Daily Business Report-May 26, 2016
The spacecraft, or bus, of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is designed and developed at Northrop Grumman. (Courtesy Northrop Grumman)
Northrop Grumman Delivers Optical
Telescope Element to NASA for Space Launch
Northrop Grumman Corporation’s delivery of the fully integrated Optical Telescope Element for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope marks another major milestone toward the October 2018 launch of the largest telescope ever built for space.
Northrop Grumman delivered the OTE in March to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Northrop Grumman is under contract to Goddard and leads the industry team that designs and develops the Webb Telescope, its sunshield and spacecraft. Northrop Grumman has completed the integration, testing and delivery of the telescope.
The Webb telescope’s 18 hexagonal gold coated beryllium mirrors are supported by the telescope structure. The OTE hardware is made of the most precise graphite composite material system ever created, and contributes to the Webb Telescope’s ability to provide an unprecedented exploratory view into the formation of the first stars and galaxies formed over 13.5 billion years ago.
The precision manufacturing and integration of the 21.5-foot telescope structure allow it to withstand the pressure and weight of the launch loads when stowed inside the 15-foot-diameter fairing of the Ariane 5 rocket. The cutting-edge design and transformer like capabilities of the telescope structure allow it to fold-up and fit inside the launch vehicle, and then deploy once the Webb telescope reaches its ultimate destination, 1 million miles away from earth. Throughout travel and deployment, the telescope simultaneously maintains its dimensional stability while also operating at cryogenic or extremely cold temperatures, approximately 400 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. The telescope is the world’s first deployable structure of this size and dimensional stability ever designed and built.
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Irvine Company Opens Eastgate Summit
Irvine Company Office Properties has opened Eastgate Summit, a 65,000-square-foot office building in UTC, and has begun construction on Eastgate Terrace, a three-story, 96,000-square-foot office complex on Towne Centre Drive that is expected to be completed in early 2017.
The 22,000-square-foot, column-free floor plates in the building feature oversized windows, while the five per 1,000-square-foot parking ratio is 25 percent higher than the industry standard, according to company officials.
The company has completed erecting steel at Eastgate Terrace nearby.
The 1.5-million square-foot, 24-building Eastgate campus includes indoor and outdoor fitness activities, such as yoga and bike-sharing programs and The Commons, a collection of open-air spaces that features a Wi-Fi-enabled outdoor living room, sun decks, al fresco dining, bocce ball court, outdoor volleyball, barbecues, a gourmet coffee cart, and an outdoor fireplace.
Avalon, GSK form San Diego Biotech
Extending their partnership to an eighth company, La Jolla’s Avalon Ventures and UK-based drug giant GSK said Friday they have formed another San Diego biotech startup. The company, PDI Therapeutics, will develop immunotherapies for cancer. Like all other companies formed under the three-year-old partnership, PDI will be housed at Avalon’s COI Pharmaceuticals, an incubator that provides shared facilities and management.
Fragmob Named to the First-Ever
Inc.’s Best Workplaces Awards
San Diego-based Fragmob listed to Inc.’s inaugural 50 Best Workplaces, the first such measurement of American companies with up to 500 employees that deploy state-of-the-art techniques to keep their staff happy and productive.
Working with employee engagement and culture experts Quantum Workplace of Omaha, Nebraska, Inc.’s list is a magnifying glass on how innovative companies can truly raise the bar in hiring and keeping the best talent.
We hear it over and over again from the fast-growing businesses we cover: The biggest challenge that any business owner faces is finding and keeping the best people. That’s why building a workplace culture that allows your staff to grow with your company is absolutely crucial,” explains Inc.’s President and Editor-In-Chief Eric Schurenberg. “Recipients of the Inc. Best Workplaces Awards have done so in spades. They should be celebrated and emulated.”
Jade Charles, co-founder and CEO at Fragmob said: “You’re basically competing for each employee’s mindshare, even when they aren’t physically in the office. The company and culture must balance productivity and fun. You can do that by making the ‘why’ very clear and instilling a sense of freedom and purpose into everyone’s work… then trust them, completely.”
