My recent Investing in Oregon post took a look at some companies that the Motley Fool had featured in its investigation of investment opportunities in the Beaver State, including Precision Castparts Corp. (NYSE: PCP), StanCorp Financial Group Inc. (NYSE: SFG), FLIR Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: FLIR), and Columbia Sportswear Co. (NASDAQ: COLM).

But the Motley Fool article also mentioned that one of the most prominent business influences in Oregon wasn't even headquartered in the state: semiconductor giant Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) from Santa Clara, California. It also included mention of four Oregon-based businesses that provided support for Intel: Tektronix Inc. (NYSE: TEK), Mentor Graphics Corp. (NASDAQ: MENT), Triquint Semiconductor Inc. (NASDAQ: TQNT), and Electro Scientific Industries Inc. (NASDAQ: ESIO). One could imagine that Intel's impressive earnings report this week should have been good news for these supporting companies.

Beaverton-based Tektronix, widely known as Tek, is one of the leading makers of test and measurement equipment, such as digital multimeters, logic analyzers, and curve tracers, and oscilloscopes. Tek will win its seventh technical Emmy this year. Tek beat Wall Street expectations in its previous three quarters, reporting earnings per share of 40 cents for its first quarter FY2008. But the consensus of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial was to hold shares of Tek. The share price reached a 52-week high of $37.95 on Monday when it was announced that Danaher Corp. (NYSE: DHR) will acquire Tek. Tool and equipment maker Danaher just announced record third quarter results.

I was drawn to a story in my local paper about New Hope Community Church outside Portland, Oregon -- two of my sisters have attended services there regularly, and it's a landmark in the metropolitan area. But what struck me as culture-changing was a quote from the developer who's working with church leadership. He has one goal as he plans an entirely new church-centered commercial complex: "We hope this will be a Starbucks experience from one end to the other."

Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) has a funny relationship with God; after all, the chain famously offended a woman so much she boycotted its coffee. So how is purchasing and drinking a caffeinated beverage in a Starbucks outlet similar to going to church? Part of it is about the audience; churches (at least in my hometown) have moved away from the formal experience in which the members of the congregation are simply watching a show put on by the "cast" of the church, and toward more interactive experiences in which small groups, focused around common interests, meet to discuss Bible passages or work together on a project -- from feeding the hungry to overcoming addiction. The parallels in retail? Yep, less convention center, more coffee shop.

This is where Starbucks comes in.

The end of Oregon Trail may not be the trapping and logging region that it once was, but the Beaver State still has a thriving agriculture sector, including such products as potatoes, apples, hops, and hazelnuts (more than 90% of domestic production of hazelnuts). But the Pacific Northwest is known today as a high-tech region, with growth through both domestic relocation and foreign immigration. The lack of a sales tax in Oregon probably doesn't hurt when it comes to attracting investment and labor.

When the Motley Fool investigated investment opportunities in Oregon earlier this year, first on their list was, of course, Oregon's largest public company, Beaverton-based Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE), the world's largest shoemaker. We pretty regularly cover Nike here at BloggingStocks. The Motley Fool also took a look at Precision Castparts Corp. (NYSE: PCP), StanCorp Financial Group Inc. (NYSE: SFG), FLIR Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: FLIR), and Columbia Sportswear Co. (NASDAQ: COLM).

NextPhase Wireless (OTCBB: NXPW) has really caught my attention. At just $0.10 a share it looks to me like a stupendous bargain -- or at least a real cheap entry point for those of you looking to establish a tech footprint for yourselves. Although running a bit under the radar from mainstream, this company has been anything but quiet within the wireless tech news circles. I agreed with you late last year that consumer trends were continuing to bring wireless technologies into screaming full-steam-ahead status. NextPhase is one of the companies making full use of this relentless trend.

