Daily Business Report-March 7, 2017
The RQ-4 Global Hawk high altitude long endurance autonomous aircraft system. (Credit: Northrop Grumman)
Northrop Grumman Begins Flight
Tests of Sensor on Global Hawk Drone
Northrop Grumman Corporation has begun flight testing of the MS-177 sensor with a successful inaugural flight on an RQ-4 Global Hawk high altitude long endurance autonomous aircraft system.
The MS-177 sensor is designed to provide capabilities to not only “find” targets using broad area search and different sensing technologies, but to also fix, track, and assess targets through its agility and multiple sensing modalities.
The flight tests mark the first time the sensor has been flown on a high altitude long-range autonomous aircraft and extend the mission capabilities of the system.
The testing is expected to continue through the first half of 2017. The successful flight test at Northrop Grumman’s Palmdale, Calif. facility follows the demonstrations of two sensors previously unavailable on the Global Hawk. Northrop Grumman successfully flew a SYERS-2 intelligence gathering sensor in February 2016 and has recently completed flight tests of the Optical Bar Camera.
“The MS-177 is the new benchmark in imaging intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance sensors and its integration into the Global Hawk platform expands the mission capability we can provide,” said Mick Jaggers, vice president and program manager, Global Hawk program, Northrop Grumman. “This successful flight is another milestone in an aggressive effort to demonstrate Global Hawk’s versatility and effectiveness in carrying a variety of sensor payloads and support establishing OMS compliancy.”
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How to brand out, stand out and cash in
Liz Goodgold is a branding expert who works with entrepreneurs and corporations to brand better and speak “gooder.” Through consulting, coaching, training, and motivational speaking, she shares specific strategies on how to brand out, stand out, and cash in on your brand.
Goodgold is one of the speaker’s on the March 20 opening day of San Diego Women’s Week, to be held from noon to 7 p.m. at the Wyland Center Del Mar Fairgrounds. For details: www.sdwomensweek.com
Goodgold custom creates workshops and training for hundreds of corporations from Beijing to Boston. Known at “the queen of interacting with her audience,” she serves up red-hot, on-the-spot advice and shares what sizzles and fizzles in the world of branding today.
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Microlender Accion Disbursed $3.5 Million
To Southern California Entrepreneurs in 2016
San Diego-based microlender Accion disbursed more than $3.5 million to Southern California entrepreneurs in 2016 through its small business loan program which offers term loans up to $75,000.
At the beginning of 2016, the organization expanded its service area from serving San Diego and Imperial counties, to lending to entrepreneurs in neighboring Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
“Accion remains strongly committed to small businesses, the passionate entrepreneurs who run them, and the communities they rely on to thrive,” said Accion Chief Strategy Officer Valery Belloso. “In 2016, we saw overall program growth and a higher than average loan size, as the organization focused on building a stronger infrastructure to best serve the needs of our four-county region.”
Of the 248 loans disbursed in 2016, 183 of those loans went to business owners in San Diego, totaling $2.4 million. The average loan size overall increased by nearly 37 percent from $10,400 in 2015 to $14,200 in 2016.
The nonprofit also achieved the milestone of surpassing $30 million lent since its inception in 1994. Accion has disbursed nearly 4,000 loans to over 3,500 clients in its 22-year history.
Last year also marked the single largest financial contribution ever received by the organization. A $1 million grant was awarded from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI) last October, which is to be deployed as loan capital in San Diego and Imperial counties.
“We have been focused on building our team and cultivating talent to carry out our mission in Southern California,” said Belloso. “We believe that successful small businesses are vital for job creation, a healthy economy, and thriving communities.”
In 2016, Accion invested heavily in new technology and expanding capacity to enhance the client experience, maximize operational efficiency and position the organization to scale and serve more business owners in the coming years. The organization added seven new positions to its staff, with growth in its intake, loan servicing and business development teams. Of the seven new roles, four are located in the regional headquarters at the Joe & Vi Jacobs Center in southeast San Diego. The remainder works in the expanded regions, acting as on-the-ground support for business owners in Imperial, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
“We have been focused on building our team and cultivating talent to carry out our mission in Southern California,” said Belloso. “We believe that successful small businesses are vital for job creation, a healthy economy, and thriving communities.”
