Moore believes UC Davis could be the first institution in the country to have an approved clinical trial using banked stem cells in a young, athletic population.

Is 14 too young to get into coffee? It wasn’t for Randall Echevarria. He grew up in Crescent City on the California/Oregon border, and the small town’s first coffee shop gave him his very first job. He started as a barista and moved up in the ranks over four years, his favorite part being the beverage development. Turns out, this high school gig was just warm-up.

Imagine a piece of technology the size of an aspirin. It can go anywhere, be embedded in anything and keep track of any action, movement or sound — imparting huge amounts of data, like tiny puzzle pieces that can be correctly fitted to form the picture of your life. It sounds Orwellian, the ability to monitor your habits at all times.

The best economic news in Sacramento lately is that jobs are back. A recent survey by the state’s Employment Development Department shows that the six-county Sacramento metro region has rebounded, gaining back jobs it lost during the recession — 25,000 in just the last year. But, while this is fantastic news, it’s not enough.

Effective leaders don’t come from one mold. The women featured below have excelled in nontraditional industries due to their talent, vision, perseverance and the (sometimes unlikely) mentors who guided their trajectory. They shared their stories with us — where they started, their rise to leadership and their thoughts on mentoring the next generation of powerful women.

California has reached a deal to raise its statewide minimum wage to $15 an hour. This would certainly be a breathtakingly broad political experiment. The question is whether it will turn into a breathtaking disaster.

During his final State of the Address, held Jan. 28 at the Crest Theatre,  Mayor Kevin Johnson announced that Anpac Bio-Medical Science Company has selected Sacramento as the location for their U.S. headquarters. The cancer screening and treatment company is regarded for their breakthrough early cancer screening, detection and diagnostic technology.

Douglas Stricker of Folsom, 58, knows all about the need for skilled laborers. In 1992, he launched Golden Development, a company that built storage tanks and other structures for refineries and chemical companies. He had a crew of between 20 and 40 workers but never could find enough reliable welders — even in jobs that paid up to $30 an hour.

Sometimes, a real no-brainer, problem-solver of a product can crash and burn spectacularly upon entering the market. This isn’t limited to the Pepsi Clears of the world, where sheer ridiculousness doomed the idea from the start: According to Nielsen data, 85 percent of new consumer packaged goods will fail within two years. Marketing snafus, bad luck and timing aside, pitfalls in the process of product design are often to blame. Catching oneself before blundering into them takes a conscious effort, as several local designers and makers illustrate.

In the coming months, Chris Johnson will ask a lot of his employees, whose average age is just 24 years old. He expects to do $30 million in retail sales this third year of manufacturing, recently signed a powerful licensing deal with Disney’s Marvel, and plans to expand from the four products currently on shelves to more than 100 next year. But Johnson’s hiring strategy emphasizes passion over experience, something he says his team has in spades.