Career moves

Jeffrey R. Johnson has been named president and chief executive officer of Franklin Credit Management Corp., a New York-based company that buys, manages, and sells subprime residential mortgage assets.Mr. Johnson was previously the founding president and chief executive officer of GMAC Bank, a subsidiary of General Motors Corp. He was also president and CEO of Equifax Secure, a subsidiary of the credit and financial information provider Equifax. Franklin Credit can be found on the Web at http://www.franklincredit.com.

Jeff Hoerster has been named president and chief operating officer of AllRegs, an Eagan, Minn.-based online publisher of reference information for the mortgage industry.The company said Mr. Hoerster has more than 20 years' industry experience, including 11 at Columbia National in Columbia, Md., where he left as senior vice president for operations, and nine years at Multi-Mortgage Services in Manasquan, N.J., where he was a part owner. AllRegs' products and services are used by over 90% of the top 100 lenders and in "numerous" governmental agencies, according to the company. It is the exclusive electronic publisher of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's Single and Multi-Family Seller/Servicer Guides and the Federal Home Loan Banks' MPF Program Guidelines.

Charles Roberts, the London-based special counsel of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP's, has been appointed chairman of the international committee of the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association.Mr. Roberts' role in this position will be to "create a forum for issuers, service providers, and investors in the rapidly growing internationally-based commercial mortgage-backed securities industry throughout Europe, Canada and Japan," Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft reported. The firm can be found on the Web at http://www.cwt.com.

William C. Apgar, former commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration, has been named to the advisory board of AMCO, a Cleveland-based appraisal management company.Mr. Apgar is currently senior scholar at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. "For many years, there were simply no good methods to create accurate and compliant lending while still maintaining profitability and savings for the public," Mr. Apgar said. He decided to join AMCO's advisory board "to facilitate the development and distribution of products and services that create absolute compliance, accuracy, and profitability," he said. AMCO recently announced the appointment to the advisory board of Andrew M. Cuomo, a former secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Leslie M. Muma, president and chief executive officer of Fiserv Inc., Brookfield, Wis., has announced that he plans to retire in June 2006."I believe that with this announcement -- tied to the creation of a Succession Committee of the Board -- we have taken a path to effect a smooth transition to new leadership over the next 20 months," Mr. Muma said. Mr. Muma also announced that Norm Balthasar, Fiserv's senior executive vice president and chief operating officer, has asked the board to remove his name from consideration for the CEO position. Mr. Balthasar noted his plans for retiring in 2008 and said he believes the corporation should look for a candidate with a longer time horizon. Fiserv provides data processing and information management systems to banks, mortgage lenders, and other financial institutions. It can be found online at http://www.fiserv.com.

Ron Kessinger, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Triad Guaranty Inc., Winston-Salem, N.C., has been promoted to the newly created post of senior executive vice president and chief operating officer.The company, the parent of mortgage insurer Triad Guaranty Insurance Corp., said it has begun a search to fill the CFO position. Mr. Kessinger will continue as CFO until a replacement is hired. Triad can be found on the Web at http://www.triadguaranty.com.

Gene Kilgore has been named executive vice president of structured securitization at Arbor Realty Trust Inc., Uniondale, N.Y.Mr. Kilgore will be responsible for overseeing Arbor's collateralized debt obligation initiatives, the real estate investment trust said. Before joining the multifamily and commercial REIT, Mr. Kilgore was a portfolio manager for ZAIS Group LLC, a structured finance investment adviser. Arbor can be found online at http://www.thearbornet.com.

H. Lynn Ryan has been named senior vice president and chief information officer of the loan origination units of NovaStar Financial Inc., Kansas City, Mo.Ms. Ryan was formerly executive vice president and CIO of Ameriquest Mortgage Co. and held other CIO positions with financial services companies prior to that, NovaStar said. NovaStar, a residential mortgage lender, can be found on the Web at http://www.novastarmortgage.com.

Daniel B. Deaton has been promoted to the newly created position of executive vice president for national retail production at CTX Mortgage Co., a Dallas-based subsidiary of Centex Corp.Mr. Deaton, who has been regional executive vice president for CTX's Southeast Region since joining the company in 1997, will lead CTX's nationwide retail branch network, consisting of about 140 offices, the company said. CTX also announced the hiring of John F. Karaszewski to succeed Mr. Deaton in heading the Southeast Region.

Select Portfolio Servicing Inc., Salt Lake City, has promoted its current president Matt Hollingsworth to be chief executive, replacing James Ozanne, who will remain chairman of the subprime servicing company formerly known as Fairbanks Capital Corp.Mr. Ozanne took over the management of Fairbanks in 2003 to clean up the company in the wake of investigations regarding its servicing practices. Mr. Hollingsworth joined Fairbanks in late 2002. He was previously in charge of U.S. branch operations for Associates First Capital Corp., a subprime lender that was acquired by Citigroup in 2000. Separately, Financial Security Assurance Inc. announced that Mr. Ozanne is rejoining its board of directors. FSA has a minority investment in SPS. Fairbanks changed its name to Select Portfolio Servicing on July 1.

