People

John Vella, executive vice president of portfolio servicing strategies for Residential Capital Corp., has resigned from the company, effective immediately, and is on the verge of taking a job with Fannie Mae, industry officials told National Mortgage News. At press time, Fannie Mae had not commented on the matter. According to a memo from GMAC mortgage chairman Tom Marano, Vella's duties will be given over to chief servicing officer Joe Pensabene. Vella joined the nation's sixth largest residential servicer in the fall of 2008. In his memo Marano said, "John provided leadership for our mortgage employees in Dallas, Carlsbad and Costa Mesa during a time of considerable change as we sought to reduce costs, and restructure and refocus our operations." Last month, NMN reported on the departure of about eight servicing managers at ResCap.

John Vella, executive vice president of portfolio servicing strategies for Residential Capital Corp., has resigned from the company, effective immediately, according to a memo provided to National Mortgage News. At press time, the GMAC-owned ResCap could not be reached for comment. According to a memo from GMAC mortgage chairman Tom Marano, Vella's duties will be given over to chief servicing officer Joe Pensabene. Vella joined the nation's sixth largest residential servicer in the fall of 2008. In his memo Marano said, "John provided leadership for our mortgage employees in Dallas, Carlsbad and Costa Mesa during a time of considerable change as we sought to reduce costs, and restructure and refocus our operations." Last month, NMN reported on the departure of about eight servicing managers at ResCap.

Meridian Capital Group LLC, one of the nation's largest commercial real estate mortgage brokerage firms, has hired industry veteran Marty Lanigan as senior managing director of origination and strategic initiatives. Among his duties, Lanigan will be responsible for overseeing the firm's origination efforts nationally. He will report to company president and CEO Ralph Herzka. During his career Lanigan has worked at Prudential Mortgage Capital Co., and GMAC Commercial Mortgage, among other firms. In 2001, he founded Mezz Cap, which eventually grew into a mid-market commercial mezzanine lender. The New York-based Meridian was founded by Herzka in 1991. To date it has placed more than $100 billion in commercial real estate debt.

Zions Bancorp, a top-ranked residential lender in Utah, named Kenneth Peterson executive vice president and chief credit officer, effective May 1. Peterson replaces Gerald Dent, who is retiring after 33 years with the company. Mr. Peterson joins Zions from Wells Fargo & Co. where he served as a chief credit officer for corporate credit and risk.

Reverse Mortgage Solutions Inc. promoted chief operating officer Marc Helm to president. Helm, a founding partner of the Spring, Texas-based firm, replaces Ken Austin, who is leaving the company to pursue personal interests, a company statement said. Helm joined RMS after a career of 30 years in the mortgage-servicing sector. He is a former senior officer at Washington Mutual, where he was responsible for helping WaMu integrate all loan servicing acquisitions into its system. In addition, RMS hired Michael Clendennen as chief financial officer and Michael Kent as senior vice president of portfolio retention. Clendennen has served the past eight years as vice president and controller at Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corp., Houston. Kent has over 28 years of experience with regional and national lending institutions, including several senior management and executive positions. For the past eight years, he has owned and operated mortgage and real estate sales companies in Los Gatos, Calif.

Radian Guaranty Inc., the mortgage insurance subsidiary of Radian Group Inc. has appointed Brian Frame to the be director, strategic segment manager. In his new role, Frame will be responsible for expanding Radian's relationships with credit unions across the United States by working with the company's national field sales team to promote Radian products and programs. He will also represent Radian at state credit union league meetings and other credit union conferences. In addition, Frame will participate on the ACUMA Membership Committee and interface with a variety of loan origination system providers to expand Radian's connectivity within the electronic mediums that credit unions work with each day. Prior to his new appointment, Frame served as a senior account manager with Radian, responsible for client accounts throughout the state of Wisconsin. He has been actively involved with the mortgage banking and insurance industries for the past 25 years.

HOPE LoanPort, the new counselor Web-based tool that streamlines submission of completed loan modification applications, including those used for the Home Affordable Modification Program, has named six people to serve on its board of directors. The organization also named its CEO. There are plans to expand the Board in the near future to reflect the diversity of the organizations involved with this web portal initiative. Larry Gilmore, currently the deputy director of the HOPE NOW Alliance, will assume the day-to-day management of HOPE LoanPort. The following individuals will make up the board of directors: William Longbrake, an executive in residence at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland where he works on a variety of business, policy and governance issues; John Dalton, former Secretary of the Navy in the Clinton administration; John Courson, the president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association; Faith Schwartz, the executive director of HOPE NOW; Kenneth Wade, the CEO of NeighborWorks America, a public nonprofit corporation established as the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp. by an Act of Congress in 1978; and Camillo Melchiorre, senior vice president of loss management for Radian Guaranty Inc.

Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp., Sun Prairie, Wis., has promoted Paul Walnick from senior vice president of information technology to president of mortgage operations and Dan Cutaia from chief operating officer to president of capital markets and risk management. Walnick will oversee Fairway's day-to-day mortgage business and underwriting operations while providing branch and product support. Cutaia will oversee the overhaul of Fairway's loan origination platform, as well as all technical and compliance related issues, systems and secondary business. In 2009, Fairway closed $3.3 billion in mortgage volume, a 70% increase from the prior year. Steve Jacobson remains as chief executive. Walnick has held sales management positions at both Waterfield Financial Corp., and American Home Mortgage, where he oversaw retail sales production in Texas and Arizona. Cutaia was the founder and former president of Aucita Mortgage Capital and held executive positions with Waterfield Financial, where he oversaw numerous infrastructure initiatives involving post production and delivery, and product and credit risk.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has hired Wall Street veteran Steve Harris as managing director in charge of mortgage sales for its Americas division. Harris will report to Michael Hokin, head of America's mortgages and securitized product sales at the bank. According to StructuredFinanceNews.com, Hokin-who was formerly head of global securitized markets sales at Citigroup-joined Bank of America Merrill last September. Prior to his hiring, Harris had a six-month stint at Rafferty Capital as a manager in structured products. From 1987 to 2009 he worked for Goldman Sachs as a manager in mortgage sales.

General Growth Properties, Chicago, one of the largest commercial REITs in the nation, said director Glen Rufrano has resigned from its board. In a new SEC filing, the company said his departure "is not due to any disagreement between Mr. Rufrano" and the company. General Growth is a real estate investment trust that invests and owns shopping malls, master planned communities, and other CRE assets.