New Zealand-based fleet truck performance management software company EROAD announced Tuesday that it is relocating its North American headquarters from the Portland area to San Diego.

The press release said the move means EROAD is joining a growing number of area tech businesses focused on transportation and logistics, fleet telematics, video-based safety, and data-driven fleet management for commercial vehicles.

“A broadly recognized innovation sector, coupled with the growth of the advanced fleet technology ecosystem in the region, makes San Diego the ideal location for our new North America headquarters,” Akinyemi Koyi, chief innovation officer and president of EROAD North America, said a press release. “This move, coupled with the expansion of our U.S. leadership team with highly accomplished and tenured professionals, represents an important milestone for our business. These moves will help fuel our continued growth as we expand our fleet management, compliance, safety, and performance offerings.”

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EROAD’s new base of operations in Carmel Mountain Ranch, a community in San Diego County, includes an office space and a fulfillment center for the company to ship to its customers across the country.

The move will bring EROD into the same neighborhood as Cubic, which develops fare and toll collection technologies, and Netradyne – a motion detection and biometrics software company which supplies Amazon with AI trackers to monitor freight drivers.

The company, which saw 46% annual sales growth in Fiscal Year 2023, also announced three new executive hires in finance, operations, and marketing in the same release. According to the release, Tracey Herman has been hired as executive vice president of finance; Kerynn Holtzman was hired as vice president of operations, and Sarah Wicker is now the company’s vice president of marketing.

EROAD’s move comes amid news of other companies either shuttering Portland-area locations — like Cracker Barrel — or moving out of downtown Portland. EROAD’s North American office was situated in Tualitin.

New Jersey-based Megabus USA has announced a partnership with Pacific Crest Bus Lines to offer expanded service and booking options for its stops in central Oregon, marking the company’s entrance into the Oregon market.

The partnership expands service options in 24 cities in Oregon and California, adding additional trips in Eugene (between Bend and Sisters) Salem (Bend, Portland, and Sisters) and 13 cites in Bend. (Altamont, Chemult, Chiloquin, Crescent, Eugene, Gilchrist, Klamath Falls, La Pine, Portland, Redmond, Salem, Sisters and Sunriver.) Trips are currently available on the Megabus website.

Megabus vice president of commercial Colin Emberson tells Oregon Business Megabus is also using its marketing tools to get travelers thinking earlier about bus travel. He says the partnership with Pacific Crest Bus Lines will increase the appetite for bus travel in the state.

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“Driving up demand is really the first step in our process,” says Emberson. “I always say our biggest competitor is the car. I think with gas prices rising, and the cost of everything rising in our everyday lives, having been value travel options out there is something to think about more and more folks will be taking advantage of as soon as they become aware of it.”

Emberson says Megabus’s booking technology will also make bus travel options more appealing. He says the company’s previous successful Oregon partnerships with Northwestern Stage Lines and Salt Lake Express, which offers bus service Between Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, and Nevada, shows that demand for bus travel will be as high in the Pacific Northwest as on the East Coast markets.

Emberson says the company doesn’t have any plans to offer service in Eastern or coastal cities in Oregon. He says the company is already planning ways to link bus trips together like airline travel, which could open up bus access between Oregon and much wider geography.

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Anthony Ferro, president of Pacific Crest Bus Lines said in a press release issued last week that the company was thrilled to partner with Megabus.

“With our expanded route map, we anticipate an extraordinary journey ahead, as we introduce new routes and continue our daily scheduled services across the diverse expanse of Oregon and parts of California. From the bustling urban hubs of Portland, Salem, Bend, Medford, and Eugene, to the serene beauty of Brookings, Crescent City and Klamath Falls, our services now span an extensive network of destinations, catering to the diverse needs of travelers,” he wrote.

Since the program’s launch in 2015, more than $1.5 million has been granted to support 78 wine and culinary tourism promotion projects. This year, awardees have until May 31, 2024 to use their funds to help expand the tourism economy or complete community improvement projects.

Travel Oregon’s grant awardees include:

