Cover Story – Oregon Business https://oregonbusiness.com Mon, 10 Apr 2023 14:31:42 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://h5a8b6k7.stackpathcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/obfavi.png Cover Story – Oregon Business https://oregonbusiness.com 32 32 The Last Mile Home https://oregonbusiness.com/19307-the-last-mile-home/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=19307-the-last-mile-home Wed, 21 Apr 2021 22:18:39 +0000 https://oregonbusiness.com/the-last-mile-home/ Portland city planners rethink land use and the transportation network as the rise of e-commerce increases congestion and puts climate goals at risk.

]]>

For 73 years horse-racing spectators would flock to Portland Meadows, a racetrack in the north of the city. In its heyday of the 1970s, the track attracted thousands of visitors. It was also a venue for music concerts. Bands like Metallica, Pearl Jam and the Beach Boys played there.

But in a sign of the times, the racetrack closed in March 2019 after several years of dwindling attendance. The building was torn down. In its place Amazon has built a distribution and fulfilment center. The facility is part of the e-commerce company’s strategy to build warehouses close to urban areas to help deliver packages to customers more quickly and efficiently.

The rise of e-commerce is having a profound impact on cities’ land use and transportation infrastructure. Increasingly, consumers order more products online and expect faster deliveries. Online ordering has been underway for the past decade, but the coronavirus pandemic accelerated this trend within months.

Planners are realizing cities are not well designed to accommodate the transformation in urban freight that has come with this shift in internet shopping.

Industrial land for distribution centers, for example, has traditionally been located outside of urban centers because of the need for more space. But e-commerce has changed that. “We are seeing distribution centers closer to where people live and closer to the airports. That is a zoning and planning challenge,” says Margi Bradway, planning and development deputy director for Metro, the Portland metro area’s regional government.

0521 logistics Bradway IT4A8703Metro planning and development deputy director Margi Bradway   Photo by Jason E. Kaplan

The increase of delivery trucks entering dense urban areas requires the reallocation of space in downtown cores. Congestion, lack of pick-up and drop-off zones, and the increased public-safety hazards of having trucks close to pedestrians mean planners have to rethink transportation and land use in city centers. “There is only so much space for biking, walking, transit. You have the rise of Uber and Lyft, and now you have more deliveries,” says Bradway.

The World Economic Forum estimates that, without any intervention, the number of delivery vehicles in the largest 100 cities globally will increase by 36% by 2030. Emissions from delivery traffic will increase by 32% and congestion will rise by more than 21%.

City planners are taking action. Metro has just launched a study, likely to take 20 months, that will explore how freight comes into the Portland metro area. Bradway says the organization has “one of the best and new freight models in the nation,” which will allow it to track how different commodities enter the region.

“Freight has so many implications to transportation and the way we engage with businesses. It is important to know and plan for and be thoughtful about how freight moves around our system and the implications,” says Bradway.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation is also updating the city’s freight master plan, a policy guide designed to inform planners how to ensure Portland’s transportation network can support the projected increased demand for freight.

The 2040 Portland Freight Plan will take into account how the transportation system can move freight efficiently while meeting climate goals. It will also look at how the city can improve freight in a racially equitable way. This will involve bringing low-income people and communities of color into the discussions on planning. These communities disproportionately live in areas where air pollution from the movement of freight is concentrated.

The City of Portland and Metro have set greenhouse-gas emissions goals that inform transportation and land-use planning for freight. The Portland City Council has committed to a 40% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030 and a 100% reduction by 2050.

Metro is required by law to follow a strategy to reduce the region’s greenhouse gases from cars and light trucks by at least 20% by 2035.

Meanwhile, freight transportation companies such as UPS and FedEx have their own greenhouse-gas reduction goals, which will necessitate a complete overhaul of how parcels are delivered in urban cores.

0521widewebAerial view of Swan Island and Union Pacific’s Albina train yard in North Portland   Photo by Jason E. Kaplan

Portland’s economy is more dependent on freight movement than most other U.S. cities. The region has the third-highest percentage of total employment in the distribution and logistics sectors in the U.S.

The emergence of e-commerce has transformed how freight travels into the region. Just 10 years ago, most deliveries were done by long-haul trucks that would travel across the country on interstate highways. With the increase in e-commerce, most freight now comes through the Port of Portland and the Port of Vancouver.

From there it is taken to distribution centers before it is transferred onto smaller trucks that travel short distances on arterials and local streets to people’s homes and businesses.

This shift has led to an increase in vehicle miles traveled on arterials that carry freight and are located close to distribution centers. Vehicle miles traveled is transportation-planning speak for the amount of travel for all vehicles in a geographic region over a period of time.

About 50% of vehicle miles traveled by delivery companies are just to reach cities where they deliver the majority of packages. When they are in cities, they are driving for only 20% of the time. The rest of the time they are parked to carry out delivery.

Having a lot of trucks driving around and idling in traffic prevents cities meeting their climate goals. Freight is responsible for a large portion of diesel emissions. On-road diesel vehicles, including heavy trucks, account for 15% of diesel emissions in the Portland area. Trucks are responsible for 80% of those emissions.

The increase in trucks in dense urban areas is also a public-safety issue. The larger the vehicle, the more likely it is to cause severe injuries if it is involved in a traffic accident. Although collisions involving trucks were just 4% of total crashes in Portland between 2014 and 2018, 50% of those collisions resulted in death or serious injury.

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a drop in overall vehicle miles traveled as many office workers stay at home because of physical-distancing requirements. It is not yet apparent whether the rise in e-commerce since the pandemic emerged in 2020 has led to an increase in greenhouse gases, says Bradway.

But the pandemic has led to complex shifts in freight movement. It has resulted in a decrease of large, consolidated deliveries to commercial businesses but a big uptick in smaller and more frequent parcel deliveries to residences.

One of the most efficient and environmentally friendly modes of transportation for the last-mile delivery of goods is e-cargo bikes. These electrically assisted cycles can carry around 400 pounds, and the larger ones can transport up to 800 pounds. The emissions-free vehicles are narrow enough that they can travel in cycle lanes and do not block traffic or require large parking spaces.

They are becoming a common mode of freight transportation in some European countries such as Germany, and several pilots have recently taken place in U.S. cities, including Portland.

In 2019 UPS partnered with the Portland Bureau of Transportation and Portland State University to deliver packages by electric cargo bikes on the university campus. The pilot stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is not clear if the firm plans to restart the project. UPS declined to comment for this article.

One challenge freight companies face is the lack of regulations for cargo bikes as well as the lack of parking for these vehicles. “Even when a company does a cargo-bike pilot, they are not sure which permit to obtain to do the pilot,” says Giacomo Dalla Chiara, researcher at the University of Washington’s Urban Freight Lab.

“Very few cities are thinking about cargo-bike parking,” says Dalla Chiara. “Right now, in Seattle, a bike can go on the sidewalk. Would that be the same for a cargo bike? Where should they park? They are a commercial vehicle. Are they allowed to use commercial-zone parking or can they park on the sidewalk? This is a gray area the city is still working out.”

For cargo bikes to become a ubiquitous mode of transportation for freight, there also needs to be infrastructure in dense urban areas for bikes to pick up loads. Amanda Howell, project manager at Urbanism Next, an emerging-technology research outfit at the University of Oregon, says the lack of infrastructure for cargo bikes is a hurdle against widespread deployment.

One solution is the micro-hub — a small logistics facility close to customers where inventory can be stored and picked up for last-mile delivery by cargo bikes and people on foot.

0521 logisticsHowell IT4A8357Amanda Howell, project manager at Urbanism Next   Photo: Jason E. Kaplan

“There is definitely interest in e-cargo bikes,” says Howell. “What you need for that are lots of micro-hubs that can serve as starting point. Cargo bikes have less capacity than a truck has — you need a centralized location where packages are brought, and then you need a hub for the bikes to come every day for that to take off. There are starting to be efforts of looking at where we could locate those.”

Several North American cities have experimented with micro-hubs. The city of Montreal recently converted a disused bus station in the city center into a micro-hub, where small and zero-emissions vehicles and bikes pick up goods to deliver to their final destinations.

The Urban Freight Lab at the University of Washington is undertaking a micro-hub research project in Seattle that will measure the efficacy of having a logistics hub close to customers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the amount of unused commercial space in urban areas, creating opportunities for opening mini distribution and fulfillment centers in city centers. Metro is looking at the possibility of repurposing commercial real estate, such as empty office space, into small warehouses. “Coming out of the study, we may have recommendations such as changing office space into industrial,” says Bradway.

One private-sector company that is using underused space for logistics solutions is Reef Technology. The company owns thousands of parking lots in city centers, many of which have stood empty during the pandemic. Reef Technology has converted these underused lots into logistics facilities and neighborhood kitchens where food can be prepared, distributed and delivered.

In May last year, Reef Technology partnered with shipping-services firm DHL Express to pilot the use of electric-assist cargo bikes for deliveries in Miami. DHL uses a truck to deliver cargo containers to a Reef hub in the city center, where the containers are connected to e-cargo bikes for last-mile, inner-city deliveries. The pilot is part of DHL’s strategy to implement clean pick-up and delivery for 70% of its operations by 2025.

0521 logistics Bline IT4A8542B-line Urban Delivery uses cargo bikes to deliver produce for small food businesses  Photo: Jason E. Kaplan

Cargo-bike delivery has been a feature of Portland’s food sector for several years. B-line Urban Delivery has delivered food to restaurants and grocery stores for several years. The company is based in the Redd on Salmon Street building in Portland’s Central Eastside.

B-line has a distribution and warehousing facility in the Redd building, a hub for the local food economy. B-line’s e-cargo bikes are loaded and unloaded at the site.

0521 logistics Bline IT4A8601B-line’s distribution and warehousing facility in Southeast Portland   Photo: Jason E. Kaplan

The company delivers produce by bike to supermarkets like New Seasons Market, Zupan’s and Market of Choice. It delivers food for small community-supported agriculture as well as for Organically Grown Company, a large wholesale distributor of produce.

It also offers cold and dry storage to small food vendors that do not have the scale to be served by large distributors. While most of its customers are food businesses, it delivers Office Depot supplies to city government departments and Portland State University.

B-line founder and CEO Franklin Jones says he has thought about expanding into micro-hubs around Portland. He has had discussions with Reef Technology, which owns parking lots in Portland, about partnering on cargo-bike delivery. “All you really need is an empty lot, a container and security, and you have a pop-up logistics hub,” he says.

Expanding micro-hubs across Portland should be seen as an economic-development tool, says Jones. He cites the Lloyd EcoDistrict, a nonprofit experimenting in sustainable neighborhood living in Portland’s Northeast, as an example of where a logistics micro-hub could be launched.

Other cities are experimenting with zero-emissions delivery zones. Santa Monica, Calif., is piloting such a zone — a 1-mile square radius in the city’s downtown where e-cargo bikes will be used to deliver packages. The two-year project, which runs through 2021, uses e-cargo bikes and electric vehicles to deliver food and parcels, and prioritizes zero-emissions loading zones.

The goal of the Santa Monica project, a partnership between the city and the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, is to provide a blueprint for cities to adopt zero-emissions delivery zones. It is the kind of pilot that the City of Portland and Metro could benefit from, says Jones.

Experts say the most effective way for cities to encourage cleaner and safer means of freight delivery is to restrict access to large diesel trucks entering dense urban areas and charge these vehicles for parking. This market-based solution would ultimately create financial incentives to carriers to change their approach to last-mile delivery.

“Pricing, if done well, could be very beneficial for freight and e-commerce deliveries: pricing of roadways and parking in periods and locations with high demand, so that there is less congestion and it is easy to travel and find parking for efficient deliveries,” says Miguel Figliozzi, founder and co-director of the Transportation Technology and People Lab at Portland State University.

Charging a fee for certain vehicles such as diesel trucks to enter dense urban areas has been successfully implemented in several cities. London introduced a congestion charge, currently a daily fee of £15 ($20.73), for driving into the city center between 7AM and 8PM. Vehicles such as buses, taxis and electric vehicles are exempt.

In its first year, the charge, which was introduced in 2003, led to a 37% increase in the number of passengers entering the congestion charging zone by bus. By 2006 the fee had reduced congestion in central London by 26% below 2002 levels. It also reduced personal injuries in the zone by up to 70%.

Jones at B-line supports a congestion-style fee and restricting access to certain vehicles in Portland. Controlling access would encourage freight companies to transfer goods to urban hubs where emissions-free vehicles could do last-mile deliveries, he argues.

