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Twenty years ago, Janelle Bynum arrived in Oregon intending to work in the semiconductor industry while her husband learned the ins-and-outs of running McDonald’s restaurants from his mom, who was retiring.

The job search didn’t pan out, despite Bynum’s track record as a General Motors engineer. Today, Mark and Janelle Bynum own four Portland-area McDonald’s restaurants. As a legislator, she now will lead a committee focused on expanding economic development and business opportunities across the state.

Bynum, D-Happy Valley, has been in the news as chair of the House Judiciary Committee and her bipartisan work on police reform. But, she told me, “My real skills are as an engineer and a businessperson. Economic justice has always been to me where I lead on the social justice front. …

“All the ills of society infiltrate when people don’t have good jobs and a future to look forward to.”

Oregon House Speaker Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis, has appointed Bynum to chair the House Interim Committee on Economic Development and Small Business. The committee will meet during Legislative Days in September and December, including preparing potential bills for the 2023 session. She’s already gathering ideas for how the Legislature might help businesses that suffer vandalism and graffiti.

Her new role comes months after Intel, the state’s largest private employer, stunned Oregon’s business and political establishment by announcing it would build a $20 billion semiconductor manufacturing complex in Ohio.

Bynum believes the House committee can help through long-term vetting of incentives for attracting and retaining industries, making sure communities have the tools to make sound decisions, and identifying roadblocks that the state should clear.

Despite the shockwaves from Intel’s announcement, exciting opportunities exist in the sports economy and other arenas. “I want to encourage more of those types of big-thinking, energetic, aggressive ideas that will prevent us from sliding deeply into a recession,” she said.

Bynum’s appointment is among a slew of committee shifts Rayfield announced on June 20 that include giving stronger roles to some newer lawmakers. First-term Rep. Jason Kropf, D-Bend, will take over Judiciary but Bynum will remain a member.

In early May, Bynum had proposed creation of a “Semiconductors, Sports, and Strategic Industries Committee” to support and expand key industries in Oregon. Instead, Rayfield renamed the Economic Recovery and Prosperity Committee that had been led by Rep. John Lively and made Bynum the chair. Lively, D-Springfield, will replace Kropf as one co-chair. Rep. Jami Cate, R-Lebanon, remains the other.

“I pitched a new committee to the speaker because I was really interested in rebuilding our economy and rebuilding it on terms that Oregonians value,” Bynum said.

“I wanted a place where we could have conversations about those businesses and there was a direct linkage to what Business Oregon (the state’s economic development department) is charged with doing, and the business community and Oregonians in general knew that there was a place in the Legislature where we could actually talk about those things and small businesses had a committee that they could go to actually be taken seriously.”

That still can happen, she said. Among the initial items she’d like the committee to take up: “How do we build a force of ambassadors that says Oregon is open for business and we want you here?”