Welcome to Valley Biz Seen, a new reader-driven feature. Send us your photographs of Valley business people being feted, awarded, commended or just taking part in interesting regional events. Don’t forget to include the names of the people in the pictures, a brief highlight of the event including when and where the picture was taken and contact information in case we have any questions. Photos should be a minimum resolution of 200 dpi and at least 4″ x 4″ in size.

In his practice of providing financial consulting, Peter Iannone sees how technology helps small businesses. Take for instance what Iannone calls the bane of all existence the backup policy. The companies he works with lack the resources to put data on tape and secure it in a safeguarded environment. This is why he works with Cloudworks, a hosted network firm in Thousand Oaks that takes care of all those responsibilites. “Very few of my clients could even come up with the level of procedures that Cloudworks gives them at a reasonable cost,” said Iannone, a consultant in the Los Angeles region for CBIZ Southern California. Lacking the budgets and staff, small- and medium-sized businesses turn to outside firms for the technology needed to stay competitive. These firms are often similar sized businesses understanding the needs of their clients for hosted computer services, designing, installing and supporting voice and data systems, connecting with vendors, and creating mobile marketing campaigns. These services save on money and space; streamline business operations; and open up new ways to reach customers. Online advertising brought in $21.1 billion in 2007, according to preliminary figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. That accounted for only 10 percent of all advertising spending yet was a 25 percent increase over the $16.9 billion earned in 2006. Small businesses risk much by turning their backs on that method of attracting customers, which is why Jim Gibson compares his online business directory Service Omni ( www.serviceomni.com )to a billboard that is viewed by as many eyes as possible. Business people make the mistake of thinking once they have a website in place that they are done. What they end up with is a billboard in the middle of the desert that doesn’t attract traffic, said Gibson, president and CEO of the Los Angeles-based firm. “We want to put the billboard in the middle of the city,” Gibson said. “The only time they will get charged is when a consumer responds to that billboard.” Service Omni launched in March and so far has about 500 businesses in it the directory. A fifth of those have designed websites over which they have complete control to change the text, photos and videos. Mobile Marketing The software developed by iVisionMobile makes possible in-house control of mobile marketing campaigns for its small business clients. While the software attracted big-name clients such as the Seattle SuperSonics of the NBA and local radio personality Rick Dees, it was created with the small business person in mind, said company CEO Omer Samiri. With iVisionMobile, no longer does a business need to spend thousands of dollars to write and set up short code, an abbreviated mobile number necessary for a mobile campaign. Once set up, a restaurant, say, can take a survey via cell phone on its food and service. iVisionMobile ( www.ivisionmobile.com) paired with an East Coast auto dealer conglomerate to have inventory details sent to a mobile device. Receiving the text messages is permission-based and promoted through a company’s advertising. “They get the message when you want them to read it,” Samiri said. Money-Saving Services While external operations like marketing bring in revenue, internal operations at small companies are ripe for cost savings through services offered from companies such as Cloudworks ( cloudworks.com) or Starnet Data Design Inc. ( www.starnetdata.com ) in Westlake Village. The companies Starnet lands as clients don’t tend to have the level of expertise of President and General Manager Steve Marks and his technical voice and data systems sales team who then give the added value of designing, installing and supporting those systems. The hosted-computing model used by Cloudworks doesn’t require in-house expertise either as all the hardware, software and applications are stored and maintained elsewhere. With the Cloudworks model, an employee of a client company can use any computer anywhere in the world to log in to a website to connect with their personal work desktop. Company President Mike Eaton compared what he and his business partner did to a group of farmers who decided to pitch in and build a grain silo together that is better and less expensive than if they had each built independently. The Cloudworks client benefits by not having to purchase equipment and pay for power and maintenance. “To not have to spend $30,000 or $50,000 is a huge advantage,” Eaton said. Cloudworks has clients in varying industries but Eaton finds there are certain factors that match the company’s service best start-ups with limited capital; companies with employees constantly on the road; and industries with seasonal fluctuations, such as accounting which staffs-up during tax season. Companies with multiple locations take to the Cloudworks model, such as a distributor of energy drinks with 17 employees working out of six offices. “Cloudworks is perfect for a company that is thinly spread out,” Iannone said. Small businesses, of course, don’t always stay small and eventually need to move to bigger quarters. That’s where Starnet’s Marks and his partners in the Office Move-In 101 coalition make their services available, from packing up files and boxes, ordering new office furniture, and installing new phone systems. The coalition partners make referrals to each other to make a move all the more easier. Since the coalition companies all know each other, it removes an uncertainty that the required work, say new cabling or circuits, will be completed when new equipment needs to be installed. “If you have people working together there is a responsibility to one another to return phone calls, to be thorough and to do a good job,” Marks said.

