Every week, ‘Good News of the Week’ features a curation of positive headlines from San Diego, delivered straight to your inbox. A blend of aggregated stories from San Diego’s most trusted news sources and original EDC-created content, GNOTW provides a comprehensive recap of the region’s best stories from the past week. GNOTW is sponsored by ACE Parking.
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For the week of July 18, 2025, here’s what we’re reading:
Join World Trade Center San Diego’s MetroConnect export accelerator and scale globally alongside 110 companies like Dr. Bronner’s, Blue Sky Network, and other cohort members, which averaged 66 percent export growth, 45 percent revenue growth, and generated more than $106 million in new international sales. Earn up to $30,000 in export grants, hands-on support from global business experts, and access to executive-level workshops focused on resilience and growth.
Every week, ‘Good News of the Week’ features a curation of positive headlines from San Diego, delivered straight to your inbox. A blend of aggregated stories from San Diego’s most trusted news sources and original EDC-created content, GNOTW provides a comprehensive recap of the region’s best stories from the past week. GNOTW is sponsored by ACE Parking.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of July 11, 2025, here’s what we’re reading:
Case Study: Export SBDC at WTCSD helps eight companies win $42K in STEP grants
In 2024, the Export SBDC at World Trade Center San Diego (WTCSD) helped eight local businesses secure $42,726 in STEP grants, including MetroConnect VII alum Visaic, which used its $6,500 grant to attend European trade shows and join WTCSD’s Singapore trade mission.
Every week, ‘Good News of the Week’ features a curation of positive headlines from San Diego, delivered straight to your inbox. A blend of aggregated stories from San Diego’s most trusted news sources and original EDC-created content, GNOTW provides a comprehensive recap of the region’s best stories from the past week. GNOTW is sponsored by Manpower.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of June 27, 2025, here’s what we’re reading:
Join us August 14 to celebrate all that makes San Diego life-changing! Enjoy an afternoon of meaningful networking with 400 of our closest friends, live music, great food, and drinks—all at The Alexandria at Torrey Pines. Early bird tickets are now on sale.
Every week, ‘Good News of the Week’ features a curation of positive headlines from San Diego, delivered straight to your inbox. A blend of aggregated stories from San Diego’s most trusted news sources and original EDC-created content, GNOTW provides a comprehensive recap of the region’s best stories from the past week. GNOTW is sponsored by Manpower.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of June 20, 2025, here’s what we’re reading:
San Diego Regional EDC is supported by investments from more than 150 organizations like Excelerate, LLC. As part of our series spotlighting EDC investors, we sat down with the local consulting firm to learn more about its efforts to strengthen San Diego’s business community and its exciting collaboration with the New Children’s Museum, which recently launched Artopia: NCM Creative Studios, a classroom and gallery expansion.
As a nonprofit, San Diego Regional EDC is supported by the investment of more than 150 public agencies, companies, and organizations like Excelerate, LLC.
With these investments, EDC provides direct support, aligned with regional Inclusive Growth goals, to companies of all sizes to drive San Diego’s economic prosperity and global competitiveness. EDC sat down with Excelerate, which shared more on its efforts in supporting San Diego’s workforce and business development and exciting collaboration with San Diego’s New Children’s Museum.
Read more about Excelerate’s regional impact and support for EDC.
Tell us about Excelerate and its mission.
Excelerate is a San Diego-based boutique consulting firm that emphasizes strategy implantation across a wide spectrum of industries. Focusing on customer experience and market strategies, organizational enablement, data connectivity and intelligence, and process and digital acceleration, we help businesses by reducing uncertainty, providing actionable insights and paving clear pathways to ROI.
At Excelerate, we believe that solving business problems and forging human connections are the first links in a positive chain reaction that we call the ripple effect. As we deliver positive outcomes, we create ripples of influence and success that radiate outward, gaining size and momentum as they touch more lives with each concentric ring. The profits we enable are an engine of choice that empowers businesses to uplift their employees, communities, and society in unique and meaningful ways.
