Thurston Ross; Property Appraiser and Economist

Thurston H. Ross., a real estate appraiser and economist who flew for the Signal Corps during World War I and served as a strategist for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during World War II, died Sunday in Battle Ground, Wash., where he was living with his son.

The pioneer teacher, expert witness and government and commercial property appraiser was 96.

Born in Indiana, he earned undergraduate degrees at Otterbein College in Ohio in 1917 and then enlisted in the Army Signal Corps, where he learned to fly, an avocation he pursued through much of his life.

He came to Los Angeles after the war, earned master’s and doctorate degrees at USC and also taught there. In 1927 he established USC’s first course in real estate appraisal and wrote extensively on the subject for the rest of his career.

He had first started his appraisal business in Los Angeles in 1921 and grew up with the city, recalling over the years how some downtown properties in that era had as many as a dozen mortgage-holders.

At USC, Ross had achieved a partial integration of the Colleges of Commerce and Engineering and had become knowledgeable about the burgeoning ship and aircraft industries of Southern California.

Partially as a result of that experience, he was asked to join the Navy at the outset of World War II and became a lieutenant commander assigned to the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington. He became a member of the Joint Military Transportation Committee and the Combined Military Transportation Committee and attended the conferences of world leaders at Yalta, Tehran, Cairo and Malta as well as those between Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Lord Mountbatten in the India-Burma theater.

At war’s end he returned to teaching and his appraisal business, and in 1948 began what was to become a four-decade relationship as a director for Home Savings and Loan Assn., then a relatively small institution but now the largest in the nation.

He continued to appraise properties for institutions as diverse as the state of California, the city of Beverly Hills, supermarkets and malls, the New York Life Insurance Co. and the Bank of America.

Among his many honors was the Louise and Y. T. Lum Award from the California Real Estate Assn. for distinguished service.

Survivors include his son, Thurston Jr., three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren

A memorial service will be held Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.

In lieu of flowers, contributions are asked in his name to the American Society of Real Estate Counselors, 430 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago 60611.