Charging companies to use curb space for dropping off and picking up goods could also encourage freight-delivery services to rethink their approach. Introducing a reservation system for booking curb space could lead to less congestion.

“The public sector should price access to this space because it shouldn’t be free,” says Howell of Urbanism Next. “It is like what we are seeing with curb reservations: You have to pay to access the curb.”

During the pandemic, the Portland Bureau of Transportation created new five-minute drop-off and pick-up load zones. The bureau is looking at how it can improve its rules for using the curb.

“We know that when delivery vehicles are able to find curb space and be out of the way of bicycle lanes, it is better for reducing carbon emissions and improving safety,” says Francesca Jones, project manager for Portland Bureau of Transportation’s 2040 Portland Freight Plan. “We want to look at short-term loading opportunities and find out what is needed to shape our curb-space policies.”

Planning experts warn against making infrastructure available that discourages freight companies from changing behavior. “If you add lanes to a street, you actually increase traffic because more people will use that,” says Dalla Chiara at the Urban Freight Lab. “If you provide more space for commercial vehicles, you instead incentivize those companies to use trucks, travel more and perform more stops.”

Ultimately, freight companies will drive much of the change in the sector. Several large carriers have climate goals that will necessitate a sea change in the way they deliver.

FedEx, for example, has a goal to have carbon-neutral operations by 2040, which will result in its entire pick-up and delivery fleet consisting of zero-emissions vehicles. In 2020 the company launched bicycle operations for last-mile delivery in several locations including Toronto and a pilot in New York City.

FedEx has even developed a delivery robot, Roxo, which “holds promise to help retailers make same-day deliveries to businesses and residences using autonomous technology,” says a spokesperson. Roxo operates on sidewalks, bike lanes and roadsides, and is designed to deliver parcels within a 3- to 5-mile radius of a retailer’s location.

The freight carrier says it encourages cities to work closely with transportation providers and the entire transportation system, including freight and parcel-delivery companies, to make technologies like delivery robots feasible. “Innovations including autonomous personal delivery devices and increased adoption of electric vehicles will still require access and reliable delivery zones to operate efficiently in the urban environment,” says a FedEx spokesperson.

Amazon’s dominance of the sector means its actions will drive much of the delivery landscape. The company’s aggressive move into commercial buildings close to downtown cores, including Portland’s, is a sign of its intentions to control and shape the last-mile delivery sector.

Amazon’s extensive use of lockers, self-service kiosks where customers can pick up parcels, will likely be adopted among other carriers as an effective means of aiding last-mile delivery. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

The future of the logistics sector may appear dystopian to some, conjuring up images of shuttered retailers whose sad fate is to be converted into nondescript warehouses, and of closed-down venues that once drew crowds of thousands before internet shopping and digital entertainment took over our lives.

But the transformation of city centers to accommodate the rise of e-commerce and the changes that brings to land use and transportation systems could also herald a future of congestion-free, safer urban oases.

And as the economy recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing demands to maintain street and parking spaces for pedestrians only may be the push cities need to keep delivery trucks out of the city.

 To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here.

 

]]> Battle Lines https://oregonbusiness.com/19248-battle-lines/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=19248-battle-lines Tue, 26 Jan 2021 19:08:39 +0000 https://oregonbusiness.com/battle-lines/ The future of farming is at stake in the Klamath Basin, where drought is sucking the land dry, and conflicting interests over water use threaten a long-term solution.

]]>

A cloud hangs over Klamath Basin in Southern Oregon. In a literal sense, the sunless sky is low and gray when I arrive in Klamath Falls on a December afternoon. With snow piled 3 feet high through the mountain pass north of here, it is easy to forget this region is in a drought. But the weather is only one part of a complicated water crisis plaguing the area.

I am here to talk to people about the worsening challenges farmers and ranchers in the region are facing; how the convergence of drought, COVID-19 and community infighting have coalesced into a figurative cloud of frustration for those who work the land.

When COVID-19 shutdowns first started in March, Scotty Fenters’ father had just undergone heart surgery. “That month is a blur,” he recalls. But Fenters, a third-generation farmer in the Klamath Basin, had to regroup quickly when restaurant shutdowns ripped the rug from under the family business. Suddenly he had a lot of potatoes with nowhere to go.

0221scottyfentersIT4A6587Scotty Fenters, Klamath Basin farmer  Photo: Jason E. Kaplan

Fenters manages land all over the region, growing mostly potatoes along with alfalfa and garlic, and a lot of what he grows is sold to the service industry.

The complications from COVID-19 were unprecedented. “But we made do,” says Fenters. A contract with a federal program for distributing boxes of free food to people in need replaced some of the business lost through restaurants. “It wasn’t nearly as much, but it helped us stop hemorrhaging money.”

Suddenly grocery stores needed more food too. That pivot was complicated and messy. Certain kinds of potatoes are not meant to be displayed on a grocery store shelf because they turn green too fast. And they had to figure out new ways to package them. “We ran as hard as we could, as fast as we could, to keep people in potatoes across the country,” says Fenters. “It was amazing, the work people did in the agriculture industry to keep stores going through all this stuff.”

Then in April the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation told irrigators they would be receiving less than half as much water as their regular allotment — 140,000 acre-feet would be allocated for farming, as opposed to the usual 350,000, due to severe drought conditions. (An “acre-foot” is 326,000 gallons or about enough to cover an acre of land in a foot of water.)

Water allocation is a complicated web of priorities and designations. Water rights are managed differently in each jurisdiction across the region, all drawing from a finite yet fluctuating resource: the water that melts off the Cascades, then flows into the Klamath River and its tributaries.

Climate change has reduced snowpack, and increasingly dry, hot summers are causing groundwater to evaporate more quickly. For decades, water shortages have pitted farmers against local tribes and endangered-species protections in a seemingly impossible battle to find a balance that gives everyone enough of that water.

This year the news was bad. And then it got worse.

Farmers on the Klamath Project, an irrigation network providing water to 230,000 acres in Oregon and California, planted their crops based on the April allocation. It was not enough, but knowing the amount of water that would be available, they got to work on managing for the shortage. After those adjusted plans were in motion, the Bureau of Reclamation came back with a drastic revision, giving them only 80,000 acre-feet.

Fenters recalls the panic that set in: “I’ve already bought the seed. I’ve already paid rents. I’ve already put out fertilizer.” But without enough water, all that work and all that money in the ground would dry up.

That is when farmers fought back.

On May 29, 2020, hundreds of tractors and trucks gathered in Merrill, Oregon, then formed a convoy that stretched for 29 miles, according to the Klamath Water Users Association. The goal was to draw attention to the dire situation of Klamath Basin farmers, and thousands showed up to participate and support.

0221 shearerDSC 1518 2In May 2020, a convoy of tractors and trucks went through Merrill, Oregon, to draw attention to water issues facing Klamath Basin farmers. Photo: Chelsea Shearer/KWUA

American flags billowed from their truck beds, and signs reading “We farm, you eat” and “Food grows where water flows” were attached to their grills. Onlookers lined up to cheer on the convoy as they made their way to Klamath Falls.

Prior to the event, 2,000 white crosses were planted in a dry field in Midland, a small town 8 miles south of Klamath Falls. It was a somber display meant to symbolize the potential death of the farming industry—if things do not change.

0221 shearerDSC 1546 2White crosses in a field in Midland, Oregon, meant to symbolize the potential death of farming in the Klamath Basin. Photo: Chelsea Shearer/KWUA

Lyndon Kerns, whose family has been farming in the Klamath Basin for 130 years, participated in the event and says the effort was a success. Just days after the “Shut Down and Fed Up” rally, the Bureau of Reclamation announced it would stick to the original allotment of 140,000 and avoid further reduction.

Randall Kizer’s home sits on land his great-great-grandparents homesteaded in 1873; they were among the first settlers in the region, several decades after coming west via the Oregon Trail.

Stories from those early days have been passed down through generations. One in particular made an impression on Kizer: In the mid-1880s, an October snowstorm stranded a neighboring rancher’s cattle on the family’s side of the mountains. Kizer’s great-great-grandfather could not let them starve — even though it was impossible to bring in more hay once snow arrived. So he fed them, along with his own cattle, and a long, hard winter eventually saw their supplies run dry. By the end of the season, both herds had perished.

0221randallKizerIT4A6355Randall Kizer, manager of Loosley Ranch.  Photo: Jason E. Kaplan

“It was sad — but that’s why I’m not a socialist,” says Kizer. “You give anyone a hand up, that’s fine. But if you start giving them a handout, it’ll eat you up.”

Kizer now leases his land for cattle grazing. He lived elsewhere for decades, but when he and his wife came back to Fort Klamath for a class reunion that Kizer helped organize, she was taken by the close-knit community in the basin; many of the people Kizer grew up with still lived nearby. So the couple relocated from Eugene and took over the family business. That was back in 2010, when Fort Klamath was still home to a couple restaurants, a few shops, two bars and two motels.

All that has since changed. The motels are still there, but everything else is gone. Most of their friends have moved away.

When Kizer was attending grade school in Fort Klamath, he says he was close with members of the local tribes. Today, however, relationships between tribal members and local farmers are tenser than ever.

While farmers are pushing for more water to irrigate, tribes are fighting to keep water in the Klamath River high enough to restore salmon runs, which play a vital role in their heritage and livelihood.

The Klamath River once ran thick with coho and Chinook salmon — it was the third largest salmon producer on the West Coast. But dam construction on the Klamath River, along with warming water and decreased flow from climate change and irrigation, have gradually annihilated salmon populations.

Tribes are also trying to keep water in the Upper Klamath Lake high enough for the endangered shortnose sucker fish, which have not been maturing to spawn for decades. Their decline is due to a combination of soil erosion from cattle, the degradation of native vegetation along stream banks and poor water quality. Suckers are also an important part of the Klamath Tribes’ traditional diet, and efforts to maintain water levels for these fish means less water for irrigating farmland.

In 2001 suckers were the center of bitter controversy between tribes and Klamath Project ranchers, when a federal mandate called for the retention of water in Upper Klamath Lake.

That same year, more water was allocated for the wild coho downriver, and these two decisions curtailed water from irrigation flows, leading to a complete shutoff for ranchers in April. Kerns says that water shutoff was the beginning of the end for a lot of folks. “There were some schools that never reopened, businesses that never reopened. They were entirely dependent on the agricultural community, and in some of these little towns, that all but dried up.”

This year ranchers feared another shutoff like 2001. And tribal representatives were also unhappy, saying the Bureau of Reclamation failed to provide the water they were promised in their efforts to restore suckers and salmon.

Frankie Myers, vice chairman of the Yurok Tribe, told Capital Press in June, “We feel like this is a repeat of history and a very tired old song being sung again. We had an agreement that very clearly laid out what the bureau was supposed to do. …They simply went back on it.”

Nearly a decade ago, it seemed as though progress was being made in bringing tribes and farmers together on a solution for everyone. In the spring of 2013, after the Oregon Water Resources Department ruled in favor of the Klamath Tribes’ water rights for maintaining water levels in Klamath Lake, the tribes began negotiating with “off-project” irrigators (those who are not part of the Klamath Project) on water sharing and habitat restoration that could work for all parties.

The Upper Klamath Basin Comprehensive Agreement was established, promising increased inflow to Klamath Lake for suckers, a riparian program by which farmers would work to improve water flow to adjacent land for healthier fish habitat, and an economic development program and increased opportunities for tribes to exercise cultural rights.

Kizer served as the president of a landowners’ group at that time, through which he participated in the conversations and negotiations between tribal members and irrigators in the Upper Klamath Basin Comprehensive Agreement. The group operated for three years, during which cooperation slowly disintegrated. Eventually, the tribes believed promises made under the agreement could not be met, and they requested a termination of the agreement in 2016.

“I did everything I could to make it work,” says Kizer. Representatives of the Klamath Tribes declined to comment for this article.

There is a lot of skepticism among farmers regarding the water that is being used to maintain levels for sucker fish and salmon. Kizer and Kerns both tell me that from what they have seen, the levels being maintained for the lake are hurting the farmers and failing to help the fish, and that it is all based on outdated science.

With farmland drying up, Kerns says all kinds of wildlife are suffering too.

“We used to have a hawk on every power pole, from here to Fort Klamath,” says Kizer. “If you see two or three now, it’s like, wow!” He remembers when there were plentiful herons and cranes, too — and those he rarely sees now.

Meanwhile, the impacts of COVID-19 hit the cattle industry and Kizer’s ability to lease land for grazing. Due to water restrictions, Kizer’s land is supporting fewer cattle; they went from running 250 to 160 this year. And the shutdowns in the butchering and meat-packing plants left cattle farmers with fewer buyers.

