Greetings and welcome to the first Friday in October! Time to pull out those Halloween decorations and gourds and pour yourself a warm cup of pumpkin spice something-or-another. Here is a hilarious (and profanity-laiden) article from McSweeny’s heralding the arrival of Fall:

 

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its-decorative-gourd-season-motherfuckers

 

Thanks to all who attended yesterday’s Board of Directors meeting via Zoom. What great, in-depth discussions! Your wisdom and insights on both our strategic planning process and the Economic Development District awareness video project have given staff a LOT to work with.

 

Here’s our weekly team update:

 

    • Partner Support/Community Support 
  • CWEDD – Sarah and Stacie prepared for and attended a meeting with Matt and Justin from the OCWCOG regarding our CWEDD video project with them. Sarah and Stacie worked on planning logistics for the filming afterwards.
      • Newport – On Tuesday, Paul joined City Manager Nina Vetter and Bonnie Stockberger (Newport Human Resources Analyst) to interview two candidates for the City’s Economic Mobility Program Manager position – there is one more candidate to interview in the coming weeks.
      • OEDA Conference – The team finalized the activities for the Choose Your Own Adventure day that will wrap up the OEDA conference’s final day on Tuesday, October 28th. This morning, Stacie and Paul drafted some “sizzle verbiage” for the OEDA team to use in marketing.
      • Creative Economies Playbook for Lincoln County (funded by Northwest Oregon Works) – Stacie worked on content creation.
    • Blue Economy/O2IH
      • Challenger Biosciences – Paul and Hatfield’s Mark Farley met with Don Gerhart from CB and Molly Morse and Anne Schauer-Gimenez of Mango Materials on Monday for a long meeting at Hatfield and then a working dinner at Local Ocean. They were exploring the feasibility of setting up a PHA manufacturing facility (a biodegradable plastic created by bacteria feeding on methane biogas) in Lincoln County.
    • Entrepreneurship
      • Business Incubator – Paul worked with Rural Prosperity Partners to draft and submit a short grant application to The Ford Family Foundation’s GRO program, for matching funds for an upcoming EDA Disaster Supplemental application to do a detailed feasibility study of creating a “white box” business incubator in Newport.
    • Core Economic Development Services
      • Major Employers – Sarah continued to reach out to local businesses for their employment numbers for the Major Employers Report. 
      • Oregon Prospector – Sarah updated Oregon Prospector listings. 
  • Practitioners Luncheon – Stacie and Sarah attended the regional Economic Developers Practitioners Luncheon in Corvallis.
    • Community Connecting
      • Leslie’s en route to Bend today for The Ford Family Foundation’s (TFFF) Rural Community Builder Summit (as are Paul and OSU Extension’s Beatriz Botello). She’s looking forward to catching up with the folks from the TFFF network and the Rural Community Builders Collective! Leslie’s plans include a pre-Summit meetup and tour of Sisters Hub and perhaps a regenerative agriculture Meadery visit en route to Bend’s Riverhouse.
      • See Leslie’s full weekly report here: October 3, 2025 EDALC CC Weekly Report
      • Community Connector Weekly Report Archives 2024+
    • Organizational Management
  • Marketing & Communication
  • Stacie shared relevant partner/regional posts on various social media channels – as well as the usual Friday roundup of central coast goings on. She also added the ROI video to the website. 
  • Project Work
      • The team met on Wednesday afternoon and used the time to brainstorm what can be done in/for/related to Toledo in 90 days with 5k from GP. Paul sent the revised plan to Andrea Formo and we are waiting for approval.
      • Stacie created a Monday project for the 2026 Economic Summit using last year as a template and continued to harass her teammates about project updates.

 

A reminder to save the date (November 6th, 3:30pm) – this will be our first in-person meeting of the new fiscal year, and we’ll be holding it at our Waldport offices. There will be some tasty treats, plus also some Pacific Sourdough bread for those who make the trek! We’ll be inviting some prospective new Directors to the meeting as well. Come and join us and see where we work!

 

That’s it for this week, thanks for ALL that you are doing out there. Keep us posted if you have anything you want us to share – we love hearing from you!

 

Cheers,

 

-The EDALC Team (Paul, Sarah, Leslie and Stacie)