PEOPLE.

Newsmakers

Accounting & Consulting

Daniel E. Duir has joined Parke, Guptill & Company LLP, an accounting firm in West Covina, as a manager. Duir previously served as chief financial officer/controller at a small service company.

Advertising & P.R.

Rutley Conde has been has been promoted to account director at Valencia, Perez & Echeveste Public Relations in Pasadena. She is responsible for managing VPE's consumer strategies group and will assist in strategy development and client relations for the firm's core group of corporate accounts. Conde previously served as an account executive.

Architecture & Design

Carolyn Pace has been promoted to vice president of operations of the Honolulu and Los Angeles showrooms of Studio Becker, a design and construction management services firm. She will be in charge of overseeing accounting, customer service, sales and project coordination. Most recently, Becker served as operations manager for Studio Becker.

Craig B. Semingson has been added to the Pasadena office of HDR, an architecture and engineering firm, as West Coast design principal for healthcare, Semingson was previously master facility plan architect for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Banking & Finance

Suzanne M. Nuzzi has been promoted to senior vice president in the Los Angeles office of U.S. Trust Company N.A. She is responsible for managing all functions, facilities and Nuzzi financial reporting activities throughout the company's West Coast region. Previously, Nuzzi was director of accounting with Contessa Food Products Inc.

Education

Fermin Cuza has been named executive in residence in the College of Business and Economics at California State University, Los Angeles. He will be the college's first executive in residence, a newly established program to offer selected business executives an opportunity to share expertise with students and faculty. Cuza formerly served as senior vice president for international trade and world government affairs with Mattel Inc.

Jerry Katzman has joined the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television as a member of the faculty teaching in the producers program. He'll help develop strategies to ease the transition of students from the university to the professional world in addition to playing a key role in developing strategic partnerships between the school and the media industry. Most recently, Katzman worked for the William Morris Agency.

Entertainment

Ray Doustdar is a new vice president of licensing and business development as well as an equity partner at the Stronghold Group, an entertainment brand management firm in Los Angeles. He is responsible for helping the company move into new areas, including athlete representation and corporate brand licensing development. Doustdar was most recently director of licensing at Universal Studios.

Douglas Greiff has been named head of production at Hip TV in Los Angeles. Greiff had been vice president of program development at Nickelodeon.

Francesca Hickson is the new deputy national executive director for administration and chief financial officer for the Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles. Responsible for the guild's administration nationally, including human resources, information and telecommunications technology, she was most recently chief operating officer of Metapa Inc., a privately held technology company.

Suzan Koc, former vice president, U.S. Operations at Hit & Run Music Publishing, has been named vice president, songwriter relations at BMG Songs in Los Angeles. She is responsible for all songwriter relations as well as the development and exploitation of BMG's U.S. pop writer roster and catalogue.

Jackie Curry has been promoted to director of music licensing at Universal Music Publishing Group in Los Angeles. She is responsible for managing the licensing staff Universal Music Publishing Group and Rondor Music. Most recently, Curry was manager of film and television licensing.

Health Care

James J. Balla has been promoted to president and chief executive of Portals, a Los Angeles-based mental health and rehabilitation agency. Balla previously served as executive Balla vice president and chief operating officer.

Barbara Masters was named health policy advisor at the California Endowment, the state's largest health foundation. Masters most recently served as director of Intergovernmental relations for the Los Angeles Masters County Department of Health services. Also, Alicia Lara has been appointed a vice president. She is responsible for developing, defining and promoting the program area of the endowment. Lam was most recently director of responsive grant-making for the foundation.

Hospitality

Brian Jago has been named director of sales and marketing for Shutters on the Beach and Hotel Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica. Jago most recently served as director of sales and marketing of the St. Regis Los Angeles.

Insurance

James A. Schweikert has been hired as vice president, property & casualty at the Torrance branch of Dodge, Warren & Peters Insurance Services Inc. He will be consulting with new and existing clients on matters relating to insurance and risk management.

