Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

And I'm gonna go ahead and call the economic development committee meeting to order. Today, it's 03:00 on October 23, and we'll go ahead and move on to our public comment section if you can play the recording.

Public comment is now open for this item, available in both English and Spanish. Call (951) 826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language. To request to speak, press 9. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID for both languages can be found on the agenda.

Okay. And we have one speaker card in chambers, Earl Koschowicz.

Hi, guys. Can I use the overhead projector? I I just was driving by today, and I thought I wanted to visit you guys. You know? Is that alright? And, you

know We

don't I was gonna use the overhead because I

don't know. If we have anyone over there. Someone can

Yeah. If that's okay, I I just wanted to go through I wanted to say something to you guys. You know?

Give me one second.

Think You know the way I I talk

to staff.

You guys are not my favorite. Not really.

Well, this is your first time coming to economic development committee, so we're happy to have you.

By, you know, and I'm really like, you know hey. What I wanted to say today, if you guys can put up that last time I was here, I wanted to go through the vendors list. Why do you guys have an economic development agency anyway? You get a blank check from the United States Treasury. Now, I wanna go through this vendors list actually, if you can put it up there a little bit better.

Now this is all kinds of money that you guys give to vendors. I really think yeah, that's good. You can you can that's good. I it's 68 pages, but this is the vendors list that I got. Carmen right now, I'm not agreeing with Carmen Allada right now because we have a lot of problems with accountability, with the city's finances and I wanted to look at some of these dollar figures that you're buying off vendors.

Now, we can go on this and you can read some of them. Bank of America, you guys gave Bank of America $892,000,000 Now, I don't know why we're having Bank of America as a vendor. I look at it where we're buying votes. With Bank of America, you're giving loans out to people that shouldn't even get loans. We have a lot of issues.

I've asked Carmen to put this back on the website. Now, she's making me go to renovations and all this other crap. I wanna see it, when I go to the webpage, I wanna hit up vendors so I can see how much money you're money laundering. That's what I wanna see. Eventually, I think we're gonna have a law firm actually gonna step up and actually sue you guys. But the issue I'm having right now, it is crazy. The vendors, then I got another vendors list. I'll put this one up here, okay? I got another one that I wanna mention. These all came from the website.

She took it down or you guys took it down after I questioned it last year, whatever it is. Now, this one is vendors that are receiving over $100,000 I have a few on there I got questions with. Janet Gosky. I mean, let let me go there. Janet Gosky gets $101,000 to do what? The city owns the building, the city owns the property. We got a lot of money laundering fools around here. We got a lot of problems. I can go through this list alone. It is insanity.

I know you guys aren't as bad as the county. I can't even add up the county. It takes me days to what the county's done. But this money should not be allowed to come directly by wire transfers or bank transfers, whatever you wanna call it, comes into the county and you have $319,000,000 a year budget that you put up there and you guys spend more than that in a month. So we got a lot of problems. I'm working on getting a law firm to sue you guys. It's not very easy. You own everything, you guys. You own every You have a good day. Thank you.

Thank you for that. We'll go ahead and move on to the agenda as we have no callers for our public comment section and move on to our presentations. Go ahead and invite up for our business excellence series in Green Tech. We have the strategic lead of Glide Industries, and Miranda will also be giving that presentation. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Good afternoon, honorable chair and members of economic development committee. It's so exciting to be before you today after our September break. My name is Miranda Evans, and I have the privilege of serving as deputy director for community and economic development. Today, I wanna set the table with some context behind our growing and thriving Green Tech hub.

And we have a presentation for you today of one of our newest additions that I'm very excited for you to get to know, Glide, but wanted to set the table with some background. In the last eighteen months, the city of Riverside has attracted five catalytic green tech companies that have resulted in over $92,000,000 of investment into our amazing community, over 600 quality jobs in this key sector that we're focusing on bolstering, and it's only just the beginning. So this is helping us to create momentum in attracting other companies. And when we are speaking with these companies, I'm bringing them to Riverside. They are very supportive of hearing about this ecosystem that allows entrepreneurs to connect, to support each other, and also to support the region.

And so an example of that is before you today, we wanted to bring a real business to speak with you, and that is Glide. So Glide, they are creating the future of road to rail transportation. They are a company we are very proud to have headquartered at Xcite, our local incubator here. And I recently, as of last Friday, had the honor of watching them pitch on the world stage. So we had Riverside represented on the world stage at the World Cup in San Francisco.

And Glide, their CEO and co founder was there, Kevin, and he did a fantastic job, represented Riverside really well. Ultimately did not win the million dollar seed funding but they have been extremely successful with over $6,000,000 of series a funding attractive and Kevin shared so I feel comfortable sharing with you today LOIs in excess of $14,000,000. So they are on the road literally and figuratively to a very successful launch. And as recently, also as of Friday, were featured in Forbes. So I will turn it over now to Ankit who will speak about the company, give you the pitch about Glide.

They're also pitching tonight in the Oasis challenge, so let's cheer them on for that. And we're here to give them all the support that they need to make sure they're successful and can scale in Riverside. With that, I will invite Ankit to the podium.

Good afternoon, everyone, honorable members. I have a sore throat today, so please forgive me if I cough in between. It's an honor to be here, and thank you for giving me the time to speak today. So, Prananda, thank you for the beautiful introduction as well. We have raised about $7,000,000 till date in our seed funding round.

We have also officially been TechCrunch Top twenty, which is going to be happening next week in San Francisco. The LinkedIn posts are also out, so we're pretty excited about that. So once again, good afternoon, everyone. And today, I'm gonna talk about the future of road to rail transportation through freight. Now, when we think of freight, massive ships at port, containers stacked on top of each other, locomotive stretching miles.

It's something which personally fills me with awe. As a matter of fact, I was near the Port Of LA very recently and I saw 100 miles of just ports stretching across with containers stacked on top of each other. Truly gives me a vision of how I receive my Amazon package every day. It's a lifeblood of our economy truly. It gives it's a quiet engine which gives us a stage.

It keeps our, you know, our shelves stocked. It keeps thank thank you. Keeps our it keeps our shelves stocked, our factories running, and cities like ours growing. Yet for all the scale and sophistication, it's truly one of the most overlooked industry when it comes to innovation. For decades, you know, how we travel, how we communicate, we have truly revolutionized technology.

