With merger and TechPitch win, SLO’s startups are on the fast track
In the past couple of weeks, Alex Minicucci has successfully merged his fast-growing mobile marketing company with a publicly traded firm out of Iowa. Meanwhile, an entrepreneurial emergency room doctor from Nipomo came up a with a brilliantly simple solution for holding an iPad one handed that swept the most comprehensive tech pitch night on the Central Coast to date.
On a 40-year roll: P&G paper plants set to mark milestone in Oxnard
Procter & Gamble will celebrate the 40th anniversary of its Family Care Plant in Oxnard this month, a remarkable milestone when viewed against the decline in manufacturing jobs in California and across the nation. The Oxnard plant makes Bounty paper towels and Charmin toilet tissue in huge quantities that supply California and parts of the western U.S.
Refinery rail project would ease crude oil supply concerns
A Phillips 66 refinery on the Nipomo Mesa is hoping to supplement its dwindling inflow of California crude by extending a rail spur that will allow it to import oil from out of state.
The refinery — tucked away off of Highway 1 in South San Luis Obispo County — is a little-known yet critical part of the Golden State’s petroleum infrastructure. It processes the state’s heavy, sour crude into semi-refined products that flow through 200 miles of pipeline to Conoco’s 128,000-barrel-a-day facility in Rodeo in the Bay Area, where it is turned into gasoline.
Mindbody breaks ground on $20M campus in SLO tech corridor
San Luis Obispo is set to get its flagship high-tech campus as software company MindBody CEO Rick Stollmeyer and local officials broke ground Oct. 29 on a $20 million project including a new office building, four-story parking structure and promenade that will link with an existing facility, eventually boosting employment to 1,300 people.
Special comment: Ventura County’s energy landscape
Ventura County has an diverse array of energy assets, but the rules are going to have to change if innovation is going to flourish in the region.
That was my takeaway after moderating two panels on the future of energy at the Ventura County Economic Development Association’s annual business outlook conference on Oct. 25.
