EDVARD PETTERSSON

Staff Reporter

Businesswoman, community leader and sometime government official, Linda Griego is virtually omnipresent in L.A.’s business community.

Her day job is running Engine Co. No. 28, the well-known downtown restaurant, but her community activities are extensive. She served as deputy mayor to Tom Bradley from 1991 to 1993 and was president and chief executive of Rebuild LA, a non-profit organization created in 1992 to facilitate the recovery of riot-torn parts of the city, from 1994 to 1997.

Currently, Griego is a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and on the board of Tokai Bank of California, where she chairs the retirement committee. In addition, she was appointed by President Clinton to the Nafta North American Development Bank Community Adjustment Committee, which is studying the effects of Nafta on some communities. She also serves on a variety of boards and councils.

Her latest business venture is in entertainment. She is president and chief executive of Griego Enterprises Inc., which develops and produces television programs. The company recently produced a pilot show aimed at the young Latino market.

Q: What do you think is the legacy of Rebuild LA?

A: Rebuild LA was an experiment, something that never had really been tried before in this country. It was a five-year mandate to get the private sector involved in rebuilding after the 1992 riots. I think our success was mixed. We were successful in some things. For example, we worked very hard to bring retail back and to rebuild supermarkets that had been damaged. We also were able to spearhead a new initiative to focus in on the existing businesses that were in the neighborhoods, which were mostly small manufacturers. And we tried to help this manufacturing base in a way that these entrepreneurs felt they needed the help.

It was not a top-down approach, but a rather bottom-up one. Rebuild LA linked the banking community and other financial institutions with local businesses, and that is something that continued to go beyond the life of Rebuild LA.

Q: Do you think the economic viability of the inner city is better now than, say, 10 years ago?

A: It is a very strong economic base. It is surprisingly strong and very vibrant. If you were to compare it to 10 years ago, there have been lots of changes and lots of growth. That is not to say that everything is perfect, but Los Angeles has been the number one manufacturing base in the country, over New York and Chicago, because of these neighborhoods.

Q: What are the main challenges for inner-city neighborhoods in the near term?

A: The major challenge is infrastructure. These are older neighborhoods, probably the oldest in Los Angeles, which means that a lot of the infrastructure the streets, the sewers, the lighting needs replacement. Unless you keep that up, it is hard, not just on the residential side, but on the industrial side, to stay competitive. Also, good schools are very important for neighborhoods to hold their value.

Q: A lot has been written about corporate flight creating a leadership vacuum in Los Angeles. Do you think that is the case?

A: I think that the leadership vacuum is being filled. With these mergers, for a period of time, we were losing corporate citizens like Arco and leaders like Lod Cook, who could be counted on at the drop of a dime. He was there for you, whether it was the civil unrest in ’92 or the library fire. He didn’t wait to be called. He was on the phone, saying to Tom Bradley or to whomever, “I’m available.” Today you don’t have the Lod Cooks calling, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t any kind of leadership.

Take, for one, Liam McGee, who is president of Bank of America in Southern California, and who is as much a leader as Lod Cook. And there are others. We had come to expect that corporations are community-based and very local, but today they are no longer local. So, there will be a different way of approaching the leaders and a different way of the leaders approaching the communities. For example, the head of American Express was out here, saying that Los Angeles is a very important market for them and that they intend to be a presence here and have their people be involved in the community.

Q: Do you think that is more than just talk?

A: The way you measure that is when you have an event and are selling tables, and American Express is there and buys five tables or is a sponsor. They are making their dollars known. In that case, you will know that it is more than just rhetoric.

Q: Do you have any political ambitions?

A: I will always be involved, but right now I don’t have any political aspirations. I’m so busy with the enterprises I’m involved with, I wish that there was more time in the day. I could do more, but I’m very pleased with the caliber of people that are getting involved in politics. For a while, similar to what happened in the corporate arena, there was a vacuum in leadership. It is no longer one good candidate and three mediocre candidates. Now, for the same office, you get three, four great candidates. So, in some ways you can say that if this one doesn’t win, then that one will, and that’s also good.

Q: How did you get involved in entertainment?

A: I became interested first of all as an investor, about a year ago, in what looked like a very interesting project doing Latino programming. I was excited about the possibility of doing programming, not only in Spanish, but also in English. As I looked into it, the more excited I got about doing an entertainment show an updated version of “American Bandstand,” Latino-style, with a lot of salsa and comedy.

Q: How is working in entertainment different from your other ventures, such as running a restaurant?

A: No doubt, it’s one of the toughest challenges I’ve run into. So much of what happens in the entertainment industry is based on relationships, and if you don’t have those relationships, it is hard to get a foot in the door. There is a lot of talk about creating local programming with local content, but a lot of it is lip service and not really concrete. The challenging part is being at the very beginning and trying to see if you’re someone who can make a difference in that industry, when on every door there is a sign that says “no.” But as an entrepreneur, I don’t know the meaning of “no.”

Q: You have an incredibly busy schedule. How do you juggle all your responsibilities and functions?

A: I’m a very high-energy person. My day starts at 6 a.m. and I usually work until 8 in the evening. A lot of work I can do by conference calls and using e-mail. I used to have a hard time saying no to things, but I’m getting better at that. For example, I use the evenings for winding down and relaxation. I only go to one black-tie event every two weeks now, whereas before I went to three or four every week. I do work on Saturdays, but Sundays I reserve for social and family stuff.

Q: Are you still involved on daily basis in the running of the restaurant?

A: The food business is in my blood. I worked, from the time I was around 13, in a bakery in a small town in New Mexico, and before that in my uncle’s grocery store. So I grew up around food, and I know it inside out. I probably spend about 10 to 15 hours a week on the restaurant, depending on where we are in the quarter, but I never relinquished any of the financial responsibilities. That’s something that I stay right on top of. I know my cash flow by the day.

Q: Have you thought about opening other locations?

A: I always look for good opportunities for expansion, but it has to be the right kind of expansion. I tried a few years ago. I opened a restaurant called the Red Car Grill in West Hollywood, and it was not successful. It’s very difficult when you try very hard to make something work and it doesn’t work. There were a lot of reasons that I can think that I should have waited a year or two years, but you take advantage of the opportunities as they come. Sometimes they’re going to work and sometimes they’re not.