Local businesses provide employment for area residents and products and services close to home. Mid-county Memo Business Memos celebrate news, advancements, promotions, retirements, expansions and other noteworthy events at these cornerstones of our community.
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Historic Parkrose manager is history
Historic Parkrose Revitalization Manager Bridget Bayer, third from left, is leaving after two years in the position. She is pictured with fellow Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative managers (from left: Jenny Glass, Stanley Moe and Lori Boisen) at East Portland Chamber of Commerce’s weekly meeting in November 2013.
MEMO PHOTO/TIM CURRAN
After two years as the first revitalization manager of Historic Parkrose, Bridget Bayer is leaving the job. “I’ve been thinking about leaving Historic Parkrose for only a little while now,” Bayer said in an email. “I want to finish a book about building community through events and return to consulting to help others start this kind of endeavor.”
Historic Parkrose is one of Portland Development Commission’s six Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative districts. The NPI is part of the development commission’s Neighborhood Economic Development strategy.
Tax-increment financing and some donations fund the NPI’s work. Originally created with the intent to focus on capital improvement projects, the program’s work has evolved to become more about creating and marketing meetings and events in the two years under the care of its district mangers.
“It’s been great to work in Parkrose, especially because of the leadership team and committed stakeholders in our district,” said Bayer. “Community economic development projects like this are rare, and I’ve been lucky to help get this one started.”
The job pays between $40 and 50,000 a year. It is listed at www.historicparkrose.com/?p=6606.
Bayer added, “We are all focused on finding a new district manager and making a smooth transition.”
Northeast Rotary adds new members
Rick and Sylvia Thompson are the newest members of the Northeast Rotary Club. Experts at explaining the Missoula Floods of the last ice age, the Thompsons speak to area groups about the Floods’ after-effects on our geology.
COURTESY OLLIE LUND
After suffering 10 years of declining membership, which decimated the service group, the Northeast Portland Rotary Club recently added five members, with two more applications awaiting district approval.
The Northeast Portland Rotary Club had been on the brink of dissolution; however, the new additions bring the number of active members to 16, which is enough to keep the club active and relevant. “You’re like the Energizer Bunny,” Rotary District Governor Thomas Jenkins said about the 57-year-old Rotary chapter. “Just when people think you are down for the count, you rise from the ashes like the Phoenix.”
Since obtaining a charter in April 1957, the club has practiced the Rotary motto “service above self’ in Mid-county. The chapter’s current service projects are an annual dictionary distribution to every third-grader in the Parkrose School District and a golf tournament that raises funds for Rotary International.
If interested in learning more about serving your community through Rotary International, let them buy you lunch at their weekly noon meeting at Kings Omelet, 10711 N.E. Halsey St. Call Ollie Lund at 503-257-8874 to find out more information about the club or to let him know you’ll be attending the lunch.
