Happy Small Business Week -Oysters, Enterprise Zones, ROI’s for College and Who’s Reading Newspapers?

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Our friends at Google remind us today that this is Small Business Week. They’re not sending us flowers or candy or a discount on a coveted service but it’s the thought that counts, I guess.  Makes you feel kind of like a father on Father’s Day. Anyway, cheers.

THE OYSTER FESTIVAL – I haven’t heard yet whether the proceeds matched those of previous years but I can tell you it was the most enjoyable OF I’ve ever attended. There were a couple of hopefuls walking around trying to pick up a buck by holding places in line for the eager oyster-eaters. Only problem with their business model -there were no lines!!!  The longest line I saw had four people waiting.   As usual I managed to miss out on the prize-winning entries but the cooked oyster that blew me away was a crunchy fried number from Smokin’ Moses. A relaxed and very enjoyable outing.

ENTERPRISE ZONES GOING AWAY-  I know that certain local businesses have taken advantage of the Enterprise Zone program although when I worked at State Rehab it seemed we never got it quite right. The employer was always located just beyond the zone limits, but it seemed like a good program.  Apparently in celebration of Small Business Week, we’ll be saying  goodbye to all that.  Capitol Basement’s The Roundup reports quoting the LA Times’  Marc Lifsher: “At issue are enterprise zones, which were established to boost employment in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods and rural areas. California is home to 40 of these special districts, in which about 35,000 companies have qualified for tax credits. Last year they reaped an estimated $700 million in credits — a figure that state tax officials project will grow to $1 billion by 2016.” ”Giants FedEx Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. have availed themselves of these incentives, which are worth as much as $37,400 for each hire. So have small businesses, including two Sacramento strip clubs named Gold Club Inc. and Deja Vu Showgirls.”

“But the identities of most beneficiaries are a mystery. Because of the confidential nature of state tax laws, it’s nearly impossible to find out which companies got credits, how much they were worth and how the companies qualified for them.”

Still, it seems like a good idea and hopefully, there will be a replacement soon.

WHAT’S THE ROI ON COLLEGE?  For all those freshly minted graduates we’ve been celebrating this week, the stats on bankrate.com offer grounds for hope and despair. The salaries of course are completely out of sync with what is paid locally but it’s still intriguing to note that according to PR Daily, it takes an average of nearly 32 years for a journalism student to repay his or her loans, while advertising/marketing/promotions boasts the lowest number of years it takes to repay loans at 5.83. Marriage and Family Therapists are especially disadvantaged, according to the table at bankrate.com.  Maybe don’t read it while your new grad is around.  Let them enjoy themselves for a few days.

WHO”S READING NEWSPAPERS? A research company called Scarborough (apparently no connection to Joe) reported the highest daily readership of papers currently takes place in Pittsburgh with second place a tie between Albany NY and Hartford/New Haven CT, fourth Cleveland and fifth a four-way tie  between  Buffalo, Honolulu, NYC and Toledo. The lowest readership? Atlanta, followed by Houston and San Antonio, tied, then Las Vegas and our own Bakersfield.  I wasn’t even sure they had a newspaper in Bakersfield. It’s comforting to know there are still other primitives like me who enjoy opening a paper in the morning. How long will we have this option?

So Happy Small Business Week and don’t forget to bring the family to the Redwood Acres Fair, “The Best of Humboldt” on Thursday through Sunday.  Complete schedule of events at  redwoodacres.com   See you there!

 

 

The Week in Redwood Coast Business- renaming the airport, charging for the Oyster Festival, getting no love from our homies and train vs turkey

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Renaming the Airport- The sorry spectacle of a town renaming its airport to attract visitors is a plot worthy of a comedy, one of those good British comedies with Peter Sellers .  The good news is that it will take the proposed name change at least a couple of years to be approved so perhaps someone or thing will come along in the meantime to save us from ourselves.  ”California Redwood Coast – Humboldt County Airport” is too long, was obviously , like a giraffe, put together by a committee trying to please everyone, and leaves unanswered the question : what about those obnoxious folks in Mendocino who think THEY have a Redwood Coast? The Mendocino -Sonoma Chamber calls  itself “The Redwood Coast Chamber”. There are so many other “Redwood Coast” businesses down there I almost decided to call my blog something else.

