Charles R. Akin Award Recipient Announced

The Coates management team awarded the 2022 Charles Akin Award for Excellence to Mark Morger. Mark has been a crucial member of the Coates team since January 2018, where he began as a document specialist and has transitioned through a multitude of roles including: title reviewer/supervisor and permitting right of way agent for a number of clients.

The day Mark received notice he was the recipient of the Akin Award was also the day of his fifth work anniversary.

“I have been around when other employees have been congratulated on their work anniversaries by Joe Coates, and it has always been relatively low key” he said.

So, on the day of his five-year anniversary, Mark expected the same, until everyone was summoned into Joe Coates’ office.

“I was expecting to hear Coates landed some new large-scale contract, and we needed to double our staff by the end of the week,” Mark said.

Much to his surprise, the announcement of the 2022 Akin Award recipient was made instead, and Mark stood in shock.

“Contrary to popular belief, my allergies were acting up, and I was NOT tearing up from the overwhelming flood of emotions,” he joked.

Joe Coates, President of Coates Field Service, said honoring Coates employees with the Akin Award is extra special to him because Chuck Akin trained him in the summers when he would come to work for Coates during his breaks from high school and college.

According to John Coates, Chuck held nearly every position a person could hold at Coates Field Service!

Joe said there are two things about Mark that made him stand out when it came time for the management team to select this year’s award recipient.

The first - Mark always has a positive attitude. Regardless of the assignment given or task at hand, Joe said he always has a positive attitude.

The second - Mark works for a number of clients and wears many hats doing such.

“He is flexible in his many support roles, and he is excellent at his job,” Joe said.

A Modesto, California, native, Mark grew up in the title industry. His father founded five title companies in California, which is where he received his initial training in title examination, title insurance and escrow.

Prior to working at Coates, Mark worked for a variety of companies.

Reflecting on his career, he said he became a title examiner at the age of 21, then a foreclosure trustee in Orange County, California. Throughout the next two decades, he was involved in approximately 25,000 individual actions across the state.

In 2005, Mark moved to Boise, Idaho, to work for the largest privately-owned title company in the state as the vice president of the trust department until the housing market crashed in 2008.

A series of events led Mark to Texas, Louisiana, and eventually to Oklahoma.

Immediately before joining Coates in January 2018, he served as the loss mitigation coordinator for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s reverse mortgage portfolio for the seven western states.

“Coates Field Service has taken me to places most people could only wish for,” Mark said. “The support and camaraderie at this company are unmatched by anywhere I have ever worked.”

When asked about his favorite Coates memory, Mark replied, “it is hard to pick a favorite when all the memories are good!”

He recalled a time a few years back when Coates was moving to the new Oklahoma City office space, and shortly after, the pandemic hit. Business as usual came to a screeching halt, and with most people confined to their homes for more than one year, Mark was one of only a few coming into the office on a daily basis. Soon after, he found himself answering phones, mailing packages and even building furniture. Whatever needed to be done, he was a team player and made it happen!

“Without a doubt, the greatest thing about working for Coates is everyone is truly a family here,” Mark beamed. “Not once have I ever encountered a person not willing to put their priorities on hold to assist someone else with theirs.”

His favorite part about the right of way business is how similar it is to the game of Tetris – one of his favorite video games as a child.

“Each right of way project involves a dozen different tasks, requiring a dozen different skill sets by a dozen different people, with a dozen different personalities – each falling together perfectly,” he said. “When that project is ‘game over,’ another project begins.”

In Mark’s free time, he enjoys traveling with his wife of ten years, Shanna, visiting family in California and spending time with his daughter and granddaughter.

"With spring upon us, it is almost time for Shanna's gardens to take off, and I am her official 'Go to Home Depot/Lowe's/Markum's Nursery Guy,' so I am sure she will keep me busy when I am not working!"

From all of us at Coates, congratulations, Mark!