Happy Holidays from the Orange County Business Journal. We’re out with our next paper on Jan. 2. The issue features our annual businessperson of the year honoree.
With each first issue of the New Year, the Business Journal highlights an executive who stood out in the year just passed.
A year ago, our honoree was Wayne Inouye, chief executive of Irvine computer maker Gateway Inc. Early in 2004, Inouye oversaw the sale of his eMachines Inc. to Gateway, and ended up running Gateway.
2005 proved to be a pretty good year for Inouye as well, as he brought Gateway back to profitability.
Prior businesspeople of the year include Greg Weaver, executive chairman of Anaheim-based Pacific Sunwear of California Inc., Allergan Inc.’s David Pyott, Broadcom Corp. cofounders Henry Samueli and Henry Nicholas and businessman George Argyros.
Picking a businessperson of the year for 2005 proved challenging. Several executives had strong years. Candidates considered hail from real estate, technology, sports, apparel and healthcare.
