Optical Communication Products, Inc., a Woodland Hills-based manufacturer of fiber optic subsystems and modules reported their first quarter results for the period ending December 31, 2005. The fiscal year ends September 20, 2006. Revenues for the first quarter of 2006 was $17.7 million, from $14 million in 2005, a 26 percent increase. The last fiscal year of 2005 saw only a 19.9 percent increase with $14.8 million. Net income for the first quarter of 2006 was $1.1 million versus a net loss of $31,000 for the same quarter in 2005. The earnings per diluted share remained the same since 2005 for the first quarter of 2006 at $0.01 The Company will discontinue its operations in its Broomfield, Colorado facility. The Company will no longer develop VCSEL technology, a type of fiber optic technology in favor of a more cost effective Fabry-Perot laser technology. In effect, this switch will save them approximately $500,000 to $1 million per quarter in the short-term.

Xnergy LLC, a Century City-based boutique investment banking firm, announced that it has acquired the Stonecutter Group, a Santa Clarita-based management and finance consulting firm. The acquisition and merger will combine the resources of two firms and will allow Xnergy to establish a foothold in the Santa Clarita Valley, company officials said. One of the results of the acquisition and a major reason for Xnergy’s purchase was to add Alan D. Lewis II to its management team as a partner, officials said. “The Stonecutter Group’s principal, Lewis has an impressive track record client base and network. He and I have worked together for almost a decade and when we met to discuss our merger, we knew it was long overdue,” Nia Stefany, the managing partner of Xnergy said in a prepared statement. “Our merger provides a valuable proposition, as our combined reach, knowledge base and resources will further enhance our ability to assist our clients with growing their businesses.” Lewis also said the merger will enhance the new company’s ability to grow its clients’ business, as well as enabling it to provide better financial and business advisory services to the Santa Clarita Valley.

Employers offering Blue Shield’s HMO or PPO plans to their employees received notice earlier this month that the health care provider would no longer be contracting with Providence Health System, which operates Providence Holy Cross Medical Center and Providence St. Joseph Medical Center due to failure to reach agreement on reimbursement rates. Providence officials said that members of Blue Shield’s 65 Plus plan will not be affected and United Health members who accessed Blue Shield’s PPO network will also be unaffected, as Providence reached a separate agreement with that company. In order to make sure its members continue to receive treatment, Blue Shield is directing St. Joseph’s patients to Glendale Memorial Hospital and Holy Cross patients to Northridge Hospital Medical Center or Valley Presbyterian Hospital. A letter from Blue Shield to employers dated January 3 said that HMO and PPO contracts were terminated effective January 1. “We understand this termination may be disruptive to you and your employees,” read the letter signed by Mitch Ross, vice president, sales distribution, and Peter G. Duncan, vice president of large group sales. “Blue Shield has taken the necessary steps to ensure that your employees will continue to have uninterrupted access to both medical and hospital care. We want to assure you that these changes will not affect your employee’s current Blue Shield benefits or their ability to receive necessary medical care under their Blue Shield plan. We are also communicating this termination letter to your employees who are impacted by this transition.” The letter also says that PPO members can continue to visit Providence facilities, but they will be reimbursed on non-preferred provider amounts. Dan Boyle, spokesman for Providence in the San Fernando Valley, said the company is still working to find an agreement with Blue Shield. In the meantime, Boyle said, there may be patients with physicians who only have privileges at Providence facilities. An order from the Department of Managed Health Care issued earlier this month stipulates that in such cases, patients can continue to use Providence facilities with no change to their reimbursement rates, Boyle said. Last year, Blue Shield member made up between four and five percent of total patients admitted to each hospital. Amgen Purchase Approved U.S. Antitrust