Will Fisher has had just about everything thrown at him, yet he thrives
Will Fisher (pictured) is a study in perseverance. Despite taking blows that may have been career enders for some, Fisher’s story has been one about enduring and persevering.
The first test would emerge in 2001.
As a newly minted college graduate, Fisher had secured a job with IBM. He remembers one day especially vividly when he had to pick up his brother at the airport. A trip to the airport is easily forgotten years later, but it happened to occur on the same day the World Trade Center towers fell after commercial airplanes commandeered by terrorists slammed into the skyscrapers.
“I was home because I had to pick up my brother at the airport,” he told Mortgage Professional America during a telephone interview. “That’s the only reason I stayed out of the city that day.”
Fleeing New York City after the attacks
Understandably, Fisher needed a break after that experience. He ended up at Mammoth Lakes, Calif., an area renowned for its mountains and ski areas. It is here where he would have a chance meeting with a stranger that would change his life.
“He said he didn’t figure me for a ski bum,” Fisher said. He remembered the man asking him if he’d be interested in trying something different. “And I took him up on it,” Fisher said. “I had no idea about mortgage.”
The man dealt in subprime mortgages, Fisher recalled. Despite his initial lack of knowledge about the industry, he soon would excel. “It taught me everything I needed to know about the industry,” he said of the experience. “I started off as an account executive at that company, learned the ropes – what it was, what lending was and how it works – got my matrixes and moved up to manage a team that became the highest-producing team in the company.”
Then the Great Financial Crisis emerged. “From there, I bumped over to a company called Equifirst,” Fisher recalled. “They actually hung on through 2009.”
He then worked about three years on the retail side of the industry before taking another sojourn from the industry working in advertising after moving to San Francisco. It was during the time he was on a team that produced a memorable 2012 Super Bowl commercial selling yogurt starring actor John Stamos.
By March 2013, he was back in the saddle – this time leading the sales effort for a non-QM lender called Citadel Servicing Corp., later to be rebranded as Acra Lending. “For me, it was a good six years of building one of the best sales teams – one of the most highly educated non-QM sales forces in the country. That was actually one of the reasons why they were purchased --- one of the main reasons, per their CEO. It was a great experience.”
Today, Fisher serves as executive vice president of non-QM and jumbo lending at LoanStream Mortgage, where he continues to excel. “Almost three years ago, I came over here to LoanStream to revamp and redeploy their non-QM, and we’ve had one heck of a run reaching just under $250 million a month on non-QM production.”
Learning how to persevere
It’s that kind of adaptability and staying power that vaulted Fisher to the Global 100 list, a compendium of the top mortgage industry professionals as vetted by MPA and its sister publications. Fisher is one of 24 US professionals so honored.
He credits his father for having instilled early lessons he said continue to guide his career today. “I wanted to do the fun sports like soccer or track & field, but he made me go a different route,” he said. His father insisted Fisher go into cross-country running instead. Fisher would later drive Go-Kart in competitive matches in adding to his regimen.
“If you can run five miles, run a marathon, you can do just about anything,” Fisher said. “That was a great kickoff to how to persevere.”
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