A18 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016
FROM PAGE A1
EOTEC leaders show off center to Walden
By JADE McDOWELL
Staff Writer
U.S. Rep. Greg Walden,
R-Hood River, stopped by
Hermiston for a tour of the
Eastern Oregon Trade and
Event Center on Friday
during his trip across East-
ern Oregon.
Standing in the most-
ly-completed event center
building, EOTEC board
member Dan Dorran told
Walden the project repre-
sented a unique partner-
ship between city, county,
school district and private
industry.
“We’re very proud of
this project,” Dorran said.
Dorran explained the
center’s history, starting
with the purchase of the
EOTEC property in 1983,
when the Umatilla Coun-
ty Fair had 12,000 visitors
per year. In 2015, the same
fairgrounds draw in 80,000
people for the fair and close
to as many for the Farm-
City Pro Rodeo.
He noted that in addi-
tion to planned events, the
project could also serve as
an evacuation point in an
emergency, just like the
current fairgrounds did in
2014 after an explosion at
the LNG natural gas plant
in Plymouth forced resi-
dents across the river.
“Our plan is to have ev-
erything in place to be able
to do that again,” Dorran
said.
He told Walden that if
he had any federal grants
or other pockets of money
needing to be spent, the
EOTEC project was “shov-
els in the ground” ready.
“We do have our hand
out all the time,” Dorran
said.
Walden didn’t make any
promises that he could con-
jure up federal funding for
ECHENRODE:
continued from Page A1
operatives. He previously
worked six years as general
manager of the Northeast
Oklahoma Electric Co-op
in Vinita, Oklahoma, serv-
ing 38,000 customers.
Echenrode has also
worked as an engineering
manager at Carroll Electric
Co-op in Berryville, Ar-
kansas, and Indian Electric
Co-op in Cleveland, Okla-
homa.
The UEC Board of Di-
rectors chose Echenrode
from a pool of 22 candi-
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from a nationwide search.
Board President Jeff Wen-
holz said Echenrode brings
both experience and dedi-
cation to the position.
“From the beginning,
we were impressed with his
work ethic and devotion to
the cooperative, and how
quickly he learned our sys-
tem,” Wenholz said.
Echenrode becomes only
the fourth general manager
in UEC history. Eldrige has
CANCER:
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
EOTEC board member Dan Dorran gives a tour of the event center to Rep. Greg Walden on Friday in Hermiston.
the project, but he did ask
questions and make sugges-
tions during a detailed tour
of the facility. While dis-
cussing the acoustics in the
great hall, he told Dorran he
was interested to see a com-
puterized PA system at the
Readiness Center in The
Dalles that automatically
senses the level of noise in
the room and adjusts ac-
cordingly.
The EOTEC board is
planning a community open
house of the event center
facility sometime in March,
once the building is com-
pleted.
Earlier in the day,
Walden made a stop at the
Boardman Tree Farm with
state Sen. Bill Hansell,
R-Athena, where the two
met behind closed doors
with GreenWood Resourc-
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is undergoing a change of
ownership, with roughly
one-third of the property
having been sold to Willow
Creek Dairy and the rest of
the land to AgriNorthwest.
The lawmakers toured
both the Collins Compa-
nies’ Upper Columbia Mill
and Columbia Forest Prod-
ucts veneer mill after their
meeting. Walden said he
was impressed with the op-
erations, and is pleased to
know the land will remain
under local management
and ownership.
Much of Walden’s recent
focus has been on the situ-
ation in Harney County and
the armed occupation of the
Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge. He said the nation
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on a long-standing problem
in the West, where “the fed-
eral government has been
the landlord.”
However, Walden said
he does not agree with the
occupation and said most of
the community wants those
involved to leave.
“It’s unfortunate they re-
sorted to this kind of armed
protest. History shows that
the longer this goes, there
really are no winners,”
Walden said. “We’re all
hoping this ends with no
violence.”
Walden said he does not
see Congress acting on the
militia’s request to turn the
federal wildlife reserve
over to the county. Walden
said the federal govern-
ment must improve rela-
tionships with local com-
munities, and part of that
is increasing active land
management to revive the
rural economy.
“We need to get back to
the point where people feel
like the government listens
to them, and they’re getting
a fair shake,” he said.
served in the position since
1990, overseeing rapid
growth at the Port of Mor-
row along with introduction
of power-hungry data cen-
ters in both Boardman and
Umatilla.
Echenrode takes the
reigns at a time when UEC
is on the verge of becoming
one of the state’s “large”
utilities, meaning it pro-
vides at least 3 percent of
all electric sales statewide.
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cant changes in how UEC
must obtain power under
the state Renewable Portfo-
lio Standard.
UEC currently serves
more than 14,000 accounts
and about 2,200 miles of
power lines from Board-
man to the Blue Mountains.
The co-op recorded about
$87.25 million in revenue
in 2015.
Echenrode has a bach-
elor’s degree in electri-
cal engineering from The
Ohio State University and
a master’s degree from
Oklahoma State Universi-
ty. As engineering manag-
er, he was closely involved
in helping UEC accommo-
date industrial expansion
at the ports of Morrow and
Umatilla.
Echenrode and his wife,
Judy, have been married
since 1989. Their son Evan,
20, is a sophomore at Okla-
homa State University.
Their son Avery, 18, will
graduate from high school
in Oklahoma and has al-
ready been accepted to col-
lege by Oregon State Uni-
versity and Portland State
University.
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rounding community-based
projects. For instance, Rohr-
man talked about a canned
food drive and a fundraiser
for Special Olympics.
“All we have to do is ask,”
he said. “Consistently ask.”
Rohrman said a goal for
his ASB unit to is achieve
100 percent participation in
one of these projects. With the
amount of attention #Young-
manOnEllen is attracting —
Rohrman said some of his
students have said in class,
‘Can we look at the Facebook
page? We don’t want to talk
about the end of World War
II — he’s hopeful he can both
achieve his 100 percent goal,
but also give the important
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helpfulness.
“It’s so easy to do and
we’re gonna have a pret-
ty good impact as far as the
awareness for cancer and
how strong someone like
Mrs. Youngman is. I mean,
three bouts with cancer from
a young age — that’s a tough
lady. It’s just another opportu-
nity to show how easy it is to
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