[July 2008 eCon Update] EDCO - Economic Development For Central Oregon

Celebrate Oregon’s best – and cheer on local solar manufacturer PV Powered – September 18, 2008

The statewide entrepreneurial community’s biggest gathering of the year will be the 2008 Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) Tom Holce Awards for Entrepreneurship, the 15th annual celebration from OEN. This year’s event theme “Rogues and Renegades” honors the independent spirit of Oregon’s entrepreneurs. The high profile event, held at the Oregon Convention Center, attracts a crowd of 900

or more of Oregon’s most influential business people.

Finalists are honored in four categories: Development Stage, Working Capital Stage, Growth Company Stage, and the Entrepreneurship award for Individual achievement. After hundreds of hours of due diligence, including site visits and face-to-face interviews, OEN’s award judging committee narrows down finalists to several candidates in each of the four categories. This year, Bend’s own solar company PV Powered is a finalist in the Working Capital category, competing with Beaverton-based ID Experts and Portland-based interactive marketing specialist Pop Art Inc. EDCO is assessing if there's interest in a local table at the gala event; tickets are $180 per person through July 15th and then go up to $195. Call EDCO at 388-3236 if you or your company is considering attending. For more details, visit www.oen.org.

Speaking in front of a backdrop which included an old locomotive and caboose, Oregon Governor Ted Kulgonoski praised the City of Prineville for being forward thinking. The Governor was in Prineville June 25 to officially award The City of Prineville Railroad with a $3.5-million dollar check as part of the Connect Oregon II grant dollars. The money will be used to build Central Oregon’s only state-of-the-art Freight Depot facility, which will become a regional transportation hub for warehousing and shipping.

The Prineville City Council voted unanimously in June to seek help from the League of Oregon Cities (LOC) in finding a new City Manager. The LOC will assist in several areas including posting the position, reviewing resumes, and helping with the interview process. The city is paying LOC $7,500 for its services, but Mayor Mike Wendel says it’s well worth the cost. “It would cost us double, even triple, if we were to hire an interim City Manager from the outside. I work closely with the LOC, and they do a good job of helping cities find new leadership,” explained Mayor Wendel. Wayne Van Matre, Operations Manager of the city-owned Meadow Lakes Golf Course has been named interim City Manager. The council hopes to have a replacement by late summer or early fall.

The future of the tourism industry in Crook County was dealt a blow in the May election when it comes to future development. Over 60% of Crook County residents voted in favor of an initiative that asked the County Court to change the Destination Resort Overlay Map, which governs where and how many resorts can be built. Some in the community – especially Powell Butte residents – felt the county left the door open for too many resorts, which they believe could impact water rights and farm land. Crook County Judge Scott Cooper believes the impacts by resorts are minimal, and the infusion of money into the tax base goes a long way to help pay for the services many county residents demand. But Cooper says voters spoke loud and clear on the direction the court should go. “When that many people vote a certain way, as an elected official I must listen to my constituents,” says Cooper. While the passage of the initiative is not legally binding, the County Court will look at how the overlay map might change to appease voters. The process could take months, however, as numerous meetings will be required to receive public input and direction.

Jackie Westover, VP and Manager with LibertyBank, will represent the twelve institutions that make up the financial community on EDCO’s board for the next two years. Westover comes well equipped to serve in this capacity -- she spent 23 years with Washington Mutual Bank in a variety of roles, most recently VP/Manager of their Bend downtown location, and has been active in the community, serving as President of Quota International of Central Oregon and a member of the Downtowner’s Association. Westover states she’s seen the ups and downs Bend has experienced since the late ‘60s and wants Central Oregon to be "the best possible place it can be for everyone who lives, works and visits our community." In order for this great way of life to continue, she says, "we need a strong a diverse economic foundation. EDCO works hard to ensure that.”