• Chehalem Mountains Winegrowers ($15,458.50): Design, construction, and installation of steel signage at wineries and vineyards reflecting characteristics of the American Viticultural Area (AVA)
• City of Dundee ($40,000): Strategic planning to help increase overnight stays and bolster downtown business
• City of Dundee ($35,000): Development of Main Street Wine and Art Walks from June to September
• Clackamas County Tourism and Cultural Affairs ($11,721): Update printed Mt. Hood and Columbia River Gorge cookbook, in addition to adding Spanish ads to advertise the update
• Dundee Hills Winegrowers Association ($10,000): Digital advertising campaign focused on Houston and Chicago
• Eola-Amity Hills Winegrowers Association ($24,282.50): Digital advertising campaign to drive overnight stays
• Experience Roseburg/Anvil Northwest ($15,000): Increase advertising to attract more businesses to participate in the Blocktober Fest
• Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce ($20,000): Purchase a wine trolley to transport guests to area wineries
• Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce ($25,000): Host a Lake Grove Wine Walk in Spring 2024
• Oregon Wine Board ($7,500): Update image library 
• Rogue Valley Vintners ($50,000): Comprehensive digital advertising campaign
• Rogue Valley Vintners ($36,080): Update the Rogue Valley Wine Country map and hire an administrative assistant
• Tillamook Coast Visitors Association ($15,000): Create and promote a ‘Cooking with Chefs of the North Coast Food Trail video
• Travel Lane County ($7,775): Develop photo and video assets that accurately represent the ethnicity, age, and ability of the region’s visitors to use in marketing materials
• Umpqua Valley Winegrowers Association ($12,250): Create a ‘Digital Passport’
• Union County Chamber of Commerce ($7,080.64): Create a Grande Ronde Farm Trail brochure and add an online presence for it
• Visit Corvallis ($12,000): Expand advertising efforts for the Heart of Willamette wine passport
• Visit Newberg ($15,000): Re-brand and new website creation to attract people to the Oregon Chardonnay Celebration
• Willamette Valley Wineries Association ($32,500): Execute a post-pandemic study of wine visitors to the Willamette Valley to inform and enhance marketing campaigns

Oregon’s wine and culinary adventures are unlike anything else in the world, and welcoming people to experience those is at the heart of Travel Oregon’s grant funding process.  

“We’re proud to administer the Oregon Wine Country License Plate Matching Grant Program to support the programs and projects that will amplify the wine and culinary offerings that continue to make our state a premier destination for both international and domestic travelers,” Todd Davidson, CEO of Travel Oregon, said in a press release. “These funds have a direct impact on creating and promoting unique visitor experiences while strengthening local economies.”

According to the organization, the projects selected promote cultural tourism and environmental sustainability and accessibility for people with disabilities.

It’s the largest amount of grant money Visit Central Oregon has ever had to distribute,  CEO Julia Theisen says. Despite shelter-in-place orders and business closures, tourists flocked to Bend, Redmond, Sisters, and La Pine between 2020 and 2022. According to hotel tax data gathered by the Central Oregon Visitors Association, the region generated 50% more transient room tax during the 2020-2021 cycle than the year prior to the pandemic and grew another 14% during the 2021-2022 cycle.

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Monthly numbers suggest tourism in the area will be slightly down this year compared to last year, but still above the 2019 average.

Theisen says the Future Fund was much larger than she and her colleagues anticipated, and gave the organization a unique opportunity to make a big investment in projects to improve the region’s future for tourists as well as residents of the area.

“We generated revenue through the pandemic by people coming to Central Oregon and staying in vacation rentals throughout the year when they were homeschooling and working from home,” says Theisen. She notes that Visit Central Oregon was not able to promote tourism in the region during the early part of the pandemic, which also accounted for the bump in funding.  

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“We were not able to do a lot of our traditional programming, so we reserved quite a bit of money from that time period when the pandemic was at its worst. Now we’re able to reallocate those funds into the Future Fund,” she adds.

One of the fund’s recipients was Oregon Adaptive Sports in Bend, which was granted $67,475 for its Moving Mountains Program to enhance opportunities for residents and visitors with disabilities to access Central Oregon’s outdoor recreation opportunities. Sisters-based Sisters Trails Alliance will receive 37,152 to modify the Whychus Creek Overlook with two 10-foot viewing sections able to be accessed by visitors in wheelchairs, who could previously only stare up at the overlook’s walls.

Theisen says making the region more accessible to tourists with disabilities was a key pillar in deciding which projects to select, and will be an important part of Visit Central Oregon’s mission moving forward. She pointed to a 2022 literature review by accessible travel website Travability, which valued the disabled tourism market at $10.8 billion, and suggested accessible tourism was the fastest-growing tourist market.

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“Not that our organization is only about making money, but it’s a big piece of business,” says Theisen. “You could potentially lose a huge number of people when you’re not making your destination accessible to people with disabilities. It’s also just about being welcoming to people and making people feel like they can come to the region.”

Theisen says the grant piece is just one small component of her organization’s efforts to make central Oregon a more accessible destination. She hasn’t included accessibility in her marketing materials just yet — Theisen says more work needs to be done on the issue — but says her organization plans to partner with Wheel the World, a disability travel website, to conduct a needs assessment next year to identify areas where more accessibility work should be done by the organization.

Theisen isn’t the only one with disability travel on her radar. Eight Oregon Coast destination management organizations were granted a total of $201,240 through Travel Oregon’s 2022 Capacity and Small Project Grants to partner with Wheel the World to conduct similar assessments.  

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Theisen says this year’s large amount of Transient Lodging Tax funds is something of an aberration, but that these projects will bolster the region for greater success in the future.

