Women in Fort Worth and all of Tarrant County, in fact, owe a debt of gratitude to Joan Trew. It is not hyperbole to call her a legend.
She announced her retirement this week after more than four decades of blazing a path for women in business. Trew and partner Martha Williams were definitely outliers when they started their own company in Fort Worth in 2000, leaving William Rigg Realtors to found Williams Trew Real Estate.
Over the years the firm changed and grew and is now part of the Ebby Halliday company, which is fitting because Trew and Williams did for Fort Worth what Halliday did for Dallas many years before.
For the countless families Trew helped to buy a home in Fort Worth over the years it will be hard to imagine she will not be selling “just one more.” She was indefatigable, tenacious, and always ready to show a home or close a deal, even after the workday was done for most folks.
A few years ago, a local executive who had left town but moved back phoned her in his first days after returning to ask Trew if she had some homes he could tour.
“I do,” she told him. “I have the perfect one in mind, actually in your old neighborhood.”
She said she’d love to show him the house.
He noted it was 6:30 at night and she had told him she was just leaving the office for dinner with her husband.
“No problem,” she said. “I’ll meet you there in 15 minutes.”
She was just as tireless in her devotion to Fort Worth and many of its charities. Trew has been honored many times, as has Williams, for the example she set not just for women in the workplace but for her overall ethics and infectious spirit.
Trew began her real estate career in 1977 and carved out this remarkable 44-year career through hard work and incomparable customer service.
Trew and Williams were honored as Fort Worth Business Hall of Fame Executives of the Year in 2016 and the Business Press honored them as “Great Women of Texas.”
Like so many others who know her, we have admired Joan Trew’s accomplishments for years but mostly we are overjoyed to be able to still call her “friend.”
She blazed a trail.