Hitting the Half-Century Milestone …

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Louis Perry is open about what he loves, and that’s his family, religion and business. So for his 50th birthday, he brought them all together at a big bash in downtown Los Angeles on Feb. 19.

Attendees included Rabbi Moshe Greenwald of Chabad in downtown, and lots of clients of his private guard firm, Kadima Security Services. His wife, Paulina Perry, and his children were there, of course, and his brother and sister-in-law, Bill and Enaida Perry, came from Florida. Louis Perry got a little choked up when he introduced his “second mother,” Alty Sanchez, who came from his hometown of New York.

Perry also loves boxing, so he invited a ringful of pugilists. Among them: Danny “Little Red” Lopez, the former featherweight world champion; Paul Gonzales, flyweight gold medalist in L.A.’s 1984 Olympics; and Henry Tillman, ’84 heavyweight gold medalist.

Oh, and there’s one other thing the 300-pound Perry openly loves: food. “How many of you have been out to lunch or breakfast with me?” he asked the crowd of more than 100. More than half raised their hands.

Twiistup and Shout

Patrick Vlaskovits has started two companies and co-written a book about entrepreneurship. Now he can add event organizer to his resume.

Vlaskovits, 34, recently took control of Twiistup, a daylong conference held for the L.A. tech community. It was the first time that Vlaskovits, who’s between companies, organized the annual event, taking over for former Twiistup organizer Francisco Dao.

“Up until we finished, I was pretty stressed,” Vlaskovits said. “But I think it went well.”

For the Feb. 10 event, Vlaskovits brought in a number of speakers, including Amy Jo Kim, chief executive of Santa Monica online game company ShuffleBrain Inc., and angel investor Naval Ravikant.

Vlaskovits said he owes the success of Twiistup to all the people who helped him, including Atari founder Nolan Bushnell.

“There were a lot of moving parts and it was a challenge, but so many people reached out to help me,” he said. “We pulled together to make this a good event.”

Almost Perfect Timing

Los Angeles is known for blessed weather, but earlier this month, Susan Mallory came close to cursing it.

As president of Northern Trust’s Southern California operations, Mallory was essential in helping arrange the Northern Trust Open golf tournament. She worked closely with executive director and basketball legend Jerry West in bringing on a number of local charities, for which the tournament raised $1.5 million.

The tournament, at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, brought out scores of other prominent business leaders, including Northern Trust Chief Executive Rick Waddell.

But organizers were nervous about the weather. Forecasts called for a series of storms. But the timing of the storms seemed, well, blessed.

“The weather cooperated; it almost knew when we were going on the course and coming off the course,” she said. “There was a little bit of rain on the first day and then on Saturday as soon as the last group got off the course, it started to pour.”

Staff reporters Natalie Jarvey and Richard Clough contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].

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