What are San Diego’s market advantages for workforce and business development?
Excelerate doesn’t focus on any particular industry, meaning our clients come from a diverse set of industries, and San Diego offers a wide range of business types including key industries like life sciences, software, manufacturing, tech, and nonprofits.
The region’s unique diversity of industries allows Excelerate to solve complex business problems—what we do best—and our solutions can begin to pollinate as we apply our approaches across industries. The work we do in one industry often has relevant lessons and best practices to apply to clients in other industries. The region’s diversity enables us to have impact that exceeds the benefit we could bring to a city or metro area that is dominated by one industry.
The same is true of the San Diego talent pool, where people are likelier to have experience across a range of industries, arming them with both broad and industry-specific knowledge and experience.
How does Excelerate collaborate with other regional partners?
Excelerate has recently had the opportunity to collaborate with many local leaders and organizations including our most recent work with San Diego’s New Children’s Museum, which we helped develop a Go-to-Market strategy as it prepared for its expansion. Artopia: NCM Creative Studios was born from this partnership with a fully developed and implemented strategy that ensured not only stellar launch, but enhanced sustainability for the nonprofit. In a time where news involving museums seem to be about closures or lost funding, we are satisfied to help deliver some good news to this sector. Learn more about the collaboration.
Additionally, several of Excelerate’s managers—and our CEO, Jana De Anda—are University of San Diego (USD) alums. So, we maintain a presence at USD job fairs and remain connected with this talent-producing machine that just happens to be in our own backyard.
Also, we would be remiss if we did not specifically call out Garry Ridge’s leadership and tutelage. A San Diego stalwart, Garry has been a mentor to our CEO for almost 20 years, and their relationship has helped Excelerate’s senior leadership team develop a culture-based company.
Finally, one of our very first clients, TaylorMade, gave us an opportunity to showcase our value. As a respected brand, our relationship with them enabled us to build our service offering intentionally, while our work for TaylorMade helped them soar to even higher heights. Our shared success is important to us and exemplifies our San Diego roots.
What does an investment in San Diego Regional EDC mean to Excelerate?
First, San Diego Regional EDC is plugged into all things business in San Diego, making it a great resource for intelligence and information about potential clients and market trends.
Second, EDC hosts some of the best luncheons in the region full of amazing content that brings business leaders together to network and to learn from one another.
But, most importantly, EDC’s mission truly resonates with us. As a small business, it is reassuring to know that EDC is developing short- and long-term strategies that will lead to the city’s continued business success and economic development. A rising tide lifts all boats, and we are happy to do our part to help develop business in San Diego.
Interested in publishing an investor spotlight? Contact our team:
Every week, ‘Good News of the Week’ features a curation of positive headlines from San Diego, delivered straight to your inbox. A blend of aggregated stories from San Diego’s most trusted news sources and original EDC-created content, GNOTW provides a comprehensive recap of the region’s best stories from the past week. GNOTW is sponsored by Manpower.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of June 13, 2025, here’s what we’re reading:
Case Study: Solecta leverages EDC programs to strengthen talent pipeline, expand internationally
Oceanside’s Solecta used World Trade Center San Diego’s MetroConnect export accelerator and EDC’s Advancing San Diego (ASD) programs to expand internationally and build its workforce. A $5,000 MetroConnect grant and STEP grant consulting helped boost Solecta’s international sales in Mexico and Europe, increasing web traffic by 185 percent. Meanwhile, ASD’s two paid interns spent 240 hours over the summer supporting the team, with one intern hired for a part-time IT role. Join MetroConnect VIII and apply by Aug. 1.
To celebrate and inspire the efforts of regional employers, EDC’s Inclusive Growth blog series highlights San Diego companies and organizations helping to drive progress on the 2030 Inclusive Growth goals. Below we feature San Diego’s comprehensive human services provider Neighborhood House Association (NHA).
