I am broker owner of RE/MAX Gallery in Mequon. I’m not sure while growing up in Cuba City in southwestern Wisconsin that I was even aware that people bought and sold homes. Someone in the family moved into grandma and grandpa‘s old home, and everybody else built a place to live nearby. When my dad was building a new home for us so that our hired man could move into our home on the old farm, my sister and I stood on the edge of the abyss that was to become the basement and commented that it was entirely too small. Spending the next few months pounding subfloor taught us a number of things about how houses are built...and perception...skills I use in my real estate career today.
I learned a lot, too, from my first job working for a seed corn company. It was a job that taught me exactly how much chemical goes into GMO corn (How fortunate that at that time they “knew” that skin was impermeable so all of the purple corn seed was fine for us to handle) and that I did not want to do work that meant starting the day with a cold, wet walk through a field at 4:30 am. After a 12 hour day over-seeding or detasseling all summer didn’t leave me a lot of energy for what I really wanted to do: hit the live band teen dances throughout the area. I played saxophone in the concert and jazz bands and lead the marching band as the drum major in parade competitions throughout the state. I graduated from the University of Wisconsin in Platteville with a teaching degree because I couldn’t stand the sight of blood which meant that nursing—the other option for girls at that time—was not an option for me. I received my Masters Degree at UWM and taught school for 10 years in both parochial and public schools in the metro Milwaukee area. I spent a couple of years working for Republic Airlines before settling in Mequon in 1981 and raising two kids.
My children grew fast and left the state causing me to question my parenting plan. You try to ensure your children are independent and self-sufficient, and then they go and do it, getting as far away from you as they can go without a visa. Fortunately my son and his young family have moved back to Wisconsin from Colorado and my daughter seemed convinced when she was home in September to put a move back home on her imminent plans. Unfortunately she came over home over Christmas and the temperature reminded her why she loves California.
In my youth I was quite interested in art, a talent that my nuns with their red marking pencils convinced me was not my career path. So now I combine the skills that I got from my construction, my field experience (which is now the basis of my firm’s marketing plan—but without the chemicals), and my years teaching to help me navigate people through the buying and selling process of real estate. In my 25+ years in real estate I’ve always described it is a great profession for anyone who aspires to be manic depressive. It is a contrast of extreme highs and lows and the insecurity of trying to figure out where your next transaction would be coming from. I am a teacher, a counselor, a contract creator, a decorator, a marketer, a snow shoveler, a tour guide and a chauffeur and now with my own firm, a supporter of the community and the arts through my Gallery Office. And like in my youth, I look for the free time to dance.