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The Williams Capital Group LP has added a new structured finance unit to serve corporate, federal, state and local government clients and hired an executive who had held several key leadership positions within Lehman Brothers' mortgage and securitization businesses to head it.

Cohen Financial, Chicago, a national real estate capital services firm, promoted Vincent Beckett to chief financial officer from vice president.

First Guaranty Mortgage Corp., McLean, Va., named Lyle Lasky to serve as AVP, national underwriting and credit compliance manager.

I watched the State of the Union speech Tuesday and came away thinking no real "mortgage" surprises tonight except for two: Obama not using the word "mortgage broker" once, and the formation of the DOJ fraud task force on securitizing loans. But what about the "The State of the Mortgage Union"?

Plaza Home Mortgage Inc., San Diego, said that Salpi Meyer has joined the company as sales manager for the correspondent lending division.

PHH Corp., which saw its CEO depart a few weeks ago, late Thursday named Charles Pizzi, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, to its board.

Mark Calvert has joined San Ramon, Calif.-based Mason-McDuffie Mortgage Corp. to continue its national expansion into the Midwest and the East.

Citigroup recently told its mortgage correspondents that going forward it will only buy "low risk" loans. What's a low risk loan, you ask? Answer: any mortgage that has an almost zero chance of going south.

Former Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd, who was named last month in a mortgage-related SEC fraud suit, has officially resigned from publicly traded investment manager Fortress Investment Group and its board, ending a leave of absence.

Allonhill, an independent third-party review firm specializing in mortgage due diligence and credit risk management, hired Bill Cushard as director of training and development.