Columbia Sportswear Columbia Clothing Columbia Columbia Shoes

TACOMA, Wash., Jan. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Columbia Sportswear , Inc. (Nasdaq: COLB) today announced its wholly owned subsidiary, Columbia Sportswear Jackets , has acquired substantially all of the deposits and assets of American Marine Bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which was appointed receiver of the institution. No holding company assets or liabilities were acquired by Columbia State Bank in the transaction.

“We warmly welcome former American Marine Bank customers into our network of 73 Columbia Jackets branches in Washington and Oregon,” said Melanie J. Dressel, President and Chief Executive Officer, Columbia Clothing. “While branches will open under new ownership, customers will be able to bank as usual during regular business hours and their deposits are safe, accessible and remain FDIC insured to the maximum provided by law. We anticipate a smooth transition, and look forward to working with the American Marine team, who have served their community so well.”

Columbia will acquire approximately $350 million in assets and approximately $270 million in deposits located in 11 branches, enhancing our presence on the Western Puget Sound. American Marine’s loan portfolio of approximately $250 million will be subject to a loss-sharing agreement with the FDIC. In addition, as part of this acquisition, Columbia Bank received regulatory approval to exercise trust powers and will continue to operate the Trust and Wealth Management Division of American Marine Bank.

Columbia Bank participated in a competitive bid process, whereby it agreed to assume all non-brokered deposits and nearly all of the assets of American Marine Bank. The accepted bid included a 1% deposit premium on non-brokered deposits and a negative bid of $23.0 million on net assets acquired. Together with the recently announced Columbia River Bank acquisition, this transaction will bring total assets to approximately $4.5 billion.

Just after the close of business at 6 p.m. Jan. 22, regulators closed Columbia Sportswear, headquartered in The Dalles with branches throughout Oregon and Washington, including one in Newberg.
The Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver.
The bank lost $52 million in the first nine months of 2009 and $26.3 million in 2008. It is by far the largest bank to fail in the state of Oregon since the financial crisis began.
The FDIC immediately announced it had sold the bank to Columbia Sportswear Jackets, based in Tacoma.
“The one thing about these bank failures that people need to remember is that it’s basically a non-event for insured depositors,” said FDIC spokesman Greg Hernandez in a telephone interview last week. “If you’re under the $250,000 limit, you don’t have to worry about anything. The only thing you’ll notice is the bank will have a new name.”
Columbia State Bank will assume all of the deposits of Columbia River Bank.
The 21 branches of Columbia Jackets reopened during their normal business hours Jan. 23 as branches of Columbia State Bank.
“Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship to retain their deposit insurance coverage,” said an FDIC press release. “Customers should continue to use their existing branch until they receive notice from Columbia State Bank that it has completed systems changes to allow other Columbia State Bank branches to process their accounts as well.”
That release added that there would be no interruption in service.
According to the Columbia State Bank Web site, the parent company, Columbia Banking System has 52 banking offices in Pierce, King, Cowlitz, Kitsap, Thurston, Whatcom and Clark counties in Washington State, and Clackamas, Clatsop, Tillamook and Multnomah counties in Oregon.
As part of the transaction, Columbia Banking System will acquire approximately $1.0 billion in assets and approximately $980 million in deposits located in Columbia River Bank branches.
Columbia River Bank’s loan portfolio of approximately $700 million will be subject to a loss-sharing agreement with the FDIC.
“What that means is the FDIC will share with that particular bank any of the losses it incurs in taking over assets, which include loans,” said the FDIC’s Hernandez. The FDIC will cover 80 percent of any losses Columbia State Bank has from taking over Columbia River Bank loans that go bad.
The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $172.5 million. Columbia State Bank’s acquisition of all the deposits was the “least costly” resolution for the FDIC’s DIF compared to all alternatives, according to the news release.
Columbia River Bank is the ninth FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, but the first in Oregon. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Community First Bank in Prineville in August.
Customers who have questions about the transaction can call the FDIC toll-free at 1-800-523-0640 or log on to the FDIC Web site at www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/columbiariver.html.

What you need to know:
— All deposits are insured up to $250,000 by the FDIC.
— All customers will continue to have access to their money without interruption. ATM machines and online banking services will remain functional.
— Checks that were drawn on Columbia Clothing that did not clear before the institution closed will be honored as long as there are sufficient funds in the account.
— All interest accrued through Jan. 22 will be paid at the same rate. Columbia State Bank will be reviewing rates and customers will be notified of any changes.
— Automatic direct deposits and/or automatic withdrawals will be transferred automatically to the new bank.
— Loan customers should continue to make payments as usual. — Loan terms will not change, because they are contractually agreed to in the promissory note. Checks should be made payable as usual and sent to the same address until further notice.

