pascal/26″/1STJC/mark2nd By JULIE SABLE Staff Reporter NORTHRIDGE Supporters of the $25 million University MarketCenter project at Devonshire Downs envision a gleaming upscale mall filled with shoppers and students from neighboring Cal State Northridge. But from where Barry Pascal sits at the Northridge Pharmacy, the university-subsidized development is a threat to the many small merchants along Reseda Boulevard and other commercial strips. Although the Northridge Pharmacy would not face direct competition from any of the stores planned so far at the MarketCenter including a gourmet market, book store and electronics retailer the university mall clearly has the potential for shifting the area’s retail district away from Reseda Boulevard. “I am not as concerned for myself as I am for the community and other businesses in Northridge,” he said. The 54-year-old Pascal, who is president-elect of the Northridge Chamber and sits on the board of 14 community groups, has helped build a coalition of groups now fighting the project. He has also taken his case against the mall to Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents Northridge and is expected to have a big say in whether the project moves forward. “When Pascal talks, people listen,” said Walter Prince, a longtime community activist who is also fighting the mall. Don Faber, president of the North Valley Homeowners Federation, said that Pascal’s work has been very effective. “He knows his way around, he’s a good solid thinker,” Faber said. But more importantly, Faber said, people know Pascal and trust him. Pascal said he has even taken the matter up with Cal State Northridge president Blenda Wilson, who shops at his store. He stresses that Wilson and others should be focused on the university, not the mall. “She’s been so busy fighting for the MarketCenter that I don’t think she has the time to deal with promotion of the university,” he said. In the face of opposition, Wilson has appointed a group of business, university and community members to evaluate the project and possible alternatives. Bernson himself has not taken a position, a spokeswoman said. Frank Wein, facilities director for the North Campus area that includes the mall site, said market studies show that the mall can co-exist with existing businesses. “We are pursuing the project not to generate competition, as we realize that there is that concern, but we’re pursuing it as a means of providing revenue to support the university’s education programs,” Wein said. While Pascal is well-respected throughout the community, Wein said he isn’t raising any issues that the university hasn’t already addressed. “We think that as valid as his concerns are, we believe that on the whole, the project still warrants pursuing and deserves the support of everyone,” Wein said. Pascal’s preference, however, would be to harness the support and ideas of area business leaders and present an alternative for the university to earn the funds that the project is expected to generate. “It’s exciting when you can get people together who do more than just shake their heads at a project,” Pascal said. “These people are not in favor of the project,” he said. “But rather than just say no, they are now going to get involved with university officials to see if we can get a dialogue going.” Pascal, owner of the store since 1973, has faced big challenges before. The 1994 Northridge earthquake shattered his store windows, caused hundreds of thousands of dollars of uninsured losses in the pharmacy and gift area and shook his normally upbeat attitude. “When I arrived at the store shortly after the earthquake, I took one look around and thought it was the end of the world, that I had lost my whole business it looked like Bosnia,” he said. He was faced with two choices: Either shut down or pick up the pieces. As he maneuvered his way amid the glass and debris that filled the store, he concentrated on finding the life-saving medication that he knew would be needed by his customers. Within hours, he had dispensed heart medication to the first customer. In the days following the quake, the pharmacy became a rallying point for the community. Pascal commissioned the painting of a mural on the pharmacy’s boarded-up windows that depicted Northridge as the emerald city from “The Wizard of Oz” with the saying, “There’s Still No Place Like Home.” Pascal and his wife were honored by local and state organizations for their service to the community, including the Northridge Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the City of Los Angeles, the California State Senate and Assembly and the California State Board of Pharmacy. Pascal said that many area merchants have not yet recovered from the 1994 earthquake. “The number of vacant stores in the area around the pharmacy prove that there is no need for more retail development,” Pascal said. Pascal’s concerns about the university’s future don’t stop at the MarketCenter. He would like to see the university and the Northridge community band together for promotional purposes. “Other than the standard signage on Reseda, there is really no clue that Northridge is a university town,” Pascal said. He thinks the student newspaper, t-shirts, mugs and other items with the university logo should be sold by Northridge businesses. Other businesses would pick up on the tie-in, he said, like naming menu items at local restaurants after the university. Northridge should be to the university like Westwood is to UCLA and South Bend is to Notre Dame, Pascal said. “Until we start to think that way, nothing will change. “I have always been a part of this community and supported everything in this town,” Pascal said. “I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

