by Sabrina Park, Marketing Manager, BeSmartee

Debra Killian, CRMS, founder and president of Charter Oak Lending Group and CLOES.online, shares insights on the value of standardized mortgage education and training, prioritizing reinforcement of learning and retention, and preparing for the future of continuing education (CE) in a remote work culture.

SABRINA PARK: You’ve been in the mortgage business for 26 years as a broker and as a passionate advocate for education. Having written one of the first 20-hour origination courses before the SAFE Act was passed and training thousands of originators through the School of Loan Origination a 24-hour course you wrote for the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) please share with our audience why you believe education and training to be so important in the industry? What is lacking and how can the system be improved?

DEBRA KILLIAN: Before 2008, when the market crashed. There wasn’t really any standardization of any type of mortgage education. Each state may have had their own versions of curriculum, while others had no requirements at all. I believe Florida required a few hours of education, but short of that, and prior to that, there wasn’t really anything.