From teaching elementary school to brokerage firm COO

While he was still mulling the idea of going into the mortgage business, his in-laws would inadvertently and by serendipity turn out to be character references: “The interesting thing about it was that my wife’s parents, my in-laws, and my old CEO and his wife, the team mom, were at a mutual friend’s birthday party,” he remembered. “They found out they were my in-laws and they started talking about me.”

The team mom texted Plocica that same night urging him to reach out to her husband. “I didn’t know him but knew of him,” he said. “He seemed like a real stand-up guy, like someone who would just be there for you.”

Finally, the two men met. Despite his lack of experience in the field, the CEO was suitably impressed. Plocica suggested his lack of experience may have been an advantage, remembering his old boss saying “‘You don’t have any bad habits,’” to him. The CEO said he needed a dialer, someone who essentially would set up his appointments.

When Plocica says he had no experience in the mortgage industry whatsoever, he was not exaggerating. “I had no idea was I was getting into,” he said. “I really thought Fannie and Freddie were real people. I didn’t know they were agencies.”