Launched in 2018 and informed by a partnership with the Brookings Institution, the Inclusive Growth initiative sets 2030 goals including increasing the number of thriving households locally, and making the business case for economic inclusion. Decreasing affordability in San Diego threatens progress toward all of the goals and disproportionately impacts communities of color. Household incomes have not kept pace with the cost-of-living, leaving only one in 10 households able to afford the median-priced home in the region. As of 2023, San Diego has added 49,916 newly thriving households (chart below) bringing the total number of San Diego’s thriving households in the region to 610,983.
Supporting households through a continuum of education and wellness
The Neighborhood House Association (NHA) was founded during the settlement house movement in 1914 to assist immigrants as they transitioned to living in the country.
NHA today
As a major employer and one of the largest nonprofit social services agencies in San Diego, NHA works through its Continuum of Care Model, a wrap-around service delivery model supporting households from prenatal to senior care. Its mission: To enrich lives through a continuum of education and wellness services, nurturing children and families from the earliest stages of life through adulthood, providing youth development and career exploration opportunities that allow them eventually to join the region’s workforce with a direct pipeline to workforce opportunities within NHA.
Challenges in grant-funded household support
Currently, NHA supports more than 5,000 community members by advocating for additional funding that addresses household affordability and accessibility challenges to realize dreams for as many households as possible. Because healthy and educated communities are where dreams become reality.
With federal and state grants, each program participant is assisted through a two-year enrollment period with direct support from an NHA family service worker outlining goals and needs, often including early childhood education programs and childcare services. Funds allow for more classrooms slots for children meaning that parents in households and members of the NHA workforce can go to work and school. With this, NHA sustains competitive pay with cost-of-living adjustments alongside annual merit increases to attract the best teaching and support staff for households.
Most of NHA’s programs are funded by federal and state grants, and as funding for programs like Head Start is challenged at the federal level, NHA continues to actively work with regional, state, and national leaders to ensure that program participants and employees are self-sufficient in supporting themselves and their families.
In addition to visiting state and national offices, NHA invites lawmakers to visit NHA to see programs at work in-person with the goal of increasing visibility and understanding of how the agency impacts the local economy. With an economic impact of more than $200 million each year, NHA operations are making a difference in the lives of team members, program participants, and the entire San Diego region.
As a large local nonprofit, NHA often highlights its value in San Diego’s economic development as a major local employer that allows pathways to education and workforce development. NHA President and CEO Rudy Johnson and have both served on the EDC Board of Directors and strongly believe in EDC’s work. NHA has found great value in joining EDC’s leadership trips and is a proud endorser of the Inclusive Growth initiative.
Join the movement
Progress on EDC’s 2030 Inclusive Growth goals is only achievable with and through the region’s employers scaling innovative and intentional solutions. Organizations like NHA are helping to collectively pave the way toward a more inclusive regional economy.
Endorse the goals, and be part of the change San Diego’s economy demands.
Every week, ‘Good News of the Week’ features a curation of positive headlines from San Diego, delivered straight to your inbox. A blend of aggregated stories from San Diego’s most trusted news sources and original EDC-created content, GNOTW provides a comprehensive recap of the region’s best stories from the past week. GNOTW is sponsored by Manpower.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of June 6, 2025, here’s what we’re reading:
San Diego Regional EDC is on the lookout for a curious mind interested in the world of economic development research. The entry-level Research Coordinator role offers hands-on experience turning data into insights that shape how business and civic leaders make decisions. From working with EDC’s research team to maintain key economic indicators to helping produce reports, dashboards, and visualizations, this position plays a vital part in telling the story of San Diego’s economy. Applications will remain open until position is filled.
