CBM-0517-FINAL

OPEN-SOURCE HEALTH | GIRLS WHO BREW | THE HIDDEN STRESS OF IVF 

BUSINESS INSIGHT FOR THE CAPITAL REGION 

MAY ‘17 VOL. 29 | NO. 5 

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Every Every Day Day Offers Offers Teachable Teachable Moments Moments 

You Every are the Day best to Offers teach kids about Teachable good money Moments 

habits 

You are the best to teach kids about good money habits 

You are the best to teach kids about good money habits 

by Anthony Johnson 



Today, children in Sacramento and around the management in the context of what you know. In fact, 

Today, children in Sacramento and around the management the context of what you know. In fact, 

U.S. are unlikely to learn basic financial literacy it’s more meaningful to kids—and easier for you—when 

U.S. are unlikely in Sacramento learn basic financial and around literacy the management it’s more meaningful the context to kids—and of what easier you for know. you—when 

Today, skills in children school in because Sacramento there and just around isn’t the enough U.S. are you Now give that you’ve examples laid from the groundwork, your own jump life. And in. There’s don’t In no shy fact, 

U.S. skills are in unlikely school because to learn there basic financial just isn’t literacy enough it’s you more give meaningful examples from to kids—and your own easier life. for And you—when don’t shy 

time time to to fit unlikely 

skills fit 

in in it 

in it during to during learn the basic the school 

because school 

financial day. 

there day. literacy In 

just In 

fact, fact, skills less 

isn’t less in than school away 

enough than 

expectation from sharing that you your explain fiscal global blunders economics too. or You how know the 

away give from examples sharing from your fiscal your blunders own life. too. And You don’t know 

20 percent because of high there school just isn’t students enough have time the to fit basic it in skills during your Fed sets kids the best, Prime so rate. adjust Simply your relay approach money-management to suit them. shy in 

time 20 percent to fit in of it high during school the students school day. have In the fact, basic less skills than away your kids from best, sharing so adjust your fiscal your blunders approach too. suit You them. 

to the balance school a day. checkbook In fact, less or than debit 20 card percent register, of high according school the context of what you know. In fact, it’s more meaningful know 

to students 20 to the balance percent National have a of the checkbook high Center basic school skills of or Education to students debit balance card Statistics. have a register, checkbook the basic As according 

a skills dad debit Here to your kids are kids — four and best, easier easy so ideas adjust for you that your — when can approach get you big give results: to examples suit them. 

to balance the National a checkbook Center of or Education debit card register, Statistics. according As a dad Here are four easy ideas that can get big results: 

that’s card register, concerning. according to the National Center of Education from your own life. And don’t shy away from sharing your 

Statistics. to that’s the National concerning. As a dad Center that’s concerning. of Education Statistics. As a dad Kids fiscal Here blunders learn are four by too. doing easy You ideas know so 1bring that can get big results: 

that’s concerning. 

Kids learn by doing so 

Kids learn by doing so your it kids up best, during so adjust everyday your 

bring it up during everyday 

As a banker, I see many adults still struggling to learn activities. approach to While suit them. shopping, talk about how much you 

As a I see many adults still struggling to learn activities. While shopping, bring talk it about up during how much everyday you 

those As a banker, skills and I see who many make adults missteps still struggling because to learn of it. those Add saved buying an item on sale. If you’re planning a 

As those a banker, skills and I see who many make adults missteps still struggling because of to it. learn Add activities. saved buying While an shopping, item on talk sale. about If you’re how planning much you a 

to skills that and the who challenges make missteps of budgeting because of when it. Add faced to that with the major Here are purchase four easy (i.e. ideas car, home that can or get vacation), big results: discuss 

those that skills the and challenges who make of budgeting missteps because when faced of it. Add with saved major buying purchase an (i.e. item car, on home sale. If or you’re vacation), planning discuss 

day-to-day challenges of expenses budgeting and when things faced can with get day-to-day complicated expenses how a 

day-to-day that the challenges expenses and of budgeting things when get complicated 

faced with major how 

1. Kids grown-ups 

grown-ups 

learn by doing have 

purchase (i.e. have 

so to 

car, to 

bring save 

save 

it up up for 

home up 

during the 

or for vacation), the 

everyday items they 

items discuss they 

fast. and things In fact, can 60 get percent complicated of Americans fast. In fact, 60 percent of want, 

day-to-day fast. In fact, expenses 60 percent and of things Americans 

get complicated how want, 

activities. too. 

grown-ups too. 

While shopping, talk about how much you 

don’t Americans have don’t enough have savings enough savings to cover to cover a a $500 unexpected 

fast. don’t unexpected In expense, have fact, enough 60 according expense, percent savings to according of a January Americans to cover Bankrate.com to a study. want, too. Introduce hands-on learning such the 

have to save up for the items they 

saved buying an item on sale. If you’re planning a major 

$500 purchase (i.e. 

don’t $500 have unexpected enough expense, savings according to cover to 

Introduce car, home or hands-on vacation), learning discuss how such grownups 

have to save up for the items piggy they bank. want, Take too. 

the 

a January Bankrate.com study. a 

tried-and-true 

2 

$500 a January unexpected Bankrate.com expense, study. according to 

Introduce tried-and-true hands-on learning such a January Bankrate.com study. 

tried-and-true piggy bank. Take it to the 

We all want more for our children. The good news is we 

next level with older child by it using to the 

can absolutely change the tide, simply by integrating this 

2. Introduce hands-on next level learning with such piggy an the older bank. tried-and-true child Take by it to using the 

We all want more for our children. 

four jars: saving, spending, donating 

topic We into all our want everyday more lives. for Let’s our find children. teachable moments 

piggy bank. Take next four it level jars: to the with saving, next an level older spending, with child an older by donating using 

The good news is we can absolutely 

and investing. The amount of money 

with 

We The our 

all good kids, 

want news nephews, 

more is we nieces 

for can our 

and absolutely children. 

grandchildren. Talking 

child by using four and four investing. jars: saving, saving, The spending, spending, amount donating of donating money and 

change the tide, simply by integrating 

in the container isn’t important, it’s the 

about 

The change good 

money the news 

can tide, be 

is simply uncomfortable, 

we can by integrating absolutely 

but it’s worth it. Just 

investing. The and in amount the investing. container of money The isn’t in the amount important, container of money it’s isn’t the 

this topic into our everyday lives. Let’s 

process. 

like 

change this learning topic the into tide, 

ride our simply 

a bike, everyday basic 

by integrating lives. financial Let’s skills are easier to 

important, it’s in process. the the process. container isn’t important, it’s the 

find teachable moments with our kids, 

master 

this find topic teachable when 

into 

you’re 

our moments young. 

everyday 

Starting with lives. our our 

Let’s kids, 

on the path to 

3. One of the One most process. impactful of the most things impactful you can do things may seem you 

nephews, nieces and grandchildren. 

One of the most impactful things you 

sound 

find nephews, teachable 

financial nieces practices 

moments and now grandchildren. 

with 

greatly 

our 

increases 

kids, 

the odds they 

trivial: take your child with 

3 

can do may seem you 

One can do of may the most seem trivial: impactful take things your child you 

nephews, Talking nieces about and money grandchildren. can be 

trivial: to the bank take to your open child 

Talking about money can be 

will maintain good habits in adulthood. 

her first savings with account. you to Then the bank encourage to open her her to keep first 

uncomfortable, but it’s worth it. Just like 

can with do you may to seem the bank trivial: to take open your her child first 

Talking uncomfortable, about but it’s money worth it. can Just like 

savings making account. deposits Then — it’s encourage about creating her to a habit. keep And making when 

learning Here’s a to simple ride a bike, road basic map to financial get you 

be skills started: are easier savings account. with Then you encourage to the bank her to to open keep her making first 

uncomfortable, learning to ride but a bike, it’s worth basic it. financial Just like skills are easier 

deposits—it’s she wants something about creating she can’t a quite habit. afford, And discuss when the she 

to master when you’re young. Starting our kids on the savings deposits—it’s account. about Then creating encourage a habit. her to And keep when making she 

learning to • master If you’re to when ride a parent, a you’re bike, speak young. basic with financial Starting your spouse skills our or kids are partner on easier the so wants value something of saving versus she can’t borrowing. quite afford, discuss the 

path to sound financial practices now greatly increases deposits—it’s wants something about she creating can’t quite a habit. afford, And discuss when she the 

to path master you’re to sound both when on financial you’re the same young. practices page Starting when now it’s greatly our time kids to increases talk on to the the value 4. Seek of saving out more versus ideas borrowing. and information. There are great 

the odds they will maintain good habits in adulthood. wants value financial of something saving resources versus she online, borrowing. can’t 4including quite afford, free advice discuss on the 

path the kids odds to sound about they financial will maintain priorities. practices good If now you’re habits greatly not in adulthood. the increases parent, 

value of saving versus borrowing. 

the odds they will maintain good habits in adulthood. Seek out more ideas and Seek age-appropriate out more ideas topics. and information. There are great 

Here’s 

follow 

a simple 

their lead. 

road map to get you started: 

financial Try: fdic.org/moneysmart resources online, information. including and jumpstart.org. 

free There advice are great on 

• Here’s • 

If 

Put 

you’re 

yourself a simple a 

in 

parent, road the child’s map speak to shoes. get with you Try started: your 

to remember 

spouse 

your 

or age-appropriate Seek financial out more resources ideas topics. online, and Try: information. fdic.org/moneysmart including There free advice are and great on 

Here’s • partner 

top If a financial you’re simple so you’re a worries road parent, both map and 

on speak to priorities get the you same with at started: that your page 

age. 

when spouse Buying 

it’s or 

jumpstart.org. 

However financial age-appropriate you resources approach topics. online, the topic, Try: including fdic.org/moneysmart remember free to stay advice focused and on 

• time 

that If partner you’re new 

to talk 

app so a to you’re or parent, the 

toy 

kids 

might both speak about on be the financial with perfect same your page opening 

priorities. spouse when to talk 

If it’s or on age-appropriate jumpstart.org. 

the goal: to raise topics. a financially Try: fdic.org/moneysmart savvy child who can go into and 

you’re 

about partner time money. 

not to talk so the you’re to parent, the both kids follow on about the their financial same lead. page priorities. when it’s If However the jumpstart.org. 

world with you the approach basic knowledge the topic, about remember saving and to spending 

stay 

• Ask time you’re about to not talk their to thoughts parent, kids on follow about money. financial their The lead. context priorities. of If However 

so he/she 

you 

avoids 

approach 

the temptations 

the topic, 

of excessive 

remember 

spending. 

to stay 

• Put yourself in the child’s shoes. Try to remember focused on the goal: to raise a financially savvy child 

• this you’re Put conversation yourself not the parent, will the depend child’s follow on shoes. their Try age, lead. to but remember it shows However focused on you the approach goal: to raise the topic, a financially remember savvy to child 

your top financial worries and priorities at that age. who can go into the world with the basic knowledge stay 

• you’re Put your yourself top interested financial the their worries child’s opinion and shoes. and priorities Try make to financial remember at that age. focused who can on go the into goal: the to world raise with a financially the basic savvy knowledge 

Buying that new app toy might be the perfect about saving and spending so he/she avoids child the 

conversations your Buying top that financial more new productive. worries app and toy might priorities be at the that perfect age. who about can saving go into and the spending world with so the he/she basic knowledge avoids the 

opening to talk about money. 

temptations of excessive spending. 

Buying opening that to talk new about app money. or toy might be the perfect about temptations saving of and excessive spending spending. 

• Ask about their thoughts money. The context of 

so he/she avoids the 

• this opening Ask conversation about to their talk about thoughts will depend money. 

money. their The age, context but it of temptations of excessive spending. 

Anthony Johnson is a Senior Vice President at Banner 

• shows Ask this about conversation you’re their interested thoughts will in depend on their money. opinion their The and age, context make but of it 

Bank. Anthony With Johnson nearly $10 is a billion Senior in Vice assets, President Banner at partners Banner 

financial this shows you’re conversations interested will more depend in their productive. on opinion their age, and but make it with Anthony Bank. individuals With Johnson nearly and is $10 businesses a Senior billion Vice in to assets, support President Banner their at Banner financial partners 

shows financial you’re conversations interested more in their productive. opinion and make goals. Bank. with Reach individuals With Anthony nearly and $10 at businesses billion 916.714.2217 assets, to support Banner their partners financial 

Now that financial you’ve conversations laid the groundwork, more productive. jump in. There’s anthony.johnson@bannerbank.com. 

with goals. individuals Reach Anthony and businesses at 916.714.2217 to support their financial 

no Now expectation that you’ve that laid you the explain groundwork, global jump economics in. There’s or goals. anthony.johnson@bannerbank.com. 

Reach Anthony at 916.714.2217 or 

how Now no the expectation that Fed you’ve sets the that laid Prime the you groundwork, explain rate. Simply global jump relay economics in. money- 

There’s or anthony.johnson@bannerbank.com. 

no how expectation the Fed sets that the you Prime explain rate. global Simply economics relay money- 

or 

how the Fed sets the Prime rate. Simply relay Sponsored money- 

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Volume 29 Number 5 

PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER 

Winnie Comstock-Carlson, Ext. 101 

winnie@comstocksmag.com 

EDITOR IN CHIEF 

Allison Joy, Ext. 106 

MANAGING EDITOR 

Sena Christian, Ext. 110 

ASSOCIATE EDITOR 

Robin Epley, Ext. 104 

INTERIM ART DIRECTOR 

Kelly Barr, Ext. 115 

EDITORIAL DESIGNER 

Sara Bogovich, Ext. 108 

AD DESIGNER 

Jason Balangue, Ext. 105 

VICE PRESIDENT & 

DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT 

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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS 

Katie Carr, Rich Ehisen, Tania Fowler, 

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CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS 

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TODAY IS THE DAY. TAKE ACTION. 

One courageous family can change the course of a child’s life. 

Lilliput Families (previously Lilliput Children’s Services) 

6 comstocksmag.com | May 2017

May 2017 

CHAIRMAN 

RICHARD RAISLER 

President, trueHUE Enterprises Inc. 

reen & gold gala 

reflections 

of 

gratitude 

MIKE AMMANN 

President and CEO, San Joaquin Partnership 

MEG ARNOLD 

Principal, GSD Consulting 

JAMES BECKWITH 

CEO, Five Star Bank 

STEPHEN BENDER 

CEO, Warren G. Bender Co. 

CHRISTI BLACK-DAVIS 

Executive Vice President, Edelman 

CAROL BURGER 

President, Burger Rehabilitation 

TIM CARMICHAEL 

Manager, Southern California Gas Co. 

MAC CLEMMENS 

CEO, Digital Deployment 

JOHN FINEGAN 

Founder, Beck Ag 

STEVE FLEMING 

President and CEO, River City Bank 

JIM HARTLEY 

Vice President, CH2M 

OLEG KAGANOVICH 

Founder and CEO, Wyndow 

TOM KANDRIS 

CEO, PackageOne 

DENTON KELLEY 

Managing Principal, LDK Capital LLC 

BRIAN KING 

Chancellor, Los Rios Community College District 

JEFF KOEWLER 

Partner, Delfino Madden O’Malley Coyle & Koewler LLP 

Thank you 

to our sponsors 

On March 24, Sacramento State’s signature black-tie 

fundraising event, the Green & Gold Gala, raised more 

than $373,000 for student scholarships and programs. 

Thank you to our sponsors and supporters. You have 

truly made a difference for our students. 

redefine the possible level 

gold level 

University Enterprises, Inc. 

LEO M C FARLAND 

President and CEO, Greater Sacramento and 

Northern Nevada Volunteers of America 

BILL MUELLER 

CEO, Valley Vision Inc. 

TIM MURPHY 

CEO, Sacramento Regional Builders Exchange 

MARIA OGRYDZIAK 

Owner, Maria Ogrydziak Architecture 

SANDY PERSON 

President, Solano EDC 

CURT ROCCA 

Managing Partner, DCA Partners 

VERNA SULPIZIO 

President/CEO, West Sacramento Chamber of Commerce 

DARRELL TEAT 

President, The Nehemiah Companies 

SANJAY VARSHNEY 

VP/Wealth Advisor, Wells Fargo The Private Bank 

JOSHUA WOOD 

CEO, Region Business 

Opinions expressed in this publication do not 

necessarily reflect the individual opinions of the 

members of the editorial board. 

bronze level 

Capital Public Radio | Clark Pacific | Comstock’s Magazine | Crowe Horwath, LLP | Placer Ranch, Inc. 

Sacramento State Administration and Business Affairs | SMUD | The Sacramento Bee 

green level 

Margot ’72 and Dave Bach | Bernice Bass de Martinez 

David ’86 and Julie Bugatto/Alleghany Properties, LLC | Buzz Oates | Dale ’84 and Katy Carlsen 

Dignity Health | Drobny Law Offices, Inc. | EdR Collegiate Housing/Upper Eastside Lofts 

Jeff ’69 and Jane Einhorn | Mark and Marjorie Friedman | K-COE ISOM | Sacramento Magazine 

Sacramento Rainbow Chamber of Commerce | Sacramento State Office of Academic Affairs 

SAFE Credit Union | Vince A. Sales | Sand Hill Global Advisors | Sierra College 

Stanley and Pamela Stewart | Fred MBA ’95 and Nancy Teichert | The Weiss Group | Wells Fargo Bank 

scholarship level 

AT&T | AKT Investments | Five Star Bank | McClellan Business Park 

Gary ’65 and Judy ’66, MS ’99 Quattrin | Sutter Health Valley Area 

The Niello Group | Gordon and Mary Ann Wong 

csus.edu/gala 

May 2017 | comstocksmag.com 7

Powering forward. Together. 

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8 comstocksmag.com | May 2017 

0366-16_8.125x10.875

BUSINESS INSIGHT FOR THE CAPITAL REGION 

MAY ‘17 VOL. 29 | NO. 5 

CONTENTS • 

FEATURES 

May 2017 

50 

70 

50 

MOTHERHOOD 

Birth Control 

Modern women have more reproductive technology at their 

command than ever before, but IVF success doesn’t mean 

working women can have it all. 

by Amy Westervelt 

ON THE COVER: 

PHOTO: TERENCE DUFFY 

OPEN-SOURCE HEALTH | GIRLS WHO BREW | THE HIDDEN STRESS OF IVF 

58 

64 

70 

REAL ESTATE 

Homemakers 

Women have become the buyers, the sellers and every role in 

between when it comes to residential real estate — what does 

this mean for the market? 

by Laurie Lauletta-Boshart 

EDUCATION 

A New Role Call 

Gender parity in the classroom is covered by Title IX, but what 

about in the boardroom? Two California campuses are flipping 

the script. 

by Steven Yoder 

HEALTH 

An Open Book 

One local woman is leading the charge when it comes to 

taking control over your own medical information. 

by Sena Christian 

like a 

BOSS 

Our annual salute to 

women in leadership 

37 

LEADERSHIP 

She Who Leads 

We’re highlighting six of the Capital Region’s 

most influential women leaders — including 

Sacramento County Deputy District Attorney 

Quirina Orozco, featured on our cover. 

by Robin Epley 


• CONTENTS 

May 2017 

DEPARTMENTS 

26 32 

82 

24 

26 

28 

32 

76 

EVIL HR LADY 

An unofficial title change can get some 

employees fuming 

by Suzanne Lucas 

TEAMBUILDING 

Does “groupthink” rule your workplace? 

by Tania Fowler 

DISCOURSE 

Sacramento Bee Executive Editor Joyce Terhaar speaks 

about what the newspaper business looks like these days 

— and what’s to come 

interview by Rich Ehisen 

TASTE 

In a male-dominated brewing industry, the Pink 

Boots Society encourages women to step out from 

the shadows 

by Robin Epley 

CAPITAL REGION CARES 

The sixth installment of our 22 nd annual salute 

to nonprofits 

13 

14 

16 

22 

82 

86 

THE USUAL 

letter from the editor 

Women, with or without children, can learn 

from one another 

opinion 

Women can balance their need to please without 

sacrificing their ability to lead 

by Katie Carr 

rsvp 

Sacramento State Green & Gold Gala / American 

Red Cross The BASH / Sacramento City College 

Centennial Gala / KVIE Masterpiece on the River 

worth noting 

Buzzword of the Month: Empower / Readers weigh 

in on Sacramento’s busking laws 

snap 

The Placer SPCA is going to the dogs 

the breakdown 

Gender equality in higher education fails to 

make the grade 




Commerce 

wc

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR • 

A SPINSTER’S GUIDE TO 

PROFESSIONAL PARENTHOOD 

PHOTO: KELLY BARR 

I 

wouldn’t call Kate an all-star employee, necessarily. She 

rarely listens to me, and her communication skills leave 

something to be desired. Sometimes I make her cry. She 

spends most of her time in the office “filing” scrap paper that 

will inevitably need to be thrown away and reorganizing postit 

notes that were fine where they were. But her occasional 

presence here enables me to accomplish some very important 

work that might not have otherwise gotten done. Because Kate 

is our art director’s 18-month-old daughter. 

