Career moves

Trust Title Co., Maitland, Fla., has appointed Chaz Seale as vice chairman, formalizing the role he has held with the firm for the past several months. Mr. Seale has been an outside advisor to Trust Title Co.'s subsidiary TT Lender Solutions, a national construction loan management service provider, and played a role in its transition to loss mitigation and portfolio restructuring. Prior to joining Trust Title, Mr. Seale was senior vice president, mortgage project officer and director of nationwide construction-to-permanent and strategic alliances at Wachovia Mortgage FSB.

NetMore America Inc., a retail and wholesale mortgage banker based in Walla Walla, Wash., has hired Michele Sophia Newsham as its executive vice president, operations. Ms. Newsham brings to this new position over 20 years of national operation management experience within the mortgage industry with a strong focus on process design, efficiency modeling and team building. She will be based at NetMore's operations center in Clackamas, Ore. In her new role, Ms. Newsham is responsible for national operations for wholesale lending and the company's professional branch system. Most recently, she was the vice president, national operations at Senior Lending Network, Melville, N.Y. Before that she was senior vice president, national wholesale operations at American Brokers Conduit, the wholesale unit of American Home Mortgage, Melville. NetMore America funded its first loan in October 2007. Last year, it had volume of $586 million and is expecting to triple that this year. January 2009 mortgage production was over $126 million and for the year, NetMore America is projecting volume of over $1.50 billion.

The Austin, Texas-based Amherst Securities Group L.P., a broker-dealer specializing in residential mortgage-backed securities, said it has hired executives to expand its reach in securitized products. Joining the firm are Andrew Beal, managing director, agency collateralized mortgage obligation trading and Kenneth Dinovo, senior vice president, agency CMO structuring and trading. Also joining the firm are Daniel Farrell, senior managing director, structured products group; and Mark J. Castiglione, managing director, structured products group. Mr. Beal - who will be specializing in secondary and new issue CMOs for Amherst -previously worked at Merrill Lynch for 12 years, where he traded CMOs with a focus on secondary and new issue fixed and derivatives. Mr. Dinovo - who will be responsible for structuring and trading CMOs for Amherst - previously worked at Merrill Lynch in the agency CMO area, where he traded new issues, ran the new issue business and served as head structurer. Mr. Farrell, the former founder of a venture capital firm, and Mr. Castiglione, a former hedge fund manager, will help develop Amherst's non-mortgage asset-backed securities and structured finance business.

Residential Finance Corp., Columbus, Ohio, a nationwide lender specializing in Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgage refinancing, has hired Darren S. Fleishman to fill the newly created position of chief financial officer. In this position, Mr. Fleishman will lead the company's finance and accounting team and oversee all aspects of financial planning and strategic growth for the home mortgage lender. Most recently, he led the consulting group, Stein Fleishman, and earlier served as first vice president of corporate development at ABN AMRO/LaSalle Bank. Mr. Fleishman also served as a senior level consultant at The Cambridge Group and Gemini Consulting/The MAC Group.

Tim Wilson is the new president of affiliated businesses for The Long & Foster Cos., Chantilly, Va. In this position, he oversees Long & Foster Real Estate Inc., Prosperity Mortgage Co., Long & Foster Insurance Agency Inc., and Long & Foster Settlement Services. Mr. Wilson replaces Dave Stevens, who was recently promoted to president at The Long & Foster Cos. Most recently, Mr. Wilson was executive vice president and director of wholesale lending at Wachovia Bank, Charlotte, N.C. and before that, group senior vice president and national loan manager for World Savings & Loan, Oakland, Calif.

Apartment Investment and Management Co., Denver has promoted Tim Beaudin to president and chief operating officer and David Robertson to president and chief investment officer. Mr. Beaudin will continue to be responsible for property operations, redevelopment, construction services and information technology. Mr. Robertson also will become chief financial officer effective March 1, 2009, replacing Tom Herzog, who is resigning effective that date. Mr. Herzog will continue in an advisory capacity to Aimco following his departure. The timing of the CFO change is to accommodate the filing of the firm's 10-K form. The moves are being made as part of a management consolidation at the real estate investment trust brought on by the company's reduced scale and scope of activities.