What if instead of perpetual confusion, the airport promoted clarity? Why not spend the money on educating folks that the Eureka-Arcata Airport is in Humboldt County, home of the Redwoods? I called the always-affable Tony Smithers of the Visitors and Convention Bureau and asked for his estimate of the number of tourists we host yearly.  He guesses he number is around 1.5 million all but one or two percent of whom arrive here by means other than air travel.  So if changing the airport’s name would double the traffic there (it wouldn’t- I’m just stretching for an example) the number of air-arriving visitors would go from 30,000 to 60,000.  Would these folks be visitors who wouldn’t come here otherwise? That seems to be the hope. Frankly I think the drive UP here is just as much of a draw as the attractions in Humboldt area,  but only time will tell.

By the way, our friends in Redding just concluded an unsuccessful campaign to attract another carrier and are heading back to the drawing board.  In a climate where airlines are squeezing the passengers for every dime and shutting down as many routes as the government will let them,  attracting more service to a marginal market like Redding or ACV will be quite a trick.  

O Oysters, Come and Walk with Us- The Oyster Festival is making a  brave and necessary change by  instituting a $10 admission charge. I was a volunteer, selling drink bracelets a couple of years ago, and it was obvious something had to change. The drink bracelets didn’t stay with the purchasers for long and the frenzy for beer would cause an onlooker to think they were at a beer festival, not an oyster festival.  I’m looking forward to this weekend, fence and all.  Kevin Hoover’s thoughtful editorial in the Eye lays it all out .

General Patton- Mike Patton,  surely the most influential musician ever to emerge from the Redwood Coast, (sorry, Sara Barielles), was featured in the Critic’s Notebook of the June 3 issue of the New Yorker, as an “indefatigable vocalist and visionary” on the occasion of the Manhattan concert introducing the fourth album by his current band, the “frenetic and experimental post-rock” Tomahawk. “General Patton” , as they dubbed him, the lead singer of Faith No More and founder of Mr. Bungle, among other bands,  is a true original but I haven’t heard of him playing up here, ever. Twenty years ago, when I was getting ready to move back here, Details magazine quoted him as saying, of Eureka,  ”It’s a void. There’s absolutely nothing to do there. I mean nothing.”  I wonder if he has been back here since?  He won’t be around this summer, that’s for sure. He’s touring Europe with Tomahawk, opening for Nine Inch Nails.  The Film Commission has been trying to get the attention of Jeff Bridges (whose grandparents ran the Vance Hotel) for years but hasn’t been able to lure him up here. I believe he actually grew up in Petaluma. If the Redwood Coast is to market itself as being a cradle of creativity we need these folks. Incidentally,  After Earth is getting universally terrible reviews, which is a shame, but kudos to Cassandra Hessletine and crew for luring that production here.

Terror on the train- Finally,  as if the problems with starting up any kind of rail service to the Redwood Coast weren’t fraught with perils enough, the current issue of the RAILPAC newsletter reports that at 11am on June 1 in West Mansfield MA, a wild turkey crashed through the window of an Amtrak train, stopping service on all tracks. “The engineer was covered with  glass…and the engine compartment was full of the remains of the turkey, making it unusable”. You can’t make this stuff up.  Thank God no one took pictures. 

Stay hungry. Stay creative. Now, more than ever? 

NCEPD- Honoring the success stories of people with disabilities

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I just attended an event that more of you should go to- the annual recognition luncheon of Northwest Committee for the Employment of People with Disabilities, or NCEPD. As an old Rehab counselor and former member of the Committee, I’ve attended quite a few of these and they are truly amazing events. You hear stories of courage, stories of generosity, stories of ingenious problem solving, a glimpse into a world people without disabilities rarely think about.  Our friend Bob Van Fleet used to refer to the non-disabled folks as CRABs- Currently Regarded as Able Bodied. It only takes one car collision, motorcycle crash or work accident to turn a CRAB into a person with a disability and of course many people are disabled from birth.  Giving these folks a chance to be self-sufficient is one of the best things an employer can do, for themselves and for the community. Thus, both the employee and employer are honored.

