UC Irvine (UCI) recently hosted a three-part series of virtual panel discussions with leaders in public health, public policy and business to share thoughts on the current and lasting impacts of COVID-19.

The third and final UCI Forum on COVID-19, covering business impacts, was moderated by Richard Sudek, executive director at UCI Beall Applied Innovation and chief innovation officer at UCI.

The panel included Lucy Dunn, president and CEO of the Orange County Business Council; Linda DiMario, executive vice president of the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce; Joseph Lozowski, president and CEO of Tangram Interiors; and Bruce DD MacRae, vice president of state government affairs for the Western U.S. at United Parcel Service.

Panelists focused on the importance of managing public health during a pandemic, as it relates to business, as well as connecting people to resources.

“You can’t have a livelihood without your life,” said Dunn. “[the Orange County Business Council has] felt that our leadership role has been to stay abreast daily, literally, on everything coming out of the federal, the state, the community, the county and our local [government] and try to connect people and resources the best that we can possibly do.”

The pandemic has provided the business community the opportunity to collaborate like it has never done before. Companies large and small across industry sectors are working together to take a health-first approach to their operations to ensure sustainability now and through the entirety of the crisis.

Sudek, who is now serving on the Governor’s Small Business & Innovative Startups Recovery Working Group, will play a vital role in helping California and its current and future small businesses and startups recover from the unprecedented impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic

“[Applied Innovation is] really trying to build the Modern American Dream, and now there’s no time more important than now to build that Modern American Dream and to resurge our economy,” said Sudek. “Applied Innovation plans to be center and forward in that effort to help the Orange County business ecosystem resurge back as we go … post this pandemic.”

Watch the first panel, second panel and third panel of the three-part UCI Forum series to learn more about the impacts of COVID-19 and how Orange County will move forward.

Main photo was taken at an event that took place prior to California’s stay-at-home order.