ADVERTISING & MARKETING
Open Minds, an Irvine and marketing agency, added Diana Phillips to its creative department. Phillips has more than 20 years of experience and most recently served as design director on the Toyota Motors USA Inc. account at Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide Inc.
ARCHITECTURE
MVE & Partners named Kenneth E. Nilmeier as principal, Paul Zaleski as senior associate partner and promoted the following people at its Irvine office: Paul Anderson, Mark Kim, Kurtiss Kusumoto, Seema Mhaskar and Ed Wu to associate partners. Promoted to associates were: Kris Agardi, Eric Chrestensen, Luis Encisco, Scott Galka, Jim Montero and Jim Moore. Additionally, the firm’s affiliate in Irvine, MVE Institutional, which provides educational and civic architecture, promoted Judy Cheng and Mel Tan to associates.
ARTS
Bowers Museum in Santa Ana promoted the following people: Thuy Nguyen to chief financial officer; Kathy Hamilton to chief operations officer; Anne Lewis to director of development and membership; and Grace Montejano was appointed manager of human resources and administration.
BANKING
Ron DeNapoli was added as senior vice president and SBA manager at Metro-Pacific Bank in Irvine. DeNapoli has two decades of experience funding SBA loans.
Wells Fargo Investments, a unit of San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co., licensed Vadim Reshetnikov as an investment consultant. Reshetnikov, a personal banker at Wells Fargo in Mission Viejo, now can offer mutual funds.
CONSULTING
Christine Huard-Spencer and Romi Archer were hired as senior environmental planners at the Irvine office of LSA Associates Inc., an environmental, transportation and community planning company.
Precept Inc., which provides employee benefits, health management, compensation and human resources services, named Holly Williams general counsel at its Irvine headquarters.
EDUCATION
Jean Swenk was selected as principal at the Capistrano Connections Academy in Laguna Niguel. Connections Academy provides virtual public schools for grades kindergarten through ninth in partnership with charter schools and school districts. Swenk most recently was associate professor and lead faculty member at National University’s School of Education.
ENGINEERING
Julie Delaney and Winnie Tham were promoted to project managers at Fuscoe Engineering Inc. in Irvine. Both previously were senior engineers at the company.
San Ramon-based AEPC Group LLC added Juan Orcosco as manager of electrical engineering. Orcosco works part time out of the company’s Newport Beach office.
FINANCE
Roth Capital Partners LLC, an investment bank based in Newport Beach, added Nathan Schnei-derman as senior research analyst. In the 2005 Forbes.com and StarMine North American Analyst Sur-vey, Schneiderman ranked third in the category of Best Earnings Estimators in Software.
HEALTHCARE
Randy Engler was added as vice president of sales and marketing at Irvine-based WaveSense Inc., a maker of products for the biotech and drug industries. Engler previously was business manager for laboratory automation at Thermo Electron Corp.
Irvine-based Paragon Biomedical Inc., a contract research group that manages clinical trials, appointed William Blank as vice president of global sales and marketing.
INSURANCE
SullivanCurtisMonroe Insurance Services LLC named Linda S. Gerry vice president. Gerry specializes in employee benefits.
LAW
Washington, D.C.-based Crowell and Moring LLP added Brian Peck, a former senior official with the Department of Commerce, as international trade lawyer at its Irvine office.
MEDIA
James Lee was named sports editor at the Daily Pilot in Costa Mesa and brings 10 years of sports writing to the position. Lee formerly was features editor at the Daily Pilot.
NONPROFIT
Art and Creativity for Healing Inc. in Laguna Niguel added four people to its board: Nick Filippone, senior manager of operations at The Disneyland Resort; Gretchen Crilly McKay, coordinator at Chapman University Extended Education; Cheryl Petrash, director of global human resources at eEye Digital Security; and Jacqui Kielhold, graphic communications consultant.
REAL ESTATE
Alvin G. Williams was promoted to principal, in charge of new business development at the Huntington Beach office of Excess Space Retail Services Inc., which provides real estate disposition and lease restructuring for retailers.
Tustin-based Roddel and Associates Inc., a new home sales and marketing company, appointed Candice Katayama as regional sales and marketing manager. Katayama formerly was director of the community sales office at Centex Homes, part of Dallas-based Centex Corp.
Shannon Alter was promoted to executive vice president of public properties and Kent Peters was promoted to executive vice president of private real estate at Santa Ana-based Triple Net Properties.
Family-owned Brand-ywine Homes promoted Brett Whitehead to president at its Irvine headquarters. He previously was chief financial officer at the homebuilder.
Lou Lucci was named sales manager and senior loan consultant at Tustin’s First Horizon Home Loans, a mortgage lender and unit of Memphis, Tenn.-based First Horizon National Corp.
The Merit Cos., which manages community associations, promoted Bill Stewart to vice president, community management. Stewart previously was a community town manager at the company.
Orange-based R.C. Hobbs Co. named Robert W. Howard executive vice president, overseeing the company’s new commercial and industrial real estate division.
TECHNOLOGY
Peter Hutto was appointed as vice president of business development and sales at Irvine-based Interchange Corp., which provides local Internet search advertising. Hutto most recently was cofounder and vice president of business development and marketing for ZeroDegrees.
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