Virtual oranges

Mathis Winkler

Stepping inside James Van Orden’s offices on Dover Drive, it’s hard to

miss what he’s passionate about.

There’s a fake orange tree in one corner and dried and plastic oranges

lie about the place. He’s got pictures of oranges on the walls forming

part of the logo for The Orange Connection, Van Orden’s company, the

citrus fruit appears on business cards, posters and computer screens.

But Van Orden, 31, who lives at the Balboa Bay Club and grew up in the

city, is not in the business of selling oranges. About 1 1/2 years ago, the former gym fitness program director founded an Internet company with

one goal in mind: creating a Web site that informs people about

everything Orange County has to offer.

“There’s no community platform created like that,” Van Orden said. “We

live in isolation.”

When he starts talking about his plans, his voice fills with

excitement. There’s so much to do, so much to accomplish, he said. Van

Orden plans to give 20% of the company’s profits to charities and

organizations that will build parks in the county.

“I want to make a difference,” he said. “God’s been bringing a bunch

of great people here. This is all the means to a big picture in the end.”

Just like his company, which is still struggling and trying to avoid

the fate of scores of other dot-com start-ups that have collapsed in the

recent past, Van Orden seems hard pressed at times to really explain what

he wants to do.

He’s hoping to form alliances with chambers of commerce around the

country and set up Web sites for businesses. He and others at the company

have already entered information for about 36,000 businesses on their Web

site. But Van Orden wants to take things a step further and set up

individual sites for business owners that contain more information.

That costs money, of course, and he hopes the county’s chambers of

commerce will give him a part of their membership dues to make it all

work.

George Blanc, who works as Orange Coast College’s administrative dean

of economic development and oversees the college’s small business

assistance center, said Van Orden’s plans have potential.

Blanc, who offers free advice to budding entrepreneurs, has become

somewhat of a mentor for Van Orden and said that he’s trying to find

financial backers for The Orange Connection.

Describing the Web site as an attempt “to unite the county in a

business way, and generally speaking the community at large,” Blanc said

Van Orden’s idea might help to give county residents a sense that they’re

more than inhabitants of a vast suburbia south of Los Angeles.

“Whenever you turn on your television, you feel like saying, ‘Do we

exist?” Blanc said, adding that he has already told officials at the

Fountain Valley Chamber of Commerce about Van Orden’s Web site and

received a positive response.

In Newport Beach, business leaders said they’d gladly hear about Van

Orden’s ideas.

But Richard Luehrs, the president and chief executive officer of the

Newport Harbor Area Chamber of Commerce, added that his team had already

set up a comprehensive Internet guide to businesses in town.

“We have [a Web site] in Newport Beach with o7

http//:www.newportbeach.comf7 ,” Luehrs said, adding that the site gets

about two million hits per month. “We’ve spent a great deal of time and

energy making ours user-friendly. But we’re always interested in knowing

what others are doing.”

Back in his office, Van Orden said his dream of an online Orange

County community was still far from becoming reality.

“I don’t know what exactly we can do together,” he said, referring to

his plans to contact chambers of commerce. “But I’d like to kind of

evolve it.”

FYI

The Orange Connection can be found at o7

https://www.theorangeconnection.com. f7 Information: (949) 574-9999.