UC San Diego’s Algae Biofuels
Program Ranked Best in Nation
The U.S. Department of Energy has ranked UC San Diego’s algae biofuels research effort the No. 1 program in the nation for the fourth consecutive year. The latest ranking is contained in a recently released report from the agency’s Bioenergy Technologies Office that summarized an external review of its research, development and demonstration programs. That review ranked UC San Diego’s algae program number one out of 27 others in the nation at universities and national laboratories funded by the agency.
“Our No. 1 ranking for the past four years is a testament to both the deep technical expertise we have in San Diego, as well the breadth of topics in algae biotechnology that we cover,” said Stephen Mayfield, a professor of biology at UC San Diego who heads the university’s algae biofuels research effort and directs the California Center for Algae Biotechnology, or “Cal-CAB,” a consortium of academic researchers in California working with industry to develop renewable transportation fuels and other sustainable products from algae.
Springboard Graduates
Five companies graduated from the CONNECT Springboard Accelerator Program this month. Those companies are: Advance Resin Therapeutics (ART), H2bid, One Earth Recycling, PureWick, and Snews. Read more…
7 San Diego Area Restaurants Make
OpenTable’s Top 100 ‘Al Fresco’ List
By City News Service
Seven eateries in San Diego County made OpenTable’s list of the 100 best al fresco dining restaurants in America for 2016, the online restaurant reservation site announced Wednesday.
San Diego eateries making the cut were Brockton Villa, The Prado at Balboa Park, Tom Hams Lighthouse and George’s Ocean Terrace in La Jolla, along with Poseidon in Del Mar, SEA180 Coastal Tavern in Imperial Beach and Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens in Escondido.
The list reflects the combined opinions of more than 5 million restaurant reviews submitted by verified OpenTable diners for more than 20,000 restaurants in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to OpenTable.
The list features restaurants in 19 states and Washington, D.C., ranging from beachside dining spots to those in chic urban areas.
The state of California claimed almost half the number of winning restaurants with 44, followed by Florida with 13, Hawaii with 12 and Arizona with eight.
North Carolina and South Carolina boast three honorees apiece; and Maryland, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania have two each. Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. are also represented.
Higher Fees Studied for Aircraft
Owners Flying into San Diego Airports
By City News Service
Owners of aircraft that fly into airports run by the city of San Diego could soon face higher fees, which were tentatively approved Wednesday by the City Council Budget Committee.
The fees are for pumping fuel and overnight airplane parking at Brown Field and Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport, and the increases are designed to bring them in line with similar facilities in California, Arizona and Nevada, according to city Airports Division staff.
Owners of private aircraft are charged a fuel flowage fee at San Diego’s airfields instead of landing fees.
The cost is currently 7 cents a gallon for aviation gasoline and jet fuel, and 9 cents a gallon for oil. If the hikes are approved by the full City Council, the prices would increase over the next two fiscal years to the industry average of 10 cents a gallon for jet fuel and oil, and 9 cents a gallon for “AvGas.”
Staff estimates that city revenue would increase around $58,000 the first year and $57,000 the second year, to a total annual haul of about $438,000.
Transient parking fees would climb over two years from $5 per night to $7 a night for single-engine aircraft, and $5 to $9 nightly for multi-engine planes.
A formula for large aircraft weighing over 10,000 pounds would remain unchanged.
The city collected more than $28,000 for overnight parking in Fiscal Year 2015. According to a staff report, that would increase to over $42,000 under the new fee schedule.
“Those airports have been neglected and under-utilized assets for a while here, and I think we’re making steps in the right direction,” Councilman Scott Sherman said. “Hopefully, this equivalent of — I don’t know — a Starbucks coffee or so per plane will help out a little bit.”
A performance audit of the Airports Division last year found that required annual reviews of fees hadn’t been performed since 2003. That was the last time the fuel flowage price was increased. The cost of overnight parking has been the same since 1991, according to staff.
In the future, the Airports Division plans to address monthly fees for owners who base their planes at the two airports.
