Forum/dp1st/mark2nd
If someone asked 20 years ago what your life would be like today, what would you have said? Back then, some people predicted that robots would be packing our groceries and doing our laundry. Few anticipated the omnipresence of computers and cell phones. So, as part of our 20th anniversary report, the Business Journal asks:
How has your life changed in the past 20 years?
Erin Lareau
Costume Designer
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Twenty years ago I was a professional dancer on the “Midnight Special” TV show on the same stage where I now do costumes. But it came time to change. Now, I love the cordless phone, because I love to walk and talk. I hated being chained to the phone. I also adore the fax machine no more driving across town in the heat to deliver a piece of paper. And I love sending photos through the computer. With all these things, I can keep my full-time job and launch my own design business at the same time.
Wade Bourne
Senior Vice President
East West Bank Commercial Services Group
I’m the same guy that I was in 1979. Everything’s changed around me, starting with my own neighborhood. I used to live in a small, obscure L.A. village. Now everyone knows Brentwood. I still have the same checking account I had in 1973. But the bank that owns it has changed four times. I finally opened a checking account at East West Bank when I went to work there. East West has been around for 25 years. I’d say that’s a long time for a Los Angeles bank, except that I have suits that are older. After all, I’m a banker. Some things never change.
Stuart Halperin
Executive Vice President & Co-Founder
Hollywood.com
In 1979 I was still in high school in Brooklyn. When I first went to college, everything was just typewriters. Then when I went to grad school we had computers. I moved to L.A. in 1990 to seek out opportunities in the movie business, worked for a few movie studios, and started Hollywood Online in 1993.
Dick Helgeson
Supervising City Attorney
Los Angeles Harbor Division
The technology (changes) have been dizzying, with the advent of all the new software. But the policy decisions you have to make are far more ambiguous, more complicated, not as clearly defined. In the early ’70s, I started out as a prosecutor. In those days either the defendant was guilty or not guilty. I have two careers, one is in the City Attorney’s Office where I’ve gone from deputy city attorney prosecutor, to managing assistant, to (supervising) the City Attorney’s harbor department. In my other career, I was an army lieutenant, now I’m a colonel. With every step, life becomes a lot more complicated.
Bill Sibley
Screenwriter
I’m in better shape. I’m healthier. I’m more spiritual. I am more forgiving of everybody else and harder on myself. And I know so little about everything that I was so knowledgeable about 20 years ago.
Jonathan Elias
Anchorman
KCBS-TV Channel 2 News
How hasn’t it changed? In 20 years, I got out of school and started working in a career I didn’t intend. I wanted to fly jets in the Air Force, but that didn’t work out as well. I’ve traveled the country Birmingham, Sacramento, Minneapolis, and back to Los Angeles. When I first started, we were banging away on typewriters Liquid Paper didn’t quite do the trick when you made a mistake. With the advent of computers, it expedited getting the script on air. But the highest point has been the birth of my two children. I married my high school sweetheart. We’ve known each other since we were 2 years old.
LisaRaye
Actress
“The Wood”
Many life experiences have helped me mature. I’m wiser because I’m more absorbent than when I was younger. I’ve learned to be a sponge, and I’m spiritually in touch with myself. I’ve learned that life experiences demand maturity.
