May 23, 2025

		

Editorial Department


| Monday, September 6th, 2010

UCSB’s two solar powers

Uncategorized

The burning question in energy research is how to harness the power of the sun in a cost-effective way. Nobel laureate and UC Santa Barbara Professor Alan Heeger’s answer — plastic solar cells that can be printed cheaply like photographic film — has drawn interest and more than $100 million from investors. But other researchers Read More →

| Monday, September 6th, 2010

Biofuel firm raises cool $3M

Top Stories

Camarillo-based Cool Planet Biofuels has raised another $3 million and leased 50,000 square feet of space to propel the development of a biofuel system it says could produce usable gasoline with a negative carbon footprint. Cool Planet plans to use its newly leased space to start building what it dubs its “biomass fractionators.” Where traditional Read More →

| Monday, September 6th, 2010

Dirt is flying again as building picks up in the Tri-Counties

Columns

After a year or more of struggling to find work, contractors are ready to dig in their shovels and let the dirt fly as construction projects large and small break ground throughout the Tri-Counties. Several notable projects are in the construction pipeline, and builders I spoke with said they’re finally starting to see new business Read More →

| Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

First Solar buys Cuyama array site

Uncategorized

The first proposed commercial-scale solar energy project in Santa Barbara County has changed hands. The Cuyama Solar Array Project is now being shepherded by First Solar, the same company proposing the much larger 550-megawatt Topaz Solar Farm on San Luis Obispo County’s Carrizo Plain. The Cuyama project was originally proposed in September 2009 by Edison Read More →

| Monday, August 30th, 2010

Designed for success: Top minds at RKS Design share their secrets

Uncategorized

Over the past 30 years, Thousand Oaks-based RKS Design has proved it knows how to design stuff. It’s won nearly every award in the industrial design world. It’s helped turn around troubled companies. A rethinking of the controls on Amana’s washing machines, for example, added about 30 cents in costs but helped swing the appliance Read More →

| Monday, August 30th, 2010

Melton

Small Business

Mark Melton has grown his cleaning business into a tidy little tri-county empire over the past decade, sweeping in $19.8 million in revenue last year. Carpinteria-based Melton Franchise Systems, a master franchisor for Coverall Health Based Cleaning Systems and owner of the Molly Maid business in the region, made the No. 19 spot on the Read More →

| Monday, August 30th, 2010

SLO divided over which road to take on Broad Street project

Columns

Some members of the San Luis Obispo business community are hoping to drive Measure H — a ballot proposal to stop the planned extension of Prado Road to Broad Street — right into a dead-end. The City Council approved the road extension in a 3-2 vote, but Measure H now puts the decision in voters’ Read More →