I hadn’t been in a couple of  years and was pleased to find that Reaching for Independence , a parents’ group in Fortuna which was just getting started when I left, has become a multi-service agency. If you’re not familiar with the rehab agencies and their programs, be aware you can locate a suitable candidate for your vacancy and get tax credits and FREE job coaching which which continues during the entire term of employment. The clients range from folks who do best at repetitive tasks to geniuses who happen to use wheelchairs. Or medications for seizure disorders. Or clocks that TELL you the time. Or screen readers for visually impaired people so that they, too, can waste time on Facebook as well as attend distance learning classes at schools and colleges. I should mention that both CR and HSU have many services for people with disabilities, who by most counts comprise about ten per cent of the population.

Services for those of us who are older? Not a problem. After all, you have two choices in life- you can become disabled or you can die young. I know which I’m picking.

I met a gentleman who is retiring from HSU after 38 years. Could have sat out the whole time on Social Security, but  chose to work. The Department of Rehabilitation is not a perfect agency but they DO turn people with disabilities into taxpayers. We should  all support them.

Another agency worthy of your support is Tri-County Independent Living, which is having its seventh annual disabilities expo on Friday from 10am to 3pm in the Vickers Building at Redwood Acres, where many of the local organizations offering choices to people with disabilities will be present, including HTA which will be bringing a bus to demonstrate their accommodations and services.  Admission is free.  Finally, the next day, Saturday, the Humboldt County Library is holding a Reading Fair to familiarize low-vision and blind patrons with a range of equipment to help with reading. The library has a loan closet which offers an opportunity to try equipment before making expensive purchases.  The Fair is from 1pm to 3pm Saturday. Show up! You just might learn something.

One thing I learned in my time at Rehab is that people with disabilities appreciate having a job, because it’s hard for them to get one. The next time someone from DOR, EDD, HCOE or any of the other agencies that work with people with disabilities approaches you, please consider giving people with disabilities a chance. You won’t be sorry.

 

Humboldt Bay Anglers See Real Gains from Artificial Reef

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The Humboldt Area Saltwater Anglers (HASA) are partnering with the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation and 21 other agencies and NGO’s to develop an artificial reef just outside Humboldt Bay. The site is one square mile north and west of the entrance to Humboldt Bay (the “North Jetty”) and is currently a featureless sand and mud bottom ranging from 60 to 100 feet underwater. The “reef” will consist of eight-foot-tall hollow concrete pyramids with holes for sea life and currents to flow through,  a mega version of the little castles and houses you buy at Fin ‘n’ Feather to enhance the environment for your goldfish.  The project has enormous potential for expanded tourism and for marine research while steering clear of impacting our commercial crab fishery.

HASA has produced a slide show that explains the project more clearly than I could and I encourage you to click HERE to access it on the Humboldt Working Port website. Once on the page, click on “presentations”, second column from the right, the one by Casey Allen,  and you can scroll down through the entire slide show.  HASA has done an excellent job and is making the rounds of community groups and service clubs to gather support for the effort. Take a look at slide No. 13 to see the list of entities involved in this project and you’ll appreciate the magnitude of their effort.

This isn’t going to happen overnight but the potential to attract sport fishermen (and women and kids) to our area from elsewhere and could mitigate the loss of fishing sites brought about by the Marine Life Protection Act and other measures. And we haven’t even talked abut the research opportunities which are already being welcomed by the Humboldt State where the Environmental Assessment Class has already been involved in evaluating and planning the project.  You’ll be hearing a lot more about it in coming months and it certainly appears to be a worthwhile project. Lend them your support. 

For more information, contact Casey Allen at HASA, (707) 845-9234 or Longfish@humboldt1.com.

 

 

HSU Grad Playing Key Role in Battle Against Styrofoam

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Can a startup headed by two twenty-somethings rid the Earth of styrofoam? It just may be happening.

Sue Van Hook, who earned Bachelor’s degrees in Botany and French and a Master’s degree in Biology from HSU,  has retired from teaching at prestigious Skidmore College and is now the Chief Mycologist at Ecovative Design, LLC. which employs about sixty people in Green Island, New York. Ian Frazier, in the May 20 edition of The New Yorker,  recounts in his article the six-year history of the company, which has attracted international attention by developing  an all-natural substitute for plastic made from tissue found in mushrooms.  It is suitable for containers and packaging now made from Styrofoam. “Ecovative’s eventual goal is to displace plastics all over the world.”

