County May Develop Defense Conversion Plan for Business : Diversify: Consultant would devise a strategy to help wean firms and employees from dependence on a shrinking military.

Facing continuing cutbacks in military spending, Ventura County officials are seeking to develop a strategy to help local defense industries diversify to better adapt to the commercial marketplace.

The Board of Supervisors today will consider approving a $118,000 contract with a San Francisco-based consulting firm to develop a long-range plan to assist aerospace, electronic and other high-tech industries that depend on defense contracts.

“We want to identify programs that will help industries with the transition,” said Marty Robinson, county deputy chief administrator.

Providing loans to businesses and developing education and training programs to help workers transfer their skills to other jobs are some examples of what the defense conversion plan would include, Robinson said.

The consultant, DRI/McGraw Hill, has already developed similar defense conversion strategies for Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Long Beach and other areas, officials said.

“We’re behind,” Supervisor Frank Schillo said. “Other areas have already done this. With the downsizing of the defense industry, we have to provide opportunities for those workers to be productive in other areas.”

The consultant will analyze the impact defense cutbacks have had on the local economy and evaluate the defense industry’s future role in the county, said James Gollub, an official with DRI/McGraw Hill who would direct the Ventura County project.

Currently, the county’s two Navy bases employ 20,000 military and civilian personnel and generate a combined payroll of about $1.5 billion per year.

The consultant would also survey all local defense-related businesses to identify how they have been affected by cutbacks and what they need to do to stay in business, Gollub said.

“The challenge is helping people do business in new ways,” he said.

For example, he said, a firm that now manufactures wireless communications equipment for the military might be able to do the same for a Ventura County electronics firm in the future.

The key is putting those businesses together, he said.

Once that is done, a regional marketing strategy could be developed that would benefit several county industries rather than just one, Gollub said.

“We want to develop a plan where businesses are not competing against one another, but together in a global market,” he said.

The defense conversion plan, which is being financed with a grant from the Department of Defense, is expected to be completed in October, Robinson said. The consultant will work with a new committee of public- and private-sector representatives to develop the plan, she said.