TECH TRENDS

Advice to business: Get out of town

By Andrew Kleske

For fans of the "Dilbert" comic strip, the stereotypical engineer is a cubicle-dwelling nerd who suffers the daily indignities of disinterested bosses and a heartless corporate quagmire.

When Scott Adams created the characters, he drew upon his observations of Pacific Bell engineers. Had he been studying the exploits of 20-year-old Fallbrook Engineering Inc., his impressions would have been much different.

"What we are reflects a real shift in American business," said Richard Meyst, a co-partner of the firm. "Much of that was built out of our desire not to travel into the city and fight the traffic."

The company's headquarters is not sequestered in a barren office park, but is found instead in a farmhouse on a 5-acre avocado ranch in Valley Center. Instead of cubicle walls, the engineers have views of Palomar Mountain. Instead of wandering around manicured greenbelts, they stroll amongst 450 avocado trees, being careful where they tread at harvest time.

"I used to think windfall was a good word," Meyst said.

The company, specializing in medical device and process design, has eight full-timers at the ranch, including founder and Fallbrook resident John Moers. But its strength is in its stable of between 40 and 50 contract engineers who, too, have given up the starched shirt and corporate-logo pocket protector to work as hired guns.

"That allows us to bring a lot of horsepower to a project," Meyst said. Moers and Meyst ran their own consulting practices from their homes after years of work for big firms such as Hudson RCI, in Moers' case, and Baxter Healthcare, in the case of Meyst. Last year, the company bought the ranch with the blessing of residential neighbors, who could do worse than having quiet engineers next door.

Clients range from local firms like Infrasonics, InterVentional Technologies, IMED and IVAC to international powerhouses like Amgen and Nellcor Puritan Bennett.

Projects have ranged from a blackhead extractor to a DNA amplifier that allows small samples to be studied. Currently, the company has a grant from the National Institutes of Health to refine a process for harvesting stem cells from umbilical cord blood for use in regenerating bone marrow in chemotherapy patients.

The main building houses the administrative and project management offices, a guesthouse is used as a design studio and one of the former dog kennel buildings has been converted to a testing lab. The commute is highway-free, and the workplace is casual, as is the dress code.

"We thought about having one day a week where we dress up the way other companies have a casual day, but we said, 'Let's not,'" Meyst said.

The company's casual atmosphere, which extends beyond the ranch, fosters more creative thinking amongst the engineering free-lancers, who have traded the perceived security of corporate jobs to survive on their own accomplishments.

"Security comes from inside, not from your employer," Meyst said. "It comes from knowing you have something valuable to offer."

3/25/00

Contact Andrew Kleske by phone (760) 739-6655, fax (760) 745-3769, or e-mail at kleske@nctimes.com.