August 18, 2024 • 30 mins
Green Century Recycling in Northwest Portland has recycling options that can help you with items you can't recycle at the curb. Madden Industrial Craftsmen explores ways manufacturing businesses can attract and keep employees. Portland International Airport's new main terminal opened this week.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Local Voices. I'm brad Ford. This week we'll
introduce you to important business that can help you recycle
or find a reuse for items that you don't want,
Plus what manufacturing businesses can do to attract and keep
more employees. If there's something you need to recycle that
doesn't go into your curbside beIN. There's a business in
(00:25):
Northwest Portland that can probably help. Chris Reagis is the
owner of Green Century Recycling. Chris, tell us what your
business does.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Green Century Recycling is a recycling and community center that
we started in two thousand and eight on the premise
that there is no such thing of throw it away,
so we really try to adhere to the three tiers
of the recycling standard. First, reduction, practicing that when you
purchase your material, paying attention to how it's packaged and
(00:53):
the final disposition of that material. Recycling, which is obvious.
That's the reclamation of metals such as copper, gold and silver,
which ends up saving from mining those raw materials from
the earth, which conserves material like water.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
And then the.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Third is reuse, which Green Century also practices in that
we run a thrift store that we refurbish and resell laptops, desktops,
audio video equipment, and most things with the cord.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
With that, we have a.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Quality assurance program that also complies to our environmental standards
that has a thirty day warranty.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
So not everybody in the audience is familiar. What is
E cycle?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
E cycling is a shorthand for electronics recycling, So we
like to sum it up as anything with a cord,
most things with the battery.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
All of those have a printed.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Circuit board in it and can basically be separated down
into plastic and metal bearing materials.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
So what would happen if there weren't companies like Green
Century recycling with all of the electronics? I mean, I
remember a time before we were able to recycle those.
There was no place to take them. You just throw
them away.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, I think throwing it away is the magical statement
that Green Century is trying to speak to.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
There is no way.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
A way is a landfill in Portland. It happens to
be about one hundred yards from our river. So what
happens before companies like Green Century came along was these
items were just thrown in your everyday landfill.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
You know.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
They then go sent to the landfill and they sit
there for centuries why they decay. The other option is
that a lot of this material would end up in
metal yards or places that would then ship it overseas
to countries that have less than adequate ways of reclaiming
the metals in material. There's quite a bit of hazardous
(02:52):
material in a lot of this waste, and a lot
of it is considered heavy metals. So when you ship
illegally to a third party country and they burn it
over an open flame, that mercury that doesn't go anywhere,
It literally gets lit up where they've started the burn
and then it falls right back down in that same place,
causing cancers and other health problems for the people that
(03:14):
have done the burning or the dismantling. So there's a
real need across the globe, across the country to use
certified electronics and recycling facilities such as Green Century, and
we certify to the R two, V three and ISO standards.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
So talk to us about Green Century recycling environmental commitments.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Our environmental commitment is something that really stemmed from me personally.
I started the company in two thousand and eight. As
I mentioned on this magical premise that people like to
just throw things away. So what we did was we
really thought of a way that we could quantify what
we say we're doing with the material. This is in
(03:55):
lieu of any state or federal regulations. These are voluntary certifications.
And what we did was we wrote a system of processes,
procedures and instructions. Within these processes, procedures and instructions, we
take into account aspects, impacts, and risk assessments on land, air,
(04:16):
and water. And we do this in everything we do,
from the trucking companies we use to ship material, the
refineries we use to refine it, our dismantling process, and
our occupational health and safety. We then get audited on
these instructions, processes and procedures by an accrediting body for
about a week every year where they come in check
our paperwork, physically, interview our employees and check for our
(04:39):
environmental health and safety as well as our occupational health
and safety. We then further committed to this standard by
employing an environmental health and safety manager. This environmental health
and safety manager it's entire job role is to oversee
our commitment to our occupational health and safety as well
(04:59):
as in our mental health and safety.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
As looking at your website and the list of items
that you recycled is really long. I mean it's more
than just computers, praetors, and TVs. But let's start first
of all, what happens the electronics.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So the electronics get dismantled right here in Portland, Oregon
by our team. It's called hand dismantling. From there, it
gets separated out into gold bearing, copper bearing, or silver
bearing material and then sent for reclamation at refineries in
which we will then get our intrinsic value out of
those recovered materials based on the assays. The second avenue
(05:36):
is we sort into data containing devices non data containing devices.
The data gets overwritten or physically destroyed, and then we
have the ability to refurbish and reuse, which, as I
mentioned at the lead ind to this, reduction and reuse
are two important components of the recycling process.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, reuse is a lot cheaper than sending metals to
be recycled, or it just allows it to continue living
its life.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I couldn't agree more, Brad.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
It also foregoes the need for new packaging, which saves
in plastics, styrofoam, cardboard, so you're all around, you're saving
resources on the land, on the air, and the water,
and you're preventing things from being landfilled like LDPE or
HDPE polystyrene and polyethylene plastics, which can be hard to
deal with.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah, what type of equipment are people surprised that you recycle?
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Our customers vary.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Our customers vary from big tech companies with thousand plus
employees to customers with twenty or fewer employees. So I
think people get surprised when we handle household breakage is
how we call it, and this can be anything from
like a speaker to an electronic toothbrush. So think of
things in that form, and if you can think of it,
(06:54):
chances are it's come across our warehouse.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
You know, I saw on the web page it's really
hard to find a place that recycles styrofoam.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Our commitment, and I mentioned this at the beginning, is
really to be a community recycling center. We're a for
profit business, and I believe in that because I believe
in contributing.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
To the tax space.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
But I also believe that people should be have some
sort of relation to their garbage so they don't continue
to use magical and esoteric terms like throw it away.
