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.
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For the week of September 30, 2022, here’s what we’re reading:
EDC is hiring an Economic Development Manager (Life Sciences) with five years of experience in business, real estate, planning, or a related field to enable business attraction, retention, and expansion in San Diego County’s life sciences industry.
Manufacturing Month is a time to celebrate the industry’s impact and to inspire the next generation of skilled workers to grow their careers in modern manufacturing. With its highly-skilled workforce, robust training programs, and close proximity to Mexico, San Diego is a hub for advanced manufacturing, with nearly 3,583 firms currently supporting more than 114,000 jobs across the region.
Manufacturing in San Diego
By 2023, the U.S. will need to fill four million manufacturing jobs—a demand San Diego is particularly well-positioned to help meet. Between 2017 and 2021, San Diego’s manufacturing employment grew 5.5 percent compared to a nation-wide decrease of 0.9 percent. Even California experienced a net loss of overall manufacturing jobs during that same period (-2.0 percent).
The industry’s continued growth through the pandemic is driven by the resilient and advanced nature of San Diego’s manufacturing base, which uses innovative technology to improve products or processes. From craft beer to virtual reality technology, to shipbuilding and life-saving pharmaceuticals, manufacturing has long been a pillar of the region’s economy, with impact spanning far beyond San Diego.
Find manufacturing talent and jobs
Looking to build your manufacturing team? Advancing San Diego’s Preferred Providers of manufacturing talent is a great place to start. Preferred Providers are vetted education programs recognized by employers as delivering top-quality training for high-demand jobs across San Diego. Contact the Advancing San Diego team to get connected.
For seasoned manufacturing professionals looking for new opportunities, visit San Diego: Life. Changing.’s job board to explore open roles at some of San Diego’s top employers. And, sign up to receive some of San Diego’s coolest jobs delivered to you monthly through its newsletter, The Lead.
Grow your company
California’s Manufacturing Network (CMN), formed and led by CMTC, provides services exclusively to small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) throughout California. The Network is a collaboration of more than 25 manufacturing-focused partners that deliver a broad range of technical assistance services to SMMs in both urban and rural areas. The Network’s mission is to generate a positive financial impact for manufacturers and the California economy.
Receive free to low-cost services through CMTC including supplier scouting services, accelerator programs, and general assistance.
Plus, contact the EDC team to get connected to the resources you need to thrive in San Diego, from strategic partnerships, to site expansion and selection services.
Data collected from Lightcast 2022 unless otherwise cited.
San Diego’s healthcare providers face numerous challenges in attracting and retaining talent. Faced with a global pandemic, now more than ever healthcare providers are seeing higher-than-average turnover rates for essential roles like medical assistants. Additionally, many companies have fewer connections to top, preferred providers of healthcare talent in the region.
Made possible by JPMorgan Chase, Advancing San Diego is a demand-driven strategy to address talent shortages and remove barriers for small and not-for profit companies to access qualified workers through a variety of services including its internship program. After a competitive application process, Rady Children’s Hospital was selected to host six paid ASD healthcare interns from top Verified Programs of talent, at no cost.
ASD provided a competitive wage and stipend, as well as access to a vetted pool of diverse medical assistants. Rady also had the opportunity to work with ASD’s staffing partner, Manpower San Diego, which administered the interview process, administrative HR tasks, payroll, and more.
RESULT
As a result of EDC’s ASD program, Rady was able to skip the challenges of talent sourcing and dive straight into building camaraderie with their new interns and the Verified Programs in which they came from. At the close of the internship, Rady Children’s Hospital hired all six students full-time—opening a door of social mobility for underrepresented talent in essential roles.
The program also helped relieve budgetary constraints by saving Rady thousands in payroll, overhead, and talent sourcing expenses.
“Advancing San Diego has helped us tap into diverse talent highly-prepared for the clinical hours we require. EDC’s program helped us establish better relationships with local education programs and introduced us to six skilled medical assistants who we’re excited to bring on full-time.”
