B2 Thursday, June 16, 2011 • THE BULLETIN
Pensions Continued from B1 A burst of labor opposition in New Jersey is threatening a tentative deal between the Republican governor, Chris Christie, and Democratic legislative leaders that would require government employees to contribute at least 1 percent more of their pay toward their pensions. One powerful union warned Democratic lawmakers not to join Christie’s “war on the middle class.” But even many of labor’s traditional allies are demanding pension changes. Last week, New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, proposed that all future state and New York City
employees pay 6 percent of their salary toward their pensions, double the current 3 percent. John Kitzhaber, Oregon’s Democratic governor, is pushing state and local employees to contribute as much as 6 percent of pay, up from zero at present. Twelve states, including Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia, imposed higher employee contributions in 2010. That leaves just a handful of states where employees do not contribute toward their pensions. “You can call this an exponential increase in activity to have state employees contribute more,” said Ronald Snell, a pension expert with the National Conference of State Legislatures. “Before 2010, this hardly ever happened.” States are demanding the high-
C OV ER S T OR I ES er contributions as they reach for new ways to cut budget deficits. The easy savings, like furlough days, have been achieved, and now lawmakers are tackling more complicated cost issues like the long-term shortfalls in their pension funds. The Pew Center on the States estimates there is a more than $1 trillion funding gap for government employees’ retirement benefits in the 50 states. At the same time, many voters resent that public employee pensions are generally better than their own. “States have less revenues coming in and higher bills for their pensions, and it’s really focused their attention,” said Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center, a nonpartisan research
group that analyzes state policies. Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi and Oklahoma have all acted this year to require employees to pay more. In one of the most extreme proposals, a legislative committee in Illinois, daunted by the state’s estimated $80 billion pension shortfall, voted to have state workers either contribute 17 percent of their pay toward their pensions or accept less generous pension benefits. According to the Pew Center, actuarial reports say the 50 states should have contributed $117 billion in 2009 toward their pension plans to help bring them to full funding, two and a half times more than they contributed a decade ago and well over the $73
Paddleboard Continued from B1 “Both events are going to have multiple categories, so people of all skill levels can compete in the races, or you can just show up, watch the races and sign up for a free paddleboard lesson, or just enjoy the culture,” Dugan said. Based on the growth of standup paddleboarding over the past few years, Dugan said he believes Bend has the potential to become a destination for standup paddleboarding in the same way Hood River and The Dalles have become tourist destinations for windsurfing. “I think that potential is huge. We’ve got plenty of water. We’ve got plenty of places for people to come here for a week to participate or watch one of these events, or to just enjoy stand-up paddleboarding,” Dugan said. Amy Meadow, of Bend, rode a stand-up paddleboard for the first time Wednesday afternoon on the Deschutes River along Riverbend Park, with a rented board and paddle. “I did OK. This was my first time out by myself,” Meadow said. “It was fun.” She said watching others riding stand-up paddleboards on the river, and hearing about how easy and fun it is from friends, piqued her interest in trying it. Then she heard about a yoga paddleboard class, but when she inquired about signing up she learned that participants were required to have at least an hour of paddleboarding experience, so she rented a board and paddle from the Stand-up Paddle Board shop located along Industrial Way in Bend. “I like doing yoga outside, and I like getting out on the water,” Meadow said. “It looked like a fun approach to getting out on the water.”
Business opportunities Growing demand for standup paddleboards and paddles prompted Chip Booth and his wife, Lainey, to purchase a homebased board and paddle shop and relocate to a storefront location along Industrial Way in the Old Mill District last year. The business name is StandUpPaddle Bend. “It dumbfounds me a little bit how big this sport has become in such a short time,” said Chip Booth, 44, who grew up surfing in the ocean waves near his home in Malibu, Calif., before moving to Bend and taking up stand-up paddleboarding. Booth said some of the topranked surfers in the world played a big role in the rise of the stand-up paddle sport in Bend and internationally, including surfing legend Gerry Lopez, who starred in the 1970s surfing movie “Big Wednesday” and now lives in Bend. “He is one of the defining surfers from the 1970s from Hawaii — an icon of surfing in every form,” Booth said. “Gerry Lopez was instrumental in growing the stand-up paddle sport and developing boards and equipment.” At his StandUpPaddle Bend shop, Booth carries the Gerry Lopez signature stand-up paddleboards manufactured by a company called SurfTech, based on Gerry Lopez designs. Booth also carries stand-up paddles made of wood, carbon fiber or a blend of materials by the Bend-based Kialoa Paddles. Dave Chun, who owns Kialoa Paddles with his wife, Meg, said that during his first 14 years in business (1991 to 2005) building primarily outrigger canoe paddles, the company’s sales consistently grew about 5 to 10 percent a year. But, since adding a line of stand-up paddles in 2006, sales have surged 30 percent or more each year. The Chuns founded Kialoa Paddles in Hawaii but moved the business headquarters to Central Oregon in 1992. Since then, the company has grown from two employees (the Chuns) to 14.
