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Governor visits campus dedication, a 'great partnership'
by Nolan Kidwell
News Editor
The Oregon Advanced
Technology Center (OATC) at the
CCC Wilsonville campus was
dedicated in a ceremony, March
19, and was attended by represen
tatives from business, industry and
government, including Governor
Barbara Roberts, who spoke at the
ceremony.
“This advanced technol
ogy center is a cornerstone for vo
cational training in the state,” said
Roberts as she addressed the crowd
of500 which had assembled for the
occasion. “Your exciting collabo
ration goes a long way toward help
ing Oregon build the best-trained
work force by the year 2000.”
The OATC has been cre
ated through a collaboration of
donations made by various busi
nesses and industries, both here in
Oregon and nationally which spe
cialize in screw machine produc
tion and precision metal fabrica
tion.
will continue the partnership with
similar arrangements.
Index Corporation is only
one of the businesses who donated
part of the $1.6 million in instruc
“Our biggest frustration
was when we started selling in the
U.S. market and the U.S. was not
educated on the machines,” accord
ing to Gary Sihler, of Index Corpo
ration in Connecticut, a German
based company, who is one of the
major contributors to OATC.
“It is only in our best inter
est to help the U.S. move from
mass production to more flexible
production,” added Sihler. Index
Corporation has loaned a very so
phisticated piece of equipment to
the center which will eventually be
bought by Leupold and Stevens, a
Béa verton-based company. Sihler
tional equipment and software.
Many businesses involved in dona
tions feel that there will be more
demand for their products and
machines by other companies, if
the other companies feel that they
can find trained people to operate
the machines.
“It’s important for us to
show our product and have people
trained on it,” explained Steve Pit
kin, of Production Machine Tools.
“There is a growing need in the
Pacific Northwest,for sheet metal-
trained people.”
According to Garry Con
ner, oneof the instructors at OATC,
a couple of companies have al-
explains that Stevens and Index
photo by Notan Kidwell
Business executives participated in the events at the Wilsonville dedication. Several busi
nesses collectively donated $1.6 million in equipment and software.
photo by Notan Kidwell
Governor Barbara Roberts attended and spoke at the dedica
tion of the new Wilsonville campus.
ready bought laser cutters because
graduating this term. He has com
of what they saw at the center.
pleted his nine-month training and
“They saw they could get trained will be receiving his certificate. He
people.
already has a job which he got
The land for the OATC because of his training at OATC,
was donated by Tektronix, and and has had other job offers since.
construction of the center was paid “The results have been very grati
for through a $13 million taxpayer-
fying,” said Smith. The program
approved bond issue, along with
has taught me pride in workman-
state and federal grants.
The classes at
"We're still crossing the
the OATC have felt an
immediate demand. “I
Oregon Trail in new ways."
just got the word that
registration (for next
-John Keyser
term) is full, and the term
hasn’t even begun yet.”
said Conner. He says that he is ac
ship.”
"This is a great partner
tually one student over the maxi
mum registration and will have to
ship-one of the most exciting I’ve
worked on,” said College Presi
sign that student into the course.
Robert Smith, a precision
dent John Keyser. “We’re still cross
sheet metal technology student, is
ing the Oregon Trail in new ways.”
Russian economist speaks at Clackamas
by Nolan Kidwell
News Editor
Former Economic Advi
sor to Mikhail Gorbachev, Lev
Nicholaevich Karpov, spoke yes
terday to a large group of students,
faculty and staff in the McLough
lin Hall Theater about conditions
in what used to be the Soviet Un
ion.
Karpov is the head of the
econpmic department of the Insti
tute of U.S. and Canada Studies at
the Russian Academy of Sciences.
He is also an author and expert on
regional and natural resource econo
mies. Karpov spoke here at Clacka
mas, once before, about three years
ago.
Due to Karpov’s earlier
appearance. at Lewis and Clark
College, he arrived later than ex
pected and skipped straight to a
question and answer session after a
brief address to the crowd. Karpov
spoke of two schools of thought as
to the current conditions in Russia.
One of these is that the turmoil has
reached bottom and the other is
that the former U.S.S.R is still fall
ing.
“We expect, for example,
a 20% reduction of GNP (Gross
National Product) next year,” com
mented Karpov. In response to a
question from one of the students at
the presentation, he said that the
standard of living in Russia is not
measured only by GNP, but “pro
ductivity,” transportation and geo
graphical division of labor. He feels
that because of the turmoil, pro
duction is slow.
According to Karpov,
defense cutbacks are about two-
thirds of the previous budget. He
said that this is still three times
larger than the cuts made by the
U.S. in the last year. Unfortunately,
these cuts in the manufacture of
arms have not helped the produc
tion of domestic goods all that much
in Russia, according ip Karpov. ,
“You cannot immediately
convert a shell into a piece of meat,”
he stated.
Karpov commented on the
unemployment in Russia, when
asked a question about the previ
ous claim of the Soviet Union of
full employment.
“I think we have about
four million unemployed now,” said
Karpov. This is about two or three
percent unemployment, according
to his calculations. “We consider
that in the future this number will
be bigger,” he said. Those without
work will probably rise to about six
"The deepest abyss
in the world is a finan
cial abyss."
-Lev Nicholaevich
Karpov
million, a large number of these are
expected to be women.
He does not expect trade
with other countries to change a
whole lot, in regard to what is ex
ported. According to Karpov, the
policy is only to sell products to
lution, but at the same time we
need help,” he said. “The deepest
abyss in the world is a financial
abyss.”
other countries, and not resources
such as lumber. He explained that
his country does sell lumber to
Finland, only because Finland,
though considered well forested,
has very thin forests and doesn’t
have the lumber capabilities of other
countries.
"You cannot immedi
ately convert a shell
into a piece of meat."
When referring to trade,
Karpov used a saying which comes
from Russia: “Optimists speak the
language of English. Pessimists
speak the language of Chinese.
Realists speak (Russian word for)
directly or effectively.”
Karpov agrees with a state
men t made on CNN, about the cur
rent financial help which the U.S.
is giving Russia now through Presi
dent George Bush’s proposal, say
ing that the help given was too
small and too late.
“This is a temporary so
Karpov feels that Russia
is moving more toward a free enter
prise system where the government
still owns much of the business, but
there is room for individual achieve
ment, which is different than in a
purely capitalist system. He de
scribes this as a “change in motiva
tion to woik.”
Karpov expects a “.„.sta
bilization which we hope to see at
the beginning of next year.”