Career moves

Louis J. Freeh, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has been elected to the board of directors of Fannie Mae.Mr. Freeh, who will serve on the board's compliance and compensation committees, is president of Freeh Group International LLC, a Delaware-based practice of former federal judges and former senior FBI leaders who provide legal, governance, investigative, litigation, and risk management services. Mr. Freeh served as general counsel, corporate secretary, and ethics officer at MBNA Corp., as well as vice chairman of MBNA America Bank NA from 2001 to 2006, Fannie Mae said. Before serving as director of the FBI from 1993 to 2001, he was the U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York from 1991 to 1993. Fannie Mae can be found online at http://www.fanniemae.com.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has promoted Paul B. Manchester to head up the research division that analyzes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac data for mission compliance.Mr. Manchester previously served as a senior economist at the financial institutions regulation division, which provides analytical support for HUD's regulatory oversight of the two government-sponsored enterprises. This includes research for setting the affordable housing goals and evaluating the GSEs' loan-level data to ensure compliance with the goals. If Congress passes GSE reform legislation, Mr. Manchester's division might be transferred to a new regulatory agency created to supervise Fannie, Freddie, and the Federal Home Loan Banks.

Paula Stretz has been named managing director of eMagic, a subsidiary of Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Co., Milwaukee.Ms. Stretz was most recently national accounts manager of eMagic. She will be responsible for MGIC's eMagic and Myers Internet subsidiaries. MGIC can be found on the Web at http://www.mgic.com.

John U. Sepulveda has been named senior vice president for operations at the National Association of Mortgage Brokers.Mr. Sepulveda, who brings more than 25 years of experience in the housing industry and the federal government, was most recently chief executive officer at the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. He previously held senior-level positions at the Federal Housing Administration and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Mr. Sepulveda also worked as the director of housing and industry relations at Freddie Mac. The NAMB can be found online at http://www.namb.org.

Kent Saari has been named chief operating officer of Capital Markets Cooperative, a provider of expertise and economies of scale in the secondary mortgage market based in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.CMC also named two senior vice presidents: Mike Cook as SVP of national accounts and Tim Hood as SVP and national sales manager. Mr. Saari, who has more than 20 years of mortgage banking experience, specializes in mortgage interest rate risk management, delivery optimization, mortgage pipeline management, and warehouse management, CMC said. He most recently managed capital markets for Waterfield Mortgage. Mr. Cook has held senior positions at Washington Mutual Bank, Tuttle & Co., American Savings Bank, and Fannie Mae, and Mr. Hood has held management posts at ABN AMRO Mortgage Group, FNBA, and General Electric Mortgage Insurance Co. CMC can be found online at http://www.capmkts.org.

Icon Residential Capital LLC, Newport Beach, Calif., has announced the formation of a wholesale mortgage lending division to be headed by Kathleen Lipps as national production manager.Icon said it plans to redefine wholesale lending by concentrating on building long-term relationships with brokers. "These relationships will, in turn, allow brokers to better serve their customers and respond to their individual needs," the company said. Ms. Lipps has over 16 years of experience in mortgage lending, having held senior positions with several national mortgage lenders in nearly every aspect of retail and wholesale loan production, Icon said. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.iconrescap.com.

C.D. Davies has been named chief executive officer of LendingTree LLC, Charlotte, N.C., and Bob Harris has been named president and chief operating officer of the company.Mr. Davies was most recently president and CEO of Wachovia Mortgage Corp., where he was employed for 18 years, according to LendingTree's parent company, IAC. Mr. Harris joined LendingTree in 2000 as vice president of marketing and was named chief marketing officer in 2004. He previously held various positions at The Coca-Cola Co. and McCormick & Co. LendingTree, an online lending exchange, is an operating company of IAC, which describes itself as "an interactive conglomerate." The two companies can be found online at http://www.lendingtree.com and http://www.iac.com.

Mortgage-backed securities researcher Art Frank has left Barclays Capital.A spokeswoman would not provide any additional information about the departure, and Mr. Frank could not be reached for comment. Mr. Frank had been an agency MBS researcher for Nomura Securities International Inc. before joining Barclays.

