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Welcome to Portfolio Perspective: Managing Risk & Seizing Opportunity, a podcast focused on the asset-based lending industry. Join Andrew Pace, Chief Client Experience Officer at Asset Compliant Solutions, as he interviews experts, shares insights, and explores strategies for managing risk, optimizing portfolio performance, and seizing opportunities in an ever-evolving financial landscape. From regulatory changes to technological advances, each episode provides actionable takeaways and deep dives into industry trends. Whether you’re a lender, servicer, or recovery expert, this podcast offers valuable perspectives to enhance your approach and improve outcomes.
We were never overleveraged, and we put the majority of our earnings back into the company. So we had a good base of retained earnings, strong balance sheet that, in hindsight, really helped us weather the storm.
Andrew:Welcome back to ACS Portfolio Perspective. I'm your host, Andrew Pace, Chief Client Experience Officer at ACS, joined today by G. Paul Fogle, Managing Director of Quality Equipment Finance and immediate past president of the National Equipment Finance Association. Paul brings more than thirty five years of commercial finance experience, spanning senior leadership roles at a major bank, a Wall Street investment firm, and privately held finance companies. Since joining Quality Equipment Finance in 2012, he has led remarkable organizational transformation, growing the firm from a $20,000,000 portfolio to $240,000,000 at its peak.
Andrew:Under his leadership, Quality has become one of the nation's strongest and most respected independent equipment finance lenders, entirely balance sheet funded without Wall Street or private equity involvement. A certified lease and finance professional, Paul is also a respected speaker, author, and advocate for industry education through his work with NEFA and the CLFP Foundation. Paul, welcome to the show.
Paul:Thanks, Andrew. I really appreciate you having me on.
Andrew:Paul, your work at Quality has involved significant transformation and long term strategic repositioning. I'd love to begin by talking about that evolution of the company under your leadership, and the steps that shaped its growth trajectory. As I mentioned earlier, you took quality from 20,000,000 to $240,000,000 at its peak. What were some of the most important steps or decisions that drove that transformation?
Paul:First off, it's been a lot of fun. I mean, I've worked at places, I've made differences, I've managed people, I've owned my own business. This has really been I've been here since 2012, as you mentioned, and being able to create something from almost nothing has been a terrific challenge, and it's been a great experience, and the people that we have here really make all the difference, and the people you've had over the years. Well, I could start off, when I got here. When I got here, the company was in a state of, I'll call it, disrepair.
Paul:It wasn't really a good focus mission statement. It kind of floundered in a mix of auto financing, a little bit of commercial, and we had just come out of the great recession, 02/2010, and the portfolio was in a little bit of disarray. Management, the owner, decided to make a change and gave me a call. So I come from a background of credit and investing, and I've learned, by no means I know everything by any stretch, but I've learned a few things over the years that I brought to the table, and that started with kind of fundamentals, documentation, underwriting, customer service, customer follow-up, and really when I got here, we were still doing leases on four page carbon paper. I mean, that's really how ancient it was, and the individual that ran it before me was here for twenty six years.
Paul:Not saying bad things about him, but that's just the way it worked. But I came from a little more national perspective. When I got here, the primary focus was Indiana and maybe some surrounding states, but I came from more of a national I was comfortable in a national presence based on my experience with other companies. So I brought basically the credit fundamentals, the customer service fundamentals, and really sat down and talked among their selves and said, Who are we? What do we want to be?
Paul:Where are there opportunities in the marketplace? We decided with the help of, I mean, input from everybody, I really wanted to focus on the commercial side of things. We did do consumer stuff in the beginning when I got here, but wanted to focus on commercial. Was comfortable going nationwide, and we looked at what are the opportunities out there, and there were a lot of A lenders out there that were primarily owned by banks with very low cost of funds. There were a lot of D lenders out there that would finance almost anybody.
Paul:And there was a lack of lenders in the B and C space. Being a privately owned company, we decided to focus on the B and C space, which again, I come from a little bit higher risk background and was comfortable in that space. So we started focusing on BNC and found some good niches in the BNC funding space, and it really started taking off probably about fourteen months after I started, after we got all the processes and back office in the right shape, and the underwriting guidelines, and the how is what we really focused on doing first, and then went out to the market and found primarily a good niche in over the road trucking. Back then, there was, after the great recession, trucking had really fallen by the wayside like a lot of businesses, but it was on the comeback, and obviously the nation cannot exist and the economy can't exist without moving goods and services, primarily goods, across the country. There was what I'll call it, a little bit of a vacuum in the BNC space.
