News-Press from Fort Myers, Florida • Page 8

NEWS-PRESS SECTION WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 14, 1994 PAGE 8A BUSINESS EDITOR: HARRIET SIMPSON 335-0562 Monday-Friday 10 a.m.-7 p.m. bum A in Miami, Avis fries harder wBflh high-tech gizmos Electronic guidance, security systems being installed in South Florida rentals sense of safety," Avis Chairman and CEO Joseph V. Vittoria told a Miami news conference. Avis is working with Oldsmobile and Zexel USA Corp.

of Farmington Hills, and Rockwell International of Seal Beach, in developing the Guidestar Navigation-Information System. It allows a satellite to detect special sensors on the car and chart exact geographic locations through the Global Positioning System used actual consumer use throughout a rental fleet. Avis officials said there was "mounting consumer demand" for safety and directional systems in automobiles. "There have been recent Issues of tourist security in the Miami area, and Avis believes these systems are timely," said Mudar. "Ninety percent of our customers who participated in pilot programs say that in-car systems improve their spokeswoman for Avis Inc.

One of the two devices will provide drivers with the equivalent of a pushbutton 91 1 emergency police alert. The other is a small video screen mounted near the car's instrument panel to provide detailed turn-by-turn directions to thousands of destination points in the South Florida area. The devices were developed and tested in San Jose, and Miami in cooperation with police officials. This is the first time they will go into pany is starting out small with five Oldsmobile Delta 88s but it expects some day that the in-vehicle safety systems will be as commonplace as the car radio. "We have hundreds on order that we will put into Florida and other areas of the country over the coming months," said Demetria Mudar, LIFE ON ROAD DOESN'T HAVE TO The Associated Press ORLANDO Responding to tourist concerns about crime and safety, Avis announced Tuesday it will equip its rental cars in the Miami area with high-tech guidance and security systems.

The nation's No. 2 rental car com- Mom-friendly companies recognized The Associated Press WASHINGTON Home products maker S.C. Johnson Wax has a "Women's Business Council" to help break down barriers to advancement faced by female employees. Skokie, Fel-Pro, which makes car gaskets, sealants and lubricants, provides up to $6,500 in tuition reimbursements for children of its workers. The St Petersburg Times reserves a room for nursing mothers.

Such benefits helped earn those companies a place on Working Mother magazine's ninth annual list of 100 best companies for working moms. The list was unveiled Tuesday over breakfast at the Labor Department. "We've discovered that quality of life is a much greater asset in securing people than high salaries," said George Lucas, whose Lucasfilms is maker of such hit movies as "American Graffiti" and the "Star Wars" Trilogy. The 10 firms rated as especially helpful to working mothers are: Barnett Banks Fel-Pro Glaxo John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance IBM; Johnson Johnson; Lancaster Laboratories, NationsBank and Xerox Corp. Lucas also won the magazine's "Family Champion Award." I tiij.iim i 1 'yijvyv 1 1 (J t4r "hm If VV i a 1 Jf 'r -1 H-J Many of the comforts of home can be found in the cab of this Kenworth W90Q show truck owned by Steelcase of Grand Rapids, Mich.

Steelcase, which uses the rig for promotions, sent it to Fort Myers with driver Roger Bekkering to help deliver furniture to GE Client Business Services on Metro Parkway. GE ordered the furniture through Office Furniture Design Center, Fort Myers. The rig was available for public viewing Tuesday at Office Furniture Design, 2323 Cleveland and can be seen today from 9 to 11 a.m. The truck has a color TV, VCR, microwave, refrigerator, running water and central vacuum. by boaters, aviators and the military.

Guidestar's mapping system will provide directions to thousands of businesses, restaurants, hotels, banks, hospitals and tourist attractions from Miami south to Homestead and north to Jupiter, Avissaid. The Emergency Police Alert system was developed by AirTouch Tele-trac of Garden Grove, Calif. It is a two-way wireless remote signaling device that identifies the location of a distressed motorist to a command center. In fact, jobs will be the big issue in the 1 996 election just as the economy was in 1992, he said. As for the final quarter of 1994, said Brady, back-to-school buying was pretty good: "Not a boom, but good.

