Event Announcement: Bill Wyatt, Port of Portland Executive Director

Posted on August 10, 2012


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Please join us on January 10, 2013 for the first installment of the 2013 ELGL Issue and Speaker Series with Bill Wyatt, executive director of the Port of Portland. The forum will be in the Port of Portland Commission room.

Bill will join us at 12:00 pm and provide a 30 minute presentation plus Q & A. Following Bill’s presentation, Brooke Berglund, Port of Portland Tour and Outreach Manager, will join us to provide a tour of the Port of Portland’s Headquarters Building.

Very special thanks to Melissa Gall for coordinating the forum.

Bill Wyatt, Port of Portland Executive Director

Bill Wyatt is the executive director of the Port of Portland. Prior to his appointment as the Port’s executive director, Bill served as chief of staff to Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber for seven years, preceded by six years as president of the Oregon Business Council and five years as executive director of the Association for Portland Progress (then Portland’s Downtown Development Association). He also served as a state representative from the Astoria area from 1974 to 1977.

Bill was appointed by Governor Ted Kulongoski in January of 2008 to serve on the Board of the Oregon Global Warming Commission. He formerly has served as board chair of the Urban League and as a board member for Oregon Public Broadcasting and the Oregon Historical Society.

Port of Portland Headquarters

In May 2010, a majority of Port of Portland employees were consolidated into a new Port headquarters building at Portland International Airport. The building, shaped to echo the hull of a ship or the wing of a plane, sits on top of a 3,000-space long-term parking garage at PDX; both the office space and parking garage were designed to be models of sustainable design and construction. The building was recently awarded Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, Platinum Certification and has received numerous local national and international awards for its environmental features.

The building features both tried and true resource conservation measures, like using energy efficient lighting, materials from renewable or recyclable sources, and water efficient fixtures. It also relies on innovations like ground-source heating and cooling produced through a closed-loop system reaching 300 feet below the surface and a Living Machine® system, which recycles wastewater onsite for reuse in the building’s toilets and cooling towers.

No state or local tax funds were involved in the new structure. The overall building cost $241 million—$156 million for the parking garage, pedestrian tunnels and related utilities, and $85 million for the offices. The new garage was funded with a combination of available working capital in the PDX Port cost center and revenues from the Port cost center, which includes parking, rental car, air cargo, and other revenues collected at the airport. The office building is funded with a combination of available working capital in the PDX Port cost center and airport revenue bonds paid for by the Port cost center.

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