“At this stage we’re not going around and saying, ‘hey, we’re welcoming people from all over to this super accessible region,’ we’re more on the ground level, saying, ‘how do we fare as a region in terms of accessibility and what potential projects that come out of this assessment could we support?” says Theisen.

“My hope is that if we do that project with Wheel the World it could potentially steer some of the projects coming to the Future Fund around accessibility, because we’re identifying a need.”

Other projects funded by the 2023 Future Fund include:

• The Bend Parks and Recreation District will receive $100,000 to improve access along a busy stretch of the Deschutes River;
• The Central Oregon Trail Alliance will receive $60,000 to improve signage and trip planning information on trails in the area;
• The Deschutes Soil and Water Conservation District, along with nine community partners, will receive $95,000 for Got Stars Central Oregon, a community-wide initiative to showcase the importance of dark skies and astrotourism;
• Discover Your Forest will receive $77,375 to enhance the Skull Hollow Trail Head in the Crooked River Grassland;
• The High Desert Museum will receive $50,000 for its Changing Exhibits Initiative to bring new experiences to the museum;
• The Maupin Area Chamber Endowment will receive $60,000 to improve the Deschutes River Athletic Complex;
• Oregon Equestrian Trails will receive $66,083 to install steel corrals at Sheep Springs Horse Camp;
• Sunriver Owners Association will receive $74,148 to provide 25 new signs throughout the community;
• The Tower Theatre will receive $49,140 to improve audio amplification in the venue;
• The Warm Springs Community Action Team will receive $100,00 for the Warm Springs Commissary, a visitor destination and business incubator for 40 businesses in the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.

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“Ferries are best-practices for all river cities. They build resilience and reduce greenhouse gas emissions” said Susan Bladholm, president and founder of Friends Of Frog Ferry, (FOFF) the grassroots nonprofit organization trying to get the city to establish a public commuter ferry between Vancouver and Oregon City.

“This represents an opportunity to revitalize our community.”

Supporters wave at Frog Ferry’s route demo at RiverPlace Park on Thursday. Photo: Jason E. Kaplan.

Friends of Frog Ferry demonstrate what people on a boat look like on the Willamette River on a very cold and raining spring morning.

Standing before the waterfront and wearing an infatigable smile, Bladholm compared Portland to other river cities across the country with successful ferry systems, and said said federal spending dollars made available through President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure act, specifically $300 million in grants for ferry projects, means the price tag for a commuter ferry will never be lower.

The project needs approximately $11 million to reach completion – but Bladholm says the project only needs  $2.25 million from the city to jumpstart the project. The project will then compete for $6 million in federal funds this year and reach the total over the next two years, with a projected launch in 2025.

Bladholm says money by the city invested in the ferry will result in a 10:1 return on investment.

Friends of Frog Ferry board member Nina Byrd (left) and founder and President Susan Bladholm (right) talk about the benefits of ferry service in Portland at Thursday’s press conference. Photo: Jason E. Kaplan.

“We’re still here. This project is shovel ready. We’ve done the research and the reports. What we really need is a partnership with the City of Portland,” says Bladholm.

Founded in 2017, the frog ferry project went into hibernation in September of 2022 after missing a grant deadline for the Federal Transit Administration. The project had previously won $500,000 from TriMet in 2020, after which it complied a 218-page feasibility study addressing the viability and economic impact of a ferry project, as well as projecting potential demand.

The ferry project may have a better shot at city funds this time around. City commissioner Mingus Mapps – who now leads the Portland Bureau of Transportation  – wanted to give the project $225,000 in spring of 2021, but was outvoted.

FOFF board member Nina Byrd, also speaking at the event, said the ferry provided an opportunity to economically revitalize a Portland downtown that has received plenty of dreary news, including the closures of retailers such as WalMart and REI.

Related Story: REI Announces Closure of Portland Store

“This project is the nexus that will bring us into the future because our waterways haven’t been activated to make downtown a place that people want to visit,” said Byrd, who described the project as a catalyst for the reinvigoration of Portland’s downtown.

She compared Portland’s waterfront to Vancouver’s waterfront district, and said the ferry would create more business and foot traffic to the businesses along the waterfront.

“This represents an opportunity to transform our city, which is something everyone can get behind. There really isn’t a better time for this project. The key to access is federal funding,” said Byrd.

Friends of Frog Ferry board member Nina Byrd talks about the benefits of ferry service in Portland at Thursday’s press conference. Photo: Jason E. Kaplan

The proposed ferry fleet would consist of seven boats able to transport 70 passengers each. Fares would be $3.50, with a 50% discount for honored citizens. The vessels would be heated, offer breakfast and beverages for passengers, and have a bathroom. Total transit time one-way would be an estimated 25 minutes. Initial boats for the pilot project would run on renewable diesel, with planned electrification for the fleet once charging infrastructure has been installed.

Bladholm says the ferry project will present its case to the city council on May 24 as the City of Portland finalizes its 2023-24 budget. She asked supporters of the project to get in touch with the city council members about the frog ferry project, and to submit public testimony on the frog ferry’s behalf.