officials gave a green light to biotechnology Titan Amgen’s plan to purchase Abgenix. The Federal Trade Commission finished its investigation of the deal, which would be worth $2.2 billion, without taking any action. Amgen announced in December that it was planning to buy Abgenix. The purchase would give it full control of the cancer drug panitumumab that the two companies are developing. MannKind Stock Gets Boost MannKind Corp., which is racing to complete development of its inhaled insulin technology, saw its stock price rise after Piper Jaffray analyst Thomas Wei noted that high doses of the Technosphere Insulin did not produce severe hypoglycemia in any patients, which is a serious safety concern in high insulin doses. Wei said he now expects MannKind to perform better than companies working on similar products. Jeffries & Co.’s analysts also raised that firms target on MannKind stock from $12 to $16. The FDA has not yet approved any inhaled insulin product, but it is set to rule on Exubera, made by Pfizer Inc. and Nektar Pharmaceuticals. Industry experts widely expect the FDA to approve Exubera, the leading inhaled insulin product, therefore clearing the way for similar products. Analysts also speculated that MannKind may soon find a partner with which to develop Technosphere. The Valencia-based firm has said it will need a partner in order to raise enough cash to develop and eventually market Technosphere. Health Net to Enter Washington Health Net Health Plan of Oregon, a subsidiary of Woodland Hills-based Health Net Inc, will be moving into the Washington market with more than 50 employees. The company got regulatory approval to set up shop in May, and is allowed to market PPO and high-deductible PPO plans. The company will now be ready to serve the entire Northwest region. Health Net will rent the preferred provider networks run by First Choice Health in Seattle, which contracts with 25,000 and almost every hospital in Washington. Health Net Inc., through its PPO, HMO and POS plans along with its government contracts, provides benefits to about 6.4 million people in 27 states and the District of Columbia.

Yet another Valley-area manufacturer has announced that it is leaving as semiconductor firm Advanced Photonix Inc. will move its corporate headquarters from Camarillo to Ann Arbor, Mich. According to Richard Kurtz, the chairman and CEO of API, the decision was based on more factors than strictly bottom-line considerations. “In May of last year, we acquired a company called Picometrix and the founders of the firm actually ended up as part of our management team,” Richard Kurtz, the chairman and CEO of API, said. “Ultimately, three of the four largest shareholders and three of our four key executives live in Ann Arbor and the fourth lives in Wisconsin. It was a matter of logistics.” However, Kurtz also acknowledged that overtures from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and California’s business climate also played a significant role in API’s decision. “Pending approval, the state of Michigan is giving us tax incentives that will be very beneficial in the long run for us and by combining two of our facilities there will be operational cost savings,” Kurtz said. “We’ve had dialogue with the state of Michigan for six months and they offered us a package that was very appealing. Also some of California’s rules and regulations helped make our decision easier, such as rules that make companies pay overtime for over eight hours of labor even if employees are working 40 hours a week or less. Michigan only requires overtime for working 40-plus hours a week.” Though API’s California and Wisconsin semiconductor micro-fabrication operations will be moved into the Ann Arbor facility, Kurtz said layoffs will be minimal, as many of the employees locally will either be shifted to API’s Tustin testing area or work in packaging and assembly in the California and Wisconsin facilities. But the corporate headquarters will be gone and Kurtz remained vague as to whether in the future additional employees will be added locally. Officials would not break out how many employees are housed in the Camarillo headquarters. The consolidation is expected to be completed within the next 12 to 14 months, and the company will benefit from a single business tax credit valued at more than $1.1 million over ten years, which has been approved by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. Additional local real property tax abatements are also expected.

