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Exchange Bank’s Mary Leonard-Wilson Honored by Women in Banking
https://women-inbanking.com/mary-leonard-wilson/Mary is an SVP Chief Credit Officer and a member of the executive committee for Exchange Bank in Santa Rosa, CA. Mary has worked in the banking industry for over thirty years, holding positions of increasing responsibility in commercial lending, credit risk management, and loan administration. Before joining Exchange Bank served as Chief Credit Officer for three different Northern California-based community banks from 2005 through late 2019. Mary has extensive experience in commercial loan origination and portfolio management from her previous roles as a team leader for lending groups in New York, Chicago, and New Jersey. Mary graduated from Colgate University with a bachelor’s degree in English. She has been a Calistoga resident since 1994. During that time, Mary was active in the local community, holding leadership positions and board membership with several local and non-profit organizations.
Providence Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital Earns Distinction for High Performance in Maternity Care
Providence Santa Rosa Memorial’s Family Birth Center has been named to the Cal Hospital Compare Maternity Care Honor Roll. This year’s award reflects calendar year 2022 hospital discharge and birth certificate data from 211 hospitals that offer maternity services and participated in the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC) Maternal Data Centers.
Santa Rosa Memorial was among 107 hospitals that met or surpassed the statewide target aimed at reducing births via C-sections in first-time mothers with low-risk pregnancies to less than 23.6%.
Santa Rosa Memorial exceeded the calendar-year target with a rate of 21.1% in 2022. In addition, we performed better than the national average rates for exclusive breastfeeding (at 89.5%), vaginal birth after C-section (at 33.3%) and episiotomy (at 0%) in 2022.
“This recognition reflects our team’s collaboration and commitment to identifying and implementing best practices that make a difference for new mothers.,” said Chuck Kassis, chief executive. “We know that overuse of cesarean sections (C-sections) can result in higher rates of complications for mothers and there are risks for babies as well. I am incredibly proud of our team for their dedication to reducing unnecessary C-sections.”
Over the past eight years, California hospitals have made steady improvement in low-risk C-section rates. As a result of this improvement, an estimated 36,852 low-risk C-sections were avoided during this period, from 2014 to 2022.
Click here to learn more about the Maternity Care Honor Roll.
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About Providence Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital
Providence, Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital is a nonprofit, full-service, 338-bed health care facility. Services include cancer, cardiac, critical care, emergency/a level II trauma center, maternity and infant care; neurosciences; orthopaedics; pediatrics, the neonatal intensive care nursery, and more. The hospital works collaboratively with other hospitals within Providence, as well as numerous outpatient facilities, affiliated physicians, home and community care, and Providence Medical Group providers, to ensure patients receive the highest level of care, close to home. For more information, visit www.providence.org.
Dominican Ranks Among Top Universities in the West by U.S. News & World Report
Dominican University of California has again been named among the top 20 regional universities in the west by U.S. News & World Report in its annual ranking of universities and colleges in the United States.
Dominican is ranked 18 in the Best Regional Universities (West) category of the U.S. News & World Report 2023-2024 Best Colleges guide. The ranking reflects Dominican’s strength in academic quality and graduate outcomes. Measures included in the ranking were graduation rates, faculty resources, social mobility, peer opinion, and retention rates.
The western region includes California, Oregon, Washington, Texas, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Hawaii, Arizona, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Alaska. Regional universities provide a full range of undergraduate and master’s programs.
Dominican is ranked #18 in Best Value Schools – Regional Universities (West). The university also was ranked as a top performer on social mobility in the Regional Universities (West) category. Dominican was included in both the Best Undergraduate Business Programs and Best Nursing Schools categories.
Elevating student success is at the heart of the Dominican Experience. The Dominican Experience ensures that all undergraduates have access to:
- One-on-one attention and coaching from a network of mentors across campus.
- Real-world experiences, including internships, service-learning, clinicals, or global learning programs.
- Signature work projects, ranging from a capstone thesis developed with a faculty advisor, undergraduate research in the lab or the field, an art project, a choreographed dance, or publication in a journal.
- Job readiness and interview skills through career coaching, resume and LinkedIn workshops, and interview preparation.
The Buck Institute for Research on Aging Gets $3.5 Million to Conduct the First-Ever Clinical Trial of Ketone Supplementation to Treat and or Prevent Frailty
The Buck Institute for Research on Aging has received a $3.5 million federal grant to lead the first-ever double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial to understand the effects of ketone ester supplementation on frailty, a condition which develops following age-related decline in multiple physiological systems. TAKEOFF (Targeting Aging with Ketone Ester in Older Adults for Function in Frailty) will recruit a total of 180 people at the Buck, Ohio State University and the University of Connecticut Health Center.