“There’s a chain of [events] when a calf is born; they know he’s gonna go here, here, and then here, and he’s gonna end up in the slaughterhouse in this window.” When COVID forced facilities to shut down, they missed those windows and everything got backed up.

“It’s been a tough year, for sure,” he says.

Fenters tells me there are a lot of misconceptions about farmers wanting to take water away from the fish. But he considers himself a steward of the land, just like anyone else who calls this place home and wants to make a sustainable living here.

He also emphasizes that many of these farmers who are fighting for more water are small businesses just trying to make it work.

“We’re trying to keep people employed and do the right thing, and it’s a nightmare.”

When I meet him at his home, he is working at his computer on a Sunday, rearranging field plans in anticipation for the possibility of another dry season.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read or heard someone say, ‘Those farmers should focus on something more sustainable or grow something else.’ It’s just not that simple,” Fenters tells me, shaking his head. “We would be doing those things if we could. But I can’t work on better efficiencies or more sustainable practices if I don’t know if I’ll have enough water.”

When it comes to water issues, Fenters says he understands the tribes’ frustrations too.

“I genuinely believe most people are good. We’re all just coming from different places and need different things.”

In July 2020, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation committed to investing $1.2 million in scientific research to develop solutions for the Klamath Basin water crisis. “The activities announced will be helpful to all the stakeholders in the Klamath Basin,” said deputy regional director Jeff Payne. “And we are committed to maintaining an ongoing dialogue.”

The scientific studies will include updating an outdated assessment of stream flows, evaluating emerging science to improve understanding of the relationship between Upper Klamath Lake elevations and endangered sucker fish, and developing a process to improve data on disease facing salmon.

“I think there is hope,” says Terrence Conlon, who serves as regional science coordinator at the United States Geological Survey. “The hope is in better understanding. We’re trying to provide unbiased, objective science for decision makers to inform their management.”

A more immediate solution was announced on November 2, 2020, when a technical correction was made to the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), providing $10 million in immediate drought relief to Klamath Basin irrigators.

“As the Basin grapples with a particularly difficult season, this correction to WRDA will allow farmers to access up to $10 million per year for strategies such as land idling and groundwater pumping in times of drought,” wrote Sen. Jeff Merkley in a statement to Oregon Business. “These much-needed resources can help keep irrigators in business as they continue long-term work to address water-supply challenges in the region.”

Farmers are a supportive bunch,” says Fenters. “We want each other to succeed.” He says that despite tensions within the agricultural community, there is also a strong commitment to the industry and to each other.

Fenters, Kizer and Kerns all have children, some of them already grown and moved on to work in other industries. None of them are confident about their family businesses surviving another generation — or whether their kids would even have an interest in dealing with all of this. But none of them have plans to leave this region or quit farming.

When I ask Fenters if he hopes his children, who are younger, will be farmers someday, he takes some time before answering.

“I love that I can put something into the ground and see what comes out of it. That full-circle experience is pretty unique.” But also, “They gotta do what they’re passionate about. Maybe they’ll be surgeons. Who knows?”

To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here.

 

 

 

]]> Brand Energizer https://oregonbusiness.com/19192-brand-energizer/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=19192-brand-energizer Mon, 02 Nov 2020 19:23:32 +0000 https://oregonbusiness.com/brand-energizer/ In the 1980s, Turtle Island Foods blazed a trail in the manufacture of plant-based foods. Its CEO is now faced with the task of retaining market share in an increasingly competitive vegan-food market.

]]>

Jaime Athos wore a vegan leather belt and sunglasses as we strolled along the roof of the Turtle Island Foods factory in Hood River. The CEO of the vegan-food manufacturer showed off the company’s solar-panel array, installed as part of the building’s bid to be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified.

A former neurobiologist, Athos left the sciences after becoming frustrated by the stifling amount of careerism. A believer in the virtues of plant-based eating, Athos decided he could do better for the world by working for his stepfather, Seth Tibbott. A self-described hippie, Tibbott founded the company in 1980 out of a treehouse made of scrap lumber with only $2,500 to his name.

From those humble beginnings, Tibbott’s goal for the company was to make plant-based protein more popular in the U.S. Turtle Island Foods’ success came with the creation of Tofurky, a savory plant-based loaf, which is still popular at Thanksgiving.

In its early years, Tofurky was sold only at select health-food stores. But plant-based eating has seen an explosion of popularity since then. With 10 years of sustained growth, the privately held company now finds itself swept up in a plant-based revolution.

1120 tofurkyIT4A3622The Turtle Island Foods headquarters in Hood River. The company is better known by its brand name Tofurky. Photo: Jason E. Kaplan

Since taking over as CEO in 2014, Athos has launched next-generation products in an attempt to attract younger consumers. He has also sought to break into emerging markets and fend off legal attacks on the plant-based food sector. His main challenge now is to remain competitive in an industry that has seen several successful entrants, such as Impossible Foods, the maker of the Impossible meat-tasting vegan burger.

“We were surprised how quickly plant-based eating caught on, but it has been gratifying because that was always the goal,” says Athos. “When we first started, a lot of our work revolved around educating vendors about who plant-based consumers were, and convincing them they would make money selling our products. Those days are long gone. This new mainstream acceptance means the Krogers and Walmarts of the world want to carry products like ours.”

Approximately 14% of American households purchase plant-based foods at least occasionally, according to a market report by the Good Food Institute. The industry has experienced double-digit growth every year since 2017.

toptenVeganBrandsNo one reason can be attributed to the rise of plant-based eating. Early trailblazers like Turtle Island Foods — which makes a variety of vegan foods that mimic meat, such as Tofurky sausages — as well as the popularization of soy and almond milk likely contributed.

A 2006 study by the United Nations found livestock emit more carbon dioxide than the world’s transportation sector, sounding alarm bells for climate-change activists. Popular books and documentaries like Forks Over Knives have also called attention to research showing animal products are less healthy than previously thought.

Another recent factor is the presence of next-generation protein products like the Beyond Burger that have a meaty flavor and texture comparable to animal protein. “You don’t have to suffer anymore to eat plant-based,” jokes Athos.

RELATED STORY: Are Vegans the New Cannabis?

The plant-based food revolution meant the Hood River company has avoided the downward trend in rural Oregon manufacturing. In 2016 Turtle Island Foods expanded its operation by building an additional 44,000-square-foot manufacturing facility.

Athos also sought to make the company B-Corp certified in an attempt, he says, to honor his stepfather’s vision of creating a company that is a force for good first and a business second.

After 2018 saw a 24% sales growth, the company accepted $7 million in private investment to meet growing demand for its products. Last year it inked a deal with Walmart to sell Tofurky products in 4,200 stores across the country.

With only 220 employees, Tofurky occupies a smaller share of the market compared with some of the new players in the space. In terms of overall sales, Tofurky ranks 10th among plant-based meat manufacturers, behind companies like Gardein and Beyond Meat. Amy’s Kitchen occupies the No. 1 slot.

Athos downplays the stiff competition the company now faces in the vegan-food sector.

“I know it sounds like B.S., but we don’t see other plant-based companies as competitors. When you look at the animal-protein market, it has a huge variety of brands. There’s room for Tofurky and Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. Stories about IPOs and the Impossible Whopper help everyone. For now, a rising tide lifts all boats.”

1120 tofurkyIMG 9707
A multitude of meatless products at a Portland-area New Seasons include “Local Faves” Tofurky pockets.

In January Tofurky launched its own version of the plant-based burger in partnership with retailer Target. Although the new burger kept Tofurky on-trend, another plant-based meat product was not uncharted territory for the company.

With so many products luring carnivores away from animal protein, Athos decided the company could not affect change by simply riding the tide. If Turtle Island Foods was going to stay relevant, it would have to innovate.

RELATED STORY: The Vegan Old Guard Moves Seamlessly Into the Future

This year it launched Moocho, a next-generation plant-based cheese intended to satisfy dairy lovers, which Athos describes as “his baby.”

“We looked for a place where consumers trying our product would taste a revolutionary difference, not just an incremental difference. With all the attention on burgers, we thought plant-based cheese had been neglected,” he says. “Consumers have higher standards now, and these old technologies aren’t going to be enough to satisfy them anymore. We felt that it was time.”

Moocho cheddar and mozzarella shreds contain fermented ingredients to create the tangy flavor and texture of cheese. Unlike other cheese replacements, Moocho maintains the same chewy texture as milk cheese when cold as well as when melted. The product line also features cheesecake and cream cheese products that use the Moocho formula.

“There’s a lot of room for growth in the plant-based cheese industry, and I say that as a dairy lover,” says Sarah Masoni, director of the product and process development program at Oregon State University’s Food Innovation Center.

With so many different cheese varieties to re-create, products like Moocho have the potential to do for plant-based cheese what the Impossible Burger did for protein patties.

As the vegan-food market grows, Masoni cautions these companies could find themselves competing over resources. Many plant-based meats are made from the same base ingredients, like soy.

As more companies enter the space, they will compete over supply lines. Products like Moocho, which uses other ingredients to imitate different animal products, avoid this potential trap.

The plan was for Moocho cheese to follow in the footsteps of the Beyond and Impossible burgers. The shreds were set to debut in restaurants and pizzerias to generate buzz before an eventual release in stores. Then COVID-19 interrupted the company’s plans.

A shopping surge at the start of the pandemic meant the company had to move fast to keep up with demand. The Moocho launch was placed on hold as Turtle Island Foods went into heavy production. Once the initial push was over, now-struggling restaurants became less interested in adding new items to the menu.

With the restaurant-rollout strategy no longer an option, Moocho was put on a fast track for launch at regional natural-food chains.

Moocho’s stymied launch meant a missed opportunity for the company to break into the food-services sector. Getting Moocho onto restaurant menus is still a priority. But the pandemic has caused plant-based food consumption to increase yet again. Just like working from home and online shopping, COVID-19 has accelerated the growth of plant-based eating.

According to a report from Nielsen, a data analysis firm, sales of plant-based protein have increased 35% over the course of the pandemic, more than the 10% average increase among other grocery products. Turtle Island Foods was already expecting double-digit growth this year, but the onset of the pandemic caused sales to jump by 25%.

Even when adjusted for the initial surge in grocery buying, Masoni says the pandemic has quickened the adoption of plant-based food habits.

“People aren’t going out to eat as much, so they have become more intentional about what they buy and think more how it affects their health and the planet. I think these changes are going to last. They say it takes two weeks to change a behavior, and we’ve been going on like this for six months now.”

The pandemic has also exposed the vulnerability of the meat industry supply chain. Cold, damp meat-packing facilities make ideal breeding spots for infection. According to the Environmental Working Group, an activist group, COVID-19 infection rates in communities within 15 miles of meat plants are twice the national average.

A report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found the price of animal products, particularly meat, increased during the pandemic due to shutdowns and bottlenecking. Consumers turned to plant-based protein as an alternative.

“When a rancher slaughters an animal and is then not able to sell it, it’s a huge wasted investment. Plant-based companies can just throw the peas they didn’t use into the freezer,” says Kyle Gaan, an analyst who studies plant-based food trends at the Good Food Institute. “The meat industry is extremely vertically integrated, and buyers are starting to take notice.”

Vegans and vegetarians are still a relatively small segment of the population. The explosion of plant-based foods has been driven by a rise in “flexitarians” who eat both animal and plant-based products. That means consumers are actively choosing between plant-based and animal products regularly.

Some meat lobbyists have appealed to state legislatures for help containing the spread of plant-based foods. In 2019 Tofurky entered a legal battle with the state of Arkansas where a law was passed fining any plant-based product which labeled itself as a “burger,” “sausage,” “roast” or any other word related to animal meat.

The law would have required new packaging, and dealt a harsh blow to plant-based protein in the state. Although a federal court blocked the law from being enforced, similar legislation has been put in place in Missouri, Mississippi and South Dakota.

In 2016 Athos became a founding member of the Plant Based Foods Association, an advocacy group created to ensure a fair and competitive marketplace for plant-based products. The association has 176 members, including Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods and Califia Farms. Athos serves as president and provides guidance to other plant-based startups, including Louisville Vegan Jerky Company.

Part of the company’s mission this year was to get more exposure on college campuses. That strategy was also slowed down by the pandemic. Tofurky’s senior vice president of strategic growth, Erin Ransom, says appealing to college-age consumers remains a core part of the company’s mission to grow the market.

Evidence suggests younger generations are more willing to adopt plant-based eating habits than older ones. Introducing students to affordable products in dining halls helps to ensure they will be acquainted with plant-based eating as they grow into consumers.

