Think Tank Hires Experts With Power to Solve Problems During Energy Crisis

CAMARILLO —  A retired publisher of energy trade magazines has established a think tank at Cal State Channel Islands to tackle electricity problems.

The timing of Gold Coast Innovation Center’s opening at the developing campus could hardly be better. Area businesses, governments and residents are bracing for average rate increases of 26.5% and an estimated 34 days of rolling blackouts this summer.

Founder Myron Miller’s long-term vision is to help everyone from international business executives to villagers in third-world countries. But in the wake of the state’s power crisis, the 71-year-old Oxnard man expects many of the calls he’ll field will be more along these lines:

* A company or local government could be devastated by rolling blackouts unless it purchases a good backup power system--soon.

* A homeowner fed up with rising rates is thinking of dropping off the grid and going exclusively to solar power.

* A farmer wonders whether all the plant or animal waste his operations produce could be harnessed to power his own water pumps and coolers.

Miller said he and his staff may know the answers, and if they don’t, they’ll put callers in touch with experts who can help.

Though in its infancy, the nonprofit center has big plans. And already it’s drawing attention.

“There’s an absolute need for this,” said Rohit Shukla, chief executive of Larta, a Los Angeles-based technology alliance. “There’s nothing quite like this anywhere in California.”

Don Gunderson, president of the Economic Development Collaborative of Ventura County, agreed. “They couldn’t be coming on line at a better time.”

California’s energy crisis hadn’t hit when Miller began planning the center two years ago. Having just sold PCIM Power Electronic Systems Magazine and Power Quality Magazine, however, he was looking for a project that would allow him to remain a player among engineers and entrepreneurs he’d met throughout the world during his quarter-century in publishing.

“There was some unfinished business,” said Miller, who was trained as a chemist. “There are so many challenges.”

He conceived of a research and networking group that could bring together industry experts from the United States, Germany, Japan, Mexico and other countries to address power concerns that translate across continents in a world increasingly linked by telecommunications and vulnerable to power shortages and interruptions.

He also drew on local contacts, including John Mungenast, a nationally recognized power electronics engineer, and Mike Shaw, manager of the design and reliability department at Rockwell Science Center in Thousand Oaks.

Miller envisioned a center where experts collaborate on ways to minimize electrical surges and dips, a center that could spur research on alternative fuel sources and serve as a small incubator for energy-related start-up companies. The center also could provide Cal State and other area university students with hands-on experience in the field.

Finally, the group could advise individual companies on what alternative power sources or energy-saving devices might work best for them--and put them in touch with people who design and manufacture such products.

Miller donated $300,000 toward the center, most of which went to renovating 12,000 square feet at the university campus. He assembled a 17-member advisory board and brought in a director, Steve Herman, a former Litton executive who recently ran a technology association in Oregon.

The center hopes to sustain itself through a combination of grants, and contracts with private industry.

By the time Gold Coast opened its doors in February, the state’s energy problems had become a crisis and Herman figured that would dominate the center’s work for months to come.

In recent weeks, local business groups such as Gunderson’s Ventura County collaborative have called on Herman to speak to their members. Herman said county and Camarillo government officials also have had some preliminary talks with him.