North Bay professionals news: Joseph Phelps Vineyards, Sonoma County Barrel Auction, Dominican University of California and more

Kim Beto joined Joseph Phelps Vineyards as vice president of sales as of June 1, following the retirement of Mike McEnvoy in that role. Previously, Beto was vice president for key accounts in Northern California for Southern Glazers Wine & Spirits.

Beto began his career in the Bay Area as a restaurateur and owner of 231 Ellsworth Restaurant in San Mateo, followed by a general management and wine director role at Postrio with the Wolfgang Puck Group in San Francisco. He also was food and beverage director at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas before joining Southern Glazers Wine & Spirits in 2004.

Joseph Phelps Vineyards is a family-owned winery in the Napa Valley. It was founded in 1973.

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Sonoma County Vintners announced the 2020 Sonoma County Barrel Auction Icons and Innovators awards.

Jordan Kivelstadt is the 2020 innovator of the year. Kivelstadt established Kivelstadt Cellars and plans to open Kivelstadt Cellars Wine Garden & Eatery, the state's first wine garden, in 2020. He co-founded Essentially Geared Wines in 2017.

Marcello Monticelli is one of the group's honorary icons of 2020. He is master winemaker and vice president of North Coast winemaking for E. & J. Gallo Winery.

He graduated magna cum laude with an enology degree from Fresno State University with minors in viticulture, chemistry and physics. His winemaking career began at Gallo in September 1970 under the guidance of E. & J. Gallo Winery co-founder, Julio Gallo.

Steve MacRostie was named an honorary icon. He started making wine in 1974 in Sonoma County when only 40 small wineries existed. He worked with other leaders to establish Sonoma Valley Vintners and Growers Alliance and served as president for the Carneros Wine Alliance.

In 1987, he founded MacRostie Winery & Vineyards and established the Wildcat Mountain Vineyard in the Sonoma Coast appellation in 1998. He opened the MacRostie Estate House. He currently serves as a regional director for Sonoma County at the Wine Institute.

Trade registration for the 2020 Sonoma County Barrel Auction is available for licensed wholesalers, retailers and restaurateurs. To learn more or request a ticket to access the online program, visit SoCoBarrelAuction.com or contact info@sonomawine.com.

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Rajeev Sooreea, associate dean and associate professor of international business in the Barowsky School of Business at Dominican University of California in San Rafael, has received a 2020-2021 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award to the Republic of Mauritius in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. The award was announced by the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship board.

Sooreea is due to teach and conduct research at the University of Mauritius as part of a project to build the national innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Mauritius. When safe to travel to Mauritius, his research will focus on developing a model that examines how business incubators and entrepreneurial universities need to be designed as the country emerges as an innovation hub in Africa.

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Paul Gullixson has been hired as communications manager for Sonoma County, starting June 29.

Gullixson currently serves as associate vice president of strategic communications at Sonoma State University and former editorial director for The Press Democrat. The Press Democrat and North Bay Business Journal are both owned by Sonoma Media Investments.

Gullixson also has served as an adjunct faculty member at Sonoma State University, where he taught newspaper writing and editing and served as faculty adviser to the Sonoma State Star, the campus newspaper. He also taught courses in web and print journalism and media ethics and law. Before joining The Press Democrat, Gullixson was Peninsula bureau chief for the San Francisco Chronicle.

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Eric Beauregard, area director of medical imaging at Kaiser Permanente, has been elected to the board of directors of the Career Technical Education Foundation in Sonoma County.

It partnered with Kaiser Permanente and Santa Rosa Junior College from 2015-2019 to offer the Summer Health Career Institute, which provided incoming junior and high school students hands-on education and an introduction to a health care career pathway.

The foundation is an independent nonprofit organization that leverages private and public funding to seed the development of career and technical education programs in alignment with the economic and workforce development needs of Sonoma County

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Oscar Cervera has joined Bouchard Cooperages' Napa-based North American operations as a barrel and tank consultant for Mexico.

Cervera is also a partner in a winery in central Mexico: Vinos del Marques.

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