(0)n YOUR CONTACT Amy Pelishek, assistant managing editor 920-993-1000, ext. 286 e-mail: pcbusinesspostcrescent.com D-8 www.postcrescent.com The Post-Crescent Tuesday, April 25, 2006 MARKET WATCH BUSINESSES BRIGHTEN UP, SAVE ON ENERGY COSTS April 24, 2006 Dow Jones industrials 11,336.32 Nasdat, 43gJ. composite 2,333.38 Standard Poor's 500 June launch set for Pull-Ups aimed to ease training time 7't 7 rL ll I parents to see a response from their child because of the cooling effect and turn it into an opportunity for coaching them on potty training. K-C spokesman Joey Mooring said the extra absorbency in the nighttime training pants will make things easier for parent and child overnight. A study by the Milwaukee-based Medical College of Wisconsin, which had a 60 percent response rate, found that switching back and forth at night between diapers and training pants confused children and slowed down the process, he said.
"So now parents don't have to switch back and forth," said Mooring. "They can use the same training pant to make the training experience consistent." K-C, which employs about 5,000 in the Fox Cities, is a global supplier of brands like Kleenex, Scott, Kotex and Huggies. Pete Bach can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext 430, or by e-mail at pbachpostcrescentcom; By Pete Bach Post-Crescent staff writer Kimberly-Clark Corp. on Monday unveiled two new products the company hopes will help parents potty train their children will hit store shelves in June. The Pull-Ups Training Pants with Cool Alert have a coolness zone that toddlers will feel within seconds of becoming wet and are designed to help them learn to stay dry.
The Pull-Ups Night Time Training Pants have extra absorbency to help maintain potty training consistency at night. Thomas J. Falk, chairman and chief executive officer of the Dalla-based company, said in a statement that the new products are part of a "busy calendar of (product) launch activity the next several months across all our businesses. They'll contribute to a better potty training experience for moms and dads and their children." The company said the Cool Alert pants allow Photo for The Post-Crescent by Wm. Glasheen BOB SCHEUERS, of Town and Country Electric, installs a new two-lamp light with a reflective backing where a four-lamp unit used to be in the offices of Kobussen Buses Ltd.
in Kaukauna. lighting updates can pay for themselves on bills, rebates Consumers upbeat about economy tffef. Power down Actions that will reduce electricity use: Turn off lights, equipment when not in use. Program thermostats and energy management systems. Install the most efficient lighting; use control devices.
Maintain heating, ventilating and air conditioning equipment Monitor monthly energy bills. Source: Focus on Energy OntheWeb Wisconsin's Focus on Energy: www.focusonenergy.com 1,308.11 Russell tuw 766.14 Source: Associated Press Wireless stock listings orvm For updated quotes, rmi send a text mes-UJ sage with the stock ticker symbol (such as KMB, for Kimberly-Clark) or fund ticker symbol (e.g., AGTHX) to 44636 (4INFO). Stocks drop on weak dollar, earnings reports NEW YORK -Stocks declined modestly Monday as a weakening U.S. dollar and a mixed batch of earnings reports led cautious investors to cash in on last week's gains. Investors largely ignored any good news as they readied for Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke's congressional testimony and the gross domestic product reading later this week.
See stocks tables, D-7 BUSINESS BRIEFS Green Bay supper club nowsportsthemepub GREEN BAY The Stratosphere Supper Club is no more, but the restaurant business in the more than 100-year-old building at 2850 Humboldt Road will continue. The owners have remodeled and renamed it Cliffhangers Grill Pub, with a sports theme. "We wanted a wider array of people and clientele," said Troy Metzler, one of the restaurant's managers. Over the years, the establishment was known by various names, including The Stratosphere and Highpoint supper clubs, Schu Schu's and The Bungalow. MidwestAirreports smallerquarterloss MILWAUKEE Citing an improvement in nonfuel costs, Midwest Air Group Inc.
reported a net loss of $8.7 million today for the first quarter of year compared with one of $15.9 million during the same period a year ago. The Milwaukee-based holding company that operates Midwest Airlines and Midwest Connect said it had a loss of 49 cents per share compared with 91 cents in the same quarter last year. Midwest Air said operating revenue increased 34.6 percent from $112.0 million to $150.7 million. Sun Microsystems CEO McNealy steps down SAN FRANCISCO -Scott McNealy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems said Monday he would step down immediately as chief executive of the company he has led since 1984. Jonathan Schwartz, the company's president, will retain that position and take over as chief executive, company officials said.
McNealy, 51, whose vision of large, networked computers helped shape today's Internet, will remain as Sun's chairman. From P-C services Page editor: Joy Wick By Pete Bach Post-Crescent staff writer A Neenah retailer said new lighting has been illuminating in several ways. "I say we're doing business in high definition," said Brian Webb, an owner of Kruegers True Value, 999 Win-neconne Ave. "It's brighter and cleaner and I think the merchandise looks better on the shelves." The store just finished a lighting replacement at a cost of $120,000. Owners expect the project to pay for itself in savings in three years, and maybe sooner considering another benefit.
