James “Rocky” Reese
President and Managing Partner
Formerly President and CEO of Dallas-based Family Hospice, Ltd., Mr. Reese is currently a private investor with a formal education in business and finance. Through Reese Investments, he seeks to assist small entrepreneurial businesses with strategic planning, operations and financing activities. Currently, Mr. Reese is an investor and serves on the advisory board of Bar Z Adventures, a GPS-application company and also serves on the board of Commerce Financial Corporation, parent to Commerce Bank Texas. As President of Live Oak Lodging, he enjoys building a hospitality company which focuses on developing, owning and managing distinctive hotel properties in unique and growing markets.
As co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Family Hospice, Ltd., Mr. Reese built the company into one of the largest and most successful hospice organizations in the country. Started in 1988, Family Hospice successfully completed three private placement offerings and, along with numerous start-up locations, subsequently completed five separate acquisitions. Showing profitable for 10 consecutive years, the company grew into an organization with almost 500 full-time employees and revenues of $40 million through 21 locations in three states. Family Hospice was successfully sold and merged in 1998.
Mr. Reese’s hotel experience began in 2000 with the purchase of a hotel site in Rockport, Texas under the name Heritage Holdings, Inc. Construction on the 78-room Lighthouse Inn at Aransas Bay began in 2002 and the upscale, boutique property opened in the summer of 2003. Late in 2005, the 64-room Hampton Inn on the Lake in Marble Falls, Texas, was purchased. In June of 2008, the all suites 90-room Inn on Baron’s Creek Spa and Conference Center, in Fredericksburg, Texas, was added to the portfolio. All three of these hotels lead their respective markets and are now wholly-owned subsidiaries of Live Oak Lodging, LC.
A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin Graduate School of Business and Austin College (Sherman, Texas), Mr. Reese majored in business and finance. He has been successfully employed in the banking field with Mercantile National Bank in Dallas and with Independence Mortgage, Inc., specializing in Small Business Administration loans. Mr. Reese also spent several years as a stockbroker and financial planner with Eppler, Guerin and Turner, Inc. (Dallas) and Shearson Lehman Hutton in Dallas. He has been and continues to be involved in community, church and professional organizations having served on various church committees, state hospice committees, and congressional campaigns. Currently, Mr. Reese is Past President of the Rotary Club of Marble Falls, member and Past President of the Highland Lakes Texas Exes, and Past President of the Marble Falls Area Hospitality and Lodging Association. He currently serves on the Stewardship Committee at Marble Falls First Baptist Church and sings with “The Blenders”, the local chapter of the Barber Shop Harmony Society.
Mr. Reese’s honors include the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi at the University of Texas, Co-Rookie of the Year-1984 at Eppler, Guerin and Turner (EGT), a member of EGT’s Millionaire’s Club in 1984 and 1985 as well as a member of the E.F. Hutton Financial Planner Club in 1986 and 1987.
Mr. Reese lives in Horseshoe Bay, Texas, with Carol, his wife of 33 years. They have three married daughters and five grandchildren.