Founder Jim Core featured in Mammoth Sierra Magazine Issue Vol 53

2012-02-06T15:16:00.000-08:00

The Article:

He was neither a skiing icon nor a marathon runner. He wasn’t “famous” in that sense.

But as a casual visitor (or resident), Jim Core has as much to do with present-day Mammoth as anybody.

When the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) declared Mammoth seismically iffy in the 1980’s- there were “earthquake swarms” back around then-Mammoth was essentially red-tagged.

That is, if a small business developer needed money to start or maintain a business here, there simply wasn’t any money to borrow. The big lenders were strickly hands-off. Without Core, of Inyo-Mono Title Company, the Mammoth we see today may have been blown away with the wind.

But it didn’t. They called Core “The Bank of Mammoth,” and not without reason.

He financed big projects and small ones, in an Old West style that probably isnt possible in our increasingly litigious American business enviornment.

“He was kind and generous and a hand-shake kind of a guy,” said attorney Rick Wood and town councilman.

“Sometimes in this modern day, the deals done on the back of a napkin or with a hand shake get people into trouble.”

“But he was the community’s lender, the non-conventional lender, for many years. A lot of things happened because of his capacity to bring people to borrow money, together.

“He was there. He was there when others weren’t there and often, conventional lenders are not there when times get tough.”

What made him the way he was? A native of Ventura with a couple of stops in Concord and Merced along the way, Core decided to settle in Bishop and Mammoth, and his love affair for Mammoth never flagged.

“In the end, he was guided by that eternal optimism about the future of Mammoth,” Wood said. “There are many in the community who had it, but he was able to do something with it.”

In an obituary published in the Mammoth Times, reporter Wendilyn Grasseschi wrote “When Jim Core died last week at 74 (2010) after a struggle with Lou Gehrig’s disease, he left behind him a very large hole in the fabric of the Eastern Sierra, according to those who knew him. Core was knonw to give as much attention to the family truing to buy a mobile home as he was to the agent trying to sell a multi-million dollar mansion. If the banks wouldn’t help, he often would, as long as his sharp, judge-of-character radar system marked you as a good bet.”

For developers like John Hooper and realtors like Stacey Bardfield, he was a sxavior.

“Because of him, many people in Mammoth Lakes are where they are today, me included,” said Hooper. “He was easily the most knowledgeable person I’ve ever met in real estate and business. I always sought his advice before making any major decisions. He was the most generous person I’ve ever met. Some say he was generous to a fault, but…I don’t think generosity can be described as a character flaw. He was one of the few people left whom you could do business with on a handshake.”

Bardfield sounded an echo: “All of us would consider him a mentor. He helped everyone from the guy trying to buy the mobile home to the guy building the multimillion dollar spec home to the lonely real estate agent who didn’t know what to do with their life.”

Bardfield said Core would hand-deliver commission checks and then sit down to chat, and it’s the memory of those perosnal conversations which she will forever cherish.

Core loved to shoot craps. He played poker.

On the side, he saved Mammoth.

Click here for the online flash version

Hello 2012!

2011-12-30T15:55:00.001-08:00

Inyo-Mono Title Company wishes 2011 off with a bang! Welcome 2012! Thank You to all our customers and clients. Have a wonderful 2012!

Inyo-Mono Title Company Christmas Party!

2011-12-29T15:45:00.000-08:00

Inyo-Mono Title Company Family News

Founder Jim Core featured in Mammoth Sierra Magazine Issue Vol 53

Hello 2012!

Inyo-Mono Title Company Christmas Party!