The cosmetics giant’s products are recession-resistant, say Street pros, multiplied of whom rate the shares buy

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Avon Products (AVP)—52-week stock price

By Gene Marcial

In good spells or bad, women slip on’t skip or skimp onward beauty products, whether they live in San Antonio, São Paolo, Moscow, or Beijing. That’s because most women consider cosmetics and special grace products as staples, or necessities in their quotidian lives, according to industry analysts. That suggests demand for such products is constant, inattentive of economic distress. The toiletries and cosmetics industry is at once "ranked to best a majority of industries under our review," wrote Kenneth Nugent, analyst at unconstrained research house Value Line (VALU), in a newly come note to clients.

That’s been a boon to Avon Products (AVP), the world’s largest direct seller of similar personal-care items. On Wall Street, Avon is among the companies analysts categorize as "defensive" plays that thrive even for the period of recessionary times. Of the 14 Street analysts who follow Avon, 10 recommend buying the stock and four reprimand it a hold.

Since late 2005, shares of Avon had been in an upward spiral, hitting a boastful of 45 on Aug. 5, 2008. But in October, the stock stumbled, to 23.94 on Oct. 24, from 41 on Oct. 1, when news leaked out that as June, Avon had started an internal inquiry into allegations that clear as day entertainment and other expenses may desire been "improperly incurred" in its operations in China. Avon voluntarily notified the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Justice Dept. with reference to the investigation, in the way that the Feds could determine whether the fellowship had violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that bars U.S. companies from using bribery to acquire business overseas. Avon says the probe is still in its early staging.

But Wall Street seems unperturbed. "When attempting to draw investment conclusions, we would start with materiality: China is 3% of sales and 0.5% of profits for Avon, to such a degree even a worst-case scenario [for the probe] would likely have no earnings implications," says Christopher Ferrara, an algebraist at Merrill Lynch (MER), who has retained his buy good opinion on Avon. "We speculate it’s in greater numbers likely that this investigation proves immaterial from an investing. prospect, even to the entire China operation, what one. itself is immaterial to Avon’s earnings (and to its multiple at current levels, in our view)," wrote Ferrara in a note to clients dated Oct. 21.

Ferrara points out that the price decline in the shares should be considered another opportunity to buy the fund. On Oct. 24, the stock had dropped to 24. His 12-month mark for the stock is 51, based forward his 2009 earnings estimate, excluding special charges, of $2.59 a share. (The stock is currently trading at 10 state of things the estimated 2009 earnings estimate, vs. a luxuriously of 35 in 2007.) The risks to his price target, Ferrara says, include a possible worsening slowdown in the U.S. profession and softer increase in the developing markets, especially in Brazil, which has accounted for a large dividend of Avon’s sales growth in recent years. (Merrill expects or intends to seek or receive compensation for investment banking services from Avon within the next three months.)

Indeed, most analysts have reduced their estimates on Avon’s sales and earnings inasmuch as of the global economic slowdown. Nonetheless, they remain upbeat about the stock.

"Even after slashing our earnings estimates, we still be attentive close to a 60% upside in Avon’s shares," says Nik Modi, analyst at investment tier UBS (UBS), who rates the stock a bribe with a 12-month price mark of 47, down from a former target of 52. The algebraist divide UBS’s 2008 earnings estimate on Avon to $2.11 a share from $2.25 and the 2009 estimate to $2.51 a share from $2.79. Avon earned $1.20 in 2007. (UBS owns Avon stock.)

"We are core prudent and cautious upon the body our revenue and earnings-per-share figures to reflect the current [macroeconomic] environment," says Modi. "But we believe that Avon is better positioned today to deal with these challenges."

Modi says investors are underestimating the countercyclical creator of Avon’s direct-selling business model and the cushion afforded by means of the company’s many cost-savings initiatives. Investors also underestimate, adds Modi, the "staplish" nature of beauty products in both the developed and developing countries. "Consumption in Avon’s lock opener markets is far from collapsing," says Modi, and "trends remain strong in Brazil, Russia, and China."

