Daily Business Report-April 9, 2018
UC San Diego campus. (Photo courtesy of BNBuilders)
BNBuilders Named Construction
Manager for 3 UC San Diego Projects
BNBuilders has been named the construction manager and general contractor for three new projects at the University of California, San Diego.The projects are: Popmintchev Laser Laboratory at Mayer Hall; the Muir Hall Biology Laboratory Renovation; and the Torrey Pines Center South tenant improvement project.
The $2.4 million Popmintchev Laser Laboratory at Mayer Hall includes tenant improvements for 1,850 square feet in Mayer Hall. The new lab will contain an ISO 6/8 cleanroom laser lab with precise environmental requirements (temperature, humidity, acoustics, vibration), two service areas housing the laser and support equipment, and an ante room. Taylor Design is the architect, and construction will run May through November 2018.
The $8.7 million Muir Hall Biology Laboratory Renovation includes 14,000 square feet in the Muir Biology building.The new space will include research laboratories, procedure rooms, microscopy rooms, constant temperature rooms, offices, break rooms, meeting rooms, and restroom upgrades. Designed by Ferguson Pape Baldwin Architects, construction is anticipated to run June 2018 through March 2019.
The $6 million TPCS Third Floor Tenant Improvement is at the Construction Program Management Office. The 45,000-square-foot space will house the campus IT Department, including new finishes, ADA upgrades, MEP upgrades, restroom upgrades, and storage spaces. Designed by Miller/Hull, construction is anticipated to run April through October 2018.
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Poseida Therapeutics Raises
$30.5 Million in Series B Financing
Sa Diego-based Poseida Therapeutics Inc. announced that it has raised $30.5 million in an oversubscribed Series B financing round, led by Longitude Capital. Additional new investors included Vivo Capital and the Tavistock Group, joined by existing investor Malin Corporation plc. In conjunction with the financing, David Hirsch, M.D., managing director at Longitude Capital, has joined Poseida’s Board of Directors. Proceeds from this financing will be used to further advance a pipeline of autologous and allogeneic CAR-T immunotherapies, as well as gene therapies, using Poseida’s suite of gene engineering technologies.
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Viasat Opens New Office
in Dublin, Ireland
Satellite communications company Viasat opened the doors to its new office in Dublin, Ireland last week. Viasat Ireland has grown from 30 to 85 people since November 2016 and the new office brings 100 additional tech jobs into the Irish economy. These roles will be made up of software engineer and developer roles, as well as design, support, customer success, implementation consultants and project managers.
At last week’s official office opening, Rick Baldridge, Viasat’s president and chief operating officer, was joined by Minister John Halligan TD, Minister of State at the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and the Department of Education and Skills.
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DARPA Plans Viasat Radio Purchase for
Tactical Undersea Network Architectures Program
ExecutiveBiz
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced Wednesday plans for a sole-source purchase of a handheld Link 16 radio terminal from Viasat in support of the agency’s Tactical Undersea Network Architectures program, Military & Aerospace Electronics reported.
Viasat’s Battlefield Awareness & Targeting System-Dismounted AN/PRC-161 will be part of the second phase of DARPA’s TUNA program meant to develop a temporary, 30-day undersea optical fiber backbone for radio frequency tactical data networks, the publication said.
DARPA awarded Oceaneering International a $19.3 million contract in March 2017 to develop and demonstrate designs for the TUNA program, the publication detailed.
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Clifford ‘Rip’ Rippetoe Nominated for
2nd Vice Chair of IAVM Board of Directors
The International Association of Venue Managers has announced the nomination of Clifford “Rip” Rippetoe for second vice chair of the IAVM Board of Directors. Rippetoe will serve a four-year term, taking on the Chairman position in 2020-2021. IAVM members will vote electronically on this nomination, and if elected, he will be formally recognized at the 93rd annual VenueConnect Annual Conference and Trade Show at the Metropolitan Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Canada in July.
Rippetoe has had a long and successful career in facility management and operations. He was appointed to his current role at the San Diego Convention Center in February 2016, replacing Carol Wallace as president & CEO. During his tenure, he has overseen the largest series of capital improvement projects in the facility’s history, including the recent renovation of the Sails Pavilion.
