Buzz

Golf Gulch
Aiming to land just a chip shot away from golfing manufacturers Callaway, Taylor Made and Cobra, Lynx Golf is relocating its corporate and manufacturing headquarters from Los Angeles County’s City of Industry to the city of Carlsbad. San Diego County is already a mecca for the golf industry, offering plenty of golf-trained employees, a high number of private and public courses (74) and a growing Pacific Rim commerce connection. Boasting annual sales of $40 million, the privately held Lynx recently went through a corporate makeover, with new investors and a new CEO, Dave Shaefer, former COO at Cobra. Lynx Golf, best known for its Black Cat Irons and Metal Woods, will debut a new product line at the International PGA Show in Las Vegas this fall.

Entering the Third Dimension
In this show-and-tell world where presentation is everything, a two-dimensional approach is often used to get three-dimensional results. However, new technology and creative talent is quickly changing the way we look and react. Ayres Group, a pioneer in 3-D computer animation, has seen a growing demand for realistic multimedia presentations that do everything from helping win court cases to gaining approval for new developments. The five-year-old downtown company, headed by CEO Philip Ayres and creative director Vicki Wilson, is known for its highly detailed computer animation and sophisticated soundtrack presentations for an impressive list of local, national and international clients. Recent projects include a 3-D "walk-through" for a proposed second tower addition to the Hyatt Regency San Diego; a computer simulation of the proposed San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum; 3-D modeling of airbag safety for Hyundai Motors of North America; a design for a first-of-its-kind housing development in Cairo, Egypt; and an elaborate presentation to the prime minister of Malaysia for a proposed "city of the future" on the country’s southern coast.

Cyber Buys
The big bucks exchanged in Internet purchases present clever cybercrooks with all sorts of opportunities to steal credit-card numbers, Social Security numbers and confidential corporate information. To protect the customer, San Diego’s GraySoft has released a Windows-based software program called EasyOrder. It facilitates the buying and selling of products and services between personal computers via modems, using no catalogs, Web sites or telephone operators. GraySoft is a subsidiary of Gray Systems, founded six years ago by 34-year-old Doug Gray, president and CEO. His company has grown steadily to annual sales of more than $2 million. Current clients include the U.S. Postal Service, Xerox, the U.S. Navy and the state of California. EasyOrder, currently in the trial-offer stage, is priced at a hefty $3,000; call 285-5848.

Arts Flexes Its Muscle
A new economic-impact report from the San Diego Arts & Culture Coalition shows that the arts continue to contribute significant dollars to the local economy. Surprisingly, more people paid to attend our arts-related events—the opera, theater, museums and so on—than they did any one of San Diego’s major tourist attractions. In 1996, area nonprofit arts and culture organizations attracted 4.75 million residents and visitors—more than the combined total of 4.5 million for the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park, and above Sea World’s 3.89 million attendance. This generated $66 million in personal income to local residents, $3 million in tax receipts for the city of San Diego and $3.4 million to the state of California.

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