The Los Angeles Times du lieu suivant : Los Angeles, California • Page 226

I I.OS ANGELES TIMES SLV TUESDAY. SEPTEMBER 8, 1992 D2a San Diego County Business Carlsbad Picked for New Plant Jobs: United Solar Systems plant will employ 100. It is a unit of Canon, an industry giant. By CHRIS KRAUL SAN DIEGO COUNTY UUSINESS EDITOR A leading Japanese-owned manufacturer of solar energy panels plans to set up a large-scale manufacturing operation in Carlsbad, city officials said this week. United Solar Systems a unit of Canon Inc.

of is close to buying 30 acres of land in the Carlsbad Research Center near Palomar Airport Road at El Cami-no Real, Carlsbad Planning Director Michael Holzmiller said. Initial plans call for a new plant of at least 100,000 square feet, employing 100 people, to open in early 1994, said Dan Pegg, president of San Diego Economic Development the local jobs-creation agency that is helping to bring the manufacturer to the region. The unit may eventually expand its presence to 300,000 square feet and employ 300 workers, sources ROD BOREN Los Angeles Times manages. Bruce E. Ahern, right, turned his firm's technology directory into a listing for job-seekers.

William Hoffman, above, at the Buena Park Holiday Inn. His firm has changed the type of property it DAVE GATLEY Los Angeles Times Some Firms Find Special Ways to Prosper During Recession New focuses: Many are thriving because they found and exploited unusual niches created by hard times. companies. Computer experts are still "vital" to many high-technology companies, but they are now "too expensive to keep on (company payrolls," said Peter Van Home, vice president of State of the Art. So, even as General Dynamics, Hughes Aircraft, TRW and other companies were laying off senior programmers, State of the Art was hiring experienced personnel.

The company now handles product design for about 70 customers that lack the "the time or the staff needed to get projects done in time for customers," Van Home said. State of the Art anticipates additional growth because it has identified 300 potential customers that likely will need outside help to complete software programming. Trigild a San Diego-based hotel and motel management company, is another firm that has grown despite the weak economy. A Business Inspired by Urban Graffiti in Orange County. Trigild has managed troubled and prosperous Holiday Inn, Ramada, Marriott, Rodeway and Best Western properties in Southwestern states.

Bad economic times also are creating niches for Campos Stra-tis, a Teaneck, N.J., accounting firm that recently opened an office in San Diego. Campos Stratis provides accounting services to insurance companies that generally are hit with an increase in fraudulent loss claims, said Richard Holstrom, the firm's San Diego-based partner. The company studies policy holders' books to determine if there is motive to submit a fraudulent claim. "We're involved in one claim right now where the policy holder is reporting his third claim inside of eight months," Holstrom said. "That's a suspicious circumstance for an insurance company." the graffiti look a few years ago when he saw the mark of "Chaka," Los Angeles' most prolific "tagger," all over the city.

He later saw a newspaper article on how Chaka and the others were becoming professional artists, and he started signing them up. Chaka, whose real name is Daniel Ramos, is now serving a one-year jail term for violating probation on a vandalism conviction. Hirschman said the artist signed his contract in jail. The artists' job is to come up with drawings that can be used on the baggy shorts, floppy shirts and backward -facing baseball caps that once were associated with urban gangs and now have become a hot look among mainstream teen-age boys. When Hirschman left Gotcha Sportswear in Irvine to start his own company, he says, he saw the potential for incorporating graffiti looks into clothes.

The colorful designs also mesh well with the digital imaging technique he uses to produce sharper images than conventional silk screening. Each artist incorporates his own personal graffiti style into Please see GRAFFITI, D2B 'One hundred manufacturing jobs is just exactly what San Diego needs right now. Each manufacturing job generates 2.5 related service, supply or technical DAN PEGG President, San Diego Economic Development Corp. said. More than 90 of the employees at the new plant will be hired locally, Pegg said.

United Solar Systems operates its main manufacturing plant in Troy, Mich. There are no immediate plans to close the facility there, sources said. Officials at Canon's U.S. headquarters in Costa Mesa did not return telephone calls Friday for comment. Canon is an $ll-billion business machines and photography giant.