The College of the Canyons has put out a call to any and all entrepreneurs. Through its I3 Advanced Technology Business Incubator, the Santa Clarita Valley institution seeks to pair neophyte business owners with investors, mentors and area companies offering services and products for start-up needs. Currently housed in a trailer on the campus, the incubator has big plans for its future. With the opening next summer of the new university center, space becomes available for permanent offices and space for up to 15 business people to work out of as they get off the ground. The long-range goal is to have the companies leave the incubator and grow elsewhere in the city so they create jobs and contribute to the local economy. Making investors and mentors available creates the right environment for these start-ups to prosper. “For Los Angeles County and the Santa Clarita Valley to ensure a healthy economy we have to ensure we are supporting entrepreneurs,” said W. Garrett Myler, a part-time specialist with the incubator. The most recent study by the National Business Incubation Association from October 2006 counted 1,100 incubators in the U.S, with 39 percent focused on technology businesses. The college’s incubator identified the industry clusters of biotech, digital manufacturing, aerospace, nanotechnology, information technology, and entertainment as their focus. Similar UCLA and USC programs commercialize their research so they are not technically incubators. The I3 incubator has its roots in a program started with the Business Technology Center of Los Angeles County in Altadena in 2005. A year-long federal grant that expired in March provided the funds for Doug Howe, the interim director, to lay the foundation for the incubator to assist entrepreneurs. A state grant funds the program through August 2009. Howe and Myler have so far lined up about a dozen of the 20 mentors they hope to have giving advice and coaching. Howe has also talked with area angel investment groups to gauge interest in providing funding for the businesses that will locate to the incubator. There is the feeling that quite a number of investors would like to participate in something more local, Howe said. One of those is Matt Ridenour, of Momentum Venture Management. The Los Angeles region is a booming environment for new technology but lacks the support system to assist start-ups, unlike the Silicon Valley, said Ridenour, a Santa Clarita resident. The scientists with the skills to create new products are here but there are not many with experience taking those products to market. “The support and the mentoring that groups like these bring are a great resource and source of deals for us,” Ridenour said. Being on the campus adds an educational component to the business enterprises. College of the Canyons will tie in the practical business experience with training programs and classroom curriculae, and make students available as interns who can earn course credits. The entrepreneurs can access the school’s digital manufacturing lab and its clean room facilities for use by biotech start-ups to develop pharmaceuticals or biomedical devices. Howe has forged ties with the Small Business Development Center, also hosted by College of the Canyons, and the two refer business people to one another. The SBDC works with any small business, whether they are just starting out or are well-established, offering training and free consultations with specialists. Unlike the mentors, the specialists are available at the college throughout the day to give free advice on finance, marketing, sales, and product development, said the center’s director Paul De La Cerda. The mentors will provide 10 free hours of consultation with an entrepreneur and if more time is needed than the two will work out an arrangement, Howe said.

