Economic Insights | CapitalW Collective: Empowering Women in Mortgage Finance | Jan 6, 2025

Alex Hebner: 00:00:33

Welcome to Optimal Insights, your weekly source for real time rate data and expert capital markets commentary brought to you by Optimal Blue. Let's dive in and help you maximize your profitability this week.

Jim Glennon: 00:00:47

Welcome to Optimal Insights, your weekly source for timely market analysis and expert commentary from Optimal Blue. I'm your host, Jim Glennon, Vice president of hedging and Trading client services at Optimal Blue.

Our clients and industry partners have long relied on Optimal Blue for trusted insights and commentary. And these podcasts are an evolution of our commitment to keeping the industry informed. Let's dive into today's episode.

ybody to the first podcast of: 2025

Welcome, Alex. We've got Alex with me today. We're going to have two wonderful guests coming on here a little bit later from Capital W Collective.

That's Amy Creasen and Pat Peters, who many of you, many of you know.

And we'll talk a lot more about what Capital W is and why Pat and Amy started the organization and we'll get into a bunch of details around that and some of the great things that they're doing. So more, more on that later. But first, a couple of things.

Reminder that our client summit is taking place in San Diego next month, creeping up here less than a month away, February 3rd through the 5th at the Marriott Marquis in San Diego. So please do register for that if you have not already.

You know, we'll be talking a ton about AI trends, profitability strategies, market insights, and just a ton more wonderful speakers.

As you know, we've talked about many of them on the cast before, including Tony Hawk, that we're getting very excited to hear what Tony Hawk has for us, along with a ton of industry experts and a ton of experts from our own organization. So there currently is a special going on for registration. The code is New Year 25, all one word, all capital letters, New Year 25.

So register@summit.optimalblue.com all right, Alex, let's talk econ real quick.

Alex Hebner: 00:02:42

Let's do it.

Jim Glennon: 00:02:43

Okay. As we're starting off,: 2025

So, so Alex, what, what should we be paying attention to right off the bat?

Alex Hebner: 00:02:56

and you know, looking towards: 2025

saw the highs that we saw in: 2022

And then you know, one of our biggest competitors in China, they've continued to struggle with a rebound. Two years ago now they had a bit of a pop in their housing bubble with the Evergrande collapse.

Evergrande being a constructor of homes and apartment buildings in China. And they really just haven't seen the growth that they've come to expect from their economy in the 21st century.

They were averaging 9, 10, even 12% gains in their economy each year. In recent years in post Covid it's been averaging about 5%. And so I think that's kind of the new normal for China.

I think we've seen a lot of they've seen their own offshoring of jobs to other countries such as Vietnam, India, just places where labor continues to be cheaper. So I think the U.S. i know our industry continues to struggle with volume.

But from a holistic economic perspective, the US economy seems to be in a very strong position. As I always caveat, equity markets aren't the tell all be all of economic health. But S&P 500, the Dow, they're all near all time highs.

We saw a little bit of a pullback in the week around Christmas which could have easily just been profit taking in all honesty.

But we've seen the stock market come back this week a little bit that's really just driven by again strong US dollar, strong global positioning and then Trump presidency should be friendly to the business environment. I think the Trump team and the US in general is kind of chalking up a win. This morning.

Prime Minister Trudeau in Canada, he announced his resignation which in no small part has definitely been driven by some of his policies in regards to tariffs and COVID lockdowns.

So that that just hit the wire this morning that there will be a new Canadian government, first one in about nine years or rather a new prime minister. First one in nine years. You know, looking towards this week from our perspective, just a couple of releases.

You know, we're still kind of just easing our way into the new year. We have Federal Reserve minutes on Wednesday. That's just taking a look at the December FOMC meeting.

Definitely a shift in vocabulary used at the December meeting. We've talked a little bit about on previous podcasts.

finitely saw expectations for: 2025

You know, we were thinking three or four cuts and now we're really only going to see maybe two, three cuts which continues to contribute to the strong dollar's positioning. You know, relatively US interest rates are going to remain high compared to the rest of the world.

But again for our industry specifically, not the news that you wanted to be hearing.

Jim Glennon: 00:06:05

We're back to the age old dilemma of kind of hoping that we see some kind of weakness in the economy at least in the short term. Right. I mean we're at obmmi is at 6.9%. It's been between 6.7 and 7% for the last few months.

Forecasts are for rates to stay in the sixes throughout this year, even into next year. Volume, you know, volume around the holidays was anemic, but it kind of always is.

