After the Recession Pulled the Rug From 5 Careers : Any Niche Is Nice

Since March, The Times has been following a group of Southern Californians whose careers had been derailed by the shock waves hurtling through the state’s economy. In revisiting them last week, we found several enjoying an upturn in their fortunes--though none has the permanence and predictable security of the pre-recession days.

For Bob Loya, starting over in California today has meant going to the other side of the fence to find a better opportunity.

Once a controller for a savings and loan, Loya now is working for a consulting firm, analyzing accounts of 40 S&Ls; seized by the federal government.

Although his position as a project manager with the Dallas-based Mitchell Jobe & Co. is guaranteed for only another four months, Loya said consulting work of the kind he is doing will be in demand for years.

“That’s going to be how a lot of firms are going to be operating in the ‘90s--hiring consultants rather than people,” the Mission Viejo resident said.

Indeed, many people caught in Southern California’s economic slump are making do from month to month--piecing together short-term or part-time jobs, jumping from one project to another or one deal to the next--rather than regaining the security of full-time work with a long-term employer.

Loya is optimistic that his firm will get a three- to six-month extension from the Resolution Trust Corp. Though that hardly sounds like “job security,” his current assignment beats the unemployment he endured for nine months in 1992.

And the salary is an improvement over the job he had from January to May at First Newport Bank, an RTC-run bank; the better pay means Loya’s wife Emily, a nurse, has not had to work so much overtime.

“It’s buying me time,” said the father of four. “If you’re surviving while everybody else is going under, you’re doing fine.”

Loya feels that he can be more selective in his long-term job search, because he has both a job and a fall-back option.

While he was unemployed, Loya earned a real-estate license. Later, he signed on as a loan officer with Charles Holt Associates Inc., a Newport Beach mortgage broker.

So far, he has been working such long hours for Mitchell Jobe that he has not had time to originate any loans. He plans to focus on loan-making as the RTC work slows down, or make it his main livelihood when the job ends.

Still, one day he hopes to return to full-time accounting. The RTC job “is just figuring out what has been done in 1989 to 1992 in certain accounts,” he said. “It’s not as much fun as figuring out where you’re headed next month or next year.”

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Michael Mack had driven by a mound of rubble--all that remains of the Rockwell factory in El Segundo where he used to work--just days before his recall notice arrived. In the midst of the aerospace industry’s interminable layoffs, Rockwell wanted the hourly worker back to work on the space station in Canoga Park. “I thanked God. I jumped for joy. I was very happy,” said Mack, 38, who had been unemployed for nearly a year. “I had pretty much given up on an aerospace job.”

Mack’s enthusiasm is tempered by the knowledge that this latest respite from joblessness may be short-lived. While Congress recently approved another year of funding for the space station, the project has been criticized as an unnecessary extravagance. And the United Auto Workers’ seniority system means cutbacks in the company’s other divisions could result in a pink slip for Mack.

For now, though, Mack’s base pay--$17.21 an hour for performing environmental tests on space station components--has allowed him to stop dipping into his savings to make mortgage payments on his Los Angeles home. The one-hour commute to work doesn’t faze him. Nor does the 3 p.m-midnight shift.

“It’s great to have all that pressure off me,” says Mack, who attended dozens of job fairs and filled out hundreds of applications over the last year. “I just hope it lasts.”

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Temporary work is the best that Barry Bernson can find too. A special effects and prop maker for movies and TV, he had been laid off from Universal Studios in May after just two months on the job. But Bernson was hoping work would pick up again in June, when sets and stages are prepared for shooting fall television shows.

It did, and Bernson found work again--this time at Warner Bros.’ Lorimar TV unit in Burbank. But, as is the case so often for Bernson and others in his trade, once again he is expecting to be laid off.

He’s scheduled to work on the job, building stage-area dressing rooms for the new series “Getting By,” through today, but isn’t sure what he’ll be doing tomorrow. There are some prospects, though.

“Things are starting to pick up,” Bernson said late last week.

The five weeks of work at Warner Bros. are helping Bernson reach one goal: having his health insurance reinstated. In the movie and TV craft unions, members lose their benefits if they don’t work the required number of hours in a six-month period. Bernson is about 100 hours short.

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Southern California’s housing market began showing faint signs last spring of wakening from its three-year slumber. Sales in many parts of the region have continued to edge upward this summer--and that’s good news for the husband-and-wife real estate sales team of Walt and Dolorie Thurner of Long Beach.

“Sales have just gotten better and better over the past few months, and I think the pick-up is real,” said Walt Thurner. He and his wife Dolorie have closed 30% more deals this year than a year ago.

“People just seem to be feeling a little better about themselves than they did a year ago,” Thurner said, “so now they’re more willing to buy a home.”

A bona fide housing turnaround couldn’t come quickly enough for the Thurners, not to mention the 300,000 or so other real estate salespeople across the state.

But while the lowest mortgage-interest rates in two decades have helped turn many longtime renters into first-time buyers, Dolorie Thurner said the couple’s recent success is also a product of all the extra hours and marketing dollars they’ve spent cultivating clients since sales peaked a few years ago.

“I have literally been working at least 80 hours a week over the past year or two, and so has Walt,” she said. “It’s nice to finally see the fruits of our labor.”

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Last spring, business at Linda Ford’s public relations firm in Beverly Hills still was weak. But a book she had written and self-published in her newly found spare time had quickly become a hot title.

Ford’s book--”The Owner’s Manual: The Fast, Fun and Easy Way to Knowing and Understanding Your Lover”--is now her distributor’s No. 1 seller. A much larger publishing house has expressed interest in buying the rights.

A deal “could make the difference between me making a few thousand dollars in royalties and tens of thousands in royalties,” Ford said.

Recently, Ford attended a booksellers’ convention in Miami, hoping to boost the number of stores that carry her book.

When many of the attendees expressed concern about taking a chance on a novice writer, Ford--ever the entrepreneur--switched to what she calls “Plan B,” pitching them on her marketing and public-relations skills instead.

The result? A small distributor of books on audiotape hired Ford to do some of its public relations and marketing chores. “It’s not a huge account that will let me retire early, but it’s a neat company that’s fun to work for,” Ford said.

Ford has picked up two other new clients over the past few months and lost only one. “The last few years have been tough,” she said, “but I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”