Daily Business Report: June 11, 2024
Inside the city’s mega shelter plan — and concerns about it
By Lisa Halverstadt | Voice of San Diego
If the city moves forward with its largest ever long-term shelter, the city’s point person on homelessness is adamant it won’t look like a typical shelter.
Sarah Jarman, who leads the city’s homelessness department, envisions ample outdoor space, artwork and other amenities that she hopes can make the warehouse at Kettner Boulevard and Vine Street an inviting space. Jarman and her team also want to provide onsite medical, dental and behavioral health services.
The goal, Jarman said, is not a “bunk bed village” but significant investment in a campus that the city can design based on its needs and past experience – and adjust as needed – to shelter homeless San Diegans for a few decades. She’s also pledging to work tirelessly to ensure it’s an effective path to housing for the people who move in.
Homeless advocates, experts, service providers and people who have stayed in the city’s existing homeless shelters have lots of questions and skepticism that the city can deliver.
A prime concern: Can the city temporarily house 1,000 people in a single facility and do it well?
Mayor Todd Gloria kicked off the year with a pledge to add at least 1,000 new shelter beds by early 2025. A few months later, he announced a plan to convert a vacant 65,000 square foot warehouse in Middletown into a 1,000-bed shelter. Weeks later, city officials are still negotiating with property owner Douglas Hamm to secure a long-term lease in which Hamm pays for building upgrades.
Above rendering courtesy of Douglas Hamm.
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During year of extremes,
carbon dioxide levels surge faster than ever
By Robert Monroe| Scripps Oceanography
Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever — accelerating on a steep rise to levels far above any experienced during human existence, scientists from NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego announced today.
Scientists at Scripps Oceanography, which initiated the CO2 monitoring program known as the Keeling Curve at Mauna Loa in 1958 and maintains an independent record, calculated a May monthly average of 426.7 ppm for 2024, an increase of 2.92 ppm over May 2023’s measurement of 423.78 ppm. May is historically the month when CO2 reaches its highest level in the Northern Hemisphere.
When combined with 2023’s increase of 3.0 ppm, 2022 to 2024 has seen the largest two-year jump in the May peak of the Keeling Curve in the NOAA record. For Scripps, the two-year jump tied a previous record set in 2020. From January through April, NOAA and Scripps scientists said CO2 concentrations increased more rapidly than they have in the first four months of any other year. The surge has come even as one highly regarded international report has found that fossil fuel emissions, the main driver of climate change, have plateaued in recent years.
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General Atomics innovations drive breakthroughs in inertial fusion
and enable repeated fusion ignition experiments at National Ignition Facility
A new tool developed by General Atomics (GA) is enabling scientists to optimize the quality of targets used in Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) experiments. The system, known as 4Pi, has already led to improved experimental results and higher ICF yields. Starting with the historic breakthrough of fusion ignition in December 2022 — described by U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm as “one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century” — each of the five experiments that have achieved ignition at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) have utilized a target characterized and selected by the 4Pi system.
Haibo Huang, Deputy Director of GA’s Center of Excellence in Advanced Diagnostics and 4Pi Project Lead, said, “General Atomics is proud to launch a new era of integrated characterization to the field of ICF research. The 4Pi system allows multiple instruments with complementary capabilities to examine the same target from different perspectives and gain much deeper insights. With increasingly intricate and complex targets needed to create record-breaking ignition yields, this integrated approach is indispensable.”
GA’s 4Pi system combines up to eight instruments within one common coordinate system, including robotics, automation, batch evaluation, and machine learning technologies, to avoid measurement errors that can occur when a target is manually transferred from one instrument to another and identify the best targets from each production batch.
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California is sitting on millions
that could boost wage theft response
By Jeanne Kuang | CalMatters
As lobbyists for businesses and labor groups negotiate with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration on how to amend a unique California labor law that allows workers to sue their bosses, the two sides seem to agree on at least one puzzling reality.
The law, known as the Private Attorneys General Act, generates millions each year for a state fund reserved for enforcing state labor laws, including those against wage theft. But despite rising worker complaints of labor violations and severe understaffing hampering the stateLabor Commissioner’s Office’s response, California leaves much of the money untouched.
The money comes from the state’s cut of the settlements and fines that businesses pay in response to these lawsuits. For years, the fund has grown faster than lawmakers and Newsom have directed it to be spent, according to state budget documents. In 2022-23 they left $197 million in the fund unspent; the 2023-24 budget leaves $170 million.
The state draws from the fund each year for portions of the Labor Commissioner’s budget, as well as other agencies. And the fund has paid for some worker outreach and enforcement. Those programs include $8.6 million in recent grants to 17 local prosecutors to pursue criminal charges in wage theft cases, and a pandemic-era partnership with community groups to inform workers in 42 different languages about workplace rights.