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Early adopters like UPS and Sysco Corp. had made big orders for the eCascadia truck, bur reduced their orders due to lack of charging infrastructure.  As of February, the company had dispatched approximately 100 EVs, and CEO John O’Leary says the company’s Portland plant is producing four to five trucks per day.

But the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in August has given the company more reason to be hopeful about its electric truck’s prospects, and the addition of new charging infrastructure.

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Hailed as the “most significant legislation to accelerate transportation electrification in U.S. history” by the Electrification Coalition, the IRA provided unprecedented incentives for commercial electric vehicles, making them eligible for federal tax credits up to 30% of the sales price. The IRA also incentivized production of commercial charging stations with a 6% tax credit of up to $100,000 per charging unit (up from the previous $30,000 tax rebate per property). 

The company continues to experiment with charging technology at Electric Island, a prototype charging station on Swan Island opened in April 2021 in collaboration with Portland General Electric.

The purpose of the site is to accelerate the development, testing and deployment of zero-emissions commercial vehicles and to  provide data to PGE about peak charging times.

Ryan Menze, manager of charger hardware and software engineering at Daimler Truck North America, spoke to Oregon Business about the increase in demand for medium and large-scale electric commercial vehicles. and the remaining barriers to the adoption of EVs.  

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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How significant was the Inflation Reduction Act for the adoption of commercial EVs?

It’s been amazing. One of the big things it enabled was that it changed the equation around incentives for buying electric vehicles. It changed the incentive from being calculated on a per-unit basis to a battery capacity basis. Commercial vehicles have substantially more capacity, on the order of four to six times the order of magnitude. From my perspective, it directly ties to the amount of carbon emission that you can offset or otherwise displace.

In addition to that, there’s also money as a part of that to help install charging infrastructure. So, if you’re installing charging infrastructure at your site, or on a public site, there’s very specific requirements around what those must meet, which is very important, because you want anybody who drives up with a port to be able to charge on the connector that matches their port. And the IRA incentivizes the right things, in our opinion, it incentivizes the right things from that perspective.

Our biggest customers know they need to talk about and look at electrification right now to learn.  Because it’s coming. It’s inevitable. We’ve seen California has rules on the book that say you cannot sell an internal combustion engine in specific markets.

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Charing infrastructure has been a continued problem for electric commercial vehicles. What are the challenges there, and how can they be overcome?  

Commercial vehicles just have more capacity on board, so they need higher charge rates to get the same amount of distance, so the that’s the primary thing is to just delivers more power.

Our bottleneck right now is the charging hardware infrastructure readiness side of things, but after the announcement of the IFA, I saw a huge shift in how vocal public charging operators became. They started getting more aggressive with trying to make sure they got the land acquisitions to start breaking ground on these sites.

I see it as a little bit of a gold rush almost for those sites, the areas that everybody knows are going to be the good public sites to get on the routes they know their customers are running.

The IFA has some of the requirements and incentives in there for public charging infrastructure. That helps us because they offset the cost of the charging hardware so it offsets the pain of using an adopting a new technology.

There are three different types of charging that we refer to. The first is private charging, which would be behind a fence – we have several private charging situations on Swan Island that we use for our reliability growth fleet – we have public charging, so think the Electrify America sites that are out there, and Tesla which has public charging sites, and then you have semi-private charging. Semi-private charging is like one the Port of Portland might own and operate – a charging island that is exclusively used for the customers at that location to charge their electric vehicles.

It’s expensive to install electrical electric charging infrastructure in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, typically. And because of that, the customers don’t want to pay for that in a space they’re leasing. So, this third, semi-private option is something that we’re looking to in order to offset the cost and counteract the challenges we’ve been having is getting the charging hardware to the customers.

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How is Daimler helping to advance charging station technology?

The hardware that is installed in electric Island is chosen very carefully from the suppliers that we feel are major players in the charging and infrastructure game. They are the ones our customers are planning on using and that’s so that we can ensure that our truck will charge on that hardware when our customers get it, they can be sure that with a high degree of confidence that they’ll be good to go.

What are the technological challenges that need to be figured out before electric trucks can compete with diesel trucks?

A driver is required to take a break for 30 minutes over the course of the driving over their driving day, so the question becomes “how much charge can we give in that 30-minute window?” If they’re stopping to unload and they’ve got 15 minutes to chart to plug in how much range can we get in that 15 minutes?

We are look towards megawatt charging instead of kilowatt charging as the next-generation technology. Instead of adding five to 10 miles to a truck, you’re adding 20 to 30 miles in that 10-to-15-minute charge session, so you go from a 200-mile haul in a day to potentially 300-350 miles depending on the route.

