It’s not what you expect to hear at the farmers market, much less from a fresh-faced, wide-smiling young man. And then comes the reply from his mom: “They’re not his balls. They’re my balls,” she deadpans.

Dirty Balls are the flagship product of Dirt Food, a San Diego business operating according to the adage that food is medicine. Founded by Nikka Blunt, who runs the company with her son Anthony, its VP of customer relations, Dirt Food sprouted from their home kitchen before reaching local retailers and farmers market stands around SD and, eventually, sprawling beyond city limits. 

They joke because they’ve moved through pain and fear to be here. Ten years ago, they never would have imagined it. 

In 2012, Nikka’s life changed. She had pushed through 16 years in a high-powered corporate job, once ringing the bell on the New York Stock Exchange, and it was wearing her out. That’s when she was diagnosed with cancer—the first time. Her body was trying to tell her something, it seemed. In 2014, while living in Texas and going through a divorce, she quit her job to try and heal.

“She did the ‘normal’ route, beginning with chemo and radiation, and it didn’t work at all for her,” Anthony says. “It was destroying everything, and you just hope it kills the cancer first.” Watching his mom wither away was heartbreaking for Anthony, in high school at the time. “In the middle of it, she said, ‘I can’t do this,’” he recalls.  

In 2016, she was diagnosed again, with uterine cancer this time. Nikka became determined to find a more holistic way of healing. Anthony, having since gone to college, wanted to support her, and came home. The two left Texas and moved back to Nikka’s native California. 

“I started treatment—surgery and radiation and chemo—and immediately felt like I was dying inside,” Nikka says. “I thought nutrition and fitness would be a better route for me.”

Certain studies have found that acidic diets are associated with increased risks of cancer and plant-based, alkaline diets with lower ones. Nikka’s nutritionist said to immediately eliminate gluten, processed sugar, dairy, animal products, and coffee and black tea.

While changing her diet was hard, Nikka could stand to part with all of it—except those last two. 

The nutritionist told her, “‘If you can alkalize it, you can keep it,’” Nikka recalls. “I immediately went to work in my kitchen, trying to figure that out as a non-scientist.” 

Mother and son became alchemists, pulling spices out of the pantry and trying different combinations to balance coffee’s pH, using themselves as the guinea pigs. Baking soda turns coffee alkaline, but they needed to make it taste good, too. “We began playing with different ways to alkalize [the mix] that were both delicious and nutritious,” Anthony says. 

They eventually created a sweet-and-spicy mix based on Ayurvedic principles of balancing elements: cardamom for its cooling effect on the body, as well as warming spices that support digestion, like ginger, cinnamon, and cayenne. They went through four iterations of the melange before arriving at the current version of the Dirt Spice blend, which also includes cacao, turmeric, Ceylon cinnamon, nutmeg, and powdered coconut sugar, milk, and oil, plus supplements like maca and magnesium citrate.

“If you can tune in and listen, your body will tell you exactly what it needs,” Anthony says. Nikka realized she had not only won back her coffee, but had a remarkable, multipurpose food on her hands. She devoted herself to starting a business in 2019, and Anthony soon joined full-time.

They started baking with the spice, testing granolas with family and friends, and people began begging them to sell it. When a cancer-charity partner asked for a more portable snack—not granola, but “little balls”—Nikka and Anthony couldn’t help themselves, creating the now-infamous “Dirty Balls.” Today, they’re the cornerstone of the business. 

The whole experience changed the way the Blunts live, eat, and work. “I learned so much about how what we’re eating can either hurt or help,” Nikka says. 

Nutrition, they learned, is about more than just eating vegetables or avoiding certain foods. It involves examining the whole ecosystem of your diet, behavior, and environment, as well as the invisible systems within your body, bringing balance and intention to them all. On top of a new workout routine for Nikka, they started adding the Dirt Spice mix to everything, even spaghetti sauce to temper tomatoes’ acidity. 

Dirt Spice is the primary ingredient in their superfood snacks, which Nikka and Anthony began selling at San Diego area farmers’ markets in 2023, starting with Scripps’ Ranch and expanding to six weekly stands, including the bustling Little Italy and Hillcrest markets. 

