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70 Conventional logic suggests that the mortgage industry is in real trouble because of its age. e industry can, in fact "expect a 'brain drain' (if it is not already occurring) as experienced people retire, move on, and exit for various reasons," says James Hennessey, managing director of Strategic Vantage in Miami. "e industry needs to be proactive in identifying what 'potential' looks like in relation to its needs and must tap into that potential today, developing new talent at all levels." But while there may indeed be an age-centric issue to face down, mortgages companies are facing nothing unique. Baby boomers are at (and past) retirement age in all fields. "Everyone's going to have to deal with this," says Daryl Jones, president of Cornerstone Advisors. "We need to have the right processes in place to be able to replace baby boomers with millennials, but as for going out and finding the right talent, that's not unique to the mortgage industry at all." On the other hand, it would be a mistake to only think of the future in terms of pure replenishment. As the mortgage industry evolves to meet the changing demographics of workers (and, just as importantly, borrowers), the shifting demands of customer service and product and information delivery, and the increasing opportunities and realities inherent to regulations and technological development, we're not going to need to replace outgoing industry professionals one-for-one in the same capacities with younger professionals. For the moment, though, let's look at this only on the surface. Are there fewer loan writers and product developers in 2016 than there were in 2006? Well, yes. When the recession hit, the number of people able to walk off the street and into a job writing loans plummeted with the rest of the economy. But were these suddenly unemployed professionals people who needed to go? Well, yes. See, 10 to 15 years ago, the mortgage industry was in the wild and wooly 2000s; a time of freewheeling, subprime-friendly lenders eager to rake in the absolute acres of cash available to mortgage writers and brokers who traded in commission-heavy deals that, it would soon turn out, bankrupt many thousands of their clients. Predictably, the mortgage industry crashed. Major lending houses, from Washington Mutual to Countrywide, went under, and the survivors were, practically overnight, handed sweeping new reform policies that put regulatory chokeholds on what they could offer and who I N D U S T R Y I N S I G H T / S C O T T M O R G A N Changing times means rethinking the way business is done.