Western Benefit Solutions opens office in Snake River Landing

Matt Hansen

Western Benefit Solutions is now in its permanent Idaho Falls office, at 950 Pier View Drive, Suite C, next to Liberty Mutual in Snake River Landing.

The Boise-based company is Idaho’s largest employee benefit consulting and brokerage firm, advising clients on how to manage health insurance costs.  The head of the Idaho Falls office is Matt Hansen, who before he joined WBS owned and managed Insight Financial, a company he helped found in 2003.

WBS is the state's largest broker in the public sector and the only brokerage firm with Idaho based, in-house legal and HR resources. Among the advantages it advertises are in-house health care reform experts, in-house underwriters, strong leverage in the marketplace and HIPAA compliance. For over five years, it has been ranked as one of the top 10 largest and most productive employee benefit brokerage firms in the United States by the trade publication Business Insurance.

The company's Web address is http://www.westben.com/. The phone number for the Idaho Falls office is (208) 542-1233

EIRMC officer receives appointment as ACHE regent

Sandee Moore

Sandee Moore, chief operations officer at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center, has been appointed to the American College of Healthcare Executives' Council of Regents, its legislative body.

ACHE is an international professional society of more than 35,000 healthcare executives. As a member of the council, Moore represents Idaho healthcare organizations and their interests with the national ACHE organization. She was elected by her professional peers in the state.

Moore will take office March 17, during ACHE’s 55th Congress on Healthcare Leadership, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.

Moore has been at EIRMC since 2010. In addition to her duties as COO, she directly leads several departments, including medical imaging, pharmacy, laboratory, therapy services, plant operations, nutrition services and environmental services and EIRMC’s Behavioral Health Center. Before coming to Idaho Falls, she was associate administrator at Sunrise Medical Center, a 700-bed hospital in Las Vegas, Nev.

Born and raised in Caldwell, she earned her B.A. in 2003 from Idaho State University, where she still serves on the alumni board.  She later earned her M.A. from the University of Colorado, and was named the university’s Outstanding MBA Student and winner of the Health Programs Director’s Award.

She is also a board member of the Idaho Falls Domestic Violence Intervention Center.

Jan. 17, 2012 radio interview

I've been meaning to post this all week, but here, finally, is the link to my Tuesday morning conversation with Tim Lewis on NewsTalk Radio, 690 and 1260 on the AM dial. I visit Tim every Tuesday during the 8 a.m. hour to talk about what I see going on around town. The point is to promote this blog.

This has been a big week for BizMojo Idaho. On Friday we had 323 pageviews, smashing the previous high, 210, by a wide margin. I was surprised by the reaction I got to the piece I posted Tuesday about Galen Bush, an agent with Keller-Williams East Idaho who died unexpectedly on Jan. 14. After less than a week, it turned out to be the secondmost viewed story in this blog's history. I had debated posting anything, but figured if it was worth doing if it had any chance of helping Galen's family. Obviously a lot of people knew Galen and cared about him.

I am becoming more and more fascinated by how blogging can serve the purposes of community journalism. I'm not doing much different with this than what I was doing 32 years ago when I was writing, editing and selling ads for the Jeffrey City News in Jeffrey City, Wyo. (a town that no longer exists). Whenever possible, I have always tried to reach out to readers and engage them in conversation, or at least make them feel like they had a relationship with me.

Anyroad, here's the link to my last radio interview, addressing such things as building permits, Dickey's Barbecue Pit and Costco. Give it a listen if you don't have anything better to do. http://www.eastidahonews.com/2012/01/business-expert-talks-about-potential-new-establishments-coming-to-idaho-falls/

Idaho jobless rate continues to drop

There's no need to print the full story here (the link is posted below), but the Idaho Department of Labor reported this morning that the state's unemployment rate dropped again in December. While 8.4 percent still leaves room for improvement, it's safe to say this counts as welcome news.

Statewide, employers hired just over 11,000 new employees, mainly to replace workers who retired or left their jobs for some other reason. Most significantly, it marked the first month since 2008 that employers reported hiring more new employees than they did then.

 

http://labor.idaho.gov/news/NewsReleases/tabid/1953/ctl/PressRelease/mid/2527/itemid/2397/Default.aspx

Idaho Falls company plans $125 million facility in New Mexico, seeks NRC license

Steve T. Laflin, International Isotopes
President and CEO

International Isotopes Inc. is a company I have followed with interest for years not because it's high profile but because I think it exemplifies the sort of business that keeps the local economy humming.

It has its roots in the Idaho National Laboratory, but left the reservation years ago. Located north of Idaho Falls off St. Leon Road, its focus today is on nuclear medicine calibration and reference standards, high purity fluoride gases and cobalt-60 products. The company also provides radioisotopes and radiochemicals for medical devices, calibration, clinical research, life sciences, and industrial applications. It provides analytical, measurement recycling, and processing services to clients.

This week the Nuclear Regulatory Commission started the public notification and comment period on the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the $125 million uranium deconversion facility International Isotopes is planning to build in New Mexico. As a part of the comment process, the NRC has scheduled a Feb. 2 meeting in Hobbs, N.M. Comments on the project will be taken until Feb. 27. The application and information about the NRC license review process are available on the NRC website at http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/inisfacility.html. 

Steve T. Laflin, International Isotopes'  president and CEO, said he anticipates a license for the facility sometime this summer.  "In the next few months, the exact timing of the NRC license issuance will become much clearer and allow the company to complete financing and start construction on this important project," he said.

Last year the company applied for a $97 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy, which approved the first of a two-part application in June 2010. The loan comes from the department’s renewable-energy technology development program, which evaluates whether the technology might reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"Our patented fluorine extraction process uses seven times less energy than conventional industrial
processes for making hydrofluoric acid," Laflin told blogger Dan Yurma of Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes. "This means we can show reductions of six million pounds of carbon dioxide a year over the life of the plant."