Building Industry Association
of San Diego

Guy Asaro, 2012 Building Industry Association (BIA) of San Diego County Chairman, delivers his Chairman’s Message at the 2012 Installation Celebration on January 21, 2012 at the Omni Hotel in downtown San Diego. Immediately preceding the speech Guy Asaro was formally installed into the office of 2012 BIA Chairman by his father Frank L. Asaro, a prominent San Diego estate attorney and, for over a decade, former BIA General Council.

BIA Installation Speech
January 21, 2011

Wow, what a wonderful celebration we are having this evening. Dad, thank you for your kind words.

Tonight’s event is all about vision….. and I had the privilege of growing up in a house with a man of great vision. Dad, you had the vision to be the first in our family to leave the tuna fishing community…to go to college and then law school… and the vision to become part of this industry. I hope, as I stand here today, that you can see what an inspiration you and mom have always been to me and to the rest of our family.

To be very honest, my first career choice was to be a tuna fisherman, having grown up with that heritage. However, that choice was highly discouraged by my father as he knew that the lure of big money and the sweet smell of fish would lead a young man astray.

I would like to recognize and thank some very important people. You have already been introduced to the BIA Board of Directors, but the majority of our membership is represented by the BIA’s councils. If you are a board member of the following councils would you please stand and be recognized:

·    The BIA Cares Board, chaired by Tina Villa
·    The Builders Resource Council, chaired by John Patterson
·    The Sales and Marketing council, chaired by Melissa Deen
·    The Specialty Contractors Council, chaired by Gordon Guthrie
·    And The YGEN council, chaired by Mark Moss

Would you all join me in giving these board members a round of applause; they are the truly the backbone of our association.

Now if you would continue to indulge me for a moment, there are a couple more people that I’d like to thank.

First, I would like to thank the installation committee: Mark McMillin, my chair; Sandy Perlatti, Dawn Davidson, Jim Schmidt, Danny Gabriel, Mike Reynolds and Karla Valeri for putting together such a wonderful Industry celebration. I am sure you will all agree they have done a fantastic job. After years of attending these functions I had no idea how much work went into putting them together and this committee went above and beyond to create this evening. My sincere thanks to all of you.

I would also like to thank The McMillins, Mark and Scott, not only for their support and encouragement in my BIA involvement. But, in addition, for allowing me to be apart of their organization. What a treat it has been to work with each of you for the last 8 years.

And, lastly, I would like to acknowledge and thank this crew right down here. For those of you who haven’t noticed – these three tables down here include my immediate family: Father, uncle, my brothers, sister and nieces and nephews along with my wife and my best friend, and our three wonderful children.

As you can see, my family always travels as a herd. Whether gathering for an 8 year-old birthday party… a soccer game… a school commencement ceremony… or this special occasion, you’ll rarely find a solo Asaro; its easier to count us by the dozen.
Thank you all for your support over these many years.

And to my wife, some 16 years ago I stumbled into the house exhausted at 1 in the morning and greeted you, my new bride who was up waiting for me. You asked “where in the heck have you been”  And I explained that I had been giving a presentation before the Chula Vista City council and my item had been pulled from the agenda so it was heard at the end of the evening. That night there had been several contentious issues before the council, so I did not get to make my presentation until midnight. As I told you my story, I could see… you were wondering what the heck had you gotten yourself into. Well in those days the council hearing were shown on cable access TV with a two hour delay, so at 3 in the morning you got to see me in action. And ever since. you have been my strongest supporter and have let me pursue my passion, understanding that the late nights and extended hours meant you were going to have to pick up a lot of the slack. Thank you for allowing me to follow my dream.

And to my children, each night at dinner, I ask each of you: “What did you do today to make the world a better place and how did you choose to make a difference?” And like the smart kids you are, you always turn it around on me and challenge me to answer the same question.

And so, on the whiteboard in my office, I have written: “Choose to make a difference today!” to encourage me to find a way to answer your question every night. Tonight, I hope to show you all how I am trying to do just that.