With Avon’s non-U.S. operations accounting roughly for 78% of sales and 80% of earnings, weak results in recent quarters in the U.S. (20% of sales) haven’t had a disastrous impact on the company’s growth. Some 5.4 million sales representatives emporium the company’s wares in 114 countries. Avon’session products include cosmetics, fragrance, and toiletries (70% of annual sales), jewelry, watches, apparel, and accessories (19%), and home products, gifts, and candles (11%).

Truly a global giant, Avon, what one. began operations in 1886, could well call for Keats’ immortal line, "a thing of beauty is a joy forever," as its inspiration. The beauty part, for the company and its investors: the millions of customers that use its products day in and day lacking. The joy: the prospect of solid, steady profits in dicey economic times.

Unless otherwise noted, not either the sources cited in Gene Marcial’s Stock Picks nor their firms hold positions in the stocks under discussion. Similarly, they own no investment banking or other monetary relationships with them.

In tough times, technology diligence leaders are showing how it’s possible to thrive—and winning slots in BW’s occurring once a year Tech Hot Growth ranking

By Aaron Ricadela

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Amid the roiling waters of the stock market and economy, which have tossed tech investors around for weeks, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs made a special guest appearance on Apple’s fourth-quarter earnings call Oct. 21 to try to calm things down.

Profits soared (BusinessWeek.com, 10/21/08) on knockout iPhone numbers and strong Mac and iPod sales. But Jobs wanted to make a point broader than any one furnish’s results: Apple planned to seize the opportunity of these difficult times to bolt ahead of the competition. He pointed out that Apple (AAPL) has nearly $25 billion in the bank. The economy could present "some extraordinary opportunities for companies that have the cash to take vantageground of them," Jobs said. "We may get buffeted through the waves a bit, but we’ll be fine—and stronger than ever when the waters calm in the yet to be."

These are difficult times for quite companies. But some are figuring out how to thrive among the turmoil. BusinessWeek’s lasting a year Tech Hot Growth ranking shows the sector’s top 75 performers over the farther than year. Some have translated well because they help their customers cut costs—witness IBM (IBM), Accenture (ACN), and software creator VMware (VMW). Others made the cut because they help customers generate more revenue in good times or unwelcome. Google (GOOG), concerning archetype, reported a surprisingly strong share (BusinessWeek.com, 10/17/08) on Oct. 16, because companies that get sales from online advertising kept on spending. It also doesn’t hurt to sell to the government, whose buying tends to be somewhat insulated from the broader plan. That factor propelled infrared technology supplier Flir Systems (FLIR) and defense suppliers Mantech International (MANT), Harris (HRS), and SAIC (SAI) into prime spots on this year’s scoreboard.

The ranking is based on a number of metrics. Revenue growth counts the most, although total revenues, shareholder return, and return without ceasing equity all factor in, too. The ranking is based on the in the greatest degree recent four quarters available, since of Oct. 15.

Gilead Sciences (GILD), the top-performing company adhering the list, booked big gains in profits and return on equity through sales of its drugs to discourse on AIDS, hypertension, hepatitis B, and other diseases. It has capitalized on the success of its most recently approved HIV mix with drugs, Atripla, and its 2006 acquisition of pharmaceutical company Raylo Chemicals.

At the fastest-growing information technology companies, it’s clear you lack to take a different attitude in downturns than in normal times. You fust focus on why you’re going to steer out from your competition and why your customers will need you more than they need your rivals. You have to remember aggressively—as Jobs is doing—in preference than defensively, in retreat. "Selling more of the same doesn’face to face drudge," says John S. Chen, CEO of Sybase (SY), which provides database software used widely on Wall Street and what one. ranked No. 34 on this year’s strip. Because Sybase customers Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch (MER) have disappeared, Chen is concentrating on helping the finance industry’s consolidators, including Barclays (BCS) and Bank of America (BAC), discover unaccustomed ways to reduce operating costs. "I’broil desperately creating a division more new functionality," he says.

