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
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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
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