After the most painful year of my 24 year mortgage banking career, I can now report that I am officially an employee of the Federal Government. As everyone knows, last Friday the Office of Thrif Supervision put Indymac Bank into receivership and tranfered most of the assets to a new company, Indymac Federal Bank, operating under a conservatorship directed by the FDIC. Monday came around and all of a sudden we were closing loans! over $10 million closed on Monday over $14 million closed on Tuesday. The FDIC was able to unwind the mess that Indymac had created in the funding pipeline in one weekend. I never had any intention of working for the Feds and my tenure with them will be short as the retail lending group has been sold to Prospect Mortgage. But for my customers and my sanity, this is a godsend. I only wish this action would have taken place sooner. I feel terrible about those depositors that have over the insured limit with Indymac...they will likely loose that money. But for the thousands of loan customers and the hundreds of employees of the residential lending group (indy retail), this is the best thing that could happen. The only thing worse, in my opinion, than the bank failing would be a slow death with day upon day of unfullfilled promises and week upon week of disfunctional operation. As you might expect in times like this, my phone has not stopped ringing with inquires from customers, referal partners, recruiters, and friends. Often I hear comments similiar to this, "That senator from New York is to blame for this whole mess. His letter leaking the information about Indymac brought the bank down". When I hear these comments I have to respectully disagree. In fact I salute Senator Schumer for being honest in a time when honesty in government is so rare. The administration and the regulators have been sweeping our problems under the rug for way too long. If the Senator's letter allowed some uninsured deposits to be withdrawn before they were lost than I say not only was it reasonable to make the information pubulic, it was his responsibility. I want to publically thank the Senator for accelarating what was going to be the inevitable death of Indymac. Thank you Senator Schumer for helping the customers and employees of Indymac Bank avoid a painful and protracted slow death. Art Marine Sales Manager Retail Lending Group West Indymac Bank 10220 SW Greenburg Road, Suite 245 Portland, OR 97223 (503)764-4005 (866)451-4365 fax (503)853-3959 cell Arthur.Marine@imb.com www.amarine.imbhomelending.com