The company initially was interested in Carlsbad and Poway for the new manufacturing site because of the cities' proximity to Canon's Orange County headquarters office and to research facilities in Southern California. Sources said the company has recently developed new solar energy technology it will incorporate into the new manufacturing process. The solar panels made by United Solar Systems have industrial as well as recreational uses, Pegg said, adding that the company plans on becoming the world's largest solar panel manufacturer by the year 2000. The San Diego Economic Development Corp. worked with the, solar panel manufacturer for a year assisting it with site review, selection and acquainting it with local air quality guidelines, Pegg said.

The manufacturing jobs will be a welcome addition to the region'? job base, given the hits that the manufacturing jobs sector has taken over the last two years because of defense budget cutbacks and the recession, Peg said. "One hundred manufacturing Please see PLANT, D2B By CHRIS WOODYARD TIMES STAFF WRITER FOUNTAIN VALLEY In a vast design studio that echoes with hip-hop music and reeks of paint, Carlos (Heaven 1) Munoz wields a can of Krylon like an expert. He sprays a base coat of flat white on a plywood display booth. His friend and fellow graffiti artist David (Sike) Martinez follows with an overlay of rich gold-colored paint. Together they are cre- While the nation's tourism industry is being hammered by an oversupply of rooms and a lack of tourists, Trigild is "busier than any lime in our history," said Trigild founder and President William Hoffman.

Instead of managing sound properties for absentee owners as it does during good times, Trigild now specializes in managing hotels and motels that have been forced into receiverships by lenders. "We'd be growing in good times, but our growth definitely has been accelerated" by the bad times, Hoffman said. "It's sort of like golf: instead of playing in the fairway, we're operating in the rough or a sand trap, but we're still busy swinging the club." Trigild now manages 16 propertiesmost of which are financially troubled in the Southwestern United States, including five hotels and motels in San Diego and three the street-oriented look that has swept the industry lately. For the professional graffiti artists, he created the "UHL" label-Urban Hidden Literature. That's a nice way of saying graffiti.

Younger artists were enlisted to make drawings for a "Tags in Rags" label aimed at teen-agers. Hirschman says he expects the two lines together to produce as much as $4 million in first-year sales. The same graffiti artists who are designing the clothing line were brought into the Fountain Valley design studio last week to decorate a trade-show booth for the Action Sports Beach Expo in San Diego this week, which is expected to draw 650 exhibitors and 10,000 retail buyers. The walls of the booth were made to look like the concrete crash wall of a freeway median, complete with plywood panels on top. The team then went to work, plastering them with graffiti art.

Hirschman said he was drawn to DIRECT Appliances' FRI.8 1 One On One's Mark Hirschman says the urban graffiti designs epitomize the street look that has swept the designer clothing industry. "We're selling lots of them," said Mark Villegas, spokesman for San Diego Technical Books. "We sell them in our career section, but we've given it its own little stand because people are specifically looking for that particular book." The job-seeker's guide "is keeping us going," Ahern said. "We know we have a good product, we're serving people and we're not ripping anybody off." Ahern's prompt response to the soured economy made sound business sense, said Oliver Galbraith III, co-director of San Diego State University's Small Business Institute. "The rules (for business success are the same regardless of the economy," Galbraith said.

"You need to look at the market and see if there's a demand for your product." Galbraith, for one, is practicing what he preaches. The 66-year-old business professor last week "took a golden handshake from the university after 37 years (at SDSU I'm retiring," Galbraith said. Galbraith agreed to early retirement because a part-time consulting firm he owns is prospering and demanding more of his time. State of the Art Computing Inc. is another local company that narrowed its focus and, in the process, doubled its size to 70 employees during the past year.

Two years ago, the Mission Valley-based company was a multipurpose computer consulting firm. But State of the Art executives believed that the recession would lead to a growing market for firms capable of developing sophisticated engineering software packages for corporate customers. The demand for software experts eventually materialized because local high-technology companies cut their overhead by laying off their own senior programmers and farming the work out to other AGENDA Sept. 10: Tom Dean from Consolidated Appraisers will speak at the San Diego Creative Investors Assn. monthly dinner meeting at 5:30 p.m., Holiday Inn, Mission Valley.

