Women in Leadership 2025: Cynthia Larsen
Our annual salute to the women who lead the Capital Region
She began her legal career in Washington, D.C., where she worked for the U.S. Department of Justice. She chose the civil division, which handled cases such as aviation disasters, the U.S. government giving LSD to soldiers in the 1950s as an experiment, and whether radioactive atomic testing in Nevada caused cancer. “It was pretty exciting stuff,” she says.
Women in Leadership 2025: Jita Pandya Buño
Our annual salute to the women who lead the Capital Region
Buño certainly knows a thing or two about stepping outside her comfort zone. At 16, she immigrated to the U.S. from India with her family and joined the Air Force just a year later.
Startup of the Month: Elve
High-powered amplifiers aim to boost connectivity
Back in 2019, Diana Gamzina presented her powerful amplifiers at a space agency. The feedback was direct: At about $1 million per device, they were just too expensive for real-world infrastructure. It was a hard truth, but instead of giving up, she doubled down.
Women in Leadership 2025: Laura Knauss
Our annual salute to the women who lead the Capital Region
In the four decades that Laura Knauss has been practicing architecture, a lot has changed. In the late 1980s when Knauss began her career, women were woefully underrepresented in the field. Now women make up nearly one third of all architects and almost half of all candidates pursuing a license.
California Students Are Now Required to Take a Money Course; Some Are Already Taking It to Great Success
Despite polls showing overwhelming public support for teaching financial literacy skills to school students, prior to the passage of McCarty’s bill California had no statewide requirements around financial literacy courses in the schools. As a result, the infrastructure that does exist around this has largely been developed through the initiatives of a few banks and some forward-looking schools.
The Egg-onomics of Bird Flu: Capital Region Businesses and Consumers Scramble to Deal with Shortage
How the bird flu is affecting businesses that produce and sell eggs in Sacramento and beyond
As the ongoing bird flu crisis continues to decimate millions of
infected chicken flocks across the country, and eggs become
pricier and harder to find, Capital Region businesses weigh in on
the impact of the shortage and what’s helping them through
another major economic challenge so close on the heels of the
pandemic.
Women in Leadership 2025: Cassandra Jennings
Our annual salute to the women who lead the Capital Region
At St. HOPE, Jennings oversees a collection of nonprofit entities — including a charter high school, a development company and an endowment — aimed at revitalizing the Oak Park neighborhood. She is, and has always been, a community builder.
This Small Town by the Sea Brings ‘Authentic Energy’
Benicia’s First Street offers an eclectic array of historic sites, shops and restaurants
The Solano County city of fewer than 30,000 residents is also an easy day trip for visitors from Sacramento and the Bay Area, with a 10-block stroll along Benicia’s First Street providing a unique opportunity to visit 300 eclectic businesses amidst 19th-century Victorian buildings — all while basking in bay views a couple of blocks away.
Scientists Attest to Value of UC Davis Smelt Lab
Federal funding has been imperiled for facility near Byron
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Feb. 6 that the federal government was looking to not renew funding for the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory after its current round expires on Friday. While sources close to UC Davis are confident of a new contract being signed with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, that hadn’t happened as of press time, and some are worried about what comes next.
Recycling Unused Food: On the Frontlines With the Agencies and Food Banks Making SB 1383 Work to Feed the Hungry
The food recovery process for SB 1383 is divided into separate tiers. Tier 1, which involves large grocery chains and food distribution centers, went into effect in 2022. The following year, Rancho Cordova’s locker alone recovered 800,000 pounds of food. In that same period, Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services oversaw the redistribution of 14.6 million pounds of edible food that came directly from Capital Area grocery stores.