Spy Stories, Brushstrokes, and Basis Points

Val Buresch (00:07)
Hello and welcome to CMBConnect. I am your host, Václav Buresch I've done a lot of episodes on this show and today I think it's going to be very different. My guest today is Jason Bohrer Jason is the CEO and the president of New Bolt Advisors and he's a fellow CMB and also someone with such varied career in housing finance. Quite remarkable and somehow you managed to include oil painting in that career as well. So welcome to the show, Jason.

Jason Bohrer (00:46)
Glad to be here. I appreciate it.

Val Buresch (00:48)
So I think we should start with something different today. I want you to tell me about your mom.

Jason Bohrer (00:56)
Okay, well, for those of women out there who was concerned with the glass ceiling, Doris Bohrer my mother, broke it for herself in the early 40s during World War II. She was one of the first women to work for OSS, which was the Office of Strategic Services predecessor to the CIA.

a high school graduate taking a couple of college classes here and there. ⁓ They needed to make money. She took a job as a civil servant ⁓ and went from, as you know, back in the day women ⁓ were typists and ⁓ she rose quickly from typing to going to photo recon school, being one of two women posted in North Africa and Bari, Italy, doing the photo.

interpretation, anything from industrial sites to the horrible death camps we knew existed and working with what would be current-day Delta Force operators back in the day in her camps and having some fun stories about them that I might share as well. she did a lot at a very young age. That picture right there is in her early 20s, circa 1943.

You can see she is carrying a weapon, which I believe is a Walther, but I'm not sure.

Val Buresch (02:25)
Wow, did she know how to shoot a gun?

Jason Bohrer (02:28)
She definitely knew how to shoot it. And one of the funny stories she shared with me is when they were in Italy, the mission there was recovering downed out of Yugoslavia. And there were a of partisans on the ground there helping out. lot of them had hand grenades. And mom wanted a hand grenade. But her boss wouldn't let her have a hand grenade for whatever reason. having a sense of humor, she went and got one.

Val Buresch (02:38)
Mmm.

Jason Bohrer (02:55)
the quartermaster had it diffused clipped it on her sand brown belt and went into the dining hall and all the men scattered and said give me give me the give me that hand grenade Doris you can't have a hand grenade and she pulled it off her sand brown belt and popped the pin and rolled it down the table and cleared the mess all out so she had some fun too over there a lot of hard work but some fun too

Val Buresch (03:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

Was there a group of women or was she the only woman? Wow. One of two.

Jason Bohrer (03:25)
She was one of two.

And I have memos from the era and they were referred to as the girls.

Val Buresch (03:35)
So she truly was a pioneer. And as you were saying, she was knocking on that glass ceiling, trying to break it for many other women. think a lot of women went into intelligence after that. And I have another photo here.

But I don't want to get ahead of myself because I wanted to ask you for your childhood when you were growing up with a mother and I think you told me when your father ⁓ was working for the agency, what was it like to grow up with people who were in that kind of a world? She shared some stories with you, was she talking openly about that or was it?

conversation that was not shared at the dinner table.

Jason Bohrer (04:21)
No, it was absolutely not shared. They were both under oath. They both had top secret clearance. Dad was for quite a while head of medical services for CIA, which meant taking care of everyone globally. That meant dealing with all the defectors. So no, anytime he might have started to want to talk about something, she would give him the evil eye.

and say, no, we can't talk about that. once I got into high school, I was able to.

Val Buresch (04:47)
Ha ha ha ha!

Jason Bohrer (04:55)
for the children of employees. So I did work there one summer and drove in with dad and I worked in the office of central reference Western Europe and essentially it was like a university and every country had a desk that was manned by a PhD and they knew everything and anything about that country.

Val Buresch (05:17)
that was an excellent education. That's better than just sitting in a classroom. just, you were right there in the middle of it.

Jason Bohrer (05:22)
Right.

Right. So I remember about 20 yards of files on Franco. And they asked me, you can go ahead and purge the files and reduce them down to useful. And I'm like, how do I know what's useful? And I think they could have saved time and had me just throw them all out. But I went through all the files and tried to reduce them down to something useful.

Val Buresch (05:48)
that's fascinating story. I've noticed about people who came from intelligence background or were connected with families that worked in that area that or grew up around them that these kind of people, including yourself right now in the story you're telling me, is that those people tend to be extraordinary observant. And what I've

noticed is that you learn somehow maybe from the interactions and as you were sharing this story, you you were on the ground there learning with the people who work for the agency. So you learn not just to look, but to actually see. And so I just wonder, do you think about that? Do you notice this kind of a skill of observation?

in yourself that maybe is coming from your mom.