Even how we use energy, as a matter of fact, think about hydrogen as a fuel. No one really thought about it up until twenty five, thirty years ago. But the way we move goods, it still looks the same like it did seventy five years ago. And at Glide Technologies, we believe that's a missed opportunity, not just for efficiency, but for our communities, for our economy as well. And our mission is to reimagine freight for the twenty first century to make it cleaner, smarter, simpler, and most importantly, safer for everyone out there.

Now the challenge excuse me. Now the challenges we face aren't abstract. We live them every day. Our highways that choked with semis and trucks, heavy trucks, and our states bear the weight of rising maintenance costs from damaged roads and infrastructure. And our supply chains, which are the veins of our economy, they are under heavy strain.

Despite all of this, only a fraction in fact, I know it says 30% over there, but it's less than 30% that we actually utilize rail, and especially when it comes to short line rails. The trucks running through an industrial like what we have in our industrial backyard, it's almost always idle. And it's not a very surprising issue. It's because the transition from road to rail often becomes quite complex to handle. Again, this where Glide comes in.

And what's the result? The result is that we are overloading our highways while underusing the very infrastructure that we already have in place right in our industrial backyards. Freight as it moves today is how how we like to call it, a story of waste by design, and that's where the opportunity truly begins. Now if anyone's ever been near a transload yard, that's where trucks and trains marry. You've seen the inefficiency firsthand.

Picture this, everyone in the room. We have a truck coming in driving driving in a big container. This container is lifted up by a massive crane, then moved to the staging area. Then then we have forklifts, reach stackers, multiple sets of equipment, which is then loaded onto the rail to finally have the locomotive running. As my founder likes to call it, it's a ballet of machines, one which runs one which actually burns fuel, time, money, essentially economy to a to a large extent.

And here's the irony. Rails actually proven to be three times more energy efficient than trucking, yet only we use we utilized less than 30% of it. So regional arteries that could serve local industries throughout, especially for a city like Riverside. I graduated from UCR with my masters in business analytics and a major in statistics. And I thought about it throughout my degree.

I thought about what can we truly do to bring about a change in an industry which moves goods from one place to another? And it brought me to Glide, fortunately. Here's where it gets interesting. Even though our end to end logistics system replaces all this machinery and staging with a single intelligent move, with a single intelligent platform, which is one move, one vehicle, minimal human touch points, we're still not looking to remove or replace humans by any chance. Our system uses TeleOps, is Teleoperations, meaning trained operators can remotely supervise and control our machines from anywhere across across America.

It's truly human in the loop autonomy, if I may. It's safe, scalable, and incredibly efficient. This blend of automation and human oversight is what allows us to bring freight into the digital age while opening a new whole new world to meaningful and high skilled jobs. Now when we eliminate this complexity, the units of economies change dramatically. Right now, a mid sized logistics company spends about 12 to $18,000,000 every year on just transloading.

It's cranes, crews, chases. It's a whole another world. And the list honestly keeps going on. Glide's model reduces this by more than half. And we don't do that by cutting corners.

We're doing that by cutting redundancy. There are machines which take a lot of time to move from one point to another because sometimes shortage of labor, shortage of any other resources which we don't even think of sitting over here. One machine replaces all these vehicles, all the all all these all these other machines, these large ones. And this, as a result, saves us a lot of time, especially at the staging process from up to two to three weeks to less than twenty four hours. Our system also reduces emissions by 15,000,000 metric tons per year given that our vehicles are electric hybrid as well as fuel agnostic approach.

Because every dollar not spent on these redundant machines essentially goes back into creating new, high, more meaningful skill jobs. And these jobs, they could be anything. They could be operators, drivers. They could be analysts, AI maintenance engineers, system engineers, energy engineers. Again, the list honestly keeps going on and on. But the real story is economic competitiveness. Now how do we actually do it? Well, our approach is simple. We make existing infrastructure work smarter for us. Glide's technology connects road and rail directly.

That means no new terminals, no massive cranes, no waiting for construction funding. We enable ports, yards, and industrial parks to become dynamic logistic nodes capable of moving freight twenty four seven without additional land use. And this creates enormous upside for growing communities like ours because every automated yard every automated yard is today thought of as a dark room with just machines working in it, but that's not true. Every automated yard does need teleoperators, technicians, AI engineers, jobs that are skilled, that are local, and that are future ready. It means more money saved, better roads, cleaner air, and more importantly, safer operations.

And a renewed reliance on one of America's most thought of, well defined infrastructure, which is our very own railroads. The railroad industry truly hasn't seen any innovation in nearly a century now. The time is now and the place is here. I would like to show everyone a video about one of our products. Can we play the video, please?

Thank you. So that was Raiden. It's a very cool video. I really love the music behind it, by the way. Very energetic. So that was Raiden. Raiden's our next phase of freight mobility, a vehicle that can move cargo on road, rail, and off road. It's fully autonomous. Of course, it has a it has a capability of being supervised via remote ops throughout anywhere across the world. It's currently equipped with sensors, AI.

We're also on road to equip it equip it with lidars to increase its capabilities to a next level, to a whole new whole next level. It's not going to the next slide. Thank you. Our business model, we operate as a mobility as a service platform. We have RAID and I'm also going to introduce Glider M the video in the next couple of slides.

We're charging about $25,000 per month with the average fee per container being $150. The customer gets Raiden as well as Ezra one six. I'm soon also gonna talk about Ezra one six, which is the brain of the entire operations. Our target markets, it's pretty vast. We have first mile support.

We target container transport, rail transport, warehousing transport. When it comes to commercial manufacturing, we're looking at oil and gas, lumber, mining, even waste as for that matter. Kevin Damoa, my founder, he is a combat veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. He is one of a power one powerhouse of a person I've met in my life. And with this with this entire defense background, are we definitely target defense infrastructure and national security as one of our target markets.

We're looking at a global TAM of $20,000,000,000,000 coming down to the TAM of $100,000,000,000 and a sum of 3,000,000,000 to $5,000,000,000 This is active pilots, near term customers and any and everything which encompasses that. We're unlocking a big market of $100,000,000,000 and first mile logistics economy. As for competitive landscape, now the one thing is, we are the first movers. There's no other company or there's no other company in the world which is actually making a vehicle which goes both road on rails. It's dual mode transportation.

