2009 Celebration of Entrepreneurship Nominees - RS
BUSINESS NAME: Rainbow Services' Sunset Serenade
BUSINESS CONTACT: Ben Schirmer
BUSINESS WEBSITE: www.rainbowservicesdv.org
CATEGORIES NOMINATED: Distinguished Philanthropic Event
When Rainbow Services was founded 25 years ago, domestic violence was even more of a hidden problem than it is today. The non-profit agency, based in San Pedro, sought to end the cycle of violence by raising awareness and providing a helping hand to victims of domestic violence. Rainbow Services provided emergency shelters, counseling, and legal advocacy, providing a way out for those trapped in abusive domestic situations.
Executive Director Ben Schirmer arrived seven years ago, and shortly thereafter the organization’s signature yearly fundraising event, Sunset Serenade, was launched. In keeping with the Rainbow Service’s grassroots ethos, the event was intended to be something other than the usual fundraising gala. Schirmer wanted the event to celebrate the people who devote their time, energy, and money to helping people they often don’t even know yet still intensely care about. Sunset Serenade has been hosted most years at people’s homes, rather than large ballrooms, thereby making the event a smaller and more intimate gathering that still manages to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. The event is organized entirely by the agency’s “Arc-en-Ciel” (French for rainbow), the community of volunteers who are the backbone of the agency’s efforts. Sunset Serenade is limited to 200 guests and is decidedly non-stuffy, focusing less on the tuxedo and fancy gown set and more on forging community support for Rainbow Service’s mission. This year, Sunset Serenade was even more literally grassroots – the July event took place on a soccer field, Nansen Field in Rolling Hills Estates.
BUSINESS NAME: Rayco Electronics
BUSINESS CONTACT: Mahendra Patel
BUSINESS WEBSITE: www.raycoelectronics.com
CATEGORIES NOMINATED: Outstanding Enrepreneur of the Year
Mahendra Patel has lived the American dream. Coming to the United States from India to attend school, Patel soon became a business owner, purchasing Rayco Electronics for a small sum, and running it when he wasn’t in class. Patel’s small investment paid off. Today he is running a 50,000-square-foot business and designing high-level magnetic products for a who’s-who of industrial and governmental clients. But Patel’s success isn’t really that surprising. He says that he always wanted to be an engineer and nothing else.
In addition to its unique magnetic products, what makes Rayco different from other technical component companies is that it has a strong in-house engineering and design department. The company’s home base is in Gardena, originally chosen because it was close to Loyola Marymount University, where Patel was pursuing his engineering degree. While he doesn’t see anything about his work with Rayco as risky—considering his single-minded drive to be an engineer—he says that he has taken business risks, most notably when he began investing in real estate.
BUSINESS NAME: RCP Energy Exploration
BUSINESS CONTACT: Louie Willhoit
CATEGORIES NOMINATED: Outstanding Entrepreneur
For Louie Willhoit, inspiration was found close to home. His dad, Louis, Jr., a geophysicist, developed a way to accurately find oil and gas deposits. The elder Willhoit used his imaging process—a more refined and less dangerous ultrasound version of the old-fashioned method that relied on TNT—to enrich other companies, taking a small cut of the profits. Louie saw an opportunity, and with his brother Charlie’s help started RCP Energy Exploration. The company has already found success the first time out and Willhoit is checking out more potential spots, which he’s confident will result in an ongoing track record of success.
While the company is doing most of its exploring in the traditional oil-rich sections of the Southern and Western United States, Willhoit has made the South Bay his headquarters. The reason is simple—he likes it here and so does his young family. But being headquartered in the South Bay is only one of the things that differentiates RCP Energy Exploration from its competitors. Because of the accuracy of the elder Willhoit’s process, the company has a higher potential accuracy rate. This means that the payoff from one well may be lower but the company could net a higher profit because it didn’t have to drill other dry wells. Ironically, it wasn’t embracing his father’s controversial but effective exploration method that Willhoit saw as the biggest risk he ever took; it’s obvious that he’s fully invested in the effectiveness of the technique. Instead, it was earlier in his career when he decided to abandon his financial career to strike out on his own and establish an independent capital company, which led to the founding of RCP Energy Exploration.
BUSINESS NAME: Really Great Rate
BUSINESS CONTACT: Silas Ellman
BUSINESS WEBSITE: www.reallygreatrate.com
CATEGORIES NOMINATED: Outstanding Entrepreneur
ReallyGreatRate in Redondo Beach is an online marketing company founded in 2004 by partners Matt Schaub and Silas Ellman. Their focus is on lead generation for financial service professionals in all aspects of consumer finance, including mortgage, reverse mortgage, student loans, debt settlement, loan modification, new car purchase, and auto finance. ReallyGreatRate bridges the gap between financial institutions and consumers by linking top, competitive lenders with loan seekers.
