COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE QUARTERLY ISSUE UCW LOGISTICS
TREY PENNINGTON University of South Carolina Tight End, 1999 Pennington grew up at avid Clemson football fan from Anderson but didn’t realize that playing football in college was an option until he was offered the chance to play at the University of South Carolina. “It was a business decision, and it was a good fit for me in terms of academics. Football had been good to me, but I knew I wanted to use it to do something bigger,” Pennington said. He studied business at USC and went on to earn his law and MBA degree from USC as well. Pennington hoped to pursue accounting and law and eventually realized that he wanted something more entrepreneurial. “I wanted to be dealing with people a little more and I wanted something where the harder I worked the more I could get out of it,” Pennington said. Now, Pennington is senior vice president of CBRE in Greenville and focuses on industrial services.
“A career in real estate is humbling,” he says, “When you grow up playing sports, not everyone can be the quarterback or super-star receiver. Everyone plays a role and I think it’s important to embrace that and that’s true for real estate as well. You need to embrace that role and grow in that role.” Pennington says that football taught him many lessons that have applied to his career, and life in general. “You have to work with different types of people and work towards a common goal,” he says, “You have to learn how to be knocked down and get back up and learn to do the things that aren’t always fun but contribute to your goal. That self-discipline is critical. If you can take those things that football has to teach you and apply those to business, then you will be successful.”
www.CarltonMB.com (864) 213-8000 2446 Laurens Road Greenville, SC 29607
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work hard, play hard The lessons that Trey Pennington learned during his time playing tight end at the University of South Carolina gave him the building blocks he needed for a successful career in commercial real estate. n photo by WILL CROOKS