On Monday, July 16, Cypress Mayor Douglas A. Bailey visited with Kris Farris, president and CEO of Crest Steel, and his executive team at their corporate offices located at 10833 Valley View St.

This was part of the city’s “Business Retention Attraction Creation & Expansion” program for larger sized businesses, which facilitates Bailey and city staff to visit with business leaders to learn of their service needs, and to partner with businesses for their continued success and continued residency in the city. Crest Steel was founded in 1963 by Phil Steinberg, who several years earlier played baseball for UCLA and the San Francisco Seals. Steinberg entered into a joint venture with a major Japanese trading company in 1970, and opened a Phoenix branch in the early 1970s. He then moved the company’s distribution and processing facility from Wilmington to Riverside in 1990. Crest Steel has been a major distributor of structurals since the late 1990s. Crest Steel relocated their corporate offices to Cypress in 2009.

Crest Steel is one of the leading steel distributors in the Southwestern United States. As part of the $50 billion steel service center industry, Crest Steel supplies the full spectrum of steel products. Clients include construction contractors, structural steel fabricators and manufacturers, as well as new and evolving industries such as solar and alternative energy. The company works with steel mills throughout the world to supply the highest quality products available.

Crest Steel became part of Reliance Steel and Aluminum Company in early 2007, the premier steel service center in the United States. This affiliation has given Crest Steel the opportunity to expand the company’s offerings and available inventory and reach new and larger customers throughout California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico.

Crest Steel offers world-class service and one of the best steel inventories in the region. The company supply steel bar products, structural steel shapes, steel piling, steel pipe and tube, and steel plate and sheet. Crest Steel also offers several steel processing services, including coil leveling, cut to size, CNC drilling, coping and cambering.

For more information regarding Crest Steel products and services, or to get a custom quote for your next project, visit http://www.creststeel.com/, or call the Cypress Corporate Office at 714-822-5222.

For information regarding the city of Cypress and city services for the business community, or for information on how to relocate your business to the city of Cypress, contact redevelopment project manager Steve Clarke at 714-229-6728.

A store called Flurries, which serves a new phenomenon called shaved snow, recently joined the Cypress business community. This dessert destination, at 5950 Corporate Ave. in Cypress, will not operate just to make money. Instead the investors who funded this venture plan to donate 100 percent of their proceeds to charitable causes. “The heart (of this business) is to give back,” Flurries owner Don Hirata said. “We want to give something for donations.”

Flurries serves shaved snow, which the owners based on a Taiwanese dessert. It’s a hybrid of shaved ice and ice cream.

“People come in and think we have shaved ice, but it’s not,” Hirata said. “It’s something new.”

Flurries opened March 30 – and not as a non-profit. Hirata described it as “a for-profit,” saying the “red tape and bureaucracy” of non-profit organizations convinced the investors to avoid becoming a non-profit.

Business has picked up with the warm weather of summer, and Hirata believes the store will soon be able to give to charity. Flurries served a pair of special events for Cotton Wood Church and Tutor Time. And as promised, Flurries donated all of the proceeds to a charity that both consumers chose.

It has also gained a following. Rumors circulated that one satisfied customer, who discovered the store while on vacation, wants to open one in Arizona.

“Someone has asked about it,” Hirata said.

Flurries was founded by members of the Catalyst Christian Community Church, which regularly meets at Stanford Middle School in Long Beach. These parishioners hatched a concept, which would later evolve into Flurries. Hirata credited Catalyst Christian Community Pastor Barry Geguchi as the man who came up with the idea.

The church originally wanted to open a café, and met with business consultants, but after carefully consideration, the café did not pass approval.

The investors opted to build a business around one of the dessert items on the café’s menu: shaved snow. However, Hirata’s brother-in-law believed he could improve the recipe, and after tinkering with the Taiwanese dessert, he presented his creation, which fuses American flavors with shaved snow.

“He worked on it until he got something we all liked,” Hirata said.

As of Monday, July 23, Flurries offered 12 different flavors. These included Strawberry Pie, Mint Chocolate Cookie, Orange Cream Cycles, Rocky Road, Lemon Bar, French Toast with Bacon, Salted Mocha, Green Tea with Strawberry, Rainbow Sherbet, Halo Halo, and Berry Berry Parfait. The menu will constantly be changing, with prices starting at $3.75.

The interior of the store feels like an art studio, with paintings covering every inch of the walls. “We wanted it to be comfortable,” Hirata said.

