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By Marlize van Romburgh / Monday, November 15th, 2010 / Features, Small Business, Top Stories / Comments Off on Ojai Oil Co. goes from black gold to organic olives
Ojai Oil Co.’s 110-year history is as rich as the black gold bubbling up into the Ojai Valley, but the fourth generation of the company is moving away from crude oil to find new fortunes in olive oil. Ojai Oil, headquartered in Camarillo, was started in 1900 by the late Charles Off and 25 original Read More →
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By Stephen Nellis / Monday, November 15th, 2010 / Small Business, Top Stories / Comments Off on Business pressure could kill 1099 rule
Among the many political casualties of mid-term elections this year may be an obscure tax-reporting rule that it seems no one — even people within the IRS itself — will miss. The 1099 rule, as it has come to be known, was a little-noticed part of the health-care legislation passed earlier this year. It requires Read More →
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By Stephen Nellis / Monday, November 15th, 2010 / Small Business, Technology / Comments Off on Standing guard: InfoGard gets federal records certification
The nation’s move to electronic health records promises to be a technological shift on a scale not seen since computers hit banking or plastic cards took the place of the paper checkbook. San Luis Obispo-based information technology security firm InfoGard will be right in the middle of it. In September, the federal government named InfoGard Read More →
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By Marlize van Romburgh / Monday, November 8th, 2010 / Features, Small Business / Comments Off on Sweet success: Region’s candy firms expand
The shelves at Kingston’s Candy Co. are stacked with enough Pixy Stix, Gummi Bears, Abba Zabbas, Moon Pies, bubblegum, Smarties and chocolate bars to make Willy Wonka himself proud. “Nine months ago I was in the corporate world, and here I am having fun in candy land,” owner Sarah Jaimes says from behind a center Read More →
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By Marlize van Romburgh / Monday, October 25th, 2010 / Columns, Real Estate, Small Business / Comments Off on SBA-backed deals are propping up commercial real estate market
Small businesses are starting to look like the heroes in the commercial real estate market’s turnaround tale. Businesses buying property for their own use, also known as owner-users, have fueled a number of deals in the Tri-Counties recently, many of them aided by financing through U.S. Small Business Administration lending programs. In Oxnard, Industrial Park Read More →
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By Marlize van Romburgh / Monday, October 11th, 2010 / Small Business, Women Inc. / Comments Off on Dialing up success: Firestone leads Tempest Telecom to clear skies
Jessica Firestone has built a business by making sure that your e-mails, text messages and phone calls get where they’re supposed to be going, and fast. In five years, Firestone has grown Goleta-based Tempest Telecom Solutions from a four-person startup to a 100-employee firm with operations across the country. Tempest pulls in about $30 million Read More →
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By Stephen Nellis / Monday, October 11th, 2010 / Features, Small Business / Comments Off on Guitar man: High-end instruments, made in Oxnard
The first things you notice when you meet Jean Larrivée, the founder of high-end guitar maker Jean Larrivée Guitars, aren’t the test instruments leaning against the wall of his office, the tool chest in the corner or the small bottles of wood stain that dot the windowsill. It’s the giant red banners bearing Cyrillic script, Read More →
