John McMahan

August 4, 1937 - July 11, 2022

On Monday, July 11, 2022, John McMahan, a loving husband and father of four children passed away at the age of 84. He was deeply loved by his family and will be sorely missed.

John was born in San Antonio, TX in 1937 to Dr. John William McMahan “Dr. Mac” and Lena Margaret McMahan “Peggy’’. The family moved to Escondido, CA when John was a boy and then to Los Angeles where John later became student body president of Hollywood High School. From there he went to the University of Southern California and received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1961.

After graduating from Harvard, John joined the architectural firm Charles Luckman Associates in Los Angeles. Later he started Development Research Associates (DRA) with Lewis Wolff which became part of Booz Allen Hamilton. After leaving DRA, John formed a new firm, John McMahan Associates, which later merged with Mellon Bank and became Mellon/McMahan Real Estate Advisors. ln 1999 John started The McMahan Group (TMG), which he directed for eight years before he retired.

In parallel with John’s successful commercial real estate entrepreneurship, he was a lifelong educator.

John was an adjunct professor at Stanford University where he helped start the real estate program and at the Haas School at Berkeley. In 2000, he developed a non-profit real estate training program called the Center for Real Estate Enterprise Management (Centerprise).

During his life John wrote several books, including Property Development and Cases in Commercial Real Estate Investing. John was a member of many real estate groups and the recipient of several awards in the field.

John loved to travel, barbeque, and dance, especially when he was two-stepping with his wife, Jacqueline. He traveled the world and had a very full life.

John is survived by his loving wife of 49 years, Jacqueline, children Cathy, Jason, Justin and Vanessa, and grandchildren William, Gavin, Kylie, Justin, and Aidan. The family will have a celebration of life at a later date.