January 2018 by Southern Oregon Business Journal

January 2018

Year of the Entrepreneur en •tre •pre •neur noun: “a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.”

We Could Stay Home but Doing Crazy Things is Much More Fun. Incredible greatness or horrendous failure will happen in 2018. The proof is everywhere, on the radio, in the newspaper, in digital and print publications of every stripe. Now that the world is able to report every event, rumor, thought and opinion 24/7 with mobile videos to support its beliefs we are advised to enjoy the excesses or moan over the desperate situations we are in now. “Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.” Its been decades since a wise person gave me that gem of advice. He was a doubter far less optimistic than me. Weighing the costs of being wrong against the value of being right can be a challenging balance sheet. 2018 may be important for what we learn to discard and for what we learn to accept. The stories we hear about lives we envy are lives of risk taking individuals who have believed enough in their adventurous yearnings to face their fears and do them anyway.

“Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Steve Jobs US computer engineer & industrialist (1955 - 2011) The confidence in economic activity is palpable and drives much of the dialogue that our growth will continue through 2018. With that confidence comes a vigorous effort of self-sufficiency that has been lagging in many sectors. Every economic recovery eventually fades but the one we are in is setting records for its duration. It will last as long as we want it to last. Be one of the “crazy ones”. All of us at the Southern Oregon Business Journal wish all of you a most Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Greg Henderson

Southern Oregon Business Journal

A JOURNAL FOR THE ECONOMICALLY CURIOUS, PROFESSIONALLY INSPIRED AND ACUTELY MOTIVATED

Table of Contents PUBLISHERS NOTE

ENERGY

22 Wind Generation

Doing Crazy Things

24 Oregon Coal Mines ECONOMICS

26 Coal in the Northwest

4 Occupational Wages

MISCELLANEOUS

5 Business Employment Dynamics

30 The Age of Automation

9 ECO NW Outlook

33 Comfort Feed, A Simple Solution 34 HEROES American CafÃ©

COMMUNITY & BUSINESS

36 Robust Manufacturing

10 Rogue Valley Organic Goodness

37 Simple Screens

12 Idea Friendly Towns 14 A New Generation 16 Team Senior

38 Next Level Fitness Back Cover 40 Photo Bomb in Portland

OTHER BUSINESS 18 Start Your New Year Right 19 Content Shock

703 Divot Loop Sutherlin, Oregon 97479 www.southernoregonbusiness.com 541-315-6127 Southern Oregon Business Journal

COVER PHOTO INTRODUCING THE NEW YEAR AS THE YEAR OF THE ENTREPRENEUR Attribution: Canstock.com/Oakozhan 3

Occupations with the Most Jobs Paying Less Than $11.25 per Hour

Quality Information, Informed Choices

by Anna Johnson

Oregon’s minimum wage levels were set by Senate Bill 1532 in 2016. The minimum wage increases on July 1 each year through 2022. There are three tiers of step increases based on geography.

Oregon’s most recent minimum wage increase came on July 1, 2017, but the raises weren’t the same across the state. Minimum wage increased to $11.25 per hour inside the Portland urban growth boundary, $10.00 per hour in nonurban counties, and $10.25 in other areas of the state. Occupations with the Most Minimum Wage Jobs in 2017 Minimum wage jobs are more common in some types of work. There are around 290,700 jobs in Oregon that pay $11.25 per hour or less. This represents 16 percent of all Oregon jobs. There are three occupations that employ more than 20,000 workers with wages below $11.25 per hour. These occupations are cashiers, retail salespersons, and combined food preparation and serving workers, including fast food. Waiters and waitresses were the fourth highest occupation, with 19,237 workers making this hourly rate or less. Dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers have the largest percentage of their total occupational employment making $11.25 per hour or less, with 78 percent of the jobs below this threshold. Employers are asked to report tips and gratuities in occupational and payroll tax wage reports. Tipped jobs that pay minimum wage can exceed the $11.25 per hour level once tips are included, and those jobs would be counted in a higher wage category.

