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.
For the week of March 5, 2021, here’s what we’re reading:
Businesses growing in the state of California over the next five years, or considering leaving California: Apply by March 29 for a significant tax credit to offset your state income tax liability.
Awards are based on a number of factors, including:
Number of jobs created or retained in California
Capital investments in California over the next five years
Overall economic benefit to the state and its people
The Advancing San Diego (ASD) Internship Program launched in Summer 2020 in a remote-capacity amid the COVID-19 pandemic and aims to provide up to 100 San Diego-based companies with fully subsidized interns. This program targets companies with 100 employees or less, which comprise 98 percent of all businesses in San Diego, employ nearly two thirds of San Diegans, and account for 70 percent of job growth. A key issue for these companies has been a lack of time and resources to recruit the skilled talent necessary to continue their growth.
As students are closing out their Fall engineering internship experiences, EDC is reintroducing this blog series to highlight the innovative local companies that comprise the second cohort of the program, and the interns they hosted.
In this feature, we sat down with ALD Technical Solutions intern and UCSD student, Noah Chavez. A part of the second cohort of host companies, ALD Technical Solutions is a cost-effective innovative solution provider that repairs, retrofits, and upgrades offshore and onshore infrastructures using high quality and high performance composite materials. ALD specializes in developing and supplying high performance, high temperature, high chemical resistance, and underwater composite systems. Additionally, the company provides material selection, engineering design, project planning, contractor/ installer training and approval, written specifications, on-site quality control, quality assurance, and technical oversight. You can learn more about the company via its Advancing San Diego Company Spotlight: ALD Technical Solutions.
Read on for more from Noah.
Tell us about yourself.
I am a San Diego native and currently a senior at UC San Diego, majoring in Structural Engineering and anticipating graduating this summer. I also plan to begin my graduate degree in the fall at UC San Diego. ALD Technical Solutions has provided me with the opportunity to witness first-hand how theoretical topics can be applied to improve our surroundings. Thanks to the hard work of all the members at ALD Technical Solutions, we have been able to make a direct impact on our surroundings. I personally believe that the community surrounding us should be viewed as home, and this internship opportunity has allowed me to apply my knowledge in areas that will help me give back to the city I call home.
How has your experience in the Advancing San Diego Internship Program been, and what projects/assignments have been the most meaningful?
My internship has been valuable because of the positive impacts it has on our community. The overall well-being of our planet has long been neglected until recently. With new focus being put on our impact on the environment, ALD has found ways to not only improve our community, but to do so in an eco-friendly manner.
Some projects/assignments that have been most meaningful for me are retrofitting old and damaged structures, allowing for materials to be conserved, and retrofitting ACSR lines, which allows for the infrastructure in-place already to handle the demand green-energy-output puts on the power lines. These projects have been most meaningful to me because not only does it ensure the safety of my fellow neighbors, but it also puts our environment first.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your day-to-day, and what challenges have you faced as a student?
COVID-19 has limited the amount of accessibility I have to work on specific opportunities due to the fact that face-to-face meetings are necessary in our area of work. The limited opportunities provided makes it difficult to gain the required experience; however, Advancing San Diego has given me the opportunity to gain the proper experience, all from the comfort of my home.
What advice would you give to high school students looking for a successful career in the local software industry?
It is easy to feel discouraged and as if your work is not paying off. I would always hate when my parents would tell me this, but my life experiences have only validated the truth behind the message: “Be patient, your time will come. “Just be patient, and slowly you will see the pieces fall into place.
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.
For the week of February 26, 2021, here’s what we’re reading:
Advancing San Diego Company Spotlight: ALD Technical Solutions
Through Advancing San Diego, EDC provides San Diego-based small businesses with paid interns in high-demand fields. We sat down with Dr. Davoud Zamani, Technical Director at ALD Technical Solutions, to learn about the company’s experience hosting engineering interns. Read More
San Diego business resources:
Amidst everything happening in the world, we need a reminder that there’s plenty of ‘Good News’ to go around in San Diego. We have also compiled additional resources for businesses and individuals seeking additional guidance.
The Advancing San Diego (ASD) Internship Program launched in Summer 2020 in a remote-capacity amid the COVID-19 pandemic and aims to provide up to 100 San Diego-based companies with fully subsidized interns. This program targets companies with 100 employees or less, which comprise 98 percent of all businesses in San Diego, employ nearly two thirds of San Diegans, and account for 70 percent of job growth. A key issue for these companies has been a lack of time and resources to recruit the skilled talent necessary to continue their growth.
