91ÊÓƵ

(Editor’s note: This interview was conducted Aug. 10. It has been edited and condensed.)

Kimberly Branam was named executive director of the Portland Development Commission on Aug. 3 after serving for five years as deputy director under Patrick Quinton.

Quinton announced in February he would step down, setting off a search for his successor. Branam, 37, quickly became the commission’s preferred candidate after a national search.

A Portland native who studied abroad in South Africa and served in West Africa in the Peace Corps, Branam got her political experience locally, serving as an economic development expert for Sam Adams during his time as commissioner and, later, mayor.

91ÊÓƵ: What do you expect to tackle in these next few weeks as you’re getting started?

BRANAM: Because I know Portland well, and because I’ve been at PDC, we’re going to hit the ground running. We have significant challenges in front of us and great opportunities. We will be continuing to focus on implementing the strategic plan, which has a focus on widely shared prosperity, continuing to focus on some of the enormous opportunities we have, preparing for the Post Office, setting the groundwork in South Waterfront, breaking ground in Lents.

The challenge that I’m sure you’re aware of is the PDC is facing a significant decline in resources. And so the board and I will be spending time talking to City Council, and talking to community members and stakeholders about the best approach to address this decline in resources.

The strategy will be a multipronged approach. We’re going to need to replace resources, not one-for-one with a single revenue source, but with a number of solutions. And what’s at stake here is whether the city can continue to have an entity that helps drive public-private partnerships to support economic growth, development and inclusive prosperity in Portland.

91ÊÓƵ: That’s obviously something Patrick was working on for years. Do you have any new ideas to assure the continued funding of the PDC?

BRANAM: Well, Patrick and our board chair, Tom Kelly, along with Mark Edlen, another PDC commissioner, convened an advisory body and drafted what we’re referring to as the 50 percent business plan. It sets a really good groundwork for us in terms of thinking about how we would tackle it. It starts with making sure that we’re optimizing public benefits and ensuring a fair return on our investments. That’s something that we can start today. There are longer-term solutions like considering what real-estate investments we might make to catalyze development but also secure long-term operating resources.

And I think we need to have the conversation with our public partners about what public resources may be available to help ensure that we can continue to do the good work.

91ÊÓƵ: And the 50 percent, what does that refer to?

BRANAM: It indicates that we’re not done; it’s not a complete draft. It was something that we did with a great advisory body and with external consultants, but it’s indicating that we have a long way to go before we have a draft that we can say is the roadmap.

We need to engage the City Council. We’ve had the support of Mayor Hales; we’ll want to make sure that Mayor-elect Wheeler is supportive of this approach. And equally important, we need to make sure that what we come out with feels relevant to Portland, to our key stakeholders.

91ÊÓƵ: How do you reach out to Portland’s communities of color?

BRANAM: It’s critically important. There’s no doubt that we need to increase the diversity of our leadership team and management and staff, so our staff is more reflective of the diversity of the city. We have developed over the last number of years deep relationships with some organizations and individuals from communities of color, but certainly there is more work to do.

We have a difficult past with the African-American community in particular, and we need to continue to engage in a really genuine way in order to hear (about) ways we can be supportive to that community. That starts with listening, that starts with showing up and being a good partner, and that’s what I intend to do.

91ÊÓƵ: A significant part of your job will be working with Ted Wheeler on shared goals and the PDC’s future. What’s your impression of the mayor-elect and how do you think you’ll be able to work with him going forward?

BRANAM: Well, I worked with mayor-elect Wheeler when I was in then-Commissioner Adam’s office and (Wheeler) was the county chair. I think of him as Chair Wheeler, but I’ve always respected the treasurer and think that he is an able public servant.  He was a part of the interview process, the final interview, and he communicated at the staff meeting yesterday how supportive he is of the three parts of what PDC does as far as catalyzing economic growth, making sure we have healthy and complete neighborhoods and focusing on shared prosperity and particularly making sure that communities of color and people in lower-income neighborhoods have access to the benefits of a growing economy and a vibrant city.

91ÊÓƵ: I wanted to ask about Centennial Mills. Have you been able to field any offers or interest any developers in that property?

BRANAM: We selected a broker to help us solicit interest. To date, we have done selective demolition without any incident. We’re on schedule and, I think, under budget. So that’s pretty exciting. We have some uncertainties that have come up in the process. FEMA came out with a biological opinion that made clear it will be more difficult to build within the 100-year floodplain, or at least we will need to mitigate for any development in that. We’re trying to understand what the regulations will be. We’re still moving forward with phase two of the selective demolition, but that’s something that adds another layer.

91ÊÓƵ: As far as the broker trying to solicit interest, have any offers come in yet?

BRANAM: I think that we have received some.

91ÊÓƵ: So did you write the PDC’s business plan?

BRANAM: Patrick wrote the business plan. I was responsible for the strategic plan. If you think about the relationship between the two, the strategic plan says what we’re going to do and how we intend to do it, and the long-term business plan basically considers how we will pay for what we intend to do.

91ÊÓƵ: So what did you learn going through that process?

BRANAM: At that time, it became very clear that you had this bifurcation of the economy between the significant rise in the tech sector, high-paying jobs, and significant growth in the service sector and lower-paying jobs, and it became clear (that) where there had not been a recovery was in the middle-income, middle-wage jobs. So we created a strategy that sought to ensure that we addressed that in a pretty head-on way.

91ÊÓƵ: And what did that involve, addressing that bifurcation?

BRANAM: When we developed the economic development strategy in 2009, it was really a pro-growth strategy. This go-around, we were really mindful that we needed to focus on industries that had accessible jobs, the middle-wage jobs. So we added a fifth cluster in health care. We are doubling down in our work with metals and manufacturing, and in our work with the tech industry and athletic and outdoor, how do you diversify industries where you have fantastic opportunities, but they’re maybe less diverse than they might be.

91ÊÓƵ: Do you have anything you want to add?

BRANAM: I’m incredibly excited. I’m honored to have been selected. I take this responsibility seriously.