USC alumnus John Rochford is using his experience with the USC Distinguished Leaders Program to fuel a project aiming to make a positive impact on his community.
Coming home to USC felt natural for 1995 graduate alumnus John Rochford. Now, as part of a new USC initiative, he’s helping others “come home” in their own right.
Rochford is participating in the inaugural USC Distinguished Leaders Program, designed for seasoned professionals 50 and up to start their next chapters by identifying their impact areas. Rochford’s area of impact is to build vibrant communities.
In an era where homeownership remains increasingly out of reach for many working professionals, Rochford is leveraging his expertise in real estate and returning to his alma mater to craft an innovative solution. As a USC Distinguished Leader, Rochford is developing a workforce housing initiative that aims to help middle-class workers — from teachers and nurses to police officers and firefighters — achieve the increasingly elusive dream of homeownership in the communities where they work.
“Ownership in real estate has been some of my best investments, and ownership in my house has given me my best return. Why pay off a landlord’s mortgage when you can pay off your own?” Rochford explained. “I believe that helping people get that first house or helping them get in and build equity is critical. It helps create a vibrant middle class, which is critical to the success of the way this country operates.”
A Purposeful Retirement
“They say once you’re a Trojan, you’re a Trojan for life. Returning to USC was easy,” Rochford said.
He explained that, though he already feels at home at USC, the program is also opening up new opportunities. “You’re meeting new people, new faculty, and your cohort of other leaders is all expanding what I knew from before. So, this is all a whole new world, but it’s also the same culture, and it feels terrific to be here.”
Sarah Sturm, director of the Distinguished Leaders Program, said the variety of experiences that the cohort of high-caliber professionals brings is what makes the program unique.
“During the six-month program, leaders are guided through writing their autobiographies, honing their areas of impact and strategizing how to execute their goals,” Sturm said. “The program’s vast knowledge base, both from leaders and USC faculty members, provides an incubator for meaningful projects like John’s to thrive.”
For Rochford, the Distinguished Leaders Program represents an opportunity to make retirement meaningful beyond the traditional vision of a life of leisure.
“I was planning to retire and wanted a project or something to do. I didn’t want to sit and watch TV,” he said. “This program allowed me to develop a project — a new endeavor I could do in retirement.”
Rochford worked in commercial and multifamily real estate and construction at Snyder Langston for nearly four decades, culminating in a position as its chairman. His extensive background in engineering and business, coupled with his passion for addressing housing affordability, inspired him to pursue a purpose-driven project.
This desire led him to return to USC — this time, as part of the USC Distinguished Leaders Program’s first cohort. Rochford is deploying the program’s vast resources — from access to USC faculty to a network of high-achieving peers — to carry out his vision.
The Community Impact
While participating in the USC Distinguished Leaders Program, Rochford is focusing on what he calls “workforce housing” — not supportive housing for low-income individuals or luxury homes for high earners, but attainable housing for the middle class caught in an expanding affordability gap.
“There has been quite a wealth gap, especially in Orange [County] and LA County,” Rochford noted. “That includes not just blue-collar workers — young people are coming out of college, and until they get established, their earnings are typically too low to buy a house. And with the escalation of real estate prices, they may never catch up.” He added, “I have met several young families and recent graduates who moved out of the state to find jobs and buy a house.”
The implications of Rochford’s workforce housing initiative extend far beyond providing affordable homes. He envisions transforming how essential workers engage with the communities they serve.
“Teachers who may live in Corona but drive into Orange County to teach cannot be at their best by the time they arrive after fighting the traffic for an hour or more,” Rochford observed. “Of course, the problem reverses for the trip home. Eventually, the best teachers will find work elsewhere. If they owned their home in Orange County near where they work, their ability to provide a quality education could improve.”
This principle applies equally across other essential services, he said. “Now you’ve got police, fire[fighters], nurses and others living the same way, and I believe the quality of service and the quality of the people will be much better if they lived in the community where they worked.”
Rochford sees this opportunity as a win-win as cities and counties benefit by lowering costly turnover and keeping the property and sales tax revenues generated from their employees living and working in the same county.
The Slow Crisis
Rochford describes the affordable housing crisis as a “slow burn” that has gradually eroded middle-class opportunities for homeownership, only exacerbated by the recent fires in Southern California.
“They talk about the frog in the boiling water,” Rochford explained. “If you put a frog in water and slowly turn up the heat, it does not get out of the boiling water. Well, that’s what’s happening here with the middle class in reverse. The middle-class homeowner has been slowly moving away and commuting longer distances to work. One day, we will ask, ‘What happened to our workforce?’”
His solution draws on existing resources that he believes are currently underutilized. “To get and retain the best employees, private employers and public entities such as counties and cities need to do what they can to help,” he said. “For example, the County of Orange has a lot of land — a critical element in creating housing. They could provide much-needed housing for their workforce with resources and a public-private partnership. It is easier for private organizations such as hospitals to do these deals.”
From Classroom to Community
What began as an academic exercise has quickly transformed into what Rochford calls “live ammo,” or a real-world initiative with growing momentum. Recent chance encounters with politicians and mission-oriented business leaders have led to invitations to present his housing project.
“I had anticipated a tough sell and hearing all forms of rejection, but I am hearing the opposite instead,” he said.
The Distinguished Leaders Program has provided the guidance Rochford needed to transform his concept into a concrete plan. “I have all these wild ideas, and the program is forcing me to narrow it down into something concrete.”
At a recent hackathon sponsored by the program, Rochford’s concept was workshopped by USC faculty, business advisors and current USC Marshall School of Business GEMS students. After the intensive hands-on collaboration, he solidified his project pitch.
“The Distinguished Leaders hackathon was overall just an amazing experience,” said Matthew Chung, a USC Marshall GEMS student who collaborated with the leaders to workshop their projects and ideas during the event. “It was very inspiring to hear from these leaders … they had a lot to offer.”
The USC Advantage
The USC Distinguished Leaders Program has given Rochford the specific support he needs to launch this initiative. “What I am after is a distinctive entrepreneurial angle about starting something from scratch, efficiently and effectively,” he explained. “It’s almost like a polishing school. This part of leadership — the polishing of the approach, and honestly, me — is something I wanted. I wished I’d had it earlier in life.”
As Rochford prepares to take his workforce housing concept from the classroom to the community, he embodies the program’s mission of creating meaningful impact. With multiple potential partners already expressing interest, he’s positioned to turn a retirement project into a legacy that could help preserve the middle-class dream of homeownership for essential workers across Southern California.
The USC alumnus now faces the immediate prospect of pitching his idea to multiple potential partners. “I have three opportunities that I’m facing right away to pitch. …So, in a sense, I’m probably going to be busier in retirement than I was working,” he said, ready to embark on what promises to be an active and purposeful next chapter.