Sacramento Business Journal articles from January 2000

Sacramento Business Journal archives from January 2000

CalPERS floats R Street plan.
January 28, 2000... The California Public Employees' Retirement System is floating a new plan for a four-block stretch of R Street in downtown Sacramento, featuring a wall of new apartments, stores and two office towers. The CalPERS planning staff calls it...

SDI could be insolvent by August.(State Disability Insurance fund California)
January 28, 2000... The State Disability Insurance fund could be insolvent by August because the Davis administration hasn't increased payroll taxes enough to cover costs. Gov. Gray Davis signed legislation last fall that boosted maximum weekly benefits for...

Second venture fund this month emerges.
January 28, 2000... A Fair Oaks venture capital fund just got $15 million in financing and is looking for deals. Akers Capital closed the funding round last Friday for its PAC West Technology Ventures I, which wants to invest $500,000 to $5 million apiece...

Hold the phone, region on map as biomed hot spot.
January 28, 2000... Lots of call centers and back offices now. More life sciences and biomed later. That sums up two recent assessments of Greater Sacramento's economic development prospects as the new year gets under way. New call centers get more...

Foot Locker up and left while nobody was looking.(News Briefs)
January 28, 2000... The last retail remnant of the former Woolworth department store on the K Street Mall has left the building. That would be the Foot Locker at 10th and K, which was owned by Woolworth successor Venator Group Inc. The shoe store shut down...

Young CEO takes over Placer insurer.(Financial Pacific Insurance Co CEO Robert Kingsley)
January 28, 2000... It's been two months now since Robert Kingsley was promoted to CEO of Financial Pacific Insurance Co. in Rocklin. But he's decided to stay in his old office and forgo the corner suite with all The windows. He likes his old digs because...

S.F. union janitors get Arden Fair pact.
January 28, 2000... The owners of Arden Fair Mall awarded a new janitorial contract to a unionized compapy out of San Francisco on Monday, ending a longtime relationship with locally based Sutter Building Maintenance. The deal ends a high-profile organizing...

Kikkoman pours $8.7M into expansion.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Kikkoman Foods Inc. is expanding its Folsom soy sauce plant's manufacturing capacity by 50 percent, an $8.7 million investment. The 10,000-square-foot expansion is to be opened in late July or early August. Kikkoman opened its...

Union delays RT award of light-rail steel contract.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Sacramento Regional Transit put the brakes on awarding a contract for steel rails for its new light-rail tracks on Monday after a labor union complained. The RT board was poised to award the $1.6 million contract to a broker with the...

Developer buys 2,200-acre Moore Ranch near Lincoln.
January 28, 2000... One of Roseville's most active developers has entered the land speculation game in rural south Placer County west of fast-growing Lincoln and Roseville. Richland Properties Inc., a Florida land developer operating in Roseville, has...

ThermoGenesis.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... The Jan. 21 story "ThermoGenesis makes its move with promising devices" incorrectly reported that ThermoGenesis Corp. expects approval by year's end from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market CryoSeal, a surgical glue. The company...

Westfield vs. Mills.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... The Jan. 21 story "K Street attacks Mills project" incorrectly reported that Westfield Corp. is circulating a petition to stop the railyard proposal. Westfield has a letter campaign to city officials under way, aimed at Mills, asking the city...

Level One sues Altima.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Says ex-employees went to San Jose with technology Level One Communications Inc. is suing a San Jose company in federal court, alleging patent infringement. Sacramento-based Level One makes integrated circuits designed to speed up...

Sutter's area CEO quits, the second in past 18 months.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Lou Lazatin, chief executive officer for Sutter Health's Central Area, will resign on Feb. 23, just one year after she took over the top local job. She replaced Dan Doore, who stepped down in August 1998 after only 20 months at the helm....

Sports Rack chain sells factory to expand retail.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... The parent company of the Sports Rack Vehicle Outfitters retail chain, Bauer Industries, has sold its manufacturing division so it can pay to open more stores. In a deal that closed Jan. 21, Bauer Vehicle Gear was sold to Steel Horse...

Convention hotel bid dies, Roseville looks at options.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... A company that had been granted exclusive negotiating rights to develop a convention hotel in Roseville has run out of time, and the city is talking with another developer about new options. Roseville leaders for years have sought a...

