President Olympic Performance, Inc. Sherwood, Oregon Ron Sarazin likes to help people and companies solve problems. He owns Olympic Performance Inc., a training and consulting company based in the Portland area. For nearly 30 years he has been providing executive coaching, strategic planning, and project management training to enhance personal impact and organizational performance. His clients come from industry, city and state governments, nonprofits and federal agencies.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering, Sarazin launched his career at Alcoa; gained experience with internal consulting at PACCAR; and then joined Cook–Newhouse and Associates to help clients adopt new manufacturing and distribution processes. Then in 1983, he took a job with Portland General Electric (PGE).
The electric utility company was trying to become more progressive, and Sarazin decided that PGE was a place where he could make a difference. After eight years serving in various management capacities, he realized he missed the technical, problemsolving side of the profession and wanted to get back into consulting. The timing was right, as PGE was beginning to downsize. They offered him a repositioning package that enabled him to start Olympic Performance.
Sarazin coached girls’ soccer, ages 9 to 16, for more than 21 years. He kept coaching long after his daughters grew out of it because he enjoyed helping girls improve and perfect their skills. It’s a strategy he’s also found useful in coaching adults.
“The more people improve the fundamentals of what makes them a good player, the better a team becomes and the more games they win,” Sarazin said. “It was never about winning games; it was about the journey they took to get there.” Sarazin believes strongly in giving back to the community and always has several service projects going.
He is former board chair for the Washington County Community Action Organization, served on the Tualatin City Council, and is currently an industry advisory board member for the School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University.
Degrees
- B.S. Industrial Engineering, 1976