Specialty Laboratories Inc

Theodore Lavoie has joined eBuilt Inc. in Irvine as chief financial officer. Lavoie was previously senior vice president and chief financial officer of BigStore.com, an e-commerce retailer. He was also chief operating officer and chief financial officer of Lumenyte International, and vice president and chief financial officer of Wahlco Environmental Systems. * Ernest C. Cook Jr. has been named chief medical officer of Cogent Healthcare Inc. in Laguna Hills.

Wall Street staged a strong welcome for Unilab Corp.'s return to the public market, as investors bid up the Tarzana-based company's stock price by 44% on its first trading day Wednesday. The stock, priced at $16, closed at $23. Unilab, the dominant provider of laboratory-testing services to physicians, managed-care groups and hospitals in California, sold 6.7 million shares in its initial public offering, raising $107.2 million. The money will be used to help the company pay down debt.

Northrop Grumman Corp. said Wednesday that third-quarter net income fell 22% on declining income from pension funds, but the warship and military electronics firm confirmed its earnings targets and said sales more than doubled thanks to the purchase of shipbuilder Litton Industries Inc. A day after the Pentagon backed Northrop's offer to buy Newport News Shipbuilding Inc. over General Dynamics Corp.'s bid, Los Angeles-based Northrop reported net earnings of $117 million, or $1.

Fed Decides Against Raising Interest Rates Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan signaled that it probably will be a few months before the central bank considers raising short-term interest rates, despite the economy showing signs of a recovery that ordinarily would prompt inflation-dampening rate increases.

One big company after another is melting down. Chief executives are being pushed out. Companies are under investigation. And now there's another element to the turmoil in corporate boardrooms: More board directors are having to take over the CEO job for at least a while. Interim chiefs are everywhere these days. The latest example is Daniel Dienstbier, president of Northern Natural Gas Co. and director of Dynegy Inc.

The marvels of molecular biology are bearing fruit a bit too late for David Corp. Told last spring that he had what appeared to be an early case of lymphoma (lymph cancer), the 43-year-old Lakewood resident nonetheless faced 30 weeks of chemotherapy because his doctor could not be sure surgery had removed all the cancer cells. He made it through 18 sessions before the powerful anti-cancer drugs began damaging his heart function so much that his doctor stopped the treatments in late December.