The SpokeSman • WedneSday, January 12, 2022 P5
Bill Bartlett/photos for The Spokesman
Construction nears completion of 50,000 square-foot addition to Medline, which manufactures medical parts.
Tech
Continued from P1
They employ 18 and when
they reach full scale, that num-
ber will grow to around 100
according to Carsten Sundin,
President and CEO. They are
supported by remote staff in
Canada and India, but Sundin
is proudest of the high level
engineers and fabricators staff
from Redmond who get the
planes airborne.
BasX is HVAC
In the same league is BasX,
the 10-year-old industry leader
in the manufacturing of high
efficiency data center cool-
ing solutions, cleanroom set-
tings and custom HVAC sys-
tems which employs 320 at its
140,000-square -foot complex
on SW 21st Street. Just get-
ting through the front door is
a model of technology with a
virtual receptionist who even
takes your temperature auton-
omously as a COVID mitiga-
tion measure.
“Clean rooms” are those
structures where extremely
valuable or vulnerable oper-
ations take place such as the
making of computer chips
that require extreme control
of temperature, dust, humid-
ity and air pressure to avoid
contamination of the product.
When rooms like that need to
be designed, engineered and
built, one does not call Bob’s
Heating & Air.
Medline in line for growth
Drive all over the back
streets and business parks of
Redmond and you find busi-
nesses just like those, some
with impressive, large scale fa-
cilities. Take Medline on NE
Hemlock for example now
doubling its size from 50 to
100,000 square feet. Inside the
walls are highly skilled workers
and highly complex systems
making life-saving medical
products such as used for tis-
sue repair and wound care.
Thirty engineers alone are
part of a much larger roster
of skilled craft workers whose
output includes high-tech
surgical devices like electri-
cal scalpels. It takes extraordi-
nary ability and certification
to supply the hospital market.
The Redmond plant is one of
several in the $18 billion com-
pany’s portfolio. Picking Red-
mond for a production facil-
ity is testament to the caliber
of worker and infrastructure
Capitol
Continued from P1
Change at the top: House Dem-
ocrats, who have a 37-23 majority,
will choose the new speaker before
the 2022 session. Rep. Janelle Bynum,
D-Clackamas, wants the job, but
Democrats may opt for a caretaker
speaker for 2022 before regrouping
after the election for the 2023 ses-
sion. Adding to the political whiplash,
House Majority Leader Barbara Smith
Warner, D-Portland, has told Oregon
Public Broadcasting she will give up
her position as the party’s floor leader
before the 2022 session as well.
Senate Majority Leader Rob Wag-
ner, D-Lake Oswego, first chosen
majority leader for the 2021 session,
will be the longest-serving legislative
leader in the 2022 session with plans
to stay in the Legislature. He’ll lead the
Democrats, who have a majority of 18
of 30 seats.
The minority Republicans in both
chambers have new leaders as well.
Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, a former
House majority leader, steps in as an
institutional stalwart for a fractured
GOP caucus in which only 10 of the
12 senators follow the party leader.
One of two
large ca-
pacity la-
ser-cutting
machines at
BasX Solu-
tions in Red-
mond
found in the city.
Other, smaller technologies
A much smaller and lo-
cally owned firm, Springer
Precision, on SW Deerhound
typifies another of dozens of
manufacturers in Redmond. It
makes parts for firearms rang-
ing from coil magazine springs
to base pads to magazine ex-
tensions and much more. Guns
are loaded with technology
once you take them apart. Pre-
cise machining is critical in ev-
ery sense of the word.
Then there’s Risse Racing
Technology in its new, larger
facility on SW 2nd Ct., one
more illustration of where
A faction led by Sen. Dallas Heard,
R-Roseburg, who is also the Oregon
Republican Party chair, takes a hard-
line stance or boycotts votes.
In the House, Rep. Vikki Breese
Iverson, R-Prineville, will lead a more
cohesive Republican caucus. Cho-
sen leader late last year after House
Minority Leader Christine Drazan,
R-Canby, stepped down to focus on
her campaign for governor, it will be
the first regular session with Breese
Iverson determining the strategy for
her “superminority.”
The change will be unfamiliar to all
but a handful of the most veteran law-
makers. To have new legislative traffic
controllers in a short session could be
a tall task.
“There will be a leadership experi-
ence vacuum and that always leads to
instability,” Knopp said.
Big plate of bills: Lawmakers could
submit nearly 200 bills, with addi-
tional legislation coming from leader-
ship and committee chairs. Each bill
would have to be introduced, have
a hearing, win committee approval,
win a floor vote, then go to the other
chamber where the process would be
repeated all over. If approved and any
changes reconciled, only then would it
Redmond high tech is on full
display. It designs and man-
ufactures high performance
mountain bike suspension
components that are distrib-
uted in Latin America, Europe
and New Zealand as well as in
the States.
