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JUNE + JULY 2013

VOLUME 1 NUMBER 3

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CONTENTS

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westside people

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On the Cover: Ryan Magnussen, CEO of The Grail Project, and Amy Frena at Grail Project headquarters in Venice. Leopard dress from Blumarine provided by The Address Boutique in Santa Monica. Hair and makeup by Rickie BocanegraPhoto by Brad Jacobsen

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CARRIE WHITEThe famed Hollywood hairdresser talks about her life, writing a memoir and recovering from addiction

SILICON BEACH

A look at some of the firms that make up the Westside tech invasion in Venice and Santa Monica

LA WATERKEEPEROriginally Santa Monica Baykeeper, LA Waterkeeper is celebrating 20 years of environmental activism

PAUL CUMMINSA lifelong reformer talks about his vision of education funding and curriculum that fosters free thinking

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Bruce P. Mitchell“Faithfully Serving the Community’s

Real Estate Needs for 35 Years”

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Westside People (issn 2169-7981) is published bimonthly by dMr Publications, inc. Westside People is distributed free in santa Monica and Pacific Palisades. no part of this periodical may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written consent. the entire contents of Westside People maga-zine are copyright 2013 by dMr Publications, inc.


Dear Reader,Sometimes it’s hard to tell that summer ever ended

around here, but this month definitely marked the start of another summer season on the Westside. The farmer’s markets have been heating up with an abundance of fresh produce and kids are getting excited about fun new summer camps. This month the community also suffered a stunning tragedy as a gunman killed five people and injured four others in a shooting rampage at Santa Monica City College. It’s a sad event that shows no community is immune from senseless violence. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.

In this issue, Westside People brings you in-depth stories on the growing number of tech firms that call Venice and Santa Monica home. We also feature famed Hollywood hairdresser Carrie White who recently wrote a memoir about surviving addiction. We talk with the leaders of LA Waterkeeper about their 20 years of environmental activism and tell the stories of education reformer Paul Cummins and Tiato owner Catherine An.

Thank you to those who sent emails or called with kind comments and suggestions. It’s very much appreciated and as always, we hope you enjoy the read.

W E S T S I D E P E O P L E

David RosenfeldPublisher

w e s t s i d e p e o p l e m a g . c o m | J u n e + J u l y 2 0 1 3 | W e s t s i d e P e o p l e 9

W E S T S I D E E V E N T S W E S T S I D E E V E N T S

SHARE CELEBRATES 60 YEARS

LESLIE COHEN: ATTORNEY, ATHLETE, ORgANIzER

STAND UP FOR CLEAN WATER

COVENANT HOUSE CALIFORNIA MARKS 25 YEARS

The non-profit SHARE celebrated its 60th anniversary at the Beverly Hilton Hotel May 11 with a star-studded western themed event. Donelle Dadigan, founder and president of the Hollywood Museum, received special acknowledgment with the 2013 Shining Spirit Award. The night included a live and silent auction, dinner and musical entertainment by the SHARE ladies and The Temptations. SHARE is a non-profit philanthropic organization of women dedicated to raising funds for the developmentally disabled, abused and neglected children as well as medical research for all forms of developmental disabilities. For more visit Nonprofit-Share.org

Pictured left: Tia Barr and Yokov Smirnoff. Pictured right: The “SHARE ladies.”

Leslie Cohen loves to run. This petite Santa Monica attorney, and mother of three, turned her love for running with friends into a good cause. The Leslie Cohen Law Running Team benefits the Public Counsel Debtor Assistance Project and the Samohi Cross Country/Track program. It’s Cohen’s way of giving back to a community that is so dear to her heart. This lithe running champion who started running rather late in life has won first place in her age division numerous times. In 2010 when her children were in middle school she set up the “Leslie Cohen Law Running Team,” which she said, “was done strictly for fun and socializing and wasn’t intended to be competitive.” But it has turned into so much more. To donate either to the Public Counsel Debtor Assistance Project and/or the Samohi Cross Country/Track Program visit LeslieCohenLaw.com

Pictured: Attorney Leslie Cohen at the Leslie Cohen Law 5K. Photo by Timothy Brandt

More than 100 stand up paddleboarders joined the non-profit LA Waterkeeper April 20 for its 2nd annual Stand Up for Clean Water paddleboard race. The day included competitive races of different lengths, clean water speakers, a yoga session and beach cleanup. All proceeds went to benefit LA Waterkeeper and its mission to protect and restore the waterways of Los Angeles County. For more visit LAWaterkeeper.org

Pictured: Paddleboarders launch their boards in front of the Annenberg Community Beach House.

The Covenant House of California marked its 25th anniversary May 2 at the Skirball Cultural Center. Musician Herbie Hancock joined outgoing executive director George Lazano. Lazano’s 22-year career with the organization helped advance the non-profit’s ability to serve thousands of homeless, at-risk and trafficked youth annually in Los Angeles and Oakland. Hancock was recently named UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the promotion of Intercultural Dialogue and has joined the University of California, Los Angeles faculty as a professor in the UCLA music department. For more visit CovenantHouse.org

Pictured left to right: Dayanara Torres, Herbie Hancock and Kandace Lindsey.


CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY gALA

The Cancer Support Community honored comedian Jack Herrguth in May with its 2013 Gilda Award, named for Gilda Radner, the late comedian in whose honor the nationwide network of cancer support groups began. The second annual Fresh Canvas Party was held Saturday May 18 at the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica. The event included comic acts, an art sale, great music, food and drinks to benefit the Cancer Support Community. For more visit CancerSupportCommunity.org

Pictured left to right: Comedian Jack Herrguth with artist Mel Keefer and wife Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer.

