In Oregon (and elsewhere) the race is on for the governor’s mansion. Let’s take a look at the candidates’ commercials.
Oh, an elbow to the ribs. That hurts.
But Dudley’s endured an elbow or two in his time. Here’s his counter:
A poll released today by Riley Research Associates shows the governor’s race in a statistical dead heat. The poll has the former governor favored by 40% of likely voters, while Dudley is favored by 39%. But one of every six voters, or 16%, are still undecided. Which means the voters in the middle will decide this race. Many of these undecided voters may wish they had a few more choices on the ballot, or at least one more Independent choice, but that’s not how a two-party system works.
Freelance writer Leland Baxter-Neal traveled to Humboldt County, Calif. to report on the marijuana economy (and what it might mean for Oregon) for The Portland Mercury. California’s Proposition 19, should it pass, will legalize pot in the Golden State–while Oregon’s Measure 74 would bring medical marijuana dispensaries to the Beaver State. Both measures could have huge economic impacts for the citizens of both states.
What I like about Baxter-Neal’s coverage is the fact that his article is not about politics. From a moral or political point of view, legal pot is a loser. But from an economic point of view it’s a big winner. And given the shaky footing states, counties, cities, businesses and individual households are in right now, a big economic win is exactly what’s needed.
I also find it very interesting how legalization would spread the wealth around, a fact not everyone likes, but a fact nevertheless.
California’s state tax commission estimated that legalizing and taxing marijuana sales could generate $1.4 billion in tax revenue. The tax commission also predicted, however, that the “legalization of marijuana would cause its street price to decline by 50 percent.”
That thought has sent chills through the Emerald Triangle, sparking a series of community meetings where the notoriously reticent growers have joined economists and local government officials to craft a plan in case the bottom drops out of their livelihood. Ideas being churned out include specializing in high-end, organic marijuana or promoting weed tourism—picture tours of weed farms much like wineries, and pick-your-own-bud farms.
Right now this multi-billion dollar industry is conducted on the black market. Change that and you not only fill the state’s coffers, you also spur private sector innovation. Weed tourism, for one, sounds like a great new industry that will employ bus drivers, hotel workers, restaurant workers, and more. I can also see a future for retailers who specialize in high end strains, some of which might also offer mail order and/or home delivery.
There’s also packaging, distribution and marketing to consider. Comparing this industry to the wine industry or craft beer industry is a good idea. In Oregon alone, many hundreds of small producers make and sell Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. How does the consumer know one Pinot from the next? Packaging, distribution and marketing is how. Again, we’re talking about a lot of non-growers and non-sellers with the ability to all of a sudden make a lot of money by going into business with said purveyors. Naturally, all that money is taxable too.
It’ll be interesting to see what develops. Once the cash registers in California start to ring, it’s a sound that will be heard around the world. And it won’t take long for people outside of California to realize that prohibition is a horrible burden on their state, whereas legalization is the opposite.
Men’s Health named Portland, Oregon “America’s Most Patriotic City.”
The magazine came to its conclusion after factoring the number of registered voters who turned out for state and federal elections in 2004 and 2008, money spent on military veterans, percentage of residents who volunteer, and finally, sales of fireworks and U.S. flags.
Portland wins lots of media contests and has long been the darling of The New York Times, but this new designation from Men’s Health Magazine is surprising to me, for Portland is home to lots of free thinkers. Of course, free thinkers are the people who make America great, but they’re often marginalized in favor of another, simpler view of patriotic Americans.
Speaking of Portland’s free thinkers, I met Jeffrey Thomas at Meatapalooza on Wednesday and just days later a huge, flattering feature by D.K. Row appears in The Oregonian on Thomas.
Row is the paper’s art critic and he asks Thomas, a former art dealer, some great questions about the art of selling art.
Q: Can you remind us how tough it was to sell art back in the ’80s here in Portland?
