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2019 Santa Cruz County Chamber Community Leadership Visit Another Educational and Informative CLV to Goleta/Santa Barbara, Oxnard and Ventura Last week a small delegation of community leaders from Santa Cruz County participated in the Chamber’s annual Community Leadership Visit (CLV). As always, the planning work for these annual CLVs begins five to six months in advance of the proposed travel dates. In early March the Chamber team initiated phone calls to several communities to see if there was an interest from that city/county to host the Santa Cruz County Chamber delegation. After several conversations with chambers in six different cities, the Chamber team made the destination choice — Goleta/Santa Barbara, Oxnard and Ventura. Every year, the Chamber team faces the daunting task to select one location that will provide our travelers with an educational and informative comparison between our region and the visiting community. In years past we have taken long airplane trips to Boulder/Fort Collins and Seattle/Vancouver. We have explored coastal cities like San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. We invested time in seven San Francisco Bay Area cities focusing on housing, and the Lake Tahoe CLV last year was an opportunity to learn how the environment and the economy work in sync to ensure the Lake’s water clarity while addressing how man-made infrastructure can be improved for future generations. The takeaway from these visits is to find one or two policies, projects or programs that work in those communities and, hopefully, bring back that idea and invest time and energy to create our own vision how best to implement a similar policy, project or program in Santa Cruz County. Over the years, we have seen the CLV be a mutually agreed testing plan that does deliver results over time. Two significant accomplishments of past CLVs was relationship building between local government and the universities — the Santa Barbara trip in 2014, the San Luis Obispo trip in 2012 and the Boulder/Fort Collins trip in 2013 fostered partnerships between the city and the University. This is always a work-in-progress relationship that requires constant nurturing. The 2014 Santa Barbara CLV was the ‘light bulb’ moment for our community. The most fundamental experience about that trip was learning how Santa Barbara County passed a transportation tax measure to create a local funding source to improve mobility in that county. We used that model — adapting a little Santa Cruzan style — to produce our own 2016 transportation tax Measure D that received 2/3 voter support. Without those local funds in place (and the ability to receive matching funds from the state) many of the transportation improvements we see today would not have been possible. That is the magic of the Community Leadership Visits. Working in collaboration with our eyes wide open and our minds focused on the possible — not the impossible - Santa Cruz County can overcome any challenge. This year’s trip was an opportunity to reconnect with long time business associates in these three communities to listen, learn and ask questions about their successes, their challenges and their future plan. Much like Santa Cruz County, Goleta, Ventura and Oxnard must address infrastructure deficiencies and inspire a new generation of leaders to ensure a sustainable future for their region. A sustainable, safe and adequate water supply is an essential resource for their region similar to our county’s water supply. The site visit at the Oxnard Advanced Water Purification Facility (AWPF) was an eye-opener to address a sustainable water supply. Their facility is the standard for the water purification industry and a way to address salt water intrusion while using the world’s most highly developed purification processes to produce safe and clean water from treated wastewater — water that is usually sent to the ocean. Instead, the water after extensive treatment at the wastewater treatment facility (just down the road from the purification facility) is sent to the AWPF where water undergoes further water purification using three advanced treatment steps: micro filtration reverse osmosis and advanced oxidation and ultraviolet light with hydrogen peroxide. The 60,000 square foot, $80 million project results in a process that requires less energy than is used to import water to Oxnard. These coastal communities take advantage of their waterfronts so we toured Ventura’s Channel Island Harbor and the Port of Hueneme - an amazing example of an economic input to the region. This port between Los Angeles and San Francisco/Oakland provides $9.5 billion in goods movement and $1.7 billion in economic activity to the region supporting 15,834 trade related jobs. We visited with UCSB’s Technology Management Program and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship; a tour of housing and economic engines of Goleta. We did a site visit at FLIR Systems, Inc. in Goleta. They make thermal imaging (infrared) cameras of all sizes, from $200 to $100k. They have 60-70% of the infrared camera market. Richie Antles is the VP of Operations at FLIR and Sam Chapple began there as a mechanical engineer and is now the Production Manager. We took a guided tour of