EDC implements its five-year strategic plan One Region One Future with a robust business development and focused policy program. We highlight outcomes for the fourth quarter.

Business Development

Outreach, Expansion

EDC staff worked with 22 companies to facilitate their expansion or relocation into the region.

EDC formed a Board-led Business Development committee comprised of Stath Karras, Joe Campano, Gordon Carrier, Linda Lang, Bob Watkins, Kate Collier, Trindl Reeves, Greg Horowitt, Kevin Carroll, Joanne Pastula, Randy Ward and Kris Michell. They are working with Jim McGraw and KMK consulting on a lead-generation program.

EDC helped facilitate the expansion of The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising into San Diego. A Los Angeles-headquartered accredited university, FIDM opened its new facility downtown on November 19. The 30,000 square foot campus on the third floor of Diamond View Tower overlooks the ballpark and represents the state-of-the-industry marriage of technology and design. FIDM is headquartered in Los Angeles and has 7,500 students in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Orange County, and San Diego.

EDC’s Business Development team completed 11 meetings with executives representing downtown businesses as part of our work with CCDC. The downtown outreach meetings allow business leaders to share their perspectives on what makes downtown a great place to do business, providing some insight on how we might attract business there.

EDC sponsored AeA’s 15th Annual High Tech Awards. The program featured emerging and high-growth San Diego companies within the high-tech industry. EDC began outreach to the award winners and finalists.

Image Enhancement, Attraction

Mayor Sanders was featured on CNN’s “American Morning” on October 21, along with Mayor Booker of Newark, New Jersey, to talk about how cities across the nation are facing budget shortfalls. Mayor Sanders talked about the reforms he’s already enacted, and how that discipline helps as the City prepares to address the $43 million gap in the budget resulting from the international financial crisis. The spot was estimated to have reached more than 413,000 viewers.

EDC arranged a luncheon and meeting between senior Veolia executives, including Veolia’s Chairman and CEO, to discuss San Diego’s expanding cleantech industry. Veolia is a diversified French company involved in transportation, environment, water and energy. It operates buses for MTDB and acquired local transportation company Cloud 9 earlier this year. Both Mayor Jerry Sanders and EDC CEO Julie Meier Wright delivered welcoming remarks at a Veolia management meeting that followed.

EDC organized a “Red Team” meeting to support the Port of San Diego’s proposal to Disney Cruise Lines. During EDC’s Best Practices Leadership Trip to Orlando, we met with Al Weiss, worldwide president of Disney Resorts and Parks, who said that Disney was looking to homeport new cruise ships coming online in 2011 and 2012 and that San Diego was in competition with Los Angeles (San Pedro). Red Team participants include the Port of San Diego, City of San Diego, Airport Authority, ConVis, Sea World, San Diego Zoo and representatives of the business community.

In November, EDC sponsored the San Diego Software Industry Council’s Analytics Conference which attracted more than 200 people within this growing field of software. Keynote addresses were given by Robert Hecht-Nielsen and Daniel Yankelovich. Julie Meier Wright gave welcoming remarks at the opening reception.

Emerging Opportunities

As Phase I of the Mega-Region Initiative concludes, stakeholders completed a plan leveraging the strengths and addressing the weaknesses of workforce and transportation infrastructure for Imperial Valley, San Diego County and Baja California. A mega-region name, logo and slogan will be unveiled in early 2009 as part of the Mega-Region marketing efforts.

EDC is supporting the development of the regional algae industry through its Sustainability Initiative. EDC and CleanTECH San Diego hired Rick Halperin, Advisory One, to consult on the project. Rick attended an algae summit in Seattle, Washington, where he learned more about the industry and gained better insight into San Diego’s ability to lead in this emerging industry.

Jason Anderson participated in the Solar Power International 2008 Conference, the premier conference in the industry attended by over 23,000 people including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Maria Cantwell, and General Wesley Clark. Jason also participated in CleanTECH’s Scrub session, a forum for early-stage cleantech companies to present their business cases to the committee. Scrub provides a sounding board for early-stage cleantech entrepreneurs and assesses the quantity of deal-flow in the region.

