5 Valley Leaders Honored as Entrepreneurs of Year
Entrepreneurs behind a Chatsworth-based company that markets radioactive products used for cancer treatment and a La Crescenta storage container company were among five San Fernando Valley area business people named this week as Los Angeles Entrepreneurs of the Year by accounting giant Ernst & Young.
The winners--including L. Michael Cutrer, president and chief executive of North American Scientific Inc., and Ronald F. Valenta, president of Mobile Storage Group Inc.--were selected from nearly 100 nominees and announced Thursday at an awards ceremony in Century City.
Other Valley area winners were John Reardon, president and chief executive of Valencia Bank & Trust in Santa Clarita, and Siddharth Jain and Andrew Waage, two teens who launched the Woodland Hills-based Internet start-up Electronixkits.com. That company specializes in the production of electronic kits for all levels, from an FM radio transmittor to an audio amplifier.
At North American Scientific, the 10-year-old Chatsworth-based firm with a market capitalization of nearly $124 million, sales have grown rapidly since 1998, when the company introduced its first therapeutic product--low-level radioactive “seeds” used to treat prostate cancer.
For the fiscal quarter that ended April 30, the company’s profits nearly doubled contrasted with the year-ago period--rising from $717,000 to $1.4 million.
“That’s almost entirely as a result of the brachytherapy products,” said Cutrer, describing a procedure in which radioactive isotopes are implanted in the prostate gland to kill cancer cells.
He said the company’s market share has grown from about 12% to 15% last year to about 20% today.
Rapid growth is also evident at Mobile Storage, the La Crescenta “on-site storage container” firm launched in 1988.
Jim Robertson, senior vice president and a partner in the firm with Valenta, said 1999 sales at the privately held company were $56.37 million, up more than 40% from the previous year.
“We’re growing like a weed,” Robertson said. “For the last 10 years we’ve averaged 48% revenue growth per year. That’s doubling every two years.”
The award, and the attendant notoriety, came as somewhat of a shock for Robertson, who said the company has consistently tried to “stay low on the radar screen.”
But the company plans to attract even more attention in the future. Robertson said the aim is to go public “some time next year.”
“This will certainly help get people excited about the company,” he said.
The awards are meant to recognize entrepreneurs who have demonstrated “excellence and extraordinary success in such areas as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their business and communities,” according to Ernst & Young.
Los Angeles winners are eligible to participate in the accounting firm’s national awards competition. Those awards will be handed out Nov. 11 in Palm Springs.
