Marin Center performances have delighted Bay Area audiences for over 26 years. As the major performing arts, events center, and fairgrounds in Marin County, Marin Center serves the community by presenting and expanding a variety of multi-cultural theater presentations, affordable rental venues, and professional expertise. Bringing music, dance, and performance of all kinds to audiences around the Bay, attendees also enjoy visiting the beautiful Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium inspired by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
One of the most difficult steps in starting and growing a business is how that business will finance itself. One of the cornerstone ideas that built modern finance is that there is not a material difference among potential mixes of debt, equity and cash to finance a business. The Modigliani-Miller Theorem has this implication; the Capital Asset Pricing Model (#CAPM) was born from this idea (and many others). However, finance theory evolved in the 1980’s and 1990’s to consider data that suggested it did matter a bit, and that there is an optimal mix for every business that is specific to that business.
I was humbled to moderate a panel at the “Access to Capital” gathering on April 29 at the San Rafael Community Center. MEF was a major sponsor; San Geronimo Golf Course provided food and we provided staff to help with the event’s coordination. This event was hosted by the Small Business Development Center (#SBDC) here in Marin County, as well as Renaissance Center (where SBDC in Marin is located at 1115 Third Street). Marin County’s only business accelerator, Venture Greenhouse (also housed at Renaissance in San Rafael), was also very involved and had many alumni of its program in attendance.
Governor Brown held a press conference on April 2 to announce an order he was making to all cities and towns (implied all areas of California, including unincorporated areas) to reduce water use by 25 percent. This order was made as a reaction to low snowpack that remains in the Sierra Nevada Mountains as of April 1, and also to the general drought conditions in California. Last year, Marin Economic Forum and Dominican University of California’s Barowsky School of Business hosted an event where the economics of a drought were discussed. Conservation was part of that discussion, as was residential behavior in our landscape choices. The conclusion is there is no surefire way to get people to conserve on water. In short, Governor Brown ordered replacement of millions of square feet of lawns for more resistant landscapes. He also discussed rebate programs to use water-efficient appliances and fixtures in homes and commercial spaces. Water use will be reduced at UC and CSU campuses; new homes and developments will have to use recycled water.
Venture Greenhouse 2.0, a MarinLink sponsored project, is a Marin-based business accelerator, helping promising entrepreneurs from the North Bay and Greater Bay Areas by launching and growing innovative business models in a variety of market segments such as clean technology, energy, software, medical, consumer products/services, internet and transportation. They are open to supporting entrepreneurs in driving non-profit business models, requiring sophisticated business strategies and external funding.Venture Greenhouse 2.0 requires an element of their product, service, business process, or operations to change the status quo of their industry and/or market to become more sustainable, helping companies integrate resource-efficient strategies and processes to enhance revenues, increase bottom-line profitability, and make the company more attractive to investors and customers.
You’re Invited:
A Stellar Networking Event with Funders!
Are you curious what angel investors look for?
Have you wondered how to do a crowdfunding campaign?
Do you want to know what bankers need to get a business loan?
Event includes appetizers, no-host bar and raffle prizes!
Wednesday, April 29th from 5:30-8:30 PM
San Rafael Community Center, 618 B Street, San Rafael
$10 pre-pay or $20 at the door
The unemployment rate is one of the most deceptive and oft-used economic data points in the world. Conceptually, the unemployment rate measures the percentage of residents in a certain area’s labor force that are looking for a job but have not found one yet. The labor force definition is the sum of an area’s employed and unemployed residents. Two immediate issues jump out for economists. First, we know there are people who are “marginally attached” or discouraged workers, or those who are unemployed but unlikely to remain in their job search for much longer or are done looking (discouraged workers); second are those that are working under their economic potential (underemployed), another difficult thing to measure in terms of filling a productivity gap, which could create more jobs if filled. The recent recession and recovery put a large focus on labor market measures, and are at the heart of two macroeconomic issues: slow inflation rates and why the Federal Reserve has not changed interest rates directly since January 2009.
By Nanda Schorske, MBA
Executive Dean
Indian Valley Campus and Workforce & Economic Development
Marin’s unemployment rates are deceptively low. Both the unemployment rates and the extremely large proportion of older adults can be interpreted as symptoms of unbalanced economic and workforce development pressures in the county.
Middle-wage workers and working families are squeezed out of Marin County due to high cost of living, as are people who lose jobs; it’s too expensive to stay in Marin after losing a job, so the unemployed are forced to move away. Those who are left are much older, including many retirees and people who have steady, relatively high-paying jobs. Those higher paid professionals also tend to be older, resulting in the older, more affluent community as seen in the data.
Robert Eyler will present on the global, national and state economic situation as context for doing business in Marin County for 2015 and beyond. The attendee should come away with a better understanding of the economic forces likely to shape regional business for the next few years.