Another factor is getting common standards for megawatt chargers developed and approved. There’s a global organization called CharIN, and they are leading the discussions around this. Daimler is responsible for writing a substantial amount of the recommendation that is being made from CharIN to the standards organizations – the IEC is the European standard organization and the IEEE SA is the is the American standards organization.

We need both of those organizations to adopt the standard as we’ve written it to some degree for the standard to go out and say “okay, if you are building megawatt charging it must be this in form factor in communication style.” Once you get the adoption, then the industry will start moving forward.

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How close are you to developing megawatt charging?

We have the prototype on our electric Island and so we’re trying to figure out how we can move forward without a published standard.

There are several different communication standards on the table, but differential PLC is the leading one right now. It’s more secure, meaning that if you’re transferring credit card information — because you want to do plug-in charge, to plug in and walk away — it will read the address off of your vehicle and say, “Oh, I know this truck, I know I charged his credit card in the past.” And boom, you’re good to go. It’s also a higher-integrity level of communication, so you can literally have upsurge in electricity that can cause the previous the communication standard to have a fault, but then you just have to go out and plug back in, and then it will work again.

What are the cost and energy comparisons between an electric truck and a diesel truck?

When we talk about electric trucks competing, we have to look at three pillars: we look at the vehicle technology in terms of range, we look at it in terms of infrastructure in place to charge, and we have to have some level of cost parity.

An electric truck cost about twice as much as a diesel truck. That’s mainly because of the battery in it and the precious earth metals involved, but the cost to operate it is much lower. The battery cells themselves are very labor intensive and energy intensive to manufacture, so as we look towards the future, it’s about offsetting that with the operating costs of the vehicle.

We have customers that are electrifying because there’s incentives money and it’s less expensive to operate, and then we have customers that are doing it because they have emissions goals that they’re trying to attain, so they’re willing to buy vehicles without incentive money.

Electric trucks produce 30% less carbon emissions than diesel trucks. That takes into consideration all the shipping and production of the batteries, production of the axles, everything that goes into it, as well as the operation over its 1.2-million-mile life. But that’s very largely dependent on the power generation method, so the greener technology, the more renewables that are used for the electricity generation, the more carbon reduction you see. One thing I always like to say is the more you drive an electric truck, the greener it gets, because we’re constantly bringing on more efficient and more renewable energy generation.

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When do you project the infrastructure and technology will be in a place where Daimler can begin mass production of commercial electric trucks?

The product that we’ve designed and are selling today is meant to be a product that serves our customers’ needs in a very specific way, but there are certain things in order to make them get to market that we just couldn’t do. As we look towards the next generation of vehicle that will definitely be released within the decade, that’s where we’re going after the mass market. We are going to see huge transition, we’re talking 10s of percents of our portfolio, into electric with that next generation of vehicle.

Some of the enablers of that will be battery technology, battery cost coming down overall, on a per kilowatt hours talking of dollars per kilowatt hour. We’re also seeing 10s of percents of drops in dollars per kilowatt hour for batteries. Overall, higher efficiencies. We’re targeting higher volumes, so we’re getting those economies of scales.

We’re just being able to tackle more markets because we’re putting more capacity on board.

This is very much a partnership, where we have direct feedback from our customers. We have our aviation fleet, so our previous generation vehicle, they built trucks, we put them in customers hands, they’ve driven over a million miles total collectively. As an organization, we’ve learned from that. But we’ve also built really strong relationships with those customers that have gotten a chance to drive those vehicles, and we implement those changes into the product that we launch.

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Starting in July, all residents of La Grande and Island City will have access to personalized bus service.

Northeast Oregon Public Transportation has announced an overhaul to the city of La Grande’s transportation system that greatly expanding the area buses can travel by allowing bus drivers to deviate from the fixed route, up to three-fourths of a mile, to pick up or deliver passengers. As part of the plan, buses will also expand their hours of operation, running 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on weekdays and Saturdays.

Kane Lester, the NEOPT’s transportation program manager for Union, Wallowa, Baker and Grant counties, said in an interview with Mass Transit magazine the new system will allows riders to schedule a pickup or drop-off with at least one day’s advanced notice. This means in certain cases riders will no longer have to walk from their home to a bus stop.

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According to Lester, the new system was designed based on public feedback, and will be up and running in July “at the latest.” The NEOPT expansion plan will also expand the existing bus route half a mile, and include a stop at the Island City Elementary School.

The announcement comes after the transit stopped charging fees for riders in 2019, expanded operating hours, and added another bus to its route. Both the 2019 improvement and current improvement are funded by the State Transportation Improvement Fund, which collects a  0.1% employee payroll tax to fund public transportation projects.

Lester says riders will continue to be fareless once the system is in place.

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The fund was established as part of House Bill 2017, which was enacted to provide a consistent stream of funding for the improvement, maintenance and expansion of public transportation.

The switch to the new system in La Grande and Island City will not be made until there has been a public hearing, and the overhaul is approved by Connie Guentert, executive director of Community Connection of Northeast Oregon.

