Career moves

The Freddie Mac Foundation has elected Ralph F. Boyd Jr. as its new chairman. Mr. Boyd replaces Freddie Mac chairman and chief executive officer Richard F. Syron, who the government-sponsored enterprise said stepped down from the foundation post "to focus more attention on key legislative and business issues facing the company."In addition to serving as foundation chairman, Mr. Boyd also will continue to serve as a Freddie Mac senior corporate officer in the role of executive vice president of community relations. Mr. Syron will continue to serve on the foundation's board. Freddie Mac can be found on the Web at http://www.freddiemac.com.

Rosario Buendia has been named global practice leader for asset-backed securities, mortgage-backed securities, and new assets in the Structured Finance Group of Standard & Poor's Ratings Services.Ms. Buendia, an attorney, replaces Patrice M. Jordan, who has been named global practice leader for S&P's CDO Group, the rating agency said. Before joining S&P in 1997, Ms. Buendia worked in the International Structured Finance Department of Duff & Phelps Credit Rating Co. and for the New York-based investment banking unit of the Swiss Bank Corp. S&P can be found online at http://www.standardandpoors.com.

Ernest "Lee" Puschaver has been named chief financial officer of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta, and W. Wesley McMullan has been promoted to executive vice president and director of the bank's Financial Management Division.In addition, Praveen Jha has been hired as senior vice president and director of member sales and trading at the bank. The FHLBank said the actions are aimed at strengthening its risk management and customer service and preparing it for Securities and Exchange Commission registration. Mr. Puschaver replaces Gary Glass, who retired as CFO in November after serving the bank for 30 years in a variety of roles, the FHLBank said. Mr. Puschaver was director of finance and chief accounting officer of FleetBoston Financial Corp. from 2000 through 2004. Mr. McMullan was formerly the FHLBank's senior vice president of member sales and trading. The FHLBank of Atlanta can be found online at http://www.fhlbatl.com.

Norman Rice will retire as president and chief executive of the Seattle Federal Home Loan Bank after the bank submits a three-year capital and business plan to its regulator.The Seattle bank, which operating under a supervisory agreement, announced that its president will step down on March 15. Mr. Rice was the mayor of Seattle before joining the Seattle Bank six years ago. Until an interim CEO is named, executive vice president David Bley will lead the bank's management team. The Seattle Bank developed the Mortgage Purchase Program during Mr. Rice's tenure, but the bank has seen its profits shrink. The FHLBank entered into a supervisory agreement with the Federal Housing Finance Board on Dec. 10. The bank is "on track" to submit its capital and business plan to the Finance Board by Feb. 28, Mr. Daly said.

T. J. Vanderpoel has been promoted to chief technology officer of Rapid Reporting Verification Co., a Fort Worth, Texas-based provider of prefunding income and identity verification services to the mortgage industry.Mr. Vanderpoel, who was previously senior network administrator for the company, has aided in the development of its core offerings, IncomeChek and DirectChek, which are designed to deter fraud by verifying information directly through the databases of the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service, Rapid Reporting said. The company said Mr. Vanderpoel is one of a select group of IT professionals who hold two certificates from The SANS (SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security) Institute, a provider of information security training and certification. The announcement of the promotion was made at the Thomson Media Mortgage Technology Conference in Miami.

The heads of single-family mortgage business and investor relations at Fannie Mae are retiring and leaving the troubled company, effective Jan. 31.The company said Louis Hoyes, executive vice president for single-family, and Jayne Shontell, senior vice president for investor relations, are taking "planned retirements." Mr. Hoyes has worked at Fannie Mae since 1995. Thomas Lund, who is chief acquisition officer of Fannie's credit guarantee business, will be interim head of the single-family business. Ms. Shontell joined Fannie Mae in 1982. Vice president Mary Lou Christy will succeed her as head of investor relations. In related news, Fannie Mae has hired former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Richard Breeden to serve as strategic counsel to advise the company on its restatement of earnings and re-audit. Fannie Mae can be found online at http://www.fanniemae.com.

