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66 up and running." "It's been an exciting challenge for everybody involved," Caruso admitted. "Me included." Hatfield recalls meeting Caruso at LPS, amidst the heat of the financial crisis. Needless to say, the two made an impression on each other, forming a bond that continues to this day. "We were struggling," Hatfield recalled. "e company was trying to determine 'What does normal look like in the future?' Because who knew? I was asked to come over and work with Bob on the default side, an area where I didn't have a lot of experience. I was a technologist, but I knew the company inside and out." Hatfield smiled and added, "I got a PhD in default servicing from Bob, in a hurry." Hatfield then followed Caruso to ServiceLink after LPS sold to Fidelity and eventually became Black Knight. When Caruso initially approached him about joining what would become ServiceMac, Hatfield was doing consulting work outside the mortgage business. When Caruso enticed him with an invitation to join him in starting a new mortgage subservicing company, the temptation was too strong to resist. "e opportunity to build something from the ground up and work with Bob checked all the boxes," Hatfield said. "It's not often that you get a chance to start with a blank piece of paper." Hatfield was intrigued by Caruso's stated desire to make ServiceMac a deeply data- driven company from the start, a focus that proved foundational as Hatfield began to staff up. "e first people that I hired were data architects and engineers," he said. "We started building the company on data governance, and what data we would need to capture, well beyond just core servicing, in order to meet the demands of what we were going to try to do differently with the customer experience and the customer journey." Melissa Perdue met Caruso at Wells Fargo in 2008. e two worked together for four years and stayed in touch thereafter. Eventually, the call came where he told her, "I'm looking at maybe doing something on my own." She told DS News that she was signed on before she even really knew what Caruso wanted her to do. "I knew with Bob it would definitely be an adventure," she said. "He looks at you from an adaptability standpoint." For Perdue's part, this involved initially overseeing HR for the company—not an area she felt overly comfortable with. "He would give you things that you've not done before, but knowing that you'll figure it out and you would look for the right people to get the answers from," Perdue said. "I couldn't go spend $200,000 on a finance system. I had to find something that would help get me there." Perdue recalled that, although the challenges of unfamiliar roles were sometimes daunting, she and her fellow colleagues were spurred onward by Caruso's quiet confidence that they would nevertheless succeed and excel. "You don't know what you are capable of until you're put in the middle of it," she said. "I've always been enticed by building something new." "People think, 'Mortgage lending is similar to auto lending or credit cards.' But it's much more intricate than that." —Robert Caruso, President and CEO, ServiceMac

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