As students are closing out their Fall engineering internship experiences, EDC is reintroducing this blog series to highlight the innovative local companies that comprise the second cohort of the program, and the interns they hosted.
In this feature, we sat down with Dr. Davoud Zamani, Technical Director at ALD Technical Solutions. A part of the second cohort of host companies, ALD Technical Solutions is a cost-effective innovative solution provider that repairs, retrofits, and upgrades offshore and onshore infrastructures using high quality and high performance composite materials. ALD specializes in developing and supplying high performance, high temperature, high chemical resistance, and underwater composite systems. Additionally, the company provides material selection, engineering design, project planning, contractor/ installer training and approval, written specifications, on-site quality control, quality assurance, and technical oversight.
Read on for more from ALD Technical Solutions co-founder Dr. Davoud Zamani.
Tell us about your company and a little bit about yourself?
ALD Technical Solution is a women-owned Cleantech startup founded in 2018 in San Diego. Our mission is to leverage the potential of advanced composite materials by developing new innovative technologies in infrastructure, power transmission lines, and clean and renewables energies. My background is in material science and composite materials. I am a co-founder of this company and work alongside other business partners who focus on different sections ranging from mechanical engineering, customer, and business development. On a day-to-day basis, I am the Technical Director and oversee the technological developments, most specifically for composite material applications.
Why was your company founded, and what are your current points of focus?
My partner and I have many years of industrial background for advanced composite materials and saw there were a lot of room where we can use advanced composite materials. Advanced composite materials are typically used in aerospace applications but recently, developments have been made where applicable to other industries such as automotive, infrastructures, and renewable energy. ALD Technical Solutions focuses on developing new innovative applications of advanced composite materials. Within the infrastructure retrofit division, we develop advanced composite material technologies to upgrade and retrofit aged steel and concrete infrastructures. The other division is currently in development and focuses on the application of advanced composite materials in power transmission lines that can be used to increase the power capacity of power lines, which is needed due to significantly accelerating the increased penetration of renewable energies.
What does growth look like over the next few years?
Right now, we are conducting testing qualifications for a couple developments at UCLA Labs, which will help us determine ALD Technical Solution’s next steps. We see huge potential applications for the work that we are currently doing, especially foreseeing large developments within Southern California.
Tell us a little bit about your interns and the value they bring.
I wanted to start by thanking the for giving us this opportunity to host two interns for our company. I really appreciate the EDC’s assistance as they were very supportive and developed a very good program. We have two interns: one of them is a mechanical engineering student and focuses on mostly solid work, AutoCAD, designs, simulations, and modeling’s, while the other focuses on simulations, modeling, and customer demonstrations for our composite wire wrap technologies. Both are eager to learn, smart, and hard working. We have meetings twice a week where I get updates and discuss the projects. It absolutely is a good learning opportunity for them since they were exposed to industry and composite material applications.
In your opinion, what is special about San Diego’s science and technology community, and the talent that drives it?
San Diego is a nice place to live. We had the opportunity to live in different locations in the United States and Europe and we chose to live here in San Diego. San Diego is a tech hub, and we have UC San Diego and other colleges and universities that bring in a lot of talent. San Diego is also paying special attention to renewable energy and clean energy developments. Additionally, we have a composite center within the Department of Defense compounds in Southern California. All these factors played a role in why we chose to establish our company in the region. Lastly, San Diego does not deal with the infamous traffic issues of Los Angeles but still offers the various amenities of living in Southern California.
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.
For the week of February 19, 2021, here’s what we’re reading:
Meet the Advancing San Diego companies hosting business interns
Through Advancing San Diego, EDC provides San Diego-based small businesses with paid interns in high-demand fields. Now, we’re excited to announce the 15 companies and non-profits selected to host business interns starting this spring. Meet the Companies
San Diego business resources:
Amidst everything happening in the world, we need a reminder that there’s plenty of ‘Good News’ to go around in San Diego. We have also compiled additional resources for businesses and individuals seeking additional guidance.
Through our Advancing San Diego initiative, EDC provides San Diego-based businesses with paid interns in high-demand fields. This program targets companies with 100 employees or less, which comprise 98 percent of all businesses in San Diego, employ nearly two thirds of San Diegans, and account for 70 percent of job growth. A key issue for these companies has been a lack of time and resources to recruit the skilled talent necessary to continue their growth. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, these challenges were especially salient.