The styrofoam came about because we were using a local
company here, Agilicks, for a long time and we were
just processing for our commercial customers.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Agilis abruptly closed and at.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
That point we were left sort of cavetching with our
fellow recyclers to figure out how we're going to keep
this stuff out of the landfill. And I came up
with a quick stop gap to use a company up
in Washington. But it's a long haul, and as I
mentioned before, that triggers the aspects impact and risk assessment,
(08:01):
and we discovered that it really you're not saving much
to ship this type of material all the way up
to Seattle to be processed.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
So we purchased our own machine.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So we purchased a styrofoam densifier, and we're doing it
here locally in Portland, Oregon, where we densify the foam
to it it becomes kind of a hardened block of polystyrene.
That polystyrene will then get sold to a remanufacturer, but
that remanufacturer is able to chop it up, diet make
it into computer plastics, picture frames, et cetera. I don't
(08:34):
believe that this is the best practice, you know, I
think the best practice for this material is absolutely in reduction.
So I think forward we could practice reuse, buying used
rather than buying new, really paying attention to packaging when
we purchase. Because at some point this polystyrene material can
(08:56):
no longer be processed and reused. It will eventually end
up in the land and phil we are doing our
best with the technology available today to densify it and
elongate its life. I'll tell you, when I first started
seeing it, it was a material that we just took
to help out our commercial clients. But when I first
(09:16):
started seeing it pile up in my warehouse at the
rate at which it was piling up, I couldn't help
but extrapolate and think of this stuff sitting in the
landfill again one hundred yards from the river, and knowing
that this stuff is going to outlast me, it's going
to outlast my son.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
So we did.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
We took the tools available to us and came up
with the best process we could, again considering all those
aspects and impacts to the environment.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
We're talking with Chris Rage's, owner and creator of Green
Century Recycling in Northwest Portland. Now you mentioned hard drives
and data that is on solid state chips. Solid state drives,
talk to us a little bit. You mentioned that, but
talk to us about when I take my computer ran
and it's got the hard or I've you know, your
data is what you're worried about. How do you guys
(10:03):
wipe those clean? Or you've also mentioned it was a destroying.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
It, physical destruction. Yeah, I love that question, Brad.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So there's within the r TWOV three and ISO certification,
there is a data destruction standard that we certify and
get audited to. But beyond that, there's just the day
to day practice of how my driver, my truck drivers
handle the material, how my receiving warehouse managers handle it,
how my data managers handle it. So again, what we
have is written processes and instruction sets that read a
(10:32):
lot like.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
If this, then this, you know, if that then this.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So first of all, every piece of data that comes
into our warehouse gets accounted for. It either gets a
logical partition overwritten which can address the solid state drives,
the nvmes, the m DOT two's. It's a better practice
than physically destroying it because these are on solid.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
State IC chips. So in that process, what we do
is we plug it into a machine.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
That there's a proprietary piece of software that we pay
for over writes this logical partition with a series of
ones and zeros. We can customize this standard to the
company's needs or to the individual's needs to either meet
an NIST standard, a DoD standard, or a single pass
wipe standard, whatever the customer requires. We then have another
(11:17):
company that comes in through a secure line on the
Internet and does a quality assurance check to verify that
all that data has been overwritten, and then issues us
a certificate of destruction which indemnifies the clients from any
data breach, and then we issue that to the client.
If for some reason the drive's not able to be
powered on, or there's damage or corruption, we just physically
(11:38):
destroy it by punching a two inch.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Hole through the hard drive platter.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
At home, if you have an uninterruptible power supply a UPS,
it's a battery, and so are those difficult to either
recycle or deal with that battery?
Speaker 3 (11:52):
They're difficult, They're difficult to manage.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
The recycling process is advancing very quickly at this point.
A lot of the catalyst there is the EV industry
and the need to use reclaim material to make that
industry sustainable. So, as I'm sure a lot of your
listeners know, they've recently opened up gray matter reclamation facilities
in the US, so the end of life processing is
(12:16):
becoming easier. Where Green Century has really excelled in helping
commercial clients and other processors in the Pacific Northwest is
again through our written processes and procedures and instructions that
can take the material safety and data sheets from the
different chemistries of batteries.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
For example, lead.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Acid like you mentioned in your ups Lithium PV four
is real popular in your sprinter vans and your motor homes.
Different types of nickel cadmium for your EV and nickel
batteries for your EV. So we've taken these processes and
really diluted it down to instruction sets for each different
type of chemistry. This is how you store it, this
(12:54):
is how you palatize it, this is how.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
You prepare it for shipping.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And then our environmental health and Safety manager does downstream
vetting as I mentioned, for any environmental infractions, certifications permitting,
and we find the best downstream processor for this material
that then reclaims all that matter and pays us based
on that reclamation.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Interesting, So where you located for people who want to
drop items off and does it cost anything?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So we're located in the Northwest Industrial section of Portland
twenty nine to fifty Northwest twenty ninth Avenue. We're open
six days a week to the public Monday through Friday
eight to five and Saturdays eleven to three. Most e
waste or e cycle waste. The electronics portion is free
of charge to drop off. We refer to household batteries,
(13:43):
alkaline batteries, fluorescent lights, LEDs is universal waste. A lot
of the universal waste will have a per pound fee,
which the schedule is on our website, and then the
styrofoam and the plastics which also have like a fee
based on the metric system we use, which is by
the gallon.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
But we are open six days a week.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Our reuse stores open six days a week and we
love it when people come in.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
We have the.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Lobby of our office set up as sort of a
community center rather than an office.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
There's my dog is usually there.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
There's arcade set up for kids and people more grown
kids like me that want to play. We have an
audio listening room where we have custom built speakers we
built out of refurbished speakers.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
And a nice little couch to kind of decompress.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
We usually have classical music or jazz playing, and then
we have our modest, little refurbished thrift store. So the
goal is really to have the community participate in the
way they're recycling is handled, to know that there's a
community center, like it's not a magical place that's away.
It's twenty nine to fifty northwest twenty nine. There's no
(14:52):
curiosity in how we process. There's direct answers on how
we process, and all of this is part of our
commitment to the environment because without educating people on how
the garbage is handled, there will always be a disassociation
of the effect it has on the environment.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
How do you want people to prepare material they're going
to drop off?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
We always ask that people separated out by type of material,
like your chargers over here, your laptops over here, anything
that you think is billable, have that separated out batteries
by their chemistry, and we have all those instructions available
online as well, and we're always just a phone call
away to help With that being said, you know, my
(15:35):
warehouse manager has been with me for ten years. Most
of the guys in the warehouse have been there for
over five years. Everybody's well aware that we are in
the business to recycle and keep things out of the landfill.
