NEWSMAKERS

0

NEWSMAKERS

Accounting Firm Builds Real Estate Unit

Looking to expand its real estate business, Rothstein Kass & Co. has promoted Scott Farb to partner in charge of its national real estate and commercial practice.

Farb, based in the accounting firm’s Beverly Hills offices, said the firm has moved quickly to build the practice, which he said complements its ongoing work with investment, private equity and hedge funds.

“There is crossover in a lot of different areas, in accounting and tax issues,” he said. “Real estate is very similar to forming opportunity funds.”

Farb, who joined the firm from Ernst & Young late last year with the intention of building its real estate business, said Rothstein Kass had in the last couple of months added a number of senior executives from the Big Four accounting firms to work toward that goal.

“It used to be that the smaller national firms like ourselves competed with Big 5, going after the same marketplace,” he said. But with the demise of Arthur Andersen and the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Law tightening reporting requirements for public companies, “the Big 4 are more focused on very large public companies, so the middle market opportunity is essentially in the real estate market,” he said.

Rothstein Kass had what Farb called a “relatively small” real estate practice at the time he joined, “but the firm brought me in to build it into a well known boutique, kind of like what we have on the private equity side.”

A native of Oceanside, N.Y., Farb came to L.A. in 1979, working with Kenneth Leventhal & Co., which was merged into Ernst & Young in 1995.

He lives in Pacific Palisades with his wife and young son.

Jonathan Diamond

Advertising/Public Relations

William Ostedt has been promoted to senior account manager at Pollack PR Marketing Group in Century City. Ostedt, who has been at Pollack for four years, previously was a primary account manager and supervises the Wham-O Toys, Rain Bird Corp. and Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Association accounts.

Keisha Manns Curiel has been promoted to vice president/account director at LAGRANT Communications, a Los Angeles advertising, marketing and public relations firm specializing in the African American and Hispanic markets. Her responsibilities will range from managing the California State Lottery account to taking a role in the firm’s new business development. Curiel previously was an account director at the firm.

Inter/Media, an Encino-based direct-response advertising agency, has hired three new staff members. Larry Bickel joins as traffic supervisor and Andrew Broussard and Charmaine Wash as media buyers. All three will work on all of the agency’s accounts including Ditech.com, the U.S. Army and Public Storage. Bickel was most recently at Deutsch Inc. handling traffic on the Mitsubishi Motors account. Brousard was account supervisor/media buyer for Janik & Associates. Wash was a media buyer with Mercury Media.

Thomas Hallgren has been named creative director at Nostrum Advertising, a full-service agency offering motion graphics, print, Web, TV, radio and direct mail advertising services. Hallgren had most recently been a freelance creative director in New York, providing creative and art direction to numerous clients in the corporate and entertainment industries.

Banking and Finance

U.S. Bank has named 10 new members to its newly created regional bank board. The members are Joya De Foor, treasurer of the City of Los Angeles; Winston Doby, vice president of educational outreach at the University of California; Linda Griego, founder and managing partner of Engine Co. No. 28 and president of Zapgo Entertainment Group; David Hannah, chief executive officer of Reliance Steel & Aluminum Company; Bob Howard, senior managing director of the investment bank Houlihan, Lokey, Howard & Zukin; Tom O’Malia, director of the Center for Distance Learning at the University of Southern California; Wes Parker, speaker and former first baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers; Tom Phelps, partner in the law firm Manatt Phelps Phillips; Larry Thomas, chairman and co-chief executive officer of Guitar Center, Inc.; and Brett White, president of CB Richard Ellis, Inc.

Education

Suzanne Lacy is the new chair of the school of fine arts at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. Lacy, an artist and writer, was Dean of Fine Arts at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland where she was the founding director of the Center for Art and Public Life.

Janet Pucino has joined the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena as senior vice president and chief technology officer. She was most recently vice president of information technology architecture and planning for Warner Bros studios.

Financial

Marshall Schlimer has been appointed a partner in Deloitte & Touche’s Pacific Southwest financial services practice in Los Angeles. He will help develop a financial industry regulatory services practice to assist clients in responding to new regulations regarding money laundering and foreign asset reporting. He has transferred from the company’s Tokyo office.

Health Care

Bertle D. Hansen III has been appointed associate director of major gifts for the Los Angeles Orthopaedic Hospital Foundation where he will work with frequent donors and oversee planned donations to the foundation, which oversees fundraising for the Los Angeles hospital. Hansen has more than 20 years of grant writing and fundraising experience for both non-profits and businesses. He most recently was vice president and regional site manager, Southern California, for Caelum Research Corp.

Dr. Alexander R. Lampone has been named medical director of Medex, a Los Angeles health care organization certified by the state to provide medical services to workers injured on the job. Lampone formerly was medical director of the emergency department at St. John’s Medical Center in Santa Monica.

Dr. John Mazziotta has been named chair of the Department of Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Mazziotta will supervise 222 academic and 234 staff personnel and more than a dozen research, clinical and teaching programs. He is a professor of neurology, radiological sciences and medical and molecular pharmacology and director of the UCLA Brain Mapping Center. He joined the UCLA faculty in 1983.

Dennis A. Hunt is the new vice president of communications at the Calilfornia Endowment, a private statewide health foundation. He is responsible for all communications promoting the endowment’s mission of improving access to affordable health care for underserved communities. Prior to joining the endowment, Hunt served as chief operating officer and deputy campaign manager for the Richard Riordan gubernatorial campaign.

Vivian Chi has been named vice president of operations, and Gail Saitzyk has been appointed manager of business development at Meridian Health Care Management, a provider of outsourced managed care technology and administrative services. Chi, former vice president of financial operations at Health Net, will be responsible for claims processing and related operations. Saitzyk, former regional sales manager at OAO HealthCare Solutions, will be responsible for the creation and development of strategic business relationships and sales channels.

Non-Profit

Gov. Gray Davis has appointed Robert H. Lorsch of Los Angeles as a director of the California Science Center museum in Exposition Park. Lorsch is chief executive of RHL Group Inc., an investment and development firm for start-up companies. He is also a member of the California Science Center Foundation’s Board of Trustees.

Real Estate

The Corporate Services Division of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage of Greater Los Angeles has appointed Will Oglesby director of business development. Oglesby will aid companies considering a move to the Playa Vista master-planned community with relocation and home buying services. Oglesby formerly was a freelance executive coach.

Mark A. Rowson has been named president of Richmond American Homes Los Angeles division. He will be responsible for the company’s operations in Los Angeles and Ventura counties where it has 10 new-home communities under development. He was senior vice president of Richmond’s Northern California division, based in San Ramon.

Colliers Seeley International Inc. has appointed brokers Fred Cordova III and Matthew Sullivan to its investment services group in Los Angeles. The group offers services to clients seeking investments in office, retail, industrial and multi-family properties. Cordova formerly was with the investment division at Cushman & Wakefield. Sullivan was senior investment associate and director of Marcus & Millichap’s national office and industrial properties group.

Technology

Oberthur Card Systems has appointed Dave Abell director of its new equipment and systems engineering group where he will be responsible for product development. Oberthur makes “smart” credit cards that contain personalized information that can be used by companies to more accurately target marketing. Abell was vice president of corporate development at DeLaRue Card Systems.

Thomas Chen has been named president of Parasoft Asia, serving accounts in China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, India, Israel and Australia. Chen reports to Adam Kolawa, chief executive of Parasoft, a provider of automated error prevention software.

No posts to display