Greetings and welcome to Friday!

Here’s the EDALC update for the week –

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Paul’s week:

Onboarding Our New Project Associate – Cindy was in the office yesterday for several hours for initial paperwork and going over what we’ll be working on in the coming months. She’ll be starting in earnest next week and I’m certainly looking forward to having another hand (and mind) at the oars as we move forward!

Getting the Word Out – I was a guest on Casey Miller’s County Connections radio show yesterday. We had a great conversation on EDALC’s current and future efforts and really only scratched the tip of the iceberg on a number of topics – it sounds like we’ll be scheduling another show or two in the near future. Casey and I also had a great conversation after the show. Once the link to the podcast is up, I’ll share that with the board.

Meet and Greets – This week, Rachael Maddock-Hughes and I had a chance to meet with Sally Bell of the Technology Association of Oregon and discussed how their organization can fit into O2IH’s efforts. I also had a meet and greet today with Lincoln City manager Ron Chandler to discuss their economic development priorities and ways we can assist them going forward (I’ll be presenting at their City Council meeting on Monday night).

What a Space! – Dave Price and I were treated to an amazing tour of the new Marine Studies building by Bob and Mark Farley. What a truly amazing space and what a piece of forward-thinking engineering! It made me pine for grad school (except maybe not those long all-nighters!). The iLab looks to be a game-changer, and I love how it’s plugged into other OSU fabrication facilities to really expand its functionality. I REALLY loved that the building will have an artist-in-residence – those intersections between disciplines are where so much magic can happen.

North Economic Development Discussion Group – We had another Zoom conversation this week and Tracy joined the discussion group. Topics included expanding on our board conversation from our last meeting on what “players” in the economic development space should come together and how often to make sure we’re all in the loop. We also spent some time going over Lincoln City’s portion of the Enterprise Zone as well as their Opportunity Zone.

Value-Added Member Events – Jalene Case and I had a follow-up meeting this week and we think we’ve got a solid roadmap for a short series of member events taking us through 2021 and providing some real value for our member businesses. We’ll be laying out the rough plan and looking at some dates next week, and I’ll plan on fleshing things out to you all at our next BoD meeting.

OCWCOG – I received the Loan Program Review Subcommittee Handbook this week from Sandra Easdale. I’ll add that to my “read and research” list, and I’m eager (and honored) to be helping our COG manage their loan program to support our local businesses.

Rogue Brewery – Rian Martinsen (BBSI), Brittney Hillman (Sheriff’s Office) and myself had an amazing video shoot and interview at the Rogue Distillery on Tuesday. We were given a tour and were able to interview president Dharma Tamm. We’ll be editing together a video on the positive aspects of their early COVID-pivot to make Helping Hands hand sanitizer. After the shoot, I got to spend about an hour with Dharma talking about Rogue’s business – what a treat!

Enterprise Zone – I spent a good deal of time working with Rogue this week on how to amend their existing exemption applications to account for some additional investment and job creation – without having to re-apply for an additional exemption. Next week, we’ll be moving forward another local exemption application and kicking off in earnest our EZ predesignation process.

On the Tasty Side of Things – So the first thing that my wife Susan’s mother did on the way back home after getting her second COVID vaccine shot? Bought tickets to fly out here and visit us! So I’ll be out of the office for a few hours on Tuesday as we pick her up from Portland. The wonderful upshot is that she LOVES eating out and seafood, so boy do we have a string of tasty reservations set for the next ten days – we’ll be eating like royalty! I have to give up my home office for a while, but I think the trade off will be worth it!

Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all. Have a wonderful weekend!

Cheers,

-Paul 🙂