Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Northwest Title

I started working at Equity Title on March 2, 1998. They were a small, privately owned, title company run by three local guys. Two of which are attorneys; Mark Webber (President) and Mike Smith (General Counsel). Then, our President decided to sell the Equity Title to a huge company called First American Title. The President made millions on the transaction and the resulting acquisition ended up causing dozens of people to loose their jobs. Then First American decided to fully absorb Equity Title into it's operation and I worked for the fortune 300 company for about 6 years. Then, on March 9, 2015, I got an email from Mike Smith stating that he was leaving First American (finally, we'd all talked about wanting to leave for years) and for more information we could call a cell phone number. I called that night, got an offer of employment from Mike's new partner, Doug Smith, (no relation) along with offers for each of the people I worked with. I was elated! Working for Mike Smith was an honor and a privileged and I couldn't wait to do so again. On began the starting of Northwest Title. 



Lobby of the building

View from our large closing room




Group shot of all the employees of Northwest Title

Our fearless leader, Mike Smith
Executive Vice-President Escrow Operations, Jeff Williams
  
Head of sales, Angie Flint

Human Resource Director, Casey Buhler 

My new head shot, Vice-President/Manager of the Sugarhouse Office

My assistant, Claire Drew

Senior Escrow Officer, Liz Cole
Liz's assistant, Mcinsy Topance Brown

Sugarhouse Sales Manager, Diane Mouser
All in all, 30+ employees left First American and joined the Northwest Title team. The entire staff of the Sugarhouse, Bountiful and Union Park offices in addition to others from the Draper and Orem offices. Unfortunately, First American felt this move to a new company was purely a slight against them and they used some of their billions to file a lawsuit against Northwest the company, Mike Smith, Jeff Williams and for some unknown reason, Kristi Carrell, individually. On began one of the most miserable business experiences of my life. We got great legal representation, and I survived a deposition, but it is ongoing and First American continues to search for something that just isn't there. I'm hopefully the outcome will prove that we did nothing wrong, but the ongoing fight is getting old. Meanwhile, Northwest Title is doing great and we're enjoying our new environment of camaraderie and freedom. 




Friday, March 6, 2015

Disney on Ice

I heard a radio ad about how Disney on Ice "Villains" show was coming to the Maverick Center and we decided to take Trace since he seems to LOVE all the bad guys in all the Disney shows he watches. It was amazing to see the skating abilities and as expected, Trace loved the Villain part of the show the best. He got to see Minnie and Mickey, Jafar, eat snow cones and popcorn and got a spinning light up souvenir and sword. I would say all in all, we all three enjoyed the evening. 





Captain Hook was there!