Irvine Apartment Communities Losing Another Top Executive

Irvine Apartment Communities Inc. said Chief Financial Officer James E. Mead will be leaving the company in early 1999, the latest high-level departure at the California developer in recent years.

Mead is leaving the Newport Beach-based company, headed by billionaire Donald Bren, to help launch an Internet software company called Gendoic.com.

“We are grateful for the time [Mead] spent with us, and wish him well in his exciting new enterprise,” Bren said in a statement.

Mead was named chief financial officer in December 1996, replacing Richard Moran, who left to join another developer. Before that, Mead had been treasurer since the company’s initial stock sale in 1993.

Two months after Moran left, Bren succeeded Steven Alpert as chief executive. Bren then hired residential community development executive William McFarland as president and chief executive in July 1997.

Irvine Apartment Communities owns or has under development 62 properties. It has 18,758 apartments in California. It is the dominant owner and operator of apartment properties on the Irvine Ranch, the large master-planned community.