So far, so advantage. On Oct. 21, Sybase reported that third-quarter sales rose 11% to $284 million, and profits rose 2%. Sybase’s profits were up more than 77% during the 12 months ended in June, according to BusinessWeek’s analysis.

Tech companies are scrambling for advantage in these lean times. Intel (INTC) is one of separate catering to budget-minded shoppers. The chipmaker is ramping up production of processors toward a new class of small handy notebooks that cost as little as $300 to $400. Oracle (ORCL) has spent $34 billion on 50 acquisitions over the last 44 months and plans to shop for adscititious stipulate buys in order to bring about recurring product-support revenues, what one. involve in during good times and bad. And in the past five weeks, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and Oracle require announced plans to pervert with money back billions of dollars of their hold shares.

Still, it’s been a rocky highway in opposition to the stocks of smooth the best-performing companies. The average share-price return for the 75 companies on the scoreboard was -37%, and the top 10 on the list generated each average return of -22%. Dell (DELL), that posted big gains in profitability and return onward equity through sarcastic costs and revamping its products and distribution strategy, has warned of a tougher environment against us. And investors worry that the down economy may erode prices for such premium brands as Apple and Salesforce.com (CRM).

"We’ll be prudent," says Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s $8 billion Entertainment & Devices Division, which makes the corporation’session Xbox game comfort and Zune music player. Microsoft hopes consumers buy greater amount of Xboxes as they resort to stay-at-home entertainment instead of going out. But Bach doesn’t think consumers’ holiday expenditure will accelerate until after the Presidential election. "At this time of year, we’re talking to our retail partners each day," he says.

A bounce off recent lows? Another souse through key support levels? A long slog near current prices? Experts tell BW strategies for each

By David Bogoslaw

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For chiefly the masses, this feels like a very uncertain and hazardous time to be invested in the stock market. Even as the U.S. ruling power becomes more clear about the first-class infusions earmarked for a expanding amount to of banks, and credit spreads show encouraging signs of narrowing, equity mart volatility continues to head skyward. There appears to be little buying to in opposition to overwhelming selling pressure by fence and other funds desperate for cash to cover impending redemptions.

Making things even more unfaithful for stock investors are a heap of unknowns—from how forcible the worldwide financial rescue efforts will prove to exist, to the duration and depth of the recession that is taking hold of the global good housewifery.

It’session precisely in this kind of environment that technical charts—ones that track patterns in price and volume activity for stocks and indexes—can offer place of traffic participants more semblance of order. Two weeks of relentless selling culminated on Oct. 10, when the three major U.S. stock indexes all hit intraday lows before bouncing modestly into safer territory.

With market players now in appearance attaching little, suppose that any, importance to business fundamentals, those technical put up with levels have become elucidation points of converging-point for experienced investors. On Oct. 24, the Standard & Poor’session 500-stock index fell to within 14 points of the intraday low of 839 it hit adhering Oct. 10 before rebounding to polish at 876.77, below its closing price of 899 exactly two weeks ago.

What do investors need to do in the current situation? The recommendations equity strategists require been giving tend to exist more confusing than comforting if you don’t know their underlying market and economic assumptions. To provide some clarity, BusinessWeek ran three basic "war game" scenarios by a exquisite group of investment professionals to get their views in continuance how to navigate through these treacherous emporium waters.

If the broader market were to retest the Oct. 10 lows and clinch, that would have being an encouraging sign, but it wouldn’t necessarily be conclusive that a bottom has been reached, says David Joy, chief market strategist at RiverSource Investments (AMP). What it would prove more than anything otherwise is that in that place is some trustworthy buying weal at those levels, he says.

The market activity of the past couple of weeks has been strong enough that at an ad hoc auditory of its quarterly asset allocation committee on Oct. 17, RiverSource decided to start slowly rebuilding U.S. equity positions, after having gone to an underweight allocation in June, says Joy. But the firm is so more distant buying only equity indexes, not individual stocks. The most attractive sectors rightful now, he believes, are energy, industrials, technology, and—from a contrarian standpoint based purely on low valuations—consumer discretionary stocks. Joy believes that traditionally defensive sectors such as utilities and health circumspection are overvalued and wouldn’t reward investors on the upside admitting that a "snapback" rally in stocks were to occur.