Southern Oregon Business Journal

ECONW Shop Talk: Bob Whelan's 2018 Economic Outlook I see the economy slowing down. By the end of 2019 there could even be a recession. That is quite a contrast to where we are now. Today, the economy is in great shape. In the last recession the country lost 8.7 million jobs. But remarkably, for 82 straight months, the U.S. economy has added jobs. So far that is 16.9 million jobs. We are in the third longest period of economic expansion in history.[1] Nationally, inflation is running at less than 2 percent. Wages are rising faster than inflation. The stock market is hitting all time highs. While the national numbers are great, the local ones are even better. So why do I have such an outlook? It is simple. The economy is running out of the fuel it has been using to grow for the last 7 years. We are low on productive workers people available to go back to work and many of those that are available are unskilled. The overhang of empty houses, factories, and offices in 2010 from the last recession has evaporated. To grow now you need to build new capacity, buy land, train the unskilled, and compel people reluctant to work to take jobs. All of these inputs cost more than ever, yet are no more productive and, possibly less productive, than before. The condition we are in now is a consequence of growing faster than the long -term growth rates of the working-age population, capital, and productivity combined have. It has not been a big difference, but it has been going on for so long now that the economy is apt to slow because we have absorbed most of the available, lower cost resources. Just look at labor markets. Labor productivity is rising only 0.9 percent a year. [2] Combine that with virtually no growth in the working age population (a demographic problem exacerbated by falling immigration) and there is not much to propel the economy much more than we are seeing now. [3] Look at technology, another source of growth, and the evidence is mixed. In some ways the Internet raises productivity, but some research suggests it does as much harm to productivity. [4] Locally, the paucity of available workers is a serious problem. The unemployment rates in Washington and Oregon are at records lows. Idaho’s is just a fraction from hitting its historic low. Labor shortages are being reported in Seattle. [5] Portland has a shortage of construction workers so severe that in spite of very high wages, 10,000 jobs go unfilled. [6] Things are no better in Idaho, where jobs paying over $28 an hour with free training are going unfilled. [7] The low-hanging fruit on the capital side of the equations has also diminished. In every expansion, according to senior economist Carsten Valgreen at Applied Global Macro Research, profit margins of non -financial companies rise and then start to decline. In past cycles, the onset of recession has come no later than five years after margins peaked. That last happened in late 2014, which if history prevails, will put us into a recession by late 2019.[8] At this point, I believe the recession will be mild —that is, unless we wildly over-build, like we did in the mid-2000’s. That is not to say that some over-building could be happening driven by optimistic expectations about demand and prices.

[1] Swanson, Ana. “U.S. job growth surges in July.” The Washington Post. August 4, 2017. [2] Leubsdorf, Ben. “U.S. productivity rose at 0.9 percent rate in second quarter. ” The Wall Street Journal. August 9, 2017. [3] Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Economic research database at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S [4] Morris, David. “Young American men are choosing video games over work in staggering numbers. ” Fortune. July 16, 2017. [5] Tu, J., Lerman, R., and Gates, D. “Heated local economy has employers working hard to fill jobs. ” The Seattle Times. June 17, 2017. [6] Manning, J. “21 Cranes, 15 hotels, 10,000 jobs: Inside Oregon’s development spree.” The Oregonian. July 17, 2017. [7] Maben, S. “Want a job running a dozer? Idaho is offering free 3-week training in June.” The Spokesman Review. March 20,

2017. [8] Epstein, G. “Can the expansion last into 2020?” Barron’s. June 26, 2017. Page 33.

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Idea Friendly Towns

http://saveyour.town/

Howdy, Everyone has their own view of your town. And that's fine. You think your town should be promoted as an adventure base. Someone else wants to be old-timey hometown. You want your town to have a microbrewery. Someone else doesn't condone drinking beer. You want a greenspace downtown. Someone else wants a farmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s market to fill that space. These are all fine. Idea Friendly means you don't decide for anyone else. You work towards your ideas, and you let everyone else explore their ideas. There is no vote. There is no consensus. There is no decision. There are tests. There are failures to learn from. There are ideas no one gets excited enough to work on, so they don't happen. Instead of deciding for everyone which ideas are worth working on, you let everyone decide for themselves which ideas excite them enough to work on. You could help, in fact. You help other people learn the Idea Friendly framework. You Build Connections between people and resources. You encourage everyone to Take Small Steps, try and test out their ideas in small but meaningful ways. You're used to taking great ideas that excite you and watering them down until they're acceptable to enough people but not really very exciting any more. Then you try to make them happen. With the Idea Friendly way, you're taking your first exciting idea and acting on it, letting people who are also excited join in. You're not worrying about those who don't agree. Let them go do their thing their way.

Continued on page 7 Southern Oregon Business Journal

Idea Friendly Towns (Cont. from page 6)

http://saveyour.town/

You might as well build the town you are excited to live in, because if you water down your ideas until you reach consensus, you'll be building the town that no one is particularly excited to live in.

Keep shaping the future of your town, Becky Becky McCray believes small towns have a future. She watches the global trends in the economy, technology and society, then she delivers practical steps rural people can implement right now to shape the future of their town. Her advice is based on her real world experience as a retail store owner and cattle rancher. She makes her home in Hopeton, Oklahoma, a town of 30 people. She doesn’t just talk about rural issues; she lives them.

“We

believe small towns can be saved — including yours.

We picked the name SaveYour.Town because that's what you are going to do: you are going to save your own town. No outside expert can do it.” Becky & Deb

Southern Oregon Business Journal

A New Generation

Hard-Wired to Technology By: Gary Conkling

For youngsters born since 2010, social researcher Mark McCrindle says they are growing up surrounded by technology they will regard as part of the hard wiring of normal life. The rest of us will have to adjust. A new generation is walking around and will likely confound parents, teachers and marketers as much or more than Millennials. Generation Alpha, which consists of people born after 2010, will be more digitally savvy â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and digitally enslaved. As social researcher Mark McCrindle discovered, technology will permeate every aspect of life for Generation Alpha members â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from toys to consumer expectations. I can attest. We just bought a birthday present for Hudson, our 6 -year -old grandson, that will allow him to assemble a robot and code how it operates. In my day, I thought it was a big deal to have a puppet with strings that moved its lips and limbs.