With the help of our staffing partner Manpower, in 2020, EDC provided 38 San Diego companies and nonprofits with remote interns in the fields of software and engineering.
Now, we’re excited to announce 15 more companies and nonprofits who have been selected to host business interns starting this spring. Interns are sourced from programs designated as Preferred Providers of business talent, with internships running from March to July 2021.
Please join us in welcoming our next cohort of Advancing San Diego intern hosts:
AndAlways is an E-commerce company that focuses on personalized wall art with all products printed and fulfilled in house.
Benchmark Labs provides environmental forecasts for the Agricultural and Energy sectors by using IoT sensor data, publicly available weather information, and our proprietary machine learning-based technology (patent pending).
Boys & Girls Club of San Marcos (BGCSM) promotes the wellness, health, and success of school-aged youth in the San Marcos community. Driven by its mission to inspire and enable all young people to realize their full potential, BGCSM offers targeted academic, collaborative, and recreational activities that encourage young learners to become the community’s next generation of responsive, purposeful leaders.
Chicano Federation of San Diego County was founded by a tireless group of advocates dedicated to seeing advances in civil rights and civic participation. Today, those strong roots empower the Chicano Federation to serve diverse populations throughout San Diego County with programs that help children and families access vital and often life-changing services.
Eton Bioscience, Inc. is a Biotech service company providing DNA sequencing, DNA molecule synthesis, and DNA purification services to local Biotech companies, universities, and research institutes. Operations began for Eton in 2003 and they have since expanded to four locations nationwide, with San Diego as its headquarters.
GigaIO Networks is a Carlsbad startup in the software-defined infrastructure space. The company has invented technology to transform the static architectures of data centers into flexible pools of resources than can be reconfigured on the fly.
LEARN academy is redefining workforce development by creating career pathways for anyone to enter and excel in the Tech industry. LEARN is a safe, inclusive, and brave space that fosters a community of compassionate and collaborative learners.
Meri Consulting Services is a consulting firm founded to help tech startups and sales professionals book more sales meetings and increase revenue.
Misadventure & Co. is a Vista-based craft distillery. Misadventure is the first distillery in the world to produce a carbon negative spirit. Its vodka is made by upcycling baked goods that are approaching their expiration date, ultimately saving them from ending in the landfills.
Omni2Max, Inc. provides services to the Department of Defense and other high-profile customers in the areas of Cybersecurity, comprehensive program management, Information Technology, Engineering, military systems/range operations, logistics; and acquisition and contracting services.
Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine (RCIGM) is transforming pediatric healthcare through Rapid Precision Medicine™ to improve the lives of children and families fighting rare disease. RCIGM optimizes ultra-rapid genetic testing to identify or rule out most genetic diseases in one swift step and empower the medical team at the patient’s bedside to provide personalized, life-changing treatment for the youngest, sickest patients.
reVessel advances safe, sophisticated, and sustainable foodware designs for conscious people on the go, empowering them with tools to conveniently pack and preserve food anywhere. The company’s high-performance products support healthier, efficient, and conscientious daily habits aimed to improve global health and solve environmental issues.
San Diego Loyal Soccer Club is a professional soccer franchise playing in the United Soccer League (USL) Championship, sanctioned by the U.S. Soccer Federation. The franchise was announced in June 2019, and began its inaugural season on March 7, 2020 at USD’s Torero Stadium.
Trabus Technologies provides professional support services to the U.S. government and specializes in the development of technical solutions across three major portfolios: wireless Technologies, Artificial Intelligence, and Cybersecurity.
Voltera lives at the intersection of people and new technologies, providing labor market intelligence, workforce optimization, and new technology development, incubation, and commercialization services to the commercial, federal, and state/local markets.
Hosting interns is an investment in the next generation of talent in San Diego. Through the Advancing San Diego internship program, local students gain valuable work experience while supporting our local small businesses. Students are paid $20 an hour and receive access to $500 in flexible funds to support their success in the workplace.
For our next round of internships, we will be recruiting small manufacturers who are interested in hosting students from machining and engineering technician programs. Applications to host interns in these fields will open in April 2021.
If your company is interested in hosting students in the next round, sign up here receive program announcements.
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.
For the week of February 12, 2021, here’s what we’re reading:
Our region is home to a vibrant manufacturing cluster that spans across many industries, from defense to craft brewing. EDC has partnered with California Manufacturing Technology Consulting to help San Diego regional manufacturers identify and connect to key resources and relief.
