MILLENNIUM MOMENT

When traffic crunches to a halt on the San Diego Freeway these days, the

occurrence is made slightly less tedious for some because a Newport Beach

resident, Duvall Hecht, once sat through the same thing during his daily

commute to Los Angeles.

Hecht founded Books on Tape in 1975, creating a recording of George

Plimpton’s “Paper Lion.” Business took off almost immediately, and the

company’s employees worked 18-hour days initially to bring recorded

novels to Southern California’s legions of gridlocked drivers.

MILLENNIUM MOMENT celebrates the people who have made a major

contribution to the Newport-Mesa community during this century.