1120tofurkyIT4A3732Erin Ransom, senior VP of strategic growth   Photo by Jason E. Kaplan

“Our most important branding opportunity is in our packaging,” says Ransom, as she showed me the happy hot dogs and timid tomatoes, which are meant to give the products a whimsical feel. By keeping the price low, the flavor high and the branding playful, Ransom’s goal is to dispel the persistent notion that plant-based foods are only meant for high-end shoppers.

“We want everyone to feel like they are welcome to our product. We want people to think of our product as something that’s going to be really delicious and also something they can toss on their canned chili and warm up in the microwave.”

One area the company is not focused on is making Tofurky products healthier. Despite Tofurky products containing high quantities of sodium, expanding into new markets means re-creating the experience of meat and cheese as much as possible. “For us, the focus right now is on the flavor and the eating experience,” says Athos.

Tofurky products continue to sell well in Australia and the United Kingdom, countries that have also seen a rise in plant-based eating. Athos now has his sights set on emerging markets in China and India. A burgeoning middle class, climate-change awareness and a cultural comfort with meatless protein could mean opportunities to create a new generation of plant-based consumers in Asia.

Founder Seth Tibbott was inspired by Asian cuisine when he created Turtle Island Foods. His company breaking into the Asian food market could be seen as coming full circle. Tibbott’s original dream of plant-based popularity in the U.S. may already be realized.

But for Athos, the work continues on a scale larger than ever before. “At first plant-based eating was ignored, then it was a pejorative, now it’s become a cool thing,” says Athos.

“Our goal is to continue making tasty products that lure people into eating plant-based rather than shaming them into it.”

To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here.

 

]]> Businesses Face Social-Justice Crossroads https://oregonbusiness.com/19139-businesses-face-social-justice-crossroads/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=19139-businesses-face-social-justice-crossroads Tue, 25 Aug 2020 17:16:12 +0000 https://oregonbusiness.com/businesses-face-social-justice-crossroads/ COVID-19 exposes long-standing wounds of systemic racism.

]]>

Five years ago, Southwest Portland resident Todd Khozein was given a 5% chance of living for more than two months. The cancer that threatened his mortality led to a mind shift that informs his thinking about how both an economy and a society work similarly to the human body.

“If one of your organs is sick, it’s not just a problem of the organ but a problem of the whole body,” says Khozein, co-chief executive officer of SecondMuse. His global company, with 13 offices around the world, helps construct social-justice-focused economies for governments, corporations, foundations and entrepreneurs. “You cannot oppress a part of your body and expect there not to be consequences to the whole.”

0920 TK IT4A7902Todd Khozein, co-chief executive officer of SecondMuse   Photo by Jason E. Kaplan

Enter the COVID-19 pandemic, which suddenly lifted the disparity veil, revealing generations of U.S.’s purposeful investment into intentional and historical racial inequity, particularly against African Americans. Recent protests around the country — including Portland’s months-long, daily demonstrations — commanded the world’s attention toward this collective crisis of conscience.

Now, although the Black Lives Matter movement is building the proverbial muscle of businesses, nonprofits and individuals toward addressing generations of racial inequity, the so-called holistic medicine that will help this country work for all, Khozein notes, demands a response that is more meaningful than a Black Lives Matter lawn sign. Or a hired consultant’s well-crafted equity statement posted on a company’s website.

In the past two months, historical efforts rooted in racial justice have resulted in large commitments to Black residents in Oregon. The $62 million Oregon Cares Fund, which passed the state Legislature on July 14, is a racially targeted investment from the federal CARES Act Coronavirus Relief Fund.

The campaign for that investment — which will be solely distributed to Black residents, businesses and nonprofits — was led by the state’s handful of current and former Black legislators and a diverse group of dozens of other individuals.

That same day, Meyer Memorial Trust pledged $25 million over five years toward advancing racial equity at the community level. Meyer’s president and CEO, Michelle J. DePass, noted Oregon’s anti-Black and anti-Indigenous history as part of her motivation for strategically investing in Justice Oregon for Black Lives, Meyer’s largest initiative in its 38-year history.

“Justice is not simply an ideal,” DePass said in an official statement. “It is something Oregonians should expect to see in our everyday lives.”

Martha Richards, executive director of a smaller philanthropic foundation, Portland-based James F. And Marion L. Miller Foundation, says she had been struggling with how to make bolder moves to support the state’s underserved communities, considering the foundation’s exclusive focus on arts and education.

So earlier this year, when Marcy Bradley, a program officer for the Oregon Community Foundation, asked Miller and other philanthropic foundations to contribute to a fund focused on building the success of Black students around the state, Miller seized the moment. Bradley asked Miller for a commitment of $100,000 for one year to help get the initiative off the ground. Richards countered with $200,000 over two years.

“We’re small and I thought that would influence others to be supportive,” Richards explains. Her strategy worked. Bradley ended up raising more than $750,000 from Miller, Meyer, and several other philanthropic organizations to create the inaugural Oregon Black Student Success Community Network.

The fund, which was announced June 5, supports the creation of a network of 20 Black-led, community-based organizations to serve as a think tank for how best to serve the needs of Oregon Community Foundation’s count of more than 31,500 Black students spread around the state’s eight geographic regions.

“It’s really important work,” Richards says, “and it was important then and it’s more important now. We’re relooking at all of our grantmaking with an eye toward equity now.”

Portland metro-area businesses large and small, including Oregon’s largest sports-apparel companies, are also making unprecedented commitments to economically boost Black people, employees and communities. On June 5, Nike announced a pledge to invest $40 million over the next four years “to fight systemic racism.”

Five days later, Adidas North America pledged $120 million over four years, and also committed to filling 30% of its job openings with Black and Latinx applicants. In a June 10 company tweet, Adidas acknowledged that its financial success “would be nothing without Black athletes, Black artists, Black employees and Black consumers. Period.”

Smaller businesses are also making bold decisions to advance racial equity. In late July, Northeast Portland-based henry v, a 40-year-old experiential marketing and creative-services agency, announced a pro bono initiative called For the People, which was a commitment to provide at least $100,000 worth of its storytelling and marketing services to a Black-led project or business for a year.

After a brief application process in late July, henry v selected the Black Resilience Fund, co-founded by social-justice activists and volunteers Cameron Whitten and Salomé Chimuku.

In less than two months, the volunteer-run fund raised almost $1.3 million from more than 14,000 donors. The money, doled out in average chunks of $300, without much red tape or explanations, is intended to help Black people pay bills, buy groceries or pay their rent, which Whitten says helps “foster hope, resilience and healing.”

“Witnessing the widespread protests in response to the death of George Floyd, we acknowledged a need, as a business and as individuals, to uplift our community with more consistent action against racial injustice,” says Haven Anderson, the company’s executive creative director. “We launched For the People to amplify the voices of those creating positive change by doing what we do best: telling stories.”

The outpouring of businesses’ targeted dollars to the Black community has revealed long-standing, deeply underserved needs — exacerbated by COVID-19’s financial impacts on small businesses and individuals.

Mercy Corps Northwest, for example, decided to offer Black-owned businesses in the Portland metro area up to $5,000 for “rent, payroll or other operational expenses.” The application process was opened at 8 a.m. on July 20 and closed at 5 p.m. July 22. Despite a limited outreach, given the brief time frame, Mercy Corps received more than 500 applications, according to its communications director Leigh Scheffey.

“We know our community needs money as urgently as possible, as more businesses are at risk of closing each day with delays in unemployment and other benefits,” Scheffey says. “More money is needed to support Black-owned businesses, and we are actively accepting donations to grow the pool of relief we can offer.” In early August, the organization said it planned to disburse a minimum of 20 grants to businesses over the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, Prosper Portland, whose mission is to encourage economic prosperity, struggles to make remarkable progress on its equity-based commitments in its own workplace and in partnership with other companies. In 2016 it changed its name from the Portland Development Commission to Prosper Portland, in part to distance itself from its legacy of accelerating the gentrification of the neighborhoods historically occupied by Blacks and other people of color.

That same year, when Kimberly Branam was hired as its executive director, she vowed to help “transform Prosper Portland into an antiracist organization.”

Today the Prosper Portland staff and board of commissioners are diverse, and an in-house equity council is tasked with using training, facilitation, informal meetings and awareness-raising to change the culture of Prosper Portland’s workplace.

Branam acknowledges more needs to be done internally to make the overall organization and its individual employees more sensitive to issues of race, privilege and inequity. Branam says she is also trying to figure out how to encourage tech companies, one of the fastest-growing industries in the state, to be more racially inclusive.

“It’s fundamentally about culture change,” Branam says. “Thinking about it as an economic system, in order for it to be healthy, it has to be diverse.”

In 2015 Prosper Portland partnered with the late Sam Blackman, CEO and founder of AWS Elemental, in launching the TechTown Diversity Pledge. Branam called it “a practical, meaningful tool” to encourage the metro area’s tech companies to hire more women and people of color.

Years later, though, a majority of companies involved have made almost no discernible progress in meeting the pledge’s equity goals. In fact, some of the participating partners “chose not to publicly affirm Black Lives Matter,” noted Prosper Portland’s economic director, Tory Campbell, in a recent letter to tech companies.

“Fundamentally,” Branam acknowledges, “the accountability structure was not there.”

So this fall, she says, Prosper Portland will release another version of the TechTown Diversity Pledge that will require tech companies — which volunteer to participate — to disclose data on employees’ ethnicities and agree to engage in diversity training.

It will also dedicate Prosper Portland staff to figuring out how to evaluate success and how to keep tech companies accountable to its equity goals.

“We are still a product of our history, and that history is steeped in white supremacy,” Branam explains. “We have been working on culture change in earnest for the last five years, and we still have challenges. We will keep pushing even though we haven’t figured it all out.”

PitchBlack founder, economist and entrepreneur Stephen Green says he is growing increasingly impatient with the business community’s lack of progress on equity issues.

He has been particularly vocal about holding the leaders of Prosper Portland and the Portland Business Alliance, the city’s largest and most influential chamber of commerce, accountable for their statements on improving equity.

0920 SG IT4A8033Stephen Green, founder of PitchBlack    Photo by Jason E. Kaplan

In late June, the business alliance announced an equity campaign, titled “Invisible Knee: A Call to Action.” The intention, according to the press release, was to “create a regional economic equity plan that encompasses explicit strategies on Black wealth creation.”

Alliance president Andrew Hoan said he is letting the Black alliance members take the lead on crafting a plan, which will eventually be considered and shaped by the full board before it is implemented. Hoan says he is committed to the goal of increasing equity, but the process is going to take time.

Green says he expects Hoan, as a key business advocate, to be even more aggressive on equity. “To talk about, not even fix, not solve things, but leverage his platform to start conversations about the plight of Black businesses — you don’t get points for doing that now when you wouldn’t do that before,” Green says. “I understand the urgency needed in this moment.”

Green and three other male entrepreneurs — Juan Barraza, who runs Portland State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship, Rick Turoczy, co-founder of the Portland Incubator Experiment, and Mitch Daugherty, co-founder and director of Built Oregon — created an initiative to encourage mostly white people to commit to promoting equity within their own workplaces and in society.

Founded in July, the all-volunteer, grassroots initiative, called I Will Do More, has been endorsed by more than 400 individuals who work for nearly 300 different companies, nonprofits, universities and government entities.

“We are proposing a new paradigm,” Green wrote on the opening page of the website. “One unconstrained by business, market, or focus. One seeking and empowering the voices of the individuals who are standing up and committing to do the work. Not the companies. Not the leaders. Not the marketing departments. The people.” 

Both Khozein and Green agree that intersecting and overlapping racist policies, practices and ideas that are systemically embedded into our social institutions, structures and individual belief systems require both a collective and an individual commitment to unravel.

To that end, Khozein’s company, SecondMuse, has been convening global leaders, including Nike executives, to identify and foster breakthrough ideas aimed to move beyond incremental changes in racial and social justice to impact business practices at every level.

“Anytime you’re dealing with an insidious, complex kind of an issue, you have to realize it’s influencing you in ways that you don’t know you’re being influenced,” Khozein explains. “Because I’m in the system, I have the [bigotry] taint on me. You can’t be here without it. But one of the things that helps with this is the idea that there’s a path forward.”

To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here. 

 

]]> The Purposeful Agitator https://oregonbusiness.com/19014-the-purposeful-agitator/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=19014-the-purposeful-agitator Mon, 23 Mar 2020 19:15:05 +0000 https://oregonbusiness.com/the-purposeful-agitator/ The philanthropic vision of Meyer Memorial Trust’s new president is to disrupt, repair and rebuild.

