FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information, contact: Megan Doern, 503.552.6754
Portland, Ore. – The Portland Business Alliance hosted its annual meeting today, with roughly 900 business people, government officials and community members in attendance. Brian Carolin, Senior Vice President for Nissan North America, spoke to the gathering and shared Nissan’s electric vehicle plans with the crowd, highlighting Oregon’s innovation in advancing electric vehicle and charging station infrastructure regionally and nationally.
The meeting highlighted Portland area business’s successes, innovation, philanthropy and the way in which business has persevered and contributed to the community, even during tough times. A video was shown that illustrated the core of business success – the hundreds of thousands of employees that keep the region’s economy going. View the video on the Alliance YouTube channel, here: http://www.youtube.com/user/portlandalliance.
The Alliance’s board chair, Charles Wilhoite, made the following statement about moving business forward and putting Oregonians back to work:
“Good private sector jobs are the cornerstone for ensuring healthy families in our state, and they are also key to maintaining adequate public services. An income tax dependent state like Oregon needs healthy incomes to produce healthy public revenues. To move forward as a region, the public and private sectors need to work more closely together to keep the jobs we have and create new ones.”
The Alliance also recognized business leaders who make significant contributions to the Alliance’s work and to the community with these volunteer awards:
- President’s Award: Philip Kalberer of Kalberer Company
- Transportation Award: Jay Graves of The Bike Gallery, Mira Birk of Alta Planning & Design and David Knowles of CH2M Hill
- Downtown Award: Shelley Bailey from Central Drug
- Membership Award: Mark Herdering from Send Out Cards
- Communications Award: Sara Lee from Kaiser Permanente Northwest
