Industries

Manufacturing Cluster

Manufacturing has become a focal area of investment for Fresno County and the San Joaquin Valley. Led by the San Joaquin Valley Manufacturing Alliance (SJVMA), efforts are being made to develop the area into a globally competitive resource that will attract companies. The SJVMA’s primary focus is to building stronger regional manufacturing companies by strengthening connections and relationships, building growth assets, and strengthening the workforce pipeline by collaborating with education partners and ensuring students are supported in discovering a path that inspires them.

Logistics

Reach 40 million customers with guaranteed next-day ground service, without the additional cost of expedited shipping. Due to Fresno’s unique location in the middle of the state, FedEx, UPS, and OnTrac, can reach all of California’s major markets within one day with their standard ground shipping, guaranteed. OnTrac, with their early-pull option, has the ability to reach the entire West Coast with their standard ground shipping service.

Energy & Water Technology

The Water and Energy Technology (WET) Center is a collaborative venture between California State University, Fresno (Fresno State), industry, and public agencies. The facility features an underground water pit to be used for water and irrigation testing. This modern test facility provides independent testing and performance certification for pumps and other water technology equipment, an educational learning lab for students, and an incubator facility for businesses specializing in water, irrigation and clean-energy.

Renewable Energy

Fresno County covers an expansive area, over 6,000 square miles with the Sierra Nevadas in the east and the Coastal Range in the west. With over 290 days of sunshine per year, Fresno County’s availability of large swaths of retired farmland in the rural west side is ideal for solar project development.

Most recently, Westlands Water District, which covers a large portion of Fresno County’s west side, reached an agreement with the federal government to retire an additional 100,000 acres of farmland. The settlement allows for only a select number of uses for the retired land, one of which is for alternative-energy projects.

Biomass and Tree Mortality

Over 129 million trees have died in California between 2010-2017 in due to the bark bettles that thrived during the historic drought. Fresno County alone has over 21 million dead trees. However, opportunities do exist to improve the quality and quantity of benefits from California’s forest. Management options for stabilizing carbon storage, improving water quality, fostering more vibrant rural economies, and making landscapes more resistant to threats have the potential to produce more desirable future conditions. To take advantage of these opportunities, federal, state, and local stakeholders have made available over $21 million in grants for projects that will help stimulate the removal of hazardous fuels from national forests and other forest lands to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires, promote forest health, and reduce the cost of forest management.

Agriculture

With $7.02 billion in output, Fresno County ranks in the top three of agricultural producing counties in the United States. Located in one of the most fertile and productive regions of the world, the agricultural output of the region has led to a robust food processing industry, with food processors and food processing equipment manufacturers making up a large percentage of Fresno County’s economy.

Exports: $4.04 billion (2015), with $2.95 billion related to agriculture.

Number of Commodities Grown: Nearly 400

2017 Crop Highlights by Commodity

Field Crops: $323 million, an increase of 1% over 2016
Seed Crops: $27.7 million, a 2% over 2016
Vegetable Crops: $990 million, led by tomatoes
Fruit and Nut Crops: $4.03 billion, a 24% increase from 2016 and led by almonds
Nursery: $38 million
Livestock and Poultry: $1.01 billion
Livestock and Poultry Products: $501.6 million
Apiary Products and Pollination Services: $95.6 million
Industrial Crops: $5.9 million, up 8% from 2016

Healthcare

The healthcare industry represents a robust segment of the Fresno County economy. The metro area alone is represented by 16 hospitals including 3,930 licensed beds. Three of the 16 hospitals rank as the top three private employers and employ more than 14,000 individuals. Also noteworthy is the amount of construction projects underway at the various healthcare locations.

Clovis Cancer Center: Clovis Community Medical Center recently completed it $65 million cancer The 100,000 sf facility is one-of-a-kind in the San Joaquin Valley. The goal of the Cancer Center is to consolidate all of Community’s outpatient cancer services to the new facility and will conduct research along with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
Community Regional Medical Center: A five-story, 180,000 sf pediatric office building in Downtown F The more than $1 billion expansion will feature pediatric sub-specialists and outpatient services.
Fowler Pediatric Care Medical Plaza: Valley Children’s Hospital and Adventist Health formed a partnership to build a $35 million medical plaza in the City of Fowler with an aim of improving pediatric rural health care The planned 16-acre state-of-the-art pediatric care facility, located adjacent to State Highway 99, is scheduled to open in early 2019.
California Health Sciences University (CHSU): CHSU’s began construction on their 826,000 sf permanent medical school campus on 70 acres of land at the Clovis Research & Technology P The $250 million campus will eventually have 2,000-3,000 students and a staff of 300-400. The university is planning to open the new campus in 2019.

Information Technology

Fresno County’s burgeoning Information Technology sector consists of over 500 companies with approximately 20% located in Downtown Fresno.

FocusVision: Headquarted in Fresno, FocusVision is the first company to provide integrated, global technology solutions for both quantitative and qualitative market research. The company specializes in research facility video streaming and has grown to offer best-in-class solutions in webcam focus groups, ethnography streaming, asynchronous online software and mobile device usability studies.
OnFarm Systems: Founded in 2012, OnFarm Systems is a nationally recognized software company born as a unique farm management tool that displays and analyzes data from many different sources in a single, easy-to-use application. OnFarm transparently integrates data into a customizable dashboard with forecasts and recommendations that enables the entire farming organization to make better, more informed decisions resulting in immediate impact on farm inputs, productivity, and profitability.
Bitwise Industries: Founded by a group of entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds that believe technology is the future of the San Joaquin Valley. The company was created to provide the software industry in Fresno with the inevitable next step in its rapid growth: the mothership of technological education, collaboration, and innovation. Every day, Bitwise helps cultivate the technology ecosystem in Fresno by providing education (Geekwise Academy), execution (Shift3 Technologies), and place (Hashtag) to empower the next generation of tech leaders.
Agrian: Founded in 2004 with the goal of providing a single source, easy-to-use solution for those in the agricultural food chain The Agrian platform enables ag professionals to capture information from the field and send the information electronically to various stakeholders. Coupled with its mobile capabilities, Agrian offers the flexibility, convenience and speed to make quick solutions on the go.

The Fresno-Clovis metropolitan region ranked 3rd in California among “Tech/Info Leaders” with a job growth of 20% in the tech sector since 2011.

Source: Progressive Policy Institute
“The California Tech/Info Boom: How it is Spreading Across the State” July 2015.