Tourism leaders push for Gold Rush plan.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Area businesses are pushing ahead with a campaign to convince tourists that the best place to relive the Gold Rush is here, not the city by the bay. It's part of a general goal among local governments, groups and businesses to make...

State's two huge pension funds might sidestep HMOs.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Traditional insurance tailed to keep the lid on rising healthcare costs in the 1980s, so HMOs came along and cut some fat out of the system in the '90s. Now that medical costs are going up sharply once again, people are wondering if...

Western Health adds members in several markets.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Western Health Advantage, a 4-year-old health maintenance organization based in Sacramento, is expanding and pushing into new markets. A nonprofit company co-owned by three regional hospital systems, Western Health is adding 750 to 1,000...

Doctors irked by new methods to fight Medi-Cal fraud.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Accountant Cathy Dressel says the process is a nightmare. Dr. Philip Bosco thinks it's a joke. They're both outraged about what they had to endure to get a Medi-Cal provider number for two small medical groups in Placer County. The...

Newest Channel 6 effort highlights ethnic diversity.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Public TV station KVIE-Channel 6 has launched a three-year plan called "Many Faces/Many Voices" to create and emphasize programs that reflect the region's ethnic diversity. The effort cooperates with the Public Television Outreach...

Sierra ski resorts try the Internet to spark business.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Sierra ski resorts are making a run at e-commerce. Area ski operators are beginning to sell lift tickets, season passes, lessons and merchandise over the Internet. For many in the Sierra, this is the first season online. A few have...

Candidates for president map out their tax proposals.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... The tax policies of the leading presidential candidates range from Steve Forbes' proposal to "end the IRS as we know it" to Bill Bradley's plan to eliminate corporate tax shelters. But the only issue that seems to have hit a nerve with...

Circus school juggles business plan, dream.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Owner convinced this won't be high-wire act From last year, when Maria Carrillo started telling people she wanted to start an acrobatics and circus arts school, until now, the reaction has usually been the same. "People think I'm...

The Squeeze is on.
January 28, 2000... Homebuilders foresee difficulty in finding enough land to accommodate the expected population explosion Analysts estimate that between now and 2022, the four-county Sacramento region will need 344,666 more houses and apartments to handle...

San Francisco seeing vertical trend.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Since its master plan was put in place in the early 1970s, San Francisco has almost universally given a chilly reception to high-rise development. The dual forces of "Not in My Back Yard" public opposition and concern for the protection...

Roseville construction hot in all economic sectors.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Retail, industrial and office construction went gangbusters in Roseville in 1999, and market observers expect more of the same this year. No one sector was responsible for the record-setting pace. Everything was strong. "All the...

Landscaping industry grows in construction boom.
January 28, 2000... Chuck Armstrong Jr. of Capital Nursery's landscaping division has had to turn paying customers away. And those he doesn't turn away are put on a two-month waiting list for initial consultations. That's how good things are growing in the...

Playing the numbers game.(Wells Fargo Bank )(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Big-money game shows are back in vogue on prime-time TV, so let's warm up with a quick test of your financial acumen. Question: Wells Fargo Bank earned how much profit in 1997? A. $1.15 billion B. $1.35 billion C. $2.5...

Albertson's Inc.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... Albertson's is one of the Sacramento area's largest employers, with 4,000 workers. It acquired that distinction in 1999 when it merged with American Stores Co., which owned the Lucky grocery chain. Albertson's also has a distribution center...

Alternative Technology Resources.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... This Sacramento company recruits computer programming experts from the former Soviet Union and South Korea to work in the United States. The contract workers are paid prevailing wages by Alternative Technology for contract work done at client...

American River Bank.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... American River Holdings is the bank holding company for American River Bank. Founded in 1983, the bank has two locations in Sacramento and one each in Roseville and Fair Oaks. The company's stock is traded over-the-counter under the symbol...

DST Systems Inc.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... With its December 1998 merger with locally based USCS International Inc., DST Systems became one of the Sacramento area's largest employers, with about 2,100 workers. DST acquired USCS in a stock swap valued at $874 million and runs the local...

