North Bay Business Journal

SAN RAFAEL — Korean food has been topping trendy cuisine charts for the past few years, and now the Marin County natural foods entrepreneur who helped make it a household staple is getting national retailer attention for her new venture in seaweed snacks for the uber-health-conscious.

SAN RAFAEL — BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (Nasdaq:BMRN) recently reported a net loss of $39.8 million, or 31 cents per share, for the first quarter ended March 31, compared to a net loss of $24 million in the same period last year.

Marin Clean Energy unveiled a new, free energy savings tool available to homeowners in the Marin County and Richmond. … Novato City Council voted unanimously for the city become a customer of Marin Clean Energy ….

Restoration Hardware Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: RH), based in Corte Madera, reported net revenues increased 25 percent for its 2012–2013 fiscal year. …

Town Center Corte Madera (shopttowncenter.com) recently completed a renovation of the center’s office building, whose lobby now has what’s possibly Marin County’s first indoor “living wall.” …

North Bay Leadership Council is gearing up for the third year of its Algebra Academy program this summer in San Rafael and Novato. …

AT&T expanded its high-speed 4G LTE cell phone network to include areas of the North Bay. …

Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE: MDT), whose Cardio and Vascular division is based in Santa Rosa, announced Food and Drug Administration 510(k) clearance and the first U.S. clinical uses of its new Affinity Fusion oxygenation system. …

Exchange Bank announced its after-tax income for the first three months this year was 9 percent higher than a year before, partly attributed to improvements in efficiency and loan quality. …

A low interest rate environment a fierce competition for loans was cited for a decline in first quarter earnings for San Rafael-based Westamerica Bank, with parent company Westamerica Bancorporation announcing net income had fallen 17.6 percent versus the same period last year. …

Terry Davis has joined Santa Rosa’s SAFE-BIDCO as chief financial officer, his latest leadership role in a long history as a North Bay banking executive. …

Kimberly Kaselionis, who served as CEO of the former Circle Bank, has joined her mother, Kit Cole, as an inductee in the Marin Women’s Hall of Fame. …

SAN RAFAEL — Burnham Benefits Insurance Services, a sizable employee benefits brokerage based in Irvine, announced it would open a new branch in San Rafael, where it hopes to capitalize on proximity to San Francisco in driving growth in Northern California.

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. …

The Internal Revenue Service has released its annual “dirty dozen” list of top tax scams, highlighting schemes that have proliferated during the current tax season and detailing the ramp-up of its efforts to fight fraud. …

Santa Rosa-based accounting firm Dal Poggetto & Company has three new staff accountants from the Sonoma State University accounting program, with plans to hire a fourth after the completion of an internship at the firm. …

David Homan, MS, CFP, has joined Willow Creek Financial Services, Inc. as a financial adviser. …

The office of California State Controller John Chiang has created a day-to-day tally of income tax revenue as it is accounted for at the capitol. …

Green Key Commercial, based in Petaluma, received the Green Company Innovator award at the Infusionsoft Innovation Summit in San Francisco. …

REACH Air Medical Services of Santa Rosa earned the Diamond Certified rating for the third consecutive year. …

San Rafael-based 10,000 Degrees announced that two grant awards will help kick off the organization’s 14th year of providing the 10,000 Degrees Institute — a wrap-around approach to college success for low-income students. …

This month, Mollie Stone’s Markets will note the 25th anniversary of its Sausalito location. …

After the November opening of the 12-screen movie complex at the 163,000-square-foot South Napa Century Center, the 15-acre project is set the construction premiere of one to three more retail buildings this summer. …

A year and a half after an affiliate of San Francisco-based Pacific Urban Residential Properties, or PUR (purapts.com), purchased The Colonial Apartments in San Rafael, the San Francisco-based investor sold it for a “nice profit.” …

Marin County’s largest city and civic hub, San Rafael, wants to boost its appeal as a commercial center, and a number of interrelated local government and business group efforts are in motion with the goal of making that happen.

SAN RAFAEL — Autodesk Inc., (NASDAQ: ADSK) today said it completed the acquisition of a Wyoming-based developer of software for design and analysis of composite materials.

San Rafael and Novato were the most active Marin cities in terms of square feet leased in 2012. Absent unexpected new major additions of user-controlled space, we expect a continued gradual decrease in vacancy in 2013. Asking rents will edge higher as additional buildings raise asking rental rates.

Marin County apartment sales in 2012 turned from a buyer’s market at the beginning of the year to a strong seller’s market as inventory dropped and prices shot up.

Look for this year to be a turning point in Marin apartment property pricing.

SAN RAFAEL — In the Dominican Republic and its troubled neighbor Haiti people whisper about a vast, untapped source of oil, mysteriously ignored by the government and foreign mining teams.

Certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design building rating systems, better known as LEED, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council has been long the domain of single-tenant or owned commercial properties in the North Bay. Tens of thousands of dollars in consultant and staff time to document and verify materials, supplies and operations was an expense that had been difficult to line up with increased demand for multitenant properties. But that’s changed, as Macerich and Seagate Properties have been pursuing LEED certification for hundreds of thousands of square feet of North Bay office and retail buildings. …

Terra Firma Global Partners, started in 2010 as a residential real estate brokerage by former Pacific Union senior executives Bill Facendini and Heidi Rickerd-Rizzo, officially unveiled a commercial division in January with the completion of a few sales and leases in Santa Rosa and Windsor. …

A new office for the federally administered Small Business Development Center program opened Friday in Santa Rosa, expected to be joined by a first-ever Marin County office later this year. The two locations boost the physical presence for the national program along the Highway 101 corridor in the North Bay.

SAN RAFAEL — Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) today reported fourth-quarter revenue increased 2 percent from a year before and full-year sales went up 4 percent.

SAN RAFAEL — San Rafael-based wealth management and advising firm Private Ocean is expanding, responding to rising demand from a wave of aging Bay Area executives and business owners eying an end-of-career asset strategy.

Medtronic, which has cardiovascular-device operations in Santa Rosa, received the CE (Conformité Européenne) mark to be able to market the Evera portfolio of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) in the European Union. …

SenarioTek, a Santa Rosa-based designer and manufacturer of radio-frequency and microwave products, announced it has received ISO 9001:2008 certification from ABS Quality Evaluations. …

SpotOn, a San Rafael-based digital loyalty network for local merchants and consumers, announced a major milestone six months after officially launching its tablet-based incentive program in July. …

SAN RAFAEL — BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (Nasdaq: BMRN) on Thursday reported its fourth-quarter and 2012 net losses about doubled from a year before.

Rumors have been circulating that BioMarin is an acquisition target, but the company CEO fended off that speculation recently.