A: Remember, this was a timber economy and in the 1980s, Oregon went through its first of many recessions. We went through three years of lapsed timber sales; this little business called Intel was just starting up, so we really had no tech industry. Interest rates for houses were 12.5%.
So it was a tough time to get interest in cultural activity. There was a lot of money in town but you did not show it. It was very old school WASP. Nobody showed their wealth; no one supported anything. There was this anti-philanthropic thing going on. You just didn’t show that you had money. That made for a tough environment to create cultural activity and awareness that would draw people here.
Q: And people think it’s tough now.
A: It was nothing like it was then. There was just no cultural awareness. It was a country club for a few families and everyone else was part of the working class. There were few galleries, and only a handful of people interested in them.
Today, Thomas is a producer and photographer’s rep for Polara Studio. His Polara bio says, “…in his mind every day is a birthday party, which sort of explains the applause and flowers that he constantly showers upon everyone around him.”
Between 2002 and 2009, Gerding Edlen built 3,200 condos valued at $1.6 billion. Naturally, that didn’t work out too well for anyone. The article goes into all the juicy details of investor losses and bank repos, but that’s not the part I’m interested in. This is:
With the condo boom over, Edlen is trying to reposition the company to be the national leader in green building makeovers.
The green economy is in.
Gerding Edlen’s strategy is to buy completed or partly finished buildings at bargain prices, retrofit them with state-of-the-art energy-efficient technology and then either sell the buildings or hold them and lease them out.
Edlen is convinced sustainable building has finally arrived as a viable business strategy, thanks in part to the Obama administration’s view of the green economy as one of the country’s primary economic engines.
“You’ve got to get your hands dirty and do deep retrofits,” Edlen said. “It’s about insulation, new windows or reglazing existing windows, it’s about new water-use strategies.”
The Oregonian article is followed by several negative comments from readers—sadly, that’s often par for the course in a public forum. Yet, I think Gerding Edlen deserves some praise for keeping their head above water during the deluge. And their new course is the right thing to do, for their business, the people who buy or rent from them and for conservation of our natural resources.
In related news, The Economist recently asked, “Is Oregon’s metropolis a leader among American cities or just strange?”
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Joel Kotkin, a Los Angeles-based demographer and author, thinks that places like Portland, San Francisco and Boston have become “elite citiesâ€, attractive to the young and single, especially those with trust funds, but beyond the reach of middle-class families who want a house with a lawn. Indeed Portland, for all its history of Western grit, is remarkably white, young and childless. Most Americans will therefore continue to migrate to the more affordable “cities of aspiration†such as Houston, Atlanta or Phoenix, thinks Mr Kotkin. As they do so, they may turn decentralised sprawl into quilts of energetic suburbs with a community feeling.
That is not to belittle Portland’s vision. It is a sophisticated and forward-looking place. Which other city can boast that its main attraction is a bustling independent book store (Powell’s) and that medical students can go from one part of their campus to another by gondola, taking their bikes with them? Other cities will see much to emulate…Adam Davis of Davis, Hibbitts & Midghall, a Portland polling firm, says that Oregonians like to consider themselves leaders but also exceptions. They are likely to remain both.
It’s safe to say Gerding Edlen’s desire to retrofit old buildings to exacting green standards is a leadership position and an exceptional path, not frequently taken by real estate developers.
As for Kotkin’s claim that Portland is an elite city, I don’t see it that way, although I know what he means. Houston would be a much easier choice for a young family to make. Portland is, in fact, an expensive place to live and the wages here have not kept pace with the rise in cost of living, particularly real estate valuations.
Anyone who is on the ground in Oregon today knows the economy is weak, but I think the future portends good things. Many people are retrofitting not just buildings, but their entire way of thinking and doing business, and as this process unfolds we’re going to see business and civic interests align in impressive and unprecedented ways.
There’s an increasingly tiresome argument being made in the corporate suits, government offices and newsrooms of Portland, Oregon. The argument goes like this: Portland doesn’t have enough top tier talent to properly grow a company, nor enough venture capital.
