Ali Ghanbarian came to San Francisco as an engineer for Bechtel Corporation, but quickly found that his true interests and talents lay in the arts and the people who make up the creative culture of the city. Over a period of two decades, he established a reputation as the most influential force behind the creation of vibrant new communities on the leading edge of culture and commerce. In the early nineteen-eighties, Ghanbarian opened the Billboard Café in the midst of a rundown warehouse neighborhood in San Francisco. Under his direction and promotion, it became the favored haunt of artists, celebrities and politicians and the neighborhood began to be transformed.