Jason Bohrer (06:41)
Probably for some reason in my working career I've by default become a corporate psychologist at every company. for whatever reason building trust or you know making observations people have felt comfortable with me and you know I love people. I got in the business when it was a relationship business and it wasn't all computers and I value relationships.

strongly. And I think I'm a decent judge. I do get fooled from time to time in my hiring practices. I do get fooled, but I usually have a pretty good bead on what's going on and what's really going on and who benefits from whatever it is.

So.

Val Buresch (07:21)
do you think that that's also why you are attracted to art and to painting?

Jason Bohrer (07:29)
the

thing about, got into art when I had a huge amount of travel. Every week I was traveling to Chicago, working a job there from North Carolina. And then the job after that, was all over the, know, Arizona, Florida, Texas. I was always on the road. So I started drawing rather than going out and eating large pizzas and gaining weight. So I would draw at night or on the plane.

developed into oil painting. The great thing about oil painting is number one if you make a mistake you can just wipe it off and start over which I actually just did with one yesterday. oil painting or any kind of painting really increases your powers of observation. So you look at the world differently. You know if you look out on a sunny day and you see shadows and you see light

different colors, you're looking at it differently. If you're thinking, how could I replicate that on a canvas? And what colors would I use? I think that's the thing I have the most trouble with is finding the right colors to represent something. ⁓ I'm painting a dog for somebody right now and I cannot get the right color. So I'm gonna continue to struggle. And as my teacher said, you bang your head against the wall and eventually you'll figure it out.

Val Buresch (08:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

you

What color is the dog?

Jason Bohrer (08:49)
It's a Labradoodle and it's this caramel tan color that I just keep making too too yellow.

Val Buresch (08:52)
you

Yeah,

Well, I want to share with the audience, some of your paintings, if it's okay.

Jason Bohrer (09:04)
⁓ sure, this will be embarrassing.

a warning, the warning label amateur at work.

Val Buresch (09:11)
Well, I really enjoyed looking at that painting and those paintings with the path because it's almost like you're walking into your world.

Jason Bohrer (09:20)
Yeah, that's that's supposed to be Cape Hatteras lighthouse and I did that for I don't do any paintings for profit. I just give them to friends and they're free to throw them out or keep them. And this one is I have a friend who loves lighthouses. Larry Jackson is we've worked together for years and I did that for him. That's Cape Hatteras.

Val Buresch (09:43)
Let's look at another one.

this one. And this is

Jason Bohrer (09:47)
So I'm trying to learn impressionism and that's my best impressionistic painting. It's a copy of an artist who was in the late 19th century, early 20th American impressionist. Sorry, his name escapes me, but you can see it's a lot of small strokes and ⁓ it emphasizes the light and the shadow. And the impressionists were all about light, learning how to get that.

Val Buresch (10:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Jason Bohrer (10:16)
on the canvas. So I think that's interesting.

Val Buresch (10:18)
Which is your...

Which is your favorite color? Blue. That's a very heady color. It connects us to the above. So do you think that art finds people or people find art?

Jason Bohrer (10:23)
Blue.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow, that's a philosophical question. I don't know, I just, I drew a lot when I was a kid and I guess it found me again. It just, I don't know why, just, it's like one day I was sitting there going, you know, I should get back to this. I've got a pretty good runway to maybe get good at it. I don't do anything unless I think I can get good at it and I put a lot of time into it and I really enjoy

Val Buresch (10:39)
I'm

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Jason Bohrer (11:03)
So it's a great pastime that I can take into my later years and continue to work on. And it's a combination of, I'm a finance guy by training. So it's a combination of the left brain because you got to get everything right. The proportions, learn how to push things back and bring things forward and perspective. You have to get all that right. And then the creativity and

Val Buresch (11:05)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lovely, You know that.

Jason Bohrer (11:32)
colors and how it's applied. So you kind of mix both sides of the brain. It's a great way to get away from whatever you're working on during the day. I know you're an artist too, and you and I have probably, I'm pretty sure you've probably read Churchill's book on painting as a past. I'll look at you. Look at your ahead of me.

Val Buresch (11:42)
100%, 100 % agree, yeah.

Yes.

Jason Bohrer (11:57)
You know, he really advocated for people and at the time men in high stress jobs, find something to do, take your mind off of that. And Art spoke to him and he did a lot of artwork over the years. But fascinating, very short book on his involvement with Art and a way to take his mind off, you know, defeating Nazi Germany.

