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Qayaq Co-Op Campaigns on Kickstarter for $25K To Build High-Tech, Indigenous Boats

By Ralph Richardson, Indian Country Today Media Network

When Traditional Culture Meets High-Tech Construction, The People Can Qayaq Forward

More than 10,000 years ago, Eskimos constructed the first kayaks from stitched seal and other animal skins by stretching them across a wood or whalebone-skeleton frame. Called skin boats, they used them to hunt on the inland lakes, rivers and coastal waters of the Arctic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean.

Today, kayaking is one of the fastest growing sports in North America, with nearly 8 million active participants in the U.S. alone, up from 3.5 million just 10 years ago, according to the National Sporting Goods Association.

With its rising popularity, David Michael Karabelnikoff (Aleut/Athabaskan) noticed kayaking equipment was primarily being mass-produced. So, in August 2012, Karabelnikoff established Qayaq Co-Op with co-founders Julian Jacobes and Martin Leonard III.

The Co-Op’s mission is twofold, Karabelnikoff explains: To inspire a movement in Southeast Alaska to revitalize canoe building and paddling, while encouraging youth to learn science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and to produce top quality kayaks that elite athletes would seek for their own use on the water. While the nonprofit embraces traditional Native craftsmanship, it also updates the kayaks, canoes, and skin boats with digital manufacturing and fabrication technology.

Karabelnikoff explains that the first aim, “is to provide high quality digitally fabricated and individually customized Qayaqs. We do this by providing high school and college apprenticeship programs to be mentored by master boat builders in digital fabrication and traditional boat building, which will help in placing jobs for the apprentice.”

These apprentices, or young Qayaq builders, measure the person who will be using the boat with a biometric model produced with a 3-D printer. This allows the apprentice to produce a digital fabrication. After this digital fabrication has been created, the apprentice selects materials and constructs the Qayaq according to the measurements gathered. According to Karabelnikoff, this process provides rich opportunities for learning in all 4 STEM areas.

In addition to working with young apprentices, the company provides kits to schools so that students can assemble their own Qayaqs. Learners can use the process of designing and modeling, as well as the construction of materials, to develop STEM skills. Providing kits to schools also encourages the revitalization of cultural skin boat skills. Karabelnikoff says he wants to match the level of traditional skin boat revitalization that he says is taking place in Greenland.

Karabelnikoff, 31, is focused on helping young people harness their future success. “We provide a culturally relevant context to digital fabrication,” he says, “which improves apprentices’ self-esteem, and establishes a basis for long-lasting success. By learning the skills needed to build a Qayaq, the apprentice will earn the pieces needed to build his or her own skin boat – the skeleton pieces, the paddles, and the skin. We provide the opportunity for building on a long line of successes.”

An historic Alaska Native qayaq (UA Museum of the North)

Qayaq’s second core mission develops equipment suitable for top-tier elite kayakers. Qayaq’s Bio-Metric personalized kayaks will allow the company to compete for elite customers willing to pay top dollar. He claims his Qayaq’s are not only customized to the buyer’s size, they are also socially responsible because they engage young people in positive work, and are environmentally responsible because kayaks encourage traditional boating.

While young people in local schools and who work as apprentices have benefited from association with Karabelnikoff’s non-profit, Qayaq Co-Op has put together a Kickstarter campaign to train at-risk youth, especially Alaska Native youth. With funding from the campaign, Karabelnikoff wants to develop a culturally relevant social enterprise. This initiative would provide workforce development training and digital fabrication training for at-risk youth, particularly those who are Alaska Native. As is the case with Qayaq Co-Op, this Kickstarter campaign also aims to demonstrate a positive image of Alaska Native cultures to the broader community.

In addition to targeting at-risk youth, Karabelnikoff wants to jumpstart the development of an Anchorage-based maker space, a community-oriented, physical place, where people can collaborate on Native projects. He also needs to purchase digital manufacturing tools and secure space for prototyping and fabrication. With these initiatives in place, Karabelnikoff hopes to generate support for building community-based businesses related to kayaking. Currently, Qayaq’s Kickstarter campaign, which ends Friday, May 18, is about $20,000 short of its goal.

Karabelnikoff says, “Apathy is a difficult one to overcome, especially in meager beginnings. The cynical say that there are not enough young people interested in our traditional skin boats, that aluminum skiffs with power motors are the only thing youth are interested in.”