Home health care businesses in the Valley are nervously waiting to see how the federal court system will address an important question of overtime pay for home health care workers. Last year the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that home care workers that live with clients are not exempted from overtime pay if they are employed by an agency or employer other than the household in which they’re providing services. The ruling addresses a federal exemption for “companionship services,” which means services like meal preparation that a client cannot do for themselves. They fall under the companionship umbrella if the work does not exceed 20 percent of a worker’s total weekly hours. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the appeals court to reconsider its ruling. Although California businesses are not under the jurisdiction of the Second Circuit, home health care businesses in the Valley are wondering whether California will continue to uphold its exemption. Janet Feely, owner of Right at Home in Woodland Hills, said that if she’s required to pay live-in workers overtime, she may no longer be able to offer the service to her clients. “Right now the exemption allows us to pay live-in employees a daily fee,” said Feely. “That fee you would have to pay is based on eight hours of continual work or eight hours of periodic work with rest, and eight hours of sleep.” Feely, who has been in business for two years, said she already pays her employees well above the minimum wage, and worries that if the state eliminates its overtime exemption, clients could be in trouble. “Any good agency with adequate staff can fill two twelve-hour shifts or three eight-hour shifts in a day,” said Feely. “But I have a 91-year-old client with dementia, and they want a live-in (employee) because they don’t want shift changes except when they absolutely have to have them . . . now they could be forced into a situation where they have to have people rotating through their household. If clients are forced to pay for more than one worker every day, it could cost them hundreds of dollars more per week. Feely said she follows employment laws to the letter, but does not know what California will decide about its overtime exemption, and therefore has no information for her employees. Feely currently has about 35 part-time employees, of which five can work live-in shifts during the week and seven can work weekend live-in shifts.

NAI Capital has opened a Valencia office, the 14th for the Encino-based commercial real estate brokerage. Bert Abel, a veteran broker who specializes in the retail sector, will head the office as executive vice president and branch manager. Joining him are John Cserkuti, Allison Abel and Cindy Flynn. The team all worked together previously at Grubb & Ellis. At Grubb, Abel and his team represented the developers of 17 shopping centers in the past three years and handled leasing responsibilities for some 1.5 million square feet of space. At NAI’s new Valencia office, the team will continue to specialize in retail while adding industrial, office, hospitality and land brokerage services to the practice.

I fought for nearly three years to get a city ordinance on the books to clean up the blight of masses of unsightly, disorganized newsracks cluttering streets and sidewalks. We won that fight and the new law went into effect in January. But now that the dust has settled, some Valley residents, myself included, have continued to drive past street corners that are particularly clogged with newsracks, wondering, “When the heck will they clean up that one?” An elected official cannot pass legislation, then forget about it and move on to the next issue. So I ordered a report from the City of Bureau of Street Services to get answers and walk the law through to make sure it is carried out as planned. Some residents may not have seen problematic newsracks removed from their neighborhoods yet, but they will soon. This is a seven-year program, so it may take some time, but the work is underway. In all, the four city inspectors assigned to this task have tagged 650 newsracks for removal and in my Twelfth District alone, 141 illegal newsracks have been impounded. Another 109 have been removed from other areas of the city. The permitting fees paid by publications to be allowed to place newsracks on sidewalks have already generated more than $500,000 and pay for the program’s costs. Currently, 89 publications have been granted permits. The process would have gone even faster, but a software problem with the Bureau of Street Services’ GPS location system stalled some newsrack tagging. I’ve been told that problem would be solved by Jan. 30 and the tagging and removal process is moving forward, with expected completion within five months. Long process Getting the newsrack ordinance in place and removing this blight has been a long process that has just recently gotten underway. Believe it or not, this is the fast part. The community members who demanded long and loud that we crack down on the newsracks have waited patiently while we worked to balance the community needs with the First Amendment Implications of press freedom as well as the freedom of businesses to sell their wares. I had to weigh this matter very seriously. I am a strong supporter of a free, independent press that operates unhindered. But I gave my support to the Coalition for LA’s Enforcement Applied to Newsracks (C.L.E.A.N.) and worked as Chair of the City’s Public Works Committee to address this problem because they demanded it and because I am a strong believer in the Broken Windows theory. What may appear as superficial deterioration of our community environment leads people to stop caring, which enables crime to flourish. Newsracks of every shape, size and color blossomed seemingly overnight on street corners citywide. They blocked bus riders from stepping onto buses, were neglected by their owners when they fell over and gathered trash and graffiti. They blocked parking meters and taxi stops and detracting from the obscuring businesses’ front doors. One city block in Studio City had 157 of them. This ordinance has not unduly burdened publications or discriminated against any one type of publication. It required a permit to place a newsrack. To be granted a permit, a publication pays $21.69 per newsrack, and has seven years to paint it a uniform green color. The program targets those unpermitted newsracks that obstruct parking meters or bus zones, that are abandoned, or that are in front of locations designated as “regionally historic” or “culturally significant” places. One reason that some areas have been cleaned up faster than others is that the investigators have focused first on unpermitted newsracks that are a public safety hazard and whose removal has been specifically requested by the LAPD, the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the City Council. I am also a Valley resident and I have a personal interest in having clean, safe sidewalks and public spaces, so I will continue to monitor the enforcement of this program and see it through as long as I am in office. If you believe that one or more newsracks in your neighborhood constitute a safety hazard, you can report the exact location to the Bureau of Street Services by calling 3-1-1.

