Employers looking to locate a new plant look online first and if the information they want isn’t readily available, they move on.
“You get 10 seconds to convince them,” said Mary Ann Leffel of the Monterey County Business Council, speaking to 90 people Tuesday at a conference at the Cocoanut Grove organized by the Monterey Bay International Trade Association.
“Monterey Bay has international recognition,” Leffel said, urging jurisdictions to unite under that brand to woo employers.
Monterey Pasta was considering moving to Kent, Wash., where it had a plant. Neither Salinas nor Watsonville had the right space but the company ended up in Gilroy, which had a big enough facility, and 240 people kept their jobs.
“If we would have said ‘Keep them in Salinas,’ we would have lost them,” Leffel said.
Existing community websites cater to residents, not employers, so she is spearheading a project to create a website for site selectors, complete with aerial views, property lines and GIS to display data on schools, medical facilities and fire stations.
Atlas Marketing of Denver is expected to complete the job in February, at which time Leffel said the state plans to bring in “site selectors” and pitch Monterey Bay as a place to do business.
The city of Watsonville is participating, as are Monterey and San Benito counties. Leffel hopes to persuade Santa Cruz County to join them.
At the conference, Umpqua Bank, which has helped Napa wineries finance export sales, the Silicon Valley U.S. Export Center and FedEx Services offered advice to local business owners.
Thomas Gardiner of Pinpoint, a company headed by Watsonville native Bob Gilman, spoke about marketing an “American dream” travel experience to newly affluent Chinese, millions of whom now carry credit cards. Most of these visitors go to New York or California and stay an average of 11 days.
“This is new business,” Gardiner said. “Would you like some of the money?”
Rodger Wasson of Wasson Idea Farming in Aptos is organizing meetings on sustainability in Milan, Italy, where a temporary expo will be built then moved to UC Davis, and in New York City, where the topics will be food and agriculture.
“Why not here?” Wasson asked, citing innovation at Love Apple Farm in Scotts Valley, UC Santa Cruz agroecology program and high-end restaurant Manresa in Los Gatos. “Not everybody knows where (Monterey Bay) is.”
Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, who championed a bill that launched the Brand USA ad campaign, which spotlights Santa Cruz, proposed a Brand Monterey Bay campaign. He urged locals to inventory assets for promotion.
For example, he said, the Monterey Bay Greenhouse Growers took his advice to open their sheds full of colorful blooms to the public. The third annual open house attracted 1,000 visitors.
Ralph Hiesey, 71, owner of Bogart Engineering in Boulder Creek, came to find out how to increase international sales of his battery monitor for off-the-grid systems.
“I came to learn about exports and I got ideas to market for sustainability,” said Miranda Keiser, who works for Hiesey.
Lots of wineries are too small to export individually, said Shannon Flynn of the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association who sees possibilities for exporting as a region.
“There’s a huge overseas market that we’re not taking advantage of,” said Bonnie Dodd, an agent with Keller Williams Real Estate.
