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While Lynelle Berkey is on the telephone, answering an urgent call, her pager beeps, a visitor waits and a pile of hand-addressed invitations to an in-store fashion show sit on her desk, waiting to be signed. Pandemonium? No, just a "work bite" from a typical day in the life of the general manager of Saks Fifth Avenue in the Fashion Valley Shopping Center. A former Miss Colorado and graduate of Colorado State University, which she attended on a four-year academic scholarship, Berkey, 36, is a classic example of brains and beauty. And the role of general manager fits her like her favorite Chanel suit. What does she believe she brings to the job? "I’m very entrepreneurial," Berkey replies. "I have a lot of passion and energy and compassion. I’m very people-oriented. And I understand how to strategize this business to make it profitable as well as exciting." Her direct boss, Saks Senior Vice President Harvey Rosenbloom, agrees. "You have to be an astute business manager, be positive, enthusiastic, be a role model, and at the same time be able to make the right decisions to run a business of this scope," he says. "Lynelle is one of our veteran people, and she has contributed to and been successful in every single assignment we’ve given her." Berkey's success story with Saks began in 1980 when she accepted a general office position at the now-closed La Jolla store - the only opening available at the time - just to get her foot in the door. "They took one look at my resume and told me I was over-qualified," she recalls, noting that she already had several years experience in the retail fashion business. "But if they promoted from within I was interested anyway, so they hired me and in three months I was promoted to the position of assistant general manager in charge of all the budgets and personnel issues for the store." More promotions followed in rapid succession. In 1983, when Saks' Mission Valley store opened, she was given the opportunity to take the reins there as personnel director. Then she was promoted in 1987 to assistant general manager of merchandising, a position she later filled at the Saks store in South Coast Plaza. After just nine months at South Coast, Berkey was offered the general manager's position at Saks Fifth Avenue in Palm Springs. Berkey came back to San Diego in 1995 when Saks resumed a 30-year presence that had been interrupted by the spring 1994 closing of its La Jolla and Mission Valley stores. For Saks' return, Berkey was named general manager of the new Fashion Valley location her company had acquired from I. Magnin. Berkey had just three months to oversee the necessary renovations, merchandise the 80,000-square-foot store and hire a full staff. "It was seven days a week for many, many weeks," she recalls. Today she oversees 19 departments and 151 employees. When the store opened to the public on April 1, 1995, six charities were honored, exemplifying the store's - and Berkey's own - penchant for community involvement. "Supporting the community is a major priority," she says. "Fortunately the store has the ability to make an impact, and that’s rubbed off on me personally. It’s become how I spend a lot of my personal time." In addition to holding board positions with the San Diego Opera and La Jolla Playhouse, Berkey is president and founder of Center Stage Club, the LJP's new philanthropic arm. In her charity involvements as well as her career, Berkey leads with a cheerleading style of management. No whistles blown. No orders barked through a megaphone. Just boundless energy, a go-team, can-do attitude, and meetings that closely resemble pep rallies. "I have this very optimistic, very highly positive outlook," admits the woman who walks the walk and talks the talk with unfailing enthusiasm. "I don’t use the word 'problem.' There are no problems, there are only opportunities and challenges. That's one thing I’m well known for in this store." Her driving force? "I just have a passion for fashion and for marketing," she replies. "I enjoy interacting with people. I love brainstorming. I love putting together a great strategy and seeing it work. My brain just goes a mile a minute. "When I wake up some morning and say, 'Oh my god, I have to go to work,' I’ll be in the wrong career," she adds. "I want to come to work each day because I have all these things I want to achieve, people I want to meet and things I want to do. It’s up to me to interpret each day as I see fit and I just find that incredibly exciting." While the winter holiday season may be a wallet-buster for shoppers, it’s also a year-maker, or breaker, for most retailers. Traditionally, the buying frenzy is launched the day after Thanksgiving and continues through Christmas Eve. KayBee Toy and Hobby Shop at Mission Valley Center will do upwards of 70 percent of its annual business during those weeks, reports manager Eric Bresnick. Things start a bit later for De De Karaman, owner of De De's Hallmark at University Towne Centre. Karaman's cash registers start smoking the second week of