“TAKEOFF will be the biggest and most rigorous study of any ketone intervention in older adults,” said Buck assistant professor John Newman, MD, PhD, who is the principal investigator on the grant. “We are very excited to test this approach in a human population that is at risk for becoming frail, a condition which increases the risks of all sorts of serious problems in older adults from falls and life-threatening infections to becoming disabled and losing independence after surgery.” Newman added, “If TAKEOFF proves the biology, it should open the door for interventions for other conditions of aging that share similar mechanisms.”
Noting the overall interest and excitement about ketogenic diets and ketogenic supplementation in the general population, Newman points out that human data on the effects of both the diet and supplementation in older adults is mostly anecdotal and very limited. “Putting aging mice on a ketogenic diet dramatically improves muscle fitness and brain health, but mice are not people, we need to see if the science holds up in people,” said Newman who is also a practicing geriatrician at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System.
Ketones, naturally occurring compounds, increase when the availability of dietary carbohydrates (sugars in various forms) are limited forcing the body to use fat instead of sugar for energy. Various forms of fasting and the popular high-fat, moderate-protein, and low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet can put people into ketosis. Both have been linked to several health benefits, including weight loss, a reversal of metabolic syndrome and reduced inflammation. The supplement used in the trial is designed to put people into ketosis without having to change their diet.
The Buck’s BIKE trial was the pilot for TAKEOFF
The BIKE (Buck Institute Ketone Ester) pilot study was the first trial in the world to look at the effects of ketone ester supplementation in the context of aging. Thirty healthy individuals over the age of 65 have taken part in a 12-week double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study to begin to see whether benefits of ketone bodies in aging that have been observed in mice translate to human beings. The final participants in BIKE are expected to finish the protocol in late 2023; results of the study will be released in 2024.
While BIKE involves older adults in stable health, TAKEOFF will recruit adults who are pre-frail, based on their walking speed. A decrease in normal walking speed is one of the precursors of frailty and is associated with increased risk for a variety of geriatric problems. TAKEOFF co-investigator, Brianna Stubbs, PhD, says TAKEOFF has a different primary outcome as well. “We will be looking at people’s muscle strength on a leg press over the course of the study. In BIKE we are primarily interested in safety and tolerance. While we’re still interested in those measures in TAKEOFF, we’re focused on leg press strength because strength is one of the key signs of frailty and we expect that ketosis may improve muscle strength by acting on energy and inflammation.”
Collaborators at Ohio State University, led by Jeff Volek, PhD, will be looking in detail at muscle function and metabolism among participants. Scientists at UConn Health Center, led by Jenna Bartley, PhD will take a deep dive into immune responses with a particular interest in immunosenescence and chronic inflammation. The Buck will be looking closely at changes in various blood biomarkers of aging during the course of the trial.
“It’s crucial that we look at the impact of this intervention from several angles because there are so many possible applications of ketone biology for older adults,” said Newman. “If the science works in people, that’s direct evidence that we should be developing ketone-based interventions for other conditions of aging that share similar mechanisms like energy loss and chronic inflammation. This could involve everything from Alzheimer’s to heart disease.”
A shout out to the donor who got the ball rolling—and kudos from our local congressman
Stubbs, who is the Buck’s Lead Translational Scientist, emphasized the impact that retired physician Jim Johnson has had on the overall effort to launch a clinical research program at the Buck. Johnson donated $250,000 to get the BIKE pilot study off of the ground, enabling the Buck to work out logistics, refine protocols and hire staff. “We’re working hard to grow that seed into a world-class translational geroscience center right here in Novato, at Buck,”, said Stubbs. Johnson also pitched in personally to help clinical staff practice and refine their protocols before participants came to the Buck for their first appointments.
U.S. Congressman Jared Huffman, who represents California’s 2nd district took note of the importance of the grant award, “Investing in America includes investing in the health of aging Americans. In order to advance modern medicine, we should expand research to determine ways to reduce costs and extend quality of life for our aging populations,” said Rep. Huffman. “I’m glad to see money I helped secure coming to valued institutions in my district. With this funding, the Buck Institute will be able to conduct groundbreaking new scientific studies to improve the quality and potentially the longevity of human life.”
Recruitment for TAKEOFF will begin in 2024
Recruitment for all three TAKEOFF clinical sites will be handled by the UCSF-affiliated San Francisco Coordinating Center, which specializes in coordinating multi-site trials of older adults. In order to guarantee diversity among participants, the Buck will be focused on recruiting older adults with Hispanic backgrounds as part of its outreach in Marin and Sonoma counties.