Committee Considers $2.5M to Replace
Aging Sails at Convention Center
Times of San Diego
Work to replace the iconic but aging sails at the San Diego Convention Center could begin as soon as November, after the City Council’s Budget Committee Wednesday gave a tentative go-ahead to a proposed $25.5 million state loan.
If the plan is approved by the full City Council, the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank would provide the funding to the San Diego Convention Center Corp., which would be chiefly responsible for repayment. Debt service is expected to be $1.6 million annually through 2042, according to staff.
City officials have been working for several years now to come up with a plan to replace the fabric sail structure. Also part of the project would be modernizing escalators, replacing a cooling tower and improving fire safety systems.
The city of San Diego would act as a co-signer of sorts, responsible for making up the difference in repayments in case the convention center falls short in a given year — an arrangement that raised concern among several of the committee members.
But Committee Chairman Todd Gloria said the improvements are “urgent” and need to be done, even with what he called “a reasonable risk.”
“This building is very important to our city’s economy and we have to maintain it,” Gloria said.
Staff said the convention center would keep the loan repayments as a top priority in its budget each year.
The loan plan still requires approval of the full City Council, as well as the boards of the convention center, Port of San Diego and the I-Bank.
Rating Boost for Water Authority
S&P Global Ratings today announced that it has upgraded the San Diego County Water Authority’s senior lien credit rating to AAA, a boon for ratepayers who will benefit from lower financing costs. This marks the first time the Water Authority has achieved a AAA senior lien rating, the highest offered by S&P.
San Diego Meals-on-Wheels Takes
Part in Study into Seniors’ Health
Meals-on-Wheels Greater San Diego Inc. will participate in a two-year research program to investigate opportunities to improve the general health and well-being of homebound seniors by integrating health and safety screenings into daily meal delivery services. The research program is part of a collaboration between the Gary and Mary West Health Institute, Meals on Wheels America and a research group in the Brown University Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research.
Besides San Diego, the research will be taking place in Cambridge, Ohio; Forth Worth, Texas; Raleigh, N.C.; Sheboygan, Wisc.; and Westwood, N.J.
Meals-on-Wheels Greater San Diego volunteers visit with senior clients daily and are often the only person a senior will see in a day. With 9.6 million seniors in this country facing the threat of hunger, and 15.2 million living alone in isolation, the Meals on Wheels staff and volunteers build important relationships with meal recipients and are usually the first person to observe health status changes that could lead to more serious issues, and to routinely report any issues to caregivers or healthcare providers.
NAWBO Honors Winners
Of Its 2016 BRAVO! Awards
The National Association of Women Business Owners San Diego (NAWBO) announced the winners of its BRAVO! awards for this year.
Winners were honored at a May 18 awards banquet.
Award winners.
Woman Business Owner of the Year
Didi Discar, Carling Communications Inc.
Rising Star Award
Elizabeth Wilson, Seed GC
Signature Award
Linda Strand, Independent Energy Solutions
Green Community Award
Pauline Martinson, I Love a Clean San Diego
Trailblazer Award
Gulsum Rustemoglu, GEPermit and Kosu Dunyamiz
Women’s Advocate of the Year
Leslie Fishlock, Geek Girl
Illumina Registers MiSeqDx
For Clinical Use in Australia
GenomeWeb
San Diego-based Illumina has registered its MiSeqDx instrument for clinical use in Australia. The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration has listed the instrument in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods as a cleared in vitro diagnostic medical device, Illumina said.
“This is an exciting milestone for Illumina and for our clinical customers in Australia,” said Tim Orpin, vice president and general manager for Illumina in the Asia Pacific region.
Earlier this month, Illumina received approval from South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to use its MiSeqDx instrument and MiSeqDx Universal kit for diagnostic purposes.
The instrument is now cleared for clinical use in the US, Canada, Argentina, European countries recognizing the CE mark, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines.
Illumina also has premarket clearance for a version of its NextSeq 500 instrument from the China Food and Drug Administration in conjunction with Berry Genomics’ noninvasive prenatal test.
