HORSHAM, Pa., June 28, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Toll Brothers, Inc. (NYSE:TOL) (www.tollbrothers.com), the nation's leading builder of luxury homes, today announced the appointment of John K. McDonald as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of the Company, effective July 1, 2010. Mr. McDonald, 46, who has been with Toll Brothers for eight years, will oversee all of Toll Brothers' corporate legal affairs. He replaces Mark K. Kessler, who currently holds those positions. Mr. Kessler, 74, joined the Company in June 2007 after serving as the firm's outside corporate counsel for twenty-two years. Mr. Kessler will remain at Toll Brothers in the role of Vice President and Senior Counsel.
Douglas C. Yearley, chief executive officer of Toll Brothers, Inc., stated, "We are very excited to have John step into his new position. He brings to his new role as General Counsel a breadth of legal expertise, great intellect and excellent preparation. Given his deep knowledge of our Company gained through his many years here, we expect a seamless transition.
"We also express our deep gratitude to Mark Kessler for his twenty-five years of service to Toll Brothers. His steady hand has been invaluable and we are pleased that we will continue to benefit from his wisdom and experience in his new role."
Robert I. Toll, Executive Chairman, stated: "On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to express our confidence in John as an excellent choice to succeed Mark as General Counsel. We also thank Mark for the contributions he has made to our Company over the past twenty-five years and for his friendship, from which we have all benefited."
John McDonald, who joined the Company in August 2002, initially served as the Company's Chief Litigation Counsel. He has served as the firm's Deputy General Counsel for the last three years. He started his legal career as a prosecutor in the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. Prior to joining Toll Brothers, he was a litigation partner at the Philadelphia law firm of Cozen O'Connor. McDonald earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Haverford College and was awarded his Juris Doctor degree from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Toll Brothers, Inc. is the nation's leading builder of luxury homes. The Company began business in 1967 and became a public company in 1986. Its common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "TOL". The Company serves move-up, empty-nester, active-adult and second-home home buyers and operates in 20 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.
Toll Brothers builds luxury single-family detached and attached home communities, master planned luxury residential resort-style golf communities and urban low-, mid- and high-rise communities, principally on land it develops and improves. The Company operates its own architectural, engineering, mortgage, title, land development and land sale, golf course development and management, home security and landscape subsidiaries. The Company also operates its own lumber distribution, and house component assembly and manufacturing operations.
Toll Brothers, a FORTUNE 1000 Company, is honored to have won the three most coveted awards in the homebuilding industry: America's Best Builder from the National Association of Home Builders, the National Housing Quality Award, and Builder of the Year. Toll Brothers was recently honored to receive the #1 ranking in Fortune Magazine's 2010 World's Most Admired Companies Survey among home building companies. Toll Brothers proudly supports the communities in which it builds; among other philanthropic pursuits, the Company sponsors the Toll Brothers Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network, bringing opera to neighborhoods throughout the world. For more information, visit tollbrothers.com.