A Dozen Years Ago.(Editorial)

Byline: Ted Cornwell

A little more than 12 years ago, this newspaper's parent company decided to found a niche industry publication to serve the mortgage servicing industry. It was a natural fit with our flagship, the weekly National Mortgage News. During most of these past 12 years, I've had the privilege of being editor of Mortgage Servicing News.

I'll be leaving the publication to pursue other opportunities after this edition goes to press, so I thought now would be a good time to share a few of the things I've learned about the mortgage servicing business during the past decade or so.

For starters, despite all the mortgage industry's bad press of late, I've witnessed an industry populated by people of very high integrity. As a journalist, I can't think of a single instance in which I thought someone was deliberately trying to mislead me, even when my questions concerned matters that many companies would rather have kept quiet.

Furthermore, I've been impressed by the entrepreneurial spirit of both lending executives and their business partners in ...