We're seeing, you know, seeing still decent volume, but a lot of that is just purchase volume and these cash out refis we've been talking about. Right. Just not a ton of activity elsewhere.

And again, with the economy as strong as it is going into a year where we're going to have a very business friendly administration, most likely, I suppose we should expect more of that and follow what a lot of the forecasts are saying.

Alex Hebner: 00:06:54

Yeah, definitely, I would agree. I mean, don't fight the Fed as many people are apt to remind you.

Yeah, just kind of hunker down and get ready for an environment that should be pretty strong generally. But yeah, volumes will remain lower I would expect this year. Yeah, like you said, just keep an eye on the health of the economy.

I think it depends on who you ask. The headline numbers tell us that inflation has subsided to an acceptable rate. We've talked about that kind of ad nauseam on this podcast.

So those that you know, are believing those headline numbers that inflation has been contained, so to speak, want to focus on employment numbers. We've gotten some mixed readings out there from employment numbers which we will get another reading this Friday on the 10th.

You know, two months ago, I think it was in the teens, teens, thousands number of new positions in the economy and then we saw a rebound to 200k something in December and then we're expected to see 155,000 on this Friday's. Release. So definitely keep an eye on employment, but just keep everything in mind. Just employment or inflation.

Both should be on the front of your mind. Looking down the rest of this week, I think the biggest thing is to expect a short day on Thursday, January 9th.

That's National Remembrance Day for Jimmy Carter who passed about two weeks ago now. That'll be a half day for the bond markets.

So, so make sure you kind of communicate that inside your, inside your company and make sure you aren't caught out by, by that early close.

Jim Glennon: 00:08:22

Yep. Okay, so half day Thursday for bonds and then full day Friday, which is unemployment report.

Alex Hebner: 00:08:28

Correct.

Jim Glennon: 00:08:28

Which as you said. Yeah, Keep a close eye on that. It feels like, you know, the numbers have been lower obviously, but still positive.

But they've been consistently concentrated in certain areas that, where we know that jobs are lacking or that supply of workers is lacking. Right. Hospitality, health care, construction. And then the balance is like government jobs. Right.

But there's still this almost ghost recession for jobs in the, in the, you know, the white collar industries.

Alex Hebner: 00:08:57

Yeah, yeah, I think, I think more so than just healthcare. But, but I think business white collar, like you said, a white collar generally has really gotten hit kind of hard sneakily in the last 12 months.

s layoffs that we saw in like: 2022

And I think that's going to trickle down beyond these, these companies that were quite bloated just as companies see higher interest rates start to weigh on their balance sheets. And then one final thing I wanted to touch on today was just this reemerging conversation.

And I know it seems to come up maybe like once a year, but it's seems to have a little bit of steam right now. The possibility for the GSEs.

ey entered in the wake of the: 2008

And then later in the week we saw some additional headlines. The Trump transition team was actually looking at this with a bit of a discerning eye on this news.

dollar range per share since: 2008

But you know, it's up 64% this month on the possibility of that release.

As with anything, those that are kind of opposed to larger government will tell you once the government has their hands on something, they're not likely to let it go without a fight.

That being said, Fannie and Freddie are in under conservatorship under the Treasury Department, and the Treasury Department is a department of the executive. So technically speaking, if they really wanted to get it done, they could bypass Congress.

I think they, you know, it would take a lot of political will and a lot of political capital. They do have a path that bypasses Congress.

Jim Glennon: 00:10:47

Right.

So speculative at this point, but just given what the administration has said in the past and evidently what they're mobilizing on right now, potentially we see Fanny and Freddie go, go private again, which would be kind of bonkers, insane, you know, crazy to think about. And a lot of what's happened that's unified some of the things that they're doing. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out. Right.

We've got a uniform mbs, for instance, that they both share.

And there, there's, you know, a lot of the governance from the FHFA has been a, a huge impact on the industry through them, you know, as agents since the great financial crisis. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. Yep.

Alex Hebner: 00:11:28

That and then working in lockstep on, on initiatives to, to expand housing. I think that could definitely come under.

Expand housing accessibility could definitely come under fire, you know, if they were to separate and become, you know, private entities again. But definitely, definitely more to come on that.

You know, I don't want to make any predictions or again, it comes up, it feels like every 12 to 18 months is a possibility. So we'll wait before we have anything a little more concrete before we really put our foot down on anything.

Jim Glennon: 00:11:50

Yes, yeah, more on that. We'll certainly be, you know, breaking news. We'll be covering it. All right, great. Thanks for the update, Alex.