-Jenna Martin, Strategic Business Project Manager, Rady Children’s Hospital
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.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of September 30, 2022, here’s what we’re reading:
EDC is hiring an Economic Development Manager (Life Sciences) with five years of experience in business, real estate, planning, or related field, to enable business attraction, retention, and expansion in the life sciences industry.
Trabus Technologies and Nano PharmaSolutions join delegation to Netherlands to drive localgrowth
This week, as part of Mayor Todd Gloria’s trade mission to the Netherlands, coordinated by World Trade Center San Diego (WTCSD), an affiliate of EDC, San Diego small businesses pitched their technology solutions to potential international partners and investors. Trabus Technologies (TRABUS) and Nano PharmaSolutions, both San Diego-based, minority-owned small businesses, joined this three-day trip to establish business relationships, pursue investment, and grow local jobs.
San Diego is the birthplace of many successful large, multinational companies, including Qualcomm who is represented in the delegation as well. However, small businesses—those with fewer than 100 employees—are the backbone of the regional economy and drive regional economic growth and innovation. Small businesses employ more than 60 percent of San Diego County’s workforce, nearly double the national average, and represent nearly 98 percent of the region’s firms. Yet small companies face outsize barriers to international expansion.
“Having an economy driven by small, innovative companies has been great for San Diego, and we want to support their expansion into overseas markets so they can stay strong and competitive in their industries,” said San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria. “This trade mission gives us the chance to lay that groundwork for small businesses that face headwinds overseas.”
In order to drive economic resilience, Mayor Todd Gloria and WTCSD have prioritized small businesses as part of the Netherlands trade mission. TRABUS and Nano PharmaSolutions—both innovative, minority-owned small businesses involved in WTCSD’s export accelerator program MetroConnect—pitched to the Port of Rotterdam and investors at the Leiden Bio Science Park respectively:
TRABUS and Port of Rotterdam: TRABUS is a service-disabled, veteran- and minority-owned small business providing innovative solutions to the U.S. government and private sector. The 50-person TRABUS team specializes in the development of technology across five major portfolios—wireless technologies, artificial intelligence and data science, maritime transportation, environmental informatics and cybersecurity. To be spotlighted in its pitch to the European port, TRABUS has developed the first AI-based voyage planning software, RippleGo, for the inland waterways. While the SaaS product is currently being tested on U.S. waterways, RippleGo could have tremendous potential to enhance voyage planning and supply chain logistics on EU based waterways for greater economic efficiencies.
“We are excited about the potential partnerships and opportunities to work with the European maritime industry. The EU has an impressive, interconnected waterway network already. We hope to learn more about their network and offer up some of our technologies that can aid in waterway management and intermodal supply chain logistics,” said Art Salindong, Managing Director, TRABUS.
Nano PharmaSolutions (NPS) and Leiden Bio Science Park: A platform technology startup for nanodrug delivery of small molecule drugs, NPS offers improved solubility and convenient dosage form development. Founded in 2019, the company is seeking Seed and early-stage VC investment, with plans to expand into the European market and access increased pharmaceutical customers in the years ahead. NPS plans to co-manufacture clinical trial materials for their customers at Mikart Pharmaceutical, a contract manufacturing organization in Atlanta, GA, beginning Q3 2023. Mikart is a commercial scale oral dosage form company, which can support NanoTransformer™ nano-granulation and downstream dosage form manufacturing and QC activities.
“Not only does our NanoTransformer™ technology expedite drug development at a lower R&D cost, but it helps drugs absorb into the body more quickly and efficiently” said Dr. Kay Olmstead, Founder & CEO, NPS. “This is an incredible opportunity to share our story and build partnerships at the famous Leiden Bio Science Park, and we’re excited about what’s to come.”
“With the right partners, small companies that solve important problems—like TRABUS and Nano PharmaSolutions—become big companies that change the world. That has always been San Diego’s story, and it is why we work so hard to open doors for innovators and entrepreneurs both overseas and back at home,” said Nikia Clarke, executive director of WTCSD and SVP, EDC.
