Meet The Sixth Man

This is the Sixth Man standing next to the plotter, which is a type of printer that he can really make hum. Well, actually, it doesn't hum, it sort of clicks and clacks, but it spits out large pieces of very colorful paper that represent various parts of Morrison Ranch.

Why do I call him the sixth man? It's a term used in basketball (you may remember that in our odd household, I am the one who loves to watch sports, and the Mister endures them for my sake) and I think it provides a good analogy for his role in our office. Technically, the definition of a sixth man is the "off the bench" player which doesn't start the game. He's the first guy in as a substitute, and, far from being thought of as a lesser player, he is a great player with a specific role. According to an article by an online writer for the Boston Celtics, Brian Gleason, "Red Auerbach has widely been credited with developing the sixth man role in basketball. His thinking was that if you take one of your top scorers and bring him off the bench, he'll be matched up with one of the opponents' weaker players when he enters the game." Our Sixth Man is not family, but he has worked as though he is, and his skills have been perfectly suited to our needs. Let me give you some background.

The Sixth Man grew up in southern California, where his folks had a nursery and a floral shop. It was here that he learned all the Latin names for plants and flowers and trees (which is why sometimes we don't know what he's talking about - he lapses into Latin). He got his undergrad degree in Landscape Architecture from California State University at Pomona, and then at the Harvard Grad School of Design, he earned his Masters in Landscape Architecture. He came back to California, married his sweetheart and started and finished his family all at once, with a lovely daughter.

Sixth Man worked for the architectural firm that masterplanned Irvine Ranch, which was a huge 108,000 acre piece of land held by a family in California (which makes the 3,000 acres held by the Morrisons seem pretty small). He moved from that tiny project to Washington, DC for 4 years to work on the capitol mall redesign when they updated their master plan. Returning to California, he became a partner first in a large planning firm, then in a large landscape architecture firm. And Sixth Man received the highest honor in his field, being voted in as a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects by his peers for his projects and planning. This guy has some serious experience in the world of landscape architecture.

And that is the next question, of course; what is a landscape architect? Most people think that he is the guy that plans your backyard (which Sixth Man can do, of course; it's completely his fault that the Mister and I have Sherwood Forest in our back yard). But it's obvious from the jobs that he's been involved with, that he does so very much more. He does land planning on a large scale and on a small scale, which means that he decides what things go where, from houses and shopping centers to trees and bushes. He is an artist by nature, and a perfectionist, which seems like a paradox, but fits him perfectly. He thinks regularly about things I'd never heard of, like paving patterns, and drain covers, and light bollards; and, may I say, Morrison Ranch is the better for it.

So how'd we luck into such a guy to work with us? The timing was perfect; he had achieved such success that he was spending more time managing people and less time designing communities, and he prefers to design. Our situation was reminiscent, on a much smaller scale, of the early days of Irvine Ranch, and he was excited to get in on the conceptual level, and see what might develop. He mentioned the other day that he now has 14 years of files on Morrison Ranch; it's been over 14 years since he and the Mister were introduced by a mutual friend and started this venture together!

By the way, he is still a Californian; he commutes to Gilbert 3 days a week, pretty much every week. The other 4 days he spends in Newport Beach being wrapped around the little fingers of his 2 granddaughters. In the office, he often provides us with some comic relief, and puts up with some very serious ribbing from everyone but me and the First Cousin.

So here is the perfect Sixth Man; the first guy off the bench, with tons of talent, lending stability to the lineup, scoring points at will, making everyone around him better at their job. And if you see him out walking around Morrison Ranch, and he stops and points a camera at the ground, just leave him alone. He's not crazy, he's probably just noting paving patterns.