Schools playing a role
Schools in Redmond are up
to the task. Both high schools
offer CTE (Career and Techni-
cal Education) opportunities
sorely needed to fill the ranks
of unfilled jobs in the trades
and manufacturing sectors.
BasX, for example, expects to
need another 100 workers in
the near future. They are short-
go to Brown.
All in 35 days.
Democrats would like to deal with
skill and job training, increase the
number of educators, make criminal
justice reforms and address safeguards
and aid for the pandemic’s front-line
workers.
“It’s my job to help my colleagues
get their bills across the finish line,”
Wagner said.
Knopp said Republicans wanted
to honor what he said was the will of
voters who approved adding the short
session in addition to the odd-year
160-day long session.
“Only bills that are budget-related,
technical fixes or emergencies should
pass during the short session,” Knopp
said. “Democrat majorities should be
wary of government overreach as the
public is done with it.”
Stalls and stops: Republicans do
not have enough members in either
chamber to block legislation. But two
archaic parts of the Oregon Constitu-
tion have given them a big cudgel in
recent years.
Oregon is one of the few states
where more than a majority of law-
makers is needed in each chamber to
create a quorum to do any business.
handed now with a dozen or
more job openings.
Redmond Proficiency Acad-
emy boasts award winning
STEM Robotics and electives
in computer science and AP
Physics along with Business
and Technology CTE courses.
The Redmond Technology
Education Center at Central
Oregon Community Col-
lege could not be better po-
sitioned to guarantee gradu-
ates rewarding careers. Their
34,000-square-foot building
houses technology-centered
programs that allow students
to train for current and future
family-wage jobs. The $12.5
million building began classes
Oregon requires two-thirds atten-
dance, which is 40 in the House and
20 in the Senate. Republicans have
walked out over carbon cap legislation
and education legislation in the past.
The 2020 session died after just three
bills were passed.
Drazan came up with a different
way to jam the gears on the Demo-
crats’ agenda as minority leader in
2021. Under the Constitution, bills
must be read in their entirety be-
fore final passage. In less contentious
times, the requirement was usually
waived without objection and just the
short title of the bill was read. If an
objection was raised, it took a two-
thirds vote of the House to overcome
the objection.
Objections had been used spar-
ingly on highly controversial bills.
Drazan employed a blanket objection
to all legislation, which led to a mas-
sive backlog of bills to back up until a
deal was struck with Kotek to speed
things up.
Kotek agreed to give Drazan a seat
on the House Redistricting Com-
mittee, giving it 3-to-3 parity on the
panel. But when a special session was
held in September to approve redis-
tricting, committees had to be for-
in the 2014 fall semester.
A key aspect of COCC’s vi-
sion for the facility is its adapt-
ability for future needs project-
ing that 10 years from now and
beyond, the Center will be able
to support training in technol-
ogies that are unknown today.
To provide this flexibility, the
Technology Education Center
was designed with modifiable
spaces as well as expansion
space and large exterior access
doors to allow for removing
old and installing new equip-
ment.
Apart form their well-
known vet tech degree pro-
gram, the college offers a two-
year automotive technology
degree emphasizing electric
and hybrid power systems,
clean diesel and on-board ve-
hicle management diagnostics
prevalent in the current gener-
ation of highly technical cars
and trucks. Very few car own-
ers could even dream of repair-
ing their own vehicle today.
The jobs produced by the
many, albeit obscure, high tech
enterprises in Redmond are
just the kind idealized by city
planners — good paying, sus-
tainable and contributing to
the city’s dynamism and attrac-
tiveness.
mally reestablished. Kotek announced
the redistricting panel would revert to
a Democrat majority.
Deals or dead on arrival?: Pros-
pects of finding areas of agree-
ment were possible, leaders of both
chambers and both parties said. But
whether 2022 and its many challenges
in a short time will make reaching
consensus a challenge.
“There’s no reason we can’t suc-
cessfully pass essential bills that solve
problems for Oregonians this year
unless our Democrat leadership fails
to listen to Oregonians by charging
ahead with a partisan agenda,” Breese
Iverson said.
If her caucus sees bills they think fit
the “partisan agenda” moving toward
approval, Breese Iverson said slowing
down the legislative assembly line was
an option.
“The reading of bills is an essential
backstop in response to failed Demo-
crat leadership that shuts out differing
opinions and concerns,” Breese Iver-
son said. “We hope it won’t be neces-
sary this session and that we can work
on bipartisan legislation to benefit the
entire state fairly, but it’s not off the
table.”
e
gwarner@eomediagroup.com