Longtime BOMA Leader Barbara Harris Dies

LOS ANGELES-Barbara S. Harris, a former president of BOMA Greater Los Angeles who was known as an innovative and tireless real estate professional and who held a number of BOMA posts in her career, has died at the age of 80 after a long battle with cancer. Harris served as president of BOMA Greater Los Angeles from 2002 to 2007, the year in which she was honored with the granting of the Barbara S. Harris Scholarship, presented by BOMA/GLA and the USC Marshall School of Business.

Harris was known as an innovator who was responsible for the first use of the triple-net lease in the Murdock Plaza office building in Los Angeles. She was a Real Property Administrator who shared her expertise in lease escalation methods as a speaker and author of a widely used handbook on the subject. She began her decades-long career in Los Angeles as a property manager for H. C. Beck Co., Arthur Rubloff & Co. and Crocker National Bank, followed by eight years as vice president and COO of Murdock Management Co. in Westwood. Before her retirement in 2006, she was SVP and marketing director for the City Centre Development and its planned five-building Metropolis project in Downtown Los Angeles.

Harris was volunteer Chairman of BOMA/GLA and served on numerous committees in the local organization and for BOMA International. She was general chairman of the 1983 BOMA International Convention in Los Angeles and also served as a member of the BOMA International Finance Committee, the Building Review Service Council and the National Advisory Council and Operating Methods Committee, which she chaired. She also designed and instituted educational courses for BOMA.