Alex Hebner: 00:11:57

Fantastic. Thanks, Joe.

Jim Glennon: 00:11:58

Okay, welcome. Pat Peters and Amy Cren have joined us. We've worked with Pat and Amy for many years in the capital markets space.

They're both extremely knowledgeable about all things mortgage finance and they have created a really great organization called Capital W Collective, which we'll talk about here in a moment.

You know, we, we've got some super talented women in our organization and we see it with clients as well, but there's obviously a disparity, you know, with the amount of women that are, that are in our industry, especially in the capital market space, just very underrepresented so you know, Pat and Amy saw that and had an opportunity to, to start a great organization and to address that that issue. So why don't I pause there and let, let Amy and Pat introduce themselves.

Just tell us a little bit about yourselves and how you ended up starting Capital W. Yes.

Pat Peters: 00:12:52

So Capital W is a 501c3 organization based in California. And Leslie Winick is the third co founder of our organization and we look to take and promote women and allies within the capital market space.

as well. So we're excited for: 2025

Amy Creason: 00:13:33

That's right. And so Amy Kriesen, I'm a what I call cradle capital markets person.

So I came out of college onto a trading Fleet mortgage for all those that are old enough to remember that name of Columbia, S.C. and my start there was really what I didn't know at the time, a very diverse desk.

l purchased fleet mortgage in: 2001

And so, you know, I think I had seen it conferences that women were fairly underrepresented. That being the only one in a room, the only woman in a room was not uncommon. But that was back then.

Here we are in the: 2000

Happened to be at a user conference and talking with Leslie saying, you know what, I think it's time that a capital markets group for women is created and no one's done it. What do you say? Would you be interested And Leslie will tell the story. At first she said no.

Well, let me do we really need to call attention to women in capital markets?

But took it back and thought about it a little bit more and went to Curtis Richens and other leadership at MCT and they said let's get on board as a corporate development partner.

So much to my surprise and delight because it's one thing to find people who are of like mind it's another thing to actually have the support, support behind that movement and to create a nonprofit which none of us ever had before. Then our direction was let's figure it out, let's do it. Let's do an assessment of what do we need? Why?

Let's ask the question why are women underrepresented in this industry and what could we do to improve that ratio? Not trying to take seats away from men, but add more at the table.

And really diversification of thought in all areas of business has proven by a multitude of different studies to be beneficial for organizations.

Morgan Stanley in: 2023

If you have everybody of the same mind, especially if they are very into taking on risk, then you might end up with an organization that embraces risk, but perhaps without the guardrails necessary. And conversely, right. If you're risk adverse, then perhaps you're not pursuing opportunities that you could.

ds influence that mindset. So: 2022

So we were very pleased to have pro bono work from a couple of wonderful Shepherd Mullen women who helped us stand up the organization and working with CPAs and all the things that we had to do to get ourselves organized and moving forward.

But also developing marketing, developing programming, finding resources because again starting from the beginning, we self funded, we self seeded as the co founders but we've had some wonderful other corporate sponsors come on and we'll have some big names to announce very soon. Our purpose here is the mission is to create a more diverse and dynamic mortgage capital markets.

One woman and ally at a time and allies and as Pat had mentioned, are very, very important to us. At the minimum, it's a numbers game.

If we see more men in this space, well, we've got to have them help us bring and entice more women into this area. And our tagline is educate, elevate and empower. Educate being the very first tenet and educate means from the very beginning.

So having women who are still in college but looking at careers in finance, specifically mortgage finance, is one that's not always taught a whole lot in college. I didn't know anything graduating from a business program about mortgages.

I kind of thought somebody you go to the bank and voila, you get a mortgage. But if only it were that simple, right?

So I think there's the awareness component and the education component at the very front end of a pipeline to encourage more women to join in the mortgage space. But in particular capital markets, we as an industry know we have an aging problem that we have to solve.

And in very specific segments, that is an even greater disparity. But the opportunity to provide education and do it for free we believe is a way to help reduce a barrier. So going to college is expensive.

Finding specific courses related to mortgage banking is expensive. Finding additional specialty type of courses can be very expensive.

And while we certainly support all of those efforts, making folks aware of what the potential opportunities are, that I think is where we can help out on a gratis basis so that it's low cost. You don't have to commit yourself tremendously to continuing.

But whether you're on the front line or maybe you're in servicing or ops, you're a better employee if you understand the capital market's function, its relationship to pretty much everything in mortgage banking. And then the ability to train others perhaps and share that knowledge is very beneficial to organization.