We are not in the business to teach people how
to sort their garbage. We simply just want them to
relate it to recycling and know that there's some accountability
(15:57):
for things.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Right now, you mentioned then it's probably a large part
of your business. But working with other businesses, you know,
for businesses that are looking for a place to recycle,
what do you want them to know?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
A commercial side of our business is a big portion
of what we do. And the thing that I would
like to portray to that portion is we have simplified it.
We have a flat rate pickup fee. It's forty five
dollars for anything that you may incur a fee four.
We send you a clear schedule, We send you clear
instructions on how to sort it.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
We give you a two hour call time for our driver.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Everything is updated via text when we'll be there, If
we'll be late, your billing and CODs are out to
you in thirty days. And beyond that the scheduler I
work with Maggie and our environmental health and safety manager,
Heather has also been with me for over a decade.
So we're resource to help you will we will literally
(16:50):
connect the dots to the right recycler.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
If we are not the right recycler.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
That's great. Now it's not just Portland, right.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
No, that's correct. We actually have customers all of the world.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
We do have some nationally as well, and we do
have quite a few in Seattle and Portland, but our
main focus is on Oregon and Washington Terrific.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Give me the location again where people can go to
drop things off and see your thrift shop.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
It's twenty nine to fifty Northwest twenty ninth Avenue, Portland, Oregon,
ninety seven to two to one zero.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Great. What's your website?
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Our website is green Century online dot net.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Chris, thanks for talking with us about recycling. Your company,
Green Century Recycling, provides an important service for people in
the Portland Vancouver area. Again, their website is Greencentury online
dot net. Manufacturers and Oregon are in Native employees and
Madden Industrial Craftsman connects workers with manufacturers. Kelsey Scotch with
(17:47):
Madden Industrial Craftsmen joins us on Local Voices Kelsey after
the pandemic, What are employees looking for in an employer.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
We're seeing a big shift in our employee workforce where
there is a much more bigger emphasis on a work
life balance rather than just looking for a pay and
going to work. And people aren't working to live anymore.
They're really they're not living to work, they are really
looking to work to enjoy their life. And people have
found that in COVID when there was a little bit
of time off, and I think an adjustment to overall
(18:18):
core values in family life. And so we're seeing that
there's a big shift in people putting higher emphasis in
their work schedule. There's overall a bigger shift or push
to wanting to work fewer days per week, maybe a
few longer hours on a four to ten schedule or
a three twelve And I think that that's one thing
that clients or employers can really do in order to
appeal to a workforce or keep people, is that they
(18:41):
can adjust their schedules to meet their employees' needs and demands.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
How can employer be more appealing to the current workforce
besides just offering more money.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yeah, I think schedule is a big one in the
schedule adjustments and giving people those opportunities to have a
few more days off, take longer weekends is a big
appeal to the employees as well as we're seeing a
big push towards health programs on the job site, keeping
people feeling good while they're at work, and also having
an opportunity to have a say. There's a lot of
(19:10):
client companies out there that are creating these programs that
allow their employees to give feedback and be really heard
by the upper management. And that's a strong desire of
the employee workforce, especially post COVID. They want to have
a say, they want to make sure that they're being heard,
and they want to ensure that their voice is a
part of the conversation at the table.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
So let me turn that around. How can employees be
more appealing to a business? What can they do to
get a better chance of getting a job.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
There are a lot of employers out there that are
willing to train. They want to get someone in there
that wants to learn, that wants to stay, and they
want to invest in those people. So on a lot
of these entry level positions or positions that weren't previously
entry level. Employers are willing to take people with the
right mindset and the right work ethic, and they're willing
(20:00):
to put in the effort to train them and move
them up. So when an employee is looking for a
way to break into the manufacturing sector, the best thing
that they can do is have a resume that represents
who they are, what they've done, and employers really are
going to be looking for people that want to stick around.
Someone that hasn't changed jobs every few months or every year,
(20:21):
three years or longer at a position really does show
some longevity and commitment to the company that they're working for. Also,
the most important ability is communicating with your manager, letting
them know if you're going to be late or you're
not able to make it in for a day, Being
able to have those conversations effectively communicate, but then also
showing up on time being at work, not putting an
(20:44):
impact on the company that forces them to be in
a tough spot when they are counting on people being
there every single day. Some of those soft skills that
aren't necessarily directly tied to the work that's being done
that can be trained, but having those ability to.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Make sure that you're a reliable employee.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
So you mentioned the resume and specific what is good
to have on a resume? What's the best way to
present that used to be just one page?
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Yeah, I think it varies by industry. There isn't you know.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
One page is also it's wonderful, but sometimes that doesn't
tell the whole picture, and it really depends on the
position that they're applying for. It's important when representing a
resume that it's clear, it's understandable put your most relevant
and most recent work history at the top. People are
getting a lot of applications still, there's a lot of screening,
especially in the world where you can post a job
(21:34):
online and people large volumes of people apply. You want
to stand out, and one way to stand out is
being really clear. If your resume is really easy to
read and clearly defines who you are and the position
you're looking for and what experience you have, even if
that experience is not super relevant, being able to tell
a really clear story is really important.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
The unemployment rate remains near record lows. Is it difficult
for employers to find potential workers right now?
Speaker 5 (22:02):
Right now?
Speaker 4 (22:02):
I think the biggest issue for employers is getting people
that are the right fit for the job. During COVID,
we saw a lot of people willing to jump around
for a dollar or two more. There was just an opportunity,
and especially in the world that we currently live in,
where you can go online. If you had a bad
day at work, you can go home and you can
open up a website and see fifty other people hiring
(22:23):
for a similar role that possibly pays more. And a
lot of people took advantage of that in an employees
market in order to increase their wages. But employers are
now struggling to really find someone that wants to stay
and continue to build throughout their organization. When you have
a lot of job hopping, it can be a challenge.
