Defining New Technology on the “Tech Coast”
by Gabriella Colantoni
Los Angeles – In an effort to define the new technology industry in Southern California, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation has just released its first quarter Economic Edge newsletter that serves to describe this industry and well as identify the technology clusters around Southern California.
According to Jack Kyser, chief economist of the LAEDC, ” Technology, both old and new, is a major component of the Southern California economy. The manufacturing segment, after major job losses during the early part of the 1990s, is either holding steady or posting modest gains. Overall in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties there were modest gains from 1996 to 1997.”
“The real growth has been in the services segment, which includes computer and data processing services, commercial physical research and non- commercial research operations,” added Kyser. “In 1997 there were 150,900 jobs in such activities in Los Angeles, 91,700 in Orange County, and 70,000 in San Diego County, for an overall total of 312,600.”
According to the LAEDC report, there are a surprising number of well-developed technology clusters scattered over the landscape of Southern California. Orange County and in particular the Irvine Spectrum is well known, with a concentration in computers and bio-med. San Diego County has both bio-med and advanced communications clusters. In Los Angeles County, the entertainment industry-related cluster in the Burbank/Glendale area features animation, post production and them park ride technology. There is a new media cluster in the West Side/South Bay area, and an advanced communications/computer cluster in the West San Fernando Valley/Camarillo area. There is also an effort to develop a bio-medical cluster in the San Gabriel Valley.
With all of these clusters developing, and the increasing collaboration between the Orange County Business Council, the San Diego Regional Technology Alliance, the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance and the LAEDC, a descriptor to promote this region became increasingly important. Kyser notes that there is the need to convey the diversity of new technology activities in the region.
“We have worked with the Southern California regional technology groups to promote the use of ‘Tech Coast’, defined as the area from Santa Barbara to San Diego,” said Timothy J. Cooley, president of the Technology Innovation Council, a strategic initiative of the Orange County Business Council. “Our organization and the LAEDC hold the primary trademark applications to this name, and we applied for those rights in order to support promotion of ‘Tech Coast’ as a region-wide name, across multiple technology industries. We have always intended that the ‘Tech Coast’ descriptor is much broader than just Orange and Los Angeles counties.”
“One of the first efforts to capture data on all of this entrepreneurial activity in high technology areas occurred in 1997 when some of these regional organizations published 6X:The Guide to the Technology Coast of Southern California, with the title “6X” referring to the six counties of the ‘Tech Coast,’ the six prominent technology industries clustered within its borders, and the region’s six preeminent research universities,” said Rohit Shukla, president of the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance.
“From all over the world, leading multinational companies are investing and locating operations in our region; adding to the thousands of locally founded, financed and grown technology businesses. With increasing regularity, the ‘Tech Coast’ is becoming the preeminent place to locate to be on the cutting edge of technology,” said Joe Raguso, executive director of the San Diego Regional Technology Alliance.
“Longer-term prospects for new technology on the ‘Tech Coast’ are quite favorable,” according to Kyser. “Some of the challenges that exist in shaping this new industry include continuing to identify emerging clusters and ensuring that they develop, as well as informing entrepreneurs of the support services that exist, including financing options.” A copy of study in the first quarter 1998 Economic Edge is available from the LAEDC by calling 1-800-752-3228.
The LAEDC is a private non-profit organization with a mission to attract, retain and grow jobs in the Los Angeles region. The Orange County Business Council is the preeminent business sector development and advocacy group in Orange County with more than 1,000 members representing well over 125,000 jobs in the county.
The San Diego and Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliances work in developing and supporting the myriad technology industries throughout the “Tech Coast.”
