Tues Aug 12, 2009

ON TODAY'S SHOW WWW.CRNTALK.COM

David W. Fleming, Founding Chair - BizFed
David W. Fleming, an attorney with Latham & Watkins, is the current chair of the Los Angeles County Business Federation, a consortium of chambers of commerce and trade groups representing over 80,000 businesses in the County. He also serves on the MTA board of directors and he chairs Valley Presbyterian Hospital, Project Grad LA and the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley. He is a past chair of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation and the Los Angeles City Fire Commission. He serves on the boards of the Reason Foundation, the James Madison Foundation and the LA County Children's Planning Council. He was the vice chair of the California Transportation Commission and a member of the LA City Ethics Commission and the LAPD Foundation. He, along with former Mayor Richard Riordan, co-chaired the successful LA City Charter reform movement in the late 1990's.

Tracy Rafter, CEO - Biz Fed
As the first female publisher in the nearly 100 year history of the Los Angeles Daily News, Tracy Rafter brought strategic vision, unbridled passion, fearless innovation, and dynamic leadership at a time of unprecedented challenge and change in the news media industry. She is now the principal of her own next level media company IMPOWER, LLC, and also owns a business advisory, Rafter Group, Inc. which provided management and leadership to organize, launch, and operate BizFed. As a 25 year veteran of the newspaper business, she has held chief executive positions in a variety of major markets across the country, including over a decade with the Journal Register Company of Trenton, New Jersey, where she served as Publisher and CEO of four award winning newspapers in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. While producing record operating profit margins for JRC these individual newspapers and websites received national acclaim for both editorial and advertising excellence. Tracy was part of the JRC executive team that celebrated one of the top IPO's achieved by a newspaper company in 1996. Additionally Tracy owned and operated a group of newspapers and web sites in Walla Walla, Washington before moving to Los Angeles in early 2002 to join the Los Angeles Newspaper Group (owner of the Daily News). During the past six years in California, Tracy has also made her presence widely known in the SF Valley and throughout Los Angeles by contributing her time and talents to a broad range of local civic and charity organizations, hospitals, and businesses. She is currently on the board of directors with LA's Best After School Program, Junior Achievement, Economic Alliance, Valley Presbyterian Hospital, and the Fernando Awards. In recognition of her entrepreneurial spirit, commitment to excellence and giving back to the community she was awarded Business Woman of The Year by the SFV Business Journal in 2005 and named the Woman of the Honor for Haven Hills (battered women's and children's shelter) in 2006. A native of Twin Falls, Idaho, she began her media career while still in high school at the Times News (formerly owned by Howard publications, now Lee Enterprises, Inc.) and later graduated from College of Southern Idaho. She happily resides in Sherman Oaks, CA with her two young daughters