PRINCIPALS
Gary Elam
Gary has over 25 years’ experience in performing and non-performing real estate transactions, operations, development, finance and equity investment.
Prior to co-founding Solana Advisors, Gary was the Chief Operating Officer of Hunter Chase & Company, a nationwide private equity investment and asset management firm, and its predecessor, the Key Bank Residential Private Equity Division. He has designed and implemented equity underwriting and asset management programs through which numerous institutional investors have placed in excess of $500 million.
Gary has underwritten, entitled and/or constructed a variety of retail, office and residential development projects in California, New Mexico, Texas and Florida, and has conducted numerous acquisition, sale, lease, finance and loan workout negotiations.
In the early 1990’s, Gary co-founded the Special Asset Services Group with Steve Barklis at John Burnham & Company in San Diego, California.
Prior to his full time engagement in real estate, Gary was a practicing California real estate and taxation attorney; he remains a member of the California State Bar.
Gary is a California real estate broker; a CCIM designee; and has been a speaker on problem real estate, loan workouts, receiverships and government monetary, fiscal and bank regulation policy. He lives in Poway, California, with his wife of 23 years. They have two sons.
Steve Barklis
Steve has been a commercial real estate consultant and asset manager for over twenty years and has completed assignments on behalf of public and private sector clients for commercial property types including office, medical office, retail, industrial, self-storage, hotel, condo-hotel, apartments, mobile home parks, mixed use properties, congregate care facilities and land.
Steve began his career in commercial real estate with the Grubb & Ellis Company in Arizona in 1982 earning the title of Senior Marketing Consultant. In 1992, Steve became Director of Real Estate Consulting for John Burnham & Company (now Cushman & Wakefield) in San Diego, California. During his tenure at Burnham, Steve also co-managed the Special Assets Group with Gary Elam, specializing in underwriting, disposition and acquisition of non-performing real estate loans, including hospitality loans.
In 1996, Steve founded Solana Vista Consulting, with offices in San Diego and Newport Beach, California with a focus on hotel investment and development. As the asset manager for hotels nationwide totaling over 3,000 rooms, Steve managed the acquisition, entitlement, and development of large full service hotel projects including the Hyatt Regency Orange County and the Hard Rock Hotel San Diego.
In 2008, Steve formed Solana Advisors, LLC (dba Solana Company) with partner Gary Elam. In the past five years, the Solana Company has been primarily engaged in the evaluation, acquisition and workout of non-performing loans secured by hospitality properties nationwide.
Steve is a Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM), a member of the Urban Land Institute and an alumnus of the University of Arizona.
Eddia Mirharooni
Eddia Mirharooni is a true renaissance man, with the proven ability to apply his accomplished design skills to multiple business and real estate enterprises.
Eddia began his career with a degree in architecture and urban design from the University of Iran and a degree in design from UCLA. He went on to design and build apartment projects and commerical buildings in Iran for clients and on his own account.
When the political situation in Iran became unstable in the late 1970's, a newly-wed Eddia Mirharooni and his wife immigrated to Los Angeles, California. After working as an architect for a period of time, Eddia decided to apply his design skills to interior furnishings, and built a thriving import business by manufacturing carpets, rugs, and porcelain of his own design in factories he built in China and India, which he then marketed to department stores throughout the US. Eddia also started and later sold manufacturing companies producing products as varied as computer memory cards, and household chemicals for export to Southeast Asia.
Over the years, while continuing to expand his "Eddia" brand to soft goods, furniture, and men's clothing, Eddia also built warehouses, retail stores, and invested in numerous retail and restaurant properties in the Western US.
David Mirharooni
David is the co-owner and manager of Brickstar Capital, a Los Angeles-based private equity real estate investment company formed in 2007 with direct investments in commercial real estate assets with a market value in excess of $300 million.
Prior to BSC, David worked as a Finance Manager for Lennar Urban in Los Angeles where he was responsible for acquisition underwriting, sourcing and due diligence as well as the financial reporting for the company’s existing developments. David graduated from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business with a concentration in Real Estate Finance/ Marketing in 2002 and received a Masters of Real Estate Development from USC in 2010.