Welcome the latest addition to Team Altos

The economy may be tanking all around, but we're still growing here at Altos Research. (The silver lining for us is that everyone needs to know what's going on in the housing market.) Today we get to announce the latest addition to Team Altos, Ricky Fernandez.

Ricky joins our sales team as our New Account Manager (he likes the title "Sales Guy" but we opted for a more functional title). Ricky's background is in mortgage finance and real estate, but his biggest asset is his huge personality. He's the kind of guy you can hear smiling on the other end of the phone. Energetic and insightful, Ricky is going to be a real positive for our clients.

Two-thirds of Team Altos: (l to r) Mike, Scott, Jason, Ricky live from Redrocks outside Townhall in San Francisco, December 19 2008. Not pictured Ginny and Kris.

They say that bad economic times make good times to build a company. I can vouch for the fact that the cratering job situation in California made it much easier for us to snag rock stars like Ricky (and Kris last month). I'm going to add the corollary that it's also a great time to join a startup. Altos Research is not a venture funded rocketship of a company. When we chose not to raise investment, we also knew that we wouldn't get to staff up hundreds of people like so many here in Silicon Valley. Rather, we're more like an ultralight - highly efficient and lots of fun. As a result, we like to aim for each new hire to lift the company to the next level. As each new person joins, they get the opportunity to join at a critical moment for the company, to significantly contribute to our success. When we look back in a few years on the other side of this crazy economy, and Altos emerges strong and innovative and bigger, we'll all get to say, "I created that." And at the end of the day, isn't that the greatest reward from a job?

But I digress. Help me welcome Ricky aboard. You're going to love working with him.