After more than a decade of writing Open Trench in NorthBay biz magazine, longtime columnist Bob Andrews is retiring his pen. Born in Santa Rosa, Andrews lived in the area until he attended college. He graduated from Stanford University and Stanford Law School. When he returned to Santa Rosa, he went to work at Exchange Bank, where he worked for seven years in the trust department. Later, he started a retirement plan administration firm, along with a former high school classmate, which they operated together for 28 years.
How does a pension trust officer turn columnist? It began with a conversation between Bob Van Dyke, former proprietor of E.R. Sawyer, and Norm Rosinski, the former publisher of NorthBay biz. Rosinski was looking for a columnist who was knowledgeable, had a history in the community, a critical eye, and the ability to make keen observations about the machinations of governmental practices and use of taxpayer money without personal animosity. Van Dyke suggested Rosinski reach out to Andrews and the two met for lunch and hit it off right away. Andrews was hired on the spot that day and dubbed the column himself—Open Trench, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the redundancy of the wording on construction signs that read “Open Trench.”
“What is a trench, if it’s not open?” Andrews asks, underscoring the illogic of the signage. “Why not just warn motorists that there’s a trench?”
Writing a monthly column was a fairly easy venture for Andrews, as he had the habit of mentally writing them first in his head. His first column was published in 2010. “I was immediately hooked,” he recalls. “The first one was about a situation in Santa Rosa that drove me crazy for years—traffic circles. In Europe, there are efficient traffic circles, but in Santa Rosa, there were at least three with stop signs. The idea of a circle is to keep traffic moving, right?”
Over the years, the column provided a platform for Andrews to dig deep and expose the truth of the serious and absurd matters that plagued Sonoma County. He’s tackled a number of issues—homelessness, taxes and the SMART train, for example. The hottest topic for Andrews year after year was about retroactive pension enhancements for government employees without meeting legal guidelines. “Take a group of county employees—say 4,000—and grant them a 50% retroactive benefit increase, the result could be (and was) catastrophic,” he says.
Writing about the hot topics and issues he found maddening, was cathartic at times. “But there was also frustration when seemingly nothing ever changes,” he says. Still, after writing more than 100 columns or so in the past decade, he was able to maintain perspective and a sense of humor. Over the years, he acquired a strong, loyal following of readers who know that after thoroughly investigating the issue at hand in roughly 800 words, Andrews had a habit of sometimes closing his column with this question: What could go wrong? Well, just about everything in some situations that were exposed each month, and that became his signature punchline.
Though Andrews is retiring his column, he and his wife, Karin, stay busy in Santa Rosa with home improvement projects, reading, streaming movies and enjoying wine. They have two children and three grandchildren. Their daughter, Sara, and her husband live in the Sacramento area with their three children. Their son, David, is engaged and lives in Santa Rosa.
As for the inevitable issues that will, no doubt, continue to rise, whether they’re serious or maddening, absurd, or illogical—or even just plain stupid—well, Andrews has only this to say, “What could go wrong?”
