Though born in California, Roger Pollock considers himself a product of the rural Oregon in which he spent much of his childhood. Living on a farm with his father, Don, mother, Gail, older brother, Mike, and younger sister, Elizabeth, Roger had room to think big.
Moving from the city to the country was very exciting. We had a lot of land, horses and cows, and a lot of freedom.
He can’t say if it was due to the entrepreneurial atmosphere in his home or just his own nature, but Roger showed an independent streak from early on. A zest for business also revealed itself at a young age, including ventures selling candy, golf balls and customized textbook covers.
But the unifying thread in Roger Pollock’s family was always real estate and building. Don Pollock, the premier apartment builder in Oregon in the 1960s and 1970s, eagerly shared his passion for the industry with his children.
Roger, however, inspired by an abiding love of books, saw his future a little differently. He imagined himself constructing not apartment buildings or homes, but novels. So he left his studies at Southern Oregon State College and hit the road to find material.
For the better part of five years, Roger Pollock traversed the U.S., for a time following the band The Grateful Dead, and spent a year living and studying in Mexico. He filled many journals along the way and remains committed to one day carving a book out of them.
Once back in the U.S., Roger returned to what he knew best — building. Taking a job with Greg Nester Construction & Development in California, he soon discovered a new inspiration in the work and began for the first time to imagine what a building business of his own might look like.
In 1990, RMP Properties was born. In just seven years, Roger Pollock took RMP to $27 million in sales and himself to the top of the industry in Oregon. It had a been a long, busy road and Roger eventually decided to sell the business, inking a deal with D.R. Horton Homes of Dallas, Texas in 1998.
Roger took a break from building. He spent time with family and pursued a number of different interests and opportunities, including acquiring and selling art in partnership with charities.
But building is in his blood, and before long he was drawn back to it. Enter
Buena Vista Custom Homes, Roger’s newest building enterprise. Beginning operation in 2002, Buena Vista built Roger Pollock’s 2000th house in 2004 and continues to build on that success.
I love to watch a dream become a reality, the satisfaction of seeing a project completed and looking at the distance traveled.
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