Val Buresch (12:19)
Yeah.

Jason Bohrer (12:24)
which is a lot more difficult problem than you and I are trying to solve today. ⁓

Val Buresch (12:28)
Exactly. But everybody has their

own moment in time and I totally agree with you. This is a very nice essay, Painting as a pastime. And actually I have to say that when I start painting, I felt guilty because I'm supposed to be this, you know, more left brain, more completely on analytical. And yet I was, I kept being drawn to that.

Jason Bohrer (12:32)
Right.

Val Buresch (12:55)
But then when I read his essay, everything was clarified for me. He's talking about how your brain is not a muscle that you can relax. You have to point it into a different direction so it can latch onto something else that hopefully is a relaxing thing. ⁓

Jason Bohrer (13:13)
And I think that's the

key message in the book that you just said. That's the key message. Take your brain out of this day to day and put it over here where it can relax a little bit.

Val Buresch (13:16)
Yeah.

We start talking about your mom, Doris Bohrer. we touched upon that, that her work was fundamentally about careful observation, reading those aerial pictures, reading people, and then also making decisions where to.

Jason Bohrer (13:23)
you

Val Buresch (13:39)
advice where to place actual soldiers and ⁓ taking, I mean, that was huge responsibility. And I think painting and its core also demands the same thing, like looking carefully. And I think these are just wonderful different threads in life and careers that come together so beautifully. ⁓ really?

Jason Bohrer (14:05)
Well, she was an artist too. ⁓

like I have a, she built a relief map of Sicily for Operation Husky, which historians know that was the invasion of Sicily. So I have a picture of the relief map she built and she did a lot of painting and sculpture once she retired. So I think she had to use those tools as a photo recon and the planning back in the day.

Val Buresch (14:32)
Amazing. So art comes from her observation skills, analytical skills. now let's talk about your career then. did she advise you to go in housing finance? Where did it all start?

Jason Bohrer (14:36)
All right.

no, she was horrified. She was

she, well first of all, they both told me not to go to work for CIA because it had changed so much. Back when they were in it, it was less bureaucratic and more teamwork, more collegial, et cetera, et cetera, at least per their perspective. So they were like, you don't want to do this. And I had always been

Val Buresch (14:53)
Mm.

Jason Bohrer (15:06)
Fascinated with finance. One of my best friends growing up, his dad was a stockbroker. And so I was interested in finance and kind of started going that direction pretty early. Reading a lot of books, fascinated with entrepreneurial type things. And ⁓ that's why mortgage banking was an appeal. It was always very entrepreneurial. When I joined back in the mid 80s,

Val Buresch (15:22)
Mm.

Jason Bohrer (15:31)
Washington DC was a hub of many, many, many home offices of great companies, Dominion Bank shares and Perpetual were two that I worked for when I was starting off. But we all had home offices there and it was a pretty neat mortgage banking culture then.

Val Buresch (15:49)
And at what point did you decide to pursue the certified mortgage banker designation? Because we both know that this is not a casual credential. It's really serious. Yeah.

Jason Bohrer (16:00)
Well, no. Well,

to finish that last thought, you're probably wondering why mom was horrified. when she retired from CIA, she became a realtor. And she retired as deputy director of counterintelligence, which means that she led ⁓ number two spying against the spies. So that's what counterintell is. But she became a realtor. And then, of course, she got called on by retail.

mortgage bankers all the time. And she was not terribly impressed with that crowd. So she's like, no, you don't want to be a mortgage banker. Anyway, mortgage banking has been very good to me over the years. I've built a great career. Most importantly, met a lot of wonderful people. So every time I go to a conference and I'm walking through the hall and I see that person, I haven't seen in while and they shout out my name or I shout out their name, it's a reminder.

Jason Bohrer (16:55)
I'm a strong believer in continued education. ⁓ And if you're going to be in the mortgage business, the CMB was kind of the thing to do if you wanted to know your business and get to the appropriate credentials. So I started pursuing it pretty quickly in my career. And since I was young, I had to do lots of extra stuff. I didn't have time in the seat to count it back then. So I set my sights on it. I think I got it in.

Val Buresch (16:58)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Bohrer (17:24)
We can check, but 92, I believe, is when I got it. And Les Parker and I used to fight over who was the youngest person to get the CMB I'm sure someone's beat us by now, Les, if you're listening. that was fun. And I got it when I was vice president of Dominion Bank shares in second.

