October 7, 2003



Dana Welch, president of SofTECH and a program manager for GE Financial, packs his belongings into cardboard boxes at his office in San Rafael. He is one of several hundred people to be laid off at GE as the company moves most of its operations to Virginia. Alan Dep photo

The man who honchoed many of Marin's high-tech job networking events now needs some networking himself.

Yesterday was Dana Welch's last day at GE Financial in San Rafael. Welch, 41, of Terra Linda, a program manager for GE for 212 years, was one of more than 200 people laid off or transferred to Virginia in a cost-cutting move announced in January.

"I thought GE was a good place to grow old," said Welch, president of SofTECH, a Marin high-tech professional group. "Things were going very well there, but then there was this announcement."

GE spokesman Mike Kachel said all but about 20 or 30 of the 200 or so laid off from GE's former 450-person Marin staff already have left the company. The rest will leave either by the end of the year or early next year.

Another 80 people agreed to relocate to company facilities in Lynchburg or Richmond, Va., Kachel said. When the layoffs are complete, GE Financial will still have about 170 people left in San Rafael, mostly to handle claims from subscribers to the company's long term care insurance policies, Kachel said.

The long term care division was the primary GE Financial operation in Marin.

GE is only one of more than a dozen Marin companies to cut back or move out of the county over the past three years in the wake of the dot-com bust. Marin has lost - or will lose in the coming year or two - 3,000 or more high tech jobs from downsizing, layoffs and companies relocating to less expensive spaces in Sonoma County or out of state, according to estimates from the Marin Economic Commission and county business leaders.

About the job transfers and layoffs, Kachel said, "It's been business as usual, with no impact to customers. ... The work has been transferred fairly seamlessly to headquarters in Lynchburg, and the administrative folks moved to Richmond."

Welch, formerly with Autodesk Inc. in San Rafael, declined an option to move to Virginia because his family needs to stay in Marin. Welch, who is separated and has two children, says he will tap his Bay Area contacts to land a new job.

He said he is worried, however, about the increasing trend of many tech companies to farm out jobs abroad. Demonstrations to protest the practice were held last month in Silicon Valley.

"I've gone from working at a company listed No. 1 in Fortune magazine to an economy where they're exporting jobs," Welch said. "All of our first-line call centers are in India right now.

"I don't see a very clear end to this," he added.

Welch, who earned more than $100,000 in his GE job, said GE has paid for consultations with Drake, Beam and Morrill, an outplacement firm, and gave him a small severance package. He said despite the recent economic downturn and the trend toward exporting jobs, he was "a little optimistic" about his prospects, because he knows many Bay Area tech executives from his work with SofTECH.

"I've been forced to be networking with SofTECH for the last year and a half," he said. The tech group, which meets monthly at Autodesk headquarters, will hold elections for next year's officers in November.

Brian Eisberg, an agent with Orion Partners Ltd. in San Rafael, said GE's staff will occupy one floor of the three-story, 140,000-square-foot office building at 1650 Los Gamos Drive where GE -in Marin since 1995 - has been located. The building is owned by AMG Realty Partners LP, he said.

The other two floors are on the market for sublease, according to Eisberg. Colliers International in San Francisco is the sublease agent, he said.

The building is part of the Marin Technology Center, which also includes a neighboring 350,000-square-foot office building at 1600 Los Gamos. That building houses HealthNet of California, an HMO, a portion of Lucasfilm Ltd. offices and 50,000 square feet of vacant space.

GE Financial's lease expires in 2006, Eisberg said.