Team
Jan Sramek
Founder & CEO
Jan Sramek is the founder and CEO of California Forever. He founded the company in 2017 and was its sole employee for nearly 6 years.
Jan grew up in a small village in the Czech Republic until a chance scholarship found on the early internet landed him in England, where he studied Mathematics and Economics at Trinity College, Cambridge and the London School of Economics. He started his career in financial markets at Goldman Sachs, but left after 20 months and founded Better, an education company that helped workers acquire new skills.
Based on his formative experiences living in York, Cambridge, London, Zurich, New York City, and San Francisco, Jan is passionate about walkable cities and their ability to foster community, creativity, and economic mobility. After a lifetime moving West searching for home, he has found it in Solano County, where he hopes to help build the next great American city. Jan lives in Solano County with his wife Naytri, two young children, and golden retriever Bruce.
Gabriel Metcalf
Head of Planning
Gabriel Metcalf is a city planner who has dedicated his career to helping cities become more livable, sustainable, and inclusive. For many years, he served as the President and CEO of SPUR, an urban policy think tank for the San Francisco Bay Area, leading the organization through a major expansion of its work, staffing, funding, geographic footprint, and impact. Most recently, he was the CEO of the Committee for Sydney, a research and advocacy organization that provides vision, strategy, and advocacy for the Australia’s largest city.
Gabriel’s work has focused on housing policy, climate change, economic development, transportation, and government effectiveness. He has been interested in new communities as a growth management strategy since first learning about the British new town movement in his introduction to planning history at UC Berkeley, where he earned a Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning.
B.H. Bronson Johnson
Head of Infrastructure and Sustainability
B.H. Bronson Johnson is a licensed engineer committed to creating a more sustainable future through the development of innovative infrastructure at scale. In leadership roles at Next Infrastructure, Sidewalk Labs, Forest City, and Lennar Urban, he has leveraged his technical know-how to direct the planning and delivery of many transformative projects.
Bronson cares deeply about the world, having traveled in over eighty countries and learned four languages. His penchant for learning has earned him an advanced degree in engineering and geosciences from Cornell University, as well as a certificate in construction management through UC Berkeley. Though he graduated decades ago, Bronson remains a student of the world.
As a long time renter in the Bay Area now with three children, Bronson believes our best hope is to build our way out of both the housing and climate crises. He looks forward to working with the people of Solano County to build the most sustainable city in the world, bringing the mojo back to California, and showing the world a better way forward.
Jay Primus
Director of Transportation
Jay Primus is an urbanist transportation planner focused on reducing emissions, improving economic vitality, and helping transportation – and cities – be more delightful. As both a consultant and city employee, he has experience envisioning and implementing bold changes as well as making smart use of design and appropriate technology.
For seven years Jay managed parking in San Francisco, including a groundbreaking federally-funded demonstration of how better pricing and information can make parking work better. SFpark remains a rare example of how cities can use data to make better decisions, improve operations, manage contracts, reduce costs, and deliver social benefits, as well as how cities can use design, marketing, and communications to enhance the user experience. In an earlier role, Jay led the design of San Francisco’s first bus rapid transit project.
Jay was inspired by early experience in Curitiba, Brazil and Bogata, Colombia, two cities that have met urgent and overwhelming social problems with creativity, clarity, courage, and deep respect for people’s humanity and dignity.
Anyé Spivey
Director of Development Planning
Anyé Spivey is a Bay Area native with 20 years of experience directing large mixed-use urban master-planned communities, standalone high-density urban infill housing, and tax-exempt infrastructure financing. He is conversant in all stages of the real estate development process, including site acquisition, brownfield remediation, underwriting, entitlement, CEQA, design, financing, construction bid analysis, and marketing. Over the course of his career he has worked on several of the largest developments in the Bay Area including the Hunter’s Point Shipyard, Candlestick Point, and the Oakland A’s Howard Terminal project.
Anyé has served on a number of boards over the years and has chosen to focus primarily on education and affordable housing. He currently serves on UCSF’s Campus Facilities Improvement Association board and is a member of ULI’s Urban Development Mixed Use Council and Lambda Alpha International. In his free time Anyé enjoys playing basketball, golf, and watching soccer. He is a graduate of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.
