1. business and industrial

TECH TONIC
COMMERCE &
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Tribune
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FEBRUARY 24, 2015
INSIDE
PREMIER’S OLD-SCHOOL,
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BY JOSEPH GALLIVAN
2 BUSINESS TRIBUNE
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
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BUSINESS TRIBUNE 3
PRINT IS
NOT DEAD
TRIBUNE PHOTO: JONATHAN HOUSE
COVER: Premier Press owner Jodi Krohn in front of one of the company’s large sample wall prints. ABOVE: Pressman Jan Brodaczynski readies a machine for foil stamping at Premier Press. The company is
expanding and moving from Northwest Portland to Swan Island.
I
n a squat Pearl District building that looks westward over
Interstate 405, Premier Press
is getting ready to pack up and
ship out.
In the run
up to June, a
moving company will
takes Premier Press’
offset presses and giant digital
printers north to Premier’s $15 million building in the Swan Island Industrial Park. The machines will
be moved carefully and one by one
BY JOSEPH
GALLIVAN
so as not to disrupt the work flow,
because getting a piece of printed
matter into someone’s hands —
whether it’s a gorgeous goody bag
for a NBA All Star or a piece of direct mail for pet lover — is still all
about work flow.
Premier has lived through two
life cycles of this part of Northwest
Portland. It recently sold this
40,000-square-foot building and the
warehouse at 27th and Yeon (72,000
square feet) and spent the resulting $15 million on a 350,000-squarefoot building in Swan Island.
Current CEO Jodi Krohn’s
grandfather started the company
in 1974 with one printer. She
joined the family business in 1977.
In her office a yellowing Oregonian article shows the whole clan
in 1986, including her parents Diane and Arnold who ran it for
years, sisters Joni and Juli who
are still closely involved, and a little boy named Eric, now a man,
who works down the hall.
On a recent sunny February
morning you could walk in through
a truck entrance on Glisan Street
and see dozens of pallets piled 4
feet high with Amazon gift card
holders , on crisp, white stock, perfectly aligned, waiting to be cut.
The cloud giveth and the cloud taketh away. The cards are potentially worth millions of dollars, but
nothing until activated.
This is the current state of print.
It remains an essential link to the
consumer’s senses: The sound that
fingerprints make on paper and
card, the smell of cured ink, the
feeling of the ownership they get
from a promotional postcard.
Krohn cites Land’s End’s disastrous attempt to go without a paper catalog in 2000 which cost it
$100 million in sales.
“I’ve been called the Coating
Queen,” she says with a laugh,
adding that clients are demanding
more and more interesting textures and surfaces: foil, high gloss,
transparency, Tekkote raised
printing.
New technology is embraced
here. Three-dimensional printers
are still not much use here, according to Creative Director Damon
Johnstun.
CONTINUED / Page 4
Premier Press makes the move to Swan Island
4 BUSINESS TRIBUNE ■ From page 3
“They are very, very slow and
therefore costly, and for very
small things. The stuff we do is
pretty big.”
He’s more excited about new
wide-format printers, such as the
120 incher.
“It’s a huge benefit to us, we
can railroad an image (turn it
sideways) and print it an infinite
length to go around a store window with out a seam,” Johnstun
says. Wraps, which emerged out
of the action sports scene, are big
and getting bigger.
Krohn shows off a test wall
where images ripped from the
web are blown up and stuck to
the wall so clients can see and
touch them, seams and all. Down
a narrow passageway there’s a
test space for magnetic printing
— giant, soft magnets of superheroes which can be peeled off a
painted base.
“Restaurants can use them for
quick changes of look,” says Ryan
Widell. He’s a young account executive who stays at the cutting
edge of print, working connecting
with tech startups and information architects — people for
whom the paperless office will
never be enough.
Widell opens some cupboards
which are bursting with coffee table books — the 2014 TEDx Portland book is one — and carefully
crafted gift boxes. He shows one
which held a soccer jersey. It rested on a clear plastic plate, and as
the box opened, the jersey lit up
from below. They were sent to top
athletes who were asked to put
them on and Tweet a selfie.
Only a few hundred of such boxes are made, hand-crafted in Premier.
The firm offers design too, but
that can overlap with printing
these days. They do variable data
printing. For example, a flyer for a
pet hospital may arrive to a cat
lover’s home with a cat on it, a dog
lover’s home with a dog.
“The colleges have really maximized variable data printing,”
says Krohn. “They get so much data from the (prospective) students
these days, they know what they
are interested in, football, mathematics, whatever. So the brochure
has photos of whatever the kid is
interested in.”
Business
Tribune
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
A large part of what Premier
does is make stuff for stores. If you
are travelling anywhere in the
United States and see a 12-foot
cutout of an athlete in an Adidas
Originals store, or a window wrap
at a Nike Factory store, chances
are it was printed here.
Where the rubber
meets the hardcourt
Premier has a $300,000 machine
made by Zund that cuts foamcore
board. The router dashes across
the smooth surface, first drilling
holes, then cutting out panels in
the most efficient pattern. They
are piled up, ready, but they
must first go to the warehouse —
a step which slows the workflow.
When assembled in a store
they’ll make a large giant backdrop. The client is Nike. The aim
is to sell tight garments to CrossFitters. The imagery is a blown
up photo of a bunch of tires and
heavy ropes on a beach. For all
the sweat and mess it conjures
up, the print execution must be
clean and sharp. When Premier
did something similar for a Nike
store in Manhattan it sent someone to help assemble it. Same
with an Oakley store in Honolulu.
Krohn will buy a second Zund
when the firm moves to Swan Island, where there will be room for
mock up point-of-purchase displays for clients, room to store everything, and the staff won’t have
to hand-carry work between departments at risk of misplacing or
dinging it. Dings are death in this
business.
Many of the other loading docks
around this part of the Pearl hold
restaurant tables, and Krohn says
the new building’s owners are
turning it into a ground floor retail
with three floors of housing above.
She’s excited to move to the land
of Leatherman and other dynamic
manufacturers.
Walking around that morning,
looking at proofs are brand
manager Sonia Collier and retail
marketer Saxon Trobaugh from
Adidas. They like that it’s a brand
agnostic firm — stuff from Adidas
and Nike is kept apart so neither
company can spy on the other.
“They have different teams, and
they’re really good about not having stuff hanging around,” says
Trobaugh.
“They have good customer ser-
PRESIDENT
VICE PRESIDENT
J. Mark Garber
Brian Monihan
EDITOR AND
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
TRIBUNE PHOTOS: JONATHAN HOUSE
Hi-touch: Premier Press pressman Phillip Dinh cleans a large cartridge for the company’s Komori Press.
Mint condition:
Amazon gift
card holders
awaiting cutting.
For all its cloudcentrism, the
e-tailer still
needs to get
purchasing
power right in
people’s hands.
vice, because we don’t always
know what were talking about,”
says Collier. “I’m just focused on
how I do this rollout, not the technical stuff.”
Krohn adds, “There are people
I’ve known 30 years, you become
part of the brand, so it’s not about
just making something for them,
you learn the nuances of their
CIRCULATION
MANAGER
business.”
