Board of Directors transition, which occurs each year in conjunction with our Annual Meeting, always triggers complex emotions: on the one hand I find myself sad to see people we have worked closely with rotate off; on the other, I am excited about the new trove of experiences and high energy brought by those who rotate on.
The board that served from November of 2011 through our San Antonio meeting in late October oversaw, among other things, our response effort to the CFPB report, the public launch of our "Borrow with Confidence" campaign and the launch of our re-designed consumer website, reversemortgage.org., all major efforts. On behalf of the membership and the staff, I want to thank David Fontanilla, Dan Harder, Mario Martirano, John Myers, David Peskin, Scott Peters, Rob Wyatt and Michelle Zachensky for their support and their valuable time. You should all be proud of the board's achievements during this tenure.
The task confronting the nominating committee each year is to assemble a group of professionals who as a unit best represent the scope of interests of member companies. They need to be responsive to the ever changing makeup of our membership, to geographical distribution, personnel movement within the industry and sensitive to the varying needs among businesses of different sizes.
This year's nominating committee--chaired by John Nixon and also including Sherry Apanay, Sarah Hulbert, Mark Browning, Joe DeMarkey, Pete Engelken and Robert Sivori--carefully constructed a board that includes representation of the current most active lenders, of the most active servicers, of larger and smaller shops, and of the invaluable history of this industry,
New additions to the board include:
--Colin Cushman, now of Generation Mortgage and formerly the Director, Portfolio Analysis at FHA where his achievements included shepherding the creation of the HECM Saver;
--Reza Jahangiri, who has built an aggressive organization at the American Advisors Group where he serves as CEO;
--Steve McClellan, who moved from CFO for Generation to President and CEO of Urban Financial where he has shuffled the deck and surrounded himself with an impressive group of experienced professionals; and
--Gerald McCoy, Executive Vice President of new NRMLA member Nationstar Mortgage, which made a sizable entrance into the reverse mortgage sector in the past year.
Returning to the board after rotating off is Scott Norman, formerly of MetLife and now with Sente Mortgage, who is recognized as a leader of the reverse mortgage community in Texas where he is galvanizing support for an effort to implement HECMS for Purchase.
This group will be joining re-appointed board members:
Joe DeMarkey, MetLife (co-chair)
George Lopez, J.B. Nutter (co-chair)
James Cory, Legacy Reverse Mortgage (vice chair)
Pete Engelken, Genworth (vice chair)
John LaRose, Celink (secretary)
Sherry Apanay, Urban Financial Group (treasurer)
Mark Browning, Homechex
Nick Buscaglia, M&T Bank
George Downey, Harbor Mortgage Solutions
Sarah Hulbert, 1st Reverse Mortgage USA
Bart Johnson, Premier Senior Home Equity
Torrey Larsen, Security One Lending
Joe Morris, Open Mortgage
John Nixon, Bank of America
Jean Noble, Urban Financial Group
Scott Norman, Sente Mortgage
Ralph Rosynek, Reverse Mortgage Solutions
Bob Sivori, Security One Lending
Gregg Smith, One Reverse Mortgage
Sandy Tennekoon, Moneyhouse
Robert Yeary, Reverse Mortgage Solutions
Past chairpersons serving in an ex officio capacity include Jeff Taylor, of Wendover Consulting Group, Cheryl McNally, of Harbor View Consulting, and James Mahoney, former chief executive of Financial Freedom.
And while we're on past chairs, I must give a very special and personal thanks to Sarah Hulbert, who graciously agreed to jump back into the seat this past year in the wake of some company exits from the sector despite the fact that she was simultaneously in the midst assembling a new retail brigade for 1st Reverse. When her experience and savvy are needed, Sarah has never said no to NRMLA.
The make-up of this board is an accurate snapshot of today's industry including representatives from nine of the current top dozen lenders, as well as owners of small businesses; five of the largest servicing organizations; and representatives of 21 companies with headquarters in 11 states spanning the entire nation plus Puerto Rico. Most represented are California and Texas, the two largest production centers at the moment.
We look forward to a productive year of high level input from the 2013 NRMLA Board.
