January 23, 2001

The Shidler Group has purchased a class-A office building at 5505 Morehouse Dr. in Sorrento Mesa for $11.5 million. The seller was Maintenance Warehouse Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of The Home Depot.

The three-story property consists of two wings connected by a common entry and comprises 72,500 square feet of office space. It was built in 1986.

Immediately upon closing the transaction, The Shidler Group leased the entire building, which was purchased unoccupied, to Texas Instruments.

The company signed a seven-year lease for a total consideration of approximately $14.6 million and will occupy the building around March 1, when tenant improvements are completed.

After occupancy, the building will be named the Texas Instruments Building.

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The U.S. Army has awarded Cubic Defense Systems, a subsidiary of San Diego-based Cubic Corp., a $9.8 million contract for additional Ground Data Terminals to support the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System program.

The order for 10 additional GDTs brings the total amount awarded to Cubic since 1993 for Joint STARS work to $192 million.

GDTs are key components of the jam-resistant Surveillance and Control Data Link that Cubic built for Joint STARS.

"The new contract shows that customers are satisfied with our GDTs,” says David S. Miller, Cubic's JSTARS program manager. “The units being built under the new contract (Lot 8) and for last year's Lot 7 order are the result of our system improvement program efforts. We believe Cubic's data link technology is the best in the world, and we intend to stay that way by continuously improving and updating what is already a highly successful product line for Cubic."

Cubic has already begun work on the order of 10 GDTs, with delivery scheduled in spring 2002.

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Sempra Energy has completed the sale of its stake in Energy America, the United States-based energy marketing firm, to Centrica, the British energy and home services company.

The transaction was finalized following receipt of all required state and federal regulatory approvals.

On Dec. 12, San Diego-based Sempra Energy and Centrica announced an agreement for Sempra Energy to sell its 72.5-percent ownership interest in Energy America to Centrica for $56 million.

Energy America sells natural gas and electricity to about 400,000 residential and small-business customers nationwide.

In August 2000, Centrica purchased Direct Energy Marketing Ltd., Canada's largest independent natural gas marketing company. The purchase included Direct Energy Marketing's 27.5-percent stake in Energy America.

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Qualcomm Inc. has promoted James A. Clifford to senior v.p. for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies.

In his new role, Clifford will oversee all operational activities for QCT, including all aspects of the division's quality, wafer fab foundry and packaging organizations.

"Jim's ongoing overall leadership and semiconductor experience have been instrumental in QCT's success," says Don Schrock, president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. "His contributions are sincerely appreciated and we look forward to his continued help in guiding our strong growth for the future."

Clifford supported OmniTRACS product development for two years before joining QCT in 1996. Since 1997, he has served as vice president for QCT.

With more than 25 years of leadership experience for a variety of engineering, semiconductor and manufacturing companies, Clifford has been recognized as an intuitive problem solver who quickly and accurately assesses situations and brings about effective solutions.

Prior to joining Qualcomm, Clifford worked for UNISYS Corp., where he held several key roles, including v.p. and g.m. of UNISYS' Component Engineering and Procurement Organizations; director of engineering; and assistant program g.m.

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BakBone Software Inc. and Spectra Logic Corp. have formed a partnership aimed at providing channel partners and corporate end-users a full range of data protection solutions to meet their storage needs, with a special focus on the convergence between network-attached storage and storage area networks.

Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will cooperate on coordinated marketing, development and engineering activities designed to produce solutions that offer increased performance, availability, and manageability across a full range of companies.

The first result of the BakBone/Spectra Logic alliance is the certification of Spectra Logic's Spectra 2000 and 10000 tape libraries with BakBone's NetVault storage management software.

The Spectra 2000, utilizing the TreeFrog architecture and the Spectra 10000, utilizing the BullFrog architecture, are designed to meet growing storage needs of emerging and mid-sized corporations, but also are used to protect mission-critical data for industry leaders such as Yahoo!

The certification tests were jointly performed at BakBone's interoperability lab in San Diego and at Spectra Logic's interoperability lab in Boulder, Colo.

"Spectra Logic has consistently delivered high-quality, high-performance hardware to the marketplace," says Jack Corrao, BakBone Software's president and COO. "As SAN/NAS convergence and storage virtualization rapidly become reality, companies must be able to trust that the solutions they implement will work today, as well as be viable tomorrow as their needs evolve. The BakBone/Spectra Logic partnership meets those needs."

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In other BakBone news, the San Diego-based firm has formed an alliance with Exabyte Corp.

The alliance encompasses collaboration across a wide range of functions, ranging from engineering and development to marketing.

BakBone and Exabyte have agreed to:

• Jointly develop solutions for the emerging SAN/NAS convergence market;
• Fully certify Exabyte's entire line of M2, LTO Ultrium tape libraries, MammothTape series tape drives, Fibre Channel libraries and its EZ17, 215 and 110L libraries, on BakBone's NetVault across multiple platforms and configurations, in both SAN and NAS implementations
• Coordinate marketing activities, beginning with a joint exhibit at the upcoming SNIA Technical Center opening, scheduled for Feb. 1 and 2 in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The first result of the partnership between BakBone and Exabyte is the certification of Exabyte's full line of tape libraries and drives, including its M2 and LTO Ultrium libraries, on NetVault.

The certification covers multiple platforms, including UNIX, Windows NT/2000 and Linux. The certification process was conducted jointly at Exabyte's labs in Boulder, Colo. and BakBone's lab in San Diego.

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San Diego-based Claritas Inc. and MapInfo Corp. of Troy, N.Y., have formed a strategic technology alliance to develop a new mapping and reporting solution to support market and site analysis.