Ecovative’s founders, Gavin McIntyre and Eben Bayer, are graduates of Rensselaer Tech’s Inventors’ Studio and its Incubator program.  They were already talking about starting a company and had won a $20,000 prize for environmental entrepreneurship from Oxford when Van Hook read about them in a local paper and called them. Skidmore became a backer of the project along with Rensselaer and Van Hook’s students became part of the effort to find a suitable growing medium and technique to produce an “artificial plastic”.

The hazards of real plastic are pretty evident by this time. Landfills, beaches and highways   are littered with Styrofoam which once was used primarily for building insulation but now, unhappily, is everywhere. Much of the trash gyre in the Pacific Ocean is styrofoam, also called “foamed polystyrene”.  As Frazier notes, “Foamed polystyrene breaks down extremely slowly, in timespans no one is sure of, and a major chemical it breaks down to is styrene, listed as a carcinogen in the 2011 toxicology report issued by the National Institutes of Health.”  The toll on wildlife has been well-established.  Mayor Bloomberg has proposed a ban on the commercial use of Styrofoam containers in NYC.

The materials produced by Ecovative will biodegrade in about a month, with no carcinogens. I highly recommend the article, along with the rest of the May 20 “Innovators issue”, and I’m sorry I can’t reprint the whole thing for you, but it’s copyrighted. You can buy it online, visit the library or just buy a subscription.  I’ve been reading The New Yorker since I was a kid and it just keeps getting better.

So why don’t we have a county-wide ban on  Styrofoam?  Could your business find a way to succeed without foamed polystyrene? And wouldn’t Sue Van Hook have been a better choice as a graduation speaker than a phonied-up impersonator of Alexander von Humboldt, who never set foot in California?? What do you think?

Entrepreneurship- Seeking the “One Spark” of creativity

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Redwood Coast businesses may not seem to have much in common with those in the sprawling megalopolis of Jacksonville FL, but take a closer look.  Both communities are port cities which need more business, both have downtowns which need revitalization, both have wealthy citizens who are willing to give back to the community, both have thriving art and music scenes, and both have avenues for those who are seeking funding for startup businesses. We have Economic Fuel, they have the new OneSpark.

OneSpark,  billed as “The World’s Crowdfunding Festival” took place over the  weekend of April 17-21 in the downtown area of Jax which was supposed to have received an economic boost from the Superbowl a few years ago, and didn’t. They chose to scatter the booths and exhibits throughout a “Creator Zone” and an “Entertainment District” stretching from Duval Street to the Jacksonville Landing on the river.  Even in the Florida heat- and in competition with the nonstop TV coverage of the Boston Marathon manhunt- the attendance over the five days reached 100,000 and there were exhibits or performances by over 900 Creators, 446 of which were officially entered in the Crowdfunding competition. Most of the rest were bands or graphic artists. Guests could vote or contribute ($5 minimum) for their favorite projects by Smartphone, by texting, by web or at a kiosk with the prize money allocated according to number of votes cast.  They could vote as many times as they wished, but only once for each project. Two stages were set up as “Pitch Decks” where creators could make a ten-minute pitch without even being registered at the Festival.

A major source of the prize money was Shad Khan, owner of the hapless Jacksonville Jaguars, who has stated he might be good for another million for specified projects. The Jax Cultural Council has already raised $180,000 towards keeping the ‘Spark District” a permanent force in the city, and will be awarding $60,000 in grants to artists who put their studios in a specified six-square-block area. The Downtown Investment Authority is seeking proposals in late May from group[s interested in putting on daily events in Hemming Plaza, a central but underutilized location.  It appears that OneSpark is more than a one-shot deal.

So who won?  Of the four categories – Music, Technology, Science and Art- Art received twice as many votes as the nearest competitor, Technology.  Among the proposals were everything from bands looking for money to record their first album and buy a van, to a massive plan called the Riverpool, a giant floating concrete dock adjacent to downtown including a marina for kayaks, restaurants, swimming pools and a public beach. On e project would transform a water tower on Jacksonville Beach into a colorful giant jellyfish. One woman is making furniture from recycled milk jugs.

