Change has come in measured steps over the lifetime of the OC 50, the Business Journal’s annual account of the most influential people in the local business community.
This week marks its 20th edition of the OC 50, which has documented the business community’s top business executives through several cycles of economic boom and bust—not to mention the county’s own bankruptcy in 1994.
What’s striking is how many names remain unchanged on this week’s list compared with 1993’s OC 50, particularly among real estate executives. Among the perennials are: George Argyros, Donald Bren, William Lyon, Tony Moiso and Henry Segerstrom; along with Peter Ueberroth, John Tu, Bob McKnight and Jim Doti.
Other notable names from that list that are not found in this year’s edition: Milan Panic, the late Carl Karcher and developer Donald Koll, who passed away last December.
The four “no-brainers” for the 1993 list, according to a write-up at the time: Bren; Segerstrom; Safi Qureshey, cofounder of Irvine computer maker AST Research Inc.; and Leslie McCraw, chief executive of Fluor Corp.
McCraw retired from Fluor (which moved its headquarters from Aliso Viejo to Texas in 2006) in 1998, while AST was acquired by Samsung in 1996 and later went out of business.
See this year’s OC 50 profiles—and an updated photo of Chapman President Doti—in our Special Report that starts on page 21.
—Mark Mueller
