Peninsula Boom

As Executive Director of Biocom’s South San Francisco office, Michelle is responsible for building the framework for enabling the creation of a strong, well-connected life science community in the Bay Area. She leads Biocom’s programming and benefits efforts and helps raise awareness of the region’s innovations and accomplishments. Michelle has spent over 20 years in Bay Area life science sales, marketing and business development. She has held leadership roles at a large lab supply distributor and at a biotech tools startup, which fostered her broad view of the Bay Area market, its challenges and its opportunities.

Kelley Wathen is a Project Executive at Truebeck Construction with a history of life science and large ground-up project experience. Over the course of her career, Kelley has overseen the construction of some of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most prominent bioscience facilities. In her 12 years with Truebeck, she’s worked on over 1.6 million square feet of bioscience development for clients such as Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Wareham Development, ChemoCentryx, and Gilead. She specializes in technically complex projects and is recognized for her leadership of teams and solving challenges. Kelley received her BS in Civil Engineering from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Mike Futrell began serving as City Manager of South San Francisco, California, in April 2014, bringing broad executive experience in local, state and federal government. He was Chief Administrative Officer for the City of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; served on staff in the United States Senate; and was an elected member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and of the Baton Rouge City Council. He served as a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy and rose to the rank of Navy Captain in the Navy Reserves. He previously practiced law with a private firm and was Executive Vice President of a public utility company in Hawaii. Mike holds a bachelor's degree in Business/Public Administration and a Juris Doctorate degree from Louisiana State University, a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and completed the Stanford Graduate School of Business Learn-Engage-Accelerate-Disrupt (LEAD) Certificate program in Corporate Innovation.

Doug’s goal is to help entrepreneurial scientists create successful startups. To this end, Doug and his colleagues have systematically lowered the barriers between great ideas and successful companies. For instance, Doug created and manages MBC BioLabs. This state-of-the-art co-working laboratory network in San Francisco and San Carlos allows entrepreneurs to rapidly generate data without getting bogged down in facility management. Rather than spending months getting a facility up and running, MBC BioLabs startups can generate important data in their first week. In the first 8 years, this program has helped launch 245 companies that have brought 55 programs to the clinic and have raised over $10.5B. This incubator program reflects Doug’s passion for startups and his eagerness to help entrepreneurs overcome challenges. Doug is also a Managing Partner at Mission BioCapital, which provides early-stage capital to the next generation of awesome life science entrepreneurs. Founded in 2009, Mission BioCapital is now investing out of their fifth fund.

Wareham Development is committed to the long-term economic and environmental vitality of our communities. We work closely with city and state agencies to ensure that each project provides maximum benefit to its surrounding community. Unlike many developers who build projects only to sell, we retain ownership of the majority of our developments, many of which have defined the thriving technology corridor between the Bay and Richmond-San Rafael bridges.

Steven Smith is a Senior Project Manager at Gidel and Kocal Construction with considerable ground-up and tenant improvement project experience with an emphasis on life science, medical and electronic manufacturing facilities. Steve is currently working closely with Ashley Gidel the company CEO on numerous new lab tenant improvement projects and also involved with feasibility surveys for three major office to life science building conversions. He has recently completed a complex life science building renovation for Phase-3 Real Estate Partners, a large ISO-7 Clean Room for Google Waymo and several critical lab projects for the BD Bioscience San Jose campus. Steve attended North Harris College in Houston and currently holds the title as Senior Director of New Project Development at the Flextronics, Milpitas campus.

Charles “CJ” Higley is a real estate generalist. His practice is focused on real estate development, land use entitlements (a notoriously complex undertaking in the Bay Area), and construction law. With respect to the latter, CJ has a particular expertise in negotiating contracts, ranging from architect’s agreements to the contracts with consultants and contractors that are typical for a development. The projects in which he’s been involved have been equally diverse, including large-scale residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional developments. Sixteen years of experience have also given CJ an intricate matrix of relationships in the political, administrative, and real estate communities of San Francisco that has inured to the benefit of his clients. City planning staff, the Board of Supervisors, and the larger community find him relatable and pragmatic. He’s someone they can work with to find common ground, and help move a project forward. CJ's knowledge of the real estate and construction players in San Francisco saves his clients time and money, and improves the odds of success. He knows the issues that are sensitive, and can either avoid or prepare for them, depending on the situation. The acuteness of the Bay Area housing shortage has altered the process of permitting and obtaining the necessary entitlements for construction projects, particularly for developers engaged in affordable housing projects. The ability to delay, or in some cases, stop a project through a prolonged environmental review process is decreasing, and the political landscape is shifting towards streamlining the process, and sometimes exempting it from environmental review altogether. In this context, an experienced entitlement attorney with relationships throughout the various administrative bodies involved in the development process is invaluable, particularly when augmented by expertise in environmental law. By integrating experience, expertise and the versatility of an attorney who’s been actively engaged in a wide variety of projects, CJ is a significant competitive asset for his real estate and construction clients.