CLICK HERE  TO MEET MORE OF THIS YEAR’S WOMEN OF DISTINCTION

Amy S. Barry grew up in Shorewood and moved to Washington, D.C., to pursue her career in financing multifamily housing. She and her family came back each year to see relatives, Summerfest and UW football. Having always wished for the chance to move home, during one such visit in 2018, her son said, “Why are we waiting?” She says, “I didn’t have a good answer!” Berkadia, a national commercial mortgage company, caught wind of the impending move of Amy and her husband, Mark Dellonte, and offered them the chance to open a new Milwaukee office. In 2019, Barry moved home to launch Berkadia Milwaukee to better serve multifamily investors and owners across the Upper Midwest and West. Barry’s background in commercial real estate investments as well as operational management made this a great fit. “By providing competitive financing, we’re helping developers build something that adds sustainable value to our community,” she says. “That could be affordable rental housing, much needed senior housing, health care facilities or even hotels. I love seeing these things being built from the ground up.” Now with a team of nine and growing, Barry and her family are grateful to Berkadia and their home city. “Milwaukee is an amazing place!”

“Milwaukee is rich with opportunity.”

 

– Amy S. Barry

Q&A

How has the process of launching Berkadia in Milwaukee gone?

It’s been great. We’ve been very fortunate with how welcoming the real estate community is here in Wisconsin, particularly in Milwaukee. I’ve been in this business a long time. I lived on the East Coast, and there was this inherent belief that you don’t really spend your equity or your debt money in states that are in the middle, right, you spend them on the east coast you spend them in California or Texas or Florida. That’s part of what I’m excited about – bringing to the bat that national competitiveness. Milwaukee is rich with opportunity, and has a really strong development community. 

What have been some of the biggest obstacles you’ve faced in your career?

Any obstacle you face, it’s your job to fix it, solve it, get around it, or blow through it. I’ve never really focused on obstacles. Being a female in the real estate industry, certainly in the mid-to-late-1990s, I remember going to housing conferences where there’d be 2000 people attending and there would literally be maybe 10 of us females. That that out-of-balance dynamic isn’t there anymore, and that’s super cool. Work is work. You have to do it, and, and if you’re not doing it well, you have to figure out how to do it well.

---

Comments

comments