About This Year’s OC 50
In this issue, you’ll find the OC 50, the Business Journal’s annual grouping of the county’s most influential businesspeople. The listing includes some familiar faces, notable newcomers and interesting drop-offs.
The section, which starts on page 32, is our admittedly subjective list of the key movers and shakers in Orange County. The 50 business, government and educational leaders are selected and screened using a variety of measures: company size, community involvement and even what we dub the phone test,is a call from the executive likely to go straight through.
This year’s list reflects the turbulence of the economy in the past year or so. From technology executives to the heads of old-line manufacturers and service companies, just about everyone in the OC 50 has felt the sting of Wall Street’s downturn, slower corporate spending and shrinking profits.
Technology still dominates the listing, but the closest thing you’ll find to a dot-com executive is Enfrastructure’s Scott Blum.
Picking the OC 50 isn’t easy. The first go-round easily included more than 60 worthy candidates. While the final cut is less than scientific, this year’s OC 50 includes all the names you’d expect, and then some. We look forward to hearing feedback on our selections, omissions and candidates for next year.
The biggest change this year is the breaking off of the technology section. In prior years, Broadcom’s Henry Nicholas and Henry Samueli, QLogic’s H.K. Desai and others were included in the industry section. Ingram Micro’s Kent Foster, included in the services section last year, joins the tech group because of his company’s influence on the industry.
The industry group otherwise held relatively constant. There are Boeing’s Jim Albaugh, Fluor’s Philip Carroll and Allergan’s David Pyott. One notable change: the addition of H.W. Mullins alongside Bob Gray in the St. John Knits entry. Milan Panic, ICN’s controversial CEO, repeats this year. But next year’s up for grabs with the pending split-up of the drug maker and Panic’s possible move to New Jersey.
Technology saw its share of shifts. On are Paul Folino of Emulex and Sue Parks of Gateway Business in Lake Forest, one of OC’s top-ranking women in technology. With the retirement of OC software dean Ted Smith, Lee Roberts now stands alone in the FileNET entry. So does Vinnie Smith in the Quest Software item, with a mention of founder David Doyle.
Other tech changes: Matthew Massengill of troubled disk drive maker Western Digital falls to honorable mention, as does Camille Jayne of Universal Electronics. Brian Fargo of struggling Interplay Entertainment fell off from the honorable mentions and is supplanted by Mark Surfas, CEO of upstart GameSpy Industries. Tech veteran Tom Yuen also drops from OC 50 to honorable mention.
Then there are Chad and Ryan Steelberg. The two were a joint entry in last year’s OC 50 services section. This year they are off altogether with the collapse of their Winfire high-speed Internet company.
New to tech honorable mentions: rising star Yuri Pikover, founder of Access360; Greg Williams, head of chip maker Intersil; two new Toshiba entries; and longtime tech fixture Gary Liebl, who was a runner up in 1997.
In services, Y & R;’s David Murphy, OC’s top ad man, joins the OC 50. Bergen Brunswig’s Robert Martini moves down to honorable mention with the company’s pending merger with AmeriSource. Among honorable mentions, sports agent Scott Boras joins the listing, as does behind-the-scenes banker Ed Carpenter. Bruce Hallett changes hats from lawyer to venture capitalist.
Notable drop-offs from the honorable mentions for services: John Martin, James Edwards III of Edwards Theatres and Phil Landouceur of Futurelink.
The real estate section is a who’s who of the people who’ve built OC: Don Bren, ambassador-designate George Argyros, Don Koll, among others. New to the group are John and Russell Parker, based on their building up of Aliso Viejo. There also was a shift in The Irvine Company troika: Clarence Barker joins Dick Sim and Michael McKee in place of Gary Hunt.
The cut got tougher for government and institutions this year. UCI’s Ralph Cicerone, David Blake and Tom Moebus repeat this year, as do Cal State Fullerton’s Milton Gordon and Chapman’s Jim Doti. Chris Cox is a no-brainer. Lawyer-lobbyists Wylie Aitken and Mark Robinson dropped down to honorable mention. Off entirely is Jan Mittermeier, who was replaced as county CEO.
OC’s top executives live all over the county. But as expected, Newport Beach and environs dominate. Twenty-two executives live in Newport, while another five live in Emerald Bay or Monarch Beach. Five live in Laguna Beach proper. After Newport, the second-most popular residence is Coto de Caza with seven executives. Other addresses include Irvine at six, Orange, Villa Park and the Orange hills, five, Long Beach, two, Laguna Niguel, two, and Fullerton and Huntington Beach at one each. There even are entries for Dallas and an island in Puget Sound (Oakley’s Jim Jannard).
A special nod to Belgian surrealist Ren & #233; Magritte who’s 1953 painting Golconda inspired this year’s OC 50 cover.
,Michael Lyster, Editor
