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Sensiba moves to Bishop Ranch
Business advisory firm leaves Pleasanton after more than a decade.
John Sensiba and his business advisory/accounting firm made headlines last week when he announced the purchase of an Australian cybersecurity company.
With the purchase, the firm added six new partners to bring the total to 30. The news broke the same day that the Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group met at Bishop Ranch’s Roundhouse Conference Center for its annual #Gamechangers event.
Chatting with John before the formal ceremony, he mentioned that he’d just moved his company, after well over a decade in Pleasanton, to Bishop Ranch into the million-square-foot former Pacific Bell headquarters. Sunset Development Co., owner and operator of Bishop Ranch, with the help of a financing partner, purchased the building back when the telecom firm put it on the market.
It’s become an office hub as Sunset transitions the business park into a mixed-use neighborhood with up to 8,000 residential units planned. There’s also new neighborhoods, retail spaces and amenities planning for the former Chevron headquarters that Sunset also purchased back.
When asked why he moved his firm away from Pleasanton where he’s lived for years, he had a simple explanation. He can park wherever he wants at their former headquarters on Inglewood Drive in Hacienda Business Park because there’s so few people in the building. There’s much activity at 2700 Camino Ramon that he’s always seeking a new parking space.
He described it simply as “energy” for his employees.
That’s a compliment for Bishop Ranch and a challenge for Hacienda. It has plenty of space available for start-ups and young companies at reasonable rents, but vibrancy is another question.
As I’ve mentioned before, my hero worship is quite low having been writing sports back when the Oakland Raiders knew how to play football in the John Madden days, the A’s were winning World Championships and the Warriors won their lone championship until the run with Stephan Curry. Add in my decades dealing with elected officials and business leaders in my newspaper role and there aren’t too many people I’m really excited to meet.
One such person passed earlier this month when Johnny Foster, the fourth director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, died at 102. I had the pleasure of meeting him when the lab celebrated its 75th anniversary a couple of years ago with a gathering of nine lab directors. After the formal ceremony, I made a point of going into the private room where Foster was preparing for a meal, introducing myself and shaking his hand. It’s a great memory of a man who contributed mightily to America’s security through its nuclear weapons over his adult lifetime.
For just how much journalism is changing, consider that the Associated Press is seeking a senior editor to work with its sports report to effectively utilize Artificial Intelligence to streamline and improve its offerings. It’s easy to shrink thinking about the computer role, but some of it makes sense. Compiling the variety of stats is time-consuming, boring and necessary and can easily be done through AI. I’m not sure I’m ready to turn coverage of a game or government meeting over to AI, but it does have a place.
Speaking of news coverage, the Associated Press, that once functioned as a cooperative serving any publication that could pay (on a pro-rata basis), stopped being a true cooperative a few years back. It took a major hit when Gannett, the largest newspaper company, announced it will no longer use AP material. It joined the former family-owned McClatchy newspapers (headquartered in Sacramento) in dropping the AP as well.
Times have been tough on both, but particularly Gannett, which prided itself on steadily increasing revenue until the bottom fell out for newspapers in 2006. Gannett has shed 47% of its workforce between 2020-2023 and last turned an annual profit since 2018. Quite a contrast to the glory days when its management prided itself on increasing revenues every quarter.
McClatchy was purchased by Chatman Asset Management, a hedge fund, in 2020 bankruptcy auction.
Tim – I still love reading your articles so keep them coming. Not many any more have your history and perspective on pleasanton and the tri-valley.
Deborah McKeehan