The intersection of parenthood, motherhood particularly, 

and the workplace is not a space without landmines. Next time 

you’re at a party, ask who has it tougher — then, run. There’s 

plenty to complain about on both ends. Moms have a full plate 

of responsibilities both at home and in the office, and often 

outdated stigmas can lead to them being passed over for promotions 

or important projects. Those of us without children 

often feel expected to put in longer hours and cover for our coworkers 

with children, and to better justify our use of PTO and 

flex scheduling — since what’s waiting for us beyond the office 

walls, anyway? 

There’s truth to the tribulations (and assets) on both sides, 

but what is sorely needed is some frank discussion and collaboration 

between the two groups. So, with permission from 

Kelly (our art director), here is what I’ve learned as a non-mom 

managing a mom: 

• Life is Life: A healthy work/life balance is important for 

everyone, regardless of the specific people, activities or obligations 

being balanced. Non-parents may be needed to fill 

in for parents on the fly, as children are aces at the element of 

surprise. And parents, you may owe a colleague the freedom 

to take off early to catch a show or meet friends from out of 

town in exchange for the privilege of leaving at 2 p.m. last 

week to focus on a runny nose. 

• Be Flexible: Rescheduling a staff editorial meeting can potentially 

throw the entire week off for our team. Knowing 

this, Kelly instigated a conversation early on about how to 

handle instances where childcare falls through. For me, having 

her bring Kate into the office so we can continue moving 

forward is a no-brainer. We work in a creative environment 

and our most important meetings are with in-house staff. 

Does Kate talk out of turn? Sure, but that extra 15 minutes in 

the meeting is better than having to wait until the following 

day. Plus, her antics often lead to some of our most popular 

social media posts. 

• Have a Plan: That’s not to say that every boss should have 

an open-door policy on children. Obviously that won’t make 

sense in just any environment. The point is that if you have 

a set of expectations around last-minute emergencies, you’ll 

lose less time and foster less angst or uncertainty. As a leader, 

you can draw lines in the sand where you want, but it’s important 

to understand the hidden costs of arbitrary policies 

that leave little wiggle room. 

While parents and non-parents should and can be better 

allies in the workplace, ensuring a healthy environment starts 

at the top. As a boss, make sure you are tuned in to who is putting 

in late hours and who is in before the sun rises. Everyone 

on staff should feel free to use time-off in a way that ensures 

they are better able to commit to their jobs while working. 

Avoid grilling single or childless workers to justify their PTO 

or use of flex-scheduling any more or less than you would a 

parent. And don’t discount the hours parents put in working 

remotely or at odd hours when children are in bed. When expectations 

are clear and people are held accountable, you can 

minimize cause for resentment. 

Allison Joy 

Editor in Chief 


• OPINION 

WOMEN CAN’T LET A DESIRE TO 

PLEASE INHIBIT OUR ABILITY TO LEAD 

by Katie Carr 

This year, my daughter will turn 18 and head off to college, 

and now I find myself feeling rushed to teach her everything 

I can about how to be successful in her future career 

endeavors. As I reflect back on my career, I am keenly aware 

of choices made that I either regret or celebrate. The regretful 

decisions have become significant learning moments for me, 

as they all seem to have two common themes: I made those 

decisions based on 1) fear and 2) my need to be liked and 

please others. 

My fears were related to concerns about being judged, 

thought of negatively or perceived as “difficult to work with.” 

As a society, we often place labels on tough businesswomen 

that don’t necessarily get applied to tough businessmen. I am 

an action- and solution-oriented person with strong gut instincts 

that serve me well, yet my fears once prevented me from 

standing up, being decisive and 

leading with what I knew to 

be true. 

Women’s desire to please 

can inhibit their ability to 

take charge. That is one of the 

many factors that contribute to 

women comprising more than 

half of the American workforce, 

yet only a small fraction 

of executives. And a large body 

of evidence by U.S. universities supports the concept of a 

“confidence gap,” where women feel less self-assured in the 

workplace, despite being just as — if not more so — competent 

than their male counterparts. We may not be able to control all 

the external factors that impact our ability to become leaders 

in the workplace, but we can focus on the internal obstacles 

holding us back. 

Through years of experience and reflection, I have learned 

what is needed to overcome personal barriers to success, 

and propel all women forward as action-oriented, successful 

and courageous leaders that aren’t afraid to speak up and 

take charge. 

Women, especially, take note: Don't 

apologize for your values or purpose. 

If you make a mistake, own it — but 

apologizing sends the message that you 

aren’t confident. 

KNOW YOUR TRUTH: Have you taken the time to understand 

your core values and purpose in business or life — and can you 

articulate them? Reflect on whether your values and purpose 

serve you as a leader within your organization. Are you being 

asked to operate against your values, or are you choosing to ignore 

your values to be liked by others? You will find a stronger 

sense of fulfillment working for a company that aligns with 

your truth. Women, especially, take note: Don't apologize for 

your values or purpose. If you make a mistake, own it — but 

apologizing sends the message that you aren’t confident. 

OVERCOME YOUR FEARS: Ask yourself, “What am I afraid of 

and why?” What is the worst thing that could happen if you 

take this risk, share that opinion or make a certain decision? 

Women leaders need to prevent fear from inhibiting their success 

or drive decisions to please others. If you are working in 

an environment where you are encouraged to challenge the status 

quo and choose not to, you are holding yourself back. Take 

risks, share your opinion, make decisions without apology. 

It will be scary and uncomfortable — and worth it. Quiet the 

inner critic in your head, filling 

your thoughts with self-doubt, 

and take a chance. You’ll like 

the outcome. 

BE RESILIENT: I once read a 

definition of resilience as the 

acceptance of reality, a deep belief 

that life is meaningful and 

an ability to improvise. I believe 

that our resilience is tested 

when we fail. It’s too easy to experience failure and then give 

up. But if you reflect on the failure, you will learn from it and 

have an easier time moving on. Identify what went well, what 

went wrong, what you would do differently and then let the 

setback go. As I look back on my life, I am so proud of what I 

have accomplished because I didn’t give up when things got 

tough. I learned from my mistakes and failures, and became a 

better leader, manager, partner and coach. 

BUILD YOUR VILLAGE AND INVEST IN IT: In my experience, 

women tend to avoid asking for help, thinking it is expected 

that we should be able to do things on our own or figure things 

out without assistance. Women are under a very different microscopic 

lens in business than men, and some assume that 

asking for help is bad. I used to believe that if I asked for help, I 

was weak. What I now believe is that asking for help, connecting 

with others and nourishing those relationships makes us 

stronger and wiser. Seek out active power circles, mastermind 


this month's 

CONTRIBUTORS 

groups, teams within your organization — and invest in giving 

back to them as well. When the time comes and a young woman 

seeks your professional guidance, you will know how to pass on 

the lessons you’ve learned. 

BE A LIFE-LONG LEARNER: I wouldn't be where I am today if I 

wasn't willing to immerse myself in learning new things. I read 

multiple books a year. I ask questions and listen intently to responses, 

and then formulate my opinion. I listen to podcasts 

on leadership and other topics that interest me. I’ve hired a 

professional coach and invested over a year in working on bettering 

my professional self. 

Women often put others first — our children, our spouses, 

our aging parents, our bosses, which doesn’t leave a lot of extra 

time for ourselves. We may fear that if we don’t put others first, 

we are being bad mothers, bad partners or bad employees. But 

we need to make the time to focus on our own personal and 

professional development, which also makes us better able to 

care for those we love. Don’t minimize your needs for everyone 

else’s. In addition, we improve when we expand our perspective. 

We become more confident with knowledge and humble 

with the understanding that we can always get better. 

I can tell you from personal experience that by overcoming 

your fears and the need to please others, you will experience 

more satisfaction and success in your career. This is exactly 

what I’m telling my own daughter as she prepares to enter 

adulthood and develop herself into a leader. 

Join me and other women in the movement to expand our 

imprint as great leaders. There is room for us all. 

Katie Carr is a principal at Left Lane Advisors with over 25 years of 

experience in managing and developing leaders at all levels. She has 

a bachelor’s degree in psychology and an MBA. Carr has significant 

experience coaching senior professionals on leadership, developing followership, 

shaping strategy and succession planning. She actively sits 

on multiple professional organization advisory boards, and is a regular 

speaker at professional organization meetings and is certified in multiple 

coaching assessment tools. 

JOAN 

CUSICK 

"A Sisterhood of Beer" 

pg. 32 

LAURIE 

LAULETTA- 

BOSHART 

"Homemakers" pg. 58 

KYLE 

MONK 

"An Open Book" 

pg. 70 

Joan loves a great story, whether 

she’s reading it, writing it or photographing 

it — as she did for this 

month’s feature on the Pink Boots 

Society. “My favorite stories are 

about the people and the things 

we love,” Joan says. “So I really enjoyed 

spending time with a group of 

women who are passionate about 

brewing beer.” Joan also documented 

the development and installation 

of public art at the Golden 1 Center. 

Her work has been published 

in Edible Sacramento, Outword and 

other publications. For more, visit 

www.joancusick.com. 

Laurie is a freelance writer and editor 

for consumer publications, Fortune 

500 companies, small business and 

higher education. She regularly writes 

about sports, architecture, business, 

politics, education, philanthropy and 

other topics. Her work has appeared 

in Dwell, ESPN, Comstock’s, Wall Street 

Journal, SI.com (Sports Illustrated) 

and others. She resides in Northern 

California with her family. “I was encouraged 

by the gains that so many 

women have made in the homebuilding 

and homebuying industries,” she 

says of this month’s story. “Each of 

the women I spoke with is incredibly 

competent and passionate about 

their work, and determined to make 

an impact in their respective fields.” 

On Twitter @laurieboshart or at 

www.wordplaycommunications.com. 

Kyle has an elegant and unique style 

to his photography, blending minimalism 

with storytelling. His work 

specializes in a range of expertise, 

covering a broad gamut from commercial 

and fine art to documentary. 

A perfectionist, he believes his education 

will never be complete and 

lives to challenge his talents. He 

is constantly reinventing himself, 

collaborating with other artists on 

personal projects and always striving 

to push his photography. Kyle lives in 

Los Angeles and has contributed to 

Comstock’s for about nine years. Visit 

www.kylemonk.com. 


• RSVP 

SACRAMENTO STATE 

GREEN & GOLD GALA 

Sacramento State’s Green & Gold Gala is the university’s annual black tie event celebrating the impact of philanthropy on students’ 

lives. This year’s celebration, Reflections of Gratitude, raised more than $373,000 for student scholarships and the Emergency Grant 

Fund program, including $162,000 raised during an 11-minute “fund a need” auction led by David Sobon. Photography: Tia Gemmell 

2 

1 Gregory Kondos, artist. 2 Lisa Cardoza, chief 

of staff, office of President Robert Nelsen; Beth 

Lesen, associate vice president and dean of students, 

Sacramento State; and Samuel Jones, director of housing, 

Sacramento State. 3 Travis Hoehne, photographer, 

studioTHP; and his wife, Rebecca Hoehne. 4 Jody 

Nelsen; and her husband, Robert Nelsen, president, 

Sacramento State. 5 Kelly Cruchley, marketing 

director, Sacramento Magazine; Alyssa Huskinson, 

advertising manager, Sacramento Magazine; and Erin 

Umipeg, graphic designer, Sacramento State. 


more images at comstocksmag.com 

AMERICAN RED CROSS 

THE BASH 

The American Red Cross BASH returned to Sacramento on Saturday, March 18, at the McClellan Conference Center to salute 100 

years of serving veterans. Attendees dusted off old uniforms, found some scrubs or donned a favorite Hawaiian shirt to honor 

veterans by supporting the American Red Cross Service to the Armed Forces and 100 years of Red Cross service in our community. 

Photography: Tia Gemmell 

1 Rick Girton, special operations chief, Fire Department at 

Beale Air Force Base; and his mother, Jeanne Reaves, president 

& CEO, Jeanne Reaves Consulting and recipient, Spirit of Tiffany 

Award. 2 Edith Tsui, operations business support consultant, 

Western Regional Operations Nationwide Insurance; and 

Glenn Vanderford, recipient, 2017 Centennial Bash Certificate 

of Appreciation for Military Service. 3 Gary Strong, CEO, 

American Red Cross Gold Country Region; and his wife, Sonia 

Strong. 4 Deanna Hanson, principal, Hanson Consulting 

Group; and Kris Hanson, owner, Kris Hanson Design. 5 Elfrena 

Foord, financial planning, Foord, Van Bruggen & Pajak; and 

Bruce Hestor, senior vice president, Colliers International. 


• RSVP 

SACRAMENTO CITY COLLEGE 

CENTENNIAL GALA 

Sacramento City College celebrated its centennial on March 25 with a sold-out gala attended by alumni, faculty, staff, special 

guests and students. The evening featured entertainment by students from the college’s performing arts department and David 

Sobon hosted an auction raising $45,000 to support student issues. Event partners included SMUD, the UC Davis Betty Irene 

Moore School of Nursing, Sutter Health, Kaiser Permanente and Dignity Health. Photography: Tia Gemmell 

1 Dave Tamayo, director, SMUD. 2 Michael Poindexter, 

vice president of student services, Sacramento City 

College; and Whitney Yamamura, vice president 

of instruction, Cosumnes River College. 3 Arthur 

Tyler and Dr. Kathryn Jeffrey, past presidents, 

Sacramento City College 4 Gregory Kondos, event 

co-chair, Sacramento City College; David Sobon, 

owner, David Sobon Auctions; and Russ Solomon, 

event co-chair, Sacramento City College. 5 Dr. Robert 

Harris, past president, Sacramento City College. 


Finding the cracks 

in lung cancer’s armor 

David Gandara, M.D. 

Health care innovator 

One of the world’s most common cancers is also the deadliest. 

But internationally renowned oncologist David Gandara is 

boosting lung cancer survivability. He’s using biomarkers – cancer 

“fingerprints” – to determine if and when targeted immunotherapy 

may work better than chemotherapy for individual patients. This 

research is changing the standard of lung cancer care. 

This is health through innovation. 

health.ucdavis.edu 


• RSVP 

KVIE 

MASTERPIECE ON THE RIVER 

More than 150 KVIE supporters gathered on April 2 at the home of Marcy Friedman for “Masterpiece on the River,” a benefit event 

celebrating the acclaimed drama series MASTERPIECE on KVIE. The event raised more than $100,000 and will help KVIE continue to 

bring arts, ideas and adventures to everyone in the region through the integrity of public television. Photography: Tia Gemmell 

1 Dr. Jonathan Breslau, board member, KVIE; with his 

wife Lisa Breslau. 2 Susan DeMarois, state policy director, 

Alzheimer’s Association; Tracy Beckwith, event committee 

chair and director of advancement, St. Francis High School and 

Sharon Aprea, principal, Aprea & Micheli. 3 Sierra Hersek; 

with her husband, Paul Hersek, vice president of marketing, 

SAFE Credit Union; and Carrie Thomsen, guest. 4 Dr. Barry 

Chebrazi, surgeon, Spine and Neurosurgery Associates; 

Simi Chehrazi, board member, KVIE; Sonbol Aliabadi; and 

her husband, Mansour Aliabadi, executive vice president, 

Kitchell. 5 Marcy Friedman, event host, KVIE; and Rob 

Stewart, host and executive producer, “Rob on the Road.” 


With a loan from Exchange Bank, 

your business won’t be small for long. 

No one knows your business better than you do. That’s why every 

Exchange Bank branch has loan advisors on site who can sit with you 

and discuss your particular situation. Whether you’re starting a new 

venture or expanding an old one, we have the loan to fit your needs. 

exchangebank.com/roseville 


• WORTH NOTING 

buzzwords 

em pow er 

/əm'pou(ə)r/, v. 

READERS SOUND OFF 

To make someone stronger and more confident; to give 

(someone) the authority or power to do something. 

BY Robin Epley 

ILLUSTRATION: Jason Balangue 

It’s funny how closely “empower” and “in power” sound, considering their relationship 

to each other. Someone in power will always have to empower their subordinates 

to do get anything done. But it’s harder to do than it sounds — no matter how many 

bosses claim to empower their employees. The word is overused, and overuse leads 

to misuse. (Misuse leads to annoyance, and then we’re at a place where no one even 

understands or cares what you mean.) 

But “empower” is not just another piece of jargon to be casually tossed around; 

employee empowerment really does impact your company’s bottom line. A 2012 

Gallup poll found that “actively disengaged” employees cost their companies $370 

billion in lost productivity. Alternatively, the Temkin Group’s Employee Engagement 

Benchmark Study in 2013 reported that highly-engaged employees are 480 percent 

more committed to helping their companies succeed. And to reach engagement, a 

boss needs to first empower. 

We asked LaShelle Dozier, executive director of the Sacramento Housing and 

Redevelopment Agency (and featured in last year’s Women In Leadership issue), 

what she thinks of the concept — and what bad empowerment looks like. 

THE BUZZ 

Too many managers say they want to empower their team, “yet they tend to 

micromanage their staff, which actually can cause them to feel devalued, perhaps 

even powerless,” Dozier says. This can leave employees feeling that their boss 

doesn't trust them to handle the responsibility delegated to them, she adds, and 

that’s demoralizing. 

“I think leaders or managers often intend to empower their staff, but they don't 

truly get out of the way and let them demonstrate their ability to exercise the authority 

they've been given to get a job done,” Dozier says. 

THE WORD 

An example of well-executed empowerment is when a manager assembles a team 

to tackle a project, defines the purpose and desired outcome, and gives the team the 

freedom to plan how the goal is achieved. “A very successful leader understands and 

recognizes highly-skilled and capable employees,” Dozier says. First, they’ll define 

expectations and then “move out of the way” and let their employees apply their 

training to finish the task at hand, she says. 