Grandson Hudson deftly manipulates an iPad, almost as if it is an extension of hand . Southern Oregon Business Journal

McCrindle and his project partner Wired Consulting predict voice technology will become more dominant in the Generation Alpha era. No one will debate how much screen time is good or bad because almost everything will operate with a screen. There will be an internet of toys that responds to commands and demonstrates their own emotional intelligence. Delayed gratification will be an extremely hard concept to sell this 14

generation, which will be accustomed from an early age to instant feedback .

“Virtual Reality” may recede as a term, replaced by

prevalent virtual experiences – from space exploration to house-hunting to dating (less risky and expensive). Robots may go from scrappy metal competitors for good jobs to trusted companions offering uncomplicated relationships. In short, Generation Alpha will be different than any generation before it, perhaps by a greater extent than any previous succeeding generation. That difference could further strain educational pedagogy, consumer marketing and parental patience. “We have been doing this for a long time” won’t be an effective message to this emerging cohort. This new generation bursts on the scene before existing generations have answered all the questions digital technology has posed. Many of us aren’t sure we have thought of all the questions yet. For example, is Facebook as addictive as nicotine in cigarettes? Was the Facebook addiction accidental or intentional? Is there a market for Facebook farms where people can unplug for a week or more and learn how to talk someone in person? Our grandson competes in chess tournaments and whips older kids. He may just be bright. He could assemble 100 -piece puzzles when he was three. But when you watch him and his buddies deftly manipulate iPads, you realize these kids don’t separate the normal course of things from technology. Technology to him is the norm.

Gary Conkling is president and co-founder of CFM Strategic Communications, and he leads the firm's PR practice, specializing in crisis communications. He is a former journalist, who later worked on Capitol Hill and represented a major Oregon company. But most importantly, he’s a die-hard Ducks fan. You can reach Gary at garyc@cfmpdx.com and you can follow him on Twitter at @GaryConkling.

Southern Oregon Business Journal

E N T "When I discovered how

easily my own grandmother

could be exploited, I knew it

was time to get involved."

R Jamie Callahan – Founder

— Jamie Callahan

N E U R Grants Pass Company Fills a Senior Need “We spent months,

years, knowing in our hearts that grandma needed to move out of her house

where she lived alone and get into care somewhere. It was the most gut-wrenching thought and in her lucid moments she was very upset with the thought. Jamie made us feel very comfortable with the decision that had to be made. The first few weeks were made easier with visits from Jamie and her little guy, Liam. One night at bedtime we received a text with a picture of Liam and my grandma in matching PJ’s on the couch, in her new home. It is the little things that make the biggest difference.” Southern Oregon Business Journal

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Southern Oregon Business Journal

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Grants Pass, OR 97526

Start Your New Year Right! By John E. Anderson, Be Cause Business Resources, Inc.

Nothing’s better than starting the New Year Right!

As a business owner or executive, you strive to make every minute and resource count toward the success of your business. Now is the perfect time to review your strategy for 2018. Consider the following questions as you develop or review the goals and projects that will move your company forward in the new year.

Is your strategy clear? When we start the year right with clear objectives, we immediately have momentum. We’re moving. We’re rolling. And it feels good. We gain confidence as we make corrections and adjustments.

Is your strategy reflected in your goals? When we have a clear goal, a firm direction, it’s easier to stay on course. When surprises occur or we notice we’re going the wrong way, we can stop and make a quick correction.

Are your goals realistic and relevant? Know what you are willing to do to make it happen. Provide the resources

necessary to complete the goal, then build your team’s enthusiasm. It will take all of you if it’s a project that can make a real difference.

Have you done your research? Look at industry news. Talk to your colleagues, industry leaders and competitors. All projects begin as an inkling, a glimmer that takes shape. Your hunch becomes an insight which can grow into a distinct idea. We surf, follow social media, read and research, gaining new perspectives as we flesh out client needs, new markets, and possibilities.

Have you scheduled ways to get feedback? Brainstorming and discussion will generate new ideas and elicit answers. To accomplish your project, gather input from a variety of sources. Team-build as you carefully envision your project: the needs, resources, schedules, structures, and sequences.

Alternate between the strategic and the tactical. We move back and forth from dreamscape to action. Lists move us

towards initial project management and cash flow projections. Of course, there will be creative improvements. That’s what development is all about, building on a strong foundation.

Do forecasts and regularly check their accuracy. A goal becomes a scenario, and a written outline gets things started. A schedule of specifics with realistic dates matched to cash flow projections makes the idea more real. Increasing forecast accuracy instills a sense of credibility and reliability to the plans.

