Roger Pollock Owner, Buena Vista Custom Homes

Roger Pollock has been a major contributor to the Oregon homebuilding industry for over 20 years. Pollock founded Buena Vista Custom Homes in early 2002.

Fast forward to 2006, and you will find a content Roger Pollock (a devoted father of five), having delivered the dream of homeownership to so many Oregon families. So many elements of the company's development have truly centered on the simple mission of making it a reality for hardworking families and individuals to own a home. Everything from the spacious floor plans, to the standard luxury amenity packages that other builders use to "up sell" home buyers, to the purchase of land in family-friendly neighborhoods, Roger Pollock has used this mission to swiftly guide this company.

Fall 2006 finds Buena Vista Custom Homes as the largest home builder in Oregon having pulled 303 permits as of Oct. 10. In addition, "Builder Magazine" named Buena Vista the fastest growing builder in the United States last year with an amazing growth of 162.47 percent.

Roger Pollock's vision for his company also carried a mission of assisting others in need of help. Upon founding Buena Vista, Pollock also established the "Profit Partner's" program, which has grown to 15 nonprofit organizations that receive a check every time Buena Vista sells a home. Last year, the program paid over $500,000 to these area nonprofits, ranking Pollock among the leading private corporate philanthropists in the state of Oregon.

Pollock's generous philanthropy has benefited children and adults who have been affected by drug or alcohol abuse. Not only does Roger make monetary contributions to these organizations, but he also volunteers his time by answering Oregon Partnership's suicide hotline, mentoring at St. Mary's Home for Boys and coaching youth sports teams.

In late 2004, Roger Pollock built the 2,000th home of his career. He has seen a lot of changes in the industry over the past 20 years. It's no surprise that Pollock's career is building homes. His father Don Pollock built apartments and homes in the Portland area, leading the market for over 40 years. His father's passion for the business inspired Roger to start his own homebuilding company. Roger had to work hard to get started in the industry; his first home was financed by a short-term venture capitalist that he found by placing an advertisement in The Oregonian.

From there, Roger founded his first home building company, RMP Properties in 1990. RMP quickly rose to become Oregon's number one homebuilder for four consecutive years during the 1990s. Eight years after creating the company, Pollock sold RMP to the nation's largest home builder, D.R. Horton Homes of Dallas, Texas. In accordance with the terms of this sale to D.R. Horton, Pollock had a "non-compete" clause in his sale agreement that prevented him from home building for four years. During that time, Pollock invested in several businesses unrelated to homebuilding, spent time with his children and formed the business model for Buena Vista.

The success of the company can be attributed to Pollock's innovative ideas and hands-on involvement with the company. Many owners of multi-million dollar grossing companies may opt to spend much of their time vacationing while others do the work for the company, but Roger is different. The homebuilder draws and submits floor plans to the company's architect Barry Smith and then Smith takes the concepts and finalizes them. The floor plans that Roger Pollock creates are based on his philosophy that people don't need more rooms, just more space in the rooms that they have.

Pollock is also involved in the affordability and quality assurance aspect of the homes he builds. He developed a detailed manual for all his building superintendents to follow in order to keep a house on schedule and on budget. By aggressively attacking the actual building process and substantially reducing the company's holding cost for each home, Buena Vista saves money and reduces the costs to homebuyers. Roger Pollock's team also uses a 137-point quality control checklist that superintendents use to certify that the homes exceed each checklist item. In the end, this translates to homes people can be proud to own for many years.

Roger looks forward to the future of Buena Vista Custom Homes, ask him about the company and where it is headed, and you will likely have to wait for him to finish a discussing how many more nonprofits he hopes to add to the "profit partner" program during the upcoming year, or raving about helping someone in need on the Oregon Partnership Crisis line, or talking about how his kids are doing in school. After awhile, he will get back to the industry of homebuilding and you'll likely hear about where the company as well as the Oregon homebuilding industry is headed.

For more about Roger Pollock see:
RogerPollock.com
ProfitPartners.org
RogerPollock.BlogSpot.com