Two of the mortgage industry’s largest brokerages are joining independent mortgage professionals in an effort to raise standards for serving veterans and active-duty military borrowers.
Vetted VA has formed its first advisory board, bringing together Mike Kortas, founder and CEO of NEXA Lending; Tom Ahles, chief growth officer of Edge Home Finance; and three professionals who have reached the highest rank in Vetted VA’s training program.
The independent mortgage professionals are Gay Veale of Guidon Mortgage Group, Jason Sharon of Home Loans Inc., and Mike Alberico of Carolina Mortgage Advisors. All three hold the VVA7 rank.
The board will help Vetted VA expand its education, strengthen its professional standards, and develop industry partnerships as the organization enters its next stage of growth.
“We have always asked for advice. We have simply never fully formalized the process,” said Christopher Griffith, founder and CEO of Vetted VA. “Now, we are building the leadership structure that will allow us to educate more professionals, reach more Veterans, and create an impact they can actually feel when using their VA home loan benefit.”
The lineup is notable because it crosses company lines in the highly competitive broker channel. NEXA and Edge operate at a much larger scale than the independent firms represented on the board, but all five members will work on the same mission: improving how mortgage professionals understand and deliver VA loans.
“Scale means nothing without standards,” Kortas said. “Vetted VA has built something rare: a community that holds professionals accountable to the people they serve.”
VA Training Across Company Lines
Vetted VA began as a Facebook group in 2019 and has grown into a training and accountability organization serving veterans, active-duty service members, and the mortgage and real estate professionals who work with them.
Its professional rank system runs from VVA1 through VVA7. Vetted VA says its program includes more than 38 hours of coursework, along with service and teaching requirements. Production alone does not determine a participant’s standing.
“Our professionals earn their standing through real work and real accountability, not production numbers,” said Nathan Knottingham, co-founder and COO of Vetted VA. “This board gives us the experience and reach to scale that discipline without compromising it.”
Vetted VA reported that it has tracked more than 5,190 VA loans representing approximately $2.3 billion in origination volume since its founding. It said 2,042 of those loans, or about 39.5%, were sourced through its network.
The organization’s public materials say its production data is self-reported by participating professionals and compared with Ginnie Mae securitization and Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.
Vetted VA’s digital communities now reach nearly 100,000 people, according to the organization. That includes approximately 88,800 members in its private Facebook community and more than 6,400 members in its professional group.
The organization plans to increase the availability of its training, with a goal of offering one live class every day in 2027. It will also hold a VA Summit at AIME Fuse.
Existing Ties To NEXA And Edge
The board formalizes relationships that have already developed between Vetted VA and the two mega brokerages.
Griffith joined NEXA in April as executive vice president of VA growth and strategy. NMP previously reported that VA loans accounted for 11.5% of NEXA’s 2025 production, nearly twice the industrywide share.
Knottingham joined Edge in May as senior vice president of education and VA strategy. Edge reported more than $9.5 billion in 2025 mortgage volume and operates with more than 1,000 originators.
Despite those ties, Vetted VA said it will remain independent and open to mortgage and real estate professionals from across the industry. Recruiting and solicitation are prohibited within its communities, and the organization said the board is not a recruiting initiative for NEXA, Edge, or any other company.
“Vetted VA has built something special by putting education, credibility, and the Veteran first,” Ahles said. “I’m excited to be part of helping expand that mission and making sure more Veterans have access to knowledgeable professionals who truly understand how to serve them.”
The organization has previously worked with other wholesale lenders. In 2025, Rocket Pro partnered with Vetted VA to make additional VA education and certification resources available to brokers.
The new advisory board broadens that effort by putting leaders from large brokerages and independent mortgage firms at the same table.