During the pandemic, the pair cultivated relationships with local hotels, cafés, shops, and wellness centers, where they still sell today. They’ve also expanded to nationwide distribution online and through Amazon, growing their booming business. Nikka and Anthony have even applied to Shark Tank.

Best of all, Nikka’s cancer is in remission. Now their goal is not only to feed people, but educate them about the body’s natural capacity to heal through more focused nutrition, one bag of alkalizing dirty balls at a time.

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The post The Secret to Healthier Coffee? A Special Kind of Dirt appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Close that Amazon tab. There’s a way to do all your holiday shopping in one spot while supporting local businesses. Touching down at Broadway Pier in downtown Dec. 2–3, the family-friendly Makers Arcade Holiday Fair will host nearly 150 artisans slinging cozy sweatshirts and blankets, candles and candies, toys for kids and critters, and more. Your ticket ($6 in advance, $7 at the door) also gets you access to food trucks, photo ops, games, and cocktail bars. Sure beats stuffing all those cardboard boxes in your recycling bin.

Pure Gold

Designers Victoria Schulte and Charlotte Zappulla worked together at edgy-cool SD jewelry brand Marrow Fine before striking out on their own with Crevette Design Studio. The pair launched their first collection, Flow, earlier this year, forging gold rings and earrings in playful, ripply shapes. They do charms, too, including a limited-edition, pegasus-stamped coin (available through the end of this month) and a teeny crustacean—an ode to their moniker, which is a French pet name literally meaning “shrimp.”

Here Comes Santa Clause

Sorry, Santa Clause Lane—the big man is landing on Orange Avenue this year. St. Nick poses for photos on select days this month in The Hotel del Coronado’s central courtyard, surrounded by sparkly Christmas trees and Victorian architecture that feels way more North Pole than a busy mall. After your little one has shared their wishlist with Father Christmas, hit the hotel’s seaside, outdoor skating rink. Open through Jan. 7, it’s a slice of Santa’s icy abode set smack-dab in the middle of Coronado’s beachfront beauty.

The post 3 San Diego Things We’re Loving This December appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

In fact, design is at the heart of the company’s roots. “[It] originally started as basically a group of friends that were doing different branding- [and] art-based stuff around the globe, and they didn’t really have a company to do it under at the time,” says James Garcia, Moniker Building Co. & Design Studio’s director of operations. “[They were] just a ragtag group of artists that were doing scattered projects.” They specialized in interactive art installations, set designs, and conference designs.

After nailing down their first job as a collective—a marketing campaign for a small company in Norway—they sat down to come up with a name. “What is our moniker?” asked one of the business’ founders. The question became the answer. 

Nowadays, the name represents the idea that a blank space—a simple moniker—can foster creative ideas that aren’t bound to any one product, idea, or industry. It didn’t hurt that it also just sounded cool. 

Over the next 12 years, the company evolved to offer a diverse range of hospitality spaces. In addition to Moniker General, they own co-working hubs (Moniker Commons) and event venues (The Lane, Moniker Warehouse)—all designed by their studio. In contrast to other specialized firms, Moniker Design Studio (MDS) doesn’t focus solely on either residential or commercial designs—instead, they take on projects that will foster community. 

“We do places that bring people together,” Garcia says. “With hospitality, [that’s] creating spaces [where] people can connect [and] be better friends, go on dates, and celebrate things with their loved ones. We want to be able to create an environment that holds a memory for them as they leave.”

While the studio’s aesthetic is distinctive—minimalist, with lots of open space and a sort of rugged but elevated feel—Garcia says that it’s all about the client when the team goes to work on any new project.

“A lot of what we’re about is taking what the client’s vision is and what their dream is and being able to translate that into a physical space,” Garcia explains. “It’s much more collaborative with the client instead of forcing our own design on [them]. Ultimately, it is a representation of who that person is and what their brand is, too.”

Once MDS understands the vision of a project, they’ll work to ensure that their designs are, first and foremost, functional.

“I think people come to us with so many ideas, and we really refine it and funnel it down to being what they want to show off [for] their brand,” says Emilia Franceschi, MDS’s lead designer. “At the end of the day, it has to work. So it’s bringing the aesthetic and the function together, marrying those two to create something that’s really beautiful for the client.” 

