The MSPA Welcomes A New Year

Just a few days into the new year, the board of the Montrose Shopping Park Association assembled early in the morning for our first meeting of the year. As vice president, I had the pleasure of presiding over the beginning of the meeting as this is the time of year where the board elects its new president. This was a new experience for me and I took the time to introduce the state of retail as outlined in “Smart Retailer,” a publication for the wholesale trade. They are predicting 2012 to be another bumpy ride with some glimmers of hope here and there. They said that most businesses are planning to focus on their core customers, aka “locals,” as opposed to reaching out to new areas.

After the message and some visitor reports, we moved on to our board appointments. Ken Grayson of Grayson’s Tune Town will be serving the town as president this year. He has a wealth of experience on the MSPA board from years gone by and, like executive director Dale Dawson, has a thorough understanding of the financial and budgeting areas. Ken is looking for more of our merchants, both long time and new, to get more involved. We are planning to have a “meet & mingle” this year with our merchants and the City of Glendale that we hope is both informative and fun.

La Perla Design Studio owner Jake Menachian is jumping in with both feet this year as he heads up both the Advertising/Events committee and the Harvest Market committee. Jake is full of energy and has an advertising background. He is working to draw more folks to town and jazz things up a bit as we get ready to celebrate Montrose’s 99th birthday. It looks to be a fun year!

Copy Network owner Andre Ordubegian is our new board secretary and is excited about serving on Events & Advertising. He looks to be a great board member.

Joselito’s owner Corey Grijalva is lending his expertise to our weekly Harvest Market. We are so thankful for his involvement and leadership here. Our market is great now and we want to make it the best it can be.

We continue to greatly appreciate the wise council of lawyer Danny Pranata whose family owns Honolulu Wood & Things. Danny and his wife are expecting child number three.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. You can tell from this pic that this group likes each other and is happy to be serving together doing what we do. It’s a lot of work and can sometimes seem like a thankless job, but is nonetheless very rewarding knowing we are benefitting our community. Things have come full circle here and it is a joy to behold.

  Mary Dawson