3 From O.C. Headed for Building Industry Group’s Hall of Fame : Recognition: Honorees include Carole P. Eichen, only the second woman to be inducted in the institution.
Three development industry leaders from Orange County are scheduled to be inducted into the California Building Industry Foundation Hall of Fame at ceremonies Wednesday in San Francisco.
The leaders, among six new Hall of Fame nominees who will be inducted during the annual Pacific Coast Builders Conference, are Anthony R. Moiso, president of the Santa Margarita Co., Carole P. Eichen, president of Carole Eichen Interiors, and retired developer Herbert D. Tobin of Newport Beach.
Eichen is the second woman elected to the prestigious Hall of Fame in its nine-year history--the first was Aliso Viejo developer Kathryn G. Thompson in 1991. The interior designer also is the first nominee whose business never involved the actual construction of housing.
Hall of Fame members are selected for their contributions to the community as well as to the industry.
“The primary purpose of this thing is to show people that builders are human, too, and that we do good, positive things for our communities,” Tobin said.
Other inductees this year are Ira Norris, president of Inco Homes in Upland; Spalding G. Wathen, chief executive of Wathen Bros., a Fresno builder, and Harry C. Elliott III, president of Elliott Homes Inc. in Sacramento.
Moiso, one of the original developers of Mission Viejo, founded Santa Margarita Co. in 1983 to manage his family’s 40,000-acre Rancho Mission Viejo--Orange County’s second largest private landholding after the Irvine Co.
Although best known as the master developer of the 5,000-acre planned community of Rancho Santa Margarita, the Santa Margarita Co. also oversees ranching and farming operations on its property and has begun planning development of a new 1,005-acre community, Las Flores, just south of Rancho Santa Margarita.
In addition to his professional pursuits, Moiso is active in Scouting, the American Red Cross and the San Juan Capistrano Historical Society as well as a number of philanthropic organizations.
Eichen, a well-known interior designer, was nominated for contributions to overall home design and industry marketing strategies. She was a leader in the move in the late 1960s to persuade home builders to use teams of architects, landscape designers, interior designers and advertising and public relations professionals to plan their developments with a coordinated theme.
Over the years she has been commissioned by builders in Germany, France, Japan and Taiwan to help develop the first model homes used in those countries as population growth made mass produced housing feasible.
Eichen is active in the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Wellness Community of Orange County and the Prentice Day School for dyslexic children. She has designed shelters for battered women in Orange County and has been named woman of the year twice by the YWCA of Orange County.
Retired builder Tobin was a founder in 1937 of the National Assn. of Homebuilders. His family-owned company, Frank I. Tobin & Sons, built thousands of homes in New England and California over four generations before becoming inactive when Tobin, now 81, retired in 1974.
Tobin moved the business from Boston to Los Angeles in 1945 and to Riverside in 1965. He was president of the Building Industry Assn. of Riverside and San Bernardino counties three times in the 1950s and 1960s.
He is active in the Ben Gurion University Center for Jewish/Arab Understanding, California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, the Kennedy School Institute for Middle East Social and Economic Policy and the Harvard Alumni Assn. Tobin was a director of the Urban League in Los Angeles in the mid-1950s and was a reserve deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for 25 years.
