While institutions of higher learning across the state are reeling from budget cuts, tuition hikes, course reductions and faculty and student unrest, Chancellor Linda Katehi has calmly put together a business plan for expansion and prosperity at UC Davis.

The headlines are the same in nearly every state: massive cuts in higher education budgets, faculty and staff layoffs, tuition hikes and students locked out of a college education because of rising costs. Our nation’s economic distress is taking a huge toll on our colleges, universities and future work force.

The city of Lincoln has embraced an alternative mode of transportation — the neighborhood electric vehicle — and so has Sacramento Valley Golf Carts, the city’s only sales and service center for golf carts and NEVs.

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.

Inside a concrete warehouse a few miles past Sacramento International Airport, an 80-pound white sturgeon is hauled onto a table, sliced throat to tail and relieved of its egg-stuffed ovaries. Workers at Sterling Caviar LLC pack the meat on ice, ship the roe elsewhere and repeat the process.

Hedge funds are back. Worries about European debt crisis, war in the Middle East and the potential for rating agencies to downgrade America’s treasuries have rattled shareholders. But those fears haven’t held back investors from pouring record amounts of capital into the cowboy country of largely unregulated, nontransparent funds.

Looking back, it’s easy to see how some local government pension plans wound up underfunded. As described in last month’s issue, much of the blame goes to generous legislation passed during California’s boom cycles.

Since founding Sierra Energy Corp. in 2004, Mike Hart has led the charge to make it a force in the world of renewable energy. This year, with a working gasification system to demonstrate for new investors, Hart is stepping aside as CEO.

Real estate sales and values have plummeted 40 percent the past few years, but the commercial retail market is buzzing with hungry buyers hunting both bargains and gems.

As legislators duke it out in the Capitol and college regents slash services and raise fees, Adam Thongsavat is viewing education in California a bit differently. Namely, the UC Davis senior has been watching the growing line of students waiting for free food.

It’s been said a down economy is a boon for Masters of Business Administration programs. The fact that the region has kept the healthy crop of MBA schools it had in 2007, before the economy turned, and even added one would suggest the maxim holds true. But it’s no free ride.

Yuba County’s infrastructure was crumbling and its budget bleeding red ink when officials came up with a catching solution to their energy problems.

Hair rollers went the way of old-time beauty shops, but rollers of a different sort are in vogue at Bella Capelli Salone in downtown Yuba City, where owner Carol Milani sometimes styles hair in her skates.

When city of Sacramento leaders sat down in January 2008 to construct the River District Specific Plan, they had an ambitious goal: Take an industrial area with a high concentration of social services and turn it into a picturesque pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly community with housing, retail and office space — all while maintaining a welcoming atmosphere to everyone already there.

Thousands of Sacramentans soon can walk out their front doors and take a few steps to the American River Parkway, to light-rail, to shops and restaurants and maybe even to their workplaces.

Owner Ray Enos and some of his staff at Downtown Ford have witnessed two generations of employees’ families grow up under their noses.

The next time you dine at Burgers and Brew, Crepeville or Chops Steak, Seafood & Bar, you’ll likely eat something purchased from Restaurant Depot. Those popular eateries are among the regular customers of the privately owned food-service wholesaler at 1275 Vine St. in the River District.