Friday, March 30, 2012

State budget, challenges the focus of San Joaquin Partnership, Business Council annual meeting | Central Valley Business Journal

State budget, challenges the focus of San Joaquin Partnership, Business Council annual meeting | Central Valley Business Journal


Tuesday, 27 March 2012 11:06

State budget, challenges the focus of San Joaquin Partnership, Business Council annual meeting

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STOCKTON – The state budget and the challenges it poses to business, economic development, and the economy will be the focus Wednesday when the San Joaquin Partnership and Business Council Inc. hold their joint meeting.
Guest speakers Sunne McPeak, the California Emerging Technology Fund executive director, and Pete Weber, Friends of the San Joaquin Valley co-chairman, will focus on “California Forward and the Delta.”
The San Joaquin Partnership also will highlight its “2011 wins list” of businesses it helped draw or keep in San Joaquin County.
“We are extremely proud and excited with the quantity and quality of the projects in 2011,” said Mike Ammann, San Joaquin Partnership president and chief executive officer. “During a challenged economy, this number of projects is an outstanding accomplishment not only for the Partnership, but for our many partners throughout the County.”
The San Joaquin Partnership, a nonprofit economic development corporation, is the lead organization for recruiting new business and industry to San Joaquin County. Over the past 19 years its cumulative impacts include more than 55,900 jobs and more than $10 billion in annual labor income.
The cumulative 2011 totals are 2,229,054 total square feet. The new job count is 1485 to 1565 with 640 jobs retained.
Ammann said two particular projects to note are the Community Fuels expansion of biodiesel production at the Port of Stockton from 13 million to 73 million gallons annually and the joint venture of an existing Stockton firm, Feralloy Corp. with Pyramid Mouldings to create a new venture – Feralloy Pyramid Structural Solutions – which will product custom metal frames for solar panels.
“It’s great to bring new business to San Joaquin County,” said Ammann, “however, existing businesses are the backbone of our economy and their growth and prosperity says something positive to the rest of the world about opportunities here.”
The annual joint meeting will begin at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Stockton Golf and Country Club, with the meeting beginning at 8 a.m. The annual report will be distributed at the meeting and is expected to conclude at 10 a.m.

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More signs of economic improvement | Central Valley Business Journal

More signs of economic improvement | Central Valley Business Journal


More signs of economic improvement

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UPDATE, 3:30 p.m., 3/28/2012: This story has been updated with more quotes from the March 28 event.
STOCKTON – The economic atmosphere has improved in San Joaquin County in jobs and total industry output.
That is what business leaders heard this morning at the annual joint meeting of the San Joaquin Partnership and Business Council Inc. at the Stockton Golf and Country Club.
“The San Joaquin Partnership had impressive success in 2011 compared with 2010,” read a portion of the annual report handed out at the breakfast meeting. “The 2011 job totals nearly doubled that of 2010 along with labor income. … The 1992-2011 impacts also improved with total industry output increasing by approximately $1 billion."
“These impact studies indicate that the economic atmosphere in San Joaquin County has improved,” continued the report. “In 2011 the San Joaquin Partnership had 14 successful projects, the majority being manufacturing over logistics operations.”
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Cold storage firm @ Port of Stockton in good position | Central Valley Business Journal

Cold storage firm in good position | Central Valley Business Journal


Cold storage firm in good position

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Mike Girdner, M&L Commodities owner, is thrilled he moved his business to the Port of Stockton.Mike Girdner, M&L Commodities owner, is thrilled he moved his business to the Port of Stockton.Business Journal photo by Elizabeth Stevens
The ice cream or meat you have in your freezer may well have first spent time in Mike Girdner’s freezer.
While your ice box may be 5 cubic feet or so, Girdner’s is 5 million cubic feet and is located at the Port of Stockton.
“It’s a hotel for food,” Girdner said of his company, M&L Commodities.
Food from 30 or so companies spends two days to six months in the cold storage terminal, which has been built with efficiency, security, safety, and environmental concerns in mind.
The warehouse has nine refrigerated rooms, cooled to the specifications of the food inside. There is also a cold dock with 20 dock doors, so refrigerated trucks can pull up and unload without exposing products to the outside heat or elements.
“A lot of (other warehouses) don’t have a cold dock,” Girdner said. “They run it out on an open dock in the air where there are pigeons and who knows what. We are the top rated among all the (warehouses in the) cold chain overweight corridor.”
Each of those rooms is built separately, but encased in the warehouse in order to allow each room to expand or contract independently as temperatures change. That way one room can be 29 degrees, while the one next to it is 20 below zero.
The entire facility is powered by natural gas fuel cells. Not only is it an efficient way to generate power, but Girdner said the air and water leftover from the process are clean.
Girdner’s relationship with the Port began about 10 years ago when he decided he wanted to build a cold storage facility near Austin Industrial Park, which he already owned near Manteca. He had a researcher do a market survey and it was suggested that he look at the Port of Stockton.  Girdner said he took one look at it and realized, “This is the way to the whole world.”
He built the facility and began business there in May 2009 under the management of Castle and Cooke Cold Storage.
There are three more phases coming with final completion expected in the third quarter of 2015. It positions M&L Commodities perfectly to take advantage of the container-on-barge shipping that is set to begin at the Port later this spring.
“(The new barge service) will make Stockton’s port into a full service activity,” said Michael Ammann of the San Joaquin Partnership, who explained it now makes it possible to sell San Joaquin County as a superior location from a logistics standpoint.
Two barges will take hundreds of containers at a time along the San Joaquin River between the Port of Stockton and the Port of Oakland, also known as the M580 corridor. The goal is to take as many as 1,200 trucks off Interstate 580 every day, reducing congestion and improving air quality.
Girdner believes the Port of Stockton is perfectly located, right in the middle of the West Coast, with Interstate 5 and state Highway 99, the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads nearby and access to an international waterway.
This is not Girdner’s first foray into logistics and exporting. He worked in his father’s cattle hide processing and exporting business growing up and about 40 years ago he came to California from his home in Boise, Idaho, to help cattle rancher Jack Harris start a similar enterprise.  Girdner helped Harris build a factory and eventually Harris asked him to stay on. In the 1980s, Southwest Hide Company, owned by Girdner and his father, won the U.S. Commerce Department’s President’s E Award for exporting excellence.
“My dad taught me to work hard and be honest, and everything will work,” Girdner said. His children work with him now and his father is after him to work less. Two of his sons work at the cold storage plant and his daughter is chief financial officer for the cold storage business and his industrial park in Manteca.
Girdner believes that even with the recession of the last few years, his timing in moving to the Port of Stockton has been fortunate.
“Usually when you find a business opportunity, you get into it and there will be some bumps in the road,” Girdner said.
“Here there’s never been any bumps. It only keeps getting better.”  
Contact M & L Commodities at mgirdner@mlcommodities.com.
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