From Army Service to Mortgage Success: Brandon Von Almen’s Journey

Bridget: Welcome to CCM Talks. I am Bridget Linton, and today I am joined by branch manager Brandon Von Almen. First of all, Brandon, you are one of the top mortgage originators in the nation. So I have to start off by saying congratulations.

Brandon: Thank you, I appreciate that.

Bridget: What a huge honor. But you haven’t always been in the mortgage industry. Can you talk a little bit more about your Military background?

Brandon: Yeah, so I got in the mortgage industry in 2011. Prior to that, I served in the Army for about ten years. I joined not long after September 11th happened. That was kind of my, my catapult to join the Military. And so within probably 90 days of September 11th, I kind of, propelled myself into the Military. And I served for almost ten years. I did three tours overseas. And my wife had about enough. So the plan was find something else.

Bridget: Well, first of all, thank you for your service. So. Yeah. So besides your wife saying that, what actually brought you to CCM?

Brandon: Yeah. So, I was, I drove trains for about a year, which is crazy how I got to that point. And then I had a buddy, Matt Shanlian, who’s in the mortgage industry. And ran a small branch with another company. And, we were working at a church together, and he was like, do you love driving trains at being gone all the time? And I was like, I hate it, but it’s cool. And, my kids think it was cool, but, but I didn’t.

And so he asked me to join him in the mortgage world. And that was in 2011. And from that point on, I’ve, I’ve been full force.

Bridget: Well, we’re so happy to have you here at CrossCountry Mortgage. And can you talk a little bit more about the support and products that CCM offers to Veterans?

Brandon: Yeah, so that’s one thing I love. CCM offers a wide range, a plethora of items that, that and mortgage products through, through Veterans. We have the IRRRL, we have the VA loan, we have construction loans, we have home equity line of credit products.

But what I love is, is how Ron loves people more than production. And I see that through the way we give back, not only just Veteran products, but we have tons of Heroes Programs for police officers, firefighters, teachers, the Line of Death Benefit program, which, Lord willing, we never have to use as a company. But if we do, we’re there to support families in a time of need.

Bridget: And you mentioned it, you know, it always starts at the top. And one thing I love about CrossCountry Mortgage too is how we give back to the community. Can you talk a little bit more about that and just the culture in general at CCM?

Brandon: Yeah, so CCM Cares is a big thing. That’s one of the big reasons why we made a shift from our previous company over to CCM is, we’re a branch and a culture, with our division that believes in giving back and believes in serving the community that provides for us. And so, we have a very faith-based culture, and one of the core values is love God, serve others.

And so part of that serving others is getting out in your community. We do so many different events and support so many different activities, not only with big corporate CCM, but individual branch offices. And the corporate is just always willing there to support and give back and help you. And whatever your mission and vision, vision is for your division.

Bridget: Yep, I love that and thanks for giving us more insight into what CCM Cares does and what our whole mission is. But going back to mortgage lending in general, how have you found such great success in building relationships?

Brandon: Yeah, it, I really pressed in the beginning when I started this, and just trying to be someone who I wasn’t and trying to sell myself, and ultimately, I realized long term is just be yourself.

It wasn’t necessarily trying to show all these great products, and which we have, but being genuine, being yourself, being true to yourself and always putting that people before production personality out there. I think that people see the actual you and that you love what you do.  If you love what you do, I think people will generally magnetize or be attracted to what you’re doing.

Bridget: And you are such a great person. And we were talking about how CCM gives back to the community, but I know you do that as well personally. Can you talk a little bit more about it?

Brandon: Yeah, so I’m part of a few different organizations. One is called Marriage For Life. It’s really about giving back to marriages and investing in marriages in our local community. We do Reading Under the Lights in our local community, which is a Boys & Girls Clubs event where we provide books and bags and stuff like that to young elementary students. It’s a great event.

I’m trying to think, there’s so many other things we do, very involved in my church. So we have several different avenues. We’re really big on also, missions trips. We love going overseas and doing missions trips and also supporting children overseas. We do that as well. So, we have our hands in a few different organizations locally in our company, not only in our local community, but we, we, we’re big about local, state and abroad. And so we, that’s kind of our pillars of how we give back to our community.

Bridget: So you’re, you’re constantly giving back, you’re at the top of your career and you have five kids? Do I have that right?

Brandon: Yeah. I don’t know how it always happens but …

Bridget: Number one, how do you balance it all? And then two, for anyone else that is struggling to find balance between their career and being a parent, what’s your piece of advice to them?

Brandon: A lot of people in this industry are really focused and driven on being the most successful mortgage person they can be, which is great, but I’ve always looked at it a little different. I pride myself on being a great husband. I pride myself on being a really good father, and through that, everything else kind of falls in line.

And so great, great support system. My wife is amazing. She is, I can’t honor her enough when I speak about her. She is genuine. She was pure. She is supportive. She is encouraging to me in what I do. And so without her, that wouldn’t be possible. Very great local community, a village that we have around us at church. Small group that helped when I’m gone here at these events for weeks. And so, it’s been great.

And then also our leadership team, our leadership team is very supportive. They encourage you to spend time with your family. And so, I don’t put 60 hours in a week unless it’s, you know, crazy, like, refi boom type thing. I really focus in on trying to be a good father and being a good husband and then hoping the Lord blesses me by doing the right thing.

Bridget: No, I love it. It’s so inspiring. So we did get to, get to know a little bit more about you. We know you’re a parent, but do you have another fun fact that you can share with us?

Brandon: A fun fact? Well, I love to golf, but I’m trying to think of a fun fact, man.

Bridget: Put you on the spot here.

Brandon: I, I always think I’m a really good athlete at my age. And so, we have a funny thing in our office. I see something, you know, there was an Olympic swimmer, a female swimmer that swam, and I thought I could swim as fast as her, so my office, there’s a lot of, I’m very, very competitive. And so my office always calls me out on the dumb things I say when I say I can still dunk a basketball, or I can swim, you know, a 50-meter pool in 40 seconds or whatever.

So I really think I’m an athlete and I’m really not. I’m really not. I’m not at all.

Bridget: You see, that was not the most fun fact, but I like it. I appreciate your honesty when it comes to your athleticism.

Well, thank you so much for all you do for CrossCountry Mortgage for our community. And of course, your service as well. And if you want to learn more about careers at CrossCountry Mortgage, make sure you visit CCM.com and we’ll see you on our next episode of CCM Talks.