The Qayaq Co-Op is determined to show the world how hungry urban Alaska Natives are for culture and a connection with the technological understandings of their ancestors. Karabelnikoff says the Qayaq Co-Op is about more than business. “Aleuts are Survivors. We are descended from one of the longest lasting civilizations on the planet, spanning thousands of years. In less than 50 years the population went from 20,000 to 2,000. Now we stand in the doorway between oblivion and revitalization; at times I do feel that the place where I come from doesn’t exist anymore. Then I hear the call from the future generations and answer it with the only prayer I know, one to be guided by my ancestors.”

Support Qayaq Co-op on Kickstarter at http://kck.st/ZfKJwK.

County leadership still in limbo

Aaron Reardon has yet to formalize his resignation, which muddles the process for an appointment and election.

Snohomish County Sheriff John Lovick and state Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip, have put forward their names seeking the position

By Noah Haglund, The Herald

EVERETT — The timing of Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon’s May 31 resignation has been a head-scratcher since he announced it in February.

If Reardon had opted to step down before the official candidate-filing period began this week, the county could have scheduled a special election in November to fill the two-plus years remaining on his term.

For that reason, some political insiders have speculated that Reardon would move up his resignation date. All the more so because the scandals dogging the executive have only grown since Feb. 14, when The Herald published a story linking two Reardon staffers to public records requests and attack websites targeting their boss’ enemies. Reardon has said he was unaware of the activity.

Sunday came and went, without Reardon sending a letter to the County Council formalizing his resignation.

That means whoever is appointed to fill Reardon’s job will serve unchallenged at least into November 2014, when results are certified in a special election expected next year.

Here’s a breakdown of the appointment process:

•Because Reardon is a Democrat in a partisan elected office, the law says it’s up to Snohomish County Democrats to pick three nominees to replace him. The county party’s central committee will forward the names to the County Council.

For the council to start the process, it needs to have written notice from the executive. That had not occurred as of Monday afternoon. Reardon never answered a May 2 letter from the council asking him to submit the letter and make good on his promise to create a seamless transition.

The County Council will have 60 days from the date of the vacancy to make a final selection. If a majority of the council is unable to choose an appointee, the task goes to the governor, who has 30 days to make a decision.

Under the county charter, Reardon’s deputy executive, Gary Haakenson, would be the acting executive for any period between Reardon’s departure and the appointment of his successor.

A special election to fill the remainder of Reardon’s term would occur on Nov. 4, 2014.

The person appointed executive can run in the special election and will serve until those results are certified. That’s due to happen on Nov. 25, 2014.

An election for the full, four-year term is scheduled in 2015.

The appointment and the special election would not count toward the candidate’s term limits. An executive may serve no more than three consecutive four-year terms.

So far, Snohomish County Sheriff John Lovick and state Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip, have put forward their names seeking the position. Lovick appears to have sewn up support from a majority of local Democrats. The party continues to seek a third nominee, said Richard Wright, chairman of Snohomish County Democrats.

NTSB: Get tougher on drunken driving

Ann Heisenfelt/AP - NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman at a news conference in Washington in February. Federal officials were weighing a recommendation that states reduce their threshold for drunken driving from the current .08 blood alcohol level to .05 — Ann Heisenfelt/AP – NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman at a news conference in Washington in February. Federal officials were weighing a recommendation that states reduce their threshold for drunken driving from the current .08 blood alcohol level to .05

By Ashley Halsey III,

The Washington Post

Published: May 14

States may consider lowering the standard for drunken driving to the level of a single dry martini after a recommendation Tuesday from the National Transportation Safety Board.

The NTSB (National Transportation and Safety Board) wants state legislatures to drop the measure from the current blood-alcohol level of .08 to .05, about that caused by a dry martini or two beers in a 160-pound person. The .08 standard could allow the same person to drive legally after two beers or a couple of margaritas, according to a University of Oklahoma calculator.

“The research clearly shows that drivers with a BAC above 0.05 are impaired and at a significantly greater risk of being involved in a crash where someone is killed or injured,” said NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman. “Our goal is to get to zero deaths, because each alcohol-impaired death is preventable. They are crimes. They can and should be prevented. The tools exist. What is needed is the will.”

The NTSB has no authority to impose its recommendations, but it provides an influential voice in the setting of safety standards. The board’s proposal got an immediate positive response from an organization of state highway safety officials.