Remember that the next time you’re around the conference table and people 

start passing around the word “empowerment” like the chocolate syrup on a 

buzzword sundae. If you truly want to empower your staff instead of just talking 

about it, remember to step back and create an encouraging space — not one 

of micromanagement. 

Watch the video online! 

Infrastructure Issues 

Demand Attention: 

Bob Johnson: What we don't need right now is 

Jerry Brown's Delta Tunnels boondoggle. Safety first: 

We need to make California's water system safe by 

repairing existing infrastructure before we spend another 

dime on a gold-plated set of tunnels to largely 

serve big agricultural interests exporting nuts to Asia. 

Wayne Hancock: All that high hazard dam means 

is that if the dam were to come down property and 

lives would be lost. It is not saying anything about 

the dam integrity. 

The Cost of Doing it Yourself 

John: Before you continue to beat your head against 

the wall of Tina Lee-Voigt's office, do yourself a huge 

favor: Relax, take a deep breath, put on your creativethinking 

cap and read the portion of city code that 

describes what is exempt from the entertainment 

permit requirements: 

Zachary Green: This is a great article! Yes I think the 

city needs to ease off on the costs of these permits, 

and allow for more DIY art and music events! THIS is 

how our city will flourish. THIS is what other cities are 

starting to look to us for! 

Have something to say? Email us. 

editorial@comstocksmag.com. 

PHOTOS: SHUTTERSTOCK 


ON THE WEB ONLY 

get social 

Read the full 

stories at 

comstocksmag.com 

PHOTOS: SHUTTERSTOCK (TOP), KAREN WILKINSON (BOTTOM) 

Lawmakers Must Focus on Alleviating 

California's Housing Crisis 

by Michael Strech 

California continues to struggle with a severe housing shortage that is driving home prices and rents out of 

reach for too many Californians. That is why it is critical we encourage policymakers to embrace solutions 

that reduce housing costs for families and help continue the housing sector’s recovery. 

Action Items: Expanding Our 

Creative Capital 

On this episode of Action Items, arts 

entrepreneur and restaurateur Clay Nutting 

joins Celestine Syphax, who serves on the 

board of several nonprofit arts groups, 

and host Tre Borden to discuss what the 

grassroots art movement can learn from 

institutional arts organizations in the Capital 

Region — and vice versa. 

24 Likes 2 Comments 1 Share 

Allen Young @allenmyoung: “'Shark Tank’ 

is the fake news of entrepreneurship. Real 

entrepreneurship is the guy that owns the 

corner store.” 

It's Showtime! – Comstock's magazine 

@jasmineleek: @comstocksmag Mostly 

true — there are one-off cases [with] 

experienced owner-operators looking for 

mass exposure/injection of cash 

@jasmineleek: @comstocksmag but the 

majority of episodes are filled w flashy, 

"quick buck" folks. It's a tv show that's gotta 

make ratings. 

Sacramento Musicians Want a Clear 

Message on Busking 

NO CITY ORDINANCE REGULATES STREET PERFORMING, BUT CONFLICTING 

RULES HAVE CREATED LOTS OF CONFUSION 

by Karen Wilkinson 

According to city code, it’s illegal to provide an unsolicited service in exchange for donations in certain 

areas of downtown. But with such vast changes to the area, it may be time to change the wording. 

96 

comstocksmag #ICYMI: Raley's at Fair Oaks & 

Howe just opened and they're calling it “the new 

generation in the grocery experience.” 

refillmadness Does that mean less #plastic 

packaging and more biodegradable packaging? 

If so, I'll be it's newest customer! And our family 

spends a lot of money on food. 


• EVIL HR LADY 

DILEMMA OF THE MONTH 

JOB TITLE WOES 

by Suzanne Lucas 

ILLUSTRATION: JOHN CHASE 

I 

am an inside sales representative for a medical 

device company. I work hard to build relationships 

over the phone to sell and consult on products 

with doctors. When I was hired, the president of 

the company specifically told me this was not a 

telemarketing job. Recently, I caught the president 

introducing our team as "the telemarketers." This 

embarrassed and insulted me. HR agrees and will 

ask him to stop. I was going to ask this person for a 

letter of recommendation for medical school, but I 

don't want to inflate his ego. Is this a sign I should 

go back to school asap or find another job? 

A 

FIRST, TAKE A STEP BACKWARD AND RE- 

READ YOUR FIRST TWO SENTENCES. You 

have a difficult and rewarding job. When 

you write a resume, brag to old high school 

friends or apply to medical school, will it 

matter what your company president 

said to internal people? Of course not. If 

you want to get into medical school, the 

last thing you need to worry about is inflating 

the ego of the company president. 

What you want is a letter of recommendation 

from someone in a position of power 

and influence. If that means boosting the 

president’s ego, go for it. 


Have a burning HR question? 

Email it to: 

evilhrlady@comstocksmag.com 

ILLUSTRATION: SHUTTERSTOCK 

This doesn’t mean that it’s not super 

annoying. I can tell you all day long 

there’s nothing wrong with being a telemarketer 

— because there isn’t. It’s a 

respectable job that many people work 

very hard to do. But that won’t change 

the fact that many people see telemarketing 

as a last-ditch job, and no one 

likes to receive telemarketing phone 

calls. It also plants an inaccurate picture 

in people’s heads: Yes, you are selling 

things over the phone, but you’re 

not cold-calling strangers to get them to 

change their cable plans. 

Titles are a funny thing. A good recruiter 

will look at the description of 

your accomplishments on your resume, 

and not just your job titles, but it’s absolutely 

true that a bad one will fixate 

on your titles. Some companies inflate 

titles — for instance, when my husband 

was only two years out of graduate 

school, he got a job offer at an advertising 

agency with a title of associate vice 

president. While that inflated his ego, 

he questioned the title and the recruiter 

said, “Oh, clients don’t want to deal with 

anyone low level, so everyone but the 

admins are AVPs and higher.” He didn’t 

end up taking that job — he took one as a 

“senior statistician” elsewhere. How can 

someone simultaneously be qualified 

for a senior statistician job and an AVP 

job? Because titles are unreliable. 

The HR manager having your back 

here is a good sign. If she can get him 

to stop, your problems are solved. And 

if the president is respectful of you and 

your role in the company in all other regards, 

then his misidentifying your title 

might be inadvertent. But if not, then 

what? Should you look to move on? 

It really depends on a lot of things. 

You say you’re planning on medical 

school, which means you probably don’t 

have a lot of time between now and then. 

Most companies aren’t looking to hire 

people for short-term stints. That means 

quitting right now probably isn’t the best 

path. A longer term job will look better 

“Keep in mind that sometimes we have to 

suck up to people who are higher up in the 

food chain, especially if we want to climb 

the ladder ourselves.” 

and will result in a better letter of recommendation 

when you apply for medical 

school. However, if the president continues 

to call you a telemarketer and it continues 

to drive you crazy, it may result in 

a lousy letter or no letter at all. 

Keep in mind that sometimes we 

have to suck up to people who are higher 

up in the food chain, especially if we 

want to climb the ladder ourselves. Let 

the HR person who agrees with you do 

the pushing back. She doesn’t need a letter 

of recommendation — you do. 

As a general rule, let the title issue 

go. It doesn’t make a difference in your 

day-to-day job. It’s OK to be annoyed by 

his remarks, but it’s not OK to let it ruin 

your life. When you look back at this 

job, it won’t really matter what the CEO 

said when he was speaking to others in 

the hallway. 

Never let a bad job title (and in your 

case, it’s not even an official one) stop 

you from achieving your goals. Make 

sure when you write your resume that 

you indicate the things that you accomplished 

— not just your titles. That is 

what will matter the most. • 

Suzanne Lucas spent 10 years in corporate 

human resources, where she hired, 

fired, managed the numbers and doublechecked 

with the lawyers. On Twitter 

@RealEvilHRLady. 


• TEAMBUILDING 

DON’T LET GROUPTHINK RULE 

YOUR WORKPLACE 

The best leaders encourage their team members to challenge questionable 

ideas and assumptions 

BY Tania Fowler 

ILLUSTRATION: SHUTTERSTOCK 

GROUPTHINK IS ALL TOO COMMON 

WHEN PEOPLE WORK TOGETHER IN A 

BRAINSTORMING OR PLANNING SESSION. 

Psychology Today says groupthink “occurs 

when a group values harmony 

and coherence over accurate analysis 

and critical evaluation. It causes individual 

members of the group to unquestioningly 

follow the word of the 

leader, and it strongly discourages any 

disagreement with the consensus.” 

This phenomenon can veer a team 

or company off course, or it can result 

in people stereotyping others, including 

their colleagues — neither is good 

for a company. 

Working with groups, I often observe 

groupthink happen in real time. 

For instance, in workshops on temperament 

and interaction styles, I facilitate 

an exercise based on polarities 


This is an example of groupthink: People accepted a not-so-good idea 

as plausible to maintain harmony and coherence within their group. 

They opted for conformity rather than critical discourse. 

of personality. If I am using extroversion/introversion, 

I’ll ask participants 

to stand up, self-select into one of 

those two groups and move to the appropriate 

end of the room. 

Once in their teams, they brainstorm 

answers to the questions of 

what they like and dislike about their 

own personality type, and what they 

like or dislike about the other type. 

While the exercise is usually fun, 

sometimes a more sinister tone unfolds: 

They engage in unflattering generalities 

and assumptions. 

I have heard introverts say extroverts 

“suck the oxygen out of the 

room.” And I have heard extroverts 

say, “introverts are angry, unhappy 

and disinterested people.” 

One time, a group of extroverts 

even suggested that introverts were 

more likely to murder than extroverts. 

My eyes about popped out of my head! 

I asked the extroverted group for their 

data on such a claim. They shrugged 

and guffawed knowing they had nothing 

but a hunch. 

When challenged, they agreed 

they had gone too far and took back 

the accusation. But it’s important to 

note that it only took one person to 

throw out the murderer idea and, instead 

of challenging such a broad and 

baseless assumption, the group added 

it to their charted answers. 

This is an example of groupthink: 

People accepted a not-so-good idea as 

plausible in order to maintain harmony 

and coherence within their group. 

They opted for conformity rather than 

critical discourse. 

Groupthink happens everywhere. 

In another example, one company I 

worked with made a group decision to 

move quickly on an implementation 

plan because it was faster and less 

bureaucratic, which was exciting to 

them. But after a few years, the quality 

of the installation wasn’t there and 

they decided to go back to the slightly 

slower and less exciting process of utilizing 

tighter controls. 

The next time your team comes together 

to make decisions, follow some 

simple suggestions to lessen your 

chances of groupthink: 

1 Create team discussion norms for 

how the group will work together, 

such as: Put all ideas on the table. 

Be respectful and listen to differing 

viewpoints. Challenge questionable 

ideas and assumptions by asking 

about unintended consequences. 

2 The team leader should help teammates 

safely wade into ideological 

conflict to flesh out ideas even going 

so far as to force more conflict. When 

teammates shy away from an issue 

because of discomfort about delving 

further, that’s an opportunity for 

the leader to lead by saying, “This is 

a good direction, let’s keep going to 

get to a well-vetted solution.” 

3 Allow enough time for a solid discussion 

to occur. In this fast-paced 

world, people tend to underestimate 

the time it takes to work 

through ideas. 

4 Make sure there are assertive 

people willing to step in and challenge 

ideas, while at the same 

time not co-opting or devaluing 

the process. 

5 The team leader should hang back 

from influencing the process, other 

than to help people feel safe in 

the discussion. 

Finally, if you are the leader of a 

team or organization, be on the lookout 

for how many “yes” people are in 

your orbit — those who don’t challenge 

assumptions and ideas in your 

presence. Reflect on what you might 

be doing to contribute to that problem 

and course-correct. 

Groupthink is, unfortunately, alive 

and well. Have courage and be the 

person willing to ask questions to examine 

a decision that might not be in 

the organization’s best interest. • 

Tania Fowler, owner and founder of Interplay 

Coaching, is a business-focused 

coach who works with executives and 

their teams to help drive stronger team 

engagement and performance. 

Want to know more? 

Read more of Tania's columns 

at comstocksmag.com. 


• DISCOURSE 

On the Record 

Sacramento Bee Executive Editor Joyce Terhaar on how newspapers are adapting 

to modern times 

INTERVIEW BY Rich Ehisen PHOTOGRAPH: Noel Neuburger 

Over the last few decades, the newspaper 

industry has endured some 

of the most challenging times in its 

long history. We sat down with Sacramento 

Bee Executive Editor Joyce Terhaar 

to talk about revenues, technology 

and reporting in the modern age. 


Declining revenues are a major challenge 

for newspapers. Is that the biggest 

challenge? 

It clearly is a big challenge, but so is 

change. What’s going on with us financially 

is partly related to readership 

habits around print and how industries 

that are long-time advertisers of 

ours are changing themselves. I haven’t 

seen that anybody has a new business 

model figured out. Speaking only about 

the Sacramento Bee, we are diversifying 

forms of revenue. We do subscriptions 

now far differently than we did 15 years 

ago when websites were fledgling. We 

made a whole lot of money then, and 

subscriptions were pretty much completely 

subsidized. Getting, printing and 

then delivering the news household by 

household is a pretty intensive manufacturing 

business, and advertising paid 

for all of that. But in today’s world, our 

subscribers pay a much bigger share of 

the actual cost of delivering print. [Our 

advertising department] is undergoing 

its own evolution. I have been very 

impressed with the dramatic change 

they are making from essentially selling 

space on a printed page to actually 

partnering with businesses to help them 

figure out their go-to-market strategy. 

We’re not just selling the Sacramento Bee 

anymore; we’re partnering with business 

to help them figure out how to best 

reach their customer and be successful. 

Paywalls have gone in and out of use, 

though it seems most major publications 

now use them. Will they continue 

to be in vogue? 

There are a couple different kinds of paywalls. 

One is the very hard stop where you 

can’t read anything unless you subscribe. 

Consumer Reports is a great example. But 

most paywalls are pretty porous and have 

different reading limits depending on what 

device you’re on. But journalism costs money 

so, of course, I think people should subscribe. 

There are enough ways for the casual 

reader, who just isn’t going to subscribe, to 

get your content anyway. If you’re doing a 

Google search, you can get to it. Or if you’re 

coming in through social media, you can 

get to a certain amount of it. You get that 

reader when a story goes viral, but they’re 

not ever going to be your market. 

“ 

If you think back maybe seven or eight 

years, all the talk was about citizen 

journalism, that professional journalists 

were old school and weren’t going to be the 

thing anymore. Well, I think we’ve moved past 

that thinking.” 

News organizations compete with one 

another, but we’ve seen some recent examples, 

like the Panama Papers, where 

numerous organizations came together 

to produce some truly explosive and 

valuable work. Are we likely to see more 

of these cooperative ventures? 

The short answer is yes. The Panama 

Papers story was so big I suspect that 

would have been a partnership even 

if we weren’t in the current media climate. 

Such a massive data project is 

just a completely different thing from 

the usual investigation. But everybody’s 

doing some partnerships and most organizations 

are pretty open to it. If you 

think back maybe seven or eight years, 

all the talk was about citizen journalism, 

that professional journalists were old 

school and weren’t going to be the thing 

anymore. Well, I think we’ve moved past 

that thinking. But there also is value to 

some of the crowdsourcing. There have 

even been stories over the last few years 

where somebody gets a dump of documents 

and publishes them and asks the 

crowd to go in and read and point out 

things that look interesting. There’s no 

reason that something has to be closely 

held up until the moment you publish, 


CHAMBER VIEW 

Advocating for our Business 

Community 

A strong, vibrant region begins with the quality of its 

jobs. At the Sacramento Metro Chamber, we work daily 

to create an environment that supports job creators. 

Whether by helping businesses through the services 

offered at our Small Business Development Center or 

fighting for policies and regulations that promote job 

creation, the Metro Chamber is constantly advocating 

on behalf of the business community to create a 

prosperous Capital Region. 

Now more than ever, the business community needs 

representation, especially at the state and federal levels. 

Too often, decision makers are quick to pass laws while 

failing to understand the unintended consequences 

and red tape that can shackle business owners and 

entrepreneurs and stifle growth. The costs of these 

laws can be high and often results in less hours for 

employees, the loss of jobs, or worse, the failure of 

the business itself. Instead of introducing bills placing 

additional restraints on business, we encourage our 

elected representatives to stay focused on supporting 

our growing economy and the long-term development 

of our region. Through ongoing dialogue with our 

elected leaders, and continued advocacy for our 

members, we can create an opportunity economy, 

laser focused on quality jobs and a thriving business 

community full of opportunity. 

The Metro Chamber prioritizes advocacy and 

incorporates it into everything we do. Through our 

engagement with our elected leaders at all levels of 

government, we make certain that the concerns of 

businesses are presented and discussed. In many 

cases, we have been successful in stopping harmful 

legislation, and in others, we have helped minimize its 

negative impacts. It’s true that in California, business 

does not often win, but there is power in numbers, 

and together, we can have a greater impact, influence 

outcomes and create wins for business. 

Change takes time, and most businesses are unable 

to dedicate the time and resources needed to fight 

bad legislation or educate their local public officials. By 

belonging to the Metro Chamber, you are ensured that 

your business has a constant advocate looking out for 

you, making sure your voice is heard, and supporting 

your needs, so you can grow your business in our 

Capital Region. 

Robert Dugan 

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT 

PUBLIC POLICY & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMEN 

METRO CHAMBER 

Join Us (916) 552-6800 

www.metrochamber.org 

• DISCOURSE 

and it actually can be kind of fun to engage people. We’ve 

looked for those kinds of opportunities here on occasion, but 

I haven’t found a lot that seem like just the perfect fit, so we 

still have some experimenting to do. 

How about partnerships with social media entities like Facebook 

and YouTube? 

Both entities are well aware that their customers spend a lot 

of time on their sites reading news. I think both are in many 

ways as dependent on the news media as the news media is 

on their distribution platform. Are they going to have a model 

that makes economic sense for journalists? That remains to be 

seen. But they have strong reasons to want journalists on their 

site. A lot of Twitter followers are there because they get news 

faster. Reporters at the scene can tweet out in a shorter amount 

of time than it takes to actually file a post to their own site. So 

they need us and we need that distribution platform. I hope this 

leads us to something that makes financial sense. 

What about the use of virtual reality, augmented reality 

and mixed reality platforms like Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear 

VR and Google Cardboard? 

Well, being clear that virtual reality doesn’t mean made up, 

think about what it would feel like for a member of your audience 

to be able to feel like they stepped into a war scene or 

a flood. What would it be like if you were stuck on a roof with 

somebody who was stuck in a flood? There are opportunities 

for news media to bring experiences home to people in a way 

even television can’t do — because in TV you’re shooting an 

image off in the distance, you’re not in the middle of it. I think 

[virtual reality] is really powerful … We’re just starting to 

experiment with it. 

Some newspapers offer podcasts. Is this something the Bee 

might do? 

We have gotten heavily into video, so over the last three years 

you might have asked, ‘How are you going to do this with a 

room full of word people?’ Because that was the challenge. 

But we do a lot of raw video and it’s really added value to 

our work. With podcasts, we have purposefully gone a little 

bit slower than other markets because we are doing a video 

push. … McClatchy did just hire someone to start developing 

a podcasting program throughout the company, and 

there are a handful of reporters here who are very eager to 

start podcasting. 

I am constantly annoyed with how poorly most newspaper 

websites operate. They load slowly, are clunky to maneuver 

around in and are loaded with annoying pop-up ads. Why 

is there not more emphasis on positive user experience for 

newspaper sites? 