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Stephen Hardesty, who owns the Arbor Inn in Oakridge, had his own personal firefighting truck gassed up and ready go when he received a wildfire evacuation order for him and his employees Sept. 9 as the Cedar Creek fire swept through the region.

The anxiety in his voice was palpable during an interview with Oregon Business. His primary concern was his employees still working in the wildfire evacuation zone. But he was also worried about his property. He says wildfire smoke has meant a sagging tourism season for the last five years, and any fire damage would mean even more lost revenue.

He says he has received no support from the state or other organizations to protect his business. And, he says, had the blaze reached his hotel, he was was prepared to fight the fire himself, using a truckload of hoses, sprinklers and gas-powered water pumps – another unexpected business expense this year, that cost his small business around $1,000.

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The Cedar Creek fire, which grew from 18,000 acres on Sept. 6 to over 92,000 in under two weeks, is just one of 21 wildfires currently burning across the state, according to Oregon Wildfire Response & Recovery.  Gov. Kate Brown has requested an emergency declaration from the federal government, which would allow the state to access federal funds for wildfire response and preparation.

Worsening wildfires have had a major economic impact across the state — including Southern Oregon’s tourist economy, where more destructive wildfire seasons are upending traditional business models.

“Some businesses have managed to flex their operation to host tourists in late spring and early summer, shut down for wildfire season and then reopen. But it’s been hard because we don’t have enough data on wildfires and they are not easy to predict,” says Eli Matthews, President of the Chamber of Commerce of Medford and Jackson County. He says communication from the state and wildfire warning systems have improved since 2020, but there are still many unknowns. “All we know right now is that when wildfire smoke hits, tourism dries up.”

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According to a 2019 report funded by Travel Southern Oregon, the 2018 wildfire season had a devastating impact on tourism in the region. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival lost $2 million in revenue due to canceled performances. Crater Lake National Park saw a 14% drop in July and August visitations that year.

The report also found wildfires played a significant role in people’s plans to visit the area. More than 70% of respondents looking to travel to Southern Oregon reported that wildfire smoke was a factor in deciding when they would visit. Only 21% intended to come in August.

“The wildfires have made significant impact on revenue in the last couple of years, especially from the standpoint of recreation businesses, which have changed over from servicing tourists to servicing firefighters,” says Matthews, who says the revenue from contractors and firefighters isn’t enough to account for the lost tourism.

“You get a big burst of business from firefighters and contractors, and then it just depends on how much of the forest burns up,” says Hardesty. “I don’t know what the future is going to bring, but it’s going to impact all our businesses going forward. It’s the little towns going to suffer.”

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Sammy Rivera said after he finished watching the World Athletics Championships, he wanted to try a glass of Oregon pinot noir.

Rivera spoke with Oregon Business outside Prince Puckler’s Ice Cream in downtown Eugene on July 15. He was traveling with nine companions as part of a touring group from Puerto Rico that also traveled to Beijing in February to watch Winter Olympics in February. They were in Eugene cheering on Puerto Rican athletes, and boasted about seeing Usain Bolt break the 200-meter dash record in 2008.

Only one member of Rivera’s group — a track and field aficionado and admirer of Oregon track and field legend Steve Prefontaine — had heard of Eugene before the trip.

Rivera, seated on the far left, eats ice cream with some of his traveling group. Credit: Sander Gusinow

But the group told OB they were already planning their trip back to Eugene for the Prefontaine classic next May. And they were planning on enjoying some outdoor activities before they left.

Rivera’s group was part of a cohort of tens of thousands of sports fans who’ve converged in Eugene this week to watch the World Athletic Championships. But while some Eugene business owners reported above-average sales, many business owners who spoke with Oregon Business said the big crowds they prepared for simply did not materialize. Still, some are hopeful that the WAC — a biennial competition organized in 1976 as a sort of alternative to the Olympic Games, and held at rotating locations around the world — will further Eugene’s reputation as a travel destination for sports fans, particularly those traveling from overseas.

Andy Vobora, a vice president with Travel Lane County, told The Oregonian earlier this week that the agency expected between 35,000 and 55,000 visitors spread across 10 days. During a phone call with OB, Vobora said those numbers seem to have held. (On Tuesday, The Oregonian reported that ticket sales had topped 54,000 — but that’s a sum of ticket sales from each day of the games. On the opening day, ticketed attendance totaled 13,646 and on Day 3, ticketed attendance totaled 21,065.)

One of many running murals painted on storefronts for the Championships. Credit: Sander Gusinow

Vobora said his office’s estimate was based on an economic analysis done years ago. But he said he’s heard much higher numbers thrown around — as high as 100,000 or 200,000 — that were based on a sum of total ticket sales for the 10-day event and did not account for the fact that many attendees would buy tickets for multiple events. He’s not sure of the original source of that claim, however.

“They had sold like 100,000 tickets by the end of December, but ticket sales isn’t people,” Vobora said. “We were trying to educate people all along that that wasn’t the number of people coming.”

