Greetings and welcome to Friday! It looks like we’re in for some crazy weather tomorrow, so plan to get cozy with a fire and a good book!
Here’s our staff update for the week:
Blue Economy::
Sarah, Leslie and I has a great call with Maggie Michael about an upcoming seafood butchery training program that is launching in five coastal high schools in February (including two in Lincoln County). After discussing with Mark Farley (“Heck yes, let’s give the children knives!”), it looks like we’ll be able to use some of our CDS funding to cover some or all of the program’s costs, coast-wide. I also met with Don Gerhart of Challenger Biosciences today at Hatfield to discuss the wrap-up and next steps of Phase 3 of our green methanol research project. – Paul
Broadband::
This week, I had a few check-in calls on the upcoming Broadband Technical Assistance Program – two with Pioneer Telephone Cooperative and one with Rural Prosperity Partners (RPP). RPP will be writing a BTAP grant application for us to provide funds for grant writing, pre-engineering work and general regional coordination of broadband efforts. The application will cover Lincoln, Linn and Benton counties. – Paul
Community and Economic Development Grant Program::
As a reminder, here is the link to the grant applications, scoring spreadsheet and scoring rubric:
Creative Economies::
This week I updated the Art, Oysters & Brews vendor form and attended the Art Toledo meeting Thursday morning. Paul and I also met with ART Toledo and the Portland Street Art Alliance to select Toledo’s next muralist, who will be doing a tactile mural on the Toledo library. – Sarah
Entrepreneurship::
I reached out to some local businesses asking them to be part of the Youth Entrepreneurship Program videos I am creating and was able to schedule a few interviews for next week. I also began working on the introduction for those videos, posted on the EDALC Facebook page about the program, and worked on the interview questions. – Sarah
Organizational Management::
We’ve received over 20 applications for our half-time Organizational Coordinator position. On Monday, Leslie, Sarah and I met to review the candidates and selected five for initial Zoom interviews (we’re doing a short 30 minute Zoom interview to start, and then an in person interview for the candidates with the most potential). Sarah and I worked together to create the interview scripts for both sessions and Sarah is taking on the job of handling the first-round interviews. – Paul
I began doing the first-round interviews with our top candidates on Thursday and today. – Sarah
Project Work::
This week I sent out an initial reach out to some local financial, real estate, and law folks for a mastermind group that a local financial planner is hoping to organize. I also continued to work on some economic summit event planning and finished and uploaded all the DEQ source water workshop videos. I also updated the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider and attended the Newport Chamber lunch on Wednesday. Paul and I also cleaned up the office Thursday afternoon in preparation for the Waldport chamber breakfast next Tuesday. – Sarah
Rural Opportunity Initiative::
On Wednesday, I met with Business Oregon Rural Opportunity Initiative team for a kick off meeting and to talk through projects and budgets on the road to setting up a grant contract. This round was very competitive, with well over $4 million in applications. Brian Plinski told me that our was one of the standouts, statewide. We requested $110K, but were awarded $95K (all awardees got slightly less so they could lock in an additional award or two). Next week, we’ll review our budget and trim it down, but we’ll still be in great shape for our ROI/Entrepreneurial Ecosystem work over the next two years. – Paul
Supporting and Connecting with Partners::
Waldport Chamber – On Tuesday morning, the Waldport CoC will be having their January breakfast meeting at the OCCC South Campus. Since janitorial help is short at OCCC, yesterday Sarah and I donned rubber gloves and gave the building a good clean for the event, as well as set up the food serving area and presentation room. – Paul
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
I’m STILL on jury duty call – my next check in is on Tuesday evening to see if I have to serve on Wednesday the 17th.
Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all. Have a wonderful Martin Luther King holiday weekend!
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