Daily Business Report-Sept. 6, 2018
Entrance and reception of Amazon’s new San Diego office. (Photo by John Cameron/Amazon, courtesy of Amazon)
Amazon expands San Diego Tech Hub
Company plans to create 300 high-tech jobs
Amazon on Wednesday announced an expansion of its San Diego Tech Hub and plans to create 300 new high tech jobs in fields including software development, machine learning, cloud computing, and digital entertainment.
To accommodate the job creation, Amazon has opened a new 85,000-square-foot office in Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc.’s Campus Pointe in the University Town Center neighborhood of San Diego. This expansion will allow the company to more than double its tech workforce in the area. Together with its customer fulfillment facilities, Amazon has created more than 39,000 jobs in California and since 2011 invested over $19 billion in the state, including infrastructure and compensation to its employees.
“Amazon is excited to create more tech jobs in San Diego — a city with terrific talent and a culture of innovation,” said Nate Wiger, general manager of Amazon’s new San Diego office. “We look forward to more than doubling our investment in the area, and hiring local talent to fill exciting roles across Amazon. Thank you to all our partners across the city and the state for helping us create these new jobs, and contributing to the already vibrant innovation economy in San Diego.”
Amazon’s San Diego Tech Hub is one of 17 Tech Hubs outside of Seattle that employ over 17,500 people across North America who invent and build new products and services for Amazon customers. The teams in San Diego develop software systems that power AmazonFresh, Prime Now, Amazon Web Services (AWS), supply chain tech, and prevent fraud and abuse on Amazon. San Diego-based engineers and scientists recently played a key role in the launch of Whole Foods Market pickup and delivery via Prime Now, Alexa features for grocery shopping, and data-driven and machine learning innovations to further protect Amazon customers. Additionally, the Amazon Game Studios team located in San Diego is in the process of creating a new game world that will harness AWS’s cloud computing services and Twitch to connect players worldwide.
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How Amazon ended up in San Diego
Think big: The development of this tech hub was sparked by an Amazonian’s six-pager
The Amazon blog day one
By Day One Staff Sept. 05, 2018
A new Amazon office is nestled into San Diego’s Golden Triangle neighborhood, which is home to a budding tech sector, and within shouting distance of both the Pacific Ocean and the University of California San Diego main campus.
Soon, hundreds of engineers and scientists will join the more than 200 Amazonians currently working in the company’s San Diego Tech Hub. Inside the modern, glass and steel structure holding Amazon’s new office, they’ll work on Amazon’s machine learning and data science capabilities. And they’ll add even more brainpower to software teams who are integrating Whole Foods and Amazon even more closely. These teams have already played a key role in developing the code behind in-store pick up, where Prime members can order food online, or through Alexa, and pick it up at a convenient Whole Foods store.
As the San Diego teams – which also include Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Amazon Game Studios – continue to grow, they join their colleagues to make up 17 technology hubs outside Amazon’s Seattle headquarters. Spread out across North America, these hubs house more than 17,500 Amazonians working on new global products and services for Amazon customers.
But, two short years ago, the idea for an office in San Diego existed solely on the pages of Nate Wiger’s “six-pager,” the peculiar internal memo that all big ideas at Amazon must go through before getting the green light.
Wiger is now the General Manager of Amazon’s San Diego office. But in the spring of 2016, he was a senior manager at Amazon Web Services working at the Irvine office. Looking around at the tech talent clustering near UC San Diego and nearby University of California Irvine, he saw an opportunity for Amazon to attract talent that, like him, didn’t want to stray too far from home.
“I went to the University of San Diego and I’ve lived here for the past 25 years. Ever since graduating from college I knew I needed to do everything in my power to stay here,” said Wiger, who, until recently, telecommuted to Amazon’s Irvine office, which is about an hour’s drive from San Diego.
Wiger’s manager encouraged him to look into the feasibility of opening a San Diego office. The more data Wiger discovered, the more convinced he became that a new tech hub made good business sense.
So, he started to draft his proposal the same way nearly every iconic Amazon business began, including Prime Now and AWS – as a six-pager. To Amazonians, the six-pager is an institution that’s revered but, like final exams, requires a lot of preparation to be done right. Its role is to sharpen proposals by forcing Amazonians to concisely explain their plan, and to thoroughly think through everything they put down on paper.
When Wiger put pen to paper, his plan came to life.
“The more data I pulled, the more obvious it was that San Diego was being overlooked,” Wiger recalled.
“UC San Diego’s computer science program is ranked number eleven in the world. There’s a lower cost of living here than many cities in California. After looking at all the geo-location data, it seemed we’d be missing out if we didn’t open an office here.”
Wiger spent two to three weeks head down, collating data, comparing San Diego with other similar locations, and writing up his six page memo. When it was done, he and his boss flew to Seattle. In an ordinary conference room, they sat down with some of Amazon’s most senior leaders to review the proposal. For about half an hour, people just read, which is standard practice when discussing a six-pager. And then, the questions came.