A clear strategy with goals, projects, and funding all designed to strengthen and grow your business will ultimately improve customer service, operations, and the bottom-line.

Get ready, get set….

This year’s been great. Let’s move forward. Nothing’s better than starting the New Year Right! See you at the next finish line!

John E. Anderson, CEO of Be Cause Business Resources and Author of Smart Exit™ Steer Your Business to Success and Companion Workbook

Southern Oregon Business Journal

In the Fall of 2017 John Anderson taught the Operations Management 340 course to 48 Juniors and Seniors at Washington State University in which the focus was on the management science of forecasting, quality, inventory management using statistics, and algebraic formulas to improve company performance. His Smart Exit article #6 will appear in the February 2018 issue of the Southern Oregon Business Journal.

Reprinted by permission

Mark Schaefer Keynote speaker, marketing consultant, author of KNOWN, executive branding coach I was at a conference this week and the speaker after me was an SEO expert of some kind. I was sort of paying attention but one slide made me look up. It said this: “The key to SEO success is to saturate the content landscape.” On the surface, this seems … yucky. We want quality over quantity, right? Well … it depends. In a world over-flowing with content, is saturation really our salvation? Let’s explore this idea. Content Shock in action A few years ago I wrote a post called Content Shock. The premise was simple: As the supply of content increases exponentially, the cost of competing through content will increase. In fact, it will become so expensive to compete with content that the strategy may be inaccessible for some businesses eventually. Many people characterized this post as “controversial” … which always confused me because it’s just common sense. When there’s too much of something (or too little of something) in any human, natural, or economic system there has to be an adjustment. Content included. Simple economics. In fact, we can observe signs of this assessment all around us. One dramatic example is Facebook. Organic reach on Facebook for most businesses has plummeted over the last five years. Why? Too much content. An average Facebook user now may see 2,000 stories a day on their feed — far too much, so Facebook has tuned its algorithm to block out the increasing wall of noise, which usually means our business content. As organic reach has declined, companies either had to spend more to improve their content or spend more promoting it — but either way the cost of content marketing goes up. We now learn that Facebook is running out of ad space and ad costs will be going up again. As the cost of content marketing increases, some will eventually have to find another alternative. Simply put, that is the economics of Content Shock in the real world. Southern Oregon Business Journal

Putting Content Shock to work for you The most important foundation of a content marketing strategy is influencing the long-term health of your site’s domain authority. Domain authority is the secret rating scale that Google uses to determine whether search traffic should go to you, or to your competitor. Domain authority is a critical indicator of the credibility, reliability, and usefulness of a website. The higher the score, the more search traffic that will be directed to a website. We cannot know precisely what goes into Google’s calculation, but we know it is a combination of factors such as:

• • • • • • • •

The age of the site Size of site (number of pages) Quality of sites linking back to you Quality of sites you link to in your own content Relevance of the content Keyword matches and density Consistency of published content Timeliness of information (is it constantly updated?)

Increasing a company’s domain authority (and search appeal) would mean consistent concentration on improving these areas. Google doesn’t share the precise domain authority rating for any website, but companies who specialize in search marketing analysis have developed standardized tools to provide an accurate estimate. I recently worked on a marketing strategy project for a company in the Northeast U.S. and did an analysis of their domain authority versus the competitors. I changed the names, but here is how the situation looked:

You can see that my customer, ABC Corp., is in a heap of trouble. Competitors like Gridlock and Navient have created Southern Oregon Business Journal

so much content for so long that their domain authority — and the resulting benefits from Google — are nearly unassailable. One of these companies has eleven blogs that it populates several times a week, and has been doing so for years. In essence, they have created Content Shock for ABC Corp and many of their competitors. They have simply overwhelmed many competitors with content. Becoming Google-sufficient Does the content have to be great? That depends. It has to be at least good enough, consistent enough, and current enough to win the search battle. Your content does not necessarily have to be great. It has to be Google-sufficient. In this case, there is a dog-fight among the top 3-4 competitors and the content is actually superb. These companies have multiple blogs, they’re creating original research, they have essential whitepapers and videos. So for my customer, not only is their niche overwhelmed by content, it’s overwhelmed by fantastic content. Content strategy does not start with content Let’s go back to that SEO slide one more time: “The key to SEO success is to saturate the content landscape.” I guess I have to agree with that. We can see here that Content Shock isn’t the problem — it’s the solution. This is the goal. Create Content Shock for your competitors by saturating your niche. My customer is late to the game — they’re in shock! — so we’re going to have to find some clever ways around the problem. But for many marketers out there, the content strategy is always the same: Let’s start a blog (or live video, or podcast …) without really looking at the information density situation in an industry. That is so frustrating to me. More content is often NOT the answer. If my customer simply just started a blog, you can see this would result in years of fruitless frustration. If your marketing department can’t give you an assessment of the information density in your industry and a plan to combat it (or maintain a lead) then you need to be asking some hard questions. So in the case of my customer, what IS the answer? Is content marketing a hopeless proposition? Calling on the Content Code In my book The Content Code, I have recipes for content strategies in just such a situation. Clearly, we can’t compete by just doing what the competitors are already doing. We need to find new ways to maneuver by finding vulnerabilities in the market … which I was able to do. In this case we are exploring a strategy that would involve:

• • • •

A new type of content that is un-contested in the industry A new distribution methodology to get our content seen in new ways Tapping into influencers as contributors and partners A curated industry newsletter that could go around the competitor dominance by solving a critical customer problem through content.