“It’s not about Portland,” says Dave Goldberg, SurveyMonkey’s new California-based chief executive. “It’s really just about the Bay Area.”
“My job is to shepherd this company to be a great company, and if we can’t do it in Portland, we’re going to do it someplace else,” Dave Hersh, Jive Software’s CEO, said last fall. “I’m disappointed we weren’t able to pull it all off in Portland.”
Jive and Ensequence maintain Portland headquarters, and all three companies have retained sizable contingents here. Still, last year’s executive exodus was especially dispiriting in the context of Oregon’s wilted economy.
In related news, Laura Gunderson of The Oregonian reports that Lucy Activewear is moving from Portland to San Leandro, Calif., eliminating as many as 95 corporate and distribution center jobs here. Lucy, it’s important to note, isn’t locally owned.
In addition to the lack of available capital and talent beef, Oregonians also suffer from rumors that we don’t work hard and that our taxes on corporations are too high. I’ll leave the tax argument to others more qualified to speak, but the work ethic gripe I’ll gladly mangle. First, the argument is false. This state and all the great companies, schools and cultural institutions in it weren’t put here by a genie. They were put here by the pioneering, passionate and deeply committed citizens of the Beaver State.
Plus, too many places with a notable work ethic are soulless husks of a city. I don’t want to be part of that. Do you? Work is a central aspect of life in Oregon, as it is elsewhere, but we strive for balance here. The arts are important here; we like to eat amazing food and drink local wine and beer; and we go camping, hiking, skiing, etc.
More than a century of industrial use has resulted in Willamette River sediments being contaminated with many hazardous substances, such as heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), dioxin/furans, and pesticides. This far-from-green reality led a 10-mile stretch of the Willamette to be classified as a Superfund site by the Environmental Protect Agency in 2000.
This month Oregon Business is running a feature on the Superfund situation. It’s a topic all civic-minded Portlanders need to get up to speed on, because our economic future is tied directly to our willingness and ability to clean up the river and put sustainable practices into place.
As with most things, we need to know our history if we’re going to find a route out of the mess we’re in and refrain from repeating past mistakes.
Portland was built on the Willamette River, and the city’s 150-year history has forever altered that body of water. The West Coast’s first navigation channel enabled timber and grain exports starting in the 1850s. The railroad followed in the 1880s. After a lull during the Depression years, the harbor shifted into full gear during World War II, as workers built Liberty Ships for the Navy and rail cars for the Soviet Union.
Since the war years, healthy business clusters have developed in international trade, ship repair and metals manufacturing. Little thought was given to the ecological health of the river until the 1970s, when Gov. Tom McCall campaigned against pollution in the Willamette and spearheaded efforts to clean up Oregon’s defining waterway. But by then much of the damage had been done. It was just a matter of time before the pollution bill came due.
Oregon Business does a nice job of showing readers just how large that bill is. According to a 2008 report paid for by the Portland Development Commission, failing to redevelop key harbor properties such as the Arkema site over the next 10 years could cost the region $320 million in investment, $81 million in annual payroll and 1,450 jobs.
Cleaning up the toxic messes along the river is not easy nor inexpensive, a fact that’s contributing to the slow pace of progress. Hard choices need to be made and compromises struck between competing interests.
Steve Gunther, an environmental contractor who resigned from the harbor’s Community Advisory Group in frustration, says, “This is a billion-dollar project with no timeframe, no budget, no vision and no accountability.â€
Gunther calls Superfund process “a jobs program for lawyers, lab rats and consultants.”
The Oregonian says the cleanup effort could commence in 2013, with the cost potentially totaling $1 billion or more for industry, landowners, and sewer and utility ratepayers. It’s likely to involve hundreds of landowners past and present, and some of the state’s top industrial employers, from Schnitzer Steel to Siltronic.