A visitor who stands along the road that runs through JBar Ranch in Lake View Terrace can watch the horses grazing in a paddock while, just past the treeline, traffic along the 210 Freeway speeds by. It may look as though encroaching development will soon swallow up the horse land. But in actuality, what is happening to the cluster of San Fernando Valley neighborhoods that lies just below the Angeles National Forest is something very different. A newly energized community of horse lovers is buying up the ranches in the area, refurbishing the stables and the trails and thwarting efforts to develop the region further. “You’re getting real business people now that are putting money and time into the horses, whatever their reasons,” said Jamie Lynn Presgrave, who acquired NeoEquus Ranch in Shadow Hills in 2004. “And they’re learning how to actually make money while running this business.” A new breed of ranch owner, often trained in business management, is taking over these stables, located in an area that spans Lake View Terrace, Shadow Hills, Hansen Dam and Sunland-Tujunga, attracted by their love of horses and the demographic and economic changes that are increasing the demand for their services. In addition to NeoEquus and JBar, which was acquired in 2004 by Marc and Royan Herman, who also own Peacock Hill Ranch, Hollywood stuntman Dale Gibson has been expanding Gibson Ranch in Sun Valley since he acquired it about eight years ago and in the past two years the ranch has doubled in size. “I know they’re trying to push us out, but there has definitely been a resurgence,” said Gibson, who echoes other owners in his view that the city and county have favored developers in the region. “We’re boarding 74 or 75 horses. As I’ve grown, I’ve stayed full and I have a waiting list to get in.” Once, horse land crisscrossed most of the North Valley with ranches and ranch homes scattered from Chatsworth and Granada Hills and extending east. And as development has paved over much of the area, the remaining ranches have picked up the boarding business that was displaced. “I’ve seen people going out of business in Chatsworth and Granada Hills and the properties have been sold for development,” said Zsuzsu Illes who recently opened Family Equestrian Connection, which offers boarding and a children’s camp in Kagel Canyon. “Porter Ranch was called Horse Flats. We used to ride there.” The Hermans used to board their own horses at their home in La Canada Flintridge until city ordinances changed limiting the number of horses they could keep to two. They sold and moved to Shadow Hills, and 16 years ago bought an 8-acre parcel that has become Peacock Hill Ranch. There is a waiting list for the boarding facilities. In 2004, to keep the land out of the hands of developers, the Hermans bought JBar and since then, have plowed about $150,000 into refurbishing it. When it’s completed, JBar will have room to accommodate about 100 horses, and Marc Herman says he is not worried about filling up the facility. “Actually, we’re losing horse operating facilities in locations,” said Herman. “Chatsworth is gone. It’s getting to the point where the land is so valuable and the city encourages it because it provides a better tax base.” Those like Herman believe it’s not the ranches that have gone out of business that have added to their business, but rather the new residential developments that have replaced once sprawling homes. The newer homes don’t have the room to keep horses on the property, and those folks have moved their horses out to boarding facilities. With boarding prices ranging anywhere from $200 a month to $500 a month, depending upon the accommodations and the services, horse ownership is not for those watching their budgets. But the ranch owners say that as the baby boomers in the area find themselves with disposable income, they are fulfilling what, in many cases, has been a lifelong dream to own a horse. “I’m not just getting someone wanting to board one horse,” said Presgrave. “I’m getting people wanting to board three and four horses. People are making it their pastime. The interest has risen primarily from the age of the baby boomers. It seems it’s mostly women in their late 40s and 50s. Presgrave was a corporate executive who was raising Tennessee Walking horses as a sideline when she decided to make her avocation her lifestyle. “This gave me a place to live and work,” she said of NeoEquus Ranch. “The boarding stable was doing terrible, but because my specialty is business management, we’ve done really well.” The ranch owners say that the business is not making them rich, but, run well, the ranches provide a stable income and an opportunity to embrace a lifestyle that they love. “It’s got to be a business,” said Gibson. “I have a degree in business administration. You gotta really run a tight ship. The upside is that you can go and ride your