Tam, Twila Join Forces; Gross at Human Scale

We sure can pick ‘em: Tam Nguyen of Advance Beauty College was honored—along with his sister, Minh Nguyen—with one of the Business Journal’s Family Owned Business Awards in 2012. Twila True and True Family Enterprises got a similar nod at our Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards this year. Word around the waterfront now has True rolling up manicure shops under the Polished Perfect nameplate—an effort she views as a chance to establish a new benchmark on the high end of the sector and expand the field of opportunities in a largely female field. And a well-placed source tells the Insider that Polished Perfect will team up with Advance Beauty College “in a big way”—a collaboration that’s expected to start this week when True delivers the commencement address at a graduation ceremony at the school’s campus in Laguna Hills … Orange County’s growing stature as a home to big consumer brands got a boost with a recent report by NYSportsjournalism.com that had locally based companies accounting for nearly half of the eight candidates bubbling up as potential sponsors of the Los Angeles Rams’ soon-to-be-built stadium in Inglewood. The OC entries were Hyundai Motor America in Fountain Valley, and Western Digital and Ingram Micro, both in Irvine. And you can give OC half credit on Walt Disney Co., which would see any branding benefit spread to its Disneyland Resort in Anaheim. A naming deal on the stadium could range as high as $25 million annually, according to industry observers, depending on factors such as how many Super Bowls are played there over the course of a contract, and whether a second team takes up residence … Orange County is home to other sorts of brands, including Bill Gross, who has been cast as everything from a trading-floor ogre to a 1%er who tosses around seven- and eight-figure charitable contributions like loose change. Sandra Woodard, an esthetician at the Hudson Salon & Spa in Laguna Beach, has never met Gross, but she recently sent along a note that gives a measure of the Bond King in human scale: “I was hoping to simply express my gratitude to Bill and Sue Gross for their generous $15,000 donation/gift towards my medical bills as I fight stage IV ovarian cancer,” wrote Woodard, whose condition recently drew the attention of StuNews and other media outlets in Laguna Beach. “Receiving this gift from someone who plays on the world stage makes it all the more meaningful. For them to reach out to someone like me who lives in their home town of Laguna Beach and is in need of support touched not only my heart but the heart of those around me in the community. Bill and Sue Gross made an enormous difference in my life. Thank you!!!” … Walter and Jeff Cruttenden’s Irvine-based Acorns—which targets millennials with an app that rounds off credit- or debit-card transactions and directs the small change into an exchange-traded fund—is “changing how young people save money,” according to the first installment of “What Is a Bank,” a series the Wall Street Journal launched on May 31. “Will these [Acorn] users grow up to be Merrill Lynch customers? Probably not,” the story asks and answers, shedding light on the simple-yet-compelling title of the series … A couple of corrections, for the record: It’s Martha Daniel, not Daniels—and the CNN Newsstand where the Insider noticed apparel with the UC Irvine and Chapman U brands for sale is in Terminal C at JWA, not Terminal B.