In response to the constantly changing technology industry, Business Journal researchers have determined that more than one list is needed to more accurately define and compare the listed companies. We have, therefore, created several distinct technology-related lists, the first of which is included below. This issue’s list includes technology companies that manufacture, develop or implement proprietary technology. This list does not include companies that have as their primary business the sale, licensing, servicing, or consultation in the use or transfer of technology. In the future, we will publish several other technology-related lists. One is anticipated to be a list of information technology companies. This list will be comprised of IT consultants, software and hardware resellers, and data storage service companies. Our annual telecommunications companies list will henceforth include internet service providers in addition to the more traditional wired and wireless telephone companies. Finally, an e-commerce list will identify those Valley companies that have harnessed the power of the Internet as the primary vehicle for their businesses and technology applications. By Ari Morguelan Alcatel-Lucent Coming in at the top of our Largest Technology Companies List, is one of the worldwide leaders in communications based technology, Alcatel-Lucent (AL). With a reported $26 billion in revenues for 2007, the company reports they have 77,000 employees companywide operating in more than 130 countries including offices in Calabasas. Alcatel-Lucent has more than 25,000 active patents in various sectors from multimedia to wireless and wire line, to network security, enterprise networking and communication services to fundamental research in areas such as nanotechnology, algorithmic, and computer sciences. Company researchers have earned six Nobel prizes and AL’s research and development division, Bell Labs, is one of the largest research, technology and innovation organizations in the telecommunications industry. Originally formed from the merger of Alcatel and Lucent Technologies, Alcatel-Lucent combines two entities that share a common lineage that can be traced back to 1986, when Alcatel’s parent company, CGE (la Compagnie G & #233;n & #233;rale d’Electricit & #233;), acquired ITT’s European telecom business. Nearly 60 years earlier, ITT had purchased most of AT & T;’s manufacturing operations outside the United States. AT & T; was Lucent’s former parent company. By Ari Morguelan

In a struggling economy, business owners are forced to find ways to reduce costs and technology is no exception. Information technology service providers, in turn, find themselves responding to these needs and different requests and inquiries. There already is a trend toward reducing overhead by consolidating servers in a process called virtualization; using hosted applications not requiring software purchases; and co-location of servers, but industry experts said the downturn will speed up acceptance. Where a small business owner may have cast a skeptical eye toward and sat on the fence over these improvements during a strong economy, a stronger reason – saving money – now makes them look at it in a different way. Info Street CEO Siamak Farah made the comparison to a man who has gained weight and finds his clothes a tight fit. “If you see your suits don’t fit you think maybe you need to go to gym now,” said Farah, whose tech company is based in Tarzana. Cutting discretionary costs from a budget is not a difficult decision but computer and server equipment is not discretionary for any business these days wanting to stay in step or ahead of the competition. The tech sector has not been rocked as much as real estate or banking both of which were hard hit by the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage industry and accompanying credit crunch. What Lief Morin, president of Key Information Systems in Woodland Hills, hears from clients is the economic circumstances are not dire. When the economy hit a rough patch in 2002, Key saw IT projects cancelled, whereas today clients are just approaching them more cautiously, Morin said. “The businesses we are interacting with are not viewing this as dramatically as the headlines would suggest,” Morin added. “They are looking to weather the storm.” Farah had a different take. At a private dinner in Los Angeles for corporate heads, he heard anecdotes of how companies must work harder as customers comparison shop for their tech needs. “I know from talking to these CEOs everyone is being squeezed,” Farah said. Outsourcing IT <!