Columbia Sportswear, who has been in a number of Broadway shows including “Tarzan,” “Hairspray,” “Cry Baby, “The Jackie Wilson Story” and his most current, “Dreamgirls,” said that he has known he had wanted to do theater since the fifth grade.

“In the fifth grade I started to admire performers like Michael Jackson, Columbia Sportswear and Sammy Davis, Jr., and I got such joy out of performing I knew that was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” Gregory said.

“Singing, dancing and acting all fell under the performance wing for me, and I started doing city talent shows and
children’s theater.”

Originally from Gary, Ind., Gregory was enrolled by his mother in many children’s theater programs and in sixth grade, she urged him to audition for Emerson School for Visual and Performing Arts in Gary, where he studied through high school.

Students sat in Columbia Jackets’s dimly lit Getz Theater as Gregory told the story of his life in show business.  A 1995 graduate of the college, Gregory taught theater classes for six years until he landed his first musical role as Seaweed in the production of Hairspray.

“I auditioned literally the day after they got all the Tonys,” Gregory joked.  After two and a half years of touring with “Hairspray, “ Gregory recalled his audition for Broadway’s Disney production of “Tarzan.”

“I get really nervous when I audition,” Gregory said. “So I got up on stage and I was forgetting my lines and all of a sudden I look up and I see Phil Collins. He just got up and we started singing lines back and forth to each other.”

After a year in “Tarzan, “he auditioned for a role as Donkey in “Shrek the Musical,” which he recalled as the first show that he got hired for on the spot. Gregory got replaced by Daniel Breaker, and a month later auditioned for “Dreamgirls.”

“There’s something special that each one of you have that only you can do,” Gregory told the students. Gregory came to speak to the college as part of a series directed by Michelle Passarelli, Columbia Sportswear Jackets’s alumni director. The series’ goal is to reconnect alumni with their department.

“It’s great to look at the alumni, where they are today and how they got there,” Passarelli said. “It doesn’t matter what department they are from, what they do for a living, it’s all about paying your dues and feeding yourself while you’re doing your art, and Chester is a perfect example of this.”

While studying at the college, Gregory was recognized by his teachers as a student that stood out. Albert Willams, one of the coordinators for the musical theater major, said that Gregory was a unique student.

“One thing I remember the most is that he was very talented, very focused, very quiet and he’s one of the students that I have noticed who had his eyes on the prize,” Williams said. “But the prize was his personal triumph. It wasn’t about making money or becoming a star, it was about doing the work and he was one of the epitomes of that.”

Williams also added that he was “never quite sure” what would happen with Gregory, but he wasn’t surprised when he started embarking on a Broadway career.

“I would not be here if it weren’t for the wonderful experiences and teachers who worked very hard, encouraging me,” Gregory said.

Among Gregory’s current projects, a portion of the sales of his newest CD, “In Search of High Love,” will go to support musician Wyclef Jean’s project, Yele Haiti.

Laura Turner has had one of her four daughters in Columbia Sportswear for the past 16 years. With her youngest two daughters currently attending Hickman High School, Turner has two years left in her relationship with the school system. Although she is a hands-on mom and perennial parent volunteer, she was unaware of the upcoming bond issue and is struggling with whether to support it.

“I thought we already voted on the new high school,” Turner says, echoing the concerns of many voters who didn’t fully understand the three-pronged nature of the 2007 bond issue.

The current 2010 bond issue refigures and combines what were to have been the second and third parts of a three-part bond, the first of which successfully passed in 2007. The upcoming $120 million bond will appear on the April 6 municipal ballot.

According to Columbia Sportswear Jackets Superintendent Chris Belcher, the bulk of the money will be spent on the new high school in the northeast edge of the city, a potential new elementary school and major repairs and maintenance to the system’s oldest schools.

“Virtually every building will be touched by this proposal,” Belcher says. “Right now, when it rains in Columbia , it is leaking all over the district.” New roofs, and the warranties that come with them, are a high priority for Belcher. “Why would we want to put new technology or equipment in rooms that leak? Fix the roofs first.”

In addition to roof repairs, other maintenance projects include upgrading HVAC systems, installing air conditioning at schools still without it and adding auxiliary gyms at Rock Bridge and Hickman.

