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LONG BEACH, CA-Most of the 175 industrial players who attended the first annual RealShare Industrial West Conference, sponsored by Real Estate Media and held at the Long Beach Marriott Hotel September 13 and 14, gushed about the health of the Southern California industrial market. One of the contrarians was Jim Curtis, co-founder and principal of San Francisco-based Bristol Group Inc.While Curtis pointed out strengths in Southern California's industrial market, his praise was more subdued than most of the powerbrokers in attendance. Curtis squared off with Real Estate Media's group managing director Michael G. Desiato in a lively and informative "Inside the Real Estate Mind" segment.Curtis used a sports analogy in describing the Los Angeles and Long Beach port. Wayne Gretzky was such a phenomenal hockey player because "he followed a philosophy of always skating to where the puck is going, not to where it is.," Curtis said. "Well, Los Angeles and Long Beach are where the puck is, but is it going to be here in the future?"Although Seattle and other port cities will siphon off some of Los Angeles' traffic, according to Curtis, the expected increase of product from China will allow the Port of Los Angeles to continue to grow, although at a slower rate. And that is a good thing. "Asia is growing at 9%-12% and Los Angeles is not set up for that level of growth."He said "reliability and redundancy in the supply chain" will be the driving forces as the global economy moves forward. With China already controlling much of the manufacturing, it makes more sense for Chinese companies to become more involved on the distribution and warehousing side of the supply chain as well.Curtis' company owns 13.5 million sf around the country with roughly eight million sf in Southern California. He said he views Bristol Group as a "workout firm" that delivers much of its value by "buying other people's mistakes" and repositioning them. "Real estate has many inefficiencies with lots of low hanging fruit," Curtis said, "and I'm there to monetize someone else's inefficiencies."