South Bay 7.19.2017

Devyn Schumacher

Growing up my room was plastered with advertisements ripped out of magazines. I always thought that it was the advertising side of things that I enjoyed, so I went on to major in advertising at Pepperdine University. I love my background, but several years after graduation when I was gifted my first DSLR camera I realized it was the photography side of things that I was the most passionate about. After learning the basics of the camera, I took pictures of friends any chance I got. Once I was comfortable with this, I went on to start my business and here I am today! It’s crazy to see how much my photography has grown and evolved since I started pursuing it in 2010! Read more>>

Tiffaney Vazquez

For photographer Tiffaney Ann Vazquez, the secret to capturing the personality and essence of a subject or situation is finding true emotion. Tiffaney says it takes honest emotion to represent people as they are, not as mere fabrications. “If you can look at an image and recall that moment in a real, emotional way, I’ve done my job,” she says. Part of the winning formula is timing, waiting for the best moment to let the shutter close but it’s also important to create an atmosphere in which people are relaxed. Read more>>

Kristi Elias

I have always been an artist, when I was in high school I knew, I needed to find a way to make a living as an artist at that time I decided that photography would be the most profitable medium. After high school, I went to college at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara. I will never forget the last year of school, everyone said aren’t you excited! My response was we are about to be unemployed artist, I knew I needed to start making assisting connections with other established photographers. During my last year I also drove to Pasadena and took night classes at Art center college of design on art direction. I wanted to learn what the people hiring me knew and were looking for. Read more>>

Vuong Vu

I never thought that I will be doing what I’m doing right now. I chose Photography because I thought it’s easy when I was going to school. I’m Vietnamese, came to America at 15 years old and English is my second language. When I was going to school, I chose the major based on the requirement of the projects (which one doesn’t require me to write an essay or doing speech in front of people) I will choose it. However, I didn’t really love photography when I was going to school because the first couple classes that I took were required me to learn how to (load 35mm films in to the reel, develop the films in the dark room…), That was really boring to me and I didn’t feel interested in the class at all so I dropped the class couple months after that. Read more>>

Liz Bordessa

We opened as a traditional tailoring service in 1985. Cloths were an investment, before fast fashion and off shore garment manufacturing, and fit was important. As fashion trends changed we evolved our services to help people find their individual style as well as their perfect fit. Today we offer wardrobe consulting in addition to our full tailoring service. Our wardrobe consulting service range from a one-on-one consultation with a Stylist, to creating a personalized style book to help clients build a fulfilling wardrobe. Read more>>

Danny Juare

I began my photo career as most do with a fascination with capturing images. The ability to freeze a moment in time has always intrigued me. As my skill progressed, I learned how to mold the frame to capture what I envisioned in my mind. I like to say that I “capture what the light is giving me” and this holds true to most of my photographic work. My biggest struggle has been, time. Only being able to commit part-time to growing my business has really handcuffed me into what I want to do. Read more>>

Anton Peterson

I grew up in Washington state. My teen years were spent in the suburbs of Seattle. One of my friends was involved in Karate and I went with him to class one day and that’s where my martial arts journey started. when I was Twenty I moved to Tucson, Arizona because I had family there, during that I started working in clubs doing security and the cub manager was a serious martial artist and connected me with his instructor who was a Shorin-Ryu Master, so I started training in that system. In 1993, I moved to Los Angeles California to attend Music School, which is another one of my lifelong passions. I had moved to North Hollywood and was looking for another place to continue my martial arts training and there happen to be a Kung Fu San Soo school right near my house and I had been told about that the system was a great well-rounded type of training. Read more>>

Jacquelyn Ross

When I started doing massage over 10 years ago it was pretty expensive. My goal was to make massage more accessible and affordable for everyone. We wanted to provide the convenience of mobile spa as the ultimate way to unwind. We have expanded our services to serving local hospitals and nursing facilities to help those who are sick or have trouble getting around. It has been pretty bumpy road having to obtain a business license for every city we offered massage and facials in before the laws were changed to becoming state wide certified. Read more>>

Anh Chi Pham

In 2008, after about eight years of pursuing fiction writing as a career, I realized that: (1) I was almost broke and; (2) there was no way in hell I was going back to the corporate world (which I did before writing). So, I pursued my other love: yoga. With my last chunk of change, I took a teacher training at Kripalu and started teaching out of my chiropractor’s office. I grew up in an immigrant household where I was taught that work is about survival and pragmatism, not about following my passion. Read more>>

