John McCann and a group of Virginia businessmen founded United Dominion Realty Trust between 1970 and 1972. Led by then-president and CEO McCann, the group created a platform that today owns multifamily properties worth more than $5 billion and ranks as the nation's fourth-largest multifamily REIT.

Throughout its first decade, United Dominion grew slowly, acquiring one property at a time. By and large, the acquisitions were limited to Virginia. Two notable exceptions in those years were the acquisitions of Columbia REIT and Piedmont REIT. "Piedmont didn't own any apartments," recalls McCann. "We wanted their equity and their shareholders. We sold most of their properties over time and reinvested the money into the kinds of apartments that we wanted to own."

With the acquisition of Piedmont REIT, which owned apartments and shopping centers in North and South Carolina, the company moved beyond Virginia's borders for the first time.

By the start of 1984, according to McCann, the company owned approximately $60 million in assets. That year, United Dominion started a growth run that lasted for 16 years. The run began with the acquisition of a publicly traded development company in Richmond called Realty Industries. The acquisition virtually doubled the value of United Dominion's assets.

For the next five or six years, the company grew by selling stock for equity capital. At the end of the decade, the real estate market collapsed and the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) began taking over properties that it would eventually auction off.

"In early 1991, we were the only bidder at one of the first RTC auctions," McCann says. "We bought an apartment community for about 40 cents on the dollar. While we were able to buy RTC assets way below replacement costs through 1994, that first auction was the best price we ever paid for an apartment community."

By 1994, United Dominion's assets had grown in value to approximately $500 million.

Next the company acquired Southwest Property Trust in 1996, a move that brought in apartment portfolios in Dallas, Houston and Phoenix. "With this acquisition, we made the decision to take the company national," McCann says.

Progress came fast. The company bought a publicly traded REIT called ASR in 1997 and picked up portfolios in Arizona and New Mexico. In 1998, the acquisition of American Apartment Communities brought in portfolios in California and the Midwest. "That made us a truly national company," McCann says.

By 2000, McCann had been building United Dominion for 28 years, nearly three decades, and he decided to retire. "I thought it was time for new blood and new leadership," he says.

However, McCann hasn't left the business entirely. He still carries the title chairman emeritus of United Dominion, and in 2004, he formed a new company: McCann Realty Partners, a company that invests in multifamily real estate.

For his efforts in expanding the modern REIT industry, McCann received the 1997 NAREIT Industry Leadership Award.