Harbinger Motors celebrated the recent opening of its 165,000-square foot headquarters in Garden Grove. The electric vehicle chassis maker announced last year that it was moving to Orange County from Gardena, signing a lease at 12821 Knott St. with landlord Rexford Industrial. Harbinger said it will produce its medium-duty EV chassis at the facility. “We’re excited to officially celebrate the opening of our new manufacturing facility here in Garden Grove,” said John Harris, CEO of Harbinger. “While we’ve already delivered our first all-electric truck chassis to customers, this ribbon cutting m ..read more

When circumstances caused Janette Solis Martinez and her son Jakob to be students at Santiago Canyon College at the same time, they took the opportunity to help each other get the most out of their education. “My last year was his first year,” said Solis Martinez, 41, who currently works at SCC as executive secretary to the vice president of Student Services. The unusual situation was a result of the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Solis Martinez, a single mom, had been employed at a law firm for 20 years, where she’d worked her way up from file clerk to receptionist, to assistant, to mana ..read more

In celebration of all things science, Santiago Canyon College is hosting its annual Community Science Night from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. April 19. Open to the public, this free event offers the opportunity for students to explore ways to engage with STEAM – Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math. The on-campus event will feature more than 50 planned exhibits, demonstrations and hands-on activities that incorporate a variety of interactive STEAM concepts. While the activities are primarily geared for elementary and middle school students, SCC’s Community Science Night is open to all ages. “We ..read more

By Larry Urish, contributing writer As a long-time professor of biology at Santiago Canyon College, Denise Foley has spent years working in a microscopic world. It’s been a passion of hers long before she started teaching at SCC in 2006. However, it’s in the macro world, a world inhabited by people we see and influence, where Foley has followed another, more far-reaching passion. “I just love teaching,” Foley said. “As a senior undergrad teaching assistant, I was in charge of a lab section in a freshman lab course, but I really was the instructor. It was fun. I knew I’d be going into teaching ..read more

Merwa Hamid’s parents always impressed upon her and her siblings the importance of education. So, it’s not surprising that she, along with her five brothers and sister all did well in high school and then headed to college. But what is unique is that all seven attended Santiago Canyon College and were so involved in campus clubs and Associated Students Government that the entire family is still well-known throughout the SCC community. Today, Hamid, 23, is a recent biology major graduate of UC Irvine, where she transferred from SCC. Born in Afghanistan, she came to America with her family when ..read more

By Greg Hardesty, contributing writer Life may be like a box of chocolates. So, too, is data, says Nga Pham, executive director of District Research, Planning and Institutional Effectiveness at Rancho Santiago Community College District. “You never know what you’re going to get until you bite into it,” Pham said. As far as data crunching goes, Pham has been chewing on information for the RSCCD for nearly 35 years — the last 24 years as head of the RPIE office. She started with the community college district nearly 40 years ago when she was a student at Santa Ana College. While there, she worke ..read more

Nearly five years after being christened as the new spiritual center for the Roman Catholic Church in Orange County, the Christ Cathedral campus in Garden Grove continues to evolve – including with the expansion of an outdoor worship space held dear by the Catholic Vietnamese community. Already the Our Lady of La Vang shrine has become a centerpiece of many events at the cathedral campus and soon an accompanying Marian Gardens with art from around the world will be ready. Some of those overseeing the project recently returned from visiting artisans in Peru who are at work on some of the pieces ..read more

After more than three years as a groundbreaking Chinese-American barbecue popup, Winnie Yee-Lakhani’s Smoke Queen Barbecue opens its first stand-alone restaurant in Garden Grove on Saturday, March 9. What began as a side project has since turned into a barbecue innovation that’s taken hold of the Southern California food world. Like other successful enterprises over the last few years, Yee-Lakhani’s Smoke Queen started out as a mere pandemic-related experiment, one meant to pass the time while the world came to a grinding halt. “When I started this concept in the pandemic, it was supposed to b ..read more

Incumbent Rep. Michelle Steel holds a sizeable lead over her Democratic opponents in the race for the 45th congressional district. Initial votes released by the Orange County Registrar of Voters and L.A. County Clerk/Registrar-Recorder Tuesday night put the two-term Seal Beach Republican ahead of her challengers. With the Democratic vote split four ways between attorney Derek Tran, Garden Grove City Councilmember Kim Nguyen-Penaloza, policy advocate Cheyenne Hunt and attorney Aditya Pai, Steel was regarded as highly likely to advance to the November runoff. As of Tuesday evening, Tran and Nguy ..read more

The vote to recall Orange Unified School District Trustees Rick Ledesma and Madison Miner was succeeding in results released Tuesday night after polls closed. “Tonight’s preliminary results are evidence of the overwhelming desire in our community for board members who exhibit integrity and transparency while governing,” said Darshan Smaaladen, chair of the group spearheading the recall. “We are hopeful and look forward to an end to the chaos and corruption that has embroiled our district for the past 14 months.” Smaaladen said that regardless of the outcome, the OUSD Recall group is “invigorat ..read more