Qualcomm chief puts focus on schools
By John Duchemin
Advertiser Staff Writer
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Irwin Jacobs, co-founder, chairman and chief executive of Qualcomm Inc., a San Diego-based wireless technology company, yesterday told Hawai'i business leaders that a high-tech industry here is possible, if difficult.
"I suspect that Hawai'i's difficulties were much more significant 20 years ago than they are today," said Jacobs, speaking to about 15 business leaders at the law offices of Goodsill Anderson Quinn & Stifel. "Technological advances make it possible to start, and keep, companies here. But it could be difficult. You have to build up a base of employers. Engineers thinking of working here need to know there are enough opportunities that if they lose their first job, they can find a second one."
Jacobs joins a list of high-profile business speakers, including WorldCom chief executive Michael Capellas and biotechnologist Leroy Hood, who in recent years have encouraged local businesspeople to grow a high-tech industry here. Hawai'i currently has few technology employers, and those here are mostly small companies who account for a small portion of the state's economic activity.
Jacobs was in Honolulu for the Pacific Telecommunications Council's annual meeting, for which he was keynote speaker at the meeting's opening ceremonies on Sunday.
Under Jacobs, Qualcomm, a company founded in 1985, became one of the telecommunications industry's fastest growing companies after developing a key mobile-phone protocol: code division multiple access technology, or CDMA. More than 100 companies worldwide have licensed CDMA to make wireless phones and equipment. After an initial public offering in 1991, the company's stock was wildly successful through the Internet boom.
Qualcomm's successes helped generate a lasting high-tech scene in San Diego, where dozens of wireless and biotechnology companies — many of them spun out of Qualcomm and other top companies — employ tens of thousands of engineers and other workers. Jacobs, who moved to California from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late 1960s, likened the early San Diego high-tech environment to Hawai'i's current situation.
"The issue for San Diego was, 'Can you go to a beautiful area with a beach, and still get any work done?' " he said. "But the way you have to think about it is, 'You can work hard all day, and then in minutes be outside in a beautiful area.' It's actually very efficient."
Jacobs said Hawai'i should concentrate on building a sound K-12 public-education system, which will not only help train a high-quality local work force, but assure outside talent that their children can be well schooled.
Local officials said they can learn much from the examples of Qualcomm and San Diego.
"I've visited San Diego and entrepreneurship seems to bubble up in the water there," said Keith Mattson, executive director of UH Connections, a group that tries to connect University of Hawai'i professors with local businesses. "That's the kind of thing we want to create in Hawai'i."
