Frank Cruz Wins Second Term as Public Broadcasting’s Chief

Frank Cruz, an award-winning broadcaster and longtime Orange County resident, has been elected to a second term as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group that is a major source of funding for public radio and television stations and programming. Cruz, who was appointed to the board in 1994, was first elected chairman in 1999. The Laguna Niguel resident served as vice chairman in 1997 and 1998. He is president of Cruz and Associates, a financial consulting firm that he founded in 1995.

* Francisco J. Valle has joined SCDRG Inc., an Irvine advertising, marketing and consulting firm, as chairman and chief operating officer. He formerly held marketing operations management positions at ARCO, BP Oil Co. and Mobil Oil Corp. He also was a market manager and senior project manager of margin improvement at Taco Bell Corp. and Western region vice president for Aramark Corp.

* Sam Henry has been named vice president, risk management, for Edison Mission Energy in Irvine, an Edison International company. Henry joined the company in 1998 and headed the power-marketing, fuels and emissions-trading organization in the U.S. Before that, he was vice president of trading and risk management at Dupont Power and headed trading and risk-management operations for Conoco Inc.’s natural gas and gas liquids division.

* Corey Hutchison has been appointed chief executive of BuyNow in Aliso Viejo. Hutchison was previously vice president of sales. Before joining BuyNow, Hutchison was area vice president of sales for Cognos Corp. and senior vice president of sales for Platinum Technology Inc.

* Lorena Mendez has been appointed associate field marketing director for the Western division of Labatt USA in Foothill Ranch. Mendez was previously Western region area manager for Ore-Cal Corp. and before that managed Hispanic marketing and sales initiatives in Southern California and Northwestern Mexico for Anheuser-Busch.

* Judith O’Dea Morr is the new executive vice president of the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. She had been vice president of programming and before that was director of programming and interim chief operating officer.