Fariborz Maseeh just debuted The Port, his newly renovated theater in Corona del Mar, in July. Now it’s getting ready to host the first-ever Miss Corona del Mar Pageant along with the Miss Newport Beach Pageant. Maseeh bought the place in 2007, thought about turning it into an office, then put more than $1 million into its makeover as a high-end theater, with plush leather seats and finer foods and drinks. The effort was intended to create a place for foreign and independent films along with other culture fare. Beauty pageants weren’t the first thing on the mind of Maseeh, who made his fortune on the $750 million sale of a software company he founded and sold a decade ago, and now runs Picoco LLC in Newport Beach. But the match between the theater and the beauty pageants should be interesting, with the Miss CdM event falling in line with his goal of winning fans in the theater’s immediate neighborhood …
Lineup changes at the Forum for Corporate Directors, where former Deloitte & Touche partner and current USC business professor Lori Smith has been named executive director. She replaces Catherine Rose, who’s now manager of the Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts in Alta Loma. Kjell Gronvold, SVP for Orange County Corporate Banking for Union Bank (see related story, “Irvine’s New Rep,” page 1) takes on the group’s programs committee in October. Gronvold will fill the big shoes of Lantronix board member Hoshi Printer, who headed FCD’s programs for three years and recently decided to step back, but will remain on the board. John Della Grotta remains FCD chair …
Real estate report Mark Mueller gives a thumbs up to the interior-design team of Irvine Pacific, whose new Saratoga home models at Stonegate featured a number of Orange County Business Journals as part of the showcase decor during its recent opening weekend. It probably didn’t hurt that the builder’s parent company, Irvine Company, has made a lot of news here lately with acquisitions and development plans. Irvine Pacific also must count avid readers of the Harry Potter books among its target audience. Several new home models tout storage space under the stairs as potential play rooms for kids, harkening back to the fictional wizard’s early years …
Fountain Valley-based networking equipment maker D-Link Systems Inc. got a plug on a recent airing of The Talk on CBS. It came during the show’s season-premier week, which drew an average 2.33 million viewers for the period, the best opening performance in its three-year history. D-Link’s Cloud Camera was on the show’s “Must-Have Gadgets” segment and was given out to every audience member. …
Executive Editor Rick Reiff, who still gets around for us between episodes of his SoCal Insider show on PBS SoCal, will moderate one of the panels during TEDx Orange Coast scheduled for the Segerstrom Center on Oct. 10. Among the scheduled participants: Hoag’s Richard Afable, Rick Warren of Saddleback Church and FivePoint Communities’ Emile Haddad, among others.