Paul:From there, we really started growing in 'fourteen, 'fifteen, 'sixteen. A few bumps along the way with some market interruptions or cycles that we go through, but really that really got us off and running to getting to a peak of $240,000,000, but we also focus on non over the road trucks. We do a lot of vocational. We do a lot of manufacturing. We do medical.
Paul:Do kind of, we're a generalist in all other types of equipment, but we had a concentration in the over the road space that really grew us quite quickly and got us to that peak.
Andrew:Thank you. Thank you. That was great. So when the over the road market collapsed, many lenders were caught off guard. So can you share with our listeners what lessons did you take from that experience, and how did it influence your strategy going forward?
Paul:I don't know any lender that was really expecting such a collapse in the over the road space. As I mentioned, we've been through some cycles, and we knew there were cycles in this industry. We would get through them, a little more write offs, but we always knew we would come back. This time and ever since, it really, after every big buddy got into the over the road space. Companies were making money hand over fist because there was such a demand for goods across the country, and 70% of our economy's consumer based, and that really There was a point in time there where trucks were selling for 50% over what they were a couple years ago.
Paul:The freight rates per mile were super high, and you really couldn't go wrong being in the freight business, and people were making money hand over fist. There's a lot of new entrants. There are a lot of new companies. Existing companies are doing quite well, but the bottom fell out, I will say, beginning mid to late 'twenty two, and all of a sudden we had overcapacity. We had too many trucks chasing too few loads.
Paul:Freight companies that were not well run started having financial issues. A lot of people just went out of business. A lot of people had to give back their trucks. From a lender's perspective, that's bad, especially when you bought a truck for say $200,000 and today it's worth 75,000 or even worse. So in the beginning it was, Okay, this is another cycle.
Paul:We'll get through it. Things will ramp up again, but it really hasn't rebounded since, and I think everybody has been caught off guard by the length and duration and severity of what has been happening in the freight space. What I did and what our company did to almost, I'll call it preparer, but we always were on our balance sheet. We were never over leveraged and we put the majority of our earnings back into the company. So we had a good base of retained earnings, a strong balance sheet that in hindsight really helped us weather the storm.
Paul:We had a lot of equity. We had to pay back a lot of debt. We had to buy back deals from some of our lenders that were getting uncomfortable. We wrote off millions and millions of dollars and really took down the chin like everybody else, but I think our conservative nature of our balance sheet and not overextending ourselves in the good times came back to really save our hide when this long of a duration and how the severity of a down circuit's been. We had to stop funding there for a minute just to catch our breath, but we are back and doing things differently and somewhat the same, though, but I don't think there was anything that could prepare people for this much of
Andrew:a downturn. Thank you. You mentioned earlier how you kind of shifted and became more diverse, and not so focused in over the road trucking, so that portfolio diversification has become a cornerstone of your approach. How do you build resilience through diversification, and what does that
Paul:look like today at quality? Yeah. So what I had to do, and it was a very difficult period of time that we went through when we had to stop funding for seven months. What was happening is I had two holes in the boat. We were closing a lot of business still, and funds would go out there, and as I mentioned, we had to buy back a lot of loans that went bad, and that was sucking so much cash at the same time out something had to give.
Paul:What did is had to re center and refocus again, and it's a similar question to when I first started. Okay, we won't have this, we're not going to forward like we had with this asset class. We're still doing OTR, and it'll never go away. It's in our DNA, but we're going to have a lot less exposure to that one asset class. Obviously, one of the hard lessons I had to learn is that I had a very large exposure over one asset class, and that we had to pay the price.
Paul:What I did in the ensuing months was create what I call quality two point zero. We looked at our losses. We looked at the data on the deals that were still good and went bad, and we looked at different asset classes. We looked at our 18 underwriting factors. We really went to town to learn, okay, what could we do differently or better, or what is the data telling us that we should focus on less or more?
Paul:What are the attributes that are more predictive than others? Over this time, we gathered and had spent many, many hours saying, Okay, who are we going to be going forward? What are the markets we want to be in? Changing asset classes and concentrations is easy. Can make that up in ten seconds.
