For chambers of commerce, spring is the peak travel season, when business groups large and small head to Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to lobby elected officials. “We talk with them about whatever issues are current for us at that time,” said Tinalyn Firestone, executive director of the Woodland Hills-Tarzana Chamber of Commerce, one of several area chambers heading to Sacramento May 21 as part of the California Business Legislative Summit hosted by the California Chamber. Among the most extensive lobbying efforts currently planned locally is by the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce, which is taking 25 members to Washington, D.C., for a three-day trip starting April 14. President Larry Mankin said the chamber has set up 20 to 30 meetings with federal agencies, committee staff and Congressional members. The goal is to solicit funds for roads, water, education and workforce development issues. Mankin said the meetings help connect issues with real-life businesses and residents. “We put a face on a request,” he said. “There are very few chambers that do this. There’s a fear of dealing with Washington.” U.S Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, whose district includes Santa Clarita, agreed that face-to-face meetings with constituents let him better grasp what’s happening at the community level. That’s not always possible, he said. “It’s a good chance for me to sit down and talk about their issues. I’m looking forward to it,” McKeon said. McKeon’s office is also setting up discussions with other elected officials on committees that deal with important issues specific to Santa Clarita, such as transportation. McKeon said such interaction with a variety of congressional representatives helps both sides understand where they stand. “It’s a win-win,” he said.

The Air Group has expanded its fleet of planes at Van Nuys Regional Airport. The company added a 14-seat Gulfstream G550 and Legacy 600, two mid-sized planes that can accommodate more than a dozen passengers each. The planes will be based at Van Nuys; the company also added a Falcon 50 aircraft for its operations in Reno, Nev. Air Group President and CEO Jon R. Winthrop said expanding the fleet makes sense economically as the business experiences growth. “The trend toward private jet ownership continues strong,” he said. “With the economy growing stronger every month and commercial airline travel more difficult and unpredictable, we expect 2007 will be a banner year for private jet sales and chartering.” The Legacy is a mid-sized jet that can seat 13 and travel more than 3,000 miles. The Gulfstream has a maximum range of 6,000 miles and can hold 14 passengers. It is the latest of several additions to The Air Group fleet in recent months. The company, which has operations in eight cities and in Japan, last year added a Challenger and Citation SII in Van Nuys. The Air Group broke ground last month on a new private jet terminal and corporate headquarters at Van Nuys. The complex will include an 86,000-square-foot hangar and maintenance center and approximately 12,000 square feet of office space. The company is also building a new East Coast terminal in New Jersey slated to open this month. , Chris Coates

Countrywide Financial Corp. was caught in the downwind today as mortgage lender stocks slid. Shares in Countrywide closed at $35.20, down nearly 5 percent from the opening price of $37.20. The sector’s performance mostly reflected continued bad news in the subprime lending market, where delinquencies are rising and some lenders have issued warnings about their performance. New Century Financial Corp. in Irvine led Wall Street’s decline today, with shares losing 60 percent of their value on news that New Century is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Central District of California.

