Brad Lusk Installed as New Chamber President

‘This is an interesting time in our town,’ said Brad Lusk last Thursday evening during his installation as the new president of the Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce. ‘We’re trying to reconcile growth with the small-town qualities that have made the Palisades so special,’ Lusk said, ‘and the forces are going both ways.’ His job over the next year, working with a board of directors in their volunteer capacity, will be to use his ideas and his influence to grow Chamber membership while encouraging local business owners to get involved and stay involved in nurturing what he described as ‘the closeness of this community.’ Lusk, a reverse mortgage originator with American Senior Funding, was joined at the Riviera Country Club banquet by his wife Sharon; his children, Nancy and Neal (and wife Brianne); his granddaughters, Nicole, Olivia and Rachel; his sisters, Karen and Janet (and their husbands); and his 94-year-old mother, Louise, who lives in Santa Cruz. ‘She’s a former librarian,’ he said of his mother, ‘and we still can’t beat her in Scrabble.’ Lusk also brought a new twist to this venerable Chamber event (dating back to 1949) by having a dance floor and music by Ernie Hernandez and his orchestra, creating a wedding-reception atmosphere as guests danced before dinner and while dessert was being served. Honorary Mayor Gavin MacLeod (who starred in ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ and ‘The Love Boat’) was on hand to induct the Chamber’s new board of directors and to recap his first year in office. But first he said, ‘I’m sitting at the same table as Peter Graves,’ the ‘Mission: Impossible’ star. ‘We did a play together 45 years ago, ‘The Captains and the Kings,’ with Joseph Campanella and Lee Grant, and he was great in it. We opened in San Francisco, then traveled by train across country to Utah and Chicago and Baltimore, and the girls were swooning all over Peter Graves. Finally we got to Broadway’and we closed after seven nights! But we’re still here.’ MacLeod, a Highlands resident who was joined by his wife Patti, joked that while his car displays a framed ‘honorary mayor’ license plate, ‘I still can’t find a parking place in this town.’ He was proud of his accomplishments this past year, noting that ‘I got my good friend Patti Page to ride in last year’s parade as grand marshal, and I got Pat Boone, the best man at my wedding, to ride as the grand marshal in this year’s parade.’ The MacLeods also attended Chamber mixers, Chamber-sponsored events, and performed ‘Love Letters’ at Pierson Playhouse as a fundraiser for Theatre Palisades. When MacLeod inducted the board, he had them repeat, ‘I pledge not to park at Gelson’s or Ralphs while shopping elsewhere, I pledge to happily pay my $40 parking tickets to the wonderful City of L.A., and I pledge to honor Arnie Wishnick [the Chamber’s executive director] by addressing him as Lord Wishnick, and to address Marilyn Crawford [his front-office executive] as Lady Crawford, because they are royalty.’ The evening’s awards and presentations began with tributes to outgoing Chamber president Roy Robbins, who has a gift and stationery shop on Swarthmore. His 95-year-old mother, Thelma, once again attended the banquet. ‘We were lucky to have Roy as our president this past year,’ said his predecessor, Sandy Eddy. ‘He came to town six years ago and he jumped in immediately with the Swarthmore Merchants group and the Chamber board to get things done. He was very community minded from the very beginning.’ Palisades High alum Ramis Sadrieh (Technology for You!) handed out the Best New Business award to Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy and its representative, retail manager Mindy Taylor. Rotary Club president and local real estate agent Jeff Lemen presented the annual Beautification Award to Village School for its new sports and arts facility on the corner of La Cruz and Ama Real. Head of School Nora Malone thanked architect Ardie Tavangarian (a Village School parent and Palisades resident) and Robert Ketterer, Bob Levitt, Andy Starrels and Bob Sacks”the original visionaries on our board who made this happen.’ Sam Lagana, who served as the evening’s emcee, happily and proudly took a break to receive the fifth annual Mort Farberow Businessperson Award, presented by Palisadian-Post Publisher Roberta Donohue, a past winner of the award that honors the late co-owner of Mort’s Deli on Swarthmore. (See related Editorial, page 2.) ‘I’m very grateful for this award,’ Lagana said. ‘Mort was a phenomenal person, a great mentor and leader, and I was fortunate to be part of his life.’ He thanked numerous people in the audience, including his wife Eileen, their daughters Cambria and Cienna, and Dr. Charles Runnels, the chancellor of Pepperdine University, where Lagana is assistant vice chancellor. Lagana also facilitated a photograph of Amy Branch, his friend from second grade at Palisades Elementary, with Peter Graves.