About 600 people braved unseasonable heat and humidity, not to mention a monumental traffic jam caused by President Ronald Reagan's final ride to Capital Hill, to pay tribute to Angelo Mozilo as the National Housing Conference's 2004 Housing Person of the Year.

Lewis Ranieri, a housing finance giant in his own right who is credited with creating the mortgage backed security, said "no one better deserves the honor, this year or any other year" than Mozilo, who founded Countrywide Mortgage in 1969 with David Loeb and has made it his life's work to bring home ownership to as many people as humanly possible.

"To say that Angelo Mozilo embodies the American Dream is an understatement," said Mark Tipton, a Raleigh home builder and a past president of the National Association of Home Builders. "He cares about others as he cares about his own family."

Mozilo said the praise was a lot like hearing his own eulogy. And it didn't hurt that probably half the people who gathered at the National Building Museum were among Countrywide's five million customers.

The event was NHC's first at the museum, one of Washington's most architecturally significant and beautiful buildings. It also was the largest in the award's 32 years.

Previous winners of the prestigious "Housing Person of the Year" award include Robert Rubin, chairman of the executive committee of Citigroup; Hugh McColl, chairman of Bank America; Patricia Rouse, a co-founder with her late husband James of the Enterprise Foundation, and Sens. Alan Cranston and Alfonse D'Amato.

More than 1,000 people paid to be part of Mozilo's night in the limelight, according to master of ceremonies Howard Levine of ARCS Commercial Mortgage, who said the dinner was the NHC's most successful ever.

NHC Chairman Allan Kingston of Century Housing said the event raised about $560,000, most of which will go to fund the conference's efforts on behalf affordable housing and families with critical housing needs.

But the night was about Mozilo, who has built the small mortgage operation that was born on a kitchen table in New York City 35 years ago into a financial services powerhouse.

Known today as Countrywide Financial Corp., the now Calabasas, Calif.-based company is not only among the largest producers and servicers of home loans, it also operates subsidiaries in insurance, banking, investment banking and securities trading.

It is a member of the S&P 500, Fortune 500 and Forbes 500, and currently employs more than 34,000 people in 500 offices in the United State and the United Kingdom.

Through it all, though, Mozilo never lost sight of his original dream to lower the cost of home ownership, eliminate the barriers to ownership and educate consumers about the process of owning a home.

"He was fighting for affordable housing seven years before Fannie Mae was born," said Louis Hoyes, executive vice president of single-family business at Fannie Mae. "Millions of people sleep under their own roofs tonight" without realizing he was their advocate.

Richard Syron, who has been chairman of Freddie Mac for less than a year, said Mozilo was one of the first people he sought out when he joined the beleaguered company.

"Our relationship goes way back five months," Syron said. "The very first week on the job, I flew to California to see Angelo. Our industry and our country are a lot better off because of Angelo."

Ranieri, who is now a principal in Hyperion Partners, said Mozilo has "dedicated his career to make housing finance affordable."

"He always saw what the rest of us did not. But he never forgot that his mission was to house as many people as possible. He is a legend, a friend, and somebody who is always out front."

Published: August 4, 2004

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