STOP CANCER RAISES MONEY FOR RESEARCH

More than 250 people joined STOP CANCER at its annual wine tasting event April 20 at Tiato in Santa Monica. The non-profit group benefits early cancer research at UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center, USC Norris and City of Hope National Medical Center. Over the past 26 years the organization has raised $58 million toward 147 cancer researchers including Dr. Charles Sawyers who was recently appointed one of six new members to the National Cancer Advisory Board by President Obama. “In order to get significant grants they need to build a body of work to show the big donors that it’s valid,” said spokeswoman Bette Bergsman. “So we are in a sense planting the seeds for future breakthroughs.” For more visit StopCancer.org

Pictured left to right: Sandy Gage, Arlene Ray, Pat Gage, Bette Bergsman.

W E S T S I D E D I N I N G W E S T S I D E S P O T L I G H T

MICHAEL’S RESTAURANT: AT THE HEART OF AMERICAN CUISINE

HANDMADE gOODNESS AT TINgA

FRESH SUMMER PRODUCE

THE ADDRESS BOUTIQUE: DRESSINg LIKE THE STARS

CHERYL FUDgE FASHION CAMP

MALIBU “PINK LADY” STILL CAPTIVATES

Michael McCarty, owner of Michael’s Restaurant in Santa Monica, simply loves to entertain. You can tell as he greets customers that come in for lunch. “Hey buddy, don’t get into trouble,” he says to one. “Hello my dear, I knew that was you on the books,” to another.

After more than three decades in the restaurant business, Michael’s story is in many ways the story of the new American food movement, that of fresh local ingredients and a style all its own.

“In 1979, if you asked for the best restaurant it would be a classical French restaurant,” Michael says. “Then they had continental cuisine. Not many Americans were in the business. We were called California cuisine because the regional food movement hadn’t begun in those days.”

So what exactly is it?“It’s our version of good food,” he says. “We

wanted to create something new and modern and fundamentally based on French cooking.”

Executive Chef John-Carlos Kuramoto, age 25, showed off the Michael’s double-double made from ground brisket, short rib and chuck topped with homemade American cheese, oven-roasted tomatoes, butter lettuce and onions caramelized in duck fat. Needless to say it’s unbelievable.

“It’s so rich and that’s balanced out, but you also get this richness that comes with the duck fat,” John-Carlos says. “I’m hoping for a lot of complexity in the burger.”

Pictured: Executive chef John-Carlos Kuramoto and Michael McCarty, owner of Michael’s Restaurant.Michael’s Restaurant 1147 Third Street Santa Monica, CA 90403 310.451.0843 MichaelsSantaMonica.com

Beginning in April Tinga restaurant owners Jerry and Chris Baker transformed the dark and funky spot in Downtown Santa Monica, formerly Renee’s Courtyard Cafe, into an equally funky, but much brighter setting as an authentic Mexican-themed restaurant with a twist. Tinga’s new Santa Monica location on Wilshire and 6th Avenue comes off the success of Tinga on La Brea, which opened in 2010. The couple opened their first restaurant at the time after leading a successful catering business since 1994 now called The Food Matters. The handmade tortillas, roughly 500 per day, and salsa loaded with tasty meats make up the signature tacos on which Tinga and their catering business built its reputation. “We have men who have to leave their macho-ness behind and make tortillas,” says Jerry, who shows off the restaurant’s three bars and outdoor patio area on a recent afternoon. The staff here has been adapting to some of the new quirks like the air outtake in the kitchen that sends tickets flying through the prep kitchen and into the dish washing area. “The first night was very funny trying to chase the tickets down,” Jerry says. The crew plans to soon begin delivery service on electric bikes in the neighborhood and a pick-up service with a valet to avoid parking headaches. Tasty favorites include the Lamb Adobado with cerignola olive and piquillo peppers with fried serrano and queso fresco as well as The Genesis, an original concoction Jerry fashioned since 1983 with grilled cumin and garlic rubbed pork loin, poblanos and pepper jack cheese.

Tinga 522 Wilshire Blvd Santa Monica 310.451.9341 TingaBuena.com

Lena Philkill and Monica Ford sell fresh produce at the Wednesday farmers market in downtown Santa Monica. The pair works for Fairview Gardens Center for Urban Agriculture out of Galeta, 10 minutes north of Santa Barbara, on one of the oldest organic farms in Southern California. Established more than 100 years ago, the community-owned farm is part non-profit, part 12-acre farm, with community events and classes on beer brewing and bee keeping. In coming weeks look for melons, tomatoes and cucumbers in abundance.

The Santa Monica Farmers Market occurs every Wednesday and Saturday on Arizona Ave and 2nd Street and Sunday on Main Street. The Pacific Palisades Farmers Market occurs every Saturday on Swarthmore

Maureen Clavin’s been in the resale clothing business on the Westside for more than 50 years. During that time she’s met some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Photos lining the walls at The Address Boutique in Santa Monica, the shop she’s owned for the past 27 years, prove it. Shots of Sharon Stone, Natalie Cole, Candace Bergman and Meg Ryan hang over designer dresses they may have even worn. In her office is where Maureen keeps the biggest treasures like Madonna’s 1987 leather tour jacket and a photo of her with Bill Clinton.

The Address Boutique sells high-end women’s clothing, some of which was owned by celebrities and all of it with big discounts. Most of the dresses sold by stars go to benefit their favorite charities. Others are sold on consignment.

“It’s a lot of fun and it’s really a great way to shop,” says Maureen, who tries to make people feel at home when they shop. “I wanted people to feel like they’re coming into my living room where they can have a glass of wine or a cup of coffee.”

