Daily Business Report-Dec. 17, 2020
Research Vessel Roger Revelle heads back to sea after the completion of the midlife refit, which will extend the service life of the ship by up to 20 years.
Research vessel Roger Revelle heads back to the sea
$60 million midlife refit is completed
Research vessel (R/V) Roger Revelle is back at work after a midlife refit involving upgrades from top to bottom, bow to stern. The primary goal of extending the service life by 15 to 20 years was accomplished with improvements to systems crucial to the vessel’s operations, scientific capabilities, habitability, and environmental footprint.
The ship is owned by the Office of Naval Research and has been operated by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego since 1996. It is one of the largest ships in the U.S. Academic Research Fleet, and vitally important to U.S. oceanographic research due to its range, payload, duration and ability to safely conduct scientific operations in remote areas around the globe.
“Roger Revelle isn’t just revitalized, it is better than new,” said Bruce Appelgate, associate director and head of ship operations at Scripps Oceanography. “The midlife refit was an opportunity to apply everything we’ve learned about the ship since 1996, in order to make a great research vessel even more effective.”
The $60 million refit, which includes the base refit cost and investment in scientific systems and instrumentation, was supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), National Science Foundation (NSF) and UC San Diego.
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Coronavirus wipes away recent wage
gains for many California workers
By Jackie Botts | CalMatters
In the five years before the pandemic, low-income Californians had begun to see substantial wage gains, chipping away at the income inequality gap between California’s haves and have-nots that has widened over the past 40 years. But the coronavirus pandemic is “likely stripping away many of these gains,” researchers at the Public Policy Institute of California found in a new report.
The current coronavirus-induced recession has hit low-income workers the hardest, while higher income workers, largely able to work from home, have escaped relatively unscathed. And those acute job losses among low-wage workers — particularly African Americans, Latinos, workers without college degrees and women — have stayed worryingly high through the fall, the researchers found.
This could be “exacerbating that kind of pattern of recession and recovery that’s worse for low-income families,” said lead author Sarah Bohn, who is the vice president of research at PPIC. “In fact, these unemployment rate differences across income are a bit worse today than they were during the Great Recession.”
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SDSU Global Campus offers
new digital skills bootcamps
The collaboration with tech company HackerU allows students
to learn marketable skills for two booming fields
Cybersecurity and digital marketing are the focus of new programs aimed at training job-seekers for positions in two booming fields.
San Diego State University Global Campus has partnered with technology company HackerU to launch two Digital Skills Bootcamps to provide opportunities to gain a workforce-ready education in cybersecurity and digital marketing outside the traditional four-year university model.
Amid society’s increasing dependence on technology, the need for professionals in the digital and tech industries has grown.
“We’ve evolved into such a digital, technological world, that these are the markets (digital and IT) that are growing exponentially in ways that we will not see other job markets growing,” said Gabrielle Kamekona, head of career coaching with the Digital Skills Bootcamps.
The new bootcamps use simulations to help teach students the skills needed in the digital workplace, providing qualification levels similar to a year of experience in their fields. Those who complete the program will earn a certification of completion that represents the knowledge and experience they have acquired.
Each program begins with an introductory course lasting about a month, allowing students to try the program and get a taste of the curriculum’s environment, pace and fundamentals before committing to the accelerated, 400-hour program led by industry-leading professionals.
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University of San Diego names Robert Schapiro
new dean of the USD School of Law
The University of San Diego (USD) School of Law has named Robert Schapiro, as the new dean of the School of Law. Schapiro is currently the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University and co-director of Emory Law’s Center on Federalism and Intersystemic Governance. He also served as the dean of Emory Law School from 2012 to 2017.
The appointment of Schapiro comes at the end of an extensive national search process. Schapiro’s academic and legal experience are in perfect alignment with the School of Law’s goals to demonstrate an exemplary commitment to scholarly excellence, curricular innovation, and the social impact of a legal education, the school said.
“Robert is an award-winning educator. He has been recognized for his devotion to and engagement with his students, receiving numerous distinguished teaching awards and professor of the year honors from the Black Law Students Association. I am confident that Robert’s visionary leadership will guide USD’s strategic priorities in the years to come and will help to sustain and enhance the continuing excellence of the School of Law,” said USD Provost Gail F. Baker.
Schapiro will assume this new role on Jan. 1, 2021.
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ICOM Academy prepares San Diegans
for IT work in COVID-19 economy
San Diego residents in search of pandemic resilient jobs can enroll in San Diego Continuing Education’s ICOM Academy (Interactive Competency-based Online Micro-credentialing Academy) for essential information technology skills. Noncredit classes are available at no cost, and due to the pandemic are taught fully online.
176,000 workers are unemployed due to COVID-19 impacts in the San Diego region, reportedSandagin October 2020.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared the communications and information technology sector part of the essential workforce on March 19, 2020.
Dr. Osvaldo Cortez created ICOM Academy to reach students of all socioeconomic backgrounds, especially for those who lack resources or support to go to school. Adult students achieve a professional certificate in an online environment.
