Flag Salute & Invocation by Art Runestrand

Visiting Rotarians none!

Guests none!

Announcements

Board meeting this Thursday 7:30am at Barkley Company boardroom (2200 Rimland Drive, #250).

Membership committee has four applications pending:  These names will be circulated for the next couple weeks, allowing you to submit questions or objections.  Comments can be given to our Pres, Bill Gorman, or the membership chair, Bill Geyer.

1.  Jorge (George) Alvarez - VP branch manager for Whidbey Island Bank on York Street.  Sponsored by Stan Dyer.

2. Tony Freeland - owner and operator of Freeland & Assoc. Engineering, designer of roads and utility systems.  Sponsored by Bill Geyer.

3. Marilyn Olsen - professional writer and consultant, former owner of a PR and marketing firm.  Sponsored by Mike Kirkland.

4. Mark Turner - Professional photographer and owner of Turner Photographics.  Sponsored by Ken Oplinger.

 

Bucks in the Bay

  • Steve Spitzer for missed meetings - Pusan Korea, then to NYC for Christmas, home for New Years, also bucks for Seahawks!
  • Dr. Curt $100 for our Foundation, wedding anniversary (53 years, all happy), and some sports bucks;
  • Sue Sharpe missed meetings for cruise to Mexico with all four family members, celebrated 30th anniversary, and one of her daughters is going for a semester in Queensland Australia;
  • Ken Oplinger went to Arizona for holidays, not everyone there is crazy!
  • Tim McEvoy lots of missed meetings, his company (the part in Seattle/Tacoma) was recently sold;
  • Brad Cornwell sad about Oregon's loss;
  • Mike Hammes recently returned from Honduras trip, had 40th birthday, told the story of amazing fundraising effort by his friends/employees to raise $$10K for a school project in Copan;
  • Bryant Engerbretson spent the last couple weeks skiing at Big White, BC, will be going back soon;
  • Tonja relayed that the big club is collecting used hearing aids for refurbishment and sending them to Guatemala (see Tonja if you want to donate a used hearing aid);
  • Eddie Hansen said Donnie Rubenak healing from Achilles heel surgery will be back soon, Donnie also recently had a new baby!

Bucks in the Bay by Denise Bosman
Fines for those who watched the Seahawks game, Tonja (Eastern Washington won some national championship), Bryant for wishing it would snow, and for today's date and time: 1/1/11 at 1pm.

Program

Ken introduced Hart Hodges, well-known economist at WWU.  Hart talked about a joint effort in which he is involved to come up with an "Economic Development" strategy, involving asset-mapping, profiling the geographic area, and identifying industry sectors.

Some interesting stats:  Increased commuting into Whatcom County (currently 20% of the workforce lives outside the county, up from 16% in 2004). 

"Economic Gardening":  We need to identify those businesses that are poised for growth.  According to Tom Dorr, this would typically be businesses past the start-up phase, and ready to grow.  The recently formed "Innovation Resource Center" is also helping us with this effort, but at the start-up phase.

Economic development definitely needs some attention here in Whatcom County, because the wages here are statistically low.

Why businesses located here? According to a recent survey to business owners, "access to recreation" important, and "access to family and friends" was also important.  "Quality workforce" was only somewhat important.  BUT, these answers may be skewed by the number of smaller, "lifestyle-oriented" businesses in the survey.  So, is this the correct way to measure? Should larger employers be more heavily weighted?

Retiree population growth in Whatcom?  No, actually it is, and has historically always been, about the same (12%) as the state as a whole!

Respectfully submitted,
Stowe