Career moves

TMS Funding, the wholesale arm of a Connecticut-based nonbank, this week hired Domenic Melillo as vice president of wholesale finance.

Mortgage Contracting Services, Tampa, Fla., named Tod Phelps as chief information officer.

The Home Lending Source, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., has hired 30 loan officers from the MetLife Home Loans, and is talking to another 25 or so.

Titan Lenders Corp., Denver, hired Mark Ridder as executive vice president and general counsel.

Caliber Funding LLC, Irving, Texas, is talking to several loan officers and support staff who worked at MetLife Home Loans and may wind up hiring upwards of 300 full-timers, according to officials familiar with the situation.

Just when Redwood Trust was starting to look a bit like the Maytag repairman of the jumbo MBS market, we began to hear reports this week that two top 10 ranked banks are working on jumbo deals - for later in the year.

zIngenuity Inc., a boutique consulting firm advising mortgage lenders on mortgage finance matters, said that Rob Smith, vice president, has been named as the head of the mortgage analytics team.

VITEK Mortgage Group, Sacramento, Calif., appointed Mike Wheeler as vice president of production.

It would appear that the chief executives managing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in for a pay cut - a significant one at that.

Sara W. Stephens, of Little Rock, Ark., began her one-year term as president of the Appraisal Institute on Jan. 1.

Although women have made much progress in reaching the leadership levels of business, including the mortgage business, the progress is disappointing - and stalled. What is so stubborn about this issue? Why aren't more women making it to (and staying at) the top? The answer may be in awareness of why women leave and what they bring to the table.

Commercial mortgage banker Walker & Dunlop, Bethesda, Md., funded $4 billion of new loans in 2011, a 27% gain from the year prior, according to newly reported figures.

MountainSeed, Atlanta, a provider of appraisal management services to community and regional financial institutions, said that Lisa Scott has joined the company's sales division.

First, some good news: We understand that 350 MetLife Home Loan staffers are about to be made an employment offer. On top of that, other offers are being made to many of MLHL's high-performance loan officers. That's good news for the rank-and-file workers that make up this industry.

Scott Stern, the founder and CEO of Lenders One, a top player in residential finance, confirmed to National Mortgage News that he will leave the organization in March.

USAA Real Estate Co., San Antonio, named Will McIntosh as global head of research. In his role with USAA, McIntosh will provide both top-down and bottom-up research on markets and properties in addition to providing recommendations and direction on market and asset selection.

More than two dozen Democratic congressmen from California are calling on President Obama to use a recess appointment and replace Federal Housing Finance Agency acting director Edward DeMarco with a new regulator who will help prevent foreclosures.

Stonegate Mortgage Corp. has hired former Irwin Mortgage Corp. executive John F. Macke as EVP of capital markets in line with growth plans that include the introduction of nonagency jumbos this year.

For all the talk about legal challenges to the recess appointment of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, at least one group of consumer lenders has no intention of stepping into the fray.

Rob Katz, Ellie Mae's executive vice president of product strategy, resigned last week, for personal reasons.