So that's our main goal is education, programming and, and we'll have some things coming up. Optimal Blue has fantastic education. We were talking about this earlier.

I have enjoyed so many of your webinars, the 101s and the 201s versions of pricing and hedging and MSR valuation and would always ask people to come and check out your website and look at that folks who are a little bit earlier in their careers or perhaps not in the space. We'd like to help those folks out with some of the basics. And so we will be.

Deb Jones and I will be presenting a pricing webinar where it's our fundamentals. So fun is all capitalized because we're going to have some fun.

Pat Peters: 00:21:03

Yeah.

Amy Creason: 00:21:04

So two gals reflecting on what does it mean? We're both cmbs and have been involved with folks who are going through the school of mortgage banking and trying to understand capital markets.

Maybe they're loan originators, maybe they're in compliance and the capital markets piece is just a little bit too foreign. So we wanted to take a step back for those folks and invite them to, you know, a fun place to learn about pricing.

So, so we have some programming the elevate part of our tagline speakers bureau. So we, we tend to see a lot of same people on stages in various conferences, in thought leadership pieces.

We'd like to help support diversification of that presence through a speaker's bureau and help folks find the right people for the right women for speaker opportunities or authorship, you name it. And then the last part is empower.

That means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but it's giving back, it's supporting, it's providing, networking. It's all of those things to, you know, bring greater exposure to women in. Within the capital market space. The mortgage industry.

Jim Glennon: 00:22:18

Wow, that's great. That's a lot of really good information.

So we're, you know, we're talking about really anyone who may even think they could be interested in mortgage capital markets. Right.

Whether they're, you know, sounds like you're focusing on people who are just coming out of school potentially, but it could be anybody really maybe is looking for a change or looking to explore something new.

Amy Creason: 00:22:40

Yeah, anybody curious minds. And in focusing on younger women or focusing on people coming out of school, I think is very important.

The MBA has their impact organization, but that's more general.

We'd like to focus specifically in the capital market space and help people understand that you can have a lovely career and not have to be a bond trader on the street in New York City. You can do it from, you name it. Denver, right?

Jim Glennon: 00:23:09

Yes. Yeah. Denver D.C. and San Francisco now.

So we have a lot of, A lot of different desks and yeah, I think we've always kind of understood that mortgage capital markets is a super, I don't know, relatively small niche even in the mortgage industry. But it's. I find it super interesting, obviously, and we pretty much all do. So it's.

I think it's great that y'all are getting out there and educating more in trying to address the masses, especially young women who might be interested in this industry. I think that's just great. So how does one join and support Capital W? Like, how do we get started?

Pat Peters: 00:23:48

It's as simple as looking for us on LinkedIn, on capital W, all one word, collective. You can even send us a LinkedIn message. You can also look for us on YouTube website. We can interact any way that you are available.

And it is for everyone, anyone in any career stage. We really have no barriers whatsoever.

Any gender, any ally that's interested in and wants to learn more about how the capital markets industry supports the overall mortgage finance community. We are very excited and can't wait for you to join us.

Jim Glennon: 00:24:25

That's great.

So, you know, other than, you know, gaining some more education on this subject because it is fairly niche and as you said, Amy, they don't teach this in college. Right. Mortgage capital markets, if you can gain those things, what are some other barriers to entry for women in mortgage capital markets?

Amy Creason: 00:24:45

All right, Joe, I'm going to ask you that question first and then I'll give you, I'll give you my answer.

Jim Glennon: 00:24:52

You're asking me.

Amy Creason: 00:24:53

I'm asking you. Yeah. What do you think? Why. Let's talk about this question of why. Why is there under.

Jim Glennon: 00:24:58

Yeah. And that's really what you're, what we're all trying to figure out. Right. You know, I will say that we see less women in interviews, in, in resumes.

Right. And, and how they, how a woman doesn't end up on our, you know, applying for jobs with us as men as much as men. I honestly don't know.

It's certainly not due to any kind of efforts on our side to the contrary, you know.

Amy Creason: 00:25:26

Right. Well, and, and Jim, that's a, that's an answer that I've gotten when I've asked other men.

I was talking with someone who is at a, one of the broker dealers, boutique broker dealers, and I asked that very question about what do you think? And his answer as a. I think he's 27 or something like that. Exactly that.

You know, we don't get many resumes of women for these positions, which now begets the question why?

Jim Glennon: 00:25:52

Why, why?

Amy Creason: 00:25:53

And so I'll, you know, I'll tell you Amy's hypothesis.

