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Traded Sector Jobs Strategy

  • Vision: Gresham as a premier economic engine and key partner in Portland metropolitan regional growth. 

    Goal 1: Manufacturing

    Strengthen and grow Gresham’s existing manufacturing sector.

    Retain family wage jobs and create more by expanding existing companies and recruiting new companies in target opportunity areas.

    Strategies

    • Evaluate incentive programs and consider modifications to attract high value and high employment manufacturing companies.
    • Offer businesses streamlined, responsive and customer driven services for expansion and new construction and new business start-ups.
    • Focus on retaining existing manufacturing companies and keeping in contact with companies to:
      • Assess situation and provide needed support services.
      • Connect companies with new opportunities.
    • Strengthen regional partnerships that provide programs for national and global expansion and growth of the manufacturing sector.
    • Refocus recruitment strategies to highlight Gresham’s value proposition and pursue integrated target opportunity industries with overlapping functions.

    Targeted opportunities

    • Advanced electronics
    • Specialized machinery and equipment
    Advanced electronics

    Advanced electronics are integrated into a wide variety of sectors – crisscrossing traditional industries and companies that have not historically aligned – where electronics are integral to the overall product.

    • Next generation of semiconductors, development and manufacture of displays and haptic/touch screen technology
    • Incorporation into consumer-based health care devices and automotive electronics as companies migrate to more electronic-based platforms
    • Gresham can leverage the region’s attributes such as workforce talent to attract firms that build and design products in the advanced electronics industry

    Target industries:

    • Automotive electronics
    • Avionics
    • Electronic medical devices
    • Micro electronics
    • Semiconductors
    • Clean technology
    Specialized machinery and equipment
    • Growth in specialized suppliers and service providers for advanced electronics and medical/biological sectors will require new advanced and specialized equipment to meet these industries’ specific needs.
    • The need for domestic development and production of machinery and equipment is on the rise as production operations require better market access and adaptability to changing needs and technologies.
    • Gresham can market the value chain in the region along with robust utilities, availability of prime industrial sites, and a strong history of support for manufacturing.

    Target industries:

    • Agriculture
    • Electronics
    • Food processing
    • Medical/biological
  • Goal 2: Professional services

    Encourage job creation and new investment in Gresham’s industrial and regional centers.

    Focus on professional service companies fitting the industrial services model allowed by Gresham’s development code.

    Strategies

    • Research and implement new tools/programs to encourage industrial/professional service firms in Gresham’s industrial and regional centers.
    • Market the attributes of Gresham’s available industrial and employment areas to state and regional developers, brokers and appropriate business associations as a viable location for professional service firms.
    • Tap into regional strengths in professional services (software, design, creative services) to support target opportunities.

    Incentives

    Gresham has a number of ways to help businesses invest in Gresham.

    Read more about our incentive programs