Biography
Mr. Romeu was born and raised in Puerto Rico where his family resided since 1813. Following graduation from the Academia del Perpetuo Socorro in Miramar, he attended Haverford College in Pennsylvania, where he was Secretary, Vice President and President of the Student Council. As a freshman, Mr. Romeu joined the diversity protests of the early 1980s and delivered the students’ demands to then President Robert Stevens.
As a student leader, Mr. Romeu pushed and obtained the approval by the Board of Directors of funding of a new student center (currently, the John C. Whitehead student center). He also led in the fight for weight room/ sport facilities and for funding of Skeeters, the student-run pizza business. He was a strong supporter of self-governing by students and actively opposed the College administration on a proposed campus-wide alcohol ban. He successfully advocated for accountability and individual responsibility for social events on campus. Mr. Romeu was graduated with Honors in Philosophy.
After receiving a law degree from Columbia University, he worked as a litigator for the New York law firms of Sullivan & Cromwell and Proskauer Rose. He also holds an MBA from Duke University. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Puerto Rican Bar Association (“PRBA”) and chaired the Federal Affairs Committee of the PRBA and Hispanic National Bar Association.
He lives and works in New York and is married, has a daughter, and continues to strongly advocate on Puerto Rican matters, and for equality for the U.S citizens of the Territory of Puerto Rico.
In May 2010 he was invited to testify before the White House Taskforce on Puerto Rico on the subject of economic development strategies for the island and the inextricable relationship between economic development and status. Mr. Romeu explained that the island’s colonial status has served as fertile ground for federal tax subsidies to the pharmaceutical and manufacturing industry for revenues realized, and patents held, in the U.S. Territory, but that the exceptions no longer increase job creation. Mr. Romeu advocated extension of a wage and job based tax credit, instead of revenue based corporate tax subsidy, and extension of empowerment zone status to all of Puerto Rico.
Read more about this topic: Xavier Romeu
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