Electronic Data Systems Corp.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... EDS is the company founded by Ross Perot in 1962 to provide third-party data-processing services. It was acquired by General Motors Corp. in 1984; and spun off as an independent company again in 1996. At that time EDS made a special one-time...

EndoSonics Corp.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... This medical company reported a net loss of $3.2 million for the third quarter ended Sept. 30 on revenue of $10.5 million. That's an improvement over last year's third-quarter net loss of $10.5 million on revenue of $11.7 million. The poor...

First Union Corp.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... Based in Charlotte, N. C., First Union became a major Sacramento employer when it acquired The Money Store in 1998. The Money Store, a national financial services company in its own right, has nearly 3,000 employees locally. First Union stock...

GenCorp Inc.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... The name Aerojet has been important to the Sacramento economy since 1951. In October 1999, Sacramento also became the headquarters of Aerojet's parent company, GenCorp. Formerly based in Fairlawn, Ohio, GenCorp decided in 1998 to split...

Hewlett-Packard.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... Founded in a garage in 1939, Hewlett-Packard Co. now has 123,000 employees worldwide, including 5,500 in Roseville. That's about 10 times the number the Roseville plant employed in 1979 when it opened. The computer manufacturer ranks 13th on...

Integrated Surgical Systems Inc.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... Sacramento-based Integrated Surgical Systems Inc. makes the Robodoc surgical robot and the Orthodoc Presurgical Planner. The Robodoc system has been used for hip-replacement surgery on more than 4,000 patients in Europe and the United States....

The McClatchy Co.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... The 143-year-old newspaper company is the region's largest public corporation, having expanded its holdings in 1998 with the purchase of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. McClatchy once published just The Sacramento Bee and its sister...

Intel Corp.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... A quarter-century ago, Intel Corp. made technological history by introducing the first microprocessor, and it still controls about 80 percent of the market for that product. Today the Palo Alto-based corporation supplies the computing...

Objective Systems Integrators.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... This Folsom-based company, which makes telecommunications software, has struggled for profitability in recent years. OSI was established in 1989 and went public in 1995. The company serves the global service provider industry from offices...

Ophthalmic Imaging Systems.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... This company develops and manufactures diagnostic, digital-imaging products for telemedicine applications used in eye care. Telemedicine allows digital images to be transferred across phone lines, the Internet and other networks. The firm's...

The Peregrine Real Estate Trust.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... The Peregrine Real Estate Trust, which does business as Winship Properties, emerged in 1994 from the 1993 bankruptcy of Commonwealth Equity Trust. The bankruptcy drastically reduced Commonwealth's stock price, causing its investors to lose...

R. H. Phillips Inc.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... The company produces premium, super-premium and ultra-premium wines that are sold in the United States and 15 foreign countries. Its brands include Toasted Head, EXP, Kempton Clark and R.H. Phillips. The Esparto-based company was founded...

Recom Managed Systems Inc.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... This Internet services company is a spin-off of Recom Technologies Inc., an 18-year-old government in formation systems vendor in Roseville. Recom Managed Systems, likewise operating out of Roseville and boasting a South Sacramento technology...

The RiceX Co.(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
January 28, 2000... This El Dorado Hills company, which finds uses for rice bran, late in 1999 received a cash in fusion of about $6 million in equity financing to pursue a new marketing plan. It also agreed to pay off a $5 million loan from Monsanto Co. with...

Roseville Communications.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Roseville Communications Co. is the holding company for Roseville Telephone Co., Roseville Long Distance, Roseville Directory, RCS Wireless and Roseville Alarm. The company recently made a move into the Internet arena with the addition of its...

Sacramento Commercial Bank.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... The bank was formed in 1984 by Daryl Foreman, Robert Muttera and James Sundquist. The second-largest local bank, it is set to be sold in the first quarter of 2000 for $41.6 million to San Francisco-based Belvedere Capital Corp. The...

SBC Communications Inc.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... SBC Communications Inc. is the former Southwestern Bell Corp. Its 1999 merger with fellow regional phone company Ameritech made SBC a national force. Other subsidiaries are Southwestern Bell, Pacific Bell, SBC Telecom, Nevada Bell,...

