With more than 600 attendees, 64 corporate sponsors, and more than $200,000 in net proceeds for the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara, this year’s South Coast Business & Technology Awards (SCBTA) was quite the celebratory, networking, and fundraising event. Held June 23 at the Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort, the event honored top local businesses and leaders, as well as UCSB’s Department of Technology Management. Since 2001, the annual event has raised more than $3.5 million for the Scholarship Foundation.
Guests enjoyed an extended reception in the rotunda followed by dinner and the program in the grand ballroom, where they were welcomed by Event Co-Chairs Matt Rowe and Danna McGrew. A subset of a 30-member committee co-chaired by Rowe and McGrew nominated candidates for the awards and the full committee voted. The Entrepreneur of the Year Award went to ChipAgents Founder and CEO William Wang; Company of the Year Award to Mission Wealth; Excellence in Service to UCSB Department of Technology Management; Executive of the Year to AppFolio President and CEO Shane Trigg; Pioneer Award to Carey Group President Trudi Carey, and Rising Star Awards to Dimer Instruments and to Unwrap.
Wang was recognized as a world-leading expert in artificial intelligence. ChipAgents, which has raised $74 million in investment capital, is an AI-native platform redefining how semiconductors are designed and verified. It recently moved its headquarters to Santa Clara, but its research and development arm remain in Goleta. As a tenured UCSB professor, Wang has published more than 250 articles, with funding from top technology companies, and his work has influenced cutting edge AI applications.
Mission Wealth — Company of the Year — was founded in Santa Barbara in 2000 and is now a national investment advisory firm serving individuals, families, foundations, and institutions, managing billions in assets. It still maintains a large presence in Santa Barbara and remains a generous supporter of the Santa Barbara nonprofit community, both through employee involvement and philanthropy, including supporting this event for more than 25 years.
The Department of Technology Management at UCSB was lauded for playing a crucial role in launching many of the region’s high-tech ventures. Based on the premise that companies need people who both understand technology and business, it teaches how to use technology to create both products and businesses. It offers an undergraduate certificate to more than 2,000 students from more than 50 majors each year and has a masters and a Ph.D. program. It operates the New Venture Program, which provides hands-on workshops that culminate in its annual New Venture Competition, the catalyst for more than 70 startups in the region, including Apeel Sciences, Inogen, and Next Energy Technologies.
Executive of the Year Award honoree Shane Trigg joined real estate technology company AppFolio in 2020 and became President and CEO in 2023. Under his leadership last year, AppFolio had impressive 20 percent revenue growth, to $951 million. He led the launch of Appfolio Realm X, an industry-leading solution that embeds generative AI into the platform. Previously, Trigg was senior VP at Salesforce.
Event sponsor Cal State University Channel Islands Interim President Sue Andrzejewski introduced Pioneer Award recipient Trudi Carey as “a successful entrepreneur, architect, and real estate developer who has been a dynamic force in local building design and construction circles for nearly five decades.” Carey is also a general contractor and real estate broker. Andrzejewski called her the “embodiment of self-made success and a true pioneer in an industry that has not always embraced the talents of exceptional women.”
Carey is the president of the Carey Group, a firm providing architectural design, construction development, and property management services to big name clients throughout California and Arizona, including locally UCSB and the Towbes Group. The firm also does in-house development, including Patterson Self Storage. She has served on nonprofit boards, including for the Scholarship Foundation for 22 years.
Rising Star Honoree Dimer Instruments, founded in 2023 by Stephen Minne and Michael Larkin, designs and manufactures instruments for real-time data monitoring and quality assurance during the pharmaceutical manufacturing process. The products help companies develop drugs faster and achieve higher quality standards.
Unwrap has built a customer intelligence platform that leverages AI to analyze feedback across multiple channels, helping companies better understand their customers. Founded by former Amazon Alexa product managers Ryan Millner and Ashwin Singhania, the firm’s clients include DoorDash, Southwest Airlines, JetBlue, Microsoft, Hoka, Aura, and Perplexity.
All net proceeds go to the Scholarship Foundation, which this year awarded more than $8.4 million to 2,288 students. Roughly equal amounts went to students in the North and South County. The foundation manages more than 500 scholarship funds, for which it charges no administrative fees. Funds are available for undergraduate, graduate, and vocational studies. The foundation also provides free financial aid advising services, which generate significant additional funds for students.
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