Jim Dunigan, chief investment officer at PNC Wealth Management (PNC) in Philadelphia, says he would take a retest and clutch of the Oct. 10 lows for the reason that reason to resume buying, but advises sticking to high-quality names in the consumer staples, health circumspection, and information technology sectors. The forced liquidations by the agency of hedge funds strongly suggest that some high quality individual stocks be in actual possession of been oversold, and their elevated dividend yields are an indication of condign how cheap they are now, according to Dunigan.

Determining when the U.S. economy began to contract—and how long the recession is likely to last—be able to also help investors configuration when to start buying funds, says Linda Duessel, equity market expert manaeuvrer at Federated Investors (FII) in Pittsburgh. She believes the recession started at the outset of 2008 and may be over by the agency of the middle of 2009. Since stock prices start to recover long before a recession ends, investors have historically gotten good returns if they bought former following what they estimated to have been the midpoint of a recession, she says.

Unless the currency suddenly retreats, economists think Japan is headed for a recession. Forecasts, meanwhile, during the term of big exporters like Sony and Toyota are bleak

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Nikkei index plunges in the same manner with Japanese Yen soars. Sony Corporation revised their financial outlook downward deepening the investors’ fears on global Recession. Junko Kimura/Getty Images

By Ian Rowley and Kenji Hall

The global credit crunch and market rout are clearly scaring Japanese officials. On Oct. 27, Tokyo took the remarkable step of rallying the world’session richest nations to bid investors that the Japanese currency’s rise to its highest fit in years poses a threat to the global economy. In a statement, the Group of Seven specifically singled out the yen’s "recent volatility" because a possible factor in undermining "economic and financial stability."

The G-7’session show of close fellowship came hours after Japan’s Finance Minister, Shoichi Nakagawa, used strong power condemning the yen’sitting sharp rise last week to a 13-year high against the dollar and six-year high against the euro. Traders viewed the remarks as a sign that Japanese financial authorities stood smart to come between with regard to the first age since at daybreak 2004.

Action can’t come soon enough in the view of many market watchers. "This massive strengthening in the value of the Japanese yen," Standard Chartered Bank (STAN.L) currency analysts wrote in an Oct. 24 report, "is coming at exactly the wrong time." They predicted "it may not be long before we see the Japanese the government intervene to limit the glide."

Help may be on the way, but it didn’t arrive today. With critics complaining that the comments from Nakagawa and the G-7 had niggard press close together, the yen kept on gaining strength against the dollar, trading at around 93 yen and the euro at 116 yen. The rising yen, combined with concern that plans by Japanese banks to raise capital may dilute shareholdings, knocked Japan’sitting benchmark Nikkei 225 stock index to its lowest level in 26 years. The index finished 6.4% appear gloomy, at 7,162.90, a of the same rank not seen since October 1982. This month without company, the Nikkei has given up 36%; since January, it has fallen 53%.

The concern is that a strong yen and global slowdown elect end up hurting Japanese exports, which have long been the one bright spot in the domestic dispensation. In the past time three months, the yen has risen 19% against the dollar, 32% against the euro, 33% against the British bruise, and 37% in anticipation of the Brazilian real. By contrast, the Korean won is down more than 45% against the dollar this year, giving Korean exporters a leg up (BusinessWeek.com, 10/24/08) on the Japanese.

Unless the yen abruptly retreats, economists think Japan’s economy is headed with respect to a recession. "Over the next 12 months, we now expect Japan’s gross domestic product to shrink by 0.4%," says Japan Research Institute elder economist Hideki Matsumura.

For months it seemed that Japan’session biggest banks had largely avoided the U.S. subprime mortgages-related losses, especially as Japanese financial institutions were buying up ailing rivals. After the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Nomura Securities bought its European and Asian operations, while Mitsubishi UFJ spent $9 billion on a 21% stake in Morgan Stanley (MS).

