Julia Parton: Peninsula Banker, Woman of the Year
Parton’s progress
The 2023 Chamber Citizen of the Year honoree credits her success with lessons learned as a high school sophomore at the Daily Breeze
by Garth Meyer
Julia Parton’s job when she was a sophomore at Rolling Hills High School was in the Daily Breeze circulation department.
When a customer called to complan their paper hadn’t been delivered, Parton would often be the one to answer.
“I learned how to diffuse an angry customer,” she said. “Smile and listen. Even through the phone, people know when you’re smiling. There’s always a solution, and a way to make the situation better.”
Her mantra continues through to today for Parton, who will be named the Palos Verdes Peninsula Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year on November 16.
Parton is now Malaga Bank’s first vice president of business development. She joined the bank five years ago after her previous bank was acquired.
“The new (entity) was more of a big, regional bank. It wasn’t very community-oriented,” Parton said. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to do there what I wanted to do.”
“People will tell me, ‘you’re everywhere.’ They see me out a lot,” she said.
Parton serves on seven boards of directors: Torrance Police Foundation, Peninsula Seniors, Toberman Neighborhood Center (San Pedro), Switzer Learning Center, Palos Verdes Estates Foundation, Palos Verdes/Peninsula High School Athletic Booster Club, Palos Verdes Junior Women’s Club, and the Rotary Club of Palos Verdes Peninsula.
“For which I’m the current president. Again,” Parton said with a laugh.
2023 Chamber Citizen of the year Julia Parton. Photo by Tony LaBruno
Favorite recent projects include restoration of the L.A. County Sheriff Lomita station kitchen. Her best friend, a now-retired Sheriff’s deputy, once mentioned that the kitchen equipment was “not functional.”
“The refrigerator had no shelves,” Parton said. “So everyone would put their lunch bags on the bottom and stack them on top of each other. This is what we had for our first responders.”
Parton spearheaded a Peninsula Rotary/Kiwanis Club of Lomita joint project to remodel the kitchen, a $10,000 project, largely with donated labor and materials.
She has been in Rotary for 27 years.
This month, Peninsula Rotary joined an effort to collect diapers for Warren Chapel in San Pedro. A church representative came to a Rotary blood drive Oct. 20 at Hesse Park to pick them up. The previous day, Parton ran a booth at the Torrance Chamber of Commerce business expo. Last year, she and Malaga Bank won the western theme award for best decorations.
Parton and Peninsula Rotary also collect and coordinate donations for the Peartree Lane families of Rolling Hills Estates – where houses were wrecked by a ground shift this summer.
“(The homeowners) are paying the mortgages on houses they can’t live in anymore,” Parton said.
For the Palos Verdes Estates Foundation, she was involved in putting on a gala that raised $200,000 for police body cameras.
“To keep those officers safe,” she said.
For the Torrance Police Department, Parton helps raise money each year for equipment such as drones and shields.
“Because what else would I do? Laundry?” she said.
Parton spent 16 years on the board of the Salvation Army College for Officer Training at Crestmont.
Her two sons are now in college and her husband, Richard Rosas, is an executive at Kaiser Permanente. She grew up on the hill, and attended Soleado Elementary School and Malaga Cove Intermediate.
As for that job at the Daily Breeze circulation department when she was 16, Parton stayed for 26 years, through the advent – and massive impact – of free online ads, finishing as director of classified advertising.
She held the job through college, while finishing a degree at night at Cal State Dominguez Hills (her major was Interdisciplinary Studies, minor in Human Resources).
Future plans?
“I just want to keep going,” Parton said. “There are a lot of challenges around us, and I want to help out as often as I can and as long as I can.” PEN