I can’t answer that for the whole industry, and I don’t know 

if I can even answer that for McClatchy. I just agree. We’re 

too slow and advertising isn’t enough of a quality user experience 

yet. We are working on it and starting to do the kinds 

of advertising that will make for a better experience. News 

sites are complicated creatures. They’re not like every site out 

there. Getting advertising from many, many, many different 

sources like we do is the kind of thing that slows down how fast 

the site loads. There are some technical challenges for news 

sites that other sites don’t have. But it’s a legitimate criticism. 

The term ‘fake news’ has come to dominate much of the conversation 

around media. How has this proliferation of intentional 

misinformation impacted the way news organizations work? 

The term ‘fake news’ has been co-opted politically to a certain 

extent and so I’m trying not to use that term. You can just call 

it ‘made-up stuff’ because that’s what it is — it’s just fiction. 

And I think that’s dangerous for everybody, not just the media. 

It has surprised me how many people believe the [false] stuff 

they read ... This is just one of the very many things that play 

into the distorted view of whether the media is reliable or 

credible or not. In the studies we’ve seen on how much people 

trust the media, they never ask, ‘How much do you trust 

your hometown newspaper?’ or, ‘How much do you trust the 

main TV station in your market?’ They say ‘the media,’ which 

frankly includes anything you read on Facebook or anywhere 

on social media and every single blog out there and every 

single cable show, whether it’s a national show or not. There 

is such a range of standards from one spectrum to the other. 

Overall, has President Trump been good or bad for the business 

side of the industry? 

Our readership is growing. It seems like everybody’s readership 

is growing right now. We are finding that we are getting more 

national readership, and I expect that to continue to grow 

given California’s response to the administration’s policies. • 

Rich Ehisen is the managing editor of State Net Capitol Journal. 

His work has appeared in Sunset, San Francisco Magazine, 

California Journal, Sacramento Magazine and the Lexis Legal 

Network. On Twitter @WordsmithRich. 

What print publications do you subscribe to? 

TWEET US @COMSTOCKSMAG. 

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• TASTE 

A SISTERHOOD OF BEER 

Sacramento’s chapter of Pink Boots Society aims to give women in the brewing industry 

a place to call their own 

BY Robin Epley PHOTOGRAPHY: Joan Cusick 

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK 

During her time as senior brewer at 

Trumer Brauerei in Berkeley, Rancho 

Cordova-native Kayla Brogna 

was one of the few women working in 

production. She was also heavily involved 

with the Bay Area chapter of 

Pink Boots Society, a national group for 

women in the beer industry to access 

networking and education. 

When Brogna moved to her current 

job as a brewer at Sierra Nevada Brewing 

Company in Chico, “I saw a ton of 

breweries and a ton of women working 

around, but no Pink Boots chapter,” she 

says. “So that’s why I wanted to get one 

going.” In May 2016, she co-founded the 

Sacramento chapter. 

Historically, the beer game has 

been just for men: Commercials for big 

brands have often shown guys clinking 

bottles together around a grill, or fly 

fishing while someone pulls a cold can 

out of the ice chest. The message was 

clear: Beer is manly, and you are made 

masculine by drinking it. 

But, more recently, we are seeing 

females incorporated into this picture. 

There are plenty of female brewmasters, 

owners, marketers and industry leaders 

who are just as interested and invested 

in beer as their male counterparts. 

Pinks Boots wants to continue the challenge 

against old stereotypes. 

According to a 2016 report by the 

Brewers Association, women ages 21-34 

drink craft beer more frequently than 

the national average and represent 15 

percent of drinkers overall. Yet according 

to the same report, 72 percent of 

women who drink craft beer on a weekly 

basis are frustrated with companies 


who treat their female clientele as an 

afterthought. The Pink Boots Society, 

founded in the U.S. by Teri Fahrendorf 

in 2007 to encourage women working in 

and around the beer industry, now has 

45 chapters, including ones in New Zealand, 

Hong Kong and Chile. 

“Some of the best experiences I’ve 

ever had in this society were meeting 

women who were homebrewers or bartenders 

or saleswomen, who wanted to 

really take the plunge into the production 

side of the brewery but were a little 

intimidated to,” says Brogna, who started 

the local Pink Boots chapter with 

her friend and fellow beer enthusiast, 

Lindsey Nelson. “[They] hadn’t necessarily 

talked to a woman in production 

before, and I was able to just give them 

that little push.” 

It’s not that most men in the industry 

aren’t supportive of women, Brogna 

says. Female brewers are just seen as 

rare and therefore are unexpected. 

“This industry is incredibly supportive 

of each other … there are very few breweries 

or people in this industry who 

don’t wanna help each other out,” she 

says. “That’s why you’ll see a lot of breweries 

collaborating on beers, or hosting 

a guest brewer or things like that. So it’s 

a very friendly industry to begin with.” 

But finding other women in the industry 

outside of one’s own company can be a 

challenge — hence the interest in monthly 

meetups. Pink Boots, which got it’s name 

from the ubiquitous galoshes brewmasters 

often wear on the production floor, 

encourages women who work in any aspect 

of the beer industry to find common 

ground with one another. The Sacramento 

chapter covers most of Northern California, 

excluding the Bay Area. 

The networking has proven valuable, 

as men and women sometimes 

approach the same questions and 

workplace issues differently, Brogna 

says. “Sometimes it’s a little bit less intimidating 

to have a woman presenting 

something, so you feel more comfortable 

asking questions.” 

The women discuss issues like not 

having the upper body strength to pull 

heavy sacks or stir the mash, all the 

way to how a vendor might treat a female 

co-owner differently from a male 

co-owner. “It’s a little bit different in, say, 

the Bay Area, where a lot of the breweries 

are a little bit older and more established 

— people around here are just 

looking for more opportunities to learn,” 

Brogna says. 

More and more women are entering the 

world of beer making. 

“This industry is incredibly supportive of 

each other … there are very few breweries 

or people in this industry who don’t wanna 

help each other out.” 

~ Kayla Brogna, co-founder, Sacramento Pink Boots Society Chapter 


• TASTE 

Teresa Psuty brews beer during the Pink 

Boots Society’s brew day in March. 

Currently, the dozen members in the 

group range from brewers to marketing 

professionals to event coordinators, but 

all have a tie to the beer industry. Members 

include Amy Ruthnick, co-owner of 

Final Gravity in Roseville and Auburn; 

Bonnie Peterson, co-owner of Oak Park 

Brewing Company; Lauren Schwartzburg, 

yeast propagation lead at White 

Labs in Davis; and Jennifer Luckey, beer 

hall manager at Yolo Brewing Company. 

“For me, it’s definitely the camaraderie,” 

says Kassandra Sutherland, West 

Coast sales development coordinator 

for Brewers Supply Group. “I love the 

unique perspective of other women in 

the industry and I love that we can ask 

each other questions. It’s easy to talk 

with them and collaborate.” 

There was a lot of talking happening 

Feb. 8 when the women of the Sacramento 

Pink Boots Society gathered 

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at Mraz Brewing Company in El Dorado 

Hills for a brew day. They sampled 

co-owners’ Lauren Zehnder and 

Michael Mraz’s Belgian and American 

ales, and brewed their own stout with a 

special Pink Boots-inspired label — the 

“Pink Boots Stout.” 

“We can talk to each other passionately 

about beer, like the way people 

talk about food or wine,” says Kate 

Whelan, a Pink Boots Society member 

and director of Sacramento Beer Week, 

an annual event held each March that 

celebrates more than 300 different 

types of locally-crafted beers and more 

than 125 breweries. “I think a lot of 

people associate wine with women and 

beer with men, and that’s never been 

my experience.” 

Beer is often inappropriately sexualized, 

Whelan says. Beer often isn’t marketed 

to women, and when it is, some 

brewers will feminize beer in a way that 

“we’re just not drawn to,” she says, like 

assuming they only want light or fruitbased 

beers. “We love a wide range 

of beer.” 

There’s just a “weird perspective” in 

the craft brewing world, Whelan says. “I 

don’t think we’re discriminated against, 

but I don’t think people realize how 

many women are already in the industry.” 

A 2014 Auburn University study 

found that women make up 29 percent of 

brewery workers. 

Historically, going back to ancient 

civilizations, women were the traditional 

brewers, Brogna points out. 

During a March brew day, she launches 

into a short history of beer that involves 

the Sumerian goddess of brewing, 

the ancient Finns, the demise of 

hunter-gatherer societies and beerbrewing 

monks. 

“What I do say to people now, since 

it’s a little bit different these days, is that 

brewing is for everybody,” she says. “It 

is an exciting and creative job. It is very 

physical, however there is nothing that 

any one person could not find a way 

to do.” • 

Robin Epley is the associate editor for 

Comstock’s. She is also the founder of 

Millennials in Media, a Sacramento 

program for young journalists. On 

Twitter @robin_epley. 

WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP 

CBRE, INC. 

PASSION LEADS TO EXCELLENCE 

Commercial real estate is a tough, maledominated 

business, but Amy DeAngelis 

excels at it. “I love negotiating, achieving 

compromise, and finalizing transactions,” she says. 

As executive vice president with CBRE, Inc., 

the world’s largest commercial real estate firm, 

DeAngelis specializes in multi-market portfolios, 

primarily representing tenants of office space 

locally, nationally, and internationally. 

“I started in 1999 as a marketing specialist, 

and was drawn to the brokers’ high-pressure 

environment,” says DeAngelis. “I knew there 

weren’t many women in the field, but it was meant 

for me.” 

This year, DeAngelis was named Broker of the 

Year for the region, the first woman to earn the title. 

“It takes thick skin and tenacity to become selfsufficient 

in this commission-based business, but 

it’s a great career” she says. “I’ve worked very hard 

and with technology today I am able to work at all 

hours and from any location, which allows me to be 

more involved in my daughters’ lives.” 

“Passion and drive can lead to success, even in 

the toughest industries,” she concludes. 

Have a favorite woman-owned 

brewery or female brewer in the 

Capital Region? 

TWEET US @COMSTOCKSMAG. 

916.446.6800 | 500 Capitol Mall, Suite 2400 | Sacramento, CA 95814 

www.CBRE.com 

“I had people 

tell me I 

wouldn’t 

make it in 

this business, 

but that just 

strengthened 

my resolve.” 

— Amy DeAngelis 

Executive Vice President 



The women of 530 

BANK OF FEATHER RIVER...COMMUNITY BANKING EXCELLENCE 

PICTURED ABOVE [L-R]: LIZ GATES, EVP,CFO/COO | JENNIFER BECHTEL, OPERATIONS OFFICER | FAWN DULAI, VP, OPERATIONS COMPLIANCE MANAGER/BSA OFFICER | JULIE MOREHEAD, PRESIDENT/CEO 

MANDY JONES, VP, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT OFFICER/MARKETING OFFICER | BARBARA VAN GILDER, VP, REAL ESTATE LOAN OFFICER 

The women of Bank of Feather River 

help guide the bank in promoting 

the Yuba-Sutter area and enhancing 

the local communities’ economic position. 

Founded in 2007 and based in Yuba City, 

this community bank is celebrating its 

10th anniversary backed by $100 million 

in assets. 

Bank of Feather River ensures that 100 

percent of deposits raised in the Yuba- 

Sutter area are lent locally, primarily to 

businesses for expanding, hiring new 

people, and providing local services. The 

bank stands apart from other banks with 

a staff that is 75 percent women, and 

with women in leadership roles, including 

President/CEO, EVP/CFO/COO, and four 

of six Vice Presidents. 

The bank launched its Women & 

Conversations Breakfast Series three years 

ago to give local professional women 

a forum for shared experiences. “This 

series enables us to explore valuable 

topics for discussion and invite expert 

women speakers who present information 

about topics affecting women,” says 

Julie Morehead, President/CEO. 

“Each gathering helps women and our 

community.” 

“With Beale Air Force Base in our 

backyard, assisting our military community 

is a priority for the bank,” says Vice 

President/Business Development Officer, 

Mandy Jones. A former military spouse, 

Jones spearheads the “Happy Landings” 

program for military spouses arriving to 

the base. She shares her “favorite things” 

about the community to help spouses 

adapt to their new home. “Showing our 

appreciation to military families as well as 

promoting local businesses and events is a 

win for our community.” 

The bank is regularly recognized as a top 

performer amongst peers, including being 

named one of the 2016 Top 100 Banks 

under $1 billion in assets in the U.S. by S&P 

Global Market Intelligence, and recognized 

as a “Super Premier” Performing Bank by 

Findley Reports. 

“Precision, understanding, and 

commitment to enriching lives and shaping 

the Yuba-Sutter area’s future is what we 

are all about,” concludes Julie Morehead. 

“Promoting 

local people and 

businesses makes our 

community stronger, 

a Bank of Feather 

River goal.” 

— Julie Morehead 

President/CEO 


530.755.3700 | 855 Harter Parkway, Suite 100 | Yuba City, CA 95993 

www.BOFR.bank

SHE 

COMSTOCK'S CELEBRATES SIX EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN OF INFLUENCE 

WHO 

WHO ARE REDEFINING LEADERSHIP ON THEIR OWN TERMS 

LEADS 

BY Robin Epley PHOTOGRAPHY BY Terence Duffy 


• LEADERSHIP 

MARTHA 

LOFGREN 

PARTNER, BREWER LOFGREN 

By age 48, Martha Lofgren had earned a bachelor’s in sociology from 

Wellesley College, a law degree from UC Davis, worked as a litigation 

attorney for Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe in Sacramento, been 

Folsom’s first in-house city attorney and was the first female city manager 

of Folsom, serving six years. Then, in 2006, she was approached 

by a colleague about starting a law firm together. 

“I’d worked for a really big law firm, I’d worked for government and now I had the opportunity 

to set up my own business,” she says. “Again, the door opened. Why wouldn’t 

I walk through that door?” 

That led to the opening of Brewer Lofgren, a land-use and real estate law firm, with 

partner Roy Brewer in 2006 — just before the economic downturn. Lofgren says the 

company not only survived but thrived during that time because of her philanthropic 

work in the community, which allowed her to meet and work with community leaders 

and entrepreneurs. “My primary goal has always been to be challenged in my career, 

and so I look for opportunities that intellectually challenge me and where I feel like I’m 

contributing something in a meaningful way,” Lofgren says. 

She often advises young professional women to take advantage of whatever opportunities 

present themselves. As the mother of two millennial-aged daughters, Lofgren 

says she holds a special place in her heart for helping the oft-maligned generation find 

their footing in today’s workforce, often going out of her way to advise young people 

who come to her for help. 

“Networking is critically important and so identifying community leaders that are in 

a field you are interested in working in should be top-of-mind for anyone that is looking 

for career advancement,” she says. “Someone told me recently, people who have children 

that are millennials are the best target because they feel like they’re helping their 

own kids, and I have to say I feel like there’s a lot of truth to that.” 

Lofgren says one of her favorite parts about being city manager was the many opportunities 

to meet people and engage with the community, and she filled that gap 

after leaving public service by serving on a flurry of nonprofit boards. She has racked 

up stints on the boards of the Sacramento Metro Chamber, the B Street Theatre, Folsom 

Lake College Foundation, Powerhouse Ministries and with Valley Vision. She also 

currently serves as a board member of the American Leadership Forum and does volunteer 

work with the American Heart Association. Her main care, she says, is simply 

to be involved with community leadership in some capacity. “How do we comport ourselves 

as leaders in the community? And I care a lot about that, I look for opportunities 

to have an influence and weigh in on leadership,” she says. 

And what sort of leader does she hope to be? “I would hope to be inclusive, listening 

to people and really understanding different viewpoints and bringing different viewpoints 

into a common path or goals,” Lofgren says. “I would hope to be transparent. I 

think in most things we do, it’s best to be pretty open about what you do, [and] be worthy 

of trust. That way, people say, ‘This is a woman who leads, and I trust the direction 

we’re going in.’” 





QUIRINA 

OROZCO 

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY, SACRAMENTO COUNTY 

Last fall, three months before the November election, Quirina Orozco decided 

to make a run for West Sacramento City Council. The Sacramento 

County district attorney and mother of four was already involved in two 

separate city commissions and knew that serving as councilwoman would 

be a much larger commitment for her and her family. She felt called to the 

task, spurred on by a long history of public service, but it felt daunting. 

Then she says she realized, “Who am I if I’m going to let my fear debilitate me?” At 

worst, Orozco says, she could only lose. And her children “would see that mommy was 

brave” and perhaps they would have a civics lesson in the process, she laughs. 

But she did win one of the two open seats in November, along with Beverly Sandeen, 

totalling more than 64 percent of the vote between them. (Orozco alone nearly 

doubled the vote count of her nearest competitor, Martha Guerrero.) 

Orozco attended UC Berkeley, then graduated from Harvard with a master’s 

degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government in 1999. She was 

recruited for her first job out of college by the White House for the Office of Management 

and Budget under the Clinton administration, returning to California 

in late 2001 for a job with Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante as the executive director of 

the Commission for One California, which sought to bring together diverse leaders 

from across the state to combat issues of prejudice, intolerance and hate. 

Orozco has been a district attorney with Sacramento County for the past 12 years and 

is currently working with the State Targeted Offenders Program. In the STOP unit, 

Orozco prosecutes crimes that have occurred in prison, against prisoners. In her previous 

work with the Sexual Assault and Child Abuse unit, her clients were often young 

children and human trafficking victims. 

Orozco says that it’s hard for her to separate being a woman and a mother from 

her career, partially because she believes that women have a very different skillset 

when it comes to leadership. There’s an empathy and an emotional intelligence that 

women and mothers carry with them throughout their lives, she says. But that can 

lead to a deep-seated anxiety about how she measures up against others (both male 

and female) in her orbit And though she’s had many role models in her life, Orozco 

speaks of how inspired she was by the courage and resilience of a young girl whose sex 

abuse case she worked on: “Role models come in a whole bunch of different shapes and 

sizes; they’re not necessarily older than you or more experienced than you,” she says. 

“Sometimes they’re less so, and they’re younger but they have a fight and a drive, and it 

makes you realize what you fight for.” 

Orozco knows she’d be in a very different place if it weren’t for role models that 

showed her the way: “People made this all happen so I could sit behind a desk and talk 

to you about my life,” she says, but more often than not, no one is there to show you the 

way. She imagines her life as a long journey on a road "fraught with potholes or broken 

glass or other obstacles to my travel." She can travel this road alone, or she can help 

the people behind her avoid the obstacles and find the opportunities — she has chosen 

the latter. “I know it’s my calling to make sure the opportunity doesn’t stop with me.” 



ALEXANDRA 

CUNNINGHAM 

LEAD DANCER, SACRAMENTO BALLET 

Alexandra Cunningham, whom you may know for her lead roles in the Sacramento 

Ballet productions of Swan Lake, The Great Gatsby and Peter Pan, says 

she’d like to continue growing her career in Sacramento. But right now, that 

future is in jeopardy. 

Cunningham’s parents are Ron Cunningham and Carinne Binda, artistic 

directors of the Sacramento Ballet. After serving the organization for 30 years, 

the duo were recently asked to step down in the 2018 season by the company’s board of directors, 

citing their desire for a change of vision. Cunningham, unsurprisingly, disagrees with the 

decision. 

“I know we want to grow as a city but I think to see as a young leader — to see people just 

kind of cast away like that, almost unceremoniously, makes me feel like it’s going to be harder 

to retain people with real talent here,” she says. 

