The sharing economy
Oregon Business magazine | June 2013
I’m no stranger to borrowing in the most traditional sense. I check out books from the library, rent cars on vacation and forage through my sister’s closet when my own wardrobe seems stale. But I’m a novice when it comes to the modern-day borrowing possibilities — which, on their current trajectory, have the potential to upend long cherished notions about buying and selling.
Known as the “sharing economy” or “collaborative consumption,” the latest form of sharing challenges the status quo with the idea that access trumps ownership — that drilling the hole is more important than owning the drill.
Shipbuilder Fred Wahl stays afloat
Oregon Business magazine | July 2013
For Fred Wahl, the best part of building commercial fishing boats for a living is rolling his finished products, painted and polished, down to the water along the northeast edge of his Reedsport boatyard and seeing them pop half an inch off their cradles for the first time, floating.
“Then it’s a boat,” Wahl says. “Before that it’s a pile of parts. Launching a boat is like starting a new little life.” Over 24 years in the business, Wahl has seen 39 boats go buoyant — including a record three already this year.
For the Record
Oregon Business magazine | September 2012
Behind the sales counter along the back wall of Clinton Street Record & Stereo, an ’80s synth-funk album spins on the turntable beside R. Jared White. A DJ whose expertise ranges from gangsta rap to goth, White and his business partner opened the Southeast Portland record store two years ago despite the fact that record stores everywhere else were closing.
Since music moved from physical to digital formats in the early 2000s, the record-store industry in the U.S. has been struggling. The number of record stores has declined an average of 22% per year over the past five, according to industry analyst IBISWorld, and it’s expected to continue declining an average of 4% per year until 2017.