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Chicago Law School Student to Work
in Fish & Richardson’s San Diego Office
Matthew Miyamoto, a first-year student at the University of Chicago Law School, will work in the San Diego office of Fish & Richardson as part of the law firm’s 2018 1L Diversity Fellowship Program. The program, launched in 2005, provides annual fellowships to diverse first-year law students across the U.S. The program supports Fish’s ongoing work to recruit, retain and advance a diverse group of attorneys.
Miyamoto was one of seven students selected for the program. They were selected from over 340 applications.
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Personnel Announcements
Maarten Jager Named CFO of PriceSmart Inc.
PriceSmart Inc. announced the appointment of Maarten Jager as executive vice president and chief financial officer, effective April 24. Jager will replace John M. Heffner, who has served in that role since January 2004 and had previously announced his plans to retire from the company.
Jager currently serves as senior vice president of Walmart International, a segment of Walmart Inc., where he has worked since 2014. During his tenure at Walmart, he served as senior vice president and chief financial officer of Sam’s Club from 2015 to 2018 and as senior vice president and chief financial officer of its Asia division from 2014 to 2015.
Prior to Walmart, from 2013 to 2014, Jager worked as a consultant to public and private companies and their executives providing guidance on growth, turnaround and organizational effectiveness. Jager worked 14 years at Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. in varying management and technology consulting positions before devoting six more years to Diageo North America Inc. to oversee many different financial responsibilities.
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Commentary:
Will Gavin Newsom Skate into
Governorship, or have a Fight?
By Dan Walters |CALmatters Columnist
Eight weeks out, the June 5 primary election’s biggest uncertainty is whether Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom will have an unobstructed pathway to becoming California’s next governor or will have to fight for it.
All candidates, regardless of party, will appear on the ballot and the top two vote-getters will advance to the November election.
Democrat Newsom is so confident of placing first –a confidence bolstered by recent polling –that he’s decided to skip any remaining debates or joint appearances with his rivals. Why take a chance that something might pop up in such an event that would be damaging?
Newsom and his backers, especially those in the unions, are hoping, of course, that one of his two Republican rivals places second. That would give the former San Francisco mayor a virtually certain victory in November, given the state’s lopsided pro-Democratic electorate. In fact, Republican John Cox, a wealthy San Diego businessman and philanthropist, pulled into second place in a Public Policy Institute of California poll last month, displacing Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles.For months, Newsom had been stalled in PPIC’s periodic polling, while Villaraigosa had been closing the gap, with a January PPIC poll finding the two in a virtual tie. Suddenly, however,
Villaraigosa slipped into third place in March while Newsom’s standing shot upward. The reasons for the change are unclear, since there seemingly hadn’t been any needle-moving events in the two months since the previous PPIC poll, other than a state Democratic Party convention dominated by pro-Newsom and anti-Villaraigosa liberal activists.
Villarigosa, who has positioned himself a few clicks to the right of Newsom and is anathema to unions, took the poll findings stoically. “This is a top-two election and we have to get in the runoff,” he told a meeting with CALmatters journalists on the day the poll was released. “I’ve got some work to do and I’ll keep on working.”
While facing a token Republican, presumably Cox, would make Newsom an overwhelming favorite to win it all in November, a duel with Villaraigosa would have different chemistry and a much less certain outcome. It would be a regional conflict between two former big city mayors with not only ideological differences but ethnic overtones. PPIC’s polling shows strong support for Villaraigosa among Latinos, for instance, while whites favor Newsom.
The third major Democrat in the race, John Chiang, is Asian, and his support, if he fails to make the cut on June 5, would be up for grabs.
While the identity of the finalists for governor is the biggest June 5 unknown, it’s not the only one.
Democrats are making a big push to capture several Republican-held congressional seats, centered on Southern California districts that voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016, but there are so many Democrats running in some of the targeted districts that the top-two system could generate two Republican finalists, thwarting Democratic hopes.
Having alternative Republican candidates in those districts is a ploy, apparently encouraged by GOP leaders, that has Democratic strategists worried because the outcomes of those races could determine whether their party can recapture control of Congress this year.
Finally, even though eight weeks sounds like a lot of time for the candidates to make their pitches, voting by Californians overseas has already begun and on May 7, residents can begin mailing their ballots. So there’s really only one month of campaigning before Californians begin to make their choices.
CALmatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary.