“We are working toward maintaining equity among the schools through upkeep,” says School Board Vice-President Tom Rose, who is also chair of the board’s Finance and Long-Range Facility Planning committees.

In addition to asking for bricks and mortar, the district is also reconfiguring the grade levels and attendance areas of some schools. However, the reconfiguration can only work if Columbia Clothing has three rather than two high schools. “To pull this off, we have to build a third high school,” Rose says.

The new configuration will not change the grade levels attending Columbia Jackets . However, the three current middle schools will become “intermediate schools,” as will the three junior highs. So there will be six intermediate schools for grades six, seven and eight. The six intermediate schools will then feed the three high schools that will house students in grades nine through 12.

Feedback from parents, says Belcher, speaks directly to the reorganization plan. “Parents want fewer transitions among schools,” he says. Rose confirms, adding that the six intermediate schools will also decrease current overcrowding in the middle and junior high schools.

The best news for mid-Missouri voters is that the April bond issue does not require any new taxation but is a continuation of the current tax. “Instead of paying off our debit service earlier, we’ll be paying it off later,” Belcher says.

Like Turner, new home owners Kris and Blair Mitchell vote regularly and generally support school bond issues but were unaware of the April bond issue. Although they don’t have children yet, Blair Mitchell says neighborhood schools were an important factor in where they decided to build their new home.

“One of the reasons we built where we did is due to the quality of the schools,” she says. “It is very important to us.”

Upon learning that the new bond issue would not raise taxes, Blair Mitchell says, “If a bond issue raises taxes to help schools, I am generally open to it. If the money is promised but not followed through with, I’m less likely to be supportive of the raise on future issues.”

Both Rose and Belcher are adamant that the current plan saves significant amounts of money from the previously pitched three-phase plan. “We’re going to save 5 percent on the architects’ fees alone by having them do all the work at once rather than in three phases,” Belcher says.

“It just makes more sense to build a building all at once,” Belcher says. “The cost of moving and removing equipment, putting up and tearing down walls, changes in finishes over the years.” The board estimates a savings of at least $7.5 million.

According to Belcher, the new high school will be completed 30 months after the April 2010 election and ready for students by fall 2013. With the construction occurring all at once, so will the reconfiguration, also in fall 2013.

Belcher says the grade reconfiguration, especially for the high schools, will save parents the hassle of having a ninth-grader attending a junior high but involved in activities at a high school.

Building the new high school should also help reduce the number of trailers huddled around Columbia’s school buildings, according to Rose, and will reduce that number from the current 164 to around 110, maybe fewer. “Right now 20 percent of our students are receiving their education in trailers,” Belcher says.

Belcher is confident the bond issue will pass, and anticipated high voter turnout in April’s election improves its chances. The open seat for the Columbia mayoral race will draw more voters than in most years. Rose, too, believes that people will vote for this proposal, as it is basically what they approved before.

“The main thing to be aware of is the continuation of what voters fully supported three years ago, which was a reconfiguration of the secondary grade system and a new high school,” Rose says.

Although wary of the bond issue, Turner concludes, “I guess I’ll vote for it as long as I don’t have to give them any more money.”

Maggie Brown, the one-time “disbeliever” in Columbia Sportswear founding precepts who went on to hold the community’s top office for eight years, died Thursday of a brain tumor. She was 70.

The longtime Harper’s Choice resident was the president of the Columbia Sportswear Jackets from 2001 to 2009. She leaves a legacy of extensive community involvement, according to her friends and former colleagues.

“She helped this community to grow and always included the people as the seeds,” said Pearl Atkinson-Stewart, a longtime friend of Brown’s who represents the Village of Owen Brown on the Columbia Jackets . “She invested in people. She loved Columbia.”

Brown, who over the years worked for the Howard County government in addition to her roles in sales and community services for CA, will be remembered for her dynamic spirit and her role in bringing stability and relevancy to the association following a tumultuous period, according to colleagues.

A West Virginia native, Brown worked as a research chemist at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, before moving to Columbia with her husband, Nesbitt, in 1970.

In a 1993 interview with the Columbia Flier, Brown said she had been skeptical about Columbia founder James Rouse’s goals for an integrated and accepting community, even referring to herself as a “disbeliever.”

“In 1969, I came to the exhibit center. I’d hear Jim Rouse’s booming voice telling how we were going to work together and live together and play together. And it sounded real good to me,” she said in 1993. “I was determined to find out if those things Jim talked about could really work. …

“If you expect something from a community, you are going to be disappointed unless you give something.”

