Meet SDSVP Partner, Steve Ness!

By Paul Thiel

People come to philanthropy in many ways. For SDSVP new board member Steve Ness, 55, it was a perfect storm of events. “I had sold my company about two years ago,” he says, “and [wife] Pam and I were at a point where we had the time and resources to give back to the San Diego community. It was perfect timing for us [to get involved].”

Of course there are numerous worthy causes to champion in San Diego and nationally, but what appealed most to Steve about SDSVP is its structure. “It’s an organization that actually teaches you how to be a good philanthropist,” he says.

The company he sold is San Diego-based Dynamic Instruments, Inc., manufacturer of audio recording and vibration monitoring products for commercial and military markets.

DI, which Steve and partners founded some two-dozen years ago, purchased the floundering Hardy Scales [now Hardy Instruments] and grew it to profitability within three years, thanks to an $11 million Navy contract followed by a $10 million USPS contract. Within 10 years, they added an analog recording company, which ultimately pioneered digital recording technology initially for Navy Intelligence and now available to the commercial sector, such as 911 call stations and any company that records customer conversations.

For Steve, who graduated UC San Diego — with honors — in 1976 with a degree in applied physics and information science or, in today’s parlance, computer science, the technical nature of DI was interesting but finally trumped by a higher calling. “Basically I worked for about five years as an engineer, but the balance of my career — about 27 years — I spent in technical management and corporate management.”

Of his four children, Steve suspects that only one, his youngest, may follow in his entrepreneurial footsteps. “Kyle is very much an inventor and problem-solver,” he says. "He is also interested in business concepts such as marketing and raising capital. I worked with my dad and brother and really enjoyed working with the two of them,” says Steve, “and Kyle has said he’d really like the opportunity for us to work together.”

Kyle, who is a senior in high school, is about four hours away from earning a private pilot license and shares a love of racing Porsches with Steve and Pam. Their oldest son, Scott, teaches English in China to preschool and elementary children and plans to return to the states and earn a PhD in literature and become a university professor. Daughter Stefanie works for Swiss company Tecan, maker of lab instruments for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and universities. And their youngest daughter, Shaina, is a single mom who is pursuing her degree while working.

“Every child is different and wonderful in their own way,” says Steve of his offspring.

So now that he has raised four kids and run and sold a successful company, does he consider himself retired? “I did for about two years,” he laughs, “but now I’m helping my wife run her new real estate company.”

This is the third such company started by Pam, whom Steve calls “fearless” about business. Her first was Teaching through Technology, a philanthropy that collected, refurbished and then donated used computers and printers to local public schools in the early 1990s. The second was a marketing and communications company she started so that she could be available to their children when they were younger. And her current venture, Stone Enterprises, buys, renovates and sells homes to first-time buyers. Their first property was renovated in five weeks and then sold in a mere 90 days.

“I am no longer the CEO of a company,” says Steve with a happy sigh, “I’m now just an employee, and I’m loving just working at her direction and doing what she needs done.”