I would like to thank you for the turnout of friends and collogues who came out to support me. I would like to thank Davis Kittle President of the national MBA. David recently moved to the Philadelphia area so please make him feel welcome to Philadelphia and Regina Lowery past President of Greater Philadelphia and the past of National MBA.

It is truly an honor to be the 70^th president of the Mortgage Bankers Association of Greater Philadelphia. I hope it is a good omen that 70 was also my Jersey number. And as an ex offensive lineman and coach this is a good time for the ground and pound and not for throwing the ball.

I have been an active member of the MBA for over 15 years. My father told me that this is our industry and we better get involved in it. He went on to tell me that if you jump in with both feet you will not fall out.

The past few years have been very trying for our industry and our organization. Due to merger and attrition our member companies are at an all time low. I personally have received numerous phone calls from friends and colleagues in the mortgage industry letting me know that they can no long take the ups and the downs and they are moving on.

When I was looking to get involved in the MBA of Greater Philadelphia I spoke to some of the committee chairs to see how we could get involve.

At that time Mary Travis and Sam Morelli were co-chairs of the education committee. After serving on the education committee a few years Sam appoint me to the board when he became President of the local. Sam has since gone on to become State President and to serve on the National MBA. After all these years Mary has stayed on local board because she knows how it important it is for our local chapter to have her knowledge and experience. Both Sam and Mary have both become mentors to me and given me the opportunity to work on the mortgage banking side of the industry giving me invaluable experience with QC, post closing and  the knowledge to fight repurchase and suspense request.

When you stand on the sidelines and complain about the industry, the MBA, legislation and regulations, it is just like not voting, you lose the right to complain when you are not involved.

This past year Paul Catinella received the outstanding achievement award.  Paul has been a leader in our industry for years, a past president and involved on the state and national levels. He continues to keep his company involved with Tom Pillion another past president and Drew Burton who currently serves on the board. While Paul was accepting the award he spoke of the honor it was to serve the local MBA and often wears his name badge from when he served on the board. He made me think why we stopped wearing name tags identifying out board members.

I would like to thank Ed Staudenmayer for holding the association together under his leadership. For awhile Ed was a one man show acting as President, Executive Director, office and accountant.  We made a lot of transitions the last two years; we changed our executive director and office to Bob Levy in New Jersey. I am very excited for the opportunity to work with Bob and his staff to improve the lines of communication to our membership.