Collaborative Helps Business Over Hurdle

After recently relocating from Ventura to Santa Paula and more than doubling the space for his turbine engine repair shop, Rex Clark sought financial help.

On Thursday, he got his check--from the Economic Development Collaborative of Ventura County, whose mission is to nurture job and wealth creation. County Supervisor Kathy Long and Santa Paula City Council members Robin Sullivan and Jim Garfield toured the 8-month-old Hot Section Technologies facility and presented Clark with a check for $250,000.

In 1998, 12 years after the company was founded, business was booming, Clark said. But the business was struggling to keep up with the workload at its small Ventura facility.

After finding a suitable site in Santa Paula, Clark approached American Commercial Bank for a loan. But the most he could get was $405,000, and he needed $250,000 more to purchase and expand the building. Bank Vice President Michael Orman referred Clark to the Economic Development Collaborative and its business loan program.

Since the expansion, Clark said, business has increased 20% and he has hired four new employees from Santa Paula.

Job creation is a primary goal of the collaborative, said executive director Joe McClure. The organization was formed in 1997 at the request of the county Board of Supervisors and is funded in part by federal grants aimed at helping companies that have been hurt by a downturn in defense spending.

Hot Section qualified for the loan--a combination of city, state and federal funds--because a portion of its business is for the military.