About Steve
PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
Steve has been a Certified Public Accountant since 1982 and a real estate broker since 1999. Steve was hired out of college by Coopers and Lybrand in Los Angeles (now Price Waterhouse Coopers), a then Big 8 public accounting firm. Steve left that firm in 1982 and founded his own Public Accounting Corporation in Santa Barbara that he owned and operated for fourteen years until he sold the practice in 1996. Steve then worked as Director of Tax and Finance for a small publicly traded Oil company until it merged in 1998 with a New York based company. Steve obtained his Broker’s license in 1999 and began assisting his clients with real estate financing and other real estate transactions.
During his career, Steve has been involved with numerous real estate and lending transactions both as a Broker and CPA, including residential and investment property real estate loans, property listings and purchase representations and tax deferred exchanges. In connection with his career as a CPA, Steve consulted with his clients with regards to tax deferred exchanges, analysis of investment property purchases and sales, and the structuring of real estate transactions to maximize income tax savings. As a CPA, Steve has saved his clients millions of dollars simply through the creative structuring of real estate investment transactions.
In 2001, Steve was nationally recognized for making a suggestion that HUD attempted to adopt, but failed, due to pressure from the National Assn. Of Mortgage Brokers and other special interest groups, that would have substantially eliminated broker abuse of closing costs in connection with real estate loan transactions by requiring that the yield spread premium (lender rebate to broker) be credited directly to borrowers in escrow so that the broker fee would have to be disclosed separately. Steve is very happy to announce his idea was put into law in early 2010 after nine years. Steve has also taught courses through the Santa Barbara Community College Adult Ed program on Real Estate Finance focusing on how to negotiate the best terms on a real estate loan.
COMMUNITY SERVICE
Board of Directors of:
1992 to 1993: Environmental Defense Center
1986 to 1992: Santa Barbara County Foodbank (founding board member)
1985 to 1986: National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse
1982 to 1985: Santa Barbara Jaycees
Other:
1993 to 2005: AYSO soccer coach and referee
1993 to 2004: Boys and Girls Club basketball/soccer coach
2005 to 2007: Boys volleyball coach USYVL
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Member of:
1982 to present: American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and CA CPA Society
2009 to present: Estate Planning Council
2002 to present: Upfront Mortgage Brokers www.upfrontmortgagebrokers.org
EDUCATION AND LICENSES
1978 BA Economics, University of California Santa Barbara
1982 Certified Public Accountant, State Of California
1984 Teaching Certificate, Santa Barbara Community College
1987 Certificate in personal financial planning, AICPA
1999 California real estate broker’s license
2011 Series 65 license
PERSONAL BIO
Steve is married to Laura who is a Human Resources Consultant. Steve has three children, a 26 year old daughter who graduated from UC Santa Cruz with honors in neuro-science and is in her second year of Medical school at Georgetown. Steve’s older son Jared is 23 and graduated in Dec 2009 with a degree from UCSB in business economics and has just passed the CPA exam. Steve’s youngest son, Brian, is a sophomore at SBHS and sails lasers for his high school sailing team. Steve is a Pisces so naturally loves the ocean and ocean sports of all kinds, but mainly surfing. Steve has a black belt in Hung Gar Kung Fu, a form of Chinese martial arts and was also an amateur boxer and the original owner of the Santa Barbara Boxing Club.
