Business

12/30/2008

CEO Profile: A varied past helps California Steel's CEO deal with economic downturn
Born in Brazil, raised in Japan and college educated in the United States, Vicente B. Wright is especially well-prepared for his position as chief executive of California Steel Industries Inc., a company with Japanese and Brazilian corporate owners that operates its mill in Fontana.

Video: CEO PROFILE: Vicente Wright, of California Steel

12/16/2008

CEO Profile: Corona's Thoro Packaging sees growth, record sales in tough climate
Amid the gloomiest period almost every business person in Inland Southern California can remember, Thoro Packaging is celebrating what has been one of its most successful years.

Video: CEO PROFILE: Jan Steiner, of Thoro Packaging

12/09/2008

CEO Profile: Manager of Kroger plant in Riverside enjoys fruits of labor
Philip Prendergast, 46, was going to be a veterinarian when, as an unsure undergrad, he sipped a half-pint of orange juice and then read the label on the back.

"Undecided about your major? Try dairy manufacturing," it read.

Video: CEO PROFILE: Philip Prendergast, of Kroger's Riverside Creamery

12/02/2008

CEO Profile: Redlands firm makes specialty medical treatment vehicles
It took a few years for Charles Mello to find the best way to make use of his early-1980s college education in mechanical engineering.

Some of his early jobs included designing high-tech limousines and other specialty security vehicles, but something was missing in that line of work. "I was looking to make a positive impact in people's lives," the 47-year-old Brazilian native recalled in a recent interview. "The satisfaction wasn't there."

Video: CEO PROFILE: Charlie Mello, of American Custom Coach

11/27/2008

CEO Profile: Firm helps banks, builders with disposition of failed projects
Banks with repossessed housing projects on their hands and investors and builders looking for bargains need to know what stalled developments are worth and what can be done with them. One expert to whom they turn is Steve Johnson, director of the Southern California offices of Metrostudy Inc., a national real estate consulting firm based in Houston.

Video: CEO PROFILE: Steve Johnson, of real estate consulting firm Metrostudy

11/18/2008

Competition fuels Riverside-based business that delivers gas
Ted Honcharik has never steered a big-rig truck down a freeway himself, but in the past dozen or so years he's put hundreds of drivers behind the wheel while operating two fuel-delivery companies in Southern California.

And, in the process, he delivered millions of gallons of gasoline to countless gas stations in several states, all while maintaining a solid safety record.

Video: CEO PROFILE: Ted Honcharik, of Pacific Tank Lines

11/11/2008

CEO Profile: Perseverance pays off for Riverside computer professional
Sundip Doshi, 42, may not have a view of the ocean from his second floor office in his new $8 million headquarters in Riverside, but that's just fine.

The Cal State San Bernardino graduate who started his software database company in his Riverside guestroom in 1995, almost gave up on the company the following year after a plan to sell packaged software for $40 earned $12,000 in revenue but cost a quarter of a million dollars.

Video: CEO PROFILE: Sundip Doshi, of software company Surado

11/04/2008

Woman finds success making wipes for restaurants, more
The idea of serving hot towels with meals goes back 3,000 years in Asia. But when Eve Yen moved from Taiwan to the United States in the early 1990s, she noticed that the few mid-priced restaurants that had them usually offered up small, cold towelettes that were often too small or flimsy for the job.

Video: CEO PROFILE: Eve Yen, founder of Diamond Wipes International in Ontario

10/29/2008

Henry Martinez oversees Southern California Edison's power grid
As director of operations for Southern California Edison's transmission grid, Henry Martinez shoulders round-the-clock responsibility to keep the power flowing to almost 5 million homes and businesses within the utility's 50,000-square-mile territory.

Video: CEO PROFILE: Henry Martinez of SoCal Edison

10/14/2008

Housing storm has Inland foreclosure-sales agent's rainbow
After nearly four decades working as a real estate agent in Inland Southern California, Pete Nyiri says the current deluge of foreclosures is giving him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in his specialty: marketing bank-owned homes.

Nyiri's company, Top Producers Realty & REO, a mom-and-pop real estate office operating out of a small, single-story house in Corona, has raked in hundreds of listings throughout Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Video: CEO PROFILE: Pete Niyri owner of Top Producers Realty

10/07/2008

Rubidoux paving company finds stability in commercial projects
Richard Lindholm, president and chief executive officer of National Paving Co. in Rubidoux, doesn't want his nondescript headquarters teeming with trucks and crews. He wants them at job sites, as many as he can get while competing with other companies that had been paving new home developments during the housing boom.

