Example of Effective Government

I just put up a post on the San Diego iHub expansion and could have included this information in it, but I thought it might minimize my thoughts. I just spent the better part of a month listening to Washington politicians argue about details that they needed included in any proposal to raise the debt ceiling. People who you hoped would act intelligently to avoid the catastrophic economic impact of our defaulting on loans. The biggest issue facing our country is the sagging economy and one of the key indicators of our recovery is job creation. During this month-long debate, it didn’t seem like any of the Washington contingent were thinking about job creation programs.

And then I attended the program that announced the expansion of the San Diego iHub to include cities along the 215 corridor and heard how government officials, educational representatives and local business people think that this program will stimulate technology development and the associated business startup and job creation initiatives in the area. I also heard speaker after speaker extol the efforts on one person who was instrumental in making this happen, Bruce Coleman, Murrieta’s director of business development. Even Joe Ayala from the Governor’s office of economic development credited the tenacity of Bruce in not spearheading efforts to expand the iHub but in convincing him that the event announcing the program was important enough for him to attend and speak at.

He was also the catalyst  for Murrieta using the EB-5 Visa program to raise the $12M needed to develop a shopping center in the city. This program requires that there be a job creation element for the investment. I have heard it being used within startups, but realizing that this could be used to raise money for real estate development was pure creativity!

If we had more government at the national level acting like Bruce consistently acts, we would be long on the road to economic recovery and not impending disaster.

Kudo’s to you Bruce! I look forward to seeing your future results

Expansion of San Diego iHub Initiative

Yesterday I attended a program in Riverside where Joel Ayala, director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, announced the expansion of the San Diego iHub to include cities along the 215 corridor including Temecual, Murrieta and Riverside. A number of local government officials attended the event along with area members from the business and educational communities. There was also a demonstration area, thankfully inside, of various technology undertakings along with the area companies.

The expansion area still has a lot of land for development and have established some beachheads for technology development. As example, the new Loma Linda Teaching Hospital, a 106 bed hospital that opened in April of this year. It was a joint development effort between the University Medical Center  and community investors. This is the regions most recent hospital opening. University of California (UCR) has some great programs for life sciences and engineering and CalState San Marcos has opened their re-modeled Temecula location.

I am interested in seeing how this hub progresses. There certainly was a lot of energy at the event that even the 106 degree temperature couldn’t effect.