La Jolla Institute

After leaving the Center for the New West, I was a principal (with Steve and Mark) of the La Jolla Institute¹ (not located in La Jolla). It was an independent, nonprofit institution for policy research and economic development. The focus of the Institute was to advance a better understanding of the impact of the new economy on organizations and communities. Quite a mouthful.
With a great opinion of our abilities, Steve, Lori, Mark and I opened an office which we shared with the Claremont Institute at 250 W. 1st St #330, Claremont, California. This was a better entrepreneurial experience than my first attempt, 5 years earlier. My positions were as a Policy Researcher, Accounting Manager and IT Administrator. I was pretty proud of the fact that I prepared and filed all of the IRS paperwork to obtain and qualify for our non-profit status. Our customers included the Urban Land Institute, the IRS, Marriott Hotels, and @Work Consulting Group. However, we came to understand that “fake it ’til you make it”² was the key to our survival.

Before incorporating, we toyed with several names including the Newport Institute and Coronado Institute. Steve just wanted something cool sounding. We were not going to actually open an office in any of those places…. LOL! ↩︎
To begin with, we bought used office furniture and spray-painted the cabinets in Steve’s driveway. It was sometimes very comical around the office. Lori joked one time that she would answer the phone…. “La Hoagie Instruments”. We had a wonderful time. ↩︎