SAN DIEGO ---- The message was clear from San Diego County business leaders Thursday: work together or lose local prosperity.
Speaking at a regional economic conference, panelists said San Diego County needs to address a number of concerns, such as the high cost of living and transportation, or risk losing area business to other aggressive states and countries.
"There is definitely an anti-business feeling here compared to South Carolina," said Peter Farrell, president and chief executive officer of Resmed, a respiratory medical device manufacturer located in Poway. He said South Carolina is more than willing to cut down trees and take other steps to attract business.
Ten county business leaders discussed how to keep San Diego County attractive to local business Thursday morning at the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp.'s Competitiveness Conference. Local business executives and venture capitalists told about 150 business representatives that San Diego needs to take action now to keep and retain talented professionals.
They said San Diego and surrounding cities are starting to get a reputation for expensive living, poor schools and horrible traffic conditions.
Gary Knight, president and chief executive officer of the San Diego North Economic Council, said North County doesn't suffer from the same school-related problems as San Diego. But his area is challenged with the same traffic and expensive living issues.
"Most (North County) companies have to provide relocation and housing costs for CEOs," Knight said.
The leaders said that, unlike some communities and countries, San Diego County has a wealth of resources to help it overcome such problems. John Reed, president and chief executive officer at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, said the area has more workers with doctorate degrees per capita, more living Nobel Prize winners and more grant money from the National Institutes of Health than anywhere in the world. The problem, he said, is turning research into products.
"We have to help academics become entrepreneurs," he said.
Duane Roth wants to do just that. The head of Connect, a San Diego nonprofit, is raising money for two new facilities designed to help scientists turn ideas into viable products and medicines. The organization's Life Science and Technology Accelerator would help potential entrepreneurs find funding and navigate the process of becoming entrepreneurs.
"We need to help them take some of the risk out of it," Roth said.
Conference organizer Julie Meier Wright said she was pleased with the conference, but wants to get more involvement in future conferences.
"I would have liked to have had more people and more political leaders," she said. "We need to have a broader audience to understand the competitive problems that face San Diego."
