Dean Koontz, author of scary best-sellers, had a harrowing experience of his own recently. Koontz was rushed to Hoag after collapsing unconscious on the marble floor of his Newport Coast home. “I nearly died … I lost half my blood,” says Koontz, who was diagnosed with a bleeding ulcer. He spent six and a half hours in ER, remained several days at Hoag and was sent home with orders to stay put for four weeks. But last week he ventured out five days early to keep a speaking date at a birthday party and fundraiser for OC Supe John Moorlach at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa. “I wasn’t going to miss this,” says Koontz, a fan of Moorlach’s politics, as Moorlach is of Koontz’s thrillers, many set in OC …
House Speaker John Boehner swung through OC last week. He met with Donald Bren, William Lyon and Gary Hunt, attended a fundraiser at the Lido Isle home of TCW Group Vice Chairman Tom Larkin (with George Argyros and Tom McKernan in attendance) and was hosted by U.S. Rep. Ed Royce at Balboa Bay Club …
Also visiting was U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, for a Pacific Club breakfast with the New Majority …
Chairman Phil Angelides is at the Barnes & Noble in Fashion Island tonight signing copies of the federal commission’s best-selling report on the financial crisis (rebuttals included) …
California finished in the bottom tier of states in a U.S. Chamber of Commerce study of labor and employment laws and economic growth …
Glenn Stearns, a hard-knocks kid from Maryland whose Santa Ana-based mortgage company Stearns Lending not only survived the real estate crash but has thrived, receives the Horatio Alger Award April 8 in Washington, D.C. Fellow honorees include Fox News exec Roger Ailes and New York billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg …
Martha Daniel, CEO of Aliso Viejo-based Information Management Resources, keynoted the “Delta Day at the United Nations” women’s empowerment conference in NYC—and got a standing O …
Staffer Bryan Starr has been promoted to CEO of the Building Industry Association of OC, succeeding the retiring Kristine Thalman …
Dave Everett, who has worked for pols Ken Calvert, Todd Spitzer and Van Tran, is new executive director of the OC GOP … Kristina Kuzmic-Crocco, who won her own cooking show on Oprah Winfrey’s televised “Search for the Next TV Star,” is a 2001 graduate of Vanguard University in Costa Mesa …
Does Broadcom’s expansion know no bounds? The Irvine-based chipmaker has lured away OCBJ tech writer Sarah Tolkoff, who is joining its communications staff …
EE RR moderates a luncheon panel, “2011 Outlook: The Road to Recovery and Reform,” with La Jolla Institute President Steve PonTell, OC Biz Council Prez Lucy Dunn and former Anaheim mayor Curt Pringle Thursday at the Hilton OC/Costa Mesa. Info at www.ocforum.org.
