Tue Sep 15, 2009

ON THE SHOW TODAY WWW.CRNTALK.COM

David W. Fleming - Founding Chair - Biz Fed
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. BizFed’s mission is to harness the urgent desire for businesses in Los Angeles County to have a stronger voice with elected officials by creating a powerful, grassroots alliance of 501 (c) business advocacy organizations. BizFed is – in effect – a co-op of business organizations formed to accelerate meaningful and measurable forward progress. The Los Angeles County Business Federation charter is to effectively mobilize the collective - and cooperative - voice and volume of all the existing advocacy organizations, trade groups and economic development organizations, representing tens of thousands of businesses across every corner of our County, on business and policy issues that affect the economic vitality and quality of life in our county and its cities.

Geoff Edwards - Radio Personality
Edwards began his career while in college, working for a radio station in Albany, New York. By the late 1950s, Edwards headed west to Southern California, landing his first job at station KFMB . As a news reporter, Edwards was present in the basement of the Dallas Police Department when Jack Ruby shot suspected John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963. He was one of the witnesses interviewed by NBC Television Correspondent Tom Pettit after the assassination. After a few short stints at other stations, Edwards was hired at KMPC in Los Angeles, occupying the 9 a.m.-Noon slot for several years beginning in 1968. He has also worked at stations KFI and, most recently, was a morning DJ with KSUR (now KKGO) in Los Angeles. One of the features of his radio show was "Radio's Answer Lady," in which listeners could call in with questions--some serious, some not so serious--and he would answer on the air, sometimes with serious answers, sometimes with quips. During that time, Edwards tried his hand at acting, appearing on I Dream of Jeannie, That Girl and Petticoat Junction. On the latter show, he met and maintained a very close friendship with Meredith MacRae. He also guest starred on Diff'rent Strokes and Small Wonder. In the early 1970s, Edwards appeared on The Bobby Darin Show as the straight man to singer Bobby Darin. After that series ended, Edwards pursued a game-show career; this began with Says Who? in 1971 followed by Cop-Out! in late 1972 -- however, both shows eventually turned out to be unsold pilots. His first full-time game show hosting stint took place from March through June 1973 on Jack Barry's Hollywood's Talking, a remake of a late 1960s ABC game Everybody's Talking and the Canadian hit Eye Bet. The program featured contestants watching a video clip of a celebrity talking about a subject; their job was to guess the subject in question. The series, which aired afternoons on CBS did not fare well and the network cancelled it in favor of the phenomenally popular Match Game remake.Six months later, in January 1974, NBC and Bob Stewart Productions hired Edwards to host the New York-based Jackpot. That series proved to be a modest success for Edwards, lasting nearly two years. The previous fall, Chuck Barris hired Edwards to host the weekly revival of the 1950s game show Treasure Hunt, entitled The New Treasure Hunt. He did the weekly version for four years (1973-77) and helmed a daily Treasure Hunt again for one year (1981-82). Other game shows Edwards hosted over the years included the New York-based Shoot For the Stars in 1977, Chain Reaction (as a substitute host for Bill Cullen in 1980 and a regular host from 1986-91, having taking over from Blake Emmons), Starcade, Play the Percentages and a revival of Jackpot from 1989-90. Edwards also was a substitute host in 1985 on Let's Make a Deal. Edwards is famous for his catch phrase, "Right you are!"