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Talent Pool

Companies dive in deep to attract and keep a quality workforce in San Diego

NOT MANY PEOPLE DECIDE they want to go “underground” for their careers. Just ask Mike Chapin, CEO of Geocon, a San Diego–based geotechnical, environmental, geologic and materials testing firm. Chapin and his crew of 200 do everything from drilling borings and taking samples from the soil to performing field observation and tests to make sure buildings will be supported by solid ground. Many of his employees are civil or geotechnical engineers, rare finds in San Diego, Chapin says. Like many local high-tech companies struggling to find top-tier engineers, Geocon has tapped into the halls of academia for fresh talent.

“I go to [the University of California, San Diego] every year and give talks to structural engineering majors to see if anyone would be interested in switching to a geotechnical career,” he says. “We’ve had good luck with recruiting from the university.”

Chapin, who sits on the advisory board for the Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education at San Diego State University, also mines that campus for new workers. “I can’t stress enough the importance of businesses being involved in education,” he says. “We’re the end user of these students, and we have a responsibility to help cultivate the talent for the future of our company.”

Still, Chapin is quick to admit not all engineers are homegrown. Finding seasoned engineers is an even greater feat for many local tech firms, he says. That’s why Geocon occasionally uses executive search firms to attract more experienced engineers and top management.

“I’d rather not use recruiters; I’d rather someone come directly to me and say they are looking for a job,” says Chapin, who also chairs the Economic Development Corporation’s Workforce Education Committee and the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Action Team. “It costs a lot of money to use recruiters, but they have brought us some excellent candidates. We have some of the best folks in the industry, but finding other people who can do this kind of work is difficult.”

How does Chapin keep these rare engineers once he has them? Well, he just tries to make Geocon an enjoyable place to work.

“My partners and I work hard at keeping our employees happy and our clients happy,” he says. “That’s been the key to our success. We try to make it so people don’t have to worry about their jobs when they have a life crisis. We try to make work less stressful for them.”

SAN DIEGO’S more than 70 miles of coastline may also provide a less-stress environment for the region’s workforce, many of whom can jog, walk or surf during their lunch breaks, but the depressing fact is the cost of living and traffic here are outrageous. So attracting and retaining qualified workers in San Diego is becoming a little more difficult, business leaders contend. To help raise the visibility of the smaller tech companies in town, CommNexus, a nonprofit telecommunications trade organization, has more than 300 tech-related jobs posted on its Web site.

“When people are looking for engineering or technology jobs,” says CommNexus CEO Rory Moore, “we don’t want them just to see all the Qualcomm and SAIC buildings. We want them to know San Diego has a lot of other tech companies to choose from.”CommNexus is also helping to grow the local tech talent pool by connecting interns with companies. “There are two ways to build a company — by recruiting senior engineers and by building your own employees,” says Moore, who founded San Diego–based Peregrine Semiconductor. “Employee No. 6 and No. 7 at Peregrine are still with the company and are two of the crown jewels of the company; I hired them as interns from UCSD back in 1992. Those who are hired as interns stick with a company through the good and bad times. When the times get tough, they’re less likely to jump. They feel like they have their DNA in the company.”

The UCSD Rady School of Management is also doing its part to groom the next generation of business leaders and to make sure the region’s current workforce stays here. Through its FlexMBA program, the Rady School helps local companies with retention efforts by offering a degree to existing workers in a variety of fields, including finance, marketing, research and engineering.

“The FlexMBA program helps companies retain people who are reaching the stage where they are taking on more management responsibilities,” says JoAnne Starr, assistant dean for MBA programs at the school.

The driving force behind the Rady School, which opened its doors in 2003, came from the local business community’s desire to have another top business school in the region, especially for innovative tech companies.

“There’s a huge entrepreneurial thirst in San Diego that has fueled the success of starting tech companies, but the region has not been hugely successful in growing these companies,” Starr says. “We proactively work with the business community in order to provide the right kind of workers to help grow their companies.”

GAIL NAUGHTON, dean of SDSU’s College of Business Administration, could hardly agree more. Naughton, a former life science exec, is in the business of training the next generation of business leaders, whether it’s for the high-tech, life science, hospitality, sports management, accounting or nursing fields. In response to demands by the local business community, SDSU has launched several new master’s degree programs, including a sports business management MBA (requested by Padres owner John Moores) and an MBA in international human resources.

This summer, SDSU is establishing the first-ever life sciences executive MBA, another push by industry. And in the fall, San Diego State will launch undergrad programs for human resources and entrepreneurship.

“We continue to work closely with industry to develop programs that companies need to help grow the economy in San Diego,” Naughton says. “And with strong economic growth, we will have a better chance at retaining workers.”

Another thing for which SDSU’s business school is known is developing talented accountants. According to David Down, managing partner for accounting firm KPMG in San Diego, SDSU and the University of San Diego have two of the top accounting programs in the nation. He says Cal State San Marcos is also strengthening its accounting program. KPMG hires 20 to 25 new people a year from college campuses in the county, with 12 to 15 being hired for its local office. Down says the firm goes outside San Diego to recruit about one-third of its workforce.

“There are a lot of young people who graduate high school here but go out of state for college. We try to keep spots available so we can give them an opportunity to come back to San Diego to work,” says Down, an SDSU grad who has been with KPMG for 32 years.

He says there’s a high demand for accountants today across all industries, and one of the ways KPMG retains its employees is by offering an attractive compensation package and benefit plan, which includes five weeks of vacation the first year with the firm. Not bad.

HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS, mainly nurses, have been in high demand, but the supply has been short, not only in San Diego but across the country. Workers needed for area hospitals and healthcare organizations also include radiology technicians, psychical therapists and pharmacists, according to Joyce Stewart, a registered nurse and director of recruitment and workforce development for Sharp HealthCare, a nonprofit that has 15,000 employees in San Diego (3,500 of them nurses).

Many nursing programs continue to have a significant waiting list, says Stewart, adding that one of the challenges is the lack of faculty for these programs. One way Sharp is responding is by having some of its registered nurses work as clinical instructors at local junior colleges and universities. Sharp even made a significant contribution to San Diego State for a simulation lab that allows nursing students to get hands-on experience in a “virtual” hospital. To further fuel its efforts to address the region’s nursing shortage, Sharp has a partnership with the University of Oklahoma to provide online nursing degree programs.

“There has been an incredible effort at the community college and university level to increase the size of our workforce,” says Stewart. “So we have to do our part.”

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