And back then we had to have commercial and residential for you folks today. For all that, yeah, so yeah, it's easy and we had to walk 10 miles to school too. But anyway, I remember having to go to Huntsville, Alabama to the commercial class and it was interesting to have that knowledge too.

Val Buresch (17:53)
It's easy for us now.

My school of mortgage banking too was in Birmingham, Alabama.

Jason Bohrer (18:17)
I think I went to University of Maryland, University of Florida, then Kellogg and Evanston, ⁓ Northwestern. And they took us to the Board of Trade, which was really fun.

Val Buresch (18:25)

with this kind of curiosity that you have exhibited and push for education and just, mean, it's really amazing energy and it's evident in your resume. And I don't want to go over your LinkedIn profile or anything, but just to say that I've been really impressed at the variety of organizations that you worked with. USAA, of course, GMAC, FinTechs, furniture company.

So that's an amazing array portfolio and I'm missing many. So you've seen the housing industry, the housing finance industry from many different angles and different company cultures. And I'm just wondering what do you know because of that range that you couldn't have learned staying in just one organization or one part of the business?

Jason Bohrer (19:26)
Well, number one, those of us who've been in the mortgage business know we don't always have a choice because mortgage companies come and go. some of those changes might not have been my idea, but you get bought. For example, I thought I'd arrived when I got a job at Dominion Bank shares. Faith Schwartz, who is still very active in housing finance was a

Val Buresch (19:34)
you

I know fate.

Jason Bohrer (19:50)
appear there. And I just thought I was working with the best people in the industry. So, but we got bought. And that happens. That happened to me several times. So I had the opportunity to make changes. And that taught me to be fast on my feet and adapt to different cultures through the years. I learned a lot. There was a there was sort of an inflection point. I came in as a capital markets guy. I love the modeling. I love the hedging and all the Wall Street nonsense. But at one

point I wanted to become more of a general manager. I, after about five years working in mortgage banking, I went back and got my MBA at University of Virginia. And then I tried to focus on being a general manager and then adding different responsibilities such as underwriting, loan delivery, ultimately I had responsibility for servicing. I think I had legal and compliance. ⁓

Val Buresch (20:21)
Mm.

Jason Bohrer (20:42)
So I've touched everything at one point or another and probably my true love is ⁓ alignment, you know getting everyone aligned and going in the same direction and using the financial statements to do that You know expose that truth and then act on it. I Had I had a professor years ago in marketing who told me Don't tell me a story and I have to ask you to go find the numbers. He said

Give me the numbers and tell me the story about those numbers. And I I kept that, you know, true to heart and I've always gone by that. So I've moved to general management and that's what I really enjoy. You know, I think you can pretty much learn any function. If you have smart people you're employing and I've always believed in employing smarter people than me in their functional areas. So.

Val Buresch (21:23)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Bohrer (21:38)
It's when you have that philosophy, it's achievable.

Val Buresch (21:41)
I think it's interesting that we are talking about that now because I see in the industry waves of consolidation coming and I think a lot of people will experience what you have experienced, what I have experienced, many people have experienced, but now I think it's being compounded with not only with the consolidation wave but also with the changes in technology and but I want to talk about that a little bit later.

I

Jason Bohrer (22:06)
can you, do you remember Cameron Brown? Do you remember Alomis and Nettleton? Do you remember Alliance Mortgage Funding? No, probably not. You're too young, but those were the dominant lenders in the 80s. I'm sure there are others I'm missing, those were three accounts I dealt with. They're all gone or been absorbed by someone else. So it's a rotation of capital you know, every...

Val Buresch (22:13)
No. No.

Mm-hmm.

Jason Bohrer (22:28)
Decade, there's a lot of capital in the IMB space right now. know, servicing has kind of gone that direction instead of the banks. see servicing continue to come out of big banks. Recently, Wells put a huge portfolio out. But if changes in capital rules that are being talked about today, that capital could flip back to the banks investing in servicing. So it just changes.

Val Buresch (22:50)
Right?

Jason Bohrer (22:52)
That's the constant and our business has changed. And if you like your hair on fire, this is a great business to be in because there's always something new going on.

Val Buresch (23:00)
And it is so fundamental. It finances one kind of shelter. There are two kinds of shelter, renting or home owning, owning a home and yeah, that's fascinating. So I wanted to ask you before we move on

Jason Bohrer (23:11)
Right.