Pictured: Allison McKibbon, Atsuko Ota-Hodel, Maureen Clavin, Carmen Soare and dog Ziggy. The Address Boutique 1116 Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica 310.394.1406 Theaddressboutique.com

Cheryl Fudge can handle VIP clients. Celebrities like Ben Affleck and Jennifer Gardner drop by on occasion to her do-it-yourself clothing store on Montana Avenue with their two daughters. But by far the biggest VIP came two years ago when the Obama girls spent a few hours in the Nantucket store during a stay at Martha’s Vineyard. “I was shocked,” she says. “I couldn’t tell anyone.” For kids, and adults, who like to alter clothing, Cheryl Fudge Fashion Camp can be like heaven. Choose from clothing in the store or bring your own and the store provides the rest in DIY form with all different kinds of fabrics and beads to sewing machines and most of all the guidance to turn a fashion vision into reality. “It’s wonderful because everything is one-of-a-kind but it’s hard to duplicate and very labor intensive. So this takes out the element of guessing.” Cheryl says the kids, and a fair amount of adults too, just love it. “I don’t think clothes are the most important thing, but what they do bring to people is important,” she says.

Cheryl Fudge 1010 Montana Avenue, Santa Monica310-393-3333 CherlFudge.com

In November 1966 Barry Balin got a call from a friend about something happening in Malibu canyon. The pair grabbed a camera and headed out to see a giant 60-foot mural of a nude woman high on a canyon wall above a tunnel. Artist Lynne Seemayer had painted it at night hanging by wires above the roadway. What she created captivated some and others angered. The mural, which became known as the “Pink Lady,” only lasted four days because authorities deemed it obscene. But the image Barry captured that day would last much longer. For the past decade, he’s been marketing the shot as an iconic image that represents in many ways the clash of cultures that characterized the 1960s. Barry says he tried to get in touch with the artist, but she doesn’t want anything to do with the story. “Many people have said she’s really a pioneering graffiti artist,” he says. “Today graffiti art is so popular she really should be recognized. Instead she was treated awful.” Besides selling images of the notorious mural, Balin owns a collection of more than 30,000 historic photos, including rare postcards. He frequently works with restaurants, hotels and homeowners looking for images for their wall decor. And if he doesn’t have what a client needs he can usually find it. “I like quaint and interesting images,” says Barry, who’s especially attracted to shots from the 20s, 30s and 40s. “People wore a suit and tie to the beach. They just seemed to be very sophisticated in those days.”

Barry O. Balin/Historical Archives 310.422.3900 MalibuPink-Lady.com

1 0 W e s t s i d e P e o p l e | J u n e + J u l y 2 0 1 3 | w e s t s i d e p e o p l e m a g . c o m w e s t s i d e p e o p l e m a g . c o m | J u n e + J u l y 2 0 1 3 | W e s t s i d e P e o p l e 1 1

1 2 W e s t s i d e P e o p l e | J u n e + J u l y 2 0 1 3 | w e s t s i d e p e o p l e m a g . c o m

By the time she was 29 Carrie White was the mother of five children with three ex-husbands. She’d also become one of Hollywood’s most notorious hairdressers in an industry

dominated by men. Her clients in the 1960s and 70s read like a “who’s who” at the time from Iggy Popp to Nancy Reagan. There were days at her salon in Beverly Hills, she says, where she herself couldn’t believe it. “I would have so many celebrities in my salon at one time,” she said during a recent interview outside her current salon on Santa Monica Blvd across from The Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel.

“One time I stepped back kind of outside my body and noticed Jane Fonda had just gotten out of my chair. Betsy Bloomingdale was about to sit down. Bette Midler was off to the side knitting. Vanessa Redgrave was behind me drying. And around the corner was Elizabeth Taylor getting a manicure and I was wearing the big rock ring that Richard Burton had given her,” she said. “I thought, man, I have such a great life. This is so much fun.”

The fun she was having at the time extended beyond the hair salon as White quickly found herself at the center of the Hollywood in-crowd that characterized the era and the drug use that followed. She smoked hash with Jimmy Hendrix at John Lennon’s house. Elvis Presley gave her a Derringer. She dated Jack Nicholson briefly, and she knew Ritchie Valens and Stefanie Powers before they were famous.

“I was just like this person who was always there when things were happening,” White said. “I don’t feel like I was the center of it, but I was in the center part of it. People came together at my home and at my salon. I was always just invited to places. I was never on a mission for that. I just wanted to be recognized as a great hairdresser.”

She would earn that recognition in her early 20s, far earlier than she would ever imagine. What came with that success had its price. Over the years, White’s drug use increased to a stage she would never want to return, culminating in her lying face down in her own vomit at a local hospital.

“The dealers would tell me to go home,” she said.It took six hospital stays before she finally got clean in 1984. She

credits recovery programs like Friendly House, for which she serves on the board of directors, for helping others like her seek treatment.

Last year she published a memoir by Simon and Schuster’s Atria Books titled Upper Cut: Highlights of My Hollywood Life. The book chronicles her journey from a childhood of abuse and neglect, to her journey through hairdressing and her ultimate recovery from drugs and alcohol. In an age with an abundance of Hollywood memoirs, White’s book has stood out as an LA Times bestseller no doubt for its quick-paced writing style and engaging story.

“I wanted it to be as authentic and honest as I possibly could,” she

Highlights of a Hollywood Hairdresser

By David Rosenfeld

C a r r i e W h i t e a t h e r B e v e r l y H i l l s h a i r s a l o n o n S a n t a M o n i c a B o u l e v a r d .

w e s t s i d e p e o p l e m a g . c o m | J u n e + J u l y 2 0 1 3 | W e s t s i d e P e o p l e 1 3

Famed hairdresser Carrie White talks about her life, writing a memoir and recovering from addiction

said. “The subtext is alcoholism. I really wanted the message of recovery to be able to be a conversation. When my mother died she was 54 but she looked like she was 154. She was just a devastated alcoholic. But the hospital on her death certificate wrote pneumonia. The word alcoholism was never mentioned. Above all I wanted to give the hope that you can come around.”