Their sales rep, Tracy Egan
says, “My job is not to sell them,
it’s to help them save money. We
want them all to do well.” She
adds they will miss taking clients
to the Pearl’s restaurants when
they move. “As well as a Tilt, I
think they have a McDonalds up
there — and a 7-11,” she laughs.
Vance W. Tong
CREATIVE
SERVICES MANAGER
Cheryl DuVal
[email protected]
REPORTER
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Joseph Gallivan
Jonathan House, Jaime Valdez
PortlandTribune
WEB SITE
OFFICES
portlandtribune.com
6605 S.E. Lake Road
Portland, OR 97222
503-226-6397 (NEWS)
Kim Stephens
Christine Moore
Although millions of people
have grown up with Word and
Photoshop at their fingertips and
a color printer a few feet away,
printing is still a hard thing to do
correctly. Premier hopes to get it
right for at least another few
generations.
DESIGN
Keith Sheffield
CONTACT
[email protected]
BUSINESS TRIBUNE 5
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Global trade revs job growth engines
A
s our city’s name denotes, cent more than those in other arPortland’s economy was
eas. Those good jobs bolster the lobuilt on a rich history of
cal market.
trade.
Yet these statistics also illustrate
In time, we have evolved from a
that the impact can be significant if
maritime port to a multimodal
any part of our trade-based econotransportation hub for the West
my takes a wrong turn.
Coast, and our region’s depenEarlier this month, the Portland
dence on the import and
area lost 657 direct jobs,
export of goods and ser$33 million in wages, $83
vices remains just as
million in business revecritical today as it was in
nue and $12 million in
the beginning.
state and local taxes
In fact, Oregon is the
when Hanjin Shipping
ninth most trade-depenwithdrew from the Port
dent state in the nation
of Portland’s Terminal 6
with an increasing array
facility, a decision that
of global markets at our
clearly was related to the
doorstep.
long-standing labor disThere is a deeply-rootpute that has adversely
ed connection between
impacted all the major
international trade and
COMMERCE & West Coast ports for
middle income jobs here. COMMUNITY
some time.
Currently, nearly half a
And those numbers
million jobs in Oregon
don’t count the ripple efare tied directly or indifect through the rest of
rectly to, or are supported by, inthe economy. While I’m confident
ternational trade.
port leadership will recover from
Trade-related employment also
the loss of Hanjin, it will take time,
tends to grow faster than total em- and in the meantime jobs, wages
ployment and on average, workers and tax revenues are lost to our rein export-related jobs earn 18 pergion.
Sandra
McDonough
As we rebuild from
the Great Recession,
international trade, especially
in agriculture, manufacturing
and the service sector, will play
a more important role than ever
bringing economic vitality and
family-wage jobs to our area.
So what can we do to ensure a
trade-based economic future comprised of well-paying jobs? It starts
with an understanding of our economy.
In January 2015, the Pacific
Northwest International Trade Association (PNITA), a part of the
Pamplin Media Group
and AutoTrader.com join forces
to put you in the driver’s seat.
Portland Business Alliance, the
Port of Portland, and other partners launched a Year of Trade in
Oregon campaign to raise awareness for the region’s reliance on
strong international trade from
large corporations to small businesses. To learn more and to at-
tend monthly events focused on
different aspects of trade, visit tradeinoregon.com.
And we must keep an eye on
public policies impacting trade.
During the upcoming legislative
session, we should prioritize
global competitiveness through
local infrastructure investments,
tax policies, and an ample supply
of industrial land and skilled labor.
Equally important are national
trade agreement proposals such as
the Trans-Pacific Partnership,
which seeks to open new markets,
grow businesses and jobs, and introduce more customers around
the world to all that Oregon has to
offer.
With 95 percent of the world’s
customers outside the United
States, Oregon and the Portlandmetro workers have much to gain
or lose in the global marketplace.
It is incumbent on us all to help
ensure the story of post-recession
prosperity and middle income job
growth is our story.
Sandra McDonough is the president and
CEO of the Portland Business Alliance.
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6 BUSINESS TRIBUNE
YOUNG AND
EMPLOYED
BUSINESS LEADERS DISCUSS THE
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
MERITS OF HIRING YOUNG PEOPLE
T
he Rockefeller Foundation
has honored a Beaverton
automobile collision repair
company for its innovative
job training program aimed at young
people.
Precision Body & Paint, headquartered at 14145 Southwest Canyon
Road, is the one of three winners selected in different parts of the county
through a search overseen by the
Economist Intelligence Unit, a division of the company that publishes
The Economist magazine. The others are LiveWatch Security in Kansas and Sharp Decisions in New
York. They were selected out of dozens of companies with innovative
hiring practices.
Precision Body
& Paint owner
Ron Reichen
started the inhouse training
program because he was having a
hard time finding qualified workers
for the increasingly complicated repair field. Today’s cars have complicated computer systems and multiple safety features that must be correctly diagnosed and fixed.
“There are soft metals and hard
metals in every car, and differences
in the ways the energy is absorbed at
different crash zones,” says Reichen,
who employes 98 workers at two locations and books $100 million in
gross sales annually. “There’s a tremendous amount of physics in what
we do.”
Reichen works with Portland
Community College and local school
districts to find potential employees.
After a 90-day probationary period,
he offers them a five-year training
program and an unsecured $20,000
Hall said that 5.8 million young
people are out of school and
unemployed in the country.
He argued they have valuable
job skills — such as computer
and social media talents —
and only need to be connected
to the right employers.
BY JIM
REDDEN
COURTESY: PRECISION AUTO BODY
Precision Body & Paint established an in-house training program that has since been recognized by the Rockefeller
Foundation. For owner Ron Reichen, finding and retaining workers with the skills to do body and repair work on today’s
advanced automobiles was proving difficult, which resulted in the creation of his unique training program.
loan to pay for it that does not need
to be paid back if the employee
works for the company for at least
five years. Nine people have gone
through the program so far, and
Reichen has not had to collect from
any of them.
Reichen was one of four panelists
who discussed why employers
should hire more young people at
the Portland Business Alliance’s
monthly breakfast forum on
Wednesday, Feb. 18. The other three
were: Alyson Wise, program association for the Rockefeller Foundation,
who explained the organization’s
commitment to improving the lives
of people around the world; Carolyn
Whelan, management thinking editor for the Economic Intelligence
Unit, who explained how the search
funded by the Rockefeller Foundation was conducted; and Jarvez Hall,
northwest outreach manager for
Small Business Majority, which advocates for minority hirings.
All of the panelists agreed that
youth unemployment was a serious problem that employers should
be encouraged to help solve. Hall
said that 5.8 million young people
are out of school and unemployed
in the country. He argued they
have valuable job skills — such as
computer and social media talents
— and only need to be connected
to the right employers.
Reichen said that finding the
right potential employees takes
work, however, especially in businesses like his that do not have
union-supported apprenticeship
programs.
“I can’t just call up an employment agency and tell them to send
over three people,” said Reichen. “I
have to spend a lot of time and
money training them myself.”