Comptroller of the Currency John Hawke Jr. has decided to step down as the chief supervisor of national banks on Oct. 13 when his five-year term ends."I am pleased to report as I take my leave that the [national banking] system is strong and the national bank charter is strong and vibrant," the comptroller says in a letter to President Bush. Deputy Comptroller Julie Williams is expected to serve as acting comptroller until the Senate confirms Mr. Hawke's successor.

Carolyn Poppe has been appointed first vice president and national subprime operations manager at IndyMac Bancorp Inc., Pasadena, Calif.She will lead all operations initiatives, manage the subprime customer account and underwriting managers, and implement policies and procedures for the group, IndyMac said. Ms. Poppe was most recently first vice president and corporate operations manager at Long Beach Mortgage. She has also held senior management positions at J.P. Morgan Chase, Norwest Mortgage/Wells Fargo Bank, and Sutter Mortgage Corp.

LoanPerformance Inc. has hired Federal Reserve Board senior economist Paul S. Calem, whose research on mortgage credit risk has guided the Fed in developing new risk-based capital standards for the largest U.S. banks under the proposed Basel Capital Accord.Dr. Calem will be vice president for product development at LoanPerformance, a mortgage data and research firm based in San Francisco. He worked in the Fed's division of research and statistics for 10 years. Before his Basel-related work, Dr. Calem was co-developer of the Fed's statistical analysis procedures for fair-lending examinations.

Freddie Mac is losing its treasurer, Louise Herrle, to General Motors Acceptance Corp., which is in the throes of forming a new holding company for its mortgage division.Ms. Herrle is expected to play a key role in the new holding company -- which does not yet have a name -- tapping the capital markets. Her title at the GMAC holding company will be managing director, corporate finance group/treasurer. Her last day at Freddie Mac is Sept. 15. (See the Sept. 13 issue of National Mortgage News for more information on GMAC's plans for the holding company.) Freddie Mac can be found on the Web at http://www.freddiemac.com.

Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's largest residential lender, has named former San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank president Robert T. Parry to its board.Mr. Parry, who served as president and chief executive officer of the San Francisco Fed for 18 years, was also a member of the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets the target for the overnight federal funds rate. Meanwhile, Countrywide's stock split two-for-one before the market opened on Tuesday.

David Bowers has been named director of the Washington, D.C., office of The Enterprise Foundation, which promotes affordable housing for low-income families.Mr. Bowers was most recently employed by the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, where he was responsible for a single-family mortgage program in Washington and New York City. He was previously a financial and program adviser for the Treasury Department's Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. The Enterprise Foundation can be found on the Web at http://www.enterprisefoundation.org.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago has named investment banker Mike Thomas as its new president and chief executive officer.He replaces Mortgage Partnership Finance program founder Alex Pollock, who retired this past summer. For almost 21 years Mr. Thomas, 53, worked for First Chicago Corp., a money center bank. When he left First Chicago in 1994 he was chief financial officer. He joined investment banker Lazard Freres & Co. in 1995 as a managing director. (Early in his career, Fannie Mae chairman Franklin Raines also worked at Lazard.) Since 2001 Mr. Thomas has been a consultant. The Secura Group aided the FHLBank in its search. The MPF program competes directly against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Mortgage banking veteran Richard F. Sommer has been named chief executive officer of HomeGain Inc., an Emeryville, Calif.-based provider of customized services to online buyers and sellers of homes.Mr. Sommer was previously senior vice president of business development for the mortgage banking unit of IndyMac Bank Inc. and president of international real estate operations for HomeStore Inc., the parent of Homestore.com. HomeGain, a privately held company, can be found online at http://www.homegain.com.

Michael D. Youngblood has been named chief of asset-backed securities research at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Arlington, Va.Dr. Youngblood was most recently head of mortgage research at GMAC-Residential Funding Corp. "He is widely respected for developing the first mortgage-backed securities conduit, the first option-adjusted spread analytics, and the first total-rate-of-return index for commercial MBS," said Martin S. Friedman, FBR's director of research. The company can be found online at http://www.fbr.com.

Countrywide Home Loans Inc., Calabasas, Calif., has announced three new appointments in the company's Consumer Markets Division.Dan Hanson, an executive vice president at Countrywide, has been named managing director of distributed retail, while senior vice president James Hecht has been promoted to EVP of national operations, and senior vice president and regional manager Mike Querrey has been named SVP of sales development. A 26-year real estate veteran, Mr. Hanson will be responsible for managing the production for Countrywide's distributed retail divisions, overseeing the company's network of 600 sales offices nationwide, Countrywide said. Mr. Hecht will serve as the Consumer Markets Division's primary liaison to the chief operating officer and oversee operations-related policy and procedures. Mr. Querrey will be responsible for increasing purchase market share and for recruiting sales resources in each of the CMD's business units. Countrywide can be found online at http://www.countrywide.com.