The team constantly considers how customers in a commercial building, for example, might interact with the space. It’s why they added banquet seating to Moniker Coffee Co. “We looked at how people sat for a long time and where they put their legs,” Garcia says. “We [looked at] the angle of where your legs sit and just [tried] to really make it an overall good human experience. Details really matter.”

The group has tackled about 10 projects a year for the past 12 years, but Garcia says that the Moniker General building is his favorite.

“You actually get to sit there, and people don’t know that you did it. You can sit in the corner and just watch people use it,” he says. “We’re around on a daily basis, and when [we] meet someone [and tell them,] ‘Oh, yeah, we designed that,’ they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, that place feels so comfortable; it’s always very [welcoming].’”

The team hopes those glowing responses will lead to even larger undertakings in the future. “We love that project that comes to us that would like both design and building,” Franceschi says. “The work [from our builders] is so on point, and they’re able to really offer everything to a client. If all we did was very conceptual, and we didn’t end up … creating construction documents, we’re no better than Pinterest, right? We need to be able to have an idea and execute it.”

After all, community is much more than just a concept. It’s the people with whom you laugh, cry, celebrate, explore—and the places where you gather with them to do it all.

The post The Designers Behind Some of Your Favorite Watering Holes appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

“I remember writing one jingle about the bread at Subway,” Berman recalls. “It was a gospel tune, and it was, ‘It’s risen, oh, yeah.’ I’ll never forget [that] the first three [jingles] that the chief marketing officer ended up choosing were all ones that I had written, and, of course, I couldn’t tell them that, but it gave me a lot of confidence that I was on the right path.”

That path next led him to San Diego, and he continued to build his career, working at and then starting creative agencies. But then, in 2015, he took a different tack and started writing a book called Return on Courage.

“It was a three-year listening lap where I had the opportunity to sit with what I now call the brave, the bullish, and the brainiac,” he says. “The idea was [that] I was going to go around the country and interview astronauts and Navy SEALs and CEOs, founders, people that were being or living courage, and try to see why some people leap.”

The book was intended as a guide for businesses. He says his research taught him that if you don’t have a courageous leader, “good luck on selling a courageous idea.”

Berman decided to apply what he was learning to his own life. He was co-founder and chief creative officer of i.d.e.a., an integrated creative agency based in San Diego, but “when I started to take what I was learning, it pretty much gave me the courage to fire myself in 2017,” he says.

Two years later, he published his book and launched his new company, Courageous, at the same time. Berman describes the business as a “think-feel-do consultancy.” 

Berman helps companies identify how different fears are limiting growth. “There’s industry fears, there’s product fears, there’s service fears, there’s perception fears, which is marketing. And then there’s personal fears,” says Berman. “[Courageous] helps corporations fight fear and gives them the tools, the framework, the words, and the confidence to be courageous and to lead courageously. Our job is to be good listeners and problem slayers and help them get unstuck. I’ve been able to do that.”

In addition to hosting a podcast based on his book, Berman gives keynote speeches to corporate staff and runs workshops where he helps companies find their sticking points.

“[We offer] something we call Courageous Summits. It’s a three-day, off-site [program] that we’re designing for our partners,” he says. “I think we can all acknowledge that with remote work … the connection time just isn’t there. We aren’t connecting like we used to. The cultures are broken, and we don’t need more face time like Apple FaceTime. We need more real face time. So what we’ve been doing is designing these courageous summits for our partners, and we’re listening to what the challenges are from the client, where there may be fear with the team, and then we’re coming back with this three-day agenda.”

Berman has now spoken at major companies like Google, Snapchat, Logitech, and Kellogg’s. Courageous also offers consulting and has worked with businesses including OGX, MeUndies, and The Good Patch.

“We’re helping companies figure out what their tomorrow might look like and helping them build a courageous action plan for … the next three to five years,” he says.

So, how much will that insight set companies back? “When you compare us against what a Bain or McKinsey charges for similar services, we’re just a pittance for the value and ROI we’re providing,” says Berman. “It’s pretty clear that there’s a need for what we’re doing.” The fact that he’s working with such big-time players speaks for itself, he says.

“It’s been cool to just sort of be an ally and a friend of the leader,” he adds. “I think the more time I’ve spent in this arena, the more I realize how lonely it truly is to be the leader. They need … a partner that can give them the clarity and the tools so they can continue to move their organizations forward.”