Felix Lopez is seated at a table so far to the back of the restaurant that he is practically in the kitchen, but a steady stream of patrons finds him anyway, and he is interrupted continually as they stop by to say hello. It is only three weeks since his new Glendale restaurant, Sabor, opened, and yet the visitors all seem as if they’ve known the local entrepreneur for years. Many have. Lopez himself has been a staple in the local Hispanic community since the acquisition of his first Latin bakery and caf & #233;, La Adelita, in 1994. Since then, La Adelita Food Company Inc., which Lopez likes to call the “7-Eleven of tortillas” has grown to four locations with plans to open several more. Now, with partner Luis Rodriguez and his son Andy recently graduated from Pepperdine University, Lopez has expanded into his first, full-service restaurant, a large open space just across the way from the Nestle building on Brand Avenue. Lopez had been eyeing the location for three years. When its former owner finally decided to sell, another buyer got to the table first. But that deal fell through, giving Lopez his opportunity. “You get a corner. You get all the windows, and I knew this place was going to be a key factor,” he said. “There was a need for a Cuban restaurant, but also it was a dream of mine to have the best looking Cuban restaurant.” Lopez, who left Cuba in 1967 and moved first to Madrid before coming to the States, grew up in the restaurant business his parents opened one of the first Cuban restaurants in L.A. But he had different ambitions, rising to become director of sales for a region that stretched from South America to Canada at Domecq. When the distiller was acquired and its headquarters moved to Detroit, Lopez chose to stay in L.A., and instead bought a 15-year-old tortilleria called La Adelita. “I used to fly in the front of the plane with my feet up, and now I was in the back of this bakery covered in flour,” he joked. He pumped $350,000 into the bakery, buying new machinery, renovating the d & #233;cor, and perhaps most important, changing the menu. “We did focus groups,” Lopez said. “One of the things we found out is the area changed, and we were selling Mexican food in an area where there were all Central Americans.” Another store Soon, a second store was added in Santa Monica, then in Pico Rivera and Grand Central Market. The stores range in size from 8,000 square feet to 2,500 square feet. Each offers about 50 different types of fresh bread and tortillas, pastries and steam tables of food, all made freshly on the premises. And each offers selections tailored to Mexican, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran or Guatemalan tastes depending on the ethnic makeup of the surrounding location. Lopez calls the little chain his “bread and butter. “We have a pretty good concept. I’m not afraid of any major supermarket because they’re not competition for me,” he said. But Lopez’s one expansion attempt in the San Fernando Valley did not turn out as planned. He lost nearly $200,000 on the tortilleria he opened in Sunland. “The location was not right. There was a lot of traffic, but there were not enough Hispanics and it was an industrial area,” Lopez said. “It took me a little time to recover.” When Lopez found the location for Sabor in Glendale, a short distance from many of L.A.’s Hispanic communities, he was confident it was the right one for his upscale restaurant concept. Miami connection But it took three trips to Miami, scouring the restaurants and knocking on doors until he found a chef who agreed to sign on. “I had to go there,” he said. “Where was I going to find a Cuban chef in L.A.?” Although L.A. has a number of Cuban restaurants, most are small and very casual. Sabor, decorated with original artwork and designed in a contemporary, open style, with live music on the weekends, is considerably more elegant. While the menu has a decided Cuban influence with traditional dishes like black beans and rice, fried plantains and Cuban sandwiches, the offerings also contain a mix of foods that also include paella and ceviche, what the owners call Latin fusion. “You have a little of everywhere,” said Andy Lopez. “People are afraid to try different things. By fusing the food, you can order the Chicken Madera and if the person next to you is having something else, you will taste it. So I gear the menu to touch all the bases.” Lopez estimates there are some 200,000 Cubans in L.A. But he says the majority of his customers are not ethnic at all. “Eighty percent of my business is Anglos,” the elder Lopez said. Visitors immediately notice the variety of the menu. “Every plate had a base of Cuban food, but there were Colombian items, Puerto Rican, a lot of different cultures,” said Vladimir Victorio, senior vice president for specialized lending services at Mission Valley Bank who is of Colombian descent. “There are so many different types of Latinos in L.A. He’s not really going after one particular market, but he’s creating a broad Latino feeling.”