Most professional artists expect a degree of unpredictability in their career, and this isn’t 

the first time Cunningham has had to adapt. In 2013, she tore her ACL. The woman who had 

been dancing onstage since the age of five would not dance again for nearly a year. “It was really 

hard. It was the longest I’ve ever not danced in my life,” Cunningham says. 

After a lengthy recovery process and three surgeries, Cunningham stepped back onto the 

Sacramento Ballet stage for the 2014-2015 season. And then something else catastrophic happened: 

In May 2015, the entire company was laid off for the remaining few weeks of the season. 

The dancers were devastated. One of their favorite events of the year, Beer and Ballet, was coming 

up and a slew of almost-finished routines showcasing both apprentice and company talent 

would go to waste. 

Not to be defeated, the dancers banded together and formed the Capital Dance Project. 

Cunningham took the lead in securing the venue, finding sponsors and insurance, and producing 

the marketing. Three weeks after the layoffs occurred, the dancers were performing again. 

About 500 people came to see “Behind the Barre.” Held at Crest Theatre, it featured routines 

from the canceled Beer and Ballet event. 

Cunningham says she remembers when she and another dancer were trying to tie up loose 

ends before the show — but there was nothing left to be done: “It was like, oh, we just get to 

enjoy it now.” 

Dancers who were hired back by the Sacramento Ballet, including Cunningham, now juggle 

both jobs. CDP performed its second annual “Behind the Barre” show in August 2016 to a larger 

crowd, almost twice the size of the crowd at the inaugural event, and only a few months after 

Cunningham re-injured her ACL and underwent another surgery. The third show will be held 

this August. 

On the day of that first CDP performance, Cunningham says she was reminded of some 

advice an older ballerina had once told her: En pointe ballerinas have to hide the ends of their 

shoe ribbons while onstage, lest they fall out during the show. “She sewed her ribbons in because 

if they fall out, then you’re onstage with loose ribbons ... it’s one less thing to worry about 

when you’re onstage,” Cunningham says. That lesson stuck with her. “If you prepare well then 

you don’t have to worry about it later.” 





CAROL 

GARCIA 

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETING AND BUSINESS 

DEVELOPMENT, COMMUNITY 1ST BANK 

Carol Garcia thought that she would just work at Citizens Bank of Roseville in her 

early 20s while earning her teaching credential. Her family has a history of working 

in education: Garcia’s grandmother and mother were educators, and one of her two 

daughters is currently teaching at a Roseville elementary school. Chilton Middle 

School is named after her mother, and she is a fifth-generation Rosevillian, a direct 

descendent of the early pioneer family, the Fiddyments. 

But, “I just moved up very quickly and I’ve always worked for community banks in Roseville,” 

she says, first at Citizens Bank in the 1980s, then at Roseville 1st National Bank, until she started 

Granite Community Bank with her mentor, Rich Seeba. Unfortunately, Seeba died suddenly of an 

aortic aneurysm in 2004 while serving as the bank’s president, and the bank was eventually taken 

over by the FDIC. “He always made me believe that I could be whatever I wanted to be, so I miss him 

every day,” she says. 

Garcia knows a thing or two about leadership: She is a former mayor of Roseville and a former 

city councilwoman. She is also a past president of the Roseville Rotary Club, the Roseville Chamber 

of Commerce and of the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Placer County, as well as a founding 

member of the Roseville Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Roseville committee, and has served 

on the boards of the Sutter Roseville Medical Center Foundation and the Roseville City School 

District Foundation. All of this is in addition to her full-time gig as the senior vice president of marketing 

and business development for Community 1st Bank — and she still finds time to play with her 

grandson on a regular basis. 

“A good leader to me, is somebody who can raise a family, do their job ... but also give back to their 

community equally,” Garcia says. “And in order to do it, you really need to have the buy-in of those 

three entities.” Without her employer’s support, Garcia explains, she couldn’t do volunteer work in 

the community and still have time for her family as well. “Same with my family. I can’t do my job 

and do my volunteer work without their buy-in,” Garcia says. “And same when I was working with 

the City of Roseville, they had to be very patient with my paid job and the time with my family.” 

Garcia is also the cofounder of the Placer Breast Cancer Endowment. Eighteen years ago, at age 

39, she was diagnosed with breast cancer — an experience she calls “devastating.” Originally scheduled 

to just have a lumpectomy, Garcia eventually would undergo a double mastectomy. “I never hid 

any information from our daughters [who were 13 and 17 at the time] for fear that they may be faced 

with the same diagnosis at some point in their life,” she says. By 2014, the endowment had raised 

$1.5 million for a Breast Cancer Chair at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. Now operating 

as a foundation, the organization continues to work toward finding a cure, Garcia says. 

“I don’t think you can become a leader, I think you’re born a leader,” Garcia says. “When you have 

a hiccup in your life, like breast cancer … that’s when you stand back and think, ‘Am I doing the 

right thing? Where do I need to readjust here?’ And it’s that balance that continues to be difficult to 

maintain at times. It is hard. It’s hard to be a leader.” 



SHOBHA 

MALLARAPU 

FOUNDER AND CEO, ANVAYA SOLUTIONS 

Shobha Mallarapu leads a team of “white hats.” They help companies identify their 

cybersecurity weaknesses before malicious hackers — the “black hats” — can 

take advantage of holes in a business’ technology and cyber-based data systems. 

Mallarapu founded her business, Anvaya Solutions, in 2007, after eight years at 

General Motors and 10 years with Intel. 

“Anvaya” in Sanskrit has different translations into English, but generally connotes 

the concept of a connection or agreement, Mallarapu says. She says she wants Anvaya 

Solutions to be the go-to name to help companies who may already be aware of weaknesses in 

their security and need some help pushing past them. 

As an employer, Mallarapu says she believes good leadership is the ability to motivate her 

staff to do work that will enrich the businesses and themselves. “I don’t believe in monitoring 

every second of what they do,” she says. “I would like to delegate and be confident that they’d 

like to do it. That’s why I’d like to guide them into being more self-sufficient.” Rather than being 

authoritative, she tries to give her staff tools to grow on their own. 

Though she doesn’t interact with a lot of women as colleagues in her industry, Mallarapu 

has sought out their presence in another form: as fellow business owners. Mallarapu is currently 

on the board of the National Association of Women Business Owners, Sacramento Valley. 

“When I first started the business, I felt all alone,” she says. “I didn’t know any other women 

business owners.” After spending so long as often the only woman in rooms full of men, working 

with women was a bit of an unknown for Mallarapu. She says she found a welcomed sense of 

camaraderie. “I really didn’t know how working with women would be; but when I see the other 

business owners who are women, I really feel a connection.” 

Mallarapu says she sees gender ratios in tech changing, though not toward greater parity. 

The number of women in computing jobs is set to decline from 24 percent to 22 percent over 

the next 10 years, according to a report released late last year by Girls Who Code and Accenture, 

and the percentage of women in computer science majors last peaked at 37 percent in 1984. 

Today’s share of female computer scientist majors sits somewhere around 18 percent, where 

it’s been for nearly 10 years. Mallarapu says she has seen this stagnation reflected in her professional 

life. 

She places the onus on a lack of role models and of exposure to the industry, and it’s one 

of the reasons Mallarapu donates much of her time to speaking at middle schools and high 

schools, coaching and judging at robotics tournaments and working as a one-on-one mentor to 

young students. The young women who come to hear her speak — some classrooms she Skypes 

into — ask her what it’s like, how she got started and what classes they should take to follow the 

same career path as her. 

She advises young women not to be discouraged by lack of representation, pointing out 

that “if they are not surrounded by people who are in those fields, they may doubt themselves.” 

Instead, she tells them to be confident and explore their options. “Try internships, find out what 

you like,” she says. “Once you have the job, don't be afraid to speak up.” 





BRITTA 

GUERRERO 

CEO, SACRAMENTO NATIVE AMERICAN HEALTH CENTER 

Britta Guerrero says she never saw her own potential — it had to be shown to 

her. “I never saw myself as a leader,” she says. “I certainly had to be dragged 

along.” Now, she’s the CEO of the Sacramento Native American Health Center, 

which employs 140, and has a $16 million annual operating budget. 

Guerrero says she had the opportunity to grow into a leadership role 

because she had mentors who encouraged her to follow her strengths. It’s 

something she tries to pass along to her young staff. 

In 2005, while working at Sutter Memorial Hospital, Guerrero was contacted by Olin 

Jones, director of Office of Native American Affairs with the California Attorney General’s 

Office, to help revitalize the ailing SNAHC, then known as the Sacramento Urban Indian 

Health Project. When Guerrero arrived, SUIHPI was defunct and had lost its funding. “I 

have done every job in this clinic from front desk, to Medi-Cal eligibility, grant writing, marketing, 

HR … you name it!” she says. “I am someone who learns by doing.” She became CEO 

in 2012 and recently oversaw the center’s $6 million expansion. 

Today, SNAHC is an accredited, state-licensed community health center that works 

closely with local hospitals to care for the uninsured, underinsured and socioeconomically 

disadvantaged. Guerrero oversees the work of the top executives, including the CFO, COO, 

the Center’s compliance officer and executive coordinator and several more. 

Born in San Diego, Guerrero moved to Northern California to study English and political 

science at Humboldt State, planning to become a teacher. But working at Planned Parenthood 

motivated her to pursue a career in the nonprofit sector instead. “It was like I suddenly 

knew what I wanted for the rest of my life,” she says. “Working for the betterment of the 

underserved, it spoke to my heart.” 

Guerrero is a member of the San Carlos Apache tribe, from southeast Arizona. “I think 

being a Native person, people think you are the authority on all things, and that’s just not 

the case,” she says. Sometimes she feels like she’s become the “token, or go-to” for native 

issues in Sacramento but that’s not a space she wants to occupy. Guerrero takes the responsibility 

that comes with her professional visibility very seriously — not just as a voice for 

women and people of color not present, but as an advocate for others to be brought into the 

room. 

“I remember my aunt used to say to me when I was young, that if for some reason you find 

yourself with a seat at the table, you save the chair next to you for the next one,” she says. 

“I’ve really done my best to do that. It’s not been easy.” 

Guerrero says that it’s important in Native American culture to find a physical, mental, 

emotional and spiritual place to recharge and stay grounded. For her, that place is in training 

for marathons; she says running helps her to find a place outside of her professional self. 

Guerrero has completed 10 marathons, eight of which were in the California International 

Marathon. 

“I encourage people to find that place where they don’t have any titles. Someplace where 

your mind is able to be focused and go inside,” she says. “There are very few places where I 

don’t have a title. I’m either a wife or a mom or a CEO or whatever it is, and running is one 

place where I don’t have a lot of titles.” 


• MOTHERHOOD 

birth 

control 

Even with advanced family planning methods more readily 

available, working moms still struggle to have it all 

BY Amy Westervelt 

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK 




" 

My 

story isn’t really the 

typical fertility story,” 

says Erika, an education 

researcher who lives in 

Grass Valley and telecommutes 

for a company in Menlo Park. 

Erika, who asked to remain anonymous, 

decided she definitely wanted kids about 

the time she turned 39. She had been 

married in her late 20s and divorced five 

years later. On her 39th birthday, she had 

been with her then-boyfriend for another 

five years. 

“I really loved the person I was with, 

but I was like I think I want to have kids 

and if you don’t we have to break up,” 

she says. “The following month I looked 

for a donor and less than a year later I 

was pregnant.” 

Erika describes her journey as “easy” 

compared to other women she knows. 

She got pregnant with the first round of 

in-vitro fertilization (it’s not uncommon 

for women to undergo multiple rounds, 

up to five, before getting pregnant, while 

some never get pregnant with IVF), she 

didn’t have to deal with progesterone 

shots, and the oral medication she took 

didn’t affect her much. She was also in 

a financial position to qualify for a loan 

to cover the cost: $35,000 between medications, 

five failed IUI attempts, donor 

sperm and IVF. 

“I had really good insurance, but it 

covered almost none of this,” she says. Erika 

was also at a point in her career where 

she could take time off and not lose her 

place in line. 

That’s not necessarily the case for all 

women who have decided they want to 

balance a career with parenting. While 

reproductive technologies have given 

women and families more control and 

additional tools, having it all still seems a 

far leap. Treatments are expensive (most 

insurance plans won’t cover much), timeconsuming 

and not always effective. 

Meanwhile, workplace politics have been 

slow to shift and accommodate a growing 

number of working moms. 

THE INS AND OUTS OF FERTILITY 

Although no two women have the same 

fertility story, there is a typical trajectory: 

A woman tries for some time to get pregnant 

(usually about a year) and it doesn’t 

happen; she tells her gynecologist, who 

does a blood test to ensure the woman is 

ovulating and then prescribes Clomid, a 

follicle-stimulating drug that helps ensure 

her ovaries produce at least one egg 

per month; she may try that for several 

months, and if it still doesn’t work, she’s 

referred to a fertility specialist. 

The specialist will do more tests, including 

testing the man’s sperm. The next 

step is intrauterine insemination, or IUI 

— depositing the sperm in the woman’s 

uterus while she is ovulating (for slowermoving 

sperm, this usually solves the 

problem). Most women will try IUI a few 

times because it’s far less expensive and 

doesn’t require all of the drugs that IVF 

does. Success rates can also increase with 

multiple tries, but remain in the range of 

7-20 percent. Most doctors will recom- 

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mend moving onto IVF after three failed 

IUI attempts. 

The IVF process typically starts 

with injections of a class of drugs called 

Gonadotropins, which contain folliclestimulating 

hormone, luteinizing hormone 

or a combination of the two. This helps the 

woman produce many more eggs during 

her monthly cycle than she would normally 

— because the more eggs produced, the 

more opportunities for a viable pregnancy. 

When the woman’s eggs (called follicles in 

medical parlance) are mature and numerous, 

a procedure is performed to remove 

the eggs, which are then fertilized with 

sperm in a lab. After three to five days, the 

healthiest embryos are transferred back to 

the uterus (though sometimes the embryos 

are frozen for a cycle if the woman has 

responded poorly to the drugs). In most 

cases, the woman then must take progesterone 

shots to thicken the uterine lining 

enough to support a fetus. 

Some specialists worry the modern, 

drug-assisted IVF process is 

overused. When IVF was introduced in 

the late 1970s, eggs would be harvested 

as the woman naturally produced them, 

without most of the accompanying treatments. 

According to Dr. Geeta Nargund, 

an international fertility expert based 

in London, too many women who don’t 

need drug-assisted IVF are being sold on 

the idea. “In a lot of cases, the woman has 

no fertility issue, it’s their partner that has 

the issue,” she says. In fact, this is true in 

51 percent of fertility cases in the United 

States. “There’s a significant population 

of perfectly fertile women who are having 

fertility treatment and they don’t need it,” 

Nargund continues. 

Nargund counsels women who ovulate 

on their own and have no issue with 

their fallopian tubes to try “natural IVF,” 

which requires the patient to inject hormones 

only for about 5-9 days, versus the 

current IVF standard, which includes 4-6 

weeks of daily injections. 

“We tend to forget because the field is 

male-dominated and they often take the 

approach of, ‘Oh well, women are doing 

all these injections, but they don’t mind 

that,’” Nargund says. “Well, how do you 

know that? … Most women are working 

during this time and I’ve seen a number 

of them have to resign because of the intensity 

of this process — I think we owe it 

to women to make fertility treatments as 

safe and easy as possible.” 

Side effects from fertility drugs can 

vary wildly from woman to woman. 

Clomid, for example, is known for 

making some women feel everything 

from mildly depressed to outright psychotic, 

but some women experience no 

side effects. In many cases, doctors don’t 

discuss these potential effects with their 

patients. Some consider Clomid a completely 

innocuous drug, while others 

believe women are willing to put up with 

any number of side effects in order to treat 

infertility — which is true in many cases, 

but that approach can have a real impact 

not only on patients’ personal lives, but 

also their professional ones. 

Urata & Sons Concrete, Inc. 

SHAPING SACRAMENTO’S FUTURE SINCE 1975 

Kelly Urata guides the family’s concrete 

business alongside her father, Charles Urata, 

and cherishes working with him every day. 

Her father and uncle founded Urata & Sons Concrete 

in 1975, and Kelly began working in the business as 

early as she can remember. She has been an integral 

part of the success during both good and bad times. 

Headquartered in Rancho Cordova and powered 

by 250 employees, Urata & Sons Concrete does 

structural concrete projects throughout California 

and Nevada. Significant Sacramento area projects 

include Thunder Valley Casino and the iconic 

Golden 1 Center. 

“I’m passionate about the work we do and love 

watching projects come together,” notes Kelly. “The 

Golden 1 Center went from nothing to a fabulous 

Sacramento landmark in two years, and it was very 

rewarding to take part in that.” 

“I enjoy sharing responsibility for the company’s 

growth with my dad. Our consistent quality of work 

and longevity in the industry keeps our clients 

coming to us. We also employ the brightest and best 

people in the industry and clients recognize that,” 

she concludes. 


916.638.5364 | 3430 Luyung Dr. | Rancho Cordova, CA 95742 

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CEO 



“It causes so many psychological 

emergencies in this country, women 

quit jobs, it causes relationship issues — 

it should not be taken as lightly as it is,” 

says Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh, a nationally 

recognized fertility expert who runs a 

practice in San Ramon. 

Leticia McCann Murphy, an HR 

manager in Sacramento who had her 

first baby this year through IVF, had exactly 

that experience. McCann Murphy 

and her husband started trying when 

she was 28. After a year without getting 

pregnant, her gynecologist put her on 

Clomid. She was not told about any contraindications. 

“I got a blood test to make 

sure I was still ovulating but that was 

it — fortunately it didn’t make me feel 

crazy the way it did for a lot of women 

in my fertility support group,” she says. 

After a year on Clomid, McCann Murphy 

tried four cycles of IUI before finally 

doing IVF. 

That process is common, and also 

makes many women less likely to opt for 

“natural IVF,” which although far less 

expensive (typically about $5,000, according 

to Nargund), could take longer. 

Fertility is often described as a numbers 

game: It’s a world dominated by discussion 

of success rates, number of eggs, 

number of viable embryos and so forth. 

For many women seeing a fertility specialist, 

there’s a certain amount of panic 

involved, particularly if they’re over 35. 

It’s a high-pressure situation and one in 

which the quickest fix with the highest 

success rate — drug-assisted IVF —is 

very appealing. 

TECHNOLOGY IS NOT ALWAYS A 

SILVER BULLET 

Success rates are a big deal in the fertility 

industry, but they can be hard to 

decipher. According to the U.S. Centers 

for Disease Control’s most recent report, 

the average success rate for IVF ranges 

from 20-30 percent, depending on the 

woman's age. Some clinics boast much 

higher rates. The California IVF Center 

in Davis, for example, has a success rate 

of 50-80 percent. That wide range is due 

to a number of factors: Some clinics take 

more complicated cases, which drives 

their success rates down. Some women, 

and the clinics that serve them, are willing 

to undergo multiple rounds of IVF in 

their attempt to have a child, which also 

drives down success rates. 

“People have no understanding of 

success rates,” Eyvazzadeh says. Most 

of her patients have quite low chances 

of success because she is a specialist 

who takes pride in tackling challenging 

cases. She’s seen as a sort of miracle 

worker for women from San Francisco 

to Sacramento who seek her out when 

other specialists have failed them. “I tell 

them they have a 23 percent chance and 

they think that’s low, but in the world 

of assisted reproduction, that’s actually 

considered high,” she says. 

