High-Tech: Tyler Orion Takes RTA Over With Former Leader’s Blessing
A former dancer, Tyler Orion is adept at moving quickly and effortlessly on her feet.
She’ll rely on those skills in her new role as president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Technology Alliance, where she began working last week. The nonprofit association is an educational and advocacy group for the area’s high-tech industry.
Orion succeeds Cliff Numark, who resigned after a year-and-a-half in the position. Numark said he returned to his hometown of Los Angeles because his fianc & #233;e lives there, and to help out a family member who is ill.
“She’s the ideal candidate for the job,” Numark said of Orion. “She has a public presence, the operational experience, a network in the community, and a long history with the RTA.”
Orion, an RTA board member for about five years and an early member of the search team to find Numark’s replacement, said Numark and a few other fellow RTA board members asked her to take the job. Once she decided to go for it, she left the search committee.
A big reason she decided to take the job is to keep the organization’s momentum going, Orion said.
“I understand the basic vision and mission of the RTA, and know a great deal about what’s happened here,” she said.
One of three similar technology groups formed in California in the mid-1990s following the downsizings in aerospace and defense, the organization provides programs for fostering technology startups.
Its four key areas are entrepreneurship services, including conducting network events and seminars; a seed capital matching grant program; partnering with others to bridge “the digital divide”; and generating research on high-tech industry issues.
Orion said as part of her agreement, she is closing down her small business consulting firm in the Gaslamp District, and leaving her interim post as president of the Pacific Incubation Network. The latter is a group of about 120 businesses and individuals involved in operating small business incubators in the western United States.
Incubators are facilities that house a number of startups and allow the smaller firms to share rent, equipment, staff and usually the advice of experienced business owners.
Orion has run her own small business consultancy since 1986, and has been in San Diego since 1984. From 1994 to 1996 she headed up the San Diego Technology Incubator at City College, where five startups were launched.
Before relocating here, she started and operated a medical practices management firm in Tucson, Ariz.
Orion, who grew up in New York City, studied drama and dance at Carnegie Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh and obtained a master’s in business administration from Webster University.
The RTA has a budget of about $1.2 million and a staff of seven, including Orion. It receives about $400,000 from the state, and gets the remaining funding from private sponsorships and contracts for its services.
Among the events that helped put RTA on the map, the Big e-Schmooze, a networking cocktail party for technology employees, drew about 1,400 people earlier this year at the El Cortez Hotel. The next RTA e-schmooze is Aug. 23 at the Torrey Pines Gliderport.
“It’s a fabulous spot. I suspect we’ll have a lot of pink-slipped folks there, but why not? It’s a great place to network,” Orion said.
Kurt Chilcott, an RTA board member and president of San Diego County CDC, a small-business lender, said of Orion: “I can think of few individuals in San Diego that not only are committed to entrepreneurship and the growth of small companies but exudes the entrepreneurial spirit to a greater degree than Tyler. She is involved, committed, knowledgeable and networked , a great fit for the mission of the RTA.”