Mark L. Korell has been named chief marketing officer of Root Markets Inc., which operates a New York-based commodities exchange for trading and monetizing Internet-generated consumer leads.Mr. Korell was most recently a senior managing director at W.J. Bradley Co., a national private equity firm. Before that, he was chairman and an owner of Stonecreek Funding Corp. Previously, he served as president of lender and investment services at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Inc., where he "oversaw the negotiations, purchase, and successful operational integration of Prudential Home Mortgage, a $3 billion acquisition," Root Markets said. Mr. Korell has also served as president and chief executive officer of GMAC Mortgage Group and of Residential Funding Corp. Root Markets can be found online at http://www.rootmarkets.com.

S. Trezevant Moore Jr. has been promoted to the post of chief executive officer of Luminent Mortgage Capital Inc., succeeding Luminent founder Gail P. Seneca, who will remain as chairman.Mr. Moore joined the company in March 2005 as president and chief operating officer and has served as a director since November 2005. Luminent said Mr. Moore has 30 years of experience in the capital markets, with a focus on mortgages. Before joining Luminent, he headed capital markets operations at a major mortgage insurer and ran three mortgage conduit operations at investment banks, Luminent said. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.luminentcapital.com.

The international division of First American Title Insurance Co., Santa Ana, Calif., has established what it says is the first wholly foreign-owned enterprise dealing with real estate guaranty in China.First American has named Jinqiang Shi (Gene Shi) as managing director and president of the new company, First Title (Beijing) Real Estate Guaranty Co., which is a provider of the Chinese version of escrow products and services to banks, real estate professionals, and others. The company said it believes that a Chinese private property law that goes into effect in October, combined with Chinese government policies friendly to foreign enterprises in the financial services sector, will be conducive to the new venture.

After joining the Mortgage Bankers Association and starting the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization over seven years ago, Gabe Minton is stepping down to assume the role of chief strategy officer at Mortgage Cadence, a Denver-based enterprise lending solution company.A source close to the situation confirmed that Harry Gardner will assume Mr. Minton's responsibilities at the MBA and that Dan Szparaga, who runs the commercial portion of MISMO, will now oversee the residential portion as well. Both appointments are interim, but are expected to become permanent. Mr. Minton told MortgageWire that he will miss the MBA and running MISMO, but looks forward to moving on to Mortgage Cadence and continuing to participate in MISMO as a member. "I honestly couldn't think of a better fit for me than Mortgage Cadence," he said. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.mortgagecadence.com.

David L. Adams has been named executive vice president of Pacific Coast National Bank, San Clemente, Calif., and will head its Real Estate Industries Group.The group will offer acquisition, redevelopment, construction, and permanent financing for a variety of property types, the bank said. Mr. Adams was most recently income property group manager at the former Vineyard Bank in Irvine, Calif. Pacific Coast National Bank can be found on the Web at http://www.pacificcoastnationalbank.com.

Arthur Sterbcow, president of New Orleans-based Latter & Blum Realtors Inc., has been elected chairman of the Real Estate Services Providers Council, a Washington, D.C.-based trade association.Other newly elected RESPRO officers are: vice chairman, Ronald Peltier, president and chief executive officer of HomeServices of America Inc., Minneapolis; president, Susan E. Johnson, RESPRO executive director; secretary, Stephen D. Morrison, vice president of Wells Fargo Mortgage Corp., Des Moines, Iowa; and treasurer, George Eastment III, president of Long & Foster Financial Services Inc., Fairfax, Va. The organization can be found on the Web at http://www.respro.org.

