Cheese Wheel Of (Mis)Fortune

Topken’s immune system is compromised by what he calls “a run-in” with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2003, (five-and-a-half months of chemotherapy and a month-and-a-half of radiation). It was the weekend of July 4, 2021 and Topken and his wife Maria were having their family over for a gathering. “I went to the grocery store to pick up some supplies and on the clearance table, they had a nice chunk of brie. And I thought, well, gee, this would be just fine,” he recalls.

The following Tuesday Topken wasn’t feeling well and when he looked in the mirror, the right side of his face wasn’t moving. Doctors suspected Bell’s Palsy and put him on steroids, but three days later he started feeling worse and passed out at home.

“The next thing I know, I wake up and I can remember asking, what happened? I thought I was in a car wreck.” He was diagnosed with Listeria Encephalitis, put on a ventilator for nine days and pumped full of antibiotics. When Topken was released from the hospital his daughter came to care for him while Maria went back to work. Financial planning doesn’t typically come with health insurance so he had to rethink his next career move.

“I thought, well, good grief. This could be a problem if I decide to do something really stupid like eat some more soft cheese in the future,” Topken says. “So I better figure out how to do something that I enjoy that’s going to provide some benefits.”

Then he came across an advertisement for NEXA Mortgage, did some background research on being a loan officer, found out he could earn benefits, and reached out to the company. LO Tammy Richardson.answered the phone. “She said, ‘Well, you have to be licensed to work for us,’ so I changed gears and started studying for mortgage originating,” Topken recalls.

The neurological problems Listeria created made it difficult for him to focus on his studies and it would be almost a year before he was ready for his licensing exam. He took it (and passed it) on September 5, 2023 and was hired by NEXA almost immediately.

“We emailed back and forth and I helped encourage him,” Richardson says. “I was so excited.”

She and NEXA Branch Manager and Senior LO Eric Mitchell onboarded Topken into the NEXA Academy and connected him with the tools and training.

Topken was one of 22 new LOs in Mitchell’s class at the NEXA Academy, which at the end of February had about 300 LOs total learning the tricks of the trade.

“They have a certain criteria that they have to meet before they graduate and we let them out to the wolves,” the instructor explains. “It’s a six loan commitment. But they can stay until they feel comfortable,” adds Mitchell, who has high hopes for the student. “He’s been working very hard, doing a lot of marketing, cold calling, meeting with different prospects. He’s doing everything that he needs to do in order to create that business. So he will be successful. I have no doubt about it.”

Questionable

Understanding different loan products and being cognizant of clients’ needs are both top priorities for new LOs. “If they don’t know it, they try to learn. And Trip is that person. He asks the questions. He’s very knowledgeable. He understands the process. He definitely has the personality. And he’s a go -getter.”

Once he joined NEXA Topken was anxious to do every kind of loan product out there, but his instructors encouraged him to find a specialty. “When I first started, I tried to be all things for all people. I was like, why would I want to try to find a niche and limit myself when I can do everything for everybody? I soon found out you can’t do it all in this business because you’ll work 24 hours a day and never be able to catch up. I was lucky that I realized that early on because otherwise I would have been floundering around.”

Then looking back along the chain of events in his own professional career, he found his vocation.

“The week I started with NEXA was the week of the National Real Estate Investors Association Conference, which happens here in Cincinnati. I went to the conference and met several people interested in doing loans. I’ve been a real estate investor in the past, I know the general vibe of the investor culture.”

So investors it became.

“I’m actually working with one right now who has several properties that she’s looking to refinance. She just got divorced and is looking to withdraw some cash for some needs. I think these will be the first ones that I end up actually closing, depending on whether or not I find the right product for her. But I’m relatively certain that NEXA, being that it has a relationship with over 230 different lenders, will have something that she’ll be okay with.”

Wooing potential clients and referral partners is the game every LO plays.

“We try to keep in touch with Trip and make sure he’s heading in the right direction,” Richardson says. “It seems like he’s the type of guy that will go far in this industry. He’s got that personality where he wants to absorb as much information as he can and is always so pleasant and positive.”

Topken goes to a weekly real estate investors meeting in Cincinnati, and has lots of cheerleaders.

“I look back at it and both instances were very intense, but I think the Hodgkin’s prepared us for the listeria,” Maria says. “I needed to be Trip’s advocate and his voice and it truly had to be a one-team mentality to get through it.”

Their family values lifelong learning, so Topken starting a new career in his golden years is exciting for this pair.

“I think it’s fabulous,” Maria says. “Let all of us take that attitude. There’s always more to learn if you see an interest.”

She works for an advertising agency and is accustomed to taking calls off the clock, and they both are prepared for the 24/7 availability needs of a successful LO.

His realtor-sister from Atlanta and a realtor-friend in Cincinnati on the other hand, both had cautionary words for Topken.

“They were like, why are you getting in this industry now? This is the worst time possible. And I was like, ‘yeah, I know, but I’ll be able to figure out how to do things correctly. And when things start to turn around, I’ll be ready to go.’ The nice thing is real estate investors — they’re the one group of people that buy houses whether rates are at zero or if they’re at 20%. It doesn’t matter. They’re looking at the return on the investment. How do I get the money to come back to me after I put the money out? And the rate part is built into that equation for them.”

When he first left the hospital, doctors said it could take up to two years for Topken to get full movement back in his facial muscles, if ever. Two years was last summer. But this May he’s heading to the University of North Carolina Facial Nerve Institute, which treats more than 15 different types of facial paralysis.

“I’m still recovering the movement in my face, which I honestly worried a little about, being that I’m in sales,” Topken says, “but people are very nice. Cincinnati is a bigger city with a smaller town feel to it. In some places you’d probably get looked at weirdly walking around with this affliction. I try not to scare people.”

If seventy- and eighty-year-old men are vying for the top seat in the White House, Topken says, he can be an MLO.

“The one that emerges from the upcoming election, be it Biden or Trump, they’re senior citizens and they’re working. And that job is 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So that’s kind of an inspiration … I figure, hey, why not be a mortgage loan originator for a decade or so?”

Topken also hopes he can serve as an inspiration for others, be it LOs or people overcoming adversity like he has.

“It’s going to take a while to learn a few things, but eventually the light bulbs all go on and you’ll see what you need to see; what you need to know will become apparent. Especially if you’re young and coming out of college, wow, you’ve got a whole life in front of you. This type of job can provide tremendous financial security. You’ll eventually get the hang of what you need to do and be able to do your job efficiently and effectively.”

This is the first in a series of Mortgage Origin stories. To submit yours for consideration by our editorial staff, email [email protected].