Talk Of The Region

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Small Business Tip of the Month

Don’t bury your head in the sand about your disaster plan.
By Molly Stuart

No major city in America is more at risk of a catastrophic New Orleans-style flood than Sacramento. Are you prepared if your computer data and print files get wiped out in a flood, fire, power surge or robbery? Can you call your vendors without your Outlook contacts? Do you have safely stored offsite data backups? What if your shop was closed for 10 weeks and all your goods demolished? If the banks are closed, do you have a week’s worth of cash to tide you over in a safety deposit box in another city within driving distance? What about a plan to track down employees?

1. Consider storing online versions of your data.
2. Set up an employee call tree or give everyone your mom’s number in Peoria and ask them to check in.
3. Buy insurance.
4. Make a will and tell key people where it is.
5. Store food and water at your office and in your car and consider an evacuation plan.

Below Zagat Guide’s Radar

It’s no secret that the food scene in the Sacramento Metro Market is exploding with new, innovative restaurants, cafes and the like. But talk to any world traveler and they’ll tell you that until your city has a Zagat’s guide, or at least a significant presence on Zagat’s online, you’ve really not arrived.
    Started by two food-loving New York lawyers in 1979 for the NYC market with the idea to let thousands of consumers rate the dining experience rather than a few expert reviewers, the Zagat Restaurant Survey offers guides to dining for more than 70 major markets. With $31 million of venture capital from a group of investors, including Silicon Valley’s Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Zagat Survey moved seven years ago to online ratings used by more than 250,000 voters worldwide.
    California is amply represented at Zagat’s online, with ratings and reviews on restaurants from Agoura Hills (6) to Yountville (10). San Francisco has 544 restaurants surveyed and Sacramento has zilch. So is this just another case of Sacramento hiding its light under a bushel of heirloom tomatoes?
    Patrick Mulvaney, owner and head chef at Mulvaney’s B&L, says, “Sacramento’s a hidden treasure as far as the dining scene, but that’s changing. The reason San Francisco has such a reputation for great dining is because of the food coming out of this region. As we grow, we welcome any kind of enhanced profile.”
    He admits to being at a loss as to why Sacramento has absolutely no presence on zagat.com, let alone a dedicated guide. How does he decide where to eat? “I go online,” he says. “I’ll use Zagat’s to find out about great places to eat, but I also pay close attention to blogs and posts on sites like Chowhound and Yelp.”
Taro Arai, CEO of Mikuni Japanese Restaurant Group, also says he’s baffled as to why there’s no Zagat’s coverage and guesses it might be because the region is still not considered a major market. “When I go to New York, LA, Miami, I’ll do my research online, but if I’m staying at the Waldorf Astoria, I also might be given the little red book by the front desk, and it is very useful.”
    Arai notes it’s about time Sacramento’s food scene gets its proper respect. Prosper couldn’t agree more. Are you listening Zagat’s?

Logic Joins Emulex Fold

The courtship begun nearly a year ago is over, and it’s official. Emulex Corp. and 2005 Baby Blue Chip company Sierra Logic have tied the knot. Costa Mesa-based Emulex recently acquired privately held Sierra Logic for $180 million, the largest deal for a Sacramento Metro Market tech firm in more than seven years.
Not to fear, the Roseville-based chip designer has no plans to relocate, and there appear to be no job losses slated for the 70 employees, most of whom are engineers.
    Kick-started by four former Agilent executives in 2001, Sierra Logic designs large-storage chips that control low-cost disk drives used by corporations. According to Paul Folino, chairman and CEO of Emulex, the company was attracted to the complementary nature of Sierra Logic’s product portfolio as Emulex is “on a mission to become the market leader in the end-to-end embedded storage components market.

Calling All Auto Techs

It was only a few months ago that a crowd at the Esquire IMAX Theatre applauded as Frank Lopez, a long-time automotive technology teacher for the Sacramento County Office of Education’s ROP program, was chosen Teacher of the Year. Ironically, after nine years at McClatchy High, he is now a teacher without a school, as too few students were able to allocate the 15 hours a week his McClatchy courses required.
Deepening the irony, there is a shortage of nearly 20,000 auto techs in California alone (see Building a Better Apprentice, page 38), according to Lopez, who says dealerships are raiding from each other to try to keep up with customer demand.
    Refuting the grease-monkey stigma hanging over the profession, he points out an auto tech can go anywhere in the world and get a job. “Also, entry-level pay is $13 to $14 an hour,” he notes, “but it can escalate to $70,000 a year, perhaps more than $100,000, depending on how much the auto tech wants to work and how good they are.”
    Lopez has received inquiries about teaching next year from a number of outlying school districts. In the meantime, he is teaching a two-semester intro to auto tech program at Mather Field and looking into “putting together a program that emulates an East Coast academy model, similar to a high school plus tech program on the same campus. So, for example, the math courses make sure to deal with auto tech-specific needs.”
    Not a big fan of Wyo-Tech and other private sector solutions, Lopez, who also happens to be legally blind, prefers the courses at American River and Cosumnes community colleges. About the private sector approach, which can run budding auto techs $16,000-$25,000 to complete, Lopez says, “It’s a crash course. You can’t learn all you need to learn in 16 to 18 months Also, a lot of these graduates don’t have hands-on shop experience, so a shop isn’t going to let them get their hands on a $30,000 car.
    “What we need is an apprentice program like they have in the construction industries.”

Attack of the Freshmen

A record-setting deluge of freshmen on the UC Davis campus this fall had the university  scrambling to keep up its longstanding tradition of offering housing to all non-transferring freshmen who request it.
    The solution: turn nearly 400 former double-occupancy dorm rooms into triples and order 800 twin mattresses, about double the predictions, says Emily Galindo, associate director of student housing. Galindo notes there was an added incentive to take the more-cramped quarters, “The students who opt for a triple will have a reduced housing rate, saving $1,200.”
    More than 500 first-years have chosen the triples in the newer Segundo North and Tercero South residence halls, taking advantage of the larger square footage and higher ceilings.
    At one point shortly after the May 1 admissions deadline, UC Davis was projecting nearly 6,000 entering freshmen, whereas a more typical enrollment is 4,850. At presstime, incoming freshmen were projected at 5,652.
    Escondido-based Wickline Bedding Co., which has a factory in Galt, is the vendor of choice for the entire 10-campus University of California system through January 2007. 

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