Joseph E. Robert: A Visionary Life

WASHINGTON, DC-Joseph E. Robert, Jr., the founder and executive chairman of JER Partners passed away Wednesday, reportedly from brain cancer. He was 59 years old. Spokespeople for the firm could not be reached for comment.

Robert’s career was one of milestones. In 1989, he formed the Real Estate Capital Recovery Association, an industry trade group that secured a place for the private sector in the dispositions being handled by the newly created Resolution Trust Corp. “Joe Robert has to get an ‘A’ for vision,” Christopher Kallivokas, president of Real Estate Recovery Inc., told the New York Times amid the S&L crisis of the early 1990s. “He saw the opportunity before most that the government would be a significant player in distressed real estate.”