Paul:But to actually do it is another challenge. We shifted our underwriting, we shifted our pricing, we shifted our broker points, we shifted our yields to focus more on the non OTR assets. What came out of Quality two point zero is a different company than we were, and We are more sophisticated. We learn. There's a lot of asset classes that are more There's a lot more lenders going after them, not only because of the absence of OTR, but because they're preferred asset classes.
Paul:When worse comes to worse, as you know, in the auction world, some asset classes perform better than others. It took a lot of work, and I had to do some repair to some of our lines. We have like five banks. We have lines with all of them, and I really wanted to find a new funding source that understood what we went through, what we look like today, what we've done, how we're reserving, and really focused on our balance sheet and management. I'm not saying me, but the people that I'm surrounded with.
Paul:We found a lender that gave us a new $100,000,000 line. They understood exactly. They're smart enough to understand what's been going on. They were smart enough to understand the refocus, the re strategy. They had confidence in the management.
Paul:They had confidence in our processes, and we got that new line of credit. I paid off a couple other ones, and we've been going ever since. That was October, or November '24 is when we officially opened, and '25, we continue to learn. I mean, there's any one thing you got to know is you always adjust. I always learn.
Paul:I always see what's happening in the marketplace. I always want to do things better, and again, I don't know everything. I mean, I know a lot less than everything, trust me. We have, again, a good crew of people that we can adjust on the fly. We can focus on certain asset classes.
Paul:We can find what really demand and need is out there other than OTR. I mean, if we were in business with OTR, we'd have a ton of business. There's not a lot of people doing the BNC type OTR anymore, but it will come back someday and we'll be there, and we have a lot lower percentage of OTR deals that we're doing today on purpose. The bar's set a bit higher on those types of deals, but we're really, really focusing on other asset classes, and we've done a good job. I think where we're at today, I think we're going to have a pretty darn good 2026 coming up, and I think our product is something that the market is reacting very well to, and our processes, we've streamlined, as I said, gotten better, and we have a product that's a lot more competitive out there, and we're expecting big things.
Paul:So Paul, let's talk about
Andrew:the ownership and quality and the kind of impact that they've had in the organization.
Paul:Yeah. So I think one of our differentiators is that we are 100% owned by an individual, Jeff Wood. A lot of companies these days have been They've gotten investor money. They've gotten private equity. They're banks.
Paul:Come from big, big money and securitized, and nothing against securitization, nothing against those other companies, but what it does for us is we are able to make decisions without a lot of approval or administrative red tape. We make the decisions. We keep our deals on our balance sheet. Someday I may securitize. I'm not saying never, but we've been able to focus on our balance sheet and having a strong balance sheet, not being over levered has given us that freedom to do so.
Paul:And I think being able to pivot, being able to do things out of the box, we pride ourselves with looking at the whole story, and we are able to do some things that other people aren't. It really works to our benefit. Our owner has no intention of selling. Their family's owned the company since 1986. Quality's been around since 1957, and it's really something different in our industry.
Paul:When you read every day about this investor, or that investor, or a bank being bought, or whatever you see, having one owner for a long term owner has been really a blessing.
Andrew:Approaching over seventy years in business. That's fantastic. Can you talk about what makes up the rest of the great team that you guys have over at Quality?
Paul:Yeah. So we have, gosh, we have about 28 employees right now here in Carmel, Indiana, just North of Indianapolis. We have all our underwriting documentation, titling, insurance people, accounting, collections. My COO is here, my controller's here, I'm here. Our salespeople are remote in their respective cities, and that works out just fine.
Paul:One other thing about our parent company, or our owner, He also owns It's called the Tom Wood Group. He's Jeff Wood, the son of Tom. Tom passed away in 2010, and we have 29 operating companies. Many of the companies are in franchise auto dealerships throughout Indianapolis, and we have some in Minnesota as well. We have different companies.
Paul:We have a collision center, an insurance company, a rental company. We have several power sports stores. We run fixed based operations at an airport in my same building, and I oversee the subprime auto lending group and quality. Unfortunately, we don't get any business from the rest of the group. We're kind of an outlier, but it's not one person, one company that's depending on income from quality, and he has generously left most of the money in quality over the years, and that has really helped our balance sheet as well.