Val Buresch (23:17)
give us a sense, since you've seen so much, a moment in your career, whether this was a situation with a client or with a deal or with one of those merging cultures that really tested you and how you reacted to something very, very difficult situation.

Jason Bohrer (23:37)
Wow. I can think of one. I won't name the names, so we were getting bought. I was running the hedge and like any bank, we tried to stay flat. You know, if we made money on the hedge or lost money on the hedge, it was kind of the same things we had made of the state. Our job was to preserve the margin and the company that bought us, the gentleman in charge came in and said, okay, I want you to pull up half the hedge.

They hadn't settled yet with us. I mean, they didn't own us yet. So it's like, what do you do? Do you go by your risk management policy? Do you go by this new buyer? And we worked through it, but that was really interesting, getting that kind of pressure. And it sorted out. We got them to wait until they actually owned us, which was the right answer.

But anyway, know, the other thing is, the other thing is, you know, when it's getting the numbers right, when you go through an acquisition, making sure everyone understands, really understands the P &L, you know, what do things really cost us to produce and things like that. So it, I've been through a number of rebuilds of the P &L, literally taking it down to the studs and rebuilding it back up.

Val Buresch (24:33)
I can imagine.

Mm-hmm.

Jason Bohrer (24:59)
to use the housing analogy. So we got everything in the right place and you can make the right decisions. So that's happened numerous times.

Val Buresch (25:08)
These are very useful examples and something to think about. think many people can relate to this, especially the first example where you are in this situation and it's that ethical. mean, I don't know. I think it is an ethical decision. Do you go by your risk policies or do you?

Jason Bohrer (25:30)
Boy, had, I mean, the answer

was obvious. It just was political. You you had to go with existing policy until the other company bought you. But I was pretty young then, and it was a little more interesting because of my level of experience.

Val Buresch (25:34)
Yes, yeah.

Speaking of that, I want to ask you about who shaped you as a professional, as a mortgage professional. Did you have a mentor? Did you have a good boss, a peer, maybe difficult client, someone who really changed how you think about your work, your habits at work?

Jason Bohrer (26:09)
Well, I've had quite a few mentors. I have to call out Paul Conway as sort of my first mentor. He's a CMB. He really, he helped me go from the Wall Street trading desk to secondary marketing at Perpetual. ⁓ At Perpetual, gentleman named Dave Hurt, who's still in the industry as well as Paul is. Dave taught me the value of networking and relationships.

Val Buresch (26:22)
Mm.

Jason Bohrer (26:34)
watched him, as did Paul. But I worked directly for Dave and he was a master of relationships. I think that, you know, when I see him, I thank him for that. I don't see him as much as I used to. And another one I think about is having the right data to make decisions with. When I worked for a company run by Dave Galatana, who has unfortunately passed away, but he ran

Paying Whoever Mortgage Finance, which we turned into Columbia National. And Dave was all about the data. He was a GE Capital, ex-GE Capital, ex McKinsey employee. And when I got there, we had three books. We had the white book, the blue book, and the green book. And one of them was the general financials, one of them was all the servicing, and one of was the ops. And you could look in those books and you would know the loans per processor. You would know every detail.

of the entire operation and they were reliable. So that was a big mindset shift for me to have the right data from the overall business perspective. Up into that point, I'd already had the data about the position I was running, the hedge, but the data about the whole company I found fascinating. that was a very important point for me. So yes, there were books, literally those colors.

Val Buresch (27:45)
So were they actual books or files?

Jason Bohrer (27:51)
And they'd all three come together every month and we'd look through them and highlight them and dog ear them. And I asked him about it. He goes, well, the first thing I did when I got here was try to get good data so I could make decisions. And that's the exact same thing. I've been back at Newport Advisors for a few months. And the first thing I did was run through the P &Ls, ask a lot of questions, make sure I have the data to make decisions with.

Val Buresch (28:05)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Bohrer (28:18)
It's critical, important, and for those of you who are not, you know, finance people, remember one thing. It's just stories about people. That's all a P &L, an income statement, a balance sheet are. It's stories about people. It's not higher math. It's, you know, addition, subtraction, et cetera. So if you approach it with that perspective, maybe it won't be as intimidating.

Val Buresch (28:45)
I certainly appreciate that. love data. only because not, I don't love it in abstract, but because of what you're saying, it represents the real world. It's how we see the real world. Even if you think of people learning to fly, we weren't born to be able to fly. We learned through data, through calculations. Somebody did the calculations and then.

that opened up so much for the human race. And that's why I love data as well, because it gives me a lens to understand the world and to make a better decision in it.

