He says he's seeking to have conversations with Hansen, who has already invested in the site he's proposing for an arena, in the hope of "moving him over to the site we're proposing, since our development idea would add enough value to the property he's buying to allow him to recover his investment."

 

Torrance estimates that the port could generate up to $25 million annually from leasing activity and hotel developments, based on what's generated for the Port of San Diego. "That's about 10 times what the container business generates," he says.

 

As his original retractable-roof idea and the stadium that came about saved major league baseball for Seattle, his newest concept patterned after developments in Vancouver, San Diego and Boston could turn out to be the most workable plan for new hockey and basketball franchises. And along with that a dramatic new major convention facility.