From Figure Eights to Mortgage Rates

Blackmer also says that the principles he learned from figure skating are ingrained in how he approaches his work. After all, figure skating and Blackmer had a quarter-century love affair. “In figure skating, you can be great, but you always have so much further to go and a lot to learn, a lot more to develop in yourself and your skill set. No matter how talented you are, perseverance and hard work always win,” he said. “I’ve watched so many mortgage and sales professionals come in and out, especially this year. But the ones that have always been most impressive are those who can put their head down and nose to the grindstone and work and make it happen.”

Watch it on The Interest: Skating Into The Industry

Environment Is Everything

In every industry, there are standouts and underdogs. Blackmer called out a few standouts who inspired him in his career, most notably Rocket’s Mike Fawaz and Austin Niemiec. “Some people have born talent but it’s easy to spot the people that push themselves to keep learning, really pay attention to their coaches, they get the right environment around them,” Blackmer explained. “The same goes for the [mortgage] industry.”

So what is the secret sauce for success? Blackmer mused that environment — not talent — is the biggest factor, for both figure skaters and originators. “I’ve seen figure skaters who didn’t thrive as much with one specific coach or in a certain training facility change up their coach or place and blossom,” he said. “And that’s true when you look at the mortgage industry; no matter where you are or what you’re doing, a little change makes all the difference.”

Blackmer learned this to be true at a young age. Between moving to Michigan and eventually to Colorado Springs in pursuit of skating success, Blackmer knows that environment and the people partaking in that environment propelled him to where he is today.

For starters, if Blackmer hadn’t met Craig Joeright, he probably wouldn’t have a passion for financial services. After the pair met at a skating camp in Blackmer’s native Findlay, Joeright was asked to become a full-time skating coach. “I had been coaching about four years before I met Matthew. The poor kid probably fell seven times during our first practice together,” Joeright laughed. “But when you’re competing like Matthew, you’re with your coaches more than you’re with your own family. I became like his second father figure and, later, like his brother.”

Joeright and Blackmer bonded over both being from Ohio and having the shared experience of being a male figure skater. After coaching Blackmer up until he left for Colorado, Joeright says he stayed in touch with the family, and when Blackmer came back to Michigan, he turned to Joeright for guidance. “When you stop a sport, you lose yourself for a while after spending so much time dedicating yourself to that one focus,” Joeright explained. “And when you get out of [skating], it’s a very unusual space to be in without direction.”

Blackmer agreed. “When I was training in Colorado, I was on my own for six years, and I was under a lot of pressure between my finances and my performance,” he said. “You can only practice so much because it’s a high-impact sport, so every day, I knew that the 4-5 hours spent on the ice had to count.

“I bartended and waited tables to pay for everything, and I didn’t have time to socialize. Every day, it was bed at 8 p.m. and then up at 5 a.m. for a run and a workout.”

Living in a pressure cooker environment coupled with his skating partner, Britney Simpson, tearing shoulder cartilage and ousting the duo from competing, Blackmer retired from skating in 2016 feeling burnt out and lost.

Meanwhile, Joeright was working in real estate and offered to bring on Blackmer as an assistant and a buyer’s agent for about two years. “It was a great fit for him. He has a great personality and isn’t shy. And when he wants to get something done, he’s a force,” Joeright said. “For example, one time he was paired with a Russian skating partner, and he was so determined to be her friend that he learned enough Russian over the course of a few months to be able to hold conversations with her.”

Thriving Under Pressure

For Blackmer, stepping into the financial services world was the transition he needed to keep him disciplined. “I thrive under pressure with high stakes and high expectations,” he said. ‘I wasn’t necessarily raised that way. I come from a charismatic family, but I feel like skating gave me my work ethic and my attention to detail.”