I think as long as the unemployment rate is low,
(22:43):
it's going to be a challenge to find workers. People
are willing to jump ship and move, and so you're
getting people that apply to jobs, but finding the right
person is still a challenge.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
But like you said, that's also important for the employer
to offer things besides just salary correct make their business
attractive to the employee.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
And there's a higher emphasis on retention as opposed to
just recruitment, because if you can keep people, that's much
more valuable than having to go out and find a
new one all the time.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah. Sure, you get the experience of working with that company,
the way that company works their policies, but it's also
an investment on the part of the employer when you
bring somebody new on board, and you don't want that
high turnover rate because then you're going through that.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
Absolutely it's expensive process.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
So if you can keep people on board or promote
from within, there's a lot of value for both the
employee and the employer.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
What do you see in the next six months for
employee demand in the manufacturing sector. It's it's pretty heavy
right now. That'll continue.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
It's heavy now and I think it's going to continue
for the foreseeable future. Or manufacturing is not slowing down.
We'll see what kind of effect an election has on this.
But I also I don't see that there's anything in
the near future that's going to change. If anything, if
it interest rates dip just a little bit, we're going
to see a higher demand in the construction industry, which
does have a tendance to pull some of our labor
(24:01):
from manufacturing over to construction, which is only going to
increase the demand in manufacturing.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
So people who want to get into the manufacturing business,
what's the best path for them to learn their skills.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
I think the most important thing to recognize with manufacturing
is that there is no one path and there's no
one opportunity in manufacturing. There is what people might perceive
as manufacturing is not necessarily what manufacturing is today. There
is a wide range of what those kind of roles
look like. So there's a lot of companies that also
(24:31):
if they want to get into manufacturing, all you have
to have is the willingness and the desire and some
of those soft skills and they will train up. But
there's everything from steel industrial heavier, which might be what
more people envision when they think of manufacturing, all the
way down to clean room things that are very precise,
and so there's a really wide range and difficult to
(24:54):
say there's one path to do so, but I think
one thing people can really focus on is those soft
skill aspect being highly employable and a lot of employers
are willing to train the other skills.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Our community college is a good place to get the
skills and learn how to do those manufacturing jobs.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Community colleges and trade schools also offer opportunities for people
to get experience and the chance to be around some
of the machinery or the type of environments and learn
some of those skills, especially for the higher skilled positions.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Now there are very specific skills, especially with a lot
of equipment, the intel know, manufacturing the clean rooms for you,
all of the technology companies. It's just it's not something
that generally you can just go in and do. You
really have to have a base level of experience to
be able to do that.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Absolutely, and a lot of employers, especially some of the
larger employers in the area, partner with our community colleges
and trade schools. So people that start programs and go
through those and experience some of the learning that comes
with those schools, they often come out with an immediate
position from employers in the area.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
For somebody who's looking for a move into this career field,
is there any kind of a resource where they can
go to see what the options are, what the different
jobs are.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
I think that that's one thing that manufacturing is lacking,
is the opportunity of there isn't one place to go
to look what all the opportunities could be in manufacturing,
and they're so vast. I think the trade schools, the
community colleges do offer some exposure there. I'm hoping that
our school system at high school and even middle school
begin to integrate some of that into curriculum and give
(26:30):
people the opportunity to see have some experience. I think
also if you have an interest, there's a lot of
manufacturers that want to build and invest in our next
generation or someone looking to make a change in careers
and reaching out to them and asking for the opportunity
to tour or to come and just shadow or experience
within that environment to see if it's a good fit
for you is a great way to just see what
(26:52):
these facilities are doing, what they look like, and what
kind of products they make. One of the coolest some
of these manufacturers that you would have no idea what
they even really do, make really cool pieces or parts
to things that you use every single day. I mean,
there's a lot of employers locally that we have that
(27:12):
have a lot of passion behind them from their employees
because they are making pieces or equipment that is important
to their everyday life.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Does the mad in industrial website offer information on how
people can get into their career fields.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
We do have some resources for employees on there. Definitely
also recognize all the community partners that we interact with
and that we support. We love to engage with community
partners that are providing opportunities and building into the next workforce.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
And not recognize on our website.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
But we also partner with local school districts to help
facilitate apprenticeship programs or internship programs to help encourage students
to get that opportunity to experience what a work setting
is like and what some of these.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
Manufacturers are like.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
What's your website?
Speaker 4 (27:56):
Our website is www dot MICI.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Very good, Kelsey, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
That's Kelsey sconce with Madden Industrial Crafts but on connecting
workers with manufacturers and the best way for employees to
present themselves and how manufacturers can attract more employees. Portland
International Airport opened its newly renovated main terminal this week.
Katie Maker with PDX says the wood ceiling is amazing.
Speaker 6 (28:21):
I am looking up at a wood roof that spans
nine acres with local woods. It's designed to feel like
a walk in the forest. We have lights streaming downs
with forty nine skilight seventy zu trees, and about five
thousand plants out here.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
The pre Tsa shopping and restaurants have opened.
Speaker 6 (28:40):
There are twenty new local shops and restaurants in the terminal,
looking out at Countrycat right now and Portland Coffee ROAs things.
We also have a new mezzanine restaurant with Loyal Legion
up here, which is going to make plain spotters happy.
It's got a great view of the runway.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
The ticketing area has changed.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
When you arrive at PDX, you'll see that the construction
walls you've been living with are down, and you'll come in.
The check encounters are now oriented on islands. They will
be still the first thing you see when you get
to TDX, So you'll check in and you'll come through
this big garden area that feels a bit like a
neighborhood street and into the big open atrium under this
(29:21):
wood roof with stadium seeds. There's three new places so
listen to local music at PDX. I can see the
piano player right now. He's nestled in beneath a tree.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
You'll also see more of the old carpet design.