Content Shock is occurring in some measure in every industry vertical. Before you jump headlong into creating content, step back, assess the information density in your marketplace and think through a content blueprint that will really work. Make sense?

I appreciate you and the time you took out of your day to read this! You can find more articles like this from me on the top-rated {grow} blog and while you're there, take a look around and see what else I do at Schaefer Marketing Solutions. For news and insights find me on Twitter at @markwschaefer and to see what I do when I'm not working, follow me on Instagram. author, speaker, podcaster, and business consultant who blogs at {grow} — one of the top five marketing blogs of the world. He teaches graduate marketing classes at Rutgers University and has written six best-selling books. https://www.businessesgrow.com/Sign

Mark Schaefer

Southern Oregon Business Journal

llustration marked safe for re-use by Unsplash.com 21

U.S. wind generating capacity surpasses hydro capacity at the end of 2016

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory Note: Data include facilities with a nameplate capacity of one megawatt and above.

Installed wind electric generating capacity in the United States surpassed conventional hydroelectric generating capacity, long the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest source of renewable electricity, after 8,727 megawatts (MW) of new wind capacity came online in 2016. However, given the hydro fleetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s higher average capacity factors and the above-normal precipitation on the West Coast so far this year, hydro generation will likely once again exceed wind generation in 2017.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electricity Data Browser Note: Data include facilities with a nameplate capacity of one megawatt and above.

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Wind and hydro generation both follow strong seasonal patterns. Hydro generation typically reaches its seasonal peak in the spring and early summer, especially in the Pacific Northwest and California where about half of U.S. hydropower is produced. Across most of the country, wind generation typically peaks in the spring with a smaller peak in late fall and early winter. The Pacific Northwest and California have a slightly different seasonal pattern for wind resources, with generally only one peak in the early summer. In the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) electric system, which extends from northern Texas to North Dakota and Montana, wind power recently supplied more than half of the system’s generation mix for a brief period, reaching 52.1% (11,419 MW) in the early hours of February 12, 2017—a first for any of the seven U.S. regional transmission organization (RTO) electric systems that together serve two-thirds of the country’s electricity consumption. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) system which covers most of Texas continues to set records for the highest level of wind generation on any U.S. electric system. ERCOT’s most recent record of 16,022 MW occurred on the morning of December 25, 2016, and accounted for slightly more than 47% of the generation mix at the time.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly Note: Data include facilities with a nameplate capacity of one megawatt and above.

Compared with other electricity generating sources such as nuclear, geothermal, and combined-cycle natural gas, hydro and wind have lower average capacity factors (i.e., generation output as a percentage of total generating capacity). Both sources are sensitive to fluctuations in weather conditions such as droughts, heavy precipitation, and changes in regional wind patterns. Given the hydro fleet's historically higher capacity factors compared with wind and the expected strong hydrological conditions on the West Coast this year, such as the recent heavy rainfall in California and the Pacific Northwest, hydro generation in 2017 will likely still be higher than wind generation even with anticipated continuing additions of new wind capacity throughout the year. For electricity reliability planning purposes, hydro and wind capacity are reduced (or derated) when estimating their expected contributions to meet projected peak-period electricity demand. Hydro capacity is generally derated to a much lesser degree than wind capacity. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC’s) latest summer reliability assessment shows the difference between the nameplate capacity and the expected on-peak capacity for variable renewable sources (wind, solar, and hydro) in each region. In both SPP and the PJM Interconnection electric system, which covers a highly populated area of Mid-Atlantic, Southern, and Midwestern states, hydro provides more expected on-peak capacity than wind even though there is about twice as much installed wind capacity as hydro capacity in both regions. Principal contributor: April

Lee

Southern Oregon Business Journal

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Oregon Coal Mines - "Who'da

Thunk It?"

BY GARY SWANSON Oregon Coal Mines once prospered along with our gold mines.

We are known for our gold mining history, but few people realize that there's coal in "them thar hills." The southern Oregon coast wasn't much of a gold producing area, but they did discover vast stores of coal in the early 1850's south of Coos Bay.