Video: CEO PROFILE: Richard Lindholm, CEO of National Paving Company

09/30/2008

Faust Printing excels in a tough economy
Faust Printing literally started out as a garage business run by Don and Rose Mary Faust, and remained that way through much of the 1960s and 1970s as the couple moved to various Upland-area homes to make room for their growing family.

Video: CEO PROFILE: Rose Mary Faust, Faust Printing

09/24/2008

Duo behind Riverside company have been matching people to jobs for three decades
Staying in business for three decades is like writing the book on who's who in your town. It's a way to get to know everyone.

Two business partners, after 30 years, between them are likely to know absolutely everyone.

Video: CEO PROFILE: Sue Mitchell and Zelma Beard, Riverside Personnel Services

09/17/2008

Simple Ambition
In 1972, Ralph Ayala Jr. and his father had a simple ambition.

"We were looking for something we could do to provide ourselves a comfortable living," said Ayala of the business venture that now employs a third generation of the family.

Ayala said running the company, Ayala Boring Inc., has been a struggle at times, but through strategic hiring and a focus on customer satisfaction, it became a success.

Video: CEO PROFILE: Ralph Ayala Jr., Ayala Boring Inc.

09/03/2008

Inland McDonald's operator Dick Shalhoub has front-row view of chain's evolution
In 24 years, Dick Shalhoub's McDonald's restaurants have evolved like a young adult's wardrobe -- from a brown-hued children's playground to Southwest pastels to a more mid-century modern inspiration of bright colors.

Video: CEO PROFILE: McDonald's owner Dick Shalhoub

File Video: Palm Springs McDonald's blends in with mid-century look

08/27/2008

Temecula banker happy with his risk
Gary Votapka got his initial taste of the banking world in his first job after college, handling small loans for business customers at a Montana bank. That sparked an interest in the inner workings of finance that served him well in his next big job, as an examiner in Los Angeles with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the government agency with duties that include overseeing banks' capitalization and liquidity standards.

Video: A video conversation with Gary Votapka, Mission Oaks Bank

08/19/2008

Lack of debt, key employees keep Corona framing business solvent
Tom Rhodes, the 47-year-old owner and president of TWR Enterprises Inc., acknowledges that a lot of the fun has vanished from the home framing business since home builders put on the brakes.

Video: CEO PROFILE: Tom Rhodes, president of TWR Framing

08/13/2008

Providing quality workers assures Local 1184 union's future, Riverside official says
John L. Smith started working in the construction industry immediately after he finished high school. But it only took a few years before his career detoured to what could be called his family business.

Video: CEO PROFILE: John L. Smith, Laborers International Union

08/05/2008

Riverside CPA says audits benefit any business
Just because a privately owned business doesn't have to report to regulators doesn't mean it can loosen its financial practices, Mike Adcock says.

Adcock, a partner in the Riverside certified public accounting firm of Ahern Adcock Devlin, says there are several reasons a business should bring in auditors.

07/23/2008

CEO Larry Sharp quick to put credit for Arrowhead's growth on other shoulders
Growing up in the Brawley area of rural Imperial County, Larry Sharp knew the field-to-market workings of agriculture but was increasingly intrigued by the financing side of the business.

07/16/2008

Landscaper's 'green' practices now enjoy attentive audience
Baxter Miller, the 53-year-old president and owner of Corona-based BMLA Landscape Architecture, has college textbooks on landscape architecture older than some of his employees that describe the "green" gardening techniques now in vogue.

07/09/2008

Inland Empire Film Commission Director Sheri Davis is filmmakers' first contact for shooting locations
In Hollywood, a lot of phone conversations end with the cliché, "I'll have my people call your people."

But, when the film industry looks toward Inland Southern California, chances are the person they'll be calling is Sheri Davis, and they've been dialing her since before most of the area's movie multiplexes were built.

07/02/2008

Marketing Ontario
Bob Brown sees the appeal of the Inland region.

That's good because Brown, as head of the Ontario Convention Center and Convention and Visitors Bureau, has to be able to get others to see the appeal, too. The picture Brown paints is one of an area that's moving up in the world, and out of the shadow of Los Angeles.

06/25/2008

Home builder's cash position creates opportunities
Mike Van Daele, the 54-year-old founder and chief executive of Riverside-based Van Daele Development, takes pride in the slow, cautious growth of his home-building company and its habit of conservative spending.

06/18/2008

Shelter maker a quick study in Business 101
Mark Carter was a 20-year-old in his parent's West Covina basement when he started experimenting with a mechanical scissor system and making one fold-up tent a day to earn $87,000 in revenue.

