The reverse mortgage industry honored Sherry Apanay with its Jim Mahoney Distinguished Service Award, recognizing her contributions to the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage space.
Apanay, chief sales officer at Finance of America Reverse, received the award at the Texas Mortgage Bankers Association’s 18th annual Reverse Mortgage Day celebration, held earlier this month in Austin, Texas.
“The award is given to someone who gives more to the industry than she gets back,” FAR vice president of field retail and government Scott Norman said while announcing Apanay’s achievement. “In her 25 years in the reverse mortgage business, Sherry has exemplified this.”
Each year, a member of the reverse mortgage industry receives the award in recognition of his or her contributions to the world of HECMs, with recent winners including Reverse Market Insight president John Lunde and several officials of the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association: president and CEO Peter Bell, executive vice president Steve Irwin, and outside counsel James Milano of Weiner Brodsky Kider, PC.
Apanay also serves on NRMLA’s 2016-2017 board of directors as its vice chair.
“Her work can’t be boiled down to one, or even a few, achievements,” Norman said.
The Texas MBA’s annual Reverse Mortgage Day celebrates the industry in the Lone Star State and hosts several speakers, with this year’s lineup including Brian Montgomery, currently the Trump administration’s nominee to serve as Federal Housing Administration commissioner, and T. Britton Harris III, who oversees the endowments of the University of Texas and Texas A&M.
Texas, where reverse mortgages weren’t legal under the states unique homestead laws until 1997, also recently celebrated a full decade without a state enforcement action against reverse mortgage originators.
Written by Alex Spanko
