Mark Verge is the founder and owner of Westside Rentals, a listings service for Southern California renters and landlords based out of Santa Monica. Westside Rentals employs 80 people and lists about 20,000 apartments, hours, and rooms for rent. Education: Associate's degree from Santa Monica College; Bachelor's degree in history from UCLA Personal: Married his high school sweetheart Lani. They live in Pacific Palisades and have a daughter, 7, and a son, 4. First job: A beach lifeguard when he was 18. "I was definitely not the definition of a lifeguard," Verge says. "I was a pale, skinny guy. They'd call me the Ghost." Got the idea: Verge, 40, says he was put off the listings services that would post rental ads without the landlord's permission. "All they would do was copy the newspaper," he says. "The business had a really bad name to it." Figuring he could do better, Verge sold the coin store he owned and started Westside Rentals in 1996.
Lauren Berger is known as "The Intern Queen" and Chief Executive Officer of InternQueen.com. She is the author of the National Campus Best-Seller: "ALL WORK NO PAY : Finding an Internship, Building Your Resume, Making Connections, and Gaining Job Experience". She is arguably the nation's most in-demand career/internship expert. She has been internationally recognized for her work with young people and her entrepreneurial spirit has attracted millions of job and internship seekers. Recently, Berger has been featured on The Today Show, Fox and Friends, Daytime, The New York Times, Bloomberg, LA Weekly, and more. She regularly contributes to AOL JOBS, USA TODAY, Huffington Post, and Justine Magazine.