The benefits can be substantial,
however. Reichen has greatly reduced employee turnover at his
business. And his workers, who
start at $10 or so an hour, can eventually earn $100,000 or more a year,
counting commissions and bonuses.
Hall argued the social benefits
can also be great.
“Imagine how much better things
would be if every unemployed
young person in the Portland area
got a job,” said Hall.
During the forum, PBA President
and CEO Sandra McDonough also
announced her organization was
launching a free advisory program
for small and medium businesses
partly funded by the Rockefeller
Foundation.
“Eighty percent of our members
are small and medium businesses,
and we want you to know we are
here for you,” said McDonough.
BUSINESS TRIBUNE 7
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
MBANK’S
BUDDING
BUSINESS
Portland-owned bank breaks
new ground for business
with marijuana growers
V
oters may have approved
the use of recreational marijuana in Colorado, Washington and Oregon, but that
doesn’t mean it’s easy being in the
marijuana business.
Since marijuana is still considered
to be a schedule 1 narcotic by the
Drug Enforcement Agency and
therefore still
considered illegal at the federal
level, banks
don’t usually
back dispensaries. Consequently, dispensaries are
typically all-cash industries in Oregon, which can lead to problems like
susceptibility to robberies, complications with taxes and payrolls, and issues declaring bankruptcy or obtaining copyrights.
However, Portland-based MBank
has become the first bank in the nation to do business with the marijuana industry. Other than MBank, the
only other financial institutions that
work with marijuana businesses are
two credit unions in Washington
state.
“This industry is not only underserved, but the people doing it are
poorly served,” says Jef Baker, CEO
of MBank. “We’re going to have a
positive impact in the sense that we’ll
take away a burden people have —
problems with payroll, taxes, if they
can’t get into a system to alleviate
problems.”
BY JULES
ROGERS
Jef Baker,
CEO of MBank.
TRIBUNE PHOTO:
JULES ROGERS
In Oregon, Baker estimates MBank
has about 50 to 75 client relationships
in the marijuana industry, which is
only increasing exponentially.
MBank has a few accounts in the
state of Washington, but is no longer
doing business in Colorado.
According to Baker, Colorado is
just too far away — as marijuana is
still federally illegal, interstate commerce is a bit too complicated right
now.
“We haven’t been able to do loans;
we do deposits,” says Baker. “We
have been less allowed to provide
loans to the businesses, which is
tough because we think it would be a
good risk.”
Currently, MBank services growers, dispensaries and ancillary businesses such as lab and gardening
equipment like lighting and hydroponics. MBank doesn’t take a stance
on supporting marijuana, but from a
business standpoint is simply supportive of small Oregon businesses.
Jeff Simonson, a local grower,
owns Herbaceous Farms and oper-
ates a couple of medicinal gardens
around the Portland area.
“Most growers are using private
investors or combining forces to
launch their businesses,” says Simonson, who started his first grow with
$4,000 and one partner.
“Even though this industry promises to bring in a substantial amount
of money, banks still consider us a
very small industry comparing to
their whole portfolio,” says Simonson. “This is going to be a cash business for a while longer, until the federal government relaxes laws to allow banks to work with us.”
The 2011 Cole Memo, issued by the
U.S. Department of Justice, basically
condones bank involvement with the
marijuana industry in states where
it’s legal — if banks comply with
eight priorities.
“You can do business in marijuana
with all due diligence, which banks
won’t,” says Dave Kopilak, an attorney with Emerge Law who drafted
Measure 91. “They’re (banks are)
used to more of a bright line test,
they don’t like gray-area stuff.”
Guidelines also appeared in FinCEN by the US Treasury Department
in early 2014, and the FDIC doesn’t
object to the industry anymore, either.
“Hopefully, we have come to a
point where more and more states
will legalize in 2016, but there is always a chance that the federal government could come in and shut
things down,” says Simonson, referring to the March 2011 Montana crisis where multiple growers, budtenders, caretakers, bookkeepers,
spouses and landlords were charged
under federal drug trafficking statutes, ending in 33 convictions.
“The next two years are the final
two years of any potential ambiguity,” says Kopilak. He predicts a few
more states to legalize the recreational marijuana industry while the
federal government is occupied by
the presidential election.
“People are moving toward the industry — clients, landlords, lawyers,
accountants, real estate agents — every professional industry is looking
when to jump in,” says Kopilak.
“What are (the Feds) going to do?
Shut down 3,000 businesses?”
These small businesses are already at federal disadvantage: no one
can secure a trademark and no one
can declare bankruptcy — both federal issues.
Growers are allowed a certain
number of plants per patient, so the
more patients they collect, the more
plants they can grow. When multiple
growers and patients get together at
one garden operation, it’s called
“card-stacking.”
“A grower with a card now must
MBank
Worth: $165 million
Web: mbankonline.com
Phone: 503-595-1313
Locations:
■ 9415 Southeast Stark St.,
Portland
■ 1290 Northeast Burnside Rd.,
Gresham
■ 17437 Southwest Boones Ferry
Rd., #100, Lake Oswego
accumulate patients,” says Kopilak,
because the patients legally own the
plants. “Because the grower needs a
card and the patient owns the medicine ... patients and growers find each
other and sell the excess to dispensaries.”
As it is now, dispensaries are licensed but growers and patients
have cards. Because the plants produce more medicine than the patients need, the excess sold to dispensaries is via the patient, who holds
the card.
“It’s drafted from a patient standpoint, not a business standpoint,”
says Kopilak. Now in legalizing recreational on top of medicinal, regulators want licensed growers, but medical card holders don’t want the card
system to lose its power.
Baker expects the marijuana industrial infrastructure to be set up by
the January 2016 deadline.
“We aren’t able yet (to loan to the
industry), but we hope to be the
first,” says Baker. “From a risk standpoint, the risk is very low.”
“We’re hoping MBank continues,
naturally, ... sticking their neck out,”
says Kopilak.
8 BUSINESS TRIBUNE
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Washington
Square Mall
general manager
Lacey Preston
walks through
the fourth floor
hall of the old
Shilo Inn.
TIGARD HOTEL
UNDERGOES
PAMPLIN
MEDIA GROUP:
JONATHAN HOUSE
MAJOR
FACELIFT
Former Shilo Inn is getting
an extreme makeover after
former owner re-purchased
the property in December
S
hirish Patel never gave up.
Patel knew he would be
coming back to Tigard one
day, and now, he’s making it
a reality.
Patel is the new owner of the
Washington Square Hotel, the former Shilo Inn located on Southwest
Greenburg Road
near Highway 217.
Patel now
owns the
site for a second time, first purchasing the hotel in 2008, then being forced to sell the property during the recession in 2011.
But Patel purchased the property anew in December, changed the
hotel’s name and got to work on a
major reconstruction project
BY GEOFF
PURSINGER
aimed at transforming the aging
establishment into a modern hotel.
“I have liked this property from
Day One,” said Patel, also a Clackamas obstetrician and gynecologist.
