Luci Smith

Back when Luci Smith was directing marketing for Weeks Realty's Orlando office, she hadn't planned on a transition into property management. Boxes full of leases started showing up in the office, "and one finally arrived with a note in it saying, 'Congratulations on your new job as a property manager,'" she said.

"I had no idea. I didn't even know what a property manager was."

But Smith, now a senior property manager with EastGroup, learned quickly.

The property manager had spent more than five years in the U.S. Army, where she met her husband. After finishing their terms, the couple returned home to Central Florida, where they started a family. Smith completed a degree in marketing and public relations in 2000. This, she said, helped her make a smooth transition into property management.

"I couldn't have picked a better job for me, even though I feel like I fell into it," she explained. "It's everything. It's the marketing. It's the mom aspect - you're trying to take care of the property. It's accounting - it's all of that good stuff you learn in school."

While at Weeks, Smith helped grow the firm's Orlando portfolio from 100,000sf to more than 1 msf. She was present for the firm's merger with Duke, and she was responsible for managing One Orlando Centre, a 355,000sf office highrise in Orlando.

Smith joined EastGroup in 2001, where she has remained since. While there, she has seen her Orlando portfolio grow from 750,000sf to 2 msf and 145 tenants. In 2007, she won a BOMA TOBY award for the John Young II office building, and in 2008 she won in the industrial category for Sunport Center.

Smith earned her RPA designation in 2005, and since EastGroup is a REIT that manages and owns property, she's working on her FMA designation now. "We outsource all of our maintenance, so it requires the property managers to know a lot," she said.

It's this kind of variety that keeps Smith excited about the business. "Every day is different," she said. "Nothing is the same. There is a different challenge every day.

"You may set your schedule when you leave the house in the morning, and by the time you get to work, something's changed. You can't have a rigid routine."

Smith said her family understands what her job entails - and that, on occasion, there will be that 2 a.m. alarm call. And on some Saturdays, she may have to delay an activity - often boating with her husband and two sons or riding her Honda 230 dirt bike with them - so she can resolve a tenant's problem.

"We do play as hard as we work," Smith said. "I think I've learned in the last five years to balance it better. A little bit more time management."

And when the fun is over, Smith still sees that tie between her home life and her career in property management.

"As far as property management in our company, all but one property manager in our company is female," she said. "That all ties back to the mothering aspect. You want to take care of people, take care of things. It's that female instinct to want to take care of people."