These days White runs a small studio in Beverly Hills with just a few celebrity clients. She isn’t interested anymore in being a personal stylist on house calls, more unwilling than unable to keep up with the pace. Back when she was personally styling Liz Taylor, she might receive a phone call late on a Sunday night that she needed her hair done for a last minute trip in the morning.

“I just don’t want all the drama and emergency,” she said. “It’s time for me to pass the baton.”

White talked about her story outside her current studio on a recent afternoon as local women walked by to say hello. Dressed in black, she joked she still sort of wore her hair in a version of the “flip” that was first popular when she was in high school. In her book, White reveals in detail how her mother was an artist who drew comic strips from home and largely neglected her for alcohol and a series of men, one of which molested her at a young age. Noteworthy for the times, he was convicted and received just six months in prison. She would end up spending much of her youth with a foster family.

She left Pacoima, where she was largely raised, with her mother to start school at Hollywood High where she writes she felt out of place among kids with so many connections to famous stars. White says she used hairdressing early on to fit in. When she came to school with a beehive haircut it was her first step toward being popular. After high school she went to a local hairdressing school, and the rest is history.

She famously styled Elvis Presley’s hair when he came to Hollywood, saying she didn’t design Presley’s trademark wave but she made it better. She was Sharon Tate’s California hairdresser and stayed with her and Roman Polansky during their wedding week in London. She’s also well known for designing the hair for the Nurse Ratchet character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a hairdo that would become classic for how it fit the character’s demeanor. She was a technical adviser on the movie Shampoo and was actually married to the character played by Warren Beatty in the film.

“In the book I’m the subtext story and narrator, but it was about me wanting to introduce people to the history of this town,” she said. “I wanted to talk to the new hairdressers and share with them about breaking into an all-male field.”

One of the men who dominated hairdressing at the time, Vidal Sassoon, praised White for her memoir.

“Carrie White became one of America’s most artistic hairdressers, and her writing has the same magical touch,” he wrote. “I was completely captivated by her story.”

David Steinberg, a comedian and director, commended White’s storytelling.

“With her sharp wit and keen eye, Carrie White has written one of the best books on Hollywood that I’ve read,” he wrote. “But it’s her personal story that’s a killer. I literally couldn’t put it down. And I can’t recommend it enough.”

White spent more than 20 years writing the book, which was originally more than 1,000 pages, not even including the past 29 years. That’s for the next installmen, she says, because you can bet there’s plenty to write about.

“I’ve been all around the world and I love this town so much,” she says. “I have a great time and a great life, and I still love doing hair.” g


Like it or not, the name Silicon Beach sums up in two words what’s been happening lately in Venice and Santa Monica where an emerging group of Internet companies have staked claim to a mini Los Angeles tech boom.

With cool ocean breezes and surfboards these fresh new companies have been able to attract some of the best young talent of a generation. So it wasn’t long before Google, Yahoo and Microsoft took notice and moved in, a sign Silicon Beach is here to stay.

Whether you subscribe to the newly coined moniker or not, there’s no denying the area is at the forefront of some of the most interesting emerg-ing technologies. Let’s face it, this is the best climate in which to create bold dreams, and venture capitalists are taking a hard look at some of the brightest new players in the field.

At The Grail Project, a team of web developers is busy on their laptops in what feels like someone’s house on the Venice boardwalk. The crew is spread out on couches in the living room with floor-to-ceiling glass doors opened completely to the ocean breeze. Nalgene bottles sit near a kitchen sink. Upstairs in the loft area monitors and wires fill a dining room table. The job also comes with full access to bikes, surfboards and skateboards.

“My philosophy around startups is to always overspend on the office because then you can pay people value salaries and attract great talent be-cause the space is so great,” said founder and CEO Ryan Magnussen, who has some pretty lofty ambitions for this particular startup.

“Our goal is to redefine the way people discover and consume content, namely news and video,” he said from a third-floor balcony, shielding the sun with a pair of aviator glasses.

Magnussen grew up in Palo Alto in the heart of Silicon Valley so even as a young business student at USC in the early 1990s, he had his mind geared toward a growing industry at the time called the Internet. In 1995, with $20,000 and still in business school, he and a partner started Zen-tropy, one of the first web development companies in history. Four years later, the company earned $80 million in revenue with major entertain-ment industry clients such as MGM, Paramount and FOX.

“A lot of the times when I was pitching I was actually explaining what

the Internet was,” Magnussen said.A few years after selling the company, in 2003 he started Ripe, which

launched on-demand TV channels across broadband and mobile phones, notably before YouTube. He sold that in 2009 and just about a year ago started Grail.

Through its own algorithms and a user’s Facebook profile, The Grail Project will offer streaming content tailored to your interest. A web site and mobile app are expected to roll out later this year. Magnussen said he started the company in Venice specifically because of Silicon Beach.

“I found the collective group down here was growing so rapidly and I needed to be around this sort of climate to build a company,” he said. “It’s kind of been widely recognized as the place to build a business.”

But it’s not like it used to be in the online world where good ideas were lonely. Given the stiff competition these days, Magnussen said he would actually be concerned if no one was doing something similar.

“Now especially in the digital space if you have a good idea it usually has other things being done that are close or similar,” he said. “It’s actually a good sign that there are different competitors.”

Next door to The Grail Project is theCHIVE, which started in 2008, bringing viewers humorous video and photos. Further north in San-ta Monica, 29-year-old Sam Friedman is the CEO and Co-Founder of ParkMe.com – a multi-national company responsible for an app that lets consumers find parking (either in lots or on the street) in real-time.

Their bustling office is divided into a tech area where programming de-tails take place, a data team that fills in all the parking data users need and a marketing division. Located on the 3rd Street Promenade, the company has a laid back feel to it, encouraging employees to play darts and take breaks to walk or get a cup of coffee.