Schaub and Ellman, both originally from the East Coast, moved to the South Bay in 1998 and 2000 respectively and met while working on small business projects together. Schaub was one of the few people in this niche of the industry during the nineties. He was an inspiration to Ellman and introduced him to the online format of consumer financing. At a time when both enjoyed stable jobs as VPs, lucrative salaries, and solid benefits packages, they “cut all ties and threw all the eggs in one basket” and launched ReallyGreatRate.
Because Ellman and Schaub are concerned about long-term customer retention over making a quick buck, they pride themselves on really caring about their clients and products. One thing that Ellman believes sets them apart is their ability to be successful without sacrificing being honest, ethical businessmen.
BUSINESS NAME: Residential Mortgage Solution
BUSINESS CONTACT: David Sklar
BUSINESS WEBSITE: www.residentialms.com
CATEGORIES NOMINATED: Outstanding Real Estate Entrepreneur
Much of the real estate industry has been in turmoil over the past year, but Santa Monica-based Residential Mortage Solution LLC has gone about its business relatively unchanged. This is perhaps because the company – co-founded in 2003 by David Sklar and Jack Getzelman – has maintained a very specific focus: the secondary mortgage market. RMS is a specialty finance company within the mortgage industry that not only acquires assets, but provides custom-built, innovative financing solutions for challenged mortgages. Since its founding, RMS has acquired more than $1 billion unpaid balance in troubled residential mortgage assets.
The firm was an early has set itself apart from competitors by developing its own proprietary, web-based software, Mortgage Market Monitor, which gives clients customized real-time information and thus better enables accurate assessment of a borrower’s performance.
RMS’s two founders bring essential experience to the table. Getzelman comes from an investment banking background; he formerly served as managing director of Credit Suisse First Boston. Sklar is a Certified Public Accountant who has more than 25 years of experience in the mortgage and finance industries, having served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Escrow.com from 1999 until 2001. Prior to 1999, he was executive vice president and chief financial officer of Aames Financial Corporation and also served as the chief financial officer of Imperial Bank Corporation.
The firm describes itself as “the residential mortgage solution for mortgage lenders” and has the flexibility and experience to complete transactions ranging from $1 million to $100 million and above on short notice.
BUSINESS NAME: Richstone Family Center “Affair to Remember” Dinner
BUSINESS CONTACT: Rolando Ramirez
BUSINESS WEBSITE: www.richstonefamily.org
CATEGORIES NOMINATED: Distinguished Philanthropic Event
Rolando Ramirez, executive director of Richstone Family Center for the past five years, coordinates a program with the mission to prevent and treat victims of child abuse and strengthen families through education. Richstone’s inspiration is to heal children and save families. He has been pursing its mission for more than 35 years. Ramirez grew up in the South Bay community just two blocks from Richstone Family Center and this position provides him an opportunity to give back to the community that gave so much to him as a child. He graduated from Cal State Long Beach before becoming the operations manager for what was then Pacific Telephone.
Richstone hosts three signature events throughout the year, including a golf tournament in September and since April is dedicated to the prevention and treatment of child abuse, a pier-to-pier walkathon that attracts about 1,500 people and starts at the Manhattan Beach pier then goes to the Hermosa Beach pier and back. Richstone also hosts an annual gala called An Affair of the Heart.
Richstone prides itself in forming collaborations within the community, particularly the school districts. Richstone is unique in its culturally sensitive approach in establishing a welcoming environment for the children and families who are referred because of abuse or high-risk situations. Richstone offers counseling, parenting, anger management and after-school programs and hosts family events throughout the year and during the holidays. Always looking to bring the community together, Richstone has a strong and dedicated board of directors and volunteers who work hard to raise money for the center and keep Richstone highly visible within the community. Last year, reports showed that 89 percent of the money raised for Richstone went directly to programs and services. After having gone through Richstone’s counseling programs, the reward is helping clients resolve their problems and watch them move on and lead productive lives that promote caring for one another and love for the family.
