Staying at home has been part of the routine of Jon Goodman, former head of USC's incubator project EC2, who took a year-long sabbatical to care for her grandson William, a preemie.

Staying at home has been part of the routine of Jon Goodman, former head of USC's incubator project EC2, who took a year-long sabbatical to care for her grandson William, a preemie. Now Goodman is back at work, trying to smooth things over at Town Hall Los Angeles, an organization known for presenting top-flight political speakers. She took over the president's post from Nodia Rodriguez, the former spokeswoman for Mayor Richard Riordan and First Lady Laura Bush.

Some Town Hall members were surprised when Rodriguez left the job after just a few weeks, and in her e-mail resignation, which got posted on the Web site L.A. Observed, claimed that the group's finances were a mess. Goodman disagrees. "I've never come into an organization in such good financial shape," she said (and that comes from someone who knows a few things about dot-com wipeouts). "When I first came in, I opened all the closets and found no dust bunnies."