Andrew:Thank you. A big part of staying competitive as an independent lender is making smart data informed decisions. I'd like to explore how you use analytics, technology, and emerging tools like AI to support your credit quality and your portfolio performance. How has data changed the way quality evaluates risk?
Paul:In underwriting, there's always going to be an art to it, right? We touch every deal. We're not a lender that throws things into a box and spits it out. Sure, we have models. We can throw things in, but we always look at the deals.
Paul:You can get false positives out of models, and AI is not always right. But we have added a lot of fraud tools that are AI based, I'll call it. There are identity tools. There are location tools. There's database driven tools, background tools.
Paul:Unfortunately, fraudsters get better at what they do, and we've seen our fair share of people trying to pull the wool over us. Fortunately, maybe We had one in 2,005 that really comes to mind, but I think a lot of these tools have helped us out in identifying fraudulent bank statements, for instance, background checks that go deeper, identity verification tools that really If you're not willing to go on camera, for instance, eNotary or eProof also. If you're not willing to go on camera, if they kind of stop there, maybe they're trying to hide something.
Andrew:Right.
Paul:The same thing with our data. Our data, it's hard to argue with data. We found that we were doing a lot more than we do today, a lot more of subjective type of feeling, type of underwriting, and that's, trust me, that's still a part of what we do, but when you start looking at all these attributes and put all your data into a big data warehouse, and you slice and dice the data, and you really focus on what's predictive and what's not predictive. There are some surprises in there that I'm like, Oh my gosh, we've been really weighting this particular element pretty heavy, but look, it's telling us that it's not that predictive. It kind of blows my mind.
Paul:Other things reinforce what we are doing correctly, but there's always going be the human judgment in there. Again, we just try to get smarter and better at what we do, keep ahead of the fraudsters, and it's really built on better mousetrap like everybody else is trying to do. So it is so much more intertwined in our business today by 1000% than it was, say, ten years ago, and it's fantastic, some of the tools that are out there.
Andrew:Yeah. All those tools, they could be a blessing and a curse, right? Yeah. And looking at your historical portfolio performance, what insights have shaped your strategy for the future?
Paul:Not relying so much on, for instance, one the surprising statistics was debt service coverage. We really tried to drive down, and this is from I learned this back many, many, many moons ago, and debt service coverage is a key indicator. How well will you do? Well, the way we were doing it and how we were coming up with a number, typically taxes or in deposits, it turned out that it really wasn't that predictive, and it just baffled me. Going forward, we focus on the elements that are very predictive in some ways, and makes our underwriting simpler.
Paul:In some ways, the ancillary stuff that is a little bit more subjective gets a little foggier when numbers and data tell you one thing and the subjective elements are telling you another. It does get a little bit confusing, but we are trying to underwrite and give credit to the elements that really predict, from our data, predict that these deals will be performing the long term. So it really, And it's real time information, and we can have the nimbleness to be able to change midstream or do something different if we want.
Andrew:Thank you. No, that's great. That's fantastic. Alongside everything you've accomplished at Quality, you've also played a major role in shaping the industry through your leadership with NEFA and your support to the CLFP Foundation. I'd love to explore that broader perspective.
Andrew:You held leadership roles with NEFA, you've eventually served as president. What made you get involved at that level? I think
Paul:you're really overestimating my effect on being president of NIFA. Really, NEFA has come such a long way with the addition of Chad Slots as our CEO, and I haven't had a small part. I first joined NEFA back, gosh, 2013 or 'fourteen, something like that, and I didn't come from this industry, by the way. My background was not in leasing or equipment finance at all, and today I am a sponge for information, and I always want to know, am I doing things right? Is there a better way?
Paul:Are other people doing it differently? Are we doing it better, worse? So on and so forth. And when I joined NEFA, it a little bit of selfish reasons that I wanted to connect with a lot of people in industry, other lenders and other business development, of course, and other vendors that could help our company. By the way, ACS, you guys are doing a fantastic job for us.
Paul:I want to plug you. Oh, bless you. Very, very happy with you guys, and you do it better than anybody in your space, so thank you for that.
Andrew:You're welcome.
Paul:So when I joined NEFA, I went to my first conference and started talking to people, and I was really surprised at how open people were about talking. Some would consider the secret sauce or the sausage making. People were super friendly. People were open. People wanted my number.
Paul:I wanted their number. And I was kind of blown away about the collaboration just from the members. To this day, many of these people I've met way back then are still very good friends and colleagues. NEFA not only provides the contacts and the people, but it's a community that I get to meet people like you. We share ideas.