“NTSB’s action raises the visibility of drunk driving and we will consider their recommendations,” said Jonathan Adkins of the Governors Highway Safety Association, while underscoring that the group continues to support the .08 level.

Advocates for the beer and liquor industry reacted negatively to the recommendation.

“While obviously the NTSB doesn’t make policy, states take their recommendations very seriously,” said Sarah Longwell of the American Beverage Institute, which lobbies for the industry on the state and national levels.

She denounced the recommendation as “terrible.”

“Between .05 and .08 is not where fatalities are occurring. This is like, people are driving through an intersection at 90 miles an hour and so you drop the speed limit from 35 to 25; it doesn’t make any sense,” Longwell said. “This is something that is going to have a tremendously negative impact on the hospitality industry while not having a positive impact on road safety.”

Longwell said the average blood-alcohol level in alcohol-related traffic fatalities is 0.16.

Almost 10,000 people are killed — and 173,000 injured — each year in drunken driving crashes, the NTSB said. Although improvements in auto and highway safety, as well as effective crackdowns on drunken driving, have produced a decline in roadway fatalities in recent years, about 30 percent of all traffic deaths continue to be alcohol-related.

“Most Americans think that we’ve solved the problem of impaired driving, but in fact, it’s still a national epidemic,” Hersman said. “On average, every hour one person is killed and 20 more are injured.”

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a insurance industry research group, confirmed Tuesday that the risk of impairment to driving can occur well before a drinker reaches the .08 level.

“We would expect some effect if states lowered the threshold to .05, but since no state has passed such a law, it hasn’t been evaluated here,” said Anne T. McCartt, the institute’s senior vice president for research. “One difficulty in the U.S. is enforcement. Impairment begins well before the classic signs of impairment may become evident to a police officer, like a driver weaving. Since testing for impairment follows arrest, not the other way around, enforcing such a law would be a hurdle.”

The NTSB said almost 440,000 people have died in accidents tied to drinking in the past three decades.

In findings released with its recommendations Tuesday, the NTSB said that alcohol levels as low as .01 have been found to impair driving skills, and that a level of .05 has been “associated with significantly increased risk of fatal crashes.”

The board said a .05 limit would significantly reduce crashes and deaths.

In a recommendation made last year, the NTSB asked states to require ignition interlocks for all drivers convicted of drunken driving.

Longwell said the recommendation of a .05 limit for all drivers had implications for another emerging technology. A prototype vehicle expected to undergo testing later this year will be equipped with passive devices that eventually could be standard features in all vehicles, to test how much a would-be driver has had to drink.

“Where are they going to set this technology?” Longwell said. “They’ve been saying it’s .08. Well, the question is, if you lower the legal limit, where do you set the technology in all cars?”

Tulalip woman indicted in daughter’s death

By Scott North, The Herald

TULALIP — A Tulalip mother could spend a minimum 30 years behind bars if convicted as charged in the Oct. 8 neglect death of her young daughter.

A federal grand jury in Seattle on Tuesday indicted Christina D. Carlson with second-degree murder and criminal mistreatment charges. Her arraignment is scheduled May 23.

Federal prosecutors allege that Carlson, 36, all but abandoned her 19-month-old daughter Chantel Craig and her other daughter, 3, in a parked car on the Tulalip Indian Reservation.

Chantel was found dying in a car seat, covered in feces and lice. An autopsy determined she was dehydrated and suffered from severe malnutrition. The older girl also suffered from lack of care and malnutrition.

In the hours before Chantel was found, Carlson allegedly was sending text messages, attempting to find drugs, according to court papers. Tests conducted on the older girl’s hair showed evidence that the girl had been exposed to opiates.

Carlson and the girls had for months been the focus of on-again, off-again searches by state and tribal child welfare workers.

An investigation by Tulalip Tribal Police and the FBI determined Carlson and her children had been living in the car since mid-September. The car was tucked out of the way, down a dirt road on the Tulalip Indian Reservation.

The indictment mirrors charges federal prosecutors sought when Carlson’s case was transferred from tribal court in January.

If convicted as charged, Carlson faces a mandatory minimum 30 years in prison for her daughter’s death, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle.

The criminal mistreatment charges are punishable by up to a decade behind bars.

