Daily Business Report: Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Ryan’s story: A hard-charging California firefighter loses his last battle to suicide
In Summary
Strong and stoic, a Cal Fire captain fought wildland fires and helped retrieve the bodies of despondent people who had jumped off a remote bridge. When the bridge beckoned him, he couldn’t keep fighting.
By Julie Cart | CalMatters
He was Superman. A skilled surfer, skateboarder and hockey defenseman. A leader much admired and sometimes resented. He was hard-charging, driven by the motto of his unit: “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”
Cal Fire Captain Ryan Mitchell was the embodiment of the heroic archetype: 6–foot-4, strong and stoic, brave in the face of danger, the last person anyone expected to take his own life.
Until he did.
On that bright November morning, Mitchell cleared up the paperwork at the end of his shift, locked the bay doors at Station 20 in El Cajon and set out to put an end to his pain.
He drove half an hour through picturesque rolling hills to a remote bridge in San Diego County and pulled off to the side of the road. Nearby, large public-service signs urged anyone considering suicide to call a toll-free number.
Mitchell got out of his car, walked onto the Pine Valley Creek Bridge and stepped off the 440-foot-high span. He was 35 years old.
It was 2017, and Mitchell was one of at least 117 firefighters across the country who took their own lives that year, according to the Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance, the only national organization that tracks such figures.
Top Photos: Ryan Mitchell fought fires for Cal Fire for 12 years, rising to the rank of captain, before shocking everyone by jumping off a bridge in a remote part of San Diego County. (Illustration by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters; iStock)
Artiva Biotherapeutics officially opens
San Diego corporate headquarters
Artiva officially opened its San Diego corporate headquarters and NK cell therapy research and GMP manufacturing facility with an employee ribbon cutting. The new 52,000-square-foot facility has research and process development laboratories and will include a multi-suite custom-built Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) manufacturing center to support NK and CAR-NK cell production for Artiva’s pipeline development and clinical trial supply. The building is located at 5505 Morehouse Drive, San Diego.
The new facility and capabilities will be in addition to Artiva’s continued research and cGMP manufacturing at its partner GC Cell’s state-of-the-art 300,000-square-foot cell center, which was completed in 2018 and comprises research labs, process development labs, and a 50,000-square-foot cGMP cell therapy manufacturing facility in the Republic of Korea. The combined R&D and manufacturing capabilities of the new San Diego site coupled with GC Cell’s Korean facility supports Artiva’s development of the next generation off the shelf NK-cell therapies for the treatment of solid and hematological cancers.
Affordable Connectivity Program and Viasat
deliver Internet to qualifying households
Carlsbad-based Viasat Inc., a global communications company, announced that it provides nationwide discounted high-speed satellite Internet service through the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) to qualifying households nationwide, including residences outside the cable and fiber footprint.
The ACP is a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) benefit program that helps ensure that households can afford the broadband they need for work, school, health care and more. The benefit provides a discount of up to $30 per month toward Internet service for eligible households and up to $75 per month for households on qualifying tribal lands.
While the ACP is aimed at providing affordable Internet options for every consumer that qualifies, many Americans were unable to take advantage of this program due to a lack of Internet service availability. Through its satellite technology, Viasat offers qualifying consumers Internet options, nationwide, even in the hardest-to-reach locations. Viasat has made all of its residential plans available through the ACP, providing current and future customers choice and accessibility to meet their needs.
Julie Dubick joins The Conrad Prebys
Foundation as strategic partnerships adviser
Bringing more than four decades of local connections and experience in government, nonprofit and private sectors to The Conrad Prebys Foundation, Julie Dubick joins the organization as its strategic partnerships adviser.
Dubick previously served as the director of policy and chief of staff to former San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, and was a partner and member of the executive committee for the law firm of Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek.
Prior to joining the firm, she worked for the federal government as the assistant director of the United States Marshals Service and as a trial attorney for the United States Justice Department.
