Navigating Cedar Rapids commercial real estate

 For The Gazette of Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, Iowa March 04, 2022

(Jim Slosiarek photo/The Gazette)

The state of things for the Cedar Rapids’ metro area’s commercial real estate for 2022 likely will look a lot as they did in 2021, according to a new report from GLD Commercial.

“Throughout the pandemic, the local office market has remained relatively stable,” David Drown, GLD principal and founding member, noted in the report.

“Many small employers are now back in the office while the metro’s largest employers continue to be slow to return to pre-pandemic occupancy levels. Expect a continued hybrid of remote and in-office work as we navigate further into 2022.”

Balance, branding key for small businesses, Almost Famous Popcorn CEO says

For The Gazette of Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, Iowa

(Jimmy Centers photo/Cornerstone Public Affairs)

Sydney Rieckhoff, CEO and co-owner of Cedar Rapids-based Almost Famous Popcorn, took away a long list of “action items” she gathered during the 10,000 Small Businesses Summit in Washington, D.C.

But chiefly, she said by phone Wednesday during a break in sessions, “At a high level, I feel really renewed. We’ve all been through a lot lately,” citing the pandemic, hiring challenges, inflation and supply chain issues affecting all small business owners.

Rieckhoff and 27 other Iowa-based small business leaders were among the 2,500 10,000 Small Businesses alumni who attended the Goldman Sachs-sponsored two-day event this past Tuesday and Wednesday, at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center and at Nationals Park.

Video interviews and panels

 For The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Beginning in 2020 and in earnest in 2021, The Gazette's Business Awards and Business Breakfast events as well as the annual Iowa Ideas Conference moved online. Here is a chat I had with Dr. Kathryn Anne Edwards, an economist wth Rand Corporation, as our keynote interview for the 2021 Business Awards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWUCMecGKG0

For our In-Depth Week focus on workforce issues, ahead of our big Iowa Ideas Conference, I spoke with Andy Challenger of Challenger, Gray and Christmas for his observations on hiring and retention nationwide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sBTQ9yRYzQ

I’ve moderated quite a few business-specific panels, and this is one from November 2021 on workplace issues — in the office and on the factory floor —looking ahead to 2022. It turned into a pretty lively discussion: https://www.thegazette.com/special-events/business-breakfast-series-november/

Here are a couple of the panels I moderated for that 2021 In-Depth Week, on barriers to employment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQpXq3RwzGI

And on hiring during the pandemic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8BfoF-_p1E

Opinion: Editorial cartoon — “And here with a rebuttal …”

From Business Direct Weekly, Oct. 12, 2006

Kent County leads the state in car-deer crashes. Stressing passenger safety, AAA Michigan touts the slogan, “Don’t veer for deer.”

New Raytheon Technologies sees ‘no significant’ job cuts after merger; senators to meet with officials

For the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City Gazette   June 11, 2019

[This article was one of a half-dozen stories I reported and/or curated over several days beginning on a Saturday evening, ahead of and directly following the announcement of a proposed merger involving Cedar Rapids’s largest employer.]

While Raytheon Technologies — the new aerospace and defense technology giant to be birthed from the proposed merger of United Technologies Corp. and Raytheon Co. — would retain “corporate presence” in their respective existing communities, what that will look like for UTC’s Collins Aerospace in Cedar Rapids and other Iowa cities remains to be spelled out.

'When it comes to raising children, nothing beats bribery,' and other words of advice

For the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City Gazette   April 07, 2019

Roz Chast (Bill Hayes photo)

This Tuesday won’t be the first time New Yorker magazine cartoonist Roz Chast has been to Iowa, actually.

Her husband’s family has a farm in Story County, and she recalled that visit as having been very pleasant and, she said, “very mysterious.” She noted the unfamiliar flat land and distant horizons.

“I remember seeing a tractor — how big it was!” Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Chast said with a chuckle during a recent phone interview from her home in Connecticut. “It was very strange.”

Arts: Friends and Family: The Wyeths’ at Kalamazoo Institute of Arts host breathtaking works

For the Kalamazoo Gazette 01-31-11

Collection of the Farnsworth Art Museum, Museum Purchase, 1989.Portrait of a place: The exhibition "The Wyeths: America's Artists" includes this N.C. Wyeth painting "Bright and Fair - Eight Bells,"1936, oil on canvas; 42 3/8 by 52 inches, which is from the Collection of the Farnsworth Art Museum.

KALAMAZOO — In “Turkey Pond,” a white-haired man strides through thigh-high sage-colored grass. His back is straight, his head up, as he moves away from us and, determinedly, toward a dark stream in the distance.

Andrew Wyeth’s 1944 tempura painting may be the first of the larger images that catches your eye as you enter the Kalamazoo Institute of Art’s incredible “The Wyeths: America’s Artists.” But it certainly is not the only striking piece here.

Among the 90-some works are paintings and drawings by N.C. Wyeth the patriarch; three of his children, Henriette, Carolyn and Andrew; and Andrew’s son, Jamie. On view are farm buildings, trees, neighbors and animals — roosters, horses, dogs and lots of cats. There is much to admire.