“BIKE has been incredibly successful, it’s gone smoothly and efficiently,” said Stubbs, who manages the trial. “The response of the community to the trial has just bowled us over. There’s been so much enthusiasm. We literally had 10 times more people express interest than we could enroll. We’ve met some delightful people and it makes us feel really good about doing more studies. We look forward to engaging with our community via TAKEOFF.”
TAKEOFF is designed to help move translational research forward
TAKEOFF’s protocols and outcome measures are designed to be compatible with other trials involved with the Geroscience Translational Network, an NIH-funded collaboration of researchers testing clinical interventions that target fundamental mechanisms of aging to address aging-related problems as a group, instead of one at a time. Dr. Newman co-leads the sibling Geroscience Education and Training Network that is developing programs to train investigators to carry out such clinical trials.
The Network’s efforts to standardize outcome measurements was spurred by designing the TAME (Targeting Aging with Metformin) trial, which would aim to see whether taking the popular diabetes drug metformin can delay development of age-related chronic diseases in older adults without diabetes. “There is such an explosion of interest in testing interventions that could impact aging that it became obvious that we need to be able to compare apples-to-apples when it comes to trial results,” said Newman. “The design of TAME has inspired a constellation of smaller studies in both industry and academia testing a whole variety of interventions from metformin and rapamycin to senolytics. We really look forward to Buck becoming a key node in these efforts, helping to accelerate getting the biology of aging out of the laboratory and into the clinic.”
TAKEOFF and the Buck’s pledge to the public
If TAKEOFF is successful at proving that ketone supplementation impacts hallmarks of aging, both Newman and Stubbs predict there will be an uptick in efforts to get FDA-approved targeted interventions for specific diseases of aging based on ketone biology into the clinic. But they also acknowledge that ketone supplementation will continue to be of major interest to those interested in maintaining good health as they age.
“At the Buck we want to use evidence-based reasoning to inform the decisions that people make about what they’re going to do for their own health,” said Stubbs. “The supplement and diet industries can be muddy, with lots of questionable claims based sometimes on no data, and so, hopefully, the results of both BIKE and TAKEOFF will allow people to make wise decisions about what they’re going to do with their own diet and supplement kind of regimes. That’s a role we’re happy to play for the public.”
SOMO Village Starts Construction On 1st Of 1,750 homes
It’s been nearly two decades since the transformation of a former HP plant in southeast Rohnert Park started, and now construction of the first homes are underway.
SOMO Living on Thursday commemorated the start of construction on the first 148 homes out of 1,750 planned in three phases on 175 acres of the SOMO Village mixed-use project on Valley House Drive. In addition to the existing 600,000 square feet of commercial buildings, the project is set to have a 25-acre working organic farm and 38.5 acres of parks and open space.
Century Communities of Greenwich Village, Colorado, was named as the builder of the first phase. Among its current endeavors are two projects in Solano County. The first SOMO Village homes are set to come on the market in early 2024, with pricing expected to start in the $700,000 range.
“I wasn’t sure this day was ever going to come,” said SOMO Living CEO Brad Baker to the crowd that had gathered in front of the former high-tech buildings in the complex. “It is 15 years late.”
The family of real estate developer Hugh Codding purchased the property in 2005, but then came the housing market downturn that led into the Great Recession. Baker pursued a highly sustainable focus for the redevelopment, earning a One Planet Community designation in 2009.
Rohnert Park Mayor Samantha Rodriguez at the ribbon-cutting event Thursday noted how the SOMO Village was part of the city’s recently being named by California as a “prohousing” community.
On Aug. 4, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Rohnert Park, Santa Cruz and South San Francisco had joined the list of now 30 communities with a prohousing designation, including locally Santa Rosa, Windsor, Ukiah and Sonoma County. That makes them eligible for funding incentives and additional resources as a reward for their work to reduce barriers to building more housing.
“They stand in stark contrast to the handful of locals who are failing their constituents and refusing to help California families struggling with runaway housing costs,” Newsom said in that news release.
Logan Pitts, senior field representative for state Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, whose 3rd District includes the area, told the event crowd of a couple hundred that Rohnert Park has distinguished itself in home construction.
“Some communities tear themselves apart over building one apartment building, and that’s just not what we’re seeing here in Rohnert Park,” Pitts said. “They’ve taken the time to plan this and to look into the future.”
Pitts said such plans need innovative leaders in the private sector to make them happen.
David Rabbitt, whose 2nd Supervisoral District includes Cotati just west of SOMO Village, said Rohnert Park was thoughtful in developing specific plans for how the city would grow and provide housing for the workforce. He noted the pushback against state laws signed in the past few years that prioritize housing construction.
“We’re losing population in our county and certain parts of the Bay Area, and this will help us recover from that and provide those truly middle-class homes that we need for all of us to be able to stay through our hopefully long, healthy, retirements into the future,” Rabbitt said.