– Backups: Co-location sites store, maintain company info. –> Backups: Co-location sites store, maintain company info. The top option for small and medium-sized businesses to cut tech costs is through outsourcing. An outside company can come to a business to maintain its tech infrastructure thus eliminating staff; or having the servers housed and maintained at a remote site called a data center. ISWest, a data center and internet service provider in with two locations in Agoura Hills, receives more inquiries of late about its co-location services. For a small or medium-sized business to have their own server room with a backup generator and a staff person to maintain it could run $150,000 to $200,000, said CEO Drew Kaplan. ISWest provides the same service at a fraction of the cost. In 2007, the firm opened up a second data center with two separate power sources, cooled by more than 200 tons of air conditioning equipment and using a biometric scanner to allow entry. But Morin cautioned that wholesale outsourcing can be risky and must be managed carefully. If done well, it results in a savings, but if done poorly can inhibit growth at a company. The physical hardware isn’t all that can be outsourced. With an application service provider, businesses no longer need to purchase or license software. This model gives a predictable monthly cost for a set number of people to access their e-mail or other programs through a website rather than having it installed onto their work computer. An advantage is the built-in scalability. If a company adds staff no adjustment needs to be made in the hardware they use. In addition, in a slow economic period when layoffs may be required companies won’t find themselves stuck with computers and licenses they won’t be able to use. While that $8,000 piece of equipment seemed like a good purchase it may only be re-sold for a fraction of the price, Farah said. “If you can get yourself out of that business, you save a ton of money and it allows you to maneuver quickly,” Farah said. The staff at InfoStreet finds itself busier these days. The same goes for SADA Systems in North Hollywood, a provider of hosted applications made available through Google. SADA President Tony Safoian is of the opinion that a move toward hosted applications would happen anyway because of the cost savings but that the slow economy is accelerating the process. In the traditional IT model, $8 out of every $10 is spent on maintenance, Safoian said, and if a company can eliminate maintenance costs that leaves more money to meet the business objective. Arnie Friedman, president of CPI Solutions in Camarillo, has been through downturns before and in each instance the company has done well as demand for its services for new software, hosted applications and network management rise. It is curious, however, that business owners tend to become more interested in data protection and consolidating internal systems only when the economy struggles, Friedman said. “For whatever reason they are more willing to listen when things are not good,” Friedman said. Virtual Software Virtualization, or creating more server space through the use of software, is another cost savings measure companies can turn to. Virtualization is also a green strategy as it cuts down on power for the servers and the air conditioners to cool them, said Morin, of Key Information. VMware, the leader in virtualization software, saw its revenues soar 71 percent in the first quarter. “The company is a cost-cutting machine,” wrote Fortune Magazine senior editor David Kirkpatrick in a recent article titled, “Big Tech: A shelter in the storm.” Jim Browning, an analyst on medium-sized businesses for Gartner, countered that he and other analysts find the price of VMware is high because there is no competition and that cost is masked by the savings company realize. But virtualization can lead to a 25 percent to 30 percent reduction in servers for companies, Browning said. Browning outlined other cost-saving measures that businesses can take advantage of. Take equipment maintenance, for example. A review of the maintenance history of a printer or scanner may show it has never needed service and that support can be reduced from a 24/7 plan to a 9-5 plan or even discontinued altogether. A growing field is in telecomm expense management where a consultant reviews the phone bills to find where a company is overpaying, Browning said. That consultant can either do a one-time audit or can stay on to become a conduit between a business and the telecom companies to assure over-payments don’t happen again, Browning said. Businesses also need to keep their networking contracts competitive and not be shy about looking around for the best deal. If the current provider knows a client is shopping around it is not unusual that they will drop their price to keep the client, Browning said.