the factory floor. Antles and Chapple spoke highly of the concept of lean manufacturing. It's a factory practiced by way of the Japanese and incorporating the concept of kaizen, which refers to "activities that continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the CEO to assembly workers.” Antles said lean management is "the elimination of waste in all forms, from scraps to motion..." It is not only continuous improvement, but "the elimination of error" too. Both Antles and Chapple touted "visual management," a visual inspection of every situation that includes these large community boards everywhere signaling orders filled, orders yet to fill, along with production line stoppages and successes. The tour was one of the CLV highlights, and it was only day one of our visit. Our tour continued with another interesting site visit at AGQ Labs. This lab is one of the world’s leading testing laboratories and technology centers in advanced analytical testing, agronomic consulting, specialized engineering and environmental project management. AGQ Labs is a global company with its headquarters in Spain and 10 lab centers throughout the world. AGQ Labs USA headed by CEO Tenesor Pena and his team service the agricultural and food industries across North America. Their ISO 7000 certification process is invaluable to over 1000 clients where they can turn around a lab test result in 48 hours when the industry standard is 3 to 6 days. Our last day on Saturday was a chance to listen and tour housing sites in Ventura which lost more than 2,000 housing units to the Thompson Fire three years ago. Like Santa Cruz County, Ventura County has a housing shortage of affordable units and a growing homeless population. They see no easy solution but our tour hosts, Karen Flock from the Housing Authority of the City of San Buenaventura (Ventura) and Linda Braunschweiger, the CEO of the Housing Trust Fund Ventura County lead us on a motor coach tour of housing projects in the city. The most interesting stop was at the El Patio Hotel in downtown Ventura. The hotel was purchased by People’s Self-Help Housing to run it as a home for the homeless. This 1927 Spanish Colonial style hotel located downtown was carefully restored retaining its original architectural features. Each of the 42 furnished rooms have a bathroom with shower and kitchenette. Amenities include an outdoor courtyard with fountain, community kitchen and lobby. It was a clean and comfortable hotel with only one vacant room. Again, another ‘out of the box’ way to address that city’s homeless population. The significant benefit of the Community Leadership Visits (CLVs) is not just the incredible site tours in Goleta, Oxnard and Ventura. It is the networking opportunities to learn and share stories about each other from a personal and professional basis. The CLV creates an atmosphere of positive conversations on issues that impact our daily lives back home. For 2 1/2 days or 60 hours over a course of a Thursday morning through Saturday — we become a community of leaders, associates and friends who form a common bond — to seek answers and find examples of ways to improve upon the quality of life for our county. Another CLV for the memory books.
2019 Santa Cruz County Chamber Community Leadership Visit Another Educational and Informative CLV to Goleta/Santa Barbara, Oxnard and Ventura
Last week a small delegation of community leaders from Santa Cruz County participated in the Chamber’s annual Community Leadership Visit (CLV). As always, the planning work for these annual CLVs begins five to six months in advance of the proposed travel dates. In early March the Chamber team initiated phone calls to several communities to see if there was an interest from that city/county to host the Santa Cruz County Chamber delegation. After several conversations with chambers in six different cities, the Chamber team made the destination choice — Goleta/Santa Barbara, Oxnard and Ventura.
The takeaway from these visits is to find one or two policies, projects or programs that work in those communities and, hopefully, bring back that idea and invest time and energy to create our own vision how best to implement a similar policy, project or program in Santa Cruz County. Over the years, we have seen the CLV be a mutually agreed testing plan that does deliver results over time. Two significant accomplishments of past CLVs was relationship building between local government and the universities — the Santa Barbara trip in 2014, the San Luis Obispo trip in 2012 and the Boulder/Fort Collins trip in 2013 fostered partnerships between the city and the University. This is always a work-in-progress relationship that requires constant nurturing.
The 2014 Santa Barbara CLV was the ‘light bulb’ moment for our community. The most fundamental experience about that trip was learning how Santa Barbara County passed a transportation tax measure to create a local funding source to improve mobility in that county. We used that model — adapting a little Santa Cruzan style — to produce our own 2016 transportation tax Measure D that received 2/3 voter support. Without those local funds in place (and the ability to receive matching funds from the state) many of the transportation improvements we see today would not have been possible.