Funding for a stoplight at a critical intersection in La Pine got one step closer to reality. At a June 30 joint meeting of the Deschutes County Commissioners and La Pine City Council, possible funding solutions for a stoplight at the intersection of Reed Road, Highway 97, and 1st Street were outlined. New development on either side of the state highway, generating 50 peak hour trips, would trigger the requirement. In a step forward, Commissioner Luke stated that once the scope of the project (design of the intersection design and associated costs) was determined, the City and the County would then resolve how to pay for it. Clark Jackson, Business Development Officer for Oregon Economic and Community Development Department (OECDD), testified that a potential funding solution would be to apply for the state’s Immediate Opportunity Fund, where 50% of the project would be funded by the state and the remaining 50% provided by a local match. Lee Smith of the La Pine Industrial Group Inc. (LIGI) testified that, with County permission, it would be possible for LIGI to fund the scope study. A volunteer group, LIGI manages the sale and development of the three County-owned business and industrial parks in La Pine.

Last week the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department (OECDD) announced a new round of grants to help Oregon small businesses access federal funding opportunities. The state grants aim to increase Oregon's competitiveness in capturing federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants, which provide direct funding to small businesses for research and development of new technologies. “We want as many Oregon small businesses as possible to access these federal funds,” said OECDD director Tim McCabe. “By partnering with the private sector and providing matching funding to develop proposals, small businesses can access the right tools to develop applications that are more likely to win awards.” The state grant program offsets the cost of applying for federal SBIR/STTR grants by providing matching funds on a one-to-one basis to cover proposal preparation expenses incurred by Oregon small businesses, with the hope that more Oregon companies will apply for the federal grants. The federal program represents billions of research dollars that are obligated to small businesses. Download an application or get more information here.

Bend Venture Conference (BVC) has announced its keynote speaker for its fifth annual conference on October 16 (evening) and October 17 (full day) in Bend at the Tower Theatre. Rich Karlgaard is Forbes' publisher, author of the magazine’s “Digital Rules” column, an entrepreneur, and author of The Wall Street Journal best seller, Life 2.0 – How People Across America Are Transforming Their Lives by Finding the Where of Their Happiness. Bend is named in his book as one of the nation’s best “telecommuting heavens.” Visit www.bendvc.com for 2008 conference registration and information.

HiDEC has been very active this past quarter in organizing a variety of problem solving workshops and learning forums for Central Oregon’s manufacturing community, as the summary of training below indicates.

April 21 Lean 101 training
April 22 Value Stream Mapping training
April 29 General Membership meeting
April 29 Preparing for and weathering an economic downturn
May 30 Basic Problem Solving Techniques training
June 5 Executive Forum – What value do kaizen events bring to a company

At a dynamic Executive Forum in early June, HiDEC members listened to two guest speakers who presented differing viewpoints about the real value of kaizen events. Roger Aubert, Director of Manufacturing at Triad Speakers, Inc. in Portland, took the group through Triad’s creation of a kaizen event program from scratch and the trials, tribulations and ultimate value of working day-to-day in the trenches to make the program successful. Toni Doolen, OSU assistant professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, presented her research findings that the benefit of kaizen events can either be short-term results or long-term cultural gains. Bottom line? Kaizen events are no doubt valuable, but company management needs to construct the process and select participants with advance knowledge of which outcome they seek to optimize. Select a team that works together as a unit, and you optimize for process improvements. Select a cross-functional team, and you broaden each individual’s understanding of their impact on a process. Balancing the two seemingly divergent objectives, BrightWood Corporation submitted that they frequently pair a topic expert with an individual with fresh eyes to ensure the kaizen event generates new ideas.

In a strategic planning initiative which will shape HiDEC’s second year offering of programs, HiDEC is partnering with local lean consultant Steve Ashton’s company, Lean Power, to interview all 24 member companies to gauge where they are in their lean implementation. This information will be used to group together like companies for more focused and appropriate training for the future.

Contact Eric Strobel at EDCO if you’re interested in participating or observing one of these upcoming HiDEC events.

July 21 & 22 - Two-day Set-up Time Reduction kaizen event at PCC Schlosser, led by Gary Conner
July 28 - Lean 101 class at COCC Redmond Campus
July 29 - Value Stream Mapping class at COCC Redmond Campus
August 4-6 Three-day Value Stream Mapping event at Precise Flight in Bend, led by David Jones

Year two, subprime crisis: problems rising in Oregon, but state faring better than others

While Oregon’s foreclosure rate is going up, we compare favorably to other states in the nation as well as the western states that comprise the Federal Reserve Bank’s Twelfth District. Within the state, Deschutes, Linn, Polk, Yamhill, Jackson, and Josephine counties all have higher rates of foreclosure relative to the number of housing units than other counties.