recolumn/bb/mike1st/mark2nd By BRAD BERTON A 50-percent ownership interest in one of the Valley’s most recognizable and most valuable office towers has quietly traded hands. The 36-story 10 Universal City Plaza Tower rising just east of the Hollywood (101) Freeway at the north end of the Cahuenga Pass is now owned outright by Universal Studios Inc., which was known as MCA Inc. until early this year. Universal and Getty Oil jointly developed the 740,000-square-foot, diamond-shaped tower in the early-1980s to house Getty’s local offices and other tenants. The tower rose on Universal-owned land near the famed Universal Sheraton before Universal CityWalk and the Universal Hilton were developed. But even before the landmark highrise’s completion, Texaco Inc. bought Getty and thus became Universal’s partner in the project. Texaco also agreed to a master lease for about three-fourths of the tower’s total office space for 20 years, a lease which expires in the year 2004. Essentially, that means the oil giant has been collecting rent from itself and other tenants on the master-leased floors and, in turn, has made regular housing payments to the Universal/Texaco joint venture at a pre-determined rate. The joint venture has collected rents from the sterling roster of tenants in the balance of the tower as well. In the wake of the sale of its 50 percent interest in the tower, Texaco still makes those master-lease payments. But now the checks are made out to Universal alone. So just how much did Universal pay for Texaco’s share of the income-producing property? Universal and Texaco aren’t talking, but some might call it a $64 million question or $74 million. Actually, it’s probably somewhere between those two figures, according to estimates from knowledgeable sources. Clearly, “10 UCP” ranks among Southern California’s top office properties given not only its quality and visibility but the strength of the marketplace in which it is situated. The vacancy rate in the Class A office sector in and around Universal City and the Burbank Media District is negligible. And as we have reported time and again, that’s leading a sharp spike in rental rates and forcing the area’s big media outfits to seek offices elsewhere. “It’s a terrific, trophy property standing by itself in the Universal City district,” said Howard Sadowsky, executive vice president with the commercial property brokerage Julien J. Studley Inc. He added that tenants are waiting in line for any space that becomes available in the building. Actually, Texaco currently occupies 250,000 square feet and subleases the balance of its master-leased portion to other tenants. Universal occupies at least 100,000 square feet at the tower. And a roster of professional and entertainment firms round out the tenant roster. Considering the sky-high amounts aggressive institutional investors have recently paid for well-leased office properties on L.A.’s Westside where rents at some of the better buildings are comparable to those in Burbank and Universal City one would expect the entire 10 Universal Tower to fetch well over $250 per square foot. At that rate, the total tower’s market value would approach the $200 million mark. While Universal was undeniably the most logical buyer for Texaco’s interest, informed sources say at least one investment group had approached Texaco about purchasing the company’s stake in the tower. However, Universal exercised a long-standing right of first refusal and now owns the tower lock, stock, and barrel at what some real estate sources say is quite a bargain. SunAmerica To Warner Center Over at the western end of the Valley, the Warner Center commercial district long has been considered a lower-cost alternative market for big, labor-intensive tenants trying to escape pricey downtown L.A. high-rises and posh Westside office complexes. And indeed, as so many building-top signs illustrate, Warner Center attracted a bevy of insurance companies, health care firms and other such institutions in the 1970s and 1980s. And now that rents in some Westside office submarkets Century City and the east Valley (Burbank and Universal City) in particular are becoming cost-prohibitive for some types of operations, Warner Center is once again seeing a trickle of bargain-seekers. We reported a couple of months back that Financial Indemnity agreed to relocate from the Disney Channel Building in the virtually full Burbank Media District into 55,000 square feet at Warner Center’s newest highrise, the 25-story Warner Center Plaza III along Oxnard Street’s “highrise block.” And now that Century City rents are skyrocketing back to 1980s’ levels, one of that highrise district’s most prominent tenants has opted to relocate out to Warner Center. Billionaire businessman Eli Broad’s SunAmerica Inc. financial services firm which moved from Brentwood to Century City’s newest highrise when the market was at the bottom of the cycle about four years ago has agreed to lease a full 24,300-square-foot floor at the Plaza III tower and may soon take another floor. Uncertainties surrounding some of the big health care firms and other major tenants still make market observers a bit jittery about Warner Center’s near-term future. But CB Commercial Real Estates Group Inc.’s Andy Fishburn who oversees leasing at the huge, institutional-owned Warner Center portfolio that includes the highrise block and most of the lowrise Warner Center Business Park reports that his portfolio has experienced robust leasing activity over the last few weeks. In addition to SunAmerica (represented in its lease negotiations by Jim Travers and Lawson Martin of Travers Realty Corp.), Fishburn’s group: – brought McGraw-Hill’s religious book division (represented by Cushman Realty Corp.’s Todd Andersen) from Mission Hills into 19000 square feet at the Plaza I Tower; – expanded Sterling Software (represented by Studley’s Mark Sullivan) from 43,000 to 60,000 square feet at the Warner Center Business Park; – expanded Science & Applied Technologies (represented by Travers’ George Katunich) from 13,000 to 28,000 square feet at the Warner Center Business Park; – renewed Malibu Grand Prix’s lease of 32,000 square feet at the Business Park; and – is in final documentation to consolidate CNA affiliate Continental Casualty Co. (represented by Studley’s Steve Barker and Steve Walbride) from the Business Park and a highrise office into 35,000 square feet in Plaza III. Warner Center lease rates haven’t yet jumped in response to the activity, but Fishburn said he expects to see increases within the next six to 12 months. And if downtown L.A. ever sees a major rental rate spike, we can probably expect even more migration to the west Valley.