]]>

Transformative change is not just an appetizer when Michelle J. DePass is invited to the table; it is the main course, palate cleanser and dessert.

A little less than two years ago, DePass brought her legacy as an unapologetic, social justice activist and agitator to her role as the third president and chief executive officer of Meyer Memorial Trust, one of the state’s oldest and largest charitable foundations.

She was hired over 140 applicants, after a six-month national search. And she is the first woman in that position, the first Black person, and the first to bring three decades of nonprofit, academic, environmental and government experience to the role.

Former CEO Doug Stamm, formerly a Nike executive and head of Friends of the Children nonprofit, led Meyer for 16 years. Under his leadership, the foundation’s first strategic redesign led to more mission-related investing, a focus on affordable housing and the health of the Willamette River.

In 2013 Stamm shifted Meyer’s funding priorities to lean toward equity. Over the next three years, it changed its logo, website and program focus to direct its $800 million endowment into four areas: building community, equitable education, healthy environment and affordable housing.

The course progression, at times, disrupted comfort levels. But eventually Meyer’s staff and trustees began to think — and look — differently.

“Doug turned the ship,” DePass says. “And the staff of color really helped in that journey. Now I’m taking it out into the deep waters. I came here to be in it for the long haul.”

IT4A2518Michelle DePass, the new presient and CEO of Meyer Memorial Trust. Photo: Jason E. Kaplan 

DePass has been fixated on equity, decades before she landed in Portland on April 28, 2018. That Saturday evening, she received her first public introduction at a standing-room-only Black Oregon Village Welcome, an annual event that welcomes new Black people to the community, held in Portland’s downtown Oregon Historical Society building.

The next day, before DePass even had keys to the Meyer offices, she met with board members to discuss several pressing matters, including the new headquarters under construction in an inner North Portland neighborhood. The day after that, DePass met members of her staff for the first time.

Throughout her first 18 months, DePass spent days, sometimes weeks, traveling the state with Meyer employees and listening to the perspectives of those working in social justice, government, the arts, business, education and nonprofits.

“Like every new leader who approaches their job with appropriate humility when relocating,” notes Andrew Hoan, president and CEO of the Portland Business Alliance, “she has been listening and learning from stakeholders to better understand how to position Meyer in an ever more meaningful way to better our region and beyond.”

On her statewide listening journey, DePass says she learned about the disparities of Oregon’s educational, cultural and political divides, which tend to be shouldered by people of color and those from the LGBTQ+ and disability communities.

She met both loggers and environmentalists, and says she was struck by rural Oregon’s depth of poverty. DePass and nine staff members also spent several days with members of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, before visiting the state’s other eight federally recognized tribes.

The information gathering shifted DePass’ priorities on which groups, communities and causes it invests its money in. The 2020 Census, for example, will shape how political power and federal tax dollars are shared over the next 10 years.

So Meyer leveraged financial support from 14 area foundations, Gov. Kate Brown and the city of Portland’s Office of Community and Civic Life for the #WeCountOregon campaign.

The grassroots-led crusade will pay community members to fan out into Oregon’s 36 counties, focusing on reaching those at risk of not being fully counted in the upcoming census, such as tribal communities, people of color, houseless, immigrants, children under age 5 and geographically isolated households.

“Meyer operates within a system of hundreds of years of White supremacy,” DePass explains. “Philanthropy resources come from some of the very spaces that can cause some of the problems that we’re trying to fix. We have to be bold to make a difference, to reach the deeper impact that is needed in communities across the state.”

IT4A4328Standing in what will become her new office, Michelle DePass credits flexibility for success — both hers and Meyer’s: “If you stay in your lane, you are not thinking big enough.”

Another of DePass’ priorities is leveraging Meyer’s influence and issuing a call to action for the business community to invest more of its dollars into public education, not as a social justice handout but as an economic reality.

“Competition for talent is forcing the issue and requiring dramatic changes in the way companies and education cooperate to assure a flourishing, prosperous and equitable Oregon,” DePass says.

“Although there are short-term, turnkey programs that will help get some students ready to work, ‘growing our own’ is a long-term strategy to permanently address the private sector’s need for talent.” 

Meyer trustees believe DePass’ priorities align with the wishes of Fred Meyer, the German entrepreneur whose $63 million seeded the charitable trust.

“Realizing as I do the uncertainties of the future,” Meyer wrote, “I want my trustees to be able to exercise broad discretion in shaping and carrying out charitable programs which can be tailored to fit changing conditions and problems.”

The Portland Business Alliance’s Hoan says he stands behind DePass’ intentions. “We applaud her aggressive approach,” he says. “And we can learn from her leadership when it comes to how we, in the business community, can better ourselves in the effort to make sure every resident in our region has a brighter future.”

Leading by example, DePass explains that she first had to shift practices and beliefs in-house before she could authentically champion equity, diversity and inclusion as objectives that guide the foundation’s priorities. So, seizing Stamm’s momentum, DePass also focused on creating a work environment that leans in closer to what she calls “a supportive space.”

“If we are really going to become a foundation that can transform and support people where the most needs are in the state, we need people who understand these issues sitting in these seats,” DePass explains.

Of Meyer’s 38 employees, 27 are women, 11 are men; more than half identify as Black, Native American, Asian or mixed race. Meyer’s executive team is all female. And four of Meyer’s five trustees identify as a person of color. Board chair Toya Fick, who is Black, joined the Meyer board in 2016 and became its chair in 2019, in part, to play a more supportive role for DePass.

“Meyer has seen a lot of change in the past five years,” notes Fick, executive director of Stand for Children, an advocacy organization that has leveraged more than $6.7 billion in educational investments.

“All great things — but anytime there’s a lot of change in a short period of time, there tends to be a bit of fatigue. Michelle was able to come in, assess how everyone was feeling, and provide the space and time to reflect, breathe, and build the connections we needed to regain our strength to keep running this race.”

As her middle name is Joy, DePass says she creates intention for staff members to enjoy each other’s company. And when mistakes are made, she says Meyer employees are expected to give each other grace and risk embracing growth from the experience of failing.

Even the website’s listing of her team members is even-handed: alphabetical, not hierarchical.

“I’m trying to create a learning culture,” DePass explains. “This is an evolution. The current events are changing every day. Our partners in the field have to keep moving and adapting. We have to keep moving and adapting.” 

DePass’ career is a case study on reflecting, building and adapting. When she enrolled in law school at New York’s Fordham University, her intention was to become a real estate attorney and earn a lot of money.

But when DePass passed the bar and still couldn’t find a job, she created her own. In 1991 she co-founded and became the first executive director of a scrappy grassroots nonprofit. The New York City Environmental Justice Alliance used legal action and community organizing to fix some of the inequitable impacts that city and state policies and regulations had on residents of color.

One of DePass’ successes was shining a light on New York’s practice of dumping its garbage in communities that could not say no, such as Queens, the Bronx, and parts of New Jersey and the Caribbean islands, where DePass’ family roots are from.

That grassroots activism inspired DePass to obtain a master’s in public administration. Eventually, she became the senior policy advisor for New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection.

In that job, she persuaded the governor to sign the country’s first environmental justice executive order, which required all state decisions and policies to consider their impact on residents’ health and environment.

DePass eventually moved to Washington, D.C., for five years, becoming the federal Environment Protection Agency’s assistant administrator for international and tribal affairs under President Obama’s administration.

She worked for years on negotiating the 2016 Paris Agreement, where countries around the world agreed to mitigate global warming; and she helped persuade China to acknowledge how its love affair with industry was negatively affecting its air quality. And with DePass’ advocacy, Obama elevated tribes to receive the same benefits as any other sovereign nation, such as the U.K. or Brazil.

DePass remains close to high-profile trailblazers who have mentored and witnessed her evolution from an advocate to an activist to an agitator. Her former boss, Lisa Jackson, the Obama-appointed former head of the EPA, is now Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives.

They first met when DePass was working in New Jersey. “She taught me that you can have it all,” DePass says, “but not at the same time.”

While working in Washington, D.C., DePass had the first of her two sons, now ages 4 and 7, with husband Joshua Paulson, a civil-rights attorney who grew up in Corvallis. “My children keep me very grounded,” DePass says.

“They are why I am doing this work. History will judge me and that’s what keeps me going. What did I do today? What will I do tomorrow? It’s the only thing I know how to do.”

DePass also remains close friends with Don Chen, who is the third president of the Surdna Foundation, a New York City-based social justice charitable organization that also works to shift the historical imbalance of private funding inequality.

Their paths first crossed 27 years ago when DePass was his colleague at a small office on 145th Street in Harlem. They both eventually became program officers at New York City’s Ford Foundation, which was the first national charity to advance equity as a core value. Both DePass and Chen are children of immigrant parents.

Recently visiting Portland on a family trip, Chen joined a private tour of Meyer’s $10.8 million, almost 20,000-square-foot headquarters, under construction in Portland’s historic Albina neighborhood.

The three-story structure sits amongst modest, older single-family homes; slick new residential high-rises; small businesses; and community-based nonprofits. Meyer’s move-in date is targeted for August.

Since buying the property in 2018, Meyer has worked closely with staff, architects, landscape designers and the project developer to help design a project that is intentional about fostering community building both within and outside its walls.

The entrance to Meyer’s new headquarters, for example, will look similar to a Southern porch, a traditional place for socializing and storytelling. Neighbors will be welcomed to sit in Meyer’s outdoor garden, which will be officially named using a word from the ancient Chinuk Wawa jargon, which loosely translates to “always.” And plantings will continue near the street around the building’s footprint.

IT4A4601Construction on Meyer’s new building, at the corner of North Vancouver Boulevard and Tillamook Street in Portland, is slated to be complete in August.

“Fred Meyer was a believer in having great purpose,” DePass says. “So we have dedicated a lot of time to how we can be welcoming to the community. Being part of the neighborhood is being a good neighbor.”

Glass walls will allow people to view the lobby’s distinctive open wooden staircase and seating that invites conversation. The second-floor lunchroom will feature a neon rainbow trout swimming in a freshwater ecosystem, which will be visible to highway commuters.

And a gallery will be positioned on the walls in the communal gathering space so that people can view creations from artists around the state from wherever they sit.

All of the executive team’s offices have an equal amount of square footage. And the spaces that get the most sunlight were saved for the common areas, such as the conference room, which has a partial view of Mt. Hood.

In the southwestern corners of the building, both the third-floor library and second-floor accessible eco-roof have views of the Rose Quarter, downtown Portland and the Fremont Bridge.

“You’ve been in some pretty cool buildings, but this is your own,” Chen mentioned to DePass on the tour. “And to do it in a way that faces the community? This is very rare for a foundation to be doing this.”

Intention was created from the beginning for the building to be environmentally friendly and for its design, construction and development team members to be diverse. The headquarters’ walls were built with wood from Mills City foresters who are leaders in protecting water, worker rights and wildlife habitat.

The solar roof panels harness energy to light the building. Even the spaces for indoor bicycles and cars are fairly distributed: Each mode of transportation has 20 spaces each and includes a vehicle charging station.

“For me, it’s part of who I am to make sure that we are going to be good environmental neighbors,” DePass says. “You only get this opportunity once, and I want to do it right.”

IT4A4565From left: Anyeley Hallová, partner at Project PDX, reporter S. Renee Mitchell, Meyer CEO Michelle DePass, Don Chen, president of New York’s Surdna Foundation and Ali O’Neill, co-owner of O’Neill Construction Group tour Meyer Memorial Trust’s North Portland building site.  Photo: Jason E. Kaplan

DePass notes that the new headquarters is symbolic of her leadership’s intentionality. Its geographical shift represents a move away from Portland’s fashionable Pearl District — which was reportedly named after Ethiopian social worker Pearl Marie Amhara — to a historically Black neighborhood just a block from the Billy Webb Elks Lodge, a restored, historical landmark for the Black community.

Its spatial shift comes from the new headquarters having a welcoming front entrance and its objective to offer meeting space to community members and groups.

And its relational shift is reflected in Meyer’s role in leveraging its influence with Oregon’s philanthropic powerhouses to develop new initiatives, including the Portland Clean Energy Fund, which provides energy-efficient home upgrades and clean-energy jobs for low-income Portlanders.

Despite DePass’ Oregon-based accomplishments, one will not find more than a few paragraphs or staged pictures of her online. Although she has been candid in her speeches at Portland State University, Lewis & Clark and other venues, DePass has previously refused any media interview requests until she could learn more about the state that is her new home.

