Oregon Business & Industry recently released its 2027–28 Oregon Competitiveness Agenda (https://oregonbusinessindustry.com/obiagenda/), and it paints a challenging picture of Oregon’s economy.
The report points to slowing economic growth, lagging job creation, rising costs, regulatory complexity, housing affordability, and increasing competition from other states for businesses and investment. Oregon’s economy grew just 1% in 2025, compared with slightly more than 2% nationally, and Oregon ranked 44th among states for economic growth.
Those numbers should concern us.
But as I read the report, I kept coming back to a different question.
How do we position McMinnville and Yamhill County to outperform the state?
Because there are real reasons we could.
McMinnville Is at an Important Inflection Point
We have a strong base of established businesses and manufacturers. We have agriculture, food and beverage, tourism, healthcare, education, and a growing entrepreneurial community. We have Linfield University and Chemeketa Community College helping develop talent. We have businesses willing to invest here. And we have public, private, and nonprofit organizations that increasingly understand the value of working together.
At the same time, we face significant challenges.
Housing is expensive. Employers struggle to find and retain workers. Childcare remains difficult for many families. Healthcare costs continue to rise. We need adequate employment land and infrastructure. Transportation can constrain our connection to larger markets. And businesses are navigating an increasingly complex regulatory environment.
One of the biggest takeaways for me from the OBI report is that these aren’t separate problems.
Housing is a workforce issue. Childcare is a workforce issue. Healthcare affordability is both a workforce and business issue. Transportation is an economic-development issue. Available employment land is a business retention and recruitment issue. Education is a workforce issue. And the cost and complexity of doing business affects all of them.
That means our economic strategy can’t address these challenges in isolation.
It also means our future isn’t entirely dependent on what happens in Salem.
There is a tremendous amount we can do right here.
The goal shouldn’t simply be to protect McMinnville from Oregon’s economic challenges.
The goal should be to build one of the most competitive small-city economies in Oregon.
I believe there are six areas where we should focus.
- We Need to Make Sure Businesses Have Room to Grow
OBI specifically identifies industrial-site readiness and available employment land as competitiveness issues. The report argues that Oregon needs usable sites and development pathways that allow communities to respond quickly when economic opportunities arise.
That matters here.
We need adequate employment land, development-ready sites, the necessary infrastructure, and a predictable path for businesses that want to expand or invest in our community.
Economic development isn’t just about recruiting the next company. It’s also about making sure the company that has been here for 20 or 50 years has somewhere to make its next investment.
When an employer is ready to expand, the answer shouldn’t be that we need several years to figure out where they can go or how the infrastructure will reach them.
Being ready for opportunity is itself a competitive advantage.
- We Need to Build and Retain the Workforce of the Future
We hear regularly from businesses about the difficulty of finding and retaining great people.
But increasingly, workforce development isn’t simply about skills.
It’s about whether people can build a life here.
That means strengthening connections between education and industry, creating clearer career pathways, and recognizing that housing, childcare, healthcare, and affordability all influence whether people can build their careers and lives here.
OBI calls for stronger public-private workforce partnerships involving vocational training, on-the-job skills development, K-12 job readiness, and higher education.
We have tremendous assets to build on in Yamhill County. We have strong school districts, Linfield University, Chemeketa Community College, employers across a diverse range of industries, and organizations committed to workforce development.
Our opportunity is to connect those pieces even more intentionally.
Young people should be able to see a pathway from the classroom to a meaningful career here. Employers should have stronger pipelines to future employees. And people who want to live and work in Yamhill County should be able to afford to do so.
- We Need to Address the Rising Cost of Doing Business Wherever We Can
Affordability is one of the strongest themes running through the OBI report. In an OBI survey conducted in early 2026, 75% of responding small businesses said they would like to grow in Oregon but couldn’t afford to.
For employers, affordability comes in many forms—energy, insurance, taxes, wages, materials, regulatory compliance, and healthcare.
We may not control every cost facing employers, but we can look for practical local and regional solutions that help businesses remain competitive.
Our work around healthcare is one example.
By bringing businesses together and creating greater purchasing power through the Chamber Health Plan, we’re working to give employers another option for managing one of their fastest-growing expenses.
I believe that approach is increasingly important.