ricon/fastrak/mike1st/mark2nd By WADE DANIELS Contributing Reporter Ricon Corp. recently received what its management considers the seal of approval from the State of California. The Pacoima-based company already lays claim as the largest maker of wheelchair lifts for automotive vehicles. But the new state contract is especially sweet, coming after over a year of bids and negotiations. It calls for Ricon to supply the California Department of Transportation at least 175 Activans Ford and Chrysler minivans that are modified so that a wheelchair lift can be installed. Ricon President Andrew Loduha Jr. said the contract means as much as $3 million in new business for Pacoima-based Ricon. The privately held company doesn’t disclose financial numbers, but Loduha says that 1996 sales were “significantly more than $50 million a year.” “The reason (Ricon) is so much better than anybody else is their consistent quality control, where they are far ahead of their competition,” said Wendell Sampson, owner of El Dorado Bus Sales in San Francisco, a dealer for Ricon and its competitors. El Dorado has been contracted by Caltrans to purchase the Activans. “Their closest competition is making lifts from designs that are 10 years old, while Ricon consistently comes up with new lift designs,” he said. Most of Ricon’s sales come from its lifts, though Loduha estimates that the company will sell 800 to 1,000 Activans annually within a few years. The Activan was developed in response to declining sales of full-size vans and an accompanying drop in lift sales. For the Activan, Ricon buys minivan chassis from dealers for about $22,000, lowers their cargo-area beds by 10 inches and installs a ramp. It sells them through their dealer network, either ready-made or customized, for between $38,000 and $42,000 retail. Ricon was founded in 1971 by two unemployed aircraft engineers Leonard Rice and William Deacon who designed a lift device to help one of Deacon’s family members load and unload a wheelchair to and from a van. The two grew the company in Sun Valley and sold it in 1982 to a legal advisor named Marlin Freel, who sold it in 1986 to a Canadian holding company, Mediquip Healthcare. At about the same time, Mediquip bought a lift-maker in Montreal called Jure Ltd. and three years later consolidated both their manufacturing facilities into the company’s current site in Pacoima. In 1991, Mediquip ran into financial troubles and had to sell off some of its assets, whereupon Loduha, along with CEO Jules Tremblay and Senior Vice President Douglas Aziz, acquired Ricon Corp. and its various subsidiaries. In 1987, the company was producing about 1,500 wheelchair lifts per year, and in 1996 it produced more than 15,000 lifts. This includes nine lines of lifts and ramps that address various needs, such as the type of vehicle (van, bus, train) and price. In addition, Ricon’s wholly owned Canadian subsidiary, Concord Elevator Inc. in Brampton, Ontario, manufactures roughly 6,000 home and office wheelchair lifts and elevators for buildings from two to eight stories tall. Ricon, which has about 625 employees worldwide, bought Concord in 1993. The company has outgrown its 105,000-square-foot corporate headquarters and production facility in Pacoima and is looking to move to a new Valley space of between 130,000 and 150,000 square feet. It is working with the Valley Economic Development Center Inc. to arrange a loan necessary to expand its headquarters. Loduha pointed to a design staff of more than 25 engineers that works on new products better than the three times as many as its closest two competitors combined, he said. “If there has been one frustration for us, it’s been that there are a lot of companies out there who have tried to copy our products,” Loduha said. “We’ve been doing a lot of engineering for other companies (by default), but that has absolutely stopped within the past five years, as we have put patent protection on our products and we’re defending them.” Among Ricon’s protected designs is its “Mirage” model a ramp which stows entirely under the floor of a minivan or stepwell of a bus or train. While other companies sell similar ramps, Ricon has received patents on various components of its Mirage model. Another patented Ricon product is its Clearway model lift, which when not in use folds inside the van door and opens in half, like Old West saloon doors, to let other passengers in or out. Also contributing to Ricon’s growth has been the 1990 passage of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, which mandates that public buildings and transportation vehicles accessible to the disabled. This meant thousands of lifts had to be installed across the nation, significantly contributing to Ricon’s quadrupling of sales so far this decade, Aziz said. Ricon owns distribution companies in Quebec, Norway, Japan and England. Aziz said Ricon is now considering building a facility in England to convert Chrysler’s newly introduced right-hand-drive edition of its minivan. “The ADA meant a great deal for the market, but the international market is our fastest growing market segment,” Aziz said. “Europe, Australia, the Far East those places are where our growth is really going to be in the coming years.” To conform with U.S. safety codes and maintain its own quality standards for the domestic Activan, Loduha said, Ricon has spent more than $2 million in research and development over the past three to four years. To ease the blow of that outlay and continue paying for additional R & D; for other products, the company recently took out a $695,000 City of Los Angeles loan facilitated by the VEDC. The VEDC helped Ricon with the loan on condition that the company not move away from the Valley. (The company had been considering a move to Valencia.) Domestically, Loduha said the aging of the country’s baby boomers bodes well for sales, as even those who are not disabled sometimes use geriatric scooters or walkers that they need to transport. “The demographics are all in our favor; the population is getting older,” Loduha said. “Whereas 10 years ago or more, wheelchairs were sold mainly for disabled occupants, you have a lot more people who are elderly and not disabled, who don’t want to change their lifestyles.”