The Los Angeles City Council is voting on, or has moved to consider, a number of real estate-related proposals that I felt were worthy of our readers’ attention. Westfield Agreement The Department of City Planning has requested that the City enter into a three-year Supplemental Fee Agreement with Westfield America (the company that controls a good percentage of the regional shopping centers in the Valley) for their Topanga, Sherman Oaks and Century City mall expansion projects. The proposed SFA would have Westfield contributing $2.9 million to the City over three years to pay the cost of four full-time and two part-time staff in the Planning, Transportation, and Public Works departments and the City Attorney’s office. The departmental staff would be charged with preparing and reviewing environmental impact reports, transportation impacts, infrastructure alterations and the like. The Westfield-paid City Attorney staff would then review the documents prepared by the Westfield-paid Planning, Transportation and Public Works staff. No word about whether overtime will be paid. While at first this seems like a fiscally responsible move considering the toll these major projects would take on the aforementioned City department budgets and staff; one has to ask, where are the checks and balances when almost everyone involved in the process is, in essence, a Westfield employee? Shoring up Ailing Homebuilders Councilman Richard Alarcon, representing the 7th District, has made a motion to use at least $5 million in Community Redevelopment Agency revenues to fund the Hometown Heroes Homeownership Opportunity Program, or H3O. In his motion, Alarcon references the damage the foreclosure crisis is having on the Valley, with Sylmar and North Hills, he writes, being particularly hard hit. He even quotes Fed chair Ben Bernanke as saying that a rise in foreclosures can weigh down home prices, which hurts household worth and, ultimately, the health of Wall Street’s biggest banks. Whew! That’s a lot of weight to put on the 7th District. But Alarcon seems to be most concerned for businesses homebuilders whose brand new homes are sitting vacant or whose workers are sitting idle as half-finished projects languish. In fact, the H3O would only allow participants to purchase “newly built but vacant housing stock.” Realtors take note. The motion was seconded by six other council members and has been sent to the Housing, Community and Economic Development committee for further study. Retraining Mortgage Lenders Councilman Greig Smith, representing the 12th District, has come up with a plan to use nearly $900,000 in grants coming in from the State of California to address the massive job losses in the “most distressed industry sectors,” identified as construction, financial services and manufacturing. The first grant of $516,645 is from the state Employment Development Department, and is meant to “enable the City to address massive dislocations in the sub-prime mortgage lending and banking industries. The second grant of $376,752 is coming from the 15% Governor’s Discretionary Grant Funds. These funds, when combined with the first grant, are meant to “address the negative impact of job losses in the sub-prime mortgage lending and banking industries.” The plan is to give $122,397 of the funds to the Community Development Department for increased staff support. The rest of the money will be split between four career-development organizations that will take charge of the “Sub-Prime Mortgage Lending and Banking Re-Training Project.” We can only hope that ethics classes will be included as part of the retraining program. Mansionization Ordinance Amended The ordinance that would limit the size of homes that could be built in residential areas was amended before the Council’s final vote with council members Cardenas and Reyes adding a clause that would cause the ordinance to sunset just two years after the effective date. That sort of takes the teeth out of the measure, doesn’t it, especially since two years is just about the time it would take to get a project entitled these days. Lessor becomes Buyer Pier One Imports in La Canada Flintridge has purchased the building their store has been leasing, said Dave Maron, senior vice president and partner at Stevenson Real. The 2200 Foothill Blvd. property has a 10,000-square-foot store on a 38,430-square-foot parcel. “This offer came to me, unsolicited, without it being on the market,” said Maron, who represented the seller, who remains confidential. The buyer was represented by Coldwell Banker. Arbors Fully Leased In completing a 12,000-square-foot lease to AGFA, CB Richard Ellis has fully leased The Arbors of Thousand Oaks. Sares-Regis Group, developer of The Arbors, was represented in the lease negotiations by a team of Ventura County CBRE brokers comprised of Tom Dwyer, Michael Slater and Jennifer Rice. The lessor was represented by Sam Hortwitz of UGL Equis. Industrial Parcel Sold A 1.4-acre parcel of land adjacent to the Van Nuys Airport has been sold for $3 million. The industrial-zoned property at 16201 Lindbergh Street in Van Nuys is one of the few land sales in the San Fernando Valley over the last two years, according to John DeGrinis, SIOR, Colliers senior vice president. The buyer, Perfect Nutrition, Inc., a distributor of nutritional supplements, plans to build a 30,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution facility. They were represented in the transaction by Dick Eccles of Westcord Commercial. The seller, SDG Sherman Way Associates LLC/Van Nuys Airport Investments LLC was represented by a team of Colliers brokers from the Encino office led by DeGrinis, and including Brent Weirick and Patrick DuRoss. Staff Reporter Linda Coburn can be reached at (818) 316-3123 or at [email protected] .