We do have companies like Parallel Systems, Intramotive, even Tesla building semis who have a competitive edge. As for traction, before I move on with the traction, traction, for product suite, we're offering EZRA one six, which is our AI powered freight brokerage and fleet management software, Raiden, which you just saw the video of, and Glider M. It's a human operated dual mode hybrid electric vehicle with certified hook lift and high rail gear. Glider M is ready to go on the roads and on the rail. It's certified and we have tested it in all our in all the necessary environment.

For current b to customers, we have Taylor Transport, Port Of Woodland, Great Plains Industrial Park. In traction, we have about $70,000,000 in signed LOIs, three times pilot secured and have raised about $7,000,000 till date. Next video, please. I'd like to introduce GliderM to you, everyone. Thank you so much.

Still trying to go through the next slide. Okay. That was Glider m. It's our workhorse. Truly, this is one of the products which as a kid, you know, we sometimes think about through innovation. When this comes up and an an idea like this is actually prompted into implementation, it it's truly next generation.

They're having issues with the PowerPoint, so it's okay. Okay. We're back. Okay.

We have a beautiful team a a small yet a very powerful team. Are growing every day. Kevin Damoa, founder and CEO, worked with SpaceX, US Army, one of the first people in the world to successfully launch, deploy, and retrieve a rocket real time. We have all our team members have worked in amazing companies like Boeing, Airbus, Wattco, ExxonMobil, Boost VC, and me personally as Uber as well. Ezra one six.

This is something which I wanna talk about a little bit in detail again. Now the issue here is that vehicles don't actually create transformation alone, but pair it with data and they actually change the world. That's how Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, any and each and every company, you name it, they they work it through data. That's where Ezra one six comes in for us. Ezra one six is our AI logistics all in one platform.

Think of it as a single intelligent brain connecting every moving part in our freight freight ecosystem. It integrates with trucks, rail networks, yards, ports, and even third party logistics systems providing a real time unified view of where goods are, where they're going, and the most efficient way to get there. It learns from traffic patterns, weather data, energy availability, and infrastructure constraints to recommend optimized lowest emission routes. You can also think of it as air traffic control, but for rail and road. SR one six is also designed to be cross integration.

It can connect to other freight management platforms, city traffic systems, and even government infrastructure dashboards. What makes it unique is that it doesn't just manage logistics. It transforms logistics into an intelligent, measurable, and a sustainable operation. This isn't just about technology. And today, I'm honestly not here just about technology.

I'm here to talk about what technology enables. When we make freight smarter, we make cities more competitive. We create new categories of jobs, not just operators and drivers, but energy engineers, software technicians, specialists. For Riverside, this represents an opportunity to position itself as the innovation capital for clean logistics, the city that build the models others will follow. Riverside truly has all the ingredients, academic talent, industrial infrastructure, a community that values sustainability so much.

Whenever I talk about Riverside and sustainability, the first thing which comes to my mind is Omeo. Omeo, the company, is now revolutionizing the way public transportation actually moves. Now, where does this lead us? Glide is headquartered here right here in Riverside X Side downtown. So thankful for x side to give us provide us with such a beautiful office and such a nice working space.

Our goal is not to be the next Silicon Valley. It's to make Riverside the model for how America moves the right way. So the next time you think of shipping it, don't ship it, just glide it. Thank you. I also, as an ending note, want to mention that it's not just X Side. Miranda has also been a very big supporting help to Glide. She's been supporting us also in World Cup. I was so happy to see you over there. Riverside is very close to me. This is the first place I've seen in America and I've been here ever since and I don't plan on leaving anytime soon. So this growth is personal not just for a company. Thank you again.

Thank you for that presentation. Do any of my colleagues have any questions or comments or? No it's just the presentation, yeah.

Yes, I just wanna say thank you so much and you did great despite having sore throat. I couldn't tell. I knew. But just wanna say, this is exciting. I was as I was watching this, I'm like, can we can we figure out how to glide our cars on the freeway? Can we work can we work with you to bring other solutions to reduce c o two emissions? No. This is exciting,

and it's just, you know, wonderful to see

what you're doing, exciting to see the movement already happening and taking place. Absolutely, of course, innovative and just really, really fascinating. So it's always amazing to me when we learn about new things happening, partners in the community that are here in our own city that we haven't I had no idea about. So thank you for bringing us here today. And just know if there's anything we could do to uplift the work you're doing, please don't hesitate to reach out to my office at War 2.

Thank you. Thank you, council member. Appreciate it.

Thank you for that presentation. And if you could stick around, we do have a certificate to present to you on behalf of Glide Industries in the city of Riverside. So why don't you come in here in the little the area the well here, and I'm gonna come down and give you this present this certificate. Okay. Thank you for that presentation.

You know, we we are doing these business excellence series every economic development committee meeting to kind of highlight the successes and wins that we're having in our city, and we are really are attracting a lot of new companies here to the city. And the green tech sector that we're building here is growing rapidly. And I I had a lunch meeting with somebody earlier today about a hybrid and EV vehicle company that's coming to Riverside. And so it's one of those things that is starting to gain momentum, and Glide is part of that momentum. So thank you for that presentation. Moving on next is the foreign direct investment update by Miranda Evans, and this will be a very fun and interesting one.

Okay. Good afternoon. Yes. As council member Robillard stated, certainly a trip near and dear to his heart, and I'm so honored to be able to be here to share an update on our foreign direct investment efforts and report out on our 2025 Japan and South Korea trade mission. So just wanted to set the table and start out why foreign direct investment?

This isn't necessarily something a lot of cities incorporate into their economic development strategy. However, this is something that has been identified as a priority for the city of Riverside and also as a key strategy we're working to implement within our implementation plan for economic development this year. So why FDI and what is it? And this happens anytime a company or investor from another country decides to invest in Riverside. That could be capital, that could be something that they're building in Riverside, that could be establishing their headquarters and business within our community, and also most importantly hiring in Riverside.

We want those local quality jobs and want those local hires. There's numerous economic benefits to pursuing an economic development strategy and bringing those benefits back to Riverside is a top priority for all of us in this room today. Some of those key benefits include job creation, as I just spoke to, boosting our local economy. And you just heard in on Keith's presentation the importance of competitiveness. Really, this is a strategy for us to be able to put Riverside on the global stage to boost our economic competitiveness and to really cultivate and diversify our economy.

