Our Mission

  • to bring excellent professional consulting services to the Western US, especially rural areas.

  • to help even the smallest community stay competitive in today’s rapidly changing environment.

  • to ensure that everyone can have access to skilled professional consultants at affordable rates.

  • to offer the widest range of services and skills that only a professional consortium can provide.

  • to provide the highest professional quality services with sustainable results.

  • to remain a successful business through quality service and satisfied customers.

PARC Resources History

PARC Resources was founded in 1985, with the simple goal of providing high quality consulting services to improve the communities we call home and to serve as agents of change throughout the West.

With this philosophy as our cornerstone, we have been providing services to rural western communities for 25 years. Our commitment to quality long-term results has never wavered and today, PARC Resources can proudly point to hundreds of communities where our assistance has helped create a better place for thousands of people, both now and for future generations.

PARC Resources prides itself on having dedicated staff and associates who share a commitment to service, a love for diversity and an eagerness to help people build a better future.  PARC Resources knows how to get the job done, whether it is building a multimillion-dollar facility or developing a five-year service program, we have the experience and knowledge our clients trust.

Our Team

Stan FosterCEO
Stan Foster has worked in community development since 1977, working for several non-profits, three counties and two governors, primarily on community-based development. In 1985, Stan founded Public Affairs Research Consultants (now PARC Resources) and has spent the past 31 years building its success.

Stan’s experience in working with diverse communities provides him with a solid basis for assessing a project, determining possible pathways to success and finding the right combination of funding and local support to bring projects to completion.

Bob IrvineCFO
Dr. Robert Irvine (Bob) has provided detailed financial feasibility work for a wide range of community projects. From grocery stores for the Swimmonish Tribe in LaConner, Washington, to sustaining a performing arts center in Sherwood, Oregon, Bob has provided the type of detailed and complete analysis generally associated with a fortune 500 company. The quality and details found in these past analysis have been used for debt financing, grant writing and major development in all sizes of community. The key to a good feasibility analysis is to present an unvarnished picture of the economic realities confronting any project and what it will take to make each project a truly sustainable operation. Bob has the extensive experience to provide the City with a solid analysis of what it will take to cover the needed improvements to the facility while supporting the citizens’ desire for culture and arts venues in their city.
Laura PradoGrants
Laura Prado has established herself as one of the most capable and experienced grant writers in the Pacific Northwest. Preparing around 30 grant applications per year on average (federal, state and private), Laura knows the inner workings of seeking grant funding for a project.

Laura is the primary grant writing trainer for PARC Resources, presenting to the League of Oregon Cities, the Special Districts of Oregon and other organizations providing classes for prospective grant writers throughout the state of Oregon.

John SchmidtApplication Systems
John Schmidt has more than fifteen years of experience working with clients and PARC Resources to ensure that every application is completed correctly, according to the guidelines and his high standards.

John is well versed in all of the federal application systems, including Grants.gov, GMS and individual agency protocols. John provides quality control that emphasizes not just quality, but timeliness and responsiveness to clients.

Bill FloodCommunity Cultural Development
William Flood (Bill) has provided community cultural development consultations throughout the United States and Germany. Having served as the statewide Community Development Coordinator for the Oregon Arts Commission, Bill has been instrumental in merging arts with community development initiatives across Oregon.

Bill’s knowledge and experience in cultural diversity expression and how to capture this dynamic energy into all civic and community development activities helps him to provide community support in conducting interviews, forums and other community involvement activities envisioned within a project’s scope of work.

How We Work

PARC Resources works on a not-to-exceed pricing structure, meaning that we assess a project’s components, develop a scope of work, and assign an estimated number of hours to a project, based on the scope of work. The estimated hours are multiplied by the hourly rate and we set a not-to-exceed price based on that calculation. We then add in the cost of travel and publishing (for planning documents). If the client agrees to the price, we put together a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to serve as a purchase order, that basically states that the client agrees to the scope of work and cost estimate. We will then complete the work, billing the client per hour until the not-to-exceed price is reached. Here are two examples of how this might work:

Example one – the client hires us to write a grant that we estimate will take 20 hours to complete. In actuality, the grant application only took 18.75 hours to complete, so the client was only billed for 18.75 hours and the project was completed under budget. This is rare as we usually underestimate our hours to remain competitive, but it does happen from time to time.

Example two – the client hires us to complete a strategic plan with a scope of work designed to take 50 hours to complete. In actuality, the project took 55 hours, but the client was only billed for 50 hours because we had reached the not-to-exceed price limit.

In either case, the client got the best price we can offer for a project. We do this to remain budget-friendly, as we know that resources are limited and we want to make sure our clients receive the best value possible. Occasionally, the client will request a modification to the scope of work mid-project – such as an extra trip to the region, community meeting, or additional research. These modifications are fine, but might result in additional costs due to the change in scope of the project. We will always discuss additional charges and receive approval prior to completing the work so that our clients do not receive surprise charges.