This year’s trip was an opportunity to reconnect with long time business associates in these three communities to listen, learn and ask questions about their successes, their challenges and their future plan. Much like Santa Cruz County, Goleta, Ventura and Oxnard must address infrastructure deficiencies and inspire a new generation of leaders to ensure a sustainable future for their region. A sustainable, safe and adequate water supply is an essential resource for their region similar to our county’s water supply. The site visit at the Oxnard Advanced Water Purification Facility (AWPF) was an eye-opener to address a sustainable water supply. Their facility is the standard for the water purification industry and a way to address salt water intrusion while using the world’s most highly developed purification processes to produce safe and clean water from treated wastewater — water that is usually sent to the ocean. Instead, the water after extensive treatment at the wastewater treatment facility (just down the road from the purification facility) is sent to the AWPF where water undergoes further water purification using three advanced treatment steps: micro filtration reverse osmosis and advanced oxidation and ultraviolet light with hydrogen peroxide. The 60,000 square foot, $80 million project results in a process that requires less energy than is used to import water to Oxnard.
These coastal communities take advantage of their waterfronts so we toured Ventura’s Channel Island Harbor and the Port of Hueneme - an amazing example of an economic input to the region. This port between Los Angeles and San Francisco/Oakland provides $9.5 billion in goods movement and $1.7 billion in economic activity to the region supporting 15,834 trade related jobs.
We visited with UCSB’s Technology Management Program and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship; a tour of housing and economic engines of Goleta. We did a site visit at FLIR Systems, Inc. in Goleta. They make thermal imaging (infrared) cameras of all sizes, from $200 to $100k. They have 60-70% of the infrared camera market. Richie Antles is the VP of Operations at FLIR and Sam Chapple began there as a mechanical engineer and is now the Production Manager. We took a guided tour of the factory floor. Antles and Chapple spoke highly of the concept of lean manufacturing. It's a factory practiced by way of the Japanese and incorporating the concept of kaizen, which refers to "activities that continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the CEO to assembly workers.” Antles said lean management is "the elimination of waste in all forms, from scraps to motion..." It is not only continuous improvement, but "the elimination of error" too. Both Antles and Chapple touted "visual management," a visual inspection of every situation that includes these large community boards everywhere signaling orders filled, orders yet to fill, along with production line stoppages and successes. The tour was one of the CLV highlights, and it was only day one of our visit.
Our tour continued with another interesting site visit at AGQ Labs. This lab is one of the world’s leading testing laboratories and technology centers in advanced analytical testing, agronomic consulting, specialized engineering and environmental project management. AGQ Labs is a global company with its headquarters in Spain and 10 lab centers throughout the world. AGQ Labs USA headed by CEO Tenesor Pena and his team service the agricultural and food industries across North America. Their ISO 7000 certification process is invaluable to over 1000 clients where they can turn around a lab test result in 48 hours when the industry standard is 3 to 6 days.
Our last day on Saturday was a chance to listen and tour housing sites in Ventura which lost more than 2,000 housing units to the Thompson Fire three years ago. Like Santa Cruz County, Ventura County has a housing shortage of affordable units and a growing homeless population. They see no easy solution but our tour hosts, Karen Flock from the Housing Authority of the City of San Buenaventura (Ventura) and Linda Braunschweiger, the CEO of the Housing Trust Fund Ventura County lead us on a motor coach tour of housing projects in the city. The most interesting stop was at the El Patio Hotel in downtown Ventura. The hotel was purchased by People’s Self-Help Housing to run it as a home for the homeless. This 1927 Spanish Colonial style hotel located downtown was carefully restored retaining its original architectural features. Each of the 42 furnished rooms have a bathroom with shower and kitchenette. Amenities include an outdoor courtyard with fountain, community kitchen and lobby. It was a clean and comfortable hotel with only one vacant room. Again, another ‘out of the box’ way to address that city’s homeless population.
The significant benefit of the Community Leadership Visits (CLVs) is not just the incredible site tours in Goleta, Oxnard and Ventura. It is the networking opportunities to learn and share stories about each other from a personal and professional basis. The CLV creates an atmosphere of positive conversations on issues that impact our daily lives back home. For 2 1/2 days or 60 hours over a course of a Thursday morning through Saturday — we become a community of leaders, associates and friends who form a common bond — to seek answers and find examples of ways to improve upon the quality of life for our county. Another CLV for the memory books.