2007 Archives

Forget the storied orchards and iconic wind sailors. Dozens of tech companies producing everything from unmanned aircraft to solar energy are finding the Columbia River Gorge is the place to do business.

Clean up is well under way after storms wreaked havoc on Oregon’s northwest coast early last month, but businesses will likely feel the effects for quite some time.

Since its inception, the Small Business Advisory Council has been working to ease the tension between city government and members of the Portland small-business community, who often feel their interests are overlooked when decisions are made.

If Beaverton city officials have their way, abandoned shopping carts will be retailers’ misfortunes and none of their own. The city could become the first in Oregon to pass an ordinance around a state law allowing cities to fine stores that fail to round up wayward shopping carts.

The sixth annual Oregon Business Leadership Summit filled the Oregon Convention Center in early December with 1,000 business and political leaders who braved the year’s worst storm to listen, learn and think about the economic issues facing the state.

A La Niña weather system cooling the waters of the Pacific Ocean has forecasters predicting above-average snowfall for the Northwest this winter and Oregonians thinking about the slopes.

In 2007, the Oregon Community Foundation made a record $54 million in grants to myriad nonprofit groups and cities that provided everything from social services to education.

Oregon’s pink shrimp fishery received the world’s first sustainable shrimp certification from the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) in early December.

A four-year extension of federal timber payments to rural counties was approved in mid-December by the U.S. House of Representatives, tucked inside a major energy bill, then removed from the bill by the Senate days later, despite support from both parties.