Kurt Noyce, president of Embrace Home Loans Inc., is no stranger to growth. For nearly two decades, he’s helped grow the Middletown full-service mortgage company to employ about 800 people across 80 U.S. locations in 47 states. The business has been named one of the fastest-growing companies in America by Inc. magazine five times.
Is Rhode Island a good place to grow jobs? Why? We have been headquartered in Rhode Island for all of our 35 years and have been recognized five times as a fastest-growing company over that time. We have, therefore, always been pleased with the opportunity to grow our business here. Our success … has allowed us to grow nationally, with now [more than] 70 locations employing 400 outside Rhode Island. The work ethic of the Rhode Islander and New Englander, however, continues to stand out. Our connection with local colleges and job-development organizations has been very beneficial in providing Embrace eager, energetic and ethical employees.
If government could do one thing to help businesses grow jobs, what would it be and why? While maybe not specific to state government, the one thing to help businesses grow jobs is to dramatically reduce or amend regulations which restrict our industry’s ability to effectively organize our growth objectives with our operating expenses. … Restoring commonsense policies will give rise to customer-centered innovations, and stimulate good businesses growing again.
What’s the most important attribute a business leader needs to grow their business and add jobs? A business leader needs trust to grow their business. Trust from their employees, trust from their investors, trust from their bankers, trust from their customers, trust from prospective employees. Trust is earned. It comes from a demonstrated history, not an inspiring speech.
In which industry do you see the greatest potential for job growth in Rhode Island and why? Hard for me to comment on other industries, and while I am obviously partial to ours, like any parent I also want what’s best for my children. Some of them, and their spouses, are employed in the mortgage industry. I also have children in the health care profession and some pursuing a career in the energy industry.
Embrace Home Loans has realized tremendous growth in recent years. How? The mortgage industry is cyclical, with fairly dramatic ups and downs year over year. We have optimized this latest upswing, having prepared ourselves well during the prior downslide. That preparation included meaningful investments in our infrastructure, our employee development and our emerging markets. However, what I think most stands out for me is our discipline to maintain – through both up and down times – our commitment to operating the business by a set of values. It is what we have become known for. … Reputation and culture are very strategic to growth.
JOBS
2016: 344
2017: 400
How does the mortgage business today compare to before the financial crisis of 2008? It is tremendously more regulated. We supported the need to address any companies which failed to act with the customer’s best interest, however the result has been to … impair the good companies that always acted honorably. Surely there was a consolidation, but what may be the most striking, and surprising, outcome is how much more market share independent lenders have garnered, and banks lost.
What has your company done to capitalize on that change? As a company that has … become known for conducting itself in a caring way, Embrace benefited from the mortgage-crisis fallout, as good employees sought safe employers. This contributed to our acquisition of a mortgage company in the Washington, D.C., area, and continued as we expanded that business channel on the East Coast.
The market-share losses by banks has also benefited Embrace – not though by taking theirs, but by helping them hold theirs. … Banks have so many competing demands on their focus and funding … that it has become challenging to keep their mortgage group competitive against independents that have just one focus – mortgage lending. Embrace was approached by a large regional bank to help them do so, and now we are doing it for multiple banks.
An independent mortgage lender working alongside traditional banks? What’s the industry response been like? I’m sure if you were asking banks, “Did you ever consider outsourcing [your] mortgage department to an independent mortgage banker?” They would probably see us as having horns on our heads, if not something different. But it’s really been a remarkable partnership that has a significant growth opportunity. If you consider it, two [of the] largest banks headquartered in Massachusetts outsourced their mortgage operation to us. … I give those executives a lot of credit because it takes a lot of courage and vision to do that.
The Federal Reserve has been increasing interest rates. What impact does that have on the refinancing market and your business moving forward? The entire industry is seeing a slowing of refinancing for sure. It’d be safe to say the interest rates have had some impact on that. … At some point there are housing considerations. Some geographical areas have seen almost full restoration of prices of where they were prior to the crash. Others are probably continuing to trend that way, so there’s probably some opportunities out there in pockets where people haven’t refinanced. But more often than not, if you look at the type of refinancing, it was government-stimulated from ’09 through probably ’15, so there probably isn’t a lot left to refinance. And as people are coming into the homebuying market for the first time, the interest rates are so low that it’s unlikely they are going to want to trade out of those going forward.
Speaking of first-time homebuyers, millennials have been slower than previous cohorts to buy their first homes. What impact has that had on business, and how do you see that trend evolving? There has to be a cycle of people buying for people to be selling. If the buyers aren’t out there, the empty nesters are not as eager to sell their property. There is this circle of life in the home-purchase process that seemed to get stalled by a large group of people who have traditionally always been there to get into their first home. But as rents have skyrocketed, I think it’s made the housing opportunity look more attractive. There are all the other subsequent benefits of owning a home, [such as] starting a family, so some markets are extraordinarily hot right now and others are rising.
How would you describe the current mortgage climate in Rhode Island? Open. No real market domination. Banks, independents, credit unions, all competing for a shrinking market.
[caption id="attachment_188923" align="alignleft" width="228"]

CHARACTER COUNTS: Kurt Noyce, president of full-service mortgage company Embrace Home Loans Inc., says he’s proud nearly all the company’s 400 Rhode Island employees came from outside the industry, putting a priority on character when hiring. “We can teach you how to be mortgage bankers. I can’t teach you to be a good person.” / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY[/caption]
How does that compare to the rest of the country? Generally, I would say it is consistent with the nation as a whole. However, there are geographical pockets we operate in that are both stronger and weaker, specifically the result of housing demand. Products and pricing, though, are universal – both across markets, and competitors.
What do you consider during the hiring process? One of the things we take tremendous pride in is that almost no one in these 400 employees here [in Rhode Island] came from within the industry. That’s a criticism on the rest of the industry. All they do is channel workers, like left-handed pitchers [in the MLB] moving from team to team to team. What we have here is we look at other industries. We look for people of a certain character. We can teach you how to be mortgage bankers. I can’t teach you to be a good person.
What’s your growth strategy in the short and long term? We have had tremendous interest from other banks to explore how we partner with them. We have built a team to explore those opportunities and construct customized solutions for each.
Concurrently, we have taken our industry-leading capabilities in the direct advertising space, and materially invested in developing the same within the digital-marketing world. We have recruited this cutting-edge talent … to advance Embrace in optimizing this new consumer-preferred medium. And as a recognized employer of choice, we continue to be presented with wonderful opportunities to hire sales professionals nationally eager to exit their current work environments and join a community that is committed to them, both personally and professionally.
All three represent growth opportunities, and thus strategies, for Embrace.
How would that growth impact your physical footprint and labor needs? We have two buildings, 52,000 square feet and 28,000 square feet, and we have no space. And people like to tell me that labor is expensive here, but in reality, it’s pretty expensive everywhere. … But the opportunity for us to create the type of employee experience and culture we’ve developed is definitely most advantageous here, so if we could find some space to continue that growth, that will be a welcomed challenge for 2018.
Do you feel beholden to Rhode Island? Rhode Island is where we started the company. Rhode Island is where we have grown the company. As we come up on our 35th anniversary, we have never considered relocating the company. As a classic service industry, we recognize what differentiates one organization from another is not product or price – those are universal – but the customer experience created by our employees. … They create our award-winning culture, and are responsible for referring more than 50 percent of all our hires. Moving the company and risk losing them has never been an option.