But last week, Sony’session (SNE) profit sign highlighted the problems Japan Inc., and especially its exporters, faces. The technology giant slashed its occurring every year operating profit calculate (BusinessWeek.com, 10/23/08) by 57%, and said there could be more currency-related pain if the yen holds steady.

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Max Israel aimed to live by example.

After 68 years of marriage, he still held hands with his wife, Mary. Laughter was his best medicine, an cordial he promptly shared by family and friends, the limited Sephardic community, golfing buddies. In retirement, he strode the halls of Bellevue’sitting Overlake Hospital Medical Center, where he volunteered to comfort patients season escorting them to treatments.

Mr. Israel died Saturday night (Oct. 25) of complications of Parkinson’s disease, surrounded by family in his Bellevue domestic. He was 92.

“He was a human being who cared more for others than he did against himself,” said subdivision of an order confidant and longtime business partner Joe Agoado, by whom he ran food brokerage Israel & Agoado. “He always offered respect to me and to everybody else in his business life, and from that I gained a lot.”

Born Oct. 2, 1916, in Seattle to Louie and Victoria Israel, Sephardic Jews who immigrated from the Greek isle of Rhodes, Max Israel was tense from an early age to put family before anything else and create a preferable life for himself and his future family. His father managed Palace Fish, since Pike Place Market’s Pure Food Fish Market, and helped base Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, among Seattle’s leading Sephardic synagogues.

Mr. Israel left Seattle’s Garfield High School early to help hold his family. In 1940 he wed Mary Benezra, who stole his heart when he witnessed her in a passionate debate with fellow synagogue members.

“He’d own this story and say, ‘I saw her, I fell head over heels for her,’ ” his granddaughter, Jessie Israel, remembered. “Then he’d say, ‘I didn’t realize she was like this every day.’ “

As World War II swelled, he joined the Navy and worked being of the class who a radarman in the Pacific aboard the multitude happiness USS Fremont, his granddaughter said. In 1953 he founded a food brokerage, Max L. Israel Co., later partnering by Agoado. He went on to distribute as president of the Seattle Food Brokers Association.

Mr. Israel was at his happiest in Seaside, Ore., where the group of genera would gather en masse to go on foot the beach and promenade, his granddaughter remembered.

“I never saw him get angry in my entire life, and we were pretty flashy grandchildren,” Jessie Israel said. “He never would raise his voice, he never would raise his hand. His way was to lead by example, quietly lead by example, and just expect high things of everyone surrounding him.”

Said daughter Vicky Morgan: “He built a family dynasty of good, hardworking, respectable, generous, mild people, because that’s what he was.”

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Israel is survived by his helpmate; sons Larry, Allen and Arthur Israel; sister Irene Eskenazi; nine grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

Services are 12:30 p.m. Tuesday at Evergreen-Washelli Funeral Home, 11111 Aurora Ave. N., Seattle. Memorials may be made to Overlake Hospital Medical Center Foundation or to Northwest Parkinson’s Foundation.

Karen Gaudette: 206-515-5618 or kgaudette@seattletimes.com

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Conway, Ark.

2 dead in shooting

on Ark., campus

A shooting at the University of Central Arkansas killed two people and wounded a third, police said.

UCA police spokeswoman Lt. Rhonda Swindle uttered the shots were fired at a little after 9 p.salmagundi. Sunday near a dormitory. She aforesaid she could not say whether the victims were students, but she did rehearse all three were male.

Swindle said the campus would remain locked down today and that classes had been canceled. She before-mentioned she did not have any information about suspects, yet the university police Web site said one bodily substance was in care and three others were being sought.

She said one sufferer was tasteless at the exhibition and another died at a hospital. No condition was to be turned to account according to the third victim.

Conway is about 30 miles north of Little Rock. UCA has 12,500 students.

Chicago

Entertainer offers

reward for nephew

Jennifer Hudson and her kindred offered a $100,000 reward Sunday for the safe return of her missing nephew, as investigators looked for forensic evidence near the home where her mother and brother were found shot to death.