I do think that the STEM subjects have continued, unfortunately, to not attract, draw or welcome, whatever, whatever verb it is and causation, I don't know. But women, I think there are, are certainly efforts to do so, but it's showing the path, I think, understanding the culture of some of those areas.

There are a lot of really, really smart girls as you look at development. So I have two girls and one boy and they're all either in college or out.

My oldest daughter, definitely a math person, middle daughter, art, absolute art design. And my son, he's a second year engineering student at Virginia Tech with my oldest daughter who graduated from UVA School of Commerce.

Even in that program it was largely men, which is very interesting. I thought it was more balanced. My youngest son, engineering, handful of women in his basic engineering classes.

So something is still in that pipeline coming out of school, not attracting women as much into these STEM areas.

And I don't know how to solve that myself, but I would encourage any of our viewers here that are parents of girls, young women that you talk to them about. What about a STEM kind of career. And do you like it? Has someone said it's not cool to be a nerd?

You know, I, I, I don't know if I was a nerd per se, but I like to think that I'm really cool. But my, my adult kids tell me I'm not. But I think that's a, you know, that's, that could be a stigma that needs to be overcome.

And so I don't know how to solve that except through awareness of, look at this fantastic career that you can have. And, and that's going to be received only at a certain, you know, right point as probably a young adult backing it up.

How do you encourage folks to be really interested in math? Yeah, I don't know how to do that, but I think we, so the awareness coupled with the education probably is the first barrier to entry.

I think the second thing is once we're in our careers, we really kind of have closed or limited networks.

And by that I mean, if you take a look through your LinkedIn contacts, I looked at, you know, kind of done this experiment on my 2,500 contacts and the majority are men. So in my, my network, the inertia is mostly men. My bosses have been men my entire career and the majority of folks that I've worked with are men.

So am I creating now, am I kind of closing that bubble as a, as a consequence? If so, how do we break it back open? And I think that is the, the next piece.

And then, yeah, we were talking about the social biases perhaps in the STEM place, but it also, and there's plenty of studies, bleeds into financial services disproportionately for women. And so I think, you know, empower. So we look at some of the other organizations around the mortgage industry.

Empower, I think serves a lot of women in a lot of ways.

We're going to be focused again back on the capital market space and very specifically exposure to networks within the capital markets space, both women and allies. So it's going to, it requires, like I said earlier, it's a math problem that we're all going to have to work on.

But the, you know, you were mentioning the application issue. You know, do you, how many female applicants do you have? Why is it disproportionate?

Being intentional and casting a wider net and having headhunters that go and search for women, that's the extra effort that may be required because perhaps some people don't see themselves drawn is a culture issue or, you know, expectations, things they just, they don't understand.

Pat Peters: 00:29:56

I'd like to add on to what Amy said.

I actually believe there the women that are in the capital markets industry are heads down, doing execution, going home, then to do their family obligations as well.

And I would like to invite everyone to sign up with Capital W so we can actually know the real statistics of ratios so we can have more data and we can actually promote those women and give them a voice, represent them. They can be in a speaker's bureau, take advantage of the expertise they have.

Expand all of our networks is really one of the, I would say one of the key criteria for success is expanding our networks to go beyond our bubble, as Amy pointed out.

Jim Glennon: 00:30:45

Right. I mean, it feels like a trend that can, that can be broken. Right. Even if it's. It starts with. Right.

Just the math and the sciences, just, you know, a trend there that tends to, to lean towards men. Then you get into our industry where you see mostly men doing maybe that's even a deterrent. Right.

It's mostly men in mortgage capital markets, but there are some amazingly talented women in this industry as well.

So getting more people in general together to first continue to collect the data so we know exactly what that looks like, but also to intentionally get out there and recruit talented women for this industry.

Amy Creason: 00:31:23

Yeah. And it's not Wolf of Wall Street. Right. That's. That's not our space. Right. It's just not.

But, and I'll include myself here, it's a lot of aggressive personalities in many places.

And if that is again, culture, if the culture of an organization is welcoming enough, and I don't mean that in just a little sweet, syrupy way, if it's welcoming enough for disparate opinions and orientations towards risk or strategies or so forth, then you're going to attract all kinds of fantastic people because they're going to want to be there.

So I do think paying attention to the culture of an organization is extremely important in being able to really recruit diversity, but also the best candidates. So this is all about merit. We're not asking for any DEI orientation on. Let's just pile a bunch of women in there and I'm sure it'll all be better.

