Curt Wilson, AIA
Executive Vice President / CEO

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, an outbreak of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was first reported in late December 2019. The CDC confirmed the first diagnosed case in the United States on January 20, 2020. The first confirmed case in Oregon occurred on February 20, 2020 according to the Oregon Health Authority. An outbreak east of Seattle occurred in early March. The University of Washington was the first US college to close campus for the remainder of the term on March 8. The NCAA cancelled the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments on March 15. Restaurant dining rooms were closed in Oregon on March 16. Governor Brown issued Executive Order 20-12 on March 24 which included Stay at Home orders. The federal government passed the third COVID-19 related law referred to as the CARES Act on March 27 with more than $2 trillion in funding and $350 billion for small business loans title Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. The application period for PPP is expected to open tomorrow April 3, 2020.

Not only is the scale of the pandemic unprecedented in modern history, but the pace of events is more rapid than anything we’ve seen. All of you, all of us are dealing with this issue. Not only do we need to keep ourselves and our families out of harms way from the virus, we need to maintain our sense of well-being as we are isolated from all but our immediate family members. Add on top of the that the need to protect our livlihoods, help our children continue to learn, and provide assistance to those that have less.

The focus of today’s Thursdays@Three is to provide support and timely information about CARES Act programs.

Virtual Happy Hours

AIA Oregon leadership wants to make sure our members have an opportunity to engage, connect, and share experiences with others. Virtual Happy Hours (VHH), which are intended to be informal discussions with peers, have been scheduled as a venue to learn from sharing with each other. See the article in this issue about VHH’s for the Small Firm Exchange, Emerging Professionals, and discussion on CA Services and Social Distancing. Our plan is to continue to schedule at least two per week and identify a few topics to start the conversation. Please drop by if you get a chance, and remember that you don’t need to be an active member of the committee the VHH’s are organized around.

Resources

The AIA Oregon COVID-19 Resources page was introduced on March 19. Since then, I suspect that most of us feel overwhelmed with the resources and information we are receiving. The organization of the page is expanding to simplify the search for information you are looking for, and we are highlighting new and time sensitive information.

I encourage you to check out our website every few days for new information.

Remote Working

As Oregon is under Stay at Home orders, many in our profession are working remotely from home. If you check out most social media platforms, you’ll notice many of our firms are proudly showing their Brady Bunch squared view of their staff meeting together on Zoom or GoToMeeting. In my various conversations with many of you, I’m happy to see that most of us are at least tolerating, if not enjoying the situation.

However, an article in Architectural Record tells a different story. In some part of the country, maybe also in Oregon, some firms are not supporting their people to work safely from home. As noted above, this is an incredibly challenging situation given the best of circumstances, and it is very discouraging to me to hear that some of my colleague are not supporting their employees.

Maybe their response is based on a fear of the unknown and they need more support to create a supportive and productive environment for their teams. The COVID-19 Resource page has been expanded to provide more resources for working remotely. I want to thank Boston Society of Architects for their fantastic BSA Firms Best Practices Guide - COVID-19.

Emerging Technology

Wednesday, April 1, 2020 marked the first day of the second quarter of 2020. Per the AIA Oregon event planning strategy of quarterly themes, we are now in the Emerging Technology quarter. Our related plans to celebrate emerging technologies are on pause as we adjust to this situation, but we should acknowledge that virtual conference call services are a relatively recent technology that is allowing us to remain engaged emotionally and mentally while we are isolated physically.

My hope is that we can continue to provide timely and helpful information. Please reach out to me at cwilson@aiaoregon.org to let me know your work situation and how AIA Oregon can best help you.

Thanks,

Curt