For the second year in a row, the City of Santa Clarita has won the Grand Prize for Best Economic Development Program in the State of California. This year, the city received the honor for its tourism program, while last year the California Association of Local Economic Developers (CALED) singled the city out for its film program. “Santa Clarita is a premiere community, and we’re proud to receive this recognition of the work we have done to attract visitors to enjoy our city,” Mayor Bob Kellar stated about the award, which Santa Clarita received May 1. Santa Clarita received the distinction because it is working with private industry to attract visitors, said Jessica Freude, an administrative analyst with the city’s film and tourism economic development department. In turn, the city sees a “very positive return” on investment for its dollars, she added. “We’re just thrilled and flattered [to be honored] two years in a row,” Freude said. “It’s such a validation that the city’s effort to attract location filming and tourism really helps our community.” During the three year period that Freude has worked for the city, Santa Clarita has landed the Amgen Tour of California, the Italian Feast and three new hotels: the Embassy Suites, the La Quinta Inn and Suites and Courtyard by Marriott. Freude estimates that between 50,000 and 75,000 visitors attend the Amgen Tour, which has expanded from a one-day to a two-day event. Also, in June, the Valley Fair will be held at the Saugus Speedway in Santa Clarita for the second time. When the fair moved from the San Fernando Valley to Santa Clarita last year, it attracted about 25,000 people. Next year, the city will host the Western States Police and Fire Games for the first time. That event is expected to draw 6,000 people. Then, there are established events, such as the AT & T; Champions Classic, which draws 40,000 and generated about $7 million for the city last year. Even cultural events, such as the Loose Goose Wine Festival, which draws about 7,500, make a positive economic impact on the city. The Six Flags amusement parks are a major draw as well, with more than 3 million visitors annually. “We know that helps to contribute to the health of our tourism business here in Santa Clarita,” Freude said. Altogether, the various events held in the city generate tens of millions of dollars, according to Jason Crawford, Santa Clarita’s marketing and economic development manager. “What we’re really trying to do is corner the event tourism market and bring people into Santa Clarita to enjoy an event and then remember Santa Clarita positively from the experience, and that can mean different things to different people,” Crawford told the Business Journal in March. “If you’re a cycling fan, you go to the Tour of California and think great things about Santa Clarita. If you’re a wine enthusiast, you’ll go to the Loose Goose Wine Festival and think, ‘Wow, I had a great time in Santa Clarita.'” To draw a steady stream of visitors to the city, Freude and Crawford market upcoming events as current events in the city unfold. They also promote events in regional airports and welcome centers and attend travel shows. The city’s work with the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau and the State Tourism Office, along with the guidebook and calendar of events Santa Clarita issues, have all proved effective. Freude explained, “Everyone within the Santa Clarita Valley benefited specifically for events that we hosted here.”

After serving on the Valley Economic Development Center (VEDC) Board of Directors for three years, Don St. Clair has been chosen to be the new chairman of the group, which specializes in offering financing, consulting and training to small and medium-sized businesses. While he’s only been in the position since April, St. Clair,Woodbury University’s vice president of marketing and chair of the School of Business’ Organizational Leadership Department,seems poised to use his background and community connections to the betterment of VEDC, purportedly the largest nonprofit business development corporation in the region. That’s because, in addition to his role at Burbank-based Woodbury, St. Clair serves on the governing boards of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, the Burbank YMCA and the Burbank Chamber of Commerce. The Business Journal spoke with St. Clair about why he is uniquely suited to lead VEDC, his goals as chair and the challenges he expects to face in that capacity during a period of economic downturn. Question: Describe the process of becoming chairman. Why were you offered the chance to serve in that role, and what do you think you bring to the table? Answer: Francisco Uribe, the former chair, moved from Verizon to Home Depot. He’s in government affairs. He wasn’t going to serve a second term as chair. The board voted on April 1 for a new chair, and I think the notable strengths I bring to the table are that I’ve been a nonprofit executive in universities and colleges for 22 years. I understand nonprofit leadership and management very well. I think that’s a real strength. There’s a real strong synergy between that and working in universities. VEDC is engaged in economic development. Universities are also