Absolutely not. That's not the orientation of any rational or business or organization. You're going to hire the right people.

But if you believe that the ultimate right team is, is really the function of good culture plus good people, then I think you naturally create a more diverse and efficient and better executing team ultimately.

Pat Peters: 00:32:54

And going back to the application interview process, also being aware of Bias. So even myself, and now I'm a manager again, of people understanding during the interview process.

There's a natural bias for us to interview gentlemen and to look at them as opportunities. However, when you're in interview women, you're looking at their accomplishments.

Well, what if we actually made it 50, 50 accomplishments and opportunity, regardless of your gender regard, regardless of, for everyone. That would also help, right, to actually look past our own bias. I know I had it when I was a young manager, and you really have to work at it.

At Amy's point, a lot of effort is needed to make the change.

Yeah, we, we all have those inherent biases. Right. If when I say the word nurse, what popped into your head? And I did it too.

Even though my best friend's son is studying to be a nurse, and he absolutely is going to be a fantastic. That's exactly what his career needed to be. So I'm like, stop it. Stop thinking that way.

When you think of lawyer, you might still think male, but actually the numbers are that women are more than 50% represent representation within the law community. So I, I do think things are changing and our human nature, it's. It's really hard to admit where, where we have biases.

It's really hard to admit that, yeah, maybe I am perpetuating the situation myself, even though I have zero intention of doing that. Maybe I do have unconscious bias and in not being helpful, but really actually being harmful.

Jim Glennon: 00:34:44

Those are all really good points.

I think it takes a lot of, just as you said before, being intentional about this process and understanding the data and understanding who's right for these type of jobs. And, you know, we say it on the, on the desk all the time, like, we need talent, good work ethic and intelligence and a good attitude.

And that's what we're typically interviewing for.

Amy Creason: 00:35:08

Absolutely. Can we talk about real quick what skills coming up with Capital W?

Jim Glennon: 00:35:12

Absolutely.

Amy Creason: 00:35:13

All right. Well, so in: 2025

We're trying to offer as much free education and opportunities as possible, but we can only do that with the generosity of our corporate donors and partners.

So if we may be overt here and make the request of folks who are watching, if your company might want to get involved with Capital W, we really encourage you to reach out to us.

You can get us@infoapitalwcollective.org and we would really love to see Optimal Blue be one of the next announcements that we make for corporate sponsorship. Right. But the opportunities to partner and to promote within companies, but also within various organizations is very important to us.

If you see it, you can be it. And so we're very focused on the messaging and the marketing. But also as an individual, you can contribute to Capital W Collective.

We have a PayPal button on our website at capitalwcollective.org and invite you to come and make a donation that all those dollars are going towards getting us stood up in programming, going and video editing and all that kind of necessary evils, if you will, in standing up an organization. But we're going to be having some webinars, as I mentioned, and we're going to be doing that with partners as well.

So be on the lookout on our LinkedIn page and we'll be providing those updates. We also would like to have an in person event.

can get that organized within: 2025

Pat Peters: 00:37:13

Other things that we have are the MBA secondary in May. We're also working with the MBA to deliver education, both national and state organizations. And we'll do more.

Take five stories which are readily available on LinkedIn.

Jim Glennon: 00:37:30

Wonderful. So lots happening, very easy to get involved. Capital W Collective. Really appreciate, Pat, Amy, you being with us here today.

I think this has been really, this has been informative for me and I've, you know, and we've talked about this a lot. We talked about it at national in Denver and we've kept in touch over the last year or so about this and I'm just learning more about it every day.

So thanks again for talking with us and for your candor and for the info and we will talk again real soon.

Pat Peters: 00:37:58

Thank you.

Amy Creason: 00:37:59

Thank you, Jim. We're, we're grateful for the opportunity.

Pat Peters: 00:38:01

Yes.

Jim Glennon: 00:38:02

Thank you. Take care.

Amy Creason: 00:38:04

Thanks. Thanks.

Jim Glennon: 00:38:06

All right. What a great interview. Let's wrap this thing up. Make sure you register for our summit.

The room block there is almost full and time's running out to get to get a room in the room block. And thank you again to Pat and to Amy for joining us today.

in the economy as we go into: 2025

Join us next week for another episode of Optimal Insights, where we'll continue to provide you with the latest market analysis and insights to help you stay ahead. Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn for more updates and to access our latest video episodes.

You can also find each episode on all major podcast platforms. Thank you again for tuning into Optimal Insights.

Amy Creason: 00:38:49

It.