By Michael YEGHIAYAN

The Glendale Chamber of Commerce announced this year’s honorees last Thursday at the organization’s annual State of the City luncheon, held at the Glendale Hilton Hotel. A total of six businesses, organizations and individuals received commendation for their work in the city and contribution to its overall business development.

In addition to the awards, Glendale Mayor Dave Weaver gave this year’s State of the City address in one of his final public appearances as mayor. Councilman Zareh Sinanyan was selected to replace Weaver at Tuesday’s Glendale City Council meeting.

Weaver acknowledged the ongoing challenges the city faces, specifically increased traffic among others, but also touted its achievements as the city comes out of the Great Recession.

Among the 2014 honorees was Young Professional of the Year Taguhi Sogomonyan, Man of the Year Eric Hamilton, and Woman of the Year Elissa Glickman.

The Downtown Glendale Association was selected as the Business Project of the Year and the Glendale Galleria was named Business of the Year. Additionally, the Glendale Association of REALTORS was chosen as the Community Partner of the Year.

Glickman, CEO of Glendale Arts, was particularly commended for her efforts in managing the historic Alex Theatre and contributing to the developing cultural significance. Rick Lemmo, who is the president of the Downtown Glendale Association and 2013 Man of the Year, spoke of Glickman’s importance to the community.

“Her work as CEO has been challenging but really quite spectacular,” said Lemmo at the ceremony. “She has great vision for Glendale Arts and the Alex Theatre and communicates quite effectively to absolutely with a balance of enthusiasm and realism.”

Man of the Year Eric Hamilton, who works for the La Crescenta-based company Crescenta Valley Insurance, also spoke about his time in the city and vision for the future.

“At age 40, I kind of realized that I needed to give back to my community. I saw these men and women doing all of these events in Glendale and I kind of assumed things just happened magically,” said Hamilton. “Little did I know that there was a core group of volunteers who made these things happen. Luckily I was nominated to the Glendale chamber board and became one of those volunteers.”

  MICHAEL YEGHIAYAN