reetings and welcome to Friday! It looks to be a gorgeous Mother’s Day weekend!
Last night was our FailFest event at the PAC. A HUGE thank you to Jason and his team for the great venue and the set up work! We had a 40+ crowd (we even had to bring in some extra seats) and a super-Huzzah to Sarah and Leslie for being our emcees for the evening – they rocked it!
We had five wonderful speakers, all sharing some hard-earned entrepreneurial wisdom: me (talking about our disastrous Survivor game development at my software startup), Kate Schawarzler (talking about her journey setting up Indy Commons in Independence), Riley Hoagland (talking about his journey to create his Trezure Bag), Diana Buckley (talking about the challenges in opening up Cafe Chill in Waldport) and Mark Farley (talking about some ethical and institutional challenges he experienced while running Pathworks, his marketing firm back in the 90s).
What a great event with an awesome “vibe” that will certainly have folks talking!
Here’s our weekly staff update:
Blue Economy::
Mark Farley and I met at Hatfield on Monday morning to talk through next steps in various blue efforts. Mark and I also met with Don Gerhart of Challenger Biosciences today to talk through his completed first-phase sector research report on green methanol. The initial takeaways are that green methanol used to provide hydrogen for fuel cells (and eventually marine transport power) is mostly smoke and mirrors right now. Though there may be some options for using forest slash waste to ferment methanol in small plants along the coast that might open up some interesting small-scale economies. We’re going to noodle on the direction of some additional research by Don. – Paul
I attended the open house for the Yaquina Lab Friday afternoon. – Sarah
Broadband::
On Tuesday, Sarah and I participated in the Solarity webinar for governmental leaders – talking about match approaches and options when applying for the larger infrastructure broadband grants coming down the pike. It was super information-rich, but there weren’t that many governmental decision makers in attendance. It was recorded, so hopefully there will be some follow up, and we’ll push the information out there once again. Also, in an after-meeting conversation with Ryan Vogt (after the CWEDD meeting – see below), I was pleased to learn that one of the two grants that Solarity will be writing as part of their EDA-funded work will be for Lincoln County broadband infrastructure – more on that soon. – Paul
Communications/Marketing:
This week I posted on Facebook for Economic Development week, and the topics included who EDALC is, Oregon Prospector, and the Fail Fest event. -Sarah
Community Connecting::
Leslie logged some serious hours last week, participating in two Cinco de Mayo events (Newport and Lincoln City) and she also worked in OCVA’s new seafood Airstream trailer for ten hours during Waldport’s Beach, Bike & Blues festival. No rest for the wicked!
Leslie’s full, detailed report is linked here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iYiDw_dn1ViiSSiBbiyeBN39i0ZviKKMNWQuciVUyRc/edit?usp=sharing
Entrepreneurship Events::
This week for the Fail Fest event I sent out a MailChimp ad newsletter two days before the event. I also requested some information from our speakers and put together a slideshow and introduction for each of them. I finished the music playlist for the event and put the Fail Fest video on a flash drive. Tuesday morning, Leslie, Paul, and I went to the PAC to look at the space and plan for what we would need. Afterwards, I gathered all the materials we would need at our office. On Thursday, I posted a final Facebook ad for the event, prepared the charcuterie boards, and attended the event! Lastly, on Friday I sent a thank you email to each of our speakers and Jason at the PAC for hosting us. – Sarah
Organizational Development::
A loud digital Huzzah to EDALC Director Doug Holbrook this week!! He is working on shutting down his office in Newport and offered to donate his awesome Xerox 7855 printer/scanner/copier to EDALC. It’s a huge and professional-grade beast! Movers delivered it to our office on Wednesday, and we’ll set up a contract with Oregon Office Solutions for service and toner. Thanks so much Doug!! – Paul
I attended this month’s Leadership Lincoln class on Wednesday at Chinook Winds. – Sarah
Project Work::
On Thursday and Friday, I updated the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider on the EDALC website and Oregon Prospector entries. – Sarah
Supporting and Connecting with Partners::
Lincoln City – On Monday, Alison Robertson and I presented to the City Council. It was both an update and the formal appropriation ask for EDALC’s already-budgeted funds (coming late in the year because we had a few months of discussion with Lincoln City on what kind of funding/service agreement they wanted – they opted for general organizational support for the work we are currently doing, which, in my opinion, is the best way to go for all). Everything was approved and the invoice will be heading over on Monday. It also sets us up well for action early in the fiscal year for 2023-24 – Alison, Mayor Wahlke and I discussed that after the meeting. Woo Hoo Lincoln City! – Paul
CWEDD – On Thursday morning we had a hybrid quarterly board meeting (I trekked to Albany to be there in person) for the Cascades West Economic Development District (I serve as the vice-chair). It was an information-rich meeting focusing on many of the great efforts going on in our region, and we had a discussion on business sector diversification (one of the main areas of our Comprehensive Economic Development strategy) and what leadership role could/should CWEDD take with our regional BAT and broadband efforts. – Paul
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
As I mentioned earlier – it’s Mother’s Day this weekend! Looks like a BBQ is in order!
Have wonderful weekend! 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 🙂