honda/30″/mike1st/mark2nd By WADE DANIELS Contributing Reporter Since David Honda was first elected chairman of the Valley Economic Development Center’s board five years ago, the non-profit organization has gone from having virtually no assets and a negative monthly cash flow of $20,000 to $8 million in assets and a positive monthly cash flow of $150,000. Not that Honda, whose paying job is as president of D.S. Honda Construction Inc., would think of taking much credit for this. He’s quick to point out that his first appointment was at about the same time that VEDC President John Rooney, who directs day-to-day operations, came on board. The Rooney-Honda team has transformed the VEDC from a small group of volunteers who supplied consulting and other help to Valley businesses into a conduit for federal loans and other funding for earthquake rebuilding and business development. And for the VEDC, the rebuilding continues, even though almost all the federal quake-recovery money has been spent. The near exhaustion of federal funds has also affected Honda’s construction business, which specializes in office buildings. It saw a period of improved business after the earthquake, but contracts in recent months have become fewer and smaller, conditions similar to those that the Valley construction industry was suffering through prior to the quake. Question: You’re in your fifth year as chairman of the board of the Valley Economic Development Center. What’s so attractive about the job, or are you the only one willing to take it? Answer: You can ask the others why they keep electing me, but I accept it because it’s been very satisfying to see something go from no assets to having more than $8 million in assets. Q: As a policy-setter, what other directions would you like to see the VEDC head? A: By using volunteers, I think we’ve found a way to lend funds at a lower cost, and I would like the VEDC to take over Region 9 (the Western states) of the Federal Loan Program, which administers small business loans. Just like we’ve done with these other loans and with our loan board, we use our volunteers who are experts. For example, if someone wants to borrow $100,000, it might cost us $400 to process that loan, while it would take a bank $1,000 to process it. We’ve been lending the Department of Commerce money for earthquake rebuilding to businesses that were turned down by the Small Business Administration, and we haven’t had any defaults. Q: You say that most of the $24 million the Commerce Department allocated for earthquake repair in other parts of Los Angeles outside the Valley hasn’t been touched, and you’d like it steered to the Valley. Who are you talking with and what is the progress of those talks? A: We’ve had discussions with the Department of Commerce. They say it’s not for you to ask for the money that is for the other side of the hill. They have told us “no,” and then they still have not lent it out. There is tremendous politicization when it comes to government funds going to non-profit organizations. Q: What are you doing to pursue this? A: Right now we’re stonewalled, it’s a good topic for an investigative article. Q: There are always a few businesses that heavily participate in civic activities, but there are many that never do. How do you work to attract their involvement? A: Small-business people don’t attend a lot of chamber meetings and things like that because they’re out there running their business. When I was president of the Van Nuys Chamber I held a luncheon for the 20 oldest members of the chamber that keep paying their dues but never show up. So I invited them to say, “Can we talk?” Nobody showed up. We found out why: They’re busy. And I asked them why they were even paying their dues. (Their answer:) because it’s good policy, good civics to help the local chamber. So they know they help the other businesses, as well. Q: How have you managed to stay in business in a cyclical industry that has been hit hard by recessionary fallout? A: Times have been very tough. My focus has always been in commercial construction, and a lot of the large organization tenants have left California. The city has become an absentee landlord. A lot of your big tenants still operate branches here, but the corporate bodies have moved out of the area, which makes it a very interesting economy. The Valley is looking for its identity. I think that’s where you get (the push for) secession. Q: Have many of your competitors headed off to more active construction markets like Las Vegas? Have you considered following suit? A: Las Vegas is booming and so is Arizona and so is the state of Washington. My parents, after 40 years in Pacoima, moved up to Washington. They felt it was getting very difficult in Los Angeles. They called me up and said, “David, you ought to come up to Olympia; there’s a lot of companies coming in here, and it’s wide open for land. It’s something to maybe look at, but I have a lot of roots here. Q: Things are such that you would consider leaving? You don’t expect any improvement in business? A: It’s going to be slow for a while, there’s not much out there. But like I say, all my roots and connections are here, and all I have up there are my parents. This summer I may go up and take a look at what’s up there. Q: I noticed on your r & #233;sum & #233; that you’ve lectured at UCLA on Japanese studies? A: Actually, at UCLA I was asked to talk about doing business with Japanese companies, which is an interesting topic. Q: Do you speak Japanese? A: No. I’m a third generation sansei (the Japanese word for third generation). Unfortunately, we were not taught the language. My parents were in Hart Mountain and Tule Lake (World War II Japanese detention centers in Wyoming and California, respectively), and they felt if their children did not know the language they would not be discriminated against in the future in case there was another incident like what happened in World War II. I was commissioned by the Japanese American National Museum (in Los Angeles) to bring back one of the barracks from Hart Mountain three years ago. In that experience, I learned more about my heritage with the old-timers that went than I did with my parents, who never wanted to speak about what happened in the camps. Q: Did that experience affect your work? And if so, how? A: I started to understand the race relationship situation we have here in Los Angeles… A lot of small-business owners are culturally diverse, and we need to look at their cultures and how to do business. For example, if you’re a developer, and you want to build condos and your clientele is in Monterey Park, where there are a lot of Chinese, you would make sure that you hire a master of Feng Chi (the Chinese science of design and space use) to look at the lot and make sure the doors are facing the correct direction don’t ask me which direction and that the room is situated correctly. About 10 years ago, someone asked me to take a look at a project that did not go very well, and the market was Chinese. Nobody would buy it even though it was very nice, and he went out of business. So even then I started to realize that understanding culture is very important if you’re going to be a successful business person.

