Nichols said it ’ s how he believes all humans should interact – but there ’ s a strong bottom-line incentive too .
“ It ’ s what makes good companies great companies , I believe ,” he said . “ It affects how we treat our customers all the way from the smallest to the largest – we treat them with respect , and we expect vice versa . We have great partnering relationships .”
Silicon Forest also benefitted from a business strategy that has helped it survive decades of change in the electronics industry .
When Nichols founded his company in 1996 , “ Silicon Forest ” was a buzzword that Oregon economic development marketers were using to describe the cluster of electronics manufacturers that had sprung up in and around Portland – just across the Columbia River from Nichols ’ new plant .
But during the ‘ 90s , much of the basic chip and circuit board manufacturing that had once been done by laid-off forest products workers in Oregon migrated offshore to low-wage countries in Asia . Twenty-some years later , Oregon still proudly boasts a Silicon Forest hub of high-tech companies – most notably Intel , which employs more than 17,000 people near Portland – but it ’ s a software , cloud-computing and Web-delivered services industry . Many of the manufacturers are gone .
Except for Silicon Forest .
Its success , Nichols said , came from an early decision on what kinds of work to pursue .
“ We started as a high-bid , low-volume manufacturer ,” he said . So as the high-volume mass-production contracts went offshore , Silicon Forest kept winning a steady stream of bids for low-volume specialized parts .
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