Real-estate maven a classic N.M. success story

Longtime real estate entrepreneur Roger Cox, whose life could be described as a classic New Mexico success story, died Friday of cancer at age 82.

Raised on the edge of the Navajo Reservation and fluent in the language, he was a standout member of the 1952 University of New Mexico football team that was denied a bowl bid. After a two-year stint in the Army, he taught elementary school briefly before launching a career in real estate.

“Roger was all business, always doing things,” said one-time business associate Jack Stahl. “There was no small talk. You knew exactly where Roger was coming from at all times.”

After moving up the corporate ladder at Walter and Hinkle, Albuquerque’s powerhouse residential real estate company at the time, Cox started his namesake firm, Roger Cox & Associates, in August 1965. He blazed the trail for the development of vast swaths of the Northeast Heights through his disposition of the real-estate assets of Albert G. Simms, the well-known politician and businessman who died in 1964.

Although his fingerprints are all over the landscape of the Albuquerque metro, Cox was most proud of his development of the upscale 3,600-acre Paa-Ko Communities and award-winning 27-hole Paa-Ko Ridge Golf Club in the East Mountains, said daughter Elizabeth Cox.

One of the hallmarks of his business style was a negotiating skill honed as a youth working with customers at his parents’ trading post, she said.

“He would let the other party explore and deliberate the issue, while keeping his own counsel,” she said. “But he was tenacious. If one door didn’t open, he would try another.”

He was named Realtor of the Year twice, in 1964 by the then Albuquerque Board of Realtors and in 1986 by the Realtors Association of New Mexico. He was inducted into the Lobo Hall of Honor in 2009.

Cox continued working at his company almost to the end, Elizabeth Cox said, adding, “On his death bed, he was still asking his staff about the deals they were working on.”

Roger Cox & Associates is a full-service real estate services company. Its commercial sales, leasing and property management divisions make it the largest independent commercial real estate services firm in the metro.

Cox is survived by his wife, Dee Dee, six children, 18 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. A funeral service will be held Thursday at 10:30 a.m. at the San Victorio Chapel at 11759 San Victorio NE.