Napa Valley Needs To Diversify, Innovate To Grow Economy, Speaker Says

While the Napa Valley economy has continued to grow out of the recession since 2009, a new wave of innovation is needed to keep it going, an economist said Tuesday.

Rob Eyler, an economics professor at Sonoma State University, spoke at the second annual Innovation Napa Valley in downtown Napa.

Eyler told the audience of about 200 people that 82 percent of jobs in Napa County are in the wine, hospitality or tourism sectors. More needs to be done to bring in innovative businesses in other areas, he said.

"I came to hear Rob Eyler," said Napa Mayor Jill Techel, who was in the audience. "He always has a lot of facts and data and I like to take advantage of the chance to get that information."

Techel said the event used to be called an "economic summit," but the new focus on innovation was "more modern," she said.

"It's about the newest and the best," she said. "I think that's what gets people excited."

Napa Valley Chamber of Commerce CEO Chris Messina said the 1,100-member chamber is reinventing itself with a new website, www.NapaChamber.com, database, logo, staff, activities and a new brand.

"We have to be relevant to our members," said Messina, who started in the job 18 months ago and who is credited with turning the then-struggling chamber around financially. "There's a lot more to do than just having the classic mixers."

Messina has hired six new staff people in the last year, with the latest round of hires in August.

"We had 10 months of (financial) turnaround and now we're reinventing and recreating," Messina said. "We had to put the right people in the right seats on the bus."

Educational innovation was also a huge topic at Tuesday's event, with multiple speakers from New Tech High School, the place where the seed of project-based learning was planted when the school was established in 1996.

Now, project-based learning has spread to a total of 10 schools in Napa County, said Peg Maddocks, executive director of NapaLearns, the nonprofit that finances teacher training in project-based learning and technology.

Project-based learning means creating a curriculum around a local issue or landmark -- such as a history class using the Napa River as its classroom, said Maureen Bragg of NapaLearns.

Her daughter's sixth grade class at Silverado Middle School did that, she said. The teacher brought in a speaker from the Napa Flood Control project so the kids learned all about how rivers affect civilization and how the Napa River affects their community.
 
"It's more experiential," Bragg said. "It's using 21st Century tools."

NapaLearns board member Dorothy Lind-Salmon said the nonprofit has financed half the cost of a master's degree for 46 teachers.

"The teachers get paid more and they get energized," Lind-Salmon said. "They find doing project-based learning with technology is exciting."

Lind-Salmon said innovating with education was the way toward a brighter economic future.

"Education is not an expense, it's an investment," she said.

According to Maddocks, NapaLearns funds $1.2 million annually for teacher training in the Napa County Unified School District. The nonprofit has already spent $4 million toward that end since about 2010.

NapaLearns' largest donor is Auction Napa Valley, she said.

Other participants at Tuesday's event included CEOs of innovative businesses in Napa Valley.

Those included: Andrew Lazorchak, managing partner, SoireeHome in Yountville; Adam Reiter, marketing manager, NakedWines.com; Jordan Kivelstadt, founder and CEO, Free Flow Wines in Napa; Kristy Sammis, founder and partner, CleverGirlsCollective.com; and Ashley Teplin of Teplin & Nuss Public Relations.