2007 Archives

Gerber baby, eat your strained-carrot heart out. The latest health food wave has reached the youngest Oregon consumers with the introduction of Nice Cubes, a new brand of frozen organic baby food, the first of its kind developed locally.

As a full-time planning and public policy student at the University of Oregon, a year and a half ago, I had a crazy idea that wouldn’t leave me alone.

Think an urban company lacks the space for its own wind farm? Think again. Stel Walker, assistant head of Oregon State University’s department of mechanical engineering, worked with California manufacturer AeroVironment to design a micro wind turbine.

Credit Otis the dog as Ruff Wear’s muse. Otis, with his feet beat up after running on rocky river banks. Otis, who fell out of his lifejacket while being ferried across a rapids-filled river. And credit Otis as chief prototype tester for nearly all of the products that followed: boots, packs, life vests, first-aid kits.

Jake Rockwell needed some convincing when an actor from The Sopranos phoned him earlier this year to propose a business partnership.

Oregon’s green landscape turned a little gray in January with an announcement that the statewide rate of recycling rigid plastics slipped below 25%.

Many rural economies are struggling, but Clatsop County, in Oregon’s extreme northwest corner, has been adding jobs faster than the United States overall.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory solidified a deal with Apollo Sensor Technology and scientists at Russia’s Karpov Institute of Physical Chemistry in Moscow to market a hydrogen gas sensor.

After a dramatic rise before (and fall after) the introduction of stricter federal bankruptcy laws in late 2005, Oregon filings have steadied out at a greatly reduced rate.