with knife making in particular, that’s great because there are manufacturing steps that you can’t do in-house,” Williams says. “So you farm those out, and if you have that ecosystem, there will be people within that geographical area that can do it for you.” That idea exists across numerous manufacturing sectors and other industries, of course, and is nothing new to Oregon. Redmond, with its advanced metals manufacturing industry, has become a firearms hub. Prineville and The Dalles have their data centers. Bend continues to lean into its momentum as a place for brewing beer and cultivating niche outdoor companies, with business alliances like the Oregon Outdoor Alliance and an Oregon State University– Cascades “outdoor products” degree. That course of study includes running an outdoor company, the SnoPlanks Academy, which designs, manufactures, and markets skis and snowboards. Making Portland a knife capital is a move that stems out of the 19th century, with Oregon Iron & Steel Company’s founding in Lake Oswego, just south of Portland, in 1882, though other companies came before it. The Rose City had a great demand for steel — hello, bridges — and numerous steel manufacturers sprang out of that ecosystem. In fact, Steelport must use two other metallurgical facilities within Portland to complete the complicated heat treatment that Steelport knives require. “We couldn’t do that in Sacramento, for example,” Khormaei says. It’s that sort of building on the momentum of what’s already there that fuels the idea behind the Portland Knife Center of Excellence. In claiming the title, there are numerous other benefits across other sectors of the economy. Maybe there could be a knife center display at PDX, for example, something to pique the traveler’s curiosity. Better yet, imagine a tourist- focused campaign that drives visitors to these factories for hands-on experiences, much in the same way that you can, say, make your own Swiss Army knife at a Victorinox factory in Switzerland. “Portland is a city of makers,” says Marcus Hibdon, communications director for Travel Portland. Perhaps one day there could be a “knife trail” in the way that there are “food trails” along the Coast and in Central Oregon, but Hibdon says there haven’t been any discussions about that yet. “The city very much makes sense as a hub for knife artistry, as the craft of it is an intersection of our culinary, artisanal and entrepreneurial communities,” Hibdon adds. “Innovative Portland-based knife brands are a part of the Portland story.” Gerber Gear’s factory floor The Northeast Portland Steelport facility 18
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