All Fund Mortgage, Tacoma, Wash., a net branch operator that has been slow in paying its managers, has named a new national branch director, Fallon Vaughan, a former vice president for Wells Fargo.According to a statement All Fund sent to its branch managers, Mr. Fallon replaces Bryan Hart, who had worked at the company for five years. The statement says Mr. Hart left to pursue an "alternative advantageous opportunity." Mr. Hart and All Fund officials in Tacoma either declined to comment on the change or did not return telephone calls placed by MortgageWire. At least five branch managers -- four of whom did not want to be identified -- said All Fund has been delaying commission checks by several weeks. Typically, it used to pay within 48 hours. (Mr. Hart confirmed the 48-hour payment schedule to MW prior to his departure.) In another recent statement sent to its managers, All Fund admitted that it has been slow in paying commissions "over the past few months" but promised to fix the problem by late April or early May.

Fannie Mae's chief financial officer, Robert Blakely, will leave that post and be replaced by Stephen Swad, the company has announced.Fannie Mae said the transition will happen later this year, and that Mr. Blakely will remain as an executive vice president of the company through the end of 2007. The company, noting that Mr. Blakely has overseen the restatement of Fannie Mae's 2002-2004 earnings and the recent completion of its 2005 financial results, said he will focus on the completion of the company's 2006 10-K filing during the remainder of his tenure. Mr. Swad will lead the company's effort to return to timely financial reporting. Fannie Mae chief executive Daniel Mudd praised Mr. Blakely for overseeing "a large, complex financial restatement." The news of Mr. Blakely's pending departure comes just two days after Eugene McQuade, president and chief operating officer at Freddie Mac, announced his decision to leave Freddie Mac in September.

Freddie Mac president and chief operating officer Eugene McQuade has unexpectedly turned down an offer to be the mortgage company's chief executive, and he plans to relinquish his executive duties Sept. 1.The former Boston commercial banker will continue to serve as a member of the board of directors. The announcement by Freddie Mac is particularly surprising because Mr. McQuade was widely expected to take over the CEO duties from CEO and chairman Richard Syron. Over the past year, Mr. McQuade has led Freddie's effort to repair its accounting systems, and the publicly traded company is expected to return to regular quarterly financial reporting this year. The first quarter 2007 report is scheduled to be released in June. "He's been a great partner for me, and his record here is impressive," Mr. Syron said. Freddie Mac also announced that board member Ronald Poe is retiring and that the board has nominated Nicholas Retsinas, the director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University and a former federal housing commissioner, to be a director.

Michael B. Skalka has been named president of Stewart Title Guaranty Co., the primary underwriter of Houston-based Stewart Information Services Corp.Mr. Skalka will remain as chairman of Stewart's international group, where he has served since 2005. He has 30 years of experience in the title insurance and real estate industries, Stewart said. Mr. Skalka joined Stewart in 1988 as founding president of Stewart Title Insurance Co., founded Stewart's United Kingdom underwriter in the early 1990s, and became STIC's chairman in 1993, the parent company said. Stewart can be found online at http://www.stewart.com.

Matthew W. Morris has been named president of Stewart Professional Solutions, a newly formed support services group for Stewart Title Co. and Stewart Title Guaranty Co.The parent company, Houston-based Stewart Information Services Corp., said current Stewart home-office service centers and their associates form the core of the new group. Stewart Morris Jr., president and co-chief executive officer of the parent company, said the creation of the new unit will enable him and the other co-CEO, Malcolm S. Morris, to "shift much of our energy from support and home-office operational concerns to a major emphasis on our customer base, office profitability, strategy, and the needs of our changing market." Stewart can be found online at http://www.stewart.com.

After running origination vendor Del Mar Database, San Diego, for several years, the company's president, John Walsh, has decided to leave the company.Fiserv Lending Solutions recently acquired Del Mar and kept Mr. Walsh on as president. "Simply, the earn-out on the deal expired," Mr. Walsh told MortgageWire. "It was time for me to cut the umbilical cord. Del Mar is, and will continue to be, a very successful company, I have no doubt. I consider myself an entrepreneur, and it was the right time for me to move on." Mr. Walsh said he has no immediate plans. He told MW that Fiserv is in the process of finding a successor. Del Mar, which specializes in providing technology to small and medium-size lenders, can be found on the Web at http://www.delmardb.com.