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The post The Art of Teaching Fortune 500 Brands To Be Courageous appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

An Encinitas local originally from Canada, Collens first fell for seaweed in college. While taking a botany class on a remote patch of Vancouver Island, she learned to collect and identify different species of kelp and seaweed. “I thought it was really beautiful,” she says, “so I just kept doing it.”

Collens went on to earn a PhD in kelp population genetics and evolutionary biology. Today, she works in biotech and in her spare time runs Stone Steps Herbarium, a small business vending her handmade, original botanical seaweed presses and prints.

Her art depicts the strange and enchanting world of marine plant life. The silhouettes in each print are full of movement. As you gaze at them, you can almost imagine the seaweed undulating in an underwater current. The shapes often appear alien and otherworldly, like preserved samples of extraterrestrial flora.

To find her raw materials, Collens waits for low tide and then combs local beaches for fresh seaweed that has washed ashore or detached from rocks. “I just look for things in the piles everybody else walks past,” she says. “I’m looking for [seaweed] that’s fleshy and floppy and hasn’t been beaten up by the sand or by kelp flies.”

Often, she forages on Grandview, Moonlight, and Beacons beaches on early morning strolls. The whole experience, Collens says, is meditative. “There are times when I’ve gone out in the morning and it feels like I’m the only one out there,” she reflects. “You get a sense for what it would have been like when the first people were on the beaches. It’s magical.”

Other favorite foraging locations include Sunset Cliffs and the La Jolla tide pools. But there are beaches from which she never collects, namely any local Marine Protected Areas, where human activity is restricted to conserve wildlife and protect local ecosystems.

Foraging has given Collens an encyclopedic knowledge of local seaweed species. If she can’t identify a specimen, she turns to reference books or recruits her husband, who earned his PhD in a similar field, to help. “The two of us will nerd out and figure it out together,” she says. Their first date, in fact, was a 6 a.m. foraging excursion. They now have two daughters, and the whole family is involved. The Stone Steps Herbarium production studio is the family’s kitchen table. Her husband and daughters are used to opening the fridge and finding Ziploc bags stuffed with fresh seaweed from the morning’s beachcombing, waiting to become art.

Most academic institutions and natural history museums are home to an herbarium—a library for plants. Storing these specimens requires a scientific process, a standardized way of gathering and pressing and labeling. This is more or less the process Collens follows.

To create prints, she uses a professional-grade plant press. The key, she says, is sourcing healthy specimens and drying them as fast as possible. “If you’re making beef jerky or dried fruit and just storing the meat or fruit on your counter without doing anything else to it, yes, it would rot, and, yes, it would smell terrible,” she explains. “But if you dry those things quickly, then you can preserve them for a really long time.”

The result of this process are prints that capture the diverse structures, textures, and colors of California’s seaweed. They’re beautiful, to be sure—but they’re also educational. This is part of what Collens loves about her work. She gets to introduce people to the fascinating features of local marine plant life and help them identify species that they’d otherwise overlook.

“People are often really surprised when they see my stuff,” she says. “They’re like, ‘Wait, this is all seaweed? I’ve never seen that before.’ I love that it’s something that’s so ubiquitous, that I’m just helping people to recognize that it’s right under their feet.”

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In 2021, Joanne Johnson was working as a corporate professional in environmental sciences—but her passion was in decorating with plants. She created Fern Heights to offer unique eco-friendly pots to the masses. Every vessel is 3D-printed in SD using a durable plant-derived material. There are currently 17 different styles offered, including realistic dog and cat planters (and you can even get a custom one featuring your own four-legged friend).

Edible Adornments

The key to looking like a snack? Wearing one. Run by SDSU grad and artist Ilse Almazan, whimsical local jewelry company Resinuendo vends handmade earrings that resemble olives, eggs, baguettes, berries, tomatoes, and more, crafted from mixed materials like polymer clay, resin, and glass beads. Almazan also creates charming necklaces, hair accessories, and trinket trays.

