The Napa County Chapter of the American Red Cross appointed four new members — Renato Del Rosario, Cara Mae McGarry, Annie McCallum and Gary Miller — to its board of directors at its annual meeting.

Two Napa Farmers Insurance representatives have been inducted into Farmers’ “Topper Club” and have been invited to attend the 2009 annual meeting of top sales producers. Matthew Salsman and Bruce Sackrison are being recognized for outstanding sales achievements during 2008.

The Solano-Napa Builders Exchange recently elected its new officers and directors for 2009.

Laurence Seaton, owner of the Napa Valley-based winery construction firm SEA-CON, is now a certified green building professional.

Lynn Campagna has launched a retail store called Napa Valley Kitchen Gallery on Lincoln Avenue in the old Splash building.

Dr. Sam Gitting’s dental office has been certified as a green business by Napa County.

For the next four weeks, 10 Questions focuses on business people involved in local nonprofit agencies.

One of the biggest challenges business owners and working parents have is balancing work and life. It is important to find strategies to cope with the overabundance of work and life. Here are six strategies to use.

The current whispers of economic recovery may entice the small business owner, or an entrepreneur within a larger company, to rest their fate in the changing winds of the external world. Somehow, someone or something out there is going to bring success.

Last week I visited a vineyard where chemical weed killer has been banned and replaced with a weed control method that dates back centuries.

Dear Len & Rosie, We have three grown children with children of their own and we have a trust. We want our children to be the beneficiaries but want to set it up so that, should they divorce, the spouse would not have a right to the inheritance.

One of the big problems I see in the recent headline-grabbing scandals, and in business in general, is the lack of commitment to ethical values by those in leadership positions. Each of us makes ethical decisions every day.