In my recent articles, I have focused on the changes that I believe are impacting our industry in highly significant and fundamental ways.   They have mostly been about systemic kinds of things: government involvement, mortgage finance policy, demographic changes, and adjustments to the expectations of people.  A recurring theme is that it is going to take a new and creative form of leader to capitalize on these changes and to profitably interpret them into the future.  The drive and imagination of leaders is the defining difference in making lemons into lemonade, no matter what the endeavor.

September is a time when the leaves start to fall and, to me, it is a reflective time.

It is with this in mind that I wanted to recognize the passing of two leaders who have helped to define all that could be positive in the industry over the past several decades.

One of the definitions of a hero is “someone who is admired for outstanding qualities and achievements.”

If you could think of a company that embodied this definition, it would be Simonini Homes in Charlotte, NC.   They have been the national builder of the year, but, in truth, they worked mostly in their own back yard.  Alan Simonini and Ray Killian created beautiful neighborhoods and homes in the Carolinas that were testaments to their attention to detail.   They thought about every aspect of the home they were designing and coupled those homes into jewels of neighborhoods that had character and architectural cohesion.   They cared for their customers, kept on the cutting edge of management practice, and provided a great place to work.   As you would expect, they participated in the Charlotte community in multiple ways and were considered a pillar of the community.

So it was with great distress that I saw the note from Alan and Ray that they were winding down their operations and shutting their doors.   The current market did not value what they did any more and they could not profitably continue as a business.   As with all they did, the notice was done with class and empathy.   If you are going to shut down, do it in a classy way.   And they did.

Last week I was in the Philadelphia area.  My wife had an Art Show opening in Princeton, NJ, so we were in the area for a couple of days while she organized her show.  On Tuesday I received a call from some of the people who had worked for me at Toll Brothers back in the 1980s to inform me that Joel Rassman, the long-time Chief Financial Officer for Toll, had died of leukemia.  I attended his memorial service on Wednesday morning and there must have been over 500 people there.

Joel knew that he had terminal leukemia for the past couple of year and continued to work up until the day of his death.   For anyone who knew Joel, this was no surprise.

I first got to know Joel when he worked for Ken Leventhal in New York in the early 1980s.   I had him help me creatively structure land deals I was doing in New Jersey.   He was one of the brightest people I have ever worked with and taught me more about creative deal structuring than I knew existed.

In 1984 he came to work at Toll as the CFO and never left.   He was a fearless negotiator and full of life: a whirlwind of activity, ideas, and action.  He was fully dedicated to his work and his family.

I can remember talking with Joel and one of his former partners at Leventhal at a conference last spring.   Joel was fully into explaining why some accounting rule was just wrong while trying to eat a frozen Dove bar at the same time.   As his hands and arms were waving, bits of chocolate and drips of ice cream rained on his shirt and tie.   However, as anyone who knew Joel would attest this was not an uncommon occurrence.   The stained shirt and tie were just a testimony to Joel getting “fully into it” and he did it often.

The industry recognized him multiple times as the best CFO in the industry and any of us who knew him would support that claim.   Although he could be brutal on bankers, accountants, and anyone who stood in the way of what he thought to be in the best interests of his company, almost all respected him for his diligence, work ethic, intelligence, and willingness to help and mentor, too.

I don’t know who will fill Joel’s shoes, or those of Simonini Builders, either.   In their own ways they were heroes of the industry who almost seem irreplaceable.   They were products of their times.

What I can hope is that there are people out there who will approach the challenges that we are now facing with the same degree of thought, attention to detail, and caring that Joel, Alan, and Ray have demonstrated.

The times are difficult and the challenges seem overwhelming at times.   I think of the movie “The Color of Money” with Tom Cruise and Paul Newman.   There is a scene where Cruise’s character, a pool hustler, has hustled another hustler and is just waxing him.   Cruise’s character says “It’s like your worst nightmare, isn’t it?”   That is the way many feel these days. 

Will it ever get better?

I truly believe that it will and the day will go to those who are willing to approach the realities of the new economy and the new demographics with innovative solutions and the same hard work that Simonini Builders and Joel Rassman exhibited.

And I hope that twenty or thirty years from now someone else can recognize new people in the industry who made a difference in the right kind of way.   Those differences and the people who learn from those differences and carry on to make the industry better will be the lasting legacy of Alan, Ray and Joel.

It will be a great legacy gift to leave.