Echo Loans, Foothill Ranch, Calif., announced today that Paul Rodriguez has been promoted to president of the company. The company's primary business focus is on the restructuring of unsustainable home loans through an 11-step loss mitigation process. Mr. Rodriguez's responsibilities will be all facets of the company's operations including production, development of products and services, recruitment and staffing. Mr. Rodriguez said "These are very challenging times for homeowners and lenders and we think we can play a key role in assisting consumers in keeping their homes and at the same time assist the lender in maintaining a return on their investment." His most recent positions were as executive vice president of Sage Credit Co., managing director of Quick Loan Funding Inc. and chief executive of Wall St. Funding Inc.

Gabe Minton, the former Mortgage Bankers Association vice president of industry technology and most recently chief operating officer at LOS vendor Mortgage Cadence, has joined Motivity Solutions Inc., a provider of optimization and risk mitigation software for the mortgage industry, as its chief strategy officer. In his new position, Mr. Minton is responsible for the overall strategic sales marketing and licensing of Motivity's products, third party alliances and strategic initiatives. Together with the engineering team, he will assist in further strengthening and expanding the foundation of their products and services. Also, in working closely with Motivity chief executive Tyler Sherman, Mr. Minton will create the architecture for smart imaging, e-mortgages, increased data integrity, and security to strengthen the positioning of Motivity's technology.

Millard Fuller, who co-founded affordable housing concern Habitat for Humanity International but split from the organization in 2005, died Feb. 3 after a brief illness. Mr. Fuller, 74, founded the Americus, Georgia-based Habitat in 1976 with his wife, Linda. When he left Habitat he started the Fuller Center for Housing, which also is based in Americus.

The co-chief executive officer of New York Mortgage Trust Inc., David A. Akre, has resigned from the company, effective immediately. Steven R. Mumma, who had been co-CEO, president and chief financial officer, is now the company's sole CEO, while retaining his other positions. Mr. Akre was one of the founders of NYMT and held the co-CEO position from when the company went public in 2004. Until the first quarter of 2007, NYMT had been a wholesale and retail mortgage lender. Now the company is a real estate investment trust that invests in mortgage-backed securities and adjustable-rate mortgages.

Jim Miller, a former managing director at J.P. Morgan Chase, has joined First American Information and Outsourcing Solutions as managing director of operations for the company's outsourcing and technology business lines. In his new role, Mr. Miller will be responsible for the unit's seven businesses, which include national default outsourcing, national claims outsourcing, loss mitigation services, loan production solutions, real estate owned servicing, default technologies and global offshore services. Mr. Miller has nearly 25 years of experience in prime, nonprime, and home equity servicing. He managed J.P. Morgan Chase's default servicing operations for the past three years.

BTIG LLC, a New York institutional broker dealer specializing in equity trading and related brokerage services, is launching a fixed income group led by former UBS and Citigroup executives, as well as a new team to expand into mortgage- and asset-backed securities trading. The company said it has hired Jon Bass and John Purcell as co-heads of global fixed income. Mr. Bass most recently was head of fixed income client management at UBS Investment Bank and Mr. Purcell most recently was head of global fixed income syndicates and North America capital markets at Citigroup.

MountainView Capital Holdings, Denver, has formed a new unit to provide mortgage servicing rights hedge advisory services. MountainView has hired industry veteran Gregory Harris as president of MountainView Risk Advisors to lead the risk management and hedge advisory company. Mr. Harris has over 19 years of experience in hedging the risks associated with MSR, most recently as manager of the MSR hedge program on the $500 billion plus portfolio at Washington Mutual. MountainView said its 19-year history in the brokerage and third party evaluation servicers for the MSR industry make the company well qualified to add hedge advisory services.

The former executive vice president and chief financial officer at Freddie Mac, Anthony "Buddy" Piszel, has been named as chief financial officer and treasurer at the First American Corp., Santa Ana, Calif. Mr. Piszel was with Freddie Mac starting in November 2006 and left the company following its being placed into conservatorship in September 2008. Before joining Freddie Mac, he was the chief financial officer for Health Net Inc., and before that he held a number of senior financial positions at Prudential Financial Inc., with his final job being senior vice president and corporate controller from 1998 to 2004. At First American, Mr. Piszel will oversee the financial reporting group, capital markets activities and investor relations.

