Hawthorne will take over at Habitat

John Hawthorne, the chief operating officer at Highlands County Habitat for Humanity, has been asked to return as interim chief executive officer.

Hawthorne was the COO until mid-January, when he was laid off, along with two other employees. He will replace CEO Mike Jacobson, who publically announced his resignation on Wednesday.

The layoffs and Jacobson's resignation were the result of the county commission's decision not to grant $500,000 so Habitat could build the Ridgeview project at 1400 Martin Luther King Ave.

Jacobson said he was employed in June 2008 to shepherd the project, which would have built at least 20 houses. "Now that it's dead, the affiliate doesn't need someone with the level of experience like me."

Jacobson hired Hawthorne to help with the project, and let him go in January after the commission's decision.

Habitat must return more than $1 million in grants, said Jacobson, and bank loans aren't available.

"The dealbreaker was the lack of county investment," he said.

Now, Chip Boring, chairman of the Habitat board, said Habitat may want to get back to the basics of building a house at time.

He has received several calls about Jacobson's job.

He will speak with the executive committee, which will then ask the board whether to advertise locally or nationally for the job.

However, Hawthorne has impressive credentials.

"It very well could be him," Boring said.

Hawthorne's roots

Hawthorne, 61, left his last job as a deputy director of planning and development for the city of Sarasota to return to his birthplace, Sebring, after he was contacted by Jacobson. They had worked together on Habitat projects in Sarasota.

He attended the then-segregated E.O. Douglass High School, and was the first black graduate of Lake Placid High School.

"I never saw a new textbook until I got to Lake Placid High," he said last year.

He obtained a bachelor of science degree at Florida A&M University in 1971, majoring in physics and minoring in mathematics and electrical engineering. He was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and reserves. He worked in management for Ford, Procter and Gamble, and was deputy director for the Department of Community and Economic Development.

His wife Alice, died in the 1996 in Atlanta Olympics bombing. He has since remarried to Iris Hawthorne.