By comparison, roughly 60,000 people attend an average University of Oregon football game, and before COVID, single day spectator attendance at the US Olympic Track and Field Trials was close to 25,000 people, according to Vobora

“We knew the event wasn’t going to create lots of chaos. We were kind of touting more the international flavor. It’s still a lot of people but it’s not so much that it grinds things to a halt,” Vobora said..

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Downtown businesses decorated with international flags and worked so hard to prepare for the event that on the eve of the first night of competition, it could be difficult to find a server even at quiet restaurants.

Erin Grover, manager of Mokes Coffee and Kitchen, told Oregon Business the makeup of the crowds was different, with more international visitors and travelers from elsewhere in the U.S., business was actually quieter than normal.

“We’re hopeful to catch more business,” Grover told OB. “I think most of us prepared for this event to the best of our abilities. But there’s still quite a bit of excitement for this in downtown. It’s still a big deal to have the Championships here and it’s an honor to host it.”

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Tim Murff, co-owner and general manager of Sabai Cafe & Bar told OB on July 15 sales had increased by just 10%. Murff expects there will be plenty of room to adapt as time goes on and more events like this come to the city.

“I think this first World Athletics Championships is just about feeling things out a little bit,” Murff told Oregon Business. “We’ve had Olympic trials and other events here before, just nothing as big as this one. We’ve expanded our hours a little bit. These events bring in a lot of Europeans who don’t normally eat until later. This is just giving us all an idea of what this kind of big event will be like in the future.”

Murff wasn’t clear what ‘big events’ he was referring to, but he was optimistic about Euegne’s future as a more international destiantion.

Other business owners were less optimistic.

The Ninkasi tent at the RiverFront Festival. Credit: Sander Gusinow

“We in the business community have done a lot of work revitalizing this downtown area,” said one downtown restaurant owner, who asked not to be named in this story. “If this business they promised us downtown doesn’t materialize we’re going to have a mini riot on our hands. We have all hired people; we were told we needed to be all hands-on deck. I’m sure it’s been great for the hotels, but we’ve done a whole lot to prepare for just empty seats.”

Collin Cram, event coordinator and hospitality lead at Ninkasi Brewing Company told OB he suspects many locals left town before the event. He also attributed the lack of overwhelming business to Eugene’s somewhat isolated location.

“There has been talk and rumblings for a year plus about how busy it was going to be down here for this event. I think what that has done is encouraged locals to stay away and get out of town. And Eugene is nestled at the end of the Willamette Valley, and there aren’t any close metropolises like Portland to draw people from,” Cram told OB.

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Vobora also suspects the six-figure numbers floating around “got people fired up in the community” and made them decide not to go out.

Ninkasi was the only alcoholic drink vendor operating inside the RiverFront Festival, an outdoor market at running concurrent with the Championships, Cram said the opportunity to sponsor the event was a “no-brainer” for the brewing company.

Even if the crowds weren’t as large as anticipated, Cram said the Championships serve as an opportunity to introduce products and marketing ideas to a new audience. In addition to being the only alcoholic drink vendor present at the Riverfront Festival, the brewery got permission from the OLCC to serve its new canned cocktail beverages to visitors.

Swiss runner Chiara Scherrer and her parents. Credit: Sander Gusinow

Former Olympic runner and New York-based chef Michael Stember opened a pop-up restaurant called Family Meal ’22, but said he expected the venture would break even over the course of the Championships. His real goal, he said, is to establish a reputation and foothold in Euegne. He believes the city will be even more of a major player in international track and field moving forward.

“This is about becoming a major part of the food and beverage offering within the track and field communities. For sponsors, foodies and traveling world fans, this is a perfect time to galvanize long-term partnerships,” Stember said.

“I’m not looking to make my year the most profitable year of all time. I’m charging dinners at a price point that’s a little lower than what I usually charge. Right now, the goal is serving a larger swath of people in varying socioeconomic ranges and tastebuds,”he added.

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Stember said he is already in talks for another pop-up during next year’s Prefontaine Classic, and has already begun thinking about how to make his event memorable.

“Next year, we’re going to host on some farm land that’s gorgeous. And there’s a special barn that we’re going to trick out for next year,” Stember said. “This is not just a one-off. I’m sure I’ll be working with a lot of these partnerships long term and in the future.”

Vobora said his office is trying to get the word out that people should still go out and support local businesses — but also that he’s hearing positive feedback from those attending the event.

For 26-year-old Swiss runner Chiara Scherrer, her visit to Eugene felt like coming home. While sitting with her parents outside Sweet Life Patisserie, she noted that she had attended the 2014 World Junior Track & Field Championships and was excited to be competing on familiar ground. Her family visited Crater Lake on their previous visit, and Scherrer said she was deferring any further sightseeing until after the competition, but that she planned to explore more of Oregon’s outdoors once the competition was over.

