Heike Mayer received her Ph.D. in Urban Studies from Portland State University in 2003. Her dissertation examined the role that Tektronix, Intel, and Electro-Scientific Industries played in the evolution of the Silicon Forest, the high-technology cluster of industries in the tri-county region.

Her paper, Planting High-Technology Seeds; Tektronix' Role in the Creation of Portland's Silicon Forest, has been posted courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society on their website. Click on the image to view the PDF.  external site

She also developed with Kayoko Teramoto, a unique poster in depicting the relationships between companies. This poster shows the relationships of "spinoff" companies in orbits indicating the year of formation. It also depicts "comet" and "satellite" relationships.

The original poster is hosted on the Oregon Center for Public Policy website. Click on the image to view the PDF.  external site

This poster was created in 2008 and it illustrates the genealogy of 894 firms & institutions in the greater Portland region. The following organizations helped at the time with the survey to gather the data: American Electronics Association, Oregon Economic & Community Development Department,
Oregon Entrepreneurs Network, Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute,
Software Association of Oregon. The author is thankful for the support of Portland State University’s Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies.

Courtesy of Heike Mayer, University of Bern, Switzerland. © Heike Mayer.

Click on the image to view the PDF.