Greetings and welcome to Friday – and a damp, unlucky Friday the 13th! Avoid those black cats and ladders!

Here’s our staff update for the week:

Blue Economy::

This Wednesday, Mark Farley, Sarah and myself sat down with a team from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for a structured interview on our Congressionally Directed Spending award. We were one of 30 CDS awards that were randomly selected for in-person interviews. It’s part of a larger study to report on the efficacy of the new CDS system (and we’d been prepping for the last two week). After the interview, we got to talk about our O2IH efforts more casually. We had a really great conversation (perhaps a bit of my stress about this process was unnecessary). I also gave the green light today to Challenger Biosciences for phase three of their green methanol (as a means to decarbonize maritime propulsion) study. We’re inching our way towards setting up some grant funds for an actual proof-of-concept trial. – Paul

Communication/Marketing::

I posted on our Facebook page about a free commercial fishing drill conductor course. – Sarah

Community and Economic Development Grant Program::

Commissioner Jacobson and I have been communicating back and forth on the new rules and get the best possible applicants. Sarah also worked up a potential timeline that we’ll revisit once we have everything else in place. I’ll put together a rules summery and get it off Commissioner Jacobson Monday morning to see if we are there or merely close. – Paul

Events::

I created a draft of a “how to be a friend to the local arts” guide for the upcoming event at the PAC, “Arts & Culture as an Economic Engine”. I also created a MailChimp newsletter to promote the event and posted about it on our Facebook page. For our Economic Summit planning, I reached out to a potential speaker and compared our two location quotes. – Sarah

Organizational/Professional Development::

Paul and I attended the Oregon Economic Development Association conference on Monday and Tuesday in Eugene. I attended presentations on Agriculture & Food production, semiconductor manufacturing, developing downtowns, the impact of AI technology, and more! – Sarah

The OEDA conference is always a refreshing re-connect with economic development practitioners all across the state and a chance to learn best practices and learn what’s coming down the pike. The AI talk was particularly terrifying – the speaker asked one question that got both awkward giggles and gasps: Who do the humans working in Amazon warehouses work for? They ALREADY work for the machines. Gulp. – Paul

Project Work::

I updated the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider, sent an invoice to Rain for our Startup Blue work, starting working on the board meeting minutes and updated Oregon Prospector. – Sarah

Rural Opportunity Initiative::

I’ve been receiving some initial letters of support for our 2023-25 application. We have also narrowed down our priorities and are pulling things together to start writing the grant application next week. We also received a snazzy document on our project work within ROI over the last two years – it’s part of the larger report that gets shared with the State Legislature. I’ve attached it to this email. – Paul

Supporting and Connecting with Partners::

Cascades West Council of Governments/Economic Development District – I had a working lunch today with Ryan Vogt, Executive Director of the COG. We discussed the Cascades West Innovation Hub (final report from the planing grant will be going to BizOR at the end of the month), EDD-wide broadband projects and their ongoing search for a Community and Economic Development Director for the COG/EDD. – Paul

Upcoming::

Sarah, Leslie and I will be attending the OCVA People’s Coast Summit in Astoria from Monday afternoon through Wednesday.

Reminder: Our November Board of Directors meeting (November 2nd) will be IN PERSON, hosted by Bob at Hatfield’s Gladys Valley Marine Studies Building.

As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:

Board of Directors Resources

Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all. Have a wonderful weekend! Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll be clear tomorrow morning for the annular solar eclipse (happening at 9:13am tomorrow) – fingers crossed!

Cheers,

-Paul 🙂