“Everybody calls me a fool, but
somehow, I like this place. There is
potential here, and now I see it’s
starting to come together. There’s
a Starbucks moving in across the
street from me. I must have done
something right if Starbucks sees
it, too.”
Quality over quantity
To say that the hotel, located at
10830 S.W. Greenburg Road, is undergoing a facelift would be a major understatement.
“It’s quite the little project, at
the moment,” said Lacey Preston,
the hotel’s new general manager
as she surveys the damage of gutted walls and exposed electical cables. “Everything is changing. Literally, everything.”
For years, the Shilo Inn on
southwest Greenburg Road stood
sentinel near Highway 217. Located
near several highways, as well as
Washington Square mall, the hotel
has been a rest stop for travelers
for years.
“It’s amazing, around Christmas we get people who stay here
just to go shopping at the mall,”
said Preston, 31. “I didn’t realize
that people did that, but with the
taxes and everything, it’s cheaper
for them to stay at a hotel and
shop than to shop in their home
state.”
But for the past two months,
there’s little resting going on at the
hotel, as crews strip carpet, remove furniture and tear down
walls in the 80-room establishment.
“We are trying to have everything done by late March early
April,” Preston said. “We’re trying
to get everything done as soon as
possible.”
But rather than expand, Preston
said that the hotel — which has remained open through the construction — is looking to cut the number
of rooms, opting for quality over
quantity.
“The rooms were so small. We
want more luxury than just squishing everyone in here,” Preston
said. “We want this to be a higher
class hotel than people calling by
the hour. We don’t want the riffraff
in and out of here like they were.”
The hotel will be reduced down
to about 60 rooms, Preston said.
‘Tigard has been good for us’
The hotel will also be getting a
new name. Since taking over in December, the hotel has been known
as the Washington Square Hotel,
but Patel said that he has secured
a franchise deal with a major national hotel chain, though he’s
tight-lipped as to the specifics.
“I want to maintain my high
standards and provide the same
comfort and the same style and
clientele and get people to come
and fill me up,” said Patel, who
also owns the Hampton Inn in
Clackamas.
Regardless of the name on the
outside of the building, Preston
said that the inside needed serious
attention.
“When we took over, nobody had
done any maintenance for years,
and there were so many rooms
that were shut down for ridiculous
reasons,” Preston said.
Preston said that flat screens
TVs will replace old bulky tubetelevisions found throughout the
hotel. New beds are already in
rooms on the first and second
floors.
A single, outdated computer currently sits in the lobby, but Preston
said that the new hotel will have a
suite of computers for guests staying at the hotel on business.
The hotel’s small continental
breakfast area will soon offer a full
breakfast for guests.
“We’ll have a full hot breakfast
with eggs, sausage, waffles, the
works,” Preston said.
Patel said that the improvements are important for the new
hotel to succeed.
“Unless you put in the money,
you won’t ever make any money,”
said Patel.
It took years for Patel to secure
the funding to get the hotel back,
but he said he never doubted that
he’d be returning to the hotel
someday.
“Tigard has been good for us,”
said Patel, who also serves on the
board of trustees at the Brahma
Premananda Ashram Hindu Temple on Southwest Hall Boulevard.
“Destiny came in and allowed this
to happen, and here we are again.
We’ve been very lucky. We want
to cash in on the way the industry is going. If we have a good
product to sell, I can do well.”
BUSINESS TRIBUNE 9
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
TOPPING OFF PARK AVENUE WEST
T
he final steel beam was
hoisted into place Thursday morning on Park Avenue West, the office and
apartment tower that symbolized
Portland’s building recession for so
long. For five years the foundation
pit stood empty at SW Park between Morrison and Yamhill
Streets.
Iron Workers from Local Union
#29 raised the final beam, decorated with an American flag and an
evergreen. It was signed by workers and will sit below the two floors
of mechanical penthouse. The topping out ceremony comprised ten
minutes of speeches and five minutes the beam sailing into the sky.
“The tower itself is a
testament to
the dedication my
grandfather,
Tom Moyer,
had to the economic health and vibrancy of downtown Portland,”
said Vanessa Sturgeon, President
and CEO of TMT Development.
Construction began in 2007,
stopped in 2009, resumed in 2013
and will end in 2016.
When it opens in January 2016
Park Avenue West will be 30 stories high with two floors of retail,
15 of apartments and 13 of Class A
office space.
It seemed like the recession that
would never end. Four years ago
Nordstrom’s sued to have the crane
removed because its idle spinning
in the wind over their roof was considered a hazard.
Hoffman Construction Superintendent Mark Parsons said the
steel work brought 50,000 man
hours of work to the fabricators,
Fought & Co. Inc of Tigard. The
work of cutting and drilling the
girders could easily have been
done by a fabricator in Seattle.
No retail tenants have been
signed yet. After the ceremony
TMT’s Sturgeon said the goal is to
not have another restaurant in the
building but to have retail “soft
goods,” or clothing. She said the
delay was purely because the credit markets dried up rather than disputes between Dick and Don Singer’s family who owned the lot.
“When the economy came back
and Stoel Rives re-signed (their
contract), it was their commitment
to the project that made it possible,
and the market getting back to
standard real estate fundamentals.”
BY JOSEPH
GALLIVAN
TRIBUNE PHOTO: JONATHAN HOUSE
Jarvez Hall, Northwest Outreach manager for Small Business Majority;
Alyson Wise, program associate for the Rockefeller Foundation; Ron
Reichen, owner of Precision Body and Paint; and Carolyn Whelan,
editor of Management Thinking for The Economist Intelligence Unit,
conducted a panel discussion at a recent Portland Business Alliance
breakfast event.
A steel beam is
lifted during a
“Topping Out”
ceremony for
the new Park
Avenue West
building in
downtown
Portland.
TRIBUNE PHOTO:
JONATHAN HOUSE
10 BUSINESS TRIBUNE
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
HAGGEN
TAKEOVER
TO BEGIN IN MARCH, COMPANY SAYS
Five new stores in
Tigard, Beaverton and
Sherwood will be similar
to Tualatin store
Where to find them
List of stores around the Portland
area that Haggen will convert in
March and April.
Tigard
■ Albertsons,
14300 S.W. Barrows Rd.
■ Albertsons,
16200 S.W. Pacific Highway
C
onsider it an extreme
makeover — supermarket
edition.
Next month, several Albertsons supermarkets across the
state will close, then reopen as
Haggen Food and Pharmacy stores,
including sites in both Tigard and
Sherwood.
The change-over comes after the
Federal Trade Commission required Albertsons and Safeway to
sell off
some of
their
stores before commissioners would approve a merger of the
two companies.
Haggen, based in Bellingham,
Wash., purchased 146 Albertsons
and Safeway stores in Oregon,
Washington, California, Nevada
and Arizona. Once the changeover
is complete, Haggen will be one of
the largest grocery store chains in
the state.
Haggen operates only two stores
in Oregon currently, but will grow
to 10 times that amount by the end
of April. Haggen will convert two
Albertsons stores in Tigard, two
stores in Beaverton and one store
in Sherwood. It already operates
stores in Tualatin and Oregon City.