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NEW ORLEANS — With a torn roof, buckling supports and mildewed walls, the 90-year-old house on Valmont Street appears one more sad reminder of the destructive forces of Hurricane Katrina.

But Willie White finds value amid the wreckage.

The doors and trim were fashioned from old-growth red cypress — now largely gone from Southern coastal forests. The floor was hewed from the timber of long-leaf white pine. So for 12 days, White put a crew to work in this house, tearing out lumber with resale value of about $12,000.

“A lot of times, these salvage materials are better than the new materials,” White said. “They just don’t make this stuff anymore.”

“Deconstruct” advocates

White is part of a movement, nurtured by Pacific Northwest dollars and expertise, that seeks to “deconstruct” rather than demolish a portion of houses abandoned in the aftermath of the 2005 hurricane. Proponents say recycling these materials saves valuable New Orleans heritage, and creates more jobs and less waste than bulldozing houses and hauling the debris to the dump.

So far, among the 9,000 hurricane-wrecked homes that were demolished, about 200 were partially salvaged. With the city still tackling a backlog of about 30,000 blighted homes, there is plenty of potential for more recycling.

“If we were able to get 10 percent of what’s left, I think that would be outstanding,” said Rick Denhart, a Portland-based deconstruction expert who moved to New Orleans to help manage a program launched by Mercy Corps, a Northwest aid group with headquarters in Portland and an office in Seattle.

Denhart has helped forge a network of small entrepreneurs, such as White, and nonprofits that help salvage, sell and install the recycled material.

But this requires plenty of labor in a town where it can be hard to recruit enough crews willing to take on the tedious and often exhausting work.

Volunteers continue to be a significant force in a recovery effort that now appears likely to stretch out over the next decade or more.

Many groups

Church groups, student groups and nonprofits have sent thousands of people to New Orleans. So have corporations, including Starbucks, which plans its largest volunteer effort during the company’s four-day New Orleans leadership conference that begins today. That meeting is expected to draw some 10,000 employees.

Each employee is expected to donate four to six hours of labor painting houses and murals, planting trees, removing debris, building playgrounds and taking on other tasks.

“There was a passion among everyone who was planning this conference that part of our effort needed to be helping rebuild New Orleans,” said Rodney Hines, director of community investments for Starbucks, which is funneling $5 million into post-Katrina recovery.

In some flood-damaged neighborhoods, such as Broadmoor, the recovery is well under way. Some homes have been rebuilt on slightly raised foundations, while others are built on 6- to 8-foot-high perches in hopes of avoiding future high water.

But the Broadmoor neighborhood still is a patchwork that includes many abandoned buildings. In September, a team from Rebuilding Together, a Mercy Corps partner in New Orleans, tackled one of these houses and found a refrigerator that had been shut tight ever since Katrina.

“It was still pretty gross when we opened the door,” said Jonathan Lindquist, 23, a volunteer from New Jersey.

Homesites now fields

The hardest-hit neighborhoods are in the Lower 9th Ward. Three years after Katrina, some blocks have an oddly rural ambience as big fields of tall grass reclaim homesites.

“They will come back. Slowly but surely they will come back,” said Kenneth Turner, who is part of a sparse band of homesteaders on his street. “People should come back for their ancestors, who started this here.”

But the population of Orleans Parish, which encompasses much of the city’s heart, inched up only about 1 percentage point over the past year. As of August, New Orleans had 71 percent of its pre-storm population, and it appears that most of the people who want to return already have made their move.

Many small businesses also have been slow to rebound.

Before the storm, White’s salvage company worked out of a warehouse that was shared with a spicery, safety-products company, beauty parlor and printing companies. All of those businesses have gone and not returned.

A volume industry

White remained behind, in hopes the disaster would make his business boom. But he has found deconstruction is a tough sell to the demolition companies that hold the contracts to take down damaged houses. They are paid by the cubic yard, so the more debris they haul off to the dump, the more money they make.

