Celebrating Karen Homolac after 21 Years with Business Oregon

Karen Homolac started her career in government serving an unlikely population — unprocessed salmon and herring. Now, after decades in the service of the public, Homolac has retired from her 21 year tenure at Business Oregon, Oregon State’s economic development agency.

Her first job after graduating with joint degrees in biology and botany was with the U.S. Department of Commerce International Trade Administration. The department was close to implementing the U.S. Canada Free Trade Agreement and Homolac was handed a series of portfolios concerning customs and tariffs and some trade disputes related to agricultural products. Enter salmon and herring.

“What was really fascinating was that mix of economics, multinational relations, international law, and the science background I brought to the table,” Homolac said. “It wasn’t uncomfortable for me to understand what the concerns were from both sides, particularly unprocessed salmon and herring, that one was really based in biology, life cycle and harvest.”

Around that time, Homolac was focused on international trade and tariffs, but she was always considering how trade interacts with the environment. A perspective that informed her next position at the California Trade and Commerce agency.

When Homolac got to California, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was running its Demonstration Assessment Pilot Grants program which Homolac describes as the precursor to contemporary Brownfields assessment and cleanup grants. In California, the program was especially focused on former mill sites. And Homolac was responsible for a whopping 37 counties out of the state’s 58.

“Those 37 counties coincidentally had the most mill sites and we had this $200,000 brownfields assessment grant from EPA that needed to be implemented,” Homolac said. “So that’s what I did for three years […] then I left that position and started at Business Oregon.”

Actually, when Homolac joined Business Oregon in 2002, it was still known as the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department. Her role was Regional Coordinator for three counties.

“A smaller area made it a little bit easier,” Homolac said with a laugh. “Any project within those three counties that was getting funding I was assisting.”

As Regional Coordinator, Homolac helped communities develop their projects and get funding through various state and federal channels. She said, back when she was working in California, she envied Oregon for its State Brownfield Redevelopment Fund. Oregon was one of the few states that had recognized the importance of Brownfields funding, Homolac said. It was also one of the first awardees of an EPA revolving loan fund (RLF). Homolac began overseeing the RLF after her colleague asked her to help oversee the transition.

“It landed on my desk and I took over the Brownfields program,” Homolac said.

Now, at the end of her time as Brownfields Program Specialist at Business Oregon, the program has two state and one federal funding streams supporting it. One state program is the Brownfields Redevelopment Fund that Homolac had previously envied. The fund provides loans and grants and when loans are paid off, the funds ‘revolve’ so more funds can be loaned or granted.

“We started out in that state program with $500,000. And when I took it over, there was $133,000 left. The rest had been granted out,” Homolac said. “So it’s grown from $500,000 to $41 million in 20 years which is pretty fun. It’s pretty great to have done that.”

Through these years, the lessons of brownfields reuse reverberates throughout the communities she served, and around the country; Start small and leverage, persistence will find success, and seek out collaborators with creativity.

Homolac stressed the importance of leveraging multiple funding streams in Brownfields redevelopment. For a project to grow you need to turn over a lot of rocks, she said. Over 20 years the state fund in Oregon has supported close to 300 projects, most of them small. These are the “rocks” grantees need to move while getting a project off the ground. With diverse funding, communities can maintain momentum and line up development for the future. And as Homolac said, time is money.

Homolac also discovered that successful work in brownfields requires asking the right questions and doing the right thing. When was faced with a barrier she asked herself, “if I can’t do that, well, what can I do instead?”

Inspired by Washington State’s Department of Ecology’s Integrated Planning Grants, which provides grants to support efforts to conduct key first steps in redeveloping brownfields, Homolac devised a plan to create her own integrated planning grant by carving out $25,000 from the Brownfields Redevelopment Fund. She had access to a small sum compared to the Department of Ecology’s $200,000-$300,000 Integrated Planning Grants. But small steps lead to big results and set communities up for bigger projects down the road.

“You can do a lot with $25,000,” Homolac said. “Sometimes that’s enough.”

It’s this kind of thinking that inspired Homolac’s during a project to clean up a 6.8 acre brownfield in Josephine County, OR. The site was home to two hospitals built in 1909 and 1960 respectively, which both fell into disrepair in the 1990’s. Leaky roofs, metal thievery and busted windows were just the beginning. The county didn’t have funds to maintain the site and a charity that initially offered to repurpose the site walked away after realizing the enormous cost of cleanup. The county was back to square one.

Luckily, Homolac had a plan. She started by initiating assessments of hazardous materials and contaminants present at the newer hospital building. These investigations revealed asbestos throughout the building’s inner and outer walls. The team decided it would be most economical to use the county’s EPA RLF loan to abate the inside of the building and leave a vapor shield to contain asbestos on the outside. After abating and demolishing the building, the team was left with a clean piece of property that is ready for reuse.

Since the second hospital building held historical status, there was even more assessment to be done. Homolac mobilized state DEQ money in the form of a technical assistance grant to the County. That money supported the analysis of hazardous building materials and removed a leaky underground storage tank. Bouncing back to her EPA RLF fund, Homolac oversaw asbestos abatement, then, with both funding streams she and her team demolished the 1909 building and addressed petroleum contaminated soil beneath it. Now, the county is marketing a clean, building-less property.

“It’s took ten plus years to do, but it’s getting there,” Homolac said. Many people and agencies were a part of the team that made the project possible. “That to me is an amazing project, and there’s so many more. When I drive around the state I don’t see points of interest, I see brownfields redevelopment.”

With a focus on rural communities, Homolac has assisted with grant awards in all but one Oregon county — and not for lack of trying, she insisted. After her retirement, she hopes to see the Brownfields program continue to thrive and expand. Nothing can happen, she said, if you don’t understand what’s under your feet. The crux of brownfields, Homolac said, is moving forward. It’s scrutinizing the past and building the future, it’s remaining flexible, patient and curious despite challenges in our path. Homolac is an eternal optimist, she sees potential everywhere.

“Brownfields is a conversation. There is no right or wrong answer, it requires listening. And it requires asking questions, and figuring out a path forward. There isn’t one right way to do it.”

As colleagues and collaborators, we salute Karen for her leadership and vision in transforming communities through brownfields redevelopment. You will be missed!