Darrell Doan’s Elk Grove Economic Development ‘Victory Tour’ - Part II: How 'Not Really Coming' became 'Never Really Came' and the Pursuit of Sales Tax Revenue

For those who care to remember, March 25 is a significant day in Elk Grove's economic development history. Amidst much hoopla, early on that morning in 2016, then Elk Grove Mayor Gary Davis teased the public about a major announcement he would be making later in the morning during his State of the City Address.

That news was that Elk Grove had arrived in the high-tech big leagues. Davis announced that, through his efforts and with Elk Grove Economic Development Director Darren Doan, they had landed a Silicon Valley high-tech company that would relocate its manufacturing facility to Elk Grove's Southeast Policy Area (SEPA), the city's designated jobs hub, intended to bring 25,000 high-paying tech jobs.

That company was Fremont-based NRC Manufacturing. The announcement was met with great enthusiasm by everyone from Davis and Doan, to Barry Broome, the economic development "wizzard" who said:

Sacramento is the gateway to Silicon Valley, and is fast becoming California's next technology hub. This facility will increase the region's attraction of advanced manufacturing, while helping California retain businesses.

Notwithstanding the hype from Broome, Davis, and Doan, who was NRC Manufacturing? While they were in high-tech, they were at the bottom of the industry's food chain.

NRC, according to Google Gemini (see below), is no longer in business and was a subcontractor for circuit board assembly for "components used in telecommunications, medical, biotechnology, defense, and consumer applications." Put another way, they are a subcontractor performing tedious, but necessary low skill and low paying jobs of circuit boards.

So what happened to NRC's relocation to Elk Grove's SEPA jobs center? As one elected official admitted to Elk Grove, NRC came to mean "Not Really Coming!"

After Davis and Doan's ballyhooed announcement, which claimed they would occupy a quarter-million-square-foot space in SEPA and hire 2,500 high-paid employees, the relocation effectively died. Information on the relocations became sparse.

NRC's Chief Executive Officer, Ratha Chea, told Elk Grove News about six months later that plans had been scaled back. Not only had hiring been reduced to 50 to 75 employees, and maybe reach up to 1,000 in five years, but they would also locate their facility outside SEPA, needing substantially less space.

When asked by Elk Grove News to comment on NRC's downscaled plans, neither Davis nor Doan responded. No surprise thee.

As someone who attended the announcement during Davis's address, Mr. Chea was present, and to this eye, seemed uncomfortable with the numbers being thrown around. We will never know for sure, but Davis and Doan could have created those numbers out of the blue for their own purposes.

Not to belabor the point, but NRC never really came to Elk Grove.

What Replaced the Pursuit of High-Paying High-Tech Jobs?

This NRC case demonstrates how Doan went from a promising high-tech job to high-paying jobs that would relocate and maybe even be established in the SEPA, to promoting retail and hospitality jobs, as he did during his March 11 report. Not to disrespect the people who occupy those jobs, but they do not pay enough to purchase an even starter home - not that such a product exists in Elk Grove, much less the young families a community needs to keep it from stagnating.

Even after that debacle, which Elk Grove swept under the rug, Doan, dancing around like Bojangles, continued his high-tech-job-coming-to-SEPA shuffle. That was best exemplified during his April 2018 presentation to the Ek Grove City Council.  

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None of the plans Doan offered up in that presentation came to fruition. There are no well-paying jobs, high-tech or not, flocking to the SEPA, much less to the city. And it should be mentioned that the Doan and the city's focus on correcting the jobs-to-homes imbalance has evaporated.

Doan tacitly admitted during his March 11 presentation that Elk Grove lacks the capacity to fill these high-tech jobs after being questioned by Vice Mayor Darren Suen.

Doan said, "What people don't talk about is how much water it takes… and how much power it takes… water and power we simply do not have."     

So as Doan and Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen abandon pursuit of high-paying jobs, expect their thirst never to dry to collect the honeypot of cash fueled by Measure E. Simply put, if Doan can't sing and dance his way into high-paying jobs, why is he needed?

Retail development and the much-desired bundles of cash from Measure E sales taxes will follow population growth, with or without Doan. That is all you need to know about Elk Grove's economic development plan.  

According to Google Gemini. A phone call to their listed number revealed a continuous busy tone.

Based on current records for 2026, NRC Manufacturing, Inc. (based in Fremont, CA) is effectively no longer in business.

The company's status has shifted significantly over the last few years, transitioning from an active contract manufacturer to an inactive entity. Here is the breakdown of its current standing:

Business Status

• Inactive: State records from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) list the facility’s ID status as Inactive as of July 15, 2021.
• Operations: There have been no new business announcements, production updates, or public filings for the company since its planned expansion into Elk Grove stalled years ago.
• Fremont Location: While some industrial directories still list their address at 47690 Westinghouse Dr., Fremont, CA, the business is not currently operating as a functioning PCB (Printed Circuit Board) manufacturer at that site.

Background on the Decline

NRC Manufacturing was once a fast-growing minority-owned company. In 2016, they gained significant attention for a massive plan to build a 230,000-square-foot facility in Elk Grove, which was expected to create 2,500 jobs and serve clients like Apple. However, that project never fully materialized as intended, and the company's footprint in Fremont subsequently faded.