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Registration opens for NECA 2024 Convention and Trade Show
The National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) announceg that registration is now open for the NECA 2024 Convention and Trade Show, scheduled to take place from Sept. 28 to Oct. 1, 2024, at the San Diego Convention Center. Year after year, this event brings together thousands of people in the electrical construction industry as the trade’s premier event. Attendees will experience top-tier education, inspiring keynote speakers, peer networking, exciting entertainment, and one of the largest displays of industry tools and technology.
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Medical Solutions named on list for recruiting and temporary staffing
Health care staffing company Medical Solutions, which has an office in San Dieo, has been named on the Forbes list of America’s Best Recruiting and Temporary Staffing Firms 2024. This distinguished list is presented by Forbes and Statista Inc., the world-leading statistics portal and industry ranking provider. The award ranking is based on an independent survey of peers and clients. In total, more than 36,800 external recruiters and 16,000 HR-managers/hiring managers and candidates were invited to participate in this year’s survey.
Cetera appoints Scott Baker head of corporate strategy
Cetera Financial Group the premier financial advisor Wealth Hub, announced that Scott Baker has joined the firm as head of corporate strategy. Baker is responsible for identifying, developing, and monitoring comprehensive strategic initiatives that provide growth opportunities firm wide. He will work closely with key internal and external business partners to design and implement a comprehensive portfolio of corporate growth opportunities that align with Cetera initiatives and support corporate goals.
UL Solutions and Science Media partner
ScienceMedia announced that it has formed a partnership with UL Solutions that offers ComplianceWire, the industry leading learning management system (LMS) tailored toward compliance and qualification management within life sciences organizations. As part of this partnership, UL Solutions will integrate ScienceMedia’s cutting-edge clinical and therapeutic area multimodal training solution, SMi Source into the ComplianceWire platform, enriching their suite of e-learning solutions.
Tax Guard partners with Ventures Lending Technologies
Tax Guard, a Cogency Global Company and the first provider of real time IRS tax data services, has entered into a partnership with San Diego-based Ventures Lending Technologies, an end-to-end lending softward for banks and mission-based lenders. This partnership will better support lenders by marrying two of the most effective industry solutions together. With the integration of Tax Guard, lenders are now able to manage all their federal tax data needs within the Ventures platform.
The Estate Lawyers opens new office in San Diego
The Estate Lawyers, www.theestatelawyers.com, a leading firm specializing in trust and estate litigation, announced the opening of its newest office in San Diego. This strategic expansion underscores the firm’s commitment to providing exceptional legal services to clients throughout the region and further solidifies its position as one of Southern California’s fastest-growing trust and estate litigation firms. With the inauguration of the San Diego office, The Estate Lawyers aim to bring their unparalleled expertise and dedication to clients in the San Diego area, offering comprehensive legal solutions tailored to their individual needs.
Cetera appoints Jerry Patterson Head of Advanced Wealth Solutions
Cetera Financial Group, the premier financial advisor Wealth Hub, announced that it has appointed Jerry Patterson Head of Advanced Wealth Solutions. In this role, he is responsible for building Ceteras retirement, life insurance and annuity offerings to help advisers provide financial security to their clients. He will lead both the Insurance and Workplace & Retirement Solutions groups at Cetera and oversee the design, development, and management of insurance and retirement products that meet clients’ changing needs.
Innovative Employee Solutions celebrathes 50th
Innovative Employee Solutions (IES) celebrates its 50th anniversary on June 10, 2024, marking a significant milestone in its journey of transforming the workforce industry. Over the past five decades, IES has achieved remarkable success, continuous growth, and a dedicated commitment to exceptional customer service. Founded in San Diego in 1974, IES is a privately held, certified woman-owned, women-operated company that helps businesses explore new opportunities to expand their workforce and redefine how they approach attracting, hiring, and payrolling talent.
Clinical study shows cognition and function
improvement in early Alzheimer’s disease patients
For the first time, a randomized controlled clinical trial has demonstrated that an intensive lifestyle intervention, without drugs, significantly improved cognition and function after 20 weeks in many patients with mild cognitive impairment or early dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease. The multisite clinical study was published in the peer-reviewed Alzheimer’s translational research journal, Alzheimer’s Research and Therapy. This peer-reviewed study was directed by lifestyle medicine pioneer Dean Ornish, M.D., founder and president of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute.
CARET completes strategic sale of HotDocs business
CARET, the leading provider of SaaS practice management and integrated payment technology for midsize law firms, announced the sale of its enterprise document automation and assembly business, HotDocs, to Mitratech, a global technology leader for legal, risk, and HR teams. HotDocs has grown into the global industry-leading provider of document authmation and assembly solutions to the world’s largest law firms, banking and financial institutions.
Thread and SEQSTER partner to real world data collection for patients and researchers
SEQSTER PDM Inc., the leading patient-centric health care technology company, announced a strategic partnership with Thread, a leading decentralized research and eCOA provider, to accelerate access to real-world data for patients, researchers and life science enterprises. This partnership integrates primary data captured through Thread’s platform with instant access to secondary data from SEQSTER to expand the volume of participant data captured in a clinical research study.
