Orenco Systems Celebrates Four Decades of Protecting Water Around the World

Orenco Systems has come a long way since they opened 40 years ago in 1981. Terry Bounds and Hal Ball founded the company in response to widespread failures in Oregon’s onsite wastewater systems. “The state of Oregon put up a moratorium, because septic systems were failing all over so Terry and Hal both helped the state write the regulations,” Orenco Corporate Communications Manager Angela Bounds said. “So, we filled that need in a much more cost affective manner. It’s about half the cost of a municipal wastewater plant.” Since opening, Orenco has grown to become an industry leader, with 390 employees and more than 300 points of distribution in North America, Australia, Europe, Africa and southwest Asia. Their products and solutions are in 70 countries. Orenco produces community collection systems, advanced secondary treatment systems and in-tank pumping and filtration systems. They also manufacture standard, custom, and OEM controls, along with state-of-the-art fiberglass buildings, tanks, and enclosures. “We employee a variety of people, we have quite a few engineers including civil, mechanical and we hire people from all types of educational backgrounds,” Angela Bounds said. “We hire high school grads, those with GED’s up through PHD’s. “We have developers, designers, writers and scientists on staff. The developers create applications for us to use in house and customer facing.” When asked about the importance of retaining talent locally Angela Bounds explained how that has worked out for Orenco. “Sometimes finding talent can be difficult and other times they fall into your lap. Sometimes bringing in developers and engineers can be tough, but we’ve been fortunate to get some really good people. If you’re looking for rural and like to do things outdoors, we focus on those things when recruiting. The biggest benefit of working in Douglas County is how beautiful it is and how the people are. We also talk about the culture we’ve created at the company, working as a team.” Orenco has their headquarters in Sutherlin and locations in Winchester and off North Bank Road. “We aren’t necessarily looking for just young talent. We have people who just retired around 80. It’s also job experience, application of skills” Angela Bounds said. “We have people who have worked their way up through the company. We hire people with degrees but also hire people with experience in the field also.” After 40 years, founder Hal Ball has announced his retirement from day-to-day involvement in the company. Co-founder Terry Bounds will serve as both chairman of Orenco’s board of directors and president over the research and development, operation and maintenance, and facilities departments of the company. Orenco is also instituting some organizational changes in this anniversary year. The company will now operate in three distinct divisions to provide more focused service. Jeff Ball will serve as president of Orenco Water, while Eric Ball has been named president of Orenco Composites. Travis Wood, former president of Franklin Control Systems, is the new president of Orenco Controls. And former legal counsel Scott Saulls will serve as Corporate President.