Daily Business Report: Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022
Military spending in San Diego grows
by 4 percent to $19.3 billion
More than 115,000 active-duty service men and women now call San Diego home; they work alongside 3,000 military reservists, and 29,000 civilians directly employed in federal Defense jobs, according to the San Diego Military Advisory Council’s latest military economic report prepared by the Rady School of Management.
This year, Defense-related contract spending in San Diego grew by 4 percent to $19.3 billion, funding another 209,000 jobs. Significantly, all of these people generate additional economic activity as they live and spend within San Diego.
When the multiplier effect from this spending is considered, the total Defense contribution to the Gross Regional Product (GRP) grew by 1.8 percent to $56.2 billion and is responsible for 356,000 jobs. Because of the volatility in our economy through 2022, the best estimates of the San Diego’s GRP place it between 0-4 percent growth, which means that the Defense contribution remains a stabilizing 24.5 +/- 0.5 percent of total GRP. Strong, dependable, and resilient; the Defense economic sector is a vital component of our local economy.
Click here to read the report for the web
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California accounts for 30 percent
of nation’s homeless, feds say
CalMatters
The numbers are in, and they’re grim.
California accounted for 30 percent of the country’s homeless population in 2022, despite making up less than 12 percent of the total population, according to federal data released Monday. It was also home to 50 percent of the country’s unsheltered people, or those living in places such as streets, cars or parks.
Based on a biennial point-in-time tally of people sleeping in shelters, cars and on the street — which California cities and counties conducted earlier this year for the first time since 2019 due to pandemic postponements — the U.S. Department of Housing and Community Development estimated that more than 172,000 Californians experienced homelessness this year. That represents an adjusted total of raw numbers first calculated in October by CalMatters. Nationally, the homeless population ticked up by 0.3 percent to more than 582,000.
According to the San Diego Regional Task Force on Homelessness, the 2022 Point-in-Time count found no less than 8,427 individuals experiencing homelessness across San Diego County, a 10 percent increase from 2020. It’s critical to understand this is a minimum number. The challenges of finding every person in a car, canyon, or under a bridge, is impossible, but every effort is made to find and engage as many people as possible. This number includes 4,106 unsheltered San Diegans with 4,321 individuals in shelters. Of those surveyed, 85 percent said they had fallen into homelessness in this region.
Wearable skin patch monitors hemoglobin in deep tissues
A photoacoustic sensor could help clinicians diagnose tumors, organ malfunction and more
By Emerson Dameron
A team of engineers at the University of California San Diego has developed an electronic patch that can monitor biomolecules in deep tissues, including hemoglobin. This gives medical professionals unprecedented access to crucial information that could help spot life-threatening conditions such as malignant tumors, organ dysfunction, cerebral or gut hemorrhages and more.
“The amount and location of hemoglobin in the body provide critical information about blood perfusion or accumulation in specific locations. Our device shows great potential in close monitoring of high-risk groups, enabling timely interventions at urgent moments,” said Sheng Xu, a professor of nanoengineering at UC San Diego and corresponding author of the study.
The paper, “A photoacoustic patch for three-dimensional imaging of hemoglobin and core temperature,” is published in the December 15, 2022 issue of Nature Communications.
Crystal Page joins The Conrad Prebys
Foundation as director of communications
Bringing more than 13 years of strategic communications experience in both the government and private sectors to The Conrad Prebys Foundation, Crystal Page joins the organization as its director of communications. Page previously served as the chief of staff for the office of Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer in San Diego County’s District 3, where she developed a cohesive policy vision, led policy, public affairs and communication relations campaigns, and directed strategic communications campaigns for the second largest county in California.
Prior to serving as a chief of staff, she served as the deputy secretary of communications and external affairs for the California Labor & Workforce Development Agency, where she managed the public affairs and external relations for the agency’s seven departments, boards and panels that serve California workers and businesses.
Page also developed and executed policy campaign strategies in support of local member unions as the communications director and housing policy workgroup manager for Service Employees International Union California State Council (SEIU).
Balboa Park neighbors getting new,
safer pedestrian and bicycle access
The California Conservation Corps (CCC) in partnership with Forever Balboa Park is finishing bike and walking trail improvements along 26th Street in Balboa Park. San Diegans, especially residents in the Golden Hill community, are days away from having increased direct, non-motorized, access to the park.
