Central Valley Business Incubator

The Water, Energy & Technology Center team is pleased to announce that the center will be closing out the year of 2011 with a full-house! With a number of office spaces available for member’s use, the WET Center is now full with an array of high potential companies including; PEAR California, Auldan Inc., Landview, C3 and The Fuel Reduction Company, all of which the team has high hopes for in the upcoming new year.

PEAR

EnerNOC’s Peak Energy Agriculture Rewards (PEAR) Program, is a PG&E-endorsed demand response program that offers free remote control/monitoring equipment and cash incentives to PG&E Ag customers who reduce electricity use during peak demand events. Housed at the WET Center, this innovative company is quickly growing and is on its way to huge success.

C3

C3, another company on the road to success, delivers a new generation of enterprise software solutions that enable organizations to maximize profitability and cash flow by optimizing their energy and resource strategy while minimizing their carbon and environmental footprint.

Aulden, Inc.

Aulden, Inc. achieves new and improved performance with lower or no filtering requirements and less maintenance by using Micro-Irrigation Systems and Manufacturing System. With goals to find new efficient-system, methods, and products for micro-irrigation and manufacturing systems, Aulden Inc. fits perfectly in the BlueTechValley and all the resources it has to offer.

LandView

Another impressive company, housed at the WET Center, is LandView, an intuitive, user-friendly, GIS application that uses imagery and real time updates to give you a big picture perspective of site-specific data. LandView is designed for the land-based manager.

The Fuel Reduction Company

The team would also like to welcome The Fuel Reduction Company into the WET Center. This business boasts fuel saving devices for cars, trucks, vans & large commercial vehicles to save owners 10-18 miles per gallon, emission reduction up to 90 percent. We are both excited and hopeful for this high-potential company and look forward to continuing our relationship with them.

Join Us…

With the great success of 2011, we encourage other businesses in the water, energy and agricultural technology field, to get in line and become a member of the WET Center today. Join the WET Center and connect to a leader in the area of Water, Energy, Air Quality and Ag Technology innovation, development and commercialization. For more information regarding our membership options and benefits, please do not hesitate to contact us at 559.292.9033.

The Central Valley Business Incubator (CVBI) is finishing its fifteenth year and the momentum is amazing. With a continued focus on economic development through entrepreneurship, CVBI is poised to break new ground in 2012. Before the cart gets too far in front of the horse, it is helpful to reexamine the successes of 2011. Highlights include the successful launch of the BlueTechValley effort, increased and diversified funding, enhanced operations, and several new businesses and jobs.

Please read through the report and feel free to share it with others. You will be encouraged.

2011 CVBI Annual Report

The Fresno Business Council recently released a great video that shows the movement and progress that has been made in the Fresno Region. A key aspect of this transformation is the focus on water technology as an economic driver. Henrik Skov Laursen of the Grundofs Water Technology Center is featured in the video discussing ways that private industry, enabling organizations and academia work together to support growth and innovation.

GRID Alternatives, a member of the Water, Energy & Technology Center, rallied participation from the community and on Saturday, October 8, ten low-income families had solar panels installed. Members of the Central Valley Business Incubator team rolled up their sleeves and went to work doing installations.

Photo Credit: Charles Vincent Headley, Sr.

By bringing solar energy to low-income communities, these ten families will reduce their long-term energy costs while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Solarthon also served to educate the community about the benefits of clean, renewable energy. The ten solar systems will provide approximately 2.3 million kWh of clean, renewable energy for the families over their lifetime. This equates to a $389,000 savings and prevents over 1,565 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2009, GRID Alternatives installed over 203 low-income solar PV systems to date in the Central Valley.

As the second Solarthon, GRID Alternatives is on the way to re-energizing Fresno one rooftop at a time.

Links:
All-Women Solarthon House
CV Solarthon Greatest Hits Album
GRID Alternatives CV Solarthon 2011 Blog

The Central Valley Business Incubator and the Water, Energy & Technology Center are always on the lookout for companies who wish to join forces to affect change in the areas of Water, Renewable Energy and Ag Technology. What to get involved? Become a member today.

Sometimes it’s helpful to reflect on the exciting things that have happened to our members. We are in growth mode and some people ask what types of companies are best suited for the WET Center. The easy answer: Winners.

