More than 250 people from the A&O industry turned out to hear about “Bringing Big Ideas to Life” at the third annual A&O industry celebration on December 6, 2012. Peter Bragdon, Senior VP & General Counsel at Columbia Sportswear, welcomed the crowd on behalf of the A&O industry council and spoke about the unique success Portland has had in building public-private partnerships. The audience heard from Portland’s mayor-elect, Charlie Hales, as he highlighted the importance of the Athletic and Outdoor industry for Portland’s economy and job creation.
A&O industry council member Roy Notowitz of Notogroup, led a panel discussion on taking ideas from concept to commercialization. The panel included local Portland innovators, Andre Wolper of Embodee, D’Wayne Edwards of Pensole, and Ken Barker of CRAiLAR Technologies. Panelists discussed their inspirations for creating something brand new, the challenges they had to overcome, and tips for up and coming entrepreneurs.
The celebration also included the unveiling of AOPortland.com as a tool to connect and inform the local A&O industry through helpful features such as global and local industry news feeds, a jobs board, and a community events calendar. The site will also promote and market the Portland region as a hub for the global A&O industry.
Additional coverage of the event can be found on the following blogs:
Oregon Entrepreneurs Network Blog
The event also featured a silent auction to raise money for the maintenance of this website, with local A&O brands, Nau, Icebreaker, Adidas, Columbia Sportswear, Leupold & Stevens, and Chris King Precision Components, donating auction items from their product lines.
A door prize raffle included products and gift certificates from Tanner Goods, Homeschool Snowboarding, Snow Peak, RYZ, Leatherman, and Skora.
Thanks to the many sponsors of this year’s event:
In order to make future events as exciting and as relevant to the industry as possible, we have created a short survey for feedback on the event and to get ideas and opinions for future PDC-sponsored events. The survey is for both attendees and non-attendees of the December 6th event- https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/AOparty2012survey