Denise Yavas

My partner, Mitch, has been buying and selling used road bikes for 8 years. One day there was an opportunity to make his little garage gig a legitimate business. That’s where I came in. With an accounting background and a knack for organization, together we built Wheely Cool Bikes. Our goal with this business is to make cycling more accessible to everyone, and make high-end road and triathlon bikes available to the community at a reasonable price. It has been a smooth road except our bike shop was robbed on April 6, 2017, five months after we opened. Read more>>

Shelby Ranson

I didn’t always know I was going to become a hairstylist. My true love has always been music. Taking music lessons off and on from elementary through college kept me grounded. It also took me on a wild ride. When punk hit LA, I was smitten. I had the opportunity to play in various bands in clubs in and around LA. I was surrounded by the most creative and beautiful people. The fashion, especially the hair, was incredible. During this time, my younger sister was making a pretty good living as a hairstylist. She was my inspiration for getting into the industry. Read more>>

Eddie Estudillo

I started playing music in the 60’s with some well-known artists and also recorded on Cadillac Records. After a brief absence from music industry starting in ’74 because of disco music and DJ’s taking over the scene. It seemed to me that something was lost from the good old days of music and that was the entertainment part. I was going from club to club and didn’t see the show groups that were around in the earlier years. So I decided to put a group together in ’95 and call ourselves “HUSH”. Read more>>

Amy Kramer and Debra Voulgaris

My own dog tore a ligament in her knee and had to have surgery. Post-surgery when she couldn’t bend her knee enough to get her through the dog door, I asked the surgeon for a recommendation and he said “Aren’t you a physical therapist? Do what you would do for a human!” When I realized that there wasn’t physical therapy “rehabilitation” for animals the light bulb went on in my head. I grabbed a dog anatomy book and realized that the structures were very similar. Read more>>

Chris Rose

The concept of Ariento started while I was still in the Marine Corps during a deployment to the Republic of Georgia (near Russia). I was talking with a fellow Marine, Robert (who became the first employee of Ariento several years later), whose parents owned a nail salon in Santa Monica, and it hit me that small business owners aren’t so different that infantry battalions. I had grown up working for small family businesses and knew that they 1. were desperate for good IT service people 2. always had trouble finding it and 3. were extremely vulnerable from a cyber security standpoint. A few years later, Ariento was born. Read more>>

Brian Noel

I am a harpist who performs for weddings. events, and religious services, as well as for other private and corporate events. I also perform with orchestras and choruses throughout southern California. I started my musical training on piano when I was five years old. I started playing flute in junior high school, and decided to major on flute in college. After finishing my undergraduate degree, I won the audition for the assistant principal flute job in the concert band at West Point (United States Military Academy). Read more>>

Jose Luis Becerra

Since I was a little kid, I was fascinated with animals. I grew up in the countryside. I did not have ordinary pets, I will go to a pond, gather tadpoles and raise them until they become frogs, or toads!! Or I went to the nearest creek and get seven to ten turtles, keep them for a while and then put them back where I found them. In my early years, I had several kinds pets, some wild and some domestic: birds, amphibians, mammals etc. This interaction with animals made it easy to help my friends and neighbors with animal issues that they would not be able to take care of. Read more>>

Cordi Koga

Most musical instrument dealers started out playing an instrument and I’m no exception. My first instrument was a xylophone that my mother found somewhere and lugged home. You could hear that thing for miles! Then my dad, who was in the army in Hawaii, sent me a ukulele with a songbook. I figured out how to play “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”, and that’s still about the extent of my uke repertoire today. In 5th grade the Cleveland Public Schools offered free use of a violin to play in the orchestra (thank you Ohio taxpayers!). Read more>>

Anastasia Lee

I started my wedding planning business after I planned my own wedding. I had a very extravagant wedding on a yacht and pressed for time with 265 guests. I didn’t have a wedding planner to cut cost. It was overwhelming but very exciting at the same time. I then realized how much I loved it and started my own wedding planning business and day of coordinator services. I’ve been pretty fortunate with my clientele. I have not had any bridezillas thus far. Haha. The best part is consulting with my client and making sure the sock fits in the shoe. Read more>>

Amber Maron

I’ve always been interested in health, the environment and food. I became a vegetarian at 12 years old, and was constantly being asked about what I ate, so from a young age I gained experience thinking about and discussing food. Admittedly as a teenager I was a bit of a “junk food” vegetarian, eating lots of bagels and veggie dogs. As I got older I started to cook more and learn about the environmental impact of agriculture and the food industry, and I started to clean up my diet, eating lots of locally grown, organic produce, and cutting out the processed junk. I felt better, and by changing my diet I was able to clear up my own issues like acne and eczema. Read more>>