horse.” With the horse properties increasingly falling under more professional management, the community is also better equipped to mobilize to make certain that the lifestyle they’ve worked to build does not fall victim to the development interests in the area. Between the trail associations, horse owner and other enthusiast groups, estimates are that about 900 community members are active in fighting any encroaching development efforts. “We returned to being a very politically active group, and we work damn hard to keep the trails,” said Royan Herman, a newly elected vice president of Equestrian Trails Inc., a nationwide organization that promotes horse riding. “Because there’s land out here, we’re under assault all the time.” Recently, about 200 community members showed up at a hearing to support one of their neighbors, relatively new ranch owners who want to build their home on the site. “The city won’t let them build a home unless they widen the street, but the community doesn’t want the street widened,” said Herman.

Prior to becoming the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Calabasas Hills-based video game publisher THQ Inc., Brian Farrell had never been the CEO of a major corporation, as most of the former CPA’s time in the business world had been on the financial side. Yet that lack of experience hasn’t stopped Farrell from leading THQ to 10 straight years of sales growth, with the company’s 10-year compound annual revenue growth rate measuring a robust 36 percent. In these years at the helm of THQ, Farrell has transformed the company from a relatively small niche player to being one of the most prominent independent video game publishers in the nation. The company that had an $8 million market cap in 1995 has become one with an approximately $1.6 billion market cap today. In accordance with this size increase, Farrell has grown THQ’s global marketing and sales force to where it now directly serves more than 75 countries worldwide, with offices in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Australia and Korea. Farrell has also been the mastermind behind the company’s decision to expand its internal intellectual property development division to the point of where it employs 1,100 people, scattered across 12 studios. This growth is not just organic, but also includes several strategic acquisitions including Relic Entertainment, Rainbow Studios and Volition Inc. And despite the video game industry’s current sales slowdown due to a transition into the next generation of video gaming platforms, Farrell has managed to keep the company’s earnings projections on track while keeping its stock price on the rise. Question: The video game industry has been in a relative slump of late. THQ’s main competitors Activision and Electronic Arts recently said that their third and fourth quarter results would be below expectations. However, THQ’s earnings expectations have been on track. How has the company managed to overcome this industry-wide trend? Answer: We’re not immune from industry-wide trends but since 1991, I’ve been through four platform transitions and we were able to plan our product launches in through the year, very very well. We thought that we’d have the best success coming out with new brands directed at the core gamer segment away from the holiday season, and the hype that it typically brings, and this decision has paid off well. In the fall quarter, we came to market with big brands (games from licensors WWE, Nickelodeon, Pixar) aimed not at the core gamer but the mass market and this also paid off for us nicely. Q: Do you anticipate that as the next generation of video game platforms hit the market, the software market will pick up accordingly? A: We agree with most industry and financial analysts that the calendar year 2006 is a transition year with the launch of new hardware platforms. The industry will probably be flat to slightly up this year, but the big growth story for the industry will be between 2007 and 2009, as all of the new platforms will be hitting their sweet spot. This has been the normal trend and we think that we’re going to grow significantly in our next fiscal year based on the introduction of a couple of things including the “Cars” video game that we’ll launch with the film in June. We’ve got to manage through the transition, but the future looks bright Q: In recent years, THQ has branched out significantly in the wireless video game realm. How important is the THQ Wireless division to the company’s future and what are your plans for it? A: We were one of the really early movers into the wireless game space. We saw wireless devices and continue to see them as a great platform for gaming. The upside is that all of these handsets around the world can turn into mobile gaming devices. The flipside is that interface on phones isn’t great and the graphics are still relatively