Sierra In Peril- SF 133

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Are all there against you know. Chills over it so let's first look for regionalism has to stop its values survive the 20th century. OK all right Tim Stern's best. Are you nuts. The president of the Central Valley Business Incubator. Just talk to me. It's regarding our brief answers about you started to tell me about the problem the brain drain syndrome here in the valley. President. Well one of the things of the valley historically not the upper really types of jobs oftentimes attract young people. Certainly the coast has been a place where most young people want to go because of those of jobs. But partly that's been a function of Prozone other cities being rather large or rather small and as they become larger and larger where there are more amenities and more attractions for young people.

But we still need to have a job building for them to see. One of the things that we think is very powerful keeping young people here is you know be involved in entrepreneurial activities that have the potential for success. And certainly as business begins to transform itself more into a technological based operation this becomes something that young people can learn and grasp quickly. And as a result they can form these businesses and stay in the valley which has a very strong competitive advantage compared to the sort of an interesting dichotomy isn't it. We have a region that is so strongly based on an agricultural economy it's still so important to the economic success of this region and yet there is a profound need to diversify. And that diversification did not necessarily leave agriculture behind. In fact one of the things that technology can do in the valley is add value to the agricultural component shipping our ability to try to

improve the quality of the product from water arrogation or so forth so we know that technology doesn't have to mean that agriculture has to remain an old type of system. We can improve that greatly but it is true that we do need diversification more alternatives for people to choose from and more opportunities in the job market. And that's in part why the Central Valley Business Incubator was one give me a little just a little history on the Genesis and the creation of this organization. The Central Valley Business Incubator originally started off as a concept with the University Park or name of the community. It was unable to be fulfilled. Several years ago but the business community kept alive. Unfortunately the company decided that they were going to move the corporate headquarters. As a result jobs generously donated this building to the Central Valley business incubator and through the Center for Advanced Research and Technology which is a brand new high technology high school. It's being built right next to me. And

so what has happened is the incubator was able to become a partner with this particular effort and the university came back in and begin to manage this process. We have a thriving incubator and one that anyone can see walking in here is full of entrepreneurial activity and simply simply as you can explain having to get it works and incubator is a concept you might think of back to whether an incubator has trying to keep the eggs warm and nurture them so that they can hatch and go off on their own. What we try to do is capture businesses at the very young fragile stage and try to give them as many resources as we can to make the business successful with the idea that they become successful they begin to create jobs and begin to create. Most successful communities that I've observed across the country are successful because they have a strong entrepreneurial base. Whether those entrepreneurial companies such as 3m the pills berries and they

Hudson apples has grown into the Fortune 500. Those are entrepreneurial companies that care about their communities and a lot of value. And so in this community what is the incubator do they get to walk us through a typical example of how you would help a business get a room. Well what we try to first do when a business comes in is fully evaluate their business plan and understand what goals they're trying to accomplish. Once we've done that assessment then we tried to make them or connect them with key individuals in the community who have resources that will assist them in developing their operations. That may mean simply labor from people with good good knowledge know how to implement projects such as through the university. Maybe working with a high end computer or web page company which can help them develop their dot.com operations are back in business solutions. We tried to put together a mentoring team of

prominent business people who can meet with them every month. To make sure that they're meeting their goals to give them advice and help them along. We also give them access and university to key researchers and people from various parts of the university who will come in the system and consult them on a project that's a good background response I'm probably going to need something a little more synopsize some wondering if you could if this is accurate say something like You know we take we try to take an entrepreneur from inception through completion. We give them training mentoring resources that facility so. So what sort of the incubator is a way that people who have great ideas can come in and we try to capture those ideas that help them flesh out their idea create a company provide mentoring systems provide resources consulting and we even have venture capital we can provide out of that we hope within three to five years of the hatch and the park

