The only easy day was yesterday.....

“I like to support and promote young talent….and I’d like to give you an opportunity to pitch yourself a job.”? GREG (one G) was a Navy SEAL, Vietnam Vet, - Decorated.........a War Hero, and Senior Vice President of GE Capital Mortgage Services. ? He was originally from Long Beach, Cali and had moved to the Midwest to work for CitiMortgage. It was the late 80’sin the Midwest and there weren’t a whole lot of black executives in the area – certainly not visible.

He owned a pretty decent sized shack on Wild Horse Creek Road, not far from where I had the Mardi Gras near-DWI incident to a busty white blonde who raised Clydesdales.? So, G was a bit of an anomaly for the Midwest at the time. He had a whole house full of kids from two marriages. One of them was a troubled kid from Long Beach that he had adopted. And a few daughters, whose dates would be forced to surrender their licenses upon entry to the house, where they were promptly photo-copied by a photo-copy-fax machine that sat in the front hallway. Keep in mind - this was the 80’s.? This was a full sized copier.? The size of today’s Smart cars………….only parked in the house, instead of in the driveway.? The dates were instructed to have the girls back by midnight. No exceptions. They complied. Gangster. I’m still in awe of that move.

GREG wasn’t college educated – he was life educated – war educated.? The perfect backdrop of experience for managing a bunch of former military and manufacturing guys that worked in an operationally intensive business, like Mortgage Servicing. I had been working at GE Capital for almost a decade.? Starting out in 1989 as a part-time mail clerk in Customer Service back when people wrote letters. WANG word processors were cutting edge at that time.? Slick.

Mortgage Servicing is the collection of tasks that are performed once a mortgage loan transaction closes at the closing table. Everything from that point forward is largely a function of a Mortgage Servicer who collects payments from the borrower, ensures taxes and insurance are paid and remits payments to the various Investors associated with the loans.? Mortgage Servicing is commonly referred to as a white-collar sweatshop as it’s a manually intensive, labor-intensive process that despite best efforts of the industry is not well automated. ? It’s a tough business.? It’s a rough business.? And some of the rougher characters in Mortgage Banking come from Mortgage Servicing.?

Sometime in the late 90’s Jack Welch adopted principles of Six Sigma and began driving its adoption across all of the GE Capital Businesses.? I had since graduated from the mail function – the Internet having been commercially introduced and promoted to managing an IVR. Interactive Voice Response Unit. It was a big call center – taking over 4 million calls per year. Any call that can execute without human intervention is big savings. GE had its first ever Quality Fair, with all 37 GE Capital Business competing for distinction for the best projects with the most take-out. My project won.

GREG offered me an opportunity to pitch myself a job working for him. I was so green I didn’t even know what pitch yourself a job meant.? And just like that, I was his Chief of Staff managing several million dollars in operational takeout's, back-office consolidations with the rest of GE Capital and Global Outsourcing Initiatives. Like him, I didn’t have a college degree. ? But just like that, I had a career in Mortgage Banking. This book is dedicated to GREG GIBSON, among others.

I would see him many years later. He called – looking for a loan. I didn’t have it.? It was right after my divorce, and I had walked out with nothing. I had fallen on hard times. He had fallen on harder times. I failed him. The effects of Agent Orange having ravaged his body, he now had full-blown Parkinson’s. We went to lunch, he could barely hold his fork and his shirt was stained.? His family was attempting to care for him. I am now, like G Gibson. My body having been ravaged by the side effects of disease, destitute, facing homelessness – in need of cash. It is a very humbling place to be on both sides of the equation. I wish things were different for both of us then and now.

~ grit, unpublished, slightly edited