CCC Corpsmembers are taming the footpath that was naturally created by
bicyclists and pedestrians. The $380,000 project includes:
• New fencing to provide protection for trail users from 26th Street vehicular traffic.
• Clearing 10 feet of brush at the start of the trail
• Trail widening
• Trail stabilizing with decomposed granite
• Oak tree planting
Point Predictive launches BorrowerCheck 2.0
Point Predictive Inc., the San Diego-based company that provides artificial intelligence solutions, announced BorrowerCheck 2.0, a solution designed to identify prospective borrowers with identity, income, or employment-related risks. The solution’s new features introduce a consumer-friendly way to validate a borrower’s identity, income, and employment in a single report, along with phone-based authentication to confirm a borrower’s identity. This helps lenders replace knowledge-based authentication (KBA) tools that use questions generated from a wide range of public information that can be accessed by fraudsters and that legitimate consumers have a hard time answering.
General Atomics flies new
multi-use NATO Pod on MQ-9
MITO Material Solutions and Carda Bio report
progess in graphene standardization
MITO Material Solutions and San Diego’s Cardea Bio Inc. announce significant progress in the international efforts to standardize graphene together with the National Institute of Standards. Brett Goldsmith, chief technology officer at Cardea, recently returned from the International Standards Organization (ISO) meeting that took place at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, UK, during which graphene material documentary standards took important steps forward.
Tealium ranked No. 1 global leader
in customer data management
Tealium, an independent customer data platform, has earned the top global ranking for Customer Data Management by Research In Action. Research In Action’s Vendor Selection Matrix ranks the top 15 customer data management companies, with over 140 total companies across the world analyzed. Rankings were primarily determined through an in-depth global survey of more than 1,500 senior marketing and business leaders, complemented with expert analyst research. Tealium received the highest score overall for “strategy,” specifically for its “vision” and “go-to-market” capabilities.
Ethos Asset Management announces deal with Tygrus LLC
Ethos Asset Management Inc. USA announced a new long-term financing partnership with Tygrus LLC, based in Troy, MI. Ethos has committed to providing significant capital infusion that will continue for several years to the technology company that develops, manufactures, and licenses its patented specialty, inorganic chemistries in multiple vertical markets. Ethos Asset Management is an independent, San Diego-based company with global reach in resource mobilization and project financing.
Sempra ranked top utility by Wall Street Journal
Sempra is the highest-ranked utility on the Wall Street Journal’s Management Top 250 ranking for 2022. The Management Top 250 is one of the most prestigious ranking efforts dedicated to measuring corporate effectiveness. This is the fourth time the company has been named to the Management Top 250, and the second consecutive year it has been ranked highest among industry peers in its category. The Wall Street Journal assembled its rankings with the help of the Drucker Institute, a think tank based at Claremont Graduate University’s Drucker School of Management.
Guild Mortgage announces
new Payment Advantage program
San Diego-based Guild Mortgage, a growth-oriented mortgage lending company originating and servicing residential loans since 1960, has introduced Payment Advantage, a new conventional loan program to help homebuyers save on their payments as rates continue to rise. Guild’s Payment Advantage program allows homebuyers to lock in a conventional mortgage and Guild will pay 1 percent of the borrower’s interest rate for one year with a lender paid temporary buydown. After the first year, the borrower will have a predictable payment increase and may be eligible to refinance with Guild through programs such as the Payment Protection program which has no lender fees.
Health Canada grants license for Quidel TriageTrue
QuidelOrtho Corporation, a global provider of innovative in vitro diagnostic technologies designed for point-of-care settings, clinical labs and transfusion medicine, announced that Health Canada has approved for use in Canada the Quidel TriageTrue High-Sensitivity Troponin I (hsTnl) Test on the Quidel Triage MeterPro, a high-performance, comprehensive testing platform with the smallest footprint analyzer, to aid in the diagnosis of myocardial infarction. The Quidel TriageTrue hsTnl Test effectively and safely offers fast turnaround time with a result within 20 minutes for quick decision-making for treatment.
