John Combs is Founder and Principal of RiverRock Real Estate Group, Inc., a West Coast-based commercial real estate service firm headquartered in Newport Beach, California. RiverRock services over 28 million square feet of office, industrial and retail properties throughout California and Arizona from 24 offices. John formed RiverRock in response to a market-driven need for a more client-centric property service model.
Prior to launching RiverRock, John served as COO of Insignia/ESG for the Americas and Asia. He was also the President of U. S. Property Services for Insignia/ESG, Inc. John was responsible for all regional offices and service lines of an approximately 300-million-square-foot portfolio of office, industrial and retail properties. John was also a member of the Executive, Financial, and Strategic Planning committees for Insignia/ESG.
Prior to leading that company’s national property services, John was Chief Executive Officer of O’Donnell Property Services, Inc (OPSI), which Insignia later purchased. OPSI was a real estate service company for 24-million-square-feet of properties in California. He had previously served as President of OPSI since its formation in 1990. Before that, he was Vice President in charge of property management for Vantage’s North Dallas Division overseeing 6-million-square-feet.
John holds a Master’s degree in Business from the University of Dallas and a Bachelor’s degree in real estate from Southern Methodist University. He is a Certified Property Manager (CPM) ® and holds a California Real Estate Broker’s license. John was the 1994 President of the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) in Orange County, which is one of the largest and most active chapters in the country and is the only IREM-OC President to have received the National Gold Award for Best Large Chapter in the Country. He won CPM® of the Year in 2009 awarded by the Orange County Chapter. In 2013 he was named the Retail Professional of the Year. In 2018 IREM Orange County awarded him the ICON of the year award.
John serves as a member of BOMA Orange County and was the recipient of BOMA Orange County’s “Professional of the Year” Award for 2003. John joined the Board of BOMA San Francisco in 2012 and served as the 2015 President.
Real Estate Forum named John best Boss in Commercial Real Estate and featured him as the cover story in June 2018.
He is also the President of San Francisco Four Seasons Resident Association. He resides in Laguna Beach, San Francisco, and Palm Springs. John is a frequent speaker and author on real estate-related topics.
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