Notes from the publisher & editor.

Pegi Matsuda, Publisher

It's hard to admit, but I was not aware of the San Fernando Valley Business Journal ten years ago. As an avid reader of the Los Angeles Business Journal, I was like many, who thought San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles were one in the same. In many ways, this is true, however, in many other way, the business community here in the San Fernando Valley is different.

The San Fernando Valley Business Journal was launched by the president and publisher of the Los Angeles Business Journal Matt Toledo. Matt's vision was that our community was large and vibrant enough to warrant its own business publication. How right he was.

When I arrived as associate publisher in 1999, the San Fernando Valley Business Journal was already three years old. One of my first tasks was to find a way to build our reputation in the business community while trying to grow the business through advertising and subscription sales. My belief was that if we gave business a clear and fair voice, we would prove that we could be an integral part of this community and a trusted editorial source.

In 2000, we made the decision to hire our own editor to manage a small group of reporters in Woodland Hills. The new editorial team, led by Michael Hart. was instrumental in helping us find our own identity by quickly sourcing the best business news stories of interest to our readers. This new editorial learn was also responsible for helping us gain national recognition among other business newspapers across the country for quality business journalism.

And, for the past three years, we're fortunate to have at the editorial helm, Jason Schaff. With more than 20 years of journalism experience as a business writer and editor, Jason makes sure we deliver quality business news to help our readers develop and grow their businesses.

While the editorial department gets a lot of credit for making sure the publication gets out every other week the paper could not survive without the dedication of the advertising and administrative staff. These employees perform the business and market functions necessary to enable the newspaper to grow. We thank all our advertisers and pay special tribute to the advertisers who were there in the beginning. These advertisers, listed on page 20, were the first to share our vision that a newspaper dedicated to reporting exclusively on San Fernando Valley businesses was a viable business model and service to the community. Without the support of these first advertisers, our history would be much different today.

So, what does our future hold? If I could predict what will happen over the next 10 years, I would say that we will continue to grow and prosper.

We will have a continued high percentage of business owners and managers as readers and our publication will continue to be the most trusted source of local business news. Our readers will also continue to prosper as the economy continues on its current upswing. We will continue to proactively reach new readers who may not be traditional newspaper readers today These new readers will search for business news through the interact and through the use of new technologies. We are ready for these new challenges and have already entered the electronic world with the launch of www.sfvbj.com where we can add greater value to our current readers and reach new audiences at the same time. Whatever the delivery method, the San Fernando Valley Business Journal will continue to provide important business news and information for the community.

Thank you for helping us celebrate our 10th anniversary in 2006. We are proud to be part of this community and appreciate your support and guidance. We still have many more challenges to meet and we still have more to do, We know we've come a long way and we thank our readers and advertisers for supporting and sharing our vision from the past and into the future.

Jason Schaff, Editor

When I was chosen to become the second full-time editor of the San Fernando Valley Business Journal in March 2003, I knew I had a huge task ahead of me. The newspaper had been around for seven years but it still needed better name recognition and needed to get to that "next level" as the best source of business information in our area.

My predecessor, editor Michael Hart, had done a tremendous job of laying the groundwork for me to take the "SFVBJ" to that next level. Michael was hired as the paper's first full-time editor to bring the Business Journal into its own as a separate publication from the Los Angeles Business Journal from which it was born. He gave the publication an identity by publishing purely Valley-area stories that Valley-area businesspeople could relate to as well as giving the publication a higher profile out in the community.

My job has been to expand on this and broaden the business information that we publish so that our publication is an indispensable source of local news. I feel we have made strides in doing this but there is soil much more we want to accomplish.

Throughout the past three years, we have been blanketing the business community to report on not only the major business news events but also the companies in our area large and small that contribute greatly to our economy.

We have become to many the main source of business news for the San Fernando and surrounding Valleys because we have given readers a mix of "news" as well as interpretation of current news events.

We've tried to bring as much news to our readers as possible and I hope we have also been a source of information to help businesspeople run their companies better.

I feel that one of our strengths here in the Valley area is our close-to-the-ground approach to covering business news. The entire Business Journal editorial staff can be seen frequently out at events where businesspeople can be found.

But, of course, we could always be at more events and always cover more news throughout our Valleys.

And that's what we plan to do. My plans for the Business Journal include getting out more in the community to meet more people and as a result get more interesting local business stories.

There also will be a better diversity of industries reflected in our coverage. We have a diversified economy here and our coverage needs to better reflect that

Other plans include a greater focus on our Web site (sfvbj.com). In the last year we have greatly improved the site so it is more active with continuously updated news each day about Valley-area companies. These are different stories from what you see in our paper every two weeks.

You'll see more happening online as our Internet coverage truly becomes a great supplement to our newspaper giving more detailed information about local companies and the people who run them. Podcasts, the audio portion of our Web site which we just started producing in April of this year, provide endless opportunities for boosting our coverage of local business news.

I'm excited about the future, I'd like to say thank you to my staff, an integral part of this newspaper, and to all the friends of our newspaper who have supported us over the years. Thanks also to those people who have been reliable sources of information for our stories. We couldn't have done it without you.