Speaker 6 (29:36):
There are two new sections of the old carpet up
on the mezzanine. Saw a bunch of people taking to
southeast today.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Phase two is next which will include a meet and
great area and permanent exit. Leanes. Thanks for listening to
Local Voices. I'm brad Ford. You can hear past episodes
on the iHeartRadio app under the podcast tab. Local Voices
is a public affairs presentation from I out Radio.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
H
Welcome to Local Voices. I'm brad Ford. This week we'll
introduce you to important business that can help you recycle
or find a reuse for items that you don't want,
Plus what manufacturing businesses can do to attract and keep
more employees. If there's something you need to recycle that
doesn't go into your curbside beIN. There's a business in
(00:25):
Northwest Portland that can probably help. Chris Reagis is the
owner of Green Century Recycling. Chris, tell us what your
business does.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Green Century Recycling is a recycling and community center that
we started in two thousand and eight on the premise
that there is no such thing of throw it away,
so we really try to adhere to the three tiers
of the recycling standard. First, reduction, practicing that when you
purchase your material, paying attention to how it's packaged and
(00:53):
the final disposition of that material. Recycling, which is obvious.
That's the reclamation of metals such as copper, gold and silver,
which ends up saving from mining those raw materials from
the earth, which conserves material like water.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
And then the.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Third is reuse, which Green Century also practices in that
we run a thrift store that we refurbish and resell laptops, desktops,
audio video equipment, and most things with the cord.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
With that, we have a.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Quality assurance program that also complies to our environmental standards
that has a thirty day warranty.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
So not everybody in the audience is familiar. What is
E cycle?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
E cycling is a shorthand for electronics recycling, So we
like to sum it up as anything with a cord,
most things with the battery.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
All of those have a printed.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Circuit board in it and can basically be separated down
into plastic and metal bearing materials.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
So what would happen if there weren't companies like Green
Century recycling with all of the electronics? I mean, I
remember a time before we were able to recycle those.
There was no place to take them. You just throw
them away.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, I think throwing it away is the magical statement
that Green Century is trying to speak to.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
There is no way.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
A way is a landfill in Portland. It happens to
be about one hundred yards from our river. So what
happens before companies like Green Century came along was these
items were just thrown in your everyday landfill.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
You know.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
They then go sent to the landfill and they sit
there for centuries why they decay. The other option is
that a lot of this material would end up in
metal yards or places that would then ship it overseas
to countries that have less than adequate ways of reclaiming
the metals in material. There's quite a bit of hazardous
(02:52):
material in a lot of this waste, and a lot
of it is considered heavy metals. So when you ship
illegally to a third party country and they burn it
over an open flame, that mercury that doesn't go anywhere,
It literally gets lit up where they've started the burn
and then it falls right back down in that same place,
causing cancers and other health problems for the people that
(03:14):
have done the burning or the dismantling. So there's a
real need across the globe, across the country to use
certified electronics and recycling facilities such as Green Century, and
we certify to the R two, V three and ISO standards.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
So talk to us about Green Century recycling environmental commitments.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Our environmental commitment is something that really stemmed from me personally.
I started the company in two thousand and eight. As
I mentioned on this magical premise that people like to
just throw things away. So what we did was we
really thought of a way that we could quantify what
we say we're doing with the material. This is in
(03:55):
lieu of any state or federal regulations. These are voluntary certifications.
And what we did was we wrote a system of processes,
procedures and instructions. Within these processes, procedures and instructions, we
take into account aspects, impacts, and risk assessments on land, air,
(04:16):
and water. And we do this in everything we do,
from the trucking companies we use to ship material, the
refineries we use to refine it, our dismantling process, and
our occupational health and safety. We then get audited on
these instructions, processes and procedures by an accrediting body for
about a week every year where they come in check
our paperwork, physically, interview our employees and check for our
(04:39):
environmental health and safety as well as our occupational health
and safety. We then further committed to this standard by
employing an environmental health and safety manager. This environmental health
and safety manager it's entire job role is to oversee
our commitment to our occupational health and safety as well
(04:59):
as in our mental health and safety.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
As looking at your website and the list of items
that you recycled is really long. I mean it's more
than just computers, praetors, and TVs. But let's start first
of all, what happens the electronics.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So the electronics get dismantled right here in Portland, Oregon
by our team. It's called hand dismantling. From there, it
gets separated out into gold bearing, copper bearing, or silver
bearing material and then sent for reclamation at refineries in
which we will then get our intrinsic value out of
those recovered materials based on the assays. The second avenue
(05:36):
is we sort into data containing devices non data containing devices.
The data gets overwritten or physically destroyed, and then we
have the ability to refurbish and reuse, which, as I
mentioned at the lead ind to this, reduction and reuse
are two important components of the recycling process.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, reuse is a lot cheaper than sending metals to
be recycled, or it just allows it to continue living
its life.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I couldn't agree more, Brad.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
It also foregoes the need for new packaging, which saves
in plastics, styrofoam, cardboard, so you're all around, you're saving
resources on the land, on the air, and the water,
and you're preventing things from being landfilled like LDPE or
HDPE polystyrene and polyethylene plastics, which can be hard to
deal with.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah, what type of equipment are people surprised that you recycle?
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Our customers vary.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Our customers vary from big tech companies with thousand plus
employees to customers with twenty or fewer employees. So I
think people get surprised when we handle household breakage is
how we call it, and this can be anything from
like a speaker to an electronic toothbrush. So think of
things in that form, and if you can think of it,
(06:54):
chances are it's come across our warehouse.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
You know, I saw on the web page it's really
hard to find a place that recycles styrofoam.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Our commitment, and I mentioned this at the beginning, is
really to be a community recycling center. We're a for
profit business, and I believe in that because I believe
in contributing.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
To the tax space.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
But I also believe that people should be have some
sort of relation to their garbage so they don't continue
to use magical and esoteric terms like throw it away.
The styrofoam came about because we were using a local
company here, Agilicks, for a long time and we were
just processing for our commercial customers.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Agilis abruptly closed and at.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
That point we were left sort of cavetching with our
fellow recyclers to figure out how we're going to keep
this stuff out of the landfill. And I came up
with a quick stop gap to use a company up
in Washington. But it's a long haul, and as I
mentioned before, that triggers the aspects impact and risk assessment,
(08:01):
and we discovered that it really you're not saving much
to ship this type of material all the way up
to Seattle to be processed.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
So we purchased our own machine.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So we purchased a styrofoam densifier, and we're doing it
here locally in Portland, Oregon, where we densify the foam
to it it becomes kind of a hardened block of polystyrene.
