High-Tech Firms to Hold Forum on Recruitment

Located in the middle of the booming 101 corridor, in proximity to a major metropolitan area and boasting a fair amount of quality-of-life benefits, Ventura County would seem a solid choice as home for a high-tech company.

Business leaders agree, except for one not-so-small problem--a lack of engineers, scientists and other skilled workers from which to choose.

A survey conducted by InfoVision Systems, an Ojai-based market research and strategic planning firm, indicated that the top concern of local high-tech executives was not financing, government regulations or other business development hurdles. Rather, it was the shallow employee pool.

Local high-tech leaders will tackle the issue Thursday in a forum on “Recruitment & Retention of Qualified Staff,” sponsored by the Economic Development Collaborative of Ventura County. Those in attendance will be representatives of the county’s high-tech management corps.

Speakers will include Richard Holden, chief of Labor Market Information for the state Employment Development Department; Shelley Bartenstein, director of extended education at Cal State Channel Islands; Jonathan Barbieri, former director of Ventura County’s Workforce Development Division; and Nick Frankle, chairman of the Ventura County High Tech Cluster.

Organizers intend to come away from the program with a general plan of action, setting the groundwork for short- and long-term solutions to the staffing problem. The group plans to develop ways to raise the county’s image nationwide to encourage relocation to the area and to work with the local community colleges and state university to develop home-grown talent.

“Our main concern is to identify skilled workers and how we are going to attract them to the region,” said Joe McClure, executive director of the Economic Development Collaborative. “We need to identify what individuals are looking for in a place to live and work. A lot of individuals from the East Coast get recruited and say, ‘Ventura County? Where’s that?’ ”

Better recruitment, McClure said, is the short-term need. Long-term, he said, high-tech businesses could follow the leads of county biotech firms such as Amgen and Baxter, which have spent time collaborating with local colleges to develop qualified workers.

“There are two ideas spinning around--working directly with colleges and having colleges be more responsive with the needs of business leaders,” said Ronda LaRue, president of InfoVision Systems. “That’s something we’re really trying to do here. Let’s do some creative things here and address the issues.”

Aside from outlining the staffing concerns and plotting a plan of attack, organizers would like the forum to serve as a launching point for cooperation among high-tech corporations.

“In the 101 corridor, every time I turn around there’s another new business, but so far they’re working in an isolated environment,” said Barbieri, president of JDB & Associates.

“The hope is that people will see the enormous benefit that can be realized by working together and see the type of resources and leverage that working as a cluster can offer them,” he said. “When companies get together as an industry they can join forces. They can bring in their own resources, work with education collectively, begin marketing for recruitment collectively.”

The forum will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Sunset Hills Country Club, 4155 Erbes Road, Thousand Oaks. Admission is free. For information call 384-1800, Ext. 21.