John “Mac” McQuown ’57

Environmentalist and entrepreneur in the finance and banking sector

While growing up in Sandwich, Illinois, John “Mac” McQuown spent summers working at his aunt and uncle’s nearby farm, where his experience repairing equipment inspired him to earn a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Northwestern. But as an engineering student, McQuown got a recommendation from a Phi Delta Theta fraternity brother to take a corporate finance class, which led him to pursue a career in quantitative finance instead.  

After graduating in 1957, McQuown served in the US Navy for two years and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1961. He worked on Wall Street for two years before Wells Fargo Bank recruited him to San Francisco, where he pioneered the use of data analysis in the banking industry to create the first stock index fund with colleagues in the early 1970s. McQuown has since founded and built more than a dozen businesses in the financial services, technology, and California’s fine wine industries.  

In 1995, McQuown and his wife, Leslie, cofounded Stone Edge Farm Estate Vineyards and Winery in Sonoma, California. With a desire to combat climate change, Mac is leading his farm toward 100 percent energy self-sufficiency through the installation of a microgrid that generates electricity through a combination of solar power, a microturbine, and a hydrogen storage and fueling station while contributing energy to the utility grid. His philanthropy and investments also support environmental innovations, including several McCormick School of Engineering research initiatives around nanotechnology, complexity, and sustainability.