State and national outdoor industry representatives want to create a state-level office of outdoor recreation in Oregon, which is similar to efforts in other western states that are meant to prioritize the field and its economic benefits.

Van Schoessler, president of Oregon Outdoor Alliance, watched offices form over recent years in nearby states to prompt outdoor-related companies to locate there.

“We kind of saw this going on and said, ‘Hey, hey, hey, what’s going on here? We’re as good as any of these guys,’” Schoessler said. “We just felt like there wasn’t representation in Salem looking out for us.”

The Oregon Outdoor Alliance has helped draft a bill to create an office of outdoor recreation for Oregon, according to Schoessler. Oregon members of the nonprofit Outdoor Industry Association — including retailers, manufacturers, outfitters and guides — want to see such an office created, according to Cailin O’Brien-Feeney, local recreation advocacy manager at the Colorado-based trade association.

O’Brien-Feeney said he hopes to see legislation introduced in Oregon in early 2017. It could include an outdoor recreation commission that would oversee an office. He had no details on funding, budget or how the entity could be structured. But other states have tried different models.

A seat at the table?

In a recent report, the association pointed to the “promising trend” seen in Colorado, Utah and Washington of creating such high-level positions “charged with the dual role of supporting the outdoor industry and improving outdoor recreation opportunities throughout the state.” The association urged states to create similar positions as policy advisors to governors or within state economic development entities. The report describes different paths: Colorado placed an Outdoor Recreation Industry Office in the state’s Office of Economic Development & International Trade in 2015, Utah created the Office of Outdoor Recreation in the state’s Office of Economic Development in 2013 and Washington installed a senior policy advisor on outdoor recreation and economic development in the governor’s office.

Duties of those different offices and positions include advocating for the outdoor industry within the state, publishing annual reports on the outdoor industry in the state, increasing opportunities for outdoor recreation, growing outdoor-related jobs and consumer spending, finding ways to shift from a seasonal-employee base to a year-round employee base, connecting agencies, coordinating outdoor-related policies among them and promoting health and social benefits of outdoor recreation. The Utah office has created a matching grant program for recreation infrastructure to do such work as improving trailheads.

O’Brien-Feeney expects an Oregon office or position could help champion outdoor recreation-related policy and development at the state level, for instance, by focusing on barriers to the outdoor industry’s growth in Oregon. No one at the state level now looks mainly at such issues and there’s no central point of contact at the state level for related groups to contact, O’Brien-Feeney said.

“Being able to have a seat at the table at the state level would be a big deal,” said Schoessler, who expects the office could get involved with land management decisions, conservation topics and public access issues, as well as other issues.

The alliance mainly wants economic development to result from the effort, according to Schoessler. That comes from promoting a healthy lifestyle by helping people play outside and by making it easy for them to do so, he said. The alliance plans to help move along the state office proposal at every opportunity.

“Right now it’s just a dream,” Schoessler said. “But it’s a really great dream.”

Connecting the dots

Scott Allan, general manager of Bend-based Hydro Flask, supports creating such a state office, noting that businesses with a choice of locations notice a state’s commitment to the relevant industry.

“It’s really in the state’s best interest” to figure out how to help the outdoor industry, Allan said. He also noted the benefit in supporting permanent jobs and diversifying from the real estate and development-driven economy that can crash.

A state-level office can help locate companies in a certain area, work on tax structures and create a statewide environment for the industry, according to Chris Van Dyke, a partner at Songlines Communications who is consulting for Oregon State University-Cascades on developing an outdoor-products degree program. It can also develop legislative agendas, help protect natural places and advocate for funding for state parks, fish and wildlife departments and natural resources.

“It connects those dots,” Van Dyke said of the different areas.

Such an office can also create coalitions of groups that make for a powerful economic force, he noted.

“It makes an economic case for protecting public lands,” he said.

He pointed to undeveloped lands that look dormant and may be viewed as not producing revenue because oil or gas extraction does not take place there, for instance. But that’s where people want to go to recreate.

“That’s the economic case for conservation that hasn’t been well made,” he said, adding that nearby states have started to make that case. “Other states have already put the pieces of this puzzle together.”

Major milestone

O’Brien-Feeney will give an update on the state-level office proposal at the Oregon Outdoor Alliance Beer: Thirty! event in Bend on Wednesday. Also at that event, Van Dyke will give an update on the effort to develop the outdoor-products degree program at OSU-Cascades. He expects to offer recommendations to OSU by late spring.

And the outdoor industry will likely celebrate another piece of recent news at that event.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., will attend to talk about recently passed legislation that calls for the Bureau of Economic Analysis to evaluate the outdoor recreation economy and its effects. President Barack Obama signed the Outdoor Recreation Jobs and Economic Impact Act of 2016 earlier this month.

A few years ago, the Outdoor Industry Association found that the outdoor recreation industry annually supported 6.1 million jobs and $646 billion in economic output in the U.S. Of those totals, outdoor recreation in Oregon generated $12.8 billion in consumer spending, 141,000 direct jobs, $4 billion in wages and $955 million in state and local tax revenue.

The new law will ensure that the outdoor recreation economy is counted in the country’s gross domestic product — marking the first time that the impact of outdoor recreation on the U.S. economy is measured, the association noted. The group called Obama’s signature on the Outdoor REC Act “a major milestone.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7812,

hcorrigan@bendbulletin.com