BUSINESS NAME: Sangria Restaurant/Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation
BUSINESS CONTACT: Kevin Barry
BUSINESS WEBSITE: www.jimmymillerfoundation.org; www.sangriahermosa.com
CATEGORIES NOMINATED: Outstanding Entrepreneur;
Distinguished Philanthropic Event- WINNER
Kevin Barry’s inspiration for starting Sangria was all around him—22 boarded-up businesses in downtown Hermosa Beach. While others may have seen despair, Barry saw opportunity. And he found one opportunity created yet another. After nearly tripling the size of the restaurant in a five-year span, Barry, who is also a long-time lifeguard, realized that his expanded space would be a perfect venue for lifeguard fund-raisers, retirement parties and other events.
Sangria has become a symbol of commitment to the community. It continues to be the site of high-profile fund-raisers and a gathering point for the beach community. He says that in addition to helping a lot of people, the evolution of Sangria from a traditional restaurant space to a gathering place to host fund-raisers and parties has been a lot of fun. Barry’s commitment to Hermosa Beach and the South Bay is obvious. He lives here and he wanted to work where he lives. His success was helped not only by his customers, but also by the experience he gained working as a restaurant manager. That Barry has created a space that is designed to help as much as it is to entertain is not surprising. When he was younger he was community- and civic-minded, wanting to either be a doctor or an astronaut. He’s also given back to the community by being a lifeguard for the last 30 years.
Sangria, Kevin Barry’s Hermosa Beach restaurant, has built a reputation as a gathering place to commemorate special events and raise awareness. Barry’s had a personal commitment to many of these causes, but none more so than the Jimmy Surf Contest After Party. The event, a fund-raiser hosted by the Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation, raises awareness, money and celebrates the life of the late Jimmy Miller. Barry, a friend and fellow lifeguard with Miller, was asked by Miller’s family to get involved with the foundation and use the space at Sangria as the after party for the day’s events. The event is not only fun, involving the entire community from kids to grandparents, but doubles as an awards banquet and fund-raiser, complete with a silent auction.
This was the fifth year that Sangria has offered its space for the after party, and Barry says that every year the event goes a bit more smoothly, while seeing its reach get bigger and wider thanks to the Internet and other social media. The Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation uses “ocean therapy,” including surfing, to help those who have suffered physical or mental trauma. It has recently been introduced to Fort Pendleton marines returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Several of these marines took part in the day’s events and spoke during the after party about how the program has improved their lives. This year’s event had an even more personal impact on Barry, a former employee and friend who is battling ovarian cancer was also recognized and helped by the fund-raiser. Perhaps the greatest reward Barry has received from being involved with the Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation has been seeing all of the kids who have been caught in its charitable wake and the joy that have found in helping others.
BUSINESS NAME: Seymour Jewelers
BUSINESS CONTACT: Scott Bilowit
BUSINESS WEBSITE: www.seymourjewelers.com
CATEGORIES NOMINATED: Outstanding Entrepreneur; Lifetime Achievement- FINALIST
Seymour Jewelers is a retailer of fine jewelry and watches that has offered several generations of South Bay residents its own unique designs. The store has been in business in downtown Hermosa Beach since 1950, when a young World War II veteran from Brooklyn named Seymour Bilowit walked by an empty storefront and decided to start his own full-service jewelry store. His son, Scott Bilowit, has continued the family tradition, which focuses on creating highly customized designs that include recycling and refashioning old jewelry into new designs and listening closely to customers to fashion the kind of beauty that has meaning. Bilowat strongly believes that what he sells transcends the stone and metal of the jewelry itself: he sells beauty, love, and memory in every piece that leaves his store.
Bilowit had design in his blood. As a child, he taught himself to be an engraver, and was so proficient that adults frequently hired him to make engravings for them. He didn’t, however, automatically enter the family business; Bilowat spent his twenties working for a diamond trader in Belgium. But his love for the South Bay, and his family, brought him back home, where his father happily turned the family business over to him. Bilowit credits his father as his greatest inspiration in the business, not just in the his knowledge of gems but in the kindness, care, and attentiveness he observed in the way his father treated every customer. His greatest reward is in the pure happiness he witnesses almost every day at Seymour Jewelers when a new design finds its owner.