That’s especially true for the many 

patients who come to Eyvazzadeh because 

of her reputation for cracking tough 

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cases. “My theory is that there’s no such 

thing as unexplained infertility,” she 

says. “There’s always a reason.” 

Ferreting out that reason and addressing 

any contributing health issues is 

important to ultimate success, according 

to Eyvazzadeh. 

“If we address any contributing factors, 

then if and when we do go ahead 

with IVF it will have the highest chance 

of success,” she explains. “I don’t want to, 

after the fact, say, ‘Oh we should have removed 

those polyps’ or ‘Oh your husband 

should have seen a urologist.’” 

yet thawed them and attempted pregnancy.” 

In other words, they don’t yet 

know whether the eggs will be viable once 

thawed — something the woman won’t 

find out until years later. 

Zeringue explains that in his center, 

it took quite a bit of time and effort 

to come up with an egg-freezing process 

they know works: “We set up trials of different 

techniques and tested eggs after 

thawing to see if the fertilization rates 

and pregnancy rates were the same as 

with fresh eggs,” he says. “Using commercially 

available materials and protocols, 

most of the eggs failed to make goodquality 

embryos.” 

It was only after several adjustments 

to their process that his center was able 

to ensure a higher survival rate following 

egg freezing. Still, about 75 percent 

of frozen eggs survive the freezing and 

thawing process. “Without verification 

TO FREEZE OR NOT TO FREEZE, 

THAT IS THE QUESTION 

One potential tool for extending fertility 

and improving success rates is egg freezing. 

Heralded as a game-changer that 

could allow women to safeguard both 

their careers and their fertility, egg freezing 

has taken off in recent years, bolstered 

in part by high-profile announcements 

from Apple and Facebook that they would 

cover the procedure in employee health 

plans. In 2009, only about 500 women in 

the U.S. froze their eggs — in 2013, almost 

5,000 did, according to data from the Society 

for Assisted Reproductive Technology. 

Fertility marketer EggBanxx estimates 

that 76,000 women will be freezing their 

eggs by 2018. 

But it too is not quite the ultimate fix 

it’s been made out to be. Although the 

American Society for Reproductive Freedom 

removed the “experimental” label 

from egg freezing in 2012 because advancements 

had dramatically improved 

success rates, it still cautioned against 

overselling the procedure to women and 

giving them “false hope” of more control 

over their future fertility. 

Ernest Zeringue, medical director and 

founder of California IVF Fertility Center 

in Davis, has some advice for women envisioning 

egg freezing as a fail-safe. “Egg 

freezing services are relatively new,” he 

says. “It is no longer considered experimental, 

however that doesn’t mean that 

clinics are proficient yet. There are many 

centers, I’d go as far as to say most centers 

that are freezing eggs, that have not 

Iacopi, Lenz & Company 

ACCOUNTING EXCELLENCE, COMMUNITY SPIRIT 

CPA Susan Lenz says, “We’ve developed 

incredible client relationships with nearly 40 

years in business. It’s heartwarming to have 

worked with many generations of families. We’ve 

watched businesses grow over the decades, and 

we’ve grown with them.” 

Founded in 1978, Stockton-based accounting firm 

Iacopi, Lenz & Company has clients nationwide, 

as well as many in Stockton. Susan, partner since 

1982 with founder John Iacopi, is one of 11 women 

accountants in the firm. “Women outnumber the 

men in this firm, so we’re well represented,” she 

notes with a smile. 

“As an accountant, I get to see clients’ quiet 

giving and what they bring to our community, and 

it fills me with pride and respect.” The firm’s team 

members are also generous givers, volunteering and 

holding seats on non-profit boards, city council, and 

school boards. In fact, that community spirit earned 

the firm the California CPA Society’s statewide 

Public Service Award. 

“Our staff is dedicated to clients and community, 

and we take great pride in their commitment,” 

concludes Susan. 

209.957.3691 | 3031 W. March Lane, Suite 300E | Stockton, CA 95219 

www.IACOPI.com 

“We take 

pride in our 

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service to our 

clients and 

commitment 

to our 

community” 

— Susan Lenz 

CPA 


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of their techniques, places freezing eggs 

may not be offering any real benefit to patients,” 

Zeringue says. 

In addition to not being guaranteed 

effective, egg freezing isn’t cheap. It costs 

about $10,000 to harvest eggs, a procedure 

that is typically done after a woman has 

taken many of the same follicle-stimulating 

drugs taken during IVF, which can 

cost up to $1,000 depending on your insurance. 

Then the storage fee is around 

$500 a year. If and when you decide to use 

the eggs, you’ll still need to go through 

the implantation procedure and, if you’re 

single, will need to pay for sperm. Women 

who undergo IVF often wind up paying 

for storage of fertilized embryos as well, 

which they will need to decide at some 

point whether to use, donate or destroy 

— a decision that carries increasingly uncertain 

legal implications. 

For Erika, even though she’s quite sure 

she doesn’t want any more kids, “especially 

as a single mom,” it’s been hard to 

decide what to do with her embryos on 

ice. “Destroying them is a hard decision 

to make, and then donating to someone 

would be strange too — it would be a sibling 

to my kid, and related to me — and 

I’m pretty positive I don’t want to have any 

more, but I just keep putting the decision 

off,” she says. 

THE CAREER QUESTION 

Planning for a family as a career woman 

is complicated. Some women have bosses 

they can be open with and a schedule 

conducive to attending doctor’s appointments 

whenever necessary. But even if 

they have both of those things going for 

them (which tends to be a luxury), dealing 

with the fertility process can be tough on 

your professional life. 

For McCann Murphy, the HR manager, 

she had a flexible schedule and her 

boss and closest colleagues were aware 

of her fertility journey. Still, “it’s different 

when you can say a week or two weeks 

ahead of time that you have a doctor’s appointment, 

versus this, which is ‘You’re 

ovulating so you need to come in immediately,’” 

she says. 

And there’s another unforeseen 

downside to colleagues being intimately 



acquainted with your reproductive life. 

“There was no keeping secrets when 

things didn’t work out, or when they did 

— I knew already at five weeks that I was 

pregnant and then everyone else knew 

immediately too,” McCann Murphy says. 

“So rather than waiting the usual three 

months to make sure everything was OK 

and then telling people, we had everyone 

in on it right from the start.” 

However, the support all but stops 

once the mother goes back to work. Neither 

McCann Murphy or Erika works for 

an employer that provides or subsidizes 

childcare (doing so is still so rare that 

companies will often send out press releases 

if they decide to offer such a perk to 

employees), and both struggle with how to 

balance motherhood and career. McCann 

Murphy is fortunate to have family in the 

area that helps care for her 4-month-old 

daughter three days a week, while she’s 

found a daycare nearby to cover the other 

two days. Erika pays for full-time daycare 

for her son, and says she relies on the other 

moms at work when her son is sick and she 

needs to care for him. 

“We’re constantly tagging in and 

out covering work for each other,” Erika 

says. “But it’s really unfortunate when 

parents in the office offload night or 

weekend work to people without kids. 

It’s unfair, and I don’t feel good about 

it. There’s this whole secret burden 

they bear because no one has really 

worked out yet how to actually support 

working parents.” 

Because there’s no government-paid 

family leave, companies often use other 

employees to cover the leave they pay 

for, which means mothers are typically 

expected to hit the ground running the 

second they’re back at work. 

“Everyone loves a pregnant woman 

and everyone loves a baby,” Erika says. 

“But then it’s sort of like OK, you’re on 

your own now.” • 

Amy Westervelt is a journalist who lives in 

Truckee and contributes regularly to The 

Wall Street Journal, The Guardian UK 

and National Public Radio. 

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Now, 28 years later, she’s held nearly 

every position with First American in her 

region, including her current role of sales 

manager. 

“As a typist, I saw my future in the 

escrow department,” she notes. “Once 

there, I moved from receptionist through 

assistant, title searcher, escrow officer 

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and 64 employees.” In addition to her 

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her region. 

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Northern Central California sales team, 

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Experienced and successful in sales 

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• REAL ESTATE 

Kandace Mulvaney, a 

Sacramento-based real 

estate broker, has noticed an 

uptick in female homebuyers 

in the past year. 


home 

makers 

A woman’s place in the home is as the buyer, seller — 

and everything in between 

BY Laurie Lauletta-Boshart PHOTOGRAPHY: Ken James 



Last year, Lisa Holm, a certified personal trainer, bought 

her first home. The 52-year-old divorced mother of two 

had purchased homes before as a married person, but 

this was different. 

“I wanted a place that was mine and I wanted to 

be in control and in charge,” she says. With the help of an 

experienced real estate broker and a seasoned mortgage professional, 

Holm was able to fulfill her wish. “The financial 

part is what drove my decision because I’m a logical person, 

and the rental market is very expensive here. But emotionally, 

I’ve never had a house I could call my own, and this was 

my chance to do that,” she says. 

With the help of Kandace Mulvaney, a real estate broker 

with boutique agency Miller Real Estate in Sacramento, and 

Sharon McKernan, a loan consultant with Kappel Mortgage 

Group in Fair Oaks, Holm was prequalified when her ideal 

house came on the market. 

Within 24 hours of 

seeing a three-bedroom 

bungalow in Fair Oaks, 

Holm had a personal letter 

and offer in hand, ready to 

give the seller, also a single 

woman. Holm moved into 

her new 1,200-square-foot 

home last May. 

A 15-year veteran in 

the residential real estate 

business, Mulvaney is noticing 

a subtle shift in the 

market that reflects recent 

national trends: an 

increase in female homebuyers, 

many of them single. According to an October 2016 

study from the National Association of Realtors, the number 

of single-women homebuyers has been on the rise, climbing 

from 11 percent in 1981 to 17 percent today, and is expected 

to continue to grow. Women also represent 62 percent of all 

certified realtors in residential real estate and are joining 

the professional ranks on the homebuilding side, founding 

companies and occupying seats in the executive suite and on 

industry boards. 

Including Holm, Mulvaney has sold homes to five single 

women — a demographic outside her normal buyer profile 

— in the past year. “I typically work with couples, but I am 

starting to see a lot more single, female homebuyers,” she 

says. The women she’s worked with are educated, working 

full time and range in age between 35 and 55. All but one is 

divorced. “If women can, they do,” Mulvaney says of single 

women purchasing on their own. 

“Our market hasn’t quite recovered 

yet, so we have an awesome 

opportunity of not only looking at 

how we do things, but asking those 

questions of why." 

— Rachel Bardis, cofounder, Bardis Homes 

With the increase in female representation across the 

homebuilding and homebuying spectrums, the building 

and real estate industries have an opportunity to target this 

growing market, which could shift the way homes are designed, 

built and sold. 

THE HOMEBUILDER 

In 2002, when Rachel Bardis launched Corinthian Homes, 

she was an oddity among her homebuilding peers. She was 

young, she was single and she was a woman. 

At 26, she had been around the homebuilding industry 

her entire life — working for her uncle at Reynen & Bardis 

Development and learning under the tutelage of her cousins 

Tom, Mike and Pete Winn, founders of Wincrest Homes. 

While at Reynen & Bardis, she began to question why things 

were done the way they were. Rachel was particularly focused 

on improvements in 

systems, efficiencies in the 

way things were processed, 

what products were sold 

in a home and why. “I was 

constantly met with the 

response of, ‘Well, that’s 

how it’s always been done 

in our building world,’ or 

‘That’s just what we do.’ 

But I wanted to know why,” 

she says. 

Under the Corinthian 

Homes label, Rachel built 

more than 600 homes in 

Sacramento and entitled 

1,500 lots in Idaho. But 

with the collapse of the housing market, the company had to 

close its doors in 2006. The market was moving so fast, Rachel 

found it hard to apply her “why” principle while keeping up 

with market change and demand. 

Now, the experienced homebuilder has co-launched a new 

company, Bardis Homes, with cousin Katherine Bardis. With 

similar homebuilding philosophies and a more conservative 

market, the pair have the chance to answer that question. 

“Our market hasn’t quite recovered yet, so we have an awesome 

opportunity of not only looking at how we do things, but 

asking those questions of why,” says Rachel, “and then taking 

the time to develop what makes sense going forward as a private 

builder and how we might approach things differently.” 

One question the pair is tackling is the affordability issue, 

by finding ways to work with trade partners and product 

suppliers to build a unique, quality product that is costefficient. 

One of its home communities, the Mill at Broadway 


in Sacramento, features a 553-squarefoot, 

one-bedroom, one-bath efficiency 

unit called the “Courts Residence,” and 

is priced from the low $200,000s. Most 

Mill at Broadway homes are priced 10 

to 20 percent below market rates for 

similar Sacramento homes. They also 

strive to be transparent. “We want to be 

an authentic and transparent builder,” 

says Katherine. “Anytime we build a 

model, we show a number of standard 

features so when people walk through 

the home, they aren’t blindsided by the 

fact that the home has $100,000 worth 

of upgrades and that’s not what they are 

going to get with the purchase price.” 

At the Mill at Broadway, two out of 

the 10 models on display are 100 percent 

standard. In addition, Bardis Homes 

typically include a host of standard 

technology features, like a wireless 

entry keypad, in-house cameras and a 

cell-phone operated security system. 

The Bardis cousins have also 

noticed the trend of more female 

homebuyers in the market. “There’s 

no question that there is significantly 

more single, female people buying,” 

Rachel says. “But I think because we 

are female, we tend to take for granted 

how a house should work. It’s a natural 

reaction of how we would like to see a 

design layout. We approach it that way 

because we are women and we know 

what they are looking for.” 

The thoughtful layout was one of the 

things that attracted single, first-time 

homebuyer Jennifer Rubin to the Mill 

at Broadway. “It’s a great use of space,” 

says Rubin of her two-bedroom, 2.5- 

bath home. The kitchen and living room 

are on the first floor and the bedrooms 

are on the second floor. The kitchen includes 

abundant storage and features 

a large, long island. “I love to cook, so 

those are really great features,” she says. 

Born and raised in Sacramento, 

Rubin had been a longtime renter in 

Midtown before she made the decision 

to purchase last year. The 35-year-old 

injury prevention professional with 

Dignity Health was tired of absorbing 

yearly rent increases and so, decided to 

buy. “I was at that tipping point where 

it would be the same to pay a mortgage 

versus paying my rent,” she says. 

Rubin looked at condo communities 

downtown and in Midtown, but 

they were out of her price range — plus 

United Building Maintenance 

PUTTING EMPLOYEES FIRST 

Valerie Sherman, CEO of United Building 

Maintenance, puts employees first. She 

launched her company in 2002 with the 

heartfelt philosophy of profit sharing with her 

frontline workers. 

The company saw $1 million in sales in its first 

year and is now a multimillion-dollar company. 

Valerie bases this success on her employees taking 

ownership of the buildings they service. Based in 

Roseville with 250 employees, United now serves the 

greater Sacramento area and beyond. 

“I’ve always made my employees number one,” 

says Valerie. “I teach my management staff that 

we’re here for whatever employees need. The 

employees feel that and take pride, and in turn, make 

our clients feel number one.” 

Valerie is in a tough industry – full-service 

commercial maintenance, including janitorial, 

window washing, pressure cleaning, floor restoration 

and more – but with her guidance, United is known 

for integrity, reliability, and quality. “Clients know 

we’ll handle their needs, and even troubleshoot 

problems that don’t necessarily fall under our 

services,” she says. 

“Being a good leader means serving your people, 

listening to their needs, and empowering them. I 

enrich my employees’ lives any way I can, and that 

means success for all of us,” she concludes. 

the homeowner’s association fees were 

high. She looked at the Mill at Broadway 

and liked the idea of being downtown 

without paying downtown prices. She 

purchased a “Villas Residence,” which 

is a two-unit home with one shared 

wall. And the monthly HOA dues of 

$120 (which will go down once the 

community is built out) are a fraction 


“I believe that 

a business will 

thrive if the 

employees 

are its first 

priority.” 

— Valerie Sherman 

Founder & CEO 

916.772.8101 | 8211 Sierra College Blvd., Ste. 420 | Roseville, CA 95661 

www.UNITEDFULLSERVICE.com 



Buehler & Buehler 

COLLABORATION, CREATIVITY, 

COMMITMENT 

Founded in 1946, Buehler & 

Buehler Structural Engineers 

has a 71-year history serving 

Sacramento and today has 5 offices, 

national and international clients and 

projects. 

Of B&B’s 70-plus staff members, 

almost one quarter are women, 

including structural engineers, civil 

engineers, associate principals, 

managers, business staff, and BIM 

technicians. “We’re a company of high 

achievers with talent in every facet of 

our business, and the women absolutely 

represent that,” says Lori Burbridge, 

Business Manager. 

B&B engineers love the challenge of 

complicated projects and landmarks 

such as the Golden 1 Center and 

Sacramento International’s Terminal 

B, and look forward to continued 

opportunities in the economic upswing. 

“Their creativity and talent is our 

product, and we’re fortunate to have 

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of the $300-$400 she found other condo 

communities were charging. In November, 

Rubin moved into her 

1,005-square-foot home. She liked the 

team she worked with for the purchase, 

including the builder’s preferred lender. 

“I also thought it was very cool working 

with a mostly female sales team and a female 

builder,” she says. 

Joan Marcus-Colvin, chief marketing 

office for The New Home Company, 

a homebuilder with offices in Roseville, 

believes small touches can make a big 

difference in winning over buyers. In one 

home community, the builder placed an 

electrical outlet in the back of a master 

bathroom drawer, so women would never 

have to unplug their hair dryer. “This 

may not be life changing, but it makes 

a great impression for our buyers to see 

that we are thinking about how they live 

day-to-day,” she says. 

The New Home Company uses targeted 

market research derived from 

focus groups to determine many of its 

decisions. “We are committed to going 

out and researching and holding focus 

groups at every single new home community 

that we build,” Marcus-Colvin 

says. What she has consistently found is 

that women are the drivers in the majority 

of home sales. “Women are definitely 

the more persuasive and the more passionate 

about their wants and desires,” 

she says. “They are really driving the lifestyle 

and location.” 

EXPANDING THEIR REACH 

In addition to greater representation 

in homebuying and selling, women are 

gaining ground in the building industry. 

Outside of her corporate role, Marcus- 

Colvin is passionate about advancing the 

future of women in the homebuilding 

industry. While serving as chair of the 

Building Industry Association of Orange 

County in 2015, one of her initiatives included 

chairing the inaugural Women’s 

Leadership Conference, which is now 

an annual event. The inaugural event, 

featuring Carey Lohrenz, the first U.S. 

female naval fighter pilot and author of 

Fearless Leadership, sold out with 350 attendees. 

Last year the event grew to 500 

participants and this year the organizers 

hope to top that number. Marcus-Colvin 

also co-chairs the Women’s Initiative 

for the Urban Land Institute in Orange 

County. Her Roseville colleague, Bonnie 

Chiu, serves as co-chair of the Women’s 

Leadership Initiative for the Sacramento 

Chapter of the Urban Land Institute, and 

is director of forward planning for The 

New Home Company. She also is a board 

member of the North State Building Industry 

Association. 

“The Women’s Leadership Initiative 

is really about advancing women in the 

real estate development field, increasing 

the number of female members and 

providing visibility and networking opportunities,” 

Chiu says. Currently, 104 of 

the 380 ULI members are female, an increase 

of 6 percent since the Sacramento 

Women’s Leadership Initiative was 

launched in 2014. Chiu’s role with The 

New Home Company is on the entitlements 

side, where she is focused on the 

front end, purchasing raw land for development 

and entitlement approvals. She 

led the site planning and entitlements for 

The Cannery in Davis, the first farm-tofork 

new home community in California 

that includes an urban working farm. 