Paul:There's some offshoots that smaller groups that I'm involved with that stem from NEFA. Educational materials NEFA puts on at the shows and now on the website are super, super helpful. It felt good really to be part of something that being a member, AmeriExpress membership has its benefits. Well, NEFA, it really, it's so true. Just with all this contact and all this context and all the openness, I've never experienced anything like that.
Paul:I just want to get more and more involved and started volunteering for committees. I was the, what do you call it, the main guy, and I put on a show in Huntington. Actually, the show that I was in charge of was out there, and I say I'm in charge of, with a lot of volunteers. I've never, it's not me. But over time, I created this funding, we call it executive experience group, where I got funders from NEFA together, and we would have periodic phone calls about different topics, and again, an open and honest dialogue, not afraid to share things.
Paul:Eventually somebody suggested nominate me to the board, and then nominate me to the XCOM group that is comprised of the secretary treasurer, vice president, president, and past president. Over the years, When was I Gosh, I've lost kind of how many years I've kind of served on the board, but even when I'm not, I'm currently the past president, and I'll be relieved of all my duties next fall when the next president comes up, but there's so many ways. Just because I don't have a title, there's so many ways to give back, and it's just a really, really wonderful organization that I encourage everybody to join and get in contact with. You can sign up on the website and get so many educational materials that help all levels of people and finance organizations. Yeah, I mean it is a uniquely collaborative industry for sure.
Paul:My
Andrew:first experience with NEFA was the very first conference coming out of the pandemic in Charlotte. I'd never attended an NEFA event. I'd gone to a lot of alpha events all the way back to 2010, and I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew there was a lot of overlap. I noticed a members lot from both NEFA and Alpha attend both those conferences, so I was expecting to see some familiar faces, but I will say that you mentioned the word very opening.
Andrew:I felt very welcomed. Some of my closest friends in the industry, I met at that conference, and we've maintained those relationships since. It's a fantastic organization. I love the vibe, and I look forward to all those events yearly, and Chad's doing a great job, of course, in his team, and I have the pleasure of being on the philanthropy committee and planning the charity event. Enjoy doing all that, and we're currently working on planning our event for this upcoming conference in Huntington.
Andrew:So we'll be back to Huntington again, and it'll be a nice opportunity for me to get away from the cold weather up here in Buffalo.
Paul:Well, appreciate your contributions, and the philanthropy is a big part of it too. I mean, there's so many ways to be involved in so many committees, and so many things are important. It's just there's a plethora of things how to contribute contribute on really important issues and committees and the philanthropy. I appreciate all you've done. I think that makes me feel even better that our organization focuses on philanthropy too.
Paul:100%.
Andrew:It's one of the things I look forward to doing all year. I mean, it's a great way to give back, and I think anybody new to this industry, one of the ways that I think you could really start to build your own network is to, like you said earlier, get involved, right? I mean, the sooner you can get involved, the sooner you can start building on those relationships, right? Yeah,
Paul:and the more knowledge you gain. It's better for you personally, professionally, in So every which
Andrew:let's talk about CLFP. You're a longtime CLFP and a strong advocate for the program. What makes the CLFP certification so valuable for professionals?
Paul:I'll go back to my early days in the business. I really was looking all over the place, like how do you do lease accounting? How do you I know a little bit about law. I know somewhat about insurance. I know somewhat about kind of all the areas of running a leasing company, I'll call it leasing company.
Paul:And I know a little bit about our focus. And what it turns out to be is we do a tiny, tiny fraction of this overall giant market. The CLFP really opens your eyes to how broad and wide our industry is, and how many trillions of dollars that are financed throughout the country and the world. It really got me the right answers too. I could ask somebody, What is this act?
Paul:The Tax Exempt Act of '19 blah, blah, blah. Some people would, Well, it means this, that, the other. Or an attorney question, What about this, that, the other? And what this does is put it into one context and one basically bible of the industry, and it talks, and I've contributed to writing the handbook, and it's really a one stop shop, one place to go that you get the truth, you get unbiased opinions, you get the scoop on how to effectively work in this industry and what all these terms mean and what marketing means in this industry, what the history is, what is collections, what is the accounting piece, the law piece, the insurance piece, documentation, I mean the whole gamut. And I think it shows a commitment to really obtaining knowledge to better yourself.
