Oregon Business Team

CEO James Curleigh took the helm of Keen Footwear in 2008. It’s now on its way to hitting $200 million in revenue.

Niche manufacturer VocalBooth has landed some major endorsements over the past few years: Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews Band, Madonna, Mariah Carey, even the one-and-only Lady Gaga. But those names pale in comparison to the company’s latest publicity tool, a little reality show called American Idol.

A recent ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that allows food service employers in Oregon and Washington to require employees to participate in a “tip pool” is being welcomed by the industry but not some workers.

Raghu Raghavan was building web apps before there were web apps, and selling software-as-a-service before there was SaaS. A native of Bangalore, India, who came to Oregon to join the then-tiny team at Mentor Graphics in 1983, Raghavan plans to build his new email marketing company, Act-On, from a dozen employees to more than 30 by the end of 2011. And he plans to do so in Oregon, not Silicon Valley.

Jon Kellogg, a 22-year veteran of the commercial real estate industry, says he caught a lot of flak when he first began considering bringing mixed-use development to North Williams Avenue.

Mushroom harvester camps in the Crescent Ranger District, which collectively rival the population of nearby towns, are weighing in on how forests are managed in an effort to protect the country’s top-producing Matsutake area.

Oregon brewers are signing on to help with water restoration in the Deschutes River.

From his small, modest office on Northeast Airport Way in Portland, Sam Naito works five days a week at Made in Oregon, the iconic company he started 35 years ago. That a legend of Oregon business still puts in a full week as he is about to turn 90 would surprise no one who knows the Naito family.

Big deals of the month.

In August, after Russia halted wheat exports due to severe drought, cash bids jumped for wheat shipped through Portland.