Claudette was single and pregnant. She felt hurt, angry and confused, so she made an appointment at Sacramento’s Alternatives Pregnancy Center.

Alyssah Schafer was born with a congenital heart defect and has never been able to run or compete in sports. Over time, her friends drifted away, and the girl became depressed. But then she met a mustang named Montana at All About Equine, a horse rescue and rehabilitation organization in El Dorado Hills.  

Bill Coibion’s commitment to transforming lives in his Del Paso Heights neighborhood began in the mid-1990s when he launched the nonprofit Shoulder to Shoulder. He had just become a Christian and felt called to encourage men to be “servant-leaders” at home, in church and in their communities. 

The Trade is making a difference in the lives of impoverished and abused women, one haircut at a time. 

Doug Pringle lost a leg to the Vietnam War in 1968. He was recovering at the Presidio of San Francisco hospital the day World War II veterans stopped by for a visit.

John Lewis Sullivan was addicted to drugs at age 13, stealing to support his habit and generally making mischief of varying degrees. He’s since spent 18 of his 42 years in jail or in California’s prison system.

Kate Renwick-Espinosa was weeks into a four-month maternity leave from VSP Vision Care when her boss called and asked to stop by.

Charities come in all sizes, dedicated to myriad causes, and generous donations to a small, do-good organization sometimes will make a big difference.

Doris Hobbs threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Sacramento River Cats game. Harriet Antonides at last became a Girl Scout at age 100. And Mino Ohye, who hadn’t seen his beloved brother in 60 years, in January would fly to Japan for a reunion.

Shane Snyder has been fighting his whole life. He is 46 years old and has Usher syndrome, a genetic disorder affecting hearing and vision.

In 2003, California’s workers’ compensation rates led the nation, setting off a debate about the cost of doing business here. Enter former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his sweeping 2004 reforms to the system — everything from disability payments to medical care guidelines to return-to-work benefits got an overhaul.

Monica Gonzalez recently logged onto the Facebook page of Weave Inc., an organization that treats survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, to post a simple message about how the nonprofit helped her overcome a nightmarish ordeal.

Juliana Espinoza was a bashful teenager until last summer when she began a year-long internship at Junior Achievement of Sacramento.

A teenage boy walks through dangerous gang territory to reach the train that will take him from his low-income neighborhood to a private high school in Sacramento where almost no one knows his story.

Bradley J. Hudson, 53, was hired as the Sacramento County executive in mid-August. With more than 25 years of administrative experience in civic government, he most recently served as the city manager of Riverside.

At age 15, Erik Self sneaked into the home of a friend’s mother and, when she got out of bed to investigate the noise, stabbed her repeatedly with a survival knife. He was arrested and charged with attempted murder and burglary.

Each year, Rancho Cordova-based Vision Service Plan provides free, annual, comprehensive eye examinations and eyewear to 50,000 underserved children throughout the country.

Not unlike most Capital Region developers, New Faze Development has been through some very serious and trying financial scenarios during the past four years. The North Sacramento-based company has abandoned projects, lost properties and seen its lenders go out of business.

Women in some parts of the United States are dying younger than they did a generation ago.

It’s been more than 10 years since Char Donnermeyer sat in a communitywide forum to determine which charitable cause needed her attention. The United Way had tapped Donnermeyer and two others to start a group that women around the region could rally behind.

There is a distinction between being pro business and being pro small business, at least according to Marty Keller. He hopes to use this distinction to unify a mostly silent force of 3.5 million small-business owners and give them a voice — and perhaps the ability — to dramatically reshape the California Legislature in 2012.

It was recently reported by the U.S. Department of Labor that worker productivity was down for the second quarter in a row. This downward trend does not surprise George Grinzewitsch, Jr.

A  job well done will pay off in your  retirement plan.

If you’re in the sleep business or, more specifically, work for Sleep Train Mattress Centers or one of its two West Coast subsidiaries, that’s your mantra.

Michele Skupic has been around the title insurance business long enough to recognize a turning tide.

Today, there are more than 8 million women-owned businesses in America, generating nearly $1.3 trillion in annual revenue. Women continue to launch enterprises at a faster rate than the national average, according to the latest Census data. In fact, women have been launching and growing businesses faster than men for the past two decades.

State trade groups generate nearly $90 billion in annual spending nationwide through education and training programs, meeting products and services, and local, state and federal taxes, according to the California Society of Association Executives. Roughly 15 percent of that is spent right here in California, and much of it winds up in the till of the hospitality industry.

