It’s a Big Job Keeping Small Businesses Here : Relocations: O.C.’s economy is fueled primarily by firms with fewer than 100 workers, yet they get the least attention when they prepare to move elsewhere.

When Space Applications Corp. announced Friday that it plans to move its headquarters from Orange County to Vienna, Va., no alarm was raised by local business-retention agencies, and no red team was mobilized to persuade the tiny company to change its mind.

Space Applications, which provides engineering services and software products to government, the aerospace and defense industries, simply made its decision and said it plans to complete the move from its current Santa Ana location by the end of the summer.

When it does so, it will join several other small companies that have quietly left Orange County in the past few months, either to save money or to be closer to their customers.

“We just don’t know who they are,” said Tim Cooley, president of Partnership 2010, an economic development group.

Economists and analysts say that small businesses such as Space Applications are the engine of growth that will drive California’s economy into the next century. And, taken together, they make a significant contribution to the county’s economy.

According to estimates by the Orange County Chamber of Commerce & Industry, more than 80% of the businesses in the county are small, with fewer than 100 employees.

Trying to keep up with what they all are doing, much less keep them here, is nearly impossible, Cooley said.

“Identifying them is the biggest obstacle of all,” he said. “If we could identify them, we could try to work out a deal.”

Even if business-retention groups could locate all the companies considering a move, Cooley said, Orange County’s current financial crisis would likely preclude offering tax breaks and similar enticements that other cities or states might use.

There are two areas in which groups like the Orange County Economic Development Consortium can offer assistance: in obtaining permits and in intervention with the South Coast Air Quality Management District. But that will make no difference to a company that leaves because it just wants to save money.

Other companies, such as Space Applications, move because they anticipate a competitive advantage. Michael Stolarik, president of the company, said it expects to benefit by being closer to the government agencies it serves.

Another departing company, Quantum Health Systems, for years has kept large administrative staffs in both Orange and in Indiana. The medical service company has been gradually shifting its operations to Indianapolis, and it confirmed Friday that it is closing its Orange County location, which now has only a handful of employees left.

Systemed Inc., which moved to Torrance last fall, was lured by cheaper rent. When the lease on its offices was approaching the renewal date, the company hired a real estate broker to determine what else was available.

“We were paying a lot of money for our offices,” said Sam Westover, president of Systemed, which manages prescription-drug insurance plans. He and other officers discovered that by moving they could trim 20% a year from their rent.

Though the company had only 18 employees at its Aliso Viejo headquarters, it employs 550 people nationwide and has annual revenue of about $140 million.

Many of the company’s employees already lived in Los Angeles County, which made it more attractive than other locations in Southern California. And by moving, Systemed could be closer to Los Angeles International Airport, a convenience for both sales representatives and customers, who are spread across the country.

Westover said the company considered moving out of California altogether but chose not to because of the expense of such a big move and the disruption for its California employees.

While it was weighing its options, Systemed never heard from state, county or city officials trying to keep them in Orange County.

By contrast, when fast-food giant Taco Bell said it might move its headquarters from Orange County when its lease at the Irvine Spectrum office park expired, business executives and public officials banded together to keep the company.

The fast-food restaurant operator decided to stay after being offered a reduction in its rent and a multimillion-dollar remodeling job on its offices. The successful retention of Orange County’s sixth-largest employer was hailed as a boost to the state’s efforts to convince corporate executives across the nation that California is becoming more friendly to business.

H. Fred Mickelson, chairman of the Economic Development Consortium, said the group has focused its efforts on large companies because “it takes as much time to save a 12-person shop as it does to save a 1,000-person shop.”

The consortium is stepping up its efforts in the area of small-business retention, he said, mainly by getting the word out that the county is interested in keeping all firms, large and small, and by inviting them to bring their concerns to local agencies.

Because of their size, many small-business executives think nobody cares whether they stay or go, Mickelson said, and that is simply not the case.