But the winner by a large margin was “Rethreaded”, a company that works with women escaping the sex trade by training them to produce children’s clothing and other items from castoff T-shirts. The almost $7000 they won will fund their next four-month class.  The founder, Kristen Keen, had a similar company in India.  This has been just a quick once-over of a terrific event.  Maybe something we could try in Humboldt?

 

 

Roger Ebert- lessons in courage and branding

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It’s been a sad week. I’ve been watching or reading Roger Ebert for what seems like most of my adult life, first with Siskel and Ebert , then after Gene Siskel’s untimely death from cancer, with Richard Roeper and more recently on Salon. He was one of a kind.  He had character.

About twenty years ago , while I was still living in Hawaii, my friend and I bought tickets to the Honolulu Film Festival.  In what turned out to be a really bad decision, I opted out of one of the evenings and my friend went alone. Being  a gregarious type, he struck up a conversation with the couple next to him, who turned out to be Roger Ebert and his gorgeous stewardess girlfriend. They invited him to a party after the film,  with the kind of friendliness that is so typical of Chicago people.

Years later, it was hard to watch the cancer take its toll but Roger Ebert didn’t let a little thing like losing his voicebox deter him from his purpose in life. He carried on with artificial voices and surrogates.  He never quit working.  He retained the rights to the “thumbs up, thumbs down” routine and few of us will ever hear those words without thinking of this extraordinary man.  Roger Ebert, dead at 70. May he rest in peace.

Hiatus- I have to spend a couple of weeks in Florida for family reasons. If the gators, sinkholes and pythons don’t get me, I will see you in a couple of weeks. Enjoy the rest of April!

“The Best of the North Coast”- really?

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Where's my room??

Where’s my room??

Everyone loves lists, and I’m sure the North Coast business community pays close attention to the Times-Standard’s annual “Best of the North Coast” supplement that was just  published.

I find the list fascinating but everyone wonders the same thing: do these choices really reflect public opinion or is this more like when you were running for prom king or queen in high school and you had to go around and get your friends to vote for you.  Do the winners really represent “the people’s choice” or do they merely reflect organized campaigns in which employees and friends are “reminded” to cast their ballots? The editor states that “We hand-counted thousands of votes”.  I wonder why, the next time they do this, couldn’t they publish the actual counts? Then we’d know if the Kabob Cafe won the title “Best Place for a Business Lunch” by a margin of 3 votes or 40.  That was one of the weirder choices, to me. I love their food but I can’t see having a business lunch there, not if you need privacy.

Their winner in the “Hotel” category was very strange.  They listed the Holiday Inn at 2223 4th Street in Eureka although that property has been a Clarion for at least twelve years and the pleasant ladies at the front desk informed me there are no plans to revert to Holiday Inn status. Even more bizarre, they included, as a winner, the construction site on Broadway and Wabash where a Holiday Inn IS under construction but I find it hard to believe that it garnered votes as anyone’s favorite place to stay, considering there’s no roof yet.  Still, when you’re “hand counting thousands of votes” I suppose a few anomalies slip in.

I was pleased to see that a few of my favorite establishments were recognized.  The AA does have the best steaks, Hole in the Wall does have the best sandwiches, C&C Market does do a remarkable job of catering and McCrea Nissan where I have received the best service in my experience was honored, although paired with Mid-City Motors where I received the worst.  They shouldn’t  have categories where there are only one or two providers. St. Joseph’s vs  Mad River?  Apples and oranges.

Anyway, thanks to the Times-Standard for the supplement, which I always save for incoming visitors. Next year, let’s see the actual counts.  Might be interesting. 

The Robots Are Coming- to a Redwood Coast Business near you

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I hadn’t intended to write about robots today but seeing both the North Coast Journal’s  story about St. Joseph’s labor issues including the “doc-on-a-stick” AND The Economist’s survey of “robotic telepresence” in the workplace on the same day got my attention.

