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Boeing-sponsored summit focuses locally

By Shannon Wells

The Gresham Outlook, Oct 13, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

The “Try Local First” theme of the 10th annual East County Economic Summit manifested itself in more ways than one.

In addition to holding the event — sponsored this year by the Boeing Company — at East Hill Church in the heart of downtown Gresham, a voucher system allowed participants to get a taste, literally, of what the area is all about.

For lunch, the approximately 150 participants of this year’s event were given $10 vouchers they could redeem at their choice of several downtown restaurants. This marked a shift away from the banquet-lunch format of previous years, when the event was held at Persimmon Country Club.

Carol Nielsen-Hood, executive director of the Gresham Area Chamber of Commerce, says she’s pleased with the changes that refocused the summit on the local business community.

“Our emphasis was try local first,” she says, “and we did that by having local people as speakers and emphasizing the importance of using (locally based) merchants and businesses.

“The other part was having lunch vouchers for downtown restaurants, and about 80 percent of the people who attended took advantage of that.”

Based on a preliminary review of participant surveys, she says, those who attended liked the altered format that highlighted individual workshop sessions in addition to key presentations by Mike Hallgrimson and Don Hendrickson of the Boeing Company.

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