At Tumalo Creek Kayak and Canoe in Bend, James Frederick, a store manager, describes the different types of standup boards available to rent or buy. The inventory of about 40 boards ranges from an entrylevel model that sells for about $1,000 to a racing board that sells for about $1,650.
billion they actually contributed in 2009. Requiring employees to divert 3 percent to 6 percent of their paychecks toward funding their pensions will help, though it will not come close to solving the shortterm budget problems in most states, Urahn said. But every bit helps. In Wisconsin, for example, Gov. Scott Walker said the state government would save $226 million a year from state employees’ paying a 5.8 percent contribution previously paid by the state. Over time, the budgetary savings can be substantial. Because of New York’s constitutional restrictions against changing current workers’ pensions for the worse, Cuomo is proposing increased pension contributions for
new employees only. But even so, his office says this change would save New York State and public employers outside New York City $50 billion over 30 years. “The pension system as we know it is unsustainable,” Cuomo said last week. He added that his proposal would “bring government benefits more in line with the private sector while still serving our employees and protecting our retirees.” Kitzhaber defended his pension proposal, saying he wanted to negotiate an agreement that shared responsibility for health and pension benefits in a “fair and affordable total compensation package.” He added, “It’s about shared responsibility within a very limited budget.”
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“Growth of stand-up paddle is the biggest factor driving the growth of Kialoa Paddles,” said Meg Chun, noting that the company has posted a 43 percent increase in paddle sales so far this year over the same period in 2010.
Soaring demand At the Tumalo Creek Kayak & Canoe shop in Bend’s Old Mill District, James Frederick, a manager, said that in response to calls from locals and tourists alike in 2007, the company by summer 2008 added stand-up paddleboards and paddles to their lineup of canoes, kayaks and other water sports equipment. “It was driven by demand. People would call us and ask if we had stand-up paddleboards, and we didn’t,” Frederick said. “We realized the sport was growing exponentially. “The first year we added paddleboards, we sold about 12 boards,” Fredericks said, and since then, he observed sales grew to 30 boards in 2009 and to 40 boards in 2010. “At this point it is roughly 20 percent of our sales,” he said. This year, he said, the company has about 40 boards in stock and expects to order more by midsummer. The rental of stand-up paddleboards and the tall paddles used to propel and guide the boards across the water has also soared from four rental boards that accounted for a small share of the rental income at Tumalo Creek Kayak & Canoe in 2008. Fredericks said the company now has 15 rental boards and that standup paddleboard and paddle rentals — at $40 per hour or $50 per day — now “account for a very large percentage” of the shop’s rental income. Prices for boards at Tumalo Creek Kayak & Canoe and at StandUpPaddle Bend range from a low of around $800 to $1,000 for soft-top, entry-level boards made of plastic and fiberglass skin over a plastic foam core, to a high of $1,700 to $2,000 for a high-end board made of carbon fiber. Stand-up paddles range in price from about $70 for a plastic and fiberglass paddle to a high of nearly $400 for top-end carbon fiber paddles, according to Fredericks and Booth.
Anyone can do it Bob Jumper, a carpenter and woodworker known to many locals as Captain Sawdust, relocated from Hawaii to Bend 15 years ago and has been building wooden stand-up boards here for about seven years. He builds handmade wooden boards to order. “In the last three yeas my business has more than doubled,” Jumper said. “One of the reasons it is growing in popularity is because people of all shapes and sizes can do it. You don’t have to be a super jock, and it is a terrific core workout.” Jens Williford, a sales rep for Angulo surfboard manufacturing company of Hawaii, was in Bend Wednesday talking with lo-
cal shop owners about carrying his company’s boards. He said Angulo, founded by legendary surfer Ed Angulo, started out in the 1960s making boards for ocean surfing, and later added windsurfing, kite surfing and stand-up paddleboarding. “Bend is a great place for stand-up paddleboarding,” Williford said. “There is more potential for stand-up paddle than for windsurfing because you can do it pretty much year-around and you don’t have to stand around waiting for a big wave or for the wind to blow,” said Williford, who brought his family with him to Bend this week and is mixing work with vacation time.
“Riding a stand-up board is so easy you can learn to do it in 15 minutes. Just climb on the board and go,” Williford said. “My kids are 10 and 11, and they can get out on the river and do it with me.” In addition to the flat-water version of stand-up paddleboarding, Williford said there’s also a more extreme whitewater version of the sport in which boarders can ride in places along the Deschutes with rapids, as well as an ocean version in which riders combine surfboards and paddles. Ed Merriman can be reached at 541-617-7820 or emerriman@ bendbulletin.com.
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