Crossbody Cargoes

Until designers answer the cry for women’s jeans with actual pockets, those of us who refuse to stoop to cargo pants must find creative, comfy ways to haul our necessities. Enter Sash Bag, San Diegan Nichole MacDonald’s crossbody carrier with 10 stacked pockets and built-in wallets to evenly distribute weight. Bonus: The company partners with change making charities, giving back to Monarch Schools, local homeless shelters, and other nonprofits.

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Cue the walk-up song. This Sorrento Valley developer annually struts out the biggest baseball video game of the year: MLB: The Show. Launched in 2001, Sony San Diego Studio released the first game in the franchise back in 2006. Seventeen years later, they’ve cemented themselves in sports video game history. The Show has been a home run with fans and players alike—the 2021 version (featuring the Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr. on the cover) sold more than two million copies. In a city that loves baseball (GO PADRES!), the sport’s gaming future is in good hands.

Rockstar San Diego

With two of the top-10 best-selling games of all time (Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2), Rockstar is, well, a bonafide rockstar in the video game world. Founded by Diego Angel in 1984, Carlsbad’s Angel Studios started out producing television commercials. After developing a racing game for Windows PC in the late ’90s, the company attracted the attention of Rockstar Games.

In 2002, Rockstar’s parent, Take-Two Interactive, reported it had acquired Angel Studios for $41 million. Now officially Rockstar San Diego, the company established itself as a leader in immersive, open-world games. Whatever the local developer helps put out next, odds are it’ll be big.

Psyonix

When people are filling arenas to watch a video game, that’s a good sign for a developer. And Psyonix—headquartered in SD since 2009—struck gold with Rocket League, their crazy concoction of rocket cars and soccer (think Mario Kart meets World Cup, all in low gravity). With millions of sales, Rocket League remains a top esports draw, complete with rabid fanbase.

The post Meet the Locals Behind Some of Your Favorite Video Games appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

If this sounds like a good time, the three-wheeled electric vehicle from Carlsbad-based company Aptera might be your huckleberry. While it’s technically a motorcycle (hence the HOV access), its size and strong carbon fiber frame make it far more similar to a car, drivable by anyone with a regular license.

The Aptera breezes through the 332-mile trip with ease. Its battery pack affords it 400 miles on a full charge, while its solar-powered skin draws on the sun to constantly top off the battery as you drive, no specialized charging stations necessary.

Aptera co-founder Chris Anthony modeled the vehicle after a shark—a key design choice in the company’s effort to create the most efficient car on the market. “Sharks swimming close to the sea floor figured out millions of years ago that if they developed a hump on their back, it sucks away a lot of the pressure that builds in front of their nose,” Anthony says.

Aptera paid the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to test the unique design with the same kind of supercomputer that tests rockets. Looking something akin to a hovercraft, the sloping shape allows air pressure to effortlessly flow over the surface of the vehicle, unlike the boxy nose of a traditional SUV barreling down the freeway.

“We found that out through computational fluid dynamics. We were like, ‘Oh, that’s what fish do, too,’” Anthony explains.

Sea creatures weren’t the lone muse for the vehicle. Some of Aptera’s inspiration comes from Italian supercars composed of a lightweight carbon fiber cage that Anthony says is many times stronger than steel. Formula 1 vehicles use a similar body.

I got the chance for a test spin in an earlier model and can confirm that this car is zippy, reaching 60 miles per hour in just a few seconds and hitting a top speed of 101 miles per hour. Its capacity for quickness is thanks to the simplicity of how electric motors work—and why vehicles driven by electricity came well before gas-powered ones back in the early 19th century. “The electric motor has only one moving part. The electric field spins the rotor connected to the wheels,” Anthony says.

Cars powered by gas, known as combustion vehicles have a lot of moving parts, including injectors and crank shafts. All that movement causes gas-powered vehicles to instantly lose a quarter of the energy from their fuel. Aptera’s mission is to strip down motors to the essentials, cutting weight and maximizing aerodynamics.

Their designs are more than a decade in the making. The business launched as Aptera Motors, Inc. in 2010. But it had trouble getting off the ground after a failed attempt to secure seed funding from the US Department of Energy initiative that helped jumpstart Tesla.

The fate of electric vehicles is much brighter now. The federal government recently relaunched that program, making billions of dollars available in direct loans under Congress’ Inflation Reduction Act. Aptera submitted another application and raised over $90 million via a crowdfunding campaign.

