Andy Puzder, chief executive of CKE Restaurants Inc., didn’t quite know what to think when the company’s research and development team came to him with the idea of a bourbon burger.
“I thought, ‘What’s that going to taste like?’ ” Puzder said. But he agreed to put the Kentucky bourbon burger with a bourbon-flavored, nonalcoholic sauce on the menu at CKE’s fast-food chain Carl’s Jr.
Puzder hosted a group of about 150 people including Los Angeles Lakers executive Blain Skinner; city of Los Angeles Board of Public Works President Cynthia Ruiz; Richard Zien, chief executive of Santa Monica ad firm Mendelsohn Zien Advertising; and high-profile music video director Chris Applebaum at West Hollywood hotspot Crown Bar last week to sample the liquor-inspired burger. Attendees also noshed on French fries and onion rings, and sipped a bourbon cocktail created by celebrity mixologist Erica Lancellotti to complement the charbroiled beef.
Although Puzder is a fan of the new burger, there was another reason he was skeptical at first: “I’m a vodka martini man myself.”
Southern Exposure
For some people, business travel is a mundane task. For Brad Sparks, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Sparks, a director in accounting firm KPMG’s downtown L.A. office and a leader of the firm’s global green initiative, just returned from a two-week expedition to Antarctica where he witnessed the impacts of climate change firsthand.
“It was very surreal,” he said. “I went in to it not knowing what to expect. The night before the trip, I didn’t even sleep the whole night.”
Along with 80 other business leaders, students and environmental advocates from around the world, Sparks traveled from Argentina to Antarctica, where the temperature hovered just above zero degrees. Sparks said he slept most nights on a Russian ship and saw plenty of penguins when he ventured onto land.
He generally prefers the sunny weather of Los Angeles and had to go shopping before the trip to stock up on warm clothes.
“Fortunately Patagonia had all their stuff half off from the winter season,” Sparks said.
Changing Gears
James Gardner, 61, remembers growing up in Bell Gardens and South Gate in the 1950s and 1960s when schools were closed routinely for “smog days,” when ozone levels became too unhealthy to be outside.
“You couldn’t even see the hills just a mile away from where you were in the city,” Gardner said.
Later, Gardner sold parts for what are now considered “dirty” diesel trucks before an epiphany seven years ago. That’s when he learned about diesel particulate filters, which eliminate almost 80 percent of emissions.
“I don’t think many people even stop to think what’s being done to the environment when they see an exhaust pipe belching all that black,” Gardner said. “I know I didn’t.”
Now, Gardner is senior business development manager for a Canadian company that makes low-emissions filters for diesel trucks. He found his sales pitches are often welcomed.
“It makes it easy to get people to listen because like me, they are products of this place, and care about its future,” he said.
Staff reporters Alexa Hyland, Richard Clough and Francisco Vara-Orta contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].
