About REMI-Northwest

In 2009, REMI Northwest Principal Alec Miller watched from his office window as 50-foot-high flames from a wild fire narrowly missed nearby houses and his building. So, when Biochar approached him about analyzing a strategy to address wildfire hazard and fuel loading, he took a personal interest. Biochar is the name of a soil amendment made from charcoal. The idea is to collect the wood and slash from forest floors, cook it at a specific temperature, capture the methane and other gasses for fuel and reserve the carbon for water filters, soil amendments, algae and other products. In traditional methods of hauling forest fuels to biomass facilities, transportation costs usually outweigh the revenues from energy production. The Biochar method has two benefits: energy production and a water filtration product, activated carbon, with international demand. By adding another revenue stream, the value added is doubled and fuel reduction strategies have the potential to become cost effective.

REMI-Northwest begins each project by getting to know the client and becoming a student of the goals and priorities of the client. For Biochar, REMI-Northwest studied the technical details of cooking wood waste, identified additional global markets and presented the current opportunity clearly and concisely. This focus uncovers opportunity for REMI-Northwest clients, leads more effectively to implementation and makes every project unique and inspiring.

When the Medford Parks and Recreation Department asked REMI Northwest to evaluate the economic benefits of city swimming pools, Principal Alec Miller started asking questions about swimmers, their ages, abilities and habits. For the Medford Water Park, this meant understanding the market for Aquatic Recreation as it applied to the long-term goals of the Medford Parks and Recreation Department. More than simply building better city pools, the project strategy was to expand the culture of recreation within the constraints of political and fiscal reality.

Client responses and REMI Northwest research resulted in a strategy: identify and categorize sources of revenue for the pool project and identify the least cost and highest cost users. REMI-Northwest determined children ages 4-14 and their parents to be lowest cost users of city pools. Strategically it is easier to build a swimming culture by starting with facilities that serve the least-cost users.

The strategic benefit to the client was a well-written report that helped convince the Medford City Council to hire an architect. A new aquatic center is now in the design phase.

In 2007, REMI-Northwest LLC was formed to provide economic consulting services in the greater Pacific Northwest region. The REMI Northwest objective is to provide sound economic analysis through applied macro-economic theory and economic geography utilizing the world’s leading economic forecasting models. This approach assures economic analysis that is fundamentally sound, well documented, and capable of forecasting future policy issues before adverse impacts are realized.