Now, Three years ago, when Bob Cummings approached me about entering “the Chairs” on the BIA Board, I definitely remember him saying “Guy, you will be Chairman in 2012. 2012! Think of it! The economy will be zooming by then!”

Bob, you are a wonderful person, great friend and phenomenal real estate executive – but a prognosticator you are not! I thank you nonetheless for getting me here. This organization and our industry mean a great deal to me, and I am so very proud to have the opportunity to serve as BIA’s Board Chairman.

I have been in this industry for more than 30 years, and once the tuna fisherman thing was off the table, the building industry seemed like a logical choice.

I grew up in Scripps Ranch and, in fact, our family was the third family to move into the community. My father had represented the original developer on the purchase from the Scripps family.  Like many new communities back in those days, many of the families that moved in were somehow connected to the builder.

My dad had a friend who would come by the house quite often; I will never forget it. It was the mid -seventies and he drove a Ford LTD. And this LTD had a phone in it! Now remember it was the mid-seventies and the phone was the kind with the rotary dial and it was mounted right on the floor. I was certain this guy was a secret agent but I asked my father what he did and he explained that he worked for the development company; right then and there I knew I wanted to be a developer.

If that wasn’t enough to cement the deal, several weeks later a friend and I watched a helicopter circle a construction site, land, some guys got out and pointed their fingers around, and  then got in and flew off. That was definitely it! I was going to be a builder! Now who could have guessed that by the time I got into the industry cell phones would be the size of credit cards and basically free.

I was lucky enough to watch Scripps Ranch grow from the ground up. It’s truly one of San Diego’s great neighborhoods. We are so fortunate to live in a City with so many crown jewels, like Scripps Ranch. As San Diegans, all of us recognize the value of places like Balboa Park, Mission Bay Park and the Hotel Del. It would be hard to fathom our City without these treasures. But just as with our projects on today, each of these historic projects faced significant challenges: NIMBY-ism, politics and naysayers all conspired to try and keep these places from ever coming into existence.

Can you imagine if the opposition had won and Balboa Park was never built? Or if Horton Plaza – the spark that brought Downtown San Diego to prominence – didn’t exist?

What led to the birth of each of these places, and many more just like them, in spite of the opposition, were iconic leaders with vision who stayed true to their beliefs even in the face of stiff opposition.

It is so easy, especially in difficult times, like those we are facing in this industry right now, to look at the world through a porthole. To view the challenges from the limited perspective of what is immediately in front of us. But the men that San Diego history remembers were able to climb up on deck and view the expanse of the horizon that San Diego had in the distance. I am thinking about men like Alonzo Horton, John D. Spreckles, George Marston and Ernie Hahn. Men who had Vision!

Vision that transcended the here and now.

Vision that believed, with conviction, that what they were doing was right and good, and that time would prove the mettle of their purpose.

Vision that shined through the doubters and cast a light on what had been darkness.

These great community servants all had at least one thing in common: they believed in a better San Diego, and they knew their vision would benefit generations to come.

When Mr. Horton arrived in San Diego from San Francisco in 1867 he quickly realized the harbor was the best spot for a city he had ever seen. Horton intended to see his vision for San Diego become a reality. So less than a month after his arrival, he purchased 960 acres for $265.

Some called Mr. Horton a fool for the purchase of his New Town. That property is now Downtown San Diego.  Horton, like those of us in this room who dream big, saw San Diego for what it could be, and aren’t we all glad he did?

John D. Spreckels came to San Diego in 1887 and instantly fell in love with the City by the sea. Spreckels’ vision led him to invest heavily in San Diego for the next 50 years, building the Hotel Del, railroads, dams and water systems. Mr. Spreckels invested so much money in San Diego that critics routinely demonized him for his business involvement.

In 1923, he gave a speech to a room full of San Diego’s most influential business leaders. What he said to that group 89 years ago about local politics and small-mindedness still rings true today:

“The moment anybody appears with any proposition of a big constructive nature, the small town undertakers get busy digging its grave.”

