The genesis for this list came to me some months ago when I was sitting in my office in San Francisco trying to highlight some of the accomplishments of Oregon that are noteworthy in a national or global context. I've long since misplaced my dog-eared piece of scratch paper, but wanted to start this list here, so that I can amend it at any time. Feel free to refer to it and make suggestions as well.
Major Universities in Oregon:
Fortune 500 Companies Headquartered in Oregon:
World Class Golf Courses Located in Oregon:
- Bandon Dunes & Pacific Dunes
"Probably the finest land made available for a golf course in America since Alistar MacKenzie was shown the site for the Cypress Point Club on the Monterey Peninsula." - Golf Magazine
In 2001, Golf Magazine ranked Pacific Dunes #17 and Bandon Dunes #11 on their list of the top 100 Courses in the U.S. On their list of the Top 100 in the World, Pacific Dunes was ranked #26 and Bandon Dunes #70.
Brands Created and/or Based in Oregon*:
- Oregon Chai has 62% category share of national market
- scene sketches - the Place for Fine Art Photography to Beautify Your World.
- Tillamook Cheese including its signature cheddar
- Wieden + Kennedy (About) is the irreverent agency behind Nike's award-winning ads
- Ziba Design (About) is the first to win four Gold Awards in the annual Industrial Design Excellence Awards competition and no group in the world has won as many awards per employee as Ziba.
Brands That Exploit Oregon:
- Half.com (now a part of EBay), which in 2000, paid the town of Halfway, Oregon a paltry $93,000 to change its name to Half.com.
About Brand Oregon:
* = Note: I first heard of this concept of Brand Oregon from Dr. Andrew Verner, Director of the MBA Program at the Lunquist College of Business at the University of Oregon, who mentioned it as an initiative by then-Governor John Kitzhaber. A little digging found this press release from 1998 that explains the genesis of this phrase, this case study and this journal article:
Branding a State: The evolution of Brand Oregon, Journal of Vacation Marketing, September 19, 2000.
More recently, the State of Oregon and Wieden + Kennedy began late in 2002 to "develop a statement that would capture the essence of Oregon, what it means to live, work and play here." Dan Wieden, co-founder of Wieden + Kennedy, penned this opinion piece in April 2003. It is well worth reading.