Friedman and his co-founder Alex Israel came up with the idea after they couldn’t find a parking space in Santa Monica one night and missed a film.

“I thought let’s do something about this problem,” said Friedman, who considers himself a person who can fix things. “I had no idea what that meant but I figured if parking was tough for us, it’s definitely tough for ev-

eryone else. We were just out of college and had no idea about parking or technology or business but were naïve enough to just start.”

The two realized they needed to gather information but also knew they needed real-time statistics.

“It’s out there, but it’s not readily available,” Friedman explained. “The key is to know pricing and availability, and there were a lot of details to sift through to get to this final product.”

ParkMe formed alliances with vendors to upload live, real-time data for their consumer base as well as major aggregators like Fandan-go, Fusicology and MovieFone. Their ParkMe widget, when installed on websites, provides a map of parking and an interactive experience for users. They also generate revenue through parking companies that are eager to tap into the advertising capabilities of the ParkMe app. Users

can determine quickly which lots are not only available but how much they will cost by the hour.

“We didn’t realize at first but parking data is extremely valuable. One of our major capital investors is Bill Ford, one of the owners of the Ford Motor Company, and Ford sees this as a natural addition to car systems,” Friedman explained. “People are already using navigation devices and parking would be an addendum to these systems.”

The company just signed a deal with a major auto company to integrate the ParkMe data and app into a GPS system.

“This will be the first time a car will roll out with built-in parking data added to a navigation system. So now your car can tell you where to park,” said Friedman, who won’t say yet which car company is the lucky recipient, but quipped, “It is a German company.”

Nate Redmond, Managing Partner of Rustic Canyon, currently one of the largest venture capital firms in Los Angeles, eschews the name Silicon Beach.

“I don’t believe it to be a very accurate repre-sentation,” he said. “Naturally by extension, with the growth of a Silicon Valley everyone wants to apply that same moniker to every other region. With New York, there was the Silicon Alley tag that stuck there for a little while and now it’s just kind of become New York and technology. And I’m hoping we see the same thing happen in LA very soon.”

And yet, like the great view at Grail, Rustic Canyon’s plush offices overlook the ocean and palm trees of Santa Monica’s Palisades Park, to which Redmond joked, “Sure, and as with New York, you overlook a lot of alleys.”

The witty Redmond, who hails from Mich-igan, has a background in engineering with a masters degree from the University of Michigan College of Engineering. He began his career as a consultant to technology firms on new product development and business strategies.

He went on to manage investments and advisory work at early-stage technology compa-nies for one of the most well regarded professors at the Harvard Business School, and about a decade later came to work for Rustic Canyon.

“We came out of the media industry and were at the forefront in the shift in media,” Redmond said. “We look to enable new consumer experi-ences both directly with new services as well as indirectly by companies that allow others to do that.”

They invested early for instance in Gaikai, a cloud-based gaming technology that allows users to play major PC and console games instantly without downloading or installation.

“It’s been interesting to see the development of the ecosystem here,” he said. “Southern Cal-ifornia has been building off a long engineering heritage, out of the aerospace industry and a ter-rific university system. There are more technical graduates in Los Angeles County than anywhere else in the country.”

During the mid-90s tech bubble, funding went into areas such as Boston, New York and the Bay Area, which grew exponentially. “What we’ve seen in the last 10 years is a slow march forward in terms of development and really over the last two years an emergence of Southern California as yet again another leader.”

A recent study by The Kauffman Foundation, found Los Angeles beat out San Francisco, New York and Boston as the most entrepreneurial city in the United States.

“That’s not solely technology but it speaks to the entrepreneurial culture that is really at the fabric of this region,” Redmond said. “So you take that and marry it to the technical underpin-ning and the technical graduates that are coming out here every year and then the proximity to this huge market here, and to Asia, and I think you have the foundations for real, long-term success.” g

Silicon Beach

By Taylor Van Arsdale and David Rosenfeld

Ryan Magnussen , CEO of The Gra i l Pro ject , and Amy Frena at Gra i l Pro ject headquar ters in Ven ice . Photo by Brad Jacobson

The Westside tech invasion looks here to stay

A m y F r ena at t he Gr a i l P r o ject headquar t er s in Ven ice . P ho t o by Br ad J aco bs o n ; D r es s pr ov ided by The A ddr es s Bo ut ique ; Ha ir and m akeup by R ick ie Bo canegr a

J u n e + J u l y 2 0 1 3 | W e s t s i d e P e o p l e 1 5


It’s four in the morning and the late night reconnaissance crew at LA Waterkeeper is tired and hungry, but they keep push-

ing on. There’s a rare all-night rainstorm in Los Angeles, so this is their chance to grab valuable water samples.

They’re in the gutters looking for pollution that might be headed to storm drains and out into the ocean. This morning they’re looking for industrial metals, the kind that flow from scrap metal yards or auto shops. In recent months, this small team of environmental sleuths has been targeting some of the biggest industrial polluters in the city, which means they’ve found some pretty disgusting places.

“There are some really nasty spots,” said exec-utive director Liz Crosson, who personally takes

part in the late night missions. “We play a really important role in ensuring that polluters are held responsible. We’re willing to get out there and be on the ground and collect the data.”

What they find can be taken to the Regional Water Quality Control Board or the City of Los Angeles to take action. And in some cases the non-profit files suit on its own. It’s a fine-tuned operation by a seven-member staff that can have a big impact.

On May 30, LA Waterkeeper celebrated 20 years of environmental activism at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel by honoring founders Terry Tamminen, Richard Baskin, Dan Emmett, Jordan Kaplan, Gil Segel and Frank and Luanne Wells, among others.