That usually presages a good Christmas." And we can expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates by another half of a percentage point after the November elections. Meanwhile, Congress will keep looking for ways to reduce the federal deficit and sooner or later that will mean tax reform, said Regalia "Congress won't do much in the next couple of years, just talk," he said. "The talk will start on a broad-based tax reform package but the whole package won't get passed," Regalia warned. "Things will start getting horse traded and business will get cherry-picked. Keep up with it as much as you can, because only pieces will get passed and those pieces are what will make or break you." Fishkind gave overviews of the future: "new economic orders" for the world, the state and Southwest Florida.

Over the next decade, our region will see stronger economic growth than most other parts of Florida, he said. A few factors: the 10th state university, and the good access provided by an expanded airport and completed Interstate 75. We won't grow like we did during the '80s, but we'll still grow, he said. "You'll have a window of 1 0 years or so where this will be the hottest market in Florida," Fishkind said. answer session, Fishkind stuck to his guns.

More people will move into Collier, he said. To realize that projection, Collier County would have to more than double its population in the next 10 years. According to numbers from the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida: Lee County's projected 1995 population is 376,603. That's forecast to grow 27 percent by 2005 to 478,005. Collier's population is projected to grow from 1 87,599 in 1 995 to 256,000 in 2005 a growth rate of 36.5 percent.

For Collier to surpass Lee's projected 2005 population it would have to grow by 155 percent. Historically, the growth rates even during the go-go '80s were more moderate; from 1975 to 1985, Collier grew by 84 percent and from 1985 to the projected figure for 1995 by 63 percent. By DEBORAH AUSTIN News-Press staff writer It was a packed house Tuesday as 400 Southwest Florida business people gathered for the eighth annual Regional Economic Outlook conference. In fact, for the first time ever, there was a waiting list to get in. So what did those people learn? We'll see fairly good economic growth for the rest of this year, though 1995 may slow some.

The next recession probably won't hit until around 1997. And even if you don't see Congress actually do something about tax reform in the next couple of years, better pay close attention to what they're fakingabout doing. That's a sampling of the insights from the day's three keynote speakers: Ray Brady, business correspondent for The CBS Evening News; Martin Regalia, vice president and chief economist of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and Hank Fishkind, president of Orlando-based economic analysis firm Fishkind Associates Inc. While the current economic expansion is getting "a bit long in the tooth," the White House will do everything possible to keep it going until after the 1996 presidential election, said Brady.

Clinton has "the brightest set of economic advisors" that he's seen in the White House for a long time, Brady said, and their task is to keep the economy on an even keel. "It wasn't Bill Clinton that beat George Bush. It was the recession, and they know it." JOB BE ROUGH THOMAS A. PRICENews-Press common injuries and ailments; can order laboratory tests, admit patients to hospitals, and prescribe medications I WORKPLACE WISDOM: "A physician's assistant puts out small fires the straightforward cases allowing the doctor to take care of the infernos the more complicated cases." Physician's assistant lightens doctor's load Forecaster predicts Collier will pass Lee in population mi -in infn THOMAS A. PRICENews-Press Kimberly Gore is a physician's assistant at Gulf Coast Family Physicians on Winkler Road in Fort Myers.

AT WORK By DEBORAH AUSTIN News-Press staff writer It was just one brief remark in three hours of speeches, but it produced an audible gasp from the crowd. In fact, it probably was the topic of many a car- phone call back to the office as busi ness leaders left Tuesday's Regional Economic Outlook Conference. The shocker of the day: Collier County's population will surpass Lee's by the year 2000 or fishkind 2005, said Hank Fishkind, president of Orlando-based economic forecasting firm Fishkind Associates and one of the conference speakers. When questioned about the forecast later during the question-and- i LL-i ON THE "We free up the doctors so they can concentrate on the complicated cases." KIMBERLY GORE physician's assistant that could be provided by people other than a doctor," she said. They starting putting their corpsmen through really intensive training taught by doctors that's the same as PAs do today." Is physician's assistant just a step on the road to becoming a doctor? Gore says no.

PA is a profession in its own right. "I like what I do," she said, "and I don't see any reason to spend 10 more years in school just to do the same thing." On theJobisa weekly feature on people at work In South west Florida. If you 're interested, drop usa line. We'll need the worker's name, employer, what he or she doesand who to call for more information. Write: On the Job, BusinessNews, News-Press, P.O.

