Duke Realty went from no Houston presence to 3M SF in seven years. (It's especially impressive when you consider that two of those were activity-less, thanks to the recession.) That kind of push is nothing new to office head SVP David Hudson.

David graduated from Texas Tech with an accounting degree and joined Arthur Andersen. One of his first clients was US Home Corp, where David learned people got paid to be outside. He decided then he wanted into real estate, and it only took 10 years to pan out. (Or as actress June Squibb calls it: rapid ascension.) He specialized in real estate accounting at Kenneth Leventhal, networked with Trammell Crow employees until they hired him in TCC’s auditing group, was promoted to controller, and then finally convinced Matt Khourie to let him join the industrial dealmaking team in 1994. David stuck with that group until 2006, when he joined Duke.

Here’s David with his family in Costa Rica over New Year’s. He tells us the most exciting deal of his career was leasing up and selling 1M SF Alamo Crossing for CBRE Investors. It hit the market at a soft spot of overbuilding and had some negative stigma. On top of that, David was diagnosed with a brain tumor right as he and Cory Driskill got the assignment. Fortunately, it was benign, but he was out for six weeks. Once back, the duo pulled the project to 90% occupancy within two years and sold it in ’05. (Editor’s note: It’s on the market again!)

David loves anything outdoors, especially bird hunting (in our first pic you can see one of five duck mounts in his office) and fishing. While in Costa Rica, David and his sons went deep-sea fishing and snagged 12 mahi mahi (including an 80-pound bull that fed the whole family and crew for three days), two marlin, and two sailfish. On his bucket list: Going on a foreign mission trip with his church. Back at work, David’s next project will be Gateway Northwest. It’s a 60-acre tract Duke owns near 290 and Highway 6, and David tells us he’ll announce its future in the next month.