When members of the Visual Effects Society gather for their annual awards show, the toughest part of the night isn’t getting the winners to keep their acceptance speeches short but getting them into the venue to begin with. Dressed in their finest evening wear, the men and women okay, mainly men whose skills with a computer create a charging dinosaur, an alien planet or a capsizing ship will talk with each other. And talk, and talk and talk. “It happens every year the same way,” said society Executive Director Eric Roth. “Our members don’t get a chance to be with each other all that often.” Not a union or a guild, the Encino-based VES is a professional society entering its 10th year of service to the artists creating the effects, the educators training the artists, and other entertainment industry professionals giving their support. Its 1,500 members are scattered around the globe for creating visual effects is a high tech venture that need not be chained to Hollywood. An actor, director and cinematographer need to be on a movie set or television shoot. The visual effects artist can be a half world away pecking away at a computer keyboard to bring to life a planet a million miles away or a world that doesn’t even exist. It’s a role, said society board chairman Jeff Okun, which used to be filled by science fiction writers and inventors but now filled by himself and his colleagues. “We make something tangible and visible that used to be imaginative,” Okun said. “We’re implanting in the minds of the young they can create something new.” For all the attention their work receives, an inferiority complex exists about where visual effects artists rank in the entertainment industry chain. Okun said effects artists are seen as the “interlopers” taking away jobs on movie sets. Roth sees the artists as working on an uneven playing field and not receiving the credit for the work that they do. One issue of importance to the society is standardizing titles in film and television credits. Another is outsourcing of jobs overseas and educating the members on how to deal with emerging markets and make themselves valuable to those markets. What the society allows its membership to do is speak with one voice on those issues, said Roth, who was appointed executive director three years ago. Much of what the society brings its members is camaraderie; the utilizing of resources and expertise that each can give one another. “They wanted to come together to network, to be part of a brethren,” Roth said. While not a founding member, Okun has been in the society since it started. A visual effects artist for nearly 30 years, he is an independent contractor as is about 40 percent of the membership. He most recently did effects for the Warner Bros. Studios release “Blood Diamond.” As it has no collective bargaining power to get its member residuals or health benefits, what the society can do is provide the opportunity for its members to learn from each other and improve their skills through seminars and events such as the “Show and Tell” during which nominees for the VES Awards tell how they did a particular effect. Last year, the society embarked on a new training and mentoring program for college students funded through a $5,000 grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. While visual effects practitioners use state of the art equipment to create their images, the society has not turned its back on the past and those artists who came before. A traveling or permanent museum may be in the society’s future, Okun said. Craig Barron, a Northern California-based artist and society member, is engaged in rescuing mattes and models used in films. Videotaped interviews with older artists have also been done so that their knowledge is not lost. “We’re trying to build a body of information that will allow people to see that we are part of the industry and we’re not just the geeks standing on the side watching the big boys play,” Okun said.

When Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced in December that he was extending the Hollywood enterprise zone to include Pacoima, many in the business community were relieved. The northeast Valley had lost its zone a month earlier, along with all of the important economic incentives, tax credits and financial assistance that went with it. Schwarzenegger’s action was seen as a reprieve, but it also had an unforeseen side effect: by connecting the Hollywood zone to Pacoima, businesses in well-to-do areas in between such as Studio City and West Toluca Lake were suddenly made privy to a wide assortment of financial incentives intended for businesses in economically distressed areas. “It came absolutely as a surprise,” said Tony Safoian, president of the Universal City North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, who was unaware of the new incentives before an official from the city Community Development Department called earlier this year. More than two months later, however, many qualified businesses are still in the dark about the enterprise zone program and are missing out on thousands of dollars in lucrative incentives. “I had no idea,” said Rodger Boaz, owner of L.B.M. Products Inc., a small tool and die shop on a portion of Chandler Boulevard in North Hollywood that is part of the new zone. Boaz, whose family has owned L.B.M. for 50 years, said he’s never heard of the program but was interested in how it could benefit his five-employee shop. “It depends on what it entails,” he said. “If it could help my business, yes. I’d just like to know what it includes.” Renewed zone The state created the enterprise zone program in 1986 to boost businesses in underserved or economically stagnant areas by giving companies up to $35,000 in employee tax credits, expense deductions, sales tax credits and reduced utility fees. The Pacoima zone was granted in 1986 and is credited with improving the climate for small businesses. The state, however, said the renewal