North Bay Business Journal

Kaiser Permanente employees in California, including about 4,700 in the North Bay, voted to stay with their current trade union, rather than switching, according to results announced Thursday afternoon by the National Labor Relations Board.

NOVATO — Bank of Marin Chief Financial Officer Christina Cook to is leaving the bank to join Petaluma-based First California Mortgage Company. Bank of Marin has nearly doubled in size since Ms. Cook joined the bank as CFO and executive vice president in August of 2004, growing from $737 million in assets at the end of 2004 to $1.43 billion in assets as of March 31 of this year. The 35-year-old First California Mortgage has funded more than $200 billion in residential loans across the United States throughout its history.

Share your thoughts on this week’s NBBJ Pulse Poll question: “Do you think physician’s assistants, nurse practitioners and other mid-level health care providers can shore up the projected primary care physician shortage?”

As the Affordable Care Act looms large on the minds of health care providers, lawmakers and providers are increasingly calling for less stringent limitations on nonphysicians in order to meet demand spurred by the forthcoming influx of new patients.

NAPA — Sixty-four percent of registered nurses at Queen of the Valley Medical Center who voted on Tuesday whether to affiliate with the California Nurses Association, an affiliate of National Nurses United, chose to do so.

NOVATO — Raptor Pharmaceutical Corp. (Nasdaq: RPTP) today said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its drug designed for the treatment of nephropathic cystinosis, a rare and possibly life-threatening metabolic disorder.

It’s the first FDA-approved product for Raptor, started in 2005 by former executives and researchers of Novato-based BioMarin Pharmaceutical, itself a developer of treatments for rare diseases.

U.S. commercial launch is expected by July. FDA approval triggers the second of two $25 million payments to Raptor.

VACAVILLE — From WiFi and Bluetooth to the possible harvesting of solar power from space, the humble radio frequency wave is having something of a high-tech heyday.

Vacaville startup RF Biocidics is greening up the processing of fruits, nuts and potentially a wide range of foods by subjecting them to low-frequency radio waves.

Site preparation is set to begin in May for large shopping center and distribution warehouse projects in Petaluma and Fairfield: 346,000-square-foot Deer Creek Village and 791,000-square-foot Solano Logistics Center. …

Richard Coney, senior property manager in the Santa Rosa office of Keegan & Coppin, and Justin Barton, a property manager in the brokerage’s Larkspur office, earned the Certified Property Manager designation. …

After returning from the annual executive conference for Western Independent Bankers, a community bank trade group, Russell Colombo, president and CEO of Bank of Marin, said that leaders in the industry are starting to express greater optimism after a historically challenging economic period. …

Loans and deposits have grown at Bank of Napa, N.A., with net assets growing 8.2 percent over the course of a year and approaching $150 million as of March 31. …

Profiles of 2013 winners of the Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 Awards, listed alphabetically.

As Sonoma County’s political leaders continue to move forward with the process of setting up a county-wide public power agency, many in the business community are examining what the renewable energy-focused proposal would mean to their operations.

NAPA — Napa Valley hosted 2.94 million visitors in 2012, generating $1.4 billion in direct tourism spending, and more than three-quarters of them come for dining and wine tasting, according to results from two studies released Thursday.

NAPA — Fifty-four rental townhomes and a 124-unit apartment complex on the Sheveland Ranch property in south Napa sold to a San Francisco real estate investment firm for $39.5 million.

Health insurance brokers, employers and individuals are all eagerly awaiting full-scale implementation of the California Health Benefits Exchange, a centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act, but it’s still anyone’s guess as to what it will look like.

Share your thoughts on this week’s NBBJ Pulse poll question: “Will the Affordable Care Act be ready to implement in California in January 2014?”

NOVATO — Bank of Marin Bancorp (NASDAQ: BMRC), parent company of Bank of Marin, today reported net income in the first three months of 2013 increased from the prior quarter and was level with income a year before.

The bank realized a net recovery on troubled loans for the first time in several years.

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.

Given continued uncertainties around immigration policy in Washington and Sacramento and the budding of a 2013 crop that could be decent-sized, North Coast winegrape growers are looking for ways to stretch labor farther so they aren’t as short-handed as a number were during the record-volume 2012 season.

Health insurance brokers, employers and individuals are all eagerly awaiting full-scale implementation of the California Health Benefits Exchange, a centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act, but it’s still anyone’s guess as to what it will look.

While details of what the exchange, also known as Covered California, will look like have emerged recently, a key piece of just how effective it will has not yet been determined: the monthly premiums for plans that will be offered to individuals and employers.

Demand continues to outpace supply for housing markets in the North Bay and the Bay Area, and housing prices continue to climb skyward at double-digit rates, according to a monthly housing report by San Diego-based DataQuick.