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By Pacific Coast Business Times Staff / Monday, September 7th, 2009 / Uncategorized / Comments Off on Santa Barbara wins for marketing
Santa Barbara County recently won gold and best marketing awards from the California State Fair. Awards were given for the county’s new exhibit on display at the CalExpo Fairgrounds in Sacramento until Sept. 7. The exhibit draws upon the county’s history and Spanish-style architecture to highlight regional areas of interest for visitors. It also promotes Read More →
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By Pacific Coast Business Times Staff / Monday, September 7th, 2009 / Opinion / Comments Off on Eco-devo investments will pay off with jobs
California has a budget crisis. A jobs crisis. And just as important, an economic development crisis. Precisely when the state needs to be fostering new business starts and helping small firms become the next eBays and Intels, there’s no one minding the store. As Assistant Managing Editor Marlize van Romburgh reported in a recent edition Read More →
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By Pacific Coast Business Times Staff / Monday, September 7th, 2009 / Opinion / Comments Off on Government fiasco unmasked
We’ll give a shoutout to University of California, Santa Barbara, professor Jacqueline Stevens and reporter Kristin Collins of the Raleigh News & Observer in North Carolina. Stevens’ research and Collins’ reporting turned up the shocking tale of Mark Lyttle, a North Carolina native who was wrongly deported to Mexico and wound up in Guatemala, where Read More →
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By Pacific Coast Business Times Staff / Monday, September 7th, 2009 / Top Stories / Comments Off on $50M dash for cash sealed Affinity deal
Just three days before scooping up failed Ventura-based Affinity Bank on Aug. 28, San Diego-based Pacific Western Bank gave a $50 million signal that it was in acquisition mode. At a time when banks across the nation were struggling to raise capital, PacWest Bancorp, the bank’s holding company, came up with $50 million. The capital Read More →
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By Pacific Coast Business Times Staff / Monday, September 7th, 2009 / Top Stories / Comments Off on Pacificor revamps strategy
Twenty months after financier Michael Klein died in a high-profile plane crash, his Santa Barbara-based hedge fund, Pacificor, is still working through the deals it struck before a private Cesna 172 he chartered flew into a mountain in Panama. Pacificor is still trying to repair its investment in troubled automobile parts maker Dura Automotive Systems, Read More →
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By Pacific Coast Business Times Staff / Monday, September 7th, 2009 / Top Stories / Comments Off on Getting science right
A group pulling world-class researchers together in Goleta wants to take the spin out of science in the public debate. Novim brings small bands of researchers to the University of California, Santa Barbara, to tackle global questions. The idea is to get 10 of the world’s smartest experts in a room for a week, cut Read More →
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By Pacific Coast Business Times Staff / Friday, September 4th, 2009 / Top Stories / Comments Off on Calavo reports record-breaking third-quarter revenue
Santa Paula-based avocado distributor Calavo Growers said Sept. 3 that double-digit growth in fresh avocado sales fueled a 77 percent rise in profits to $2.5 million in the third quarter. Since the beginning of the year, Calavo’s profit has soared three-fold compared to 2008, from $3.7 million to $11.3 million. The third quarter earnings came Read More →
