SORRY, WE'VE BEEN SLOW TO UPDATE LATELY.  

It's time for your business to start planning for the return of 18,000 troops to Fort Lewis.  According to stats at the Fort Lewis Ranger newspaper, the first wave of troops return beginning in the mid-March timeframe with the return of the 1st Corps headquarters and a couple other smaller units (roughly 1,500 sodleirs).

Then, beginning in May with advanced parties, three Stryker Brigades make the return over the summer, plus two other Fort Lewis brigades.

It's a major influx of troops returning with extra combat pay in their pockets.  To stay abreast of this news, follow the Fort Lewis Blog.

Here's a great blog post on a spouse's feelings and routine while her husband is deployed.  Notice she shopped on and off the post. Click here.

If you are in the business of technology, and especially military tech, you should know this portal.

Read this story on the partnership between Support America's Armed Forces, and Toyota of Puyallup.  FYI, our good friends at CDS truck driving school are hauling the baskets at no charge.

Tacoma Chamber's Gary Brackett has a good piece on the Cross Base in the Prosperity Blog.
Excerpt:
How to Build a Cross-Base HighwayPierce County’s long awaited and continually delayed Cross-Base Highway (SR 704) keeps looking for a solution to a need long overdue. For a project that started with a donation of right-of-way worth millions of dollars by Ft. Lewis, that head start in funding hasn’t made much progress against other state-wide projects that keep bumping the Cross-Base Highway.

As Fort Lewis is a work site that has gained 13,000 workers in the last demi-decade and seen a daily increase in thousands of vehicle trips, soldiers taking housing outside the post are continuing to seek housing in Thurston County as closer Pierce County housing is inaccessible via the congestion along the Pacific Ave.-SR 512-I-5 route, located in Parkland-Spanaway. Who hasn’t noticed the increase in congestion on I-5 south of the post as soldiers commute back and forth to Thurston County?

Businesses with a flag pole should know when to raise and lower their flags to half-mast, etc.  It's easy by subscribing to the state's listserve here.

If you are n the business to follow recent developments in Army technology, look no further than Army Technology.  The site is updated daily with industry news that may affect your business.

Here's a great story from Gary Brackett at the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce about small business on the Web...or, in other words, they SHOULD be.

See Military Marketing 101's update on using Facebook to connect with the troops.  Click to the right of this post.