Garry Creath spent years in the U.S. Air Force before a medical discharge ended that in 1971. He had been trained to serve people, so he went looking for another way to do it, and he landed — a little improbably — on real estate. He started in Colorado Springs, built it up in Lubbock, and after eighteen years brought it to Austin in 1989.
My mother, Jo, joined him in the business in 1992. When he passed away in 1997, my brother Garry stepped in alongside her rather than let it end. That is genuinely why this company still exists — not a succession plan, just a family that did not want to put it down.
I came to it sideways. I was selling software to Fortune 500 companies and finding that the part I actually liked was the part where you sit with someone and work out what they need. Eventually I moved to Austin to join the family business. In 2008 we affiliated with Sotheby's International Realty, which is how a small Austin family practice ended up with a global referral network attached to it.
My first listing was on the corner of Enfield Road and Pecos Street, near Lion's Municipal. The people who bought it still live there. Almost twenty years on, that is still the outcome I am actually measuring against.
“He was trained to serve people. Losing the uniform only changed how.”