application submitted last year by the Community Development Department failed to show the area was under economic distress and was ultimately denied. After a flurry of resistance from business interests, Schwarzenegger stepped in and tacked on Pacoima to the existing Hollywood zone, which encompasses a large swath of the L.A. basin from just southwest of downtown north to Silverlake and west to Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Schwarzenegger’s move extends the zone further north and west through the Cahuenga Pass and along a mostly rectangle-shaped section between Tujunga and Vineland avenues to Sherman Way. The zone then fans out to roughly Kester Avenue, stretching northeast to include Sylmar and Pacoima and wrapping north around the city of San Fernando. The reconfigured boundaries add several areas not part of the first enterprise zone, including large chunks of Sun Valley, Arleta, Panorama City, North Hollywood and portions of Studio City, West Toluca Lake and Van Nuys. “This is all new,” said Clifford J. Weiss, a deputy director in the Community Development Department, pointing to a map of the new zones at an event last month. “There are thousands of businesses in there that could benefit from this.” Despite that possible impact, however, chamber officials and businesses say the city has made only limited efforts to get the word out about the zone and have scheduled no workshops in the Valley. For the moment, the Community Development Department is participating in some forums hosted by business groups and chambers of commerce, such as the one earlier this year by the Universal City North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Safoian said about 30 businesses participated, some of whom applied for credits right away. Still, he questions whether the city and the chamber are helping businesses enough, especially with something that could so clearly benefit bottom lines. “I don’t know how well organized (the city is) on a mass scale informing people the enterprise zone has changed,” he said. “But I wish they were doing some footwork in these neighborhoods.” Chamber not told Richard Bogy, president of the Toluca Lake Chamber of Commerce, said his chamber was never told by the city that a portion of its coverage area was part of the new zone a portion of Lankershim Boulevard near Camarillo Street. “We found it and then went to them and said ‘tell us about it’,” he said. The chamber discovered about 25 businesses could benefit, and it held a meeting last week. “We’re lucky that that corridor was needed to connect the two sides,” he said. Bogy chided the city for staying silent too long about who could benefit. “We told them they need to do a better job initiating discussions,” he said. Weiss defended the city, saying they want to help and are planning a workshop in the Valley in the fall. The department also has a feature on its website that allows property owners to determine if they are in an enterprise zone. “We’re trying to get the word out,” he said, adding later, “We have a small staff and have to get around the entire city.” Regardless, Bogy said the city has the responsibility to tell businesses. It has to step up. “It doesn’t matter. Someone tell us,” he said.

Wells Fargo is moving to grab a larger share of the commercial banking market as Santa Clarita continues to expand its population of businesses. The Wells California Business Banking group has opened a business banking office in the city, moving the base of operations serving Santa Clarita closer to the core of activity. “We have watched more and more businesses move into the Santa Clarita marketplace, and we find a lot more of our business opportunity is occurring in that marketplace,” said Roc Caldarone, CBB regional manager for the San Fernando Valley, Pacific Coast and Santa Clarita regions. The new Wells office opens with six employees including commercial loan officers and business deposit consultants. The office targets businesses in the $2 million to $20 million range, which officials say can be best served by some of the products Wells offers. “One of our customers had warehouses located in several different areas of the county with inventory all over the place,” said Caldarone. “We were able to help him finance a new, larger building in Santa Clarita that allowed him to consolidate these facilities and you can imagine the savings in time, logistics and money.” Santa Clarita’s growth has made the area especially attractive to banks, particularly in comparison to business growth in the San Fernando Valley and other parts of Los Angeles County. The region is expected to add 4,300 to 5,100 jobs per year between 2006 and 2010, a growth rate averaging 4.6 percent to 5.7 percent compared to 0.6 percent to 0.7 percent for the rest of L.A. county. By 2010, Santa Clarita could have the largest concentration of businesses in Southern California, according to some estimates. But that growth potential has not gone unnoticed. In the past year, at least four banks have either started up or opened new branches in the Santa Clarita Valley, most catering to businesses in the small to mid-size range. Wells officials acknowledge that the competition has grown fierce in the area, but they say that the company is well equipped to stand out. The bank is already familiar with the region the business bank was first established in the San Fernando Valley in 1996 and has already been providing services to Santa Clarita businesses through that office. At the same time, officials said, the Wells portfolio of services will also help it to compete. “Wells has over 84 business lines available,” said Caldarone. “We also see ourselves as financial consultants. We are also the entry point in helping clients satisfy other banking needs too. Think of the convenience of being able to satisfy your personal and business banking needs with one company,” Caldarone added. “We think that will also separate us from the competition.”

