Marketing and Communications

Entrepreneurial Executive to Kick Off Lecture Series (1/26/09)

The co-founder of Pacific Coast Restaurants in Portland, OR, will be the first speaker in the Southern Oregon University (SOU) School of Business’s new Executive Lecture Series (ELS) to be held in the Presentation Hall at the new SOU/RCC Higher Education Center (HEC), 101 South Bartlett, Medford. Robert MacLellan will present “The Amazing Rise of Pacific Coast Restaurants in Portland, OR: How Paying Incredible Attention to the Customer Paid Off,” Wednesday, February 11, at 6 pm.

MacLellan and his partner, Al Fleenor, took a failing restaurant in 1980, transformed it into the Newport Bay restaurant and then grew the business into a chain of 27 restaurants in Oregon, Washington and California. Pacific Coast Restaurants included the Portland City Grill, Henry’s 12th Street Tavern, Manzana Rotisseri Grill, Newport Seafood Grill, the Portland Steak & Chophouse, the Stanford’s Restaurant and Bar chain and the Newport Bay Restaurant Chain. Pacific Coast Restaurants had sales in excess of $110 million and 2,200 employees when it was sold to Restaurants Unlimited, Inc. of Seattle in 2007.

“We grew steadily in the brutal restaurant business while our competitors failed around us,” says MacLellan. “The way we achieved our success applies to every business.”

“We created the Executive Lecture Series to share business expertise with our community,” says SOU School of Business Dean David Harris. The next lecture in the series is Monday, March 2, by Dorothy Billingsly, the owner of an executive search firm.

The ELS presentations are preceded by a reception at 5 pm in Room 129 of the Higher Education Center. Although the reception and lecture are free, seating is limited and reservations are required for both the reception and the lecture. To reserve a seat, contact Kathy Mattson at the SOU School of Business, 541-552-6484 or mattsonk@sou.edu