Federal prosecutors allege that Carlson withheld basic necessities of life from her children. She allegedly told police she hadn’t changed the girls’ diapers in four days because she had run out. Police found a full package of unused diapers in the car’s trunk.

The case already has undergone a review by a team of experts who by law were required to examine the circumstances surrounding Chantel’s death. The panel offered recommendations, but found no “critical errors” on behalf of state Child Administration employees.

Since 2001, the Tulalip Tribes have assumed jurisdiction over criminal matters on the reservation involving Tulalip members and other people who belong to federally recognized tribes.

Federal authorities also have jurisdiction on tribal land to investigate and prosecute more than a dozen major crimes, such as murder, rape, manslaughter and felony child abuse or neglect.

Indian students lose fight for honor song

Chamberlain board denies graduation ceremony request

By: Anna Jauhola, The Daily Republic

Published May 13, 2013, 09:32 PM

CHAMBERLAIN, S.D. — American Indian students will not be recognized with an honor song during this year’s Chamberlain High School graduation ceremony.

The Chamberlain Board of Education voted 6-1 Monday evening at the Chamberlain High School library against a request to allow the song this year.

About 40 people attended the meeting, most of whom raised their hands in favor of starting the tradition of incorporating an honor song into the high school graduation ceremony Sunday.

Board President Rebecca Reimer said a feathering ceremony already was added for a ceremony prior to graduation, and an honor song doesn’t seem necessary.

“Most schools with our demographics have either a feathering ceremony or an honor song,” Reimer said. “Not both.”

She said the seniors and eighth-graders will go through a feathering ceremony at St. Joseph’s Indian School the Friday prior to the high school graduation ceremony. Students who live at St. Joseph’s attend school there until high school, when they go to Chamberlain High. The feathering ceremony is the first of its kind for Chamberlain.

According to the South Dakota Department of Education, 35 percent of Chamberlain School District students are American Indian, or nearly 300 of the school’s approximately 900 students during the 2012-13 academic year.

Students presented a petition to the school board in April to allow an American Indian honor song at the graduation ceremony.

Board members have declined the same request in the past, stating they feel graduation should remain the same as it has for years.

Chris Rodriguez, a senior at Chamberlain High School, was one of the students who started circulating the petition. He said he was upset the school board voted against incorporating the honor song, but respected the decision.

“I will come back to the school board because my sister is coming to school here, too,” he said after the meeting. “I wasn’t just fighting for this year’s seniors. I was fighting for generations after that.”

School board members said they want to make sure graduation is about recognizing educational achievements rather than favoring one culture over another.

Others said the ceremony could become too lengthy or require other cultures to be integrated as well.

“I’d just like to thank the people who got involved with this (petition),” said Casey Hutmacher, board member. “And for you guys to stand up and talk in front of us, I appreciate it. … But I will not be voting in favor tonight.”

Hutmacher said several senior class students he spoke to didn’t seem ready to include an Indian honor song at graduation.

“I can’t see how it honors everybody when it’s not in our language, and when I say our language, I mean English,” he said. “I look at the Pledge of Allegiance and it covers everything.”

The one board member in favor of granting the request to include an honor song said it is the board’s duty to vote for change.

“We vote for change all the time,” said Steve Fox, board member. “And that’s supposed to be our goal to change in good ways.”

He said other cultural activities have taken place at graduation in the past, including his son receiving a star quilt from the Sazue family.

“I could think of so many reasons to do this for our kids,” he said. “Why not give three or five minutes to teach our kids to honor another culture?”

Ferndale to consider deal that would end land dispute with Lummi Nation

Published: May 13, 2013

By Ralph Schwartz — THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

FERNDALE – City officials and Lummi Nation are pursuing an agreement to protect the city’s tax revenue and the tribe’s interest in properties it owns at the south city limits.

The City Council will decide whether to accept the agreement at a special meeting, 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 15, at 5694 Second Ave.

A draft of the agreement, posted Monday, May 13, on the city website, said the tribe would sell the western lots on land it owns along Slater Road west of Interstate 5. The tribe would receive 25 percent of the city’s share of sales tax revenue from those lots, which are on the southwest corner of Slater and Rural Avenue.

The city also would support the tribe’s application for trust status on the remaining properties. No property tax is paid on trust lands, and development on such land is not bound by state or local environmental rules.