That polystyrene will then get sold to a remanufacturer, but
that remanufacturer is able to chop it up, diet make
it into computer plastics, picture frames, et cetera. I don't
(08:34):
believe that this is the best practice, you know, I
think the best practice for this material is absolutely in reduction.
So I think forward we could practice reuse, buying used
rather than buying new, really paying attention to packaging when
we purchase. Because at some point this polystyrene material can
(08:56):
no longer be processed and reused. It will eventually end
up in the land and phil we are doing our
best with the technology available today to densify it and
elongate its life. I'll tell you, when I first started
seeing it, it was a material that we just took
to help out our commercial clients. But when I first
(09:16):
started seeing it pile up in my warehouse at the
rate at which it was piling up, I couldn't help
but extrapolate and think of this stuff sitting in the
landfill again one hundred yards from the river, and knowing
that this stuff is going to outlast me, it's going
to outlast my son.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
So we did.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
We took the tools available to us and came up
with the best process we could, again considering all those
aspects and impacts to the environment.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
We're talking with Chris Rage's, owner and creator of Green
Century Recycling in Northwest Portland. Now you mentioned hard drives
and data that is on solid state chips. Solid state drives,
talk to us a little bit. You mentioned that, but
talk to us about when I take my computer ran
and it's got the hard or I've you know, your
data is what you're worried about. How do you guys
(10:03):
wipe those clean? Or you've also mentioned it was a destroying.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
It, physical destruction. Yeah, I love that question, Brad.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So there's within the r TWOV three and ISO certification,
there is a data destruction standard that we certify and
get audited to. But beyond that, there's just the day
to day practice of how my driver, my truck drivers
handle the material, how my receiving warehouse managers handle it,
how my data managers handle it. So again, what we
have is written processes and instruction sets that read a
(10:32):
lot like.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
If this, then this, you know, if that then this.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So first of all, every piece of data that comes
into our warehouse gets accounted for. It either gets a
logical partition overwritten which can address the solid state drives,
the nvmes, the m DOT two's. It's a better practice
than physically destroying it because these are on solid.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
State IC chips. So in that process, what we do
is we plug it into a machine.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
That there's a proprietary piece of software that we pay
for over writes this logical partition with a series of
ones and zeros. We can customize this standard to the
company's needs or to the individual's needs to either meet
an NIST standard, a DoD standard, or a single pass
wipe standard, whatever the customer requires. We then have another
(11:17):
company that comes in through a secure line on the
Internet and does a quality assurance check to verify that
all that data has been overwritten, and then issues us
a certificate of destruction which indemnifies the clients from any
data breach, and then we issue that to the client.
If for some reason the drive's not able to be
powered on, or there's damage or corruption, we just physically
(11:38):
destroy it by punching a two inch.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Hole through the hard drive platter.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
At home, if you have an uninterruptible power supply a UPS,
it's a battery, and so are those difficult to either
recycle or deal with that battery?
Speaker 3 (11:52):
They're difficult, They're difficult to manage.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
The recycling process is advancing very quickly at this point.
A lot of the catalyst there is the EV industry
and the need to use reclaim material to make that
industry sustainable. So, as I'm sure a lot of your
listeners know, they've recently opened up gray matter reclamation facilities
in the US, so the end of life processing is
(12:16):
becoming easier. Where Green Century has really excelled in helping
commercial clients and other processors in the Pacific Northwest is
again through our written processes and procedures and instructions that
can take the material safety and data sheets from the
different chemistries of batteries.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
For example, lead.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Acid like you mentioned in your ups Lithium PV four
is real popular in your sprinter vans and your motor homes.
Different types of nickel cadmium for your EV and nickel
batteries for your EV. So we've taken these processes and
really diluted it down to instruction sets for each different
type of chemistry. This is how you store it, this
(12:54):
is how you palatize it, this is how.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
You prepare it for shipping.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And then our environmental health and Safety manager does downstream
vetting as I mentioned, for any environmental infractions, certifications permitting,
and we find the best downstream processor for this material
that then reclaims all that matter and pays us based
on that reclamation.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Interesting, So where you located for people who want to
drop items off and does it cost anything?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So we're located in the Northwest Industrial section of Portland
twenty nine to fifty Northwest twenty ninth Avenue. We're open
six days a week to the public Monday through Friday
eight to five and Saturdays eleven to three. Most e
waste or e cycle waste. The electronics portion is free
of charge to drop off. We refer to household batteries,
(13:43):
alkaline batteries, fluorescent lights, LEDs is universal waste. A lot
of the universal waste will have a per pound fee,
which the schedule is on our website, and then the
styrofoam and the plastics which also have like a fee
based on the metric system we use, which is by
the gallon.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
But we are open six days a week.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Our reuse stores open six days a week and we
love it when people come in.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
We have the.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Lobby of our office set up as sort of a
community center rather than an office.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
There's my dog is usually there.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
There's arcade set up for kids and people more grown
kids like me that want to play. We have an
audio listening room where we have custom built speakers we
built out of refurbished speakers.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
And a nice little couch to kind of decompress.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
We usually have classical music or jazz playing, and then
we have our modest, little refurbished thrift store. So the
goal is really to have the community participate in the
way they're recycling is handled, to know that there's a
community center, like it's not a magical place that's away.
It's twenty nine to fifty northwest twenty nine. There's no
(14:52):
curiosity in how we process. There's direct answers on how
we process, and all of this is part of our
commitment to the environment because without educating people on how
the garbage is handled, there will always be a disassociation
of the effect it has on the environment.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
How do you want people to prepare material they're going
to drop off?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
We always ask that people separated out by type of material,
like your chargers over here, your laptops over here, anything
that you think is billable, have that separated out batteries
by their chemistry, and we have all those instructions available
online as well, and we're always just a phone call
away to help With that being said, you know, my
(15:35):
warehouse manager has been with me for ten years. Most
of the guys in the warehouse have been there for
over five years. Everybody's well aware that we are in
the business to recycle and keep things out of the landfill.