“I’m a local here now,” she said, smiling.

Editor’s Note: This story has been altered from an earlier draft to more accurately describe attendance at the Olympic Trials.

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Pan Qingjiang says economic warfare would have dire consequences to Oregon’s economy.  

The acting consul general of the Chinese consulate general in San Francisco, spoke with Oregon Business about the United States’ economic sanctions on Russia, which Chinese officials have called “outrageous” and “dangerous.” We also talked about the role Oregon can play in the relationship between the United States and China in the future.

During his career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pan served in the Department of Asian Affairs, the Department of International Organizations and Conferences and the Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs. He has worked in Chinese embassies and consulates in South Korea, Sweden, Nauru, Pakistan, Zambia and other countries. Prior to Deputy Consul General in San Francisco, he served as deputy general manager of the China Harbour Engineering Corporation.

Oregon is ranked 18 of the biggest exporters in the country, despite ranking 27 in population — making it especially dependent on foreign trade. According to a 2018 report from Business Roundtable, one in five jobs in Oregon are connected to trade. China is Oregon’s largest export partner, accounting for more than 20% of all export profits, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. 

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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You have served diplomatically to build China’s relationship with different countries across the world. What makes Oregon and China’s relationship unique? 

It is my belief that what makes the Oregon-China relationship unique is because of the amount of mutual support from our two sides. For example, both governmental and non-governmental [actors] work to support the bilateral relationship. That is something with which I am very impressed. 

Secondly, there are a lot of common interests, so they share a lot of potential for cooperation, especially economically on trade. Last year the volume of trade between both sides reached $13 billion, which is a vivid example of this relationship. 

I believe that the trade volume will grow higher than $13 billion. Currently, tariffs are the biggest barrier to that growth. 

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The Biden Administration has not removed the previous administration’s tariffs with China, and talks have reportedly been unproductive. What are the tariffs that specifically hold Oregon trade with China back? 

Before the new administration came into office, I think people put a lot of expectations of change in China policy for the better. Unfortunately, many of these wrong policies are being continued. We are even seeing more restrictions placed on our cooperation. I would need my colleagues’ advice, though, if we were to advocate for the removal of a specific item. 

China and the United States stand to benefit and prosper from cooperation. We believe this could be energy and technology and decarbonization. 

Many elites do not like to see the rise of China and so they play up the threat, but we are not a threat to any country. We exist to meet our people’s expectation of living a better life. There are currently 360 acts on the congressional agenda, and many of those acts play up the China threat or advocate for some sort of ‘decoupling’ from China. 

If these acts are passed we believe this would have adverse effects on many U.S. states.  

It is our official position that we are opposed to any trade war. We believe it will do no good for either side, and that we should work for a timely removal of these tariff barriers. We should seek to live peacefully with each other and avoid conflict with each other. It is our position that sanctions are not acceptable as they do not resolve a conflict. It will disrupt the already fragile world economy. 

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How can Oregon and China’s relationship continue to grow and make U.S. politicians realize this? 

On the climate change issue, we share a lot in common. It is an area where Oregon has made a lot of investment and has really done a good job. That is an important area of our cooperation, both for our economic interests and for the world. 

We are willing to work with Oregon scientists as well as similarly positioned states like California and Washington. During my trip to Oregon someone suggested we hold a joint seminar and invite those three states since your three states also have some joint programs. 

I think this is a good idea, and I think the consulate is ready to help and coordinate. More seminars will be held and planned. We hope both sides will step up efforts in this area so that it can bear even more fruit. 

Most importantly, I think Oregon and China should work on increasing communication among different circles. It is crucial to make exchanges to advance science and technology and we have a lot of things to do in this area. 

There’s some wrong images of China and Chinese people in this country and it really is a pity.  I think it is because of a lack of communication. We work tirelessly to shift this image. 

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What is it about China you hope more Americans would realize? 

China is a peaceful country and we follow a path of peaceful development. Even as China grows it will not seek hegemony. It is written in our constitution. The Chinese Communist Party has the goal of better development and a better life for their people. 

We believe that we are all living in a small global village with a shared future and we face shared challenges: The recession of the global economy, terrorism, climate change and the current covid crisis. 

The world needs cooperation, especially among big, major countries to address these challenges. China is not a threat at all, but an opportunity. China is a big market. We have 1.4 billion people. With the further development of China it will open up even more opportunities. 

It is the right of every person in every country to live and have their lives. The economic repression of any country is not fair or acceptable. 

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The United States’ economic repression of Russia is a direct result of military aggression. If sanctions are never acceptable, when is military force and violence acceptable? 

We will always pursue a defensive policy. We are opposed to war and we are a peace-loving country. We will only use force if our sovereignty is threatened or if our core interests are destroyed. 

We will never start a use of force. We are opposed to that. 

We hope that the parties involved will sit down and have peace talks to achieve a final solution to this problem.

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