Jason Bohrer (29:13)
Yeah.

Absolutely, as long as you don't get analysis paralysis, you get enough to make a decision and then you move on and you'll never have perfect data to make decisions with. That's the trap you gotta avoid.

Val Buresch (29:34)
Now tell me about Newbold advisors. You came back to Newbold but first describe what is Newbold and more importantly, what is it Newbold trying to become in this new world of mortgage banking that we are seeing now with technology changing, with those waves of change that we're experiencing.

Jason Bohrer (29:57)
Well, Newbold is a 20 year old firm. And I think roughly 10 % of all firms that are startups survive 20 years. So that says a lot for the company. It started with three gentlemen who were working independently at Fannie Mae and Dave Heisey, who was a CFO at the time, asked them to do a project together. Of course, they did extensive market research on naming Newbold and

decided since one of them lived on Newbold Court, they'd use that name for the company. But it was all about experience applied, that's the original moniker, bringing the right people to the job for the job at hand. So we have never had a bench of generalists. If we're gonna be working on a digital transformation project,

to implement a new servicing system or a new LOS system, we're gonna bring people that have done that exact work before. So that's what we've been about for 20 years. It started with traditional management consulting, which is still a lot of our business, which I would define as having a statement of work that we have to deliver a result. We also have gotten into the staffing business, which is providing...

You know, if you need a dotnet developer for six months, we can go find one for you. If you need a full stack engineer, we'll find one for you. We'll place them there for six months. We've also, when I was a Newbold before, I had a client who needed a secondary marketing leader. So I said, hey, we can get that for you. And we did. And then that took us into executive search, which last year we accomplished 30 of those searches for our clients. it's really all about.

Val Buresch (31:34)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Bohrer (31:37)
⁓ people serving other people, bringing the right people to bear for the situation at hand. And if we make a mistake, we get them out of there quickly and get the right people in there. It's been a fun run. A few months ago, the partners asked me to consider coming back and I was honored and thrilled to come back and build the legacy going forward.

Val Buresch (31:59)
That's exciting. And seems like what Newbold was doing is like any good advisory firm does. You look at the situation, you see a gap, and then you find a way to propose a solution to fill that gap.

Jason Bohrer (32:15)
Exactly. And it really starts with a question. What are you trying to accomplish? So we don't have a script. It just plays off that question. And a lot more questions that follow.

Val Buresch (32:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

that's exactly that. Having that understanding and assessment of the situation with questioning it and understanding it deeply, those are the best solutions that come up if you understand the problem or the need.

Jason Bohrer (32:44)
Well, I think it's, know it's people say it all the time, but trust is critical. And our word is our bond. Our name is the only thing we have. So we are very careful about only doing jobs we know we can do. If we can't, we tell people we can't. We say, should call Val over there. She can do the data. She's got great data. That's not our thing. So, and we also have a...

Val Buresch (32:59)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Bohrer (33:10)
saying, telling their babies ugly. So they don't want us to come in there and tell them how wonderful they are. We're not a big four. We're the people that roll up under the car, change out the transmission because it's ugly and put a new one in and then they keep driving. So we try to get in and out and fix things and then get invited back by earning the trust and being truthful about what's going on.

Val Buresch (33:33)
That's a great analogy. And who is your ideal client? Are lenders particularly your client or maybe fintechs? Or do you serve all the stakeholders in the housing finance industry?

Jason Bohrer (33:46)
It really depends. mean, we're partnering with a number of technology companies that want to do implementation. So we call that our digital transformation practice, whether it would be an LOS system or a new servicing system. But a perfect client is someone that wants to sit down and have a conversation about what they're trying to accomplish and have us help them.

It's not about somebody looking for the cheapest price to do an implementation because that's not us. I learned early, it doesn't take any brains to lower price. It takes brains to add value. And so we're trying to add value wherever we can. So it's somewhere where I can go and sit down and have a real conversation. I've been on their side of the desk.

Val Buresch (34:25)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Bohrer (34:36)
So I know what they're going through. I know what their issues are. And I might have an idea because I've got a few more gray hairs than they do. Or I might not. But somebody back at the firm probably does if I don't know. So it's really someone we can build trust with and have a relationship with where we help them over time. And we don't show up with a deck and say, hey, here's all the cool stuff we've done. We show up and just start consulting.

You know what? What are your objectives? And we just start working with them and if if if something works out, we'll paper it and we'll get a. Project on the books. If not, we've made a new friend.

