John Tapogna, who has led the ECONorthwest consulting firm for more than a decade, plans to step down as president in 2022 as part of a succession plan that's been underway for years.
Tapogna, 56, will be replaced by Lorelei Juntunen, who heads up the company's lucrative housing and urban development practice. She will become ECONorthwest's first female president. The handoff is scheduled for Jan. 1, 2022.
"It feels like a new chapter," Tapogna said. "We are a majority-female company, and I think there's a lot of enthusiasm and energy around having a female leader to look forward to."
Tapogna, a former Peace Corps volunteer and U.S. Congressional Budget Office analyst who became ECONorthwest's president in 2009, cited "personal reasons" but said he "will stay engaged with the firm."
Founded in 1974, ECONorthwest has worked with the likes of developers, labor unions, energy companies and planning departments over the years.
The firm has in the past sized up the economic footprint of Oregon's largest private employer, Intel Corp. The technology company generated $5.4 billion in income and had a total economic impact of $26.7 billion statewide, according to a 2012 ECONorthwest report for which Intel was the client.
ECONorthwest also was the company asked in 2004 to research how economically feasible a new basketball stadium for the University of Oregon would be. The firm projected the yearly revenue generated by an arena would be $4.1 million, far less than another, at least $10.5 million figure produced by a separate firm in 2007. Tapogna has called ECONorthwest's coming up with numbers that appeared appropriately conservative "a shining moment."
"In some respects, we come out best when we’re the skunk at the picnic," Tapogna, then a managing director, remarked in 2008. "We highlight the complexity of issues that some people may not want to hear."
Tapogna, Juntunen and three others bought the consulting firm in January 2012 for an undisclosed sum.
The company has stamped an economic footprint of its own over the years. Total revenue has gradually risen from approximately $5.1 million in 2012 to an estimated $7.6 million in 2020, according to figures provided by the company. Throughout those years, the housing, infrastructure and urban development practice area accounted for a good chunk of total revenue. That area was estimated to generate more than $4 million in 2020.
Equity a focus
Last October, ECONorthwest said it was welcoming Dr. Jade Aguilar, formerly of Willamette University, as director of research equity, a hire Juntunen was largely responsible for.
"Our firm has always had a tremendous amount of impact, but I'm not sure that we've given the same amount of attention to the flip side of impact, which is the responsibility that we have to wield that impact in a way that really does lead to the outcomes that we care about, which is improvements in our communities for all of the people who are part of the community," Juntunen said.
She said the firm is working up an equity lens, essentially a group of questions that company officials will ask themselves as they go through the phases of a project to help ensure they're "thinking more deeply about who is impacted by the work," as well as mitigating "unintended ripple effects" within a community.
She sees firmly installing that lens in the same way as other company values as a "key step" to continue having the right type of influence and impact in Oregon.
"This is really about making sure that we're paying as much attention to our responsibility as we are to our impact," she said.
'No surprise at all'
Juntunen grew up in Twin Falls, Idaho. She said she wasn't aware of the economics or planning fields until she was in her 20s. She was living in Seattle and sitting on the board of a community center that helped low-income communities. She interacted with Seattle planning staff and saw how the built environment, development market and social systems overlapped.
She said she "got completely fascinated with the role that planners and analysts can play in helping to support better decision-making."
She attended the University of Oregon, obtaining master's degrees in community and regional planning and public administration in 2004. She joined ECONorthwest the same year, then bought the firm with Tapogna and the others in 2012.
The transition to president has been several years coming. Tapogna said the two of them met about four years ago and put out a five-year timeframe. Juntunen has since assumed more responsibility, now working as vice president of operations.
"I think because we've been at this for as long as we have, when we announced it internally three months ago or so, there was no surprise at all and just universal enthusiasm about this transition," he said, jokingly saying he was hoping for a little mourning.
"There's a whole year left," she said. "There's still time for that, John."
