North County’s prosperity is linked to growing its high-wage, high-tech sector, said industry leaders who made a push for attracting and retaining high-tech businesses in the region at a recent round-table discussion.

Held March 6 at the San Diego North Economic Development Council, the panelists identified challenges for supporting technology in a diverse region that stretches from Carmel Valley to Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton along the coast, and inland to the communities of Poway and Ramona. The businesses themselves are diverse, with 95 percent of North County businesses consisting of five or fewer employees, according to the San Diego North EDC.

North County’s high-tech cluster includes computer software and electronics manufacturing industries, and tech firms in the defense, telecommunications and biotechnology industries.

“It’s a diverse enough economy that if we face a downturn there will be minimal impact,” said Gary Knight, the president and chief executive officer of San Diego North EDC.

Lars Helgeson, co-founder and director of Cooler E-mail in Solana Beach, said the diversity can be mutually advantageous to small businesses that are approachable to their peers and can market to each other. The pressure of competition is softened, yet they share similar product identities.

“Up here, we’ve picked up a lot of new customers,” Helgeson said of his e-mail communications firm that has 8,000 customers worldwide. “Our platform is small to midsize businesses.”

Kevin Carroll, the executive director of the local chapter of AeA, a business and technology networking association, said technology firms have been expanding in North County in the past three to five years, citing the clustering of tech firms in Poway and the relocation of 20 companies from Sorrento Valley to North County in the last two years. Emerging clusters such as alternative energy and a desalination plant are on the AeA’s radar screen of industries to promote locally.

The local software industry is also gaining ground in North County as it shifts its focus from the defense industry toward the commercial market and increasingly toward the high-tech cluster industries.