Hard lessons for surviving economic troubles
On Friday, Oct. 10, I had the honor of delivering the keynote address to the annual meeting of Coastal Business Finance, a nonprofit organization that helps small businesses get financing on the Central Coast. It was a sunny afternoon in Santa Maria and I was trying to strike an upbeat note as the stock market Read More →
Region
Wall Street’s crisis has cast a pall over venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. But in the Tri-Counties, investors and start-ups alike say they’re prudent but undeterred. “We’re not as exposed to the vagaries of the public markets,” said Frank Foster, managing director of the DFJ Frontier Fund in Santa Barbara, which has funded Santa Barbara Read More →
Reaping new energy
Ceres, a Thousand Oaks-based energy crop firm, is getting into the seed business. The biotech company has developed high-yield varieties of switchgrass, sorghum and other plants needed to produce cellulosic biofuels. It’s ramping up a division called Blade Energy Crops, which will sell seed to farmers to be sown in spring 2009. Orders should start Read More →
Wood & Bender attorneys go on tour to discuss AIG issues
In the wake of the federal government’s $85 billion seizure of insurance giant American International Group, or AIG, Wood & Bender, a Ventura-based firm that specializes in helping companies wrench claims from their insurers, has gone on tour to explain what it all means and how companies can boost their chances of getting insurers to Read More →
Measure V would snarl business growth
We’ll take the rest of this editorial to remind readers about the improvements taking place on the Oxnard portion of Highway 101. On Oct. 7, Assemblyman Pedro Nava, Mayor Tom Holden and others were set to announce the official switch of the state-controlled portion of Highway 1 to Rice Avenue. This represents a big step Read More →
Measure A can shift region into fast lane
Traffic continues to be a big problem for communities along the Highway 101 corridor. No-growth advocates in places like Oxnard want to constrict it through draconian limits on the number of cars “allowed” through certain intersections. We’ll have more to say about the evils of Measure V below. No-tax advocates want to stop projects like Read More →