A group of Woodland Hills businessmen is organizing a savings and loan expected to be located in North Hollywood to serve the Hispanic market. Banco Unido in organization has most of its financing lined up and expects to file its application in coming months, the executives said. If it proceeds, the bank would be one of the few de novo thrifts to open in recent years and, according to some, at the cutting edge of a trend to gear savings and loans to specific ethnic markets. “If I was an investor looking at that, I would jump all over it,” said Michael Raab, an analyst with SNL Financial who was speaking generally about the Banco Unido business model and was not familiar with the bank’s organizers. “I think investors are very intrigued by banks servicing an ethnic population.” The organizers of Banco Unido are Bill J. Anz and Francisco J. Martin, co-founders and CEO and CFO respectively of Azure Group, an investment banking firm in Warner Center, and Peter C.K. Judar, who co-founded and serves as managing director for Azure’s wealth management unit. Founded in 2002 as an investment advisory group, Azure later added broker/dealer, mortgage lending and other real estate, legal and advisory services. “We came into the mortgage business with a unique application,” said Anz. “We offered subprime mortgages and carried our own second. As we did that, we noticed a lot of our borrowers were Hispanic and we saw a huge gap in banking products for that group.” The business more recently transitioned from subprime lending to so-called Alt A mortgage lending, a segment that caters to borrowers who are still considered higher risk, but not so risky as subprime borrowers. Then, with the firm’s experience and access to capital, the three began about one-and a-half years ago to organize the bank. Investor groups The organizers say they have lined up three significant investor groups and some individual investors to raise an expected $20 million to open the bank. The board would be composed entirely of Hispanics, most of which the organizers say they have already identified. They expect to choose a CEO in coming weeks and, with a chief executive on board, will file their application with the Office of Thrift Supervision. If all goes as planned, the organizers said, Banco Unido would open in the third or fourth quarter of this year. Their choice of chartering as a savings and loan seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom. The stigma of the S & L; crisis of the 80s still lingers, and a mere 12 de novo institutions organized as thrifts last year, a fraction of the banks that organized with a bank charter. At the same time, the recent slowdown in the real estate market suggests that the current climate may not be the most advantageous for a new thrift. “People are waiting to see how the real estate market plays out,” said Roberto Barragan, president of the Valley Economic Development Center. “Most of the business plans I’ve seen out there have been business oriented banks because, with the wave of bank acquisitions, there are fewer community banks to serve business needs. I see no one talking about the fact that there is not enough mortgage lending out there.” But the Banco Unido executives figure that organizing as a thrift, with its focus on residential real estate loans, simplified charter requirements in comparison to bank charters and flexibility to operate across state lines, would make the most sense for their business model. “Homeownership within the Hispanic community is something we understand very well,” said Martin. “We understand the risk associated with it, and it’s crucial to have an institution that understands our business model.” Thrifts, despite their stigma, have been performing relatively well. According to the Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulates the industry, net income grew to $15.9 billion industry-wide in 2006 from $14 billion in 2004, although performance has moderated somewhat from 2005. At the same time, the thrifts themselves have been modifying their business models, adding multifamily properties to their lending portfolio. “We’re seeing premium valuations placed on thrifts with a diversified portfolio,” Raab said. The organizers said that their mortgage lending experience pointed up a need in the market that they believe will set Banco Unido apart. “Automatically, if you are Hispanic, there is a disadvantage when it comes to pricing,” said Martin, who is of Spanish descent but was raised in Switzerland. He added that his experience shows Hispanics pay mortgage rates anywhere between one point and one-and one-quarter points higher than Anglos with the same FICA score. Banco Unido already has established relationships with mortgage brokers and other third party providers such as CPAs that the organizers believe will help it to market to the Hispanic community. “I can take my footprint and put it into specific neighborhoods and custom tailor my approach to each one,” Anz said. That way, the three say, they can capture the different Hispanic submarkets in a way that large banks, with cookie cutter programs, cannot.

