members of the Program Management Team are:
email: mmohr@growsantiam.org
email: paul@growsantiam.org
email: tim@growsantiam.org
email: mike@growsantiam.org
email: nicole@growsantiam.org
email: sandra@growsantiam.org
email: diane@growsantiam.org
email: denny@growsantiam.org
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Paul Matter is the chairperson for the North Santiam Canyon Economic Development Corporation and is also a member of the Enterprise Facilitation management team. He has been employed by the USDA-Forest Service since 1979, and is currently the Detroit District Ranger for the Willamette National Forest. Matter holds a bachelor’s degree in Forestry from Michigan State University that he earned in 1979, and he completed Advanced Technical Training in forest engineering at Oregon State University in 1991.
Matter and his wife of 28 years, Pamela, have two children: Allison, 21, who graduated from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in 2007 and Christopher, who will be attending the University of Alaska in the fall of 2008. Matter sees strength in the North Santiam Canyon region in that its citizens are passionately devoted to their communities. He believes that the enterprise facilitation small business development model is uniquely designed to capture this passion and the strength of these community members.
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Josh Weathers is the vice chairperson for the North Santiam Canyon Economic Development Corporation and a steering committee member for the Canyon's Enterprise Facilitation project. In his professional life, Weathers works a recreation manager for the federal government, overseeing three federal parks in the North Santiam Canyon region. He is a graduate of the Ford Institute for Community Building’s leadership development class, and continues to use those specific skills in the “Mill City-Gates Group 2” volunteer organization. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Natural Resources with a specialty emphasis in Forest Management from Oregon State University. Prior to that, Weathers earned his Associate's Degree in Forest Management at Chemeketa Community College. He currently resides with his wife and two children in Mill City, Ore. Weathers believes that the enterprise facilitation program will help people with entrepreneurial vision achieve their goals and, in turn, help those small businesses achieve great success.
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Michael Jaeger is the Vice-President and Manager of West Coast Bank in Stayton, Ore. He has served 25 years in the banking industry, and before that he was a high school English teacher and coach. Jaeger holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Portland and a master’s in education from Linfield College of McMinnville, Ore. An avid community volunteer, he is currently involved in the Stayton Rotary Club, Habitat for Humanity Board and City of Stayton Budget Committee. Jaeger has lived in Stayton for nine years; he is married with six children.
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Mary Jenkins is a member of the Enterprise Facilitation project. She and her husband, Dennis Jenkins, own Hardwood Components, Inc. in Mehama, Ore. Jenkins currently works for Canyon Creek Development in Salem. She is a past board member for the North Santiam Economic Development
Corporation and presently serves as secretary-treasurer of the North Santiam Community Foundation. Jenkins earned a master’s of Arts of Teaching from Lewis and Clark College, and she holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. Having lived in the North Santiam Canyon for 33 years, she has seen the economy prosper and falter. She believes an enterprise facilitation program in the area is the right step to growing a healthy economy once again.
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Dr. Mike Medley serves as Secretary for the North Santiam Canyon Economic Development Corporation and is Chair of the Enterprise Facilitation project. He has spent 20 years in the military, 15 years in industry, and five years as a university professor teaching courses in business and education. He has earned a master’s in business administration from the University of Phoenix and a doctorate in education technology leadership from Pepperdine University. Recently retired and living in Mill City, he believes that a community with a healthy economy is a community that he and others will want to call home.
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Dennis Hoop was educated in California. He worked as a warehouse manager for Los Angeles School District Food Service Division for eight years. In 1971 he moved his family to Oregon, where he worked as Director of Plant Services at Santiam Memorial Hospital for more than 19 years. Dennis then worked as Plant Engineer at Albany General Hospital, which included managing housekeeping (25-30 employees) and managing construction projects (under $250,000). Dennis has held licenses as an electrician, landscaper, contractor and in asbestos abatement. He was a member of the Oregon Association of Hospital Engineers. Dennis established Lyons Mini Storage Inc. in 1997, where, as sole owner, he now has 220 units and two employees.