The store will also convert locations in Lake Oswego, West Linn,
Clackamas, Bend, Eugene, Grants
Pass, Klamath Falls and Baker
City.
Sherwood
■ Albertsons, 16030 S.W.
Tualatin-Sherwood Rd.
Beaverton
■ Albertsons,
8155 S.W. Hall Blvd.
Clackamas
■ 14800 SE Sunnyside Rd.
BY GEOFF
PURSINGER
Oregon remodels begin next month
Haggen will tackle the conversions gradually, said Deborah Pleva, a spokeswoman for the company. Haggen started converting
stores this month in Washington
and will work its way south toward
Oregon.
Haggen’s Portland-area stores
Lake Oswego
■ 16199 Boones Ferry Rd.
West Linn
■ 1855 Blankenshiup Rd.
Milwaukie
■ 10830 SE Oak St.
TIMES PHOTO: JAIME VALDEZ
Tualatin’s Haggen Food & Pharmacy.
will be the first in Oregon to make
the switch, including its Tigard,
Sherwood and Beaverton locations.
Those conversions are expected to
begin in mid-March through early
April.
“We’re doing 146 stores total.
That’s a pretty amazing feat to be
able to roll out that quickly,” Pleva
said.
The hope, Haggen officials say, is
to have an entire state’s worth of
Haggen stores being updated each
month from February to May, with
as many as a dozen stores a week
being converted.
“This momentous acquisition is
a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to
rapidly expand the Haggen brand
across the West Coast,” said John
Caple, chairman of the Haggen
board of directors. “Now that the
deal has closed, our team is focused on seamlessly converting
these 146 stores to the Haggen
brand over the next five months.”
On the day of the conversion,
stores will close in the early evening, with crews working throughout the night to reopen by the following afternoon, Pleva said.
“Many of these will be converted
quickly, but the conversations are
going to be pretty extensive,” Pleva
said. “They have to put down fresh
paint, new signs inside and out, retag everything, meet with employees. It’s a pretty fast and furious
time to convert the stores.”
Haggen plans on keeping current employees and managers at
all of the new stores, Pleva said.
“Retaining the existing store employees was an essential part of
the acquisition and we hope they
all accept our invitation to join the
Haggen family,” said Bill Shaner,
the CEO at Haggen’s new Southwest division. “These are great
teams and these new employees
will be an incredible asset to our
growing company. Plus, these familiar faces will help ease the
brand transition for long-time customers.”
Tualatin model for Oregon stores
Pleva said that the new Tigard
and Sherwood stores will be similar to the current Tualatin location, with an emphasis on locally
sourced foods, as well as the staples customers need.
“Haggen is still small enough to
be very nimble and responsive to
each store’s customers. What you
find in a Bellingham store will differ from what you’ll find in a store
in San Diego. Being locally focused
is a core value of Haggen,” Shaner
said.
The new stores will be holding
informal meetings with local farmers and producers to talk about
selling their products at the stores.
“It’s a call to folks in the neighborhood to get to know us,” Pleva
said. “It’s a nice way to get to
know what we’re about.”
Each store will also donate
$1,000 to a local charity on its first
day, Pleva said, and will donate 2
percent of sales on select days to
four additional organizations.
“We have a long history of giving back to the communities we
serve,” said Haggen CEO
John Clougher. “We want to demonstrate that commitment as soon
as we open our doors.”
In the end, Pleva said, she
wants shoppers to see the new
stores as a part of their communities.
“Haggen is thrilled to be able to
expose and invite more people to
the Haggen experience,” Pleva
said. “Haggen can really resonate
with Oregonians, and folks in Tigard, really well. It’s exciting.”
BUSINESS TRIBUNE 11
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
HOW MANY
ENGINEERS
DOES IT TAKE?
New Relic
employees enjoy
nice views of
Portland from
their
workstations.
TRIBUNE PHOTO:
JONATHAN HOUSE
seconds slower for people in Australia than anywhere else. New Relic
points it out, and the web site owner
fixes it. Like a lot of SaaS products,
the customer gets a dashboard to
keep an eye on stats and look for crises. It’s the kind of thing a CEO with
no technical background can understand.
“We build a very technical product
ew Relic is one of those
for a very technical audience,” says
companies where you have New Relic Tech Tonic SVP Engineerto wonder, what the heck
ing Bjorn Freeman-Benson.
do they do? In a town
It’s his job to manage the engiwhere the usual exports are fairly
neers.
tangible (even tasty), it’s hard to
As he puts it, “As a software psyknow what these specialchologist I study and guide
ist software products are
the behavior of the code
or do, as they slip around
and the team. I watch for
the word at the speed of
problems and I intervene
SaaS.
when appropriate...”
New Relic makes softNew Relic customers inware that analyzes the
clude Nike, Wal-Mart,
performance of web sites
Groupon, NBC, SONY... In
(or mobile apps, or interthe ever-expanding world
nal networks) and tells
of the web, where one corthe website administrator
poration can have a Babel
what’s failing, what slow
of different web properties,
and pinpoint the problem
there is plenty of work to
in the software stack. Say TECH TONIC
be had keeping it all runa particular picture of a
ning. There are competimirror with etchings on
tors.
Amazon (not a client) loads a few
“We have a piece of code that sits
San Francisco
software company
New Relic sends its
engineers to Portland
N
Joseph
Gallivan
inside your application and monitors,
other competitors analyze log files.
We think we have a better product.”
Freeman-Benson is enjoying this
moment in tech history for its competitiveness. Enterprise software
has been around for decades, it’s just
recently become very fast and very
good.
“It’s like cell phones when Steve
Jobs came out with the iPhone.
We’re like ‘Hey you know that big old
fashioned stuff? Ours is better looking, it’s got the features people want
and it’s got a better price point,’ and
it’s disrupted that market.”
He adds, “We’re easy to use and
install, and therefore we’re easy to
get rid of.”
Companies increasingly depend
on SaaS services. For example, New
Relic uses Net Suite for its accounting. You could say everyone’s doing
each other’s laundry, but New Relic
is currently cleaning up, hiring technical staff and luring them to Portland.
So why are all the suits in San
Francisco and the people who come
to work in flip flops or bike shoes in
Portland?
Freeman-Benson, the psychologist, says his engineers are slightly
New Relic
Application performance
management
Web: newrelic.com
Portland FTE: 579 (200 in
Portland)
Customers: 12,000
older than the ones bouncing around
Silicon Valley.
“We’ve hired lots of smart people.
The key is to give them an environment so they work on problems and
deliver things for customers. One of
my rules is we don’t do meetings.”
He says keeping teams small eliminates communication problems and
bloated meeting.
They’re the ones who’ve tried a lot
of things in San Francisco and
Brooklyn, then they say ‘Now I want
to make something. Those are the
ones who love working in Portland.”
Such engineers like a comfortable
atmosphere where they can focus on
problem solving, and when they are
off work, they want their leisure time
to be hassle-free. A lot of them want
a house and a family. Established engineers make around $115,000 a year.
“This is by far one of the best sets
of engineers I’ve worked with,” he
adds. “They attract others. Success
breeds success.”
