Headquarters on Cal State Campus Clicks for Software Firm
With his software company growing by an average of nine employees a month, Michael Edell, president and chief executive of Camarillo’s jeTECH Data Systems, had little choice but to look for expansion quarters.
After scouting locations for a while, Edell last year focused his attention on the proposed Cal State University Channel Islands campus, the former home of Camarillo Sate Hospital. In addition to the university, the 629-acre site initially will house up to 400,000 square feet of commercial space.
Edell was smitten. And in May he made jeTECH the site’s first major corporate tenant, signing a temporary lease on a 30,000-square-foot building at the northeast end of the property. A long-term replacement lease will be signed once the location is purchased by the state.
While 15-year-old jeTECH may be the site’s first commercial tenant, it is unlikely to be the last, leasing officials said. Up to 100 other businesses are expected to follow. Like jeTECH, they undoubtedly will make the move with the intent of forming valuable relationships with the academic institution.
“We’re champing at the bit,” Edell said. “This is going to be our technology center.”
The 130-employee company will keep its current Camarillo location on Camino Ruiz as corporate headquarters. JeTECH develops labor-management products--software designed to manage employee information, including labor and production records.
Clients are mostly mid-size and large corporations, including Southwest Airlines, Armstrong World Industries Inc. and Corning Inc.
“Our main goal [at the Cal State site] is to be able to draw the cream-of-the-crop talent directly from the university,” Edell said. “The other goal is that for our particular field, on campus there is just a lot of potential joint venturing we can do. If we need people who specialize in mathematics, or we need certain algorithms developed, we have a whole pool of academics.”
JeTECH probably will offer internships to university students, provide seminars on campus and encourage its employees to take courses themselves.
Officials at Capital Commercial Real Estate of Oxnard, the firm charged with leasing the corporate space, said Edell’s goals are similar to those of other business owners who have expressed interest in the campus, which is scheduled to open in less than seven months as the Ventura County satellite campus of Cal State Northridge.
“They’re looking at grabbing all the top employees they can or getting training for their existing employees,” said Bill Kiefer, executive vice president of Capital Commercial and manager of the firm’s Oxnard office. “I think the idea of being on the ground floor is interesting to them. This place is going to launch the county academically.”
Capital Commercial executives have targeted businesses from Burbank to Goleta in their search for tenants. Although few leases have been finalized, Capital Commercial business owners representing a variety of industries are giving the campus grounds serious consideration, they said.
A computer company is set to move onto the property in early July, with an automobile technology design firm next in line.
“Locally, biotech firms wanted to form a consortium to have their satellite facility at the university site, but that has not gone a whole lot further than the talking stage,” said Fred Ferro, a vice president with Capital Commercial.
“Some of our other targets are businesses that need cheap and abundant power, because of the co-generation plant [on campus]. Others would be ones who can use the computing capacity they can get through [the neighboring] Point Mugu” naval base.
In addition to providing a physical setting for businesses, university officials are prepared to offer curriculum targeted, in part, to the needs of the Ventura County business community.
Robert Payton, senior academic planner for the university, is working with the Ventura County Leadership Academy, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and other local business groups to determine the needs of the area’s industries.
“We started off from a basic planning mission that Channel Islands should respond to the needs of the Ventura region, and we’ve been working a lot of different ways to identify those needs,” Payton said. “We’ve worked with economic clusters, business associations, focus groups. We’re doing surveys.”
One upcoming survey of local business officials will be conducted by the Ventura County Economic Development Assn.
“This survey will ask, what are the educational needs of your businesses in terms of credentials, certificates or degree programs? What are your personal needs in those areas? What do you think is the future of your industry in terms of educational needs?” Payton said.
To plan curriculum, Payton said, he is also identifying particular industry clusters, including agriculture, power technology, environmental and biotech.
“We’re now talking about the role Channel Islands might play to develop a regional biotech center of some kind and develop biotech curriculum, or at least curriculum in science with an emphasis on biotech,” he said. “We’ve talked with two or three biotech companies, most notably Amgen and Baxter.”
Ultimately, Payton said, he would like to see the university help build the Ventura County economy well into the future.
“We want a curriculum that has a unique quality,” he said. “People locally would be getting a good education and also be able to stay here and work here and grow with some industry that is going to become an integral part of the community here.”