The line of succession was in place at Sun Quest Executive Air Charter the morning of Jan. 12. Frank Kratzer, a retired airline pilot, ran the day-to-day operations of the charter service company he co-founded in 1992. But it was understood that Mark Smith, a Los Angeles Police officer who serves as company president, would eventually assume Kratzer’s role. “It happened sooner than anybody here had wanted it to happen that’s for sure,” Smith said. Kratzer and Fernando “Chris” Fernandez were killed that morning when the twin-engine Cessna Citation they were aboard crashed shortly after take off at Van Nuys Airport. Initially, the company saw a drop off in business but it gradually returned. The other Cessna Citation kept in the hangars has been permanently grounded by agreement with its owner until the conclusion of the investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. Internally, Smith reviewed the company’s safety standards and found nothing wrong. The real challenge facing the firm in the days and weeks after Kratzer’s death was that of guiding the company’s future and keeping up employee morale. The employees captains, first officers, mechanics, a dispatcher, office help — were unsure of the direction the company would take. To reassure them, Smith said he announced his retirement from the LAPD, where he spent many years as a detective and then later as a chopper pilot. That became the message from Sun Quest: We are here and not going anywhere. “We have 15 years invested of safe flight for southwest passengers,” Smith said. “We are committed to the company and committed to safety.” At a memorial service for Kratzer, mourners were asked to stand if they had been taught how to fly by Kratzer, a 30-year veteran of commercial aviation. Half the audience stood. Smith numbers himself among those who learned flying under Kratzer’s direction at the aviation school he started at Whiteman Airport in Pacoima. The pair hit it off and stated buying planes together. Their first was a piston twin engine used to shuttle visiting Japanese tourists to the Grand Canyon. After starting Sun Quest in 1992, Kratzer stopped instructing at the flight school and didn’t spend nearly as much time there as before. His wife Joanne took over the daily operations as Kratzer busied himself with the air charter service. Her husband had no plans to retire from Sun Quest, that he would keep flying as long as he was found medically fit to do so, Joanne Kratzer said. In December, Kratzer had a medical exam that he “passed with flying colors” and left the results for her to see on the kitchen counter, she said. “He took no medications for anything,” Joanne Kratzer added. “He was a healthy 72 years old that’s for sure.” A preliminary report by the NTSB made no indication pilot error led to the crash. Witnesses to the crash told investigators that they saw dark objects falling from the plane just before it crashed, although a check of the crash site found no “loose objects.” The report also found that “examination of the front left baggage door indicated that the key mechanism was in the unlocked position.” Kratzer and Fernandez were on their way to Long Beach to pick up passengers before continuing to Arizona. Shortly after takeoff, Kratzer and Fernandez radioed the control tower of an emergency and said they needed to return and banked right before the plane plummeted to the ground and exploded into flames. “We don’t know what happened,” Smith said. “I fly that plane too and I don’t understand what happened.” Smith was on a flight to Puerto Vallarta when the crew was notified there had been an emergency at the charter company. Smith who was on vacation with his wife immediately returned to Los Angeles. “It was frustrating I could not be here until later in the day,” Smith said. Smith now has the title of director of operations, a Federal Aviation Administration required position. He ceded the position of chief pilot to one of the company’s Lear jet pilots. Sun Quest leases its hangar space from Aerolease West, adjacent to space used by The Air Group and nearby to Elite Aviation and the Castle & Cook fixed-base operation. The firm charters its own aircraft, provides planes to other operators and rents space to offset the cost of their lease. Smith is moving ahead with expansion plans that had been in the works prior to Kratzer’s death. He is negotiating to add another plane that would require the hiring of two additional crew members, Smith said.

