Loren Wyss
From Portland Afoot
Loren Wyss is a southeast Portland-based investment advisor who served as the president of TriMet's board until 1994.
At the time of his resignation, Gov. Barbara Roberts praised Wyss for "guiding Tri-Met through a fiscal crisis in the 1980s, the start-up of MAX service, and the start of construction of the westside light-rail line," according to a 1994 article in The Oregonian.
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[edit] Resignation
Wyss said in an August 2010 interview with Michael Andersen that he had been pressured to resign because of disagreements with TriMet's then-general manager Tom Walsh over what he saw as Walsh's overly generous negotiations with Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757.
For more details, see Portland Afoot's entry on Walsh.
[edit] Attitudes toward unions
Ron Heintzman, business representative for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757, told Oregonian reporter Gordon Oliver in 1994 that Wyss often fought the union.
"I felt he was extremely difficult, from a labor standpoint, to work with," Heintzman said. "Anything we did or proposed, he disagreed with."
For his part, Wyss described himself in August 2010 as a "lifetime Democrat."
"I've never voted for any Republicans," Wyss said. "I didn't have antyhing against the unions. I didn't have anything against the Goldschmidt machine."
[edit] After TriMet
Wyss said his resignation from TriMet marked the end of a 17-year stint in public service. He later served on the board of 1000 Friends of Oregon, but resigned when Bob Stacey, who had been involved in his dismissal from TriMet, was hired as its executive director.
As of August 2010, Wyss sits on the board of the Bend Bulletin newspaper and serves as president of the Wyss Foundation, which described itself on its website as "a private, charitable foundation dedicated to land conservation in the Intermountain West."
As of 2009, the foundation's tax records showed that Wyss's work for the foundation, which amounted to an estimated 30 hours' weekly work, were unpaid.
[edit] Support for light rail to southeast Portland
"I happen to live in the southeast district, and I find it embarrassing that I didn't press harder to get a light-rail line through the southeast," Wyss said in August 2010, as TriMet was pushing its Portland-Milwaukie light rail project towards possible construction.
[edit] External links
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