Klamath Falls, Ore. – Creating business growth, and a healthy workforce are the focus of a visit to southern Oregon by Governor Kate Brown.
Governor Brown says the state can help to aid Oregon’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and inventors. “To remove regulatory barriers, to make sure that state agencies are coordinating efforts, and making it as easy as possible for businesses to expand.”
But, State Representative E. Werner Reschke cautions that ‘one size fits all’ programs don’t always work for economic development.
“We’re different.” Notes Reschke. “We think different. We don’t see the world in the same way that everybody else does – and that allows us to go out and do things that somebody else has never thought of before.”
Kat Rutledge says the ‘Klamath Idea’ was started 3 years ago to help put local innovators on an inside track. “All of the providers – business services, economic development partners, are standing in a garage – and that garage door opens, and we are all there to help you.”
Governor Brown then went to Cascades East, where doctors are being trained to serve in rural areas.
Joyce Hollander-Rodriguez explains: “We are training physicians that will go out and serve those communities. And I have communities across the state that are eager for the graduates of our residency program.”
Governor Brown heard from one intern about a patient who was helped by the Oregon Health Plan, and commented on the link between a healthy Oregon, and a healthy workforce. “Instead of getting her health care from the emergency room, she now has access under the Oregon Health Plan and as a result, because she has good health care, she’s able to go get a job.”
Brown’s visit was her first to Klamath Falls since she became governor in 2015.
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