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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (July 21, 2005)
The INDEPENDENT, July 21, 2005 Page 5 Business Notes WOEC manager happily returns to Oregon and small town living Before talking about busi ness, Marc Farmer, who start ed as general manager of West O regon Electric Cooperative (WOEC) on July 11, wanted to correct one statement. Farmer was reported earlier as being from Idaho, and he has been living and working there, but both he and his wife are Oregonians. He is originally from Cave Junction and his wife, Julie, is from Medford, and feel that they are now back “home” in Oregon. Julie Farmer is a profession al hair stylist and will start work at Spiralz in August. Their four children are scattered around with the oldest, Jonathan, cur rently in Rome, Italy. Jessica is married and living in Grants Pass with her husband and new baby, Ashlynn. Trevor and Megan, 17 and 16, will be jun iors this year at Vernonia High School. Farmer, who graduated from Rogue Community College, at tended Brigham Young for a year before going to Southern Oregon State College, then got Marc Farmer Strassell Road will be detour route From page 1 foot long single span with 26- inch deep, pre-cast, pre stressed concrete slabs sup ported by a driven pipe pile foundation. Each concrete abutment will be founded on six 12-inch pipe piles that will be driven to mudstone to achieve the bearing strength required. The new roadway width and out-to-out width of the slabs is 36 feet. The roadway will ac commodate two 12-foot travel lanes with two four-foot shoul ders. The existing culvert was in stalled in 1969 to carry Beaver Creek under Timber Road. The new bridge and roadway align ment will closely match the ex isting horizontal and vertical roadw ay alignm ents. M inor vertical adjustm ents will be made at the bridge to facilitate drainage. The new bridge will meet current safety and seis- mic design standards. This project is funded by the 2003 Oregon Transportation Invest ment Act (OTIA III). It is one of seven bridges selected in W ashington C ounty for re placem ent by the Oregon Transportation Com m ission this year. For additional information or inquiries, contact Abe Turki at (503) 846-7859 or by e-mail at a b ra h a m _ tu rki@ co .w a sh in g - ton.or.us a job in marketing at Coos-Cur ry Electric Cooperative one term short of graduation, back in 1986. He worked there for 11 years, becoming Marketing and Economic Development Direc tor in addition to being named General Manager of their sub sidiary, Direct TV, in 1993. He then spent two years working in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for Dig ital Television Services of Geor gia. That company was bought out by Pegasus Satellite Ser vices who moved Farmer to Kuna, Idaho. He worked for Pe gasus for eight months before returning to National Rural Telecommunications Coopera tive (NRTC, the Direct TV peo ple) and stayed with them for six-plus years. The NRTC job involved trav eling, lots of traveling, from Alaska to California and over to Colorado, covering nine states. It allowed him to make friends A ll M ««at Ü d B flill % — » jk O - • Consealed Fastener Products • Purlins & Girts • Standing Seam 1*, 1W\ 2* • Sofet System • Braked Shapes to 26' 4" long 16 ga. max. ♦ SALE ♦ SALE ♦ 3' wide, 28-ga. GALVANIZED ■ Not a member? Everyone in Columbia & Clatsop counties can join! Certificate rates that should really PEAK y o u r interest Turn to Wauna Federal for great investment rates and options like our 18-month Bump Rate Certificates with yields of up to 3.50% APY.* PLUS, the option to bump up your rate one time during the term of the certificate to maximize your earnings potential. All with the safety and security of federal deposit insurance. ffil I says commercial/industrial cus tomers would be needed to help with this goal, and that will depend greatly on what hap pens with PGE territory. The second goal is to make Columbia Broadband success ful...again, if possible. A similar venture by rural electric coop eratives, but one with greater potential, is a service called Wild Blue that will be available commercially in August. The franchise rights have been pur chased to allow Wild Blue to be marketed in Oregon, W ashing ton and Utah. Wild Blue is high speed internet via satellite and will be available in three differ ent packages. Stay tuned for more information on this project at the annual meeting on Au gust 27 at the Scout Cabin. In the meantime, Farmer is fam iliarizing him self with WOEC and with Vernonia. Al ready familiar with the local cof fee house, look for him around town or find him at WOEC. He’ll be the one looking happy to be here and ready to work hard for his customers. I 1 11 * In d t iiK l è in many places and make some very special memories, includ ing his dip in Alaska waters when he joined the Polar Bear Club. The Polar Bear papers state that he “willfully” jumped in the water. That was fun, but traveling got old, so the deci sion was made to pursue a job that would allow for more fami ly time. W OEC is a good fit for Farm er’s experience and brings the family back to small town Oregon. While very com plimentary of the staff and cur rent operations at W OEC, Farmer said that the main rea son he was brought on board at WOEC was his experience in internet and satellite communi cations, as W OEC has not been able to do much with their subsidiary, C olum bia Broad band. Farm er has two prim ary goals: One is to expand W OEC’s service territory if pos sible. The chance of doing so is slim, because it is difficult to find underserved electric cus tomers in the area. Farm er per fo o t « 3' wide, 28-ga. 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