Douglas S. Ashe has been named chief executive officer of AssetLink LP, a real-estate-owned/asset management company, and executive vice president of business development and strategic planning for ServiceLink, AssetLink's parent company.ServiceLink is a centralized loan closing management company headquartered in Aliquippa, Pa. AssetLink said Mr. Ashe is a nationally recognized authority in the REO industry who has been president of Clayton National Inc., a third-party special servicer, and of Prudential Asset Recovery, a third-party residential REO management company. He will report to ServiceLink CEO Jeff Coury, and Ken Westfall will remain president of AssetLink. "ServiceLink redefined the settlement services industry in a very short period of time, and AssetLink has set out to do the same in the REO business," Mr. Ashe said. AssetLink can be found online at http://www.assetlinklp.com.

First American Real Estate Information Services has announced that Vicki Chenault has been named president of First American Flood Data Services, taking over from Robert Douglass, who will continue as chief financial officer of First American's Mortgage Information Services Group.Ms. Chenault joined First American Flood Data Services in January 1997 as vice president of compliance and was promoted to senior vice president of operations in 1998. Her previous nine years were spent in mortgage servicing with Lomas Mortgage USA. Mr. Douglass has been involved with Flood Data Services since before it was acquired by First American in 1995, and he was named president of the company in 2000, First American said. The First American Corp., the parent company of First American Real Estate Information Services, can be found online at http://www.firstam.com.

Pablo Sanchez has been promoted to managing director of retail lending at CitiMortgage, St. Louis.Mr. Sanchez, who joined CitiMortgage in 1999, was most recently national director of Citibank Lending. His tenure at the company has included director roles in human resources, Primerica Financial Services Lending, and vendor/operations management. CitiMortgage also announced the recent hiring of Mike Hennessey as senior vice president of human resources. Mr. Hennessey spent the last seven years in human resources at Monsanto.

Deloitte & Touche, New York, has hired investment banking veteran Brenda White to head its consumer and financial services department.Ms. White joins the accounting firm from B. B. White & Co., an advisory boutique that she launched a few years ago. During her career on Wall Street she has been a managing director at UBS and Salomon Brothers, working on several large mortgage banking-related acquisitions. She will split her time between D&T's New York and northern New Jersey offices. A few weeks ago, Fannie Mae, which is mired in an accounting scandal, hired D&T as its independent auditor. The firm also has been working for the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, conducting a special forensic investigation of the troubled government-sponsored enterprise.

The board of trustees of Glimcher Realty Trust, Columbus, Ohio, has elected Michael P. Glimcher the new chief executive officer of the company.Mr. Glimcher, 37, joined the company in 1991 and was appointed president in 1999, a title he will maintain. He has served as a member of the board since 1997. Herbert Glimcher, the founder of the company, will continue as chairman of the board. Glimcher Realty, a real estate investment trust, can be found on the Web at http://www.glimcher.com.

Robin Grieves has been named to head Freddie Mac's Market Risk Oversight department.Mr. Grieves will be responsible for, among other things, measuring interest rate risk; creating risk management reporting and management controls; and monitoring compliance with internal risk management policies and procedures. He taught portfolio management and financial engineering to graduate students at Thunderbird, The Garvin School of International Management in Arizona. Mr. Grieves was also director of fixed-income research and government bond strategist at HSBC Securities and vice president for government bond strategies at Salomon Brothers. He also worked previously at Freddie Mac, from 1987 to 1992, as a director in the company's financial research department. Freddie Mac can be found online at http://www.freddiemac.com.

Tom Frunzi has been named executive vice president for sales and marketing at ValuAmerica, a Pittsburgh-based provider of title and settlement services delivery and mortgage supply chain systems.For the past two years, Mr. Frunzi has been an independent marketing consultant to leading mortgage, technology, and insurance companies, ValuAmerica said. For nearly 20 years before that, he was a senior executive at Lenders Service Inc., an appraisal management and title company.

