The one constant in the Washington apple industry is change. And consistent with change is preparation for the future through anticipation, research, planning, market development and implementation.

For 47 years the Washington State Potato Conference has been the site of equipment purchases, employee hires, earned credits, shared knowledge, reunions, new friendships, consumption of vast quantities of food and libations, first and last kisses, and a number of occurrences, of course, not printable.

To say that 2007 was a year of change for the Washington wine industry is an understatement.

With a refined master plan now in place for the Riverfront Business Park development, the Port of Pasco will soon submit the plan to the city of Pasco for approval.

The Port of Kennewick faces a number of opportunities and challenges this year. Here are some of our top priorities:

The Port of Benton is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. We have many events planned, including several open to the public. Our first public event is the Day of Wine & Roses, set for May 24 at the Prosser Vintner's Village. We'll have food, live music and our vintners will be pouring premium wines.

It is a tremendous time in the small grains industry on a global, national and regional scale. In a proactive effort to better position the industry to capitalize on opportunities and meet challenges, the boards of directors of the Washington Barley Commission, the Washington Wheat Commission and the Washington Association of Wheat Growers decided eight months ago to merge the existing staffs of the three entities to form a single Washington Grain Alliance.

Agriculture continues to grow in Washington as demand for our quality food products expands here and abroad.

Our No. 1 mission for 2008 at the Kennewick Irrigation District is building trust with a skeptical public by demonstrating that the district is competent, credible and fair. We look at every customer as an opportunity to deliver quality service by building on a culture where all employees, from the canal patrolmen to the receptionist, exude helpful professionalism.

Overall indicators for the Tri-Cities illustrate a strong economy positioned for growth. We expect the Tri-Cities to outperform the rest of the country and the state. We've added about 5,100 new jobs this past year -- a remarkable gain of 5.8 percent.

Can you name the fastest growing urban area within the state since the year 2000?

If you're planning a picnic on the Columbia River, you don't check the weather forecast for Florida. Yet that's just what some business reporters do when they're describing the home market in Washington. Instead of information about our state's home prices and mortgages, they tell you what's happening everywhere else.

It is always nice to start the year with a rate decrease and for myriad reasons Benton PUD customers were the recipients of one. While one of our top goals is to keep rates as low as possible, Benton PUD also takes pride in being a steward of our environment as we deliver power and broadband to our customers. Being cost effective and environmentally friendly don't always work hand in hand, but both have always been important in the way we do business.

Change is inevitable. And what a dynamic time to be a part of the electric utility industry at the heart of key local, regional and federal policy issues. Business as usual is no longer the case when it comes to generating and delivering energy. The world's appetite for energy is growing and we are part of history in Franklin County as we tackle the many challenges and issues to help mold and shape the future of growing energy needs, climate change and renewable energy.

Anyone who has spent the last year driving around the Tri-City area knows the state Department of Transportation has been busy improving the travel experience. I'm glad to say we are even closer to providing a better highway system. Drivers are already enjoying the benefits of additional lanes on Highway 240 between Richland and Kennewick and less time spent in delays due to a new roundabout at the Richland Y. WSDOT also recently completed the newest four-lane section on Highway 12 near the Boise paper mill, easing congestion and enhancing economic vitality.

A U.S. nuclear power renaissance is under way with nearly three dozen new nuclear plants in various stages of proposal and permitting across the country.

Washington State University Tri-Cities experienced a very successful 2007 and is moving forward toward an equally successful 2008.

In his book The Perfect Storm, author Sebastian Junger coined this term for a powerful coincidental occurrence of events. Perfect storms are extraordinary by definition and are potent because the accidental simultaneity of numerous factors creates a force greater than anything ever known. Using this metaphor, Educational Testing Services researcher Irwin Kirsch highlights three global forces that have the potential of a perfect storm to devastate our way of life.

It becomes more evident each year how complex, competitive and global our children's future is. This reality drives the evolving landscape of education today. Our children's future is not our future when we were their age. Our children will need skills that extend beyond reading, writing and math. The emphasis will be on problem solving, analysis and collaboration. We must not look back to what worked for us as adults, but anticipate what will be happening for students in their future. Our vision and goal in Kennewick is to prepare students for unlimited opportunities. The deeper and more challenging our curriculum becomes, the greater the opportunities each and every student will have.

One of the Richland School District's top goals is to improve school safety. The challenge is to make our campuses as safe as possible while providing a positive, nurturing educational environment.

If one were to take a quick tour of the district's 17 buildings, it would be easy to see that our newer schools all have an identical look. That's because the same floor plan has been used and updated for more than 20 years, saving taxpayer dollars on design and construction costs.

No one could have predicted the rapidly moving accomplishments of the Hanford Reach Interpretive Center in the past year.

Visitor dollars add to the local economic base. Because visitors live and work somewhere else, when they spend money in our local economy those dollars generate significant economic impacts.

As Kennewick General Hospital looks to the future, the need and vision for growth increases. KGH now serves a district of about 111,000 people and welcomes all patients in our service area of over 300,000 in Benton and Franklin counties, including those covered by Medicare and Medicaid.

The skyline is changing, and with the opening of our patient care tower we are poised to meet the needs of the community well into the 21st century.

