Originally published at https://www.cityofvista.com on April 4, 2019.
Welcome to Innovation Hub, a series celebrating the extraordinary companies that call Vista home. From healthcare tech to precision medicine, electronics, AI, software, cybersecurity, manufacturing and more, this series takes a deeper dive into the innovative industries that make up the collaborative culture of this diverse city.
If serial entrepreneur Jay O’Brien had his way, the City of Vista could become the region’s next hot software hub. O’Brien is founder and CEO of Vista-based BP Logix, an award-winning business process management leader whose products power hundreds of organizations around the globe.
He explains a little more about why Vista is so attractive to software companies like his.
“We have entered an era in which software talent is disillusioned with the notorious Silicon Valley cost-of-living, but still want the lifestyle that drew so many to the Bay Area in the first place,” he said. “More and more, people are casting their sights south — to San Diego County. Vista is well-positioned to attract this second wave of software companies for its temperate weather and family-friendly vibe. The short commute times from family-friendly neighborhoods, proximity to downtown San Diego, and easy drives to both San Diego International and John Wayne airports make Vista an ideal choice.”
O’Brien also commended city officials for doing their part to attract and retain innovative companies and workers.
“The City of Vista is putting a huge amount of time and energy into transforming Vista from a ‘drive-through’ city into a destination experience. That effort has fostered an upward spiral of success — one we’re proud to be a part of,” he said. “Amenities such as the Moonlight Amphitheater, farmers markets, parks, and transit options mean attracting and retaining the best talent, which in turn drives our vision for long-term growth.”
Not only is BP Logix based out of Vista, but O’Brien and his family are also long-time residents. Before launching BP Logix, O’Brien and his brother and father founded Trilodyen Software in 1995, which created software products to improve network security by automatically encrypting all traffic between computers systems. Trilodyen was sold to Computer Associates, which was then sold to Broadcom in 2018 for $18.9 billion.
The sale of their first company allowed the O’Brien trio to continue their success with BP Logix, which offers low-code/no-code digital process automation platforms for customers around the globe like the University of Central Florida, University of Wisconsin Systems, and Whittier Health Network.
“We solve business problems — everything from digitizing critical business processes, to deploying complex, AI-enabled, end-to-end digital applications,” O’Brien explained. “The company’s flagship product, Process Director, enables any kind of organization — from enterprises to cities, universities, and more — to leverage a unique set of tools to realize optimal best practices, with no programming required.”
BP Logix has experienced tremendous growth over the last few years.
“It’s just been amazing. We’ve enjoyed year after year of double-digit CAGR, and we aren’t going to slow down any time soon,” said O’Brien, who added that while BP Logix has a presence around the world that the company would also like to partner with its neighbors as well, offering to meet potential partners and/or customers at Vista’s own The Flying Pig.
BP Logix is one of roughly 28 innovative software firms in Vistawho create everything from mobile apps to service portals, remote weather monitoring, machine learning-driven analysis, cyber threat analysis and more.
These companies are part of the City of Vista’s information technology and analytics instruments cluster, which employs nearly 2,700 workers, according to 2016 stats.
North County San Diego as a whole is home to 37.5% of all software cluster jobs in the region, according to the San Diego North Economic Development Council. There are about 12,485 jobs in this industry in North County, which is about 9% above the national average. These workers earn an average of $130,000 a year.
“As emerging clusters and fast growing industries such as software are becoming more important to the regional economy, the City of Vista will continue to create an environment that’s attractive to these innovative companies and talent,” said Vista Mayor Judy Ritter.
Another serial softwareentrepreneur who digs the Vista vibes is John Sonnenberg, Founder & CEO of Raveon Technologies Corp. Sonnenberg — an expert and passionate aficionado of business, software, and RF engineering — started Raveon in 2003 and has really enjoyed growing the company into a major player in the wireless data business. “With a great team of production people, sales people, and engineers, and one of the most powerful and efficient IT systems, we continue to grow quickly,” he said.
Raveon Founder John Sonnenberg (R) with former Rep. Darryl Issa (L)
Raveon, a software and hardware company, specializes in RF design, software and manufacturing. The company, which, among many things, designs and makes its own radios, protocols, and systems, provides integrated software and hardware solutions to a variety of industries and uses, including construction, agriculture, smart cities, waste water, oil and gas, and remote weather monitoring The US Army, US Navy, and ports in California even use Raveon’s military and defense radio technology to help track people and assets, and keep them safe in remote areas. Pretty cool stuff.
“It is an exciting part of our business to be making products that help save people from being injured, and helping save people who are hurt in remote areas,” Sonnenberg said.
“We are very unique,” he added. “Very few companies on the planet design and make ‘private radios’ any more. Most use things like cellular and Wi-Fi, but we specialize in private radio networks.”
For Sonnenberg, Raveon, which has over 20 employees, has been a family affair. “I started Raveon to help my family, and to help build my kids’ careers. We also helped build careers with a dozen other young folks that have greatly succeeded in life after working here.”
Sonnenberg, who has beendesigning and building radios since the age of 12, began his career at Motorola in Illinois. When he moved to San Diego in 1985 he worked for a number of wireless startups. Sonnenberg — who has a computer engineering degree and extensive experience in RF engineering, RF power, and communication theory — was even a member of the 802.11A committee when Wifi was first envisioned as a viable technology. His experiences led him to launch his first company in 1994, Sonik Technologies, which was also based in Vista. The wireless data band transceiver business, which started in a garage, was sold in 2000 to Vytek Wireless, Inc. Sonnenberg briefly retired after that, but wanted to get back into the entrepreneur game, so he launched Raveon.
