Houston Real Estate Developer for 64 years. Chairman of Welcome Group, landlord to over 5,000,000 square feet of Manufacturing and Industrial Facilities in 100 Texas and Georgia locations.

First projects in the 1950s and 1960s were Master Planned Communities, Jamaica Beach and Tiki Island in Galveston County, both of which are now separate cities. He later developed apartments, retail centers, hotels and three downtown office buildings.
Honors include: Inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame, Receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Houston Business Journal in 2012 and Awarded an Honorary Doctor’s degree in 2013 from the University of Houston, where he was a 49 BBA grad.

Of note, he received the University of Houston Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1970, the UH Bauer College of Business Distinguished Alumni Award in 1996, the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley in 2018.
In the past, he was Chairman of the Boar d of two Houston banks, was Chairman of an American Stock Exchange company, was on the Board of Directors and owned 10% of the Houston Astros baseball team. In March 2021, he celebrated his 93rd year.

He was a long-time Chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of Houston, Chairman of its Drive to Tier One Status and was Chairman of its Political Action Committee. He is a Director-Emeritus of the Greater Houston Partnership, having served a long time as its Higher Education Committee Chairman.

In the 50s and 60s he served in the Executive Office of the President under Presidents The army equivalent of a Army 3-star general, he was 30 years old). He witnessed the Atom bomb test in Nevada and the Hydrogen Bomb test at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

In 1958, he was awarded the Arthur Fleming Award as One of the Ten Outstanding Young Men in Federal Service. Out of 600 who received this award since 1948, Wikipedia lists him as one of the “Notable Twenty” along with Astronaut Neil Armstrong (moon landing), Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Fed Chairman Paul Volcker.

He was invited and spoke to a joint session of the New Mexico Legislature. He was appointed Special Ambassador to Nicaragua by President Lyndon Johnson. He received the Honor Man Award in Naval bootcamp then served for two years as a Naval Officer in Japan, having graduated first in his class in officer’s school.

He married his college sweetheart, Joanne Guest, on the day he graduated from UH, 72 years ago, in 1949. They have 5 children, 16 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.