Pawlek keeps that positive outlook through all aspects of managing the 800-employee operation. One secret to keeping a positive morale: lots of dad jokes.

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. 

As an Albanian immigrant who grew up poor, Aldi Agaj dreamed for his children to have the access and opportunities he didn’t have. When his daughter was 4, he had an idea to create an edtech company that gives kids free access to innovative games.

For agencies that provide emergency medical services, every single drug must be accounted for. But during Clive Savacool’s time as a firefighter in the Bay Area, drugs went missing from a fire station.

In 2022, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved the TransMedics Organ Care System, or OCS device. Known as the “heart in a box,” this device uses normothermic perfusion to pump blood through a removed heart and preserve it for longer periods until it can be transplanted into a new person.

At a time when anyone can order lighting fixtures off Amazon or wander the aisles of Home Depot or Lowe’s and select something readily available and cheap, visiting Hobrecht or Lofings can feel like a trip to a different era. Still, there’s a story worth telling connected to each of these Sacramento stores which shows how family businesses can endure even in changing times.

Eric and Tracy Denio remember Roseville before it was a suburban powerhouse — back when their childhood days were spent roaming among fields, ranches, ponds and gravel pits. Flash forward to today, and Denio’s Farmers Market & Swap Meet is surrounded by oceans of homes and shopping centers that span for miles in every direction. But one thing that hasn’t changed is its ethos.

Founded in 1897 by William Francis Gormley, W.F. Gormley & Sons is anchored by traditional values of dignity and compassion. But they’re not stuffy. The business caters to all religions and beliefs, evolving to meet the needs of a clientele who increasingly request eco-friendly “green burials” and newer technologies like water cremation.

Driving along a country road in rural Sutter County and seeing endless rows of corn, you can’t help but think of the movie “Field of Dreams.” The Sills family decided to build their dream eight decades ago. Pleasant Grove Farms, a family-owned, certified organic grain and bean farm, has been growing corn and other crops for nearly 80 years. 

Founded in 1867, Bank of Stockton is the oldest bank in California still operating under its original charter. This longevity and continuity in serving communities with Bank of Stockton branches — as of November, there will be 21 locations throughout the Central Valley — sets this family business apart.

For years, Joe Genshlea has been known as one of the best trial lawyers in California. Regularly lionized as such by his peers — including his being voted into the state’s Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame in a ceremony presided over by California Supreme Court Associate Justice Ming W. Chin — Genshlea’s reputation could give you the impression he’s a fiery, hellfire-and-brimstone orator.

Winnie Comstock-Carlson describes an average weekday as this magazine’s founder, president and publisher (for 35 years).  

Leo Zlimen, 25, is CEO of Ladris, a fast-growing startup based in Nevada City that provides AI-based software for emergency management.

Vidhu Shekhar is government strategy leader at Microsoft. He is directing the mega-company’s mission to help state and local authorities improve their effectiveness through generative AI. 

Carli Schrader and her family operate 43 McDonald’s in Sacramento, San Joaquin, Amador and Stanislaus counties.  

Emiliano Rosas is a “proud product” of east Yolo County, where he now serves as chair of the West Sacramento Parks, Recreation and Intergenerational Commission.

As project solutions lead at Blue Zones, Joaquin Razo is working to bring the way of life of the world’s longest-lived communities to his home city.

At 39, Brandon Pace is Kaiser Northern California’s youngest chief operating officer.

As executive director of the San Joaquin County Historical Museum, Phillip Merlo understands the importance of cultural narratives. 

As a PIO for Sacramento State, Lanaya Lewis acts as a spokesperson for the university, staying in-the-know with everything happening.

Jacob Gutierrez-Montoya founded Sacramento Contemporary Dance Theatre, whose mission is to translate the work of local nonprofits into art.

Kevin Dobson is founder and executive director of Capital College & Career Academy, a public charter high school that trains teenagers to work in construction.

The anything-goes medium encompasses all kinds of local practitioners, from storytellers recording in their home offices to laughing exchanges recorded in band rehearsal rooms. 

When Dr. Luke Wood was finding his sea legs as Sac State’s new president, he walked over to Urijah Faber’s Ultimate Fitness gym on Folsom Boulevard, put on his boxing gloves and sparred with the gym owner. Then a light went off in Wood’s head. Since he was reinventing the university anyway, why not use the opportunity to partner with Faber in setting up a system so students could go to school for fighting?

Dr. Luke Wood has set his competitive sights on remaking his university into an institution that can compete academically, not just with other CSUs — he is clear in his ambition to make the beautiful, tree-filled and ethnically diverse campus the flagship university in the CSU system — but with the University of California campuses and other top-tier institutions around the country. 

You wouldn’t know that a tragic love story led to the railroad that connected the East and West coasts for the first time.

Gary Gerould, aka The G-Man, has spent more than six decades as a sports journalist and play-by-play announcer. His greatest gift may be that you don’t have to care that much about the sports he’s covered (basketball, auto racing, sumo wrestling and football come immediately to mind) to be familiar with his name, his distinctively even-keeled voice and his remarkable unflappability.