as a very successful. Do you think the model that was created here to me is actually something that could be successfully repeated throughout the balance of the model here can be successfully repeated There are some 700 incubators across the country and they are cropping up all over the place so this is the first one in the Central Valley and we expect to have many many more here as this become successful and to be honest we actually have all people trying to go even better on a waiting list and so we hope that were going to be able to meet their needs as well and how important you think this is as their value enters the 21st century terms of helping it. Its a vibrant and viable Well a pleasant place to live. I think incubator is critical. I'm not much of an advocate that we need to go out and great jobs in the valley by encouraging companies. I think we have to do it ourselves and the solution is how we go about empowering our own citizens to give them the direction and guidance to be successful as entrepreneurs. Once you began the entrepreneurial process and it begins the floor age you'll find companies will want to move here

because they will see the optimism. They will see the opportunity but unless we solve it first by saying to ourselves that we are going to do this on our own without waiting for someone to come in and help us that is when the success in all of this really has a direct impact on the quality of life in the valley not only in terms of bringing interesting innovative people here but perhaps getting this region more self-confidence and reaching that often has an inferiority complex compared to the coast. I think so and that's what entrepreneurs do. They provide a certain different mix. Sometimes it's exciting and sometimes it's interesting and brings a lot of creativity Trax people here who are really industrious and desire to accomplish a goal and it becomes infectious with other people. Other people see the opportunities that they can also latch on to and overall that doesn't have a life. It means that for many of us we get a lot of our small shops and customize it give us the customer service of many of us desire and makes the

economic landscape much more interesting. Very good you know if you want to give me some very good comment. Well we would encourage anyone to come over the thank you brother and thank you thank you chose and like a rose garden take their I do try to nurture you. Thanks Jim good job. So what I learned today. OK you guys are ready. For. Great aren't you guys come on back. We'll do it one more time. OK she gets all set. Up. So they. Act like they're friends. Oh. Shucks that.

Was. Just me and my boss. Sure. She doesn't yet know if we're going to see Will she just doesn't say Seasons Greetings. Okay okay often. We need kids on the front page. Oh just go. Although there could. Be. Something like that. It's great you have another young daughter. Only do I not fulfill them. Yes please all right not St. Louis well. That's the only way. OK. OK. OK. That's what your particular caller that's not good to have or not.

I'm just looking for a writer you know you think that. Clear up cash flow. Now if I don't know you. Or if I came into it here that's what was this that should do it. Sure. What. You. Want. To be somewhere else. Where. I knows I will just. Go to the 0. 0 0 views ask me to do something here I want to see if I can accommodate you. So. Can I

queue it so that it will repaint slowly. It was a question right. And yes if I can clear the cash out before I get paid. This should have done so not to go forward where I was. It should be. Clear. That what you. Yeah that's great. OK Roland I'm looking at you right. Yeah it's the first of your name and spell your last name and tell me that in your company. My name is Stephen Paul and last name is Pierre well and our company is built here fruits dot com NOW. OK first of all tell me how you who first you reported first came up with the idea of taking that traditional food basket into a whole new realm both in terms of the quality and in terms of how you sell it. It really started when we were directly involved in farming where it became really apparent

that the in order to create better revenues back to the farm we need to create higher value we need to move away from mainstream and the only way to do that was a gift. So therefore we had to produce and develop a concept that says quality something that would demand a higher premium dollar and a nice presentation nice packaging always quality was the ingredients to provide a for. So that was it that was the start it looks like you've obviously cheated. Now at what point did you realize that the best way to sell this product would be on the Internet. It was really clear when you understand the power that the Internet brings all of a sudden the walls and the blinders of your own environment are lifted to the fact that you can now open yourself up to the rest of the world. So how are you going to present yourself to the rest of the world and that's where the creativity that the Internet allows you to do expects man yourself open up and say Look at us here's what we do and. How did the even better take that great concept and help you make it a reality.