We are not in the business to teach people how
to sort their garbage. We simply just want them to
relate it to recycling and know that there's some accountability
(15:57):
for things.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Right now, you mentioned then it's probably a large part
of your business. But working with other businesses, you know,
for businesses that are looking for a place to recycle,
what do you want them to know?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
A commercial side of our business is a big portion
of what we do. And the thing that I would
like to portray to that portion is we have simplified it.
We have a flat rate pickup fee. It's forty five
dollars for anything that you may incur a fee four.
We send you a clear schedule, We send you clear
instructions on how to sort it.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
We give you a two hour call time for our driver.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Everything is updated via text when we'll be there, If
we'll be late, your billing and CODs are out to
you in thirty days. And beyond that the scheduler I
work with Maggie and our environmental health and safety manager,
Heather has also been with me for over a decade.
So we're resource to help you will we will literally
(16:50):
connect the dots to the right recycler.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
If we are not the right recycler.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
That's great. Now it's not just Portland, right.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
No, that's correct. We actually have customers all of the world.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
We do have some nationally as well, and we do
have quite a few in Seattle and Portland, but our
main focus is on Oregon and Washington Terrific.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Give me the location again where people can go to
drop things off and see your thrift shop.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
It's twenty nine to fifty Northwest twenty ninth Avenue, Portland, Oregon,
ninety seven to two to one zero.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Great. What's your website?
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Our website is green Century online dot net.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Chris, thanks for talking with us about recycling. Your company,
Green Century Recycling, provides an important service for people in
the Portland Vancouver area. Again, their website is Greencentury online
dot net. Manufacturers and Oregon are in Native employees and
Madden Industrial Craftsman connects workers with manufacturers. Kelsey Scotch with
(17:47):
Madden Industrial Craftsmen joins us on Local Voices Kelsey after
the pandemic, What are employees looking for in an employer.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
We're seeing a big shift in our employee workforce where
there is a much more bigger emphasis on a work
life balance rather than just looking for a pay and
going to work. And people aren't working to live anymore.
They're really they're not living to work, they are really
looking to work to enjoy their life. And people have
found that in COVID when there was a little bit
of time off, and I think an adjustment to overall
(18:18):
core values in family life. And so we're seeing that
there's a big shift in people putting higher emphasis in
their work schedule. There's overall a bigger shift or push
to wanting to work fewer days per week, maybe a
few longer hours on a four to ten schedule or
a three twelve And I think that that's one thing
that clients or employers can really do in order to
appeal to a workforce or keep people, is that they
(18:41):
can adjust their schedules to meet their employees' needs and demands.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
How can employer be more appealing to the current workforce
besides just offering more money.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yeah, I think schedule is a big one in the
schedule adjustments and giving people those opportunities to have a
few more days off, take longer weekends is a big
appeal to the employees as well as we're seeing a
big push towards health programs on the job site, keeping
people feeling good while they're at work, and also having
an opportunity to have a say. There's a lot of
(19:10):
client companies out there that are creating these programs that
allow their employees to give feedback and be really heard
by the upper management. And that's a strong desire of
the employee workforce, especially post COVID. They want to have
a say, they want to make sure that they're being heard,
and they want to ensure that their voice is a
part of the conversation at the table.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
So let me turn that around. How can employees be
more appealing to a business? What can they do to
get a better chance of getting a job.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
There are a lot of employers out there that are
willing to train. They want to get someone in there
that wants to learn, that wants to stay, and they
want to invest in those people. So on a lot
of these entry level positions or positions that weren't previously
entry level. Employers are willing to take people with the
right mindset and the right work ethic, and they're willing
(20:00):
to put in the effort to train them and move
them up. So when an employee is looking for a
way to break into the manufacturing sector, the best thing
that they can do is have a resume that represents
who they are, what they've done, and employers really are
going to be looking for people that want to stick around.
Someone that hasn't changed jobs every few months or every year,
(20:21):
three years or longer at a position really does show
some longevity and commitment to the company that they're working for. Also,
the most important ability is communicating with your manager, letting
them know if you're going to be late or you're
not able to make it in for a day, Being
able to have those conversations effectively communicate, but then also
showing up on time being at work, not putting an
(20:44):
impact on the company that forces them to be in
a tough spot when they are counting on people being
there every single day. Some of those soft skills that
aren't necessarily directly tied to the work that's being done
that can be trained, but having those ability to.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Make sure that you're a reliable employee.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
So you mentioned the resume and specific what is good
to have on a resume? What's the best way to
present that used to be just one page?
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Yeah, I think it varies by industry. There isn't you know.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
One page is also it's wonderful, but sometimes that doesn't
tell the whole picture, and it really depends on the
position that they're applying for. It's important when representing a
resume that it's clear, it's understandable put your most relevant
and most recent work history at the top. People are
getting a lot of applications still, there's a lot of screening,
especially in the world where you can post a job
(21:34):
online and people large volumes of people apply. You want
to stand out, and one way to stand out is
being really clear. If your resume is really easy to
read and clearly defines who you are and the position
you're looking for and what experience you have, even if
that experience is not super relevant, being able to tell
a really clear story is really important.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
The unemployment rate remains near record lows. Is it difficult
for employers to find potential workers right now?
Speaker 5 (22:02):
Right now?
Speaker 4 (22:02):
I think the biggest issue for employers is getting people
that are the right fit for the job. During COVID,
we saw a lot of people willing to jump around
for a dollar or two more. There was just an opportunity,
and especially in the world that we currently live in,
where you can go online. If you had a bad
day at work, you can go home and you can
open up a website and see fifty other people hiring
(22:23):
for a similar role that possibly pays more. And a
lot of people took advantage of that in an employees
market in order to increase their wages. But employers are
now struggling to really find someone that wants to stay
and continue to build throughout their organization. When you have
a lot of job hopping, it can be a challenge.