Blackmer, working under Joeright, managed to make a connection with a niche group: divorce attorneys. “I had some strong transactions through that line of work. However, it was an incredibly contentious line of work and emotionally charged,” Blackmer admitted. “I like to be the good news guy. I knew I wasn’t suited for those emotional transactions. I wanted to be less in the transaction and more managing the transaction.”

Stuck at a crossroads, he debated lacing up the skates again or trying a different avenue in the housing industry. So in 2019, after a lengthy interview process, Blackmer saddled up as a mortgage loan officer at Rocket Mortgage, then Quicken Loans.

Over the next nine months, Blackmer closed over 30 units, totaling over six million dollars. That October, he shifted gears and took on a role with Rocket’s commercial real estate development arm, Bedrock, as a tenant experience associate working in helping local Detroit businesses. “I stayed in that role for about six months, but I learned that it wasn’t a right fit,” Blackmer said. “And, I had dragged my then-boyfriend onboard to Rocket’s QLMS [now Rocket Pro TPO] division, and I asked if I would be able to move over there. I was given the go-ahead.”

Blackmer’s alluding to his now husband, Vincent “Vinnie” Roncelli, who works as Rocket Pro TPO’s senior partner development manager. “Matt is the reason that I entered the mortgage industry. I come from a background in renewable energy and was nervous about making a career transition,” Roncelli said. “I cannot think of anyone more dedicated to the mortgage industry than Matt. While we were both at Rocket Pro TPO, we worked on separate things that made an impact on the broker community. He had a pivotal role in building out Rocket’s All Access program.”

Which made leaving Rocket that much harder.

One Door Closes

After serving as the senior director for partner events in the TPO channel, Blackmer was hit with the harsh reality that he was hitting the pinnacle of his career at Rocket. “I’m not going to be the EVP of Rocket Pro TPO, Fawaz is the best leader for that channel,” he explained. “[Mike] Fawaz and Austin Niemiec asked me to build out Rocket events and trainings and partnerships and focus on the broker experience, and I realized it wasn’t enough to build successful brokers.”

Blackmer took inventory of the work he wanted to do, narrowing in on his vendor partners. One, a new company called Sonar, stuck out. “Sonar was on my radar because they started as Simplist Mortgage, and they were one of our largest accounts. I had a good relationship with the broker-owner, Anthony Sherman,” Blackmer explained. “When I was still at Rocket, [Mike] Fawaz pushed me to form more relationships and follow Sonar’s progress. I’m lucky that I happened to be in the right place at the right time when Anthony asked me to come on board and help scale the product.”

Blackmer bid farewell to Rocket this past July.

“It was a hard decision to leave; it was an incredibly uncomfortable decision to get out of an incredible ecosystem, but I’m excited in the sense that I have so much room to grow. If there’s anything I can say about my time at Rocket, I’ve worked with some of the most extraordinary people,” Blackmer gushed. “While I am a huge fan of Rocket, I decided that I wanted to work with the entire broker community. And I’m hoping that we [Sonar] get to support a lot of their brokers and their technology initiatives.”

As one door closes, another opens. Sonar successfully transitioned from its beta phase, launching early in 2023. The company touts itself as a “mortgage experience platform” designed to provide a fully digital mortgage experience for customers and originators. In simpler terms, it’s meant to streamline processes and prevent originators from bouncing between different platforms.

Sherman, Sonar’s co-founder and CEO, is the driving force behind the project, boasting two decades of experience in the mortgage industry. “Matthew saw my vision with Sonar because we both identified the pain points that originators face. Originators spend hundreds of dollars on different mortgage tech products, and we thought, why not incorporate it all into one platform?” said Sherman. “Matt was one of the first people I called because he’s genuinely excited about new tech, and he knew, looking inside and outside of Rocket, what originators were struggling with.”

Sherman also admired Blackmer’s charisma and presence on stage. “He was always the emcee at Rocket’s all-access events, and he knows how to perform and draw a room in,” he said. “He’s basically got the ability to bond and build rapport with everyone but can hang with the best of the best. He’s smart and results-driven.”