Ellen Wyoming Promoted to Associate

Cogan Owens Cogan, LLC is delighted to announce that Ellen Wyoming has been promoted to Associate as a full-time colleague with the firm beginning January 1, 2013. Ellen brings experience, creativity and passion for equity in urban and community planning, authentic community involvement with diverse groups of people, and culturally-appropriate organizing and facilitating.  She is keenly focused on the intersection of planning and economic opportunity, and looks forward to continuing to increase her capacity as a planner in her work related to creating vibrant, sustainable, and healthy communities.

In her capacity as Associate, Ellen will be managing projects including a Tsunami preparedness guide for Oregon coastal communities. She also is working on research of trends over time that will affect estuaries along the Oregon coast. Both projects are for the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development. She is assisting with the public involvement process for a voluntary annexation strategy for South Hillsboro and has been working with the Tulalip Tribes in Washington on a neighborhood and green infrastructure planning project. Most recently, she was project manager for the development of the Portland Mercado, an initiative of Hacienda Community Development Corporation for a new Latino-themed public market to serve more than three dozen new low-income Latino entrepreneurs.

Ellen was awarded the American Planning Association Award for Application of the Planning Process for her work on the Portland Mercado as a graduate student in Portland State University’s Master of Urban and Regional Planning program. She also was awarded the Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association’s award for Student Achievement in Planning for the Portland Mercado project. She can be reached at 503-278-3462 or ellen.wyoming@coganowens.com

Economically, we are what we eat

We currently import at least 90 percent our food from outside the Portland region, about $4.7 billion a year with related inputs included. We could increase our regional wealth by between $470 million and $940 million annually if we shifted between 10 and 20 percent of our purchases from imported to local foods.

Through his compelling article, Economically, we are what we eat, Bob Wise addresses those facts and examines the challenges of providing local foods in Oregon.  He asks, if we are sitting in the midst of one of the world’s most food-abundant places, why is it so difficult to buy food grown here?  The answer is that we import most of the food we eat.  Bob considers ways to reverse this significant “leakage” dynamic. He proposes strategic solutions to findings from several recent research projects conducted by COC and regional partners that attempt to answer these questions:  how we can support expanded agriculture to accommodate import substitution, what it would take to increase demand and supply of local food, how to help farmers keep a greater share of the food dollar and stay in business, and how we can increase our human and social capital to support the food economy.

The blog is the second in a series of six articles on import substitution on the Sustainable Business Oregon website.

Bob Wise Launches Series of Articles in Sustainable Business Oregon

On January 31, Bob Wise posted the first of six articles on import substitution at www.sustainablebusinessoregon.com/columns. The first article summarizes the crisis in job creation facing Oregon and the nation.  Currently most economic development strategies are focused on exports of products – the traded sector.  This strategy attempts to capture money from elsewhere and bring it to Oregon.  Bob details a totally separate but compatible economic development strategy of import substitution.  At its simplest, import substitution replaces spending on imported goods and services for those made locally.  This approach keeps money here and circulating rather than sending it away.  Over the next few weeks Bob will address how this strategy can be applied to the food we eat, energy we consume, houses we build, public works we construct, and the exemplary companies focused on these markets and others.

Arnold Cogan Leads Eco-Industrial Tour to Devens, MA

Recently, Arnold Cogan, Founding Principal of COC, led a group of executives from the Port of Portland to Devens, Massachusetts to learn firsthand of the eco-industrial development practices there that can be applied to Port facilities.  Andreas Koenig, Senior Advisor for Sustainable Management for Re-Tem Global, Inc., who has been a consultant to Devens for the past 12 years, also led the group.  Keith Leavitt, the Port’s General Manager for Business Development and Properties, and Tom Imeson, the Port’s Public Affairs Director, represented the Port.

An eco-industrial area is a community of manufacturing and service enterprises located on a common property or in the same region.  Member companies enjoy enhanced environmental, economic and social performance by collaborating to manage resources.

The Devens Eco-Industrial Park is located on 4,400 acres approximately 35 miles from Boston.  It has been operating for about 15 years and is home to about 90 businesses, 70% of which are small to medium manufacturing, distribution and recycling enterprises.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was instrumental in creating the expedited permitting process used in Devens.  Earlier this year, the Oregon Legislature passed SB 766 whose overriding purpose is to make it possible to expedite the process of permitting job-generating industries.  The experience in Devens may be useful as Oregon explores the potential of SB 766.