Category: Uncategorized

Second Chance – It took a couple of tries, but this modified 250 GT Cabriolet found the perfect owner.

Story and Photos by Zachary Mayne. Forza Magazine – November 2011.

Spectacular – One look in 1990 was all it took for Jerry Roehl to decide he would buy an F40.

Story and Photos by Zachary Mayne. Forza Magazine – December 2021.

1957 Ferrari 250 GT Coupe Boano – Driving one of these is similar to drinking a value Bordeaux — it doesn’t taste like Chateau Latour, but it’s close enough for a Tuesday evening.

Story by Steve Ahlgrim. Photo by Tim Scott. Sports Car Market – August 2018.

Amigos behind ABQ luxury car show focusing on workforce development, jobs

“Concours du Soleil” Car Show and Gala focuses on workforce development and job creation

Story by Marissa Higdon.

https://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/news/2016/09/01/how-a-car-show-can-create-jobs-and-develop.html

In 2004, Jerry Roehl, head of Roehl Law Firm, and Steve Maestas, CEO of Maestas Development Group, attended a charity car show outside of the state. While the two were admiring a vintage Ferrari, they started talking about how much money the event was probably raising for nonprofits.

A few years later, Roehl, Maestas and three other local business leaders, dubbed the “Cinco Amigos,” brought the concept to Albuquerque in the form of the Concours du Soleil Car Show and Gala.

“We thought it was a good idea to help the community,” said Roehl.

Maestas added: “And you get to check out cool cars, too.”

The Cinco Amigos originally partnered with Carrie Tingley Hospital, but, since 2008, the group has worked with the Albuquerque Community Foundation, which won Albuquerque’s 2015 Nonprofit of the Year award in the Foundation category.

The event will be held at Roehl’s home in the North Valley on Sept. 17. There’s a black-tie dinner where guests can view the cars and enjoy an evening of food and music. Tickets cost $250. The next day there’s a public car show, where guests, who pay $20 at the gate, can see the vehicles, eat some food and find out which cars won in their respective categories. This year, there will be over 88 cars at the event.

“People love to bring their cars and show them off,” Roehl said. “Some people see it as an honor to have their car in the show.”

Roehl says, to get into the show, cars must get approved, and they do turn down some entries. Roehl said Concours du Soleil is the only formal, judged car show in the state.

Since the founding of the event, the members of the Cinco Amigos has changed, only Roehl and Maestas are part of the original cohort. Sill, Maestas says they always try to keep five business leaders involved with the event, although, he jokes, when they only had three members they still called themselves the Cinco Amigos.

Now, Roehl and Maestas are joined by Mark Gorham, head of Lorelei Investments; Kevin Yearout, CEO of Yearout Mechanical Inc. and Jason Harrington, CEO of HB Construction.

All three of the newer amigos said they had attended the event before joining and are proud to be a part of it.

“We do business all day long, what’s fun about the event is the opportunity to to put that away,” said Harrington. “It’s a fun way to make an impact.”

The Cinco Amigos cover the core costs of the event to ensure that it’s profitable for the charity groups who are receiving money. Every year, half of the funds raised go to charity groups chosen by the amigos and the foundation and the other half goes into a permanent fund at the Albuquerque Community Foundation. The idea is to create a long-lasting source of revenue for philanthropic ventures in the state. Last year, the show raised around $200,000 for charity.

This year, the focus for the show is workforce development and job creation, so groups supporting those issues will receive money from the event.

“We think creating jobs and enhancing skills has the biggest impact on our community,” Maestas said. “You empower people to change their lives instead of assisting them with a one-time gift. There’s a deeper impact to the community when someone can sustain their life because they have a skill set.”

Harrington says the focus is a result of thinking far into the future.

“We run our business thinking about long-term strategy,” he said. “Our philanthropic ventures are the same way.”

The presenting sponsor for the event is U.S. Eagle Federal Credit Union, and the group has also been working closely with the mayor’s office. There are 400 gala tickets available, which can be purchased through the Albuquerque Community Foundation.

Rediscover the Village – Humor: Foot and Mouth Disease — Perhaps I should just strap an elastic band on my foot so I can more easily lift it up to mouth for convenient insertion.

Story and Photos by Dave Bexfield.

