High-Tech Firms Expected to Bolster County Economic Growth

As home to firms such as California Amplifier, ACT Networks and Xircom, Ventura County has represented itself well in the race for high-tech prominence.

In the months and years to come, it will be the ability of those and other companies to apply this high-tech power in new and creative ways that will play a big part in Ventura County’s continued economic growth, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

In its annual economic forecast for the five-county Southern California area, the agency presented an outlook for Ventura County that while a bit less optimistic than last year’s, offers a picture more appealing than most of the last decade.

“We’re coming off a year where the whole region’s economy performed extremely strongly,” Kyser said of the area that includes Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

“It is the best Ventura County has done since 1990, which was the end of the golden age for jobs in Southern California,” Kyser said. “It won’t be as great as 1998, but unless there is a major surprise, Ventura County will continue decent growth in 1999 and 2000.”

Ventura County’s well-recognized charms--proximity to the ocean and picturesque landscape--likely will continue to draw the work force that will supply the creativity needed to keep the area at the cutting edge of high-tech design, he said.

“Ventura is still what we would call the idyllic California, a mix of rolling hills, coast, farmland--a unique ambience which is very, very attractive to the creative types,” Kyser said.

“If you talk to people in the technology area, they are saying that all of a sudden they’ve got a lot going on in technology, but that content is becoming very critical,” he said. “A lot of people developing that [creative content] are out there in Ventura County. . . . The future of Southern California is based on that creativity.”

The attributes that will keep creative businesses in Ventura County, Kyser said, also will attract new companies from outside the area.

“Ventura County is adjacent to Los Angeles, which has a lot of valuable resources, you have an international airport nearby, and yet you can live in this environment, which would probably inspire you to be more creative,” he said. “It’s very [appealing] to high-value types of businesses.”

Along with continued high-tech growth, the report cited a flurry of nonresidential construction over the last year, the development of the Cal State Channel Islands campus in Camarillo and retail growth through factory outlet projects in Camarillo and the Buenaventura Mall, as reasons for optimism.

Factoring high-tech employment with construction, government, sales and other segments of the Ventura County work force, the agency projected total nonfarm employment to increase 2.9% from about 251,000 in 1998 to 259,000 in 1999. The 2.94% improvement would be higher than the 2.28% forecast for the overall five-county region.

The report also predicted a drop in the unemployment rate for Ventura County from the current 5.8% to 4.8% in 1999.

With ongoing impeachment proceedings, a fluctuating stock market, the Asian economic crisis, the conversion to a unified European monetary standard, Y2K and other forces affecting the local, national and international economies, Kyser said this year’s forecast was among the trickier the agency has filed.

“This is one of the most unusual years we’ve ever seen,” Kyser said. “There are so many forces we have to monitor, and they are so volatile.”

In Ventura County, Kyser said, the most volatile issue may be the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources initiatives passed on county and city levels. The protection of agricultural land, he said, will be painful for some businesses but should attract more business by maintaining the county’s visual appeal.

Penny Bohannon, president of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn., said local business owners are cautiously optimistic for 1999.

“They don’t see tremendous growth, but they see some growth, no major layoffs, a heightened sense of excitement with the millennium and a heightened sense of anxiety because of Y2K,” she said.

“We have a minor concern about the [military] base closure discussion that has erupted again,” she said. “But there is a strong sense of confidence, because we lobbied so hard in ’95 to take Point Mugu off of the list, and we have been working diligently since that time with the bases and business to attract defense-oriented work to the bases.”

Bohannon said the association will continue to try to lure high-tech businesses to Ventura County.

“They have high-salaried positions and they bring along people who can afford to live here,” she said. “Housing is already scarce in Ventura County and with the SOAR measures passed, it’s going to ultimately drive up the prices. If we want to grow business here, it has to be high tech.”