The incubator has provided us with a wonderful foundation to expand on the technology and the exposure of new technology that is developing as we speak. So it's a synergy of new technology relationships contacts that will keep us on the pulse of what's new to become a continuing developing cutting edge company on the Internet. Specifically what is the incubator dude to get you from inception to where you are today. Well we were we had already been an e-commerce company and valving the Internet. What did this become. Give us the fine tuning effect dialed into what is it that we need to be doing to become a a real e-commerce threat. One of the areas we need to be looking at and how can we all work in unison because in essence the IF YOU BETTER is taking a look at the greater value as a whole not just one company. So we can achieve this in unison. Then we're going to have a good positive impact of what is going to happen to this valley in terms of value added and culture and its new economic future so that they help you perhaps focus your

business plan help you develop your website give you some additional distribution ideas. All those Plus what is it that's going to become the realm of customer service and what's involved with customer service. How are we going to handle the processing of these orders and managing all this data that will be coming in. So they open you up and become aware of really what are all the issues that must be looked upon. Yes the business plan yes the marketing plan but the big picture the data management the customer service side of it all the factors that are involved. The colors you think you would have achieved this level of success without incubators. Well it probably would take longer I think and if you're persistent and you have the heart and drive I'm a believer that anybody can achieve anything. But when you have resources available to help you achieve those goals. Nothing like shortening that time gap and using utilizing what good resources are available to you this is a wonderful facility. How does it make you feel to know that first of all you're staying in the valley. You know you didn't have to take you or your knowledge and your expertise go somewhere else to make a good living and that perhaps you're

really helping to contribute to the local economy. It is what I feel is when you've been born and raised in agriculture and you have had the luxury of being a part of this. It's part of the payback now that we must be responsible to our industry and continue developing it. So it's an honor I feel wonderful. It's exciting to be here during this time of the evolution of the culture at this level of value added products and the exposure that we're getting. It's it's great to tell you how it makes you feel stupid to know that. Well to me it makes you feel to know that you're part of the movie Valley agriculture into a new realm. You know it's sort of what my grandfather did back when he came here and their parents as migrants and playing a part in their role of developing at their time. And I think it's a wonderful of a good feeling I feel almost feel like it's a duty that if we've been a part of this industry that who else is going to help move it forward than those of us that have been part of it for so long. No one can do it better than those who

grew up in it. And that's the heritage of this valley there are some great families the people that are in it are have good strong words and the strength of this valley lies within the character of the families that have helped develop. And tell me your thoughts on how you think what you're doing with this company's doing is perhaps a Ballack of what the valley needs to do is we're going to thrive in the 21st century. It's a vision that we actually started about 15 years ago looking at the full integration of what we were doing at that point was enjoying packing and shipping seeing there's another element here there's an element that we need to get into the sense of taking a lesson from Europe Europe and Napa Valley they have done a wonderful job on selling who they are in the image of the countryside the image of Napa Valley and the fact that it's quality that has to be done here in this valley even more so we need to take a look at our products and what we've grown be very proud of them. And if we're happy with them and we're proud of them if we want to uphold them then the rest of the consumers will too. So it starts within. And that's really the model here. And it really stems back from me back to my grandmother who madde migrated

here at the age of 13 with no family losing everything from her Armenian heritage and what she did the values that she's still in her daughters and her family and the responsibility now that I have to carry that forward to my kids and my family and everything that I do must follow that type of foundation in a way it seems like what you folks are doing is another small step towards eliminating the very already complex that the valley seems to have somehow we're not. It's good that a sophisticated not as forward thinking technologically advanced as just this coastal city. I think the beauty about this is that we should stop trying to become the next Silicon Valley. We are the San Joaquin Valley and what we have is a resource of our three billion dollar agriculture which can be into the trillions in terms of value added and getting our product to the marketplace opposed to outsourcing it to other cities of value adding it and become our own identity for agriculture and that's what we need to be focused on. We need the Silicon Valley we need their technology

their technology will help us do what we want to do. That's how we work together. Let's not try and be what somebody else is be happy with who we are and that's agriculture and that's what can preserve it'll preserve Agway it will do all the things we want to do if we if we stay focused on who we are. Yeah that's a very good point. Yeah I think this is a perfect marriage of high technology and our agricultural days. It's a blessing to be here. I mean where else in the world can you do this. We are very few areas in this world that you can do all this here in this valley with the with the polygamy of quality products with the technology available and with the mystique of California I mean what more can you have that's a magical name when it comes to marketing when it comes to everything and it's you know very very good times to come in 2000 to be on good excellent Rice you know.