Paul:I think it makes you a more whole type of person that participates in this industry. And again, the contacts that you make in the CLFP are like NEPA. There's people that you'll see their names for years and years and years to come, like you. I've been around a little bit, but it really, really The education part was tremendous. And again, thinking I only know this much of this massive world, and even the handbook can't cover everything, but I think I would recommend highly, highly to anybody new in industry that has been in it for a little while to expand their knowledge and really go for this certification.
Paul:It'll do you a world of good and make you a better professional and more knowledgeable about the whole industry.
Andrew:I couldn't agree more. I'll admit, back during the pandemic I pursued taking the exam. I did the academy online. Reid did a great job, and I hadn't taken a test like that in, gosh, since college. I studied my butt off.
Andrew:I really did. The financial side of the exam, I didn't do too well, the accounting section of the exam, building a balance and a budget off of a loan or a lease. I didn't really focus too much of my study efforts on that, and there was a big part of the exam that focuses on that. If you don't score well on that or you flaunt that, it's going to bring your overall grade down. Did well in a lot of the other sections of the exam, but that was one that, But to the credit of the CLFP, it's not a layup, and I will be the first to admit.
Andrew:That was very humbling for me when I took that. I was confident going in. Put a lot of After I read the book, I went to the academy. I studied for weeks and weeks and weeks, and yeah, that was humbling. And again, like I said, for anybody that's passed, kudos to them, because it's not a layup, and kudos to the CLFP, because if it was a layup, it wouldn't mean so much, right?
Andrew:Right. And that's one thing that I regret, but I think I'll get back on the saddle. I think I'll get back on the horse, I'll try and take it again. You
Paul:got to get back on the horse, and the sooner the better, I think. Had never taken an eight hour exam in college or anywhere, and I'll date myself back, well, it was like 2015, but we had a handwrite. Half of it was essay and half of it was a multiple choice. Swear to God, my hand was sweating by the end of it, and I needed every single minute to write out these answers in the book, and then I walked to school uphill on broken glass both ways, and that's the saying goes. I'm not that old though.
Andrew:Well, a gentleman that I always enjoy seeing when I attend, especially the NEFA conferences, Steve Geller, I think he is one of the first, I think, to get the CLFP designation, and he shared with me how when he took the test, it was all handwritten. So yeah, we had it lucky. It was all online, and do everything on your laptop. But like I said, you're right, it was eight hours, and it was not easy. So anybody who's passed it, high five and congratulations, because like I said, that's not something that guys That is handed out easily, that's something that's earned.
Andrew:Obviously you have to recertify every year as well. So it's not like one and done, and you have to maintain your education and stay up on top of things. There's constant things that are Laws are changing, and you have to
Paul:be up to date on all of that, right? Yeah, yeah. Kudos to reading the staff and making it more widely available. I don't care if it's multiple choice online or whatever. It's still a tough test.
Paul:I'm sure she'll keep the standards very high, and you're right. If it was easy, everybody would do it and just pay a fee, but it does mean something when it's difficult.
Andrew:A 100%. A 100%. We're actually going to have Reid on the podcast in a few episodes, so I'm really looking forward to continuing these conversations, and she'll probably tell me the same thing. Yeah. Don't take it again.
Andrew:I should have took it within that first year, so I didn't have to take the whole test, but when I do pass, because I say when I do pass, it'll mean that much more, and I'll get to join a group of distinguished professionals in the industry that have that designation.
Paul:Reid will ride your ass until you pass.
Andrew:Not every time, but when the topic comes up, she does nudge me to take it again. So I will say I'm not a quitter. I just took a pause, a long pause, because it was, like I said, it was kind of a humbling experience for me, and I'm not afraid to admit that on this podcast. Took the test and I didn't pass it. Many people would do that, right?
Paul:If Reid happens to hear my last comment, that's a compliment, Reid, and I know you'll take it the right way.
Andrew:Well, like I said, it's grown so much, and the work that they're doing is fantastic in the industry. I'm excited for what lies ahead with the CLFP, and I promote the heck out of it. Even though I failed it, I promote the heck out of it. So that says something. Your leadership has a tremendous impact on the industry, and your work has helped shape the direction of the equipment finance community in meaningful ways.