Supermail International Inc.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Supermail is a shell company in waiting. The Sacramento firm, along with three top officers, pleaded guilty in June 1999 to laundering drug money, and sentencing was scheduled for February 2000. Supermail's chain of check-cashing stores...

ThermoGenesis Corp.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... The 12-year-old Rancho Cordova medical company has racked up accumulated losses of $28.8. million, including $1.75 million for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 1999. But ThermoGenesis continues to garner interest from investors, raising, for...

Track 'n Trail Inc.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... The shoe retailer, which went public in fall 1997, was founded in 1979 in San Jose and moved its headquarters to El Dorado Hills in the mid-1980s. In 1996 and 1998, respectively, the company acquired Overland Trading a chain of shoe stores,...

Valley Media Inc.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Based in Woodland, Valley Media Inc. (VMIX;Nasdaq) was established in 1979 and made its initial public offering on March 25, 1999. The company distributes music and video entertainment products to stores and Internet retailers. Its customers...

Waste Connections Inc.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... This waste-hauling firm is based in Folsom and was established in 1997. Waste Connections (WCNS: Nasdaq) held its initial public offering in May 1998. The company provides solid waste collection, transfer, disposal and recycling services to...

Wavve Telecommunications.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Wavve Telecommunications Inc., a California corporation, is a wholly owned subsidiary of a publicly traded Canadian company of the same name. The Sacramento company is a third-party provider and manager of Internet communications for...

Wells Fargo & Co.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Wells Fargo Bank's stage coach symbol may evoke the Old West, but the corporation is no longer the same institution founded in San Francisco in 1852. In effect, Minneapolis-based Norwest Bank absorbed Wells Fargo but decided to adopt the...

General building contractors.
January 28, 2000... General building contractors (Ranked by contract income for 1999) 1999 contract billings from...

Schools, firms team up to fill void of engineers.
January 28, 2000... From as early as he can remember, Abel Girma wanted to be an engineer. The Ethiopian spent his childhood watching bridges and buildings go up, and wondering how piles of steel turned into buses an tractors. He spent one year at a local junior...

State prepares for one of its largest projects ever.
January 28, 2000... As the state continues consolidating, the Franchise Tax Board will do the same in Rancho Cordova, moving seven offices into one of the largest state office projects ever embarked upon. It's envisioned that the three new buildings will...

Select leasing broker with experience.
January 28, 2000... Selecting a broker to assist with office leasing details and negotiations is a delicate and sensitive task -- somewhat like choosing a dentist, except there are no painkillers to protect the prospective tenant from an inept broker. ...

Folsom Dam upgrades to double flood control.
January 28, 2000... Federal officials are gearing up for a $150 million remodeling of Folsom Dam, one of the first major steps in a series of improvements targeted at keeping the Sacramento region dry in high-water years. Without the upgrades to dams and...

Sending drawings online can be a real time-saver.
January 28, 2000... Now that most larger architectural and engineering firms have Internet access, construction documents can be sent from one firm to another in a matter of minutes. Consider the architect who needs to share the latest set of floor plans...

Hilton Williams.
January 28, 2000... Forrar Williams Architects / president Quote: "Good work creates opportunity" Movie: "Bridge Over the River Kwai" Books: "The Spell of the Yukon," by Robert Service, and "Into Thin Air," by Jon Krakauer Restaurants: Tadich's...

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE.
January 28, 2000... REAL ESTATE Christie Travis has been appointed branch manager of Placer Title Co.'s Point West commercial office. For the past year and a half, Travis has been the Sacramento commercial account manager for Placer Title, and continues to...

STOCKS OF LOCAL INTEREST.
January 28, 2000... STOCKS OF LOCAL INTEREST WINNERS & LOSERS 1 Supermail +471.4% 1 RiceX -8.7% 2 Wavve +61.9% 2 First Union -8.3% 3 Objective Systems +20.7% 3 R.H....

Wells Fargo.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Wells Fargo has donated $50,000 to the Sacramento Asian Sports Foundation in support if the foundation's efforts to build a community and recreational center in Greater Sacramento, and in recognition of its preservation of Asian Pacific...

