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» VISIT US ONLINE @ DSNEWS.COM 61 "My goal was for Ginnie to be more like the private sector," Tozer said. "ink about it. Whether you're a government agency or not, you're providing a service, so you should provide that service." Ultimately, Tozer said, he feels he was successful in making Ginnie more private in its approach. And that's had an impact on both the agency's relationships with issuers and with the industry at large. "I think we've done a pretty good job of really getting Ginnie Mae to think in terms of their issuers being customers—to think of the Wall Street firms, the investors, their bonds, and the taxpayers as customers," Tozer said. "By doing that, I think we really changed the dynamic of Ginnie Mae and how it's looked at in the industry." "ENCYCLOPEDIC KNOWLEDGE" ough Tozer's tenure and goals for Ginnie certainly set him apart from other agency heads, it was also his deep, deep knowledge of the industry that really helped him make an impact. Kathy Gibbons, who worked under Tozer at Ginnie Mae, called that knowledge "encyclopedic." "He's got an encyclopedic knowledge of operations, products, pricing, and the legal, accounting, and performance elements that go into a good mortgage and a bad mortgage," said Gibbons, Ginnie's Senior Policy and Program Development Advisor. "It doesn't matter whether you're talking about documents, appraisals, trading eligibility, investor needs, anything. You can't get micro enough. From the most minute to the largest territory, he knows it extremely well with precision. ere isn't really anybody else I know in the industry who has that degree of knowledge, pure knowledge." It sounds like embellishment but Gibbons' sentiments are shared by many of Tozer's former colleagues. "It'd be fairly difficult—no matter what side you're on—to challenge Ted on a lot of things, because he has such a large depth of knowledge," Konyk said. Because of this widespread expertise, Tozer was regularly consulted on larger industry discussions and issues—even ones with other agencies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "He was brought into a lot of different things in his tenure at Ginnie Mae because he was considered by some to be the expert on mortgages in the administration," Konyk said. Tozer even had a hand in fine-tuning HARP, the FHFA program designed to provide refinancing options for near-underwater borrowers, and he helped guide many loss mitigation discussions during the housing crisis. "He was able to be of use to folks from the Federal Reserve and Treasury who were trying to put together the early loss mitigation efforts and programs," Gibbons said. "He could go in and explain to them exactly why something would or would not work from a legal or business standpoint. I think that the people from Treasury and FHFA and organizations like that, they cannot say enough about how Ted kept them from going down rabbit holes that would have been no use." LEADING THE CHARGE ough Tozer's breadth of knowledge was wide, his colleagues maintain that he never acted like he had all the answers, nor did he micromanage their every move. In fact, according to Tozer himself, he knew the least of all his team. "I strongly believe that everybody who worked for me in the organization knows more of what's going on than I do," Tozer said. "So, to me, my job as a leader is to facilitate staff 's ability to be successful—that's at Ginnie Mae or anywhere. And so that's always what I tried to do. I've always tried to give my thoughts but also remember the people that are there on a daily basis. ey know what's going on." Tozer calls this a "bottoms-up" structure, and it's one his employees took notice of. "He had an ability to be actively involved, know everything, and yet allow his team to do the work," said Mary Kinney, who served as EVP at Ginnie Mae from 2009 to 2016. Kinney worked with Tozer during her entire career at the agency. "He kept an awareness, but he didn't micromanage," she said. is approach, combined with Tozer's sheer dedication to his job, empowered and motivated all he worked with. "He had a vision that was very aspirational," Kinney said, "but it was also infectious. We all drank the Ted water, and we realized that we had the opportunity; we had the leadership, and he had our backs." Even from the outside looking in, Tozer's approach was obviously effective. "e people at Ginnie loved him, in part because they knew he understood their daily lives," Konyk said. "He resonated with them. He's a listener. He's willing to listen to ideas that seem out of the box and consider whether or not they make any sense." ough empowering his employees was certainly a goal of his, on a larger scale, Tozer really wanted to expand the agency's workforce during his tenure. Under Tozer's leadership, in-house staff at Ginnie Mae more than doubled—a fact that's likely influenced the agency's continued growth over the last decade. "He's managed to get government to understand the critical role that they play and the fact that you can't outsource everything," Konyk said. "You really have to build a capable cadre that's big enough and sophisticated enough to manage what you're doing." THE EVOLUTION OF GINNIE MAE Over the course of seven years, Tozer spearheaded a full-on evolution at Ginnie Mae, increasing its workforce and portfolio, steering it through the years following the housing crisis, bringing its technology into the 21st century, and now, standing strong as a viable option for GSE reform. In Tozer's time in office, Ginnie Mae's staff grew from just over 60 employees to upwards of 130, and the agency went from holding about $800 billion in outstanding securities to $1.7 trillion—even exceeding Freddie Mac, according to Kinney. It was a period of long- term growth, and while its budget might not have grown to match, the agency has emerged a stronger, more influential force in the financial services industry, Kinney said. "We didn't always have the money, but we charged in there and transformed this agency from the sleepy government agency to one of the pre- mier leaders in securitization worldwide," she said. at transformation was largely due to Tozer's leadership. "Every once in a while the planets align," Konyk said, "and they did in that case to everybody's benefit, for the benefit of Ginnie, to the benefit of the market in general, to the mortgage industry as a result of it." One of the biggest industry benefits? Ted put Ginnie Mae on the map—at least internationally. COVER STORY INDUSTRY INSIGHT INDUSTRY INSIGHT INDUSTRY INSIGHT 61

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