I don’t see how Portland could have a more critical issue on its plate. We’re a river city and a city with a lot of unrealized ideals about how business and environmental needs can coexist. The thing is we’re not in a lab in a school. Portland is the lab and we can either get it right and prosper, or get it wrong and dissolve in a toxic stew of our own making.
The title, “Evenstad’s Island,” clearly hints at what’s to come in the article. While the Willamette Valley winery puts out highly-rated wine, the owners, Ken and Grace Evenstad, suffer from a damaged reputation. They’re seen as wealthy hobbyists from Minnesota and are said to be totally removed from the local wine-producing community.
For instance:
“Ken and Grace have been quoted as saying they’re responsible for the entire wine industry and winemaking techniques going back to Jesus,” says Harry Peterson-Nedry, founder of nearby Chehalem Winery in Newberg. “And that’s probably not far from what they believe.â€
Indeed, both Ken and Grace Evenstad say that what differentiates their wines is unique methodology and an unusually high attention to detail. They insist on dry farming — meaning they do not use irrigation — because this method produces stronger tap roots and healthier vines. They also strive for a very low yield: around 1.78 tons of grapes per acre (the industry standard is 2 to 2.5). And they do 4-5 hand passes per year through the vineyard, green pruning, removing small clusters so the larger, robust ones have more space and food to grow.
Domaine Serene ferments each grape separately — not only according to the type but also by growing conditions such as elevation, direction and amount of sunlight — which means working with more than 200 individual Pinot Noir fermentations. Domain Serene also ages all its wines on-site for at least 15 months. According to the Evenstads, this combination of world-class winemaking practices was unprecedented when they arrived in the region 20 years ago. And they claim to have developed a unique system for making white wine (“Coeur Blancâ€) from mature red grapes. Others in the region scoff.
“This kind of wine was made by an Italian producer long before it was made by Domaine Serene,†says Ken Wright, the Evenstads’ original winemaker who worked with them for their first 10 years. “If you like, I can send you the link to prove it.†(He did, and it did.)
Sadly, the story doesn’t end there.
In September, the news broke that the Evenstads were suing Tony Rynders — the man who worked as their principal winemaker from 1998 to 2008 and created many of their most highly rated wines — for leaving their employ with proprietary information, especially pertaining to the methods for making Coeur Blanc.
Rynders would not comment because the case is still under way. But others in the community are avid to speak on Rynders’ behalf. Ken Wright, for instance. He insists the Evenstads’ lawsuit is simply a battle for power. “It’s typical of Ken and Grace,†Wright says. “Look at it this way. They just celebrated their 20th anniversary in business and nobody was there who helped them make wine for the past 20 years. I actually kind of feel for them.â€
Of course, the great irony here is that Domain Serene is well known outside the state for carrying the flag for Oregon pinot. “Only Oregonians want to strip them of their status,” notes Ann Bauer, the Seattle-based journalist who wrote the story.
NPR is running a story on cargo bikes that features two Portland companies in the cargo bike business—Metrofiets and Clever Cycles.
The piece also introduces Portland mom, Carie Weisenbach-Folz, who picks up her two kids, ages 5 and 2, from school. “But instead of loading them into the usual minivan, she’s uses a cargo bicycle.”
Try that in Dallas, Missy.
It’s interesting to note that the majority of Metrofiets’ customers aren’t families—they’re businesses. Metrofiets has built a custom cargo bicycle for a floor refinisher to carry his sander, and another for a brewery to transport their beer kegs. Phillip Ross of Metrofiets says businesses “can absolutely get rid of one of their fleet vehicles, and use one of these bikes, within a certain geographical area around their shop.”
Today, 750,000 Americans bike to work–a 50 percent jump since 2000. There are no estimates yet on the number of cargo bikes on the street.
Darby and I both had yesterday off, so we headed out to wine country to retrieve our two Collector’s Club magnums at Sokol Blosser. Given that Sokol Blosser is located deep in the heart of the Dundee Hills and surrounded by other excellent wineries, we decided to drop in on Tori Mor and Archery Summit, as well.