Briefly, St. Joe’s has apparently introduced the use of the “doc-on-a-stick” (described by the NCJ as a “video screen on a pole that a nurse wheels into  the patient’s room, so a doctor from afar can videoconference in to consult with a patient with the nurse’s help.”)  Normally, such a major change in procedures would call for “impact and implementation” bargaining between the employer and the union. The article, by the always excellent Heidi Walters, examines points of contention between labor and management at St. Joe’s and although this is the first time I’ve heard of robots being at issue in local labor relations, you may be assured it won’t be the last.

The survey published by the Economist in the March 9th issue was eye-opening, to me at least. I didn’t realize how inexpensive “robotic telepresence” is becoming.  RoboDynamics of Santa Monica introduced its TILR model in 2008 at $10,000, followed it with a $3000 model in January and is working on a 2015 model that will cost less than $1000. Robots are being used to extend a manager’s sphere of influence by enabling monitoring and meetings that would not otherwise be practical. They can facilitate real estate deals by allowing inspections remotely. They can enhance security, and cheaply. Xaxxon Technologies in Vancouver is selling a patrol bot that is essentially a laptop on wheels which runs on Skype and is controlled by a smartphone. It costs $290. I want one.

Security , however, is a two-way street. A ‘bot on patrol may be transmitting images which call for a firewall or other controls. Another issue is the effect on humans in the workplace who feel (with good cause) that they are being spied on. Future developments will be driven to some extent by the need to humanize the ‘bots, perhaps by adding limbs. Several companies are now marketing small machines that can zip around a floor or tabletop, carrying your smartphone and avoiding collisions. It’s happening.

I strongly recommend you read the full article. I have no doubt that somewhere in Humboldt County an inventor is pursuing this technology and new uses for it. We do, indeed, live in interesting times. Are you considering the use of ‘bots for your business? Let us know.

 

 

Two Humboldt County business groups you should know about

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As the post-recession drags on and on, and budget politics gets more and more bizarre,  we can take heart from the fact that at least locally there are folks who actually are trying to do something constructive in the Humboldt community. Here are two such groups.

The Humboldt Bay Harbor Working Group was started during the recent update of the Prosperity program.  An enthusiastic group is meeting at the Samoa Cookhouse on the last Wednesday of each month at noon to share and promote ideas and projects to promote harbor-related employment.  The February meeting was attended by a group of about  forty.  About half of them were familiar from the old Citizens for Port/Rail Development, but there were a lot of new faces too, at least new to me,  We heard an update presentation by Dave Hull, who made the point that even if the current harbor plan is fully implemented, it would still impact only about 15% of the Humboldt Bay shoreline.

A word about the CPD.  Kaye Strickland, who organized and led the CPD meetings for many years, passed away in February shortly after her husband Bill,  and is sorely missed. Kaye and Bill had both been hospitalized and their passing was not unexpected, but that doesn’t make it any less sad. They were both very active in the community- Bill was on the old Zoo Advisory Board with me and Kaye was active in the League of Women Voters. The CPD suffered from a lack of structure but it was an invaluable group for anyone who wanted to stay on top of Harbor issues and if the new Working Group succeeds it will be because of the framework built by Kaye and the other CPD regulars. I was delighted to see Virginia Bass  at the February meeting as well as a host of folks who were never involved in the CPD, at least that I can remember, so it appears that the CPD will have a worthy successor.

PLEASE RSVP if you’re planning to attend this month’s meeting, to Susanna Munzell, s.munzell@yahoo.com so the folks at the Cookhouse can plan accordingly.

The second group you should be aware of is in its beginning phase, but they mean business.  This is the  Humboldt Inventors’ Club recently begun by Joseph Twohig , and meets on the second Thursday from 6:30 -8pm in the community room at the rear of The Meadows townhouses on Hubbard Lane in Eureka, between Myrtle Avenue and Harris, entrance directly across from the Myrtle Avenue Market parking lot. Joe states, “Suggestions for  topics and presentations most welcome” and some of the projects are startlingly original. You will be asked to sign a confidentiality agreement if you attend. Contact Joseph Twohig at (707) 267-0775 or joetwohig@gmail.com.

So there you have it: grass-roots activism and innovation. May the Year of the Snake bring inspiration to everyone struggling to make Humboldt  County a place where our kids will be able to live their lives out in prosperity , or at least make a decent living.