Sometimes the Chamber’s role is to advocate for change. Sometimes it is to bring the right people together. And sometimes, when possible, it is to help build a solution.
- We Need to Protect and Grow the Businesses Already Here
Business recruitment matters, but so does making sure the next expansion, investment, production line, or group of new jobs from an existing Yamhill County employer happens here rather than somewhere else.
The OBI report cites a Business Oregon study showing just how real that competition has become. Among surveyed Oregon businesses that reported being approached by out-of-state recruiters, 68% said they had moved or expanded outside Oregon.
A business doesn’t have to move its headquarters for our community to lose an economic opportunity.
Its next expansion can simply happen somewhere else.
That’s why business retention and expansion must remain one of our highest economic-development priorities.
We need to continually ask employers:
What is preventing your business from growing here?
What would make you invest here?
What barriers are getting in your way?
What would cause your next investment to happen somewhere else?
And then we need to listen carefully to the answers.
Those conversations should help shape our local economic-development work and our advocacy in Salem.
- We Need to Treat Transportation and Infrastructure as Economic-Development Priorities
The ability to move employees, products, customers, and visitors efficiently connects our businesses to markets and directly affects our ability to compete for future investment.
OBI makes that connection explicitly, arguing that a functioning transportation system is essential to moving people and goods and that transportation investment should address maintenance, congestion, safety, and economic growth.
That is particularly important for Yamhill County.
Our proximity to the Portland metropolitan area, I-5, and other major markets is an advantage—but only if we can efficiently connect to them.
Transportation projects shouldn’t be viewed only as road projects.
They are economic infrastructure.
The same is true of water, sewer, energy, broadband, and other infrastructure necessary for communities and businesses to grow.
We need to think long-term about the infrastructure our economy will require, advocate for those investments, and make sure we’re prepared before opportunity arrives at our doorstep.
- We Need to Make Collaboration One of Yamhill County’s Competitive Advantages
One line in the OBI report particularly stood out to me.
The Business Oregon study it cites describes successful business recruitment in competing states as a “team sport,” with strong leadership and clearly defined roles throughout the economic-development ecosystem.
I believe this may be one of McMinnville and Yamhill County’s greatest opportunities.
Our businesses, local governments, educational institutions, and economic-development organizations each bring different strengths. When we align those strengths around shared priorities and work together to solve problems, we become a much more competitive region.
Collaboration can’t simply mean that we all have good relationships.
It needs to mean shared priorities, clear roles, communication, and action.
We don’t need every organization trying to do everything. We need each organization doing what it does best while working toward a common vision for our economy.
Collaboration itself can become a competitive advantage.
What Kind of Community Do We Want to Become?
The OBI report opens with a warning that Oregon’s ability to compete for business investment has eroded and that continued deterioration could mean fewer job opportunities and less revenue available to support public services.
We should take that warning seriously.
But I don’t believe our response should be pessimism.
In fact, I believe a challenging statewide environment makes strong local economic leadership even more important.
What if, five years from now, McMinnville is known as the Oregon community where businesses can get things done?
A community where employers can find talent.
Where entrepreneurs can find support.
Where businesses have room to grow.
Where young people can see a future for themselves.
Where education and industry work together.
Where employers can connect with decision-makers.
And where public, private, and nonprofit leaders come together to solve problems instead of simply talking about them.
That is an economic-development strategy worth pursuing.
It also gives the McMinnville Area Chamber of Commerce a very clear role.
Advocate. Convene. Build solutions.
We will advocate for policies and investments that help our businesses and economy thrive.
We will convene employers, educators, government, and community partners around the challenges none of us can solve alone.
And where there is an opportunity to create a practical solution for businesses, we will work with our partners to build it.
Oregon’s economic challenges are real. But McMinnville’s future does not have to be defined by them.
We cannot control every challenge facing Oregon’s economy. But we can control how prepared McMinnville is to compete.
If we are willing to work together, think long-term, and focus on solutions, I believe McMinnville and Yamhill County have an opportunity not merely to navigate the economic challenges ahead—but to outperform them.
That is how we support a strong local economy and work toward our vision of a thriving, sustainable community.
John Olson, President/CEO
McMinnville Area Chamber of Commerce