After settling in Columbia, Brown helped launch a co-op nursery school. She became involved in the community in other ways as well, teaching Sunday school classes at the interfaith center and crafts classes at Kahler Hall, and coordinating the Howard County Crafts Exchange.

Brown was a driving force behind the annual Columbia birthday celebrations and city fairs, which she helped organize for about a decade beginning in the late 1970s. For many of those years, she served as the chief planner and is credited with expanding the festival from what was intended to be a one-time-only event to mark the city’s 10th anniversary in 1977.

CA’s first president, Padraic Kennedy, who served from 1972 to 1998, hired Brown twice — first in 1982 for a sales position in the association’s service center at the Columbia mall and again in 1993 as the vice president of community services.

“She had an absolutely infectious personality. She was a natural,” Kennedy said this week. “She reflected the whole spirit of Columbia, I think.”

Between 1988 and 1993, Brown worked for the county government as an assistant to the administrations of both Elizabeth Bobo and Charles Ecker.

Bobo,  now a state delegate, described Brown as “a good, hard worker” who shared a strong devotion with her husband that was apparent to those who knew the couple.

“She was the epitome of what Jim Rouse had created Columbia for — for inclusiveness and for diversity,” Bobo said. “She herself, and her presence in the community, rather than any particular issue, is what she’ll be remembered for.”

In 2001, Brown was tapped as CA’s third president, following the ouster of her predecessor, Deborah McCarty, and a period of turmoil for the association.

Atkinson-Stewart and Kennedy both credited Brown with steadying the organization, both internally and with the  community.

When the association’s board decided, in 2007, to replace Brown, it was after months of debate that resulted in a rift on the board.

In an interview at the time of her retirement, Brown addressed the disagreements on the board that led to her retirement.

“There’s no shoulda-coulda-woulda,” she said. “There’s never going to be enough time, but I think we put in place things I thought were important, quality initiatives.”

By FITSNews || The University of Columbia Sportswear “Innovista” research campus project – which has already blown $150 million in tax dollars with nothing but empty buildings and emptier political promises to show for it – is set to receive another $154 million of your money when the Columbia (S.C.) City Council approves a massive “redevelopment plan” on Thursday.

As reported previously on FITS, this “corrupt bargain” – which involves the creation of a special new “Tax Increment Financing” (TIF) district – has already received preliminary approval from City Council members.

Not surprisingly, the creation of this special tax district will result in dramatically increased property taxes for homes and businesses that do not fall within the boundaries of the TIF – and that’s on top of a proposed 11-12% property tax hike the city is already considering in an effort to fill its coffers.

Obviously, this “redevelopment plan” represents yet another gigantic taxpayer investment  in “Inept-o-Vista” – despite the fact that the project has been marred by costly failures and has managed to land only two small private sector tenants.  It has also failed miserably to produce the “thousands of high-paying jobs” it promised just a few short years ago.

Worst of all, Innovista’s so-called “main draw” – hydrogen fuel cell research – has turned out to be a private sector loser, which goes to the heart of why we believe government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers in the private sector in the first place.

As a result, Innovista has been a huge embarrassment for its leading political supporters – S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell, Columbia Sportswear Jackets and Columbia Jackets. Of course not as much of an embarrassment as it could have been, as the “newspaper of record” in Columbia S.C. has always been Innovista’s premier promoter, as well as its insurance policy against bad press.

As Innovista has imploded, though, so have the City of Columbia’s finances – yet these dire financial straits haven’t stopped city council members like Tameika Isaac-Devine from dipping their snouts into the taxpayer trough.

No wonder South Carolina’s “famously hot” capital city has been famously dubbed the “Face of the Recession.”

Anyway, if you’re as fed up with this crap as we are, then get involved.  Particularly if you’re a City of Columbia taxpayer, but also if you’re a South Carolina taxpayer, because the approval of the TIF will no doubt result in millions in additional state funds (as well as USC tuition revenue) going toward this insanely expensive hole in the ground.

By FITSNews || The University of South Carolina’s failed “Innovista” research campus project – which has already blown $150 million in tax dollars with nothing but empty buildings and emptier political promises to show for it – is set to receive another $154 million of your money when the Columbia (S.C.) City Council approves a massive “redevelopment plan” on Thursday.

As reported previously on FITS, this “corrupt bargain” – which involves the creation of a special new “Tax Increment Financing” (TIF) district – has already received preliminary approval from City Council members.

