GOING CORPORATE: One area where Latino activists...

GOING CORPORATE: One area where Latino activists want to see more progress: representation on corporate boards. But today, they’ll celebrate what progress has been made. Twelve Latino leaders who serve as directors on boards of major corporations will be honored at a reception at the Fluor Corp. in Irvine. . . . Among them: Ignacio E. Lozano of Newport Beach, editor of La Opinion, a daily Spanish-language newspaper in Los Angeles. He serves on four boards, including Walt Disney Co. and BankAmerica Corp.

MORNING WORKOUT: Fire officials from Garden Grove, Fullerton, Orange and Anaheim gathered at 4 a.m. Tuesday to witness Anaheim’s switch to its new, regional $1.5-million state-of-the-art fire dispatch system, designed to improve response time to those four cities. . . . They didn’t have to wait long to see if it worked--the first call came in 10 minutes later. Anaheim Fire Chief Jeff Bowman says the city hopes that other neighboring cities eventually will join its dispatch service.

BUD’S SHOP TALK: With an alcoholic mother, Marlon Brando writes in his new autobiography, he rarely received a word of praise in his difficult childhood. But the famous actor writes fondly about two years he spent at Lathrop Intermediate School in Santa Ana. . . . A shop teacher there--officials say it was the late Burton Rowley--was the first to ever boast about him. Writes Brando: “His words of encouragement affect me to this day.”

DOWN TO THE BONE: When the Red Cross makes its latest public stops--Ingram Micro in Santa Ana today, and Hewlett-Packard in Fullerton on Thursday--it’s more than just your blood they’re after--it’s your bone marrow. . . . It has a shortage of marrow donors--primarily needed for leukemia patients. . . . “We only take a couple of test tubes of blood, not a pint,” says project director Bunnie Foxcroft. “We don’t call you to donate marrow until there’s a match with someone who needs it, and that often takes years.”