Jacqueline, Allison and Elaine Taylor traveled with their father to Asia as he expanded Taylor Brothers Farms’ organic prune business. All this family immersion laid the groundwork for when they decided to branch out and form their own plum-related company Le Prunier.

When Earl Gorman Taylor planted his first plum tree on the 70 acres he bought in Sutter County in 1916, he could never imagine that his grandson Richard would one day turn it into a global empire. That’s exactly what Taylor Brothers Farms is now — the world’s largest producer and global distributor of organic prunes and prune products. 

From one vantage point, the Padillas — Greg, Topo and Brandon — are the most-multi-faceted professionals working in the Capital Region’s courts. The success of their bail bonds business over four decades involves how many hats each of the three generations can wear.

Collins’ first major project was a state hospital in Stockton in 1929, followed by another in Mendocino. More recent projects include the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Fresno Chaffee Zoo, Candlestick and Sutter Health parks, and many casinos.

Ming Luong started Ming’s Recycling in 1987, less than a decade after the Luong family arrived in the U.S. They were among the millions of people who fled Vietnam following the fall of Saigon, riding a fishing boat to a refugee camp in Malaysia before a church group sponsored their relocation to Laramie, Wyoming.

Sacramento State’s sports teams have endured many lean years. But the institution, which debuted its original sports — basketball, baseball and tennis — in 1948, has embraced a controversial change.

North Star House, designed by renowned 20th-century architect Julia Morgan and owned by North Star Historic Conservancy, has undergone a painstaking transformation. 

The interior retains many of its original “Eichler” features, including pristine globe light fixtures and mahogany-paneled walls. 

Du Bose, a voice actor, lived in L.A. for 25 years before growing weary of the scene. In 2015 he resettled in his hometown of Fair Oaks while continuing to work in the industry. To decompress from a stressful job, Du Bose threw himself into transforming his yard and home into a showstopper. “I wanted to make it feel like I was on vacation,” he says. 

Since being hired in January of 2024, Heidt not only took the helm of an organization with an annual budget of $5.5 million, a 20-member board of directors and a fulltime staff of 10 plus “five contractors who have very specialized skills” — but also began what he calls “an apology tour.”

“It’s a pretty spectacular home that emulates the juxtaposition of modern and traditional design in a Northern California style,” Brian Whitmore describes his house located in the Sierra de Montserrat development in Loomis.

Nearly 2,000 miles northwest of Sacramento, Matthew Perkins rode a boat out into the Gulf of Alaska and saw nothing but endless potential for growth. “It’s kind of overwhelming how much opportunity there is,” he says. “You’re on the water, snow-capped mountains in the backdrop, you look down and see this incredible biomass growing. It’s literally the bounty of nature.”

For years, Mike Baddley walked his dog from his J Street office past a dilapidated little house on the corner of 24th and I Streets in Midtown. “I was fascinated with it,” he says. The abandoned folk Victorian-style house, built in 1893 for H.L. Cuthirth, had been deemed by the city a substandard building, meaning not safe for occupancy.