While most people only dream about flying above L.A. traffic, Michael Root does so regularly.
The chief technology officer of Santa Monica’s DogVacay, an online pet-sitter listing site, has been flying small Cessna single-propeller planes for about 20 years, often as a means to avoid traffic snarls on his way to golf in Palm Springs or hit the slopes in Mammoth.
“To me, it’s really a way to get out of town,” he said. “If you are going to live in L.A., you have to structure a way that you can enjoy it and still have fun.”
Root flies about once every two weeks out of Torrance’s Zamperini Field, which is close to his home in Hermosa Beach. When he’s not flying inland, he sometimes rents the small planes and pilots them out to sea.
“It’s fun to fly to Catalina Island, have lunch, and come back,” he said, noting that the island’s airstrip is perched atop a 1,600-foot mountain. “When you are coming in the first time you don’t think there’s a long enough runway. And, it’s on the side of the mountain with a cliff on each side.”
In fact, in 1985 a private jet fell over a 90-foot bluff on the far end of the island airstrip, killing all six people aboard.
“Flying to me is all about managing risk,” said Root, noting that he diligently prepares for his flights. “If you follow the right process, you are going to be successful.”
Music No Joke
Jimmy Chai is not a professional musician. But on a recent Friday night he found himself singing and playing guitar at an open-mic event downtown in front of 200 people crowded into an Arts District warehouse. And even though he forgot some of his lines, he was still glad he got up on stage to sing Howie Day’s “Collide.”
“You can’t expect things to be perfect – it’s about how you recover that’s important,” he said. “The whole purpose was to get me out of my comfort zone.”
Chai, 39, a director at real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield downtown, began performing stand-up at open mics about a year ago after taking improv and stand-up classes at Second City. He found the comedic routines more stimulating than Toastmasters presentations, and developed better confidence when speaking with clients and colleagues. That’s particularly important in real estate, an industry built on networking, personal relationships, and pitch meetings. A couple of weeks ago, Chai helped broker the sale of the Arclight Hollywood Parking Structure, an asset held by the former Community Redevelopment Agency, for $50 million.
“You don’t want your fear of talking in front of people to be the reason a client doesn’t select you,” Chai said. “If I can succeed in making people laugh, then public speaking should be not a problem. You shoot for the stars; you land on the moon.”
Although Chai usually performs stand-up – not music – on L.A.’s open-mic circuit, he decided to push himself to try something new for the recent performance.
“That was a real stretch for me, because I never sing in public,” he said. “I feel good that I even attempted it.”
Staff reporters Garrett Reim and Daina Beth Solomon contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Jonathan Diamond. He can be reached at [email protected].