Val Buresch (35:13)
That's a great attitude. And one thing that has been on my mind and as you're talking is artificial intelligence. And we start talking a little bit about that before. So AI has been part of our industry for a long time. But the

generative AI or this new generation of AI that comes that's democratizing the access of AI. think it is reshaping almost everything in financial services and housing finance as well. So, you know, how what's on my mind is in the question on my mind is how does this AI how is it impacting how you sit down with your clients? How do you

approach your clients and especially in the area of technology implementation? Do you see any impact of AI there?

Jason Bohrer (36:07)
comments.

Absolutely. Most conversations come with, if you don't do this immediately, you're out of business. so I kind of run from those conversations. And I'm a continual learner and I will be the first to admit I have a ton to learn about AI as we all do probably. But what's caught my eye is these small incremental changes where you add a

Val Buresch (36:18)
Right.

Jason Bohrer (36:40)
whatever you want to call a bot. It's not, RPAs have been around a long time, robotic process, but the bots that actually learn, that you can do a specific task I'm fascinated with and how you can take an LOS system, for example, and plug about here. I don't know that it might do some tasks in title. Pick any area that reduces the timeframe and you can quantify.

we have reduced 90 % of the timeframe. Those are the ones that catch my attention. The big bangs, I'm more skeptical of, and I know we're going in that direction. But of those little incremental changes that are measurable, I think that's the way you sneak up on it. Like down south, we say there's two ways to boil a frog. You can throw the frog in boiling water and they'll jump out, or you can turn the heat up slowly and the frog will stay in there.

I know that's a weird analogy probably for you, but I'm a believer in that slow incremental approach. Let's bolt on something that'll help and learn from it. Then we'll bolt something else on that'll help. So that's kind of my approach, frankly. It's a great, in my head, it's a great research tool. If you wanna find out about something, as mundane as I'm planning a cocktail party for 60.

how many drinks should I have to asking about specific, having it build you a finance model. What's very quickly, what's the future value of an annuity of a thousand dollars for 20 years of 10 %? Bam, you don't have to build a model anymore. It just does it for you. So if you imagine how the big bang will be, that'll be something else, the leaps and bounds, but.

Val Buresch (38:23)
that's very interesting. Yeah. Incremental versus big bang we, you we started immediately when I, when I heard for the first time about the generative AI technology, this was at the Christmas party in 2022 And at that time, I have to say that I didn't even know how to chat GPT. I was spelling it chat GBT is GPT.

Jason Bohrer (38:24)
I don't know.

Yeah

Yeah.

Val Buresch (38:47)
So, I mean, what kind of a name is that? But we, ever since we heard about that, we have been trying to understand it and implement it. And what we call here is riding the wave before it crashes on us. Because we do see the power of it, but also we see that it is still this kind of a child, especially when it comes to structured data. ⁓ It cannot.

do everything that you think. You cannot snap with your fingers and model the entire HMDA lar data. That's just not going to happen yet. And again, I say yet, but I think AI is here, it's real and is going to catch up with us one way or another. thinking about how it affects our businesses is a great exercise and love to share experiences.

from our learning some other time.

Jason Bohrer (39:41)
Yeah,

well, I mean, that's a question I have, and maybe anybody watching this can help me, but where do we go? Where's homeroom on this for the mortgage industry to know what the latest and greatest is? You know, are there meetings at the national conference? I looked on the schedule, and I don't think there's a technology conference anymore, but I could be wrong. The MBA I know various vendors have conferences.

Val Buresch (39:51)
Mm.

Jason Bohrer (40:05)
But I want a place to go to know what's working. If there is such a place.

Val Buresch (40:14)
Well, that's a very good question. And actually, I take it as a challenge as well. Because in the CMB Society, we have the CMB Technology Committee. And one of the issues that we were trying to solve is to bring information to the CMB Society. Not necessarily a conference, so it's not a direct answer to your question.

Jason Bohrer (40:34)
Yeah.

Val Buresch (40:34)
to bring the latest thinking and share practical experiences. And we still have to deliver on that vision for the CMB Technology Committee, but I would say, I would take it as a challenge and come back to you.

Jason Bohrer (40:49)
Yeah, and I'd be happy to collaborate with you. This is this is a vertical learning, you know, curve for me anyway.