NextPhase presents itself as a "next generation" connectivity company, which becomes obvious as you read about it -- NextPhase truly is on the cutting edge in its field. NextPhase is in the business of building its own wireless networks and is very close to an infrastructural breakout nationwide. The company announced yesterday that it is right on target for completion of plans to migrate to licensed spectrum for network back-haul by the end of Q3 2007. Simply put, the company is growing rapidly to meet solid customer demands.

Tom Hemingway, Chairman and COO of NextPhase, indicates that small- to medium-sized companies find significant benefits by subscribing to its newest IT services because customers now have access to security, disaster recovery and network performance solutions of a quality that would not be cost effectively available to them otherwise. These new "managed IT" services are a value-added adjunct to NextPhase's already well-established broadband services. The company has been rapidly expanding its nationwide footprint with moves into Arizona, Oregon and California. I also found mention of an intended purchase by the company into New Jersey, but I have not yet been able to confirm that. Next Phase appears to me to be an aggressive, focused and driven company. If any of our readers can provide some hardcore financial research on the company, please do share!

Gary E. Sattler holds no financial interest in NextPhase Wireless.

Got merger mania too? On tonight's MAD MONEY segment on CNBC, Jim Cramer got into the spirit of the takeovers that had the Street buzzing today and discussed how to find the next Oregon Steel Mills, Inc. (NYSE:OS) or similar acquisition possibility.

He says Reliance Steel & Aluminum (NYSE:RS) is still cheap, a considerable supplier of both rolled and stainless steel, which is still in short supply. Cramer opined that a smaller company, like Reliance, could be bought, but he didn't think Nucor Corporation (NYSE:NUE) was small enough for an acquisition target. He thought RS would be the most likely target.

He would hold a hearing about who lost Oregon Steel. He thinks the WSJ publishing a steel glut that kept you out of this name. Anyway, he will go on and on but he thinks RS is the next steel buyout potential.

RS has a $2.7 billion market cap; 52-week trading range of $28.43 to $49.75. It closed up 5.7% at $35.55 in normal trading and traded up another 4% to $37.15 in after-hours trading after Cramer touted it. If the trailing P/E is accurate it looks like RS only trades at 7.5 times earnings and seven times December 2007 earnings.

Jon Ogg is a partner in 24/7 Wall St., LLC; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

In my hometown of Portland, Ore., Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) is seen as the interloper, even though the company's headquarters are only a few hours' drive away. Starbucks gets none of the important descriptors. It's not "local." It's not "independent." And it's very, very not "hippie."

Coffee People, on the other hand, has historically received all of those storied monikers. Founded in 1970s as a booth in Eugene, Oregon's Saturday Market (oh you have never known hippy until you've known the Eugene Saturday Market), the owners burst in the coffeeshop scene in 1983 with a store in the very center of hippy Portland hip-ville, NW 23rd Avenue. When I was a teenager, Coffee People was a mecca of caffeine and I, too, sipped Black Tiger milkshakes (full of ground-up chocolate-covered coffee beans) and munched on Hippie Cookies.

In 1999, Diedrich Coffee Inc. bought Coffee People and the hippiness slowly began to drain away. Quality diminished and the chains lost much of their verve. On Thursday, Starbucks announced it had purchased every last one of the Coffee People retail stores, 40 total and 15 in Portland, for $13.5 million. Deidrich is exiting the company-owned retail business entirely, but will retain the Coffee People brand names, including Black Tiger espresso, its Gloria Jean's Coffee brand, and the franchising arm of 168 retail locations.

As it has with so many other acquisitions, Starbucks plans to conduct rapid-fire conversion, keeping all 40 locations open even though it will mean a bit of cannibalization in some neighborhoods. Coffee People stores will be converted to Starbucks in a few months' time and the hippieness will be lost forever. Good thing Coffee People founder Jim Roberts is still hippy-happening at the little Jim & Patty's Coffee in NE Portland. Will Starbucks soon own every single chain coffee store in the U.S.? It seems not a bit unlikely. And the very antithesis of hippie.