engaged in economic development, so there’s a nice synergy. Q: Do you think the other roles you play in various organizations throughout the community will help you as chairman? A: I think specifically that there’s a great deal of crossover between VICA and VEDC and the Burbank Chamber. I’m open to leveraging the contacts that I have in the East Valley to the part of the Valley that’s closer to VEDC. Q: What is your vision for the VEDC as chairman? A: I want to build a sustainable organizational focus on our strength financially. I want to make sure we’re building an organizational infrastructure that will have long-term viability, a long-term financial base, stability of leadership and staffing. I’d also like to make sure we don’t forget what our mission really is, which is the dream of entrepreneurship; to have prosperous, safe, clean, livable communities. Q: Do you plan to change anything as chairman or add any new programs? A: Decisions will not be driven by the chair. Decisions will come from the organization itself, from [VEDC President] Roberto Barragan and his staff. As chair, I will find ways to support people doing their everyday work. I want to create an environment where creativity and innovation can grow. Q: Will VEDC expand its micro-lending? A: We would like to expand all lending programs, including micro-lending. We want to expand more of what we do best,loans. It’s a matter of having enough money to lend. When financial institutions provide us opportunities for lending, we move pretty quickly. [Money] doesn’t sit around. Q: What impact will state budget cuts or the economic downturn generally have on your lending programs? A: It’s a mixed bag for us. Some of our programmatic services could be impacted. We don’t see that happening. So much of our money comes from financial institutions. Problems in banking could cause us some trouble because more people are coming to us for alternative lending solutions, but we don’t feel that sense of gloom. We’re pretty optimistic, pretty confident that we can meet those challenges Q: Discuss any other challenges you think you’ll face. How will you overcome them? A: I inherited a pretty good situation. The challenge of leading a nonprofit board is always about how you best leverage the many talents around the table. You’re surrounded by smart, talented people. The challenge is encouraging talents but not overworking them, not asking for too much, using board members in a way that they’re effective and feel like they’re contributing. Q: Some would argue that VEDC does more work to help businesses than the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley does. Yet, the Alliance is probably better known. Why is that? A: VEDC and the Alliance are not mirror organizations. The Economic Alliance engages more in promoting the San Fernando Valley as a business environment, bringing jobs and business to the Valley, retaining those that are here. But we assist small-to-medium businesses with lending, technical assistance and training. We have a very different mission. They’re not better known than us within our clientele. When small-to-medium businesses need assistance in lending and technical assistance, they call us. When there are larger issues of promotion in the San Fernando Valley, that’s when they go to the Alliance. There’s nothing competitive about us at all. Q: Have you had a chance to visit the City of Los Angeles’s new website, Los Angeles Business Solutions? It’s billed as a one-stop shop for businesses. Do you think it will be helpful? A: I think the devil’s in the details. Conceptually, it’s a good idea. We would all agree that any steps that streamline the process of doing business in Los Angeles is a good idea. Earned or not earned, true or false, the City of Los Angeles has earned a reputation as not being business friendly. I applaud any steps the City of L.A. is taking to [counteract] that image. Q: How does the city’s reputation affect business here? A: If somebody from Virginia is thinking of relocating to California, they may decide not to. We have to examine areas where we truly are unfriendly to business, and we have to work on that perception. SNAPSHOT: Don St. Clair Title: VEDC Chair Age: 49 Education: Pepperdine University doctoral candidate (Doctor of Education, Organizational Leadership) Most Admired People: Historically, I’ve always admired Winston Churchill. He epitomized how to lead in crisis. There’s so many people that I work with on a daily basis that I admire, members of the board of VEDC,Dutch Ross, Pegi Matsuda. On the Burbank YMCA board, there’s real estate developer Vic Georgino; his wife, Sue, director of community redevelopment for the City of Burbank. My chief concern is all the names I’ve left out. Career Turning Point: I was 28 years old. I was in insurance and finance in a small town in Northern Indiana. I hated it, and, by absolute happenstance, I applied for a job with a local college [Indiana Institute of Technology], and the president of the college, much to my surprise hired me. I’m still not sure why 22 years later. Only in the rarest moments have I thought about doing anything else other than working in a university. I love what I’m doing. Personal: Married with three children.

