Daily Business Report-June 11, 2018
Raúl Prieto Ramírez, the new Civic Organist of the City of San Diego, opens the 2018 International Summer Organ Festival in Balboa Park on. Monday, June 25. (Photo credit: Robert Lang, courtesy of the Spreckels Organ Society)
San Diego civic organist to open
International Summer Organ Festival
The Spreckels Organ Society lights up San Diego summer nights with the International Summer Organ Festival —an inspiring lineup of free outdoor concerts at the historic Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park.
Opening Night Monday, June 25, 7:30 p.m. features Raúl Prieto Ramírez,
new Civic Organist of the city of San Diego, featuring some of his famous transcriptions driving organ technique to the edge of what is possible.
Prieto Ramírez will perform the same program a week later to open the Mataro-Barcelona Summer Organ Festival, highlighting the opening musical nights for both summer festivals in San Diego and in Barcelona.
With words such as “sizzling” and “transcendent” used to describe his performances, Raúl Prieto Ramírez is the first Spanish organist in recent times to establish himself among the elite of the international pipe organ scene. His powerful personality, passionate expressiveness, and outstanding technique make him shine in a wide range of repertoire and styles.
All Festival concerts start at 7:30 p.m., are free to the public, and are open to all ages. Friendly music-loving pets on leash are welcome. Light snacks, beverages, andgifts are available on the pavilion grounds, and proceeds from donations benefit the nonprofit Spreckels Organ Society, which works to preserve, program and promote the Spreckels Organ as a world treasure.
For the festival lineup, click here
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Regina Petty named Fisher Phillips’
first chief diversity officer
Regina A. Petty, partner in the San Diego law office of Fisher Phillips, has been named the firm’s first chief diversity officer, to provide leadership, vision and direction to advance diversity and inclusion values.
“In selecting our CDO, we wanted to tap a leader committed to the pursuit of diversity and inclusion at every level of the organization,” said Roger K. Quillen, chairman and managing partner. “Regina embodies these ideals both in her personal and professional life, and we’re proud to have her leading our firm’s efforts to help shape substantive advances in implementing best practices, and fostering discussions of these important issues.”
Petty practices in state and federal courts throughout the country at the trial and appellate court levels, and advises private and public employers on workplace issues. She is a recognized bar leader and diversity champion in the legal profession. Before joining Fisher Phillips, Petty was a named partner in a women-owned business litigation firm. She is a former member of the board of directors of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, and was the first African-American president of the San Diego County Bar Association.
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Transgender Advocate to address
all-campus graduation ceremony
A transgender youth who didn’t speak until age six, Lucero Felicita Camarena will share her courageous story with thousands of graduating students June 16 as the student speaker at this year’s UC San Diego all campus graduation ceremony. Camarena was silent the first six years of her life out of fear that her true self would not be accepted. For more than 20 years, Camarena felt a dissonance inside, assigned a gender that was incompatible with her internal sense of womanhood. As this year’sstudent speaker, her goal is to inspire courage in others to channel their truth as a powerful form of social change. She will be accompanied by Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla who is serving as the keynote speaker.
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MetroConnect Grand Prize
Goes to CureMatch of San Diego
CureMatch, a digital health company focused on personalized medicine and oncology, has been awarded the MetroConnect Grand Prize by World Trade Center San Diego.
Managed by World Trade Center San Diego, an affiliate of the San Diego Regional EDC, and presented by JPMorgan Chase, the MetroConnect Grand Prize offers $35,000 to one of 15 companies to aid in their foreign market expansion.
Now in its third year, MetroConnect has emerged as the region’s premier export assistance program. Run by World Trade Center San Diego, 15 companies are selected on an annual basis and equipped with a suite of programmatic and financial resources to help them in their plans to go global. Out of 50 applicants in 2017, just 15 San Diego companies were awarded the initial $10,000 MetroConnect grant.
“CureMatch is thrilled to win the Pitchfest, with special thanks to World Trade Center San Diego and JPMorgan Chase,” said Stephane Richard, president and CEO of CureMatch. “Cancer has no boundaries, so while CureMatch was born in San Diego, we believe that every one of the more than 15 million people diagnosed with cancer this year deserves the best treatment. This grand prize will help CureMatch save more lives around the world.”
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Northrop Grumman awarded
Navy contract for $61.8 Million
Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. in San Diego has been awarded a $61.8 million contract by the Navy to provide operator, maintenance, logistic support and sustainment engineering services in support of the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance-Demonstrator program to ensure the aircraft are mission-capable for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Md. (70 percent); various forward operating locations outside the continental U.S. (25 percent); and Rancho Bernardo (5 percent); and is expected to be completed in June 2019.
The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
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Service branches to train Marines
to operate MQ-9 Reaper Drones
ExecutiveGov
The Marine Corps and the Air Force will partner to train the Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron to be qualified operators of the General Atomics-built MQ-9 Reaper, USNI News reported.
The effort intends to establish a UAV operations base in preparation for the 2020s when Marines will begin deploying UAV units from ships. USMC is beginning to develop MUX, a future Marine Air-Ground Task Force UAV that would be deployed from amphibious ships and expeditionary sites. The MUX will be sized similarly to the Reaper and used for missions involving command and control, electronic warfare and early warning, as well as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
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Gubernatorial Appointment
Patricia Trauth, 62, of Encinitas, has been reappointed to the California Landscape Architects Technical Committee by Gov. Jerry Brown. She has served on the panel since 2015. Trauth has been principal landscape architect at Rick Engineering Company since 2016. She was principal landscape architect at URS Corporation from 2008 to 2014 and at AECOM from 2014 to 2016. She is a member and past-president of the San Diego Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Trauth earned a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Arizona. The position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $100 per diem. Trauth is a Democrat.
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San Diego Community College District
adopts tentative $713 million budget
The San Diego Community College District (SDCCD) has a new, tentative spending plan of $713 million for the 2018-19 fiscal year that provides for increased online, evening, and intersession classes that offer additional opportunities for students to take the core classes needed to graduate in a timely manner.
General Fund spending that is not restricted to specific programs is holding steady at nearly $325 million, with the total General Fund projected at $460 million – an increase of 5.8 percent over last year. Total overall spending, of $713,250,526, represents a decrease of nearly 1.8 percent from the previous year, a drop largely attributed to the winding down of the voter-approved, $1.55 billion Proposition S and N bond program that has financed unprecedented construction at San Diego City, Mesa, and Miramar colleges and Continuing Education.
Tentative budgets must be adopted by June 15 and a final adopted budget must be approved by the Board of Trustees in September.
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SeaWorld removes all single-use plastic
straws and shopping bags from its parks
SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. announced that all 12 of its theme parks have removed all single-use plastic drinking straws and single-use plastic shopping bags.
“This milestone environmental achievement is a testament to our mission to protect the environment, the ocean and the animals we share our planet with, which are currently threatened by unprecedented amounts of plastic pollution,” said John Reilly, interim CEO for SeaWorld Entertainment. “We see the harmful effects of plastic pollution in the animals we rescue and rehabilitate, and therefore, recognize the importance of doing our part to curb plastic pollution.”
Recent news and studies have shown alarming consequences of the growing threat of plastics to our oceans and wildlife. The Ocean Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, estimates that eight million metric tons of plastics enter the ocean each year, on top of the estimated 150 million metric tons that currently circulate the planet. This prevalence of plastics in the ocean has been making its way into the diets of marine animals that mistake it for food and become sick or even die.
