Manufacturing professionals met recently as a part of the Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

Amidst the buzz of the Beaver State being a hub for high tech business, Oregon has remained the state with the greatest share of its economy tied to manufacturing.

As of 2011, 29 percent of Oregon’s gross state product was from the manufacturing sector according to a previous Portland Tribune report. That percentage climbed to 39 percent in the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis’ 2013 figures. At 39 percent, Oregon’s manufacturing-related GDP is 11 percent ahead of its closest state competitor.

The Portland area’s dependence upon manufacturing remains even higher than the state’s — coming in at 51 percent for durable manufacturing. With figures coming in now, the bureau estimates Portland, Hillsboro and Vancouver will account for more than $163 billion in economic activity in 2013 alone.

“Manufacturing is a fundamental driver of our economy,” said Portland Development Commission Executive Director Patrick Quinton at a recent manufacturer’s breakfast. “Compound that,” he said, “with the multiplier effect of manufacturing.”

The “multiplier effect” is “the expansion of a country’s money supply that results from banks being able to lend,” according to Investopedia.com.

Out of all Oregon manufacturing, metal manufacturing retains the stronghold. However, food, beverage, and artisan manufacturing — when combined — now represents the largest employment sector in the city of Portland, Quinton said.

At ADX, a manufacturing incubator in southeast Portland, product designers partner with craft workers or rent out tools to bring their designs to life.

“This week we’re working on beer [tap] handles; next week we’re working on a computerized prosthetic finger,” said Design & Fabrication Director Trent Still at ADX’s 14,000-square-foot facility. “We’re growing exponentially by the day … Every day we get more members, more jobs.”

Reportedly gaining up to 10 members a week after getting off the ground in 2010, ADX supports the self-employed and start-ups looking for prototypes or mass assembly. Oregon already has the “highest rate of self-employment in the U.S.,” Quinton said. “ADX is ground-zero for that.”

Nationwide, manufacturing provides direct employment to an estimated of 11.7 million people “and represents 47 percent of total U.S. exports,” according to the most-recent “Facts of Manufacturing” report from The Manufacturing Institute. In Oregon, “the manufacturing sector … is responsible for an important part of the State’s growth,” according to Oregon Office of Economic Analysis. “The manufacturing sector is responsible for employing 10.5 percent of the State’s workforce (8.9 percent is the national average) and tends to pay wages above the state median.”

From 2006 to 2012 Oregon grew 58 percent in Gross State Product from manufacturing. This makes Oregon second only to Utah in GSP manufacturing growth nationwide during those years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“This is not by accident,” said Quinton in a Nov. 6 presentation at ADX. “This is part of our history.”

From the Kaiser Shipyards — reportedly ranked 20th among U.S. corporations in the value of World War II contracts — to the historic Bonneville Dam, to the Alcoa metal company where the first aluminum was produced, the Portland and southwest Washington areas also hold “the engineering firms that make things stronger,” Quinton said.

For Chris Scherer, president for the Portland-based Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership, it’s the convergence of so many types of industries that leads to Oregon’s manufacturing strength.

“Because of … our early entry into steel making and building, we developed a pool of skills workers who tend to be supportive of manufacturing,” Scherer said. “When sheerly driven by numbers, Oregon is No. 1 for [dollars-in versus dollars-out in manufacturing]. Because manufacturers are located here, we’re able to be so productive. Because of convergent sectors, they don’t necessarily need to go outside of Oregon. It’s a system.”

— Portland Tribune Reporters John Vincent and Jim Redden provided information used in this report.