BUSINESS NAME: Simple Gourmet
BUSINESS CONTACT: Melanie Barsuk and Taji Marie
BUSINESS WEBSITE: www.simple-gourmet.com
CATEGORIES NOMINATED: Outstanding Entrepreneur
Though hailing from different backgrounds—cooking, business, and journalism—business owners Melanie Barsuk and Taji Marie combined talents when they opened Simple Gourmet in February 2004. Specializing in cooking classes and parties, catering and culinary team-building activities, Simple Gourmet celebrated its fifth year in business by opening a full-service professional kitchen in Redondo Beach this past January. When Melanie left the corporate world, she says she had a vision of pulling together a group of talented people to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. She joined forces with Executive Chef Taji Marie not only because Taji is a “fabulous chef,” she says, but also because of the individual talents that feed into their successful partnership. “We are so fortunate on a daily basis to bring our unique skills to the table. This makes us more powerful team because there is so much we can accomplish together,” Melanie says. “Taji is extremely creative and brought a lot to the palette of Simple Gourmet, which is great. Now we have a team of 20 people who are working with us. We’re proud to be a women-owned business.”
Both were fortunate to have strong female business mentors to teach them the ins and outs of managing a business and a staff. Simple Gourmet started out with a simple premise: teaching home cooks how to cook even better. Now that concept has grown into gourmet meal delivery and catering (a large portion of their business in 2009), corporate events and team building, cooking classes and cooking parties, including camps and courses for children. “We’ve done quite well this year despite the grim economy,” Melanie adds. “There aren’t many people in our industry who do everything we do. One thread that ties it all together is sharing our passion for food with other people. We have a very unique business.”
BUSINESS NAME: South Bay Accommodators
BUSINESS CONTACT: Sheila Ennis
CATEGORIES NOMINATED: Outstanding Entrepreneur
Trust is an important part of doing business, and that’s at the core of Sheila Ennis’ business as a qualified intermediary, or accommodator, handling IRS Form 1031 tax deferred exchanges for clients. Her business, South Bay Accommodators, Inc., spun off from the work she does for Hermosa Escrow Company. Ennis says that a need in the market inspired her to take on this role, which involves handling important paperwork, holding her clients’ money, and keeping to a rigorous timetable set by the IRS. She sees making sure that she follows all the rules and regulations to the letter as the riskiest part of the business.
Less of a risk was settling in the South Bay with her husband and children. Originally a school teacher, she eventually became involved in the real estate business—which she follows with a passion—and that led to working for Hermosa Escrow. “I couldn’t have picked a better place,” she said. For her accommodator’s work, Ennis has been mentored by another woman who is doing the same work and, more broadly, by the former owner of Hermosa Escrow Company, Vilma Hastings, who Ennis calls the “epitome of an entrepreneur.” Most of Ennis’ business is generated either through Hermosa Escrow or word-of-mouth referrals. Her personal attention and accessibility to her clients gives her an edge in the accommodator market over larger, more impersonal banks and escrow companies, she says.
BUSINESS NAME: South Bay Brokers
BUSINESS CONTACT: Jack Gillespie & Jim Van Zanten
CATEGORIES NOMINATED: Outstanding Real Estate Enrepreneur- WINNER
Jack Gillespie of South Bay Brokers in Redondo Beach has been in real estate in the South Bay for 37 years. He is Co- President of the progressive company, which he co-founded with partner Jim Van Zanten in 1985. Gillespie supervises and advises over an astounding 400 transactions per year and has personal sales in excess of $50,000,000 annually. He specializes in new and existing single family homes, exchanging, relocation, and investment properties. Occasionally, he serves in an advisory capacity for pricing on single family residences to large-scale developmental projects.
Working closely with his licensed assistant, Gillespie is committed to providing quality service to his clients, doing so with honesty and integrity. He feels that his “knowledge, experience, understanding, accountability, and creativity” set him apart from other agents and brokers in the industry. Even with all of his years of experience, Gillespie still looks for ways to improve himself and continues ongoing education to better serve his clients.
Gillespie sits on the Advisory Board of the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation and he and his wife, Maureen, are active volunteers in the community, sponsoring volleyball, football, hockey, soccer and basketball programs in the South Bay schools.
Of utmost importance to Gillespie is that his clients understand and feel comfortable with how he represents them, which has made him one of the South Bay beach cities’ top-producing real estate agents for many years.
BUSINESS NAME: Spyder Surfboards
BUSINESS CONTACT: Dennis Jarvis
BUSINESS WEBSITE: www.spydersurf.com
CATEGORIES NOMINATED: Lifetime Achievement- FINALIST
Dennis Jarvis first made a name for himself as one of the greatest surfers to ever come out of the South Bay. Jarvis was always singular figure in the surf scene. As a professional surfer in the 1970s and 1980s, Jarvis was a pioneer in the slashing, vigorous style that dominates the pro circuit to this day. He also stood apart from his competition from his sartorial surfing choices, as he was one of the first surfers to don flamboyant, multi-colored, pink-swathed wetsuits instead of the standard black most surfers wore.
