Amusement Musings
It’s been two weeks since a management shake-up caused a splash at otherwise tame Sea World San Diego, and insiders still aren’t sure what sparked the upheaval or why it happened.
“Nothing makes sense,” said one Sea World executive. He’s just changing everything.”
“He,” of course, is William Jovanovich, chairman and chief executive of Orlando, Fla.-based Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Sea World’s parent. And apparently, Jovanovich directed the leave-takings of Sea World Enterprises Inc. chairman and CEO Robert R. Hillebrecht, executive vice president Frank Powell Jr. and corporate director of public relations Bill Seaton, both San Diegans.
Those executives and four other San Diego Sea World employees did not resign but were fired, according to a company executive who asked to remain unidentified.
Fighting Back
There have been 1,600 medical malpractice lawsuits filed in San Diego County during the past decade, and the number per year has increased about 400%.
Not coincidentally, about 20% of the people who filed those suits have filed more than one suit.
That’s what John Landtroop of Vista found out. And Landtroop, a 36-year-old former restaurant manager who claims to be “an entrepreneurial type,” is trying to help physicians protect themselves.
Last year, he founded Physicians’ Information Service, a directory that identifies the litigation history of people who have a propensity to file malpractice, negligence and personal injury lawsuits.
Doctors subscribe to the service for $325 annually.
Landtroop won’t say how successful his fledgling business is, although he conceded that he had to revamp the directory’s format late last year after an initially poor acceptance by doctors.
Unanswered Calls
Uncharacteristically, Crocker Bank executive and San Diego Symphony savior Louis Cumming, who leaves the bank next week, has not been returning reporters’ phone calls.
What’s unusual is that Cumming, whose resignation was announced last week, always made it a point to talk to reporters and others, going so far as to hand out his nearly infamous “Tuit” wooden slugs.
Reads the slug: “When You Get A Round Tuit Call Lou Cumming.”
