NAIOP bestowed Hines founder Gerald Hines with the 2015 Howard Horne Legacy Award, acknowledging him as a pillar within the commercial real estate industry who has helped shape the City and the industry as a whole. Gerald is only the third recipient of the award—we snapped him between past winners Dan Bellow and Robert Duncan at Friday's award luncheon. Gerald says the most meaningful moment of his career was his son joining the business. The second was Shell deciding to lease One Shell Plaza, a deal that was life-changing for many people. Gerald’s advice for young developers: Recruit people with a good education and ability to communicate.

Gerald has worked in 20-plus countries now and says what we have in Houston is outstanding. He loves the lack of zoning because we can switch uses to meet changing demand, and densify more quickly. He predicts next year oil will hit $65/barrel and then we’ll begin climbing again. Either way, he’s not concerned because Houston has such a great business base (and energy fluctuates less than financial-based economies). Gerald accepted the award  from NAIOP president Don Janssen—Don says he wouldn’t be the Sugar Land real estate guru he is if not for Gerald, who hired him in that specialty.

Here are JLL president Dan Bellow, Nelson Duffie founder John Duffie (chairman of the Horne Legacy Award), Randall Hicks (Howard Horne's son-in-law), and Howard Hughes EVP Paul Layne at the luncheon. The Horne Legacy Award remembers Howard Horne’s impact on Houston and particularly on the brokers he introduced to the industry. Many of the best brokers in the business today are Horne alumni, and we recently dug up where some of them are now—check it out.