Jarvis has continued to set himself apart as an entrepreneur. He is one of the most successful former star surfers to transition from his days as a competitive athlete to a career in business. From his childhood days working in longtime South Bay surfboard shaper Pat Ryan’s shop, Jarvis always had a nose for the working side of the surf industry, and in 1983 he launched his own surf shop as a shaper and a retailer. And he has never lacked ambition or audacity: Spyder Surfboards opened its doors on Pacific Coast Highway in Hermosa Beach in the midst of a recession and grew into a worldwide brand. At one point, Jarvis was selling 16,000 boards a year, and though he has scaled back his shaping to about 1,000 boards a year, the Spyder brand itself is firmly established as one of the most respected names in the surf, skate, and snowboarding industries.
Typically, Jarvis has never grown complacent. In the mid 1990s, he took the unusual step of opening up a second store within Hermosa Beach’s 1.2 square miles, and typically, it succeeded beyond anybody’s but his own expectations. The Spyder Surf store on Pier Avenue focused on the uniqueness of the Hermosa Beach surf lifestyle, selling apparel by Quicksilver, Reef, Billabong, and True Religion. Jarvis has spent his entire life in Hermosa Beach and has come to represent his hometown throughout the world through the Spyder brand.
What has characterized Jarvis throughout both of his careers is an exuberant creativity and a hustling work ethic. He credits perseverance and tenacity for his success, traits he learned from his mother, a single parent who raised three kids. He and his wife Crystal have three kids of their own and Jarvis has helped raised a couple generations of “rug rats” who hung around his shops and have since become successful action sports figures in their own right (including his business partner, Richard O’Reilly). Jarvis has recently embarked on yet another career, this time as a filmmaker. He began as an actor and surf instructor for the classic surf movie “Point Break” and has since moved behind the camera, winning best film award for “Riptide” at the Quicksilver Film Fest in 2006.
BUSINESS NAME: Studio Printing
BUSINESS CONTACT: Ed Su
BUSINESS WEBSITE: www.studioprinting.net
CATEGORIES NOMINATED: Entrepreneur; Distinguished Philanthropic Event
Ed Su, owner of Studio Printing, a full-service printing company located in El Segundo, has been in the printing industry most of his life, coming out of college in 1985 to manage a printing company. He has now been in business for 12 years. Studio Print donates free printing to local community groups, including the Women’s, Rotary and Kiwanis clubs. Su is a board member of both the El Segundo Education Foundation and Chamber of Commerce, for whom the company provides a discounted service. He has lived and been involved in the community for many years because he wanted to give back to the community that has consistently supported his business. His reward is a simple thank you or acknowledgement from the groups he helps support. Studio Print receives many business referrals based on name recognition alone. Su also runs the El Segundo Education Golf Tournament to help raise money for the Education Foundation.
BUSINESS NAME: The Buckley School of Etiquette
BUSINESS CONTACT: Stephanie Buckley
BUSINESS WEBSITE: www.Buckleyschoolofetiquette.com
CATEGORIES NOMINATED: Entrepreneur of a Distinguished Biz for Kids
When her sister-in-law gave her an Emily Post etiquette book 10 years ago, Stephanie Buckley read it, reread it and wrote in it but had no idea what this gift would inspire. Another gift, the birth of her son, served as the second inspiration for her year-old business, The Buckley School of Etiquette, which holds classes at the Manhattan Beach Country Club. Stephanie began thinking more about manners when her son attended a preschool where the children addressed adults by their first names. She decided to go by “Mrs. Buckley” and then other mothers followed suit. Bolstered by her friends’ encouragement, she began to research and write a comprehensive etiquette program covering everyday manners, table manners, rudeness, apologies, the art of conversation, thank-you notes and community service. “It’s not that people aren’t trying at homethere’s just a lack of time. The world is very different today,” Stephanie continues. “Kids are very busy and are forced to be more social, and sociable, at a younger age.”
Owning a business is nothing new for Stephanie, who owned and operated youth hostels for years with her husbandalso her biggest mentor and help, she says. “This has been the most rewarding job,” says Stephanie, who once owned a catering business as well. “I worked really hard on the curriculum to make it fun while also teaching the children.” The biggest reward is neither her company’s success nor great word of mouth, but rather the enthusiasm of her young students, who groan when class is over and who are eager to show off what they have learned. “When I started teaching the class, kids didn’t know how to set the table. Many parents don’t have time for things like that. Parents keep thanking me for creating this.”
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2009 Celebration of Entrepreneurship Nominees - RS