primitive. We see it as a high growth market. Our guidance is roughly $50 million for the wireless market this year. It’s small now, but we see it as a potentially high growth market that will continue to be important in the future. Q: Recently, EA purchased Jamdat, one of the major players in the wireless game space. Do you anticipate that the competition will become more fierce in the sector? And if so, how will THQ overcome this heightened competition? A: In all of our segments, whether it’s platform, PC gaming, online gaming or mobile gaming, it’s going to be fiercely competitive. The answer is that the best content will win. We also have to have great distribution to compete. We currently have relationships with 90 to 100 carriers around the world on all platforms. The best content will win and we think our portfolio for wireless is impressive, including licenses like Star Wars and Major League baseball and the National Football League that we don’t have for the platform games. Q: You recently signed a deal to have dynamic ads placed in THQ’s upcoming games, making the company the first major United States publisher to do so. Why did you feel that this was important for the company and what are your plans for its future? A: As we look into the future overall, the big vision is the fact that our consumers are now online a lot of the time. This creates the opportunity for some new revenue models and one of them is game advertising. The thing that we like about our deal that we signed with Massive is that we have a lot of control as to what’s being served up to consumers and when the ads are being served. This will allow us to maximize revenue without interrupting the game experience. If you look at our chief demographics, gamers now are not just teenagers and 20-somethings. Gaming is for 4-year olds to people in their fifties. But the sweet spot for advertisers is the males in the 17-34 category and one can expect manufacturers of consumer products, apparel, food and beverages to want to get into this new advertising market. Q: In recent years, the major Hollywood studios have intensified their efforts to make headway in the video game sector. How has this altered the competitive state of the industry? A: It really hasn’t changed it. The studios have gotten in and out, but our strategy has been fundamentally aligned with making games for our three core brands: World Wrestling Entertainment, Pixar, and Nickelodeon. However, we also have 1,100 people in our product development organization that are working on intellectual property owned by THQ. We have a very extensive pipeline of IP that we have control of. Q: With Disney purchasing Pixar, do you anticipate this changing your relationship with the company? A: We’re currently prepared to launch with Disney and Pixar the games that are based on their upcoming film “Cars.” We’ve worked with Disney on a number of initiatives in the past and we have an ongoing relationship wwith Pixar. Our track record is unparalleled with over seven million units sold of the “Finding Nemo” video game and five million units sold of “The Incredibles” video game. We’ve done an amazing job with Pixar and we have long-term rights for the next five Pixar films. We’ll stand on our record. Q: As the market continues to consolidate, has THQ been approached often by companies eager to acquire it? Conversely, is the company in an active acquisition mode itself? A: We have the same position on mergers and acquisitions whether they’re upstream or downstream. It’s all about content when we look at acquisitions, we think what content can the acquisition create. THQ is a company that has shown the ability to do both. What we’re seeing now and what we’ve been saying publicly is that the consolidation in the industry isn’t really because of mergers and acquisitions. It’s more a result of the dominance of key players like THQ. We’ve been steadily gaining significant market share and we’re not nearly finished with our growth path. As long as we continue to see significant market share gains, our view is that we want to do that independently and aggressively. One never knows what’s going to happen and there are a lot of discussions that are held over time, but we think we’re one of the long-term consolidators based on our business model and management team. Q: What is your vision for the long-term future of THQ and the industry? A: We think that the interactive entertainment industry is going to continue to grow. One of the big picture trends currently going on is the growth of these systems not just in the United States, but worldwide. We’re in a growth industry and we have a strategy of core brands that make sense, we have an enviable network of global distributors and we think that we’re going to be one of the major players and will continue to consolidate that position over the next five to six years.

