It's family tradition.

• Author: Kemp, Mark

My dad always told me, he said, 'Don't you ever get in this business,'" Walt Crayton says, reminiscing about a childhood spent cleaning construction sites for his father's development company. "He said to me, 'But if you have to get in this business, do something commercial." Walt ignored the first part of Frank Crayton's warning but took to heart the second. Today, the younger Crayton is owner and president of Crayton Commercial LLC, a one-man operation in New Bern that has built or revitalized seven shopping centers since 2008. Last year, then-Gov. Beverly Perdue appointed him to the nine-member N.C. Real Estate Commission, the state's regulator of real-estate agents. Not bad for a guy who started his company at 25 and is now 31.

"You know, when you're little, you don't even know what words like commercial mean. At least I didn't. My dad just ingrained that into my head. He said, 'Do something big, do something commercial--that is, if you have to do it at al" But Frank telling Walt to stay away from development would be like Hank Williams Jr. asking Hank HI to avoid country music. Paul W. Cray-ton Sr., Walt's grandfather, founded New Bern-based Crayton & Company LLC in 1950. Frank and brother Skip have kept it going since their father's death in 1995. Walt's company shares a building with Crayton & Co. "I was raised in a small business, entrepreneurial environment, and it really is in my blood," says Crayton, who graduated from UNC Chapel Hill in 2004 with a business-administration degree.

After working two years for Nor-corn Development Inc. in Charlotte, he was hired by Robert B. Tucker, founder of Concord-based Shoe Show Inc. Tucker has grown the retail chain to more than 1,100 stores by buying and developing shopping centers, often in the shadow of big-box retailers. He would put his company in one storefront and lease the rest. "I mean, what an opportunity," Crayton says. "I was in my early 20s, and here I was with the owner of a company with an annual revenue of more than $1 billion, hearing him tell stories about how hard it was starting out and what he had to do." Crayton was responsible for leasing space in Shoe Show-owned shopping centers.

"Walt was just real aggressive in getting those vacancies occupied, and he stayed after a good deal when he saw it," Tucker says. When Crayton told his boss in late 2007 that he wanted to strike out on his own, Tucker knew his young pupil would be successful. "I didn't have any doubt about it...