UC Davis this month joined the Bay Area Council, one of the region's most influential business organizations, in a continuing effort to expand the university's presence in the Bay Area.

The Bay Area Council is a public policy advocacy organization of 275 major employers throughout the nine-county region. Because the westerly portion of UC Davis sits in Solano County, the university was eligible to join.

"UC Davis is very much in the Bay Area already," said Nicole Biggart, dean of the Graduate School of Management. "Having a seat on the Bay Area Council will make us part of conversations that affect what the campus is doing."

Membership in the Bay Area Council is part of the larger vision for UC Davis, which seeks to draw students and brainpower from the San Francisco region.

To this end, Biggart and UC Davis Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef briefed Bay Area executives at a regional summit in January, sharing with them recent activities and research findings. The event gathered more than two dozen senior managers, entrepreneurs and alumni representing such groups as the Bay Area Council, Pixar, GE Blue Shield of California, Silicon Valley Bancshares, Promontory Financial Group, Levi Strauss and Company, and Deloitte and Touche.

It is important to build these connections in the business community, said Biggart, adding that joining the council was a "very easy" process and a natural fit for UC Davis.

"The Bay Area Council recognized that we have a lot to contribute and they welcomed our membership," she said.

While Biggart and Barry Klein, the Vice Chancellor of the Office of Research, have taken the lead roles in building this new relationship, they received support from other campus leaders, including Vanderhoef.

"Barry and I spend time in the Bay Area and realize that this is an important link for the campus," she said.

"More importantly, the reality of our region is that we are very connected from Santa Cruz to Lake Tahoe. We are in the midst of a development corridor that connects us all."

New MBA program

The Graduate School of Management last fall launched a "Bay Area MBA" program — and certainly it will benefit from UC Davis forays into the Bay Area business community. For the MBA program, students can take weekend classes at the San Ramon Valley Conference Center, 35 miles east of San Francisco.

Biggart said the school's market research found a significant demand among both employers and working professionals for a high-quality executive MBA program in the East Bay.

Then there is the word-of-mouth factor. More than half of all GSM alumni live and work in the Bay Area.

Biggart said, "We have over 51,000 alumni in the nine Bay Area counties. These are our ambassadors who will connect us to opportunities for research, the commercialization of our campus technologies, and to the employers of our graduates."

Other higher education members of the Bay Area Council include Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California at San Francisco, Saint Mary's College of California and John F. Kennedy University.

Geography is a criterion for membership in the council. As Biggart explained, Solano County is one of the "official" Bay Area Council counties, and UC Davis straddles Solano and Yolo counties.

Founded in 1945 as a way for the region's business community and like-minded individuals to concentrate and coordinate their efforts, the Bay Area Council focuses on shaping policy public policy in business, education, housing, energy, water, the environment, and transportation.

For more information, visit http://www.bayareacouncil.org.