Richie Roman

Having been raised in Los Angeles and going to school in San Pedro, my twin brother joining the military took me to where my career began in Atlanta Georgia. I attended a tiny beauty school in a small town called Fayette Beauty Academy that was charming. My first salon experience was working for a huge top Atlanta salon Van Michaels. Coming back home to California, I knew the diversity and beauty of Long Beach was home for my husband Mark and my daughter Tallulah as well as our 8-year-old rescues Soho & Apple.  Read more>>

Dr. Chris Wilkerson

Dr. Wilkerson graduated from the University of Arizona in 1973, with a B.S. degree in Neurobiology. While in graduate school, he met a Chiropractor on a ski lift in the White Mountains of Arizona. They talked, and Dr. Wilkerson saw an opportunity to help others, as well as continue his academics. He ended up leaving graduate school in Arizona and going to California. He attended Cleveland Chiropractic College for four more years of education, graduating Magna Cum Laude. Read more>>

Lesley Almer

When my clients ask me this question, the first thing that comes to mind is 9/11. That day, I was working for a travel company. I was working switchboard, answering phone calls, and experienced a very taxing and emotional day. Customers were upset, venting, and threatening our reps. Underneath all of this emotional chaos, a little voice told me not to take it personally. Our society was hit hard and many didn’t know how to express themselves or cope. It was then, that I knew I wanted to be in a more serene environment. Read more>>

Lisandro Preza

I came to the United States from El Salvador when I was 14. December of 2004, my mother passed away, just 6 months after I had arrived to Hawthorne. That was my freshman year of High School at Hawthorne High School. Second semester I decided to audition for the school’s musical production Bye Bye Birdie. Needless to say, I did not get a speaking role because of my limited English, but Mrs. Saari gave me the opportunity to have a dancing role and she casted me as Karl. Being in the production was my first contact with makeup. Read more>>

Liza Macawili Ramos

As a kid, I loved fashion. I would tear out pictures from my sister’s Vogue and Cosmopolitan magazines and tape them to my wall. My mom bought me a toy called fashion plate where you could interchange the plates to make different outfits. I loved playing Barbie and I had a Barbie doll head to practice different hairstyles on. I come from an art family so it was only natural to gravitate towards makeup artistry. But I had different passions and ultimately, I’m a dancer at heart so I chose to dance as a career. Usually, dancers do their own makeup and I got pretty good at doing mine, and dancers would line up before a show and ask me to do theirs. Read more>>

Drea McClenaghan

My business journey began very unusually. I went to school and earned a degree in Child Development to become a preschool teacher, then I continued my schooling to earn a degree in Fashion Design because I really wanted to be a fashion designer. After that, I started my own business creating clothing lines for people, who had no knowledge of how to create a garment from concept to garment. That business took a lot out of me and took a toll on my family life, as well as, being a mom. Read more>>

Bryce Henson

I am a fitness professional who made a fitness transformation of my own in 2007. I then began personal training for a few years, which led to launching my first Group Training studio in 2012 called Yorba Linda Fit Body Boot Camp. From training hard personally, getting great results with my clients; we noticed a need for increased muscle recovery. We came across Whole Body Cryotherapy and knew it was a fit that would complement our fitness business, but also help the surrounding community with fat loss, arthritis, chronic pain and inflammatory conditions, and those seeking weight loss and skin rejuvenation. Read more>>

Tegyn Friedman

I have always loved taking photos, and I have always been drawn to natural light and the way that it fades into a golden, magical glow at the end of each day. However, I had never thought of it as a career until I had finished my general education in college and decided to take a break in school to decide what it was that I truly wanted to do with my life. It was during that break that I helped a friend with photographing a wedding, and the thought of being a photographer as my career just made sense. I soon after bought my first camera, and jumped in with both feet. Read more>>

Tommy Nguyen

My photographic journey began when I was in high school, snapping black-and-white film off my trusty Canon AE-1 camera, which I still have. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing really but I had a great time doing it with my friends. I didn’t know my f-stop from a hole in the ground but I’m a big believer in learning by doing and learning by experimentation. People who know me know that I’m forever pursuing some artistic or intellectual endeavor. For example, if it isn’t sketching, it is writing; if it isn’t researching a topic, it’s painting (which I do very poorly, I might add). Read more>>

Amber Maron

I’ve always been interested in health, the environment and food. I became a vegetarian at 12 years old, and was constantly being asked about what I ate, so from a young age I gained experience thinking about and discussing food. Admittedly as a teenager I was a bit of a “junk food” vegetarian, eating lots of bagels and veggie dogs. As I got older I started to cook more and learn about the environmental impact of agriculture and the food industry, and I started to clean up my diet, eating lots of locally grown, organic produce, and cutting out the processed junk. Read more>>