“I’ve heard people express disappointment because they haven’t had the chance to get to know her one-on-one,” Fick says. “Sometimes that’s mistaken for being unapproachable or self-important. Nothing could be further from the truth. She is one of the most approachable people I’ve ever met. But she’s incredibly busy. In fact, many of our conversations occur before the sun comes up and often on the weekends.”

DePass offers no apologies for her priorities or her tendency to work in overdrive. While building her career, she also mentors others, including Alexandria McBride, Oakland, California’s chief resilience officer. DePass says her grounding philosophy is: “If you don’t see it, create it.”

“The expectations of me as a woman of color, who has a certain background, is a little different,” acknowledges DePass, an only child of Jamaican immigrants. “But I can sit in that because that’s power for me. I sat in that power for decades.”

This article has been edited with the following correction: Don Chen and Michelle DePass were colleagues at a small office in Harlem when they met 27 years ago. It was previously inaccurately reported that DePass was Chen’s boss. 

 To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here.

 

]]> February Cover Story: Picturing AI Law https://oregonbusiness.com/18973-february-cover-story-picturing-ai-law/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=18973-february-cover-story-picturing-ai-law Thu, 30 Jan 2020 22:03:47 +0000 https://oregonbusiness.com/february-cover-story-picturing-ai-law/ Art director Joan McGuire describes her inspiration for illustrating this month’s cover story.

]]>

The convergence of artificial intelligence with law…what does that look like?

I was faced with illustrating this concept for the cover story of February issue, which explores how artificial intelligence and machine learning is transforming the legal profession.

In practice, sadly, it looks like computer screens full of text. *Snore.* I’d need two major images — one for the front and one for inside lede. If these images were going to have any oomph at all, I’d have to come up with something.

A Google image search is my go-to method for learning what the common visual cues are for a given concept. Here are some of the things that popped up:

whitecollar robots

According to Google, clearly the “White-Collar Robot” is the quintessential way to depict the combining of tech with a profession.

I particularly enjoyed this mash-up of Gregory Peck (as lawyer Atticus Finch in 1962’s To Kill a Mockingbird) with RoboCop:

RoboPeck

Of course, we could always photograph someone and then turn their eyes red, but that “Terminator” treatment was too chilling. We didn’t want our AI lawyer to come across as a relentless murder machine:

terminatorb

Ultimately, I kept coming back to my favorite robot:

Gunslinger Westworld bar

That’s Yul Brynner in 1973’s Westworld. (Did you know that this was the first feature film to use computer graphics? It’s true! Geek out here.)

Sure, the Robot Gunslinger was an inexorable foe, but he had a human face, and it was the shape of that face, offset to reveal the circuitry inside, which I felt we could replicate.

westworld inspo

We just needed to find a suitable model, preferably a person comfortable in a white-collared button-down shirt.

Happily I knew just the person. Jonathan Shapiro, who works in fraud management, is my sister’s partner. He dresses the part every day, and more important, he was totally game to be rendered into an android in Photoshop. He came in after work for a photo shoot with OB staff photographer, Jason E. Kaplan.

jonathan0220

I found the robot guts to put inside Jonathan’s head on Shutterstock:

RobotHeads array
My original intention was to photoshop Jonathan’s eyes onto the robot head, removing them from the “mask” of his face. Then, when the mask was offset, the viewer could see through the eye holes.

The resulting image lacked impact, I felt. However, it led to the idea of just showing robot eyes, which we all agreed was stunning. That image was used on an inside page.

firstlooks

In the end, I was delighted that just showing a tiny slice of the robot circuitry was very effective. I’m glad to say that Jonathan, too, was psyched about his transformation.

0220 CoverAI Law

To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here. 

 

]]> Medicaid, Heal Thyself https://oregonbusiness.com/18802-medicaid-heal-thyself/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=18802-medicaid-heal-thyself Wed, 03 Jul 2019 16:15:00 +0000 https://oregonbusiness.com/medicaid-heal-thyself/ Beset by rising costs and right-wing rhetoric, can Oregon’s bold experiment to revamp coordinated care organizations make the grade?

]]> Instructors teach more than aerobics at the Ashland and Medford YMCAs.

They’re trained community-health workers, guiding members through a variety of concerns, from intensive weight loss to mental-health issues. “They not only provide health, wellness and physical activity but offer incredible social supports,” says Jackson Care Connect CEO Jennifer Lind.“They help members build social networks and friendships.”

People in their programs report better physical health, and the number of those screening positive for depression was cut nearly in half.

All of these positive health outcomes are the result of a partnership between the YMCA and Jackson Care Connect, the coordinated care organization (CCO) serving more than 30,000 Medicaid patients in the Ashland/Medford area.

Under the CCO model, Jackson Care Connect has the flexibility to fund a variety of health-related services like providing a scholarship to the YMCA and tracking members’ attendance. They can also support health training, transforming the YMCA’s staff into a vital part of the medical community.

Launched in 2012, coordinated care organizations were the bold attempt of the Oregon Health Authority, the state agency that oversees health-related programs, to deliver better care to the most vulnerable residents. Seven years later, the experiment is gearing up for its next act.

Known as CCO 2.0, the reboot is a five-year plan to further revamp health care delivery. That first go-round, CCO 1.0 if you will, managed some impressive successes, like those in Ashland and Medford, despite a rocky start. Can CCO 2.0, which faces rising health care costs, shrinking federal dollars and downright hostile presidential rhetoric, go further?

Brainchild of former governor John Kitzhaber, CCO 1.0 was a true innovation. The model was launched under Affordable Care Act provisions. Funded by a generous $1.9 billion federal waiver, which gave Oregon the spending flexibility to conduct this experiment, the first iteration strove to meet health care’s triple-aim goal: improving patient care, boosting community health and controlling cost growth with a local, community-based approach.

“It changed the dynamics of the conversation around how we serve the most vulnerable population out there,” says Eric Hunter, CEO of CareOregon. (CareOregon is a nonprofit insurer providing services to about one-quarter of Oregon Health Plan’s [Medicaid] 1 million members.)

JEK 8885Eric Hunter, CEO of CareOregon  Photo: Jason E. Kaplan

Hunter came to Oregon three years ago specifically to work within the CCO model. “This system thinks about whole-person care, not only from the individual perspective but the community perspective,” he says.

“The model is designed to bring everyone to the table with a common sense of purpose and priorities. I haven’t seen that anywhere else.”

CCOs are managed care, but with important differences. Each CCO is locally governed and accountable for access and quality. They receive a budget for behavioral, physical and oral-health services, and have the opportunity to earn bonuses from an incentive pool for meeting or making strides toward 17 benchmarks.

Benchmarks include things like increasing adolescents, well-care visits or boosting the number of colorectal cancer screenings. CCOs also have the flexibility to provide health-related services like critical housing repairs, health classes or workforce development.

That flexibility generated some important innovations.

For instance, in 2016 CareOregon joined five other health care organizations to address Portland’s housing crisis. Their financial commitment helped fund Central City Concern’s $21.5 million Housing Is Health initiative, which added 382 new affordable and workforce housing units in three different locations around the city.

Its Eastside Health Center, also known as the Blackburn Center, is one of only five facilities in North America that integrates clinical services with transitional housing, palliative services and respite housing under one roof. It’s set to open this summer.

Or look at Jackson Care Connect, which is fully owned by CareOregon. It provided $200,000 worth of grants for a variety of community needs from residential addiction treatment for new and expectant mothers to home visits to address school readiness.

It even helped fund “Grandma’s Porch,” a home-safety project that provides assessments, improvements and installations of safety equipment for older adults on limited income and disabled adults of all ages.

“The CCO model is exactly the kind of thing the country needs to be focused on,” says Andy Slavitt, who served as the acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services under former president Barack Obama. “It’s one of the bright spots in the health care landscape.”

Problems, however, dogged the experiment from the start. Former governor Kitzhaber, the architect of the system, resigned midterm due to an unrelated scandal.

FamilyCare Health, one of the state’s largest CCOs, shut down in December of 2017 after a long-running dispute over reimbursement rates with the Oregon Health Authority. That clash led to sweeping leadership changes at the Oregon Health Authority, which included the firing of director Lynne Saxton and four other department heads.

Incorporating Medicaid expansion presented yet another challenge. Under the Affordable Care Act, Oregonians with household incomes up to 138% of the poverty line were eligible for the insurance. “We didn’t know what that expansion would look like,” recalls Jeremiah Rigsby, CareOregon chief of staff.

Its impact turned out to be enormous. Oregon has seen some of the nation’s most dramatic jumps in Medicaid enrollment under the ACA. Between 2013 and 2017, the average monthly enrollment grew 52% — the 10th-highest increase of all states.

The good news is, thanks to Medicaid expansion, 94% of Oregonians are now insured. The bad news? Now the state had to figure out how to pay for it.

To cover its share of expansion, the Oregon Legislature approved a set of taxes and assessments in 2017. Votes fell largely along party lines. In response, three Republican state legislators launched Measure 101 to repeal those taxes.

The measure was overwhelmingly voted down.

“That was the first time that I know of that health care financing was on the ballot in Oregon,” says Jeremy Vandehey, Oregon Health Authority director of health policy and analytics. “It sent a strong message to the Legislature that Oregonians value health care.”

Bolstered by the bipartisan support and encouraged by new leadership, including the return of Lori Coyner as Medicaid director, Oregon Health Authority and the CCOs are now prepared to build on past successes.

CCO 1.0 made some impressive strides by improving access to primary care, reducing expensive emergency department visits and saving the state an estimated $2.2 billion in avoided health costs.

CCOs under the old model also managed to constrain costs to 3.4% increases year over year, something David Bangsberg, founding dean of OHSU/PSU School of Public Health, calls “really remarkable considering health care costs were going up nearly 10% a year.”

Not a bad start, but it was clearly not enough for Kitzhaber’s taste. “The system is so siloed, so unaccountable, and there’s so much money,” he recently said at an event sponsored by the Oregon Health Forum. “We do not have — in this state, or anywhere in the country — an aligned coordinated delivery model that can get the right services and treatment to the right children and families, in the right amount and at the right time, so that it can make a difference.”

Harsh, but not entirely off the mark.

All the experts agree that to truly transform the health care system, CCO 2.0 needs to go further. Gov. Kate Brown outlined four area of focus: improving and integrating behavioral health; developing a payment system that rewards improvement in health outcomes instead of the volume of services delivered; better addressing of the social determinants of health and health equity issues like housing, food security and transportation; and maintaining sustainable cost growth.

Oh, and for an added degree of difficulty, the state needs to accomplish all of this while the Trump administration seeks to shrink Medicaid.

Trump’s plan, outlined in his 2020 budget, includes allowing states to add the requirement that recipients work to receive benefits, repealing the ACA expansion and moving to block grants, federal monies given in inflexible, fixed-dollar amounts.

These cuts, according to an article in Vox, round out to about $770 billion, an amount which could leave millions more Americans uninsured.

Trump’s negative rhetoric had a chilling effect in Oregon, even before he took office. Going into the 2016 election, the Oregon Health Authority was preparing another ambitious federal waiver, according to CareOregon’s Rigsby.

It wasn’t nearly as generous as that first $1.9 billion ask; but after Trump was elected, officials scaled it back to $1.25 billion for quick approval while Obama was still president.

Oregon Health Authority’s Vandehey, however, stands by the 2017 waiver, calling the stability it provided for CCO 2.0 critical. “There were some one-time, startup funds in that first waiver that were never meant to be extended,” he explains.

Vandehey expects further financial steadiness to come from a recently passed, six-year financing package that extends the existing hospital tax and the insurance premium and managed-care tax.

A tobacco tax, necessary for avoiding a shortfall in 2021-2023, is in the works. Experts think that tax will likely be referred to voters if it passes.

“There’s been remarkable bipartisan support for CCOs,” observes Slavitt. “There’s this narrative that health care is the most politically divisive issue, and that’s true, it is — except for where people live and breathe. That’s where health care is the least political, most personal issue. Oregon has put partisanship aside.”

Gil Muñoz, CEO of Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, agrees. With 18 clinics, some of them based in schools, Virginia Garcia provides care to 47,000 of Washington and Yamhill counties’ most vulnerable.

More than half of Virginia Garcia’s patients don’t speak English as a primary language, 98% of them live in low-income households, most are insured by Medicaid.

Muñoz says he’s grateful to live and work in Oregon. Yet he’s seen the effects of President Trump’s rhetoric firsthand after his administration proposed expanding the public charge rule to include Medicaid in October 2018.