06/11/2008

Visterra Credit Union CEO still sees bright future for Inland region
Since his early college days at Cal State Fullerton, Robert Cameron knew he'd eventually be graduating into the world of accounting. But figuring out where to start his career trajectory was a challenge, especially as he and his classmates were bombarded with financial industry recruiter visits during their senior year.

06/03/2008

Brothers soar with a variety of boards
Kevin Sanchez isn't what you'd expect to see when you meet the co-owner of a growing retail store network that covers two states.

His work uniform of board shorts and Vans is also a clue that his business isn't the typical widget emporium.

05/28/2008

Evlyn Wilcox, President of Manpower Inc. office, still enjoys work
When Evlyn Wilcox started running the Manpower Inc. temporary services office in San Bernardino in 1959, many of the job openings she regularly sends people to fill today did not yet exist.

05/21/2008

Foam Work
Underneath the Hulk is an unassuming scientist named Bruce Banner. Underneath Mark Harrington's Hulk, hoisted to the top of his Storyland Studios roof in Lake Elsinore, is 80 pounds of structural polyurethane foam.

05/07/2008

Corona mortgage lender says 'I am here' factor better than online services
Many colleagues asked Bunker Rayner what he was thinking of when he bought Corona Mortgage Financial Corp. in March 2007, just when the real estate industry was collapsing and other mortgage brokers were closing their doors.

He concedes it was "the worst time you could buy a mortgage company" and he embarked on the venture very nervously.

04/23/2008

Custom shutter business weathering tough economic times
It sounds like a cliché: the small-town man heading to California to make his fortune.

But Bob Marcynyszyn and Doug Serbin did just that, departing New Jersey in 1980, and starting Avalon Shutters Inc. in 1986.

The Ontario company manufactures custom shutters from wood and resin for homeowners across the nation.

04/16/2008

Up to Challenge
When April Morris' father, Robert Mills, founded Associated Engineers Inc. 53 years ago, much of Inland Southern California was orange groves, dairies and vineyards, waiting to be surveyed and developed.

Morris has pushed the Ontario-based civil engineering firm to $10 million in annual revenues, about five times as much as her father's top year.

04/09/2008

'Kiwi can do' drives Riverside motorcycle company to stardom
More than 25 years ago, New Zealand native Mike Tomas toured North America on an Indian motorcycle and settled in Southern California. Now his Riverside motorcycle shop attracts a cadre of celebrities including two late-night talk show hosts, a couple rock stars and a cast member of "Lost."

Tomas, 47, prides himself on building motorcycles mostly from scratch.

04/02/2008

Inland martial arts instructor brings lengthy resume to his studio
Martial arts have been a part of Tom Gwak's life for nearly 65 of his 70 years. The defense skills he learned starting as a child in Korea eventually got him deployed during the Vietnam War as an instructor of bodyguards to South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu, one of a contingent carefully vetted by the U.S. Defense Department.

03/26/2008

Prophet of Profit
Falling home prices offer opportunity for Bruce Norris, a professional investor and founder of The Norris Group in Riverside. Norris, 55, nimbly adjusts his investment tactics in anticipation of the real estate market's ups and downs.

03/19/2008

Coachella Valley video store stays viable with customer service, innovation
Janie Pickett has spent more than a quarter of her life in an industry some would argue has an approaching expiration date. But the Coachella Valley movie-rental store manager is hopeful that innovative efforts by the industry could keep and gain new rental customers.

02/20/2008

O'Reilly Public Relations' chief gauges success in happy customers, workers
Patrick J. O'Reilly has known for some time that he wouldn't contribute to any "brain drain from" Riverside. Despite having -- and enjoying -- work experience on the East Coast, the president and CEO of O'Reilly Public Relations knew he'd eventually make his name in the Inland region.

02/06/2008

Riverside businessman equips hobbyists with tires
When Kent Poulsen, 44, stepped in to run a Riverside-based remote control car accessory seller, he hadn't ever driven an RC car and his company had only one employee who worked a few hours each day packaging the vehicle's diminutive tires and shipping them throughout the United States and Canada.

01/30/2008

Developer Allan L. Davis uses themes to set each retail center apart
In recent years, Allan L. Davis has been focused on matching the Inland area's newest residential neighborhoods, particularly in southwestern Riverside County, with the stores and restaurants those households will be frequenting in the future.

01/23/2008

Ron Barnard's real estate businesses are growing as others are closing
In the midst of a housing market collapse that is putting other mortgage and real estate companies out of business, Ronald Barnard, the founder and chief executive of Norco-based Home Center, is hiring.