Kirk Nagamine, CEO, Central Valley Business Incubator

Fresno, CA (December 2, 2009) – Kirk Nagamine was born and spent the first years of his life in Maui, Hawaii, before settling with his family in the Bay Area when he was still young.

His father had opened a furniture manufacturing company in the Bay Area, and Nagamine would work their part-time, at first sweeping the floors of the business.  During his time at St. Mary’s College he would work there in the office on computers.  He says his time there fueled his entrepreneurial fire and helped prepare him for the working world.

After graduating from St. Mary’s with a degree in business and economics he became involved in the insurance field for the period of one year.

“The value of that was incredible sales training,” Nagamine said.

He then moved to Fresno, where he was hired by a recruiter from Entertainment Publications to bring the Entertainment Book to the area in 1988.

“With a great team of people here locally we built it into a very successful business, and then I ended up taking on more and more responsibility with the company, which took us out of the Central Valley into other areas of the country,” Nagamine said.

Over time, sales grew from just a few thousand to the area being flooded with 50,000 of the books.

“That kind of growth really was significant in comparison to other cities this size across the country that Entertainment also operated in,” he said.

Because of his success he was asked to oversee a region for the company, during which time he lived both in Fresno and Marin County.  The markets grew, and he was asked to move out of the area and oversee a larger one.  He eventually left Entertainment after ownership changes.

He was asked by the parent company to oversee a joint venture that had been struck in Seattle with Microsoft back in 1998, at the time of the dot com boom.  Nagamine became the manager of Sidewalk.com, and was charged with building the sales force and production force on a national scale.

“In 11 months we went from 60 or 70 people up to 400 people,” Nagamine said.  “And we ended up selling millions and millions of dollars of ad space to local merchants.”

After he was done at Sidewalk.com he got a call from the CEO of Entertainment.  He said the company was going private, and Nagamine was asked if he wanted to join the team of seven executives that would take the company private, the lead investor being the Carlisle Group.  He was allowed to remain in his current home of Seattle during the 12-14 month period.  After the company went private, he owned out his piece.  

Nagamine and his family moved back to Fresno in 2001, and they loved the small-town feel of the location that provided big city amenities like an airport.  Nagamine became involved in different projects, invested in businesses, and along the way learned what it was like to actually run a business, something he had never experienced before.

Over time he learned about the opportunity to take technology and merchant promotions and put the two together in a way that is meaningful to large companies.

“We packaged the merchant promotions with technology, and this proprietary stored value solution that we created in 2001 in my company, Complete Access,” Nagamine said.

Nagamine became the CEO of the Central Valley Business Incubator in August of 2009.  For years he had a professional and personal relationship with Tim Stearns, director of the Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Fresno State University.  Stearns gave him entrepreneurial support, and familiarized him with the CVBI.

“From 2001 until this year I’ve been involved with Fresno State and the Incubator in different ways,” Nagamine said.

In February of this year he spoke at an Entrepreneur Unplugged event, not long after former CVBI CEO Craig Scharton had left to take a position with the city of Fresno.  He discovered that a replacement for Scharton had not been found, and just months later Nagamine accepted the job as CEO.

“It enables me to have an understanding and be involved in a whole bunch of businesses, not just the ones that I own or I conjure up myself,” Nagamine said.

The CVBI helps existing and new businesses find help and resources in a professional nurturing environment.  Nagamine has a strong belief in companies that can be found locally.

“We have companies that have the potential to serve the world, not just our city or the region of the country, but the world,” he said.

A couple of examples may be found at the CVBI or the Claude Laval Water and Energy Technology (WET) Incubator, which may be found on the Fresno State campus.  One is the business Kalovision, which focuses on retinal and facial recognition, and another that deals in low-pressure showerheads.

“Our measure of success is not that businesses become huge, but that people are actually trying,” Nagamine said.  “Most successful entrepreneurs have started and failed a number of times.  So we’re here to maximize the potential for success, accelerate their path to get there, and if it doesn’t work, encourage them to try again.”

Nagamine’s job is to educate the community about what CVBI does and the resources it offers.  He also works with its member companies in order to give them what they need in order to be successful.  Since he joined the CVBI three people have been hired there, not including himself.

“It’s good news, because we were able to hire talented people to do the job that they’re now doing, and so 2010 is going to be a great year for CVBI,” Nagamine said.

In 2010 the WET Incubator is going to be a big focus for CVBI and the area.  Next year should also intensify its focus on its online platform.  Also planned is the forming of relationships with people like Case Lawrence of CargoBay in Clovis, in order to help entrepreneurs find affordable work space that suits their needs.

Nagamine has a number of personal interests, including taking trips outside the country, cooking, golfing, racquetball, and watching his children play sports.  He and his wife, Kristine, have three children:  Lauren, Todd and Matt.  The Nagamine family enjoys traveling to Europe, and going on food and wine tours there.

Nagamine is now planning the launch of a new company with other local people that will provide large consumer facing companies a stronger tool to help them retain customers and help consumers earn reward.

“We’re looking to continue to show that Fresno is a place that technology companies can start and thrive, which is of real interest to me,” Nagamine said.



Listen to the Business Street “Business Leader of the Week” every Thursday morning at 10:00 a.m. on “The Alan Autry Show” on KYNO 1300 A.M.  Business Street’s Business Leaders are featured every Thursday, only on KYNO 1300 A.M.

Advertisement