Courting the environmental industry.

The birthplace of America's space program is trying to become the incubator for its emerging environmental industry. It already has a head start

Pasadena has long been known as the home of technological leaders like the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the birthplace of America's space program. It is also one of those cities that everybody has heard about because, for almost a century, it has also been known as the home of the Rose Bowl and the Tournament of Roses Parade.

Now, however, the environmental industry -- one of the most important new industries worldwide -- has established a science and technology core in Pasadena. With the new Blue Line rail corridor linking the city to Los Angeles and beyond, Pasadena has set out to become Southern California's leader in this new field.

The Pasadena Environmental TechnoPlex is a public-private partnership that links the city's internationally known environmental engineering firms, research and educational facilities, the city and its operating organizations, the non-environmental private sector, as well as civic and environmental non profit organizations. All of these are combined into a cohesive, working organization.

According to Yvonne Walkup, the City of Pasadena's Program Manager for TechnoPlex, the organization has some ambitious objectives:

* To position Pasadena as the premier environmental business and technology city in the Pacific Rim.

* To expand environmental business opportunities to all Pasadena citizens through support of existing environmental business base, technical training for its work force, and science and technology training for its students.

* To build a funding and technology innovation base which helps Pasadena entrepreneurs to use new ideas and technologies, build new companies and grow and prosper in the city.

"Pasadena has a significant advantage in becoming the West Coast's environmental technology leader," states William Lyte, one of the earliest proponents of the TechnoPlex and the city's consultant on the program. "The business, technology and civic resources are here already. It's just of matter of finding ways for them to all benefit simultaneously from their interrelationship and growth."

TechnoPlex resources

The foundation for a Pasadena Environmental TechnoPlex already exists in the form of educational, business, government and business resources.

Since the turn of the century, Pasadena has been a college and university center. Internationally known Pasadena universities include the California Institute of Technology, Art Center School of Design, Ambassador College, Fuller Theological Seminary, and Pasadena City College.

By most measures, Caltech is the best known research institution in the United States and perhaps in the world. With a large collection of Nobel Laureates in its history, it is famed for its Seismological Laboratory and top echelon physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, and most recently, environmental science. In addition, the Caltech Industrial Relations Center hosts forums for business leaders from throughout the world.

Environmental technology has emerged as a important field of study at Caltech. In 1991, the university hosted a centennial symposium entitled "Visions of a Sustainable World," hosted by a number of the university's most distinguished faculty. In addition, Caltech was recently awarded a major federal grant to study technologies for hazardous waste reduction at U.S. Department of Energy facilities.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

JPL, as most know it, has been the leading government laboratory in the U.S. space program. Managed by Caltech, JPL has created a host of technologies which have been commercialized throughout the world. Its technology transfer program into environmental and other industries is a model for U.S. government laboratories, and one of the TechnoPlex technology resources. In addition, working cooperatively with other government facilities, JPL is active in the "Mission to Planet Earth," which analyzes such critical issues such as the polar ozone depletion, and the overall health of our world.

Art Center is the premier commercial design university on the West Coast. It supplies a steady stream of new product designers into the automotive industry and America's design studios. A major new focus at Art Center is environmental packaging, which appropriately displays new products but minimizes the waste packaging, thus saving valuable landfill space.

PCC has been rated the top community college in California. The school has long been a training ground for the engineering and technical personnel who work in Pasadena's engineering firms, as well as preparing thousands of students of every age for transfer to other universities. PCC has expressed interest in being part of the TechnoPlex program, whether through expanded involvement with Pasadena's engineering employers, additional environmental business courses, or other opportunities.

Business resources

From the largest manufacturers and engineering firms to the non-profit business sector and start-up entrepreneurs, Pasadena has achieved a reputation for innovation, excellence, large-scale strategy, and community involvement. These traditions have rapidly expanded the business community's support for the TechnoPlex.

The largest base of major engineering firms in the United States is located in Pasadena. Principal among these are industry leaders the Parsons Company/Engineering Science, Jacobs Engineering, James Montgomery Engineers, TetraTech, and Converse Consultants.

Engineering-Science, a division of Pasadena's Parsons Corp., is the best known environmental division of Parsons. Engineering-Science is an international design and consulting firm specializing in environmental engineering. Over the past 40 years, ES has developed a reputation for the highest quality in the environmental field, with 28 U.S. offices, and foreign offices in Thailand, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and the United Kingdom.

As a part of Parsons Corp., which is one of the world's largest engineering/construction companies, Engineering-Science has access to an extensive pool of engineering, procurement, and construction management for projects anywhere in the world.

Jacobs Engineering

Jacobs Engineering Group, founded in 1947, is one of the largest engineering and construction firms in the nation, providing a full range of engineering, construction, and consulting services in the processing, environmental, and hazardous waste fields. Jacobs employs more than 3,400 professionals and support personnel, with offices throughout the United States and overseas. Recently Jacobs was part of a team awarded a contract of more than $1 billion by the U.S. Department of Energy for cleanup activities.

