A cohort of leaders under the age of 40 making a difference in the Capital Region. What people like Rhodes lack in age and decades of professional accomplishments, they make up for with lessons learned through family and experiences.

Go by the business that recently opened in the former home of Waffle Square Country Kitchen and there are still some remnants from what was there before, such as the brown pleather booths. Otherwise, though, something very different is going on here.

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.

When Chris Treiber left the Navy in 2011, he set sail on uncharted waters. His 10 years of service offered no natural path into a good job. He’d spent his last five of those guarding prisoners and had no civilian job experience. He had a GED, having dropped out of high school in 10th grade. And at age 32, he had a wife and five kids to provide for.

Sebastian Bariani is in heaven, standing in his family’s olive grove in the Dunnigan Hills. The winter day is mild, a blue sky caps the rolling green terrain. He reaches down and gently bends the branch of a Manzanillo olive tree to demonstrate how the trees will soon be pruned, explaining that the blossoms for the next crop can come only from new growth.

After managing the development of property and business improvement districts across California, in January Verna Sulpizio became the new executive director of the Florin Road Partnership, a PBID that spans Florin Road from Chandler Drive to Tamoshanter Way. 

Ryan Montoya’s task is clear, straightforward and possibly, well, impossible: Turn the  Sacramento Kings into the most technologically adept sports franchise in the world.

Longtime Placer County supervisor Kirk Uhler was recently selected as the new CEO of the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance. Uhler is also the owner of Roseville-based Rensa Group, a marketing, communications and government relations firm, and the co-founder of VidGage, a social media platform.

The menu you get at the onset of your dining experience is much more than a laundry list of food and prices; it’s the opening volley in a courtship dance between your taste buds and the kitchen.

Chris Jarosz is the founder of Broderick Restaurant & Bar and co-owner of the Wicked ‘Wich food truck. This year, he also took on the overhaul of midtown’s Capital Dime restaurant and its sister eatery, Trick Pony, which have been folded into the Broderick Roadhouse family of restaurants. It’s not all glamorous, but it is pretty tasty.

Bartenders around the region have provided us with their best bets for holiday cocktails featuring gin, rye and bourbon — spirits that are now being produced locally by craft distillers.

Too many pregnant mothers know the feeling of horror: The ultrasound reveals something wrong. Perhaps it’s nothing. But maybe it’s life-threatening, a disease or a disability. Maybe it’s the unthinkable. For hundreds of thousands of years, the unthinkable — babies doomed to die or develop impairments before drawing their first breath — meant only tragedy and heartache. Now there is hope.

At the crush pad of a custom-built winery, the 6-foot-4 winemaker in tie-dye socks shuts off the forklift, realizing he missed a call.

“I didn’t hear my phone ring,” says Layne Montgomery, 55, general manager and founding partner of m2 Vintners Inc. in Acampo.

“It’s harvest,” jests one of his volunteers. “Who has time for a phone?”

Matt Yancey has been selected as the new CEO of the Davis Chamber of Commerce after serving more than seven years as the director of business and economic development at the Sacramento Metro Chamber. So how do you grow a city that’s been historically anti-growth?

Nationwide, captives are growing fast. In 2012, 18 new U.S. group captives were formed, the highest level since 2007. But buying into a captive puts both rewards and risks into the hands of business owners.

Construction guru C.C. Myers has, for more than two decades, been California’s go-to guy when roads are ravaged by acts of God (like the ’94 Northridge earthquake) or the toll of time (Folsom’s Lake Natoma Crossing, Interstate 5 in Sacramento, Route 99 in Turlock, the Walnut Creek Interchange, and the list goes on). The New York Times once called him the “Miracle Worker Highway Man.”

On hot summer weekends, a 20-barrel brewery west of Winters overflows with patrons. They flood the taproom and crowd around shaded picnic tables, sipping beer while soaking in live music. A few kids play baseball in the gravel lot. Others pull wooden blocks from an oversized Jenga set by the food truck. Some are locals, but many come from Davis, Sacramento and beyond to get a taste of whatever Berryessa Brewing Co. has on tap for the week.

At 25-years-old, Kaitlyn MacGregor is the new director of communications for the California Republican Party, and she has her work cut out for her. New data from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California shows that young voters aren’t registering Republican and neither are moderates, African Americans or Latinos. With elections just weeks away, MacGregor will need to make strides quickly. 

Todo un poco means “a little bit of everything,” and that’s exactly how co-owner Marie Mertz describes her strategy. She runs the bistro’s operations, cooks, builds menus, chooses the daily specials, buys fresh produce, trains staff, handles community relations and hand-selects her wines. She’s proud of being in business for so many years, but “who’s counting when you’re having fun?” she says.

Kris Barkley, the Design Director at Dreyfuss & Blackford Architects and president of the American Institute for Architects Central Valley, sat down with Comstock’s Editor in Chief Christine Calvin to talk about digital fabrication, biomimicry, the industry landscape for up-and-coming architects and, of course, next months’s Experience Architecture Week. 

It was a question they’d asked themselves time and again. Could Placerville support fine dining? Surely, they thought, the market for their envisioned eatery, The Independent Restaurant and Bar, must exist.

