The California High-Speed Rail Authority replaced an engineer with a political operative to lead the nation’s biggest public works project. Jeff Morales instantly charmed his opponents but made technical decisions that placed high-speed rail at the mercy of the courts. Can Morales save his runaway train?

Since August 1999, Lial Jones has served as director of the Crocker Art Museum. During her tenure, she has led a capital campaign that successfully raised more than $120 million to finance the Teel Family Pavilion, a 125,000-square-foot addition that opened in October of 2010.

It took a year of arduous twists and turns, but Matt Sin and Krissy White finally got what they wanted. The business partners and co-owners of the just-opened Foundation Restaurant & Bar at Fourth and L streets in downtown Sacramento have an eatery of their own. It’s a sweet relief to be sure, because the story behind it is rather unsavory.

Daniel Keen, 54, was named city manager of Vallejo in March 2012. He has worked for seven California cities over a span of 30 years and has held city manager positions for 18 years.

Joshua Wood, 31, is the executive director of Region Builders, a commercial-building trade association and coalition. Region Builders is comprised of 13 industry and professional associations representing architects, engineers, contractors, developers and allied firms from the Sacramento area.

Tucked in a quiet corner of western Yolo County, Winters embraces the soul of small-town living. Centered around a historic downtown complete with white gazebo and an oversized main street clock, this tiny farm town (population 6,624) is on the cusp of a burgeoning new food scene.

Already embraced by business and city leaders as a catalyst that will ultimately launch a regional renaissance, Sacramento’s long sought and hotly debated entertainment and sports complex is finally taking shape.

A third-generation member of the family business, Allison Otto joined the Otto Construction team as its marketing director in 2000. Three years ago, she was named vice president for business development. Family patriarch John F. Otto launched the Sacramento-based company in 1947. John’s son Carl took over the company in 1971 and served as president until his passing in 2007.

Demand for gluten-free foods is increasing as more American’s are gaining awareness about the health impacts of wheat. Health seekers and people sensitive to wheat’s protein composite are often limited by the menu options at standard restaurants. But that is changing as local eateries capitalize on the surge of consumers with dietary restrictions.

As a child, Michael Hampton often rode his bike down Folsom’s Sutter Street in search of his grandfather, who spent a great deal of time at the Sutter Club bar and other businesses along the historic drive.

“Today, my uncle owns the Sutter Club,” Hampton says. “And because there’s a lot of family history there, I’ve always wanted to have some type of presence on the street, too.” Last year, that vision became a reality.

Brian King, 49, became chancellor of the Los Rios Community College District in February.

A little more than six years ago, the El Dorado Community Foundation tapped William Roby to become its new executive director. Roby had been working for the foundation for only a year as its program director, but the board was seeking a fresh personality to lead the organization. Since then, Roby has concentrated on one goal: getting the foundation to a point of fiscal sustainability so it can pay its own way.

Asha Canady’s parents didn’t go to college. Her brothers didn’t make it out of high school. But it was expected, from a young age, that Canady and her twin sister would succeed in higher education.

Most businessmen have a dream of the business they want to build before they begin. Brian Watwood’s vision for his new company was born in a personal nightmare.

James Fitzgerald, 45, became a partner and vice president of Market One Builders Inc. in 1999. The Sacramento-based firm has a well-established reputation as a Northern California leader in the construction of complex, sustainable projects, including mission-critical facilities, landmark urban renovations and commercial office environments. Fitzgerald currently serves as chairman of Associated Builders and Contractors of Northern California and is a member of the Region Builders board of directors.

In October 2012, Michael Strech, 49, was named president and CEO of the North State Building Industry Association. The group is a community-based organization representing more than 400 homebuilder and associate members. From 2003 to 2009, Strech served as the vice president of member services for the California BIA.

The latest hospitality survey by J.D. Power and Associates documents what many hotel travelers already know: Customer satisfaction with the nation’s hotels is slipping — substantially.

Food truck success is leading to brick-and-mortar spin-offs for mobile restaurateurs ready to expand in Sacramento and beyond. For some, a fixed kitchen was always the goal, but for others, the choice to settle down was unexpected, the result of cultivating faithful patrons spreading the good-food word to more and more hungry friends.

Since 2007, Rodney Brown, 65, has served as the president and CEO of the California Bankers Association, which represents the majority of banks doing business in California.

In the past 13 years Rick Mahan has not only learned a lot about launching, financing, owning and staffing a business, he has also experienced first hand some of life’s toughest lessons. Today, as the well-respected proprietor of The Waterboy restaurant in midtown and One Speed pizza shop in East Sacramento, he is willing to share those lessons.

California’s seven family business centers (including two in the Capital Region) are committed to addressing the needs and challenges of family-owned companies.

However, all are registered as 501(c)3 organizations, and as such are precluded from lobbying activities.

Squaw Valley USA was once the premier ski resort of California and the world-renowned site of the 1960 Winter Olympic Games. But in the decades that followed, the resort’s managers focused on the mountain, and Squaw became eclipsed by other resorts that boasted hotel rooms and other amenities to capture business in the dry months.

John Frisch, 61, is regional managing director for Cornish & Carey Commercial Newmark Knight Frank. He is also the immediate past chair of the Sacramento Metro Chamber board of directors. 

To this day I lament the closing of the California Café at Arden Fair Mall.

