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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
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New South County EDC Chief Sees Region’s Potential

The long term vision of San Diego’s South County region seems to have captured Jim O’Callaghan’s imagination.

It’s a vision of growth and development “from a bedroom community to an economic center,” O’Callaghan said. It is a binational vision, with businesses on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border taking part in the economic activity.

The vision is one thing that sold O’Callaghan, 43, on taking the top executive’s job at the South County Economic Development Council earlier this year. He began his tenure as the group’s president and CEO on April 6. He succeeds Cindy Gompper-Graves, who held the top job for 15 years.

Immediate Needs

The long term, however, can’t occupy too much of O’Callaghan’s time because there is so much to do in the short term. The immediate need to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have put extra energy into the process of getting to know the council’s stakeholders.

The situation “has enabled me to interact with some folks [who] normally would have taken longer to get to know,” O’Callaghan said. Naturally, a lot of the meetings used teleconference tools such as Zoom.

The nonprofit business advocacy organization has been helping businesses relaunch and reopen after the extended shutdown of the pandemic. O’Callaghan also oversees an emergency business loan program, which was originally for restaurants but has since expanded its focus. The program offers zero-interest, $5,000 loans for one year. As of early June, some 31 people had taken out loans and there were more loans in the pipeline.

More Than 400 Applicants

The council board reviewed more than 400 applications for the job before choosing O’Callaghan.

“We were extra excited to find and hire him,” said Bob Penner, chairman of the board. “Two months into it, I think I can speak for the board [to say] we are more excited now than when we hired him.”

O’ Callaghan brings a depth and breadth of experience to his position, said Penner, who is vice president for asset management at HomeFed Corp. in Carlsbad. HomeFed is the company behind the master-planned Otay Ranch development in the inland portion of South County.

The South County EDC serves as an economic development and promotional organization for its region, including the cities of National City, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and Coronado along with the border-facing communities of San Diego and unincorporated San Diego County.

The Gross Regional Product of that part of San Diego County was $13 billion in 2017. Its population of approximately 552,000 is expected to grow roughly 13% to 625,000 by 2030.

O’Callaghan said one thing he hopes to do is provide more data to the business community his organization serves. That goes hand in hand with rebuilding and relaunching the South County Economic Development Council website to become “a much more interactive tool.”

A New York Native

O’Callaghan is a New York City native who graduated from Hofstra University in 2000 and received a master’s degree from Columbia University in 2002.

He said a Southern California golf outing with “a perfect sunset” convinced him to move west. After initially settling in San Diego he traveled north, eventually landing a job at the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Since 2012, O’Callaghan has led two city chambers and one tourism authority in the greater Los Angeles area.

His first stop was the Manhattan Beach Chamber of Commerce, which he described as an organization that wanted to grow and focus on business development. In four years, O’Callaghan said, he doubled the group’s budget, got a mall project entitled and got a Main Street business group going. A 2016 account in a beach community newspaper said O’Callaghan transformed the organization in several ways.

O’Callaghan then moved on to become CEO of the Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce. With a population of about 200,000 people, the community is six times the size of Manhattan Beach, with the presence of major corporations including the Boeing Co. Following his stay in Huntington Beach, O’Callaghan oversaw two business improvement districts for the West Hollywood Travel and Tourism Board.

A Sustained Focus

A vision of growth was one thing that attracted O’Callaghan to the job in San Diego’s South County. Another attraction, he said, was the level of commitment he saw at the economic development council. Almost every past chair is still engaged with the organization, which is impressive. It’s more common to find people changing their focus over time, he said.

Economic development is where his passion is, O’Callaghan said in a recent interview, adding that South County has so much to offer.

The opportunities for growth and economic development would be hard to find in other parts of the region, the CEO said in a statement released by the council. Going forward, the board sees O’Callaghan as a leading advocate for the region, developing partnerships with those in both the public and private sectors, working with elected officials, attracting and retaining businesses and helping binational business growth.

He has organized a new binational committee.

There is plenty to do ahead, O’Callaghan said, including getting a new border crossing built at the eastern end of Otay Mesa. The community is seeking funding to get it done by the end of 2021, he said.

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