And when we do those actions and we bring those businesses here to Riverside, that allows us to increase our revenue, which increases quality of life for our residents, and also increases and improves our reputation and allows us to build upon that momentum for future growth as well. For our recent trip, this is a recap and report out of that, and this includes our wonderful delegation for this recent trip led by mayor Patricia Locke Dawson, councilmember Stephen Robillard as our chair of economic development committee, Anna Lee, an adviser to the mayor, and myself. The first leg of our trip I'm excited to highlight for all of you was our trip in Japan. And this was really an incredible opportunity to have Riverside on the world stage. We kicked off the trip by meeting with the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan that we are pursuing a partnership and membership of.

For only $125 a year, we can connect with 3,000 members from 600 of the leading Japanese companies including different subcommittees that they have within their chamber who are pursuing onshoring and reshoring in California and we're trying to bring them all to Riverside. We had a very fun and engaging meeting with a clothing company called Beams, Beams Japan. They have locations across the globe and are opening their first US location in Los Angeles. That will be a pop up that will grow into a long term location in Los Angeles. And of course, we wanna bring them to Riverside.

So they I love their model. They're really focused on we have enough clothing in the world. Enough clothing exists. No more fast fashion. How can we pursue sustainable and chic clothing design and to also bring that manufacturing here to Riverside.

So they were extremely impressed hearing about our offerings, and I'll highlight those in a few subsequent slides. We had an important meeting with the Japan External Trade Organization, JETRO, and we were able to discuss mutually beneficial trade and investment relations. This partnership we have started has already started paying dividends. And just yesterday, we were able to meet with a Japanese company who was referred to us via Jet Row. We also had a meeting with the US Embassy, and a real highlight of this trip and privilege was for us to be able to present on a panel alongside Jet Row at evolution of the World's Fair.

I remember being a baby planner in in city planning school learning about the World's Fair and how that led to the development of really these incredible elements and buildings across the entire globe. And so this World Expo now happens once every five years and rotates locations. So this year, this Expo coincided with our time in Japan. And there was a 160 countries that were there, all with beautiful pavilions. The USA Pavilion was absolutely incredible.

And we got to hold a panel there and present to over 40 companies about the value of Riverside and also addressing specific challenges for Japanese businesses. So we had Jet Row there, we had all of our materials in Japanese, and we also had interpreters there as well. And a key takeaway I wanted to be sure to share with the committee was we met not one but two UCR graduates. So UCR has a global presence and it was fantastic to see that in action. This also was a great opportunity under the leadership of the mayor in Ana Lee to continue our foreign diplomacy efforts and having we have the second oldest sister city relationship and that is treasured and known throughout the world with Sendai.

And so there was opportunities to connect with sister city pavilions there as well. So we had some time. I have the location shown there on a little map in Tokyo and Osaka. The second leg of the trip, we were off to South Korea, just two hours away. And this was a really important opportunity for us due to our close cultural ties with Korea.

And we started off with tons of meetings, back to back meetings, maximizing our time, of course. Kicked off the first meeting with Smart Medical Device and they are interested in expanding and creating a US presence in Riverside. And they have created the first innovative insole and this is a wandering prevention device for individuals with autism and Alzheimer's. So oftentimes, we see in the wearable medical device industry, Alzheimer's patients, those with autism, they won't wear their device. And so this company has been able to insert in a tracking device.

You charge it just like a phone charger into the insole of a shoe. And really remarkable technology. And council member Robillard was able to engage in some great great conversations and partnership opportunities for this company and excited to continue follow-up and bring them to Riverside. We had a meeting with the Korea Smart Village Association and kind of acting as a business improvement district and a quasi chamber, and they bring together an innovative ecosystem that's working to solve regional challenges. So they have hundreds of businesses under their membership, and we met with two of them.

One was a medical company, Carabelle, another was Corners. And Corners has really created revolutionary technology for emergency management and disaster relief. And so this can be included similar to exit signs in buildings, visual cues if, say, perhaps there's a mass shooter, an active shooter event, if there's an earthquake, if there's some type of a mass evacuation event, they have created technology to help individuals safely leave a large setting such as that. Biotech is a thriving cluster in Korea, and so we wanted to take advantage of those opportunities in our time there for that and met with four different biotech companies. We also met with a innovative home company.

They're a builder and create similar to modular homes, and it was a shared living type of a model. And so we see potential solutions for bringing that back perhaps on the university corridor here in Riverside as housing opportunities for our young professionals. We also had time with the Gangnam District Office, who is our sister city. And I have the different cities and regions shown here on the map that we spent time with. Chevy, We also spent time with Pharma Research.

They're a biopharmaceutical company specializing in PDRN which is Salmon DNA. So they take the double helix in Salmon DNA, and they have been the first company to use that for skin care. And so they were very excited. I got a sample. We were asking to test the K Beauty, which is very big, of course. They will be expanding to Sephora in q one. So it was fascinating to meet with them, hear about their models and expansion plans. Met with another biopharmaceutical company, Hanmi. Also, we had a tour of the Inchin Free Economic Zone. This was remarkable smart city.

It's only 20 years old. If you can fathom a 20 year old city built from the ground up with technology in mind. And we were already able to see some dividends of this relationship as we hosted the Inchin Free Economic Zone. They go by IFES. And so we had the privilege of hosting them here in Riverside last week and gave them a tour of the bio incubator at UCR.

They love the farmhouse collective, and we were able to show attractions downtown and have a conversation about establishing our relationship and next steps with them. We also had the honor of some wonderful tours at Hyundai. So now that we have Hyundai ROADM here in Riverside that we're so proud of, we were able to tour Hyundai Heavy Industry, which is the shipbuilding arm. 40,000 employees each shift. It was a city in a city.

And Hyundai Motors as well and even got to view the assembly line, which was remarkable. So very grateful for those experiences and all of that knowledge we're able to bring back to Riverside. What we shared. At the forefront of all of this is our Riverside advantage. And so we are able everybody's, of course, familiar with Los Angeles, Southern California.

Now when they think of Southern California, they will think of Riverside. So we had all of our materials in Japanese and Korean, which was well appreciated. And a big selling point that got the attention of everybody we met with was that we are one of 17 foreign trade zones in the state. So of over 480 cities in state of California, our entire city is a foreign trade zone. So this is a strategic opportunity for companies, especially right now as international companies are grappling with the impacts of tariffs.

