Chapter 1

Driving home from work Matt Daniels thought that some days are good and some days are bad. Today was definitely one of those bad days. That today’s date was also Friday the 13th was probably another indicator of why he considered this to be a bad day.

The reason for this thought being a bad day probably started about three months ago. That was when it was announced that the Savings and Loan Matt worked at as the head of the mortgage department was being bought by a large regional bank. This bank had a branch office that was located about one mile from Matt’s S an L and it didn’t make good business sense to have two locations that close to each other. The bank apparently was of the same mind and today it was announced they were closing that smaller location and were moving its operation into Matt’s S an L.

Along with that it also announced some personnel changes that were being made. The big change and one that hit home was that Matt along with Ed Kaiser were being transferred from this Glendale office to a branch located in Long Beach. That was a distance of thirty one miles and who knows how long it would take driving there because of LA’s rush hour traffic.

Even though Ed lived south of Glendale it still was a tough drive for him but he had three daughters and in the near future he was going to be faced with college costs. He had no choice but to bite the bullet and do the trek to this location every day as he needed the job.

Matt was a different story. He was single and lived north of Glendale which made the daily trek that much longer for him to do. While he liked what he had been doing as head of the mortgage department, he would not be the head of the department at the Long Beach location. To him it was obvious that this Regional bank was taking care of their employees and didn’t give two cents about the employees at the S an L. This was their way of telling Matt that he wouldn’t be missed if he left their employment.

Matt thought that during the two weeks’ vacation he now was going to take he would see what employment opportunities existed in the LA area. It was said the economy was good so he should be able to find something out there that would interest him.

Sunday morning while having breakfast Matt was reading the LA Times newspaper employment ads. One ad that caught his attention was one from the Wilkinsing Foundation. Their ad simply said that they were looking to hire someone who had loan experience which Matt definitely had. Why they would want someone with that experience was a little bit of a mystery. From watching TV and reading the newspaper Matt was aware that the foundation was involved in seeing that medical services were available to all residents of the State of California. They now were expanding that endeavor to other states. Why they would need a loan person was a question but he would phone them Monday morning and see what their ad was all about.

Matt did make the call and after answering a few questions as to his qualifications he was given an appointment for later in the day.

After completing the application form and apparently passing the first interview he was shown to the office of Troy Kane. Troy who said he was a Director of the Foundation had an interviewing technique which initially was to go over the information on Matt’s application with him.

Troy then said,”Let me assume that in giving or approving home loan mortgages it basically involved in checking if the applicant had the twenty percent down, had employment that could service the loan requested and the property after inspection was listed at a fair price. That along with a decent credit report was why you approved the loan?”

“Pretty much so but at times there were exceptions in this process that I had to approve.”

“Tell me about those exceptions,” said Troy.

“Some applicants didn’t have the full twenty percent down, or the property was not in that great of shape or the credit history had some problems. I would review those applications and maybe re-interview the applicants and make the final determination if we should make the loan. As it turned out we had a very low loan default rate which I will take some credit for.”

There was more to the interview but it concluded with Troy thanking Matt for coming in and saying after some other interviews are completed he will decide to whom to make the offer of employment. He said he will be in touch one way or the other with Matt to let him know what was decided.

In the early afternoon the following Friday Matt received a call from Troy. Troy said they are offering Matt the job with a twenty percent increase from what his present salary was at the S an L. Matt was asked when he could start and he responded that all he needed to do was to make one phone call and he would be there Monday. Troy told Matt to see him at nine.

Matt made the phone call to the bank saying he was quitting. He didn’t feel he needed to give a two week notice because of how they had treated him with this transfer and probably were happy to see him go anyway. He still had some questions about what loan business he was going to be doing at the Wilkinsing Foundation but he was sure Troy would tell him Monday morning.

Monday morning had Matt walking up to Troy’s Assistant whose name plate on her desk said she was Lee Jennings. Matt couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. Although Matt was a little early she told him to walk right in to Troy’s office as he was expecting him.

Troy warmly greeted Matt shaking his hand and welcoming him. He told him to take a seat and pressing his intercom button told his assistant to send Jenna right in when she gets here.

Matt and Troy engaged in about two minutes of small talk before a tall lady walked into Troy’s office. As Matt stood he thought if first impressions mean something, this was a good first impression. This lady was about five foot nine inches tall, had a nice slim figure, shoulder length light brown hair and a pretty face. She also had what he would think was a display of confidence because of how she walk. He would guess she was or had been an athlete of some sorts.

Troy introduced her to Matt as Jenna Collins and Matt to her. Troy said that Jenna was going to be Matt’s assistant and after asking both of them to take a seat he explained what this loan project was going to be.

“During the interviews you both told me you were familiar with the Wilkinsing foundation in giving grants and the current program of increasing the availability of medical services to the citizens of this State which is now expanding into other States. You know that John Wilkinsing is a multi-billionaire who started this foundation as a way of giving back but I don’t know if you are aware of John’s history.”