UCEDC Today! Issue #14 Summer 2014 www.ucedc.org Union County Economic Development Corporation

UCEDC Member News

Tour of Boise Cascade Particleboard Plant On June 12, 2014, all of the local business members who provide financial support to UCEDC were invited on a tour of Boise Cascade’s Particleboard Plant, adjacent to the Baum Industrial Park. About 25 people attended the event.

Boise calls their product “The Productivity Panel.” They have been manufacturing a high quality particleboard at this facility since 1966. The plant is presently operating at just over the 50% capacity, with 110 employees on the payroll. Their current sales volume is 135 million square feet of particleboard. The predominant wood fiber species used is ponderosa pine, which provides a highly machinable substrate, light in color. Industrial 45# density is the most common panel they produce, and is used in the manufacture of furniture, kitchen cabinets, consumer electronic cabinets, store fixtures, and game tables. This product is suitable for a variety of finishes (laminates and coatings), but is renowned for its machining performance and edge integrity. They also manufacture 47# and 50# density panels that provide additional edge consolidation and surface properties.

The BC staff at the plant did a great job of explaining what they have had to resort to in order to keep up their raw materials supply, as the government severely reduced the timber harvest, and how the plant was able to keep operating during the last few years of low product demand. Broken up

Waldrop Oil: A Family Business Success Story

Back on March 1, 1966, Don and Lila Waldrop purchased the Mobil Oil bulk plant from Orville Lee, returning to Union County from Pendleton, where Don had been working in a similar facility. That was the beginning of Waldrop Oil Company. There were 11 other bulk plants competing in the area at that time. The business began with just one delivery truck, an employee and Don himself was the driver for the first 5-6 years of operation.

In 1981, Don saw an opportunity for expansion of the business when he bought, the Flying “J” Truck Stop, which had formerly been a Husky Truck Stop. At that same time, he established what has become the parent company, A&B Enterprises. Now, 48 years after Don and Lila returned to the Grande Ronde Valley, that initial oil company has blossomed into a variety of businesses – linked to the original – at six separate locations in La Grande, and one in Baker City. They include Waldrop Oil, the Flying “J” Travel Plaza, Oak Street Shell/Burger King, C&M Country Store/Subway, By-Rite Texaco, La Grande Eat and Run/Subway/Baskin Robbins, and the Baker City Chevron,. The “Pacific Pride” Card Lock business is included at four of these locations.

The company has become one of the larger employers in Union County, with about 170 full and part-time employees. One thing that the Waldrop’s are most proud of is that approximately half of these employees are younger part-time high school and college students who are looking to earn money at jobs that offer them either more flexible hours or a more flexible schedule, to better fit in with their school work. A number of these employees are enrolled in Eastern Oregon University’s nursing, education, computer science or business

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Issue #14 Summer 2014 www.ucedc.org Union County Economic Development Corporation

programs, or Moda’s dental hygiene program. These part-time jobs are giving students valuable business experience while they are pursuing their career paths.

What started out as a “Mom and Pop” bulk oil business has expanded into a classic family operation, with son Brian as President, and son Doug and daughters Shelly Dall and Vicki Lanman as vice presidents. Vicki’s husband Mike Lanman also works as the company’s dispatcher and bulk truck driver, delivering to farmers, loggers, and local businesses. These siblings are now all equal shareowners of A&B Enterprises, and Don also continues to work in the business. From time to time, this family business also has grandchildren working somewhere in the business to help offset college or other expenses.

The Waldrop’s were the first in Union County to expand into the growing “convenience store” business, and today, those stores are one of the two mainstays of the business. The other mainstay of the business is with the Burger King and Subway stores, using the idea of co-branding, where fast food is incorporated into a gas station’s operation. They have since found that this combination of services at one location has become one of the unique features of this locally owned business, and one of many reasons for their steady growth over 44 of the last 48 years. Don states that from 2008 to 2012, the business was flat because of the recession, but it has come back again over the past two years, and they are looking for steady growth in the future.

One thing is for sure, the Waldrop’s have found a unique way to keep their family here at home by continuing to change with the times, and developing a business model that now provides them all with challenging jobs. And by doing this as a family, they have also established an ownership transition plan that will work for them and all of their employees well into the future.

