Regional wind team fosters new sense of collaboration and opportunity

A few weeks ago, the largest-ever public-private delegation assembled to showcase the Portland region at the nation’s biggest energy show. Twenty-eight delegates from public and private entities partnered with the Portland Development Commission to present our region’s manufacturing expertise at the American Wind Energy Association’s Windpower 2010, held in Dallas last month.

More than 20,000 people attended the show, which drew 1,500 exhibitors from around the globe. The Portland region had its own booth, “The Pacific Northwest Wind Team, Your Supplier Connection,” where potential customers could visit with delegation companies and discuss business opportunities.

The delegation included many well-established manufacturing firms such as Premier Gear, Vigor Industrial, Hydra-Power Systems and Stack Metallurgical, eager to showcase their capabilities and identify potential opportunities to diversify into the wind industry and develop regional partnerships among industry suppliers, government and associations.

The City of Portland’s Five-Year Economic Development Strategy urges collaborative efforts to enhance business competitiveness in industries like clean tech, with the potential to generate jobs and economic growth for our region.

In the months of planning that led up to the event, the wind group reached a greater understanding of where the Portland region stands with respect to supplying, and growing, the wind business — and that understanding has informed the collaborative efforts of PDC, other public agencies and private associations to develop appropriate programs, market research and networking opportunities for our regional companies.

For the Windpower show, we provided assistance gathering competitive intelligence, industry analysis and targeted marketing lists. Once we had a targeted list of potential buyers and understood how companies fit into the supply chain, we set up meetings for our businesses to meet with potential buyers at the show. We are still monitoring the results, but we know that several Portland-area firms are now being considered for future jobs providing parts for turbines, thanks to their show attendance.

We also encouraged supply chain managers to utilize the online Connectory database when searching for a Northwest supplier. The database allows companies to profile the products and services they provide.

We’re ahead of the curve on this aspect of the business — most companies in the region are not yet supplying to the wind industry. We’ve been able to identify that the region’s long-term advantage is in providing services, maintenance and replacement parts for farms already operating in the Northwest, where the owners and operators have options to use a local supply chain. Nationally, Washington and Oregon rank 4^th and 5^th respectively for installed wind. The owners and operators would prefer to use a regional source for service and replacement parts to save overall operational costs.

So we’re presented with a unique and urgent opportunity to provide resources now to regional manufacturers, to help them explore opportunities and take the necessary risks to diversify. The Portland region offers a large base of manufacturing firms with experience in the aerospace, high tech and transportation equipment. Those firms are well positioned to provide services and products for the renewable energy industry.

While the overall goal for the Windpower team was to spark business development and growth of a regional supply chain, the effort had a powerful ancillary benefit: the sense of teamwork that the business participants gained by networking among themselves and learning about each other’s operations.

Collectively, we are better prepared to develop regional partnerships and conduct supply chain programs where businesses can receive technical assistance and exposure. We’re poised to pursue opportunities for local manufacturers to fill supply chain gaps and replace imported components for the fast-growing wind industry here. The doors have just opened a bit wider to an array of promising new prospects for our local businesses.

Pam Neal is the senior program manager for the Portland Development Commission’s Clean Tech Team and the commission’s wind industry liaison.