Much has changed over the past few weeks at Greater Portland Inc., a private-public economic development organization serving the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area. In addition to unveiling a new name (formally Greenlight Greater Portland) and website, the organization has selected Sean Robbins as its new chief executive officer.
Robbins, who left his position as executive vice president of Thrive, a regional public-private economic development partnership located in Madison, Wisconsin, said he jumped at the opportunity to relocate to the Pacific Northwest.
“There’s a unique blend of the economy in this region that I think a lot of places don’t have,” explained Robbins. “There’s a history and presence of manufacturing and making things; there’s also an incredibly dense talent cluster of creative thinking.
“I think it’s a fascinating environment to be in because most places are usually one or the other – they’re either very professional service or creative-based economies, or they tend to be very manufacturing-oriented economies. They rarely come together in one place,” added Robbins. “Kind of like the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers, Portland and Vancouver have intersected two very interesting and unique economic paths.”
Mark Ganz, Regence CEO and board chairman of Greater Portland Inc., said that job number one for Robbins is to work on changing the fragmented way in which many people view economic development in the region – where, for example, a business moving from California to Vancouver is seen as a missed opportunity for Hillsboro.
“At the end of the day, we don’t care who wins in the region. We want the region to win,” said Ganz. “In the past, there’s been too much fragmentation in the community around who wins so that to the outside world, it has looked like the region doesn’t have its act together or is presenting a common face.”
Instead, Ganz said, we must recognize that certain communities have unique resources that can be pooled together and presented to the outside world as one.
“What’s great about the Vancouver side of the river is that there are unique assets that are going to attract some businesses here because of either the tax advantages they see, or the land-use capability that might be better here than on the Oregon side of the region,” explained Ganz. “On the other hand, there are certain kinds of businesses that will be attracted by unique things that Oregon has. The beauty of it is that communities can look at it and say, ‘we want the region to win.’”
Robbins said a unified economic approach starts by recognizing that businesses view Portland as the region’s global brand.
What about companies that don’t want to be affiliated with the Rose City?
“You don’t have to be Portland,” said Robbins. “But they’re your neighbor. And as Portland succeeds so too can Vancouver. And when Vancouver succeeds so will Portland. Inherently, everybody shares the same space; we all raise families in the same community. So we ought to be rooting at a healthy competitive level for each other’s success because it begets more success.”
