North Bay Business Journal

As human resources professionals, we are champions for creating success in our organizations through the best deployment of our people. In this role, one of our greatest desires is to have supervisors and managers think about their staff as valuable, strategic resources. How can we help our supervisors and managers identify and build the strategic value of their employees? How can we ensure that our supervisors and managers have the human capital they require to achieve great things? Creating and implementing a human capital management review process within your organization is one way to accomplish this task.

PETALUMA — The first North Bay Manufacturing Trade Fair and Jobs Expo, held on Feb. 20 at the Sequoia Business Center, attracted more than 340 attendees, including 100 high school students and dozens of candidates looking for jobs.

Spotlight on law firm managing partners, listed alphabetically by law firm name: Patrick Emery of Abbey, Weitzenberg, Warren & Emery, Wendy Whitson of Anderson, Zeigler, Disharoon, Gallagher & Gray, Michael Garcia of Beyers Costin, Arthur Curley of Bradley, Curley, Asiano, Barrabee & Gale, Alan Brayton of Brayton Purcell, John Mackie of Carle, Mackie, Power & Ross, Clay Clement of Clement, Fitzpatrick & Kenworthy, Cynthia Smith of Coombs & Dunlap, Scott Gerien of Dickenson, Peatman & Fogarty, Katherine Ohlandt of Farella Braun + Martel, Peter Kleinbrodt of Freitas, McCarthy, McMahon & Keating, John Friedemann of Friedemann Goldberg, Dave Gaw of Gaw Van Male, Michael Carlson of Geary, Shea, O’Donnell, Grattan & Mitchell, Andrew Giacomini of Hanson Bridgett, Jessica Karner of Keegin Harrison Schoppert Smith & Karner, Bill Arnone of Merrill, Arnone & Jones, Anne Hernandez of Mullen & Filippi, James Parrinello of Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller & Naylor, Michael Watters of O’Brien Watters & Davis, James Sell of Parton Sell Rhoades, Leslie Perry of Perry, Johnson, Anderson, Miller & Moskowitz, David Feingold of Ragghianti Freitas, Glenn Smith of Smith Dollar, Gregory Spaulding of Spaulding McCullough & Tansil, and Michael Vasquez of Vasquez, Estrada & Conway.

Doug Wright, shareholder in charge of the International Tax Services Group of Burr Pilger Mayer, was selected as a new board member of the Northern California World Trade Center after receiving unanimous approval from current members. …

Brian Pon, a partner in Financial Connections, a Corte Madera-based financial planning and wealth management firm, has been named Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Member at Golden Gate University for 2012. …

Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce hired Steve Lyman as membership sales manager. …

Kim Link has been hired as the marketing project and research support with the Santa Rosa Convention & Visitors Bureau, focusing on special marketing, sales and media projects. …

Kristina Combs is the new executive director of human resources and labor relations at College of Marin. …

Angwin resident Julie Crow-Petersen, R.N., was hired as a flight nurse by California Shock Trauma Air Rescue, better known as CALSTAR. …

Joan Kermath joined Decker Bullock Sotheby’s International Realty in Marin County. …

Veteran Marin real estate agent Rocky Vannucci joined Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage as sales manager for central and southern Marin County. …

Carra Clampitt of Eugene Burger Management Corp. in Rohnert Park has been elected to the statewide board of directors for Laguna Hills-based California Association of Community Managers. …

Kaiser Permanente has earned accreditation for its Santa Rosa Medical Center Family Residency Program, which was developed to attract and retain more physicians to the region in lieu of national shortages.

As North Bay lodging businesses look to the year ahead, most are expressing confidence for continued improvement, with occupancy rates and revenues showing steady gains across Sonoma, Napa and Marin counties.

Several North Bay restaurants and restaurateurs have been nominated as semifinalists in the James Beard Awards, a prestigious national recognition in the food and beverage industries.

SANTA ROSA — After a national search, St. Joseph Health appointed David Ziolkowski as its new chief operating officer in Sonoma County, overseeing Santa Rosa Memorial and Petaluma Valley hospitals, along with a number of other outpatient and community health services.