“Success has many parents,” said Tamminen,

who was living on a houseboat 20 years ago in Marina Del Rey when he got the idea that a small group of people could make a big differ-ence in cleaning up the Santa Monica Bay.

It was 1993 when he along with several others founded Santa Monica Baykeeper because the state and federal government just didn’t have the resources to keep up with all the polluters. A year ago the group changed its name to LA Waterkeeper to reflect its broader mission of protecting inland watersheds as well as the bay.

There were only about six other waterkeep-ers throughout the country in the early 1990s including one in San Francisco and the original Hudson Riverkeeper founded by Robert Kenne-dy Jr. Now there are more than 200 throughout the world.

“The fact that Congress put a citizen suit provision into the Clean Water Act suggests it’s not just an opportunity but an obligation,” Tamminen said. “It’s hands on the water look-ing for sources of degradation and holding them accountable through public media, or pushing policymakers or filing lawsuits under the Clean Water Act.”

Over the past 20 years, the group’s had some big victories, including a landmark case settled in 2004 against the City of Los Angeles that re-sulted in millions of dollars of sewage upgrades and more rigorous monitoring of 7,000 miles of existing sewer lines to prevent runoff.

“The fact the city has decreased their spills by 85 percent is monumental,” Crosson said. “It says a lot about the dedication of the city as well as how effective this type of targeted litigation can be when you identify a very serious prob-lem.”

Crosson came to the organization three years ago after working as an environmental advocate in Oregon and later representing waterkeepers in California. With Crosson’s leadership the group has stepped up its kelp restoration and additional monitoring programs.

“Liz is running the organization so well,” Tamminen says. “She has taken it to new heights and tackled new issues and expanded the organization to deal with these new chal-lenges.”

One of the aspects about the ocean that had attracted Tamminen as a boy in Los Angeles before his family moved to Australia was the kelp beds off the coast of Palos Verdes. He remembered a scuba diving trip there when he was 12. But when he returned in the early 1970s as a young man to attend Cal State Northridge, Tamminen said he found the kelp beds had almost disappeared.

“I said to myself, ‘What happened?’” he said. “I learned about polluted storm water runoff and DDT and sewage treatment plants. It wasn’t until 20 years later I realized one citizen can do a lot.”

Today the group has restored more than 10 acres of kelp forest in Palos Verdes and Mal-ibu by relocating thousands of sea urchins and planting new beds. In the coming years, Crosson says the group plans to restore 50 acres more.

Crosson has led the group to focus on industrial polluters and to educate the public on water conservation. Besides protecting the ocean, LA Waterkeepers also takes an active role in preserving the LA basin’s watershed and protecting valuable drinking water resources.

About two-thirds of all Southern California water is imported from the North or the Colo-rado River so conserving what we have once it gets here is extremely important, Crosson says.

“The mentality in Los Angeles has to change to thinking about water as a really valuable resource,” she says.

Jonathan Varat, a board member and con-

stitutional law professor at UCLA, got involved doing legal work for the group as part of the environmental law clinic on campus.

“The crux of this organization is to advo-cate for, and pursue in court when necessary, enforcement of mostly federal and state laws protecting the watershed and the bay,” Varat said. “I like to think of it as small but mighty. Liz has brought a tremendous amount of energy, and it’s really been terrific. It’s not one of those groups where you just sit around and do nothing. We actually get a lot of work done

and it feels really good.” Crosson admittedly has some pretty big

shoes to fill. After years directing Santa Monica Baykeeper, Tamminen was appointed director of the California Environmental Protection Agency by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Today the two have teamed on a new venture called R20, which works with states and provinces to tackle climate change.

“We help them tackled these issues in a way that’s good for the economy as well as the envi-ronment,” Tamminen says. g


By David Rosenfeld

LA Waterkeeper: Twenty years of

environmental activism S t eve F l e i s ch l i , L i z Cr o s s o n and Ter r y Tam mi n en at th e L A Waterkeeper’s 20th an n i versary c e l ebrat i on .

J o hn O ’Co nno r, Henr y Br is t o l , M o r gan E m mett an d Dan Emmett .

L i z Crosson , execut i ve d i rector L A Waterkeeper.


Paul Cummins, an education reformer his entire adult life, says America goes about teaching its kids the wrong way, beginning with funding.

At inner-city schools, about $6,000 is spent per student. This is not the case at elite private schools, two of which Cummins founded in Santa Monica, Crossroads and New Roads. At these top-end private schools and others across the country, upwards of $32,000 a year is spent on each student.

Although this disparity of quality has been true for generations, Cum-mins hopes a sense of injustice will feed change.

“Change is going to come from the ground up, not the top down,” Cummins says. “And it’s got to come from each individual citizen in this country getting angry about the basic unfairness that’s going on.”

Arts programs are often absent from curriculum, and standardized testing is a bad way to go about truly educating a human being, says Cummins, who has written two volumes of poetry and three books on education as well as a biography of a holocaust survivor. He has a master’s degree in teaching from Harvard University and a doctorate in English from USC. But he’s best known for the lives he has touched through the classroom.

After founding Crossroads School in 1971, Cummins worked as the headmaster for 22 years. It’s a place where traditional courses are blended with the arts, community service and environmental education. A year af-

ter stepping down in 1993, Cummins began the New Visions Foundation, which launched New Roads School for many kids considered long shots to attend a prestigious private school, or even make it in life. Nearly half of the student body receive financial aid and are minority students.

The foundation has been placing foster children in private schools, magnet schools and charter schools for more than a decade, as well as working with incarcerated youth at Camp David Gonzales in Malibu where instructors give students an educational vision of what they can do with their lives. After their release, New Visions finds them a job or a desk in a school to continue their education.

