2 O.C. Builders to Be Inducted Into Industry’s Hall of Fame
Leaders in the state’s construction industry went back to their all-male ways this year in selecting five new inductees, including the presidents of two Orange County-based firms, to the California Building Industry Foundation Hall of Fame.
The industry-sponsored foundation picked its first--and so far only--female hall of fame member last year when Aliso Viejo developer Kathryn G. Thompson was inducted during the annual Pacific Coast Builders Conference.
When the huge conference is called to order in San Francisco next month, the eighth hall of fame class will include Keith A. Johnson, president of Fieldstone Co., and Dick J. Randall, president of the William Lyon Co. Both firms are headquartered in Newport Beach.
Hall of fame members are selected for contributions to the industry as well as community.
Other inductees for 1992 are Bruce Karatz, president of Kaufman & Broad Home Corp. in Los Angeles; William Bone, president of Sunrise Co. in Palm Desert, and Kenneth E. Behring, head of Blackhawk Corp. in the Northern California community of Danville.
While their corporate headquarters are in Newport Beach, Johnson maintains his offices in San Diego while Randall heads William Lyon Co.’s Northern California operations from offices in San Jose. It is the chairmen--Fieldstone’s Peter Ochs and Lyon’s William Lyon, both previous hall of fame members--who occupy the firms’ Orange County executive offices.
Johnson, who co-founded Fieldstone with Ochs in 1981, heads a company that was Southern California’s second-largest home builder last year. He is slated to take on the additional duties of chief executive officer in 1994 when Ochs fulfills a longstanding pledge to step down at age 50 to enable other executives in the company to move up.
Johnson is chairman of the Mayor’s Housing Advisory Committee in San Diego and is past president of Housing Opportunities Inc., a nonprofit developer of low-income housing in San Diego County. He is also past president of the San Diego chapter of the Building Industry Assn.
Before joining with Ochs to start Fieldstone, Johnson headed the William Lyon Co.’s San Diego division. He began his career in 1969 with Ochs and Lyon as an executive in American Standard Corp.’s development subsidiary--a unit that later became the William Lyon Co., which today is California’s leading home builder.
Randall, president of William Lyon Co. since 1981--he succeeded Ochs in the post--is a member and past chairman of the board of directors of the Northern California Building Industry Assn. and is past president of the Santa Clara County BIA chapter.