This session is one of a dozen meetings and programs on the three-day trade mission to the Netherlands, September 26—29, 2022. See a summary of the trip here and follow along for more: #SDinNL
The trade mission is organized by WTCSD, an affiliate of the San Diego Regional EDC, with assistance and support provided by the Consulate of the Netherlands, and sponsorship by ASML, Lufthansa, and Qualcomm Technologies.
A visit to ASML HQ in Veldhoven seeks to strengthen an already strong relationship between ASML and San Diego
This week, as part of Mayor Gloria’s inaugural trade mission with World Trade Center San Diego (WTCSD), an affiliate of EDC, the delegation visited ASML headquarters in Veldhoven, Netherlands.
With major operations in San Diego, and more than 35,000 staff around the globe, ASML is the most important technology company you’ve never heard of.
ASML is the leading provider of semiconductor manufacturing equipment to every major chipmaker around the world, playing an integral role in driving the global chip industry forward.
In San Diego, ASML designs, develops, and manufactures the lasers and lights sources that power its lithography machines—the systems chipmakers use to produce semiconductors featured in every piece of technology across nearly every industry.
From cell phones and life-changing medical devices, to self-driving cars and the James Webb Space Telescope, semiconductors are ubiquitously part of everyday life—and ASML represents the foundation for them all.
The company expanded its global footprint in 2012 with the acquisition of Cymer, a San Diego-based industry leader in laser sources for semiconductor equipment. In the 10 years since this acquisition, ASML San Diego has doubled its local headcount to 1,600, and counting.
Today as part of Mayor Todd Gloria’s trade mission to the Netherlands, coordinated by World Trade Center San Diego (WTCSD), an affiliate of San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation (EDC), Qualcomm Technologies Netherlands B.V., cut the ribbon on Matrix One in Amsterdam. In the Amsterdam Science Park, Matrix One will serve as Qualcomm Technologies Inc.’s largest AI hub outside of the U.S.
The cornerstone of San Diego’s technology ecosystem, Qualcomm is a global leader in 5G wireless technologies. Per a 2018 report, the company supported more than 28,000 San Diego jobs and had a $4 billion local economic impact. For every job at Qualcomm, an additional 1.8 jobs were supported elsewhere in San Diego economy.
“Nearly 40 years ago, a small tech company made a commitment to this region that would shape our innovation ecosystem—and our world—as we know it,” said San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria. “I’m proud to support Qualcomm’s continued growth in San Diego and around the world.”
Amsterdam Science Park is home to one of Europe’s biggest concentrations of scientific talent. The unique combination of high-quality education, pioneering research and knowledge-intensive business boosts the kind of innovation that will transform our society in the future.
“With our move into the new Matrix One building in Amsterdam Science Park, I am very happy to see us well positioned for further growth. Our highly innovative AI research in diverse topic areas and continued collaboration and co-location with the University of Amsterdam confirm us as the prime employer for AI & ML researchers and engineers in the region,” said Michael Hofmann, Director, Engineering, Qualcomm Technologies Inc.
The trade mission is organized by WTCSD, an affiliate of the San Diego Regional EDC, with assistance and support provided by the Consulate of the Netherlands, and sponsorship by ASML, Lufthansa and Qualcomm Technologies. This session is one of a dozen meetings and programs on the three-day trade mission to the Netherlands, September 26—29, 2022.
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.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of September 23, 2022, here’s what we’re reading:
San Diego: Life. Changing.: Four programs helping Latinx professionals thrive
In observance of National Hispanic Heritage Month, EDC’s San Diego: Life. Changing. campaign has compiled just a few of the many programs helping Latinx professionals thrive and climb in San Diego. Learn more about MAAC, San Diego Squared, and more.
WORLD TRADE CENTER SAN DIEGO CONVENES REGIONAL LEADERS TO HELP SAN DIEGO BUSINESSES EXPAND GLOBALLY, CREATE LOCAL JOBS
In order to foster vital global economic partnerships, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and World Trade Center San Diego (WTCSD), an affiliate of San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation (EDC), are leading a delegation to the Netherlands. During the September 26—29 trade mission, business and civic leaders will promote San Diego’s key industries, establish and strengthen business relationships, and explore best practices in urban mobility, climate action and sustainability, and technology and science innovation.