One of the largest Oregon Coal Mines was the Beaver Hill mine.

http://activerain.com

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Oregon Coal Mines supplied much of San Francisco's coal supply starting in the mid 1850's. Oregon Coal Mines prospered up into the mid 1880's, when coal prices plummeted and they ran into employee troubles. Since most Oregon Coal Mines had been bought by outsiders by that time, the mines began to fold. Oregon Coal Mines once numbered over seventy.

The final blow to coal prices came when ship's ballast was being comprised of coal, when the ships unloaded in San Francisco, they also sold the ballast, thus driving coal prices down and helping to bring about the demise of the Oregon Coal Mines.

http://www.bigskyco2.org

Now, Oregon gets its' coal from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming. It is said that 40% of the United States gets its' coal from this area.

More hikes and adventures in beautiful and wild Southern Oregon are yours by ordering "Hiking Sasquatch Country." This book gives you directions, GPS coordinates, and a full photo log to fun in Southern Oregon. You can purchase it at Amazon.com or any major bookstore.

Grants Pass, OR â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Century 21 Harris & Taylor Century 21 Real Estate http://www.glswansonhomes.com GL Swanson Homes Blog http://activerain.com/profile/glswansonhomes

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Coal Scorecard: Your Guide To Coal In The Northwest EarthFix Special Report: Coal in the Northwest By: Katie Campbell

The economic expansion in Asia during the 2010s ramped up that region’s demand for coal. And the energy resource is in abundance in the Powder River Basin that straddles the Montana-Wyoming border. But how to get it from the Rocky Mountain heartland of North America to factories and power plants in China, Japan, South Korea? That’s where proposed coal export terminals came in. Earlier in the decade six projects in Oregon and Washington were on the table. But one by one, they fell by the wayside. In September, 2017, the last remaining project, on the Columbia River in Longview, Washington, was rejected by the state Department of Ecology. Each project drew support for promised jobs and local economic benefits. Critics pointed to the potential for negative environmental and human health impacts and traffic congestion. Read on to learn more about each of the projects.

Millenium Bulk Terminals: Longview, Wash. A $640 million terminal that would eventually have exported 44 million tons of coal at a private brownfield site near Longview, Wash. It’s a joint venture of Australia’s Ambre Energy and Arch Coal, the second-largest coal producer in the U.S. Players: Alcoa, Ambre Energy, Arch Coal Full Capacity: To be reached by 2018 Export Plans: 44 million short tons/year Southern Oregon Business Journal

Trains: 16 trains/day (8 full and 8 empty) Train Cars: 960/day Vessels: 2/day

What happened: A series of unfavorable rulings for the project led to the biggest blow on Sept. 26, 2017, when the Washington Department of Ecology ruled the project would have caused “significant and unavoidable harm” to nine environmental areas: air quality, vehicle traffic, vessel traffic, rail capacity, rail safety, noise pollution, social and community resources, cultural resources, and tribal resources. Less than a month later backers announced on Oct. 24 their intent to sue Washington and challenge the permitting decision. On April 29, 2017 Cowlitz County and the Washington Department of Ecology issued their final environmental impact statement on the project. Its findings include that it would raise the cancer risk for people living near rail lines, create traffic jams with its mile-long coal trains and increase global greenhouse gas emissions by 2 million tons. On Jan. 3, 2017, Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark announced his decision to deny a sublease request for the coal terminal. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released its draft on Sept. 30,2016. The draft EIS was narrower in scope than that issued in the spring by Washington state. It was favorable to the proposal but cited traffic congestion, railroad noise, and impacts on wildlife and wetlands as impacts. On April 29, 2016, the Washington Department of Ecology and Cowlitz County released a draft report environmental impact statement. It determined that coal dust, greenhouse gas emissions, noise and traffic congestion are among the environmental impacts from the proposed coal export terminal. In September 2013, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced split from what was to be a joint review process. It conducted a “separate but synchronized environmental review and public scoping process.”

Gateway Pacific Terminal: near Bellingham, Wash.

Seattle-based SSA Marine wanted to build a terminal within the Cherry Point Aquatic Reserve. It would have shipped millions of tons of coal from Montana and Wyoming to Asia. The company said it would have created thousands of jobs and generated millions in tax and other revenues. Players: SSA Marine, Peabody Energy, Gateway Pacific, Korea EastWest Power Full Capacity: To be reached in 2026 Export Plans: 48 million tons/year Train: 18 trains/day (9 full and 9 empty) Train Cars: 1,370/day Vessels: 487/year What Happened: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced on May 9, 2016 that it had rejected a needed permit for the project to proceed. It said the coal terminal would have resulted in unacceptable harm to the Lummi Tribe’s treaty-protected rights to fish in its usual and customary fishing grounds. On Jan. 3, 2017, the outgoing Washington State Lands Commissioner, Peter Goldmark, announced a move that will make it difficult to revive the proposal: he was incorporating into the Cherry Point Aquatic Reserve a 45-acre area where the project’s pier was to be built.

