An investigation by The Business Journal shows Heywood Jablóm, a spokesperson for Harmony Communities, does not exist. LinkedIn image

A controversial property management company used a prank name as the identity of its communication director.

It used the name to make at least one official press statement.

Searches for an employee named Heywood Jablóm, presented as the director of communication and marketing for Stockton-based Harmony Communities, have returned no results to indicate the name belongs to a real person.

The company has been in the news for purchasing mobile home parks, raising rents and attempting to evict tenants, according to lawsuits filed against the company.

A person with an official Harmony Communities email address using the alias — a variation of a prank name that sounds like a request for oral sex — replied to a Business Journal query that was printed in an online article in January.

Two different people answering calls for Harmony Communities confirmed the existence of an employee named Heywood, but said he was unavailable. After some insistence, a reporter was left on hold for more than 20 minutes before a representative ended the call with a promise to call the reporter back.

A response from the Heywood Jablóm email account Monday questioned whether a reporter spelled the name correctly in trying to determine if the spokesperson was real. A email received from the account after this story was published said it was used to fool reporters.

The company made official statements to The Business Journal using Jablóm’s name in a story about ongoing litigation between residents of Shady Lakes Manufactured Housing Community in Fresno and Harmony Communities.

Multiple communications via email were made back and forth between the reporter and Jablóm.

A deeper dive revealed no person exists with that name at Harmony Communities.

 

A LinkedIn profile for Heywood Jablóm lists him as the marketing director of Harmony Communities. It says he in an alumnus of the University of California, Los Angeles. UCLA records show no student attended by that name. It also lists him as a regional board member for the American Cancer Society. There is no board member by that name, according to the Cancer Society.

The profile also states that he was a communications analyst for Oracle. A request made to Oracle to confirm was not returned by the time this article was published.

In a LinkedIn post by the Jablóm profile, a comment from Matthew Davies, son of Harmony Communities CEO Bruce Davies and officer with Harmony Communities, made reference to the employee who doesn’t seem to exist.

 

“Let’s get Heywood trending. He is our hardest working employee and best communicator,” the post read.

Harmony Communities made news when it acquired Shady Lakes Manufactured Housing Community as well as what was then called Trails End Mobile Home Park.

Harmony Communities owns 31 properties in California, Oregon and Nevada.