Area’s High-Tech Firms Face a Bright Future, Panel Says
San Fernando Valley businesses, particularly those in the growing high-tech sector, are poised to prosper in the coming years, even as the economic crisis in Asia prompts some firms to rethink investment in that troubled region.
Those were the conclusions of a group of panelists focusing on the Valley’s economic future at the 10th annual VICA business forecast conference held Friday in Woodland Hills.
For the record:
12:00 a.m. Nov. 26, 1998 For the Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday November 26, 1998 Valley Edition Metro Part B Page 4 Zones Desk 1 inches; 35 words Type of Material: Correction
Conference sponsor--Grant Thornton LLP, an accounting and management consulting firm, was inadvertently omitted from a list of sponsors of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. annual business forecast conference in an article published Nov. 14.
Billed as the largest business conference in the region, the event--co-sponsored by The Times Valley Edition--brought together executives from hundreds of Valley firms and business groups to discuss the impact of changing technology, the business and legal implications of the year 2000 computer problem, or Y2K, education and international trade.
When David Zuercher began his banking career in the Valley 30 years ago, his customers, he said, were “looking at ways they could export things to Camarillo.”
“Now they’re importing things from Cameroon,” said Zuercher, president and CEO of the Wells Fargo HSBC Trade Bank, a joint venture with the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank. “It’s amazing how things change.”
Calling the current Asian economic crisis a “bump in the road,” Zuercher and other panelists said Valley-based businesses can position themselves now for increased trade activity once the Asian market improves.
“Now is the time to build relationships,” Zuercher said. “Take modest risks with potential customers and vendors. These relationships today tend to last a long time and tend to be remembered, especially in Asia. You have to look at Asia based on its long-term potential.”
Although most panelists were generally upbeat on the economic prospects for the Valley, several said there are some troubling developments.
“The No. 1 constraint to growth is the availability of qualified workers,” said Bill Allen, president of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley. Allen, citing a recent survey, told the audience that 60% of employers in the region listed the lack of skilled workers as their No. 1 problem.
In an effort to cure that ill, Allen said a regional conference will be held in the spring at Universal Studios. At that conference, he said, business leaders and educators will form partnerships to ensure that today’s students are properly trained for tomorrow’s jobs.
“In a global economy, we’ll have to do it or fall way behind,” he said.
The focus on educational shortcomings continued at the conference luncheon, as Mayor Richard Riordan, delivering his State of the Valley message, took advantage of the opportunity to again berate the city’s public education system, calling it “a disaster.”
After the address, Riordan was asked about the recent decision by Universal Studios to pull out of a county Regional Planning Commission hearing on the studio’s plans for a 3.2-million-square-foot expansion, which would provide more room for film-making, theme park use, office space and other purposes. That hearing had been scheduled for Nov. 19.
The studio said it needed to conduct cost-benefit analysis “in light of the Planning Commission’s reviews.”
The mayor deferred to Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. Most of the project involves land in unincorporated county territory.
Yaroslavsky said he believes internal changes at the entertainment conglomerate motivated the move. “They didn’t pull that application because the Planning Commission asked them about child care,” said Yaroslavsky, referring to one area where the commission had asked for more than the studio had proposed.
As for restrictions on late-night filming, which the studio had objected to, Yaroslavsky called the issue “nonnegotiable with me.”
“If they can’t live with a restriction that says you can’t blow up a bus between midnight and 6 a.m., then their application is in trouble. But they said they can live with that,” Yaroslavsky said in an interview.
“I’ve had conversations with them at the highest levels. That’s not their issue,” he said, adding that no substantive reason was given for the pullout.
“It’s clear to us that something is going on that caused them to step back. . . . When they’re ready, we’ll be here.”
Other sponsors of the event included BFI, Cal State Northridge, Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, Imperial Bank, Department of Water and Power and Time Warner Communications.
