Career moves

M.E. Mike Wileman, president and CEO of Orion Financial Group, Southlake, Texas, which specializes in real estate-owned property document retrieval, assignments and other assistance for servicers who manage their own portfolios presents, brought to the Second Annual SourceMedia Loss Mitigation Conference in Dallas on July 21-22 one of the perks offered to attendees, an iPad.

Mortgage Banking Solutions of Texas is launching a new service to help residential lenders fight loan buyback requests.

Mesirow Financial Holdings Inc. of Chicago has hired Stephen Jacobson to build and lead its credit tenant lease team.

JPMorgan Chase said former Florida senator and Housing and Urban Development secretary Mel Martinez will become chairman of its operations in Florida, Latin America and the Caribbean as the megabank continues efforts to expand and grow in international markets.

The former president and chief operating officer of Fidelity National Financial, Patrick Stone, has returned to an active role in the title insurance business and is looking to turn WFG National Title Insurance Co., Lake Oswego, Ore., into a national player.

PMI Mortgage Insurance Co., the nation's second largest MI in terms of policies-in-force, said it is expanding its sales staff nationwide, adding executives to four key regions in response to improving market conditions.

Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan said he will step down August 14 after nearly completing his five-year term as the top supervisor of national banks.

Total Mortgage Services LLC is expanding its reverse mortgage division and has hired an executive to head it that has held positions at three companies in the residential real estate finance business.

American Bankers Association president and chief executive Edward Yingling is retiring at the end of this year, according to the trade group.

Robert Steel is resigning his seat on Wells Fargo & Co.'s board of directors, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

Prudential Real Estate Investors, Parsippany, N.J., hired Eric Adler as CEO-Europe, responsible for overseeing its investments and transaction capabilities throughout Western Europe and the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe. Adler will be located at the London fund management offices of Pramerica Real Estate Investors Ltd. Before joining Prudential, he co-directed Tishman Speyer's European activities and was a member of its global management and investment committees. Earlier, he worked for Morgan Stanley, where he led MSREF¹s activities in Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

Kinecta Federal Credit Union has named Dennis Kuncas vice president, mortgage lending operations. He will be responsible for overseeing all aspects of the Manhattan Beach, Calif., credit union's wholesale and retail mortgage operations, including broker approvals, lock desk, processing, underwriting and funding. Kuncas most recently held the position of branch operations and sales manager at Deutsche Bank/MortgageIT in Irvine.

Valuation Partners, a national appraisal management company, named John Golletti vice president, national account executive, and Dan Kennard vice president, operations. Both Golletti and Kennard join Valuation Partners as veterans of the mortgage industry, with senior management experience from loan origination, processing and operations to appraisal and settlement services product sales among many other responsibilities. Golletti has been hired to broaden the company's sales reach, and will focus his initiatives in the Eastern United States. Kennard has been brought on to utilize his operational expertise to provide better service to the company's customer base.

Ladder Capital Finance Holdings LLC, a New York-based commercial real estate specialty finance company, has appointed Thomas Harney as head of Merchant Banking & Capital Markets to lead Ladder Capital's newly-created Capital Markets/M&A Group. With more than 25 years of experience in real estate and capital markets, including serving as senior managing director and co-head of real estate investment banking at Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., Harney has completed over $70 billion in real estate M&A and capital markets transactions during the span of his career. Harney will be joined by Summer Nemeth, who has been appointed as a director of capital markets for the new Capital Markets/M&A Group. Nemeth worked extensively with Harney at Bear Stearns.

The PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. has promoted Chris Hovey to senior vice president of servicing operations and loss management. In his new role, Hovey is responsible for three groups: claims and loss management; homeownership preservation initiatives and loss mitigation; and policy servicing and business intelligence. He will report to executive vice president, chief business officer, Joanne Berkowitz. Prior to his promotion, Hovey served as vice president of policy servicing and business intelligence. He began his career with PMI in 2002, and has held various positions in portfolio analytics and IT operations for PMI's U.S. mortgage insurance business. Prior to joining PMI, Hovey spent over a decade in the software industry where his experience included founding an eCommerce company, which he sold in 1999.

OneWest Bank CEO Terry Laughlin is leaving the company to join Bank of America where he will be reunited with CEO Brian Moynihan and succeed mortgage executive Jack Schakett. Laughlin announced his resignation from OneWest, Pasadena, Calif., on Monday and will stay with the bank through the end of July. At B of A Laughlin will be in charge of limiting home loan losses and monitoring relations with mortgage investors, said a company spokesman. Schakett, a former Countrywide Financial Corp. executive, plans to pursue entrepreneurial ventures. B of A bought Countrywide, once the nation's largest home lender and servicer, in the summer of 2008. OneWest is the successor to IndyMac Bancorp, which was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2008.

Freddie Mac Tuesday dismissed its executive vice president of operations and technology, Mike Perlman, as part of a company reorganization effort, according to officials close to the matter. Operations and technology is one of the largest departments at the GSE, which has been operating under a government conservatorship for almost 22 months. Freddie Mac had no comment on the matter but an official close to the situation said Joe Rossi, a senior vice president, would assume Perlman's duties. Besides Perlman, a small number of other I/T workers were let go, sources confirmed. In August 2007 the GSE named Perlman EVP of operations and technology. Prior to joining Freddie, he was a managing director at Morgan Stanley where he developed operations and technology infrastructure to support the firm's fixed income division. He also was a managing partner at AT&T Solutions' financial services group.

Braver Stern Securities has hired veteran Wall Street mortgage analyst Scott Buchta as managing director and head of investment strategy. Braver said his hiring "completes the firm's" formation of a newly created mortgage sales team. Prior to joining Braver Stern, Mr. Buchta was a managing director and head of investments at Guggenheim Securities, LLC. Before that he spent 20 years at Bear Stearns, where he served as a senior managing director in the firm's mortgage analytics group.

Financial services attorney Thomas Vartanian and two of his long-time colleagues at Fried Frank LLP, Washington, have joined the law firm of Dechert LLC. Vartanian, who has been handing out regulatory advice for four decades, will chair Dechert's Financial Institutions Transaction Group. Attorneys David Ansell and Robert Ansell also made the jump to Dechert, an international law firm with offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia. "Tom, David and Bob enjoy high-industry profiles, and together they form one of the premier bank regulatory practices in the United States," said Dechert chairman Barton Winokur.

CWCapital, Boston, a national multifamily and healthcare real estate lender, has named David Lundin senior vice president and production manager for its Northeast FHA lending unit. Lundin is a 20 year industry veteran who has underwritten in excess of $500 million of HUD insured loans, the company said. Lundin, who began his career at the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Boston, is an approved underwriter for refinance and construction financing of multifamily properties under the MAP program. CWCapital has closed over $11.5 billion in loans since 2002, and currently services a portfolio of $11.6 billion in loans in 48 states.