Memorial Service for Horace Hogan II
A memorial service honoring the life of Horace will be held on:
Saturday, February 25 at 11 a.m.
St. Andrew's Episcopal Church
890 Balour Drive
Encinitas CA 92024
Map and directions
View Horace's obituary in the San Diego Union~Tribune.
It is with great sadness that the Building Industry Association of Southern California announces the passing of Horace Hogan II, a veteran California homebuilder and Building Industry Association leader. Hogan died Monday after a lengthy battle with cancer.
“Horace was an outstanding homebuilder and even more importantly, an outstanding human being,” said BIASC President Bob Yoder. “He gave freely of his time to help lead our industry through good times and bad, worked tirelessly for the City of Hope and other charitable organizations and always was passionate about good planning and great architecture. All of us who knew and worked with him will miss him.”
At his death, Hogan was a principal with LandArc Group, a private land development company of planned residential and mixed-use communities based in Carlsbad. He previously was president and chief executive officer for Brehm Communities in San Diego, and before that was division president for Ryland Homes, a cofounder of Pacific Gateway Homes in Aliso Viejo, and was vice president of the Mission Viejo Company. In all, he had more than 30 years of executive leadership experience in the homebuilding industry.
Under his leadership, these organizations garnered in excess of 40 regional industry awards for community marketing and merchandising excellence, including two Gold Nuggets and a Best in American Living Award. In addition, Brehm Communities was honored as 2006 Builder of the Year by the Riverside Chapter of BIASC.
In his commitment to the building industry around California, Hogan served as chairman of the Building Industry Association of San Diego, the California Building Industry Association and PCBC, the West’s largest homebuilding trade show and conference. At the national level, he was a member of the Executive Committee for the National Association of Home Builders, where he participated in briefings of industry credit market conditions with Congress, the White House, the Federal Reserve, FDIC, and OTS. One consequence of these efforts was the First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit at both the State and Federal levels.
Hogan earned a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. As a result of his many contributions to the community and his industry, Horace was awarded “The Spirit of Life” award by the City of Hope and was inducted into both the San Diego, and California Housing Industry’s Hall of Fame.
He is survived by his wife, Kim, and children Jake and Savanna.
The California Homebuilding Foundation is out with this year's inductees into the Homebuilding Hall of Fame, and BIASC is well-represented. In fact, four of the six new members are from Southern California.
The local inductees are:
- Aram Bassenian, chairman and CEO of Newport Beach-based Bassenian Lagoni Architecture.
- Wilfred Cooper, chairman of WNC and Associates of Irvine.
- Wes Keusder, the owner of Irvine-based Keusder Homes and last year's BIASC president.
- And Jeffrey Mezger, president and CEO of KB Home, which is headquartered in Los Angeles.
For more information visit www.mychf.org.
Lots of things to report on today:
Local homebuilding legend Larry Webb knows a thing or two about building homes that sell. He grew John Laing Homes from a small Southern California company into one of the nation's biggest and most respected homebuilders during the late '90s and early '00s. And now he's a principal with The New Home Company, building innovative product in Orange County and the Sacramento region.
At this week's Outlook 2012 event, presented by BIASC's Orange County Chapter, Webb said he thought the industry had finally bottomed out and that better times were ahead. In fact, he said the next 12-18 months is the time to lay the groundwork for the homes that will be needed when the market truly turns upward.
To that end, Webb said there were five things builders should be doing.
1. Re-examine your product. Webb said when the Great Recession hit, "most companies tried to simplify and cut costs. There have been few examples of great architecture and planning" in recent years. But well-designed new homes are selling, such as in Irvine's Woodbury development, where more than 1,000 homes have sold.
2. Do consumer research. "I don't think you can stay in touch with your buyers enough," he said. And he challenged the largely white, middle-aged audience to remember that today's buyers in California come from many different backgrounds, adding that "there are opportunities to tap into what new people want."
3. Reassess your marketing. Not too long ago, marketing was focused on large display ads in the L.A. Times and Orange County Register. Today, fewer and fewer people look in printed newspapers for information. And he warned builders absolutely have to pay attention to Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media. "One unhappy homeowner can cause incredible damage" by posting complaints on social media. "If we're not tuned in, we're making a tremendous mistake."
4. Recommit to the sales process. During the boom, many sales people prospered as order-takers, but today's market requires people who can engage with prospective customers. "Great salespeople make a difference," he said.
5. Rethink your management structure. Webb noted that homebuilding is the ultimate team game, but as companies grew they grew silos where vice presidents were more concerned about their teams than the organization as a whole. "Too much overhead is stupid," he declared. "The further a division president is from his buyers, the more mistakes are going to be made."
Webb said companies that keep these tips in mind "will have incredible opportunities during the next upswing."
Outlook 2012 also featured an economic forecast by Dr. Esmael Adibi of Chapman University. You can read about his thoughts here.
February 14, 2012