New Visions has also begun three charter schools in under-privileged Latino neighborhoods within Los Angeles Unified School District, and most recently entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Lennox School District to assist with programs for the emotional, social, and educational needs of the kids in there. Basically, New Visions is acting as a broker looking for partners and outside funding sources to grow something healthy and positive for the children in Lennox, says Emily Cummins Polk, Cummins’ daughter.

Cummins Polk is a school-based social worker and therapist in Lennox who attended Crossroads School. She was steered into school-based social work by a school counselor and close family friend. In the fall, the school district will look to offer a mentor program for girls through New Visions. Her father was approached by a group of professionally trained women

interested in starting such a program, she said.“My dad networks with people excited by projects he is working on,

and they want to get involved,” said Cummins Polk.The school recently finished construction on a new campus in Santa

Monica at the Herb Alpert Educational Village on Olympic Avenue. With money from the foundation, the school constructed an impressive new building it calls the The Capshaw-Spielberg Center for Arts and Educational Justice, which includes the stunning Ann and Jerry Moss Theater.

For many years the educational village was a major fundrais-ing project for Cummins. Now, he says, it will host conferences and workshops on foster education, the juvenile justice system and other programs for the most highly at risk youth.

To make it all happen, Cummins does his share of fundraising, but his passion is revealing opportunities for kids discarded by society. He points to the education system in Finland as a model, where testing is rarely done. Unlike the U.S., Finish teachers are given the proper resources and the freedom to be innovative.

“We put all sorts of restrictions on our teachers,” he says. “At best [standardized tests] mean you’ve taught them how to answer other people’s questions—but not to frame your own questions, not to think creatively, to get out of the box.”

“So you have this ridiculous situation where you have companies complaining that they can’t find creative employees. And then you have an educational system that is designed to produce standardized thinking,” he says.

Cummins, who outlined his view of how American corporations have cheated the American educational system in his book Two Americas, Two Educations (2006 Red Hen Press), would have wealthy individuals and multi-national companies pay taxes on a progressive education basis with no exceptions. This would cut out the gaping tax loopholes, and Cummins would also cut our military bases in half. After all, we have a thousand military bases around the world, he says.

“What the hell is that for, other than to soak up money to keep the military industrial complex fed, and then we tell our inner city teachers, ‘Sorry, you don’t have enough money for books,’” he says.

American teachers get shortchanged on more than funding. They aren’t trained to be out-of-the-box thinkers themselves, according to Cummins.

“They were trained by the previous teachers in public education, and generally speaking it’s not designed to produce radical thinkers,” he says. “It’s designed to inculcate youth into the existing culture. And the existing culture is fairly materialistic and anti-intellectual and hos-tile to the arts, so that even when you do a good job, you don’t graduate very enlightened students.”

Enlightened students receive a balanced education that makes them more aware politically, socially, aesthetically and artistically, he says.

Kelly Kagan Law received that sort of education at Crossroads. Cummins was her English teacher. She graduated in 1992 and attended USC but kept returning to visit and talk to her mentor about life and career. Kagan Law ended up working for Cummins as Vice President of programs at the foundation.

“I’m sure other people like the board [of directors] probably gets frustrated with how he doesn’t only think of this place,” Kagan Law said. “To him, this place is the whole city, state, country, and it’s always about how we can do more. He’s never satisfied. He has gratitude, but he’s always aware that there are more kids we can be helping. So we say we are serving these 25 and he says, ‘What about those other 25,’ so it’s just endless.”

Cummins believes that in addition to providing meaning and pur-pose, the function of education is to bring joy into people’s lives.

“The role of education it seems to me is to educate people to be more concerned with their fellow citizens, to develop a greater sense of fairness and to realize that all human beings have one home, this earth,” Cummins said. g


New Visions founder Paul Cummins has spent a career changing education by example

The Uphill Battle to Reform Education

By Ed Pilolla

New V is ions founder Pau l Cummins in front of the schoo l ’s new campus in S ant a M o n ica . P ho t o by E d P i l o l l a

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TiaTo & an CaTering: a family TradiTion

When Catherine An’s parents fled Saigon more than 40 years ago at the end of the Vietnam War, they came to San Francisco with virtually nothing. Her grandmother owned a 20-seat deli that employed most of the family while they lived in a small apartment.

Gradually the deli grew with popular dishes like her mother Helene’s original garlic noodles, which she created as a way to combine spaghetti and Vietnamese flavor.

Today it’s those same garlic noodles that still represent one of the most popular dishes at Tiato & An Catering in Santa Monica as well as the famed Crustacean in Beverly Hills, for which the family is most known.

Tiato Kitchen Bar Garden + Venue, located on Colorado Street in the heart of the studio district, attracts a big lunch crowd

and has become one of the most popular spots to hold local events.

“I knew that a lot of people would be eating here every day so I wanted them to have a variety on the menu so that they would not get bored of it,” Catherine says.

Guests can relax in an outdoor patio that reflects the organic nature of the food with its rich earth tones and fresh herb gardens throughout.

“I wanted something that was very healthy and fresh but also comforting, a space where people can feel warm, invited and welcomed. But most importantly was to do things sustainably,” Catherine says.

Everything from the tables and chairs to the ingredients in the food are chosen with an eye toward sustainability. It was for its attention to detail that Tiato & An Catering won a grand prize at this year’s Sustainable

Quality Awards. For her inspiration, Catherine says she returns to the Tiato leaf, a popular herb in Vietnamese cooking.

“The leaf itself is kind of symbolic of what I wanted this space and this concept to be about, healthy food that tastes good. The herb is made to add flavor and taste to it and it has really high anti-oxidant,” she says.

Catherine says she’ll never tire of hearing a customer tell her Tiato is their favorite place to eat.