This expansion means an immigrant may be denied a green card or temporary visa if they used services like Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

“It’s having an impact,” he says. “People who are eligible and qualified to enroll are afraid it could hurt the long-term immigration status of a family member.”

Hunter at CareOregon concurs. “We know for a fact that hundreds of individuals, a lot of them children, are not signing up and getting the preventive care they need to avoid worse health outcomes,” he says. “This is dangerous to a system that is designed to take care of everyone.”

While disruption continues at the federal level, the Oregon Health Authority is drilling deeper into the CCO experiment. This iteration will implement around 40 different policy changes over the next five years. “The overall key message is we’re doubling down and getting much more specific about our expectations for each,” explains Vandehey.

So what does that look like on the ground?

CCOs can expect more stringent access-to-care metrics around behavioral health. This means fully integrating mental health and substance-use disorder services within the CCO. Subcontracting these services out, once a common scenario, will no longer be allowed.

The hope is this will make the CCO much more accountable for member satisfaction and access.

Moving to value-based payments, where CCOs are compensated for positive outcomes as opposed to the volume of services they provide, was an important goal of CCO 1.0 that never really materialized. To make it happen this time, CCO 2.0 sets specific, yearly targets.

In year one, 30% of all payments must be in an approved value-based arrangement; year five sees that number jump to 70%. “We’re expecting very aggressive movement here,” says Vandehey.

A fund has been set up to kickstart more investments around the social determinants of health. The money can be used for things like housing or other nontraditional services that are not health care but still necessary for a population to be healthy.

This investment recognizes that the health care system is only really responsible for about “10% of a person’s health status,” according to Bangsberg. “The rest is genetics and the social and physical environment.”

JEK 8478Jennifer Lind, CEO of Jackson Care Connect. Photo: Jason E. Kaplan

Lind calls the push to address the social determinants of health “validating of the work we’re already doing.” She credits targeted supported housing and short-term housing for Jackson Care Connect’s 15% decrease in emergency department use among individuals with severe and persistent mental illness.

“I’m excited to be part of a community-wide health improvement plan that prioritizes housing,” she says. “One Medicaid CCO can’t build housing, but we can deepen our partnerships with builders and bring in supportive services.”

Funds, in the form of a rewards or shared-savings system, will incentivize sticking to that 3.4% cost containment. “Unless you get a financial reward, there isn’t an incentive to lower costs,” says Vandehey.

Wildly escalating pharmacy costs, however, threaten to topple this experiment. Muñoz explains his concern. “We can do a lot to control expenses for some of our more complex patients, but we have no control over pharmacy costs. They can increase exponentially and take dollars from other parts of the system.”

Drug prices are “front and center in everyone’s mind,” according to Vandehey. He pointed to a new drug that costs $2.1 million per patient and other expensive therapies coming down the pipeline that will make holding increases to the promised 3.4% challenging. “It’s a cost driver. And the state is limited in what we can do.”

Vandehey also notes that pharmacy only represents 10% of the Medicaid spend, which leaves lots of room for efficiencies in the rest of the system. He points to expanded technology and tools that can help CCOs identify inefficiencies in the system, like a poorly managed case or outlier costs.

Oregon Health Authority is drafting rules and awarding the next set of contracts to manage Medicaid. Final decisions will be made in July. This time around, coordinated care organizations have the ability to build on past achievements while pressing forward.

It won’t be easy. And Oregon Health Authority director Patrick Allen knows it. “We see CCO 2.0 as an opportunity to reboot the entire CCO system and reinvigorate health transformation in our state,” he said at a State of Reform conference.

Time will tell if the CCOs can make the grade.

To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here. 

 

]]> On the road with Kate Brown https://oregonbusiness.com/18350-on-the-road-with-kate-brown/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=18350-on-the-road-with-kate-brown Fri, 08 Jun 2018 20:39:00 +0000 https://oregonbusiness.com/on-the-road-with-kate-brown/ Dogged by questions of leadership and a shaky relationship with business, the governor goes on tour to find out what employers want — and share her vision of a prosperous Oregon.

]]>

On a fitful spring day in Eastern Oregon, a five-car convoy muscles its way down Slough Road, a gun barrel of asphalt that shoots north out of Baker City past farms and fields unfurling below the Blue Mountains. Gov. Kate Brown, deep in a three-day road trip, has come to this red swath of her big blue state to meet with business and civic leaders and to sign ceremonial bills that please even her conservative constituents.

These are feel-good events to celebrate millions of state dollars that fund a new Eastern Oregon University field house in La Grande, bring broadband to rural schools like one in Pendleton, and even help Hermiston’s Lamb Weston, the $3.2 billion producer of frozen French fries, expand. All of these fit into a plan for prosperity that the governor calls Future Ready Oregon.

Yet something more immediate is afoot on this trip, too: The governor is here, during an election year, to begin crafting a budget vision for a state that has struggled to make ends meet. To do that, she’s asking the business community for input.

 “I really believe that by bringing people together, we can solve these big issues,” she says.

Balancing Oregon finances is a big issue indeed, and getting the private sector onboard isn’t easy, either. State coffers swirl around a black hole thanks to a volatile tax system and the $25 billion unfunded liabilities of PERS, the public employees retirement system. Yet during her tenure so far, the governor has acted more in accordance with her labor and social issues constituency.

She has advocated for taxes on corporate receipts through Measure 97,  supported the minimum wage increase and signed a bill to deny S Corps (some of the smallest businesses in the state) a $250 million annual tax break included in a federal tax overhaul.

But Brown also considers herself an ally to small businesses and called a special session on May 21st that ultimately gave about 12,000 of the state’s sole proprietors (with at least one employee) a break that goes easier on the state’s general fund at a cost of $15 million annually.  

The decision to call that special session may have deflected some S Corps blowback but it also drew fire from both sides of the aisle. Democrats bemoaned the loss of money for the general fund; Republicans accused the governor of pandering.

All of it means Gov. Brown’s relationship with the business community has become rather “challenged,” Sean Robbins, senior vice president for public affairs, Cambia Health Solutions, said in an email.

Measure 97 was really the turning point, though. “She found herself in a bitter, divisive and expensive ballot initiative that may have made for good politics but was bad policy. It’s fair to say that it caused a rift.” 

The two sides have been working to mend that rift — the multibillion transportation package helped — but there’s more work to be done and time is barreling toward election day. So Gov. Brown has hit the road, from Bend to Enterprise, to sign bills when the cameras are rolling, yes, but also to demonstrate in backrooms, classrooms and pubs that she’s a leader willing to bring opposing forces together to solve some of Oregon’s more challenging problems.

That central question of leadership, and whether Brown can leverage it to forge a clear path to greener financial pastures, is a yoke her Republican opponent in November, Knute Buehler, will be sure she bears.   

For now, the governor’s convoy slows on Slough Road and eases through a metal gate onto a thousand acres of grass and cows owned by the family of one of her aides. It’s picture time for the governor, who poses among the wet dirt and the churning sky, far from the safety of her valley. A storm is indeed gathering behind her, and for a moment it’s hard to tell if she’s standing strong or about to be swallowed up.   

katestandingJason Kaplan | Photo Store

Katherine Brown, lawyer, 57, loves her job, but she didn’t mean to become governor this way. In 2015 she was serving her second term as Oregon’s Secretary of State when an influence-peddling scandal forced then-Gov. John Kitzhaber from office just weeks into the Democrat’s second term of his second stint. Brown got a letter from Kitzhaber informing her he’d be stepping down and that the state’s highest office would be hers per the Oregon Constitution. It was Friday the 13th. Five days later, on February 18, 2015, she became Oregon’s second female governor, the first bisexual one in the nation.

Normally, if you run for governor, you have time to build a team. You study white papers on economics and policy positions and spend months drafting an agenda.

“That didn’t happen,” says Brown, who in person is affable, immensely curious and disarming in a BFF kind of way. Fortunately, she adds, Kitzhaber had already set a course that she “didn’t necessarily disagree” with. “I just knew there were too many things, and we needed to focus, so I picked some elements of his agenda —career pathways, early childhood, a transportation package, water and infrastructure,” she says.   

“She found herself in a bitter, divisive and expensive ballot initiative that may have made for good politics but was bad policy. It’s fair to say that it caused a rift.” — Sean Robbins

Since then, Brown has racked up significant liberal wins despite the awkward manner in which she first took office—the same not-elected manner that kicked off her political career in 1991, when she was appointed to the Oregon Legislature to fill a vacancy. She pushed through the landmark $5.2 billion transportation package. She worked to extend health care coverage and passed coal-to-clean energy legislation and a clean-air act. 

“I have to judge her by the outcomes and, wow, no other governor really stuck their nose into this,” says Mary Peveto, president of Neighbors for Clean Air. “That was the biggest environmental win in two decades.”

Brown has yet to rack up similar wins in the budget arena. The state enjoys low unemployment and a booming economy, yet structural budget deficits challenge efforts to align spending with revenues. Schools are cutting teachers at a time when Oregon has some of the worst high school graduation rates in the country. The state’s foster care system, a cause dear to Brown, is in shambles. The urban-rural divide seems only to be widening. And those on the left want Brown to pay attention to other gaps,  too.  

“The governor and the state have an opportunity to make sure that public money reflects the values that we Oregonians hold,” says Mara Zepeda, CEO of Switchboard and a co-founder of the progressive business group Business for a Better Portland. Women, Zepeda notes, are starting businesses three times as fast as men and yet they receive just 2% of venture capital. “How can we do a better job of meeting business needs?” she asks. 

Zepeda calls Brown’s leadership “visionary” for her work on affordable housing, transportation and childcare because they use a bigger perspective to enhance economic health.

Yet polls suggest some wonder whether Brown is doing enough. Her approval rating has sagged to 43% and given the volume of unflattering editorials, it’s not difficult to imagine a dearth of newspaper endorsements come November, when she’ll face Buehler, a moderate two-term Republican state representative from Bend who fended off a challenge from the right during the primaries. If an incipient backlash against President Donald J. Trump, and by extension Republicans, weren’t in play, Brown’s re-election prospects might be less secure. 

Yet this is Oregon, a brick in the blue wall, and plenty of voters adore Brown. Since January, the governor has raised about $1.7 million in donations, about $400,000 more than Buehler, who by House rules could not fundraise during this year’s 35-day legislative session, a rule that does not apply to the governor. By late May she had nearly $4 million in her war chest, 19 times the money Buehler had left over after the primary.

“I’d say despite all of this she’s sitting pretty comfortably, because the Republican party has done a pretty poor job of saying how it’s different,” says Jim Moore, director of the Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation at Pacific University. “Meanwhile, there are Democrats out there who really wish she would step it up.” 

Brown (who sailed through the primaries with 82% of the vote) is likely to win re-election, though not by a big blowout, Moore says. That’s nothing new. Brown won her first election to keep her appointed legislative seat in 1992 by just seven votes. Still, the lack of a formidable opposing force — Democrats control most of state government, and the primary election results could push the State Legislature even further left — means criticism might actually intensify over Brown’s ability to GSD, or “get stuff done,” as she is fond of saying.

“Our graduation rates are abysmal, homelessness is on the rise, the cost of living is too high and her answer is always higher taxes,” Buehler rejoins. “I’m hearing everywhere, rural and now urban Oregon, that she’s not getting stuff done.”

katebendThe governor and her retinue in Bend | Photo Store

A week before her Eastern Oregon trip, the governor came to Bend to, among other things, sign a bill to fund an expansion at Oregon State University-Cascades and to deliver a morning keynote at the Oregon Nurses Association conference, for which she received a standing ovation. A light rain had turned the pavement shiny and slick as she sat in her official, unmarked Tahoe parked outside Five Talent, a tech company that’s working to “connect the dots” between education and economy through a program called Apprenti. 

The idea behind Apprenti is simple. Companies struggle to recruit and retain the talent they need, so Apprenti pools public and private money together to subsidize internships that directly lead to high paying jobs back in the company offering the internship. Brown had come to Five Talent to sign a memorandum of understanding. From now on, the state will pay about $2,800 for each intern to go through the 22-week Apprenti program. 

“We would mud-wrestle if we had to get the talent we need, and this really helps by vetting applicants and then easing them onto the payroll,” says Preston Callicott, Five Talent CEO. “Businesses and the state all have skin in the game up front, which is totally different.” 

Programs like these, as well as Brown’s push for $300 million in targeted investments in career and technical education and hands-on learning in schools, are key to Brown’s small business and education agenda, — a.k.a. “Future Ready Oregon” — which she likens to parallel ski tracks. They not only help small businesses grow by creating a capable workforce pipeline but research also shows hands-on learning greatly boosts graduation rates. (Brown believes more robust experiential learning efforts can elevate rates from 75% now to the mid-upper 80s in a matter of years.)