Port of Grays Harbor: Hoquiam, Wash. There are no official agreements or permits for the terminal proposal. RailAmerica, the company that had been considering building the terminal, announced in August, 2012 it was no longer interested. The company previously said it would create 60 full-time jobs exporting 5 million tons of coal. The Port of Grays Harbor says it would have increased annual vessel traffic by 100 ships. Player: RailAmerica Southern Oregon Business Journal

Full Capacity: To Be Determined Export Plans: 5.5 million short tons Train Cars: 2 trains/day Vessels: 100/year What Happened: Rail America abandoned its plans in August, 2012 before submitting a formal application or permit request to start the terminal construction process.

Port Westward: Port of St. Helens, Ore. Texas-based Kinder Morgan proposed to design, build and operate a coal export terminal at the Port of St. Helens. PGE dealt a blow to the plan. The utility didn’t want coal dust interfering with equipment at its nearby natural gas-fired power plant. Players: Kinder Morgan Energy Partners Full Capacity: To Be Determined (TBD) Export Plans: 30 million tons/year Trains: TBD Train Cars: TBD Vessels: TBD What Happened: Kinder Morgan announced in May, 2013 it was abandoning plans for the export terminal. It said it is interested in building at an alternative site in the Northwest.

Morrow Pacific: Ports of Morrow and St. Helens, Ore. This two-port plan would have brought coal by rail to the Port of Morrow in Boardman, Ore. The Boardman terminal is also known as the Coyote Island Terminal. There it would have been transferred by barge and delivered to the Port of St. Helens and loaded onto ships headed for Asia. Players: Ambre Energy North America & Pacific Transloading, Lighthouse Resources Inc. Full Capacity: To be reached by 2016 Export Plans: 8.8 million short tons/year Trains: 22 trains/week (11 full and 11 empty) Trains Cars: 1,459/week Barges: 12 tows/week Vessels: 128/year What Happened: In August, 2014 the Oregon Department of State Lands denied a dredging permit to build a dock near Boardman, Ore., saying the project “is not consistent with the protection, conservation and best use of the state’s water resources.” The Army Corps of Engineers followed that decision by halting its own environmental assessment of the project. On Oct. 13, 2016, Lighthouse Resources announced it was abandoning the project and would instead transport coal by rail to Westshore Terminals in Vancouver, B.C.

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Project Mainstay: Port of Coos Bay, Ore. The port was in negotiations with Metro Ports, a stevedoring and terminal management company based in California, and Mitsui, a large international trading company involved with commodities. Players: Metro Ports (Mitsui and Korean Electric Power Corp. dropped out). Full Capacity: to be reached by 2023 Export Plans: 11 million short tons/year Trains: 4 trains (2 full and 2 empty) Train Cars: 600/day Vessels: 200/year What Happened: The Port of Coos Bay was left without sufficient support to proceed after all three of its business partners â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Metropolitan Stevedore Co., Mitsui and the Korean Electric Power Corp. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; dropped out of negotiations in March, 2013. the port is not ruling out a restart with new or returning negotiating partners. To proceed, the port and private companies would have needed to acquire land on the North Spit from the Port and negotiated a deal over access to the rail line, or decide to walk away from the project. The Port was seeking dredging permits from government regulators. The dredging would have deepened the channel to accommodate vessels carrying a variety of commodities, which could include coal .

Southern Oregon Business Journal

*Includes coal and other dry bulk commodities such as grain. NOTE: The U.S. Energy Information Administration uses the U.S. short ton in its coal reports. A U.S. short ton is 2,000 pounds.

The Age of Automation Is at Hand, Literally CFM State Affairs Team

This chart prepared by ECONorthwest shows every corner of Oregon is at risk of job losses resulting from the advance of automation. The spread of robotic applications is advancing faster than educators, workers and policymakers may think, which should prompt serious debate about policies to take advantage of new innovative opportunities and cope with workers and communities left behind. Robots could replace half of Oregonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s workforce by as early as 2030. We could be surrounded by robotic skin much sooner than that. Southern Oregon Business Journal

Automation has represented a job threat for eons, but the fear was largely the stuff of science fiction and obscure graduate student theses. No more. ECONorthwest has produced a study showing jobs in Oregon ranging from flipping burgers to analyzing X-Rays are at risk of automation. To cope, we may find consolation in draping ourselves with robotic skin developed at Oregon State University that can stretch after we consume a huge Thanksgiving dinner, adjust to fluctuating temperatures and administer our medications. We may be out of work, but we barely have to get out of bed. The ECONorthwest report was fuel for conversation at the Oregon Business Summit, where the prospect of 50 percent of Oregon workers being displaced deserved to be a topic worthy of serious debate.

• Adjustments are needed in educational training and expectations, innovative companies that still need humans should be nurtured and the social safety net should be strengthened for people washed out of the workplace.

• Concepts such as universal basic income and health insurance coverage need to move from the political fringes to serious policy consideration.