On average, active Accion loan clients maintain and/or generate 750 jobs in the region per year.
One Accion loan recipient saw this employment growth first-hand.
La Sirena Nail and Beauty Bar is the first, full-service beauty bar located in the heart of Barrio Logan. Opened last summer, the salon is owned by husband-and-wife team Alberto and Jessica Sandoval. After receiving their loan shortly after opening, they were able to increase their staff from four to nine full-time employees, which includes licensed nail technicians, estheticians and cosmetologists.
“I am so grateful to Accion – it means everything to me to be able to create good jobs for the Logan Heights community,” stated Jessica. “With our loan, we were able to add additional services to our business by adding more staff, and now we are positioned to take our business to the next level this year. Our business is a creative space where beauty and art come together, and has evolved into a community gathering place where people come to feel beautiful inside and out.”
Typical Accion clients are small storefront and service-based entrepreneurs, 70 percent of whom are low-to-moderate income. Accion enables its clients to increase their inventory, hire employees, purchase equipment and materials and to pursue business growth opportunities. The organization helps its loan recipients build positive credit history and enhance their business skills through one-on-one technical assistance.
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NASSCO to Christen Palmetto State Tanker
General Dynamics NASSCO will hold a christening and launch ceremony on March 25 for the Palmetto State, the last ship to be construted as part of the ECO Class tanker program. The event is at 7:30 p.m. at at 2798 E. Harbor Drive.
Designed with increased fuel efficiency and optimized performance in mind, once delivered the JonesAct ship will join the ranks as one of the most environmentally-friendly product tankers in the world.
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The Shifting Rationales for Vaping
A new study harnesses social media data to explore—in their own words—the reasons people use e-cigarettes and why they started vaping in the first place. Nearly half of people say they began vaping in an effort to quit smoking cigarettes, while other reasons included taste, ability to use them indoors and their “cool factor.”
Published in the journal PLOS ONE, the work was led by San Diego State University researcher and public health surveillance expert John W. Ayers and bypasses the inherent limitations and inaccuracies of survey responses by sourcing data directly from people’s own comments on social media.
“Just look to surveys from the recent presidential election or Brexit as examples of surveys’ weakening ability to gauge public sentiment, attitudes or behaviors,” Ayers said. “But what if we could listen in to what people are naturally saying about e-cigarettes to their friends rather than a surveyor?”
To do just that, Ayers and colleagues mined Twitter data from more than 3 million public tweets about e-cigarettes between 2012 and 2015 to understand vaping’s surge in popularity over that time.
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Personnel Announcements
Tony Gale Joins Cubic Transportation Systems
Cubic Transportation Systems, a business unit of Cubic Corporation, has named Tony Gale as vice president and general manager of NextBus, Cubic’s real-time Passenger Information business.
Gale is an executive with more than 20 years of experience in Software as a Service (SaaS) as well as domestic and international IT/Geographic Information System markets.
“Tony brings to NextBus a diverse background of technical and solutions-oriented experience, along with his success in operational roles,” said Min Wei, senior vice president of operations, Cubic Transportation Systems. “His career in SaaS and IT/GIS creates a natural overlap with our NextBus growth strategy – which is building on the RTPI heritage that riders and public transit managers count on every day.”
Prior to joining NextBus, Gale was general manager of TripSpark Technologies’ School Transportation Division, a business unit of Trapeze Software.
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Mary Dollarhide Joins DLA Piper as Partner
Mary Dollarhide has joined the DLA Piper’s Employment practice as a partner in the San Diego office.
Dollarhide has represented large and well-known companies with a focus on wage and hour class actions and other employment matters for nearly 30 years. She has extensive experience defending clients in single-plaintiff cases involving sex or sexual orientation discrimination, executive misconduct, religious harassment, disability claims, breach of contract, theft of proprietary information and other related matters.
Dollarhide is a fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and was selected by the Southern District of California to serve a three-year term as a lawyer representative for the court. She is the co-author of the legal treatise, “Reductions in Force in Employment Law,” published by the Bureau of National Affairs.
Prior to joining DLA Piper, Dollaride was at Paul Hastings LLP, most recently leading the employment practice in San Diego.