Box 10, Fort Myers 33902. Economy CONSUMER INFLATION: Inflation at the consumer level remained moderate last month despite anothersharpjump in coffee Prices and the biesest rise in gasoline costs in nearly a year, the government said Tuesday. The 0.3 percent rise in the Labor Department's Consumer Price Index brought cheers from Wall Street with private economists predicting it will stave off, for a time at least, another increase in interest rates by the Federal Reserve. The 0.3 percent rise in the CPI was identical to the increases in June and July and left overall inflation runningatanannualrateof 2.9 percent, only slightly higher than last ypar's? 7 nprrpnt year SZ. percent.

I I NAME: Kimberly A. Gore PLACE OF WORK: Gulf Coast Family Physicians I HOW LONG THERE: 7 months I JOB TITLE: Physician's assistant I WHAT THAT REALLY MEANS: Assists doctors, as well as treats patients for ByEDO'DONOGHUE News-Press staff writer At the Gulf Coast Family Physicians offices, Kimberly Gore handles a hectic case load: suturing patient's cuts, diagnosing common illnesses, ordering laboratory tests, and writing prescriptions for most medicines. She fields after-hours calls for patients ages 6 months to 96. Gore isn't a doctor, though. She's a licensed physician's assistant, carrying out her duties under the direction of a physician.

Gore graduated from the PA school at the University of Florida two years ago and joined the staff at Gulf Coast Family last winter. Hers is a profession increasing in importance, not only for the care PAs give, but also as a means to keep medical costs down. "We free up the doctors so they can concentrate on the complicated cases," she said. "We handle the cases that are a little more straightforward, and it really cuts down on patients' waiting time. They're in and out quickly." She also takes care of the paperwork that each service entails.

Gore said her field traces its origins to the military's medical corps. "The military realized there were many medical services World markets Key stock markets performance Frankfurt Drouinuc- o-iKA R1 FRANKFURT Previous. 2 54.61 :9 Today: 2136.09 PARIS Previous-1 966 79 0 1 Todav-1969 36 1 1Sb3 HONG KONG Previous: 9890.37 0 5 Today 9937 01 0 TOKYO Previous: 19917.28 4- 0.6 Today: 20046.11 LONDON Previous: 3128.8 0.2 Today: 3121.4 ZURICH Previous: 2643.0 0.6 Today: 2658.8 MARKETS: Frankfurt: DAX. Hong Kong: Hang Seng. London: FT 100 Pans: CAC-40.

Tokyo: Nikkei. Zuncn: Credit Suisse, na: not available, x-na: holiday. BOTTOM LINE Executives Workshops ENTERPRISE ZONES: Bridgett Merrill, Florida Enterprise Zone coordinator, will speak at a workshop from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Fort Myers Public Housing Authority Auditorium, 4224 Michigan Ave. Merrill will discuss the Enterprise Zone Act and how changes will affect businesses in the area.

The workshop is sponsored by Lee County Employment and Economic Development Corp. (LEEDCO). For information, call Ed Welch at 337-2300. WESTINGHOUSE MOVE: Robert E. Faust has been named executive vice president, Westinghouse Communities, effective Oct.

1. Faust will be responsible for finance, human resources and administration at Westinghouse Communities and will direct the company's operations at Pelican Bay, Bay Colony and Pelican Marsh, all in Naples. He will report to Byron R. Koste, president of Westinghouse Communities, Inc. Faust was formerly vice president and controller of Westinghouse Electric Corp.

Broadcasting STATION LOGOS: Local NBC affiliate WBBH-TV changed its station logo Monday, along with the logo of ABC affiliate WEVU-TV whose news programs it operates. The new logos are Channel 2 for WBBH and Channel 7 for WEVU. Non-cable viewers will continue to tune in channels 20 and 26. Waterman Broadcasting Corp. of Fort Myers, parent company of WBBH, has a lease marketing agreement with WEVU's owners, Ellis Communication Inc.

of Atlanta. The agreement allowed Waterman to buy WEVU's news time. Newscasts for both stations are broadcast from the WBBH studios with anchors, reporters and crew from the Eyewitness News Network, a WBBH cable subsidiary. Local Education PRODUCT PARADE: The Bonita Springs Area Chamber of Commerce is holding a Parade of Member Products and Services Thursday Sept. 22 at the Bonita Bay Club in Bonita Bay.

The inaugural event will feature more than 60 exhibitors and their goods and services. The entrance fee is $5 if paid in advance or $7 at the door. Call 992-2943 for information. CAREER DAY: Bishop Verot High School in Fort Myers is looking for area professionals and business people to help with the school's Career Shadow Day on Oct. 1 1.

Could a young person follow you on the job for a day? If so, call the guidance department at 936-4646..