Coming home: Making a list and celebrating all the local kids who chose Bakersfield as home

* ... THOSE WHO CAME HOME: I received a lot of feedback after a recent post about young people who have returned to Bakersfield after graduating from college. So many of our best and brightest leave and never come back, opting for more exciting venues with larger and more diverse peer groups and more professional opportunities. But there are many who do come back, as I was reminded by Kelly Giblin, a former East Rotary president and administrator at the LeBeau Thelen law firm. Working at that firm alone are Nicholas Mears, Bakersfield High graduate who went on to William and Mary; Melissa Brown, Stockdale High and UCLA; Kevin Thelen, Garces Memorial High and UCLA; David Bynum, Garces Memorial and University of San Diego; and Andrew Sheffield, Bakersfield High and Cal State Bakersfield.

 * ... AND A FEW MORE: As the days wore on I received more emails about local kids who chose to come home, including Adam Icardo, a Cal Poly grad working in the family farming business; A.J. Antongiovanni, UCLA and now at Mission Bank; Dan Clifford, a University of Oregon grad working at Clifford and Brown; Ryan Hansen, Pittsburgh and now a manager at Frito-Lay; Vince Fong, a UCLA Bruin running point for Rep. Kevin McCarthy; Brian Grant, a product of Colorado State and now working at Tejon Ranch; Sarah Trichell, a Fresno State Bulldog employed at W.A. Thompson; and Chad Manning, Purdue University sales manager over at Jim Burke Ford. My special thanks to Joe Hay, a proud grad of Notre Dame and now commercial sales manager at Burke Ford, for helping me compile this list.

 * ... A DUKIE CHOOSES BAKO: I also received a nice email from Jerry Matthews of Bakersfield, who reminded me that his son Jason Matthews  graduated from the prestigious (my word, not his) Duke University a couple of years ago and is now working for Colliers Tingey. Jason is a graduate from Stockdale High School. His mother is Sandy Matthews.

 * ... EXPIRED TAGS AT EVERY LIGHT: Bob Stine, CEO of Tejon Ranch, shot me an email wondering about all the folks driving around Bakersfield with expired tags. I've certainly noticed it and like Stine, wondered how all these people get away with it. Stine thought it may be yet another economic indicator of bad times and wondered how much revenue the state was losing when folks simply refuse to register their vehicles. Next time you are at a light, check out the car or truck in front of you.

 * ... FIXING HIGHWAY 46: It was good to see work finally getting under way to widen part of Highway 46, so named "blood alley" for the seemingly never ending string of fatal car crashes. Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter) was on hand Tuesday for the groundbreaking to widen an eight-mile stretch of Highway 46 from just west of Highway 33 to Brown Material Road near Lost Hills. It can be a terrifying ride along that stretch and this is certainly welcome news.

Los Angeles Magazine takes on Tejon Ranch Co.: hit piece or valentine to environmentalists?

Read with interest a long piece in Los Angeles Magazine devoted to the proposed development of Tejon Ranch. Written by Pulitzer winner Ed Humes, the piece is a dagger at the heart of Tejon's plans to develop a small part of the ranch while setting aside 90 percent of it for conservation. Full disclosure: the CEO of Tejon is on my board, and I know Humes from my days in the Los Angeles media environment. Humes is a talented writer and journalist, having nabbed his Pulitzer for a series of stories for the Orange County Register on flawed night vision goggles used at the old El Toro Marine Corps (helicopter) Air Station. Humes also wrote the scathing book "Mean Justice" on the infamous child molestation cases in Kern County. But the LA Magazine piece is deliberately hostile to Tejon, which I found a tad surprising considering Tejon's agreement to set aside 90 percent of the ranch for conservation, a deal blessed by groups like the Sierra Club, Audubon California and the Natural Resources Defense Council. I suppose it's a wonderful idea to think folks who spent a cool billion or two to own the property would simply hand it over for posterity, but things don't work that way. To get an idea of Humes' bias, check out this excerpt from the LaObserved blog (read it here):

"To stand on a windswept hill at Tejon Ranch is to be at once humbled, enthralled and saddened by vistas that in years past defined California and the West by their plenty, rather than their dearth....

"Even though the owners are offering to conserve much of their surrounding land, this development remains exactly the sort of breathtaking sprawl, destruction of nature and epic commuting lifestyle that must stop if we intend to get serious about global warming. Tejon Ranch, then, is really a battle over whether America wants to begin acting like a climate hawk or continue to act the climate ostrich. It's the biggest project of its kind, so it's fair to say this is where our future lies � one way or another.



Wow. Is it really fair to put the onus of global warning on the backs of the directors and owners of Tejon Ranch? You be the judge, but seems to me Humes is playing lead tackle for the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been absolutely intransigent in its opposition to almost any development of the ranch. I felt Tejon's deal with the Sierra Club was sound: set aside a couple hundred thousand acres of Tejon for future generations, but allow the folks who put their own capital at risk to develop something. When I asked Bob Stine, CEO of Tejon, about the story he declined to elaborate, but he did tell me that Humes didn't even give him the courtesy of a call to respond. Hmmmm....

Meg Whitman hits town to court business leaders

Heard this afternoon that Meg Whitman, the former eBay president who is considering a run for governor, slipped quietly into Bakersfield today for a luncheon with local business leaders at the estate of Barbara Grimm-Marshall. The luncheon featured about 30 business leaders and was not a fund raiser but rather was billed as a "get to know you" session with Whitman. I'm told Whitman talked about the need for education and budgetary reform in California and floated the idea - to applause - that we need to return to a part-time legislature. She also mentioned that if she runs as a Republican (check out her website here) she will make effective use of technology, like President Obama, to extend her campaign. Among those attending were Realtor Ray and Lisa Karpe, Bob Stine (president & CEO of Tejon Ranch) and wife Betty, Brent Dezember (president of Structurecast) and wife Anna, retired banker Ray Dezember and wife Joan, Castle and Cooke CEO Bruce Freeman and wife Monica, farmer Pete Pankey, retired Kern High School District trustee Bob Hampton, Joe Colombo, Greg Bynum, Grimmway's Jeff and Amy Meger, Sean McNally and former Aera Energy CEO Gene Voiland. Grimm-Marshall, one of the primary owners of Grimmway Farms, the largest carrot producer in the world, has been busy on the political scene. Last weekend she hosted a fund raiser for Lisa Green, running to replace Ed Jagels as Kern County District Attorney.

Valley Republic Bank: Local bigs go against the grain and open new local bank

What do these guys know that we don't? At a time when the financial industry is in shambles, some of the biggest names in Bakersfield have formed a new bank: Valley Republic Bank. Led by folks like former Aera CEO Gene Voiland and Tejon Ranch CEO Bob Stine, (pictured here) the bank wanted to raise $20 million but instead managed to raise an easy $25 million, reflecting what Stine told me was "real faith that the people of Bakersfield have in their community" during hard times. The Board of Directors reads like a "who's who" in Bakersfield: besides Voiland and Stine, it includes developer Greg Bynum, Bolthouse Properties LLC president Tony Leggio, oncologist Dr. Shawn Shambaugh and Warner Williams, VP of Chevron North America. Insiders say these guys will compete with locally owned San Joaquin Bank for commercial accounts, but that once the Central Valley starts to grow again, there should be plenty of room for both to succeed. Bruce Jay, a longtime Bakersfield banker, will serve as president and CEO.