Tori Mor makes a respectable product, no doubt. But when the nectar served at Archery Summit hit our palates, we knew we’d left excellence at the gate for another realm where adjectives fear to dwell. Of course, that hasn’t stopped mortals from describing Archery Summit’s wines.
Wine Spectator says, “Archery Summit has established itself as the Rolls-Royce of Oregon Pinot Noir.”
Tamara Belgard of Sip With Me says, “I think they (Archery Summit) just might be the Princess Diana of Oregon Pinot Noir; elegant, graceful and classy yet still somehow strong, warm and approachable.”
Clearly, winemaker Anna Matzinger has two hands, her heart, mind and soul in this, along with the requisite volcanic soils and micro-climates where the grapes are grown.
Willamette Live says Matzinger is “unassuming for someone who just had her 2006 Red Hills Estate Pinot Noir named the best wine in Oregon by Portland Monthly Magazine.”
Here’s a passage from the Willamette Live piece:
Archery Summit uses the most sustainable and organic processes possible while producing their vintages.
Matzinger views pinot grapes as the ones best able to express the terrain on which they were grown. She prefers to get out of their way over fiddling with something that isn’t broken.
From the fermentation tanks, the wine flows down to settling tanks and then down again to one of the winery’s more than 600 barrels – all of which are stored in man-made tunnels excavated for the task of storing the wine at a constant temperature.
“We have a great facility, but its job is not messing up the fruit coming in from the field,” she said.
Sean in guest relations at the winery explained to us how Archery Summit prunes its vines by as much as one-half to maximize the flavor in the remaining fruit. This also helps explain the steep prices per bottle, as the winemaker is removing plenty of good fruit in order to pursue her annual masterpieces.
PORTLAND—Last night, about 50 entrepreneurs, and those interested in that lonely path, gathered in Keen Footwear’s Great Room to hear from a panel of local business owners willing to share their hard-earned advise. The “Start Your Own Business” panel was organized by Zimmerman Community Center, whose mission is “to strengthen civic and spiritual life while developing the identity of The River District.”
The panel was moderated by Randy Miller, president of the Portland Ambassadors business advocacy group. Michelle Cairo of In the Black; Robin Jones of 88 Inc.; Otto Papasadero of NARDA (and a Zimmerman board member); and Sarah Shaoul of Black Wagon were on the panel.
The panel covered a lot of ground in a short span, but for me the key takeaway came from Papasadero. He said, “Your business has to be well documented to be successful. Documents detail how the business works.”
After the session, I asked Papasadero to clarify and name the actual documents he thinks are important. He said 1) your business plan and 2) your operations manual. Papasadero also told a story about how Warren Buffett was so impressed with the documentation from Dufresne Furniture in Winnipeg, that he offered to buy the company’s documents (not the actual company).
Papasadero’s point on documentation is ultimately partly about transfer of ownership. He said when one sells their company, even if it’s a sole-proprietorship, the buyer wants a turn-key experience and that’s found in the company’s documentation.
Another highlight of the evening came in Miller’s introductory remarks. He said “there’s a perception that this community is anti-business, which is dead wrong.” Miller said business formation in Portland has tripled this year. He also made a great point about the mutually beneficial relationship between one big business and many small business. For instance, Intel, the largest private employer in Oregon, has 8000 Oregon vendors, he said.
There was also talk from Miller and the panelists about the “defining moment” that drives one to launch (and stick with) a business. Papasadero said defining moments come along semi-regularly, “but we don’t always recognize them.”
I’m reflecting now on my own defining moments, and I have to say, being fired more than once from an ad agency job helped me see that there’s little security in placing one’s fate in another manager’s hands. Yet, I still go back and forth, thinking that “a job” might be the better path (I wish I didn’t). Another entrepreneur I know also struggles and wavers from time to time. But he reminded me earlier this week that when he did work for other people, he hated it. That’s a common theme among entrepreneurs and another important source of “defining moments.”
