UMATILLA COUNTY — Dan Dorran’s father always used to tell him to never run for public office.

“It’s easier to accomplish things behind the scenes,” Dorran recalls the advice from his late father and local pioneer of the energy industry, Russ Dorran.

While perhaps not completely behind the scenes, Dorran, 64, has served for decades as an appointed or volunteer member of various infrastructure committees, fair boards and chambers of commerce.

And after all that experience, Dorran believes he’s poised to be the candidate in a crowded race for Umatilla County commissioner who will not only be able to accomplish his goals while in office, but be able to do so the moment he steps into it.

“What it really boils down to is, how are we going to be ready to address issues on January 1, 2021? He said. “And I think I am the prepared candidate — I will be a day one candidate.”

Dorran is one of five candidates in the May 19 primary running for the lone opening on the county’s three-person board of commissioners, which is being uncontested by incumbent and two-term commissioner Bill Elfering. The primary’s top two vote-getters will advance to a runoff in the November general election.

Born in Walla Walla, Washington, and raised in Hermiston, where he resides today, Dorran was a fixture on the Umatilla County Fair Board for nearly 20 years and served three terms as president.

From the time he joined the board in 1998 to when he left it in 2017, the fair’s annual attendance ballooned from around 20,000 at the most to more than 80,000. Dorran was also a member of the steering committee that worked on the $21 million development of the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center in Hermiston that is now home to the fair.

Most recently, Dorran served on the county’s charter review committee in 2019, and currently sits on boards for the Farm-City Pro Rodeo and Umatilla County 4-H Association.

Mixed with Dorran’s community involvement is 22 years of professional experience at Atlas Copco, a Swedish multi-billion dollar global engineering and manufacturing corporation.

“The one thing that is always important to me is you get something done. You set goals, you get things done,” he said. “It’s the ability to get along together with very diverse boards and come up with a consensus that moves the ball forward towards whatever the goal is that you set.”

Included in rolling up the sleeves to reach those goals is finding solutions to the challenges that try to stop you, as Dorran says he did years ago as a member of the fair board alongside Umatilla County Sheriff Terry Rowan, who is unopposed in his 2020 reelection bid.

When gang issues emerged at the fair, Dorran says he and the board worked closely with Rowan to develop, coordinate and execute a security plan that featured a force of officers from local departments around the county, deputies from other sheriff’s offices, and state troopers from the region.

“That same force still is in place today and has been replicated in other places around the state, including at the Pendleton Round-Up,” Dorran says.

When Dorran first joined the commissioner race in September 2019 and began forming a campaign strategy, floods had yet to devastate the county and COVID-19 had yet to spread into a global pandemic.

“My goals have always been to make sure that the county, already on a solid fiscal foundation, is in the position to move forward,” he said. “That discussion quickly became, ‘How do we protect ourselves and stay safe?’”

However, Dorran says the county needs to recover from 2020’s crises while simultaneously taking steps toward making the county more livable for years to come.

“That starts with a skilled workforce ready to go to work every day,” he said. “It also means security and safety throughout the county, and it means we have an opportunity to enhance our own state in life.”

The county can contribute to the skilled workforce by coordinating between the local business community and education systems, he says, and can enhance the area’s economic opportunities through astute development.

“I think the main thing to economic development is understanding how critical water is to our region, how critical a skilled workforce is to our region, and how important it is that when you attract developers, you attract ones that are compatible with our area,” Dorran says.

That includes current county-backed projects like the Central Line Ordnance project, which will pump Columbia River water into the region and restore the region’s depleted groundwater aquifer, along with new opportunities like developing transportation infrastructure to make use of the county’s geographic advantages.

Dorran is supportive of incentivizing development through strategic investment plans, and both enterprise and opportunity zones, but would like to establish a formula that outlines how those tax dollars are spent and prioritized. He’s also a staunch advocate of the county prioritizing local spending at all times, which the board of commissioners only recently adopted in response to COVID-19.

According to Dorran, he’s already coalesced supporters that include over a dozen members of the county fair board and steering committee whom he served with, along with an endorsement from Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner.

He may not have followed the advice of his late father, but Dorran is convinced he doesn’t have to remain behind the scenes for the county to reach its goals in 2020 and beyond.

“I’m not sure what he’d say now, but I think things have changed and it’s possible to make a real difference if you know how to work well with and navigate these diverse boards and committees of people,” he says.

Dan Dorran

Age: 64

Residence: Hermiston

Birthplace: Walla Walla, Washington (raised in Hermiston)

Years in Umatilla County: 52 (12 years spent in Alaska)

Highest level of Education: Oregon State University, five years studying resource economics

Occupation: Dealer sales manager at Atlas Copco

Quote: “I’m not the smartest guy in the room — I want to be there to listen to the smartest.” 

This is the second in a series of stories in the candidates for Position 3 on the Umatilla County Board of Commissioners.