Heather Newgen
For the last 12 years, I’ve worked as an entertainment reporter in LA interviewing the industry’s top talent. It’s been fun and exciting, but also a struggle to fit in because my life wasn’t always so glam. At 14, I went to live with my grandparents, and while they provided a home, they weren’t able to offer guidance and encouragement. Read more>>
Lucy Jolis
Halfway through my senior year of high school my family moved from the east coast to Laguna Beach. I spent that summer working in a small shop in Laguna and fell in love, equally, with both California and working in a boutique. I sat out in sun in front of the shop when it was slow. Read more>>
Shawn Davis
I was a touring, working musician most of my life. Had record deals and publishing deals but none of them lead to the promised land I had been seeking. At 45 years old, lost and not knowing what I was going to do next, I started working for my younger brother Erik. Read more>>
Paul Pondella, Colette Pondella
Paul Pondella our Founder, has been rescuing wild animals and bringing them to safety his entire life. A dyslexic and troubled child, his education came from his innate connection to animals and nature. This gave him a sense of purpose that ultimately saved his future. Read more>>
Felix Brian Portillo
I started cutting hair in high school. I became really good at it so I started working in a barbershop as soon as I graduated. Shortly after I went to barber school to make a career out of it. When I turned 20 I started fresh Kutz. People would say I wouldn’t make it because I was young. Read more>>
Maura McCarthy, Paul Nassar
Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Seven years ago my daughter’s friends were getting caught tagging and kicked out of catholic school. I was a creative director in Hollywood and thought, “Oh, they just need something to paint!” Naive to a fault, I threw my first Paint Off. Flash forward, now we are a 501c3. My kids have graduated college. Read more>>
Lorraine Spektor
My partner and I were working in the interior design business for quite some time and constantly needed a high-end, modern style gaming piece. We were never lucky enough to find what we need and decided to fulfill this niche and make it our goal to be the sole provider for these custom gaming pieces. Read more>>
Sogol Sinaeifar
I started getting familiar with property management 12 years ago with my first cousin Mikey Dardashti. He and I actually worked together for years! His company was for commercial and residential long-term leases. I helped run the company with Mikey, leasing and managing the properties he had. Read more>>
John Locke
Nine years ago, I was working in a Wonder Bread factory. I had been part of the baker’s union for the previous sixteen years at various jobs. I wanted to make paradigm shift in the way I was living, so I started learning web design and web development in between shifts in 2009. Read more>>
Tal Rabinowitz
I started in entertainment. I was originally hired as a PA for Road Rules, and quickly moved in to their product placement division and had the opportunity to work on The Real World. It was a dream job; a lot of young employees which was perfect for someone like me who knew nobody in Los Angeles. Read more>>
David Tourje
I grew up in the hills of Northeast LA, I was lucky to have friends that were older than me that were in construction who I followed around during the late 70s helping them and making spare change. Eventually I became a journeyman carpenter myself by age 23. Read more>>
Nigel Walsh
I began my journey in the world of music by taking piano lessons at age 9. My mom wanted to find something extracurricular to help occupy my time. Unlike other after-school activities (karate, etc.), I took right to it and began writing songs almost immediately. Nothing special at first – just little experiments. Read more>>
Andreas Esparza
Like most people, being able to fly was one of my dreams since I was a little kid. I started flying RC airplanes for fun over ten years ago. We did not have the technology we have today. The old NiCad held very little power and were clunky and heavy. Read more>>
Adam Jaratanian, Minas Martirosyan
I guess we can say it all started 15 years ago when we met in middle school and became close friends. As we got older, our definition of hanging out was going over to each other’s house to talk about business ideas and what we had to do to become successful businessmen. Read more>>
Adam Bendorf
Allemande Music Academy was born from our desire to match music students with great classical music teachers. Anna (my beautiful wife) and I had already been running our own private piano studio from our home when we decided to pursue this second arm of our business. Read more>>
Lori Rothschild Ansaldi
I graduated from the University at Buffalo in 1996. I immediately moved to Manhattan and started working as a receptionist for a post production house called Pomann Sound. A about a year later, I moved to Maryland to be close to my fiance and started working at Menninger Media Services in Washington, DC where I managed the post production and closed captioning for National Geographic Explorer and the Travel Channel. Read more>>
John Ziegler
John Ziegler (commonly known as JZ) came from boat building in Santa Barbara, and an association that started in the late ’70’s with an iconic boat yard in Santa Barbara, creating one-off commercial fishing boats, harbor patrol boats, and high end sportfishing and diving boats. Read more>>
Tara Fitzgerald, Blaise Fitzgerald
Blaise started his martial arts journey in high school wrestling. He was a very talented wrestler, gaining state champion stats in both South Carolina and California. Blaise and I started studying Taekwondo about 15 years ago. When he was testing for his 3rd degree black belt, we decided it would be a good decision for our family to open our own school. Read more>>
Claudio Martins and Raquel Garcia
We started 10 years ago teaching animation and computer graphics in Brazil. During these years we invited several artists here from the film and animation industry to give lectures and workshops in our country. Professionals from several studios like: Pixar, Disney, ILM, Blizzard, BlueSky, DreamWorks etc. Read more>>
George Pondella
Back in the late 1970’s there was plenty of work and opportunity. As a self-driven business-minded 18 year old, I learned that if I reached out to ask potential clients for opportunities and followed through with high quality work, then I was going to be successful. I always said yes to the opportunity. Read more>>
Robert Sarai
LA Solar Group is a team of expert engineers and consultants wanting to provide homeowners with the latest solar technology and design with exceptional installation on the most productive systems at the lowest possible price. Since 2012, we’ve quickly become one of the top solar companies in the United States, with a mission to serve every customer’s unique needs and desire to have the perfect solar system. Read more>>
Linda Woods
My name is Linda Woods. I went to San Diego State University for 3 years as an Art Major. In my third year I unfortunately caught viral pneumonia! Being too naive at 20, I was so sick I didn’t drop my classes and received all withdrawal fails! Read more>>
Jacqui Lorenzen, Nick Lorenzen
My husband I were set to get married at Triunfo Creek Vineyards in 2014. That same year we also had the opportunity to purchase the property (what luck!). Being able to go through the entire experience of being newlyweds, selecting a space, planning our wedding, we could really get a feel for what worked at the venue and what didn’t. Read more>>
Ashley Foster, Lindsey Blick
Lindsey and I (Ashley) met in August of 2014. We were working at a call center in Wichita, KS and both going to school and basically stuck in a rut. We sat right next to each other for months without ever saying a word to each other. Eventually, Lindsey sparked a conversation over my salad because it smelled good and that led to other small talk. Read more>>
Sebastien Lagree
I moved to Los Angeles in 1998 to pursue acting. Once in LA, I became a personal trainer to support the acting; but, to my surprise, the personal training took off almost immediately. I decided to give it more attention and, within a few months, I was teaching full time, started to get noticed by the media, and attracted celebrities and top athletes. Read more>>
Karen Cormier
I’m what they call a natural connector. I LOVE meeting new people and finding out who they are and what they’re about. I joined TEAM Referral Network in 2009 as a member. I loved everything about it. I learned over time that there was an opportunity to make this into a business. Read more>>
Josh Myers
I’ve been saturated in accounting all my life, both of my parents are CPA’s. Growing up in Prescott Valley, AZ I watched my parents work hard at their home office, building their business while holding on to their values, all the while going above and beyond for their clients. Read more>>