Also touched on our opportunity zones that we have, our amazing location, location, location, location. We offer that Southern California lifestyle without those Southern California prices, and it's a perfect location for businesses with us being in the heart of a thriving logistics hub. We also covered amazing quality of life. This is a place any CEO would be proud to live and to have their company live as well. We also touched on access to talent.

Any company relocating or expanding wants the assurance that they have the talent they need when they need it. And so they were very impressed hearing about our 80,000 educated college students and our institutions of higher education here in Riverside and the region. Success stories from our incubators such as excite that you just heard and Oasis that is under construction right now for a new and improved experience and really the supportive ecosystem. So a message we were able to share and it was very special having the mayor and council member Robillard there is that you get that direct attention from our elected officials. You get that direct attention from staff throughout the entire process, a soft landing if you will.

If you go to other places, other larger metropolitan areas, I won't name any cities to throw anyone under the bus, our Riverside experience is spectacular. We guide you every step of the way. You have a welcome. You have a soft landing. You have concierge service to help you.

And we are a partner in business success in Riverside. So we were able to share examples of the city investing in Omeo, investing in Voltu, the mayor's leadership with Carve, the Big thirteen and also the concierge assistants as I just touched on that were able to make the process predictable and easy, dare I say enjoyable for businesses that we work with and bring to Riverside. So these were some of the key messages that really resonated with those we met with. What we heard a lot was touching on challenges. What are the challenges for Japanese and Korean businesses?

And how can we be your partner in success in addressing those challenges? Something that was of significant interest is virtual offices. So that's something I'm working with Xcite on exploring how we can expand that offering for a very competitive price. Also incubator space, so much growing demand for that. And we received a lot of questions about assistance navigating the evolving visa landscape and that how great we're able to partner with UCR and College of Extended Studies to help companies through that process.

I touched on the support from government that they will receive but also support from other companies for their supply chain. Included a few photos of our gallery, a few highlights. We have our meeting with JETRO. This upper left hand corner is Smart Medical Device Company. It was very impressive.

Their entire lobby was filled with all of the different awards and commendations they had received from their government, from their partners and investors. You see lower right hand corner, that was the Hyundai Motor Group showroom, which was absolutely remarkable to be able to see, including a new hydrogen vehicle that they are working on rolling out. And now a highlight, So Chevy is an EV charging company, and staff has been working with them on bringing them to Riverside, answering questions they have since January, and really trying to build that relationship. And Chevi is known as the iPhone of EV chargers in Korea. And right now, they're working on finishing their IPO process in Korea and then looking in q one to start their expansion to The United States.

So they are rivals to Tesla and other supercharger type of equipment. And through conversations we've had and they were highly impressed having counts that's their symbol. Yes. That means Chevy. And so their name is charging.

So c h a for charging and then e v. So fast charging is is what it means, and that's their symbol. And they're highly impressed having council member Robillard there, having the mayor there, and engaging in conversations about the green tech hub we're building out, the need for EV chargers, and how we're working on electrifying not just the region but the entire state. So we really worked to make our case known as to why Riverside is the perfect location for them in California. And they are very interested.

We have won their attention. And for next steps, we're working on negotiating an MOU that we will be bringing forward to the city council for consideration and signing that MOU for Chevy to locate their headquarters here in Riverside, not only for their office, their first US office, but for manufacturing as well. So this would result in no less than a 100 quality jobs and be a perfect addition to our growing Green Tech hub. So already one great success story we're proud to share about and starting to see the dividends paying themselves. This is a a quick photo of Hyundai heavy industry.

You weren't allowed to take any photos during the tour. This was the 40,000 employees I was sharing all all working there at once. It was a marvel. So this was the one location you could take a photo. And very inspiring story of the founder, how he started the company, his vision, tenacity, and what he has grown this Hyundai empire into. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have and I'm very much looking forward to next steps and bringing some more companies to Riverside.

Thank you, Miranda. That was a very, very good presentation and, really compliments and and puts a bow tie on exactly what we've been doing for the last eighteen months. We spent a lot of time, getting to this place right now and to have so much to show for it in just a short amount of time is really tremendous and goes to show the effort that staff put in to make this happen, but also the benefits that Riverside has to offer. And telling that story to as many people as we can is becoming vitally important to our future here economically. But I'll turn to my colleagues if they have any

Thanks. No questions. I'm just gonna say I'm a little tiny jealous of the passport stamp you guys got. This is super cool. Yeah, it's incredible. I'm in awe of this great great presentation. So thank you for coming. I was curious what kinda how the trip went, so I'm really happy to get the update and be on this committee. But no. Thank you. Great work going out there advocating for our city and look forward to seeing, hopefully, new opportunities come.

Yes, I'll echo all of that. I mean, I'm kinda jealous that we couldn't all just go and make sure what we were seeing. Do we know, so, and I'm sure that as more come into the space, it sort of attracts more even then. But do we have from at least the ones you all talked to, did they give an indication of, you know, timelines or what they might think are itching? How does that work for us to make sure that we have, you know, the the space, the place, and all the different things? What does that look like as we attempt to, you know, do more of this?

Excellent question, council member. And really, the message we were able to share is there is demand, but there is also supply. So yes, we want all of the interest. We want all of the companies. We're able to meet their needs. And really, it's a phased approach. These types of moves, it's important to state while they're in progress, they don't happen overnight. So they most of them go through the IPO process. They need their board of directors approval. They start moving over here, but this is all integrated within their business plan and getting approval so that they have a certain time timeline and we have a certain timeline, which is exactly like in the case of Chevy, we will be memorializing within the MOU for council's consideration.

So it can be they've identified 2026 when to start that effort. However, it could take a year. And then hiring, and that takes time as well.

Oh, that's great. No. This is exciting to see the synergy and the collaboration and the work moving forward. Anyway, thank you for the trip. Thank you for the update. Yeah. It's great.

Thank you. If I can just add a little bit, you know, this is a year's worth of effort kind of coming together right now. What started off the the major event that kinda kicked this off was SelectUSA in Washington DC earlier this year in May. Me and the mayor were attending that as part of the California delegation, talking to companies from all over the world. We talked briefly about it in our one of our past economic development committee meetings.