She is currently an adjunct professor of law at California Western School of Law.
In addition to her public service and legal experience, she has played a pivotal role in driving effective board governance and strategic planning facilitation for a range of local and regional nonprofits, including serving as the former president and co-founder of the San Diego Women’s Foundation, former board chair of The Monarch School, former governance chair of the San Diego and Imperial County Girl Scouts and the Scripps Health Foundation, and former board chair of PsychArmor.
Genetics breakthrough in sea urchins
to aid in biomedical research
Marine biologists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography have created a line of sea urchins whose genetic makeup is fully mapped and can be edited to study human disease genes. The creation of these new research model organisms will accelerate the pace of marine biomedical research.
Sea urchins, like fruit flies or lab rats, have been an organism used in research for more than a century. Even before this breakthrough, sea urchins led to the discovery of a protein family known as cyclins that guides division of cells. That knowledge went on to become the basis of current cancer treatments and earned cyclin’s discoverers a Nobel Prize.
Now Scripps marine biologist Amro Hamdoun and colleagues have taken this research to a new level by developing lines of sea urchins that can be used as genetic models using the gene editing technology known as CRISPR. The modified sea urchins are derived from the fast-growing species, Lytechinus pictus,also known as the painted sea urchin.
New administrators named at MiraCosta College
MiraCosta College has a new crop of top administrators to continue the leadership of the District in an innovative and collaborative way.
Christopher Tarman has been hired as dean of research, planning and institutional effectiveness; Zhenya Lindstrom is the new dean of instructional services; Kim Marquardt has been hired as director of health services; and Mina Hernandez is overseeing contracts, procurement and material management operations as director of purchasing and material management.
Christopher Tarman oversees a division responsible for in-depth statistical analysis of programs to ensure excellence in educational opportunities.
Zhenya Lindstrom assumed the role of dean of instructional services in fall 2020 where she plans, organizes and directs day-to-day operations of strategic student success programs and service.
Kim Marquardt was working as a pre-op supervisor with the North Coast Surgery Center when she came to MiraCosta as director of health services, which essentially is the college’s chief medical officer.
Mina Hernandez, as director of purchasing and material management, oversees contracts and procurement, ensuring everything complies with a multitude of local, state, and federal regulations.
Fishman Fund Fellowship awarded to
Cynthia Lebeaupin for liver cancer research
Cynthia Lebeaupin, Ph.D. was recently awarded the 2022 Fishman Fund Fellowship, a postdoctoral award unique to Sanford Burnham Prebys. The award provides a boosted stipend to exceptional postdocs from the Institute who have a demonstrated research track record and whose work shows significant potential for future breakthroughs.
“It’s an honor to have been selected for such a prestigious award from the Institute, says Lebeaupin, who works in the lab of Randal J. Kaufman.
“The resources and people at Sanford Burnham Prebys are incredible and I’m happy to be able to continue my research here.”
Sanford Burnham Prebys introduced the Fishman Fund Awards in 2001 to honor of the Institute’s founders, William and Lillian Fishman.
The fund was established by Reena Horowitz and the late Mary Bradley, longtime supporters of the Institute.
Revelation Biosciences completes dosing
of study of treatment of hay fever
Revelation Biosciences Inc. announced that it has completed enrollment and dosing of its Phase 1b CLEAR clinical study to evaluate safety and efficacy of intranasal REVTx-99b for the treatment of allergic rhinitis, or hay fever.
Allergic rhinitis is an allergic reaction to tiny particles in the air called allergens. It is a common disorder that affects millions of patients annually and significantly impacts quality of life. Symptoms include sneezing, nasal congestion, and irritation of the nose, throat, mouth, and eyes. Allergic rhinitis can lead to complications in some cases including nasal polyps, sinusitis, and middle ear infections. People with severe chronic nasal congestion sometimes require surgery. While multiple treatment options are available, many of these still have limited efficacy in preventing symptoms, and may be associated with unwanted side-effects, thus better therapies are still needed.
