About Us

Contact Us

Who We Are and What We Believe
Frequently Asked Questions
Our Team
Certification Process
Guarantee
The Meaning of the Symbol

Who We Are and What We Believe

Our mission is to define excellence and identify for consumers the highest quality local companies. The two founders Jim Stein and Greg Louie, have decades of experience rating and certifying local service and professional firms on behalf of consumers. Our entire team is dedicated to ensuring you have confidence in the companies you choose.

We are totally committed to performing all ratings and ongoing certification work with the highest integrity and accuracy. We believe:

1. You the consumer have the right to know which companies are truly performing at the highest level of quality.

2. The highest quality companies should be rewarded for their ongoing performance through public recognition.

3. Companies should be held accountable for their performance, one customer at a time.

We do not allow an unlimited number of companies to earn Diamond Certified. In fact, only a handful of companies can qualify in most industries, and these we re-rate on a ongoing basis to assure you that they stay the best. And, of course we stand behind each Diamond Certified company with our own guarantee.

Our Team

Chris Bjorklund
Consumer Editor and Ombudsman

Chris Bjorklund is known as the Savvy Consumer because she has worked as a consumer advocate for more than 35 years. Chris’ perspective on consumer issues and trends is unique in that she has worked in the both the private and public sectors, as well as in the media and non-profit world. Prior to joining American Ratings Corporation, Chris was the consumer reporter for KGO-Radio where she produced consumer segments for the morning and afternoon newscasts. She also managed the consumer complaint unit for KGO-Radio and TV. Before KGO, Chris was an Investigator for the Consumer Fraud Unit of the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, a consumer news producer for KPIX-TV and the Director of Consumer Education for the Rocky Mountain Better Business Bureau in Denver. She was on the national Board of Directors of Consumer’s Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, for 24 years. Chris graduated from Santa Clara University and later completed a Masters of Science in Consumer Economics at the University of Maryland.

Jim Stein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer

During the 1980s, Jim Stein founded and grew the Asian Yellow Pages and the Hispanic Yellow Pages into the largest second language Yellow Page company in the country with 24 directory titles in three states. In 1986 and 1987 he was recognized by the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs and the Young Entrepreneurs Organization as one of the nation's top 100 young entrepreneurs. He also founded El Mensajero, which became the top Spanish language weekly newspaper in the United States in 1988 and 1989 as judged by the National Hispanic Publishers Association. In 1990, he founded ValueStar, the first company of its kind focused on rating local service and professional firms on their level of customer satisfaction. In 2001, Jim founded American Ratings Corporation and launched the Diamond Certified program which certifies local companies that are rated on an ongoing basis highest in quality.Through interacting with more than 6,000 local companies and analyzing over 1,000,000 consumer responses to surveys, Jim has developed easy to understand strategies for consumers to avoid disappointing service and techniques to help companies build their brand, better satisfy their customers, reduce their customer attrition, increase their customer referral rate and use their reputation for satisfying customers as a powerful marketing tool.

Greg Louie
Founder and VP of Service

Greg Louie is a graduate of California State University of Hayward with business degrees in Industrial Relations and Personnel Administration. Greg started his career in the High-Tech field where he managed sales teams for Micronics Computers, Inc., Orchid Technologies, and eMotion, Inc. For each company, Greg grew the revenue being generated and was recognized as a top manager. After leaving the High-Tech industry, Greg founded Cypress Golf, Inc. He expanded Cypress Golf from being a custom golf club manufacturer to creating and running The Golf Guys Radio Show which has grown to be the most listened to Golf radio show in the country with over 2 million listeners weekly. As a business owner, Greg recognized the need for businesses to be able to differentiate themselves from the competition. He discovered ValueStar, a business that rated the customer satisfaction level of businesses and gave them a mechanism to quantify their performance to existing and future consumers. He got involved with ValueStar and ran their sales and service departments. In 2001, Greg co-founded American Ratings Corporation and launched the Diamond Certified program, which certifies local companies that are rated on an ongoing basis highest in quality. Greg has extensive experience of satisfying thousands of customers, starting businesses, running sales and marketing teams, as well as working with over 7500 companies.

Joy Lanzaro
Director - Mediation &
Compliance

Joy Lanzaro has a deep commitment to mediation. She pursued formal mediation training at the Northern California Mediation Center, and then went on to mediating in Small Claims Court, Civil Harassment Court, and non-court related disputes with a non-profit organization called SEEDS Community Resolution Center in Berkeley, CA. Joy has a degree from California State University Northridge in Environmental and Occupational Health Science and first contemplated a career in conflict resolution while assisting with the Public Participation component of an Army environmental cleanup project where she was employed for six years. As a mediator, Joy applies her skills to moving people beyond conflict and settlement, to a place where both parties are willing to restore trust and good will again. She is proud to be a part of a visionary organization which applies these values to the purchase of goods and services.

Contact Us

American Ratings Corporation
504 Redwood Blvd., Suite 210
Novato, CA 94947

Email info@diamondcertified.org
Phone (800) 738-1138
Fax (800) 643-9963