December and don’t stop until receipts total 25 percent to 30 percent of the store's annual revenue. "Thanksgiving is not the biggest weekend for us," she says. "We sell gift wrap and cards, which are the last items you get." Her best customers are impulse buyers who come in for a card and leave with armloads of De De's inviting merchandise. Jewelry stores record up to 40 percent of their annual business during the winter holiday season. "Valentine's Day is a good season, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Christmas," says Chris Jacobs, president of Downtown’s A.L. Jacobs and Sons Jewelers. This year A.L. Jacobs should do even better as it has something extraordinary going on: It’s going out of business. -by Danielle Laney Everyone's going shopping. After creeping along quietly this decade and even taking a dive in 1991, retail sales in San Diego are poised to close out this year up 6.5 percent. If the projection by the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce holds, it will put the $17.2 billion San Diegans spent on consumer goods in 1996 up 6.5 percent from 1995's total. Percentage wise, that $1 billion rise is greater than any two years of the 1990s combined. Adjust the numbers for inflation and the 4.3 percent "real" increase is the best San Diego has done since 1987, reports Kelly Cunningham, research manager for the chamber's Economic Research Bureau. "Durable goods sales are really increasing," Cunningham says. "That is a really good indication that people’s economic well being is improving." Yet San Diego retailers are hardly leading the nation. In large part we are simply finally escaping the recession's wrath. "We came out of the recession later than the rest of the country," notes Alan Gin, an associated professor of economics at the University of San Diego. Gin says pent-up demand, combined with solid job growth - "I was forecasting 14,000 new jobs this year. Now maybe it will be as high as 17,000."-and tangible boosts like the Republican National Convention will cause San Diego’s 1996 retail gains to outpace the rest of the nation where the recovery is now flattening out. Certainly most of San Diego’s major retailing centers are anticipating good things from 1996 and this holiday shopping season in particular. "We are expecting year-end sales to be up at least in double digits," says Stephanie Downey, general manager of La Jolla Village Square. "Our traffic is incredibly high." Like a number of other shopping centers in San Diego, Downey's is benefiting from a recent major renovation that makes it a place to go at a time in the economy when people have money to spend. The new mix at La Jolla Village Center ties together the synergy of basic service providers such as a Ralphs grocery store and a dry cleaner with a new theater, restaurants and large specialty retailers like Super Crown Book Store, Cost Plus, Linens n' Things, Marshalls, Ross and Good Guys. Similarly poised to ride the good-news retailing wave with a major remerchandising is Mission Valley Center with its new 20-plex theater, restaurants like Seau's and stores like Loehmann's, Michaels and Bed, Bath & Beyond. "Obviously it is shaping up to be a great year," says Scot Turcottee, general manager of Mission Valley Center. "We are really excited about the holiday season this year." Turcotte reports car counts up 50 percent at the mall and expects "virtually across-the-board double-digit sales increases in every category." "San Diego’s economy is getting much healthier," Turcotte says. "And that along with the timing of our repositioning the center has worked to our benefit. The combination has really created this momentum that we see taking us into the holiday season." Also experiencing first-hand the improvement in San Diego’s economy is University Towne Centre where James Martin del Campo, general manager, forecasts holiday sales will be up 7 percent to 9 percent from last year. "We are expecting a big increase," says Martin del Campo. "The No. 1 reason is consumer confidence is way up. And of course that ties to interest rates being low, inflation being almost non-existent and the status quo in the election." UTC has strengthened its retailing position by zeroing in on its already-strong fashion presence. It has added Charles David, Bebe, Cache and Ann Taylor and seen Banana Republic expand its women's apparel offerings. "I think UTC is perceived as a serious place for fashion shopping," Martin del Campo says. Another serious fashion center, Fashion Valley Shopping Center, will apparently have to wait until next year’s shopping season to reap substantial rewards from the improving economy. Gene Kemp, Fashion Valley's affable general manager, says sales activity is off about 1.7 percent the last two months after being up a modest amount earlier this year. "During the Christmas season, I don’t know what is going to happen," Kemp admits. Oh, but he has a fairly good idea about what next year will be like, once the $120-million, 380,000-square-foot expansion is complete. "It is going to be magnificent." -by Tim McClain |