The Petaluma Health Center recently received recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance for being a “Patient Centered Health Home” for the care provided to patients in Sonoma and Marin counties. …

Santa Rosa Community Health Centers was awarded The Joint Commission’s “Gold Seal of Approval” for accreditation. …

Petaluma-based WellFX announced that United Health Centers of the San Joaquin Valley, a federally qualified community health center serving a patient population of 50,000, will launch the startup’s online social platform for its patients and employees. …

Queen of the Valley Medical Center Foundation was awarded a $500,000 give from The V Foundation for Cancer Research to support the Napa hospital’s clinical laboratory and pathology services in the forthcoming Herman Family Pavilion, a 72,000 square-foot facility currently under construction. …

Fairfield-based NorthBay Healthcare is seeking designation as an Emergency Department Approved for Pediatrics for its NorthBay Medical Center, considered a best practice that will enhance the nonprofit health system’s trauma services. …

A date has been set for a do-over in labor elections between the National Union of Healthcare Workers and Service Employees International Union–United Healthcare Workers West at Kaiser Permanente facilities in Northern California, including more than 4,700 workers in the North Bay. …

A date has been set for a do-over in labor elections between the National Union of Healthcare Workers and Service Employees International Union–United Healthcare Workers West at Kaiser Permanente facilities in Northern California, including more than 4,700 workers in the North Bay.

Sonoma-based staffing company Nelson recently opened of a new office in Southern California, the second location to open in that region within the past year. …

The 28 small- and mid-sized business for sale offerings that were sold in Sonoma County last month was a nearly three-fold increase over the same period last year, which saw 10 such transactions, according to BizBen Index. …

Prima Medical Group officially welcomed physicians from Palm Drive Medical Center to its expanding team. …

Santa Rosa-based TriVascular, Inc. recently announced U.S. Food & Drug Administration approval of its Ovation Prime abdominal stent graft system for the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms. …

San Francisco-based Burr Pilger Mayer, Inc., which has a Santa Rosa office, appointed Curtis Burr chief executive officer. …

First District Sonoma County Supervisor Susan Gorin said Pat Gilardi will be her district director. …

Women’s Initiative for Self Employment, an entrepreneurial training and funding nonprofit organization, elected Kim Kaselionis to its national governing board. …

The SMART board of directors unanimously elected Marin County Supervisor Judy Arnold as board chairman and Barbara Pahre as vice chairman. …

Dana Estates promoted Cameron Vawter to winemaker for the Rutherford-based cabernet sauvignon producer. …

ROHNERT PARK — Tourism in Sonoma County continues to rebound at an encouraging pace, with revenue and hotel occupancy rates besting those of the previous two years, experts said Wednesday at an annual meeting on local tourism.

While California’s insurance industry awaits the results of recently enacted reforms in the workers compensation world, employer premiums will likely still face upward pressure for most of 2013 as implementation takes shape, insurance experts said.

Partnership Health Plan of California, a Fairfield-based managed Medi-Cal plan, has petitioned the state for further expansion, hoping to include Lake and six other Northern California counties, in addition to the six North Coast counties already in its network. …

Woodruff Sawyer & Co. of Novato is holding an seminar to discuss health care reform for employers, with subject matter including compliance with the Affordable Care Act, the California State Exchange and private exchanges, benefit design strategies, major employer issues for 2014, and other matters. …

Kristina Keck has joined Woodruff-Sawyer & Co. in the firm’s employee benefits practice as account executive, retirement plans. …

Covered California, the state’s insurance exchange set up under health care reform, plans to provide grants totaling $43 million for community groups to help spread the world of the exchange and how it will work. …

Insurance experts have questioned whether the penalty levied on individuals and business for not obtaining health insurance as part of the Affordable Care Act would be enough of an incentive, but a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that would be. …

In its first month since getting state approval for expansion last fall, Sacramento-based HMO Western Health Advantage said it has enrolled some 750 persons into new employer health plans across Sonoma, Marin and Napa counties.

As full-scale implementation of health care reform nears ever closer, looming heavy on the minds of employers, insurers and health care providers, questions continue to swirl around numerous key issues, with California’s online health exchanges high among the heart-burn causing measures.

PETALUMA — More than 40 North Bay manufacturers plan to exhibit at the North Bay’s first industry trade fair to be held Wednesday, Feb. 20, from noon to 6 p.m. at the Sequoia Building located at 5341 Old Redwood Highway in Petaluma.

ROHNERT PARK — Sonoma County’s economic recession that led to more than 25,000 jobs lost is mostly over, as job growth through most of last year outpaced that of the Bay Area, state and nation as well as nearly matching national growth leader North Dakota, an economist with the closely watched UCLA Anderson Forecast told an annual gathering of civic and business leaders in the county.

Unemployment rates in the six North Bay counties edged upward or remained unchanged in November, according to state figures, as lower employment in farming and processing winegrapes after the harvest helped offset hiring in retail for the holidays.

Despite the dip in farming employment, Sonoma County continued to have among the fastest annual job growth in the state last month.