The Valley 6.12.2017

Megan Risdon

From yesterday’s fishing boats to modern-day homes, EcoChic brings artful twists to old classics in our one-of-a-kind reclaimed wood and metal furnishings. EcoChic tells a story of endurance. The timeless beauty of reclaimed boatwood lives on in art furniture with au courant style. The form may change but the spirit of graceful strength remains the same. Read More>>

Katherine Katsenis

My story is simple. As a teacher, I was often asked to take photos of school events, or of kids who missed picture day. When I retired from teaching, it seemed a natural transition to become a maternity, newborn and infant photographer. Read More>>

Soroush Payandeh

I started to draw when I was 3 years old. My parents always supported my interest in art by encouraging me to draw or paint as much as I liked. By the time I was 15, art had become a passion for me. I enrolled in art school and began my studies in painting. Read More>>

Max Dell

I graduated at UCLA with a theater degree. I had a summer job working at Universal Studios as Frankenstein and Bullwinkle. My grandfather, who opened this business in 1966, needed a hand as both his sons had gone in different directions. My father was never in the picture, so it was the only family business opportunity. Read More>>

Eliza Engle

I have always been a designer. I started by cutting my own patterns and making clothes at age 8, after my mother taught me how to use her old Singer sewing machine, which I still have. Later I began taking interest in graphic design after taking a class in high school. Of course, graphic design back then was nothing like it is now. Read More>>

Cory Wong

It’s interesting because photography was more of a hobby. Throughout my university years, I maintained that I would apply to the LAPD after college, which eventually changed to Officer Candidate School in the Navy. Unfortunately, I was disqualified due to asthma, but in retrospect, I probably wouldn’t have survived the rigorous physical training anyways. Read More>>

Charleston Daulo and Gilbert Mallari

Most companies begin with recognizing a need in a particular industry. Others are fueled out of a passion for something, ours is driven by both and lead by the need to do good in the world before increasing profit margins. Our story began with two unsuspecting strangers that shared a common hobby – sport fishing. Gilbert and I met on a fishing trip and what was a hobby, evolved into an obsession, and has now grown to a passion. Read More>>

Anthony Parisi

Anthony started his passion for sports and fitness at a young age. His dad mentored him as a boy while his mom cheered from the sidelines. In high school Anthony played baseball, football, and lacrosse; however, his competitive spirit often leads to injury. Sometimes it seemed he was living in the athletic training room more than he was at home. Read More>>

Todd Leykamp

I moved out to Los Angeles from VA in 2006 and have been building my creative career ever since. This business was started after I worked in television post production for over 10 years. A lot of photography finishing is done in the post production phase, so it has been a seamless transition into the new field. Read More>>

Clarine and Frank McDonald

In 1964, Frank began working in the picture framing business with Aaron Bros. Picture Framing. For the next 20 years, he honed his skills working for individual frame shops as well as Arron Bros. He also started making his own hardwood picture frames and displayed them at art shows in and around the Los Angeles Area. Read More>>

Sandra Chahayed

In 2005, I was looking for work after high school. I was walking around a shopping center and happen to walk into a flower shop. I didn’t think I would ever be working in such a place as my dream was to be a doctor. I asked the manager if she was hiring. Read More>>

Alexandra Kube

I’ve always considered myself to be an artist. Maybe it was encouraged during my childhood but nonetheless it’s been a large part of who I am and always have been. I graduated LAVC with a degree in Fine Art, managed a dream job at Warner Bros and then at Sony as an animation artist for several years. Read More>>

Assia Garibian

It all started on a Sunday morning while having coffee with my sisters. We were talking about our jobs and how each one of us wanted to do something different. Literally 30 minutes later I came up with this crazy idea of Boxed Flowers and how no one else has done it before and that it would be so great to make them. Read More>>

Brent Geris

I went to Cal State Northridge and graduated with a degree in Radio/TV/Film and after working in that business for several years, I need a change. I have ALWAYS loved magic and made the CRAZY decision to open a shop! I opened the shop in August 2003. The Magic Apple opened as a Teacher’s Supply store AND Magic Shop. Read More>>

Aaron Van Holland

We began flipping vintage furniture and home decor more or less as a hobby with the potential to generate supplemental income. It inevitably led into some refurbishing and eventually reinterpreting items that were beyond basic repair. Deconstructing these pieces gave us insight into basic furniture construction techniques. Read More>>

Jose Menjivar

I’m a licensed contractor with 20+ years of experience in the automated entry systems industry. I started the company 9 years ago with my wife, one service truck and an office out of our garage. Over the he years we have earned a steady clientele both residential and commercial. Read More>>

Tracey Pearson

Tracey Pearson is the creator and owner of Starborn Healing and Crystal Magical Creations. Originally from Hinckley, England, currently residing in Lake View Terrace, California. Tracey has spent nearly half of her life living in America and now calls America ‘home’. Read More>>

Cyrill Reiser

My story starts in a tiny town in Switzerland called Pfungen. That’s where I spent my entire childhood and some parts of my early adulthood. I have amazing parents, who were always very supportive of any dreams that I wanted to pursue. Read More>>

Michael Goodman

My story begins not quite 25 years ago at UCLA Medical Center where I was born, August 27, 1992 — and it was a whopper of a debut show according to my dad who was right there at the time of my delivery — it was very busy night involving lots of complicated C-Section deliveries and they were under staffed so there was this resident doctor who not only had never delivered a baby but apparently got a case of the heebee-jeebees about it all — so my dad kicked him out of the room with my mom screaming like a banshee because she wasn’t given epidural — and left to the devices of a senior midwife I came into this world — full head of hair — and eager to discover! Read More>>