Campus Commons Seniors Residence.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Campus Commons Seniors Residence, managed by Ray Stone Inc., is constructing a new wing at 22 Cadillac Drive in Campus Commons. The 33,000-Square-foot addition will comprise 42 apartments ranging from 454 to 803 square feet. Each will have a...

McGeorge School of Law.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... McGeorge School of Law has developed an Intellectual Property Law concentration program giving students a chance to choose from a specialized list of electives designed to prepare future patent, trademarl, copyright, trade secret and...

Linking Education and Economic Development-Sacramento.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Linking Education and Economic Development-Sacramento and Junior Achievement will hold the annual Groundhog Job Shadow Day Feb. 2 at various locations throughout the area. Events will also be held throughout February for those not able to...

California State University Sacramento.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... The first endowed professorship at California State University Sacramento has been named in honor of the late Mayor Joe Sema Jr., a professor of government and ethnic studies for nearly 30 years. Developer Angelo Tsakopoulos and attorney...

Job growth.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Job growth in the six-county Sacramento region averaged 2.73 percent annually throughout the 1990s, according to new data from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments. Placer County, excluding the Tahoe Basin, saw the strongest average...

Intel Corp.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... Intel Corp. has announced Intel Teach to the Future, a worldwide initiative to help teachers apply computer technology to help students. Over three years, Intel will invest $100 million in cash, equipment, curriculum development and program...

A wired Sacramento.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... THE ISSUE: Will the metro cable commission allow a competitor to overlay Comcast's lines? OUR POSITION: We hope so. The proposal would give Sacramento access to broadband The Sacramento Metropolitan Cable Commission need only say...

A trip back in time to Humboldt.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... The only room available at the Super 8 Motel in Fortuna (Humboldt County, USA) was... the Pet Room. In Humboldt County, "pet" connotes everything from a spotted owl to Bigfoot to a tree-sitter named Free. We took it anyway, trying to...

We'll choke like Atlanta if we don't wise up.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... When it was summertime in Atlanta last year, the "livin' wasn't easy." For weeks, a filthy brown haze obscured the New South's proud skyline. Children in record numbers went to emergency rooms with respiratory infections. According to...

Humanizing R Street.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... The California Public Employees' Retirement System is planning to expand its downtown offices along R Street, which could have far-reaching effects on downtown's future. At issue is to what degree, if at all, the agency will go along with the...

Day of Peace awards.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... In a Jan. 19 ceremony, the following received Day of Peace awards from the Sacramento County Probation Department, for embodying the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s message of brotherhood and nonviolence: Project S.A.V.E. -- Safe Alternatives...

Sacramento Municipal Utility District.(Brief Article)
January 28, 2000... The Sacramento Municipal Utility District was recently honored by the Friends of the Powerhouse Association and the California State Parks American River District for its work on the historic Folsom Powerhouse. To help preserve the historic...

Intel roars into 2000 with plans for growth.
January 21, 2000... After putting up mammoth numbers last week for 1999, Intel Corp.'s growth plans for Folsom are back on track. This year the Folsom operation plans to hire 300 more employees, finish its seventh four-story office building -- a $60 million...

Denver firm challenges Comcast, phone providers with broadband.
January 21, 2000... When Denver-based Western integrated Networks LLC announced on Wednesday that it wants to come into Sacramento and challenge cable television giant Comcast, it wasn't just a big story for people who like to watch the boob tube. What...

McClellan signs manufacturer.
January 21, 2000... Lease to Sacramento Container Corp. 'will serve as a model' The people in charge of finding new uses for McClellan Air Force Base say they've reduced the red tape that killed past deals there. Their evidence is a new lease for...

K Street attacks Mills project.
January 21, 2000... Merchants pin hopes on ballot Landlords and merchants on K Street in downtown Sacramento are declaring war on the Mills Corp.'s proposal for a huge retail and entertainment project in the Union Pacific railyards. The K Street group...

Real estate community mourns Sheldon's passing.(Brief Article)(Obituary)
January 21, 2000... Sad news cines this week. The passing of office real estate broker Dan Sheldon after a yearlong fight with cancer is a huge loss for the business community. Sheldon worked for CB Richard Ellis. He was to receive the Lifetime Achievement...