Bikes, food, fantasy: It doesn’t take
a lot of culture to create gravity in
Portland. When the company looked
for space to expand in Portland, the
big bike rack with mechanic station
and use of the freight elevator, were
the clincher.
The company expects staff to leave
their desk from noon to 1 p.m. to take
lunch. (It’s like school as they come
flooding in.) Long tables encourage
socializing, the theory being it’s rude
to not sit next to someone at a long
table, whereas it’s rude to sit next to
someone at a bunch of vacant round
tables.
This is geek country, which means
the staff have named their conference rooms after superhero lairs,
such as the Bat Cave and the Fortress of Solitude.
The corner offices with their
amazing views of Portland from the
27th and 28th floors are not reserved
for the bosses. They are communal/
casual workspaces. Why not save
the best for him and his ilk?
“They’re the ones doing the work,”
says Freeman-Benson with a chuckle. “I’m just doing spreadsheets.
12 BUSINESS TRIBUNE
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
OFFERING
FINE WINE
AND A FINE TIME
World Class Wines
is a little shop
that keeps growing
W
WORLD CLASS WINES
Where: 269 A Ave., Lake Oswego
Phone: 503-974-9841
Fax: 503-974-9846
Web: worldclasswinesoregon.com
Email: susano@worldclass
winesoregon.com
Hours: Sunday and Monday,
Closed; Tuesday through Thursday,
10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Friday, 10 a.m.-8
p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
hen Rick Baldwin decided to get out of the
mortgage banking
business after 36
industry had imploded.” For inspiyears, he wondered if he should do ration for new direction in life he
something about his overflowing
could look to the 5,000 bottles of
wine cellar.
wine in his wine cellar.
The result has been World Class
“Wine was something else that
Wines, a Lake Oswego wine shop
was my passion,” Baldwin said.
that has achieved rising success
In addition, opening World Class
and is about to move into a bigger,
Wines was an opportunity to go inbetter location.
to business with Olson, something
Along with his business partner
he had long been considering. OlSusan Olson, Baldwin has been able son does not pretend to be a wine
to transform his expertise and love
expert.
of wine into a thriving business.
“I like wine,” she said. “I drink
One reason it has been a success is
what tastes good.”
that Baldwin is so adept at helping
But her business expertise and
customers who don’t have a clue
energy were big factors in helping
about what wine they should buy.
World Class Wines catch on in a
As Olson puts it, “Rick is the guy very competitive market for wine
people come to with questions
in Lake Oswego.
about wine.”
“We started a wine club that was
“Wine can be intimidating,”
very different,” Olson said. “It’s
Baldwin said. “I try to take the indriven by our customers on how
timidation factor out
much they spend and
of it and make buying
what wines they like.
wine a pleasant expeWe have a lot of sperienced. For the first
cial events. We host
customer who came
business gatherings,
through my door I
birthday parties,
recommended a butcharities and school
tery, oaky chardonsupporters. We’ve denay. Within two times
veloped really good
of a customer coming
relationships with our
here I can tell what
customers. It’s very
they really like.”
personal.
Starting a wine
“The really interest— Rick Baldwin
shop five years ago
ing thing is that on
was a tough decision
any given Friday night
for Baldwin, whose expertise was
we might get 20-somethings,
in mortgages not selling wine. But
50-somethings or 70-somethings.
at the time “the whole real estate
They all stand around this table
“Wine can be
intimidating. I try to
take the ntimidation
factor out of it and
make buying wine a
pleasant
experience.”
Rick Baldwin and
Susan Olson get
a highly diverse
clientele at
World Class
Wines. They will
soon be moving
their shop to
another location
in Lake Oswego.
REVIEW, TIDINGS
PHOTO: VERN UYETAKE
talking about wine. They form great
friendships between generations.
That’s what I love about this place.”
“Lake Oswego is a very eclectic
place,” Baldwin said. “There are a
lot of singles who come in, organic
people and hippies.”
And more than a few eccentrics.
“Some people pick wine if there’s
a picture of a dog on the label,” Ol-
son said. “There was one lady who
wouldn’t get a bottle of wine unless
there was a chateau on the label.”
“We’re the ‘Cheers’ of wine
shops,” Baldwin said. “We’ve even
got Kramers. But we’re not cliquey
or clubby. We get new people all the
time.”
This joy of wine will only get
stronger, because in early March
the little old wine shop will be
moving across the intersection on
Second Street and into the building
where Scratch Restaurant used to
be at 149 A Ave.
“The shop will be all on one story,” Olson said. “It will be better
for wine tastings. We’ll have a
wine bar that is open six nights a
week.”
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Email your business briefs to:
[email protected]
Ogletree Deakins names Lorne
Dauenhauer as shareholder
Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak
& Stewart, P.C. recently announced Lorne Dauenhauer as a
shareholder in the firm’s Portland
office.
Dauenhauer joins Ogletree Deakins from Lane Powell, where he
was a shareholder and led the
firm’s Employee Benefits Practice
Group. Dauenhauer’s arrival immediately strengthens Ogletree
Deakins’ employee benefits capabilities in the Northwest and
across the country.
Dauenhauer has more than two
decades of employee benefits experience, including nine years as an
actuarial consultant and more than
12 years practicing employee benefits law. He focuses a large portion
of his practice on qualified and
non-qualified retirement plans,
such as employee stock ownership
plans, multiemployer (Taft Hartley) pension plans, and executive
and equity-based compensation arrangements. Dauenhauer also regularly handles a range of other employee benefits and executive compensation matters, including obtaining favorable determination
letters, reviewing Qualified Domestic Relations Orders, advising
on multiemployer withdrawal liability assessments, and working
with the federal tax aspects of equity-based and executive compensation plans.
BBB announces new
advertising standards
Better Business Bureau has
made comprehensive changes to
its cornerstone product, the BBB
Code of Advertising, to reflect the
many new ways advertisers reach
consumers via websites, social media, texting and other channels.
Every business that advertises
in North America is expected to
follow BBB’s Code, and compliance
is monitored by 112 BBB offices in
the U.S. and Canada. Industry selfregulation of truth-in-advertising
rules has earned the support of
federal regulators who take seriously cases referred to their agencies.
“BBB’s mission is to advance
trust in the marketplace, and nothing is more fundamental to that
mission than truth-in-advertising,”
says Mary E. Power, president and
CEO of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. “Businesses must be
truthful in what they say, what
they infer, and what they omit
YOURBUSINESS
from their advertising. This core
message of the Code is unchanged,
but this comprehensive update
covers the many new channels
businesses have to reach potential
customers.”
The key proviso of the Code is
that “the primary responsibility
for truthful and non-deceptive advertising rests with the advertiser”
and that advertisers “should be
prepared to substantiate any objective claims or offers made before
publication or broadcast.”
The goal is to make industry
self-regulation track with regulatory approaches to encourage the
most honest and ethical marketing
by businesses.
SolarWorld challenges
U.S. scientists to vie for
SolarWorld Junior Einstein Award
Solarworld recently challenged
young American scientists to seek
recognition for their photovoltaicrelated research at academic institutions in the United States, where
the main contemporary solar technologies and industries were pioneered.
