H. Lynn Ryan Joins Ameriquest Mortgage Co.

- H. Lynn Ryan has joined Ameriquest Mortgage Co., an Orange-based specialty lender, as executive vice president and chief information officer. Before joining the company, she was senior vice president and head of information services for Sanwa Bank California.

- Steve Donohue has been named president of Western National Property Management in Irvine, one of three companies operated by Western National Group. Prior to joining the company, he was vice president of operations at Security Capital Group Realty Services in Texas.

- Kenneth D. Bauer has been appointed chief science officer for ChromaVision Medical Systems Inc., a San Juan Capistrano manufacturer of automated microscope systems. He was formerly senior scientist in the immunology division and head of cytometry for Genentech in San Francisco. Patricia Sisson was named to the new position of vice president marketing and strategic planning. She had been vice president of marketing for Quest Diagnostics Inc. in Teterboro, N.J. Before that, Sisson was vice president of marketing at Nichols Institute and spent more than a decade with Beckman Instruments Inc. in product and marketing management.

- Brian Berkhausen has joined El Pollo Loco in Irvine as vice president of development. He previously led market team operations and systems for the Dunkin Donuts, Baskin-Robbins and Togo’s Eatery chains.

- John Gilbert has been named general manager and senior vice president of the Waterfront Hilton Beach Resort in Huntington Beach. He will be responsible for the overall hotel operations, along with customer and employee relations. Gilbert, who had been with Westin Hotels and Resorts for more than 22 years, was most recently general manager of the Westin South Coast Plaza.

- Diane R. Smith has been elected to the board of directors of both the Southern California Mediation Assn. and the Mediation Center of Orange County. Smith is a partner with the law firm of Snell & Wilmer, LLP in Irvine.

- Carlos Caballero has been appointed vice president of marketing for StarBase Corp., an Irvine provider of team development and software confirmation management tools. He had been director of marketing communications at True Software and director of marketing with Softool.

* Sheila Rankin has been named to the newly created position of vice president of health benefits operations for Beech Street, an Irvine managed health care organization. She previously headed product development at Kaiser Permanente, where she oversaw commercial and Medicare products for the California division. In addition, William R. Talcott has been named regional vice president of sales for the Midwest. He will be based in the Chicago office. He had been regional sales manager in the Midwest for Cost Care Inc./WellPoint Health Networks. Jim McCloud is the new vice president of information services. He joined the company after managing the California operations for Coplan & Co., a Seattle health care consulting firm.

- Peter A. Crosby has been elected to the board of Cardiac Science Inc. in Irvine, increasing the number of directors to four. He was most recently president and chief executive of Neo Vision Corp., a development stage medical device company in Seattle, which was sold to United States Surgical Corp. in September.

- Tom Ellingson has been appointed vice president and chief information officer for Caliber Collision Centers Inc., an Irvine collision repair facility consolidator and operator. Ellingson was formerly chief information officer of the Western division of MedPartners/Mullikin Inc., a physician group practice management company.

- Marcus M. Kaufman has joined Albert, Weiland & Golden, LLP, a Costa Mesa law firm. Kaufman is a retired associate justice of the California Supreme Court.

- Ellen Laning has been named senior designer at Lawrence & Mayo Advertising in Newport Beach. She previously headed her own graphic design business and, before that, was a senior designer at UC Irvine University Extension.

- Dave Grannan has been named area vice president for Orange County and Riverside for Sprint PCS Southern California/Nevada. Before joining the company, he was a member of the communications industry group at Andersen Consulting, responsible for developing strategy and marketing programs for new companies in the wireless communications industry.

- Lina Celella has been appointed an account executive for Bock Communications in Huntington Beach. She was formerly an account executive at Maples Communications in Irvine.