In this corner: The Forum for Corporate Directors’ 18th annual Director of the Year Awards at the Ritz-Carlton, with Edwards Lifesciences’ boss Mike Mussallem as host. And in this corner: former heavyweight champion of the world Mike Tyson in his Undisputed Truth one-man show at City National Grove of Anaheim. Both are set for the evening of March 6. Let’s see which draws the bigger crowd …
Augie Nieto, who will be honored with a Corporate Citizenship award at the FCD event, is as confident as Tyson was during the prime of his fighting career. Nieto, who’s battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and could only move 1 foot as recently as a year ago, has posted a vow on his Facebook page that he’ll be walking again by mid-2014. Sounds like a long shot, but just ask Tyson about Buster Douglas. And keep in mind that Nieto’s already doing leg presses—and still going full speed on Augie’s Quest, which is seeking a cure to ALS ….
Remember this Guy?: Talking here about Guy Marsala, who just signed on as chief administrative officer for David Pyle’s Anaheim-based American Career College. Marsala kept a low profile for awhile after guiding a turnaround of Costa Mesa-based EZ Lube for Goldman Sachs, which sold the chain about a year ago. Marsala says his downtime was well spent with his ailing father, an Army vet who hit Utah Beach with the Allies in WWII and died on Veterans Day. Marsala, a West Point grad, says he’s thankful for the time he had off after the EZ Lube deal and happy to be getting back to work at his new assignment …
Has Register Publisher Aaron Kushner gone cool on the LA Times and gotten hot for his hometown Boston Globe? The Globe was recently put on the block by parent New York Times Co., and speculation on a possible bid by Kushner comes with the LA Times up for grabs now that its parent, Chicago-based Tribune Co., is out of bankruptcy. Kushner had previously generated buzz with expressions of interest in a deal in LA. But last week saw the Register’s coverage of its neighbor’s fate put Rupert Murdoch on the short list of potential bidders without a mention of Kushner. The Wall Street Journal quoted Kushner in a report the same day, and his take struck some as detached compared with prior comments on the possibility of a buy in LA …
Wylie Aitken can add this to having his name attached to the stage of Chapman University’s new performing arts center: He’s the new chairman of the California Arts Council, a nine-member state board. Its duties include making a case to the business community that the arts can help improve the state’s work force and “should be part of the vision for the economic turnaround in California,” Aitken says. Guv Jerry Brown made Aitken the first OCer to chair the council in its 30-year history …
Concerns about the state of the work force include training for manufacturing jobs, a number of which have returned to OC and other places in the U.S. from overseas only to find a dearth of skilled candidates available to fill them. Robert Nelsen, a Tustin High School junior and resident of Irvine, looks ready to fill one spot. He’s the first Boy Scout in the U.S. to earn a merit badge in welding, according to National Geographic Channel, which will feature Nelsen and several other scouts in a new reality TV show titled “Are You Tougher than a Boy Scout?”