EDC’s Maritime Action Team held meetings in October and November to review a reported completed by the World Trade Center which compiles maritime industry data. The Action Team also toured Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute’s Aquaculture program. The Action Team will work with Hubbs to help them network with San Diego’s maritime industry to obtain resources they need to launch a pilot program.

One of the priorities of the Security Action Team is to gain status for San Diego as security test-bed. While in Washington, DC Julie met with Undersecretary of Homeland Security Jay Cohen and his Chief Commercialization Officer, Tom Cellucci, who offered to meet with stakeholders in San Diego to do a forum on Homeland Security opportunities. EDC is following up to present a program in the first half of 2009.

Policy

EDC organized two roundtable sessions with local economists and industry market segment leaders to determine actions that might mitigate the impact of the economic downturn on the region. Participants included: Marney Cox, SANDAG; Kelly Cunningham and Erik Bruvold, San Diego Institute for Policy Research; Mark Riedy, Burnham Moores Center for Real Estate, USD; Bill Burns, professor at CSU San Marcos; Gary London, The London Group; Jim Gerber economics professor at SDSU; Mark Cafferty and Chuck Flacks from the Workforce Partnership; Bella Heule, World Trade Center; Lisa Bicker, CleanTech San Diego; Rory Moore, CommNexus; Borre Winkel, Building Industry Association; Angelika Villagrana, San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, and Bernie Rhinerson, San Diego Unified School District. The roundtables will inform a planned Economic Roundtable on February 10 at USD.

EDC and the Chamber partnered to prepare for a likely federal infrastructure stimulus package by working with SANDAG, preparing a comprehensive briefing book covering transportation, water, storm water and municipal projects. As a result of our efforts, all regional projects that may be eligible under what we understand to be federal guidelines will be coordinated by SANDAG. We arranged meetings with all members of the San Diego congressional delegation to outline the region’s priorities. EDC recommended that members consider reforms like NEPA delegation to the states, which would reward states with tough environmental reviews, in any legislative package developed.

EDC’s Infrastructure Committee completed six assessments of all major infrastructure needs for the region and is developing plans for an initiative to be presented to stakeholders in early 2009.

EDC’s ballot positions were all winners in the 2008 general election except for two: The San Diego Fire Service Parcel Tax was defeated and the Chula Vista initiative creating an elected City Attorney was adopted.

Ballot Initiative EDC Recommendation Election Outcome

• Proposition 1A: High Speed Rail Support Adopted
• Proposition 7: Renewable Energy Mandates Oppose Defeated
• Proposition 10: Renewable Energy Bonds Oppose Defeated
• Proposition 11: Voter Redistricting Support Adopted
• San Diego Fire Service Parcel Tax Support Defeated
• 10^th Avenue Port Master plan Oppose Defeated
• Chula Vista: Elected City Attorney Oppose Adopted

On December 18, the California Public Utilities Commission approved SDG&E’s Sunrise Powerlink transmission line in a 4-1 vote. EDC has supported the project for the last four years because it will deliver 1,000 megawatts of clean reliable energy to our region. In the short-term, Sunrise Powerlink will enhance the reliability of our electric service. In the long-term, it will foster the growth of the renewable energy industry.

EDC testified before the City of San Diego on amendments to the proposed Emergency Water Drought Model Ordinance. The City agreed to incorporate stakeholder recommendations into the proposed Model Ordinance, which passed City Council unanimously. The ordinance would help lead to consistency in potential water use restrictions among all regional agencies.

EDC’s CEO Julie Meier Wright met with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in San Francisco along with 20 members of the R.E.A.L. Coalition (Regional Economic Association Leaders) and San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders. The conversation centered on the state’s P3 agenda (the Governor is supporting performance-based public/private partnerships) and on the impact of various revenue proposals on California’s business climate.

