Noozhawk has moved.
After seven blissful years at the Santa Barbara Business & Technology Center, dating back to my South Coast Beacon days, we’ve moved uptown to 1227-A State St. in Victoria Court.
For those of you who don’t know, the tech center was a quirky place, but full of entrepreneurial energy. Founded by Dennis Cagan and his pals during the height of the dot-com boom in the 1990s, the wide-open warehouse environment incubated scores of high-tech ventures, including a startup called RightScale, which manages cloud-computing infrastructure for companies around the world.
Launched the same year Noozhawk was hatched, in 2007, the two companies have been on slightly different trajectories. RightScale has seen a meteoric rise and is one of the fastest-growing companies in Santa Barbara, if not California. Noozhawk … less so.
In 2009, RightScale CEO Michael Crandell moved the rapidly expanding company to the spacious old CallWave headquarters at 136 W. Canon Perdido. Now RightScale has outgrown that location and is moving back to the tech center at 402 E. Gutierrez St. This time it’s taking the entire building.
And that means we had to move.
We’ve been clients of SIMA Management Corp. for a while now and they apparently like us as tenants. SIMA’s Ali Ernst and Sabine Freistuhler quickly moved us to a new office we can call all our own. With signage and everything. It’s exciting.
What it doesn’t have is furniture, so we’re making do with card tables and folding chairs until we can find someone to deliver us goods. The place may resemble my first apartment back in college but it’s light and airy, and has a charming view of the courtyard and fountain. It’s also a block away from my home away from home, the Santa Barbara Club, so I’ll make do.
As for RightScale, we wish it all the success in the world, and out of it. A couple of generations of the Crandell family are longtime friends of mine and patriarch Larry Crandell is one of my — and Noozhawk’s — biggest fans. Ironically, Larry has been left office-less by the RightScale move, too, although I suspect he’ll be welcomed back after the building is rehabbed. Otherwise, that would make for an awkward Father’s Day.
Plus, RightScale is sponsoring Noozhawk’s Santa Barbara Challenge public-engagement project on the city of Santa Barbara’s budget. If we had to be crowded out by a cloud formation, we’re happy it’s a partner.
Noozhawk’s snail-mail address remains P.O. Box 101, Santa Barbara 93102, but we do prefer the virtual reality of email at news@noozhawk.com. We’ll let you know when we have a new telephone number. Click here for a staff contacts list.
— Noozhawk publisher Bill Macfadyen can be reached at wmacfadyen@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk. Become a fan of Noozhawk on Facebook.