📈 Business Matters with Frank Catalano 03/03/26

Growing new tech companies SWIFTly: A spark near a forested area is usually a bad idea. Unless that spark is one of business innovation.

That admittedly dad-joke-adjacent thought crossed my mind as I wound my car through worn historic buildings that still dominate the tree-filled former campus of Northern State Hospital in Skagit County. Yet as I passed a tennis court on Northsound Drive, a modern sign on a newer one-story building came into view: “IRC Lab-SWIFT,” it declared in large green letters.

I’d come to check on the progress of this initiative of the Northwest Innovation Resource Center, a Bellingham-based nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs build innovative businesses in Northwest Washington. It had planted its latest physical shared space on the inside edge of what is today called SWIFT (Sedro-Woolley Innovation for Tomorrow) Center, run by the Port of Skagit.

NWIRC’s Sedro-Woolley lab opened in October 2025 in a recently renovated campus building. Inside, entrepreneurs and startups can take advantage of private offices, open workspaces, meeting rooms, prototyping equipment, a podcast room and — perhaps equally important — opportunities to network with, and learn from, other technology entrepreneurs.

Five months later, NWIRC Executive Director Diane Kamionka said the lab has been “very well received” and now has several entrepreneurs onsite, including two product startups: Astraeus Ocean Systems, which focuses on ocean monitoring and forecasting, and Altrusion, a company working on manufacturing infrastructure for fusion energy companies.

Greg Van Dyk, Altrusion’s CEO, said it wasn’t just the space and the scenic setting that attracted his clean energy startup. It was Kamionka and NWIRC’s connections.

“They have an incubation ecosystem all throughout the corridor,” Van Dyk said. “She put me in contact with legal, accounting, marketing, all sorts of people that I didn't know, because I was not from the area.”

Also appealing: programming for businesses looking to enter, and perhaps find contacts and make introductions, in a variety of developing tech industries.

For example, NWIRC will hold the second event in a three-part sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) series March 10 at the SWIFT IRC Lab on “Forest Products and SAF Feedstock” (the third session, on “SAF Workforce Development,” will be April 9 at Bellingham Technical College).

On May 6, the emphasis is a National Fusion Energy Day in partnership with the CleanTech Alliance with presentations, a company showcase and tours on the Sedro-Woolley site.

CleanTech Alliance Policy and Programs Manager Lindsay McCormick said her organization has been working with NWIRC “for over a decade” and knows — even if the general public may not yet — about burgeoning fusion companies coming into the area.

The joint event is “designed to educate and designed to really reach out into the community and bring folks together to learn about fusion and all the possibilities, job opportunities, timelines, all of the above,” said McCormick.

While the IRC Lab at SWIFT Center is only the second one currently open — the other is in Everett at Angel of the Winds Arena — Kamionka said NWIRC is actively looking for a new location in Arlington to help fill out its network that serves Snohomish, Skagit, Whatcom, Island and San Juan counties.

Bellingham has been tougher. Kamionka said a “sense of investment” in the possibilities of a physical shared lab space hasn’t developed with any agency in Whatcom County, as she said it did with the Port of Skagit.

Still, the establishment of IRC Lab-SWIFT represents progress in a region with a recent history of providing uneven resources and visibility to tech-related startups.

“This is where ideas take shape and innovators find their footing,” said Kamionka last year when announcing the Sedro-Woolley opening. “IRC Lab-SWIFT isn’t just a lab — it's a community catalyst.”

An infographic released by the Border Policy Research Institute at WWU confirms what many of us with NEXUS cards have anecdotally witnessed: passenger vehicle traffic into Whatcom County from British Columbia is down, and dropped 36% in 2025 compared to the year before.

Border Policy Research Institute: A new policy brief from BPRI, “Shifts in US Policy at the Canada-US Land Border,” highlights five pending and proposed changes for Canadian visitors that many Northwest Washington locals might find surprising, from increased biometric data collection to mandatory registration for some stays. One policy implication worth considering — “a shift away from treating Canadians as trusted exceptions.”

GeekWire: Paul Brainerd, founder of Aldus (who coined the term “desktop publishing” for its PageMaker software), died last month at his home on Bainbridge Island. GeekWire’s Todd Bishop wrote a thoughtful and thorough news obit. It should be required reading for anyone in tech business who thinks they can change the world. Brainerd actually did.

March 10: Northern Cascades SAF Series: Forest Products & SAF Feedstock, Northwest Innovation Resource Center, IRC Lab-SWIFT

March 11 & 12: Small Business Requirements & Resources Workshop, Governor’s Office for Regulatory Innovation and Assistance, The Salmonberry Room Sedro-Woolley (3/11) and Bellingham Central Library (3/12)

March 12: Anacortes Chamber Luncheon: Skagit Tourism Bureau, Anacortes Chamber of Commerce, The Anacortes Yacht Club

March 12: Multi-Chamber After Hours, Skagit Chamber Alliance, Trinky Busiu Art Gallery

March 13: Networking Breakfast, Bellingham Regional Chamber of Commerce, Holiday Inn & Suites Bellingham Airport

March 18: Membership Meeting: State of the City, Burlington Chamber of Commerce, Burlington Public Library

March 24: On Topic — Beyond ChatGPT: See What Claude Can Do for Your Business, Bellingham Regional Chamber of Commerce, Chamber conference room and online

March 25: Chamber Membership Luncheon, Skagit Valley Chamber of Commerce, Mount Vernon Library Commons