On Monday night, two leaders in our business will receive one of the highest honours in Canada’s mortgage industry. Both will join an exclusive group of 40 individuals who can call themselves Mortgage Hall of Fame inductees.
Gary Mauris, co-founder and President & CEO of Dominion Lending Centres and Art Appelberg, president of Northwood Mortgages, will be inducted next week at an awards ceremony during Mortgage Professionals Canada’s 2016 Mortgage Forum.
Both men have each contributed immensely to the growth of Canada’s mortgage industry. Here’s a closer look at their storied careers, and thoughts from each of them on what they learned along the way.
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Art Appelberg, AMP
President of Northwood Mortgages and an MBA graduate of the Schulich School of Business at York University, Art Appelberg has built a 30-year career in banking, accounting, credit risk, mortgage origination and lending.
An entrepreneur at heart, Art became an independent mortgage agent in 1989. Seeing its potential, he went on a year later to establish his own brokerage, Northwood Mortgage. Since then, Art has grown Northwood into one of the premiere full-service mortgage brokerages in Canada, winning many industry awards, including CMA’s Lifetime Achievement and CAAMP-IMBA’s Outstanding Contribution to the Industry awards.
In his 10,000 sq. ft. mortgage office, Art also houses a successful mortgage investment company. More recently, he opened an in-house financial centre to offer his clients a one-stop-shop for all their financial, legal, real estate, investment and insurance needs.
At the core of Art’s strategy is his belief in nurturing the concept of a “Professional Community” that incorporates full-time mortgage placement officers, as well as trainers for all Northwood Mortgage agents.
With a passion for fresh industry ideas and a never-ending appetite for continued growth, Art continues down a road of success in this business, one he believes promises tremendous opportunity to come.
Read CMT’s one-on-one Q&A with Art
Gary Mauris, AMP
Gary is the co-founder, President & CEO of Dominion Lending Centres, a company he started from nothing ten years ago with partner Chris Kayat. Today, the DLC group of companies accounts for almost 40% of all broker originated mortgages in Canada.
Gary has entrepreneurship embedded in his DNA, having sold two prior successful companies to the public market. He’s been a finalist for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year and earned the 2016 Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce Business Leader of the Year. His companies have won too many industry awards to count, and DLC has been recognized by Profit Magazine one of Canada’s fastest-growing companies.
As a business leader, Gary is called upon to share his views with media throughout Canada. He was part of the 2011 Pre-budget Consultation process with the-then Federal Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty; he was selected to be part of CBC’s “Face the Nation” in 2016 and he had an open and frank discussion with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on topics key to our industry.
Gary has led multiple socially conscious initiatives, including being co-founder and president of I AM SOMEONE Ending Bullying Society. He recently co-founded “Bikes for Kids,” a National program that collects new bicycles for underprivileged children across Canada. Whether it’s in or out of office, Gary is one of the most accomplished recipients ever to win MPC’s coveted award.
Read CMT’s Q&A with Gary
Story by Steve Huebl & Robert McLister
I have known both of these gentlemen for a long time. A very well deserved congrats to both. Both of them deserve the highest respect for accomplishing the toughest thing in business: creating a something big from absolutely nothing.
To Art: When you started their barely was a mortgage brokerage business and he pioneered more new concepts than most people even know. At the stage of life when most other super successful people would have sat back and taken it easy Art is still pushing, tinkering and dreaming up new concepts. His enthusiasm is boundless. Art has been nothing but a positive influence on this industry.
To Gary: Not only started the biggest thing in the brokerage business from totally zero but was constantly told it will never work and he needs to get the heck out of it. Well, those negative folks eventually learned the error of their thinking. Here is the simple truth, Gary out smarted and outworked (and I mean really out worked) all competitors. I have met very few people in my life who deserve his own success as purely as Gary deserves his.
Both gentlemen are worthy inductees in to the Canadian Mortgage Hall of Fame. They have demonstrated the leadership, the professionalism, and the passion to make the mortgage industry better. We have all benefited from your contribution. Thanks, and well done. Welcome to the Hall, Art and Gary.
Ric McGratten