"It doesn't generate as much heat so we anticipate saving on our cooling costs as well," said Webb. Whether large or small, electricity is one of the largest operating the cooling cycle. "We're buying smart up front," said George Fickau, the firm's quality manager. "Because of the fine printing, we do we need fairly brilliant lighting, but we need to do it efficiently. We work with Focus on Energy to make some of the decisions (and) to stay up to date on what's new in the market, and they influence See ENERGY, D-7 search Center in a state-.
ment. But it doesn't mean that the nation's merchants see a clear road ahead. Job growth has been solid, but consumers are dealing with gasoline prices that have risen to around $3 a gallon recently and are expected to increase during the heavy summer driving season. Meanwhile, sales of previously owned homes edged up slightly in March but not enough to keep the inventory of unsold homes from hitting a record high as the once-booming housing market continued to flash signals of a slowdown. The National Association of Realtors said Tuesday that sales of existing homes edged up a tiny 0.3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.92 million units.
ground grew in aircraft, routes, and revenue. Whiteside said his boss won the loyalty of his employees, but even more, "He created friendships with people that were unbelievable." Many former employees would come to company picnics just to see Wilbourne and his wife, Kitty, who was considered a part of the Air Wisconsin family. Like he was with reporters, he was straightforward with employees, including the union workers who respected his candor in negotiations, Whiteside said. "He didn't have any real secrets. He just laid things on the line, and that's why people liked him so." Arlen Boardman is the retired business editor of The Post-Crescent.
He can be contacted at The Associated Press NEW YORK- Consumers shrugged off higher gasoline prices in April and sent a widely watched barometer of consumer confidence to its highest level in almost four years, a private research group said today. But the New York-based Conference Board warned that if fuel prices continue to rise, it would cast a pall on consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of all U.S. economic activity. The Conference Board said that its consumer confidence index rose to 109.6, up from a revised 107.5 in March. April's reading was the highest since the index touched 110.3 in May 2002.
"Improving present-day conditions continue to boost consumers' spirits," said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Re stretched across the table, as he moved ready aircraft and rested crews to handle routes to O'Hare International Airport and other destinations. "He was fantastic at that," Zuehlke said. "That made the airline because we (on the board) didn't know how to do that." Whiteside, who had worked with Wilbourne for a short time on a special aviation project in Florida in the early 1960s, was recruited in 1968 to be Air Wisconsin's sales manager. He retired only a few months after Wilbourne did in 1990. He also benefited from working for a congenial boss.
Wilbourne didn't scream and holler and reprimand, but he managed to get a first-rate performance out of the work force, which expanded steadily as Air Wisconsin Wilbourne's easy demeanor got Air Wisconsin off the Workplace A weekly look at careers and office life "The most effective companies are those that do it on an ongoing basis. They don't wait for the prices to spike." TIM DANT0IN, an energy adviser for Focus on Energy costs that businesses face. Large manufacturers like Coating Excellence International, an eight-year-old Wrightstown manufacturer of flexible packaging, has relied on Wisconsin's Focus on Arlen RAQPflmSII WUUI UIIIUII Vi, I ways a very nice person." Watson Whiteside, recruited by Wilbourne and vice president of marketing under him, echoed that sentiment: "He was a father to the employees; he treated them all like family." I will "third" that. As a general reporter in the early 1970s and business editor in the 1980s and 1990s, I got the same treatment. He had no guile that I could detect, and he was always a very cordial interview, giving me so much information, I sometimes thought he was telling me more than Energy program for a money-saving strategy.
"The most effective companies are those that do it on an ongoing basis," said Tim Dan-toin, Green Bay, an energy adviser for Focus on Energy. "They don't wait for the prices to spike." Coating Excellence has installed automatic controls on doors, a central system to monitor air temperature and quality and to control a corporate chief execu- tive officer should reveal to a media person. There might be those who would criticize his non-confrontational leadership, but nobody can argue with his success. Under his leadership and that of an able and supportive founding board of directors, Air Wisconsin became one of the premier regional airline carriers, with 32 aircraft at its peak in the 1980s. Maybe Wilbourne did-, n't have to manage with an iron fist because he was so good at his craft: that of managing the all-important scheduling and coordination of airplanes, regular maintenance, flying crews, routing and airport landing times and the public need.
Retired banker Gus Zuehlke, a key founding With Preston Wilbourne, you could make a case for the nice guy finishing first. He was a national figure in the burgeoning commuter and regional airline world of the 1970s and 1980s, but, for those who knew him and perhaps worked for him, he is remembered, first and foremost, as paternalistic and nurturing. Wilbourne died last week at age 8 1 He was the first employee of Air Wisconsin Airlines, hired in 1965, and he ran it for two decades, most of the time as chairman, president and chief executive officer. Said 1973 summer college-break employee Holly Brandewie, who worked as assistant to his secretary: "Preston was always a gentleman; he was al- director and stockholder of Air Wisconsin, said finding and hiring Wilbourne with his scheduling Wilbourne experience was critical to the success of the airline. He said the board was made up of local business people, who were pilots, but they knew nothing about running an airline.
Wilbourne had worked for Piedmont Airlines on the East Coast as a station agent, and also in Piedmont jobs in reservations, scheduling, tariffs, operational planning, and administration. At Air Wisconsin, Zuehlke remembered the early, pre-computer days when Wilbourne would have, spreadsheets.