I think as long as the unemployment rate is low,
(22:43):
it's going to be a challenge to find workers. People
are willing to jump ship and move, and so you're
getting people that apply to jobs, but finding the right
person is still a challenge.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
But like you said, that's also important for the employer
to offer things besides just salary correct make their business
attractive to the employee.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
And there's a higher emphasis on retention as opposed to
just recruitment, because if you can keep people, that's much
more valuable than having to go out and find a
new one all the time.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah. Sure, you get the experience of working with that company,
the way that company works their policies, but it's also
an investment on the part of the employer when you
bring somebody new on board, and you don't want that
high turnover rate because then you're going through that.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
Absolutely it's expensive process.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
So if you can keep people on board or promote
from within, there's a lot of value for both the
employee and the employer.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
What do you see in the next six months for
employee demand in the manufacturing sector. It's it's pretty heavy
right now. That'll continue.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
It's heavy now and I think it's going to continue
for the foreseeable future. Or manufacturing is not slowing down.
We'll see what kind of effect an election has on this.
But I also I don't see that there's anything in
the near future that's going to change. If anything, if
it interest rates dip just a little bit, we're going
to see a higher demand in the construction industry, which
does have a tendance to pull some of our labor
(24:01):
from manufacturing over to construction, which is only going to
increase the demand in manufacturing.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
So people who want to get into the manufacturing business,
what's the best path for them to learn their skills.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
I think the most important thing to recognize with manufacturing
is that there is no one path and there's no
one opportunity in manufacturing. There is what people might perceive
as manufacturing is not necessarily what manufacturing is today. There
is a wide range of what those kind of roles
look like. So there's a lot of companies that also
(24:31):
if they want to get into manufacturing, all you have
to have is the willingness and the desire and some
of those soft skills and they will train up. But
there's everything from steel industrial heavier, which might be what
more people envision when they think of manufacturing, all the
way down to clean room things that are very precise,
and so there's a really wide range and difficult to
(24:54):
say there's one path to do so, but I think
one thing people can really focus on is those soft
skill aspect being highly employable and a lot of employers
are willing to train the other skills.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Our community college is a good place to get the
skills and learn how to do those manufacturing jobs.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Community colleges and trade schools also offer opportunities for people
to get experience and the chance to be around some
of the machinery or the type of environments and learn
some of those skills, especially for the higher skilled positions.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Now there are very specific skills, especially with a lot
of equipment, the intel know, manufacturing the clean rooms for you,
all of the technology companies. It's just it's not something
that generally you can just go in and do. You
really have to have a base level of experience to
be able to do that.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Absolutely, and a lot of employers, especially some of the
larger employers in the area, partner with our community colleges
and trade schools. So people that start programs and go
through those and experience some of the learning that comes
with those schools, they often come out with an immediate
position from employers in the area.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
For somebody who's looking for a move into this career field,
is there any kind of a resource where they can
go to see what the options are, what the different
jobs are.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
I think that that's one thing that manufacturing is lacking,
is the opportunity of there isn't one place to go
to look what all the opportunities could be in manufacturing,
and they're so vast. I think the trade schools, the
community colleges do offer some exposure there. I'm hoping that
our school system at high school and even middle school
begin to integrate some of that into curriculum and give
(26:30):
people the opportunity to see have some experience. I think
also if you have an interest, there's a lot of
manufacturers that want to build and invest in our next
generation or someone looking to make a change in careers
and reaching out to them and asking for the opportunity
to tour or to come and just shadow or experience
within that environment to see if it's a good fit
for you is a great way to just see what
(26:52):
these facilities are doing, what they look like, and what
kind of products they make. One of the coolest some
of these manufacturers that you would have no idea what
they even really do, make really cool pieces or parts
to things that you use every single day. I mean,
there's a lot of employers locally that we have that
(27:12):
have a lot of passion behind them from their employees
because they are making pieces or equipment that is important
to their everyday life.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Does the mad in industrial website offer information on how
people can get into their career fields.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
We do have some resources for employees on there. Definitely
also recognize all the community partners that we interact with
and that we support. We love to engage with community
partners that are providing opportunities and building into the next workforce.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
And not recognize on our website.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
But we also partner with local school districts to help
facilitate apprenticeship programs or internship programs to help encourage students
to get that opportunity to experience what a work setting
is like and what some of these.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
Manufacturers are like.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
What's your website?
Speaker 4 (27:56):
Our website is www dot MICI.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Very good, Kelsey, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
That's Kelsey sconce with Madden Industrial Crafts but on connecting
workers with manufacturers and the best way for employees to
present themselves and how manufacturers can attract more employees. Portland
International Airport opened its newly renovated main terminal this week.
Katie Maker with PDX says the wood ceiling is amazing.
Speaker 6 (28:21):
I am looking up at a wood roof that spans
nine acres with local woods. It's designed to feel like
a walk in the forest. We have lights streaming downs
with forty nine skilight seventy zu trees, and about five
thousand plants out here.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
The pre Tsa shopping and restaurants have opened.
Speaker 6 (28:40):
There are twenty new local shops and restaurants in the terminal,
looking out at Countrycat right now and Portland Coffee ROAs things.
We also have a new mezzanine restaurant with Loyal Legion
up here, which is going to make plain spotters happy.
It's got a great view of the runway.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
The ticketing area has changed.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
When you arrive at PDX, you'll see that the construction
walls you've been living with are down, and you'll come in.
The check encounters are now oriented on islands. They will
be still the first thing you see when you get
to TDX, So you'll check in and you'll come through
this big garden area that feels a bit like a
neighborhood street and into the big open atrium under this
(29:21):
wood roof with stadium seeds. There's three new places so
listen to local music at PDX. I can see the
piano player right now. He's nestled in beneath a tree.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
You'll also see more of the old carpet design.
Speaker 6 (29:36):
There are two new sections of the old carpet up
on the mezzanine. Saw a bunch of people taking to
southeast today.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Phase two is next which will include a meet and
great area and permanent exit. Leanes. Thanks for listening to
Local Voices. I'm brad Ford. You can hear past episodes
on the iHeartRadio app under the podcast tab. Local Voices
is a public affairs presentation from I out Radio.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
H
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