Career moves

Marion Sandler, the co-chief executive at Golden West Financial in Oakland, Calif., for more than four decades, has died at the age of 81.

Bay Equity Home Loans said that Rob Phillips has returned to the company as a wholesale senior account executive in San Diego.

Jeremy Stein, a professor of economics at Harvard University, became the seventh governor to join the Federal Reserve Board.

The president and chief executive of the Mortgage Bankers Association, David Stevens, is stepping down after one year to become the president of SunTrust Mortgage.

Bay Equity Home Loans said that Eva Sharma has returned to the company as a wholesale senior account executive in San Diego.

SunTrust Mortgage hired former MetLife Home Loans executive Linda Steiner as a regional wholesale manager based in the Pacific Northwest area.

First American Title Insurance Co.’s mortgage services division named Eric Friedman chief operating officer for its default services group.

Paul M. Herron, who founded the Washington Bureau of National Mortgage News in the early 1980s, died this past weekend. He was 91.

Gary Carlson, a founder of Eagle Home Mortgage in Bellevue, Wash., has joined Mason McDuffie Mortgage Corp. as a senior vice president.

James Freis was dismissed from his position as director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network last week after refusing to step down, a person familiar with the situation confirmed Monday.

Susan Carlson, a founder of Eagle Home Mortgage in Bellevue, Wash., has joined Mason McDuffie Mortgage Corp. as senior vice president.

You remember the HARP program, don’t you? Originally, the idea was to refinance current but high LTV Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac borrowers into new, lower-rate loans—provided they were current. Home values (and lack of equity) reeked havoc on the concept so Uncle Sam took the LTV girdle off.

For No. 3 producer Shelly Logemann, it is being responsive to her clients, plus having the proper work/life balance which is important to her success as an originator.

Wilson & Associates, a real estate and default services law firm operating in Arkansas and Tennessee, appointed Ted Cummins associate partner.

Quicken Loans Mortgage Services, a unit of Quicken Loans that provides services to banks, credit unions and mortgage originators, said it is going to add more than 75 people by the end of the year.

Bay Equity Home Loans hired Spencer Richardson as its director of Northwest production.

John Robbins has created mortgage production platforms from scratch before, most notably with American Residential Mortgage and American Mortgage Network.

Truckloads of Realtors – more than 10,000 of them, according to their leader – will swarm Capitol Hill Thursday with this familiar message for lawmakers: Housing is key to the economic recovery.

An answer to why people hold their job in the mortgage marketplace or elsewhere does not come by so easily. Do people work simply to survive, or because it’s enjoyable and meaningful? The world of work is in a state of transition. It is now facing a new direction.

John Robbins has created mortgage production platforms from scratch before, most notably with American Residential Mortgage and American Mortgage Network. But his latest venture, he admitted, was in at least one way a little more difficult because of how the industry environment has changed in the past few years.