The demolition companies have allowed limited retrievals of doors and windows. But White — after collecting flooring and other bulkier material from five houses in June — found his salvage work came to an abrupt end. That’s because the recycling cut too deeply into the contractor’s waste volume.

Mercy Corps has been trying to bolster support for deconstruction among government officials and the demolition companies. To help document the economics of recycling, it hired White to take on a 3,600-square-foot home damaged by Katrina. That job soaked up $28,120 in labor and other costs but yielded used building materials worth a salvage-industry value of $29,918, a Mercy Corps report said.

“We could be doing a lot more of this recycling,” White said. “There’s always people in need of these materials.”

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com

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A Coast Guard helicopter has rescued an injured climber near Snoqualmie Pass.

The Coast Guard says the copter from Port Angeles was versed to reach the climber early today after dark winds prevented another copter from completing the airlift.

A spokeswoman in Seattle, Jennifer Runion, told KIRO-TV the Coast Guard pilot used night vision goggles.

The climber was reportedly injured in a fall Sunday in the Snow Lakes territory.

He was flown to Boeing Field in what place an ambulance took him to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with head injuries.

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When the two candidates for state lands commissioner showed up for a recent debate, the small-town Eastern Washington rancher wore cowboy boots, while the veteran Puget Sound-area politician sported tasseled loafers.

The unusual thing: The Democrat was the guy in the boots.

In this hard-fought race, both candidates are working to gain an edge in part by running against stereotype.

Republican bearing down Doug Sutherland is a longtime politician and government manager from Lacey, Thurston County, who shows a preference for button-down shirts, khakis and loafers.

His image being of the class who a moderate urbanite and experienced manager could play well with voters in the Seattle suburbs, a lock opener battleground in this root.

“I think it does refrain from him,” reported state Republican Party Chair Luke Esser, pointing to Sutherland’s long-winded involvement in Pierce County politics. “That gave him a familiarity through those kind of voters and what they want to perceive from the delegate of public lands.”

Sutherland’s opponent, Democrat Peter Goldmark, grew up and still lives near the tiny northeast Washington town of Okanogan. He’s spent decades running the household’session cattle ranch and wheat landed estate there.

While Goldmark’s environmental intimation could perform on beneficial on the Westside, his backers hope to lure Eastern Washington voters with his ranching personal history and name recognition from an ill-starred bid on account of Congress in 2006.

“He’sitting a rancher, he’s from Eastern Washington, he understands these issues from a state vista,” said Clifford Traisman of Washington Conservation Voters.

Crossing party lines

Sutherland grew up in Spokane but made his political career in the Puget Sound realm.

A former Boeing comptroller and business owner, he was elected to the Tacoma City Council in 1979. He went on to become Tacoma mayor, SeaTac city manager, and then Pierce County charged with execution in 1992.

Along the manner he established himself as a moderate, pro-business Republican, supporting abortion rights and the Growth Management Act, what one. restricts where growth be possible to occur.

Sutherland won his first line since state lands commissioner in 2000, when he attain the term limit for the county executive’s do job-work. He was re-elected in 2004, taking 50 percent of the vote in a three-way race.

The genial 71-year-old casts himself as the qualified, bipartisan ability needed to run the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), an agency of 1,400 employees that manages greater quantity than 5 million acres of state-owned forests, farm land and aquatic land.

When he came to the agency, DNR had weathered eight years of turmoil driven by new protections since spotted owls, criticism of state logging, and a hard-charging lands commissioner — Democrat Jennifer Belcher — who frequently butted heads with the timber industry.

“When I arrived in the spring of 2001, I was facing an organization that was ready to implode,” Sutherland said.

His act has won raves from timber companies and even some Democrats, including Terry Bergeson, state Superintendent of Public Instruction.

“I be in actual possession of a lot of respect for him,” said Bergeson, who serves on the state Board of Natural Resoures, which oversees management of state land. “I’ve seen him do a superb work at jobs to build the organization.”

He has strong backing from the state’s business community, including the Washington State Farm Bureau, timber companies, the Building Industry Association of Washington, and the Association of Washington Business.

