Napa Valley’s Frank Family Vineyards gives $25K to support restaurant reopening; other North Bay business news

Rich and Leslie Frank, proprietors of Napa Valley-based Frank Family Vineyards, announced that they will donate $25,000 to the James Beard Foundation’s Open for Good campaign.

The campaign’s goal is “to allow restaurants to remain a vital part of their communities and build the capacity to be stronger, more equitable and more sustainable in the long-term.”

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Alten Construction announced the completion of construction of the Bill and Adele Jonas Center on the Indian Valley Campus of the College of Marin.

The one-story, 10,800-square-foot Bill and Adele Jonas Center provides space for a 710-seat banquet hall and features a prep kitchen, support space and stage equipped with built-in audiovisual infrastructure for presentations, speakers and performances. The project also includes the addition of a one-story lounge space. The Bill and Adele Jonas Center will be used for college-sponsored events, programs and training, as well as Rotary Club of Novato luncheons, events and meetings.

The approximately $14.5 million project, done along side LCA Architects, also includes modifications to the campus’ existing 4,800-square-foot Building 18. Updates to the one-story building included a new commercial kitchen, laundry room, storage, office and meeting room spaces and the replacement of existing windows and exterior finish.

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College of Marin will join the California Virtual Campus—Online Education Initiative (CVC-OEI) in January with three entirely online career pathway programs in business, multimedia, and hospitality, the school announced.

The CVC-OEI is an online collaborative effort of several California community colleges that offers a shared website of high-quality online courses to students from these colleges. This shared website provides students the ability to enroll in online courses that might be difficult to get into or not offered at their home college that they may need for their program, degree, or certificate. There are currently around 30 colleges in the CVC-OEI.

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Wine Business Institute at Sonoma State University has announced a name change of its open access Wine Business Case Research Journal to Wine Business Journal.

The announcement stated, “The renaming follows fundamental changes to expand the scope of the publication to include empirical and conceptual research in addition to industry and regional case studies. The new approach will provide relevant and timely insights for the wine community at large.”

Vicky Farrow, CEO and co-proprietor of Amista Vineyards, will join as an advisory editor. The Wine Business Journal is a publication of the Wine Business Institute.

In addition to Farrow, the Wine Business Journal announced it has added new members to its editorial team and review board. Dr. Sergio Canavati was recently appointed as the new editor in chief; and Dr. Matthew J. Bauman from Purdue University Northwest and Dr. Damien Wilson, SSU’s Hamel Family Chair of Wine Business, join David Rowe as associate editors.

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The Leapfrog Group recognized 16 Kaiser Permanente Northern California hospitals with a top score of “A” in its annual safety report, including Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa and Kaiser Permanente San Rafael. The safety report examined and graded more than 2,600 hospitals throughout the United States.

Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Northern California with “A” scores include: Fremont, Fresno, Manteca, Modesto, Oakland, Redwood City, Richmond, Roseville, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Rafael, Santa Clara, Santa Rosa, South San Francisco, Vacaville, and Vallejo.

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Bank of Marin has announced the names of 23 students from five local high schools whose photography is featured in the bank’s 2021 community calendar. This marks the eleventh year that Bank of Marin has worked with photography teachers and students in Marin, Sonoma, Napa, and Alameda counties to select images for the calendar. Students submitted over 100 images, and judges at the Bank made the final photo selections.

This year’s featured student photographers are:

• Justin-Siena High School, Napa – Chloe Ramirez, Colin Esperanza, Mia Brown
• Marin Catholic High School, Kentfield – Aidan O'Neill, Adriana Stein, Annika Carlson, Ava Graves, Eleanor Brink, Grace Hovan, Isabella Jarmicki, Katherine Hautau, Leilah Garcia, Mandy Sullivan, Nicholas Batchelder, Nicole Kolbater, Sailor Berger, Tessa Bannister
• Saint Joseph Notre Dame High School, Alameda – Nicole Chan
• Sonoma Academy, Santa Rosa – Lulu Schneilla
• Sonoma Valley High School – Bryan Avila, Emma Gallagher, Lola Martin, Leah Carter

Bank of Marin will donate $250 to each participating high school’s photography program for the purchase of supplies and equipment. The 2021 community calendars are available for free at all Bank of Marin branches.