ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Another Wake-Up Call for California

In September, Vice President Al Gore visited a plant owned by AST Research Inc. in Orange County to demonstrate the virtues that private industry could teach the federal government--creativity and efficiency. The nation’s fourth-largest computer maker, with its humble origins in a garage, has been that kind of inspiration.

Now, however, the company has dealt a blow to manufacturing employment in Southern California with its announcement that it will lay off 1,050 workers, 650 of them in Fountain Valley and Irvine.

The disclosure comes in the aftermath of AST’s purchase of the computer manufacturing operations of Tandy Corp.

The litany of negatives offered by Safi U. Qureshey, the chairman and chief executive officer of AST, was all too familiar in California, even though he had defended the Orange County business environment in the past. He said the firm needed to move quickly to stay competitive, and he cited lower costs of doing business elsewhere, notably Texas and Ireland.

The AST job losses may be as much a product of the dynamics of the highly competitive computer industry as anything else. However, the announcement served as a reminder that Orange County--a crucial stretch of real estate on the troubled Southern California economic landscape--no longer can simply provide only the sunshine.

The laissez-faire attitude is diminishing, thankfully, both in the county and in the state. There was much better news last week when Intel Corp., the giant manufacturer of semiconductors, said that it will more than double its planned expansion of a research and development center near Sacramento. The company was encouraged by recent legislation designed to make it easier for businesses to expand in California.

As for Orange County, business and government leaders stung by the defection of jobs once simply assumed to come with the territory are stepping up efforts to attract and retain business.

Two groups especially, a public-private development group called Partnership 2010 and the Orange County Chamber of Commerce, have begun to deal aggressively with the fallout of economic restructuring and to encourage new business opportunity.

AST’s decision to move some jobs elsewhere after the corporation had been such a defender of the California business environment was a wake-up call. Efforts like those recently started in Orange County to improve the regional business climate are coming none too soon.