This business that is spread out around the La Grande-Island City area would not be able to function from day to day were it not for the hard work of nine capable managers at various locations. Those managers include Nikki Robertson as the Headquarters Office Manager and Mark Madsen at the C&M Country Store/Subway/Pacific Pride store in Island City, Tonya Adair at the By-Rite/ Pacific Pride station and Tina Baxter at the La Grande Eat and Run/Subway/Baskin Robbins stores on the Island City Strip, Cheryl Gunter at the Oak Street Shell station and Liz Blake at the Burger King store on Oak and Adams Avenue, Trisha Hafer at the Flying “J” Travel Plaza/Pacific Pride station and Tony Magee at the Flying “J” Restaurant at the I-84 Exit 265 Interchange, and Andy Borbon at the Baker City Chevron/Pacific Pride Station.

Don is currently serving as a member of the Property Committee of the Union County Economic Development Corporation. As a former president of UCEDC, Don stated that the highlight of that service to the organization was when the Particleboard Plant was threatened with a shutdown from the DEQ because of a lack of land for proper land disposal of their treated wastewater, the UCEDC Board was able to broker a land swap of 25 acres of land in the Baum Industrial Park for some Boise Cascade land in Elgin, land that has since become Elgin’s Boots Churchill Industrial Park.

Team UCEDC Board of Directors

Mark Davidson ~ President Russell Lester ~Vice President Carrie Brogoitti ~ Secretary

Mike Poe ~ Treasurer & Finance Chair Dale Case ~ Past President & Property Chair Robert Strope ~ Comm. & Marketing Chair

Steve Anderson ~ Membership Chair Sam Kimball • Jeff Crews

John Lackey • Tim Seydel • Greg Barreto

Staff Dan Stark ~ Executive Director

Mandi Case ~ Administrative Assistant

Members Boise Wood Products, Inc.

Pendleton Grain Growers, Inc. Grande Ronde Hospital

Rogers Asphalt Paving, Inc. Seydel, Lewis, Poe, Moeller & Gunderson

Valley Realty W C Construction

A & B Enterprises/Waldrop Oil Company Wheatland Insurance Center

Avista Corporation Banner Bank

Steve Anderson (Anderson Consulting) Eastern Oregon University

Carrie Brogoitti Barreto Manufacturing Co. Oregon Trail Electric Co-op

David Baum (Baum, Smith, & Eyre) U.S. Bank

Howard Butts (Bearco LLC) Dale Case (Sandridge Agriprises)

Action Plumbing Bill Hermann (Hermann Financial)

Anderson-Perry & Associates Curt Howell (Oregon Trail Seeds) Bagett, Griffith & Blackman, Inc.

Steve Joseph (Joseph & Ricker LLC) Dr. Stephen McLean Bowman Trucking

Sandra Patterson (City of Union) La Grande Family Eyecare

Bob Brooks Painting Joe Petrusek, M.D.

Brogoitti Construction Teri Simonis (Training & Emp. Consortium)

Community Bank Ed Staub (Ed Staub & Sons)

Davidson Automotive Machine Jamie Tibbs (Eagle Cap Steel & Supply)

Eagle Carriage & Machine, Inc. Bill Whittemore (Wallowa Lake Tramway)

Eastern Oregon Net, Inc. Eastern Oregon Title, Inc.

Fashion Floors/Carpet One John J. Howard & Associates

Mountain West Moving & Storage Sterling Savings Bank/Umpqua Bank

Red Cross Drug Store B& K Auto Salvage and Recycling

Waldrop Oil, cont.

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Issue #14 Summer 2014 www.ucedc.org Union County Economic Development Corporation

A company planning to locate in a new community considers the local “time to market” as a primary critical factor in siting a new plant – how soon will the plant be operating. Companies often limit their initial search to existing buildings as a strategy to shorten the “time to market.” This has been the case in thirteen of the last nineteen leads forwarded from the State of Oregon. If a company is opting to construct their facility, the key criterion for selection is the time it will it take to complete permits and reviews, build the plant and begin operations.

What can we do locally to enhance our “time to market” reputation and gain an advantage in business recruitment?

1. For our available industrial properties, we need to provide all site development information to the prospective developer. This includes all geotechnical data and utility connection clearances, information usually left to the developer to obtain. While this is an upfront expense for the landowner, it will provide a competitive edge in marketing the property.

2. Union County does not possess an inventory of vacant industrial space, but we can overcome the deficiency by implementing a strategy in play in other communities, the marketing of “virtual buildings:”

To develop a virtual building requires taking the design drawings and specifications for a basic industrial or manufacturing building, say 20,000 or 40,000 square feet in floor area, and process the plans through the local permitting agency and obtain all necessary utility and site plan approvals for use of the building and property as well as a definite price to develop the property and a development schedule to construct the building.

