Discover why these 99 North Bay companies are Best Places to Work in 2021
Welcome to the presentation of our annual special section honoring this year’s winners of the North Bay Business Journal’s Best Places to Work awards. Not only welcome, but ‘Hello.’ I am Lorez Bailey and earlier this month, I became the publisher of the Journal.
Though new to this position, I am hardly new to this area and I suspect I know some of you in the North Bay business community already.
From 2016 until just recently, I was executive director of Chop’s Teen Club in Santa Rosa, where we worked to help teens reach their full potential by building relationships and connections to their community. My career path also includes working in the nonprofit sector, workforce development and media in the North Bay.
My past work directly relates to the new work I have taken on at the Journal because it continues to be all about building relationships. The Journal is the premier business-to-business website and publication in the North Bay. In addition to reporting the latest regional business news, we honor our relationships with readers, advertisers and businesses in the counties we serve every day.
For each of you, there’s no doubt that this has been one challenging year. Disruptions from the COVID-19 virus that emerged in 2020 continue to challenge us today. Our businesses were changed, along with the lives of our customers and employees.
This is why it’s been especially important this year to recognize those 99 companies that rose to the occasion and, by the judgment of their workforce, are truly the “Best Places to Work.” Supporting your workers this year proved more critical than ever. Whether it was keeping essential workers protected and safe in the office, or working closely with remote staff, business leaders went the extra mile for their entire teams. That is commendable.
That makes it even more heartening to see that more than 7,650 employee surveys were completed for this year’s program.
The average score on the survey of workers was 4.48 out of 5. Several of the companies had 100% employee survey participation, and others were very close to that figure.
We began the process to prepare the 16th annual Best Places to Work honors early last spring, followed by a mandatory anonymous survey period in early summer of employees, followed by the final selections in July and August.
Those selections by the Journal’s editorial staff were based on the employee survey results and participation, comments and employer applications.
And in a milestone event this year of COVID-19, our honorees were recognized at a live event on Sept. 15 at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa.
Longtime Journal readers will know that we started selecting the best places to work in 2006.
That first year, we had 24 winners. It was our vision then, and remains today, that we needed to recognize exceptional employees and highlight exceptional workplace practices. Since we began, the number of businesses we have been able to recognize this way has doubled, then doubled again.
While it has been great to get the response we have gotten for the Best Places to Work awards, we’ve always felt the award is only part of the impact of the effort.
The larger, longer-term value is the anonymous feedback of employees. Used expertly, this feedback can tell an organization whether it is doing well and where it might improve. And the designation continues to be an invaluable tool for employee attraction and retention.
So while I look forward to continuing my relationship with those of you I know, and look forward to meeting new people, we are happy to present this year’s winners of the North Bay Business Journal’s Best Places to Work on behalf of our co-host, Exchange Bank, and our underwriters, Kaiser Permanente and the Trope Group. And to the winners, we say, “Congratulations!”
—Lorez Bailey, North Bay Business Journal publisher
Profiles of this year’s Best Places to Work
By Gary Quackenbush, for The North Bay Business Journal
2021 winners
- Abbey, Weitzenberg, Warren and Emery
- Adobe Associates
- Akili Interactive
- All Weather Architectural Aluminum
- Allen Group
- Anova Education
- Arrow Benefits Group
- AUL Corporation
- Becoming Independent
- Best Collateral
- Beyers Costin Simon
- BPM
- Bridges Restoration (dba West Coast Fire and Water)
- Carlile Macy
- Central Valley
- Centric General Contractors
- Child Parent Institute
- Coldwell Banker Brokers of the Valley
- Community First Credit Union
- Community Support Network
- Corcoran Global Living
- Cork Supply USA
- Cornerstone
- Dal Poggetto & Company
- DH Wine Compliance
- Dickenson Peatman & Fogarty
- Dillwood Burkel & Millar
- Don Sebastiani & Sons
- Earthtone Construction
- Eckhoff and Company CPAs and Advisors
- Eleven Engineering
- Exchange Bank
- Friedemann Goldberg Wargo Hess
- GC Micro Corporation
- George Petersen Insurance Agency
- Ghilotti Bros.
- Ghirardo CPA
- Goodwill Industries of the Redwood Empire
- Healdsburg Lumber Company
- Hennessy Advisors
- Henry’s Original
- Hilton Garden Inn – Sonoma County Airport
- Idex Health & Science
- Intelisys, A Scansource Company
- Intervine
- Interwest Insurance Services
- Jackson Family Wines
- Keysight Technologies
- Kiosk
- KLH Consulting
- Ledson Winery & Vineyards
- Legal Aid of Sonoma County
- M.A. Silva Corks USA
- Marin Humane
- Mengali Accountancy
- Meritage Medical Network
- Mike’s Bikes
- MKM & Associates Structural Engineers
- Napa Valley Fumé
- North Coast Title Company
- North Marin Community Services
- Nova Group
- O’Brien Watters & Davis
- Parkpoint Health Clubs
- Peju Winery
- Peterson Mechanical
- Pisenti & Brinker
- Poppy Bank
- Private Ocean Wealth Management
- Psychstrategies
- Quattrocchi Kwok Architects
- Redwood Credit Union
- Russian River Brewing Company
- Schurter
- Scott Laboratories
- Sequoia Senior Solutions
- Siyan Clinical
- Smith Dollar
- Sonoma Clean Power
- Sonoma Technology
- Spaulding Mccullough & Tansil
- St. Francis Winery & Vineyards
- Star Staffing
- Summit Engineering
- Summit State Bank
- Summit Technology Group
- Sutter Instrument
- The Beale Group
- The Bundschu Company
- The Scott Technology Group
- TLCD Architecture
- Traditional Medicinals
- Tricorbraun Winepak
- W. Bradley Electric
- Willow Creek Wealth Management
- Woodruff Sawyer
- WRA
- WX Brands
- YWCA Sonoma County
ABBEY, WEITZENBERG, WARREN AND EMERY
TWO-TIME WINNER