retail/kanter/20inches/1stjc/mark2nd By LARRY KANTER Staff Reporter L.A.’s economic rebound has sparked a flurry of retail development in the northern San Fernando Valley the first such activity in almost a decade. “There is six or seven years of pent-up demand for new space on the part of retailers,” said Frank Marino, a retail broker in the Sherman Oaks office of Grubb & Ellis Co. “As far as retail space goes, the Valley is pretty old and tired. The demand for good space is extremely strong.” By “good space,” Marino is referring to the huge suburban power centers favored by national “big box” retailers, and that’s exactly what neighborhoods like Northridge and Granada Hills are getting. No fewer than five such centers are planned or under construction. They include: – The University MarketCenter, a 20-acre, 220,000-square-foot upscale shopping center, planned for the north campus of Cal State Northridge. – The Granada Hills Town Center, a 200,000-square-foot project under construction at the site of the former headquarters of Coast Federal Savings at Chatsworth and Zelzah streets. The development, which is almost entirely leased, will include Orchard Supply Hardware, Ralph’s supermarket, Office Max and several fast food restaurants. – L’Plaza de Northridge, a 165,000-square-foot power center on Lindley Street across from the Northridge Fashion Center, which will be anchored by Gelson’s supermarket and Linens ‘n Things. – Some 356,000 square feet of new retail space which is expected to include Office Max, Home Depot and Babies “R” Us stores at the site of the former General Motors plant in Van Nuys. – A 660,000-square-foot retail development at Porter Ranch. The projects comprise more retail activity than the area has seen since the last development boom in the mid-1980s. It’s also a sign, brokers say, that the rest of the Valley is catching up with Burbank and Glendale as real estate hot spots. Thanks to the fast-growing entertainment companies in the East Valley, “people are back to work,” said Marino. “The entire Valley is positively revitalized.” But with so much development happening so fast in such a small area, do developers run the risk of cannibalizing each other? Not likely, said Allen Young, a senior vice president at the Sherman Oaks office of CB Commercial Real Estate Group and principal leasing agent for the Granada Hills Town Center and L’Plaza de Northridge. Rather than overlapping, the various developments will tend to “complement” each other, said Young. They also serve different market areas areas that have until now been underserved. Marino, however, wasn’t so sure. “There is going to be some fallout,” he predicted. In the office products market alone, Marino said, Northridge will have an Office Max, Office Depot, Staples, and warehouse outlets like Price-Costco and department stores such as Target and K-Mart all in the same area. “All of those retailers will not make it,” he said. “There’s going to be a big shakeout.” Despite what happens to the national chains, the new developments almost certainly are not good news for small, mom-and-pop retailers in the area, especially those on struggling shopping strips like Reseda Boulevard and Chatsworth Street. “With all the big boxes that are coming in, if you are not a good merchandiser, you may not survive,” said Young. “It’s going to be really difficult.” The CSUN and Porter Ranch projects already have triggered unease among local merchants, many of whom are still feeling the effects of the 1994 Northridge earthquake and are fearful of added competition. Business owners in Northridge have complained that the laws of supply and demand should dictate whether more retail space is developed. The problem for small, family-owned businesses, real estate brokers say, is that they no longer reflect the way most people prefer to shop. Today’s shoppers, they say, are looking for convenience, easy parking, good values and an all-around shopping “experience” things that old-fashioned storefronts are unable to provide. The merchants that survive will be those that provide outstanding customer service or service a specific, well-developed niche, said Young. Other than that, added Marino, “There are going to be a lot of vacancies in the older storefront places.” Despite the pressures the new chain stores put on neighborhood shopping districts, Walter Prince, a board member of the Northridge Chamber of Commerce, said the developments are good news for the area. “It’s certainly healthy to have them here,” said Prince. “It’s encouraging that these major national chains are no longer frightened of coming Northridge.”

Trikon/mike1st/mark2nd By BEN SULLIVAN Staff Reporter Cramming more transistors onto ever-smaller silicon real estate is the overarching goal of computer chip makers. Now researchers at Chatsworth-based Trikon Technologies Inc., a supplier of chip-making machines, say they can help manufacturers do just that and dramatically improve chip performance in the process. Their method is called Low-k Flowfill, and if testing underway by the likes of IBM, Texas Instruments and Daewoo pans out, analysts say, it will be one of the biggest advances in chip making this decade. “It would absolutely be a significant breakthrough, beyond a doubt,” said Ron Bowman, an engineer at Integrated Circuit Engineering, a computer consultancy in Scottsdale, Ariz. “For the Intels of the world, it could mean instead of making 200 MHz Pentium Pros, they could maybe make 400 MHz chips, or higher.” It would also be a chance for 650-employee Trikon to go from also-ran to heavy-hitter in the chip equipment market. The new method is not homegrown. Last fall Trikon, then known as Plasma & Materials Technologies Inc., bought the British firm Electrotech to beef up its own global marketing. Like Trikon, Electrotech made the machines used to make computer chips. Electrotech brought with it a new way to lay down the crucial insulation layers on a computer chip using a liquid instead of the currently popular gas-deposition method. Insulation protects the maze of wispy leads that connect a chip’s transistors and make up a computer’s brain. Trikon officials knew Electrotech had the liquid “Flowfill” technology and saw it as an attractive supplement to its own gas insulation method. What they didn’t know was that the Electrotech process produced an insulator with a “dielectric constant” far below current standards. And that’s a very good thing. Trikon didn’t learn of that aspect of the technology until after the purchase of Electrotech. Had the purchase fallen through, Trikon spokesman Jeffrey Reynolds said, the British company didn’t want to have tipped its hand to a competitor. A dielectric constant is the measure of