Her Oregon Promise initiative allows high school students earning average grades to attend community college for $50 a term. This approach yields cost control benefits, she says. An educated, working society ultimately leads to more self-sufficiency and stability, which in turn means less demand for government services, which helps control spending.

“I feel like we really missed the boat on what I grew up calling Vo-Tech,” Brown says. 

This long-term, big-picture view gets a stamp of approval from some private sector employers. “Systems don’t exist in isolation,” says Zepeda. But for many business leaders, the time to solve the state’s financial problems is now. Brown, who will submit a budget package on December 1, says she’s ready. In fact, one of the reasons she’s on the road is to replicate a move out of her transportation-package playbook: Convene a series of meetings around the state, whereby some of the biggest employers and the most prominent business leaders and thinkers in each region sit around conference tables to get a crash course in budgetcraft and what Brown is doing to shore things up. 

“I learned a hard lesson when we couldn’t get the [transportation] package through on the first go-around, and that is you can’t build a multibillion-dollar package out of nothing, that buy-in from stakeholders from around the state is absolutely critical,” she says. Taking the budget on the road “has never been done before, as far as I know,” she adds. “I’m not the first governor to struggle with this.” 

Indeed, in a 2013 special session, Kitzhaber famously pushed through a “grand bargain” aimed at containing the rising cost of government pensions, while funneling more money into schools, colleges and mental-health programs. Two years later, after Brown became governor, the Oregon Supreme Court struck down the PERS cuts as unconstitutional.

eouGov. Brown signing a bill to help Eastern Oregon University fund a new field house that will use Oregon-made cross-laminated timber | Photo Store

After a speech before a packed crowd at OSU that Buehler, an OSU graduate, conspicuously did not attend, Brown popped into a stuffy room upstairs. There Callicott and representatives from Brooks Resources, Central Oregon Seed, MountBachelor, the Bend Chamber of Commerce, OSU and Ochoco Lumber, among others, were absorbing a budget presentation from Brown’s staff, state financial officer George Naughton and chief of staff Nik Blosser, that deconstructed the PERS situation and the work her administration is doing to tackle it. That includes a new incentive fund she created that allows struggling school districts to set aside PERS payments that the state will match in part. Brown has made a point to praise publicly Sen. Tim Knopp, a Bend Republican, for finding the money to do it.

The reaction to the talk seemed mostly positive. “What I saw in that briefing was a semblance of a plan which was encouraging,” says Callicott, who considers himself a “purple” voter who wants to “take care of the homeless and needy but balance the budget, too.”

“The plan for revenue is still a big question,” he says. “My worry is that some version of [corporate tax] Measure 97 could get regurgitated, and people would start bailing out of Oregon.”

budgetGov. Kate Brown holds a budget meeting with business and community leaders at the OSU Cascades campus. | Photo Store 

Business taxes are no doubt a tricky subject for Brown, who says she “really struggled” with the bill she signed blocking S Corps from a 20% state tax break included in President Trump’s budget package. From her perspective, such “pass-through” businesses already get two state tax breaks, and adding a third would starve the state of $250 million a year that Oregon cannot afford. Business owners like Callicott say the break would have allowed him as many as 30 new hires. 

The governor is also reaching out to others who may feel dissed, especially in the rural corners of the state. A week after the Bend visit, the governor attended another budget-outreach meeting in Pendleton, this one with mostly county and regional leaders. She toured Pendleton High School’s Career and Technical Education facility and had a tuna-salad lunch with a group of women business owners in Hermiston. A need for more housing, a lack of tradespeople, and a polite distaste for the minimum wage hike all came up.  

“The idea that we aren’t paid attention to out here or don’t matter is just false,” says Mark Mulvihill, InterMountain Education Service District superintendent.

“I learned a hard lesson when we couldn’t get the [transportation] package through on the first go-around, and that is you can’t build a multibillion-dollar package out of nothing, that buy-in from stakeholders from around the state is absolutely critical.” — Kate Brown

There is little doubt that Brown has her work cut out for her when it comes to bringing rural Oregonians into the fold, but inclusiveness and equality are pillars upon which she says she has built her career. To tackle the task, she handed Lamb Weston representatives a check from the state’s Strategic Reserve Fund for $500,000 to help expand its potato operations. She heard updates on water issues in the Umatilla Basin and then drove to La Grande the next day. There she signed a bill to help Eastern Oregon University fund a new field house that will use Oregon-made cross-laminated timber.

Echoing arguments put forth by regional civic leaders, Brown says these high-tech, advanced manufacturing sectors hold enormous potential for rural economies struggling with diminished legacy industries. She points to her work helping to incentivize a new sustainable aviation fuels facility about to break ground in Lake County. (Click here to read OB article on aviation emissions.) Work on drones in Pendleton has very nearly produced a “flying taxi” that could be the ride-sharing service of the future. She’s particularly proud of a $26 million rail transload facility in Ontario that will help drive down costs farmers face getting goods to market. 

“If you set it up right, we’ll have really good paying jobs out here,” she says. “These are all game changers.”

Changing the game is something her own base wishes she would do with more vigor. Maybe she should have gone out to Burns during the Malheur occupation to show support for the community, despite the FBI asking her to stay quiet. Perhaps she’s letting Oregon slip behind California and Washington on the climate-change-battle leaderboard. Some constituents seem underwhelmed that leadership appears to come more from the Legislature. Jody Wiser of Tax Fairness Oregon doesn’t doubt why:

“She really hasn’t had time to stop, and consider where we should go.”

laughingKateJason Kaplan | Photo Store 

The storm brewing outside Baker City intensifies but Brown leaps into the Tahoe and heads back down Slough Road. On her last morning in town she grabs a booth at Sumpter Junction, a cafe near the I-84 interchange, and inhales a plate of eggs and toast paired with a cup of plain hot water. Time is never a governor’s friend — she has a meeting in Wallowa County lingering — so she breezes through her childhood in Minnesota, her fondness for baba ghanoush and a good porter, and how coming out to her Republican mother in 1995 about her bisexuality was “really hard.” 

Does she have any regrets?

“No,” she says. “I do wish I had learned more about economics, and I think I shut myself down in the math arena too early.”

She wears “metal underpants” to deal with criticism and mentally separates herself personally from attacks on her job, which she says has brought her incredible joy (watching sage grouse mate “in the good old days” with then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell) and incredible pain (the 2015 mass shooting at Umpqua Community College). Her motivation for being governor stems from a deep-rooted sense of duty to bring justice and equality to a world that is sorely deficient in both, and she credits her husband of the past 20 years, Dan Little, an easy-going Forest Service retiree and avid skier, for supporting her when she needs him most.

“I’m her activity director,” Little jokes, adding that “nothing really irks her other than me.”

The vision she has for the next four years boils down to a big, systems-wide shift beyond any single bill that “changes the recipe” for how Oregonians thrive. It involves sustainable funding for the Oregon Health Plan, fortifying the workforce through career paths, and developing a comprehensive system of pre K-12 education that sets the stage for success later in life. Business, she says, has to be a key player in all of this. “Fixing PERS” and “balancing the budget” don’t explicitly come up  when asked for her list of three “game-changing” priorities. 

Critics want more. “The Governor deserves credit for launching these [budget] conversations, but the challenge we face is right here, right now,” said Robbins in his email.

He called Brown “warm” and “genuine” but added that solving Oregon’s budget issues “once and for all will require a unique combination of leadership and executive management skills.” (Cambia Health Solutions, Robbins’ employer, has contributed $20,000 to the Buehler campaign.)

Brown sits upright and lets out a quick sharp laugh when the conversation steers toward her willingness to lead.

“Being a leader is more than standing up and pounding the podium,” she says as a toy train mounted to a track inside the cafe trundles past the table. “Leadership used to be a guy riding in on a horse and saving the world. John F. Kennedy? He was Camelot. He was going to save us. That’s not how it works anymore. It’s giving communities the tools they need to be successful. It’s not me telling places like Baker City what they need to thrive. It is me helping them remove barriers.”

Sure, people judge her based on a male model of leadership, she says, but she also seems reluctant to elaborate, which suggests she’d rather have gender not be an issue at all. She already knows what it’s like to get paid less than the male lawyer next to her. She also knows she enjoys privileges for being white. “Diversity, inclusion, equality can’t just be the icing on the cake,” she says. “It has to be the recipe.”

Bryan Hockaday, Brown’s press secretary, looks at the time. 

“We need to get going,” he says. 

Brown shakes the waitress’s hand and hops back into her Tahoe. Soon the car is blowing pasts signs to “Make Oregon Great Again” toward an Oregon horizon still mottled with clouds. (Additional reporting by Linda Baker in Portland.)

haybalesJason Kaplan | Photo Store 

 Clarification: This article has been amended to reflect Cambia Health Solution’s contribution to the Beuhler campaign.

A version of this article appears in the June 2018 issue of Oregon Business.  Click here to subscribe. 

]]> Rift management: Eight execs on closing the culture gap https://oregonbusiness.com/18302-eight-execs-on-closing-the-culture-gap/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=18302-eight-execs-on-closing-the-culture-gap Fri, 04 May 2018 22:25:00 +0000 https://oregonbusiness.com/rift-management-eight-execs-on-closing-the-culture-gap/  

Oregon biz leaders talk culture change, the social and political divisions that find their way into the office or factory and how they attempt to influence the hearts and minds of their employees. 

]]>

As America enters the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency, social and political polarization has intensified.

An October 2017 study by Pew Research Center found that 44% of Democrats and Democratic leaners have a very unfavorable opinion of the GOP; and 45% of Republicans and Republican leaners view the Democratic Party very unfavorably.

By contrast: In 1994 fewer than 20% in both parties viewed the opposing party very unfavorably.

At the same time, the trend of urban counties voting for Democrats and rural counties voting for Republicans has grown stronger nationwide, a pattern also seen in Oregon for statewide elections.

With these trends in mind, we sought the opinions of eight business leaders about culture change, the divisions that may find their way into the office or factory, and how those executives attempt to influence the hearts and minds of their employees. 

Perhaps the most consistent message among the eight was the importance of communication – keeping employees informed to fullest extent possible about company business while keeping lines of dialogue free and flowing among all levels of hierarchy.

The workplace is flattening  — at Justin Yuen’s FMYI shop in Portland, employees can and do work from home while telecommuting proliferates around the globe.

And the workplace is more transparent, with a more collaborative and less hierarchal vibe: Try to find the chief executive’s desk in the spacious Portland office building of the creative agency Swift — just try.  

Some of the executives described their workplace atmosphere as a natural evolution of how humans should treat each other – in the workplace or out. 

Their approaches may be working in the office or factory, but most of them were skeptical that any chief executive, no matter how well meaning, could successfully make the transition to public office.

Only one of the executives strongly endorsed the idea that a chief executive could thrive in government; of the others who chose to comment on the topic, most found the administration of President Donald Trump to be an argument against making the jump.

Click on the following links to read how the following execs think about business and political leadership, and how they build collaboration in their companies.

Frank Foti, CEO Vigor Industrial

Liz Valentine CEO, Swift

Charles Wilhoite, Managing Director, Willamette Management Associates

Kristin Quinlan, CEO, Certified Languages International

Justin Yuen, CEO, FMYI

Valerie Johnson, CEO, D.R. Johnson 

Carol Duncan, President, General Sheet Metal

Mark King, President, Adidas

]]> The cover story: Powerbook https://oregonbusiness.com/16092-the-cover-story-powerbook/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=16092-the-cover-story-powerbook Wed, 11 Apr 2018 17:59:11 +0000 https://oregonbusiness.com/the-cover-story-powerbook/ Read more]]> For this year’s Powerbook issue, I was inspired (or overwhelmed) by the plethora of superheroes being thrust in our faces: The Flash, Arrow, Jessica Jones (which is really rather good) and the microcosm of the seemingly endless DC and Marvel universes on screens large and small.

Producing an Oregon power-hero insignia for Oregon clicked as a concept, with elements to signify significant sectors of our industry: hemp cloth for the agricultural and eco-centric, carbon fiber for tech and metal for manufacturing. The color palette came from those Beavers and Ducks that have brought much attention to our state and its universities.

Carrying the theme into our feature on the age-old debate of whether Oregon is good for business was a no-brainer. With so much at stake and verbal shots being fired on both sides, the theme smacks of comic-book conflict—albeit with a little less lightning and fewer inter-dimensional aliens.

But don’t worry. You know us good guys always win.

]]>