Andrew:Before we wrap up, is there anything you want to share with professionals who are considering this career path, or leaders who are thinking about how to strengthen their organizations going forward?
Paul:For people that are considering this career path, this is a career that when I went to school, I mean, really talked about, and the breadth and depth of finance and commercial equipment finance is just so great. They teach credit. They teach banking. I started off as a commercial lender at a bank, which is great, but this is a whole different world that is very intricate and it's very large and it's really, I think, tricky in a lot of ways and very rewarding when you're in it. And I would encourage anybody to get in this industry in any capacity.
Paul:If that means starting off just doing documentation or phone calls or collections or sales or any of the other departments, this industry is wide open and there's a lot of knowledge that is available out there. It's been a very fun career for me, not being from this industry, but I don't have one iota of regret, and I've really enjoyed it. People that have been in this industry, everybody knows how quickly it moves. I found anything we can do to make our process better, to work smarter, to get some little advantage here and there, do it and look into it. Technology, we've invested a lot of money in technology, and it's paying off.
Paul:Other people will be doing it if they're your competitors. Just think it's a beautiful moving world, moving target that we all participate in, I think it's very rewarding and fun, and the people in the industry are great.
Andrew:I couldn't agree with you more. So Paul, one last thing before we sign off. I know Indiana winning the national championship, a special moment for you.
Paul:Love love to
Andrew:hear what that experience was like from your perspective. Being a Buffalo native and fan of the Sabres and Bills, we've never won any significant So please, I'd love to hear what that experience was like for you this past week since that game.
Paul:It's unbelievable. This is going to be a thirty and thirty four episode in the future, and literally, I grew up in Indianapolis, moved away after school, but literally half my high school went to IU. I almost went to IU, and the fan base is just everywhere. Before this, you mentioned, I think, a previous conversation, were a basketball fan. IU was never We had some great coaches, Lee Corso and Mallory, and just never came close to what Signeti has accomplished there.
Paul:It's just such a You can't script us any better. The people are just going berserk, and there's such a pride in Indianapolis, and with a guy that did it the right way, incorporates sort of Indiana values of hard work, working together, we work together as a team better than the sum of its parts are greater than any individual. And it's just kind of like, wow. I think a lot of the country is just like, Holy cow, how did he do this? I love the guy.
Paul:He's very humble. One of our core values is being humbly confident. That guy exudes humble confidence. I love his early answer to one of his interview questions, Who are you? Just Google me.
Paul:I win. To be able to put together really a cohesive group like that of kids. This is going to be one for the ages. Indiana will never forget this, and it's going to go down the history books of just one of the best sports stories of Indiana ever, I think a lot of the nation. Gosh, we're still on cloud nine, I think.
Andrew:Yeah. Because Indiana is not known as a football you know, program. They've always been known as basketball, and I think it's one of the great one of the best turnaround stories in college sports. You know, the team, was always at kind of Big Ten, right, and just kind of Michigan, Michigan State, I use always kind of an afterthought, and what Signeti did to turn that team around the time period that he did it is remarkable, and I was kind of hoping the Bills were thinking of hiring Signeti as their head coach.
Paul:No, leave him alone.
Andrew:Well, we obviously already named our new head coach, but yeah, no, that was just unbelievable.
Paul:They're such an alumni. IU down in Bloomington has, I think it's close to 50,000 students, and obviously it's been around for years and years and years, and just anywhere you go in the country, there's always IU fans. Miami is a private school, and I think it's a very good school, but they just don't have the public school, 50,000 student kind of base every year to have that alumni base. You could tell by the stadiums and how full they were. I mean, I knew so many people that went down there, and saw a guy the other night.
Paul:He pulled out confetti from his wallet. I was there.
Andrew:Probably selling on eBay for hundreds of dollars, I bet. Yeah, he probably can. Well, you for sharing that. Maybe one day I'll be able to feel what you're feeling right now, if the Bills are savers. Not a matter of if, it's when, when they do finally bring home a championship, because our community certainly is starving for one.
Andrew:So Paul, your leadership experience and perspective have made a tremendous impact on the industry, and it's been great having you here today. Thank you for sharing your insights with us. And to our audience, thank you for listening. Be sure to subscribe where you get your podcasts, and stay tuned for more conversations with the people shaping the future of equipment finance. Until next time, I'm Andrew Pace, and thank you for tuning in.