Val Buresch (40:54)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I heard a product manager at one of those technology companies, nothing to do with mortgage, but they are AIs horizontal now. It's not vertical, it's horizontal. And what she said is that we should all do an exercise if we are providing some kind of a solution and

The mortgage industry is full of little SaaS companies that provide this and that, including my own mortgage market intelligence. But try to get one of those tools like Cursor. You have heard the AI coding tool, the Vibe coding tools, Loveable and try to replicate your solution. If you can, then you're in big trouble. But if you can't, maybe you still have few months ahead of runway.

Jason Bohrer (41:42)
Right, right.

Val Buresch (41:44)
So Jason, I typically ask it of my guests because I am also continual, I love learning and knowing things. So what are you reading? What are you watching? What podcasts are you listening?

Jason Bohrer (41:46)
Absolutely.

Val Buresch (42:00)
working on right now that has absolutely nothing to do with mortgage banking, but is really developing who you are and helping you be a full human being.

Jason Bohrer (42:12)
Well, from a reading perspective, I read a lot. And I know this will shock you, but I love spy fiction.

So, you know, any and all those Seth, Seth Sprague, who's an active CMB and was chair some time ago, he and I have a sort of informal book club where we share titles, but, you know, the Mitch rap books, you know, any kind of police nonsense like the Harry Bosch books, I love that to get away from everything else. And then I usually rotate in a history book.

you know looking for you know cause and effect back in the day and a business book i usually i usually have a business book going i don't have a current business book going but ⁓ you know history i'm reading a book about the generals in world war two and their personalities and a garbage book it's ⁓

Val Buresch (42:58)
you

Jason Bohrer (43:11)
I think it's a Jason Bourne book, the famous spy who can't remember anything. So those, I'd love to find an interesting podcast that wasn't political. I'm exhausted with all the political mess, so I don't want to listen to that. I tend to listen to music when I'm at the gym. I haven't found a podcast that I really like at this point. If you have any recommendations, let me know.

My son listens to all the history podcasts. He can tell you the Roman Empire, you know, all those details, but I need to read it. I'm not. I'm not good at listening to history. So I hope that answered your question and I read on a Kindle I love being. I love having an entire library in my little hands. And the luxury of having time to read on the weekend is go on the back porch and read. You know at my leisure is a.

Val Buresch (43:39)
You

Mm-hmm.

I did too.

Jason Bohrer (44:03)
was a wonderful luxury of life.

Val Buresch (44:06)
I agree. Wonderful. And I can share with you my podcasts afterwards. I normally listen to podcasts that are technology oriented. So I can tell you machine learning, street talk and things like that, but I'm not going to bore you with those.

Jason Bohrer (44:12)
Yeah, that'd be great.

Thank

Well, I have one that they

don't publish as much as I'd like, it's called Acquired Have you ever listened to that one?

Val Buresch (44:33)
I like Lenny's podcast. It has, he interviews product managers or CEOs or founders of technology companies. And I like that.

Jason Bohrer (44:35)
Uh-huh.

Well, Acquired is histories of companies, know, Berkshire Hathaway, Walmart, Price Club, the NFL have been the recent ones I've listened to and they go all through the history and it's their three hour long form and the guys that do it, I think they're both venture capitalists and they get deep into it. The fascinating thing I'd listened to on the Costco Price Club,

Val Buresch (44:46)
⁓

Yeah.

Jason Bohrer (45:09)
is their inventory turns. You know, the inventory at that place used to turn so fast, you know, it was there and gone. So, you know, they didn't have to finance it. And I just thought that little nugget was fascinating.

Val Buresch (45:24)
I'm going definitely to check out that podcast. haven't heard about it, but now it's on my list.

Jason Bohrer (45:29)
Yeah, yeah, it's it's called Acquired and ⁓ I wish they did more, but they're interesting and I would love to hear some more from you and and I need more to listen to. I can only listen to 70s Rock so much.

Val Buresch (45:40)
Yes.

Jason, I can talk to you all day and I'm definitely going to come back to you with ⁓ recommendations and I want to act on what we just found out that actually there is a room for collaboration with the CMB Technology Committee, your perspective or questions that you might have about technology, which I'm sure other people have.

more to come, this conversation to be continued. And once again, I just want to thank you for this, for sharing your mom, Doris Bohrer with us. I think it's a wonderful story and very inspiring actually.

Jason Bohrer (46:20)
Thank you and to anyone listening, I believe in paying it forward. if there's anything I can do for you, don't hesitate to reach out. I'm easy to find on LinkedIn.

Val Buresch (46:31)
Thank you, Jason, and I will put your LinkedIn just in case if people want to reach out directly to you. Thank you again.

Jason Bohrer (46:37)
Right.

Thank you.

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