James Montgomery Engineers, with 32 U.S. locations and offices in Australia, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan and the Philippines, is a worldwide innovator in water and wastewater treatment. Its textbook on water treatment sets the standard throughout the world. It has worked in more than 45 countries and has an active research program to continually refine technologies and methods in the field.

Converse Consultants, founded in 1946, began as a geotechnical engineering firm and expanded into the environmental field serving both public and private sector clients. With offices in seven U.S. states and projects overseas, including an analytical laboratory in Pasadena, Converse is one of the best known and oldest geotechnical firms on the West Coast.

Tetra Tech, which began as a marine sciences consulting firm, has emerged as one of the premier environmental remediation and technical services firms in the world. Tetra Tech's business includes a concentration in large environmental projects for the federal government and major industries.

Chamber support

The Pasadena Chamber of Commerce has been committed to the TechnoPlex program from the outset and is considering an environmental industry committee as a resource to existing and new Pasadena environmental firms.

Environmental innovation, in fact, has existed for quite some time in Pasadena's manufacturing community. For example, Avery-Dennison, headquartered in Pasadena, and one of the largest makers of adhesive labels in the world, pioneered non-polluting adhesive lamination technology in the early 1980s. The reason: It made good business sense.

Pasadena's service industry has also established a leadership position in support of the TechnoPlex. The Huntington Ritz Carlton, Pasadena's premier destination resort, annually hosts a conference of the environmental industry's leaders from across the country to discuss business strategies for the coming year.

To promote Pasadena as a destination for environmental firm relocation, William Ukropina of the CB/Madison Real Estate Advisory firm has produced an Environmental TechnoPlex guidebook for environmental firms. In the financial sector, since 1990, Michael Budd of Prudential Securities has hosted a highly successful seminar series for Environmental CEOs, with topics including Pacific Rim markets and venture capital sources. Budd also has created an environmental industry research library which includes annual reports of most publicly traded environmental firms.

Special "short courses"

In the management consulting arena, Stanford Taylor, former senior executive of AeroVironment, a leader in air quality and environmental research, has founded CEI Associates ("consultants to the environmental industry) to provide specialized environmental business "short courses" and management consulting.

Two organizations committed to an environmental future are RIMTech (Research Institute for Management of Technology), and the Arroyo Seco Council. RIMTech, a technology transfer organization specializing in the environmental business, was recently appointed to the Governor's Environmental Policy Advisory Committee. The organization is part of a technology team to commercialize environmental technology generated by the cleanup of U.S. Department of Defense facilities. In addition, it has embarked on a plan for environmental technology transfer, commercialization and funding in Pasadena under the banner of CleanStart, modeled after the CalStart transportation technology organization in Burbank.

The Arroyo Seco Council is the catalyst for Pasadena's Earth Day, which has become the largest annual Earth Day event in the country. Beyond that, the council is charged with renovating Pasadena's Devil's Gate Dam area, bringing in "reclaimed water" to create a several hundred acre park and recreational area just south of Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Environmental entrepreneurs

Environmental entrepreneurship has also taken a leadership role in Pasadena. Examples include Brad Sorensen of Sorensen Design, an Art Center graduate and internationally known automobile designer, who has developed a 400-pound, 100-mile/per/gallon car which is under study by the California Highway Patrol. Woody Pearce of Pearce Plastics, a manufacturer in Pasadena's Enterprise Zone, was recently chosen by a major chemical company to be the first California manufacturer to use its biodegradable plastics, initially to make cosmetics bottles.

And John Roulac, founder of Harmonious Technologies, a Pasadena startup, has achieved great success in publishing the top selling book nationally on composting. As one entrepreneur said, "It is just easier to think of new things in Pasadena."

The City of Pasadena, through its City Manager, Phil Hawkey and Community Development Department Director, William Reynolds, are committed to the success of the Pasadena Environmental TechnoPlex. The city recently organized a meeting of many of its technology, environmental business, and federal legislative leaders to introduce the TechnoPlex program.

Resources of the City of Pasadena include the City's Library system, in particular the Pasadena Main Library, which, outside of the to-be-restored Los Angeles Main Library, is the largest public library in Los Angeles. An Environmental TechnoPlex Research Center and speakers forum has been proposed as an additional revenue generator for the Library.

Environmental conventions

The Pasadena Convention Center, with the Pasadena Civic Auditorium as its centerpiece, has hosted a number of environmental conventions, including an environmental entrepreneurs convention in January. More focus will be given to such conferences as the TechnoPlex program gains recognition around the United States.

The Pasadena-Altadena Enterprise Zone, administered jointly by the City of Pasadena and the County of Los Angeles, will also be a nexus of environmental business activity. A comprehensive program is planned for the enterprise zone to link its businesses into Pasadena's environmental business base, and into the manufacture of environmentally sound "green" products for the consumer market.

On the basis of these and other related activities, the city hopes to propel its new environmental industry into the strongest and most important industry of the next century through the Pasadena Environmental TechnoPlex.