Cost is $12. Reservations needed by Tuesday. Call 279-9167. Sept. 11: "Virtual Workplace '92," a comprehensive telecommuting conference by the San Diego Telecommuting 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m., La Jolla Village Inn, 3299 Holiday Court, La Jolla.

Cost $30. Call 534-5705. Sept. 11: A regional trade conference focusing on "North American Free Trade: Mexico, the United States, and Canada," 8 a.m.-5 p.m., University of San Diego, Hahn University Center. Luncheon speaker will be Peter Watson, Please see AGENDA, D2B ii im rAEXTCDi rDnrrav Lunciito) Hon.

-Sat. on Oar Patio ear Winn Now nrn By GREG JOHNSON TIMESSTAFF WRITER Some companies most notably bankruptcy law firms, pawn shops and outplacement firms traditionally do well during tough economic times. But other firms are growing in spite of the recession, largely by relying on strengths that were identified and developed before the economy soured. In many cases, the companies have restructured themselves to focus on narrow niches where they can best serve the needs of recession -weary customers. "There's a lot of scrambling going on, as manufacturing and service sector companies look for newniches and fight for what's left of the remaining niches," said Dan Pegg, president of the San Diego Economic Development Corporation.

Local lending institutions that thrived on real estate loans during boom years now are courting small businesses. Commercial office space brokers who once hustled tenants on behalf of building owners now are working as "hired guns" for tenants seeking sweet office-space deals. More local firms most notably insurance companies and lending institutionsare looking to Mexico for market niches to exploit. One niche player is Ahern Marketing Group President Bruce E. Attftn, who quickly realized that the Recession would slow sales of his i company's "Technology Directory-Buyer's Guide," a listing of high; technology companies, products and key executives.

Ahern's target market for the guide was suppliers and service companies. flut when a handful of out-of-work San Diegans started using the $75 guide to help find job leads, he quickly published a slimmed-down version that is retailing for $25 per copy at local book stores. ON THE Sept. 8: "Free Publicity," a workshop from 7-9 p.m. on ways to get no-cost publicity for small businesses, products, services or nonprofit organizations.

Sponsored by Linderman Communications, 111 West Pennsylvania in Hillcrest. Cost is $20; advance reservations required. Call 692-9909. Sept. 8: "Global Telecommunications in the '90's," a lecture by Kevin Smith, international sales manager for at the World Trade monthly noon luncheon at La Jolla Village Inn.

Cost is $30. Call 453-4605. Sept. 10: "Passing the Torch: Transfer Strategies for the Family Business," a half-day conference from 8 a.m. -2 p.m., Douglas F.

Manchester Executive Conference Center, University of San Diego. Cost is $195. Call 260-4644. UU I II IUI I II IUI E- ating the kind of street art that motorists, city managers and police officers love to hate. Their plan is to put their designs not only on the display booth but also on the T-shirted backs of teen-agers across the nation.

The drawings of Munoz, Martinez and a half dozen others are being sold on T-shirts and shorts by an upstart surf-wear company, One On One in Laguna Beach. President Mark Hirschman says the urban graffiti designs epitomize FACTORY Bottled Water WE PROVIDE SALES SERVICE All Exchange LISTED and OTC Stocks LESS THAN 2000 SHARES: $33 plus 30 per share 5 Undercounter MODELS WE SERVICE ALL BRANDS! -Including- CULLIGAN Arrowhead Cal Pure Rayne AND MANY MORE! 2000 SHARES AND OVER: JACK WHITE- California's firs! discount bratef. Since 1973, 100 sh IS) UP MON. Pure Water of California (61 9) 728-6500 per share NO LOAD FUNDS Offered fey prcspecejs. Direct buyer pays no fees 111)000 1100000 $40 $135 $100 NA NA NA 60 260 380 $20 $125 $280 Survey 692.

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