Trophies Were Just The Start

The Business Journal picks five winners each year for its Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards.

Last year, our selections made us and our nominating committee look pretty good—the 12 months that followed saw numerous headline-making events from the group, as the firms drew the attention of Wall Street A-Listers, Silicon Valley venture capitalists and more.

Here’s a quick look at the 2019 that was for the group.

Palmer Luckey: Unicorn Again

Palmer Luckey’s hard work continues to build valuable companies—and appears to be a fair amount of fun as well.

His presence at the CES technology show in Las Vegas last month seemed more play than work (exoskeleton arm, anyone?) and Luckey is legendary for tweets that tweak—Blizzard Entertainment was one target last year—and other off-the-cuff comments, including his comparisons of OC and the Silicon Valley for last year’s Business Journal EIE event crowd.

“I have fun here,” Luckey told the Business Journal in December, speaking of OC as a good place to recruit workers. “It’s a lot easier to convince other people to have fun here, too.”

His Irvine-based defense startup, Anduril Industries, is also having some fun.

In September, it secured a $127 million investment at a $1 billion valuation, vaulting the company to fabled unicorn status, one of the youngest startups to do so—but not the first for the erstwhile founder of Oculus VR, which sold to Facebook for $3 billion three years after inception.

Did we mention the submarine in his garage?

We did, in an article last month, when Luckey earned a nod as Businessperson of the Year for the technology sector.

Crank

Around the time of the capital raise, Anduril moved into its new headquarters at Jamboree Road and Michelson Drive, where Luckey tweeted it was “time to crank out machines.”

One of the first products for the company is Lattice, a surveillance system using artificial intelligence, cameras and drones. It has made headlines for its border protection potential.

There’s more to come, according to Luckey: Anduril is working on Anvil, an attack drone—“counter-drone” is the formal term—which could have battlefield potential.

“We’re having fun, doing cool stuff and making money,” Luckey told the Business Journal on New Year’s Eve.

“It doesn’t get much better than that.”

Heidi Hendy: Precise Palette

Heidi Hendy’s homegrown interior architecture firm, OC’s 13th largest by billings last year, is still ahead of the curve.

She’s kept H. Hendy Associates busy since winning an Excellence in Entrepreneurship honor with projects ranging from a 230,000-square-foot building renovation for Behr Paint Co. in Santa Ana to a brand new 40,000-square-foot, two-story corporate office for ticketing provider Paciolan at UCI Research Park.

Among the firm’s most moving work, though, resonates with roots in Newport Beach: the former Newport Balboa Savings and Loan building, a historic landmark at Lido Village, was renovated to make space for SAP’s Innovation Center, along with a coworking space, in a spot along Newport Harbor owned by Burnham-Ward Properties.

Coworking office space provider HanaHaus got a Blue Bottle Coffee bar at the location, encouraging collaboration, with coffee in hand. 

Hendy continues to find innovative ways to incorporate such local specifics into design plans. Another: while creating a space for Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems Inc., the company worked with a national security agency, engineers, the city of Irvine, and the government to design space that incorporates high-security features in the facilities. 

Up next? Hendy is working on a space for Branded Online, a marketing firm that is moving into Lincoln Property Co.’s new Flight creative office complex at Tustin Legacy.

Reza Jahangiri: Magnum AAG

American Advisors Group is the reverse mortgage company that rose in national public prominence in part due to pitchman Tom Selleck, along with other actors who resonate with prospective clients: its celebrity spokesmen have consistently connoted capable, honorable strength for the seniors that make up significant portion of AAG’s base.

Now the firm has another celebrity in its midst: Chief Executive Reza Jahangiri. 

After receiving recognition at the Business Journal’s EIE event last year, he was named to the inaugural Mortgage Global 100, a list created by trade journal Mortgage America Professional to acknowledge brokers, lenders and industry professionals who innovate in the industry.

Jahangiri keeps doing that sort of thing: AAG last year expanded its business model to include additional financial advising for clients, primarily senior citizens.

The co-chair of the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association board for the second year running noted he eventually wants to take the company down additional paths, toward a broad-based retirement brand that includes financial and health products such as in-home care and medical supplements. 

The company remains the largest in the reverse mortgage industry, with $2 billion of issuance and 24% market share according to industry research for the fourth quarter of 2019.

Darin Anderson: Keeping Pace

Darin Anderson and Salas O’Brien received quite a few nods from the Business Journal in 2019; after the chief executive won an Excellence in Entrepreneurship award, the Santa Ana-based company was recognized as just one of two engineering construction firms to boost local billings by double digits, ending the year with 311% growth to $11 million in Orange County alone.

Rather than touting his own accolades, Anderson took to LinkedIn last month to praise 40 members of his leadership team for their commitment and service, noting it was the largest group the company had ever acknowledged.

Growth and greater performance isn’t the only increase for employee-owned Salas O’Brien: it bought four firms last year, matching its 2018 total and resulting in expansion locally in Irvine and Corona, as well as in the Midwest, Northwest and Texas.

Sticking to its “grow right” philosophy, the firm added 250 employees for a headcount of about 775, along with 12 new offices.

Salas O’Brien completed 3,700 projects in 2019, with a particular focus on sustainable engineering and energy-cost savings for its clients.

Joe Duran: He Wrote The Books

Will Joe Duran’s United Capital Financial Advisors disappear into the gorilla that is Goldman Sachs? It’s not uncommon after an acquisition and at the end of last month the financial giant—which bought United Capital for $750 million in cash last year—announced it had changed the firm’s name to Goldman Sachs Personal Financial Management.

The move had been expected and wasn’t seen as meaning the new owner forgot why it bought the wealth adviser last May, months after Duran won an Excellence in Entrepreneurship award from us.

For one thing, United Capital’s no slouch—at the time of the transaction, the firm had more than 220 advisers and $25 billion assets under management.

Chief Executive Duran had previously told the Business Journal it would be great if someone paid “a lot of money” for United Capital and let him continue running it.

Then Goldman came knocking with cash and a promise of independence. 

Then there’s a big reason given by Goldman for its interest in United Capital: Duranian innovations including its digital platform, offered to other registered investment advisors, meaning it could earn fees scaling a system developed to serve its own clients: the FinLife platform had $20 billion more in assets under contract through the platform at the time of its sale.

Accelerant

Such work, along with Duran’s developing digital bank, is also seen as enabling Goldman Sachs to push into giving counsel to a wider swath of investor, including those with as little as $100,000 in assets to invest, which could vastly expand the combined companies’ reach.

Goldman Sachs vet Rachel Schnoll will oversee the growth and development of the white-label FinLife platform, based on United Capital’s technology. It’s Goldman’s entrance into working with third-party advisors.

Current challenges include pricing models and software compatibility with other RIA products.

Duran—author of several best-selling financial books—penned a piece after the buy for InvestmentNews.com, where he is a frequent contributor, telling why he sold: “United Capital would need to go beyond building financial plans and managing assets” with advisers now offering banking and working clients on tax preparation, among other services, delivered “on an elegant, integrated platform. As an independent firm, it would take several more years and many millions of dollars to build this.”

Instead, “joining Goldman would accelerate that effort overnight.”

You’ll see more of Duran in March; he’s the keynote speaker for this year’s Excellence in Entrepreneurship event.