This past fiscal year blessed Lourdes Health Network with its most successful financial year in its history. For an organization 91 years young, that's quite a feat. But for those involved on a daily basis with Lourdes, the credit for the success lies in the focus on the mission and doing what they do best -- providing excellent community health care services.

In addition to providing essential public services, Benton County will continue supporting key sectors of the economy in 2008. Stability and sustainability in the areas of agriculture, industry, tourism, transportation and Hanford cleanup are key to our community's progress.

The Franklin County Courthouse facilities will have security in place for the first time this year. Though some may consider that cumbersome, it shouldn't be too difficult. Access onto the grounds will be through the newly constructed security building on the north side of the courthouse.

I feel blessed to be a public servant in the city of Kennewick. Those on the city team, from our council members to all 366 of our employees, experience many challenges as we deliver a multitude of services to meet the diverse needs of our citizens. What follows is a sampling of the challenges we face for the upcoming year along with strategies for successfully managing those challenges.

While Pasco has been one of the fastest growing cities in the state over the past decade, its growth has not been well balanced. Residential growth requires more services (especially police and schools) but typically does not expand the property tax base commensurate with the growth in service demand costs. Coupled with the historically lower home values in the older part of the community, Pasco reflects the lowest property tax base of the three cities by a substantial margin.

Richland is looking to both the past and the future this year: 2008 marks Richland's 50th anniversary of incorporation as a First Class Chartered City and a year of significant changes.

Take a quick look at a dictionary and you'll find "progress" described as: Gradual improvement or growth or development; the act of moving forward toward a goal; or to develop in a positive way. Each one of these phrases accurately describes what is occurring in West Richland where we're building tomorrow's community today.

Our job at the state Department of Ecology is to keep our citizens and the environment safe from the dangers of mixed radioactive and chemically hazardous wastes at Hanford.

Imagine that in less than a decade the lands of the Hanford National Monument that run along the Columbia River through the Hanford Nuclear Reservation are ready to support a new Hanford mission, one that will allow a new generation to appreciate the rich natural and cultural history of the area. The goal of the Environmental Protection Agency in the coming year is to help guide and support the work that needs to be done to make this vision a reality.

Since becoming manager of the Pacific Northwest Site Office in September 2007, I have focused on learning about Pacific Northwest Site Office and the challenges we face in facilitating continued success at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. I spent time meeting with each of my federal staff, toured the laboratory spaces, both the Tri-Cities campus and the Sequim and Seattle facilities, and I talked with laboratory personnel.

Global climate change. Weapons of mass destruction. Rising oil prices. Environmental contamination. These are among the nation's toughest challenges that the nearly 4,000 employees at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory tackle daily. By applying world-leading science and technology to our customers' most urgent needs, PNNL is growing and thriving in your backyard.

Nothing is as easy as it looks. Everything takes longer than you expect. And if anything can go wrong, it will, at the worst possible moment.

It's probably a fair bet to say most people associate the six-story building in Richland sporting the big FLUOR sign with operations at Hanford. And while that is mostly true, with about 350 of our employees supporting nuclear waste cleanup projects at the site, another 250 of our employees support Fluor projects around the globe.

When Sam Volpentest, congressional, community, tribal, and labor leaders as well as Department of Energy officials came together to map out the vision for the Volpentest HAMMER Training Center, they correctly predicted that the facility would evolve and adapt to changing missions. As HAMMER enters its 11th year of full operations, their insight is paying huge dividends today and positioning HAMMER well for the future.

Since this is the Tri-City Herald's annual Progress Edition, I thought an appropriate first step in preparing this article would be to look up the word "progress" and see how we have measured up to its definition.

Anyone who's ever been to the Department of Energy's Hanford site has noticed its proximity to the Columbia River. That's why the River Corridor Closure Project, managed by Washington Closure Hanford, is cleaning up radioactive and other hazardous wastes along Hanford's 50-mile Columbia River shoreline.

As the new manager of the Department of Energy's Richland Operations Office, I'm often asked what the new vision for cleanup is. It seems there's an expectation that with a new boss automatically comes a new set of outcomes -- a new "flavor" to our approach.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of River Protection is responsible for retrieving and treating the 53 million gallons of chemically complex radioactive waste stored in 177 underground tanks on the Hanford Site. Working together with prime contractors Bechtel National, CH2M HILL Hanford Group and Advanced Technologies and Laboratories International, our mission is to remove the waste from the tanks, build a plant to vitrify the waste (turn it into stable glass logs) for long-term storage or disposal, and close the tank farms. This is not an easy job and represents many unique challenges. Never before has a plant been built to the size and complexity of the Waste Treatment Plant. And never before has chemical and radioactive tank waste of this complexity been retrieved and treated.

For over eight years, CH2M HILL has been helping the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of River Protection reduce the risk to the environment from Hanford's legacy of waste. As the tank farms contractor, we have been progressively cleaning up 53 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste stored in 177 underground tanks.

Bechtel National Inc. is designing and building a vitrification plant to turn Hanford's tank waste into glass to make it stable and impervious to the environment. The vit plant will cover 65 acres with three major nuclear facilities -- Pretreatment, Low-Activity and High-Level Waste -- as well as an analytical laboratory and 20 support buildings and underground commodities. Located 25 miles north of Richland, the vit plant will essentially be a small city, complete with all the services to operate and protect the plant such as electricity, steam, chilled water, fire water and fuel oil.