With more female decision makers 

populating the homebuilding and real 

estate industries, women have a unique 

opportunity to impact the product and the 

messaging, and set a new standard. “We 

decided if we were going to do this, we were 

going to do it with the mindset that we 

wanted to be different than everyone else,” 

Katherine Bardis says. “We like to challenge 

everything from a policy standpoint, 

to the way things are applied, to what 

building products are used. And that’s how 

we approach our job every day.” • 

Laurie Lauletta-Boshart is a contributing 

writer for consumer publications and 

Fortune500 companies, including Dwell, 

ESPN, The Wall Street Journal and the 

Sacramento Business Journal. Contact 

her at laurie@wordplaycommunications. 


University of San Francisco 

com. 

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• EDUCATION 

a new 

RoLE CALL 

Women are still underrepresented in educational 

leadership — here’s how two state institutions of higher 

education came to lead the way in gender parity 

BY Steven Yoder PHOTOGRAPHY: Richard Beckermeyer 


Pamela Eibeck, president, University of Pacific 


• EDUCATION 

In July 1995, Pamela Eibeck took one of those less-traveled 

roads that would lead to a career she hadn’t imagined. 

A few years earlier, she’d been a tenured associate 

professor of engineering at UC Berkeley, and her husband, 

William Jeffery, was a corporate attorney. They had four 

children, all under age 12 — including a toddler and infant 

born 18 months apart. 

One evening, Eibeck was home trying to get dinner together 

while Jeffery was ferrying their two older boys to soccer 

practice. It had been a long day at work and a tiring commute 

from Berkeley to Palo Alto where they lived. 

Suddenly, Eibeck says it hit her: She couldn’t do it all. She 

slid to the floor and started crying. “This is insane,” she thought. 

She picked herself up and kept moving, but she and Jeffery 

discussed a change to make space for a more balanced life. 

And in 1995, they did the almost-unthinkable, giving up prestigious 

jobs and Eibeck’s tenure at a major university to move 

to Flagstaff, Ariz. Eibeck took a position at Northern Arizona 

University as chair and professor in the department of mechanical 

engineering. Moving away from a larger city dialed 

down their pace and stress, and the family started spending 

more time together biking, skiing and exploring. 

One day in her new job, a vice president told her, “You think 

different. You think like a president.” He encouraged her to get 

on a track toward a top position in administration. University 

leadership was not on Eibeck's shortlist of life goals. But she 

took him up on it, and he sent her to leadership programs and 

gave her leadership assignments. She started believing she 

could be a good administrator. 

That led in 2004 to a job as dean of engineering at Texas 

Tech University. It made her one of only a handful of female 

engineering deans in the country. Five years later, she was appointed 

president at the University of the Pacific, where she is 

today. 

That experience is part of why Eibeck thinks the career 

paths of women and minorities are more likely to be nontraditional. 

In academia, they’re less likely to follow a straight line 

of promotions toward full professor or department chair. They 

often broaden their research focus by working in interdisciplinary 

areas outside their specialties. 

She believes those alternate paths can make for more 

creative thinking. And it’s why today she encourages Pacific’s 

search committees to be open to nontraditional resumes and 

career trajectories as they identify job candidates. 

That’s a lesson in how diversity at the top opens up the 

hiring pipeline to good candidates who routinely get passed 

over. Across the country, women are still dramatically underrepresented 

as university leaders. But two California systems 

are showing other universities how they can broaden who gets 

considered for top roles. 

LEADERSHIP DIVERSITY IS GOOD FOR SCHOOLS 

In the last 50 years, higher education’s customer base has become 

decidedly more female. In 1967, 40 percent of college 

students were women. By 2014, it was 56 percent. The U.S. Department 

of Education projects that will climb to 59 percent 

by 2025. 

But the people responsible for delivering those educations 

are still overwhelmingly male. A 2015 study found that 

just over 1 in 4 college presidents were women. Data from the 

2013-2014 school year show that a little over a third of chief 

academic officers are women. Fewer than 1 in 3 college board 

members and fewer than 1 in 5 board chairs are female. 

It’s not as though women in academia haven’t earned the 

right to leadership roles. In the 2010-2011 school year, women 

researchers pulled in 56 percent of the top federal research 

grants in education, health, humanities and science. That’s 

despite making up only 30 percent of tenure-track faculty, according 

to a 2013 report by the Colorado Women’s College at 

the University of Denver. 

Beyond fundamental fairness, all of that matters because 

there’s now a body of research suggesting that leadership diversity 

makes for better decisions. For example, a study last 

December by investment consulting firm MSCI found that 

companies with at least three women on their corporate 

boards enjoyed higher returns on equity than those with fewer 

than three. “The real power of diversity is that you get better 

ideas in play, more people touch them and more people own 

them,” says Timothy White, chancellor of the California State 

University system. 

THERE’S ANOTHER WAY 

That’s not just talk — the CSU system now may well lead 

the nation in the proportion of women serving as campus 

presidents in a public university system. With new hires in 

the last year, 11 of 23 CSU campuses have female presidents, 

which has made news nationally. Overall, about 47 percent 

of CSU management positions are filled by women. 

Locally, the University of the Pacific has done something 

similar — its leadership reflects its student population, 

which is 52 percent female. In 2009, the university hired Eibeck 

as its 24th president, but there’s gender parity up and 

down the organizational chart. Among their deans are three 

women and four men. Seven women and six men hold assistant 

or associate dean positions, and the program directors 

comprise nine women and 10 men. The board of regents is 

composed of 40 percent women (10 percent higher than the 

national average), and the board is chaired by a woman. 

Those numbers aren’t accidental. Both systems deliberately 

aimed to diversify and set up processes to make it 

happen. Neither school says openly that they’ve made a shift 


toward more gender parity in recent years. But the gender 

gains among CSU system presidents have all happened since 

2010, when only 4 of 23 presidents were women. And a Pacific 

spokesperson says the school has a “long tradition of valuing 

gender parity” but calls Eibeck’s 2009 hiring perhaps the 

school’s “most recent and significant” move toward equal representation 

in leadership. 

So at both CSU and Pacific, they’ve shaken up their 

search committees. Schools can talk about diversity, but it’s 

these committees, usually composed of faculty, that make it 

happen. That group usually helps identify sources of recruitment, 

writes job ads and whittles a pile of resumes down to a 

manageable number. 

The makeup of those committees can drive who gets 

hired. “You bring in a bunch of folks who are all of the same 

gender, the same race and ethnicity, the same set of experiences, 

they’re going to identify some great candidates, but 

they’re going to look like that search committee,” White says. 

So diversity is a key criteria that CSU departments use in 

picking members for those committees. 

The classic study showing that demographics matter 

in hiring is what’s happened to U.S. symphony orchestras. 

When orchestras began using blind auditions in the 1970s, 

with applicants playing behind a screen, the percentage of 

female players jumped from less than 5 percent to about 

25 percent. 

Both schools also require search committees to recruit 

for diversity. At Pacific, search committee members undergo 

bias awareness training arranged by the school’s assistant 

provost for diversity. At the beginning of the search process, 

committees also create a diversity recruitment plan that 

they use to guide where to advertise, how to use personal 

networks to publicize the position and which professional 

organizations to contact about the job. 

On CSU campuses, dedicated equity and diversity offices 

or diversity officers work with search committees and human 

resources departments to ensure a representative hiring 

pool. For example, they review job announcements and recruitment 

plans and offer suggestions for broadening the 

candidate makeup. White says CSU’s recruitment process 

has been “intentional and purposeful, and the process was 

designed to lead to a diverse pool of finalists. And then you let 

everything go and pick the best person. That’s how you do it.” 

White says the CSUs also seed the job pipeline — lowerlevel 

positions like assistant department chair — with qualified 

women and minorities. Some people blossom in those 

leadership roles and work their way up the academic leadership 

ladder. 

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• EDUCATION 

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY 

Female presidents: 11 

Male presidents: 12 

Total: 23 

OVERALL MANAGEMENT POSITIONS 

47% filled by women 

53% filled by men 

UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC 

Female deans 

Male deans 

Total: 7 

Female assistant or associate deans: 7 

Male assistant or associate deans: 6 

Female program directors: 9 

Male program directors: 10 

Take Ellen Junn, one of the 11 female 

CSU presidents and now head of Stanislaus 

State. She started as an assistant 

psychology professor at San Bernardino 

State in 1991. While teaching, she was 

asked to coordinate an educational equity 

and faculty mentoring program, 

then became acting head of a department. 

She’s since moved steadily up 

the ranks at five CSU campuses: director 

of a faculty development center, 

associate dean, associate provost, chief 

academic officer, provost and now president, 

launching new campus initiatives 

in every role. At Stanislaus, she’s shattered 

what she’s called the “bamboo 

ceiling” as a Korean-American female 

university president. 

BRANCHING OUT GETS EASIER 

Schools that broaden their leadership 

hires appear to create a kind of snowball 

effect. Eibeck says that once there 

were women in Pacific’s president, 

board chair and provost positions, 

more women started applying for leadership 

roles. She believes women are 

more apt to apply for leadership roles 

when they see other women in management 

positions. “I think it gives 

them more confidence that they’ll be 

treated with respect and as an equal 

player,” she says. 

A fair bit of research actually backs 

up that insight. A study last year by the 

Cornell Higher Education Research 

Institute concluded that a female university 

president who stays in her job for 

10 years may increase the share of female 

full-time tenured and tenure-track 

faculty in the humanities by 36 percentage 

points. Similarly, a 2009 study 

found that institutions with female 

presidents, female provosts or academic 

vice presidents, and a larger share of 

women on their board of trustees had 

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larger increases than other schools in 

their share of female faculty members 

during the study period of 1984 to 2007. 

And a 2009 National Research Council 

study found that more women applied 

for positions in a science, technology, 

engineering and math department if 

the head of the search committee was 

a woman or there were more women on 

the search committee. 

There’s another practical way that 

having more women as academic leaders 

could help younger colleagues: 

They may be more open to flexible work 

arrangements — because they’re more 

often denied it than their male colleagues. 

A 2013 Journal of Social Issues 

study reported that women were less 

likely than men to get flex-time when 

they asked for it. 

“I think we’re still structuring 

work in very antiquated ways during 

a time when the technology gives us 

the capacity for flexibility,” says Lynn 

Gangone of the American Council 

on Education. Her organization runs 

Moving the Needle, an initiative whose 

goal is to have half of college presidencies 

held by women by 2030. “I think 

you’ve got a lot of younger faculty looking 

to move up the ranks and still have 

families,” she says. “It doesn’t have to 

be either/or.” 

More broadly, female academic 

leaders may help redefine what leadership 

means. We now have more 

examples of women who are tough, 

direct, strategic leaders who also have 

a warm interpersonal style, says Junn. 

“Having 11 women presidents,” adds 

Chico State president Gayle Hutchinson, 

“is a signal to young girls that they 

can be a president too.” • 

Steven Yoder writes about business, real 

estate and criminal justice. His work has 

appeared in The Fiscal Times, Salon, 

The American Prospect and elsewhere. 

On Twitter @syodertweets, and online 

at stevenyoder.net. 

Ernst & Young LLP 

A TRUSTED BUSINESS RISK ADVISOR 

Angela Basi is excited for the future at 

EY, a global leader in assurance, tax, 

transaction and advisory services. 

Basi started with the firm in 2000 and it 

was evident to her early on that EY invested 

significantly in its staff with its apprenticeship 

model. Basi became a principal in 2015 

and values the many lessons learned from 

partners and other senior professionals. 

Leading the Sacramento Advisory 

Services practice, Basi assists companies 

in assessing, managing and mitigating risks 

through internal audit, IT audit and third 

party reporting. She strives to be connected, 

insightful and responsive, aligning EY’s broad, 

global services and resources with her local 

clients’ needs. 

“EY’s practice in Sacramento is 

multifaceted,” says Basi. “We are developing 

our visibility in this market regarding 

professionals who deliver cyber security, 

internal audit, program management, 

tax advisory, and finance and business 

transformation services…just to name a few!” 

As a busy mom, Basi is thankful for her 

support network within EY and at home. She 

describes herself as curious and enjoys the 

challenges and opportunities of working for 

a large organization, where she is constantly 

meeting new people and learning new skills. 

“I am passionate about working with 

clients to tackle their business challenges,” 

says Basi. “Later in my career, I would like to 

use these experiences to provide guidance 

and mentoring to new partners who come 

behind me.” 

“Our purpose is 

Building a Better 

Working World. 

Everything we do 

every day is done 

with our purpose in 

mind.” 

— Angela Basi 

Principal, EY Advisory Services 

FOR MORE 

INFORMATION, 

CALL US TODAY 

OR VISIT OUR 

WEBSITE. 

916.218.1900 | 2901 Douglas Blvd, Suite 300 | Roseville, CA 95661 

www.EY.com 


• HEALTH 

Liz Salmi, a brain cancer survivor, believes patients 

deserve better access to their medical information. 


an 

open 

Book 

The open-source movement has taken on patient health — 

and one local woman is in the vanguard 

BY Sena Christian PHOTOGRAPHY: Kyle Monk 


• HEALTH 

On the morning of Monday, July 21, 2008, Liz Salmi 

started her first day of work at an architecture firm 

in Roseville. She had just turned 29 years old, and 

the new position meant a pay bump and a role handling 

graphic design and branding. Everything went 

well. She liked the vibe and creativity of the office, and one 

of the partners even walked around the office playing a Native 

American flute. “It just seemed like my dream of where a 

creative person could go,” Salmi says. 

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were good too. On 

Friday, Salmi went out to lunch with her boyfriend, Brett. 

At around 1:30 p.m., she was meeting with two colleagues 

when, suddenly, she felt dizzy. 

“I couldn’t understand what they were saying, and I felt 

so dizzy I just sat down and stopped talking to them,” she 

says, recalling the experience. “I could feel this vibration inside 

me that was very strange, which I’d never felt before. A 

protective instinct told me to lay on the ground, otherwise I’d 

fall on the ground.” 

Salmi rolled onto her side. Her body started shaking uncontrollably 

and she went unconscious. A grand mal seizure, 

which manifests with violent muscle contractions, had occurred. 

Her boss called 9-1-1. Salmi awoke in the emergency 

room and a scan showed a mass in her brain. 

The doctor put her on anti-seizure medications and the 

following weeks were a blur. Salmi couldn’t concentrate. 

Bills stacked up. Meanwhile, the architecture firm hired a 

temporary worker to fill her position. Brett moved into her 

apartment to become a caregiver. Family and friends fundraised 

to pay for her COBRA health insurance — more than 

$500 a month — until the coverage from her new job kicked 

in. The drugs weren’t working and the seizures kept happening. 

She felt scared and overwhelmed because there was just 

so much she didn’t understand. 

Salmi was alone when she got the call that the mass in her 

brain had grown. “I remember thinking, this is like that big 

thing that’s going to change your life forever,” she says. 

Decisions seemed impossible to make — and she had 

some big ones to consider. Who would take care of her after 

a surgery? Should she quit her job? She also had to answer 

questions on an advance directive, like would she want CPR 

if her heart stopped beating during a surgery? Would she be 

willing to be placed on life support? 

Doctors removed the tumor in a nine-hour surgery. Her 

diagnosis: gemistocytic astrocytoma grade II, which is a 

slow-growing, but malignant form of brain cancer. 

Since that Friday afternoon nearly nine years ago, Salmi, 

now 37 years old, has gone from carefree graphic designer to 

an advocate for the patient’s voice. Her latest quest is to get 

local health systems onboard with OpenNotes, a nationwide 

movement to enable patients to see their doctors’ notes. All 

patients have a legal right to access their medical records, but 

accessing notes — on an ongoing basis after each appointment 

— helps them make sense of medical jargon, register 

details of conversations with the doctor and track changes 

in their health care. It makes them better informed and more 

likely to take an active role in their health care, instead of 

leaving everything up to the doctor. 

“Having access to my notes would have added a different 

dimension to what I knew about my diagnosis,” Salmi says. 

But for all these years, she has had an incomplete picture of 

her health. “We live in a time where people can Google anything 

to find answers. If we had access to our notes, we could 

work more collaboratively with our doctors and be smarter 

about what we look for in those searches and the decisions 

we make.” 

In the Sacramento region, at least one major medical 

provider is already on the same page with the benefits 

of OpenNotes. Across the country, an estimated 13 million 

patients can now access their notes. This open-source movement, 

proponents say, represents a shift away from a 

paternalistic model of medical care and toward a model of 

fully-engaged and informed patients. And that, they argue, is 

better for everyone. 

THE OPEN-SOURCE PATIENT 

Raised by a single mother, Salmi moved north from Southern 

California as a child and attended Elk Grove High School. 

From the age of 18 to 21, she split her time taking classes at 

Sacramento City College and touring the U.S. with her punk 

rock band, Luckie Strike — they performed nearly 400 shows, 

recorded three albums and filmed a music video before calling 

it quits. 

After three years as a marketing specialist for the City of 

Roseville, Salmi had been overjoyed to join the architecture 

firm. But ultimately she lost that job to the cancer — never 

returning after that first week ended with the seizure. Her 

surgery took place in September 2008; by January 2009, the 

entire tumor had grown back. Another surgery was scheduled 

immediately. This second operation went deeper into 

the brain, and this time she would need chemotherapy. 

“I was going to have to become a full-time cancer patient,” 

Salmi says. She quit her job and let herself have a big 

cry. “I remember saying to myself, OK, my job now is not in 

a professional space. My job now is being a cancer patient 

and … I will be the best cancer patient that I possibly can 

be. I didn’t say I’m going to beat this, because there’s no cure 

for it. But I’m going to be the most awesome, and do brain 

cancer so rad that I’m going to be the best person with brain 

cancer ever.” 


But how exactly would she do that? 

Salmi decided first to express herself, using skills finetuned 

in her career — she would write, make videos and 

memes, design cool graphics and clearly communicate what 

she was going through to the outside world. At the time, not 

many online sources existed for patients with cancer to turn 

to in trying to understand their diagnosis and their new normal. 

So Salmi launched a blog called “The Liz Army” and 

wrote about her experience with brain cancer to translate 

the complicated, scientific language of doctor-speak into layman’s 

terms. In 2011, she ramped up on the blog and within 

that first year, she had over 40,000 page views. 

Soon Salmi was being invited to speak on health panels 

and presented a TEDx talk in Sacramento in 2013. She volunteers 

as a community organizer for Health 2.0 Sacramento, 

which is a chapter of an international movement to develop 

health technology. She has also connected with UC Davis 

researchers working on the Quantified Self, which uses technology 

to track personal data for scientific research. 

“I’m not the researcher, and I didn’t go to school to be this 

kind of citizen scientist,” she says. “But I’ve got this helpful 

data and I know that other people living with this condition, 

like myself, would be happy sharing this information if it led 

to positive outcomes for someone somewhere.” 

In February 2015, she penned a blog called “I am the 

open source patient,” asking others to consider sharing 

their personal data for the greater good. The blog reflected 

an overriding philosophy in her life following her brain cancer 

diagnosis: Information is power. Salmi also launched the 

#BTSM (brain tumor social media) hashtag. “It doesn’t sound 

like a big deal — it’s just a hashtag,” she says. “But hashtags 

are how movements are started.” 