More than 45,000 people put $100 down to reserve an Aptera, Anthony says. The launch edition’s price starts at $33,200. Because costs go up depending on battery size and solar application, the total worth of Aptera’s pre-ordered cars is over $1.5 billion. The company hopes to produce its first vehicles by late 2024, depending on when it hits its funding milestones.

The car’s efficient design also streamlines the assembly process. Aptera’s one-room Carlsbad microfactory doesn’t look large enough to manufacture whole automobiles at first blush. A large blue line along the floor winds through the building, tracing the track each car will take down an automated assembly line powered by robots. The plan is to launch more microfactories wherever the highest density of orders are coming from.

Each microfactory will be able to produce 40 Apteras per day. The car’s six main components, including its carbon fiber body (which comes from CPC Group in Modena, Italy, a main manufacturer of supercars and motorcycles), arrive pre-assembled, so it’s just a matter of fusing them together, a process that takes less than two hours.

The company’s launch model is a two-seater with a ton of leg room. The motors are stored in the wheels. The car looks small in photos—and, to be honest, in real life, as well—but it’s about as long as a Prius and an inch wider than a Ford F-150 pickup truck.

Potential customers frequently ask Anthony whether the car is safe, a standard query for any new vehicle on the market. He reminds them that Aptera is using the same cage as a Formula 1 car, which is designed to race at speeds well over 150 miles per hour. The vehicle has airbags, safety belts, all the traditional fixings of a regular car, Anthony says.

“But you can’t buy a car under half a million that has this type of carbon fiber technology,” he adds.

Back in Vegas, a simple extension cord and a wall outlet are enough to plug in your car so it can recharge while you explore the Strip. (Though it will be supercharger-compatible, in case you want to hit the road again more quickly.) Or, just park it and let the sun do the work.

The post Carlsbad’s Aptera Goes After the EV Car Market With Solar appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Our city’s companies have innovated and disrupted their way to the top in all kinds of sectors, some that are no-brainers (SD is, after all, biotech’s ground zero) and others that may take you by surprise (turns out sweat-proof sleepwear is in high demand). Here are some big ideas powering industry in San Diego.

Illumina

DNA is the Rosetta Stone of us, and untangling it is a massive industry. Launched in 1998, Illumina is a leader in plug-and-play gene-sequencing tech, with products that help researchers fight cancer and find faster answers for disease. Breakthroughs like “semiconductor sequencing” are complicated stuff, but important. And lucrative.

TaylorMade

In 1979, Gary Adams created a golf club called the Pittsburgh Persimmon—the first golf driver with a head made of stainless steel instead of wood. (Pittsburgh is the city of steel, and persimmon is the wood old-timey golf clubs were made of.) It radically altered the game. Drives went farther, players felt mightier, scores got better, and TaylorMade became a household name.

Veyo

Each year, about 3.6 million people in the US miss doctor’s appointments because they can’t get a ride. A lift in an ambulance costs about $2,800 in San Diego. Veyo decided to apply the Uber model to non-emergency medical transportation, charging a dollar a ride. Their drivers get trained in CPR, HIPAA guidelines, and ADA requirements. Acquired by MTM in 2022, the company has a new HQ in La Jolla Square.

ClickUp San Diego

Business runs on collaboration. Digital collaboration. But we still have a natural fear of tech, so the software’s gotta be dynamic, efficient, and incredibly easy to use for borderline Luddites (thus why Canva is a $40 billion company). The ultimate no-brainer productivity and collaboration software has been one of the holy grails of the digital age, and San Diego’s ClickUp is a frontrunner. Since 2017, more than 300 massive global companies (including our very own Padres) have swooned over their teamsy flow.

Upper Deck

Started in 1988 by three friends (including a former equipment manager for the LA Rams), Upper Deck premium-ized the trading card experience. Compared to baseball cards of the ’70s and ’80s, theirs used higher-quality card stock with incredibly crisp photos that seemed almost 3D (their “diamond-cut” technology). They were also the first to patent an autograph-authentication process (forgeries are big, bad business). Upper Deck won the MLB contract in 1989, the NFL in 1990, the rest after that. They built a massive house of cards in Carlsbad, then expanded into games and experiences. Time to raid grandpa’s attic for any unopened packs.

