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SCOTTSDALE PROGRESS | WWW.SCOTTSDALE.ORG | MARCH 8, 2020
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New salon combine self-care, coaching BY KRISTINE CANNON Progress Staff Writer
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outhern Scottsdale resident Melissa Pruett thought changing the world and saving lives was as a scalpel-gripping heart surgeon, cutting people’s chest open and performing heart surgery. Instead, Pruett is changing lives with a microblade pen and her thriving self-care studio MELT by Melissa, which celebrated the grand opening of its new location on the corner Main and 75th Street on Jan. 11 and the grand opening of the Gypsy Cup coffee shop tucked inside the studio on March 1. “So many women leave changed after one service; the way that those women carry themselves into the world is totally different. And that, in a small way, is my way of changing the world,” Pruett said.
Pruett founded Melt in January 2014 in a shared, closet-sized treatment room. She has since grown it into a successful, multi-faceted business, one that occupies a 2,600-square-foot space in Old Town Scottsdale. But owning a self-care salon that specializes in brows wasn’t Pruett’s initial goal in life. “I was planning on going to med school my whole life to be a heart surgeon,” she said. “I never thought of a plan B.” Pruett decided she’d move from Oregon to Arizona to do some soul searching before she pulled the trigger on medical school; little did she know that would entail taking on unexpected jobs, including car salesperson, �itness and nutrition coach, and waxer.
Melissa Pruett is the founder and owner of Melt by Melissa, a selfcare studio that recently opened its new space in Old Town Scottsdale and will opened its second location in Uptown Phoenix later this year. (Chris Mortenson/ Progress Staff Photographer)
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Progress publisher acquires New River newspaper PROGRESS NEWS STAFF
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imes Media Group, a Valley-based company with community weekly newspapers and websites throughout Arizona and California, has acquired The Foothills Focus, a community news weekly based in New River. In addition to New River, the publication covers several other North Valley communities, including Anthem, Black Canyon City, Cave Creek and Carefree. According to Times Media of�icials, the acquisition brings its weekly Valleywide circulation to 285,000 printed copies, information it says is supported by its most recent AMA independent circulation audit. The company also operates several community news websites in the Valley, including EastValley.com, WestValleyView.com, Phoenix.org, Scottsdale.org,
Ahwatukee.com, ChandlerNews.com and others with a cumulative monthly unique visitor count in the Valley of more than 500,000. The company said its online audience numbers are also supported by its most recent independent audit by AMA. At a time when many newspaper-centric media companies are curtailing circulation and managing declining operations, Times Media Group has famously continued to expand its reach and footprint, mostly through the acquisition of other similar media groups. “What we have found is a model for success in dif�icult times, and that model relies heavily on highly motivated media professionals, adherence to practical cost structures and a valuebased community news engine at its core,” said Steve Strickbine, Times Me-
dia Group’s founder and president. Last year, Times Media Group acquired several high-pro�ile and storied news titles in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas, which included the Downtown Los Angeles News, the Pasadena Weekly, the Argonaut and the Ventura County Reporter, among others. John Alexander, the founder and publisher of The Foothills Focus, said his decision to sell his publication to Times Media wasn’t a dif�icult one. “I have watched what they’re doing for a long time, and after some consideration, really believe this to be a great path for us,” he said. “It allows us to grow and allows me more time to meaningfully reconnect with the community and to build even stronger relationships with our advertisers." Alexander, who founded the paper in
2002, will continue to act as the Focus’s associate publisher, and work out of the publication’s main of�ice in New River as he has for nearly 20 years. Asked where he thought the community news industry is headed in the everchanging digital age, Strickbine said: “The bottom line is that where there are crises, there also often exist out-of-date ways of thinking or paradigms. Our approach, our people and our commitment to giving communities the news they need, and that they can increasingly �ind in few other places, adds up to a pretty simple value proposition, one I believe readers and advertisers understand inherently and that they’ve come to trust. “At TMG we hold the responsibility of being good stewards of that trust at the very center of our mission. “In other words, our future is bright,” he said.
