Precision agriculture and viticulture, cross-laminated timber, harvesting the bounty of our seas, including energy… all are at the heart of our Oregon economy. New, 21st century technologies are shaping these sectors as never before, letting us be smarter and faster in order to reduce costs and improve results. Our future natural resource stewards need to be at the forefront of these advances.

Our manufacturing  sectors employ more people than any others. Rapidly advancing manufacturing technologies, reliant upon precision equipment and robotics, have created a career of “precision maintenance” – mechatronics.. Our Mechatronics will service & maintain the “smartest machines” on the planet. To do so, they’ll need both head & hands – the smarts and skills to keep industry running.

As precision agriculture & advanced manufacturing industries spin-up, all of Oregon & the U.S. suffer from an aging workforce without replacements. Plumbers, electricians, welders, millwrights, auto mechanics – all are in great demand. These jobs & others like them offer great salaries, benefits & careers. It will be decades before the robots fix our plumbing…

Oregon’s hi-tech sectors employ more people than any others. The hi-tech innovation curve is like no other & in the 21st century, drives every industry and household. Advances like the Internet of Things impact how we grow food, manage our household, park our cars in garages… We don’t have the skilled workforce we need for our local hi-tech companies. Great jobs and benefits wait for that workforce.

In our innovation economy, the creative sector is a critical component to fuel long-term economic growth – think TED: Technology, Entertainment & Design. We prefer a different TED: Technology, Education & Design. The creative sector brings together designers, coders and makers to continually develop new solutions that drive business opportunities. That’s why bringing techniques like design-thinking and agile process management into the classroom matters.

There’s a reason James Beard set the culinary pace in the U.S. He grew up in Oregon. The state that has defined locavore & farm-to-table, scaled microbreweries & small-batch distilleries to the rest of the world, and produces wines equal to the old world’s best, Oregon has the perfect mix for perfecting the next generations of food & beverage, creating traded-sector companies from which the world will purchase. Blending hi-tech, with Oregon’s foodies, creates food-tech.