Amidst everything happening in the world, we need a reminder that there’s plenty of ‘Good News’ to go around in San Diego. We have also compiled additional resources for businesses and individuals seeking additional guidance.
Over the last few years, our work at EDC has shifted to focus on our full economic footprint across the county. In everything we do, we strive to implement programs, strategies, and services that will help us double our supply of skilled workers, enable our small businesses to create more competitive jobs, and increase the number of thriving households throughout the region. Now more than ever, we know that our work needs to be both meaningful and measurable to meet these goals. And we have little time to waste.
SMALL BUSINESS IMPACT
During our exploration of inclusive and effective economic development strategies, many roads led us to supporting the growth and sustainability of local, small businesses through purposeful partnerships with large businesses and institutions. Anchor institution strategies—defined procurement programs and partnerships that link local, small businesses with the region’s largest employers including hospitals and universities—have long been successful in fostering small business growth and supplier diversity. These strategies do not look to the large institutions to spend any more than they have already budgeted; they simply strive to increase the percentage of contracts and purchasing within the local economy. Small businesses, minority-owned businesses, woman-owned businesses, businesses located within specific neighborhoods or geographic regions—redirecting spend to any of these leads to more money flowing into the San Diego economy.
This month, San Diego Regional EDC released a study and a set of recommendations aimed at increasing economic opportunity and job creation through purchasing and procurement. What the report clearly outlines is how small shifts in procurement spending can have huge economic impacts in our region.
CONSIDER THESE FACTS
Fourteen local anchor institutions surveyed spend upwards of $9.9 billion each year on a broad range of goods and services. Yet, only $247 million of the reported spending can be traced back to San Diego businesses.
Only 14 percent of the overall spend is reaching small businesses and only 11 percent can be traced back to women and minority-owned businesses.
If these same 14 anchor institutions and partners shifted just one percent of their construction spending to local businesses, it would result in roughly $32 million in local construction revenue, add $466 million to the local economy, and create nearly 4.5 thousand new jobs.
Furthermore, if the same institutions shifted one percent in professional services (e.g. legal, administrative, etc.) to local businesses it would have a $56 million impact on the local economy and create more than 800 jobs.
A MEASURABLE SOLUTION
As we work our way through a complicated and unprecedented economic recovery, oursmall businesses need more support than ever. To ensure that we reach the businesses most in need of support, preserve our commitment to inclusion and diversity, and maintain our focus on work that is both meaningful and measurable, few strategies will serve our region better than this one. The leadership and decision making is local, the impact is local, and the partnerships and practices forged will create greater, local economic resiliency for years to come.
Asking our citizens to support our local, small businesses is important and noble. But at a time when individual and family spending is strained, and small businesses continue to struggle, the leadership, engagement, and actions of our large institutions are more important than ever.
We applaud the 14 anchor institutions and partners that have stepped forward to be a part of this work with us—including key partners SDG&E, University of San Diego School of Business, Civic San Diego, and the City of San Diego—and as always, we look forward to the full weight of our EDC investors in helping to challenge, support, and steer this work in the months and years ahead.
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.
For the week of February 5, 2021, here’s what we’re reading:
EDC study: Big buyers can shop local to support more inclusive economy
According to EDC’s latest study, 14 large regional employers surveyed spend more than $9.9 billion each year on a range of goods and services, but only about $247 million of this reported spend can be traced back to San Diego’s small and diverse businesses.
In case you missed it, EDC recently convened regional industry leaders from SDG&E, NAVFAC Southwest, and Kaiser Permanente San Diego to discuss their efforts to redirect purchasing toward local, small, and diverse businesses.
Amidst everything happening in the world, we need a reminder that there’s plenty of ‘Good News’ to go around in San Diego. We have also compiled additional resources for businesses and individuals seeking additional guidance.
Over the last few years, our work at EDC has shifted to focus on our full economic footprint across the county. In everything we do, we strive to implement programs, strategies, and services that will help us double our supply of skilled workers, enable our small businesses to create more competitive jobs, and increase the number of thriving households throughout the region. Now more than ever, we know that our work needs to be both meaningful and measurable to meet these goals. And we have little time to waste. Read more from Mark.
By the Numbers
8% San Diego County unemployment rate
26 business assisted in 2020
267 jobs impacted in 2020
2.5% Of reported spend by local anchor institutions can be traced back to San Diego
