“It was so awesome”

“At one time, I had volunteered for hospice care and I remembered how deeply moved I was by a patient’s failure to thrive. I also remembered attending a lighting conference in 2008 where I learned about lighting used in neonatal intensive care that greatly improved the infants’ ability to thrive. Putting these two realizations together…

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Asymmetrical Pricing

By: Adam Cuppy Starting a business is hard enough; setting your price is like calling the shot blindfolded. You might have heard of “asymmetrical risk and reward,” but if you haven’t, let me bring you up to speed… Asymmetrical risk and reward is when you position yourself so that the upside far outweighs the potential…

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Oregon’s Per Capita Personal Income 2017

by Christopher Rich Oregon’s total personal income ranked 26th in the nation in 2017, one spot below the 2016 rank. Data on personal income comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce. State personal income captures total income within a state and is the sum of three main…

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Oregon’s Child Care Industry

by Jessica Nelson Social and economic trends over the past 60 years have made child care a workforce issue and turned child care into an industry. The share of women participating in the labor force nearly doubled between 1950 and 2000, before reaching a plateau in recent years. Labor force participation rates are higher among…

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Lane County Travel Spending Continues to Grow

by Brian Rooney Data from research firm Dean Runyan indicate that spending in the travel and tourism industry continued to grow in 2017 in Lane County after dropping off during the Great Recession. The graph shows that travel spending in Lane County grew throughout the 1990s and peaked in 2008 at $717.0 million. As the…

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Employment Among Oregon’s Veterans

by Felicia Bechtoldt In 2017, the unemployment rate for veterans in Oregon was 4.3 percent, according to the Current Population Survey. This was the lowest unemployment rate for veterans since 2007, when the unemployment rate was 3.5 percent. Overall, Oregon’s unemployment rate was 4.1 percent in 2017. Across the U.S., veterans had a lower unemployment…

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Strategic Energy Management gives businesses the power to cut operating costs

By Susan Jowaiszas, Energy Trust of Oregon Four years ago, Medford School District enrolled in Strategic Energy Management (SEM) — an Energy Trust of Oregon offering that helps organizations identify no- or low-cost operations and maintenance improvements that deliver significant bill savings and provides training on developing comprehensive energy management practices. Today, the district has…

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“Make Space for Justice”

Lane County Courthouse WORKING ON SOLUTIONS — The County is considering the challenges the current Courthouse building poses. Inspections and reviews of the current building have made one thing clear: the old building can’t responsibly be salvaged for this use – it would cost more to work with the existing building and there’s simply not…

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Should Investors be Leaving the Forest?

Background Over the past several years, there has been growing circumstantial evidence that some institutional investors are cashing out of timberland investments in favor of more liquid, and perhaps better performing alternatives. The well-publicized exit of CalPERSs from much of its timberland portfolio, and rumors of divestitures by other longtime institutional investors supports a narrative…

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