Against the backdrop of severe supply chain disruptions, shifting geopolitics governing the development of critical strategic technologies, and accelerating climate action and affordability mandates, San Diego leaders have made economic resilience by way of global competitiveness a top priority.
“San Diego is an undeniable force in the global marketplace, and we must seize opportunities to tell our story and maximize investment from partners around the world,” said San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria. “As we work to address our region’s biggest challenges—affordability, urban mobility, climate change, and more—I’m proud to join World Trade Center San Diego in the Netherlands to learn from like thriving, global cities.”
Home to Europe’s largest port and fourth busiest cargo airport, the Netherlands is a hub for global trade and business. With shared expertise in knowledge-intensive industries, including personalized medicine, wireless communications technology, and artificial intelligence, and a societal commitment to sustainability, climate action, and social innovation, the Netherlands is among the top 10 countries for foreign direct investment into San Diego (#6 in 2015—2020). Netherlands-based companies directly employ 5,000 San Diegans, predominately in the innovation economy at companies like ASML and Philips. By deal count, the Netherlands is the #9 country investing venture capital into San Diego, in line with Denmark and falling closely behind Japan, France and India (2015—2020). Further, Dutch firms invested nearly $318 million into San Diego’s economy in 2021 alone.
“On the heels of a pandemic that changed the world, WTCSD is grateful to be taking San Diego global once again,” said Nikia Clarke, executive director of World Trade Center San Diego and senior vice president at San Diego Regional EDC. “As the economy continues to transform around us, it is increasingly important for metro leaders to advance a compelling vision that keeps us ahead of the curve, and no one can tell the San Diego story better than Mayor Gloria and this cross-sector delegation.”
Over the three-day trade mission in cities Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, and Leiden, San Diego will look to bolster public-private partnerships and business expansion through various sessions with Dutch companies and institutions.
Agenda items include:
The grand opening/ribbon cutting of Qualcomm’s AI Research Lab, which has formalized a partnership with the University of Amsterdam to support a pipeline of engineering talent. Read more →
Amid massive pressure for expansion, a meeting and tour of ASML—the global leader in semiconductor manufacturing machines (lithography)—at its Veldhoven headquarters to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its investment in its San Diego-based Cymer site. Read more →
Local, minority-owned small businesses Trabus Technologies and Nano PharmaSolutions will pitch to the Port of Rotterdam and Leiden University Medical Center respectively. Read more →
Mayor-to-Mayor meetings with Todd Gloria and the Mayors of Amsterdam and Rotterdam to strengthen relationships between our regions
Formal meetings and tours of several companies considering investment into San Diego and California as led by San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria
Delegates will participate in upwards of 15 meetings over the course of the trade mission, sharing best practices and driving business connectivity across many verticals. The two dozen San Diego delegates include representatives from Qualcomm, ASML, Mitsubishi Electric, Trabus Technologies, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., Gafcon, Arup, HomeFed Corporation, Townshend Venture Advisors and more. Also in attendance are delegates from key San Diego agencies, universities and civic organizations such as Port of San Diego, UC San Diego, San Diego State University, San Diego Association of Governments, San Diego County Regional Airport Authority and others.
The trade mission is organized by World Trade Center San Diego, an affiliate of the San Diego Regional EDC, with assistance and support provided by the U.S. Embassy in The Hague, the Consulate of the Netherlands, and sponsorship by ASML, Lufthansa and Qualcomm.
“With shared commitments to sustainability and innovation, more than 76,000 jobs in California are supported by U.S.-Netherlands trade. This trip is one example of how we can work together across borders to remain competitive in a global economy,” said Consul General Dirk Janssen, Consulate of the Netherlands in San Francisco.
Follow along with us next week during the trade mission: #SDinNL
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.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of September 16, 2022, here’s what we’re reading:
With and through nearly 200 investors, EDC works to maximize San Diego’s prosperity. From connecting recruiters to talent attraction resources, to providing permitting and promotional support services, here’s what EDC did in August 2022.