World Trade Center San Diego and 150+ voting audience award $25K for international expansion
World Trade Center San Diego (WTCSD)—home of the region’s Export Small Business Development Center—named Aquacycl, which provides industrial wastewater treatment as a service to reduce costs and environmental impact, as the winner of the MetroConnect export accelerator program, now in its seventh year. Made possible through a grant from JPMorgan Chase & Co., Booz Allen Hamilton, and Deloitte, Aquacycl will use the $25,000 award to expand its presence in Europe and Mexico with its patented BETT system and micro-aeration solutions.
“In a volatile time for global trade, the results of MetroConnect’s seventh cohort are impressive and proof of the importance of international expansion for small- and mid-sized companies,” said Lucas Coleman, director of WTCSD.
“Our Grand Prize winner Aquacycl embodies the strength of San Diego’s innovation economy, leveraging our excellence in clean technologyon an international stage. Whether it’s streamlining customs processes, identifying, and securing reliable distributors, or cultivating leads in India, Turkey, and the UK amid economic uncertainty, we know that connectivity to international markets grows jobs and business resilience here at home.”
Escondido-based Aquacycl beat out three other finalists in MetroConnect VII, Epitope Diagnostics, Sunday Golf, and Surf Loch. The grand prize-winning company was decided via real-time audience vote during the Grand Prize PitchFest event June 5 at The Alexandria. Prior to this, a committee of senior international business leaders in San Diego helped the WTCSD team nominate these top performers, out of the initial 15-company cohort.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
In seven years, MetroConnect has helped 110 local, small and mid-sized businesses generate a net increase of $106 million in international sales, 552 international contracts, and 28 overseas facilities. Cohort companies have seen on average 66 percent export growth and 45 percent revenue growth. This international growth has coincided with 357 new hires here in the San Diego region.
Each cohort year, WTCSD selects 15 export-ready small businesses to receive $5,000 export grants, access to executive workshops, translation software, travel perks with international airlines flying out of SAN, and a chance to win a $25,000 grand prize to aid in further international market expansion. Applications for year eight of the MetroConnect program are now open through August 1, 2025. Interested small- and medium-sized companies that are looking to pursue international sales as a near-term priority or already exporting its goods or services may apply here.
Changes at the federal level have drastically shifted the rhetoric around global trade, but the truth remains. According to The World Bank, countries that trade internationally enjoy more economic growth, are more innovative and productive, and can provide more opportunities to citizens. San Diego is no exception—regional small businesses that export tend to have a larger and more diversified customer base, pick up best practices from global competitors, build up economies of scale, and ultimately pay their employees more. Access to international customers and markets is essential in helping San Diego boost resilience, as small businesses employ nearly 60 percent of San Diegans.
”We’re incredibly honored to be named this year’s MetroConnect Grand Prize Winner,” said Orianna Bretschger, CEO and Founder at Aquacycl. “The program has been instrumental in accelerating our international growth strategy, helping us expand into new markets while navigating complex export logistics and regulations. This recognition validates the critical role water reuse and decentralized wastewater solutions play in building a more sustainable future.”
“For over a decade, JPMorgan Chase and MetroConnect have partnered to help San Diego businesses grow globally and innovate boldly,” said Aaron Ryan, Managing Director for San Diego Middle Market Banking at program underwriter JPMorgan Chase. “We’re living in a new era of uncertainty, and navigating complex global markets takes the right support. San Diego’s businesses are rising to the challenge, and we’re proud to help them seize opportunities on the world stage.”
WTCSD hosted its MetroConnect Grand Prize PitchFest on June 5, with remarks by Nikia Clarke, Executive Director, WTCSD; Mayor Todd Gloria, City of San Diego; Andy Laats and Chad DiNenna, Co-founders, Nixon; and program underwriter Michael Monroe, Principal, Director of Data Science, Booz Allen, among others.
WTCSD maintains year-round support for global expansion through its Export Specialty Small Business Development Center and international trade missions.
San Diego Regional EDC celebrated its Annual Dinner and 60th anniversary with a passing of the gavel to Tom Seidler, Executive Vice President, Community & International Impact of the San Diego Padres, from outgoing Board Chair Jennie Brooks.
