Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Felicia O’Connor is a member of the Labor & Employment Practice and the Automotive Industry Team.

Marie Chung, CCIM, Director of REO & Short Sale Services at Modern Realty Corp., is a pioneer in the ever-modernizing Real Estate Industry. She is a licensed real estate broker with extensive knowledge in residential & commercial foreclosures, REO dispositions, short sale negotiations and foreclosure prevention. Managing a team of 58 multi-lingual agents, brokers and support staff, Marie continues to rapidly expand this successful Real Estate Brokerage. An expert on foreclosures and REO’s, Marie serves on numerous committees for REOMAC, LA County Sheriff’s Advisory Council, Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA) Board of Directors, and Urban Land Institute. She is also a member of NRBA, REO Connection, Commercial National REO Professionals Association (CNRPA), National Association of Short Sale Professionals (NASSPRO), United Trustee’s Association, NAHREP & various Association of Realtors throughout California. Also, Marie is a Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE), PartnerFirst Certified (PSC), National Assoc of Realtors SFR Certified & is Equator.com Platinum REO & Platinum Short Sale Certified. Marie also serves as a Board of Director for the prestigious USC Lusk Center for Real Estate. Marie attended UCLA where in Business Economics and graduated Magna cum Laude. She attended the prestigious Intern Program in Tax Advisory Services at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she later went to work in the Assurance and Business Advisory Services. She continued to feed her hunger for education at the USC Ross Program in Real Estate Development. Marie also holds the prestigious Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) Designation.

Matt Vernon is the Short Sale and Real Estate Owned (REO) Executive for the Home Loans and Insurance division of Bank of America, one of the world’s leading financial services companies and the nation’s leading mortgage servicer. Bank of America serves more than 59 million consumers nationally through its network of banking centers. Vernon is responsible for all aspects of the REO and Short Sales business. In this role, he will develop and implement new initiatives to manage and streamline the company’s real estate owned (REO) property portfolio and short sale processes. He is responsible for a national operations team that manages the high exposure and risks related to the business while providing foreclosure prevention solutions for distressed homeowners. He is also responsible for developing strong relationships with external to Bank of America partners to achieve business and industry objectives. In his role he will also integrate with Bank of America’s Mortgage sales teams to deliver a world class customer experience to consumers and real estate industry partners.Prior to this, Vernon led the Enterprise Sales organization, which consisted of mortgage origination and cross sales through the nationwide banking center network of over 6,000 banking centers, the Premier Banking business, and the US Trust Wealth Management business. He also has led the bank’s Consumer Real Estate retail sales channel which included sales offices across the country and thousands of mortgage loan officers. Earlier, Vernon served as Consumer Sales Process and Management Executive in the Consumer Real Estate organization, primarily supporting the retail sales channel and leading the national internal support team for the business.Vernon joined Bank of America as a management associate in 1994 in the Baltimore consumer bank where he worked as a Banking Center Manager and then advanced to subsequent broader leadership responsibilities in multiple markets culminating in his appointment as the Division Sales Executive for the Mid-Atlantic Consumer Bank responsible for Consumer Sales activities across 600 banking centers and 5,600 associates in five mid-Atlantic states. Also, he performed a strategic and critical role in the development of the National Sales Playbook, Selling the Bank of America Way, and the Daily Coaching Huddle.Vernon is a graduate of High Point University in North Carolina with a BA in Business Management and Administration.

Michael Swift is a Real Estate Broker with 20 years of Real Estate Sales experience. He is a founding member of the East Bay Short Sale Round Table Group in the San Francisco Bay Area which meets monthly to discuss short sale strategy. Michael received his Real Estate license at the young age of 20 and focused primarily on short sales for the next 4-5 years during the Real Estate down cycle of 1991-1995. Because of his overwhelming success in short sales, he was recruited to Re/Max Executive as an Associate Broker to train the office agents on short sale transactions in 1993.Currently Michael is an Associate Broker with J. Rockcliff Realtors in the San Francisco Bay Area. Besides selling Real Estate and being a consistent top producer, Michael also consults with agents from the 7 offices of J. Rockcliff Realtors on how to successfully complete short sales transactions. Michael holds the short sale designations of Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE), Short Sale Foreclosure Resource (SFR) and Certified Short Sale Professional (CSP). It’s Michael’s goal to help as many people as possible from losing their homes to foreclosure by educating them on all their other options.

