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Teji Singh has been named chief servicing officer for Option One Mortgage Corp., an Irvine, Calif.-based national residential lender and subsidiary of H&R Block Inc.Since joining the company in 1998, Ms. Singh has played various roles in the Servicing Division, including strategic and business planning, call center management, customer advocacy, quality assurance, and default, the company said. She is also a member of Option One's enterprisewide customer advocacy team and oversaw the introduction of a servicing customer engagement survey with Gallup. Before joining Option One, she worked for seven years at KPMG Peat Marwick. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.optiononemortgage.com.

Mortgage technology veteran Tim Anderson has joined Stewart Transaction Solutions, Houston, as vice president of business development for the lender channel.Mr. Anderson most recently served as executive vice president of business solutions for Dexma, one of the first companies to support a paperless origination process using Web services. His background also includes work with DocuTech, Ignition Mortgage Technology Solutions (a wholly owned subsidiary of Freddie Mac at the time), Alltel Information Services (now Fidelity Information Services), and HomeSide Lending (now Washington Mutual), where he ran the e-commerce division. Mr. Anderson founded the eMortgage Alliance, which supports MISMO standards for delivering legal paperless processes. "Tim's knowledge and expertise will be invaluable in leading our business development initiatives for e-mortgages and Stewart's overall vision of the paperless real estate transaction," said Travis Wright, president of Stewart Transaction Solutions. The company can be found online at http://www.stewarttransactionsolutions.com.

The Senate has confirmed Wall Street veteran Henry Paulson to be the new secretary of the Treasury and replace John Snow, who is eager to leave.The former chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group breezed through the confirmation process and is expected to take charge at the Treasury Department any day now. Treasury Secretary Snow submitted his resignation to President Bush back on May 30, and he wants to step down from his cabinet post by July 3. During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Paulson was never asked his views on strengthening regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Bush administration's legislative efforts to reduce the size of the government-sponsored enterprises' giant mortgage portfolios. However, the Goldman Sachs executive made it clear that he sees himself as part of a team and supports many Bush administration policies, including efforts to simplify the tax code. In response to a written question about preserving the mortgage interest deduction, Mr. Paulson noted that the president "strongly supports" homeownership. "I also believe that any tax reform plan should be evaluated as a whole," he said.

Rick L. McGuire, a mortgage industry veteran, and M. Scott Bassett have been named to the advisory board of Post-Close America, a Houston-based provider of business process outsourcing for the residential mortgage industry.Mr. McGuire, formerly president and chief executive officer of Irwin Mortgage Corp., Indianapolis, is retired. Mr. Bassett was formerly a partner in the consulting and business process outsourcing practices of Ernst & Young LLP.

Roy DeLoach has been tapped by the National Association of Mortgage Brokers as its new chief executive.Mr. DeLoach, who most recently served as chief financial officer and senior vice president for government affairs for the now 27,000-member group, replaces Michael Nizankiewicz, who left the NAMB in March to pursue other career opportunities. The new executive vice president joined the NAMB's government affairs team in 2003. Before that, we was a staff attorney for the National Credit Union Administration and a legislative representative with the National Association of Realtors.

In an emotional finale to his run as president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, the normally jovial Jim Nabors challenged consumer advocates to join him and other loan officers for a week as they work not just to put people into homes but also to keep them there.Following a three-man fife-and-drum team, and speaking under a banner that said, "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Home Ownership," the Cleveland broker said he and his colleagues are unjustly accused of putting people into loans they cannot afford or products they cannot handle. Struggling to rein in his feelings, he said the antagonists fail to see the efforts to which troubled owners go to keep their homes and the countless hours brokers work to help them. Sometimes the only way to save someone's home is to get a new loan at a higher rate, Mr. Nabors said. Yes, the monthly payments go up, but at least the homeowner is not on the street. "We help people realize the American dream, but a lot of what we also are about is helping people keep the American Dream," he said. "We take a lot of heat for that, but if that's the price we have to pay, so be it."

If there is a theme to Harry Dinham's term as the new president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, it is continuity.Elected at the NAMB's annual convention, the 39-year mortgage industry veteran from Plano, Texas, said he aims to maintain the good works of his predecessors. "I firmly believe in continuity from president to president," Mr. Dinham told the convention. One initiative planned by the new NAMB leader is a "serious effort to address the abuses that exist in some affiliated business arrangements." Such schemes "injure consumers because they inhibit and at times outright prevent them" from shopping for the best rates and terms, the soft-spoken Texan said. "We are against the use of affiliated business arrangements as a veil to coercive lending tactics," he said. On another front, the new president said he hopes to expand his group's educational efforts and certification initiatives. Along that line, it will soon pilot a new entry-level professional designation -- the General Mortgage Associate, or GMA.

Laura Sparks has been named senior vice president of financial services at The Opportunity Finance Network, a Philadelphia-based national network of financial institutions that is planning to launch a residential mortgage platform.Ms. Sparks will recruit mortgage originators for the planned year-end launch of the platform and manage OFN's $40 million Financing Fund, which is invested nationally in community development financial institutions, OFN said. She previously worked at UBS Securities LLC as an associate of the Municipal Securities Group, where she modeled and structured bond transactions, and from 1998 to 2000 she worked with OFN as a senior associate in financial services. OFN, which describes itself as a network designed to "create opportunities for American people, communities, and markets that are outside the economic mainstream," can be found online at http://www.opportunityfinance.net.

Helena Dabrowski has been named chief executive officer of InSouth Funding Inc., a Naples, Fla.-based subsidiary of InSouth Bank that specializes in providing warehouse lines for mortgage bankers.In addition, Lisa Maduro has been named chief operating officer. Ms. Dabrowski has over 20 years of finance and accounting experience, the company said. She was previously senior vice president of InSouth Funding. Ms. Maduro was most recently a senior vice president at InSouth Funding. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.insouthfunding.com.

John Biallas has been appointed chief operating officer of Dividend Capital Total Realty Trust, a Denver-based real estate investment trust, and Jim Giuliano has been named to replace him as chief financial officer and treasurer.Before joining the company, Mr. Biallas was senior financial officer at Ameriton Properties Inc., a multifamily real estate investment subsidiary of Archstone-Smith Trust, Dividend Capital said. He also held executive posts at Security Capital Group related to that company's real estate affiliates. Before joining Dividend Capital, Mr. Giuliano was executive vice president and CFO of Empire Cos., an Ontario, Calif.-based developer. He was previously principal financial officer for operations of the Simon Property Group, a retail REIT.