NBBJ Insider

Green Music Center world class, world known

At precisely 2 p.m. Tuesday when the embargoed press release became public, news broke of a stunning $12 million gift to the Donald and Maureen Green Music Center at Sonoma State University that will allow the concert hall to be completed next fall.

Setting the bar higher for region’s high school grads

Last week at Dominican University, the School of Business and Leadership hosted a forum featuring some of the leading experts on employee stock ownership plans for businesses and how they can help sustain family-owned companies for generations.

Green jobs vs. reality

Elected officials today regularly extol the promise of green jobs. It’s a great applause line.

Unfortunately, the reality is something different.

Refusing to put an end to the recession

It has become conventional wisdom among commentators and many economists that the U.S. recession ended in 2009, particularly with that spurt of growth in gross domestic product in the fourth quarter.

So, why, then, did the nation’s arbiter of recessions, the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee, refuse to go along with that thinking?

Can struggling state really afford a new costly energy scheme?

A new effort is under way to delay implementation of what many see as the job-killing California cap and trade scheme that was part of AB 32 passed when the economy was at its peak in 2006.

California pension shortfall: $500 billion

A new study finds California public employee pensions are underfunded by more than $500 billion, far higher than previous estimates.

Another bad week for jobs

The news that Santa Rosa stent-maker TriVascular is progressing with European trials and is continuing to hire is welcome.

Also this week, telecom-equipment maker Calix in Petaluma said it had raised $82 million in its initial public offering. More good news.

But even these positive developments, and certainly there are more to come, are overwhelmed by larger and continuing job losses driven by the bad economy and assaults on business.

New paradigm on education: focus on infants

The state’s K-12 system is one of the poorest performing in the nation. More than 30 percent of Latino boys drop out of high school. The number of college entrants is falling behind an ever-expanding need. Trade and other career educational programs are under attack. The state’s school bureaucracy is broken and non-responsive.

The consequence: California’s status as a world-class economy is under serious and immediate threat.

Now a growing number of business and academic leaders, among them the president of AT&T California, Ken McNeely, believe the solution is to reach back to the years before children even enter school.

New study on California’s deteriorating labor market

A new report from the Pacific Research Institute reveals that California’s reputation for being a hotbed of economic growth and innovation is fast becoming a myth. The authors argue that economic recovery will be impossible without massive structural and regulatory reforms.

California falling behind in high-wage education

At the very moment budget cuts will mean tens of thousands of young people in California will not have access to a college education, a report issued today by the Campaign for College Opportunity and the Bay Area Council concludes California is fast losing its position as a leader in college math and science education.