SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY : He Trades Megabytes for Megadoses and Opens Vitamin Store

Dean South was making more than $75,000 a year as a senior product marketing manager at the computer division of Toshiba America Information Systems in Irvine when he decided to veer out of the fast lane and take the road to Shangri-La.

South, 35, quit his 11-year computer industry career in May to go into business for himself. On Monday, he opened the Shangri-La vitamin and health food store at Jamboree Center in Irvine.

“Selling computers is fine, but I looked at the world and decided I needed to do something to care for human beings,” said South, an engineer by training. “I consider this a higher mission.”

South said that he has been interested in health and fitness for more than 20 years and that he has been a vegetarian for the past several years. Still, whether to drop out of the corporate crowd was a decision he agonized over for eight months. He survived a round of layoffs at Toshiba earlier this year but then decided it was the right time to leave.

He said that he invested more than $100,000 in the 1,100-square-foot store and that he expects to make barely half his previous salary during his first year of business. Besides vitamins and health food, the store offers books on the environment and on self-help, health and motivational subjects.

“The reaction I’ve gotten from (former) co-workers has been positive,” he said. “Many people want to get out of corporate life because it’s stressful and not meaningful to what they really want to do. People are pleased and a little envious because I don’t have the corporate stress anymore.”

South decided to open the store in Irvine so as to cater to the corporate crowd, and he plans to do a little joint marketing with area health clubs.

“It may be a store you would expect to open in Berkeley in Irvine, but corporate people with stress in their lives can use this sort of store more,” he said.

If it is successful, he said, he would eventually open more stores.

“I think in the 1990s you will see a lot of people get back to the basics and to what they consider to be making a more tangible contribution to society.”