60th Chamber President, Board Installed

Packed with past Chamber presidents, local merchants and even a couple of Hollywood celebrities, the 60th Annual Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce Installation Dinner was held last Thursday at the Riviera Country Club. Business and pleasure joined together as incoming Chamber president Ramis Sadrieh (founder and owner of Technology for You!) and his enthusiastic 14-member board of directors were installed. Emceed by past president Brad Lusk, this year’s banquet felt like a family affair as cycle-of-life events within the Chamber’s sphere were acknowledged from the podium. In the last year, outgoing Chamber president Toni Balfour gave birth to Scarlett (a first for a sitting president), former Palisades Honorary Mayor Dom DeLuise passed away, and Chamber board member John Petrick was engaged to Sara Tracy. Even during the invocation, delivered by Dr. Mike Martini (Sadrieh’s childhood pediatrician), the retired doctor mentioned that he and his wife Elaine were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. Palisades Flowers owner Manal Karin supplied the centerpieces at every table. But perhaps a pair of criss-crossing klieg lights should have been planted in the middle of the Chamber’s table, given the Hollywood star power seated near Chamber executive director Arnie Wishnick. On one side sat actor Peter Graves and his wife, Joan, while Honorary Mayor Gavin MacLeod (‘The Love Boat,’ ‘Mary Tyler Moore’) and his wife Patti were seated opposite. Poor Gavin didn’t even finish his salad before a diner joked about eating at the Captain’s table. ‘Beat it!’ joked a deadpan Graves as he passed by Palisadian-Post photographer Rich Schmitt on his way up to the stage, where he led the Pledge of Allegiance. Joan Graves may have wanted to apply her ukulele lessons from Amazing Music and play the ‘Mission: Impossible’ theme, but Ernie Hernandez and His Orchestra beat her to the punch. Nicole Howard presented the Best New Business Award to Joyce Brunelle on behalf of the solar installation company she co-founded, Suntricity, Inc., on Sunset. Brunelle used her stage time to decry America’s dependency on foreign oil, while urging everyone to go solar. ‘As we say at our company, ‘May the sun always shine on your roof!” Rotary Club president Kevin Niles presented the Chamber’s annual Beautification Award to the Village Pantry and Oak Room team. Architect Ralph Gentile delivered the thank-you speech on their behalf and explained how the former Mort’s Deli was transformed into twin restaurants on Swarthmore. Palisadian-Post publisher Roberta Donohue presented the Mort Farberow Businessperson of the Year Award to architect Rich Wilken, who has lived his entire life in Pacific Palisades. ‘My family has had businesses in this town since the late ’40s,’ Wilken said. ‘My dad and mom had John’s Pastry Shop and Wilken’s Patio Coffee Shop, my wife Deann’s family had several businesses [including the Lindomar Hotel on PCH], and my brother and I had our surfboard business.’ The Chamber also handed out its first award to green-conscious businesses, as Riveria general manager Paul Mroz accepted on behalf of the Riviera and its owner, Noboru Watanabe.   ’He’s a big supporter of green initiatives here and in Japan,’ Mroz said of Watanabe, ‘and he was pleased to hear about this award.’ Mroz cited the Riviera’s green efforts, from recycling to saving water, and vowed: ‘We’ll do our best to enlarge our green footprint.’ Representatives from the offices of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, Councilmember Bill Rosendahl, State Senator Fran Pavley, Assemblymember Julia Brownley, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa presented certificates to Balfour and MacLeod. Villaraigosa’s field deputy, Jennifer Badger, installed the Chamber’s new board of directors. Balfour humorously summed up her year in office: ‘A year ago we were here at the Riviera. The food was great, the views were fabulous, and the wine was flowing…Nine months later, I gave birth. So I caution all of you, go ahead and party tonight, but be warned: there could be consequences!’   In his remarks, MacLeod praised Sadrieh, who was Mr. Palisades in 1993 and has built a successful business repairing and installing computers and entertainment-based products. MacLeod, who, with his wife, have often relied on Sadrieh’s business, noted, ‘He’s gone from Mr. Palisades to Mr. President. Patti and I love him like a son. In fact, we see him more than our own son!’ MacLeod continued teasing Sadrieh, discussing their mutual lack of hair: ‘At PaliHi, he was voted Most Likely to Recede! We don’t really need barbers! We can just wipe our heads with a little wet tissue.’ In an acceptance speech blending one-liners with moving tributes, Sadrieh thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press (‘Just wanted to see if you’re listening!’), before praising his parents, Dr. Khosrow and Fatemeh Sadrieh, DDS, and the community that shaped him. ‘I have never been given a more opportunistic moment to genuinely thank my mother and father for all that they have done, all the sacrifices they have made in order to make me who I am today,’ Sadrieh said. ‘I am so grateful for the struggles and challenges my parents faced in their lives. First with leaving Iran with professional degrees and established professions, not speaking a word of English, migrating to America with my sister for new opportunities to basically start their lives all over’learning a new language and obtaining professional degrees from accredited American universities’and then for having me. ‘I admire their tenacity in buying a home in the Palisades and for raising two children, trying to provide them with the very best they could. My parents taught me the true gift of giving, and the very sense of community, which I have taken as far as I possibly could.’ Sadrieh singled out his wife Sara ‘for putting up with the late nights and all of the functions I dragged you to against your will!’ He dubbed their 15-month-old girl, Layla, ‘nothing short of a miracle. We all know how time goes by so quickly, and for this reason, I can see her as the next Miss Palisades!’