Brandon Tartikoff, chairman, Paramount Pictures Corp., Hollywood:Personal:...

Brandon Tartikoff, chairman, Paramount Pictures Corp., Hollywood:

Personal: “To return all my phone calls, even the obscene ones.”

Professional: “To bring some collective sanity to the many accepted but inflationary business practices in both the film and TV industries.”

Irwin Jacobs, chief executive, Minstar Inc., Minneapolis:

Personal: “The one wish I have is to hire back during the next 12 to 18 months all of the people we’ve laid off in the boating industry. That’s more than 3,600 people.”

Professional: “I would like to see more of us trying to prevent problems rather than to cure problems. It seems we want to fix things after the fact. I’d rather try to head off a problem before it occurs.”

Lodwrick M. Cook, chief executive, ARCO:

Personal: “To spend more time with my grandchildren.”

Professional: “To continue my efforts to win public support for a sensible energy policy that takes into account our need for a healthy economy as well as our environmental concerns.”

Akio Morita, chairman, Sony Corp., Tokyo:

Professional: “So many things have changed around the world. We must change as well. It is not an easy task. However, we need a breakthrough to achieve it.”

Lee Kovel, chairman, Los Angeles office of Lord, Dentsu & Partners ad agency:

Personal: “I’d like to take more time off--and learn how to speak Japanese.”

Professional: “I’d like to win enough business to move our offices to the beach, and hire every talented, unemployed advertising professional in Los Angeles.”

Gloria Allred, Los Angeles law firm of Allred, Maroko, Goldberg & Ribakoff:

Personal: “I’m hoping that my daughter (Lisa Bloom), who is an excellent attorney in New York City, will move to Los Angeles and accept my law firm’s offer to become an associate.”

Professional: “To continue to fight against injustice and continue to protect the rights of women and minorities through lawsuits, through the political process and by educating the public about the important issues of our time.”

Lodwrick M. Cook, chief executive, Arco:

Personal: “To spend more time with my grandchildren.”

Professional: “To continue my efforts to win public support for a sensible energy policy that takes into account our need for a healthy economy as well as our environmental concerns.”

Lee Kovel, chairman, Los Angeles office of Lord, Dentsu & Partners ad agency:

Personal: “I’d like to take more time off--and learn how to speak Japanese.”

Professional: “I’d like to win enough business to move our offices to the beach and hire every talented, unemployed advertising professional in Los Angeles.”

Bernie Sandalow, chief executive, Kaufman & Broad, Los Angeles:

Personal: “I intend to launch a new personal fitness and conditioning program.”

Professional: “Kaufman & Broad intends to promote better government leadership on the issue of affordable housing, perhaps through a public/private partnership empowered to seek creative solutions to California’s housing needs.”

William Fiore, president of Local 1100, Department Store Employees Union, San Francisco:

Personal: “I’m going to try to stay healthy and sane next year. And I’m trying not to take the recession too personal. I keep telling myself, ‘It’s not my fault.’ ”

Professional: “This organization is going to try to change the leadership in the White House.”

Philippe Kahn, chief executive, Borland International, Scotts Valley, Calif.:

Personal: “Pass at mile 6 the old lady with the rollers who beat me last year at the Wharf-to-Wharf 10K in Santa Cruz, although she was 82, running barefoot and had been partying all night.”

Professional: “Act quickly, make no mistakes.”

Peter F. Drucker, Clarke professor of social sciences and management, Claremont Graduate School:

“I’m sorry, but I have no New Year resolutions. I hope I’ll be around next year, but that’s a hope, not a resolution.”

Ronald S. Beard, chairman of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Los Angeles law firm:

Personal: “Spend more time playing golf” with wife Karin Paridee-Beard.

Professional: “For the firm, frankly, I think a great resolution would be to do as well in 1992 as in 1991, in what’s going to be a very difficult environment. I don’t think we’ve seen the worst yet in the economy.”

Gov. Pete Wilson:

Personal: “To spend more quality time with my wife.”

Steve Hayden, chairman, Los Angeles office of BBDO Worldwide ad agency:

Personal: “With direct mail so popular, maybe I will open a small mail-order business featuring products from New Zealand.” (He’s joking, of course.)

Professional: “1991 has been one of the least exciting years in advertising in my experience. Maybe in 1992 I should go to medical school.”

Steven B. Sample, president, University of Southern California:

Personal: “To lose 10 pounds and go hiking in the San Gabriel mountains.”

Professional: “I hope that everybody at USC can do more with less and do better. I happen to believe that an education at USC is a great value. But we have to make it better, because of the price of private schools. It’s incumbent on us to demonstrate to our students the greater value of an education at a place like USC.”

Arthur Laffer, economist:

Personal: “To do my best and to make sure my children don’t grow up to be economists.”

Professional: “To educate (Times cartoonist) Paul Conrad on the meaning of the Laffer Curve. Also, never again to vote for a politician who says what you like to hear and follows it with, ‘Read my lips.’ ”

John E. Bryson, chief executive, Southern California Edison Co.:

Personal: “I resolve to work with many other devoted Southern Californians to win for Southern California the honor of hosting the final games of the World Cup Soccer championships in 1994.”

Professional: “In 1992, we at Southern California Edison resolve to redouble our efforts to assist our customers in meeting their energy, environmental and economic needs.”