a material’s ability to store electricity. The perfect insulator a vacuum has a dielectric constant, or “k,” of 1. Lesser insulators have higher k values. Current insulators used on computer chips have k’s of between 3.5 and 4. Electrotech’s method produced an insulator with a k of 2. The upshot is that signals speeding down a chip’s hair-like leads do so with less electric drag. That means smaller bursts of electricity are needed to power the chip and, as a result, transistors and their leads can be placed in closer proximity to each other. Avoiding “cross talk” in which signals traveling on parallel leads interfere with each other or even jump tracks is considered a major hurdle to putting more transistors on a chip, and lower energy levels lead to less cross talk. “All electronics have this parasitic effect,” Bowman said. If the Flowfill process proves effective in a factory setting, “It’s going to be effective on everybody’s chips.” The new method has drawn the attention of nearly every major chip maker. Trikon has a backlog of orders from companies that include IBM, Texas Instruments, Daewoo and even the venerable Intel Corp. to produce sample chips using the new technology. “Basically they want to know if this is for real,” said Reynolds. “They want to know if the system is reliable and is the process repeatable over a large number of wafers.” Trikon has shifted the bulk of its corporate resources to research, development and marketing of the new method, according to Trikon CEO Greg Campbell, as the market for chip insulation is estimated to reach $3 billion a year by 2000. The company expects to spend $10 million this year developing and promoting the Low-k Flowfill technology. Trikon has already sold one of its Low-k Flowfill machines to a U.S. chip maker for just over $2 million, Campbell said, and he expects further orders to come in as companies finish their analysis of the Flowfill demos. That will help Trikon’s bottom line: Though its revenues have grown steadily, nearing $40 million in 1996, the company has lost money each of the last five years. Competitors Novellus Systems Inc. and Applied Materials Inc. dominate the chip equipment market, with revenues of $460 million and $4 billion, respectively, in 1996. Analyst Daniel Klesken, at Robertson Stephens & Co., says Trikon stands to gain from a bevy new plants being built by chip makers over the next two years. New factories are more likely to incorporate pioneering technology than plants already tooled with older machines, he said. “It appears they have an important new capability that could propel them into some nice markets,” Klesken said. The risk, he said, is that another company will appear with an equally effective insulation method, at which point it would become a marketing slug-fest for acceptance of competing technologies. A prime candidate is Dow Chemical Co. of Michigan, which recently announced a method that spins a polymer insulation coating onto a chip with a dielectric constant of 2.65. Dow would not comment on Trikon’s technology other than to say it expects its own method will eventually compete with Trikon. CEO Campbell is unfazed. “Flowfill is the hottest thing going,” he said. “I just don’t see how (Dow) will get down to a k of 2.”

valleyedit/lacter/may/mike1st Hed — Collision Course Burbank Airport is an antiquated, overcrowded facility that’s in desperate need of expansion and renovation. That was true 10 years ago and it’s even more apparent today. The trouble is, it also falls under a Bermuda Triangle of local and federal jurisdiction that includes the cities of Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena, as well as an airport authority and the Federal Aviation Administration. While everyone agrees that something needs to be done to upgrade the facility, there’s little agreement on how much expansion there should be and at what cost. Now, thanks to the continued intransigence by the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority and the City of Burbank, the matter has been handed over to the courts, where it may linger indefinitely. Bottom line: Burbank Airport is unlikely to see any expansion for years, which, practically speaking, is a misplaced victory for the anti-expansionists. A brief recap: The Airport Authority, faced with increasing demand among passengers and airlines alike, wants to build a new terminal with up to 27 gates and eliminate flight curfews and limits to passenger traffic. Burbank officials, concerned that unbridled expansion will lead to even more congestion and possible safety problems, wants the numbers of gates expanded to only 16 plus a 10 percent cap on future flights and a mandatory curfew on flights between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. These differences, on their face, can certainly be resolved. But the conflict goes beyond gates and curfews: It’s power. Burbank officials, citing state law, believe they should have the final say in any expansion that requires non-airport land. (In this case, much of the expansion would be on land now owned by Lockheed Martin Corp.) The Airport Authority, meanwhile, claims that federal laws override state laws on local airport development issues a circumstance that would favor the 27-gate expansion. Just last week, Lockheed entered the fray, proposing a development of its property that would, in essence, thwart the Airport Authority’s expansionist plans. “We want to wrap the terminal with private commercial development so they don’t have the physical ability to expand,” Burbank City Manager Bud Ovrom said. Ovrom and other local officials have expended much of their political careers on the airport saga, so it’s not surprising that their appetite for compromise is limited. But this shouldn’t be about the desires of Ovrom or Burbank Mayor Bill Wiggins or anyone else. This should be about what’s in the best interests of the community (not just Burbank but the wider region that relies so heavily on the airport). That, in our view, means significant airport expansion perhaps not quite on the order of a 27-gate terminal (the airport’s growth estimates over the next few years seem inflated), but certainly more than the 16-gate solution now proposed by the city. Burbank is destined to have a love-hate relationship with its airport and for good reason, given that airports, even under the best of circumstances, are noisy and congested places. But airports also bring important economic benefits to the region. Rather than get tangled up in jurisdictional disputes that might take years to settle, it would be nice to see both sides sit down and cut a deal. Accept the prospect of expansion, split the difference on a number of key points and get on with it.