The First American Corp., Dallas, has promoted Chris Leavell to the position of chief operating officer for the company's Mortgage Information Services Group, and Anthony Merlo will become the new president of eAppraiseIT, taking the post vacated by Mr. Leavell.Mr. Leavell will now assume responsibility for MISG's enterprise initiatives, international expansion, and product bundling programs. In addition, he will have direct operating responsibility for various MISG companies. Mr. Merlo will now oversee eAppraiseIT's continued growth in the property valuation market. He joined eAppraiseIT in July 2000 as a vice president of sales for the Eastern Region.

Thomas Wind and Scott Powell have been promoted to the positions of co-chief executive officers of JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s home finance business.Mr. Wind, who has been head of capital markets at Chase Home Finance, now has responsibility for the company's prime mortgage business. Before joining the company last year, he was chief financial officer at Nexstar Financial, and he was previously CFO and then president of CitiMortgage. Mr. Powell, who has held the post of chief credit officer for Chase's consumer businesses, is now responsible for home equity and subprime mortgage loans and community development. He joined Bank One in 2002 as chief risk officer for consumer businesses, became president of retail lending in 2003, and then became chief risk officer for JPMorgan Chase's consumer businesses last year after the merger of Bank One and JPMorgan Chase. In addition, the company announced that Thomas Garvey has been named vice chairman of Chase Home Finance. Mr. Garvey, who has been an executive vice president, will focus on prime mortgage production. The parent company can be found online at http://www.jpmorganchase.com.

Guy M. Cheramie has been named chief financial officer of New Orleans-based Sizeler Property Investors Inc., replacing Charles E. Miller Jr., who has resigned.Mr. Miller "intends to pursue other business opportunities," the company said. Mr. Cheramie, 58, has served as CFO of Sizeler Real Estate Management Co., a Sizeler subsidiary, for the past 10 years. The parent company can be found on the Web at http://www.sizeler.net.

DeepGreen Financial, a Cleveland-based home equity lender and business process outsourcer, has announced the hiring of well-known industry veteran Saiyid (Sy) T. Naqvi as chief executive officer.The appointment was announced following the departure of Jerome J. Selitto. Mr. Naqvi, the former president and chief executive officer of PNC Mortgage Corp., was most recently president and CEO of Setara Corp., a consulting firm specializing in business process outsourcing for financial services companies. Before his tenure at PNC, Mr. Naqvi was president and CEO of Sears Mortgage Securities Corp., and before that he was the vice president of secondary marketing at Citicorp Homeowners Inc. (now Citibank Mortgage). DeepGreen can be found online at http://www.deepgreenfinancial.com.

Rob Cone has been hired as managing partner of the reputation risk practice in the mortgage origination and servicing areas for Imag, a New York-based consulting firm.Mr. Cone has 24 years of experience in the international capital markets as a trader, salesman, and manager of risk products and people, according to Imag, which provides practical advice on reputation risk issues in the financial services industry. Mr. Cone is a former president of National Australia Capital Markets. "The mortgage industry has been tarnished by recent predatory lending and financial accounting scandals and is in dire need of the reputation risk tools and solutions that Imag provides," said Imag president Gary Peterson. The company can be found online at http://www.imagny.com.

Chito Schnupp has been named senior vice president for capital markets at ComUnity Lending, a mortgage company based in Morgan Hill, Calif.The company said her responsibilities will cover all secondary marketing operations, including pricing, trading, hedging, product development, and managing investor and warehouse relationships. Ms. Schnupp has been employed by numerous lenders over the past two decades, including Olympia Funding, Medallion Mortgage/AccuBank, First Franklin/National City Mortgage, Wells Fargo, and Capitol Commerce Mortgage Corp., the company said. ComUnity Lending can be found online at http://www.comunitylending.com.

James P. Witkins has been named senior vice president for technology and chief information officer at Freddie Mac, replacing William I. Ledman, who is retiring on April 1.Mr. Witkins was most recently managing director for technology and operations at Fleet Boston Financial. He previously held positions with Barclays Bank PLC, Manufacturers Hanover Trust, and Chemical Bank. Mr. Ledman has been senior vice president of information and systems and services at Freddie Mac since January 1995. "Bill expressed an interest in retiring two years ago, but agreed to stay on to help the company meet the challenges it was facing," said Eugene M. McQuade, Freddie Mac's president and chief operating officer.