News 

PLANS: Wireless Oceans, a wireless Internet service provider in Miami, is taking steps to make Lincoln Road Mall a wireless Internet hotspot. Established over a year ago company president Richard Truocchio said this project was initially thought of at the business’s inception. Currently the company provides service to the President, Penguin and Marseilles hotels as well as the Hampton and Continuum condominiums. Customers who already receive service from the company will be able to access the Internet at Lincoln road for no extra charge. The company will offer different time options going from one hour, one day, one week or one month. Prices include an hour at $4.95; day, $7.95; weekly, $15.95 and monthly at $24.95. One of the two buildings that will transmit the signal will be The Bank of America building. The deal with the other building hasn’t been finalized. Truocchio said service would be available in Lincoln Road at the end of April.

AWARD: Miami Jewish Home was awarded with the Gold Seal Award by the state of Florida, announced Irving Cypen, chairman of the board emeritus and honorary president of the organization. The decoration is given to nursing homes that exhibit outstanding care management and quality of life for their residents. Gold Seal Award candidates are nominated during public hearings by the Panel of Excellence in Long Term Care which consists of representatives from many organizations, including the Agency for Health Care Administration, the Department of Elder Affairs and the Florida Association of Homes for the Aging.

Movers-N-Shakers

IDOL: Miami-Dade County Commissioner Sally Heyman and State Rep. Susan K. Goldstein are to be presented with the inaugural “Florida Champions for Change” awards at a gala benefit dinner hosted by the Bubel/Aiken Foundation.

The benefit dinner Florida Voices for Change is to be held on Saturday, April 16. Multi-platinum recording artist Clay Aiken is scheduled to perform.

Tickets for the gala benefit dinner are available to the public for $200 and $275. For more information www.thebubelaikenfoundation.org or call Bobbie St. Jean at Today’s Caregiver Magazine, 954-893-0550 or e-mail Floridavoicesforchange@caregiver.com.

JOINING: Douglas Elliman Florida announced Robin Lechner, one of its most successful New York brokers, joined the company’s Miami Beach office. Lechner currently a top producing broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman in the Hamptons, Long Island and New York, will extend her reach to include South Florida. Lechner is the recipient of the 2004 Chairman’s Circle Platinum award, ranking in the top 1 percent of Prudential’s 2,600 Long Island realtors. She now plans on working from her South Beach and New York offices.

For more information call 305-695-6300 or visit wwww.EllimanFlorida.com.

LANDING: William Hahne has been named sales associate for NuRiver Landing, a contemporary condominium tower that overlooks Fort Lauderdale’s New River. Hahne is currently working with Picot & Company Realty Advisors, the exclusive sales and marketing agency for NuRiver Landing. Previously Hahne was with Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate, where he earned International Presidents Premier Circle honors and was also an attendee at the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisal.

NuRiver Landing, 511 SE Fifth Ave., will be a 24-story structure on more than five acres that adjoin a 2.7-acre public park. Call 954-522-8848.

AWARD: Ramiro Ortiz, President/CEO of Bank United, received the 2005 Banker of the Year award from the South Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce during its 11th Annual Banker’s Luncheon recently. Each year, the SFHCC recognizes a banker who has made significant contributions to the community. Ortiz has been extremely active in his community and civic organizations throughout his 40-year banking career.

RECOGNIZED: The American Psychological Association (APA) recognized three Miami-Dade psychologists as being “Creative Change Agents” for developing creative ways to resolve problems. Psychologists Scott Allen, PhD., Larry D. Capp, PhD. and Eduardo I. Diaz will be presenting their proposals during the APA 2005 annual convention in Washington, D.C., August 18-21.

Current Supervisor of the Miami-Dade hostage Police Department’s Hostage Negotiator Team, Allen has worked on providing police officers and their family’s ethical intervention. He has also taken on the task of preventing police officer suicides.

Capp, a Miami native, has 20 plus years of experience in community and clinical psychology. He is the executive director of the Miami-Dade Office of Community Relations, which represents and advocates the special concerns of the Asian, black, Hispanic and female populations.

Diaz has performed direct service as a therapist and administrative work overseeing family violence treatment and a number of crime-prevention programs for the past 23 years.

CELEBRATED: Larry Karel, president of Aventura-based Karel Exposition Management (KEM), recently celebrated 45 years as head of the 53-year-old company, the nation’s largest producer of regional furniture and accessory markets. More than 100 employees, friends, family members and business associates gathered in the social hall at Mystic Pointe for cocktails, a catered dinner and dancing to a set by a four-piece band. Throughout the evening, guests paid tribute to Karel for his dedication to longtime colleagues and longstanding ability to make employees feel like members of his family.

Thirteen KEM employees have logged a total of 124 years of service among them. Ethel Schnitzer and Cammy Vaughn have worked at KEM for 28 years and 23 years, respectively. Karel's daughter Jill has worked alongside her father for 17 years.

At the party, employees expressed their heartfelt thanks to Karel with a presentation of a two-foot tall trophy engraved with many of his famous office catchphrases, such as "Fantastic,” “Call me in the car” and “Anything doing.”

Karel teared up during his speech and at one point had to hand his notes over to his wife of three years, Helene.

Jules Karel, Larry’s father, founded KEM in Chicago in 1952, and Larry joined him when he was in his 20s. He relocated to South Florida in 1968, first in Miami Beach, then moving his home and office to Aventura in 1990.  In 2004, KEM sold approximately 7,000 exhibition booths at markets located throughout the nation.

For more information, call (305) 792-9990 or visit www.kemexpo.com.

VP: Beach Bank announced that Joy V. W. Malakoff, a veteran banking and marketing executive and well-known civic figure, has joined the bank as executive vice president and will be responsible for business development, community relations and private banking.

“I am delighted to have Joy join Beach Bank and bring her expertise and community ties to this organization,” said Jose Valdes-Fauli, president and CEO of Beach Bank. “We worked together exceedingly well in the past and I look forward to a very successful future at Beach Bank.”

Valdes-Fauli, who became an investor as well as president and CEO of Beach Bank in October, previously was president and CEO of the South Florida Region of Colonial Bank, where Malakoff was senior vice president. Malakoff headed the bank’s regional marketing operations and was active in private banking.

Malakoff is vice chairman of the city of Miami Beach Planning Board and serves on the city’s Government Bond Oversight Committee. She is a member of the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce Pillar Trustees Executive Committee, where she was chairman from 1998 to 2001 and the chamber’s Board of Governors, which she chaired from 1993 to 1996.

She is on the boards of trustees for the New World Symphony, Art Center/South Florida, Kiwanis Club of Miami Beach and on the boards of directors for the Friends of the Bass Museum of Art and the Arts & Business Council.

A member of the Founders of Mount Sinai Medical Center, Malakoff also is a member of the Harvard Club of Miami and Radcliffe Alumnae Association.

She earned a B.A. degree in English cum laude from the University of Miami and was her class valedictorian at Miami Beach Senior High School. Malakoff was vice president and branch manager of the Main Office of Jefferson Bank of Florida when that bank was acquired by Colonial in 1997.

Beach Bank is a state-chartered commercial bank launched by a group of prominent local businessmen in the year 2000. It has $125 million in assets and two offices — the headquarters on Arthur Godfrey Road in Miami Beach and a branch in South Miami.