Greetings and welcome to Friday! And Happy Halloween! What’s your favorite scary movie?

 

The Oregon Economic Development Association held their annual conference from Sunday through Tuesday at Salishan. Paul taught a section of the Business Retention and Expansion course on Sunday afternoon and offered welcoming remarks during the Sunday reception – and introduced Representative Gomberg.

 

On Monday, Paul (+ a surprised Sarah and Stacie) took to the stage to welcome all attendees. The EDALC team attended the keynotes and breakout sessions throughout the day. Of note was the Oregon Business and Industry afternoon keynote, calling out in stark detail (and backed by cited data) just how far Oregon’s support of business has fallen over the past few years (Oregon is near the bottom – 47th, of “business friendly” states).

 

On Tuesday, Cara Turano of the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network gave the morning keynote – this time discussing how Oregon fares as a state when it comes to supporting entrepreneurial startups – Oregon is close to the top. The challenge is to bridge that gap from startup to long term support (a non-trivial challenge).

 

The entire team then wrangled attendees through Adventure Day – seven activities all across the county. It was a great success and Lincoln County really showed her colors to the state’s economic development practitioners!

 

Also, Saturday is the Samaritan House Dancing with the Coastal Stars fund-raising event, with several EDALC friends (and a past EDALC Director) competing. Here’s a link to information about the event (click on the individual dance teams to find out how to donate and support their fundraising directly): https://www.samfamshelter.org/2025-dancing-with-the-coastal-stars/

 

Here’s our weekly team update:

 

    • Partner Support/Community Support 
      • Cascades West Economic Development District – Sarah filmed an interview with Brenda Moore, Executive Director for the Lane Council of Governments at their office in Eugene to continue key interviews for the CWEDD video. She also coordinated additional interviews for next week.
      • CCFW – Sarah attended a marketing services coordination meeting with Kiara and Kelliane from the SBDC and attended an executive committee meeting for the Central Coast Food Web.
      • City of Newport – Paul was part of a city and community leader interview panel on Thursday for the top finalist for the City’s new Economic Mobility Program Manager position. Paul, City Manager Nina Vetter and the new hire will be travelling to El Paso in December to take part in the ICMA’s Economic Mobility training event.
      • Waldport Chamber – On Wednesday, Sarah and Paul attended the Waldport Chamber’s breakfast at the First Baptist Church on the Alsea River (what a view!).
      • OEDA Annual Conference – Following the event (see details above!) the team began aggregating pics and videos.
  • Blue Economy/O2IH
      • Maritime Career Exploration – Paul met with Tracy Crews, Associate Director of Education for Oregon Sea Grant, to discuss EDALC/O2IH being the grantee organization for some Northwest Oregon Works maritime funding to pilot a maritime career exploration and basic training program at Hatfield (going through us rather than subjecting those funds to the 36% overhead from OSU). Northwest Oregon Works is in support of this approach, as is EDALC.
      • O2IH – Stacie worked with the web developer on the addition of cookie consent management and security plugins.
  • Core Economic Development Services
      • ComEcDev Grant Program – Stacie put together an application management tracker, updated email templates, and sent confirmation email to the first three applicants.
      • Major Employers Report – Sarah continued to reach out to local businesses for their employment numbers for the Major Employers Report. 
      • Oregon Prospector – Sarah updated old listings and added new ones to Oregon Prospector. 
  • Community Connecting
    • RDI’s Turn up your Voice Cohort Meeting – Wednesday morning’s Zoom meeting allowed participants to share the working drafts of their Single Overriding Communications Objective (SOCO), then dove into timely discussions on the Continuum of Collaborative Relationships. This concept and resource prepared Leslie for Thursday’s planning meeting with CPC’s Executive Director (see details in Leslie’s full weekly update). Leslie’s SOCO draft (in italics below) on the importance of finding and funding Rural Community Builders or Connectors throughout Oregon received a “BOOM” in the chat from RDI Executive Director Heidi Khokhar.:

Trust and understanding in Rural communities, especially between historical divides and sector silos, take multiple years to develop.

If under 5-year project timelines aren’t shiftable on the State’s or funders’ end, any top-down, prescriptive efforts from outside a community are unlikely to connect with the breadth of a Rural community, unless they are delivered with the consult and built network of a local Community Builder or Connector.

To sustain both top-down and grassroots multi-sector complex problem-solving efforts, Community Connectors must be compensated for providing their social capital and historical community knowledge. Community Connectors must be selected for the proven work alongside the breadth and depths of their networks, not the type of organization they work for. 

I ask that you, as a funder, recognize both your current timelines for projects and grants, as well as your budget allowances for funding a proven Rural Community Builder or Connector to incorporate their social capital and historical knowledge into any effort under 5 years. 

  • Organizational Management
    • Marketing & Communication
      • Stacie shared relevant partner/regional posts on various social media channels – as well as a Friday roundup of spooky central coast goings on. She also created and posted an Adventure Day recap.
    • Admin
      • Strategic planning – Paul met with Kaety Jacobson to dial in the strategic planning process. With the holiday coming up fast, we’ll probably have any in-person or virtual sessions after the first of the year, but the staff can help get Kaety started with external stakeholder engagement.
      • By-Law change – Paul pulled together a draft by law amendment relating to board composition and advisory members (section 5.4) and sent it off to Doug Holbrook for review.

 

A reminder that next week is our November BoD meeting (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 – Nina Vetter and Lisa Norton have both confirmed. 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)