Business AgLife
B
Thursday, August 13, 2020
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Unions
address
trade-related
job losses in
Oregon
By Jade McDowell
EO Media Group
Photo by Dick Mason/EO Media Group
Brother Bear Cafe owner Kody Guentert makes espresso Tuesday, Aug. 11. The new coffee shop and restaurant, which opens Saturday, will
operate in the former Joe Beans Coffee site in La Grande after the restaurant closed earlier this year.
New cafe to open Saturday
Brother Bear Coffee
will open in previous
Joe Beans location
By Dick Mason
EO Media Group
LA GRANDE — Kody Guen-
tert will celebrate the start of a
promising new life chapter Sat-
urday, Aug. 15, while keeping a
significant part of downtown La
Grande’s recent past percolating.
Guentert, 26, will open his
first business, Brother Bear Cafe,
a new restaurant and coffee
shop at 1009 Adams Ave., the
former site of Joe Beans Coffee,
which closed several months ago
because of health-related issues.
Al and Colleen MacLeod sold
their shop to Guentert after oper-
ating Joe Beans for 10 years.
Guentert, who previously
worked at the MacLeods’ cafe for
about 1-1/2 years, will salute their
legacy by continuing to serve
their Joe Beans coffee.
“Its flavor is hard to beat,” said
Guentert, who began drinking the
coffee seven years ago.
The coffee will be provided
by Al MacLeod. He has roasted
beans for years and will con-
tinue to do so for Brother Bear
Cafe. Guentert was impressed not
Photo by Dick Mason/EO Media Group
Brother Bear Cafe owner Kody Guentert (left) directs employees Ri-
ley Jefferies (center) and Soren Caudill through steps the staff will
take at the new coffee shop and restaurant. Brother Bear Cafe, which
opens Saturday, Aug. 15, will feature local ingredients and locally
roasted coffee.
only with the MacLeod’s coffee
but also with how the couple
greeted their customers, some-
thing he and his staff will strive
to emulate.
“They made everyone feel spe-
cial, needed and cozy and com-
fortable,” he said.
Guentert added that the
MacLeods were very good to
their staff.
“It was fun working there,” he
Tiny backpacks for
chickens find parasites
By Sierra Dawn McClain
Capital Press
To help poultry farmers fight
parasite infestations, researchers
have invented a new insect
detection system they believe
could transform the industry:
“backpacks” for chickens.
Amy Murillo, entomolo-
gist at the University of Califor-
nia-Riverside, recalls attending
poultry meetings and wondering
what could be done to control
parasites.
Infestations can have devas-
tating economic consequences,
and parasites aren’t just a
problem in caged birds. Some
parasites, Murillo said, are more
likely to fester in complex habi-
tats with nest boxes where they
can live in cracks and crevices,
emerging at night to feed on
chickens.
Poultry producers have
methods of observing flock
health, but examining individual
chickens is painstaking. There
must be a better way, Murillo
thought.
One day in 2017, when
Murillo was looking at a Fitbit
watch — a wearable device
that measures people’s activity
such as number of steps walked,
quality of sleep and heart rate —
an idea struck her.
Murillo knew chickens
behave certain ways, such as
dustbathing more often, when
battling parasites such as blood-
feeding livestock mites. It struck
her that tracking chickens’
behavior might help detect
mites.
“Looking at the watch, I
thought: Hey, it picks up when-
ever I step. Why can’t we do this
for chickens?” said Murillo. “It
seemed like an outlandish idea
at first for sure. It seemed silly to
put a Fitbit on a chicken.”
But that didn’t stop her.
Murillo approached
See, Chickens/Page 2B
said. “They treated everyone like
family.”
Colleen MacLeod said Guen-
tert was among their favorite
employees.
“There is nobody like Kody.
He is like a son to us. He is ter-
rific,” she said.
Brother Bear Cafe customers
will find the same hospitality
but a different look. Guentert
and his staff are working to add
a rustic look to the cafe’s decor
and a lounge area with couches.
And customers will find faster
internet, as fiber-optic Wi-Fi ser-
vice has been added.
All meat sandwiches served
at the cafe will have a local
flavor, for the ingredients will
come from Hines Meat Co. in
La Grande. Guentert has a first-
hand appreciation of the quality
of Hines’ meats as an employee
there — a job he will resign from
after his cafe opens.
Brother Bear Cafe’s features
will include the presence of a
candle making business and one
that makes customized mugs.
Guertert, who grew up in the
Pacific Northwest, is more than
a businessman. He also is an
Eastern Oregon University stu-
dent close to earning a bachelor’s
degree in psychology. Guentert
has worked in the food ser-
vice industry since he was 15.
He previously was a cook and
waiter at the Flying J restaurant
in La Grande and also worked at
Shari’s Cafe and Pies in Portland.
Guentert will be assisted at
Brother Bear Cafe by staff mem-
bers Riley Jefferies, Soren Cau-
dill and Payton Jolley.
The cafe will be open from
7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday
through Saturday.
SALEM — A new analysis of
data from the U.S. Department
of Labor shows Oregon has lost
the most jobs per capita to trade
and offshoring, according to the
nonprofit Trade Justice Education
Fund.
The report uses numbers
from Trade Adjustment Assis-
tance, a federal program that pro-
vides assistance to workers who
lost their jobs as a direct result of
the job being moved overseas or
the product they produce being
replaced by imports from other
countries. A total of 11,396 job
losses in Oregon from 2017 to
2019 were certified as “trade-re-
lated job losses” by the TAA.
Jon Irvine, the workforce
liaison for the Oregon AFL-CIO
union, said he had his own expe-
rience with Trade Adjustment
Assistance after being laid off in
2008.
“It was an incredible program
at the time for me,” he said.
Irvin said the TAA allowed
him to get into a nursing pro-
gram after his high-skill job was
cut and it didn’t look like it was
coming back.
He said it was “ridiculous,”
however, to see workers, such as
machinists in high-skill jobs con-
tinually lose their jobs and go
back onto the TAA rolls again
before going through the training
needed for another company.
“Nothing replaces good, solid
manufacturing jobs right here in
the state of Oregon,” he said.
One of those people who has
been a TAA recipient multiple
times is Nathan Aldrich, a former
machinist who was laid off with
“hundreds” of other people due
to offshoring. He went back to
school with the help of the TAA
and worked for Boeing before
recently losing his job again to
offshoring.
“I got some experience with
manufacturing and a trade, but it
is definitely suffering,” he said of
those industries.
Umatilla County residents
have had their own experiences
with trade-related job losses.
According to the Trade Jus-
tice Education Fund’s report,
33 people who lost their jobs at
Hermiston Foods were certified
by the TAA as trade-related job
losses in 2017, along with 219 jobs
at Sykes Enterprises Incorporated.
Hermiston Foods was a veg-
etable-processing plant owned
by NORPAC, which closed the
Hermiston facility and laid off
See, Losses/Page 2B
Yia Yia Nikki’s to hold grand opening
Photo by Ronald Bond/EO Media Group
The Yia Yia Nikki’s Second Street location has already opened, but will hold a grand opening celebration
Monday, Aug. 17, with $3 gyros and a free soft drink. The restaurant opens at 11 a.m.