SDCE’s ICOM Academy offers face-to-face, live interaction with faculty and other students in a fully online classroom equipped with free network simulation software and textbooks. Among the career education options are Cybersecurity Analyst, Virtual Datacenter, and Programming with Python.
SDCE is enrolling now for the spring semester. Classes begin Monday, Feb. 1, 2021.
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Lawyers Club executive director Elaine Lawrence
to retire after 10 years of service
Lawyers Club of San Diego will bid farewell in 2021 to its longest serving executive director, Elaine Lawrence.
Lawrence, who began serving as executive director of Lawyers Club in August 2011 and has had a long career as a “servant leader” for nonprofit organizations, will retire effective April 30, 2021.
Lawrence came to Lawyers Club from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she served for six years as chief of staff. Before that, she spent 11 years as executive director of Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, Mass. She received her bachelor’s degree from Northeastern University and her MBA from Simmons College’s Simmons School of Management in Boston.
“We are deeply grateful for Elaine, who is often referred to as the rock of our organization,” Lawyers Club president Yahairah Aristy said. “I count it among my blessings that I have this opportunity to work with her and benefit from the tremendous asset of her leadership as I serve as president of Lawyers Club.”
Lawrence, who looks forward to spending time in retirement with her husband and family, said she has been pleased to see Lawyers Club survive, grow and flourish through the years. She noted that leaders of other legal nonprofits and bar associations around the country often contact her for advice and look to Lawyers Club as an example of a successful organization.
Lawyers Club is seeking applicants for the position of executive director and hopes to fill the position in April 2021.
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Carlsmed raises $10 million to commercialize
breakthrough aprevo devices
Carlsmed Inc. announces the close of a $10 million Series A financing to commercialize the aprevo family of spine deformity correction devices. The San Diego-based medical device company is focused on improving outcomes for patients with adult spinal deformity.
Carlsmed has pioneered a novel digital + surgical solution to create optimized surgical plans and personalized aprevoimplants to enable superior correction of the spinal deformity. This round of financing is led by U.S. Venture Partners and includes participation from The Vertical Group, Cove Fund, and Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health, among others.
“This round of financing comes at the perfect time to meet surgeon and patient demand for the newly launched Breakthrough aprevo devices,” said Mike Cordonnier, CEO of Carlsmed. “U.S. Venture Partners is the right fit for our digital + surgical company, being the leading Silicon Valley VC focused on early stage IT and health care. Their track record of building and scaling transformative companies is second to none.”
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All 4 Scripps Health hospitals named
to 2020 Opioid Care Honor Roll
Cal Hospital Compare (CHC), a nonprofit organization that provides Californians with hospital performance ratings, has named all four of Scripps Health’s hospitals to its 2020 Opioid Care Honor Roll. Scripps is the only health care organization in San Diego County to be recognized on the inaugural statewide list, which was announced Wednesday.
Each of Scripps’ hospitals – Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas, Scripps Green Hospital and Scripps Mercy Hospital (San Diego and Chula Vista campuses) – are ranked in the superior performance tier, which is the honor roll’s top category.
CHC also announced its 2020 Maternity Honor Roll and three Scripps hospital campuses were named to the list: Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas, Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego and Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista. Scripps is the only local organization to be included on both the opioid care and maternity statewide lists in 2020.
The 2020 Opioid Care Honor Roll recognizes 53 California hospitals for their progress and performance in promoting safe and effective opioid use, providing treatment for patients with opioid use disorder and providing access to naloxone to prevent opioid overdoses. According to state data, over 2,400 Californians died of an opioid-related overdose in 2018.
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Northrop Grumman to support NASA data
collection under $70 million contract
Govcon Wire
Northrop Grumman has landed a five-year, $70 milllion contract to help NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center integrate sensor technology onto unmanned aircraft.
The company will perform engineering, production and technical services under the Global Hawk Skyrange program aimed at demonstrating an alternative approach to collect data with the high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft, the agency said.
Northrop’s systems business serves as the air vehicle original equipment manufacturer and brings ground systems integration experience, drawings and tooling required by the program.
Contract work began Tuesday and will continue through Dec. 14, 2025. Locations of work include the Armstrong facility, Edwards Air Force Base in California and company sites. The agency seeks to increase data-gathering efforts with Global Hawk UAS to manage the transmission of telemetry data from hypersonic platforms.
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ALS Association announces $25,000
year-end matching donation challenge
The ALS Association Greater San Diego Chapter has announced a year-end, matching donation challenge that’s part of a $25,000 donation from Rick Greenberg, a retired San Diego sports medicine physician. Because of Greenberg’s donation, every dollar donated to the ALS Association Greater San Diego Chapter until Dec. 31, 2020, will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $25,000, according to Steve Becvar, ALS Association executive director.
Greenberg said his donation is in honor of his identical twin brother David, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2014 and passed away Dec. 7, 2016. He was 69. David had a 30-year career as a general-practice family physician. “I’m willing to do whatever I can in David’s name to continue the great work of the ALS Association and to eliminate this devastating disease,” said Greenberg, 73. “ALS doesn’t just affect the patients who have the disease, but it also equally impacts all the family members.”
Year-end donations can be made online at www.alsasd.org, or mailed to 9929 Hibert St., Suite A, San Diego, 92131.