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Tim Kirsch is the past chairman and an active board member of the North Santiam Canyon Economic Development Corporation, for which he has also served as vice chair. He is a member of the Enterprise Facilitation management team. Kirsch is currently serving his fourth term as Mayor of Mill City. He is an appointed member of the Marion County Economic Development Advisory Board, Santiam Canyon School District budget committee, and has served as an alternate on the Opal Creek Scenic Recreation Area Advisory council. Kirsch has lived in and around the Santiam Canyon area his whole life. He graduated from Santiam High School in Mill City and owns and operates a small business in the town. Kirsch believes that if we can help provide the tools that people need to achieve their professional aspirations, the economy will prosper as a result.
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Diane Hyde serves on the management team for the North Santiam Canyon Enterprise Facilitation Project as a representative of the United States Postal Service. As postmaster for two of the communities served by the project, she deals with hundreds of business of all sizes and origins. Diane started a successful small business in 1989 and operated it for twelve years before entering the Postal Service. She has managed a variety of small businesses and was a secondary teacher for fourteen years. Hyde holds both a master’s and bachelor’s degree from Oregon State University, and she completed a two-year small business program at Linn-Benton Community College. She is involved with the enterprise facilitation project because the U.S. Postal Service encourages participation in building healthy local business environments, which therefore contribute to the national economy.
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Mia Mohr is the project manager for the North Santiam Canyon Economic Development Corporation and has been on staff with the organization since 1996. She is leading the Canyon’s Enterprise Facilitation project, for which she brings expertise including grant writing and administration. In 2001, she was honored to receive the Professional Service Award from the Mid-Willamette Valley Council of Governments for her role in facilitating intergovernmental cooperation. Mohr also represents economic interests in the federally charted Opal Creek Advisory Council.
Mohr graduated with honors, earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of Puget Sound in foreign languages and international affairs. She resides on the Little North Fork with her husband, Greg, and their daughter, Anja. Mohr feels strongly that an enterprise facilitation program is exactly what will lead to a stronger, locally driven economy in the North Santiam Canyon. “It’s my deep personal commitment to participate in implementing this program because I do believe that this will achieve and sustain long-term economic and community development for the North Santiam area,” says Mohr.
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Sandra Rupert is a board member of the North Santiam Canyon Economic Development Corporation and serves on the Enterprise Facilitation management team. In her professional life, Rupert is a contractor for the United States Postal Service, operating the branch in Gates. Previously, she worked for the local Santiam Canyon School District. She is a devoted community volunteer, holding roles in the Gates Neighborhood Watch Association, the Mill City-Gates American Legion Auxiliary, Santiam Canyon Youth and Families Alliance, and the North Santiam Library District. Rupert graduated from Holloway High in a rural farming community in Minnesota. She and her husband of 41 years, Richard Duff, moved to Gates more than 30 years ago with their two sons. She is a proud mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Rupert believes that a strong point of an enterprise facilitation program is that it will enable Canyon residents to live and work closer to the place that they call home.
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Nicole Miller serves on the management team for Enterprise Facilitation in the North Santiam Canyon. She is the principal of Word's Out PR, a marketing and public relations firm based in Gates, Ore. She serves as the chairperson for the Gates Fire District Emergency Services Support corporation, and is a member of the Stayton / Sublimity Chamber of Commerce and the Executive Director of the North Santiam Chamber of Commerce. Miller holds a bachelor's degree in public relations from the University of Oregon. She graduated from the Ford Institute for Community Building’s leadership development class, and facilitated the Gates/Mill City Leadership Action Team. She has lived in the Canyon area for seven years and plans to raise her family and build her business there. Miller believes that committed, passionate citizens are the foundation of a strong and healthy community, and that entrepreneurship is indispensable to a vigorous economy.
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