The California State University, Northridge, Family Business Center is at a crossroads. But with all our help I think it can choose the right path to follow. Some Business Journal readers who run family businesses may be unaware that there is even an organized family business resource in the Valley and that’s part of the problem the center is now facing it’s little known. It’s also little used, under-funded, under-appreciated but has great potential. Run as part of the college’s business school, the center was started as a way to help family firms run better businesses. Housed and staffed by CSUN, the center is supposed to be governed by owners of family businesses who can then use its resources and hopefully meet other family business owners and workers who may face similar challenges as they do in their firms. They can then learn from each other. The problem is that the center has few resources a part-time director who also is a CSUN professor with a busy schedule, no staff, no real office and a board which seldom meets. It has about $15,000 in an account, seven paying members, three sponsors but only really four active members. Prompted by frustrations from the director, CSUN professor David Russell, these active board members got together last Thursday on campus to essentially decide the future of the center. Because of a tight budget at the school, Russell only is given a limited amount of time to run the center. He’s frustrated and feels he isn’t doing enough. He was asking for some guidance from board members as to where they want to go with it. It’s clear that there’s few additional financial resources that will come out of CSUN to support the center. The meeting, which I attended, was fruitful. It was decided that the center needs more funding from other family businesses and other private sources and it also needs to put together a large laundry list of what the center can offer. Right now it offers mainly monthly seminars concerning topics of interest to family businesses. These sessions are high-quality but not enough. Russell and board members vowed to target some companies and present to them the potential of the center so that they may be persuaded to join. So, now it’s time for Valley-area family businesses and others to step up and join the center, become active in its governance and programs and help grow this resource. The potential is clearly there. Why join? Because a thriving family business center is badly needed in the area. Family businesses make up a huge and vital sector of our local economy and most family business owners will tell you that they could learn how to run their businesses better. This can only be good for the overall economy. The center’s recent monthly seminars discussing such things as proper methods of family business succession and dealing with employees have been useful to many but with more money they can be better and more frequent with a top-notch cast of presenters. The center’s members, family business owners themselves, are perhaps the center’s greatest resource. Networking opportunities abound. Family business owners themselves can teach each other through panels and other sessions all promoted in an academic atmosphere of research and learning. CSUN’s students and courses are also great resources to tap for all sorts of projects that would be beneficial to family businesses. In partnership with local chambers of commerce, the center can offer higher-powered programs, networking opportunities and access to informational and financial resources. It appears that those running the current center believe that there should be some level of involvement by so-called service providers such as accountants and lawyers in the center and in its governance. With that, family businesses could have access to free or low-cost consulting services. Other opportunities abound and are only limited by the imagination of the family business center’s membership which is open to everybody willing to pay dues. The Business Journal publicizes all family business center events and our regular family business column can provide an interactive forum for activities and initiatives that the center undertakes. Many of our readers are family business owners and we’ve found that many of these businesspeople don’t have the time to seek out resources to help them. They need organized, easy-to-access resources which I believe the center can provide. For more information on joining the CSUN Family Business Center, contact Director David Russell at (818) 677-2438 or [email protected]