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Jeff Daly

Just Clowning Around

Emmy-winning cameraman Jeff Daly returns to Astoria to restore a piece of its past written and photographed by Joni Kabana What’s a guy to do after he is awarded two Peabodys and an Emmy for knuckle-clutching TV sports filming? Go back home. That is precisely what Jeff Daly did in the ’90s. He made his way back to the Pacific Northwest, settled in Seaside and opened his delightfully eclectic studio space in Astoria on the first floor of a boat house that juts out over the mighty Columbia River. Daly’s first foray into art car design was in 1969 when he acquired his first car—a 1948 Mercury Woody station wagon that he still drives today. When he realized he had to make a serious wage to be able to pay for all of his expanding projects, he took a career side trip to become a top notch TV cameraman. Having…

Sunday Afternoons hats

Hat Trick

Ashland outdoors retailer Sunday Afternoons doesn’t put a lid on innovation written by Kevin Max Angeline and Robbin Lacy began their business thirty years ago with an outdoor blanket they’d designed for their family adventures, but it was the fabric scraps that built the Ashland-based company. They began making high quality hats from the scraps. Today, Sunday Afternoons is focused on innovation and hats. The company has forty-five patents for inventions such as a sunglass lock, which is two narrow pockets on the sides of a hat that hold the arms of sunglasses in place, and a split brim that allows for easy folding and packing. They sell their hats in fifty-seven countries. Prior to becoming Sunday Afternoons CEO, Sarah Sameh was working in the outdoor retail sector and was intrigued by the brand and where it could go. “I had known about Sunday Afternoons and, by chance, met Robbin…

Founder Robert Seidel at The Essential Oil Company in Portland.

Aromatic Quest

The scent of balsam fir propelled a forestry student to build a company based on essential oils written by Seamus Casey photography by Dan Hawk Robert Seidel was studying forestry in New York in the 1970s when he encountered the aroma of balsam fir. This set off a “quest” for the extraction of aromatic compounds from natural products and, later, designing his own distillation equipment. He learned everything he could find on the topic and then, at Powell’s Books, found a six-volume set of books, The Essential Oils by Ernest Guenther. “I devoured all six volumes and still use that set of books today.” “I started my business in 1977 with the goal of supplying true essential oils to the consumer, the herbalists, soap makers and candle makers,” Seidel said. The Essential Oil Company, based in Portland, imports the majority of its essential oils from around the world—rose from Bulgaria…