The Workforce Development Committee completed two comprehensive analyses of STEM Education Reform and Entry & Mid-Career Development. In addition, the Committee launched a subcommittee tasked with developing a “Mutual Fund” model for education improvement programs. The model will become an implementation tool for each of the nine policy goals adopted in the two assessments. The subcommittee includes representatives from the San Diego Foundation, San Diego Workforce Partnership, San Diego Unified School District and the San Diego Science Alliance. The two comprehensive assessments and “Mutual Fund” model framework will be presented to the EDC Board of Directors in early 2009.

We have completed preliminary planning work on a Where the Workforce Lives research study for the areas of Kearny Mesa, Mission Valley and University City. The study begins in January and is a component of EDC's contract with the City of San Diego.

Leadership Spheres

Next Generation Leadership Committee

Malin Burnham and San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders were guests of the Next Generation Leadership Committee for their fireside chat series, supported by a grant from the Morgan Family Foundation for Regional Stewardship. These gatherings help mentor emerging civic leaders by having well-established civic entrepreneurs share their contributions to our region. The Committee has grown to 15 members.

Strategic Roundtable

The group has identified education and water as their top priorities. Dr. Terry Grier, Superintendent for San Diego Unified School District, and Bob Yamada, Planning Manager with the San Diego County Water Authority, discussed with the Roundtable their goals for the District in terms of business community involvement. There are now 23 people participating in the Roundtable.

Governors Council

Two more executives joined the Governors Council – Larry Prior, COO, SAIC, and Mike Neal, President & CEO, H.G. Fenton, bringing the Council to ten members. The Governors Council honed its focus on education governance, long-term air infrastructure, pension issues and the potential for a new visa category for foreign-born Masters and PhD graduates of American universities.

Investor Relations

The campaign to support the One Region One Future strategic plan concluded in December with commitments from more than 150 companies totaling $2.2 million, which brings our total economic development budget to $3.7 million as we start FY 09. We have proposals before 30 companies considering increases or joining EDC.

Visits to EDC's website are up 30 percent, compared to Q2. In October, total hits to the website numbered 6,597, or almost 220 visits per day. The most popular page is “About EDC”, accounting for almost 50% of the hits in December.

EDC’s Monthly Investor Breakfast Series featured a briefing from the Burnham Institute for Medical Research (October); a briefing on climate change at Mintz Levin (November); and US Small Business Administration’s Acting Administrator Sandy Baruah discussed the federal government’s aid for small businesses in the economic crisis and the potential for federal stimulus packages (December).

The winning foursomes in EDC’s Fifth 5^th Annual Golf Tournament were Cox Communications and Kaiser Permanente/San Diego Business Journal. Players enjoyed an excellent round at The Santaluz Club.

EDC visited Orlando, Florida for its Annual Best Practices Leadership Trip. Over a three-day period, 20 San Diego business leaders, along with Assemblymember George Plescia and Escondido Mayor Lori Holt-Pfeiler, met with Orlando’s public and private sector leaders. We had in-depth briefings from the Orlando EDC about its business development program and heard from the Chairman and four members of their Governors Council, after which we modeled ours. The overarching take-away is how significantly successful public /private partnerships can benefit an economic development program.

501c (3) Foundation

The Packard Foundation awarded a grant through our Foundation to explore a public/private partnership to strengthen preschool education. EDC’s interests in Pre K education reflect the business community’s demand for a workforce that has the appropriate skills and training.

The Foundation supported the Fourth Annual Sally Ride Science Festival in San Diego in December at UCSD. The event is targeted at 5^th through 8^th grade girls to inspire their interest in math and science careers.

EDC’s Foundation helped fund a business plan and fundraising strategy to sustain the California Affiliate of Project Lead the Way at SDSU. The strategies are designed to expand the high school engineering program throughout California. PLTW received laboratory science approval for one course under the UC/CSU admission requirements. Two other PLTW courses were also approved as electives. PLTW now has eight engineering courses approved under the UC/CSU A-G admission requirements, providing students with more incentive to take the rigorous courses as part of their high school curriculum.

For more information please contact:

Lauree Sahba, COO
(619) 234-8484; ls@sandiegobusiness.org