But what was really obvious from those meetings was that, a, California is not putting much effort into attracting businesses here, and the city of Riverside needs to be at the forefront of getting our name out there and doing our own attraction because no one's gonna do it for us. And two, the the specialist I I don't know to call it specialist. The the unique factor of having elected officials in the rooms meeting with these businesses, No one else is getting that attention, and it by far and away set us apart as a city to attract the businesses here. And and part of this trip, going to Japan and Korea, we talked to a lot of businesses, and Hyundai ROADM coming to Riverside was kind of impetus of, like, oh, we got this great company already coming to Riverside. They're a Korean company.

Let's go. Let's go talk to more companies from Korea. And we added Japan as part of that because the timing really, really worked well for us. And a lot of these companies would not meet with us unless the mayor was there or this or or I an elected official was there because they're just like, we don't wanna talk. We're a gigantic company. They're, like, semi government almost. They're so big. And they're like, we don't we're not gonna waste our time, and we're not we want this to be a big media. And so that's why going there and actually being there was so important because we wouldn't have that conversation unless we were there. And so I'm I'm very, very happy how well it went.

And I think moving forward, this has given us a lot of learn learning information and stuff to work on for next year of how do we be strategic about this. We kind of we had an idea. We had a little bit of a strategy, and it kind of evolved as we were kinda learning things and and and getting more opportunities. But now that we kind of done a year of this, we really have a good game plan moving forward. And I think that for only one year's worth of effort to have the results that we've had is just incredible.

And and I I just imagine five years from now what this will look like. And so very, very excited about this. Thank you for the presentation, and I think more and more people should listen and pay attention to Riverside. But Do you yes. Mhmm.

Thank you. I I just wanna pat Riverside's ego a little bit more to say in doing this work for as many years as I have, what I always try to do is manage expectations. And year one is typically the planting seed year. And this is a relationship business, and you have to build your reputation and your trust. And so year two is typically cultivation, and then year three, you see results on all of that investment.

So what the council member chair is speaking to is really result of the investment, time, and dedication and vision of this council. And if I could say, when you have a great product to sell, it sells itself. And when we are in the room, when we get to talk about Riverside and the vision and what has been happening here, people line up. And you said something earlier about, you know, as we see success, more will come. We heard in Glide's presentation, they talked about Omeo.

So you start to hear about, oh, wait, where did Omeo go? They're in Riverside. That is a community that sees the investment. We have the partnerships with our higher learning institutions, and round and round this goes. So I'm so excited in this case that I have to manage my expectations to say we are seeing real results. And I never like to correct our elected officials, but council member of large chair of this committee, if I could say it's been less than a year.

Yes, it has.

Yeah. SelectUSA was just May, and yes, we have gone in the past, but on a much smaller, much quieter scale. So I I wanna give credit where credit is due, and these returns have been in less than a year. So imagine what will happen.

Thank you so much. Very, very exciting news, and I'm sure we'll have a lot more to report in the months to come. But we'll go ahead and move on to our next item. We'll skip to number three and move into number four, The Riverside Initiative for Sustaining Entrepreneurs Update, also known as the RISE program. And I'll invite Simone Saunders to as project manager to go ahead and present, and I know Miranda will introduce her.

Thank you so much. We're pleased to be before you. First, to introduce you to Simone Saunders, an exceptional project manager. We're very happy to have on our team for the past seven or so months. And, Simone has really been instrumental in launching and growing our RISE program that she will be presenting to you an update on our vision and our efforts with this program. So I'll turn it over to Simone.

Thank you. Good afternoon council members. Thank you for having me. My name is Simone Saunders. I'm a project manager with the city's economic development team, and I'm here to give an overview of the Riverside Initiative for Sustaining Entrepreneurs, or RISE, which is our approach to business retention and expansion.

Now, shows that sixty-eighty percent of new jobs comes from existing businesses. That's why we launched RISE, because we want to focus on the employers that are already invested here in Riverside. This is not just a program, this is a platform that's going to connect workforce, permitting, infrastructure, and small business support under one coordinated effort. Really, the goal is simple. We want businesses to feel heard, supported, and connected here in Riverside.

In the past, business retention was often reactive. We would only hear about a business that was in crisis or when a for lease sign was posted, and with RISE, we've made a proactive shift. Now we reach out early. We spot issues like workforce challenges, space needs, and expansion opportunities before they become barriers. We build trust and connect businesses to resources faster.

This really helps us shift from problem solving to opportunity building. Now, the foundation of RISE is consistency and connection. When we meet businesses where they are, show up regularly, and coordinate across departments and partners, it changes how the business community experiences our city. Really these four Ps are about being present, building credibility through follow through, and aligning our internal and external partners. Now, how do we prioritize these visits?

We use data and strategy to guide our outreach. Priorities include our top tax generators, our major employers, our key RPU account holders areas of excellence, legacy businesses green businesses, and new businesses entering our market. And to keep this accessible, any business can schedule a RISE visit through our bookings link. So far, we've met through that bookings link with a beauty shop, a thrift store, bakeries, a dental office, and a private security firm. Since launching in July, we have conducted 25 visits across seven wards, so we're averaging about six a month and we're looking to scale that.

We've had a 100% follow-up rate, and you can see some of the types of businesses we've met with. Manufacturers, retailers, restaurants, service providers, and top employers. And each visit sharpens our understanding of our local economy so we can respond faster and more effectively. Through these visits, we have identified some common needs. Access to capital is always one of them, workforce like internships and on the job training opportunities, permitting clarity, where we work and coordinate with the county, and marketing visibility, where we get to spotlight businesses through this committee, through newsletters, and through social media.

And you'll see on the side here that each of these stories began with a RISE visit and turned into a meaningful follow-up action. Alright, so what do we do? Before the RISE visit, we research the business. We identify data and trends. During the visit, we ask, we listen, and we observe.

After we log that data, we track patterns and reroute follow ups to the right partners. This helps us create an economic radar, a proactive system that helps us identify risks and forecast opportunities. What's next? Looking ahead, we want to scale to at least 100 visits a year, so that's about averaging nine a month. As we grow our team, we will grow that number.