With the “virtual building” approval in hand, companies can easily estimate their “time to market,” see the competitive advantage of the site, and reduce their overall development costs. This strategy can give us a means of overcoming this deficit of available industrial space and more aggressively market our community. UCEDC is initiating a project to develop a “virtual building” in the La Grande Business & Technology Park. The process will be new to Union County and will require flexibility in our permitting program as well as a public-private partnership to develop and market the strategy. We will provide regular updates on this initiative.

Site Link at Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Charlie Mitchell with the City of La Grande and I attended Site Link™ on May 7-9 at the CTUIR Conference Center. Site Link™ provided the opportunity to meet and have discussions with seven site selection consultants from around the United States. The event was an exceptionally cost-effective means of making valuable contacts, and the takeaways from discussions with these professionals and their individual presentations in brief are Identify your biggest recruitment problem and focus on a fix then move to the next problem • Laser focus on your targeted industries

> Do the research on specific companies and people > Know the industry trends and their cost structure

• Know your workforce and have training assets ready • Identify your tangible and intangible community assets • Get your local business leaders engaged in recruitment

– tell your success stories • Get your message out within the selected target

industries and the site selection consultant community • Update your website regularly as it is the portal to your

recruitment strategy

Given Union County’s location, we need to be innovative in our business recruitment strategies and utilize the expertise of those professional engaged in assisting in site location decisions to assure we are using the right tools and tactics to reach our targeted market.

in groups, the members were shown through the plant itself, including the particleboard

production line, where the board material is carefully placed in three layers on a huge conveyor belt, trimmed, injected with resin, and then pressed into boards of various sizes and thicknesses. The group also toured through the bundling, storage, and indoor rail and truck shipping facilities at the plant. Afterward, a short members appreciation reception was held in the plant conference room, with lots of goodies served to the group.

Tour, continued from page 1

Director’s Update – Dan Stark, Executive Director

Virtual buildings and Site Selection

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Issue #14 Summer 2014 www.ucedc.org Union County Economic Development Corporation

City of La Grande Work begins on new initiatives The City of La Grande is currently formulating plans and strategies around two new Economic Development initiatives aimed at improving the economic health of the community. These, and three other Urban Renewal Initiatives, were developed during the City Council’s annual planning retreat in January 2014. The two initiatives aimed at Economic Development are in direct support of the City’s Economic Development Plan.

1. Develop and implement an incentive program for non-retail new business development. This initiative is in direct partnership with UCEDC and involves more aggressive marketing of the La Grande Business & Technology Park. Along with UCEDC, La Grande will participate in the new TEAM Oregon Advanced Manufacturing program, teaming up with colleague communities around the state to market areas for new industrial business development, particularly in the industry focus areas of metals and transportation fabrication and manufacturing. At least one key outreach event is already planned: to attend FABTec, a major metal fabrication trade show in Atlanta in November 2014. The Urban Renewal Agency is also working on implementing a new incentive program that will provide cash grants to qualifying businesses that relocate or expand into the Business Park and create new jobs.

The City will also be working to expand the Grande Ronde Enterprise Zone to include newly-zoned heavy large-lot industrial sites on the west side of Pierce Road. The City will also be working with UCEDC to rework existing marketing plans and strategies to reflect what was learned during the recent SiteLink event at Wildhorse and the hosting of site selector Don Schjeldahl in May. For example, as learned from these two sources and elsewhere, the number-one driver for business relocation is labor-related and the access to a qualified workforce and the ability to access short-term customized training opportunities. 2. Develop and implement economic development training for the Council. So that “everyone is on the same page” and to help manage expectations, a special training session with the current seated Council, members of the Urban Renewal Advisory Commission, and Council candidates was held on June 23rd, 2014. This event was aimed at helping City staff and the elected officials to better understand where the community is headed with its proposed economic development efforts, and what can and should be expected as reasonable outcomes, the associated risks and rewards, and what the roles and responsibilities should be for those involved. The training session was facilitated by a member of the Oregon Business Development.

Board Member Profile

Connected to the community Since joining UCEDC’s board in early 2013, Carrie Brogoitti has been an active member of the membership committee and was recently elected secretary of the corporation.