newsmakers/valley/jas/mike1st/mark2nd Banking & Finance GlenFed Brokerage Services, a subsidiary of Glendale Federal Bank, has appointed Ruth Ann Page as a retirement specialist. She will oversee the development of employee retirement plans for small- and medium-sized businesses. John Gernert has been named vice president of finance for Calabasas-based VPA Inc. Gernert joins VPA from System Property Development Co., where he served as treasurer and corporate secretary. VPA is an independent self-insurance disability administrator. Entertainment Sondra Haley has been named vice president, publicity and promotion for The Disney Store. Haley will oversee all events, promotions, special projects, external communications and community relations for all stores in North America. Previously, Haley was director of corporate communications for the National Basketball Association and served for 13 years in a variety of positions with President and Mrs. George Bush at the White House, including deputy press secretary to Mrs. Bush. Western International Media has announced the promotion of Cheryl Idell to president of strategic planning and research. Her responsibilities include new business development and development of marketing plans. Western also announced the appointment of Bruce Goerlich to executive vice president. His duties will include overseeing daily operations of the Encino-based media management firm. Health Care Blue Cross of California has announced several appointments and promotions. Pamela Kehaly has been named vice president of sales support for the Woodland Hills-based managed care company. Her responsibilities include customer service and sales. John Watts Jr. has been named general manager of Blue Cross’ large group services. He will oversee the mid-size marketing business unit and will manage claims, customer service, membership, medical review and underwriting. Scott Henick has been promoted to vice president of national accounts. His responsibilities include product development, marketing, sales and operations. Michael Linn has joined Burbank-based UniMed Management Co. as senior vice president. Linn will be responsible for directing the operations of UniMed’s medical group management services organization. Prior to joining UniMed, Linn served as chief operating officer and executive vice president of Health-Care Partners Medical Group. Robert Glaser has been named vice president of corporate development of WellPoint Health Networks Inc. Glaser’s responsibilities include acquisitions for the Woodland Hills-based company. WellPoint has also named J. Thomas Van Berkem senior vice president of human resources. His duties include employee relations, recruiting, compensation, organization development and strategic planning. Cigna HealthCare has named Bud Volberding senior vice president of West Coast operations. Volberding will oversee management of Glendale-based Cigna’s California, Oregon and Washington markets. He most recently served as president and chief executive officer of United HealthCare of California. High Tech/Aerospace Internet Specialties West Inc. has named Drew Kaplan chief operating officer of the Westlake Village-based Internet service provider. Prior to joining Internet Specialties West, Kaplan served as chief executive officer of Voice Telephone Co. Personnel Claire Palmieri has joined The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens as development director. Palmieri will oversee the annual giving program, manage daily operations and implement a corporate sponsorship program. Prior to joining the San Marino-based Huntington Library, she served as vice president of Phillips & Associates, a management consulting firm in West Los Angeles. Superior National Insurance Group Inc. has named Curtis Carson vice president of human resources. Carson will be responsible for corporate human resources at the Calabasas-based firm. Carson previously served as human resources manager for Farmer’s Insurance Co.’s Colorado region. Tourism Steve Post has joined Brown Hotel Group Inc. as vice president. Post will represent buyers and sellers of hotels in Southern California for the Westlake Village-based firm. Prior to joining Brown Hotel Group, Post was general manager of the Hotel Oceana in Santa Monica.

JAZZ/20inches/1stjc/mark2nd By RUSSELL JACKSON Contributing Reporter When Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Jeff Lorber, Les Brown and His Band of Renown and others take the stage at Lake Balboa this month, it will be the culmination of 18 months of work by Martin Cooper with a little help from his corporate friends. Cooper, a Woodland Hills-based promoter who produced the Playboy Jazz Festival for five years, is the organizer behind the first-ever San Fernando Valley Jazz Festival. To stage the month-long series of events, Cooper knew he would need about $300,000 and lots of support from Valley corporations and community groups. So he devised a business plan and got early backing from two non-profit groups the Woodland Hills Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, which operates the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area where the festival’s signature event Jazz on the Lake will take place May 17-18. Thus armed, Cooper used contacts he made as the producer of “Taste of Encino” and other events to win corporate sponsorships from companies including Auto Stiegler Inc., Anheuser-Busch Sales, CareAmerica 65 Plus, and Time Warner Communications. Some of the sponsors, Cooper notes, have corporate policies against contributing to first-time events. But skeptics were willing to take a gamble when they took a look at the potential payoff in community goodwill. “You have to think about the categories of sponsors and their individual marketing strategies,” he explains. “Then you craft a sponsorship that works for them.” Indeed, he notes, the list of what a sponsor contributes and what a sponsor receives in return is basically unique to each one. Mitch Cristol, brand marketing coordinator at Anheuser-Busch Sales in Sylmar, said his company agreed to participate because of the positive nature of the event and because of its past relationship with Cooper on Taste of Encino. “The problem with many first-year events is the promoter is unknown,” Cristol said. “But you want to make sure your money is going to go to a worthwhile event that’s going to raise money for the charities it says it’s going to benefit. So past relationships help. With a known promoter, you know you’ll get a good event and a worthwhile event. It’s a lot easier to make major sponsor decisions with a promoter you know.” In addition, contributing to the festival is “our way of giving something back to the community,” Cristol said. “It’s also a way to get our name out as a company that’s community-responsible, and not just here to make money.” The festival actually began in April with jazz concerts at the Jewish Home for the Aging, Warner Center Pavilion and other venues. But the highlight of the festival is “Jazz on the Lake” May 17-18, featuring more than 44 hours of jazz on three stages at Lake Balboa in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area. Cooper, who is president of the Encino Chamber of Commerce and serves on the board of the Woodland Hills chamber, said the event probably would not be possible without his community ties. “If I were an outside producer coming into the Valley saying I wanted to produce an event like this, I would not be able to do it on this scale,” he says. “You have to be active in the community. They have to respect you.” Cooper’s firm is getting a fee for its services, which he declined to disclose. But all profits, he said, will go to four non-profit organizations: The Starlight Foundation of California, which grants wishes to ill children; The H.E.L.P. Group, which helps children and families with special needs due to abuse, mental disabilities and other problems; the Woodland Hills chamber and the city Recreation and Parks Department. The type of charities getting the proceeds was a key factor in Time Warner’s decision to back the festival, said Gloria Pollack, public affairs director and education coordinator at the company’s cable division in Chatsworth. “We look for kids and kids’ welfare,” Pollack said. “Then we look at the economic development of the Valley.” When Cooper approached her about sponsorship, she adds, he explained that “the idea was to bring in people to the Valley and see what we have to offer” and that the events would involve kids. In other words, “it covered all the things that my company believes in,” she notes. While Pollack won’t specify Time Warner’s exact gift to the festival, she does say it involves “a sizable cash contribution and a great deal of in-kind contributions.” The charitable aspects of the festival also helped cut production costs. For example, the Marine Corps Reserves is offering its parking lot for use by “Jazz on the Lake” staffers. “If I were an outsider,” Cooper said, “an event of this kind would cost at least $500,000 to produce.”