In return, the tribe would agree to not purchase or apply for trust status on other land within the city limits, in order to protect the city’s property-tax base.

Northwest Indian Gaming Conference and Expo

The 2013 Northwest Indian Gaming Conference and Expo will beheld July 15-17, 2013 at the Tulalip Resort Casino in Tulalip, Washington, about 30 miles north of Seattle, directly on I-5 at exit 200.

The Tulalip Tribe’s Resort includes the Tulalip Casino, 378 hotel rooms and luxury suites, casual and fine dining restaurants, the Spa, and 30,000 sq. ft. of conference space. Tradeshow exhibitors will be located in the 15,000 sq. ft. Orca Ballroom.

Our attendees come from the all of the Northwest states, with the largest number from Washington, followed by Oregon, California, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Montana. Save the date!

Our show manager this year is Buss Productions and the contact person is Heidi Buss at (651) 917-2301 or FAX (651) 917-3578 or email at hbuss@msn.com.

Registration Questions? Call Madeline Bahr at Washington Indian Gaming Assoc. 360.352.3248 or email: madelinebahr@reachone.com

Early Bird Discount Registration ends June 14th. Save $50 over the regular registration rate. Discounted Hotel rate is available through June 21st, but don’t wait! Rooms are going fast!

Murkowski to lead GOP outreach to Native Americans

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska’s senior U.S. senator has been picked to lead the National Republican Senatorial Committee‘s “Native American Program.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, in a release, said she was proud to take on leadership of the new initiative. It is aimed at improving communications between Senate Republicans and Native American voters.

NRSC Chairman Jerry Moran said in a release that he’s “thrilled” to have Murkowski involved.

Murkowski serves on the Senate Indian Affairs committee, and received strong support during her 2010 re-election campaign from Alaska Natives.

The NRSC backed Murkowski in the 2010 GOP primary, which she lost to Joe Miller. It then backed Miller as Murkowski mounted a write-in campaign to keep her job.

Payment to American Indians inadequate

By Albert Bender, The Tennessean

At the most recent Native American conference of the Secretarial Commission on Indian Trust Administration and Reform, held in April in Nashville, among the many issues raised was that of the Cobell settlement of 100 years-plus of Indian trust assets.

This class-action settlement of the claims of tens of thousands of American Indians, many of whom are resident Tennesseans, is just another farce committed against the most economically disadvantaged people in the U.S.

This past December, $1,000 checks were sent to thousands of Native American accountholders for money of which they were defrauded for more than 100 years. This was a token payment to represent royalties — for oil, timber, grazing, etc. — that should have been paid by the Department of Interior since 1887. The settlement, forced on Indian plaintiffs, was for $3.4 billion.

Sound like a lot of money? But not when the true amount of loss, with interest, for a century and a quarter was $179 billion. The $1,000-per-person figure would not even buy a decent used car. This is what the U.S. government thinks of American Indians. This settlement was passed by Congress and signed by President Obama, because he thought it was fair. The settlement reeked of abominable villainy! The courts, the Congress and the president combined in this infamy.

But make no mistake: The verdict of history shall judge this “settlement” as a permanent blot on his presidential legacy and the U.S. as a whole. This $3.4 billion must also be seen in context with other issues. For example, in the Iraq war $12 billion was spent per month. In just one week, the U.S. government spent as much on the Iraq conflict as it did to settle an Indian lawsuit that it fought tooth and nail for 16 years. This is a grotesque injustice.

Some issues money can never address. Over that 122-year period, Native Americans lived, and continue to live, in a nightmare of hopelessness, deprivation and intergenerational trauma generated in part by abject poverty. Poverty stifles; abject poverty kills. Just think how the just payment of money due over this time span could have alleviated some of that misery. Think of how many countless lives — adults, children and the elderly — could have been altered and saved.

Currently, on many reservations the suicide rate among teenagers and young adults is the highest in the Western Hemisphere. This, again, is the result of generations of malevolent, intentional, genocidal poverty inflicted on Native Americans by an endless succession of U.S. administrations.

It will be to the everlasting ignominy of this government that there was no fair settlement reached, only more dishonor attached to a system covered with the gore of generations of victimized Native Americans.

This is the most scandalous forced settlement in American history. Never has so much been owed to so many, who have received so little.

Albert Bender, a Cherokee activist, historian and grant writer, lives in Antioch; albertbender07@yahoo.com.

