ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Balancing the Gloom With New Jobs

With all the grumbling that Southern California is tough on businesses, and with the speculation about firms heading elsewhere, there in fact is little evidence of any widespread exodus. Now comes some heartening news in Orange County. An Oregon-based computer company will move its headquarters to Santa Ana and hire 550 people within the next year.

Frank E. Rivera Sr., chairman and chief executive of Advanced Data Concepts, may not be riding an advance wave of some new California gold rush. But along with jobs, he brings some balance to current gloom-and-doom rhetoric. Rivera, whose firm is among the nation’s 200 largest Latino-owned businesses, can’t understand why people are so down on California.

He rates the state’s general competitiveness problems as about equal with Oregon’s. And, of course, he is bound to bring a fresh appreciation of some of California’s legendary assets, such as its great weather, which may be somewhat overlooked during a time of general anxiety about the direction of the state’s economy.

So maybe there’s a lesson there for those feeling the tug of the “grass-is-greener” syndrome. Where some see only obstacles such as government regulation and high workers’ compensation costs, Rivera sees an opportunity to position his company on the ground floor of a new era of free trade. And by the way, he credits the federal Small Business Administration office in Santa Ana with facilitating the move. The local SBA office helped the company, which already has a small operation here, to secure several contracts. That shows how the federal government can help the local economy.

After a spring of riots and a summer of fiscal crisis, Southern California can benefit from this kind of business outlook--one that sees opportunity and looks to the future with optimism.