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Lending Competition
Weighing the pros and cons of bank size
In the Capital Region and beyond, some customers are switching from large financial institutions to smaller community banks, partially in response to columnist Arianna Huffington’s December 2009 “Move your Money” campaign, which encouraged consumers to do just that.
Crisis Opportunity
Now is the time to ask strategic questions
California’s $25 billion — and growing — budget deficit tends to grab headlines, but most of the real pain is felt at the local level where cities and counties struggle to deliver services to residents.
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Ranching’s Bright Idea
Finding cash in solar power
Raising cattle on the Van Vleck farm near Rancho Murieta is a legacy that has passed from father to son for more than 150 years. Now struggling to keep the family ranch, Stan Van Vleck came up with an electrifying idea: Install solar panels to boost income.
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Working Lunch with Gerry Kamilos
Perseverance. If nothing else, you have to give Gerry Kamilos credit for that.
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Chain Selling
Local entrepreneurs sell through big retailers
Like many independent business owners, Christine Trice has a product she believes in and plenty of potential customers. Trice, the owner of Sacramento-based Brown Bag Botanicals, also has a limited marketing budget to reach those customers.
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Intoxicating Career
Entrepreneurs craft beverages at home
Michael Frenn was a committed Coors Light drinker. For him, it was as American as baseball and apple pie.
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Home Shopping Network
How the web is saving brick-and-mortar storefronts
While small specialty businesses in the Sacramento area are closing their doors in droves these days, Jon Holloway’s family-operated travel store is still sailing along, albeit in choppier waters.
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Green Teach
Preparing workers for tomorrow's jobs
When Californians went to the polls on Nov. 2, they did more than just select a slate of new Capitol denizens. With the eyes of the world upon them, voters emphatically rejected Proposition 23, the oil industry-backed initiative to block Assembly Bill 32, the state’s groundbreaking effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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Hidden Homes
Compact residential goes vertical in midtown alleyways
Tucked in an alley between 17th and 18th streets in midtown Sacramento is the first of what could be an emerging pattern of townhomes. Three bright yellow garage doors mark the entrance to two 1,200-square-foot units poised over a 615-square-foot one-bedroom space.
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United We Sit
Designers pull government agencies together under one roof
If you’ve ever had to plan an office move, or even live through one, consider the challenge of doing 10 to 20 at the same time. That’s the task facing architects, construction companies and interior designers when governments consolidate far-flung operations under a single roof.
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Nonprofit Revenue
Charities raise money through social enterprise
A Sacramento software startup has launched an iPhone application for runners that picks music to go with a workout and can add customized coaching instructions along with the beat. When users pay to download the coaching data, a donation goes to a nonprofit of the coach’s choice.
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Personal Training
Learning how to live independently
Somebody stole Derek Finstad’s backpack.
He left it in the locker room at a gym in Yuba City, where he
works. But when he went to retrieve it, the backpack — with his
keys, checkbook and other materials — was gone. Finstad wasn’t
happy.
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Fighting Leukemia
One girl's battle to stay healthy
Scott Steele rushed his daughter to the hospital one night because her ear infection wouldn’t heal.