He hasn’t looked back since. And, to him, Vista is the perfect place to continue to grow his entrepreneurial roots. “Born in Wisconsin, I love San Diego, and Vista has been a great place for business,” said Sonnenberg, an avid antique technology and radio collector who even has a small radio and technology museum at his home, which he continues to add items to from his travels. “Being in the center of North County, Vista is a great location for employees to travel to and from work. I also own a home in Vista, and it is great to run, walk, or even drive to work.”
About two miles away, Nathan Firth and his team at NewRocket are working on innovative service portal software solutions. NewRocket, a software and services company, focuses on the design and delivery of enterprise employee service portals utilizing the ServiceNow cloud computing platform. The company is “composed of strategists, creatives, and developers, with a common goal of improving the employee digital experience in the workplace.”
“NewRocket was founded to improve the employee service experience at large enterprise organizations,” said Co-Founder and CEO Firth, a recognized expert in employee portals with over 20 years of experience in web development and user experience design. “Enterprise software is known for its terrible UI and poor user experience. Our founding team has a long history of working in the corporate world experiencing first hand the frustrations of logging in to dozens of different employee portals for different departments and struggling with what should have been a simple process, as we’ve come to expect from all of the apps and software on the consumer side. NewRocket partners with ServiceNow to manage the back-end lifecycle of all tickets, requests, and incidents so that NewRocket can focus on the design and delivery of an intuitive and user-friendly employee portal.”
The faces of NewRocket
NewRocket has over 60 major Fortune 500 clients from around the world, including a few top 50 organizations. The firm, which was launched in 2016, has grown from 11 to 14 employees and has more than $1 million in annual revenues. Firth said the company plans to continue to grow in Vista.
“I’ve seen the City of Vista greatly improve in this area; as a serial entrepreneur, this time around has been much easier and better working with the city. I think this is in part due to the increased use of technology, with more options and services now available online,” said Firth, whose first company, Axion Commerce, was acquired in 2008 by Carlsbad-based Fusion Monarch.
“North County is definitely seeing a huge increase in tech companies coming to the area, especially with new efforts such as Innovate78 and StartUp78 to help create a sense of community within the region for new and upcoming tech startups,” he added.
One of those hot tech companies is Vista-based AppStudio35, a software development firm specializing in optimized, large data, and scalable practices for client/server and embedded applications for iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile devices. Besides mobile apps, the company also has extensive expertise in developing for embedded devices in the auto, avionics, consumer, and medical industries. Co-Founders Sam Rosewall and Joseph Pedroza launched AppStudio35 in February 2015 when they began noticing a serious shortage in mobile development talent to fill all the open positions available on the market. “So we came together and decided to stop focusing on individual contracting and start building a larger team and training them to be experts in our field,” Rosewall said. “Originally we set out to focus on client/server mobile development apps, but within a couple years, we were swamped with desktop, website, APIs (application program interface), and bluetooth development opportunities. We were fortunate enough to do projects for some pretty large companies. We have built Lasik surgery software, brain scanning software, firefighter equipment enhancement software, and we even had one product appear on Shark Tank from one of our clients. It was pretty exciting to see something we poured into show up on TV. We’ve had our ups and downs like any software firm. In our peak, we had 19+ engineers on our team. Today, we are running steady at 13 engineers. We love what we do and try to make our Vista location as fun of a place to work as possible. Being a small team allows us to really bond, hangout and work well together.”
The AppStudio35 team enjoying some time off at a local “escape room.”
AppStudio35 lists customers such as Intel, Google, Apple, Blackhawk, 3M, Sonos, Tyco/Johnson Control, Hanna Labs, Juul, Six Flags, Abbot Medical,and Clerio.
Rosewall said he and Pedroza chose Vista as AppStudio35’s headquarters primarily because the price of office per square foot and driving distance to their nearby homes.
“The location has great access to the interstate,” Rosewall said. “Vista is beautiful; who wouldn’t want to have their office here? Customers constantly like that we are located in Vista because they can stop in our office on the way to their downtown locations or on their way home. Sometimes, they will even use us as an excuse to work remotely from our office just so they can avoid their commute.”
“The prices (in Vista) are also fair, and the talent nearby is good,” he added. “People really want to live in North County, but sometimes it’s hard to find software companies in these less-than-crowded areas. So it enables us to be a great option for these workers when we have an opening. Plus, we have plenty of places to walk, eat, and play when we aren’t working.”
L to R, AppStudio35 Founders Sam Rosewall & Joseph Pedroza
For the City of Vista, attracting and retaining more companies like AppStudio35, NewRocket, Raveon, and BP Logix adds to the vibrant industry clusters and economic base of the city, as well as provides quality jobs for residents around the region.
“We want to build a robust environment for innovation and entrepreneurship in Vista,” said Kevin Ham, the city’s Economic Development Director. “The city offers various incentives and programs such as Vista CARES to foster business development and to encourage companies to move to or set up shop in Vista. We are fortunate to be working with some of our existing innovative companies and leaders to continue building entrepreneurial talents in the city and beyond.”
Explore More Articles in the Innovation Hub Series:
Economic Development contact for the City of Vista:
Kevin Ham
Economic Development Director
kham@cityofvista.comRead more City of Vista Business News and Insights here.
