Tribute to Jake Oken-Berg

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to bid farewell to an individual who has not only served as a longtime staff member but a highly respected member of our close-knit team, Jake Oken-Berg. Serving for the last 10 years as my business liaison, Jake has been my ambassador to Oregon's business community and its leaders. Frankly, when you consider some of my positions, Jake has undoubtedly developed the diplomatic skills necessary to actually be an ambassador.

Jake has always approached his work with enthusiasm and a positive attitude, with steadfast determination to help me build and maintain critical partnerships with the business community throughout the State and to provide their feedback on how we can write better legislation.

His creative pursuit of my partnership with the business community was on full display when he organized our office's ``Made in Oregon'' manufacturing tour. That tour comprised many trips across the State over several years, with business leaders, owners, and managers. Some of the most interesting gatherings I have ever been at were part of that ``Made in Oregon'' tour. It highlighted the contributions that Oregon's businesses, manufacturers, and workers are making to our State and to the country, and it shined a light on policies that are needed to ensure American companies and American workers stay competitive in the 21st century.

Over the past decade, Jake has helped develop policies and strategies relevant to many sectors of Oregon's growing economy.

One such strategy has been to make Oregon a global leader in mass timber, including the production of cross-laminated timber and mass plywood and the research on charring and stress loads necessary to rewrite building codes.

Another strategy has been to make Oregon a national leader in the production of hemp for CBD, building on Oregon's legal cannabis industry.

Yet another strategy has been building up Oregon's sustainable energy industry, accelerating the development of wind and solar and wave energy and supporting measures to increase the efficiency of the manufacturing process to use less energy.

It is pretty staggering to think of all the balls Jake had to juggle at the same time over those 10 years, but he did it, and he did it making it look easy.

Our team and our State saw the fruits of Jake's decade of partnership pay off over this last year and a half as businesses throughout Oregon faced extremely difficult, dark days amid the pandemic and the economic recession.

As businesses ground to a halt and workers quarantined at home, owners and managers were grappling with issues of how to continue to pay employees or whether they had to let them go, paying rents and leases, paying subcontractors and suppliers under the threat of going out of business.

So many owners and managers reached out to my office seeking assistance to access the economic injury disaster loans and the Paycheck Protection Program to keep their businesses and their employees afloat. Jake coordinated our response, communicating not only with the business leaders but with the local elected officials and the leaders of our business chambers. He produced guidance. He organized roundtables. He led discussions. He served as a hotline for every question. He helped owners figure out how to address unique challenges as they arose.

When business owners were getting turned away from their own banks, for instance, Jake took the lead in developing alternative approaches so they could get the help they needed. And when specific sectors, like the live entertainment sector, which is such a staple of life and culture in our State of Oregon, was left out of the list of businesses that could receive emergency aid, Jake made it his business to get that changed. I can't even begin to guess how many Oregon businesses and workers were able to weather those dark and difficult days because of Jake's all-out efforts.

I suspect that if he was here right now and we asked him what, after a decade of service, his greatest accomplishment has been, he would say it was simply to help make Oregon a better place for businesses and for workers, and then he might pause and, being the huge soccer fan that he is, say that a high point was when he made a connection so that I could spend a day with the owner of our Portland Timbers.

So, Jake, thank you for giving so much to the team and to the people of Oregon over these last 10 years. It goes without saying that it is going to be a monumental undertaking trying to fill your shoes, and you are going to be missed by every member of our team. We wish you the best. We look forward to continuing to follow the great things that you will do in your next chapter for our State and for the country. We know that in whatever form it takes, you will never stop working to build a better world.

Well done, Jake Oken-Berg, and thank you.

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