A little-known tech firm has shattered Oregon pay records, handing its new CEO a staggering $94 million package, some 1,300 times more than the average employee’s annual wage, in one of the most eye-popping corporate deals of the year.
The board of Lattice, a Hillsboro chipmaker, approved the payout to veteran tech executive Ford Tamer last September, luring him from investment firm Francisco Partners with a one-time, performance-based stock grant.
The move comes less than a year after Lattice’s stock plunged 15% in a single day – erasing $1.6 billion in value – when turnaround architect Jim Anderson abruptly resigned to lead a larger company.
Investors cheered the hire with shares surging 12% the day Tamer’s appointment was announced, adding $762 million in market value.
Shareholders seem to approve. Over the last year Lattice’s stock price has risen by almost 32%.
‘By that metric, perhaps, Lattice shareholders have already gotten their money’s worth,’ The Oregonian noted, even as the company continues to battle sluggish demand for its programmable chips.
Nearly all of Tamer’s compensation is tied to Lattice hitting aggressive performance targets, but the optics are striking with no other Oregon company in the last year coming close to such a pay gap between CEO and worker.
The blockbuster deal was disclosed in regulatory filings and confirmed in The Oregonian’s annual review of executive compensation.
According to federal filings, the median Lattice employee earns $72,000-a-year making Tamer’s pay packet the biggest gap between executive and worker pay of any Oregon company – dwarfing even the top executives at Oregon’s corporate heavyweights.
Intel paid former CEO Pat Gelsinger $28 million in 2024, nearly 300 times its median worker’s pay, while Nike’s new CEO Elliott Hill earned $27 million, 545 times the average salary at the sportswear giant.
Lattice has emphasized that Tamer’s payout is an anomaly, tied to his recruitment and contingent on performance goals.
The company has said it doesn’t plan to award him additional stock grants before 2026, and his annual compensation will be ‘much lower’ going forward.
But with the company’s market position still below its pre-Anderson heights, and the semiconductor sector facing ongoing volatility, Tamer’s tenure will be closely watched.
The deal has revived debate over runaway executive pay in Portland, where companies face a special tax if CEO compensation exceeds 10 times the median employee’s wage.
The city collected $6.7 million from the surcharge last year, more than double what it raised when the tax debuted in 2017.