But his opponent challenges Sutherland’s image of fairness and management savvy. Goldmark says Sutherland hasn’cheek by jowl listened to environmentalist’s concerns, resulting in several lawsuits the agency lost.

“Clearly in that place’s a problem to this place in terms of attractive the efforts’s viewpoint and shutting out others, and then it takes a lawsuit to bring that back around,” Goldmark said.

Sutherland says he’s gone to magnanimous lengths to include all sides. But when environmentalists don’t like the result, they go to court for “a second bite at the apple.”

Goldmark also points to an naturally liable to befall in which a young woman working at DNR complained of inappropriate touching and remarks by Sutherland.

The woman said Sutherland ran his hand down her back and touched her waist at a public meeting, then remarked a portion like “could be favored with felt … up front.”

Sutherland apologized to her after an internal investigation found he had violated department rules, but that the incident didn’t rise to the level of illegal harassment. However, he disputes that he ever made the remark, and says the material contiguity was just his attempt to be kindly disposed.

The woman quit soon in imitation of. There is no evidence of other harassment complaints against Sutherland.

Sutherland’s supporters shoot back that while Goldmark is tut-tutting near this example, he campaigned with former Gov. Mike Lowry in Goldmark’s 2006 congressional race. Lowry in 1995 agreed to pay a previous aide $97,000 to settle her sexual-harassment complaint.

Candidate experience

Most of Peter Goldmark’s life has been spent outside the express’sitting political orbit.

He earned a doctorate in corpuscular biology at the University of California at Berkeley, then went to work as a research ally at a Harvard laboratory studying how nerve cells connect with the heart.

When he returned to the family’s Okanogan ranch in 1972 for his honeymoon, he stayed. Thirty-six years later, Goldmark still oversees the 8,000-acre wheat cultivate and cattle ranch.

Taking a page from a playbook added commonly used through Republicans, the 62-year-old labels Sutherland a “career politician.” Goldmark touts his business testimonials as a source of real-world experience. And he points to his ranching to ease concerns he’sitting a pawn of Seattle-area environmentalists.

But his substantiate comes more from environmentalists than major business interests. He’sitting backed by Washington Conservation Voters and big-name Democrats, including all the Democrats in the congressional delegation.

His critics question whether Goldmark is prepared to run a big state agency. And they charge he has inflated experience to overcome that.

Goldmark frequently talks of his season as head of the state’s Agriculture Department during the Lowry administration in 1993.

“I have important experience managing a state agency,” he said at a fresh debate.

What he mentions less often is that he resigned after five months, saying it was too earnestly to juggle the job with raising a young parents and children. Likewise, in 2006 he started his congressional campaign against Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, dropped out citing the distress to run his ranch, then re-entered the race.

His opponent also notes that twice in the ultimate four years Goldmark was a month not long ago gainful his disposition taxes, as farther on evidence that Goldmark isn’familiarily organized enough to outcry a specify agency.

“I’d say he’sitting probably a good husbandman. But quite frankly managing a large, complex organization, whether it be a city or a county or this constitution here is a very unaccommodating thing to do,” Sutherland said.

Goldmark tries to flip that inexperience into an advantage.

“You don’t indispensably want someone camped out in an important office for a long-spun round of years of time because they lose touch through the issues and the people,” he said.

Today, Goldmark says his children are grown, he has a ranch manager, and he’s ready for a full-time government station. He says the late tax payments were a paperwork oversight he corrected as soon as he learned of it.

He likewise talks of his service on the Okanogan School District Board and the topical planning commission, and his nine years put on the Washington State University Board of Regents.

Bill Marler, a prominent Seattle attorney, served on the board of regents when Goldmark was board president. Goldmark oversaw the search for a new president, which led to the 2000 hiring of V. Lane Rawlins, who sequestered in 2006.

“When Peter was president, there was none question that Peter was in a leadership role,” Marler said. “He’s a thinker. I always used to worry him that he exhausted a lot of time forward his combine and tractor, so he had a lot of time out there to think with regard to how things should be.”

Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com