valleytalk/24″/mike1st/mark2nd Siberian Immigrant One of the newest and most unusual citizens of San Fernando is “Jodie,” a rare, eight-month-old Siberian tiger cub who is taking up residence at the Wildlife Way Station, a refuge for wild and exotic animals located in the city. The tiger’s journey to the Valley has been a torturous one. She was taken from her natural habitat and smuggled on the black market to Ireland, where she was discovered in extremely poor condition by Irish wildlife officials. After being nursed back to health, Jodie arrived in L.A. late last month on a trip donated by Burlington Air Express and American Airlines. Jodie will remain in San Fernando for the forseeable future. She is being cared for by Martine Colette, founder of the Wildlife Way Station and an expert in the care of tigers, lions and other rare, large cats. Instant Sequel “Hercules,” this summer’s animated film cum massive marketing event cum toy and merchandise launchpad from Walt Disney Co., won’t even hit screens until next month, but the studio is already working on a made-for-video sequel. Disney has discovered that many of its animated films actually make more money on video than they did in their original theatrical release, according to a story in the Hollywood Reporter. So the studio is not only re-releasing an unprecedented number of old features on video, it is gearing up to produce more straight-to-video movies than ever before. Re-issues already out or coming soon include such Disney classics as “Bambi,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Mary Poppins” and “The Jungle Book.” Meanwhile, made-for-video sequels to “Hercules,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “Toy Story” and “Pocahontas” are all in the works. Sick Humor The 65-year-old Northridge Pharmacy is more than just a place to get your prescription filled, the pharmacist will also try to tickle your funny bone. Pharmacist and owner Barry Pascal recently had his book “Funny Bones” published by Thoth Press. Pascal calls it the official health joke book containing “sick” humor. For instance, “My doctor offered me a deal. He’d take out my appendix if I’d take out his daughter.” Not funny enough? Try, “My doctor had an embarrassing moment the other day. It took two weeks for some test results he had performed to come back. They said the patient only had one week to live.” Despite being a pharmacist for 25 years, Pascal has never allowed his avocation of being a pharmacist interfere with his true vocation of cornering customers and telling them the latest joke. The book was published to save the wear and tear on his throat, according to Pascal. 99 Bottles of Beer No one likes warm beer. That’s the defense being offered by 99 Cents Only Stores, which is set this month to open its newest location a block away from an elementary school in Newhall. Parents of children attending Wiley Canyon Elementary School are protesting the issuance of a liquor license to the store, saying the sale of alcohol will attract undesirables to the area. But Henry Miller, a company spokesman, disputes the claim, saying the temperature of the alcohol sold will prevent vagrancy. “Nothing will be sold cold. It will all be warm,” Miller told Santa Clarita’s The Signal. “You can go into Vons or Ralphs and it’s cold. And when it’s cold, you’re more likely to drink it in the area.” Among the warm alcoholic beverages the store plans to sell, Miller said, is Bulgarian-made beer, which will sell for two or three bottles for 99 cents. Fashionably Short Vestar Development Co. is going to demolish the Glendale Fashion Center and build a new mall in its place. The name will be retained since it is well known to shoppers. But a look at Vestar’s tenant list indicates the new Glendale Fashion Center will be very short on fashion. Arguably the only tenant coming even close to fitting that description is Ross Dress for Less, which, last time we checked, isn’t often mentioned in the fashion magazines. Other tenants slated to grace the shop spaces in the new “fashion center” include: Ralphs supermarket, Long’s drugs, Best Buy electronics, Barnes & Noble books, Cost Plus imports and Petco. Could Petco be coming out with a line of designer-label doggie sweaters? Greetings, Colleague Hallmark might care enough to send the very best, but Conceptual Thinking Inc. hopes to look after your business clients. The Burbank-based company sells “greeting cards for business people.” One card features an old photo of kids on a ladder, with the words, “Thanks for helping me climb the corporate ladder.” Another card might be good for a sales person who can’t get through to a prospective client. The cover photo is of a remote castle, with the words, “I can’t seem to reach you.” Inside, the card says, “Call me.” Some of the cards have a fairly somber message. The front of another card depicts a church and two grave stones, with the words “Someday We Will Both Be Dead.” On the inside it says “Let’s Do Some Business Before It’s Too Late.”