Jim Roemer’s impact on the communities of southeastern Wisconsin extends beyond providing financing for many commercial real estate developments, colleagues say.
As a member of the Milwaukee Economic Development Corp.’s executive and loan committees since 2018, Roemer has helped accomplish the organization’s mission of retaining and creating jobs in the Milwaukee 7 region with a special emphasis on minority- and woman-owned businesses, according to Karen Case, president of CIBC U.S. Commercial Real Estate.
“As vice president of the Wisconsin Real Estate Alumni Association, Jim was instrumental in creating a public-private partnership to recruit Dr. Mark Eppli to join the UW School of Business faculty and Graaskamp Center for Real Estate in August 2018,” Case said.
In 2020, as WREAA president, Roemer led a team of people to create and raise $3 million in private capital for a real estate private equity fund that has become a focal point of the UW real estate program by involving master’s students in fund investing and management activities.