Tourists looking to cut a buck
UncategorizedThe line for Pismo Beach’s iconic Splash Café still wraps around the building; tourists crowd the city’s pier; and the hotel business is finally picking up. And this is all on an unremarkable weekend in April. As it turns out, the Central Coast tourism business might be all right this summer after all. Eight months Read More →
Developer vows to overcome recent setbacks
UncategorizedThe four golden shovels on Nick Narang’s office wall were supposed to show he’d made the most of America’s promise. He left his native India decades ago, built up a successful wholesale furniture company in Santa Barbara and tip-toed into a booming real estate market to build Lavender Court, a mix of condominiums and commercial Read More →
SurePath takes big step – New name for consumer credit nonprofit
UncategorizedCamarillo-based nonprofit Consumer Credit Counseling Service helped 12,000 households in its six-county region navigate their debt and foreclosure problems last year. But success also has brought with it a nagging problem — an influx of organizations with similar sounding names competing for its customers. Consumer Credit Counseling is hoping to sidestep future problems by rebranding Read More →
Cloudy but clear – Software firm Eucalyptus raises $5.5 million
Small BusinessHe just sealed a $5.5 million round of venture capital, but last fall, Rich Wolski wasn’t even sure he wanted to start a business. Wolski is a computer scientist who helped create cloud computing software called Eucalyptus. Widely popularized by Amazon, cloud computing means linking many computers over the Internet to handle tough tasks cheaply. Read More →
Oxnard staff pays big price in meltdown
ColumnsHaas Automation’s 400 laid-off workers are a testament to a financial laboratory experiment gone terribly wrong. Until last fall, the Oxnard-based machine tool company was coping with the recession, pursuing a strategy of diversifying its customer base and building relationships with foreign companies who were opening up plants in the U.S. But as Emily Rancer Read More →
Apple Store opening could prop up Santa Barbara
ColumnsFinally. The highly anticipated Apple Store on Santa Barbara’s State Street will be unveiled at 10 a.m. on May 9, the company announced. [Editor’s Note: After press time, Apple changed its plans. Read the related story here.] [Editor’s Note: After press time, Apple changed its plans. Read the related story here.] Apple has remained mum Read More →
Employers should weigh options before resorting to staff layoffs
ColumnsAn economic downturn means people lose jobs. And those jobs don’t magically disappear: Businesses have to decide whom to cut and whom to keep, and they expose themselves to lawsuits in the process. Downsizing requires discrimination of some sort, but to avoid legal liability, businesses have to make sure their process stays within the law, Read More →
