The following editorial from Eugene’s Register-Guard suggests that Eugene should aspire to become a “center for the emerging solar power industry” as well as ”solar panel design and manufacture” based in part on Centron Solar’s decision to locate there.
The editorial notes that, “[m]ost of the 30 companies involved in the consortium would never have heard of Eugene if it weren’t for Centron Solar”. Actually, the real reason the consortium companies have heard of Eugene is because of Ocean Yuan, the President of Centron Solar. Yuan graduated from the University of Oregon’s Lundquist School of Business in 1993 and feels that Eugene is “an ideal place for our foothold to establish a logistics center in the United States,” as Eugene is strategically located along the Interstate-5 corridor and can serve the entire West Coast.
It’s too bad that Yuan didn’t go to school in Central Oregon. If he had maybe Centron Solar would have located it’s current 10 high-level managers plus the 200 to 300 additional employees it plans to hire within a year here. Central Oregon can also be described as a “strategically located logistics center” – expecially for product design and sales – that can serve the entire West Coast. Plus we have much more solar powering sunshine than the Willamette Valley.
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A foot in the solar door
Eugene’s solar industry breakthrough still ahead
Register-Guard Editorial – July 13, 2009
It’s welcome news that a consortium of 30 Chinese companies in the solar power industry intends to establish its U.S. sales hub in Eugene. If Centron Solar’s sales model works as planned, 200 to 300 salespeople based in Eugene will be selling solar panels nationwide within a year. But Centron will not, in itself, bring a breakthrough of the kind Eugene has been hoping for, one that would make the city a center of the emerging solar power industry.