Since the WET Center opened its doors in 2007, affiliated companies have garnered recognition and praise from the industry.

Aqua-PhyD WET Center Alumni

• 2009 Top 10 New Products World Ag Expo
• 2009 Top 50 Water Companies Artemis Project

ClimateMinder WET Center Active Member

• 2010 Innovation Award GrowTech Euraisa

PEAR by EnerNOC WET Center Active Member

• 2008 Fastest Growing Companies Inc Magazine
• 2009 Fastest Growing Companies Inc Magazine
• 2010 Fastest Growing Companies Inc Magazine
• Acquired by EnerNOC (NASDAQ: ENOC)

PureSense WET Center Alumni

• 2008 Best in Show Central Valley Venture Forum
• 2008 Top 10 New Products World Ag Expo
• 2011 Game Changers of the Year Grow-California

Soil & Topography Information WET Center Active Member

• 2009 Best in Show Central Valley Venture Forum
• 2009 Finalist Imagine H2O

The above referenced companies represent high-growth potential enterprises. Not only will the technology positively impact the environment, but they have the ability to impact the economic development landscape by creating green-collar jobs.

As is the case during growth, we are looking for the right innovations/entrepreneurs to join the WET Center. We are currently accepting applications for the WET Incubator Program Scholarship Competition. Let us help you add to this list of successes.

WET Center Member and Incubator Graduate, PureSense was named to the 2011 Agriculture Innovation “Game Changers of the Year” list by Grow-California. According to Grow-California CEO, Jon C. Gregory,

The 2011 Agriculture ‘Game Changers’ represent the ‘best of the best’ in California and have made a tremendous impact on the agriculture industry through their innovations, and by virtue of that, have had a critical positive impact on California’s economy.

PurseSense won the Water and Irrigation Management category. Grow-California had this to say about PureSense:

In a time when water is a limited resource, PureSense is one of the only companies dedicated to helping growers solve their water-related problems by providing them with the hardware, software and service needed to analyze critical field information.  By doing so, growers who use PureSense are seeing an increase in yields, overall plant health and decrease in farm inputs.

PureSense will be honored at the Agriculture Innovations Conference at US Davis on July 20-21, 2011. Helle Petersen and Kirk Nagamine from the WET Center are attending the Agriculture Innovations Conference in support of PureSense and to connect with other innovators. Helle and Kirk will also spread the word about the WET Incubator Program Scholarship Competition.

The region’s place as the BlueTechValley is becoming stronger and stronger and WET Incubator graduates, like PureSense, are leading the way.

We have, in the White House and in the Administration, a good feeling about Fresno’s future. This is a city that’s smartly working to reposition itself in the State. If you’re a business wanting to expand or start-up, hey, think Fresno.”

–Mark Zuckerman, White House Deputy Director

A new chapter in story of Fresno’s economic turnaround

You’re often heard Mayor Swearengin talk about Fresno as a Comeback City. For more than 10 years, business, community, non-profit and public sector leaders have been working and planning for a different future for our city. Those leaders have been helping to write Fresno’s comeback story by doing the heavy lifting necessary to revive our economy and turn around our inner city and downtown.

Those efforts received a significant boost on Monday when the Obama Administration announced that Fresno has been selected as one of only six cities nationwide to participate in an initiative to encourage economic growth and community development.

Under the Strong Cities, Strong Communities initiative, federal agencies will provide experienced staff to live in Fresno and work directly with Mayor Swearengin’s office, the private sector and other institutions to leverage federal dollars and support the work being done at the local level to encourage economic growth and community development.

Five federal agencies – the Economic Development Administration and the departments of Environmental Protection, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation and Agriculture – each will commit a full-time staff member to our efforts while several others will add part-time team members.

The team will be working with us in areas identified as vital to the city’s economic strategies, including expanding and attracting industrial businesses, developing transportation infrastructure, supporting downtown and neighborhood revitalization, and improving adult education programs.

We’ve worked hard to get Fresno on the national radar screen, and we’ve finally made some progress on this front.

More information on the initiative is available in a news release on the City’s website.

White House news release on the initiative

Kirk Nagamine, CEO of CVBI had the opportunity to say a few words about the role of entrepreneurship and innovation in this effort.