Western Metrology Sales, LLC, a company that machines titanium castings, has broken ground on a new state-of-the-art 15,200 square foot facility in the La Pine Industrial Park. The company worked with EDCO to find the right location before purchasing a 2.95-acre parcel from Deschutes County for the project. The new development will bring several jobs to La Pine, as well as inject millions into the regional economy, with SLED (Sunriver/La Pine Economic Development) saying, “The project promises to transform not only the landscape but also the lives of those employed who will call the area home.”
The City of La Pine and SLED, in collaboration with EDCO, provided support to the company to attract them to the community. From securing site selection support, assistance with permitting, providing incentives and workforce development resources, the collaboration made the project a reality.
Western Metrology Inc. started in 2002 as a small CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine) programming company. They primarily serviced aerospace companies across the USA and were engaged directly by Carl Zeiss Industrial Metrology, LLC to provide training support, specializing in custom on-site application training.
The business saw steady growth adding CMMs, offline programming stations and personnel. After a couple years, Western Metrology started offering machining services in the Medical and Aerospace industries. Due to Eastern market competition in the medical industry, they decided to focus on aerospace and found that they had real talent in that field, especially Titanium Investment Castings.
The company continued to grow both the metrology and machining services and were eventually approached by Carl Zeiss Industrial Metrology, LLC to be their distributor of CMMs in Oregon and Washington in 2006. In their first year of Zeiss sales, they broke all previous sales records for the territory.
Eventually, their territory of CMM programming and training services expanded to encompass over half of the US, as well as including markets in China, Mexico, Brazil and Scotland. Today, this record breaking leader is proud to bring their expertise and value to Central Oregon, in La Pine.
Patricia Lucas, the executive director of SLED, added that, “Traded sector businesses are encouraged to utilize other local businesses for any subcontracting needs they have,” commenting on how the new development will benefit and grow the local economy.
Lucas stated that this is, “exactly the type of business we love to see moving into the area,” as the development benefits the local economy in some far reaching ways.
Not only does this move create several jobs and inject millions into the local economy, it also helps address a certain economic weakness that has been outlined in the South Deschutes County Labor Supply and Demand Inventory Report, published in November 2022 by East Slope Economics for SLED.
The report reads, “The basic pillars of economic development (retention, expansion and recruitment) all depend on a local workforce that has the skills that businesses need to grow. Larger metropolitan areas have what is known as a thick labor market with an abundant supply of workers with diverse skills. In turn, this allows for the development of a more diverse industry composition where businesses cluster around the workforce. One of the more obvious challenges that rural communities face is a small workforce. However, perhaps more challenging than the size of the workforce is that workers in rural communities tend to have more homogenous skills, making it difficult to attract new industries to the area.”
In this way, economic development can be seen as a positive feedback loop. As an area grows in population, the workforce grows and becomes equipped with a more diverse skillset, not to mention that the overall market also grows; both of these types of growth make it more viable for businesses to move to the area. More businesses moving to the area can raise property value, offer more products/services to locals and in turn, attract a more diverse workforce, feeding into the cycle of economic development.
To get this cycle going, it is paramount to attract successful businesses poised for long-term growth, like Western Metrology.
“Economic development strategies can be productive targeting smaller manufacturing businesses. These businesses can tap into the skilled manufacturing workers commuting out of the region and leverage more abundant and affordable industrial space,” said the report. “Recruitment strategies that target professional and technical, as well as manufacturing businesses would likely pay off with the local workforce capable of meeting additional demand.”
In addition, the report spoke about the need for collaboration, “These strategies need to account for both the workforce of the local community and the needs of local businesses. This means collaboration between workforce partners and economic development entities.”
Now, we see the result of that line of thinking as La Pine welcomes a new manufacturer to their community, thanks to collaboration with Western Metrology, SLED and EDCO. With Western Metrology and other additions in the last few years, La Pine is poised for economic growth and positive development.
