The two founding members of Pelican Properties are John Tillotson, Chief Executive Officer and Daniel Howse, Chief Financial Officer. Richard Hamm joined Pelican Properties as Division Manager to expand its development activities in Southern California. Steve Swanson joined Pelican Properties as Vice President of Sales and Marketing. The business philosophy of Pelican Properties is to develop only a handful of infill projects at a time and to do those with a high degree of creativity and quality. As such all principles of Pelican Properties substantially participate in the project visioning, pre-development, entitlement, development and construction phases of each project.
John Tillotson
John Tillotson has been a resident of Huntington Beach for over 30 years. He is one of the founders of Pan American Van Lines, which was one of the largest moving companies in the country. As a result of his transportation company business
interests, John developed a number of industrial buildings for his own use in 1978, 1980 and 1982. During the early 1980’s, John sold his interests in the moving businesses in order to devote his time to the management of his real estate holdings and to new developments within the City of Huntington Beach. This development activity encompassed numerous industrial and residential single family, condominium and apartment projects. In 2000 he
completed the development of Plaza Almeria, a 42 unit townhome project over 36,000 square feet of commercial space three blocks from the beach and the pier on Main Street. In 2002 Plaza Almeria was selected by the California Redevelopment Association as the best mixed-use development in California.
Richard Hamm
Richard Hamm joined Pelican Properties in 2002. His twenty plus years of real estate development and home building experiences ranges from small in-fill projects, to apartments, and to large scale master planned communities. Prior to joining Pelican Properties Richard was Division Manager of Pacific Bay Homes (PBH). PBH was a real estate development and home building firm that was a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford Motor Company.While serving as Division Manager, Richard developed over 4000 homes in more than two dozen locations throughout Los Angeles, Orange County and the Inland Empire. Pacific Bay Homes’ most noteworthy project in Orange County was the award winning “One Ford Road” project in Newport Beach. One Ford Road was built on the old Ford Aerospace plant which was surrounded on three sides by existing residential communities. The One Ford Road is noted for its creation of community and a sense of place as well as the attention architectural detailing.
Ken Jo
Ken Jo brings more than Thirty years of industry experience, specializing in the acquisition, finance, construction and sales of land for residential and commercial purposes. Prior to Pelican Communities, Ken served as Vice President of Finance for Brooks Street. Ken sourced various acquisition opportunities, performed due diligence, arranged capital partners and financing for various residential & mixed use projects. Ken also served as Director of Real Estate Development for BETEK Corporation managing the residential real estate development. Ken successfully acquired the controlling interest for 3,500 homesites in Calimesa and managed the condo development. When the construction came to an halt due to litigation, Ken successfully settled with the construction loan lender and achieved a favorable outcome. Concurrently, he was Vice President of Business Development for CalPac Engineering and Construction, a sister company of BETEK Corporation, pursuing the new construction opportunities. Under Ken’s management, CalPac succeeded in winning the construction contract for the renovation of Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown LA. Prior to BETEK and CalPac, Ken was the asset manager for Lennar managing the land acquisition, JV formation, finance, and disposition of the land for both Lennar Communities and Lennar Orange County Homebuilding. Ken actively participated in master planned communities including MCAS – Tustin, MCAS- El Toro and the redevelopment of the Parker Hannifin R&D site into Central Park West, the largest urban MPC in Orange County. Prior to Lennar, Ken served as Treasurer and Financial Analyst for Hon Development.
Rob Boyer
Prior to becoming a Principal at Pelican Communities, Rob has guided his own companies over the past 25 years in Southern California working with high net worth business owners, family offices, and property owners in the implementation of unique and proprietary insurance and real estate monetization strategies. He has personally been involved in various transactions totaling well over 1 billion in asset value. Rob is a licensed insurance and real estate agent, and is active as a member and investor in multiple development projects and private companies throughout the region. This diverse experience brings Pelican a unique insight into approaching the mechanics and operations of each potential opportunity. Rob graduated from Pepperdine University in 1988, and since has served on numerous boards over the years and has also been as a guest lecturer at the Loyola School of Law in Los Angeles.