How military training positioned loan officer for success

She opted to quit the military, was medically discharged, and returned to Ramona – the town she once desperately fled. “I stayed in Texas, close to base, for another year and worked random jobs here and there wondering what to do with my life,” she said. “Ultimately, I moved back to San Diego because eventually everyone comes home.”

Her sister, a real estate agent, mentioned her lender was looking to hire an assistant, Heimer recalled. She got the job. “I quickly moved through that position and found a true passion for being able to serve people at a different level – being able to help people buy homes, staying organized, understand the mortgage process. I quickly evolved.”

After six years, she ventured out on her own. “When the market crashed in 2008, 2009, it was really hard to figure out the difference between the broker side and the retail side,” she recalled. “I ended up at a couple of different retail companies that were great. The people I worked with along the way I could never say anything bad about. I’ve been lucky. If I called any of them today, I could go back in a second.”

Most assuredly, there is no going back. Comfortably ensconced back in Ramona, she runs H5 Financial – which happens to be marking its fifth anniversary this month – with her as mortgage loan officer overseeing a loan officer assistant, another on the marketing side and third-party processor working as an independent contractor. Last year, she posted $68 million in volume across 146 units.

Read next: CEO reignites AIME