Custom dashboards for real time reporting, predictive insights that'll help as we collect data, and continued collaboration with the chamber, SBDC, RPU to ensure follow through. And we're going to keep celebrating local businesses, like I said, through our spotlights and features to highlight our thriving economy. So what is RISE about? As Jennifer said, RISE is about more than retention, it's about relationships. Together, we are building a community worth rising for, where businesses, employers, and residents can all share in the city's growth and success. Thank you and I'm ready for any questions.

Thank you. Kind This of what we did earlier was kind of an example of that, right? Bringing Glide in here and showcasing and I think growing the teams that we can go out to these businesses and hear from them and talk to them. I think there's been a kind of city over here, business over here, they don't interact and stuff when they get in trouble. Definitely. We want to have a positive relationship, and this is a great way to build that positive relationship. Yes. This

is great. Thank you. And, yes, it's it's being a resource to our businesses to be successful and then connecting, it sounds like, through relationships connecting them to other resources. My question, so it's got in there the partnerships piece, so aligns the city, county, chamber, and workforce partners. And what I'm interested in, it's probably not a big surprise, is how do we how can the workforce partners be proactive in being available to give as much information as possible so that you as you speak with businesses, we can align them faster or create a pipeline of workforce, educated, ready to work folks that may have or may not have just graduated.

Anyway, how do we get those folks connected with you all or these businesses in a productive way?

Sure. Well, my colleague, Randy, actually is our workforce development officer, so wish I he had a presentation for this. But, I believe that's exactly what he's working on, is connecting the universities

On the other side of

this Yes.

With the expertise.

So, there's two parts of the equation, right? One's the where do we have the need with the business, and the other side is where do we have the resource and the source of the solution. So there's two parts then?

Yes.

Okay. Yes.

No. That's great. Thank you.

And then council member Hemingway, at next month's economic development committee, you'll have a presentation on that. We wanted to be mindful of the time today and You we were going to hear it today.

Yes. You're all

being kind

of way of just saying, be quiet. We're coming Okay. With Thank you for that. No. I apologize. That's it. All that to say, this is amazing. Thank you. Another way to just make sure that we stand out and stand apart from other spaces and I think it's great. Thank you.

Thank you so

Echo, great comments and your questions. Look forward to next month's meeting now. And just wanna share that, you know, to speak to the part that, you know, usually in the past, I think, yes, unfortunately, most of the interactions were negative, but then COVID hit, and then there was a lot of then support that we had to provide as a council to keep businesses open. So I feel like there was a good bridge of now, like, hey. You're here with us to help us even with safety security measures. So now I love that because I felt like after that it was now how do we keep that conversation going? How do we keep that relationship and them knowing the city is here to work with them, uplift them in different ways? So I was really happy to see some more two businesses like Chella's mentioned. As soon you said bakery, was wondering if it was Chella's.

Chella's and Cone Olorapan, which is very good. They started as a, sorry to interrupt you.

No, you're good.

Ahead. Started as a track business and they've graduated to a retail space.

Beautiful. Those are great stories that we wanna share and tell and I know the chambers, usually they're right for brand openings and things, but I think there's always that piece of continuing to make sure we're connecting them to community to be successful. So, all in all, great work. We're excited to learn

more. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Yeah. I I I'll just end with I had the pleasure of having two UCR students with me, shouting me for the day on Tuesday for for city council, and we took them to lunch at the back street. And they're both from LA. They never been they don't know Riverside that well. They they've been at UC Riverside, they haven't really seen much else. And one of the cool things is showing off these iconic, one of a kind places that Riverside has that no one else has. I think, you know, I watch in the backstreet and it's one of those places where you know everybody and are shaking hands with Virginia Blumenthal, missus Fritz, Matt Webb. They're all having lunch and I'm shaking hands and I'm like, oh, hey. How's it going?

You know? And it's like It was just clamping. Yeah. Exactly. And that's what makes Riverside special is that connectedness, and this is helping to grow that connectedness with the city and the business. But thank you so much. Alright. Moving along. We are going got lots of items today. Okay. Number five on the communication section is International Economic Development Council Excellence Awards, and I see some awards that just got out of their foam containers. And I will have Jennifer Lilly, our community economic development director, give the presentation.

Thank you so much, chair and members of the committee. There has been so much going on that your agendas are packed, and this feels like years ago now, but it was really just a few short weeks ago where the city of Riverside was recognized by the International Economic Council. We were so honored to be recognized for two really of your foundational pieces of all of the things that we've been talking about today. So I would love to present to you today, first of all, and did I mention international, right? So this isn't a local award, this is on the big stage.

And when they look for these projects, I'll step back for a minute, they're looking for things that can be modeled by others. So once again, Riverside being recognized as a leader in economic development, being recognized for your vision and for setting the foundation, not only for our success, but for others who can model after us. So it was really fun to be there on your behalf to accept these and talk to others about what we're doing in this space. So the first one is really where we all started from. This is the Economic Development Summit of Excellence.

If you remember way back when, just a year ago, when we brought everyone together to say this is the vision put on paper, and a plan for how we're going to take steps forward in our asset areas or our areas of excellence. So that day and the work that you did leading up to that day, bringing in nationally recognized speakers, bringing in subject matter experts, and connecting with the folks who are already here doing the good work of the city as ambassadors as well as those to feed into the plan. That is what this award really represents for you today. So I would love to present this on behalf of the International Economic Committee to your committee today, Mr. Chair.

And then as they grow and get larger. So this award is really for your efforts with OMEO. And what this represents is the vision that you took and how Miranda likes to say it, I love this, it's really they're investing in our community and we are investing back in them. So this was the opportunity that the city council saw to solve a current problem here in our city. How do we bring alternatives to transportation, moving people for that last mile, and being the community of arts and innovation, how do we collaborate with an innovator and bring them here to our city as they're already out internationally putting their transport vehicles on the street.

So you are recognized with an award of excellence for being visionaries in economic development for your OMEO model. So congratulations. That's the big one. That's right. It was ending.

Well, you for that presentation and I don't think you guys give yourself enough credit because it was for you guys got the award. It's not us that got the award. So congratulations to you guys. I don't if you guys have any comments or anything.

Go fight, win. Bring more. Thank you.

She's running today.

And if I can just say we will present these at the council meeting as well because of course your colleagues should share in all of this good work. And we do absolutely part of this, of course, we all we are all very competitive by the way, and we love the awards, but this is about our message. And once again, when we can start to point to being recognized as a leader, being recognized by industry experts, that just gives more and more credibility to the work that you're doing. So it really is about magnifying that message and stepping out even stronger on the world stage.