The store commissioned each painting and gave one artist his first opportunity to paint on canvas. In return, the artist created an homage to Flurries. Though none of the artwork can be purchased, as of right now, the store does not own any additional paintings, but it plans to sell all of them eventually.

Items for sale, in addition to the shaved ice bars, include Flurries T-shirts. Additionally, a shelf opposite the check-out counter has been established as a donation zone for other charities, all of which have permission to peddle their merchandise.

Flurries’ hours of operation are Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Friday through Saturday from 11 to 12 a.m.; and Sunday from 1 to 11 p.m.

For more information, call 714-826-2848 or visit http://flurriesshavedsnowbar.com/.

On Saturday, July 14, Brain Rehabilitation and Injury Network (B.R.A.I.N.) celebrated the opening of its new facility in the city of Cypress at 5656 Corporate Ave. with a festive ribbon cutting ceremony, followed by a well-attended reception.

B.R.A.I.N. is a non-profit organization (501c3) that advocates for and administers help to brain-injured adults and their families. B.R.A.I.N.’s mission is to advance the highest level of research, recovery, and residual care for adults who have sustained a brain injury, and to provide their families with resources and support. The organization is unique in that it provides services to consumers whether they can afford the help or not. Because B.R.A.I.N. has such a high ratio of volunteer help, the organization is able to offer services without the expectation of making a financial gain.

B.R.A.I.N. offers a weekly meeting for brain-injury survivors and their families called Friends of Brain Injury, or F.B.I. Consumers can attend with family members so that the entire family is assisted in gaining valuable information about brain injury and the survivor learns skills in communication, cognition, public speaking, and other social activities. B.R.A.I.N. also has special presentations by physicians, therapists, and legal and financial representatives who provide inspiration and encouragement to the families who are impacted by brain injury.

The organization also has a one-to-one partnership/friendship program called B.R.A.I.N. Cells that provides individual assistance by pairing up a volunteer with a survivor. The adults can improve at a faster rate when they are engaged in real life coaching by an understanding and sensitive partner.

Consumers and supporters are informed by B.R.A.I.N.’s monthly newsletter with pertinent information, interesting articles, and compelling stories of survivors walking the road of recovery and overcoming challenges.

B.R.A.I.N. has a continuing, growing list of ancillary professionals who are solidly supporting both financially and by offering their services, often at a reduced rate.

In addition, there is also a home health care team that goes into the home to offer assistance to families who have brought their loved one home from the hospital. Whether it is walking the dog, cooking, running errands or keeping company with the brain-injured, B.R.A.I.N. volunteers are enthusiastic about giving families understanding and lightening their load of care.

B.R.A.I.N. was established by Mrs. Sue Rueb and her husband Dr. Jerry Rueb in 2007, when their family discovered after 31 years of misdiagnosis that their daughter Kristin had sustained a brain injury at birth due to a rushed forceps delivery. The Ruebs found that resources were scarce and the living facilities available were less than adequate to care for their daughter.

The urgency of having adequate care for their daughter gave them the motivation to begin B.R.A.I.N., an organization where families can gain insight, information as well as investment return when they donate to the brain injury cause. B.R.A.I.N.’s dream is to establish a campus encompassing a diagnostic and therapeutic clinic, a large meeting area, and living arrangements for brain-injured adults. This community will ultimately provide a purpose driven program for their lives. They believe that there is much to learn and much to be grateful for as a family moves forward with a loved one with a brain injury. B.R.A.I.N. exists to give those with brain injuries hope for the future. Every 21 seconds, someone in the U.S. suffers a brain injury. B.R.A.I.N. aims to give a voice to this “silent epidemic.”

For more information regarding B.R.A.I.N.’s programs and services, or for information to get involved or to make a donation, visit the organization’s website at http://www.thebrainsite.org/, or call 714-828-1760.

For information regarding the city of Cypress and city services for the business community, or for information on how to relocate your business to the city of Cypress, contact Redevelopment Project Manager Steve Clarke at 714-229-6728.

California State Board of Equalization Vice Chair Michelle Steel, in partnership with the city of Cypress and California State Senator Bob Huff, hosted another Small Business Tax Seminar and Resource Expo on Friday, Sept. 7. The event unfolded at the Cypress Community Center, where Mayor Pro Tem Dr. Prakash Narain talked during the seminar to welcome the business leaders to Cypress.