Group Aiding New Firms to Close in May

An innovative business organization that helped about 15 environmentally friendly companies get started has run out of money and will shut down next month, officials announced Tuesday.

Yu-Yue Widrig, director of the Thousand Oaks Environmental Business Cluster, said the nonprofit group will close because it has used up about $90,000 worth of grant money from several large corporations and the city of Thousand Oaks--and been unable to solicit more financing.

Founded in May 1995, the group--which uses the acronym TOEBC--came together as part of a collaborative effort by city officials and several large organizations that gave money, including Lucent Technologies, Arthur Anderson & Co. and GTE. It was only the second such incubator to open in the United States.

When the cluster first opened, local business and government leaders hailed it as a herald of things to come--an example of how the private and public sectors could together nurse new businesses into maturity. Donated equipment and furniture filled the two-story building, provided rent-free by GTE. The telecommunications company also provided computers and video-teleconferencing equipment.

Even the building’s cubical walls were used, ripped out of Thousand Oaks’ old city hall. Fifteen companies that provided about 40 jobs moved into the center.

But for all the praise the cluster earned, persuading companies to donate money or equipment was never easy. Widrig said although the cluster was initially meant to run just two years, organizers had hoped to keep it open longer. Despite soliciting grants from various corporations, they were unable to find the funds needed.

“You know the atmosphere out there--it’s tough,” Widrig said Tuesday. “Like everything else, it was a business decision. It just made sense to graduate the companies and close.”

The group will leave behind a Web page documenting its experiences for the benefit of other nascent public-private efforts.

Widrig said she was proud of how the cluster tenants had prospered, sharing tips and business leads and learning from the experiences of others. “The great thing is we’ve helped a lot of companies,” she said. “They’ve gone a long way since they moved in.”

Tenants, who have about 60 days’ notice to move out, agreed the business incubator had been a success, if a short-term one.

Widrig said TOEBC officials are trying to help tenants find new locations in Ventura County.

“They were supportive, and tried to make it work,” said Dan Bornholdt, president of Green Suites International. His company was among TOEBC’s first tenants at the nonprofit group’s Lombard Street headquarters.

Bornholdt said his company, which distributes environmentally friendly products such as nontoxic deodorizers to hotels, gained a great deal from the business incubator. The use of a high-tech phone system that allowed workers to work from home was one advantage, he said.

But TOEBC’s suburban location was a problem, Bornholdt said. He said his company had been looking for office space near Pasadena, even before the nonprofit group announced it would shutter its Thousand Oaks headquarters.

“Thousand Oaks is probably not a great location for an environmental incubator,” Bornholdt said. “I think you need to be closer to the metropolis, Los Angeles.”

Bornholdt also said the business cluster suffered from an apparent inability to attract more tenants.

“They probably needed 20 to 25 tenants to make it vibrant,” he said. “They had about 12 to 15. It wasn’t as if it was, ‘Geez, there’s another tenant. Geez, there’s another tenant.’ ”

Yvette Berke of Adapt Consulting Inc. in Van Nuys said the business incubator had been crucial to her company’s efforts to expand its reach in Ventura County. Berke said that during her company’s 10-month stay at TOEBC, it was able to develop business contacts and win contracts with companies to develop recycling programs. Adapt Consulting now has an office in Ventura.

“I don’t look at TOEBC as failure,” Berke said. “There are businesses that are going to turn out to be stronger for the exposure they received.”

Berke, now chairwoman of the Ventura County Environmental Technology Cluster, said she hoped the numerous business incubators being formed at the county level will take up some of the slack.

“Incubators do work,” she said. TOEBC’s closing “casts a shadow that they don’t work, they go out of business. People need to understand, these programs need strong funding to keep going.”

Thousand Oaks City Manager Grant Brimhall, noting the city gave about $30,000 to the business cluster, said the organization had done a good job helping young companies get started. He also echoed Berke’s sentiment that the county’s various business incubators are gaining importance.

“I think [TOEBC] was a good investment,” Brimhall said. “The resources [in Ventura County] are plenty in terms of intellectual power and market potential. . . . I think the regional approach is the next logical step.”