Bridges Stewart is Regional Area Manager for HomeSteps, a unit of Freddie Mac. Bridges joined Freddie Mac in 2008.In his role he is responsible for the REO portfolio in Northern California, Northern Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Montana and Hawaii. He supports the Listing Broker Network by working closely with the Operations Teams, Supplier Network and HomeSteps Outsourced Partners. Bridges provides demographic analysis on market trends and recommends strategies to support Freddie Mac’s organizational goals to mitigate risk and ensure consistent business practices. He is also provides Broker Training on Property Valuations as well as HomeSteps Policies and Procedures. As Regional Area Manager he supports Affordable Housing Initiatives by providing assessments of his geographic markets while ensuring that Freddie Mac assets are disposed of in a way that maximizes recovery and benefits the communities. Prior to joining Freddie Mac, Bridges held management positions with Countrywide Home Loans, CitiMortgage, and Bank of America. His focus has always been on Affordable Initiatives and building strong community partnerships. Bridges received a Bachelor's degree in Corporate Finance from California State University, Hayward and he holds a current California Real Estate License.

Mr. DePalma is responsible for the management of client relationships and the implementation of progressive loss mitigation techniques in order to maximize the return to investors. He oversees foreclosure, bankruptcy and REO management as well as loan sales and acquisitions. Prior to joining AMS Servicing in May 2008, Mr. DePalma was President of Loan Servicing Solutions, a special servicing default shop located in Buffalo, NY. In 2005, Mr. DePalma was hired by Nomura Securities International, Inc. to establish a Credit Management, Special Servicing, MBS oversight and Loan Administration platform for NSI’s $15 billion whole loan residential conduit.Before NSI, Mr. DePalma was employed by Wells Fargo Home Mortgage as Director of Special Servicing for the HUD 601 Program, where he was given overall responsibility for the development of the special servicing platform.Prior to Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Mr. DePalma was Vice President of Default Management and Special Servicing for North American Mortgage Company in Tampa, FL. During Mr. DePalma's tenure, North American Mortgage serviced $50 billion in mortgage assets and was a HUD Tier 1, FHLMC Tier 1 and FNMA Top Servicer in Default Management.Preceding North American in 1997, Mr. DePalma was a Principal and Executive Vice President at Clayton National Inc., a special servicing company serving primarily the investment banking sector, where he had overall responsibility for the servicing operation as well as information systems development, client relations and business development.Mr. DePalma has also held various management positions in mortgage banking and finance at First Federal Savings and Loan of Rochester, NY and began his career at Moody’s Investor’s Services as a Financial Analyst.Mr. DePalma holds a B.S. in Business Administration from St. Bonaventure University.

Bill Garland is executive vice president, strategic relationships and development, for Decision Ready, a technology provider based in Irvine, CA.  A mortgage industry veteran with over 30 years of experience, Garland is an expert in managing and developing mortgage servicing operations, and has managed technology-related outsourcing opportunities for many years.    

Prior to joining RCS, Mr. Stowe served as President and COO for Saxon Capital, Inc. (�Saxon�) Mr. Stowe joined Saxon in 1994 as President and CEO of its affiliate Saxon Mortgage Services, Inc. to build the company�s subprime mortgage servicing operation. Mr. Stowe led the growth of the platform from a staff of eighteen employees servicing under $1 billion in assets to three hundred professionals servicing approximately $12 billion in assets prior to his departure. Mr. Stowe directed the development of the company�s policies and procedures, training programs and proprietary technology in support of loss mitigation and default asset management. Prior to joining Saxon, Mr. Stowe led the liquidation efforts of Goldome Credit Corporation, a subprime lending and servicing subsidiary of the failed Goldome Bank, for Niagara Portfolio Management.