Trammell Crow

Fred Trammell Crow (June 10, 1914 – January 14, 2009) was an American real estate developer from Dallas, Texas. He is credited with the creation of several major real estate projects, including the Dallas Market Center, Peachtree Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, California.

Biography A native of Dallas, Crow earned money through a series of odd jobs as a child and later as an adolescent, including plucking chickens, cleaning bricks, and unloading boxcars.

He then worked for three years as a Certified Public Accountant before joining the United States Navy in 1940. He used his background in accounting and was offered a commission auditing the books of defense contractors. After World War II, he remained with the Navy for another year to handle final settlements with its contractors. He left the Navy after achieving the rank of commander and then returned to Dallas and saw opportunities for the growth of the city.

He became an agent for North American Van Lines, a moving company. Shortly thereafter, he worked as a wholesale grain merchandiser, tripled the sizes of the warehouses, and erected new loading facilities. Once the grain business faded, he switched at the age of thirty-three to the burgeoning field of warehouse real estate development.

Crow built his first warehouse in 1948 and leased it to Ray-O-Vac Battery Company.

Yahoo! Finance, also making a joke about the Crow name, said in its company profile: "It takes a tough bird to succeed in the real estate business, and Trammell Crow Company is one of the cocks of the walk." Calling the organization "one of the top diversified real estate management companies in the US," the profile estimates that the company manages nearly of warehouse, service center, and retail space in the United States and Canada.

As of June 2007, the company was set to grow even further with the scheduled $60 million purchase of the HealthSouth headquarters building in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Trammell Crow Company was privately held until 1997 when it went public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol TCC. In 2006, the firm was sold to CB Richard Ellis group (NYSE:CBRE) for approximately $2.2 billion.

Art collection Trammell Crow was an enthusiastic collector of East Asian art. His son, Trammell S. Crow, went to Yale University with Alex Kerr, and sometime later, after Kerr was more established, he became an art purchaser in Tokyo for the Trammell Crow Company at the behest of his father. In 1998, 598 of the family's best pieces were donated to the people of Dallas with the founding of the Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art.

He also commissioned several pieces from artist Bjørn Wiinblad, also sculptor David Cargill, incorporating them into his Dallas hotel and real estate projects.

Personal life In 1981, Crow received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

In 1989, Crow was an original inductee of the Woodrow Wilson High School Hall of Fame, which was established in connection with the school's sixtieth anniversary.

Crow was instrumental in bringing to Dallas the 1984 Republican National Convention, which renominated U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush. He and his wife, the former Margaret Doggett, were avid collectors of Asian art, for which they established a museum, The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art. This private museum is open to the public without charge. It is located on Flora Street in the Arts District of downtown Dallas.

Crow married his wife Margaret in 1942. At the time of his death, they had been married for sixty-six years. The couple had six surviving children: Lucy C. Billingsley, Robert Tramell Crow, Harlan Crow, Howard Crow, Stuart Crow, and Trammell S. Crow. The Crows have sixteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. His eldest son, Robert (1943–2011), was addicted to drugs during the 1980s and often found himself in rehabilitation clinics.

Late in life, Crow suffered from Alzheimer's disease. He is interred at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin, Texas. His widow Margaret died in 2014, five years later, also at the age of 94.