The SolarWorld Junior Einstein
Award, to be awarded for the 10th
time this year, is the oldest, most
prestigious prize for young scientists’ research related to the photovoltaic industry. Yet no American
so far has won the prize.
The honor offers a cash prize,
opens doors for young scientists
and provides a trip to an award
ceremony in Germany. The recognition also draws credit to the academic institutions where students
have undertaken research related
to PV technology, nanotechnology,
electrical engineering, mechanical
engineering, renewable energy, engineering, chemistry, physics, process engineering or similarly related areas of science. A student’s
scientific thesis must have been
written between June 2014 and
April 2015. The deadline for applications is April 24.
Find more information on the
contest and an application at: einstein-award.de/en/junior-award/
Natural Grocers and Instacart
partner to offer grocery delivery
Instacart has partnered with
Natural Grocers to provide grocery
delivery service to customers in
Portland in as little as one hour.
Natural Grocers will be the fifth
Portland-area grocery store offering delivery service through Instacart, which will deliver to residents
and businesses in Hillsboro, Bea-
Former cop taking over
Play It Again Sports
Previous owner
pleaded guilty to
buying and reselling
stolen sporting goods
By ERIC APALATEGUI
Pamplin Media Group
The new owner of Beaverton’s Play It Again Sports
plans to be an upstanding seller of new and used equipment.
In fact, William Knudson spent
TIMES PHOTO: MILES VANCE
his previous career enforcing the A new owner will soon take over the
law as a state trooper in WashPlay It Again Sports outlet in the
ington.
Valley Plaza shopping center.
Knudson and his girlfriend,
Tracy Gregory, will take over the nal, Knudson plans to give the
Valley Plaza shop in March from business a facelift and then hold
James Larkins, who recently
a grand re-opening this spring.
pleaded guilty to buying and reThe store continued to remain
selling tens of thousands of dolopen while Larkins’ case made
lars’ worth of stolen merchandise its way through the judicial sysduring a five-year span.
tem, Knudson said.
Knudson has worked on the
Knudson said the shop will
opposite side of the law. He spent serve local sports enthusiasts
the past 13 years with the Washand school teams. He said that
ington State Patrol, where he
about 60 percent of his merchanwas a patrol sergeant and media dise will be new and the other 40
spokesman and worked his final
percent will be used items in
day Sunday.
good condition. Used items will
“I am not going to use the
be purchased directly or sold on
same business model,” Knudson consignment.
said of Larkins, who owned the
“Let’s turn this thing around
store at 9244 S.W. Beaverton-Hill- and make it a positive thing for
sdale Hwy. for 26 years. “He’s a
the community,” Knudson said.
good guy, but he made some misCriminal cases wind down
takes.”
Larkins, 62, a Portland resiKnudson, who also served in
dent, changed his plea to guilty
the military and now lives in
in December and had a sentencSherwood, worked at one of the
ing hearing in late January, alnational Play It Again Sports lothough details of his sentence
cally owned franchises in Anwere not immediately available.
chorage during college and often
Five months earlier, Beaverton
thought about operating his own detectives watched Larkins buy
store after his police career. The
stolen sports equipment from
opportunity arose sooner than
Matthew Poorman. Poorman,
expected when Larkins got himnow 50 and a resident of Cedar
self into hot water.
Mill, also pleaded guilty to firstOnce his purchase becomes fi- degree theft in the same case.
verton, Tigard, Tualatin, Lake Oswego and Downtown Portland
from Natural Grocers’ Beaverton
store.
Customers can choose from the
full selection of Natural Grocers’
local, natural and organic products
on the Instacart marketplace. In
addition to offering only USDA
Certified Organic fresh produce,
and natural and organic meat and
grocery items, customers can find
a large selection of vitamins and
supplements.
“Our customers trust us to only
source products that meet the
BUSINESS TRIBUNE 13
highest health, safety and environmental responsibility standards,”
said Kemper Isely, co-president of
Natural Grocers. “By partnering
with Instacart, we can offer Portland-area residents the same great
selection, with the added convenience of same-day delivery
straight to their home or office which is especially valuable to
those who are busy and don’t have
time to make it into our store.”
Customers can place orders on
the web or while on the go using
Instacart’s iOS and Android apps.
Instacart Personal Shoppers receive orders on their smartphone
devices, handpick the items at Natural Grocers, and then make the
delivery.
Portland woman launches color
consulting business
Portland color expert and entrepreneurial powerhouse Gretchen
Schauffler has today announced
the launch of her nationwide color
consulting service, Devine Color
Consultations. Schauffler is the
founder of the successful paint
company Devine Color, which has
recently struck a deal with Target
to sell an exclusive line of paint
and wall coverings in all 1,790
stores across the United States.
Schauffler sees the new consulting
service as an opportunity to get in
touch with her roots.
The new online consultation service puts a modern twist on the traditional in-home consultation. When
a customer books an appointment,
they are asked to send through photos or a brief video of their home,
and are immediately sent a full collection of Devine Color Discovery
Cards. This allows Schauffler and
her team to become familiar with
the space, while the Discovery Cards
offer the customer a unique way to
explore color at home.
“The whole point of getting photos and sending Discovery Cards
ahead of time is to eliminate wasted time during the consultation,”
Schauffler said. “In a typical one
hour in-home appointment, a consultant could spend half that time
just getting to know the home.
Now I not only know the home, but
I already have color suggestions in
mind before the consultation even
starts.”
More information on Devine Color Consultations, Discovery Cards
and Deluxe Swatches can be found
on Gretchen Schauffler’s website:
GretchenSchauffler.com.
CONTINUED / Page 14
14 BUSINESS TRIBUNE
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
YOURBUSINESS
Email your business briefs to:
[email protected]
■ From page 13
SBA Announces online tool to
match lenders to entrepreneurs
Administrator Maria ContrerasSweet announced that the Small
Business Administration (SBA) is
launching a first-of-its-kind tool on
the federal agency’s website that
will allow entrepreneurs looking
for a small business loan to get
matched with a SBA lender.
This new tool, called LINC (Leveraging Information and Networks to access Capital) will have
small business owners fill out a
simple online form of 20 questions
and connect them with lenders
within 48 hours. By directly connecting with prospective borrowers, the agency will be able to provide more guidance and ensure
more capital is reaching our nation’s entrepreneurs.
After filling out the form, a borrower’s answers will be sent to every lender in that borrower’s county, as well as to other lenders with
a regional or national reach. Once
lenders have reviewed the information that matters most to them,
they’ll respond within 48 hours, all
this for no fees or commitment.
This option will untether entrepreneurs from the one neighborhood
bank, using technology to get their
foot in the door at any number of
institutions and improve their access to capital.
Knight Cancer Institute
awards more than $460,000
The Knight Cancer Institute at
Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) awarded $462,656 to 17
projects statewide as part of the
first round of funding offered
through its Community Partnership Program. The program’s goal
is to address community-identified
needs to ultimately decrease the
impact of cancer on Oregonians.
