Read Jack's Biography
President and CEO of Cal Coastal Communities, Jack Phelan is a seasoned executive with over 30 years of experience across the real estate, film and education fields, Jack and development partner Ted Lawton formed Cal Coastal Communities to build vibrant mixed-use neighborhoods on the Central Coast that provide stepping stones into affordable homeownership allowing residents to live in economically and environmentally sustainable ways.
Prior to his work in real estate Jack was an award-winning producer and director for 18 years before transitioning to higher education where he taught media and film courses at Brown University, Providence College and California Polytechnic. At Cal Poly, Jack went on to become Director of Academic Assessment, overseeing 97 Degree Programs across campus and directing WASC accreditation efforts for the University. Jack helped design the Media Arts, Society & Technology program at Cal Poly and created the highly popular “Storytelling” and “Cinematic Process” courses for the ISLA program of interdisciplinary studies in liberal arts.
For many years, Jack witnessed incoming teachers at Cal Poly not being able to afford to buy a home in SLO County and finding themselves trapped in a rental cycle, which Cal Coastal views as the least affordable form of housing. Leaders at the recent Central Coast Economic Forecast Summit identified the lack of affordable housing as the key hurdle to economic growth and prosperity in SLO County. The question for Cal Coastal became, “How can we help solve the housing problem and lift up our local economies at the same time?” It has been projected that even after COVID has receded, the local economy will not flourish until we solve the housing problem. Cal Coastal Communities wants to help solve this problem.
Jack’s ultimate goal is to guide the development and design teams at Cal Coastal Communities to expand on current housing development approaches that re-rethink how we live, build, gather and grow as communities so that everyone can thrive economically in environmentally sustainable and and healthy fashion. The Cal Coastal development team is helping to achieve these goals by designing creative and affordable approaches to homeownership that are community-centric and amenable to healthier lifestyles and ways of living. Jack believes that homeownership should be attainable for every Californian that wants to own their own home.
Marco Caracas
Read Marco's Biography
Marco Caracas has been a Realtor since 2004, and a real estate broker since 2007. He has helped hundreds of homebuyers and sellers with all of their real estate needs, and he has trained many young Realtors become successful in their real estate careers.
After being part of Keller Williams Realty, managing real estate offices, growing and leading successful real estate teams and almost two decades of real estate experience, Marco found the secret to his success. His motto is simple, “The Golden Rule”.
Marco believes wholeheartedly that if he simply obeys and applies the words of Jesus Christ found in the Bible, (“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you”) he can’t go wrong. He is a committed follower of Jesus Christ and devoted husband and father of five daughters. “My favorite place to be is home with my family, so I understand how important the home buying and selling process is.”
Jennifer Kim, MBA
Read Jennifer's Biography
Entrepreneur and Real Estate Investor with 25 years of experience. Responsible for managing a wide range of commercial and residential real estate projects in excess of over $200M. Jenny has very strong evaluation skills necessary to ensure success across all business ventures and real estate investments.
Read Ted's Biography
A General Contractor and Real Estate Broker for Cal Coastal Properties & Cal Coastal Communities, Ted Lawton began his career in construction in the early 1990’s as a laborer and apprentice working on construction projects in high school and while completing his Industrial Technology degree at Cal Poly in 2002. He had the good fortune of working on projects with Habitat for Humanity and Inland Pacific Builders (now Coastal Community Builders CCB) as an Assistant Superintendent.
Upon graduation from Cal Poly, Mr. Lawton continued to work in the construction industry with a number of prominent construction firms in a variety of roles. This includes CBRE, one of the world’s largest Commercial Real Estate companies, with (FLUOR) one of the world’s largest General Engineering Contractors, and Pulte Homes, one of the nation’s largest Residential Home Builders. Additionally, he has also worked as a Sr. Financial Analyst with PG&E, one of the nation’s largest power and utility companies.
Mr. Lawton feels blessed to have had such incredible opportunities in all facets of the construction industry with high level roles and responsibilities. At PG&E he was responsible for managing over a $500 million Capital Portfolio. At FLUOR, his responsibilities included the Cost Engineering and Scheduling of $2,000,000,000 plus projects. At Pulte Homes, Mr. Lawton was the Superintend for building large 100 plus unit single-family and multi-family housing tracts. At CBRE as a Project Manager he was responsible for building and moving an entire manufacturing facility without disrupting the production process while also relocating over 800 employees. Mr. Lawton has thoroughly enjoyed being a part of all of these positions and has been thankful for the opportunity to have learned and received such invaluable training and experience. Combining this unique experience with permitting and entitling construction projects in almost 40 different cities in over a dozen different states as well as outside the US has allowed Mr. Lawton to bring the highest level of value and expertise to all projects managed and built by the Cal Coastal Team.
Read Giselle's Biography
Giselle Caracas is a 2nd generation real estate agent. Her father has been training her to serve the community in the real estate industry for years. Giselle was licensed and became a Realtor at the young age of 18. She is determined to serve others and help as many people as possible make the homeownership dream a reality.