Eric Clapton made Jerry Roehl become an attorney – and it almost cost him $7,500

Story by Dan Mayfield.

https://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/news/2014/09/16/eric-clapton-made-jerry-roehl-become-an-attorney.html

If Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker hadn’t decided to break up the band Cream, Jerry Roehl might still be in the concert booking business instead of a successful plaintiff’s attorney.

Roehl, the head of the Roehl Law Firm, became well known in the 1980s and 1990s for his work winning millions in high-profile negligence and product liability cases. In recent years, though, he’s become more known for his charity work as one of the Cinco Amigos who put on the annual Concours du Soleil car show this weekend. This year, the event is expected to raise more that $175,000, he said, for the University of New Mexico and for the new Microsoft YouthSpark DigiCamp at Innovate ABQ.

In 1968, Roehl said, he had started a concert-booking business, bringing big-name bands to The Pit, including Peter, Paul and Mary; Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass; Bill Cosby and more.

But it was one run-in with Cream, he said, that changed his path.

“I had bought a 1966 Jaguar E-Type V-12. I had to put the car up as collateral for the loan,” to secure the band, Roehl said.

The band cancelled and left Roehl in a lurch for $7,800.

“I went to see my dad. He said, ‘Jerry, I’ll sue them for you, but you’ll run into these problems in this business,’” Roehl said. His dad, Joseph Roehl, was the managing partner of the city’s largest firm, Modrall Sperling Roehl Harris and Sisk, at the time.

His father did sue the booker, and Roehl ended up getting his money back. He said the experience convinced him that if he wanted to succeed in the concert business, or any business, he needed to know the ins and outs of contracts at a minimum.

After some wrangling, his father convinced Jerry to go to law school – though Joseph kept the Jag as credit on the loan.

After he graduated, Roehl wanted to work for his father at the Modrall firm but couldn’t because of a company nepotism policy. So he joined Iden and Johnson, where he became one of a number of young attorneys who were making waves as go-getter trial attorneys, “L.A. Law”-style in Albuquerque.

“At that time, there were lawyers that were beginning to try cases, and I was one of them. We were like young lions. We wanted to do it our own way,” Roehl said. “In April of 1976, I had three jury trials and five workers comp cases – eight trials in one month. I thought if I can survive that, I can survive anything.”

He was just 30, he said, and eager to make a name for himself as a trial attorney, so he hung out his own shingle.

“My dad thought I was too young,” he said.

But he launched into defense work for insurance firms and more.

Then, in 1985, after a horrific accident in the small town of Blanco, New Mexico, when an oil rig exploded and critically burned a worker, he started down a path that would define his career for the next 30 years.

He won several large settlements in trials that gained significant media exposure at the time. He settled for $1.8 million in the oil rig explosion case. When the University of New Mexico’s Lifeguard helicopter crashed in 1985, after a 17-day trial, he won a $2 million verdict, that Roehl said was the largest award for a single wrongful death.

“Word got around that I did these sorts of cases,” he said. “That’s when I said I was going to do more plaintiffs work. People then started to contact me.”

Later, he won a $12 million case against six defendants after a natural gas well explosion in northern New Mexico injured three workers.

“That’s my biggest case, and was tried in December of 1992, and affirmed in 1995,” he said. “But, I always knew it wasn’t enough for my clients. One client was burned on 78 percent of his body. But it’s helping people, that’s why I changed from defense work to plaintiff’s work. I was working for insurance companies, but I found it distasteful. Doing work like this, you can help people, and you can have an effect on the law. In these cases, drilling companies know to be more careful because they know people like me will take them to task.”

In 2004, though, he was ready to again branch out and do more. That’s when Steve Maestas of NAI Maestas & Ward told him that if Roehl held a car show to show off his Dodge Vipers and Ferraris, so would Maestas, and that’s when Concours du Soleil was born.

“We had just moved into that house. It looks just like it was build for Concours; it wasn’t,” Roehl said.

His house in the North Valley has become an annual pilgrimage for lovers of vintage and exotic cars, for the annual show. Over the last decade, the show has raised more than $700,000 for local charities, Roehl said.

Every year, he still shows off that original Jag he bought in the late 1960s – the one that his dad kept as collateral on a loan.

He used the money he made over the years to restore that Jaguar V12, and he shows it annually.

When his daughter, K.C. Roehl, graduated from law school, she joined him.

“I wanted her to come into my firm. If I had my own firm, it’s so I could work with my kids,” he said. “It’s just K.C. and I.”