“Making sure that our guests are happy every time is really important. I’m also proud that people really love the way the space came out and they enjoy hosting their events here,” Catherine says. “It’s a lot of hard work but we enjoy what we’re doing.” g

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JUNE 15: Fisherman AppreciationLocal fishermen and families are invited to Los Anglers Fisherman’s Appreciation Day Saturday June 15 at the end of the Venice pier. The event features a fishing contest beginning at 7 am with interactive displays and expert fishermen offering advice at the main event 11 am-2 pm. For more visit LosAnglers.org/FAD

JUNE 16: Train 4 AutismTrain 4 Autism will host its very first 5K/10K 7 am June 16 in Culver City. This event benefits the Culver City Education Foundation Special Education Projects. For more information, call 310-853-0794 or go to www.culvercity5K.Kintera.org.

JUNE 18: Salastina Music SocietyThe Salastina Music Society presents Masterpiece Discov-ery: Debussy String Quartet at the Annenberg Com-munity Beach House 6:30 pm Tuesday June 18. Guest host Brian Lauritzen of KUSC, will join Claude Debussy’s Children’s Corner Suite.

JUNE 18: Three Magical MilesWhat do Elvis Presley, M*A*S*H and Frankenstein all have in common? They are part of the Three Magical Miles that surround Malibou Lake. Join author Brian Rooney at 7:30 pm Tuesday June 18 on a visual tour of this area where hundreds of movies and television shows were shot. Book signing to follow. Presented by Brian Rooney, Author of Three Magical Miles. Meet at Woodland Hall at Temescal Gateway Park. Walk lasts 1.5 hours and parking is free.

JUNE 19: Documentary ScreeningThe Santa Monica Public Library hosts the first in a series of documentary screenings beginning with A Place at the Table 7 pm Wednesday June 19. The 2012 documentary that examines the issue of hunger in America. On July 17 the library will be showing We’re Not Broke, a 2012 documentary that examines corporate wealth in America as part of its film series called The Political is Personal occurring monthly throughout the summer.

JUNE 20: World of PearlsThe Pacific Palisades Women’s Club hosts The Wonder-ful World of Pearls 7 pm Thursday June 20. Each guest

receives a set of pearl earrings. The pearl is the world’s oldest gem and has been linked to power, love, health, longevity, happiness, humor, wealth, protection and luck. Guest speaker is a global pearl producer who will deliver this fun and fascinating new presentation. All ladies attending will receive a beautiful pair of quality pearl stud earrings gift and have an opportunity to shop the world’s largest selection of quality pearl jewelry at incredible prices. For more information visit ThePPWC.org

JUNE 23: Drink:Eat:Play Wine Festival The Drink:Eat:Play Wine Festival presented by BevMo, will take place at the Santa Monica Pier on Sunday, June 23 from 5PM to 9PM. Attendees will have access to over 50 wineries, hundreds of wines and the perfect evening setting. General admission is $50 and VIP is $60. Both admissions include wine and admission to Pacific Park with VIP attendees admitted an hour early. Food will be available but sold separately. Call for more information, 310-902-6955.

JUNE 29: Art Project Los AngelesBonhams and Butterfields will be hosting Art Project Los Angeles June 29. The world-class auction and cocktail reception benefits AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA). The event includes live and silent auctions and has been known to feature works by Basquiat, Chagall, Picasso, Warhol, Haring, Ruscha along with up and coming local artists from across Los Angeles.Friday, June 28 is the preview with the art auction and reception on Saturday, June 29. General admission ticket price is $50 at apla.convio.net. 213-201-1439.

JUNE 30: Yoga in the CityAdmission is free to Wanderlust Los Angeles, a one-day event held also in San Francisco, Chicago and New York that brings together leading yoga teachers and top-tier musical performers in settings of breathtaking natural beauty. Top local instructors will lead large, free classes infused with musical performances and often ending in post-savasana dance parties, making it a modern-day yogic celebration. For more visit WanderLustFestival.com

JULY 3: Ballroom by the BayThe Santa Monica Bay Women’s Club hosts ballroom

dancing the first Wednesday of every month 7-11 pm at 1210 4th St in Santa Monica. For more visit Ballroom-BytheBay.com

JULY 11: Twilight Concert SeriesThe Santa Monica Pier Twilight Concert Series begins 7 pm Thursday July 11 and continues every week until Sept 12. The concerts are a highly anticipated summer tradi-tion now in its 29th year. Join the crowd that stretches from the pier deck to the beach and beyond as the Santa Monica Bay’s gorgeous summer days blend into enchant-ing evenings of family, friends, and music. For more visit TCS.dola.com.

JULY 12: Cinema on the StreetCome watch a classic under the stars. Weekly movie nights on Third Street Promenade begins Friday July 12 with Back to the Future. Attendance is free and open to the public. Cinema on the Street is at Wilshire Blvd. just outside Chi-potle. Bring a blanket or beach chairs and enjoy the flick. For more information visit DowntownSM.com.

JULY 13: Make-a-Wish FoundationMake-a-Wish invites you to “Walk Through Hollywood History” and help raise critical funds needed to grant over 425 wishes this year for children battling life threatening medical conditions. A record 2,000 walkers are expected to enjoy a unique behind the scenes look at Universal Studios Backlot on this 2-mile course. To register for the 2-mile walk-a-thon event go to wishla.org/walk or 310-788-9474. The registration fee is $30.

JULY 14: Steve Nash ShowdownThe Steve Nash Foundation Showdown comes to down-town LA 6:30 pm Sunday July 14. Come see NBA players and pro soccer’s best compete in an 8-man soccer match benefitting kids served by the Steve Nash Foundation. General admission is free and open to the public. You can purchase exclusive VIP packages at SteveNash.org/showdown.

JULY 18: Montana Ave ArtwalkLocal artists and live music acts stretch out along Montana Avenue 5 to 9 pm Thursday July 18 for Santa Monica’s longest artwalk. For more visit MontanaAve.com

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