How Stanwood landed a factory and 62 jobs

Kurt Batdorf / The Herald Business JournalProcess Solutions workers Bill Desmul (left) and Zach Barnes use a crane to lower a completed panel into an electrical service box at the company's Stanwood assembly plant. — Kurt Batdorf / The Herald Business Journal
Process Solutions workers Bill Desmul (left) and Zach Barnes use a crane to lower a completed panel into an electrical service box at the company’s Stanwood assembly plant.

By Kurt Batdorf, The Herald Business Journal

STANWOOD — When you think of electrical panel and control systems manufacturing, you probably wouldn’t put Stanwood very high on a list of likely contenders.

But the city is home to Washington’s largest such business, Process Solutions.

Why Stanwood? It doesn’t have a reputation for tech manufacturing as Arlington, Mukilteo and Bothell do. But it does have a mayor, city officials and local boosters who want attract and keep family-wage jobs.

When the Port of Bellingham lured away the building’s former occupant, Index Sensors & Controls, the city didn’t want to see it sit empty and wanted another occupant with an equally robust payroll.

Process Solutions designs and builds electrical control systems and the software that controls them for industries including food processing and packaging, biotech and pharmaceutical, water and wastewater, energy management, manufacturing and aerospace. It builds more than 2,000 control panels per year. North America accounts for 95 percent of the company’s business, Busby said. It did $13 million in sales in 2012 is on track do close to $15 million this year.

Process Solutions President Todd Busby said he was drawn to the Index Sensors building on the east end of town, across the parking lot from Stanwood Cinemas, because it was much more attractive than the three metal buildings his company occupied in Arlington.

Besides, Busby said, with a metal building, “there’s only so much you can do with it.”

However, he wasn’t sold yet on Stanwood. Busby liked Arlington and had been negotiating a ground lease with the city for a bigger facility. He said the deal fell apart after city officials wouldn’t accept liability for anything Busby uncovered during excavation and site preparation. That brought Busby back to the Index Sensors building.

Randy Heagle of Windermere Stanwood represented Busby on the building’s purchase.

The city’s responsiveness impressed Heagle and Busby.

Stanwood community development director Rebecca Lind said she crunched numbers with the city’s finance director and determined that the real-estate excise tax from the property sale would offset the cost of water and sewer, so the City Council agreed to a five-year utility waiver for Process Solutions.

The building’s vinyl floor tile presented another stumbling block for Busby. Lind said the city’s engineer and building official toured the building and wrote a report about how to correct the tile floor’s problems. Stanwood also waived fees for its review of tenant improvements and sign permits.

“That gave Todd the confidence to invest in the building,” Lind said.

“With the help of the city, we helped save the deal,” Heagle said.

Process Solutions closed on the sale in August 2011 and moved into the building April 15, 2012. Busby celebrated his first anniversary in Stanwood with a tour of the 28,000-square-foot engineering and manufacturing facility.

Busby led the city’s ad hoc economic development group — Heagle and a half-dozen local bankers and realtors — through the plant recently.

Process Solutions employs 62 people. About 40 engineers occupy cubicles in the front half of the building, but Busby noted that most of them spend a lot of time on the road with far-flung clients.

The manufacturing floor fills the back half of the building. The vinyl tiles that Busby so disliked are gone. He had the concrete slab ground smooth and polished, removing seven tons of material.

A crane helps workers place large, heavy electrical panels into service boxes instead of using a forklift like most of Busby’s smaller competitors do.

Each work station has overhead power and compressed air for tools and a rack Busby invented that holds 10 spools of wire. Workers can unroll just the wire they need, so copper waste fell from 7 percent to 1 percent, he said.

And then there are the batting cages. Busby, a Little League and soccer coach, said it’s a gift to his employees and their kids.

Busby wanted to have a building that appealed to prospective and current employees. There’s a spacious lounge where workers can make a cup of coffee and see what’s on the giant, flat-screen TV. Daylight filters into the building. Busby worked with designer Garrett Kuhlmann of H2K Design in Stanwood on the interior decor.

So far, Busby’s investment in employee comfort and aesthetics is paying off. He’s recruited eight new engineers since January and gained a $500,000 contract with a customer who saw the building after leaving a movie.

“We wanted to invest in our own building,” Busby said. “It reflects the quality of the work we do.”