Welcome to the fourth quarter.  Hard to believe isn't it?  On the personal side, our daughter started college (OMG!) in late August of this year.  Shayna is now officially a college freshman at Colorado State University.  (so you'll be seeing a "college tuition fee" on all future invoices from our company.......ha ha!).

Christian was born in San Francisco and has lived in the Bay Area for most of his life. Christian attended Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill and transferred to Cal Poly Pomona where he pursued an engineering degree in construction management. He graduated in 2009 and has been working in the construction industry as a project engineer ever since his first internship in 2007.

Communication and engagement are critical to an effective sustainability program. A building owner may be doing great things to help reduce the environmental impact of the property, but if no one knows about it-or helps contribute to the progress-the initiative loses impact. 

Every company benefits by having healthy employees. When staff members feel strong vital, they generate better work and more of it. They work at their peak. They meet deadlines and have energy for creativity. They don't need many sick days, which saves the company money on replacement staff. 

"The Registry"—September 10, 2013

“Bay Area landlords will compete for tenants with offerings such as bike concierges, indoor air quality and zero-carbon-emissions technology in the next generation of offices, San Francisco developers John Kilroy and Paul Paradis of Hines told the sixth annual “View from the Top” real estate conference in Los Angeles on Sept. 9. 

"The Registry"—September 9, 2013

“It doesn’t take a ream of statistics to prove that there’s a surge of construction from San Francisco through Silicon Valley. The cranes, rising buildings and proliferation in construction-related news illustrate bountifully what the numbers detail: New development and construction has been sustained and expanding over the last three years and continues on the same path in the fourth. From $552 million in commercial construction starts during 2010 in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, activity swelled to $606 million in 2011 and to $742 million last year, according to a report compiled for The Registry by McGraw-Hill. Projects starting in the first quarter have put 2013 on track to see construction valued at nearly $1 billion begin this year—and that doesn’t take housing into account…”

The Construction Waste Management Database contains information on companies that haul, collect and process recyclable debris from construction projects. Created in 2002 by GSA's Environmental Strategies and Safety Division to promote responsible waste disposal, the Database is a free online service for those seeking companies that recycle construction debris in their area. Use the form below to search the Database by state, zip code or material(s) recycled. See also the WBDG Construction Waste Management resource page.

For the last 15 years, teens and young adults with kidney disease, between the ages of 14 and 24, have been able to gather and celebrate. The annual Renal Support Network (RSN) Teen prom, sponsored by RSN, will take place on Sunday, January 19, 2014.

LOS ANGELES (September 12, 2013) -- In its third quarterly report of 2013, the UCLA Anderson Forecast’s outlook for the United States asserts that the U.S. economy is “returning to normalcy.” And while the economy will not be “normal” by historical standards, it will be noticeably better than in recent years. To wit, after growing at a now revised 2.5% growth rate in the second quarter of 2013, the UCLA Anderson forecasts real GDP growth of 2.5% for the rest of the year, before rising to the historical 3% growth rate in 2014 and 2015.

In California, the state’s economy continues to mirror the slow growth of the nation. The forecast calls for total employment growth – including payroll, farm and the self-employed – of 2.7% in 2013 and 2.1% and 2.1% in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Nonfarm payroll employment will grow more slowly at 1.7%, 1.9% and 2.2% for the three forecast years.

The National Forecast
In the September Forecast report, UCLA Anderson Forecast Senior Economist David Shulman writes that while the economy is returning to normal, it is still operating well below what would have been expected prior to the most recent recession. As an illustration, Shulman cites a report from Sentier Research that notes that the current median household income is lower than it was in June 2009, the ending month of the recession.

In an essay titled, “Returning to Normalcy, Sort of” Shulman says that payroll employment growth will be a sustained 200,000 jobs per month through 2015 and that the unemployment rate will steadily fall to 6.5% by the end of the forecast period. In the near-term, the adjustments business firms will make as a result of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act could negatively affect the quantity and quality of the net increases in employment, as firms possibly convert full-time employees to part-time and smaller businesses limit their headcount to 50 full-time employees.

The forecast continues to believe that the housing recovery is underpinned by a five-year period of underbuilding, rising household formations, an improved employment and still-low-by-historical-standards mortgage rates. As to the latter, the fear of higher rates in the future makes the current rate environment more attractive to buyers. The result is a forecast that calls for housing starts to increase to 965,000 units this year, compared to 783,000 last year. This is actually a reduction from previous forecasts, due to a slower ramping of production than originally envisioned.

The forecast calls for a return to normal growth on the order of 3% in 2014 and 2015, a percentage point higher than the 2% growth rate the economy has experienced since the recession ended. The forecast also calls for an end to the very low interest rates we have become accustomed to the past few years. While a resumption of normal growth is a good sign, Shulman does caution that it will not be enough to restore the economy back to its pre-recession growth path.

The California Forecast
The California forecast report, authored by Senior Economist Jerry Nickelsburg, examines the recovery in employment in California, both by geography and sector. The economic news coming out of California is relatively bright when compared to the rest of the United States, but the state is not participating in the recovery equally. Rather, the California economy is divided both by geography and skill class.

In a report titled, “Where are the Jobs, California,” Nickelsburg notes that the coastal economies in California that are driven by investment, technology, and trade have outperformed the U.S. Conversely, the inland economies driven by migration, construction and government have stagnated. The data from the past 12 months reveals a similar pattern to that of the previous three years. Employment in the Bay Area, Orange County, San Diego and Ventura has consistently grown at a faster rate than the U.S. Los Angeles and the Mid-Coast, after a slower start, have seen employment growth at about the anemic national rates. But the Sacramento Delta, San Joaquin Valley and Inland Empire, absent the primary drivers of economic growth, continue to fall further behind the rest of the state.

Viewed through the prism of skills, California continues to add jobs, but only a few sectors are taking off. This, Nickelsburg says, is the fly in the ointment of the state’s recovery. Californians who invested in and developed skills in the growth sectors of the 20th Century economy are now finding that some of those same skills are not applicable to the 21st Century economy. Those sectors which are producing the job growth in California now require a different set of skills. While a larger proportion of the inland workforce is impacted by this structural change, coastal communities are affected as well. For example, prior to the recession of 2008/2009, Los Angeles employment was relatively diversified across employment sectors. Now, some parts of the county are doing quite well, others quite poorly, which is generating aggregate economic data that is mixed at best.

Real personal income growth is forecast to be 1.9% in 2013 followed by 3.3% and 3.3% in 2014 and 2015. Unemployment will fall through 2013 and will average approximately 8.9% for this year. In 2014 we expect the unemployment rate to drop to 7.9% on average, three percentage points higher than our U.S. forecast and thence to 6.9%.

In a companion piece titled, “The Evolution of Human Capital, Workforce, and Innovation in Los Angeles over the Past Two Decades,” UCLA Anderson Economist William Yu provides an update to the human capital index research he has been conducting for the past year. Among his conclusions are that L.A.’s human capital has been falling behind other major cities, at a time when other major cities have seen theirs rise; that a high level of human capital will predict high levels of income and is correlated with high innovations; and that an investment in the early childhood education of disadvantaged children could be one of the most efficient and effective ways to achieve vibrant growth and shared prosperity in our city.

To get more information please visit: www.uclaforecast.com

Occasionally we are asked to "join in" a competitive bid process. Although we have nothing to hide, this usually leads to further questions such as "how many bidders are there? Who are they?". We can't compete against "truck and dogs" or companies who "are exempt from workmen's compensation; owner claims that they have no employees at this time". Oh really? Then why do we see 10 field guys with "company shirts" on and/or "company trucks"?