Ben Ilfeld thinks a down economy coupled with a decline in print advertising is just what the doctor ordered. He and four other co-founders used the scenario to launch the Sacramento Press online in late 2008.

According to Mark Jansen, Blue Diamond Growers is a 100-year-old brand that is just now reaching its potential. It’s this goal of establishing the Blue Diamond brand as the world’s No. 1 producer of almonds and almond-related products that lured the lifelong Midwesterner to California with his family late last summer.

The market for social gaming in America will reach an estimated $1.25 billion in 2011, and social gaming startups — which didn’t exist three years ago — will account for about $835 million of that total, according to Inside Network Inc., a data collection firm that monitors Facebook, apps and the gaming industry. Sacramento’s own KlickNation Corp., a Facebook-game developer staffed by gaming addicts, techies and three former Marvel Comics artists, is one such small firm with big aspirations.

In 2002 Michael Walter was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, but to his wife, Beth, the diagnosis just didn’t seem to fit the symptoms. So she Googled “ALS brain-related disease” — frontotemporal degeneration popped up.

When Gay Callan left her Bay Area sales job to grow grapes in the Sierra foothills in the early 1980s, people told her that she — a city slicker and a woman to boot — was crazy.

It’s a Capital Region paradox. The bad news for home builders is that very few new homes are going up. The good news for existing-home sales is that very few new homes are going up.

Having a comprehensive disaster management plan in place alongside a robust and comprehensive insurance package is vital for any business owner hoping to survive a worst-case scenario.

Like other businesses, The Golden 1 Credit Union has absorbed its share of economic blows since 2008. But the largest credit union in California has long prided its fiscally conservative approach to finance.

Lesli Pletcher’s parents were not extravagantly wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. However, true to form of a couple raised during the Great Depression, they were frugal and financially cautious so that, by the end of their lives, they had amassed a substantial estate capable of easily sustaining Pletcher’s father in his $9,000-a-month Alzheimer’s care facility.

More than 40 years ago, Brice Harris entered education leadership and vowed never to use money — or lack thereof — as an excuse for the performance of the higher-learning institutions he served. However, he now insists the California Community Colleges System cannot adequately serve the student population without more state funding.

Perseverance. If nothing else, you have to give Gerry Kamilos credit for that.

Matina Kolokotronis was on maternity leave from a local law firm when she got the phone call that changed her career. The caller said: “Hello, this is Geoff Petrie with the Sacramento Kings. I understand that you’re Greek and that you’re a lawyer. We just drafted a Greek player by the name of Peja Stojakovic, and we need some help with his contract.”

Given the current economics of local government, one might think it’s the perfect time to flee to the private sector. Not so for Ray Kerridge.

Unless you get on the wrong airplane or harbor a relentless cancer, doctors say you can pretty much count on living to be 90. A hundred years ago, it was age 50. For many women, that would have meant dying before menopause. Now it means living half a lifetime with hormones on the fritz.

When 52-year-old Rosey Ramsey had a stroke in August 2002 she was one of the lucky ones.    

When his mother fell for the second time, Steve Smith was ready to put the plan in motion.

A growing senior population is changing the way society approaches life and death. “People are dying differently now,” says Judy Citko, executive director of the Coalition for Compassionate Care. In the past, patients had to choose between giving up on treatment or forging ahead with sometimes drastic measures. In contrast to the traditional focus on treatment of individual episodes at any physical and financial cost, medical experts, patients and their families are demanding a new way of approaching their final months and years.

Although she can’t recall an aha moment that launched her interest, Julia Burrows says she has been passionate about all things green and sustainable as long as she can remember.

It was the end of 2008 when the economic dominoes began to fall: Lehman Brothers was upside-down, housing crashed, the stock market swooned, banks faltered and the domestic car industry all but went belly up. It wasn’t the best of times to be a high-end American steakhouse.

Construction projects aren’t known for their efficiencies and streamlined processes.

A serendipitous land purchase in Auburn is breathing life into a town property hard-hit by the economy.

The year was 1943, the world was at war and Dick Bertolucci cruised the streets of Sacramento in his first car — a black ’33 Chevy Roadster. He was 13 and didn’t have a license.

Rick Bishop is a resolution rebel, and a successful one at that.

When a mangy white cat wandered out of the oak woodland and into the lap of Lynne Powlesland, the Folsom resident knew immediately that she had made a new friend.