Coalition Unveils Purchasing Plan to Spur Employment : Jobs: Group envisions effort to get local firms to buy from Orange County suppliers. It hopes that will boost hiring.
Frustrated with government inaction to improve the local economy, the chairman of Western Digital Corp. and a coalition of other top Orange County business, education and government leaders are starting a project that would encourage manufacturers to buy from local suppliers.
“The government should be in the business of steering, not rolling,” said Western Digital’s Roger W. Johnson, who was keynote speaker Tuesday at a luncheon meeting of the county’s Black Chamber of Commerce.
The reality, however, is that “we do the steering,” Johnson said. “The government economic programs just haven’t worked.”
Johnson is leading the newly formed coalition, which will aim to create and keep jobs in the county. He met with 20 community leaders Aug. 25 at his office in Irvine to kick off what he is calling “The Job Project.”
The group includes some prominent Republicans who recently switched support to Democratic presidential candidates: Orange County Supervisor Harriett W. Wieder and home developer Kathryn Thompson. Others are members of Partnership 2010, a coalition of 30 business, government and education leaders who banded together more than a year ago to develop and implement a plan for future economic growth in the county.
During Tuesday’s two-hour luncheon meeting, Johnson proposed that the new coalition create an information database. It would list products and services that local companies now purchase from abroad and similar products and services available locally that could replace those imports.
The database would disclose to a group of carefully screened suppliers how much participating companies now spend to purchase parts and services overseas. That would enable the suppliers to match, if not beat, those prices, Johnson said. The group has not yet discussed how it would finance the project, he said, but does not expect the cost to be high.
Involved in the coalition would be not only government and business leaders but also university officials. Johnson said Dennis Aigner, dean of UC Irvine’s Graduate School of Business, will provide the intellectual foundation for the project while government representatives will ease the way for companies to participate.
“I don’t know if this will work, but we’re trying to keep jobs in Orange County,” Johnson said. Speaking of the Bush Administration, he said, “I’m still highly skeptical that this government will be able to change the economic situation. I think the heat has to come from us. . . . Whatever they do now is not going to significantly change the economic situation fast enough.”
Aaron Lovejoy, president of the Black Chamber, focused on a specific area of the challenge facing Orange County: providing jobs for its growing number of minorities, who now make up 41% of the local work force of 1.3 million.
“Minorities will play an increasingly important role in the economy of this county in the next 20 years,” he said. “We need to give a harder look at access to capital, to markets and to sourcing to help minority business survive and thrive.”
Johnson said he approached Lovejoy about the jobs project in the hope of averting in Orange County the economic frustration which, he says, contributed to April’s riots in Los Angeles.
The riots, Johnson said, “were the results of many complex factors, but two things seemed clear: lack of well-paying jobs” and a host of social problems, many of which also exist in Orange County.
“I have since June been exploring the possibility of revitalizing Orange County’s manufacturing job base, particularly as it relates to our increasing minority labor pool,” he said.
Johnson said the jobs project has drawn interest from business leaders, including Safi U. Qureshey, president of AST Research Inc. in Irvine, and J. Robert Fluor, corporate relations officer at Fluor Corp. in Irvine and chairman of Partnership 2010.
Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) has also expressed support, Johnson said. The group’s next meeting will be in October, Johnson said.
Several of those who met with Johnson earlier--including Robert A. Kleist, president of Printronix Inc. in Irvine, and Alan V. King, president and chief executive of Silicon Systems Inc. in Tustin--reiterated their support Tuesday.
Another, Tim Cooley, president and executive director of Partnership 2010, said that, although the premise of the project is simple, it is workable.
“If we can match up the people who are buying goods and services with the people producing them, and do that locally, this will revitalize Orange County’s economy,” Cooley said.