All sagas have to begin somewhere. For Angelo Tsakopoulos, it was nighttime when he heard people crying on the upper deck of the ship that brought him, at 15, and hundreds of other immigrants to the United States in 1951. 

Over the course of summer and the first weeks of fall, over 60 varieties of peaches and nectarines pass through The Fruit Bowl, a 76-year-old produce stand on the rural outskirts of Stockton. 

The Mayfield siblings grew up in the charmed nautical world of their father’s imagination. At the Sub Sea Systems workshop in Diamond Springs, power tools whir as two generations work side by side to build custom submersibles that resemble something out of a Jules Verne novel. 

In his lifetime of entrepreneurship, Don Whitaker has managed to mostly avoid competitors. “You try to find a niche where you have no competition,” Whitaker says of his approach to business. He found his niche market with Ceronix, which he started in 1984 out of his Auburn home. 

February 9, 2017, was a bad day for Mark Snyir and the Sacramento moving company he co-owns, Two Men and a Truck. He and his partner started the business in 2005, growing from two trucks and five employees to 16 trucks and 80 employees. 

Learning of this interview with local media legend Kitty O’Neal, who has been anchoring news at KFBK for an astounding 37 years, a fan of hers gushes, “Wow! I watch her on the radio all the time!” 

As a newly elected member of the Elk Grove Unified School District — one of the largest in the state — a partner in a law firm representing high-tech companies and a molder of young legal minds as a professor, it’s important for Michael Vargas to give back to the community.

When it comes to navigating life and work, 916 Ink’s Jade Rodgers is a firm believer in “ubuntu,” an African word meaning “my humanity is tied to yours.” “Our experience in this life is interconnected,” she says.

Ananda Rochita’s first language was Indonesian; by the time she started kindergarten, however, she also spoke English — thanks to time spent in front of the television watching the news. Years later when it came time to decide on an area of study, perhaps unsurprisingly, she chose journalism. 

Julie Phillips had a good idea early on where her interests lie. After growing up in Roseville, she attended UC Davis as a political science major and got strongly involved with the Greek community there. She wasn’t interested in pursuing politics; public policy fascinated her instead. 

Oto oversees marketing and communications for both the CalAsian Chamber of Commerce, an organization representing Asian American and Pacific Islander-owned businesses around the state, and the Sacramento Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce, which centers its efforts on the Capital Region.

The pandemic forced many parents of young children to reduce their volunteer time. Dr. Nkiruka Ohaegbu was not one of them. While guiding an essential government service from her home computer and overseeing her children’s remote education, Ohaegbu maintained her extensive commitments to the community.

For Nathan Langley, entrepreneurship has meant integrating his drive to save lives with his passion for innovation and sales, and the synthesis has helped him succeed. “Everybody is different, and their experiences are different, but I would find it much more difficult to have overcome some of the challenges that we’ve faced over the years if it wasn’t something I believed in,” he says. 

Ken Imwinkelried went to work for River City Bank around the time of the Great Recession. Logging extra time on nights and weekends, he learned everything he could about his profession at a very challenging time in the banking industry. And over the course of several years, his extra work paid off with promotion after promotion. But about five years ago, as Imwinkelried implored other staff to not stay too late, he realized he had to do the same.

Phillip Hon, executive director of Unbound Stockton, left the sea breezes of Hawaii behind to pursue a dream. In 2013, the nonprofit Teach for America offered him the opportunity to work at Iroquois Point Elementary School in Oahu, where he served as vice principal and on the National Advisory Board of the Collective, Teach For America’s national association for alumni of color.

Clad in a faded Star Wars T-shirt, Kevin Hernandez begins introducing elated kids to Darth Vader and Rey Skywalker in the flesh. The children start getting light saber training from these live-action characters, slashing and twirling their replica space swords around the heart of Denio’s Farmers Market & Swap Meet.

Oates rarely does “the least” he can do. He is chairman of the board of the Buzz Oates Group — a $3 billion commercial real estate investment, management and development firm founded by his late father. 

Too many employees get stuck doing tedious tasks on legacy systems that can impact job satisfaction and the bottom line. This is why Todd Michaud launched HuLoop Automation, a Sacramento-based AI-powered solution to transform the way work gets done.

Sandy Smoley was once ubiquitous in local and state government, in the arts, in charity, in civic beautification and ultimately, as an in-demand public affairs and health care consultant for The Smoley Group. We check in with the local icon to see what she’s up to now.

Before starting her shoe company Birdies, Marisa Sharkey described herself as risk averse. Eight years in, her bold moves have paid off. 

Cathilea Robinett is CEO of e.Republic, a Folsom-based media and research company focused on state and local government and education. She drives the company’s mission to improve government and education through strategy, stability, growth and expansion.

As superintendent and CEO of Gateway Community Charters, Dr. Cindy Petersen has grown Gateway Community Charters from a single school in 2003 to nine today, which serve over 5,000 children and employ 700 staff. 

Risa Omega is president and general manager of ABC10, currently the most-awarded newsroom in the Capital Region.