Rexel has leased 11,000 square feet of industrial space at 2951 Northern Cross Boulevard in Fort Worth.

I didn’t always agree with my father, but I always listened to him because I knew his focus was on helping me avoid the mistakes he made, and guiding me in the rough world of real estate. My dad gave me a few bits of advice that have stayed with me through my career and helped guide me.

Call it a defining moment or a twist of fate. Either way, it’s hard not to chuckle when you hear Lucy Burns’ response to the question posed in her first-grade yearbook: What do you want to be when you grow up? “I said ‘a person in real estate,’ not realizing what that was,” the 33-year-old says. “It was something that I was aware of before I knew what that meant.

The Dallas-Fort Worth retail market continues to improve. As of midyear, it reached an occupancy rate of 89.3 percent—a slight improvement over the rate reported at year-end 2012 and the strongest occupancy level since the pre-recession year of 2007.