Christina Shiachi

I actually went to school to be a Medical Assistant but upon finishing school a friend of mine had opened his own construction company and needed someone he trusted to run his office. I needed the job, so I was going to help him for a few months and then go find work in my filed. I ended up working there for over 5 years and learning everything about the business and loving it. Read More>>

Sandra Wakashige

My journey to become a professional organizer grew out of one of the most difficult times in my life. My mother passed away, and my 15-year-old sister was left alone in a terrible home environment. Even though I was only 25, I decided to adopt my sister so she could have a better life. Read More>>

Ivan Gonzalez and Maria Mozqueda

We got started because we couldn’t find a real green cleaning company that carried the green seals products we supported. We saw a demand for people like ourselves that cared about the environment, our pets and of course our long-term health. We’ve been successful because we care about our customers and we treat their home as if it they were our own. Read More>>

Ike Dzhragatspanyan

Enovex Total Wellness Pharmacy is a compounding pharmacy specializing in hard to find or challenging compounds. We are fully complaint with all new rules and regulations governing the practice of pharmacy and have a very nice State of the Art facility. We used to practice in Studio City under Dr. Ike’s Pharmacy and service clients all over CA with their compounding and nutritional needs. Read More>>

STEVE LIESER

I started my company from my apartment and worked hard at introducing the company to people in the industry.The only struggle I had that was serious was when I got sick and had to go to the hospital. Read More>>

Paul Owens

The first impression I had with a dog happened when I was 5 years old and my dad brought home a puppy on Christmas morning who chased me up the stairs and scared the living daylights out of me. Over time, we became friends and our family had 3 dogs while I was growing up. We were taught the training methods of the time: rub nose in poop, knee in chest, pin on ground and all the rest. Read More>>

Tamra Meskimen

The founders of The Acing Center Eric Matheny, Christopher Smith, Tamra Meskimen and Bill Kilpatrick all worked in the arts is some regard for many years. Bill as a sculptor Eric in LA as an actor and Christopher and Tamra as part of the NY improv scene, performing and running a school in NY as well. What we discovered was that there were a lot of actors that we came across that were not thriving in their classes and feeling like they had lost their certainty in their ability to perform. Read More>>

Bobby Pappas

Like many stories, mine has not been linear. I came to LA in the early 90’s to be a filmmaker, having studied Film & Television in college. My first ten years or so I jumped around different entertainment jobs, some freelance or part-time, some full-time, all while I wrote screenplays trying to break-in. I came close a couple of times, in both television and film, but like a car engine trying to turn-over in the dead of winter my career just didn’t “catch.” Read More>>

Martin Turnbull

The business was originally started by Bob Molinari in 1980. A couple of years before that, he found a set of six dwarfs from Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” They were cute and colorful and he figured they’d brighten up his apartment. He didn’t mind that the set lacked Dopey and figured that sooner or later he’d go out to find the Dopey that completed the set. Read More>>

Jenn Page

It’s difficult to find the starting point to “how you started,” as it could have begun as a child bossing my cousins, sister, or friends around to make videos on a VHS camera back in the small town of Cahokia, Illinois. Maybe it started when I was going to college surrounded by corn, having my first taste of being part of a theatre family at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. I was an actor then, and not a very good one; however, I still got cast in my first professional play in St. Louis before I even finished collecting my diploma. Read More>>

Marc Fajardo

Dante Swain, David Chan, Jerome Revilla and I are co-founders of Jive Duck Studios. We’ve been friends for years before we started our company. We all used to teach an aspect of multi-media to elementary school kids for an afterschool program around the LA Unified School District. One day we thought it would be a cool idea to start a business using the skills that we already know in multi-media, and open it up to the creative professional field. Read More>>

Joseph Hanna

21 years ago, we started in the lighting industry and my oldest brother Michael pull us from a very bad situation and a few others. We started c2c lights in 2003 with basically $35,000 and a prayer. In our 2nd full calendar year, we did over 4 million in sales and through some ups and downs in the economy we have been able to serve over 50,000 customers nationwide and keep 99.3% of them very happy. We sell over 30,000 lighting fixtures residential commercial indoor and outdoor. Read More>>

Martin Lubran

My first career was as a Biostatistician after nine years of college and graduating from the UCLA School of Public Health. Next, I changed careers and became a Systems Analyst working for Litton Computer Services. Eventually I joined the management team at Litton. Read More>>

Doug Hafford

I started the business 31 years ago in my apartment on the west side of LA. After a couple of years, it was clear that the Legal Market was under served in Los Angeles and just beginning to adopt real technology. As we grew we adopted standards that allowed us to deliver a consistent service to our clients. Read More>>

Armand Gazarian

After shooting television shows for Hollywood icons like Howard Stern, Drew Carey and Damon Wayans for over a decade, I decided to start a company with an innovative approach to advertising and entertainment. Soon after establishing Dynamic Films, we became a Google approved production resource and have since made several hundred commercials for a variety of client’s coast to coast including major brands like eBay and Visa. We continue to grow and expand our operation which includes television and feature film production and distribution. Read More>>

Suzanne Bank

In 1970 I was a divorced mother of two young children when being divorced was not looked upon favorably. At that time, married women were concerned that divorced women were going to go after their husbands and as a single woman, you would not be seen out in public on a Friday or Saturday night. To add to that women couldn’t get credit cards! It was an interesting time to be a divorced woman. Read More>>