We show one key chart below. For additional perspective, visit EDCO’s website for the presentation from Teresa Curran of the Federal Reserve Bank, in her remarks to the Lenders’ Roundtable in June and remarks from Roger Lee, EDCO Executive Director, in a June presentation to the Women's Council of Realtors on a wide range of business and real estate topics. Other resources available through The Federal Reserve Bank:

Comparative Subprime Characteristics, February 2008
	U.S.	OR	CA	NV
Loans per 1000 housing units	25	22	38	42
Average current interest rate	8.72	8.05	7.89	8.41
Average balance	$180,101	$184,373	$325,638	$216,681
Percent owner occupied	100.0	99.0	99.9	99.1
Percent in foreclosure	9.6	5.4	12.5	10.9
Percent in REO	5.5	1.6	9.7	7.0
Percent ARMs	64.3	66.2	73.3	78.0
Share 90 days delinquent	8.6	5.3	8.9	8.7
Share late payment last 12 months	52.6	37.3	54.2	51.6
Share low or no documentation	32.9	27.3	47.4	38.5
Share ARMs resetting in 12 months	39.2	44.2	43.4	42.4

Law firm Miller Nash offers a short brief on the highly nuanced area of rest-break regulations. In May, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that employees cannot recover from an employer additional wages based on missed rest breaks. The court reasoned that under the regulation and related statutes, because an employee who takes a rest break is still "working" during that ten-minute period, employees who miss rest breaks are not actually paid less wages than those to which they were already entitled. The full brief offers details on how employers can ensure breaks are properly provided and tracked.

Last week, Starbucks announced it's closing 600 stores. Lost in all the news was that the Seattle coffee giant had been investing in the quality of its product. In fact, a few months ago Starbucks stores nationwide closed for an evening while baristas across America relearned how to make a quality cup of espresso. Businesses understand the need for professional development. There’s another sector that needs it too and it’s far more important than coffee. K through 12 schools need more time and resources for teachers to learn the best practices of their colleagues so they can make schools the best they can be. That’s why the Chalkboard Project and the Oregon Educators Association (OEA) are partnering on a survey about professional development for teachers. Next year, the Chalkboard Project will work with education partners to convince Oregon lawmakers to pass a bill that would enhance access rigorous professional development programs for educators. If Starbucks can sacrifice a few hours of sales to improve the quality of their product, the Chalkboard Project believes we can wake up and smell the coffee about professional development for teachers.

Organizers for the JELD-WEN Tradition are putting out the call for golf enthusiasts to sign up as volunteers for the 2008 tournament. Each year, hundreds of volunteers serve as marshals, walking scorers and many other positions, performing the tasks crucial to hosting a successful event. Tournament organizers estimate they will need approximately 800 volunteers for this year’s event and urge the Northwest golf community to get involved. Volunteers can expect to get a glimpse behind-the-scenes of a major championship and watch their favorite Champions Tour players up close, such as committed players Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam, Sandy Lyle as well as newly committed players Hale Irwin and Larry Nelson.

The monthly breakfast briefings on HR topics continue to be popular, so Tompkins has added additional sessions. There’s something new to learn in each session, as the topics below demonstrate. Register in advance by calling 541-749-9982 or email Craig. Cost is $10.00 per session and includes coffee and breakfast items. All briefings are held Wednesday mornings, 7:30 – 8:30 am, at 780 NW York Drive, Suite 202, Bend.

August 13 – Benefit Plan Basics
September 10 – Dealing with Difficult People

Imagine a firm that maximizes lucrative state and federal grants, credits, and incentives...and then helps recover those funds. That's exactly what Zenith TransLucre (ZTL) does. Specifically, ZTL helps software companies that are writing code, manufacturers, and exporters. Principal Tony Hynp tells us a major advantage to using ZTL is that their service is set up at no cost to the client. "ZTL only gets paid after client companies realize their benefits,” Hynp explains. For more information, call 541-350-0202.

Have a story idea? Or something you’d like to see covered in the eCon Update? We appreciate your comments; email Ruth Lindley.