Pacific Foam Technologies a Local Success Story

At the start of the 1990s, the staff of Ventura’s Pacific Foam Technologies consisted of founder Scott Daley and a co-worker toiling away inside Daley’s garage.

As the decade comes to a close, the foam product manufacturer has relocated to a full-size plant, has increased its staff to 120 employees and is a former member of Inc. magazine’s list of the nation’s 500 fastest-growing businesses. And it has just hired its first engineer, straight from Honeywell.

With such accomplishments in such a relatively short time, Pacific Foam Technologies has come to the attention of Ventura’s business community and its city leaders.

City officials recently paid tribute to the company, as well as to the Bank of Ventura, in the debut of a program acknowledging the positive contributions local businesses make to the city’s economy.

“We’re recognizing these businesses, looking at the number of jobs created in the community, investments, growth, expansion,” said David Kleitsch, Ventura’s economic development manager. “This is really a program for those firms that are community-based, have shown growth and have contributed to the economic vitality of the city.”

Kleitsch said these awards likely will be presented on a quarterly or semiannual basis. Daley said he was pleased to be one of the first honorees.

Pacific Foam Technologies manufactures foam products for the health, beauty, electronics and semiconductor industries. The company hit its stride and made its most significant impact on the local economy in the mid-1990s, Daley said, at a time when the area’s business community and overall economy were struggling.

“We helped with job creation, particularly at a time when aerospace was downsizing and disappearing and moving away--when the county was really going through a tough time,” Daley said.

“There was a time in the mid-1990s that a week didn’t go by that we didn’t get a solicitation from another county in the state, or another state, to move there,” he said. “But I grew up in the area. I have roots here. We started in the city and have remained in the city and now we have some very, very high-quality jobs.”

For the Bank of Ventura, economic development within the community has been a primary focus since day one.

“We are a local community bank, and as such we work with local small- and medium-sized businesses--not only do we take deposits in from the local community, but we loan it back to local businesses and residents,” said Joseph Kreutz, president of the 10-year-old financial institution.

“Obviously, growth for a community is essential for its well-being, and for growth you need capital,” he said. “We focus on businesses within our community and provide working capital for them, so it contributes to growth and prosperity locally.”

Just as important to the well-being of the local economy, Kreutz said, has been the bank’s aggressive approach to Small Business Administration loans.

“With that particular government program, we can help businesses with loans that have better terms and a little more lenient underwriting guidelines,” he said. “It helps both start-up businesses and existing businesses to establish themselves.”