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Steve O'Connor has been promoted to senior vice president of public policy at the Mortgage Bankers Association.Mr. O'Connor was most recently vice president for industry relations and policy development. The MBA said he will continue to manage the development of the association's residential policy positions, with the additional task of managing outreach efforts to MBA members and industry stakeholders "to align MBA's policy and advocacy efforts with their key business needs and industry trends." Before joining the MBA in 1996, Mr. O'Connor held positions in government affairs with the National Association of Realtors and Freddie Mac. The MBA can be found online at http://www.mortgagebankers.org.

Joe Anderson, senior managing director in charge of Countrywide's consumer markets division, has left the company.A Countrywide spokesman confirmed to MortgageWire that Mr. Anderson parted ways with the Calabasas, Calif.-based mortgage giant, the nation's largest overall home funder and second-largest retailer. (Mr. Anderson oversaw the company's retail effort.) The spokesman said he left Countrywide this spring and was replaced by Brian Hale, who was the No. 2 executive in consumer markets.

Mark Lammas has been promoted to the newly created position of executive vice president of development at Maguire Properties Inc., a Los Angeles-based real estate investment trust.Mr. Lammas was most recently the REIT's senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary. He will continue to provide legal and corporate governance support until a replacement general counsel and secretary is identified, the company said. Maguire can be found on the Web at http://www.maguireproperties.com.

Fannie Mae has disclosed that its executive vice president and chief information officer, Julie St. John -- who is playing a key role in its restructuring -- will leave the GSE at year-end.In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Fannie said Ms. St. John had wanted to leave sooner but agreed to defer her departure date. Fannie says Ms. St. John has been taking a "lead role" in the company's restructuring of its enterprise systems and operations division. A 16-year veteran of Fannie Mae, she has been with the government-sponsored enterprise for 16 years and is entitled to $794,463 in severance, and options to purchase 34,429 shares of stock. The GSE is working its way through a massive accounting scandal that will force it to restate prior earnings downward by about $10.6 billion. Fannie Mae can be found on the Web at http://www.fanniemae.com.

American Home Mortgage, Melville, N.Y., has hired six high-level account executives away from Washington Mutual, Seattle, for its fast-growing correspondent division.A spokesman for American Home said the six were heavily courted by the nation's top mortgage banking firms but went with American Home because of its growth prospects. A few months back, National Mortgage News broke the story that WaMu was closing its traditional correspondent channel. The spokesman said he did not know for certain whether the six were slated to lose their jobs at WaMu but that he assumed as much. The new account executives and their respective regional offices include: Steven Campbell (Columbia, S.C.); Molly Gross (Grosse Pointe, Mich.); Mary Niederhaus (Sacramento, Calif.); Mary O’Connell (Nashville, Tenn.); Ed Robinson (Philadelphia); and J. Gordon Terry (Jacksonville, Fla.). American Home's correspondent division was launched a year ago and racked up $1 billion in production after seven months. The six joined American Home on July 3, bringing their AE total to 16. American Home can be found online at http://www.americanhm.com.

Bank Mutual Corp., Milwaukee, has hired Thomas H. Koepp as director of investment real estate lending for its Bank Mutual subsidiary bank.Mr. Koepp will have overall responsibility for the origination of "investment real estate mortgage loans" and for the development and implementation of investment real estate mortgage lending objectives, policies, and practices, Bank Mutual said. "Tom has a proven track record and will have a major impact on achieving our strategic goals in the important investment real estate lending line of business," said Michael T. Crowley Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of Bank Mutual Corp. Mr. Koepp has over 25 years of experience in investment real estate lending, according to Bank Mutual, and joins the bank from the Milwaukee-based St. Francis Bank division of MAF Bancorp, where he was most recently a vice president in the commercial real estate finance area.

Irwin Financial Corp., Columbus, Ind., the holding company for Irwin Union Bank and Trust Co., has announced the appointment of Jocelyn Martin-Leano as president of Irwin Home Equity Corp., a subsidiary of the bank.Ms. Martin-Leano, 45, has been employed by Irwin Home Equity since shortly after its founding in 1996 and has held leadership positions in both servicing and operations, Irwin Financial said. She was promoted to executive vice president of operations in 2005 and was named interim president later that year upon the retirement of Irwin Home Equity's president, Elena Delgado, the company said. Ms. Martin-Leano was previously employed in the mortgage divisions of ITT Residential Capital Corp., Bank of America, and Citibank. Irwin Home Equity can be found online at http://www.ihe.com.

Fannie Mae director Donald Marron has resigned from the GSE's board, effective July 31, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.As of MortgageWire's deadline, a Fannie Mae spokeswoman had not returned a telephone call about the matter. Mr. Marron, an investment banking veteran, has been a board member since 2001. About two weeks ago Fannie also revealed that longtime director Ann Korologos would step down on July 31. Both directors are defendants in a shareholder lawsuit that accuses board members (and current and former executives) of profiting from the government-sponsored enterprise's accounting manipulations "via huge bonuses, improper stock sales and/or a web of lucrative personal and financial interrelationships…." Mr. Marron currently chairs Lightyear Capital, a private equity fund that controls DeepGreen Financial of Ohio, an online home equity lender.

Robert Couch, the newly sworn-in Ginnie Mae president, says the agency needs to do a better job of promoting Ginnie-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities to foreign investors.Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have done a great job of tapping foreign capital markets, Mr. Couch told MortgageWire. "We need to get the message out that Ginnie MBS are the only ones that carry the full faith and credit of the U.S. government," he said. "That ought to be a strong message to foreign investors, particularly those looking for a safe investment." But the new Ginnie Mae president said his top priority is to actively support passage of Federal Housing Administration reform that would make FHA single-family loans more competitive and indirectly boost issuance of Ginnie MBS. Ginnie Mae and the FHA are "joined at the hip," Mr. Couch said. In recent years Ginnie MBS issuance has declined with the drop in FHA originations, but he noted that issuance has stabilized thanks to administrative changes that made the FHA program more attractive. Mr. Couch was president of New South Federal Savings Bank, Birmingham, Ala., and managing director of Collateral Mortgage, which originated FHA loans. He was chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association from October 2003 to October 2004. Ginnie Mae can be found online at http://www.ginniemae.gov.

Jonathan H. Yellen has been named executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary of FelCor Lodging Trust Inc., a real estate investment trust based in Irving, Texas.Mr. Yellen, 39, is a partner with Damon & Morey LLP in Buffalo, N.Y., where he specializes in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and securities law. His previous experience includes a stint as vice president and associate general counsel at Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. FelCor can be found on the Web at http://www.felcor.com.