Management

Dave Darus has been appointed general manager at 3 Artists Management in Los Angeles. He will be responsible for the implementation and development of marketing and promotion campaigns for all 3AM artists and will work with record companies to facilitate marketing exposure, airplay and sales. Darus most recently served as senior vice president of promotion at Restless Records.

Media

Eileen Rivkin Sherman has joined American Profile magazine as West Coast advertising director. She will be responsible for advertising sales throughout the West Coast as well as heading the magazine's Los Angeles sales office. Most recently, Sherman was western regional director for Forbes American Heritage Group.

Non-Profits

David Woznica has been named the executive vice president of Jewish affairs at the Jewish Federation in Los Angeles. He will work with federation leaders to help shape the organization's mission and vision.

Real Estate

Marc Burns has joined Insignia/ESG as senior managing director in its Diamond Bar office. He is responsible for a broad range of industrial transactions including tenant representation, landlord representation, investment sales and land sales. He joins the firm from CB Richard Ellis where he served as a senior vice president in the Ontario office.

Marc Kim is a new director in Kosmont Realty Corp.'s real estate division. He will focus on tenant representation and the sale, leasing and development of community shopping centers, net leased properties and other investments for the company. Kim was formerly with Grubb & Ellis.

Laurence G. Preble has been named director of development at KUD International LLC, a development firm in Los Angeles. Previously Preble was the senior real estate partner at O'Melveny & Myers.

Retailing

David W. McCreight has been named senior vice president of merchandising for the Disney Store -- North America in Glendale. He will oversee day-to-day functions of the merchandise and creative teams for the Disney Store operation in the U.S. and Canada, including the development of Disney character merchandise. Prior to joining the Disney Store, McCreight was president of Smith and Hawken in San Francisco. The Disney Store has also named Allan Haims senior vice president, business development. He will be responsible for developing and implementing strategic global initiatives for new retail concepts and merchandising for the Disney Store, Disney catalog and Disneystore.com, as well as the alignment and integration of tactical planning within the Disney Store. Haims joined Disney from Interactive Video Technologies in New York. Finally, Tammy Storino was named vice president, global controller at the Disney Store -- Worldwide. She will be taking charge of domestic and international accounting teams, including inventory accounting and purchasing and import purchasing. Storino had been at Disney Consumer Products, where she served as director of cost center finance.

Academic Approach for Milken Executive

HE'S had careers in law and investment banking, but Michael Klowden, newly appointed president and chief executive of the Milken Institute, always had a sense he would end up in a more academic setting.

A member of the board of trustees of the University of Chicago for 15 years and a past lecturer at the Anderson School at UCLA, he said that while getting his law degree at Harvard he considered teaching instead of practicing. "I've always had a strong academic interest," said Klowden.

He chose another path, however. Attending Harvard Law after being graduated from the University of Chicago, he became an associate at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp in 1970. He left as a partner in 1978 and joined Morgan Lewis & Bockius' L.A. office, which at the time had four lawyers. When Klowden left Morgan Lewis in 1995, he was one of four lawyers on the firm's national management committee and governing board. The Los Angeles office grew to more than 100 lawyers under his watch.

His next stop was as vice chairman at investment bank Jefferies & Co., a longtime client.

Klowden said that heading up the economic think tank is his way of giving back to the community. "I've been very fortunate in my career, and I've given financial resources to various charities and community organizations," he said. "But other than the (University of Chicago), I haven't given my time. I wanted to do something that would have a meaningful impact on people and I feel the institute does that." Klowden succeeds Donald Straszheim, who became the institute's vice chairman in July.

In addition to his duties at the Milken Institute, Klowden said he will continue to do consulting work with Jefferies.

For now Klowden said he's still getting situated in his new position. In the future, fundraising will be on the top of his priority list. "The main thing I'd like to do is make sure we have the financial resources to continue to do the work we do," he said.

He lives in Santa Monica with his wife and has two children and one grandchild.

Conor Dougherty