Broadpoint DESCAP, the mortgage-backed security/asset-backed security trading division of Broadpoint Capital Inc., New York, has launched a new repurchase desk and expanded its structured products group. The repurchase desk will be headed by Joanmarie Pusateri, a former Bear Stearns managing director. Before joining Broadpoint, Ms. Pusateri worked for 22 years building her career at Bear Stearns with an emphasis on fixed-income trade settlements. In 2003, Ms. Pusateri joined Bear Stearns Asset Management where she was a managing director responsible for creating and managing a multibillion-dollar repurchase book for three fixed-income/structured product hedge funds. Broadpoint Capital is the broker-dealer subsidiary of Broadpoint Securities Group Inc.

Richard D. Parsons, known most recently as being the chief executive of Time Warner, is returning to a high level post in the banking industry, becoming the chairman of Citigroup, effective Feb. 23. He is currently the lead director of Citigroup's board. In 1988, during a tumultuous time in the thrift industry, Mr. Parsons joined Dime Savings Bank of New York, first as chief operating officer, than as chairman and chief executive, a role he held until 1995. That year he became president of Time Warner. Dime was acquired by Washington Mutual in 2002; Washington Mutual was taken over by government regulators late last year and is now part of JPMorgan Chase. Mr. Parsons replaces Sir Win Bischoff, who briefly served as acting chief executive of Citigroup before becoming chairman in December 2007. Citigroup chief executive Vikram Pandit cited Mr. Parsons' ability to turn around Dime and Time Warner as being key to help Citigroup execute its plan to split into two companies.

Brookfield Properties Corp., New York, has made a series of promotions and additions to its executive management team. Steve Douglas has been named president of Brookfield Properties Corp. He was most recently senior managing partner at an affiliated company, Brookfield Asset Management, focused on that company's operations and international property portfolio. Dennis Friedrich has been named president and chief executive of U.S. Commercial Operations. Mr. Friedrich was formerly president and chief operating officer of U.S. Commercial Operations. Paul Schulman has assumed the post of COO of U.S. Commercial Operations. He was formerly senior vice president and head of the company's Washington region. Tom Farley has been named president and chief executive of the Canadian Commercial Operations, where he was formerly president and COO. The new COO of Canadian Commercial Operations is Jan Sucharda. Brookfield Properties CEO Ric Clark has taken on the added responsibility of overseeing Brookfield Asset Management's global real estate activities with the title of senior managing partner and CEO.

First Industrial Realty Trust Inc., Chicago, has hired Bruce W. Duncan as president and chief executive. He presently serves as chairman of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., a position he has held since 2005. Mr. Duncan also served as Starwood's interim chief executive from April to September 2007. From 2002 through 2005, he was president and CEO of Equity Residential, the largest publicly traded apartment REIT. In a related move W. Ed Tyler, who has served as the company's interim chief executive since October 2008, has been appointed the new non-executive chairman of its board. Jay H. Shidler has resigned as chairman, but will continue to serve as a member of the board and the chairman of the investment committee.

Now that bankrupt LandAmerica Financial Group Inc., Richmond, Va., has disposed of its title underwriting units, its chairman and chief executive, Theodore L. Chandler Jr., will leave the company on Jan. 15. The company said he leaves on good terms. The title units were 85% of LandAmerica's revenues. LandAmerica is now focusing on disposing of its remaining businesses. To handle that task, the chief restructuring officer, Jonathan Mitchell, will lead the company. Melissa Hill, most recently president of LandAmerica's residential services channel, has been promoted to executive vice president of operations.

Jonathan L. Kempner, who was president and chief executive of the Mortgage Bankers Association until the end of last year, has accepted a position as an independent director of Behringer Harvard Multifamily REIT I Inc. Before joining MBA in 2001, he spent 14 years as president of the National Multi Housing Council. Said Robert S. Aisner, chief executive of Behringer Harvard, "Jonathan brings to this role more than two decades of experience encompassing all facets of the commercial real estate industry. He's developed extensive expertise in both the multifamily property sector and commercial lending, as well as deep relationships with leaders in both industries."