I was gonna say yes, add that on all our

social media, highlight, website, marketing materials. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you for that presentation and we'll move on to our next item, number six, manufacturing month recognition. And all time favorite Miranda, the all star here, gonna present all the things. Let's get this one.

Much to celebrate. October is a favorite month for many reasons, and it's manufacturing month. And so it's my pleasure to introduce to you Carlos Aguilera. This is his first presentation to EDC. We're very proud of him. So he's going to be sharing with you about manufacturing month that's happening nationwide and the importance of it here in Riverside. And we also have a video spotlighting a Riverside business that is also new to our Green Tech hub. So we get not one but two great Green Tech features today for you. I will turn it over to Carlos.

Good afternoon Chair Committee members. My name is Carlos Aylera. I'm a project manager with the Economic Development Division and thank you for the opportunity to celebrate Manufacturing Month. This each October, communities across the country take time to recognize manufacturing's role in shaping our economy. It's about inspiring job seekers, supporting local businesses, and and most importantly, remembering that it made in America, but specifically for us keeping top of mind made in Riverside.

So manufacturing is an industry that's often working in the background, but we know that it's fundamental to our local economy. Across Riverside County, we have about 1,850 manufacturers contributing over 7,500,000,000.0 in regional output. In the city, we have approximately 540 manufacturing businesses employing around 8,000 people. This includes everything from aerospace, biotech, green tech, and fruit production. Riverside really has unique advantage because of the ecosystem that we built.

We've got strong educational partners that includes Riverside Community College, UCR, Cal Baptist, La Sierra, San Bernardino Community College, and Cal State San Bernardino. They're all training the next generation of manufacturing professionals. That talent pipeline feeds directly into the industries that we're building here in the city that are growing fast and the kind of jobs that we want in our local economy, and we need to be future ready. Want to highlight some I wanna take a moment to highlight and recognize some of the incredible manufacturers that are here in Riverside that they call it home. Phoenix Technology, they make high quality fire helmets.

Luxford gas cylinders are a global leader in high pressure composite cylinders. EJ filtration, they're servicing aerospace and defense industries with precision filters. Triple h food processors which we'll get into a little bit later in the slides, PLZ Corporation strengthening in consumer and industrial products, and stored power technology that advance AI driven energy storage solutions. And we have a video to play to show a little bit more about STORE powered technology.

At SPT, we provide battery commercial use. Our products are safe, certified, and affordable. We offer full service from design to installation right here in city of Riverside in Riverside County. In addition to battery storage, BT also has a solution for hydrogen, which is a we will bring a game change technology that drastically can reduce the transportation and at the pump cost. And therefore, Riverside cities and counties initiative like cleaner car share program, Riverside transit agency, and heavy truck hydrogen buses can be the benefit of our product.

SPD Energy AI Lab is a leading organization in integrating AI into new energy. We are here at creating a predictive engine and also intelligent energy management system to optimize battery operation and also power grid management. With the city, county, and technology organizations, we are actually creating AI plus energy ecosystem here.

We are building a clean energy ecosystem from smart battery and AI EMS to bring hydrogen solutions designed for the future of the cities, industries, and the families. This is just beginning.

And I also wanna take a moment to say, specifically here in in the Inland Empire, we have the spirit of entrepreneur awards and Phoenix Technology was actually a semifinalist. And the SPT store power technology is a finalist so hopefully we hear back that they will win one of those awards. And there's other local businesses here in Riverside that are also being recognized but those are the manufacturers. And then as I mentioned, triple h food processors. So with business rise visits as my colleague mentioned earlier and she presented on, we actually got to visit the triple h food processors.

They're an incredible company here in Riverside. They do a lot of custom food processing and packaging for a lot of salsa, sauces, things that you all probably see in store. They have a NDA so we can't We couldn't take pictures or really disclose what they're doing but I'm yeah, pretty sure if we go to the store we could point out to a bunch of stuff that they create. So it was really impressive to see that that's coming out of here out of Riverside locally. They're USDA, FDA certified.

They operate 20 fourseven and again, we got to be that friendly face. One of the fun parts about the job is to go out and see how we can support our businesses. So in doing this, we get to visit our manufacturers and other local businesses. So in closing, as we recognize manufacturing month, I just want to emphasize that these businesses are more than job creators, they're our community partners. They create pathways for our local community, invest locally and that's what keeps our economy strong. So on behalf of our economic development team, I thank you for the time to speak on the importance of celebrating this month. Thank you.

Thank you Carlos for that presentation. Look to my colleagues. You guys have any to add?

You couldn't take pictures but you could've brought samples, right? We

also tried. So I I did try.

Alright. Because even the the picture, you know, I know it's generic but look, maybe I'm just hungry. This is great, when will we find out if any of our businesses won?

Yes, so the event is November 18, we should find out shortly.

Alright, we'll look forward to it, thank you, this is great,

thank you.

Thank you. I feel like in the day of age where we are seeing a lot of AI that could be harmful, it's exciting when we could see all other endeavors that are helpful and supportive to different measures. So just really exciting to see this presentation as well. I'm always fascinated with how manufacturing we do have taking place in the city. So thank you for the presentation.

Thank you. I will add the partnerships are real. Stored Power Technology, they were just happened to be in Korea while we were in Korea. And they came to dinner with Chevy when we were meeting with Chevy after our meeting. And they got to be a Riverside business that could be an advocate or a neutral party, I should say, that could talk to Chevy about what it was like to come to Riverside, the support they got.

So we can just say all we want about how great Riverside is, but, obviously, we're biased. But, having a, an a company that relocated recently to Riverside and share the the experience. And, also, they're the same kind of business. And so there's collaboration they can do, and they're already planning on working together on some things. And that is just the relationship part of these businesses that is so important. You know? Everyone will tell you in business that it's all about who you know. It's all relationships, and the city to be part of that relationship and to build those relationships with these businesses is such a key asset that we have that many cities don't have. And so great work. Thank you for that.

Okay. We'll go ahead and move on to our legislative update. I don't think we have no updates. Items for future consideration. No. Because we're always so busy as it is. Alright. Well, thank you so much. That concludes our meeting. Thank you.