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Meanwhile, back in the research lab, researchers are developing “soft robotbodies.” mLabRobotics at Oregon State University is designing “soft-bodied robots with pre- programmed shapes to enable snake-like location and gentle manipulation.” These are robots that can go where their metal cousins can’t.

Researchers think the same techniques can be applied to robotic apparel, giving our skin its own skin. If we no longer elbow-by-joint with metal robots, we will be joined at the hip wearing them. Fretting over robotics is a lost cause. Robotics are hurdling forward, promising seismic shifts in how and where we work, how medical diagnoses and procedures take place and how we individually adjust to a bulging belly or a winter chill.

Robots belong in the conversation about making America great again . Attempts to revive the US coal industry tell the story. To the extent more coal is mined, the digging and driving will be largely done by robots, not coal miners. Looking backward is not a viable option.

(For further thoughts on automation, read http://www.cfm-online.com/marketing-pr- blog/2014/7/14/unique-offeringswith-clear-value.html?rq=Automation)

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Comfort Feed

Concept Second Place Comfort Feed was developed by Erika Maritz who worked as a Radiation Therapist for 14 years at the Community Cancer Center. She noticed a need for patients who had feeding tubes and struggled to manage them. After years of giving them to patients and modifying it based on patient feedback, Erika now presents to this patient population a feeding tube holder to meet the needs of these people in a comfortable and efficient manner through her company Oregon Medical Solutions, LLC.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The RAIN event is exactly what I needed to jump start my business and build my confidence so I can take the Comfort Feed to market through my company Oregon Medical Solutions, LLC.â&#x20AC;? www.oregonmedicalsolutions.com

Southern Oregon Business Journal

ISM: Manufacturing Remained Robust in November, with Production at Fastest Pace in 6½ Years

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said that manufacturing activity expanded robustly in November, even as it pulled back for the second straight month from September’s reading, which was the fastest pace since May 2004. The ISM Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) decreased from 58.7 in October to 58.2 in November. Even with some easing in the headline number, the underlying data remained promising, with respondents citing strong growth in demand and an optimistic outlook for next year. Indeed, production (up from 61.0 to 63.9) accelerated at its fastest pace since March 2011. New orders (up from 63.4 to 64.0), employment (down from 59.8 to 59.7) and exports (down from 56.5 to 56.0) also signified hardy increases in November, even with some easing in the latter two indices. The labor market for manufacturers continued to be tight, with the hiring index averaging 59.9 over the past four months, up from a more modest 52.5 one year ago. In addition, improvements in the global economy have been helpful for manufacturers, with exports expanding for 21 straight months. Meanwhile, prices for raw materials (down from 68.5 to 65.5) remained elevated despite the input cost index decelerating from September’s rate, which was the highest in more than six years. While we have seen decelerating pricing pressures in general since the spring months, this more-recent pickup reflects a rebound in some commodity costs. In other news, inventories (down from 48.0 to 47.0) contracted for the second straight month, with stockpiles declining after modest gains in both August and September.

Chad Moutray is chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the Director of the Center for Manufacturing Research for The Manufacturing Institute, where he serves as the NAM’s economic forecaster and spokesperson on economic issues. He frequently comments on current economic conditions for manufacturers through professional presentations and media interviews. He has appeared on Bloomberg, CNBC, C-SPAN, Fox Business and Fox News, among other news outlets. Chad Moutray

Southern Oregon Business Journal

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Simple Screens

Launch Phase Winner

Simple screens is developing a web application for medical and dental clinics to improve the patient intake process and streamline patient questionnaires.

Simple Screens develops and sells a digital screening system to improve the patient intake process. The specialized web application system is used in primary care medical and dental clinics to gather patient information. Gathering this information helps clinics satisfy various metrics thereby improving overall patient care and aiding monetary reimbursement. Using our tablet web application helps clinics save staff time and reduce costs.

P R E N E U R

Dr. Jay Richards with assistant Justin Deedon Southern Oregon Business Journal

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Somehow the fitness motivation takes hold and it becomes a part of you. For Andrea, in her late 20’s, it was when she sold her Toyota for $400 leaving her without transportation to work. So, she borrowed a friend’s bike – and she became a cyclist, and then came running. Then a friend invited her to join in a duathlon. By then she was hooked. Being fit felt good.

And now Andrea says she gets to play every day.

E N T R E P R E

”There is nothing like doing something you’ve never done before.”

Andrea Bowden was never an athlete but was a a gym-rat who enjoyed running and cycling. Later discovering obstacle racing and fitness competitions, she found her passion. Now she finds herself dedicated to showing others how to complete personal “bucket list dreams”.

A one-year class offering can take her classes from “Today you can’t, tomorrow you can.” (After some training, of course.)

In that year students may go through trainings in Obstacle Course Racing - OCR, Triathlons, duathlons, and resistance training.

R Andrea presented her concept of gym ownership in the 2017 RAIN competition at Umpqua Community College. Though she didn’t take home the Angel Investor’s top prize she left an impression on the audience.

Southern Oregon Business Journal