Half Moon Bay, Calif. — January 2, 2014 — In celebration of Brews and Views’ fifth anniversary, the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company welcomes Larry Baer of the San Francisco Giants to kick off the 2014 monthly speaker series on January 9. Created in 2009 by Lenny Mendonca, co-owner of the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, Brews and Views has become a popular monthly, and sometimes bi-monthly, gathering that invites members of the community to join organizers for a cold brew and a fresh view on American politics. Coinciding perfectly with the retirement of Mendonca from his post as director of the San Francisco and Washington, D.C. offices of McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, the January 9th Brews and Views will feature a lively conversation between Mendonca and Baer about growing up in San Francisco and what is in store for the Giants in 2014.When:
Thursday, January 9, 2014
6 to 8 p.m.
Where:
Half Moon Bay Brewing Company
390 Capistrano Road
Half Moon Bay, CA 94019
Reservations and Tickets:
Admission and snacks are complimentary. The full menu will be available for purchase, along with beer, wine and other beverages. Ten percent of the proceeds from all dinner sales at Half Moon Bay Brewing Company for this event will be donated to the Cabrillo Education Foundation.
Speaker Biography:
Larry Baer is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the San Francisco Giants. A fourth generation San Franciscan, Baer has gained a national reputation as one of professional sports’ leading visionaries. In this role, Baer speaks for the Giants at all MLB Owners Meetings and on industry issues. Baer is responsible for the overall day-to-day functioning of the Giants organization, both on the business and baseball sides of the operation. After having served as executive vice president since December 1992, Baer was named chief operating officer of the franchise in May 1996. In that same year, he was named president of the China Basin Ballpark Corporation (CBBC), a private entity formed by Giants investors to finance and build the new ballpark, which opened in April 2000. Under his direction, the Giants opened Pacific Bell Park to widespread acclaim and sold 3,244,320 tickets, shattering the all-time club attendance record by more than 650,000. The new ballpark enjoyed rave reviews as one of the “best ballparks ever built.”
The San Francisco Lowell High School graduate was the driving force behind every phase of the ballpark project, and the club has enjoyed unprecedented support since opening the ballpark in 2000, including becoming one of only four teams to exceed 3,000,000 in attendance eight consecutive years (2000 – 2007).
After earning Phi Beta Kappa honors at the University of California in 1980, Baer joined the Giants as the club’s marketing director. In 1983, he left the Giants to attend Harvard Business School, followed by a four-year tenure at Westinghouse Broadcasting in San Francisco and New York. He finally returned to the Giants in December 1992 from CBS, Inc. in New York, where he had served as special assistant to the network’s chairman, Laurence Tisch.
Baer serves on the Board of Major League Baseball Enterprises, which oversees national television and radio contract negotiations, national sponsorship and licensing programs as well as the overall marketing of the industry. Baer is a member of the Board of Directors of KQED, Inc., the San Francisco Committee on Jobs, the Boys and Girls Club of America, the Bay Area Council and Comcast Sports Net Bay Area.
Moderator Biography:
Lenny Mendonca is a director emeritus (retired senior partner) from the Washington D.C. and San Francisco offices of McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm.
Lenny founded McKinsey’s U.S. state and local public sector practice. For many years Lenny led the Firm’s knowledge development efforts overseeing the McKinsey Global Institute and the Firm’s communications, which includes the McKinsey Quarterly, and served for a decade on the McKinsey Shareholder Council (its board of directors). His client work focused on service to public sector organizations, and over the course of his career he helped dozens of government, corporate, and nonprofit clients solve their most difficult management challenges.
Lenny is the Chair of Children Now, co-Chair of California Forward, and founder and Chair of Fusecorps. He is the Chair Emeritus of the Bay Area Council and the Economic Institute of the Bay Area, and was vice-chair of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council. He serves on the boards of The New America Foundation, The Committee for Economic Development, Common Cause, the Bay Area Science and Innovation Consortium, and The California Business for Educational Excellence Foundation. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Board of Trustees for Junior Statesmen of America.
He received his MBA and certificate in public management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He holds an AB, magna cum laude, in economics from Harvard College.
Lenny lives on the Half Moon Bay coast, south of San Francisco, with his wife and two daughters, where he is the founder and owner of the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company.
ABOUT BREWS AND VIEWS
Brews and Views was created in November 2009 by co-owner of the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, Lenny Mendonca. Mendonca, who grew up listening to Commonwealth Club forums on NPR, started Brews and Views in order to help bring world-class speakers to the coast and involve the public in discussions about everything from economic development to social issues.
These often politically-charged events take place once or twice a month, and feature an initial conversation between the guest speaker and moderator, or a film screening, after which the public are invited to participate in a lengthy Q&A session. Previous notable guests include renowned forecaster Paul Saffo, managing director of foresight at Discern Analytics; Charles Kolb, president of the Committee for Economic Development; Mike McCurry, former press secretary for President Bill Clinton; Gina Giantz, political organizer and chair of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund; and professor and activist Aaron Belkin, author of “How We Won: Progressive Lessons From the Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”
Ten percent of the proceeds from all dinner sales at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company during Brews and Views are donated to the Cabrillo Education Foundation.
Previous Brews and Views are playing as a series on local television station, PCTV on Channel 27, Monday nights at 7pm.
ABOUT THE HALF MOON BAY BREWING COMPANY
Recently selected by Men’s Fitness as one of America’s Top Ten Craft Breweries and byTravel + Leisure magazine as one of America’s Best Beach Bars, the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company is situated on picturesque Pillar Point Harbor overlooking the Marina in Princeton-by-the Sea. The Brewing Company expertly pairs a family-friendly, come-as-you-are atmosphere with a winning combination of fresh, sustainable seafood, craft beers, live music and an expansive, dog-friendly patio area with blazing fire pits to keep patrons warm on the waterfront. The Brewing Company is a casual coastal venue that has become an institution in the Half Moon Bay area for locals and visitors alike since opening in 2000. With its warm, wood-toned interior, expansive windows to the ocean, and walls dotted with surf memorabilia, the 6,000-square-foot restaurant and bar is reminiscent of a typical California surf shack. Behind the restaurant lie the 1,200 square-foot Mavericks Beer Garden and on-site brewery, where hand-crafted, award-winning Mavericks┬« Beers & Ales are piped directly to the bar. The Mavericks Amber Ale won a bronze medal in the 2012 World Beer Cup, and the Ocho Barril Saison won Best in Show for session beers and the gold medal in the Wood/Smoke Ale category at the California State Fair in June, 2013.
The Half Moon Bay Brewing Company is located at 390 Capistrano Road in Half Moon Bay, Calif. The hours of operation are Monday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to close; Friday, 11:30 a.m. to close; Saturdays and Sundays, 9:00 a.m. to close.