While the housing at SOMO Village has been delayed, the commercial aspect of the development has been steadily progressing. The four buildings of the former HP plant, built in the 1980s and vacated two decades ago, have been progressively revamped as tenants signed leases.
Today, the complex is home to nearly two dozen tenants such as Traditional Medicinals, World Centric, Resynergi, Trevi Systems, Morton & Bassett Spices, Operant Networks and Credo High School, a public Waldorf charter institution. Restaurant Sally Tomatoes anchors the event center, and Old Caz is prepping to open a taproom below the 24,000-square-foot SOMO Cowork center.
Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Santa Rosa Named Winner of 1st Annual #WeAreGenH Housing Champion Award
Housing Champions Celebration – Friday, September 22
When:
Friday, September 22 5:00-7:30pm
Friday, September 22 5:00-7:30pm
Where:
Mitote Food Park, 665 Sebastopol Rd, Santa Rosa
For assistance navigating our registration page, please email info@generationhousing.org.
What:
Let’s celebrate together our collective action on housing. Together we can and HAVE made a difference in housing! Come by for delicious food, local drinks, live music by SoloRio – and stay to honor recipient of this year’s Housing Champion Awards!
Check out our limited edition #WeAreGenH mug, sold at this event. Help us make this a low-waste event and include a mug purchase with your registration, use the mug at the event, and take it home to keep using at our monthly House Parties!
Redwood Credit Union Protects 3,300+ Individuals by Securely Shredding Documents and Responsibly Disposing of e-Waste
This summer, more than 3,300 residents across Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, and Sonoma counties took a proactive stance against fraud and identity theft. They safeguarded their personal information by participating in Redwood Credit Union’s free shred-a-thons, responsibly disposing of old financial records and paperwork.
Shred-It trucks were onsite at each event to help communities safely dispose of and recycle 134,940 lbs. of documents. And Conservation Corps of the North Bay collected more than 35,775 lbs. of e-waste, including old TVs, printers, monitors, computers, and other personal electronics for secure recycling. To put that in perspective, the environmental impact of the shredded paper alone is:
- 1,153 trees saved = 29 acres
- 472,290 gallons of water saved = watering 754 lawns for 1 week
“It’s a great feeling to look at these total numbers and recognize that we were able to help thousands of people take action to safeguard themselves from identity theft,” said Matt Martin, senior vice president of community and government relations at RCU. “Identity theft is a real risk these days, and RCU wants to help mitigate it in every way possible and provide an environmentally friendly solution for disposing of old electronics and sensitive documents.”
At each shred-a-thon location, attendees had an opportunity to donate to a local nonprofit. In total, the events raised more than $5,600 to support Lake County Child Care Planning Council, SchoolsRule Marin, Plowshares in Mendocino, Puertas Abiertas Community Resource Center in Napa, and Conversation Corps North Bay in Sonoma.
About Redwood Credit Union
Founded in 1950, Redwood Credit Union is a full-service financial institution providing personal and business banking to consumers and businesses in the North Bay and San Francisco. With a mission to passionately serve the best interests of its Members, team members, and communities, RCU delivers many ways for its Members to save and build money through checking and savings accounts, auto and home loans, credit cards, digital banking, business services, commercial and SBA lending, and more. Wealth management and investment services are available through CUSO Financial Services L.P., and insurance and auto-purchasing services are also offered through RCU Services Group (RCU’s wholly owned subsidiary). RCU has more than $8 billion in assets and serves more than 445,000 members with full-service branches from San Francisco to Ukiah. For more information, call 1 (800) 479-7928, visit redwoodcu.org, or follow RCU on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn for news and updates.
Northern California Public Media Wins 3 Awards at the 55th Public Media Awards
In a LinkedIn post NorCal Public Media posted, “We are very proud to announce that NorCal Public Media has won 3 awards at the 55th Public Media Awards!!❤️
BIG Congratulations to:
Ear to the Wild for winning in the Radio: Environment Category, My Planet My Voice for Innovation in Education and
2022 Annual Report for our Local Content and Service Report.
We are very proud of our fantastic and talented team! We’re thankful for @NETAbusiness for the wonderful conference and we’re very grateful for the nominations!”
Who We Are
Over thirty years ago, business leaders founded the North Bay Leadership Council on a simple premise: We can accomplish more by working together. Today, the Council includes 54 leading employers in the North Bay. Our members represent a wide variety of businesses, non-profits and educational institutions, with a workforce in excess of 25,000. As business and civic leaders, our goal is to promote sound public policy, innovation and sustainability to make our region a better place to live and work. For more information: Call 707.283.0028 / E-mail info@northbayleadership.org