SeaWorld San Diego providing critical care to
California pelicans suffering mysterious illness
SeaWorld San Diego is providing critical care to 30 California brown pelicans as a mysterious illness has caused hundreds of juvenile birds to strand up and down the California coast since May 12. The pelicans under care at SeaWorld join hundreds of others admitted to other wildlife rehabilitation facilities after being found emaciated and often with secondary injuries, such as pouch lacerations, monofilament line entanglement or fractured limbs.
In partnership with other wildlife organizations and agencies, SeaWorld is providing critical care support and diagnostic investigation to help identify the unknown illness that threatens this formerly endangered species. SeaWorld San Diego has provided specialized rescue, critical care, and return of rehabilitated wild seabirds on the West Coast since 1980 and is the largest facility for seabird care in San Diego County. SeaWorld has rescued more than 1,000 California brown pelicans since 2010.
Luxury home sales sink 18 percent, biggest
decline since start of the pandemic
Sales of luxury U.S. homes fell 17.8 percent year-over-year during the three months ending April 30, the largest drop since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic sent shockwaves through the housing market. By comparison, sales of non luxury homes fell 5.4 percent. That’s according to an analysis of luxury real estate trends from Redfin, the technology-powered real estate brokerage. The analysis divides all U.S. residential properties into price tiers based on Redfin Estimates of homes’ market values and defines luxury homes as the most expensive 5 percent of homes in each metro area.
The luxury market is cooling as soaring interest rates, a tepid stock market, inflation and economic certainty put a damper on demand. For a luxury buyer, a higher mortgage rate can mean a monthly housing bill that’s thousands of dollars more expensive. The year-over-year cooldown is also a reflection of the market for high-end homes coming back to earth following a nearly 80 percent surge in sales a year ago.
USD expands Torero Promise Program
to Cristo Rey San Diego High School
Qualified students at Cristo Rey San Diego High School will now be able to take advantage of a special admission track opportunity to attend the University of San Diego, with 100 percent of their family’s demonstrated financial need met, through USD’s Torero Promise
program.
Launched in 2017, the Torero Promise program provides a pathway to college for graduating seniors at one of the 10 participating high schools who have a 3.7 GPA or higher, have taken at least three honors-level courses and have no disciplinary or academic violations. If a student fulfills these qualifications, they receive automatic admission to USD.
In addition, USD will also meet 100 percent of the federally demonstrated financial need of the student with a personalized financial assistance package that may include student loans, work study and financial aid.
Intelsat selects Kratos’ OpenSpace Satellite Ground
Platform as part of its next generation network
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Inc., a national security solutions provider in San Diego, announced that its OpenSpace Platform has been selected by Intelsat, operator of the world’s largest satellite services business, as a key component to unify the operations of its ground and space systems in its next generation network.
Intelsat’s next generation network will combine the latest in space, ground and cloud technologies to deliver robust, dynamic and flexible services to their customers. To execute against these goals Intelsat needs dynamic, standards-based software-defined platforms that can adapt quickly to changes at the space layer to deliver services where and when they are needed and support migration to 5G technologies.
Kratos’ OpenSpace Platform is the first and only software-defined satellite ground system. Fully virtualized and orchestrated, and built upon widely accepted industry standards, OpenSpace enables scalable deployment within an elastic, cloud-agnostic environment.
Cubic enhances ITS products with synthetic data for AI models
Cubic Corporation announced that its Cubic Transportation Systems business division has partnered with CVEDIA, an artificial intelligence (AI) solutions company, to enhance its GRIDSMART products.
CTS will utilize CVEDIA’s synthetic data technology to continue to rapidly scale deep learning models for GRIDSMART omnidirectional cameras and other intelligent transportation systems (ITS) solutions. The GRIDSMART product pioneered horizon-to-horizon, computer-vision tracking for ITS applications and is installed in nearly 10,000 intersections in more than 1,500 communities globally.
