North Bay Business Journal

SANTA ROSA — GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (GTAT), a U.S. supplier of manufacturing equipment for solar and energy-efficient lighting products, has announced the acquisition of Thermal Technology LLC of Santa Rosa in a deal that values the supplier of high-temperature furnaces at more than $14.7 million.

NORTH BAY – The U.S. Department of Commerce gave final approval to an application submitted by the Port of San Francisco last October to expand its Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) No. 3 service area to include portions of Sonoma and Napa Counties, in addition to Contra Costa, Marin and Solano counties.The former service area was limited to San Francisco and San Mateo counties.

Novato-based 2K, a video-game publishing label of New York-based Take-Two Interactive Software, is expanding its North Bay development studios for the second time in the past several months, building a Petaluma motion-capture studio. …

Santa Rosa-based HybridCore Homes is garnering orders and building industry accolades for its factory-built room modules designed significantly reduce onsite construction time and trades scheduling. …

Spaceship-like Aptera 2e three-wheeled electric roadsters may begin rolling out of a downtown Santa Rosa industrial facility to buyers, now that the city of Santa Rosa has agreed to allow assembly of vehicles there. …

A nationwide group of BIM users, known as the BIMForum, is seeking industry comments by June 7 on a proposed set of standards for completeness and reliability of the models during design and construction. …

Allen Wine Group, LLP, a Calistoga-based wine industry business advisory service and CPA firm, now offers bookkeeping services. …

Nine Marin County communities recently qualified for national “Green Power Community” recognition by the Environmental Protection Agency due to the countywide switch to renewable electric service from Marin Clean Energy. …

Rohnert Park-based sheet metal engineering and fabricator ASM Precision, Inc., purchased and installed a new AMADA EMLK 3610NT punch and laser combination machine. …

Zap Jonway Automobile (ZAAP), manufacturer of electric vehicles and other new energy vehicles with operations in Santa Rosa and China, is exhibiting at the 15th International Shanghai Automobile & Manufacturing Technology Exhibition. …

The city of Santa Rosa earned the highest achievement for its economic development programming — the Award of Excellence — from the California Association of Local Economic Development. …

Healdsburg’s SHED, a multifaceted market, café, coffee bar, fermentation bar and “modern Grange” event center is now open to the public. …

SANTA ROSA — SenarioTek has been able to survive economic slumps over its 10 years in business by diversifying target markets for its products used in testing wireless communications systems.

Sonoma County recently has seen a sharp increase in craft beer makers opening alongside well-established producers, helping a region synonymous with wine tap more into a business with brewing demand across California.

In recent months, scores of startup breweries have emerged while the big three — Lagunitas, Russian River Brewing Company and Bear Republic — all mull expansion or increase capacity.

SANTA ROSA — To help strengthen local business access to global markets, keep jobs at home and provide North Bay companies with information they can use to expand and facilitate foreign trade, the Sonoma County Economic Development Board and the U.S. Department of Commerce plan to co-host a first-of-its-kind export seminar in Petaluma on May 9.

In other import-export news, a proposed expansion of the existing Foreign Trade Zone No. 3 to encompass much of the North Bay has moved closer to completion.

Bank of Marin hired Jim Burke as chief information officer. …

Zero Breast Cancer, a nonprofit organization in Marin County, will honor the following individuals and organizations for their contributions to the understanding of breast cancer: David Gullion, M.D., Carol Kronenwetter, Ph.D., Regan Fedric.

The 2013 Francine Levien Activist honorees are Stig Westling, MBA, Jonathan Mooney, MBA and Janine Elliott, MBA, co-founders of Skip to Renew, a company that was launched through the Dominican University Venture Greenhouse. …

Michael Gregory, sales associate with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage’s Petaluma office, has been awarded membership in the company’s International Sterling Society, an honor bestowed upon the top Coldwell Banker sales associates worldwide. …

Rebecca Celli, sales associate with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage’s Petaluma office, has earned membership into the company’s International President’s Circle, a prestigious honor bestowed upon the top Coldwell Banker sales associates worldwide. …

Sodaro Estate Winery appointed a new winemaking team: Denis Malbec and May-Britt Malbec. …

Shipments of wine directly to consumers from wineries in Napa and Sonoma counties, accounting for 69 percent of such shipments from U.S. sources, last year grew at 8.0 percent and 10.1 percent in value, respectively, helping push U.S. winery-to-consumer shipment value past that of wine exports for the first time, according to a new study.

NAPA — La Saison Napa Valley opened a commercial kitchen in Napa to support its custom-events business as well as produce specialty foods.

BODEGA — Patty Karlin’s Bodega Artisan Cheese for nearly 30 years has helped put the North Coast on the map for handcrafted quality foods, but when faced with mounting costs of keeping her small-scale goat dairy in business, she turned to a startup funder of artisan food startups to take her products to a wider market.

SONOMA — Food products co-packer MPK Sonoma Corp. shut down at the end of February after a customer that made up 95 percent of revenue took production in-house in March.

SONOMA — The Cline family who make two Sonoma Valley wine brands purchased The Olive Press, an olive mill that produces gourmet oil, food and personal-care products from olives.

The business has its mill and a tasting room in Sonoma and a tasting room at Oxbow Public Market in Napa.

Sonoma County BEST (Building Economic Success Together) kicked off the “100 in 100″ effort on March 18. …

Petaluma Educational Foundation has been seeing increased activity in its TEC initiative, short for “Transforming Education in the Classroom.” …

Riley Flanagan, an eighth-grade student at Sonoma Country Day School, hosted a wine dinner in Healdsburg to benefit the the Community Child Care Council of Sonoma County (4Cs). …

Santa Rosa-based Zap said it is adding compressed natural gas power to its line of alternative-energy vehicles. …

Viña Perez Cruz appointed Sebastopol-based Paul Hobbs Imports as its U.S. importer. …

DAOU Vineyards and Winery of Paso Robles has retained Napa-based Wine Spoken Here. …

Santa Rosa-based Food & Wine Trails announced six new “wine shore adventures” for 2013. …

The North Bay Business Journal will honor exceptional manufacturing companies in the North Bay for their success and innovation in a special publication inserted in the North Bay Business Journal and will be recognized at an awards celebration in July. Nomination deadline is Monday, April 29.

PETALUMA — Telecommunications infrastructure system and software developer Cyan entered a deal to jointly develop products that help service providers significantly expand capacity efficiently.

VACAVILLE — RF Biocidics, maker of chemical-free food safety systems, today said Craig Powell is the new chief executive officer.

PETALUMA — A key outcome from the recent Manufacturing Trade Fair Feb. 20 was that a majority of exhibitors had jobs ready to be filled, with more on the way.

SANTA ROSA — About 400,000 Americans broke a collar bone last year. They tumbled off bicycles, tripped while jogging or walking and texting, fell out of trees and off of horses.

PETALUMA — Oculus Innovative Sciences is moving forward with its plan to launch a spinoff company, Ruthigen Inc., which will seek federal approval for a new drug that can possibly prevent a variety of surgical infections.