Carvin Corporation

A good amount of America’s electric guitars are made by a family in Carmel Mountain Ranch. Lowell Kiesel created Carvin in 1946, and now the third gen of Kiesels runs it, expanding into audio gear like amps, pedals, and in-ear monitors (the tech that lets musicians hear themselves on stage). Weirdo rock legend Frank Zappa (a San Diego kid who attended Grossmont College and Mission Bay High) used Carvins. A decade ago, the family launched a spinoff, Kiesel Guitars.

Knockaround

Luxury sunnies brands go for high markups, when, in reality, almost all sunglasses—department store or liquor store—are made from the same plastic in the same warehouse. Adam “Ace” Moyer called BS on that arbitrary profit margin, launching Knockaround Sunglasses in 2005 with an eye for creativity, authenticity, and, most importantly, affordability. What they lost on markup, they gained in sheer sales. Knockaround is about to truly take off after recently inking deals with both the NFL and NHL.

Abcepta

Ask the layest of laypeople what industries San Diego is known for, and they’ll say “biotech.” It’s our big deal. One of the main raw materials for biotech is antibodies. Abcepta is one of the country’s leading
developers of antibodies for drug development and academic labs. They focus on major research areas, including cancer, metabolic disorders, cardiovascular health, neuroscience, and stem cell therapies.

Reef

Argentine brothers Fernando and Santiago Aguerre founded their casual sandal company in 1984, focusing primarily on surf culture. They sold to Rockport in 2018 (for a reported $139 million), and, since then, the Carlsbad-based company has taken off by broadening product lines to include shoes, slippers, and the like. Keep an eye on their Encinitas store, which is the start of a massive retail expansion.

AleSmith Brewing Company

AleSmith Brewing Company makes great beer, but so do a lot of brewers. Arguably, the big move that cemented them in the San Diego market came in 2014 with their Pale Ale .394. A collaboration with
the family of late Padres legend Tony Gwynn, the beer is named after his highest batting average. A
portion of proceeds go to the Tony and Alicia Gwynn Foundation.

Salty Crew

Ocean-centric culture has sustained many San Diego brands through the years, from Rusty and Matuse to Saint Archer Brewing (RIP). Salty Crew was started in 2014 by brothers Jared and Hayden Lane and their friends Milo Myers and CJ Hobgood (a pro surfer). Their t-shirts are in seemingly every surf shop and on every back now. Their goal was to get kids into the water—“Salty” stands for “salvaging a lifestyle for tomorrow’s youth.” Australian surf and skate firm Globe International now owns 50 percent.

Cool-jams

What if there was no cool side of the pillow because both sides stayed chilly? Anita Mahaffey’s deep struggle with sleep motivated her to establish Cool-jams in 2007. Humans sweat when we slumber. Her pillows and sleepwear are made of an innovative microfiber fabric that pulls that moisture away from the skin, disperses it faster across a greater surface, and conducts airflow for evaporation, equaling sweet dreams and dreamy profits.

COOLA Suncare

Chris Birchy was a beach bum bartender, professional painter, branding agency creative, and highly successful online gambler. Then he started toying with the idea for an organic, sustainable sunscreen. When both his parents were diagnosed with skin cancer, it became a calling. He created COOLA Suncare in his garage in 2007, replacing potentially harmful ingredients (like parabens) with plant cells. COOLA now has a massive facility in Oceanside.

The post 13 Companies Powering Industry in San Diego appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

“We are really committed to reinvigorating American watch-building,” co-owner Brianna Edwards says. “Most American watches these days are powered by Japanese or Swiss movements. We wanted the engineering, the parts, and the assembly to be all-American.”

She and her co-owner brother, Evan, share a long-standing tradition of gifting each other watches on big occasions like graduations and round-number birthdays. “We were always watch nerds,” Edwards, 33, says. “We were in the Gaslamp, talking about how cool it would be if we could design our own watch.”

They began prototyping in 2021. Their watches are powered by American-made, interchangeable quick-release bands. “They’re a dressier type of everyday watch,” she says. In 2024, look for Lineage to host a pop-up shop (with an eye towards opening a brick-and-mortar) while releasing more designs, including ones for smaller wrists.

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