Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Members of the Sweet Home Economic Development Group elected Rachel Graham and Rob Poirier to serve on the Board of Directors at the group’s annual meeting in March.
Graham and Poirier succeed Lerena Ruby of Seamingly Creative and Herb Heier of Sweet Home Liquor. Ruby is now serving on the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.
Graham is a 1997 graduate of Sweet Home High School. She grew up in Sweet Home and is the daughter of Allen and Teri Lowery.
She is married to Brent Graham. They recently bought out Wolfer Contracting and now own and operate Graham Excavating.
“I’m helping with that, but my full-time job is OSU Federal Credit Union,” Graham said. She is a residential loan officer and has been at OSU Federal for about three years. She works out of multiple branches.
“I’ve been volunteering down here at the Chamber,” Graham said. On Tuesdays, she helps put together packets and information for the Chamber.
“I’ve lived here all my life and don’t feel like I know much about what’s going on around here,” Graham said. SHEDG Economic Development Coordinator Karen Owen told her about SHEDG and the open seat.
“I wanted to be involved in the community and wanted to get more knowledge about what’s going on.”
SHEDG produces the annual Oregon Jamboree, a three-day country music and camping festival held in early August. SHEDG uses the proceeds from the Jamboree to fund local economic development projects.
Graham has attended every Jamboree since it started, she said. “I enjoy being down there with my family and friends and everyone, even more than I enjoy the music.”
With SHEDG, Graham “would like to be involved in the Downtown Revitalization Committee,” she said. The committee looks for and funds projects that improve the appearance of the downtown area.
Graham is looking forward to some of the new projects the committee is working on. Among them, the committee is looking at new, larger banners to replace the small ones on downtown utility poles.
She also likes what she’s seeing at East Linn Museum, with the replacement of the old wooden sculptures, and the murals program.
“I think Sweet Home needs to be, not necessarily developed, but needs to have more available so they don’t have to go out of town to go shopping,” Graham said. “I like the feel of a small town,” but it needs “enough small businesses” so residents don’t need to go to Wal-Mart or Eugene.
Rob Poirier is married to Donna. He has two stepchildren, Kristen and Nick Grabeel and a new granddaughter, Emaleigh.
Poirier came to Sweet Home from New Hampshire while a child. He graduated from Sweet Home High School in 1981.
He is communications manager for Lebanon Police Department. He started there 11 years ago as a reserve police officer. LPD later hired him as a dispatcher and then as manager on Sept. 11, 2000. Previously, he had worked in the hotel industry and construction. Just after high school, he joined the Marine Corps. He was a musician with the First Marine Division based in Camp Pendleton. He was discharged after four years as a Lance Corporal.
He has attended college and is working on a degree in supervisory management at Linn-Benton Community College.
Poirier said he has been a volunteer at the Jamboree for years. He was a security supervisor and was on the clean-up crew. Now he and Donna are volunteering on the sign team.
“I’m very interested in the economic development of, I say, east Linn County,” Poirier said. He said he sees SHEDG as a great opportunity to get involved in that.
My goal is to work to build a better partnership between SHEDG, local government and private businesses to further Sweet Home’s economic development. Even with great cooperation, it takes partnerships to get things done.”
Poirier would like to see Sweet Home get ground shovel-ready for light industry and work with the city to identify and preserve sites that could qualify, he said. With Lowe’s coming to Lebanon, light manufacturers are likely to relocate to the area rather than pay shipping costs.
Poirier thinks a dozen or more light-manufacturing firms could come to east Linn County, and Sweet Home should be prepared to bring some of them here.
Every manufacturing job adds six service jobs, and it all will result in residential growth, Poirier said. Businesses provide the biggest boost to local government services, so he would like SHEDG and the city to work on getting some of these industries.
“There’s some great businesses that would employ our folks,” Poirier said. Unemployment has been an issue in Linn County, and this could help solve that problem, he said.