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Profiles of Outstanding CEO's

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San Diego Office Interiors

Vincent Mudd

Conventional thinking is San Diego Office Interiors’ (SDOi) biggest competitor.

“We compete against the fact that nobody can believe there’s a better way to do something that’s been done the same way for 50 years,” says Vincent Mudd, SDOi’s president and CEO.

Mudd and his team at SDOi have been proving the naysayers wrong for the past decade. One of the company’s trademarks is office intelligence®, combining design and planning, construction, network integration, modular furniture interiors, project management and installation services all under one roof. SDOi has also focused on keeping costs down while maintaining quality for customers, which have included BD Biosciences, Latham Watkins, Gateway and Scripps Memorial Hospital.

Mudd, 40, also measures success by the people he employs. He says each of SDOi’s 34 full-time employees receives at least 200 hours of training annually.

“We need to make sure our employees continue to be their best,” says Mudd, who holds a business degree from San Diego State University. “We are committed to providing quality products and the highest level of service to our clients.

We aren’t in a race to have the highest gross sales. Our race is to be highly profitable and use our revenues to make this a better company to work for.”

Mudd, whose resume includes Atlantic Richfield Corp. (ARCO) and Office Pavilion, points out that SDOi is a solutions-based company versus a products-based company.

“It’s great when you’re hired early enough in the (interior design and construction) process. What’s really terrific is giving companies solutions they never dreamed of,” he says.

Mudd and his SDOi team have already begun to live their dream of success.

In 2003, SDOi scooped up the Most Admired Dealership Award from the Workplace Alliance. In 2002, the company was a finalist for Ernst & Young’s coveted Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the real estate and construction category.

“The way companies use the inside of their building is going to be one of the most important methods of generating revenue and productivity,” Mudd says. “By deploying office intelligence®, our company represents the trend in what’s going to be necessary for companies to be successful.”

San Diego Unified Port District

Peter Q. Davis

In 1961, late President John F. Kennedy made a speech initiating the Peace Corps that would resonate with many Americans, including then California Western University student Peter Q. Davis: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

While he didn’t join the Peace Corps, Davis did embark on a lifelong commitment to public service. The fourth-generation San Diegan has become one of the region’s most successful businessmen and civic leaders through his years as a banker, San Diego Unified Port District commissioner and principal in the revitalization of Downtown San Diego.

“I found early on that I could make a difference. It’s important to feel that your contributions are having an effect,” says Davis, current Port Commission chairman.

Davis has already made a lasting effect on the Port of San Diego. A commissioner since 2002, Davis plans to bring the Port to a new, successful level by creating more efficiencies. He says he will work in concert with the Port’s current strategic plan, which includes increasing maritime activities, boosting cruise ship numbers and increasing the water quality of San Diego Bay.

To help effectively implement the Port’s strategic plan, Davis plans to assign his six fellow commissioners to oversee six separate Port functions, including security, tenant relations, maritime trade, the cruise industry, the environment and energy, and staff development.

“I think we can do more with this delegated approach,” says Davis, also a 17-year member of the Centre City Deve-lopment Corporation Board of Directors.

Davis harkens back to his banking days as a gauge of how he can help the Port continue on its successful path. As former chairman, president and CEO of the Bank of Commerce, Davis boosted the bank from the smallest bank in San Diego to one of the largest and most successful banks in the region. The bank also became one of the nation’s largest Small Business Administration (SBA) lenders.

“We were criticized by other banks about not knowing what we were doing,” Davis says. “But no matter how many people tell you it won’t work, you have to have the confidence to make it work.”

Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP

Guy N. Halgren

In a business climate where many law firms are struggling, California-based Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton has risen to prominence as one of the state’s most successful full-service firms. The momentum continues: In the last year alone, the firm has added a thriving Washington, D.C. office and a high-profile entertainment practice. The firm—which employs more than 400 attorneys in eight offices—has done all this and maintained its reputation for legal excellence and integrity.

Corporate culture isn’t created accidentally, and Sheppard Mullin managing partner Guy Halgren—a fourth-generation San Diegan—has at least a little to do with it. Halgren, a passionate gardener who owned a plant nursery before he went to law school, finds analogies between gardening and growing a law firm.

“Managing a law firm is all about preparation—putting the pieces in place and then letting our attorneys and staff do what they do best: serve our clients,” Halgren notes. “And it’s the same in gardening—preparing the soil, sowing the best seeds and then letting nature take its course.”

Like Sheppard Mullin, Halgren’s own personal history comprises the essential California experience. His great-grandfather settled in La Mesa in 1885, growing olives and lemons on a farm at what is now Highway 8 and 70th Street. Halgren and his wife, San Diego Superior Court Judge Laura Whitcomb Halgren—also a fourth-generation La Mesan—are now raising their own family in the neighborhood of their ancestors.

Since Halgren accepted the responsibility of chair of the Executive Committee at Sheppard Mullin three years ago, the firm has expanded from four offices to eight, adding to its San Diego office a new, full-service Del Mar location, which specializes in representing technology, life sciences and emerging-growth companies. Later this year the firm will most likely break into the New York market, adding another East Coast office.

“I really like to build and grow things,” says Halgren. “Hopefully, several years from now we’ll all look back and be proud of what we’ve accomplished.”

Somehow, that seems likely.

Thorsnes Bartolotta McGuire

Vincent J. Bartolotta Jr.

Vincent J. Bartolotta Jr. and his four partners at Thorsnes, Bartolotta, McGuire are on a mission not only to effectively fight for the little guys but also to reverse the myth about trial lawyers.

“There has been an increased attack, propagated by the large insurance com-panies and major businesses, to do away with trial lawyers,” says Bartolotta, who launched the law firm in 1978 with Michael T. Thorsnes, now in an of-counsel relationship with the firm.

The 58-year-old Bartolotta—who received the California American Board of Trial Advocates’ Trial Lawyer of the Year Award in 2003—says one of the reasons trial lawyers exist is to help reduce costs and stress for people in need. Without contingency-fee trial lawyers, Bartolotta says, the average citizen would never have a chance to take a case to court or to even hold a big corporation responsible for wrongdoing.

“There will always be a great need for a good trial lawyer, as long as industry, businesses and insurance companies continue to try to take advantage of the general public and make unsafe products but not want to be held accountable,” says the University of Pittsburgh grad.

Some of the most notable cases Thorsnes, Bartolotta & McGuire have won include Baldwin et al. v. Carlton Santee Corporation, which helped establish legal standards in cases involving landslide subsidence, and Foodmaker v. Vons, which helped create tougher food-industry standards to protect the public against tainted meat. Thorsnes, Bartolotta & McGuire also handles significant pro bono work, including six World Trade Center cases and numerous recent local firestorm cases.

Partner John F. “Mickey” McGuire points to his partners—including Kevin F. Quinn, Mitchell S. Golub and Daral B. Mazzarella—as major contributors to the success of the firm.

“We are blessed with a wonderful and experienced staff, which allows us to take very complicated cases,” says the 58-year-old McGuire, who holds a law degree from Marquette University. “Contributing back is something we want to do because it’s good for our profession and it’s good for our souls.”

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