Santa Cruz High-Tech Businesses

The Santa Cruz Area Chamber of Commerce has supported the Santa Cruz technology community since high-tech businesses began locating in Santa Cruz in the 1950s, adding a third major industry to the long-standing tourism and agriculture industries in Santa Cruz. The Santa Cruz Chamber created the Technology Exhibition & Symposium in the 1990s to promote the growing tech community. From helping businesses to find funding and office space, to helping with the "business" side of running a company, and to marketing tech products and services, the Santa Cruz Chamber provides the contacts, know-how, and support entrepreneurs and technology companies need to succeed in business today.

An interconnected regional network

The Chamber is a wide network that links technology workers, businesses, and industry clusters in Santa Cruz County with each other and with the greater northern California area to improve recruitment, retention, and development of our technology and technology-business workforce. Our members work to connect technology companies with other groups working to improve our community to attract workers and tech businesses, including taking a leading role in finding solutions to issues of housing, community branding, and development of industrial areas in Santa Cruz County. Our collaboration with UCSC, Cabrillo, and higher ed institutions in the Monterey Bay and San Francisco Bay Area allow us to foster communication, cooperation, and facilitation, resulting in growth and vitality of technology sectors in Santa Cruz.

Growing businesses, improving infrastructure, attracting workers 

One of the primary goals of the Santa Cruz Chamber is the economic development and growth of local technology industries and businesses, branding Santa Cruz as technology community and a desirable place for technologists to work, fostering the growth of green tech businesses, and the promotion of the quality of life and economic strength of our area to existing technology companies looking to relocate. The Chamber supports Santa Cruz technology businesses by improving marketing efficiencies  for local vendors selling to technology businesses, working to increase sales of local technology vendors to other local businesses and governments, and creating the business connectivity to create opportunities for the sparks of collaboration and partnership to fly.

Working with local technologists, entrepreneurs, and investors, the Santa Cruz Chamber supports improvements to our technology infrastructure, incuding increased internet bandwidth, data center capacity, development of technology centers, and the improvement in relative cost of housing and other community infrastructure elements (transportation, water, K-12 education, etc.).

The Santa Cruz Chamber is dedicated to working to improve employee attraction and retention. Our first priority is the conversion of commuters to local technology workers through job creation in the technology sector. We also work to promote low cost recruiting and retention, efficient job placement of local students, superior learning opportunities for workers, outreach to technology workers in the community, and support of local technology professional communities (e.g., computer optics, human genome).

Skills and connections

The Santa Cruz Area Chamber of Commerce provides opportunities for entrepreneurs and technology companies to make the contacts, learn the skills, and get the community support to grow their technology businesses. With education programs, breakfast briefings, workshops, and training, tech companies can keep up with the technologies and issues that will make or break their businesses. Conferences, mixers, the Business Fair, and the Chamber's connections with UCSC and Cabrillo placement organizations, allow technologists to reach the investors and employees they need to succeed. See the Chamber calendar for a list of upcoming events.  

Look for the Chamber decal

For more than 120 years, Santa Cruz Chamber members have been committed to improving our community for everyone who works, lives, or visits Santa Cruz County. For a list of local Santa Cruz Chamber members in high-tech, visit the Manufacturing section of the Chamber business directory.