He said what San Diego lacked that other successful cities had was cooperation. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

George Marston believed so deeply in his vision of Balboa Park that he put up $10,000 of his own money in 1902 to hire Samuel Parson, landscape architect for New York’s Central Park, to prepare the first comprehensive plan for Balboa Park.

Marston pushed to finish the park prior to the Panama-California Exposition in 1915. He saw it as an opportunity to showcase San Diego to the world, which would help the sleepy town grow. But because numerous locals were suspicious of Mr. Marston’s motives, many people actually opposed the concept from the beginning. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Visionaries are not limited only to the annals of history long gone. In 1972, Ernie Hahn received preliminary approval for his concept to build a new retail shopping complex in Downtown San Diego. For those of you who were not around back then, it was hard to understand why anyone would want to make that kind of investment in an area lined with tattoo parlors and seedy movie theatres.

Mr. Hahn’s project would become the genesis of the Center City Development Corporation, which started its work in 1975 and has transformed our downtown from an unsavory red-light district into the showpiece that it is today. It took Mr. Hahn 10 years to break ground on Horton Plaza, and he had to overcome numerous challenges along the way.
And at times the challenges must have seemed insurmountable.
Aren’t we all glad Mr. Hahn followed through on his vision?

Like our predecessors, what we do is immensely important. We build the homes, apartments, offices and shops that are so very vital to our way of life. We also build the social components that help bind our society: the parks, the schools and civic venues where we spend our free time.

A long time ago, when I worked as a Superintendent, I learned what was really important, was the homeowner who came up and said: “Thank you. Thank you for building this home for me and my family.” Those few words made all the hard work make sense.

Politics and recessions will come and go, but what sets us apart as a nation is our industry’s ability to build dreams. In a world filled with intangible industries and computer-generated wealth, what we do is concrete, what we do is real.

Long before someone moved into their new office or home; long before they played in that park and attended that school – someone in our industry had the vision to Plan, to create, and to build that space, that reality. That’s powerful and important.

We build the best buildings and homes in the world, generally superior in every way, yet lawmakers are trying to legislate us all out of existence.

Despite the economic challenges our industry faces, governmental regulation has continued to increase at every level, adding thousands of dollars to the cost of building homes, apartments and offices.  It’s just as important to note that the impact of numerous local regulations would have been far worse had it not been for the push back of this association. Your association!

We must build on our successes, including in the most recent election, and continue to support candidates who are pragmatic and support our vision.

Never before has it been more important for our industry to stand united. If you look at the oppositionists, those who assail our vision and our dreams, they are united as never before. And if you don’t believe in the power of a united force, just think back to 2008 when the federal government made history by nationalizing GM. The government blew out the stockholders, they blew out the bond holders and the crushed the banks and gave the company to the united autoworkers! Why, because everyone in that industry, regardless of what they do, says: “I am an autoworker.” They don’t say, “I put lug nuts on cars.” They say, “I am an autoworker.”

Our industry dwarfs the economic impact of the auto industry. Can you imagine the impact our message will have when we speak with a united voice?

As your Chairman, I plan to spend the next year expanding our membership and building a comprehensive coalition with members from every corner of the building industry. This coalition will speak with a unified voice that will help us strengthen the great foundation this industry has built.

We have to continue to dream big and see those dreams through in the face of opposition. So I challenge all of you, just as I am challenged by my children each night at the dinner table: Choose to make a difference! Choose to make the world a better place each and every day.

We are no different than the great civic leaders who came before us. When I look out into this room, I see visionaries and industry leaders. And I know San Diego is in good hands.

There will come a time when all of us will look back and take pride in what we created, what we left behind. And there will come a time when we are judged by our work.

I am confident when that time comes the people of San Diego will be grateful. I’m confident future generations will appreciate what we left them. I’m confident our vision and accomplishments will inspire them to continue to shape and care for America’s Finest City.

All of us should be proud. Together, with our predecessors, we built this city.

Thank you all for coming. Please enjoy the rest of the evening.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Events, Government Issues, Membership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.