A multifamily man: Michael F. Petrie, president of P/R Mortgage & Investment Corporation, is the incoming chair of the Mortgage Bankers Association. He is the first leader of the trade group to come from the multifamily side of the business

Mortgage Banking, Oct, 2004 by Janet Reilley Hewitt

Then he went off to college. He first attended the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, where he managed an apartment project and worked for a finance company to help pay for school. But he decided he would finish college closer to home, and transferred to Indiana University.

He worked his way through Indiana University, earning a B.S. degree in finance. It took him six and a half years to graduate, but he came out debt-free. He paid for college by working the night shift at a hotel near the airport, where he was the night auditor of the books. So, let's just say he had a real education by the time he earned his B.S. degree.

Petrie eventually also got his MBA while working full-time, also from Indiana University. He holds a certificate in accounting. Numbers are something he is good at.

There's no question that Petrie inherited those entrepreneurial genes. He says he and Rogers have "had overtures from other mortgage banking companies that are in our business [to buy their company], but we are not interested." He adds, "We kind of like being independent. We have a niche for what we do."

And being a small-business owner--Petrie and Rogers are 50-50 owners of their company--allows you to be more out-spoken about things. You can also act quickly on opportunities. P/R Mortgage & Investment Corporation did not have to clear it with layers of upper management when it decided to buy a small bank called Greensfork Township State Bank in Spartanburg, Indiana.

They bought the bank a couple of years ago, Petrie says, and now use it for warehouse lines to the Federal Home Loan Bank system. He adds when they bought the bank, it had maybe $6 million in assets. Now it has $75 million. The total number of employees, including those at the bank, is 23. The tiny bank also made headlines when it ranked first for 2002 and 2003 in return on average equity (ROAE) for all S-Corporation banks and thrifts of less than $1 billion in assets, according to ABA Banking Journal.

Practical side

Petrie tells a story about what launched his eventual lifelong career in real estate finance. It turns out he's not the only planner in his family.

It seems his wife, Jody, whom he met in high school, may have played a pivotal role in his career development sort of by accident. She also attended Indiana University, and they were dating. It was about a month or two before Petrie was to graduate. Jody asked if he was job-hunting, and he said he had talked to a few people. She said that a friend's boyfriend was going into a management trainee program for the Noble Roman's pizza chain, and maybe he should check it out since it seemed like a great opportunity.

"Getting back in the restaurant business scared me enough that that day when I went to class I asked one of my classmates if Merchants Bank had any jobs. He put me in touch with someone, and I eventually got a job with Merchants," Petrie says.

Petrie ended up working at Merchants National Corporation, the bank, and then at its mortgage corporation, Merchants Mortgage Corporation, for the next 10 years. But even as a young guy just out of college, he had firm views about where he wanted to go with his career and how he was going to make it happen.