“The funny thing was, people who weren’t as familiar with San Diego were a little skeptical at first. They kind of thought of it as a beach town with fish tacos,” Wiger said, laughing at the memory.
Wiger and his boss talked about San Diego’s huge biotech and defense tech sectors. They acknowledge that, while it’s a sleeper story to much of the country, people in the region know of San Diego’s reputation as a top-notch technology hub.
Most important to the senior executives, Wiger recalls, was his six-pager’s data points. Once they saw those, San Diego’s Tech Hub became a reality.
“The idea of writing a six-page document that directly leads to opening another office – that’s amazing,” Wiger said. “There’s no other company on the planet that would do that.”
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Harrah’s Resort unveils statue symbolic
of Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians
In collaboration with the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians, Harrah’s Resort Southern California unveiled its newest art installation, an eight-foot bronze statue of a female basket weaver standing outside the resort’s lobby. Designed by artist Doug Hyde and named the “Milky Way Woman,” the figure is symbolic of the tribe’s ancestors and is a tribute to various aspects of the Tribe’s rich history.
“We are honored to share our history and culture with Harrah’s Resort SoCal visitors through this beautiful art piece,” said Bo Mazzetti, chairman of the Rincon Band ofLuiseño Indians. “This bronze statue is representative of who we are as the Rincon people. This image also embodies the essence of the Milky Way which symbolizes our ancestors looking over us.”
The “Milky Way Woman” statue is the first of six art installations to be introduced over the next five years as part of the resort’s investment in the arts and commitment to showcasing Native American artwork in particular. Harrah’s Resort SoCal will dedicate more than $600,000 to the initiative, which honors the resort’s longstanding relationship with the Rincon Band.
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Barons Market to locate
in Otay Ranch Town Center
Barons Market a family-owned grocery store with locations across Southern California, announces its ninth location at Otay Ranch Town Center in Chula Vista’s Eastlake neighborhood. The new Barons Market will move into the space currently occupied by DSW Shoes, which is relocating into a larger, remodeled spot at the shopping center. Barons will be the center’s first grocery store and is one of several recently announced additions and enhancements.
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Key architect of military campaign
against ISIS joins General Atomics
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) announced that retired U.S. Army Lt. General Sean MacFarland has joined the organization as vice president of Weapons Program Strategic Development. MacFarland had served as the deputy commanding general and chief of staff for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command prior to joining GA-EMS.
MacFarland spent almost half of his military tenure overseas, primarily in Europe and the Middle East. As the principal architect of the 2015-2016 Operation Inherent Resolve campaign to destroy ISIS, he broke the stalemate and recaptured over 40 percent of the enemy’s territory. Concurrently, he forged key relationships with the U.S. Secretary of Defense, the Iraqi Prime Minister, and other senior regional military and political leaders.
MacFarland will initially be assigned to the organization’s Washington, D.C. office. In early 2019, he will move to GA-EMS’ headquarters in San Diego, to transition key technologies into production.
He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and holds three masters degrees. He currently serves as an adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, a senior fellow at Harvard’s University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and a senior fellow at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare.
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2018 Orchids & Onions
Awards set for Oct. 4
The San Diego Architectural Foundation (SDAF) will host its annual Orchids & Onions reception and awards ceremony on Oct. 4, from 6 to 10 p.m. The event will be held at past Orchid winner, the US Grant Hotel, 326 Broadway in Downtown San Diego.
Every year, SDAF recognizes the best (and worst) in architectural design, form and function at the awards ceremony. The 2018 Orchids & Onions event will be a fun-filled, inspiring evening with food and drinks provided.
The San Diego community can participate in voting for the People’s Choice Awards, which will be announced at the awards ceremony. The public can vote for their favored Orchid and Onion online now at orchidsandonions.org through Sept. 16. With a diverse collection, San Diegans have a wide range of projects to choose from, including buildings, parks, plazas, public art and more.
Tickets for the event are on sale now at sdaf.wildapricot.org.
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Personnel Announcements
Kara Hertzog promoted at Innovative Employee Solutions
Innovative Employee Solutions (IES), a San Diego-based nationwide provider of outsourced payroll and human resources administration services, has promoted Kara Hertzog to chief operating officer. Hertzog will lead the sales/marketing, customer success and operation divisions.
Kara’s mother, Karla Hertzog, is second generation and current CEO of IES, making Kara a third-generation member of the IES team. She has been closely connected to the company for many years, and officially joined the family business in 2006 as a client services representative.
In 2009, Kara was promoted to business development manager and then later to national business development manager. In 2013, she scaled back her career at IES to focus on her own endeavors but stayed involved in a leadership advisory capacity. Kara returned to IES in 2017 as vice president of strategic marketing.
Prior to her leadership at IES, Kara developed her business and management skills, and account service experience working in both the financial and nonprofit sectors in a variety of roles, including senior project manager at Fleet Financial and director of development for Angels Foster Family Network.
