Greetings and welcome to the last Friday in August (how’d THAT happen?!)! Looks to be a perfect cool and sunny near-fall weekend.

 

So let’s get to it – here’s our weekly team update:

 

    • Partner Support/Community Support 
      • CWEDD – Paul led the CWEDD Executive Committee meeting this Thursday to lock down the agenda for the September 10th full board meeting to be held in Benton County. The EC also discussed the upcoming November 3rd Ignite Economic Vitality regional convening.
      • Georgia Pacific – Paul and Sarah prepared a presentation on our local and regional economy that Paul presented to the Community Action Panel quarterly meeting on Monday afternoon. The CAP also learned about GP’s current regulatory challenges and upcoming investments.
      • HECC – Paul participated in an interview with Earnst & Young consultants hired by the HECC (Higher Education Coordinating Committee) to explore ways that Oregon’s institutions of higher learning can better move the needle on workforce development and economic vitality.
  • Blue Economy/O2IH
      • Challenger Biosciences – Paul and Mark Farley met with Don Gerhart for a working dinner on Wednesday evening. They discussed the nitrogen removal demonstration project, some potential other innovation efforts that could lead to coastal demonstration projects and two grants we are looking at pursuing. Stacie met with Don at Hatfield on Thursday afternoon to discuss demonstration project management.
  • Mango Materials – Stacie and Paul attended a demonstration project meeting on Monday.
  • Economic Mobility
      • City of Newport Co-Design Team Session One – After weeks of planning, Allyson, Gia, Erin, and Leslie convened the first of four Co-Design Sessions on Tuesday night at the Newport Recreation Center. Newport HR staff helped our members fill out volunteer paperwork while we enjoyed Gyro Guys Catering. Then, we launched into the co-design process overview, introductions, practice interviews, practice highlight share-outs, and selecting questions for the first “sprint.” Between sessions, each member will ask 3-4 co-design team-selected questions to 2-3 people in their social networks with multi-sector experiences in early job seeking, employee training programs, and other on-ramps to jobs and careers. Highlights from all those “sprint” conversations will be brought back to each team session, and subsequent plans will be built off of common themes and lessons learned.
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Youth Entrepreneurship Program – Sarah made the intro and outro for the new round of YEP Lincoln County business highlight videos for the 2027 program curriculum. She is currently in the process of scheduling interviews with the local entrepreneurs.
      • Fail Fest 2026 (11/12) – Stacie shared the list of potential speakers with the team for review/additions and Paul reached out to a potential emcee.
      • OEN – OEN requested assistance finding 2 local entrepreneurs for their 10/14 PubTalk at Primaltones (we already assisted with the venue) so Stacie shared the opportunity with the OR Coast SBDC in case any of their clients are interested. We will also be using our list of Fail Fest speakers as a resource for potential speakers.
  • Broadband
      • Broadband Action Team – This Thursday was the monthly BAT meeting for Lincoln, Benton, Lane and Linn counties. Some updates: On August 14, 2026, the FCC voted to adopt its annual Section 706 Report. Findings include 96.9% of Americans now having access to fixed terrestrial 100/20 Mbps broadband, a roughly 43% reduction over two years in the number of Americans lacking that service, and 95.2% having access to 5G speeds of at least 35/3 Mbps (though a caution here – since cell Internet often has data caps that can seriously throttle functional speeds). A late-added pole attachment requirement in the BEAD program has become a major sticking point for electric cooperatives nationwide, and it’s already driving some out of the program entirely. So far, 9 of the 62 electric cooperatives that initially qualified for BEAD funding have dropped out of the program.
  • Core Economic Development Services
      • Community & Economic Development Grant Program – Sarah and Paul worked to put together a short video on the grant program – this time focusing on public/private partnership applications. Stacie continued work on documenting program logistics for the FY26-27 program (which will be one of the discussion items in next week’s BoD meeting) and emailed Lincoln County staff to let them know that we are hoping to open the program on September 18th.
  • Major Employers Report – Sarah continued to call and email the last remaining businesses, only four left! 
      • Newport Facade Program – Paul, Sarah & Stacie met on Tuesday to walk through Sarah’s initial work on a proposal to the City to design and administer their new facade improvement grant program. Stacie has since worked on a proposal design template (since we have other proposals in the works) as well as formatting the Newport proposal and Paul requested some additional info from Nina (which came in today – thanks Nina!).
  • Community Connecting
  • Connecting OCCC’s New Natural Resources Faculty with Oregon Coast Community Forest Association’s (OCCFA) Forest Hill and Walden Project Staff – Leslie briefly introduced AJ Malozzi to Ben Williams and Todd Embree at last Friday’s Outdoor School screening (which was amazing – sign up for the film’s newsletter here for updates on upcoming Oregon film screenings). All four then met on Monday afternoon at Forest Hill Community Forest so AJ could experience and learn more about OCCFA and the Walden Project’s youth and family therapy programs in the community forest. While Yakona will be the primary outdoor classroom for OCCC’s Natural Resources programming, OCCFA’s community forest property, model, and Walden Project’s Medicaid-billable therapy programs are unique and also available for educational field trips, research projects, and studies. In the carpool, Leslie shared many other ideas for Natural Resource-aligned partners and programs with AJ, and she’s enthusiastic about growing networks together as AJ leads and develops OCCC’s courses. 
  • Organizational Management
  • Marketing & Communication – Stacie managed social media.
  • Admin – Team met on Wednesday and Stacie used some of the time to draft an agenda for the 9/17 team retreat.

 

As a reminder: September Board of Directors meeting will be Thursday, September 3rd at 3:30pm (via Zoom). Here is the meeting link (full packets going out next week):

 

Topic: EDALC’s September Board of Directors meeting

Time: Sept 3, 2026 03:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/9178104987?pwd=bVJDN0VlUEM3aG9EaFhJQUZjcDJHUT09&omn=82841364201

 

Meeting chat link

https://us06web.zoom.us/launch/jc/82841364201

 

Meeting ID: 917 810 4987

Passcode: 0NyksK

 

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! Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Cheers,

 

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