Dr. Marc Kerner says he was one of the first doctors in the Valley 12 years ago to see Botox in a new light. Back then, the material was mostly used to treat facial muscle spasms. But Kerner, a former chief of surgery of Northridge Hospital’s Roscoe campus, thought the substance could also be used to fix, or at least lessen, a common worry: looking old. “People were doing Botox for medical reasons,” he said. “I was doing it for cosmetic reasons.” Kerner seized on to Botox and other cosmetic procedures to build Dermatique Medical Center for Advanced Skincare, a quickly growing medical spa he branded four years ago in an Encino high-rise. The business specializes in non-surgical cosmetic procedures, such as microdermabrasion, fat grafting and something called photofacials, a pulsed light treatment that reduces damaged skins. Treatments range from a $200 underarm laser hair reduction to a set of five skin-tightening procedures for $4,500. Despite the considerable investments, as many as 30 patients come to the 15-employee office each day and his client list tops well over 1,000. Kerner, who still maintains clinical rounds at several Valley hospitals and has a Northridge office, in 2004 also created his own skincare line, B & #237;o Q & #237;. More accepted Kerner said the success the company boasts a compound revenue growth of 20 percent for the past three years is due in large part to his clients trusting him and the product he delivers. It doesn’t hurt that cosmetic procedures are much more mainstream than in previous years, even for men. “It’s much more accepting of men to have the procedures now,” he said. The concept has taken off so much that Kerner is planning to expand, opening locations in Westlake Village and possibly in Beverly Hills. “We’re really growing,” he said. “It’s the perfect time.” Kerner is tapping into a quickly expanding spa industry, which contributed nearly $10 billion to the economy, according to the International Spa Association. Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Lloyd M. Krieger has worked with Kerner for years and credited his accomplishments to a highly nuanced business sensibility. “He’s extremely involved and sets the agenda for the entire spa,” said Krieger, who is partnering with Kerner on the proposed Beverly Hills location. “He’s not an absentee medical director. The key is return customers.” Valley boy Kerner grew up in Woodland Hills and received training in medicine and plastic surgery at USC in 1989 and UCLA in 1995. Initially, he specialized exclusively in head and neck surgery, particularly rhinoplasties and reconstructive surgeries. He opened his own office in Encino about 12 years ago. Then came Botox and Kerner recognized a need for clinics that offered noninvasive cosmetic procedures directly under a doctor’s care. At the time, Botox was just catching on and was being injected in storefront clinics by untrained nurses. (Under California law, Botox and other cosmetic procedures can be injected by nurses under the supervision of a doctor.) Kerner said he wanted to change that image and opened Dermatique. “We were trying to keep it safe. There are those horror stories,” Kerner said, adding later that he has some patients who come to him after having poor results from other clinics. “They’ve had some mishaps.” He picked Encino because it could tap into customers from the Valley and the Westside. Today, his clients come as far away as Santa Clarita. “We get people from all over,” he said. In recent years, he’s seen a significant rise in the number of clients from far western Los Angeles County, which prompted him to leasing space at 869 North Hampshire Road in Westlake Village for a second location. The project will cost about $500,000 $260,000 of it on new equipment and will open in the fall. “We’d like it soon, but you know how that goes,” Kerner said. He said his business plan is simple: expand slowly and gain name brand recognition. In a sea of other spas, it’s the best way, he said. “You have to distinguish yourself with quality,” Kerner said. “Our goal is to play by the rules, establish a brand named that won’t be an overnight success and gone the next day. We want to be here a while.” SPOTLIGHT Dermatique Medical Center for Advanced Skincare Year Founded: 2003 Employees in 2006: 15 Employees in 2007 (estimated): 25 Revenues in 2005: $1.12 million Revenue in 2006: $1.44 million Driving Force: To provide clients with a safe, doctor-supervised location to receive noninvasive cosmetic procedures. Goal: To expand into key, growing markets.