Playing their drawing cards

The North Bay's lifestyle and educated work force still attract employers, but traffic and housing costs remain a challenge, business leaders said Thursday at a conference in Petaluma.

"We're here for the long haul in the North Bay, because it's more good than bad," said Mark Wood, vice president at BioMarin Pharmaceutical, a fast-growing drug development company headquartered in Novato.

"We've been able to attract people from outside the region because of the quality of life," Wood said. "Our location is a selling point."

Still, BioMarin will open a satellite office in South San Francisco, where there's a bigger pool of biotech talent.

"We had to find some way to tap that market," Wood said.

The 11-year-old company, which has several approved pharmaceutical products and others in development, employs about 500 in Novato. The new office in South San Francisco will have about a dozen employees.

To encourage companies such as BioMarin to remain in the North Bay, businesses and government must join forces to make the region more attractive, said Robert Eyler, who heads the economic department at Sonoma State University.

The North Bay needs to improve transit, create affordable housing and provide an educated work force, he said.

"This is still a difficult place to attract and keep workers," Eyler said.

Thursday's conference was sponsored by the North Bay Leadership Council, a Petaluma-based coalition of businesses that employ about 20,000 workers in Sonoma and Marin counties.

Sonoma County lost about 7,000 manufacturing jobs since the peak of the high-tech boom in 2000, Eyler said. But the county still has more manufacturing jobs than it did in 1990, largely because of the wine industry, he said.

Sonoma County's work force is more educated than the state average, Eyler said, while the county's median wage is below the rest of the state.

The labor force is changing, with a greater number of English learners entering the job market, he said. Schools and businesses should work in partnership to prepare them for work, Eyler said.

Government also needs to cut red tape that discourages businesses from expanding, he said. The North Bay should encourage "clusters" of green technology businesses, Eyler said.

There are reasons for optimism, said Bill McCubbin, CEO of Orion Partners, a San Rafael-based commercial real estate broker. The North Bay is becoming a center for digital entertainment and game companies, he said.

Walt Disney Studios is opening a 3-D computer animation complex in Novato that could grow to 300 employees, he said. The Disney ImageMovers studio could also spur other digital startups, McCubbin said.

Meanwhile, Take-Two Interactive Software, maker of the hit video game series Grand Theft Auto, is opening a Novato studio to develop new games, he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Steve Hart at 521-5205 or steve.hart@pressdemocrat.com.