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MortgagePoint » Your Trusted Source for Mortgage Banking and Servicing News 36 June 2024 C O V E R S T O R Y Travis-Johnson. She came by her career in financial services naturally, with her moth- er having worked in the banking industry. Having earned a scholarship from Home Savings of America, Travis-Johnson soon landed an internship working in Crocker National Bank's marketing department. "They were the first ones to introduce a secured line of credit for home mortgag- es," recalled Travis-Johnson, who worked on the team responsible for marketing that product. This opportunity meshed well with Travis-Johnson's long-standing interest in the housing industry, fueled by her experiences seeing how important homeownership had been to her father. "My father had so much pride in being a homeowner, and that enlightened me about community, the sense of ownership, and the American dream," Travis-Johnson said. "Being a child of the '60s, that was a big thing for African Americans to be able to own a home." She recalled that virtually all of her early-career mentors worked in the housing industry, and positions at First Interstate Bank and World Savings (where she worked as an operating manager, and then moved to auditing) eventually led her to meet Murray while working at Cendant Asset Services. Admiring that Murray's background in the appraisal field meant he was someone "who understands value," Travis-Johnson recalled that Murray seemed to be some- one "who understood all the problems that started happening with the 2006 book of business. [His company, PCV Murcor] was one of the few valuation companies that you didn't hear any bad things about." After listening to Travis-Johnson's pitch for what would become VRM, Murray told her, "You better get over here and help me grow this," after she applied for the role. Evolving a Shared Vision A decade-and-a-half into the idea that was birthed from that conversa- tion, VRM continues to move forward. Murray says that both PCV Murcor and VRM share core focuses on "delivering solutions in communities: getting the best group of leaders together to execute, partnering with vendors across the com- munity, and giving them opportunities to perform." Both Murray and Travis-John- son put enormous stock into working with partners who have a stake in the communities they're serving beyond just profit potential, and that core belief shapes everything that they do. "If it's the community that I live or work and worship in, I'm even more connected to it," Murray said. "Similarly, if you're selling assets on behalf of corpo- rate owners, as a broker, it would be the same thing, right? If I'm working in my community, I'm incentivized to do the right thing, because I'm supporting our neighborhood." According to VRM's numbers, by the end of Q1 2024, this local utilization of vendors had reached 93%. "We deal directly with the boots on the ground," added Travis-Johnson. "That's how you can make sure you're utilizing people within the community. There's pride in that because they live in that community. That house is going to get repaired properly because they have to drive by that house." When we asked Murray and Tra- vis-Johnson about their vision for where VRM is headed in the next decade-and-a- half. Murray spotlighted VRM's commit- ment to leveraging "the best technology we can get our hands on." In particular, he detailed his focus on emerging artifi- cial intelligence (AI) tools that will allow the team to make even better use of the data the company has gathered over the years about how to value properties and sell assets. "We plan to leverage AI and machine learning to help us make decisions more quickly, with more information," Murray said. VRM's focus on education and pro- moting equity and access also extends to other projects the VRM team is involved with, such as the CIFS, which Tra- vis-Johnson said is focused on financial literacy and "helping small businesses have access to what larger businesses can get their hands on." Founded in 2017 by Travis-Johnson in partnership with Marques Woods (President & CEO Braycor Inc.), CIFS was another project Travis-Johnson pitched to Murray—and another that he fully supported, coming aboard as President and CEO of CIFS. My father had so much pride in being a homeowner, and that enlightened me about community, the sense of ownership, and the American dream. Being a child of the '60s, that was a big thing for African Americans to be able to own a home." —Dr. Cheryl Travis-Johnson, EVP & COO, VRM