In 2008, John Bissell co-founded Micromidas Inc., a West Sacramento biotech company that has developed a process to convert carbohydrate feedstocks like cardboard into higher-value chemicals, including renewable plastics. The company incorporated in 2009. Bissell, a UC Davis grad who also serves as CEO, was recently included in Forbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30,” a tally of the brightest stars in 15 different fields, and has helped raise more than $20 million in financing for his company.

Squaw Valley Real Estate and KSL Capital Partners, the company that owns Squaw Valley Ski Resort, have received the critical report needed to move forward with a planned expansion of the resort’s village.

The past two years have been remarkably unpredictable for long-time Sacramento chef Jacob Carriker.

Great cities are the result of vision and consensus. During more than three decades as a journalist in Sacramento, I have been drawn to subjects with a vision for the region. 

Just as the July 2013 magazine was going to bed, Comstock’s learned that the subject of our cover story, Wijit Inc., had been sold to Kinova USA. Wijit Inc. was the brainchild of Brian Watwood, the one-time elite athlete who was paralyzed in a fateful bike accident.

More than any other, this issue might give many people the impression that Comstock’s is staffed by dozens of graphic artists, illustrators and web developers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Though, given the magnitude of the magazine’s redesign and the timeline under which we’re transforming comstocksmag.com, I can understand the misconception.

On July 1, 35-year-old Michael Marion became the executive director and associate vice provost of Drexel University Sacramento. Marion replaces Dr. Sandra Kirschenmann, who will officially retire on Sept. 1.

Then: 

As our cover boy in January 2006, Kit Miyamoto discussed the “Miyamoto Way” of doing architectural engineering. Engineering, he said, is logic. It’s black and white. However, he added that logic can be applied creatively in many development disciplines.

Then: 

As part of the Comstock’s-sponsored Vanguard Awards issue in Sept. ‘02, the infamous Gavin and Joe Maloof graced our cover as “Outstanding Corporate Citizens.” 

We first introduced readers to Brice Harris in our “New Faces in High Places” section in Dec. of ‘96, when he became chancellor for the Los Rios Community College District. What a ride it’s been.

On a warm afternoon, soft spring winds are blowing across the campus at UC Davis. In a building on the university’s west corner, Cindy Garcia is hosing pools of blood down a drain. She places a pig skull on an inspection table, washes her hands and steps into the sunlight just as the parking lot is beginning to fill with shoppers toting grocery bags.

Like many transplants to Sacramento, before moving to the area I had little awareness of the plethora of quality-of-life amenities the region has to offer. As I complete my first decade as a resident, it has dawned on me that this has been the longest stop thus far in my professional career.

On May 17, the Rotary Club of Sacramento will mark its centennial of service to the region at a gala celebration at the McClellan Conference Center.

For the past 10 years, Paul Marsh has pledged himself to the pursuit of wine. In Chico, he learned the intricacies of its fruit by planting and harvesting a vineyard. With Kendall Jackson, he learned to sell. At The Firehouse Restaurant in Old Sacramento, he was educated on the finer points of building a wine collection in a hospitality setting, and he became a certified sommelier.

Does a community’s brand matter? 

Consider this. A local medical practice recently tried to recruit a dermatologist. After an extensive search, they offered the job to a young, out-of-state doctor — who couldn’t convince his wife to move to Sacramento. “I’m not moving there,” she told him. “It’s boring.” The search started over.

When it comes to overall economic health and vitality, the Central Valley is behind. Way behind. And that should concern us all because there are fundamental factors holding us back.

Janie Desmond Ison, 54, is the 2014 board chair of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership. She also has more than 20 years of involvement with the Old Sacramento Business Association.

For the new owners of the Sloughhouse Inn, the challenges of running a restaurant began when patrons started walking through the door. Apparently, management wasn’t actually planning on customers showing up.

Bright orange walls and ergonomic chairs. A black conference table flanked by a half-dozen scruffy-chic men (zip-front sweaters, double-pierced ears, turn-of-the-millennium tattoos) and three times as many digital devices (nobody brought just one). 

Though a new rapid rehousing initiative may stymy the troubling trend locally, some providers remain concerned that a lack of mandatory supportive services and intensive case management may cause the program to exacerbate, not eliminate, the problem.

As Sacramento gears up to expend precious capital on a new sports and entertainment complex that will bring jobs, outside investment and prestige to the region, I can’t help but ask about other key ingredients needed to guarantee Sacramento a successful future.

The woman on the other end of the line, a long-time patron of the now-shuttered La Boheme restaurant, said she wouldn’t be able to dine at Mighty Tavern. Her church didn’t allow its members to go into bars.

John Wheat, 63, was named director of airports for the Sacramento County Airport System in April, 2013.

I’ve always snickered at yoga.It just seemed ridiculous. But men are flocking to yoga the way we once, in the ’80s, took to this thing called “jogging.” We’re learning that yoga bestows a slew of health benefits — physical, mental, even sexual. But new research also points to increased health risks for men, and this muddies the decision.

Six months ago, Kevin O’Connor hit a wall. He had a good job in a good kitchen, but his body was exhausted and his passion was gone. So, at 24, he decided to step down as the chef of the now-shuttered Blackbird Kitchen & Bar and dig for a new plan.