Projects chosen in this initial
round will benefit 23 Oregon counties and a wide range of populations in both rural and urban communities. Projects will focus on
preventing tobacco use among
youth; providing transportation to
patients in cancer treatment; increasing consumption of fruits and
vegetables through a community
supported agriculture prescription
plan; developing a rural clinic for
cancer survivors; implementing
culturally appropriate strategies to
increase colorectal cancer screening among medically underserved
Oregonians; and developing skin
cancer prevention programs for
adolescents, among other needs.
Oregonians served by these projects will include a wide variety of
age groups, races, ethnic groups
and cancer types.
The Community Partnership
Program provides grants and other resources to community-identified projects addressing cancer
prevention, early detection, treatment and survivorship. The initial
round of funding resulted in 44
competitive proposals submitted.
“The need for this program is
evident in the level of enthusiasm
it has generated throughout the
state and the number of proposals
that were submitted,” said Kerri
Winters-Stone, Ph.D., co-director
of the Community Partnership
Program and co-leader of the
OHSU Knight Cancer Institute
Cancer Prevention
and Control Program.
The OHSU
Knight Cancer Institute has committed to invest $1
million dollars annually to support
this program for
the next decade.
WINTERS-STONE
In addition, the
Meyer Memorial
Trust recently awarded the OHSU
Knight Cancer Institute a two-year
grant of $500,000 to enhance the
program. A second round of funding for the Community Partnership
Program will open for applications
later in 2015.
ViaWest unveils expansion
in Oregon market
ViaWest recently announced the
build of its newest data center,
Brookwood located just outside of
Portland.
Designed to be fault tolerant, the
Brookwood data center is scheduled for completion in the third
quarter of 2015. The facility is ViaWest’s third data center in Oregon and upon completion, will encompass 138,000 square feet of
raised floor space.
New chiropractic clinic opens
in Southwest Portland
Dr. Todd Thistle has announced
the opening of his new clinic in the
Southwest Portland Metro area
that focuses on bridging the gap
between chiropractic, rehabilitation and fitness training.
The clinic is dedicated to creating inspiration through healthy
movement.
“My approach is “More is More,”
when it comes to the suite of services I want to
provide for my patients,” said Thistle. “Learning
more techniques
means being able
to offer more options based on an
individual patient’s needs.”
THISTLE
The clinic is located just off I-5 at
the Carman Drive Exit, just south
of Hwy 217. The clinic will be hosting an open house in March.
Doug Fettig joins AKT
as a business advisor
AKT recently announced that
Doug Fettig has joined AKT as a
business Advisor with the firm’s
Portland office.
Fettig has more than two decades of experience as a CPA and a
finance professional, providing
him the unique ability to understand client needs
and identify
growth opportunities. As a Business
Advisor, he is adept at collaborating
with business leaders and incorporating AKT’s expertise within the
business communiFETTIG
ty. Prior to joining
AKT, Fettig worked as the Director
of Internal Audit for McCormick &
Schmick’s Seafood Restaurants,
and as a Division Director for Management Resources, providing senior level talent acquisition services. He is also an adjunct professional at Portland State University’s College of Business.
World of Speed expands
operations team
World of Speed,
a Wilsonville, Ore.based nonprofit
motorsports museum opening in
April, recently announced it has
hired two key operation team members: Charlsey
Thornton as volunteer coordinator
and Kristine Stensgaard as guest service manager.
“We’re only a
few months away
from the grand
THORNTON
STENSGAARD
opening,” said World of Speed executive director Tony Thacker.
“Kristine and Charlsey are essential to our day-to-day operations
and we could not be more thrilled
to have them on board.”
Edmunds honors six
local car dealerships
Edmunds.com has honored six
Portland-area car dealerships
with its third annual Five Star
Dealer Awards. The awards recognize car dealers who earned
the highest marks for customer
satisfaction in Edmunds.com’s
Dealer Ratings and Reviews.
The six Portland, Ore. dealers
recognized by Edmunds.com are:
Beaverton Toyota, Dick’s Country
Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram, Gresham Toyota Scion, Kuni Lexus of
Portland, Wentworth Subaru, and
Weston Kia.
“We at Edmunds.com believe in
putting the customer first, and
our dealer partners embrace that
same commitment to excellence,”
says Edmunds.com CEO Avi
Steinlauf. “These dealerships’
dedication to making the car-buying process easy earned glowing
reviews from their customers,
and we congratulate them on a
job well done.”
ing the Division of Hematology &
Medical Oncology, which includes
about 40 physician specialists.
His other patient care and research priorities will include expanding the institute’s offering of
early phase drug trials and applying the latest drug developments.
His goal is to work with the OHSU
Knight Cancer Institute’s team of
researchers to provide highly tailored treatments to patients, including those with early or advanced cancer, and change the
course of their disease.
“Dr. Bergan shares our urgency
to better understand how best to
treat cancer using an understanding of what drives the growth of
each patient’s cancer. He will
make a significant contribution to
the world-class team we are bringing together to ensure that treatment plans are personalized to
each patient’s unique situation as
we strive to improve outcomes for
all patients with cancer,” said Brian Druker, M.D., director of the
OHSU Knight Cancer Institute and
associate dean for oncology in the
OHSU School of Medicine.
Bergan plans to begin seeing
prostate cancer patients, his area
of clinical specialty, in the spring.
Cancer researcher joins OHSU
Oregon Trucking Associations
names new president
Raymond Bergan, M.D. — an
internationally-regarded cancer
specialist known for leading
breakthrough studies on how
cancer cells spread and preventive treatments for high risk patients — has joined Oregon
Health & Science University
(OHSU) as head of Hematology
& Medical Oncology in the
School of Medicine and associate director of medical oncology
for the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute.
Bergan, who was recruited
from Northwestern University,
led a research team that expanded the understanding of
how early stage cancer cells
transform to travel throughout
the body.
His laboratory was the first to
use drugs to target this form of
disease progression in humans.
Understanding the changes that
enable the spread of the disease is
essential to saving lives; metastasis is a leading cause of death in
cancer patients.
At the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, Bergan will establish a research laboratory continuing this
work as part of his role in oversee-
Oregon Trucking Associations, Inc. (OTA) recently announced that Jana Jarvis will be
joining OTA as the new president. Jarvis officially began her
duties with OTA on Feb. 16, taking over from OTA Vice President of Government Affairs Bob
Russell who had been acting as
interim-president since the departure of Debra Dunn in November, 2014.
Jarvis was previously president of Paladin Public Affairs,
Inc., an Oregon based firm specializing in public affairs and advocacy at the state and local level.
Paladin Public Affairs, Inc.
handled issues around tax policy, land use, environmental
quality, transportation, natural
resource, real estate and manufacturing. Her duties at Paladin
included providing legislative
and regulatory representation
to clients, coordinating media
relations and membership advocacy program development and
political fundraising strategy.
Jarvis also served as VicePresident, Public Policy for the
Oregon Association of Realtors
for 10 years.
BUSINESS TRIBUNE 15
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Tuesday, February 24, 2015