Merced County, California / San Joaquin Valley
Most projects don’t fail on the numbers. They fail in the process.
DBMAC Strategies moves projects through the rooms where public decisions are actually made: board agendas, joint powers authorities, grant cycles, and the county process underneath all of it. Twenty five years of running a business, more than a decade inside county government.
private business
Merced County District 3
Castle Rail District
Castle Commerce Center
boards served
Figures reflect projects and jurisdictions Daron McDaniel has represented or helped advance. Documentation available on request.
Practice areas
Four ways a public agency stands between you and a finished project.
Each of these is the same underlying problem: the decision is public, the timeline is political, and the people who control it do not work for you. That is the problem this firm is built to solve.
Government affairs
Agency navigation and approvals
Knowing the rule is not the same as knowing the room.
Most approvals are effectively decided before the vote, in staff conversations, committee referrals, and the order items land on an agenda. We map the real path your project has to travel, identify who moves it, and get you ready for every step of it.
- Approval path mapping before you file
- Staff report and agenda timing strategy
- Hearing and one on one preparation
- Stakeholder and coalition assembly
- Planning commission, LAFCO, and JPA process
Economic development
Site selection and Valley expansion
The difference between a two year site and a five year site is rarely the price per acre.
For companies evaluating the San Joaquin Valley, what decides the schedule is rail service, power, water, entitlement history, and whether the jurisdiction actually wants you there. We know which ones do, and why.
- Rail served and highway adjacent site evaluation
- Power, water, and labor shed analysis
- Incentive and opportunity zone review
- County, city, utility, and college introductions
- Inland port and goods movement positioning
Public funding
Grant strategy and infrastructure capital
Winning a competitive grant starts about three years before the notice of funding is published.
State and federal infrastructure money goes to projects that were already ready: matched locally, backed by a letter file, and aligned to a program’s stated goals. We position projects to be that, then put them in front of the right program.
- Program matching across state and federal sources
- Local match and partner assembly
- Letters of support and regional coalitions
- Readiness and application narrative review
- Post award delivery and agency coordination
Advisory
Executive, board, and speaking
Private sector leadership, public sector consequences.
Executives and boards whose business touches a public agency need someone who has sat on the other side of the dais and knows how a decision looks from there. Ongoing counsel, governance work, and preparation for the meetings that matter.
- Retained executive and board advisory
- Public meeting and testimony preparation
- Controversy and public scrutiny management
- Keynotes and panels on goods movement
- Rural and Valley economic development strategy
Where the work happens
These are not abstractions. They are specific rooms.
A project gets scheduled, conditioned, delayed, or approved in a finite list of places. Most consultants describe them. This practice was built inside them.
- Boards of supervisors
- City councils
- Planning commissions
- Joint powers authorities
- LAFCO
- Transportation commissions
- Air quality districts
- Groundwater sustainability agencies
- Port and rail authorities
- State agency grant panels
- Legislative offices, state
- Legislative offices, federal
The record
A decade of moving hard projects through public process.
Public sector experience is easy to claim and hard to prove. This is the documented version, in order.
Elected to the Merced County Board of Supervisors, District 3
Representing Atwater, North Merced, Franklin-Beachwood, and McSwain: a district that contains the county’s largest industrial redevelopment site and its primary goods movement corridor.
Castle Commerce Center redevelopment advanced
Work to convert the former Castle Air Force Base into a working logistics, manufacturing, and aviation campus. The site has since drawn more than $300 million in private investment and roughly 800 jobs.
Highway 99 completion coalition
Joined the regional effort pushing completion of Highway 99 improvements through the San Joaquin Valley, the corridor that carries the state’s agricultural freight.
Chair, Rural County Representatives of California
Led the statewide association representing California’s rural counties, coordinating legislative and regulatory advocacy in Sacramento across dozens of member counties.
Port of Los Angeles agreement and the Castle Rail District
Merced County and the Port of Los Angeles signed a memorandum of agreement to develop inland port service. The Castle Rail District became operational in May, creating the governance structure the rail investment needed.
$49.6 million state award for the Castle Rail District
The California State Transportation Agency awarded one of the largest grants in county history: 70 acres for agricultural processing and intermodal cross docking, connecting Valley shippers to the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Oakland, with service targeted for 2028.
Jenny Kenoyer Award
Recognized by regional peers for leadership and collaboration across jurisdictions, which is the part of this work that does not show up in a budget line.
$300M+ private capital
Castle Commerce Center
Former air force base converted to a logistics, manufacturing, and aviation campus. Roughly 800 people working on site.
$49.6M awarded
Castle Rail District
Inland port infrastructure with a Port of Los Angeles agreement behind it. Service targeted for 2028.
Corridor delivery
Atwater Merced Expressway
Regional connector tying Atwater and the Castle site to Highway 99 and the City of Merced.
Flood control
Black Rascal Creek
Long stalled flood protection for north Merced, a prerequisite for development north of the city.
Regional capacity
CAL FIRE Training Center
Emergency services training capacity sited in the county rather than exported to another region.
Local transportation funds
Measure V
Dedicated local funding stream for county road maintenance and regional transportation projects.
Recruiting and retention
Public safety compensation
Sheriff’s deputy pay raised substantially over the past decade to close a regional recruiting gap, inside a balanced budget.
18.5 acres
Community park and center
New park and community center delivered in unincorporated county, where recreation capital rarely lands.
Principal
He signed the front of paychecks before he ever read a staff report.
Daron McDaniel spent 25 years building and running his own business, producing concert and live events across the western United States from a base in Merced County. That is the part most people miss about him. He learned public process as an operator who had to survive it, not as a staffer who administered it.
Since 2015 he has represented Merced County’s Third District, a district that happens to contain the largest industrial redevelopment opportunity in the county and the rail and highway corridors that serve it. The work has been concrete: an inland port agreement with the Port of Los Angeles, a $49.6 million state transportation award, an expressway, a flood control project, and a training center, each of which required a different agency, a different funding source, and a different coalition.
In 2020 he chaired the Rural County Representatives of California, carrying the interests of the state’s rural counties into Sacramento. He has worked alongside members of Congress, state senators, and Assembly members, and has served on seven regional and statewide boards covering transportation, finance, and economic development. In 2025 regional peers recognized him with the Jenny Kenoyer Award for leadership and collaboration.
DBMAC Strategies is where that experience goes to work for private clients: companies, developers, and agencies that need a project to actually move.
How engagements work
Three shapes, depending on what you are trying to finish.
Ongoing
Retained advisory
A monthly relationship. Continuous access, standing strategy, and representation through a process that will take quarters rather than weeks. Best for companies with a recurring public agency footprint.
Defined scope
Project engagement
Scoped to one approval, one application, or one site decision, with a stated deliverable and an end date. Best when you know exactly what you need cleared.
Selective
Board seats and speaking
Advisory board roles, governance work, keynotes, and panels on inland ports, goods movement, and rural economic development.
Contact
Tell us what you are trying to get approved, funded, or built.
The first conversation is a straight read on whether the thing you want is achievable, how long it realistically takes, and who has to say yes. No charge for that.