The Weekly Newspaper of El Segundo Herald Publications - El Segundo, Torrance, Manhattan Beach, Hawthorne, Lawndale, & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 104, No. 37 - September 10, 2015 Inside This Issue Certified & Licensed Professionals.....................14 Classifieds............................4 Crossword/Sudoku.............4 Film Review..........................4 Legals............................ 12,13 Letters...................................3 Police Reports.....................3 Real Estate.....................7-10 Sports....................................6 Weekend Forecast Former Hughes Employees Reunite at First Annual Reunion Luncheon Former Hughes Aircraft employees held their first Reunion Luncheon on August 7, 2015, at the Proud Bird restaurant. All former employees were invited, and enjoyed catching up with one another. The organizers hope to hold another luncheon next year, and would like to invite any former Hughes employee to attend. If you would like any more information, or would like to volunteer for the reunion committee, contact Rose Hood at (702) 646-7134. Photo by Barbara Sanford. New Economic Development Manager Hopes to Build on Business Attraction, Retention Efforts By Brian Simon A year ago, El Segundo Mayor Suzanne Fuentes announced the campaign to attract 100 new businesses to town by the time of the centennial celebration in 2017. It was around the same period that the City also lost the services of Economic Development Analyst Ted Shove, who left to take a position in La Quinta. To maintain momentum in the effort to bring companies to El Segundo (and keep existing ones here), Planning and Building Safety Director Sam Lee assumed Shove’s duties on top of his already rather full plate. The City was a little over one-third of the way to its “100 at 100” goal as of press time, but recently received a boost with the hire of new Economic Development Manager Barbara Voss. Voss, who started in mid-August, reports directly to City Manager Greg Carpenter. She will continue to implement the City’s multicomponent Economic Development Strategy that aims to foster business-friendly policies, promote business retention and attraction efforts for responsible development, and conduct long-term planning for sustainable economic development growth over the long haul. “El Segundo is a unique and interesting community with its mix of large corporations, innovative new companies and smaller mom and pop operations,” Voss said. “It’s really exciting to be part of the City at this time. I see a lot of growth opportunity and I like the diversity here.” A Bay Area native who grew up in Saratoga not far from San Jose, Voss eventually moved to Southern California to attend college at UC San Diego and then earned her MBA at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). During the latter stint, she won a fellowship that included economic development work for the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA). “Before that, I didn’t know what I wanted to do career-wise, but that got me interested in economic development,” Voss recalled of the fellowship. Her first notable position in this field was as a Senior Community Development Specialist for the City of Chula Vista near San Diego. There she customized business attraction proposals that included site selection as well as incentives, created outreach programs to bolster business expansion and investment, and spearheaded that city’s business retention activities. After Chula Vista, Voss relocated to the East Coast to serve as Regional Director for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Office of Business Development where she oversaw economic development activities for 35 cities and towns in the burgeoning MetroWest section of the state. During that tenure, she managed and delivered incentive packages to the region’s largest economic development projects and led a proactive business outreach/retention program. By that time, she was also married with a young child (now eight) and yearned to return to California. After a short stint with a consulting firm, she joined the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) in the fall of 2010 to lead the agency’s South Bay economic development efforts. That association introduced her to El Segundo businesses and local officials. “I worked with various companies in El Segundo while at LAEDC and that enabled me to start at the City with a foundation of knowledge of the local business community,” Voss explained. While she enjoyed her five years with the LAEDC, Voss had a long-standing desire to be an economic development manager and See Voss, page 16 School Board Views Special Presentation on District Attendance By Duane Plank Middle School assistant principal Ali Rabiei, in his first year on the job, was the featured presenter at Tuesday night’s El Segundo Unified School District School Board meeting. Rabiei spoke about the District’s current attendance recovery special project, and noted that September has been deemed school attendance awareness month. In an email sent prior to the meeting, Rabiei wrote that “overall, though the ESUSD celebrates high attendance meetings at all of its schools, there is still more work to be done in the area of student attendance. One of the goals of our Board/District is to make sure that students report to school, are on time, and stay in school for the entire school day. We will be looking at ways to implement some form of attendance recovery---namely, a plan of action for those students who miss school so that they do not miss the valuable instruction that they lost due to an absence.” Continued Assistant Principal Rabiei: “Attendance issues start actually at the lower grades and the various approaches parents and families can implement at home to ensure regular student attendance. We look forward to working collaboratively among school officials, teachers, parents, families, and students, to explore and implement ways to increase student attendance and combat chronic absenteeism.” “Attendance counts, at all ESUSD schools,” Rabiei said. He then summarized what he termed were “critical facts” that impacted students, parents, teachers, and See School Board, page 14 Friday Mostly Sunny 84˚/72˚ Saturday Mostly Sunny 82˚/71˚ Sunday Mostly Sunny 79˚/69˚
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