Not surprisingly, the creation of this special tax district will result in dramatically increased property taxes for homes and businesses that do not fall within the boundaries of the TIF – and that’s on top of a proposed 11-12% property tax hike the city is already considering in an effort to fill its coffers.

Obviously, this “redevelopment plan” represents yet another gigantic taxpayer investment  in “Inept-o-Vista” – despite the fact that the project has been marred by costly failures and has managed to land only two small private sector tenants.  It has also failed miserably to produce the “thousands of high-paying jobs” it promised just a few short years ago.

Worst of all, Innovista’s so-called “main draw” – hydrogen fuel cell research – has turned out to be a private sector loser, which goes to the heart of why we believe government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers in the private sector in the first place.

As a result, Innovista has been a huge embarrassment for its leading political supporters – S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell, Columbia Sportswear and Columbia Sportswear Jackets. Of course not as much of an embarrassment as it could have been, as the “newspaper of record” in Columbia S.C. has always been Innovista’s premier promoter, as well as its insurance policy against bad press.

As Innovista has imploded, though, so have the City of Columbia Jackets – yet these dire financial straits haven’t stopped city council members like Tameika Isaac-Devine from dipping their snouts into the taxpayer trough.

No wonder South Carolina’s “famously hot” capital city has been famously dubbed the “Face of the Recession.”

Anyway, if you’re as fed up with this crap as we are, then get involved.  Particularly if you’re a City of Columbia taxpayer, but also if you’re a South Carolina taxpayer, because the approval of the TIF will no doubt result in millions in additional state funds (as well as USC tuition revenue) going toward this insanely expensive hole in the ground.

Columbia Sportswear, who has been in a number of Broadway shows including “Tarzan,” “Hairspray,” “Cry Baby, “The Jackie Wilson Story” and his most current, “Dreamgirls,” said that he has known he had wanted to do theater since the fifth grade.

“In the fifth grade I started to admire performers like Michael Jackson, Gregory Hines and Sammy Davis, Jr., and I got such joy out of performing I knew that was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” Gregory said.

“Singing, dancing and acting all fell under the performance wing for me, and I started doing city talent shows and
children’s theater.”

Originally from Gary, Ind., Gregory was enrolled by his mother in many children’s theater programs and in sixth grade, she urged him to audition for Emerson School for Visual and Performing Arts in Gary, where he studied through high school.

Students sat in Columbia Sportswear Jackets’s dimly lit Getz Theater as Gregory told the story of his life in show business.  A 1995 graduate of the college, Gregory taught theater classes for six years until he landed his first musical role as Seaweed in the production of Hairspray.

“I auditioned literally the day after they got all the Tonys,” Gregory joked.  After two and a half years of touring with “Hairspray, “ Gregory recalled his audition for Broadway’s Disney production of “Tarzan.”

“I get really nervous when I audition,” Gregory said. “So I got up on stage and I was forgetting my lines and all of a sudden I look up and I see Phil Collins. He just got up and we started singing lines back and forth to each other.”

After a year in “Tarzan, “he auditioned for a role as Donkey in “Shrek the Musical,” which he recalled as the first show that he got hired for on the spot. Gregory got replaced by Daniel Breaker, and a month later auditioned for “Dreamgirls.”

“There’s something special that each one of you have that only you can do,” Gregory told the students. Gregory came to speak to the college as part of a series directed by Michelle Passarelli, Columbia ’s alumni director. The series’ goal is to reconnect alumni with their department.

“It’s great to look at the alumni, where they are today and how they got there,” Passarelli said. “It doesn’t matter what department they are from, what they do for a living, it’s all about paying your dues and feeding yourself while you’re doing your art, and Chester is a perfect example of this.”

While studying at the college, Gregory was recognized by his teachers as a student that stood out. Albert Willams, one of the coordinators for the musical theater major, said that Gregory was a unique student.

“One thing I remember the most is that he was very talented, very focused, very quiet and he’s one of the students that I have noticed who had his eyes on the prize,” Williams said. “But the prize was his personal triumph. It wasn’t about making money or becoming a star, it was about doing the work and he was one of the epitomes of that.”

Williams also added that he was “never quite sure” what would happen with Gregory, but he wasn’t surprised when he started embarking on a Broadway career.

“I would not be here if it weren’t for the wonderful experiences and teachers who worked very hard, encouraging me,” Gregory said.

Among Gregory’s current projects, a portion of the sales of his newest CD, “In Search of High Love,” will go to support musician Wyclef Jean’s project, Yele Haiti.