EOTEC will keep the name, get new branding

By on Monday, February 20th, 2023 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories

HERMISTON – The Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center has strong support to rebrand itself, now that it is a department within Hermiston’s municipal government. Assistant City Manager Mark Morgan said the rebranding will be more along the lines of the city’s “Where life is sweet” branding.

The council also looked at the possibility of renaming EOTEC. Morgan said it’s a habit among government bodies to name things really long names and then refer to them by their initials, as is true in this case.

“Private businesses just don’t do that,” he said.

A community survey showed stronger interest in the rebranding than was shown in changing the facility’s name.

“Some people were supportive of changing it, but in the absence of any examples of a different name, nobody could really get behind what that would look like,” he said.

He said there are legitimate reasons for considering a name change, one of which is that there is a national company is named EOTECH and Eastern Oregon Telecom is a well-known company in this area. Morgan said the city’s facility occasionally gets calls form EOT customers wanting to pay their bills.