It is the second strategic relationship the two market industry leaders have announced this month.

Claritas President and CEO Bob Nascenzi says the alliance combines Claritas' geo-demographic data and applications expertise with MapInfo's spatial technology expertise.

"This relationship is a natural fit for both companies,” Nascenzi says. “By combining our strengths, we will be able to offer tailor made, state-of-the-art solutions for reporting, mapping, analysis and data integration.

"Work has already begun on the initial system, which is targeted for release at the beginning of 2002,” Nascenzi added. “It is being designed to meet the needs of desktop users through enterprise-wide deployments."

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San Diego-based SeatAdvisor Inc. has named business, finance and strategic planning executive Jack Rubin as its new president and CEO.

Rubin has 25 years of experience managing both small and large companies and has completed more than 20 acquisitions and multiple divestitures in the United States and several foreign countries.

"We are excited that an executive with the leadership background of Jack Rubin has joined the SeatAdvisor Inc. team," says Brent Miller, co-founder of SeatAdvisor. "The rollout of our complete box office management system in 2001 puts the company in a position to lead the industry. The entire SeatAdvisor staff is talented and targeted on success."

Most recently, Rubin served as chief financial and strategic officer of Hotel Reservation Network Inc. of Dallas, where he participated in a successful IPO for the company in February 2000, led the finance/strategy area, initiated business development deal-flow, negotiated strategic alliances and managed investor relations.

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Syrrx Inc. has formed its Scientific Advisory Board composed of leading industry experts from the scientific community.

The San Diego-based company named Fred E. Cohen, chairman of the board. The five Scientific Advisory Board members will act as consultants and advisors to Syrrx. The board's members are:

• Cohen, chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board and Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of California at San Francisco;
• Richard Lerner, president of the Scripps Research Institute;
• Nikola P. Pavletich, a chaired member of the Cellular Biochemistry and Biophysics Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Associate Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute;
• Raymond C. Stevens, Ph.D., a co-founder of Syrrx and chaired professor at the Scripps Research Institute;
• Kurt Wuthrich, professor of Biophysics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

"We are pleased to name these scientific leaders to our Scientific Advisory Board," says Wendell Wierenga, Syrrx's CEO. "We view their participation and commitment as an endorsement of Syrrx's leadership in the field of structural proteomics, and we look forward to benefiting from their expertise and acumen."

Syrrx's Scientific Advisory Board will meet quarterly and on an ad hoc basis to offer input and advice to Syrrx's management team.

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Stevens Media Productions of San Diego has been named a multiple National Finalist in The Vision Awards Competition for 2000.

The competition is designed to select the best local and regional television commercials and video presentations created by advertising agencies production studios and television stations in the United States.

A video presentation created by Stevens Media Productions for the San Diego Hall of Champions was honored as a National Finalist and the Category Runner-Up (second place) in the category of "Non-Broadcast, Miscellaneous."

The video program was written and directed by Elaine Stevens. Stevens also produced the music for the successful project.

Videography was by Sasan Feizi and Michael Bugera. Bugera also served as the editor. A second video, created for Etta McQueary, was selected as a National Finalist in the category of "Non-Broadcast, Motivational."

Stevens served as the copywriter, producer and music producer for the project. Feizi served as the director, editor and videographer.

McQueary was the executive producer and provided the on-camera talent.

A video produced by Stevens Media Productions in association with Sasan Video Productions and Queen Bee Media was named a National Finalist in the category of "Non-Broadcast, Educational."

The video, titled "Positively Speaking of San Diego," was written by Stevens, who also produced the music. Feizi served as the videographer, director and provided the post-production.

The Vision Award competition is open to the more than 40,000 advertising agencies, production companies and television stations in the United States.

Entries in the 44 categories were judged for creativity, production quality, copy and concept, talent and overall effectiveness.

A panel of judges with backgrounds in copywriting and production of television commercials and video programs judged and rated each entry. Four finalists from each category went into a second round of judging to determine the National Winner in each category.

The National Winners and National Finalists were among the best television productions in the United States in 2000.

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E. Trestand "Tres" Conrique, president of Rancho Santa Fe Technology, Inc., has joined the board of Junior Achievement of the Bay Area Inc. and will serve on the organization's Oakland Advisory Committee.

Conrique has been active in Junior Achievement since his days as a student in San Diego and later as a classroom volunteer and sponsor in both Northern and Southern California.

This year, Conrique's company has adopted the Junior Achievement in the Bay Area and San Diego, as a community investment beneficiary and will provide valuable resources, both through employee volunteer efforts and event sponsorships.

The company was one of the sponsors of Junior Achievement of San Diego's 2000 annual Hall of Fame dinner, and will sponsor the San Diego Bowl-A-Thons in February and the Tri-Valley Communications Bowl-A-Thons in Oakland in March.

"In today's demanding and competitive marketplace it is vital that our students learn from today's business leaders about the importance of staying in school and the values of the workplace," Conrique says. "I am especially pleased with the opportunity to serve on the Bay Area Board of Directors and involve Rancho Santa Fe Technology, in an effort to positively impact the future of our communities by educating our children, who will one day become the business leaders of tomorrow."

Conrique founded San Diego-based Rancho Santa Fe Technology in 1991 with a clear vision of providing an essential suite of services to companies that rely on mission-critical information systems.

Today, the firm has more than $18.5 million in revenues, and loyal customers in a variety of industries throughout the western U.S. The company has regional offices in Alameda and Tempe, Ariz.