Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. preparing to move to Gresham

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In Gresham’s Rockwood neighborhood, on the east side of Southeast 187th Avenue near its intersection with Stark Street, an existing single-story commercial building is being refurbished to accommodate a host of new tenants. One will be Oregon Tradeswomen Inc.

The Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center, Mt. Hood Community College Small Business Development Center and Micro Enterprise Services of Oregon will occupy space in the building. OTI plans to move its operations there from Northeast Portland sometime between December 2019 and January 2020, according to OTI communications director Mary Ann Naylor.

“This new location will allow us to have our offices, our classroom, as well as our workshop (together),” she said Wednesday. “Right now, the way we handle the hands-on training portion of our pre-apprenticeship classes, we partner with other nonprofits that need help with their projects because we want to give our students an authentic building experience to really prepare them for the jobsite.”

But that also means students currently have to travel to various jobsites and training facilities around the metro area. However, in Rockwood, with space of their own to work in, students generally won’t have to travel as much.

“Having a workshop will allow us to standardize that training and bring our partners in to conduct specific trainings,” Naylor said. “We will actually have a place to train our students. It’s just going to give us all the flexibility we’ve been wanting for the last few years to really better serve our students and industry.”

Naylor also noted that OTI originally established its headquarters in Northeast Portland because that area of the city was considered blighted and socioeconomically disadvantaged. As the area gentrified and property values shot up, however, the same women OTI sought to serve were priced out.

“In the 20 years that Oregon Tradeswomen has had offices in Northeast (Portland), it was perfect because that’s where our people used to be,” she said. “But as we’ve developed in the Northeast, a lot of those people have moved out (to east Multnomah County).”