Last year, the Los Angeles Chamber held an event called Access City Hall to allow the business community access to city officials. Local business leaders Brendan Huffman and Tracy Rafter remember it well, particularly the moment in which an audience member asked city officials why Los Angeles didn’t have a website specifically to address business needs. Rafter, chief executive of the Los Angeles County Business Federation, remembers the man saying that it took him hours to track down the business-related information on the Web that he needed, despite the fact that he has two master’s degrees. “How come the city can’t have a simple website with all of the information you need to start a business,” Huffman, the head of the Valley Industry & Commerce Association, remembers the man asking. “I think the mayor was inspired by that question.” That’s because Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently announced the launch of Los Angeles Business Solutions, the city’s new site designed to be a one-stop shop for new and existing business owners. Evidently, the mayor took the man’s question to heart. The new site offers information on contracting, hiring, financing, real estate development, business incentives and partnerships, taxes and more. “I like it,” Huffman said of the site. “I think this will be a very useful website. It’s easy to navigate. It doesn’t have too much information. But it has links to good information. I especially like its interactive map, so you can see if your business is in an enterprise zone, an empowerment zone or a CRA zone. I think that could be helpful with filing taxes, just simple information.” Rafter was also complimentary of the new site. “It’s a tremendous step in the right direction,” she said. “The city should continue to road test it and get it out there.” The site will help businesses find “real world answers,” Rafter said, and with much less effort than in the past, when one had to contact different city departments to obtain relevant business information. It didn’t help that the information the departments disseminated was written in “government-ese,” she said. By streamlining services via the Web and reducing the steps in the permitting process, the city is giving local businesses a huge boost. The site has made processes much easier for business, Huffman feels, as does Bruce Ackerman, head of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley. “They did a really good job,” Ackerman said. “It’s very intuitive. It’s pretty well laid out. .. I think it makes a really, really strong online tool for businesses.” Ackerman said that the alliance will have a link to Los Angeles Business Solutions on its website. He is most impressed with the information the site has provided on contracting, calling that feature “probably the strongest.” Ackerman did offer one caveat, however. “I think that it’s going to be as good as how they promote the website,” he said. “If they’re not planning on promoting it, I think that won’t serve them well. They need to really promote this and get it out there. If you’re trying to find something online, and you don’t know how to find it, and nobody knows where it is or how to get there, it’s useless. The key is how they can get it integrated.” Huffman said that, while the site doesn’t have all of the information a business needs, it’s pretty comprehensive. “If you go to other large cities, they have similar Web sites with similar information,” he said. “Obviously, if you’re a larger employer, you’re going to need more than this website, but you’re going to give anyone [who’s starting a business] the information they need to keep their business up and running.” With the creation of this site, the City of Los Angeles is now on par with other large cities in terms of how it is getting information out to residents, Huffman continued. People wanted this site, “so you could have a lot of questions answered without waiting on hold or by calling a variety of phone numbers,” Huffman said. Now, local business owners don’t have to endure such inconvenience. While Huffman and Ackerman mostly praised the site, Rafter was critical of its URL name: business.lacity.org. She felt that the URL name should have mirrored the website name to make it easier to find. As for her four-month old organization, Los Angeles County Business Federation, billed as a “grassroots alliance of businesses,” Rafter is pleased. The federation now counts 53 associations and 92,000 businesses as members. “We continue to facilitate and bring these types of issues to light and support the business community and government working together to make our region more prosperous and spur its economy on, so we can create more jobs,” she said. “We’re happy to work with the mayor and his team.”

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