The Port of San Diego's two marine cargo terminals — the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal and the National City Marine Terminal — serve as economic catalysts for the region. 

The University of California, San Diego Health System broke ground in January on a $698 million project that will tack on new hospitals to its La Jolla campus. 

A serial entrepreneur, Noble left architecture firm Tucker Sadler where he was CEO in 2006 to form two innovative companies simultaneously — Envision Solar, famous for its aesthetically appealing solar trees that shade cars while charging them; and Noble Environmental Technologies, out of which emerged eCor Global, an eco-friendly panel product made completely out of recycled material that can be adapted for a variety of uses. 

About a year from now, San Diego’s Lindbergh Field will have a fully functional Terminal 2 and improved access to the entire facility. Construction work to expand the airport is more than 50 percent complete. 

In March 2011, Soitec, a French manufacturer of electrical semiconductor materials, announced that San Diego would be the site of its new North American solar-manufacturing headquarters. By December 2011, the company decided on a location and purchased a building that would house its operations. Today, that site in Rancho Bernardo, formerly owned by Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) is mere weeks away from becoming a working facility. 

Thousands of migratory birds and other wildlife have a new home on the shores of South San Diego Bay, thanks to an award-winning restoration project led by the Port of San Diego. 

As November’s general election creates numerous possibilities for policy change both in San Diego and across the country, a group of executives from companies and groups involved in the expansion of solar energy systems discussed the state of their economies at a Daily Transcript roundtable. 

In the aftermath of the summer bankruptcy of the government-backed California solar panel maker Solyndra, expectations among renewable energy wonks, who describe the company’s failure as an outlier among many successes, remain generally high. But some policy research analysts are more skeptical — not doubtful, but still skeptical. 

When entering San Diego's business community about 30 years ago, Clint Walker’s aim had nothing to do with being in the solar business. His success as the co-founder and president of Southwestern Solar Systems since his entrance to the business in 2009 came about in much the same fashion his other major endeavors have. 

When Cecilia Aguillon, director of marketing and government relations for Kyocera Solar Inc., immigrated to the United States from El Salvador as a teen, she grew into a young adult with a lofty goal in mind: to save the world. 

Some people look at buildings and see a combination of wood, steel and mortar with a number of things inside to make them more comfortable and workable — lighting, computers and maybe a few windows, even if they can't be opened.