For years I would describe it as “my favorite restaurant that I never go to.” It had a great vibe, comfortable ambience, cool bar, eclectic wine list, intelligent bartender and a seasonal, farm-fresh menu long before that was trendy. I just couldn’t get over the fact that it was located in a shopping center. I take partial blame for its demise nearly a decade ago; I should have frequented it more often.

Robert Chase, 67, is California’s deputy state architect and the current president of the Central Valley chapter of the American Institute of Architects. In addition to his private-sector work in Boston, New York, Los Angeles and Sacramento, Chase has also served as the chief building officer for both the city and county of Sacramento.

Since filing for bankruptcy last year, Stockton hasn’t seen any immediate improvement. The city ended the year with 71 murders, a steady climb from only 26 in 2009. The rise has been attributed to a shrinking police force after the city slashed the department’s budget.

I’ve long believed that just about the worst way to begin a workweek is scheduling an in-office staff meeting. Employees start dreading it by mid-day Sunday. The gatherings usually get off to a late start, drag on and are deemed worthless by most participants.

Enter the breakfast meeting.

What Biba Caggiano describes as the “bing, bang, bong noises,” began on Jan. 26, 2007. That’s when the building next door to one of the region’s most established destination restaurants was being demolished. What followed was a three-sided, multi-year Sutter Medical Center construction project that continues to this day.

There is nobody more bullish on the City of West Sacramento than Mayor Chris Cabaldon. He says no city in the region can boast of a better location and, perhaps most importantly, a better water supply. With these two key attributes, the mayor believes the west-bank city is well positioned to attract business, jobs and residents for the foreseeable future.

I don’t remember life without sexual abuse and torment. It was my reality. Believing in anything else was foolish.

It’s a calm, clear day on West Sacramento’s South River Road, a meandering two-lane route that runs atop a levee buffering houses and farmland from the placid Sacramento River. It’s hard to envision the chaos that would ensue if the great dirt barrier were to burst, pouring millions of gallons of water into adjacent homes and businesses, but that nightmare scenario just got harder to prevent.

Nine years ago, Kimio Bazett and UC Davis classmate Jon Modrow opened The Golden Bear, an American restaurant and bar at 24th and K streets in Sacramento. The location came with a beer and wine license, so the two took what they had and ran with it.

Chris Tucker rolls a lemon across an electric branding iron at Hook & Ladder Manufacturing Co. in downtown Sacramento. Tucker, the restaurant’s beverage director, began using this signature garnish for a number of craft cocktails after watching a video of a bartender in Japan using a similar technique.

In August of last year, it was reported that local eye-care titan VSP would be excluded from competing for individual members in the state’s health insurance exchange market because the vision plan it provides is a stand-alone program. The move lead to conversations that VSP might relocate its headquarters out of state.

Kipp Blewett, 46, is a principal partner and co-founder of Rubicon Partners Inc. He is also a member of the board of directors for the Downtown Sacramento Partnership.

Much of the discussion about how to improve education has been reduced in recent years by a venomous national debate over whether teachers should be judged by the standardized test scores of their students.

Stand outside Sandra Dee’s long enough on a Sunday, and you’ll see groups of hungry guests walk up and squawk at the realization that the famed soul food restaurant is closed.

A week after graduating with a bachelor’s in accounting, I showed up to my new job at a Big Five accounting firm with the best JC Penney suit my signing bonus could buy. It was the middle of the dot-com boom, and although the term business casual was starting to surface, no one could give a straight answer on its definition.

John Shirley, 63 was hired as Sacramento’s city manager in September 2011. Previously, he served as executive director of the California Redevelopment Association. As city manager, he overseas a $1 billion city budget and a staff of nearly 4,000. 

 Since late 2010, following the completion of a multimillion-dollar remodel, management at Enotria Restaurant & Wine Bar has been in pursuit of creating Sacramento’s ideal dining experience.

“Good morning, Sacramento! It’s a perfect day for a pig roast. Come out and join us,” hog farmer Perrin Clark tweeted on a long-awaited day in May.

Coasting through the sweeping fields of California’s Central Valley, it’s not unusual to spot collections of crouching figures diligently tending crops. These primarily Hispanic immigrants prune, thin, harvest and grow much of California’s renowned produce. But over the past decade or so, hundreds of thousands of these indispensable farm workers have vanished.

For more than a decade Meg Arnold has been actively supporting technology commercialization and entrepreneurship throughout the Capital Region.

Mike Wiley, 59, began his career at the Sacramento Regional Transit District as a service planner in 1978. In 2007, he was named general manager and CEO. He also serves on the executive committee of the California Transit Association.

While Bill Carey is amply appreciative of Highway 50 patrons looking to reconnect with his former establishment, the German-style St. Pauli Inn, he is just as quick to point out that his Forester Pub & Grill is not a Continental restaurant.

Tablet computers are becoming the tool of choice in multiple industries, adding convenience to simple tasks such as note taking, to more complex operations such as tracking sales. Tablets haven’t replaced laptops yet, but sales trends favor the handheld devices.

Beutler Air Conditioning and Plumbing may be a poster-business for the rise and fall — and re-birth — of Sacramento’s economy. Rick Wylie, president of Beutler, says the 65-year-old Sacramento company was probably saved by its diversification, partially into green energy models.

Jonathan Rewers, 33, serves as chairman of the Sacramento Parks Commission. In the June elections, Rewers garnered 25 percent of the vote in his quest to unseat Kevin Johnson as mayor of Sacramento. He is now a candidate for the City Charter Commission.