New Sensation with Tom Hogue, Economic Development Specialist, Dept. of Land Conservation and Development

Since ELGL is not a big fan of icebreakers and since we would rather not know what animal you want to be, this blog feature will serve as a means of introducing new members. While you won’t learn about their favorite animal, you will learn about their ideal Sunday morning, which dead people would they FaceTime with, and which song best describes their life.

Vitals

Name: Tom Hogue

Education: Minnesota State University, Mankato, BS, Computer Science and University of Phoenix, MBA, Business

Current Position: Economic Development Specialist, Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development

Previous Employment: Executive Director, Historic Boulder; Councilor, City of Lafayette; and Online Professional Services Consultant Thomas Hogue and Associates

Connect: Email, LinkedIn, and Twitter

Background Check

Specialties: Blues piano, economic development, land use, local government, strategic path analysis.

Selected projects: Regional Large Lot Industrial Sites for Central Oregon. Yamhill County Agri-Business, Tourism and Infrastructure Study. Economic Development in Wine Country Initiative. Regional Wetlands Permitting for Industrial Sites.

Q&A

Tell us about three projects that you are working on.

I’m building an electronic gizmo to use tuning my motorcycle. With old bikes you have to improvise.

I’m working at an economic development in wine country project with friends and colleagues.

I’m working at French lessons and plan to go back to Paris someday soon.

Your mentors:

The city manager I helped hire back in Colorado. I learned the most about local government and economic development from him. He also knew how to keep work and family from crunching each other. That’s a very important lesson.

Describe the inside of your car.

There are six umbrellas, a cover for my motorcycle, a fancy stereo with my favorite blues music, and a pile of trash on the floor by the front passenger seat.

Most recent concert you attended:

I have season tickets to the Portland Opera.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVOVRZWrkgQ&w=420&h=315]

If you could only visit five websites for the next year, which ones would you choose?

New York Times

Amazon

VentureRider

My Bank

Google

(Complete the sentence) Before I die I want to…

I want to go back to Spain to visit my favorite places.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRozu-puKko&w=560&h=315]

Proudest career accomplishment.

I helped Spain’s national airline implement a critical flight engineering project, and had a blast living there and traveling a lot.

What song best describes your life?

Dr. John’s “Right Place Wrong Time”.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf15HrUZ5Wk&w=420&h=315]

Suggest two or three topics for the ELGL annual conference.

Economic development for real, not fluff and subsidy.

Home rule and land use.

What do local government and eHarmony have in common?

If you could FaceTime or Skype with three people either dead or alive, who would they be?

Dr. John (New Orleans style piano)

John Law (“interesting economist”)

Saul Alinsky

Favorite thing to do on a Sunday morning:

Good coffee, NY Times, French Toast.

(Complete the sentence) Government is…..

stuck.

(Complete the sentence) ELGL is …..

people who care enough to work to get it unstuck.

What’s the meaning of life?

It’s not something you find, but something you give by your actions everyday.

What question(s) should I have asked you?

At one meeting the get to know you question was to describe your first memorable meal in Oregon. Mine was out of a dumpster in Klamath Falls. That got people wondering. I was riding freight trains from California to Minnesota at the time.