ePoint :: News from the Oregon Convention Center

"Is that facility really green?" - EXPO Magazine, September 2008

Convention centers and destinations are going green at a far faster rate than the events they host. Often, this is due to green policies mandated by their city or state. For example, Houston, Dallas, San Diego and Austin are all within the EPA's "Top 10 local government green power purchasers." But the rise in green facilities also gives rise to green facility claims. At times, it's like the Wild West out there, with green press releases and announcements made daily. Without industry standards, however, who's to say what constitutes "green"? What you consider green may differ dramatically from others.

With this session of the EXPO/Red 7 Media Green Event Summit, held in June in San Francisco, we brought together facility managers from recognized green facilities to determine what we should expect to see on a site inspection of a green facility.

Panelists:

Jeff Blosser, Executive Director, Oregon Convention Center
With nearly 30 years of facility management, Jeff was the Executive Director responsible for obtaining the Oregon Convention Center's LEED certification in 2004. He has served on the International Association of Assembly Managers (IAAM) Board of Directors twice, and currently represents the convention and exposition centers as the IAAM representative to the Convention Industry Council.

Bob Sauter, Assistant General Manager, The Moscone Center, San Francisco
Bob spent more than 30 years as a service contractor prior to joining Moscone eight years ago. Bob is a past board member of the Exhibition Services and Contractors Association (ESCA), and is responsible for an active recycling team credited with contributing to several Moscone state and national environmental awards. Bob is also active in local efforts to green neighborhood gardens.

Arlene Campbell, General Manager, Direct Energy Centre, Toronto
In addition to serving as General Manager of Canada's largest exhibition and convention center, Arlene is also General Manager of Sales & Events for Exhibition Place, Canada's largest entertainment venue. She is on the Board of Tourism Toronto, and serves on the IAEE Committee for Environmentally Responsible Exhibitions and Events.

CLICK HERE TO READ A TRANSCRIPT OF THE PANEL DISCUSSION

South Waterfront deemed salmon friendly - DJC, September 10, 2008

The urban Portland neighborhood is the first in the U.S. to receive Salmon-Safe certification

BY SAM BENNETT
Daily Journal of Commerce

September 10, 2008

Portland’s South Waterfront is known for its proximity to nature and its LEED certified buildings. Now the South Waterfront area has become the first urban neighborhood in the United States to achieve Salmon-Safe certification.

Salmon-Safe’s certification of South Waterfront means that the area exceeds state and federal regulatory commitments to protect the Willamette River and its urban tributaries. Salmon-Safe is a Portland based nonprofit certification organization...

Click here to continue reading article

Oregon Convention Center Upgrades Internet Service Offering with New High Performance Wi-Fi

Oregon Convention Center Deploys Xirrus Wi-Fi Arrays Capable of Supporting Thousands of Simultaneous High Bandwidth Users in their 1+ Million Square Foot Facility

PORTLAND, Oregon - September 9, 2008, The Oregon Convention Center (OCC) has replaced their traditional Wi-Fi access points with advanced Xirrus Wi-Fi Arrays to improve the coverage, user density, and overall performance of their wireless internet services sold to exhibitors and attendees in their facility.

The Oregon Convention Center is the largest convention center in the Pacific Northwest. By deploying the Xirrus Wi-Fi Arrays in a distributed system throughout the facility, OCC can now support as many as 5,000 simultaneous users and provide them with a quality experience equal to wired Ethernet.

"We did an intensive evaluation of several candidate Wi-Fi technologies before deciding upon the comprehensive solution offered by Xirrus, Inc.," says OCC Director of Operations, Ryan Thorpe. "They offered the best Wi-Fi hardware and management solution that could effectively replace our Ethernet workgroup switches with Wi-Fi as the primary network connection."

"I checked out all the usual Wi-Fi vendors and only Xirrus, with their Wi-Fi Array Architecture, planned for the success of Wi-Fi," said Bill Stratton, OCC Technical Services Supervisor. "The ease of deployment and the ability to handle several large, concurrent client groups was our primary goal. Xirrus has proven to us that they have a state-of-the-art product and they’re customer support has been fantastic."

Already, customer feedback on the new WiFi system has been highly positive.

"Our company had an event at the OCC with 1600 Intel employees from the engineering department," said Saul Hernandez, Network Manager with Intel Corp. "Our requirements for the network were very specific and we were extremely impressed with the level of service and the stability of the Xirrus WiFi network."

"During our 7 day event, the network was flawless," said Hernandez. "This resulted in a very successful event for our company and we will continue to use the OCC for future programs due to our confidence with the network." 

Says Jeff Blosser, OCC Executive Director, "Our mission was to achieve 100% customer satisfaction at all times, and I'm proud to report that OCC is well on its way to meeting this ambitious service goal in our successful implementation of the new system."

Xirrus Technology
Xirrus is the leader in high performance Wi-Fi designs and manufactures the patented Wi-Fi Array. The Xirrus Wi-Fi Array obsoletes traditional Wi-Fi offerings by integrating 4, 8, or 16 radios and high-gain directional antennas into a single device along with an onboard Gigabit Switch, Wi-Fi Controller, Firewall, dedicated Wi-Fi Threat Sensor, and embedded Spectrum Analyzer, providing the performance and security to replace Ethernet workgroup switches with Wi-Fi technology.

The Xirrus Wi-Fi Array delivers more range, more coverage, more bandwidth, more throughput, and more intelligence per cable drop than anything else available today - resulting in a solution that uses 75% fewer devices, cabling, switch ports, and installation time compared with any other offering. Xirrus Wi-Fi Arrays are ideal for any organization moving towards Wi-Fi as their primary network connection, especially those that must cover large areas, support large user populations, and/or use high bandwidth/throughput applications.

Contact:
Bill Stratton
Technical Services Supervisor
Oregon Convention Center
503-731-7859
BillStratton@oregoncc.org