Agency Will Be Near the Action : U.S. High-Tech Watchdog Moving to Orange County

The federal agency charged with stopping the theft of U.S high-technology secrets will relocate its Western regional office from Burbank to Orange County later this year.

The Office of Export Enforcement, an arm of the Department of Commerce, hopes to complete the move to the Santa Ana-Newport Beach area by summer, said Brooks D. Ohlson, an assistant special agent who will head the Orange County office.

“There seems to be a glaring need to be in the center of the technology community,” Ohlson said. After the move to Orange County, “the industry will see a lot more of this office than they do now.”

The decision to move the office to Orange County followed a Commerce Department study last year that showed the county had one of the highest concentrations of export licenses in the country. The 15-person office serves southern California and four other Western states.

The same study prompted the U.S. Bureau of Export Administration to locate its first export licensing office outside of Washington in Newport Beach last year. The office assists companies applying for export licenses.

Ohlson said Orange County’s concentration of computer and aerospace firms, plus its proximity to San Diego, make it a more attractive location than Burbank. He said the agency also plans to open a satellite office near Los Angeles International Airport.

The exact location of the new office has not been selected.

Southern California has been “one of the most active” areas in the country for illegal technology exports and foreign espionage operations, Ohlson said. Silicon Valley is another hotbed of such activity.

The most celebrated Orange County case of illegal exports involved former Anaheim businessman Charles J. McVey, who in August, 1987, was fined $1.24 million and barred from any export activities for 30 years for the illegal export of $15 million in computer equipment to the Soviet Union.