Adam Hayden, who lives in Indianapolis, met Salmi 

through the #BTSM community. Hayden was diagnosed 

with glioblastoma in May 2016. Like Salmi, Hayden is a blogger 

and says he has been inspired by her example, especially 

when it comes to patient-centered health care: “Liz demonstrates 

how it is possible to get in the driver’s seat of one’s 

own health care and not sit passively as a passenger to the 

traditional doctor-led health experience.” 

STRENGTHENING THE QUALITY OF CARE 

In 2010, three medical institutions conducted a year-long experiment 

in which 105 primary care physicians shared their 

notes with roughly 20,000 patients in Seattle, Boston and 

rural Pennsylvania. The subsequent study published in the 

Annals of Internal Medicine found that patients with access 

to their notes reported feeling more in control of their health. 

May is American Stroke Month 

Learn how to spot a stroke F.A.S.T. 

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Speech Difficulty - Is speech slurred? Is the person unable to 

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• HEALTH 

They had a better understanding of their conditions, 

and were more likely to take their medications as prescribed 

and follow doctor’s recommendations. All of the 

participants supported the idea of seeing their medical 

notes, and no doctors elected to stop sharing notes once the 

study ended, according to the report. OpenNotes was officially 

born, funded by several public health foundations, 

and Salmi recently signed on as paid consultant to advocate 

for the cause. 

The OpenNotes team learned of Salmi through a short 

documentary called “The Open Patient: Healing Through 

Sharing,” which features her story. (The film was produced 

by Red Hat, a company that sells open-source software 

products.) “How insanely helpful would that be?” Salmi recalls 

thinking, when she first learned of OpenNotes. 

Women provide the majority of care for their families, 

and this sure would make their lives easier, she says. For 

people with chronic conditions or serious diagnoses, accessing 

notes could be a game-changer in keeping them 

informed and decreasing some of the anxiety that accompanies 

endless doctor’s appointments. 

Sutter Medical Group in the Sacramento region started 

sharing doctor’s notes in February 2016, after piloting the 

system for two years with 40 clinicians, according to Chief 

Medical Officer Dr. Michael Conroy. Sutter includes about 

850 clinicians in a six-county region. “We look at it as a quality 

and patient-engagement issue,” Conroy says. 

During the pilot program, Sutter found three main 

responses from patients: First, they gained a deeper appreciation 

for the level of thought that went into their care. 

Second, if a doctor occasionally misdescribed something 

— like Ms. Jones had soreness on the left wrist, when actually 

it was the right wrist — this could easily be corrected. 

Third, the patient was able to write back to update critical 

parts of the medical record, like if she learned her grandmother 

had breast cancer. Conroy says the use of notes also 

increases the likelihood that a patient will complete treatment 

or follow up on a referral to see a specialist. 

Initially, Conroy says, physicians worried about a flood 

of incoming messages from patients. “That didn’t happen 

at all,” he says, adding that sharing the notes is “literally no 

extra work.” Once a doctor enters a note into the hospital’s 

electronic health record software, and then closes the page, 

it is automatically available to the patient. Sutter Medical 

Group produces over 150,000 notes a month, and Conroy 

says more than 20 percent are read by patients. 

“We know that patients remember only about 20 percent 

of what is discussed in a patient visit,” Conroy says. “That’s 

independent of age, disability or educational level. [Open 

notes] allows them to study their notes at home in their 

free time, and family members can read them, and it’s right 

there in black and white.” 

Currently in the Sacramento region, only Sutter Medical 

Group and the VA Northern California Health Care 

System make notes available to patients immediately following 

a visit. 

“HIPAA provides all patients with the legal right to 

obtain their records, but it doesn’t make it easy,” says Open- 

Notes Executive Director Dr. Catherine DesRoches. “And 

while the electronic health record makes ready access possible, 

not every practice utilizes an EHR and not all EHR 

systems currently have the technical capacity to share notes 

with patients, though most are working toward adding that 

functionality.” 

For most health systems, making the switch literally 

means just the press of a button. The two biggest vendors 

of electronic health records — Epic and Cerner — provide 

the note-sharing function, according to DesRoches, and 

because notes can be shared using existing records and the 

patient portal (or they can be printed and mailed), expenses 

are minimal. 

A total of 76 health systems in 37 states, plus all U.S. Department 

of Veterans Affairs locations across the country, 

have adopted OpenNotes. Researchers are now beginning 

to analyze the economics of improved patient engagement. 

Theoretically, giving patients the tools to take better care 

of themselves and ensure the accuracy of their records will 

lead to overall cost savings in the long run. 

Liz Salmi attended the Salzburg Global 

Seminar in March to talk about OpenNotes. 

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER 

Stormy weather on a February evening hasn’t stopped about 

50 people from coming out to the Uptown Studios marketing 

firm in Sacramento for PechaKucha, an international 

PHOTO: SALZBURG GLOBAL SEMINAR/ELA GRIESHABER 


speaking event in which presenters tell 

their stories via 20 slides shown for 20 

seconds each. Tonight’s theme is breaking 

the glass ceiling, and Salmi is here 

to present. The ceiling she’s trying to 

break is health care. 

“Oh my god, this lady has so much 

energy, she’s working for social change, 

she’s so smart and she’s incredible,” 

Tina Reynolds, founder of Uptown Studios, 

tells the crowd. 

Salmi, wearing a T-shirt that reads 

“Stupid Cancer Get Busy Living," begins 

her talk by declaring that she has 

brain cancer and noting how doctors 

told her the diagnosis had a five-year 

survival rate of 30 percent. “Spoiler 

alert: I’m still alive.” The crowd chuckles, 

and her dimples deepen. 

“There’s no right way to respond to 

a brain cancer diagnosis,” she tells the 

audience. “I responded with curiosity.” 

Curiosity also led her to recently 

re-engage with her absentee father 

after he too was diagnosed with brain 

cancer. The scientific community is 

still grappling with how much of this 

disease relates to genetics; it’s hard to 

find subjects to study because both 

family members need to be alive. Salmi’s 

father died a few months ago, and 

while she says she hasn’t shed a tear, 

he made her more aware of her mortality 

and forced her to ponder handling 

her own end stages when they come. 

In February, Salmi finally got access 

to her doctor notes through Kaiser, as 

she prepared to switch insurance providers. 

The PDF document was more 

than 4,800 pages. “I was skimming 

through it and when I got to around 

page 900, I realized the story was from 

my health system’s perspective on 

what’s happening to me, meanwhile 

I’ve been telling my story on my blog 

… It’s like a movie that starts with one 

person and jumps to another person 

and you’re thinking, 'When are these 

story lines going to merge at the end?'” 

A merging of the two, she believes, is 

when the one true perspective will 

come through. 

Salmi is healthy besides living with 

brain cancer, so in March she flew to 

Austria to participate as a fellow in the 

Salzburg Global Seminar, an annual 

conference to tackle topics of global 

importance. She was joined by her nowhusband, 

Brett. She quit her job at a 

nonprofit health organization to pursue 

the opportunity, and she’s excited 

to see what will follow. “I’m open,” she 

says, “to everything.” • 

Sena Christian is the managing editor of 

Comstock's. On Twitter @SenaCChristian. 

Transforming the Aging Experience 


2017 

PART 6 

Capital 

Region 

cares 

comstock’s magazine is proud to present the sixth installment of our 22 nd annual Capital 

Region Cares salute to nonprofits. 

At Comstock’s, we seek to drive community engagement and the support of the business 

community by introducing our readers to the many charitable organizations making an 

impact in communities across Northern California. These charities — from food banks and animal 

shelters to museums and hospitals — are changing lives 365 days a year. 

You’ll read about some of them in this issue of Comstock’s and online at comstocksmag.com 

as we build content for what will become our flagship Capital Region Cares annual publication. 

In September, business leaders, philanthropists, volunteers and nonprofit organizers across the 

region will receive the final product, Capital Region Cares 2017, filled with moving stories, informative 

resources and contact information for over 500 local nonprofits that need your help. 


3strands 

Global 

foundation 

MOBILIZING COMMUNITIES TO FIGHT HUMAN TRAFFICKING 

Each year, an estimated 

100,000 children are victims 

of human trafficking in the 

U.S., and California has the nation’s 

highest incidence. 3Strands Global 

Foundation mobilizes communities 

to combat human trafficking through 

prevention education and reintegration 

initiatives. 

3Strands Global has educated 

23,000 ninth graders across 13 

California counties, and now 

developed a scalable prevention 

education program called PROTECT 

(PRevention Organized To Educate 

Children on Trafficking) in partnership 

with the office of the Attorney General 

and CA Department of Education. 

“The PROTECT program is 

presented to 5th, 7th, 9th, and 

11th graders,” says Ashlie Bryant, 

president of 3Strands Global 

Foundation. “PROTECT will reduce 

the vulnerability of all children in 

California to human trafficking. It’s the 

next logical step to eradicating human 

trafficking in our state.” 

3Strands Global also helps highrisk 

youth and survivors find jobs. 

The organization has partnered 

with JUMA and the Sacramento 

Kings to employ 35 youth at the 

Golden 1 Center. The Gila project, 

in partnership with Intel, PRIDE 

Industries, and other local nonprofits, 

targets jobs for at-risk youth and 

survivors up to age 24. 

In the community, 3Strands 

provides GracePaks to trafficking 

survivors when they are recovered 

by law enforcement. Survivors are 

often found with nothing but the 

clothes they’re wearing. The packs 

include toiletries, pajamas, blanket, 

flashlight, and more, and represent 

hope to those healing from trauma. 

“We also buy bracelets made by 

survivors worldwide and sell them at 

various events,” says Bryant. “Buying 

these products helps ensure survivors 

have sustainable income while sale 

proceeds help fulfill our mission.” 

“Businesses can financially support 

our education programs and GracePaks 

and provide jobs for reintegration. 

They can also sponsor our Folsom 

Break Free Run on October 7th. We 

can use volunteers at the Run, and 

in the PROTECT, and reintegration 

initiatives,” concludes Bryant. “Stand 

with us to fight human trafficking.” 

PROFILE SPONSORED BY 

The Kircher Family 

Foundation 

3SGF.ORG 

March May 2017 | comstocksmag.com 77

California 

Ymca 

O 

ur communities, our nation, by providing them a platform for service 

and our planet face challenges learning, social responsibility and 

that will require committed personal development,” says Debbie 

leadership to solve. California YMCA Gabelich, CEO. “Our programs develop 

Youth & Government seeks to inspire engaged citizens who are inspired to 

young people to become those 

affect positive change in their schools, as 

committed leaders, and to provide them well as the communities in which they 

with the tools they will need to become live.” 

leaders of change. 

Each year, California YMCA Youth & 

For 70 years, California YMCA Youth Government provides more than 4,500 

& Government has provided middle youth a platform to find their voices and 

and high school youth throughout the learn how to use them to foster positive 

state and Greater Sacramento area the change now, and as they transition into 

opportunity to learn about a wide variety college and beyond. 

of issues affecting their communities, “We are a volunteer-driven 

our state, nation, and world. “We strive organization, and could not offer our 

to develop critical thinking and public programming without the time and 

speaking skills that allow our students talent generously donated by our 

to articulate and act upon their beliefs volunteers. 

Youth & 

Government 

We invite the Sacramento 

community to experience Youth 

& Government and the many 

opportunities to volunteer. There are 

multiple ways to become involved 

in inspiring future leaders who will 

positively impact the Sacramento 

community and beyond,” concludes 

Gabelich. 


916.287.9622 / CALYMCA.ORG

TUESDAY 

JUNE 6, 2017 

CALIFORNIA YMCA 

YOUTH & GOVERNMENT’S 

70 TH YOUTH 

GOVERNOR 

Inaugural 

Ball 

SUTTER CLUB 

SACRAMENTO 

JOIN US FOR A MOMENTOUS EVENT AS WE 

SWEAR IN OUR 70 TH YOUTH GOVERNOR COLE CAHILL 

AND PAY SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO 

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VIP RECEPTION | DINNER | LIVE AUCTION | DANCING 

Proceeds will provide scholarships for youth participants in need. 

Tickets and sponsorship opportunities are available. 

1792 TRIBUTE ROAD, SUITE 480 | SACRAMENTO, CA 95815 | 916.287.9622 | GALA@CALYMCA.ORG 

YMCA OF METROPOLITAN 

LOS ANGELES 


• success story 

holders 

of 

hope 

STANFORD YOUTH 

BY Cherise Henry PHOTOS COURTESY Stanford Youth Solutions 

SOLUTIONS 

EMPOWERS FOSTER 

CARE FAMILIES AND 

FOSTER YOUTH 

Amelia Kelly-Semper and her 

husband have volunteered 

themselves as foster parents 

for nine years in the Sacramento 

region, helping to care 

for more than a dozen foster youth, 

ranging from 5-16 years old. 

“We know being a foster parent is 

not an easy task,” Kelly-Semper says. 

“Everybody cannot be a foster parent. 

It takes diligence. It takes commitment. 

It takes understanding. It takes 

patience. Literally. When they say, ‘It 

takes a village,’ it means everyone in 

your household has to be a part of it.” 

Stanford Youth Solutions, a 

Sacramento-based nonprofit organization, 

helps to support foster parents, 

foster youth and the families behind 

them through their foster care program. 

The ultimate goal, says Program Manager 

Christina Cagle, is for the kids to 

have the opportunity to go home to 

their biological family. If that outcome 

cannot happen, then the next best 

thing is to provide foster parents with 

what they need to achieve guardianship 

or adoption, Cagle says. 

These goals are achieved, at least 

in part, through the layers of support 

and resources provided by Stanford 

Youth, including 24/7 on-call support, 

dedicated social workers with customized 

support, free trainings and more. 

“You have to be the holders of 

hope for these children, and we have 

to train these families to be the holders 

of hope for the kids coming into 

their families,” Cagle says. “It can be 

a rough road, but if you’re willing to 

stick it out it can be a very beautiful 

thing.” 


According to the Stanford Youth 

Solutions website, 68 percent of young 

people in foster care reunify with family, 

permanently connect through guardianship 

or adoption or move to a lower 

level of care. One Sacramento County 

social worker who has worked directly 

with Stanford Youth, says that the organization 

works well at meeting youth 

and families where they are at, building 

upon their pre-existing strengths and 

enhancing them. 

“In my experience, they have 

brought creativity, stability and, most 

importantly, hope, to the families I’ve 

referred to them,” the social worker 

says. “Foster care is not an ideal place 

for a child to be raised; however it is 

thanks to vital and supportive programs 

like Stanford Youth Services that exist to 

help ensure the cycle can be broken.” 

May is National Foster Care Month 

where communities across the country 

recognize and raise awareness about 

how to play a part in enhancing the 

lives of children and youth in foster 

care. Kelly-Semper says that when you 

become a foster parent, it’s important 

to understand that the youth are most 

likely pulled from bad situations and it’s 

all they know. 

“There are no bad kids, there are 

just kids that are in need of something,” 

she says. “We don’t just need more foster 

parents, we need foster parents who 

are dedicated to the cause.” • 

Cherise Henry is a freelance writer, 

editor and journalist based in Folsom. 

Read more at www.cherisehenry.com. On 

Twitter @cherisehenry. 


• SNAP 

WELL-BEHAVED 

Placer SPCA Behavior Department Coordinator 

Meghan Oliver, left, presents 

a terrier named Brooks to a toddler doll, 

held by Animal Care Technician Aleah 

Valenzano, to gauge his initial reaction. 

Does the dog curiously sniff the doll, or 

stiffen up and approach it like prey? “One 

husky accidentally took the head off and 

then ran around with it, but it was OK because 

at that point it was a toy,” says Oliver, 

who conducts an assessment of every 

dog and cat that enters the Roseville shel- 


PHOTO: KEN JAMES, CAPTION: SENA CHRISTIAN 

ter to ensure they are safe around other 

animals, children and the general public. 

Each assessment takes about 10 minutes 

and includes monitoring how the dog socializes, 

handles tolerance (Oliver holds 

the animal’s collar, picks up feet, opens 

the mouth), plays with toys and reacts to 

the removal of food. Oliver also does an 

exercise where she runs across a space 

to see how the dog responds: “Some get 

overly excited and try to tackle me, so 

that’s not fun.” 


• SNAP 

more images at comstocksmag.com 

PHOTO: KEN JAMES, CAPTION: SENA CHRISTIAN 

German Shepherd puppy Jersey and pit 

bull Optimus Prime get acquainted at the 

Placer SPCA in Roseville, as the puppy 

learns how to socialize with other dogs 

through the help of Meghan Oliver, the 

behavior department coordinator. She 

says one of her favorite parts of the job 

is working with shy and timid animals to 

help them overcome their fears. “We take 

them on field trips out of the shelter like to 

Home Depot and the pet store to get them 

more experienced outside, or on a nice 

walk along the bike trail to see nature,” 

Oliver says. The hardest part is having to 

say goodbye to animals she has grown 

attached to, although it’s also a proud time. 

Fortunately, many owners who adopt from 

the Placer SPCA will send holiday cards 

and emails with updates on their new pets, 

which Oliver appreciates. “They know how 

much they were loved here.” 



• THE BREAKDOWN 

PARITY IN U.S. HIGHER 

EDUCATION NOT COMPLETE 

WOMEN REPRESENT AN INCREASING STUDENT 

DEMOGRAPHIC AT U.S. COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES 

THE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN PRESIDENTS 

IN HIGHER EDUCATION HAS BEEN SLOWER 

12,028,000 

13,353,000 

Women Presidents: 27%* 

4,132,800 

8,944,000 

2017 

9,937,000 

2025 

Men Presidents: 73% 

2,778,948 

1967 

Female Students 

Male Students 

MARRIED: 

71% / 90% 

HAVE 

CHILDREN: 

72% / 90% 

ALTERED CAREER 

FOR FAMILY: 

27% / 19% 

* 2011 data from a 2016 American Council on Education report 

EQUAL REPRESENTATION AND CLOSING THE PAY GAP FOR 

WOMEN PROFESSORS REMAINS AN ONGOING ISSUE 

Although women earn more than 50% of all degrees * 2011 data: 

Doctoral degrees (have earned more than 50 % 

since 2006) 

Women: 84,000 

Men: 80,000 

Bachelor’s degrees (earned more than 50% 

since 1981) 

Women: 982,000 

Men: 734,000 

Master’s degrees (earned more than 50% 

since 1991) 

Women: 439,000 

Men: 292,000 

Associate’s degrees (earned more than 50% 

since 1978) 

Women: 581,000 

Men: 361,000 

Women held only 31% of all full professor positions at 

degree-granting postsecondary institutions in 2014 

No matter the academic rank, men make more than women 

and are more likely to hold a tenure track position 

Male faculty members made an average of $85,528 

in 2013-14 academic year 

Female faculty members made an average of $70,355 

Men out-earn women by: 

$13,616 at 

public institutions 

$17,843 at 

private institutions 

SOURCES: NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS, 2016 AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION REPORT 


KAISER PERMANENTE 

2017 WOMEN’S FITNESS FESTIVAL 

Join us for fun and fitness at the Kaiser Permanente Women’s Fitness Festival on 

Sunday, June 4, 2017, at the State Capitol. Be sure to stop by our Thrive Pavilion 

for complimentary blood pressure screenings, body fat testing and more. 

To register and get more information, visit 

www.womensfitnessfestival.com 

kp.org/greatersacramento 

April 2017 | comstocksmag.com 87

CBM-0517-FINAL

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