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.

In 1978, with the ink barely dry on his college diploma, Wally Sommer began working at his father's side in the family dealership, Sommer's Buick-Pontiac in Mequon. One of the early tasks handed to him by his dad was to call customers to check the status of outstanding accounts. Wally completed the job with one exception. The elder Mr. Sommer, Wally Sr., took the account back and said he would look into it himself. Later, Wally asked his father if he had reached a resolution regarding the customer.“Well, yes,” his father replied, it turns out the family doesn’t have any money to pay. In fact, they don’t even have money to fill their tank with heating oil this winter.” “What did you do?” asked his son. “Why I called the fuel company and ordered them to go to their home and fill the tank,” replied Wally Sr. The answer was not at all what young Wally expected to hear. But it established for him, at that early date, the foundation of care and respect the elder Mr. Sommer expected regarding the people with whom they did business. It’s a bar that Wally, his family and employees still hold as high today.

Customer care is but one of the reasons Wally Sommer of Sommer’s Subaru Buick GMC has been chosen as your 2018 Wisconsin Dealer of the Year and the 2018 Time Quality Dealer of the Year nominee.

Sommer’s Subaru, the store Wally is representing as your TIME Quality Dealer nominee, is operating at record levels. A beautiful new facility and a growing staff have allowed the dealership to maintain their #1 Rank in the Minneapolis zone of 44 dealers and #2 ranking in the Central Region of Subaru consist- ing of 163 retailers. For four consecutive years the dealership has been recognized as a member of the Subaru Chairman’s Roundtable consisting of the top 25 of 630 national dealers. The award is not based simply on sales volume but on facility requirements and customer satisfaction. In addition, the Buick- GMC franchises have earned GM’s Mark of Excellence from 2013 to the present. Those, however, are only numbers. The real story lies in the atmosphere of the Sommers dealership.