Carrie began working at Center for Human Development as the public health administrator in 2008. In this role she supports and assures Union County’s role as the local public health authority. In addition to her participation in UCEDC, Carrie is an active in a number of multiple community-based projects including U.C. Fit Kids Executive Committee (Childhood Obesity Prevention Coalition) and Union County Safe Community Coalition (Youth Substance Abuse Prevention). She is also an active participant in multiple state-level groups with the goal of assuring rural representation. All in all she has spent nearly 20 years working for nonprofit health and social service organizations with significant experience in grant-based fundraising.

As a Union County native, Carrie has a strong interest in supporting UCEDC’s efforts to help our community thrive. Her commitment to being an active member of UCEDC is both professional and personal. Public health is focused on assuring the health and wellbeing of every Union County resident. One of the most important factors in creating optimum health, well being, and quality of life is an economically sound community. UCEDC is a critical partner in building Union County’s economic health. Carrie’s personal commitment to this work is her desire to raise her children in a community with a strong economy that offers them a wide range of opportunities that allow them to stay here their entire lives.

The Rogers Building, built in 1892 (now known as the Phoenix Building) is undergoing a façade update in downtown La Grande.

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Issue #14 Summer 2014 www.ucedc.org Union County Economic Development Corporation

“Access to a local community college or technical school resources is a must if a community is to attract new industry.”

This is the assessment of Don Schjeldahl, a site selection consultant who advises companies in their search for new sites for expansion or relocation. Schjeldahl visited Union County on May 16 at the invitation of UCEDC. The focus of the visit was to familiarize him with the local business recruitment strengths and weaknesses, our recruitment assets, and the local business recruitment strategy. In return, Schjeldahl offered his insights on the county’s business recruitment strengths and weaknesses, industries we should target that suit our local assets, and strategies we can employ to improve our outreach to targeted industries and improve our range of recruitment leads.

Schjeldahl’s comment regarding technical training resources came during a morning roundtable discussion attended by twenty-three local business and community leaders. While rural communities can be competitive in business recruitment in the digital age, they need to recognize that workforce quality has become the leading factor in location decisions. Lacking access to workforce training resources can be an automatic disqualification in the eyes of a site selection consultant. It is the consensus of the roundtable attendees that addressing the need for access to technical training resources is of primary importance to Union County. It is also recognized the need can only be addressed by a strong private-public partnership. The day continued with a tour of Eastern Oregon University’s Badgley Hall, led by Dr. Anna Cavinato and a luncheon on campus where Dr. Steve Clemens of the business and MBA programs shared recent activities that provided technical assistance to the regional economy. Following the luncheon, the group toured industrially zoned properties in Union County. At the end of the tour, Don provided his initial impressions of the local business recruitment program and addressed strategies to improve on that program.

! The County’s targeted industries are too broad, we need have a laser focus on specific industries and companies ! We need to refine and sharpen our business recruitment strategy to shape our marketing message and outreach ! We need to advertise our successes and assets, such as Eastern Oregon University, Boise Cascade, Northwood

Manufacturing, Grande Ronde Hospital and Barreto Manufacturing ! We need to shape our website to the needs of site selection process as it is the portal to our recruitment strategy ! We need to focus on our strengths ! We need to recognize and work on overcoming our weaknesses

As for specific industries to target, Mr. Schjeldahl targeted the following, building on our existing list of targeted industries

! Secondary wood products, such as companies using the particleboard produced by Boise Cascade, ! RV supply chain and related manufacturing such as utility trailers and other transportation related manufacturing, ! Advanced metal processing shops that require access to clean water supply ! Agricultural processing needing access to clean water supply which we can provide at a very competitive price ! Backroom and data processing centers needing fiber bandwidth capacity

In closing, Mr. Schjeldahl highlighted the opportunity to partner with EOU to develop a strategy of making Union County a center of innovation, building on the resources available at EOU and the local development assets of higher education, land, transportation and utilities.

About UCEDC Today! UCEDC Today! is being sent to you as a supporting member of the Union County Economic Development Corporation. The publication is produced by the membership committee: Steve Anderson, Tim Seydel, Carrie Brogoitti, Jeff Crews, Greg Barreto, Dan Stark and Mandi Case.

! UCEDC is a public-private partnership. ! Our primary goal is job retention and creation. ! UCEDC manages and markets its own and other

“shovel ready” industrial sites.

102 Depot Street Phone: (541) 963-0926 P.O. Box 1208 Toll Free: 1-800-806-7278 La Grande, OR 97850 Fax: (541) 963-0689

Union County through the eyes of a site selection pro

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