Bringing out the Best, with Jillian Mantua

In this episode, we welcome VP of of IT Training, Growth & Development at United Wholesale Mortgage, Jillian Mantua.

Jillian is passionate about developing and guiding teams through the uncharted territories that come with organizational transitions and rapid growth by leveraging best practices across all industries. She focuses on identifying what and how to do things differently than current day practices, how to bring out the best in employees, and true alignment with organizational values.

Tune into hear Dori and Jillian discuss a variety of topics around the importance of fostering and developing growth within an organization to achieve operational efficiencies, and the recipe that United Wholesale Mortgage has developed to do just that.

Follow Jillian on LinkedIn here and don't forget to rate, subscribe, and share this podcast with friends and colleagues!

*Disclaimer: Podcast guest participated in the podcast as an individual subject matter expert and contributor. The views and opinions they share are not necessarily shared by their employer. Nor should any reference to specific products or services be interpreted as commercial endorsements by their current employer.

This is a production of ProcellaRX

Episode Transcript

Dori Gonzalez-Aceved (00:10):
podcasting from Alexandria, Virginia, just
a few miles from Washington DC,where we all hope doing what is
right the first time iseveryone's top priority. This is
software quality today presentedby Purcell RX, a podcast about
the trends and challenges ofsoftware quality testing and
computerized system validation.
And the people who are leadingthe way. Here interviews with
special guests and news fromcustomers and vendors. I'm your

(00:31):
host Dori Gonzalez Acevedo andwelcome to today's episode.
Welcome to self reporting today.
I'm your host Dori GonzalezAcevedo I'm excited to bring to
you a new friend and colleaguethat I met this year, I think
you will be equally as inspiredby Gillian Mantua Vice President
of Information Technology atUnited Wholesale mortgage. As

(00:54):
Vice President of IT training,Julian is responsible for the
growth development and retentionof the technology. Team members,
she partners closely with 120Plus IT leaders spanning the
enterprise, as well as the UWFM's talent and marketing teams
and oversees programs andefforts that results in 50,000

(01:15):
Plus completed training hoursevery year. Julian has held this
role since 2020. But it has beenat United Wholesale mortgage
since 2010, leading a variety ofteams including sales,
operations, applicationdevelopment, and product
delivery. Julian is a passionateabout developing and guiding
teams through unchartedterritories, company transition

(01:38):
and rapid growth. Leveragingbest practices from all
industries is the way in thefuture. How and what can you do
to do something different withinyour organization today? How can
you bring about the best in yourpeople and optimize your
operational efficiencies? Whatdoes true alignment of values
with an organization look like?
Well, United Wholesale mortgagehas a great recipe. I hope you

(01:59):
enjoy our conversation today.
Please let me know what youthink. And there's others in
your organization that you thinkwould be great for this podcast?
Reach out? Let us know. Takecare. Well, welcome, Julian to
software quality today. How areyou?

Jillian Mantua (02:17):
I'm doing great.
How are you? Very good. Well,

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (02:19):
it's been I was out in Detroit in
November. So it's been a coupleof months now. And I'm happy to
have this opportunity to chatwith you again, because your
tour of United Wholesalemortgage was one of the most
fascinating things I hadhappened to me last year, then
you're you're walking me througheverything describing your

(02:42):
process. And all of what youguys do, was probably the most,
you know, part of all of thevalues I saw each and every room
that we went to was threadedthroughout your entire
operation. And so I was reallyimpressed. And so I'm glad

(03:03):
you're here, because I'd lovefor everyone else to learn about
it.

Jillian Mantua (03:06):
Yeah, it's so nice to reconnect with you. It's
so nice to have you. And it'salways like, we love having
people here and showing off thecampus. I mean, I really believe
everyone here is so proud of it.
Because everyone, there's somany people here that I've
helped build it, and seen us gofrom a you know, 200 person
company to you know, 7000 andwhat it takes and the challenges
and the struggles. But it isdefinitely something that I

(03:28):
think we all take a lot of pridein as we're walking through the
building and get to show it offfor visitors. Everyone.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (03:34):
I asked from an employee perspective,
like, had stellarrecommendations across the
board. And so, you know, beingin quality in life sciences, I
thought it was a really goodopportunity to share with folks
that typically listen to thispodcast, some opinions and
thoughts around what a differentverticals does, right. So you

(03:56):
guys are in mortgages, somethingthat I wouldn't have thought to
pick a brain about. Because it'snot something that I really
enjoyed to talk about, like,whenever I have to get my
mortgages, it's not somethingthat I run very happily towards.
So yes, but this is reallyfascinating. So you are the VP

(04:16):
of IT training. Yeah. And Iwould love for you to share a
little bit about your journeyand how you came to be in that
role because I think it's prettyunique.

Jillian Mantua (04:26):
Oh, well I won't I'll try to try to keep it brief
because it's a it's definitely along one I think to get where I
am today but out of college Iwent to Michigan State and I
went into sales I shockingly Iwanted to get in pharmaceutical
sales and ended up in themortgage space and doing
mortgage as a loan officer insales there moved into

(04:46):
leadership very quickly.
mortgage business was booming.
In oh five when I started, thenthe crash of oh seven happen,
right the economic downturn,something like we've never seen
before. So through a series ofevents Since I left the company
that I started at and took sometime off, and then got back into
the game and got into anothersmall company, a 25 person job,

(05:09):
a year after I started there,that company closed their doors.
So the owner of that companyknew Jeff ish via who is the
owner and founder of UnitedWholesale mortgage. And, you
know, locally knowing eachother, he said, I'd like to take
all people that were at yourcompany that you have to close
down, and I'd like to interviewthem for positions with shore
mortgage and United Wholesalemortgage, we're in a good spot,

(05:30):
we're going to need people. Andso I interviewed for a position
that United Wholesale mortgagein 2010, still sales at the
time, so mortgage sales callcenter style, over the phone,
direct to consumer, so sellingmortgages to consumers over the
phone. And I did that for Ithink about three and a half,
four years here, at what wasyour mortgage at the time. So

(05:51):
that was our direct to retailbranch. That is a very tough
business. Our wholesalebusiness, which is the we work
with directly with broker, sonot direct to consumer, but
business, the business side, wasthe large part of the company
that was very successful, retailwas very small, not very
profitable, and, you know,struggled, I think, to get that

(06:12):
off the ground. So about threeand a half, four years in the
CEO, Matt Ishqiya, who's verywell known now, with all of his
success, he said, we're going toshut down retail, and you know,
we're going to just solely focuson wholesale. So this was a bit
of a pivotal time, I think, inmy career, and kind of what
cemented me here with a company,because there was 225 people we

(06:34):
had working in retail at thetime, and I was senior vice
president overall of US salesand operations. And, you know,
he said, I want to take everysingle person that is in retail,
and I want to find them aposition within United Wholesale
mortgage. And that's somethingthat most you know, they'll just
do a layoff, right? There'slike, yeah, people have to be
skilled, retrained, there's alot that goes into that that's

(06:55):
not something that's it's awhole thing that you have to do,
you know, and, you know, peoplecomplaining, and, you know, what
if they don't have role, so, youknow, we did that, and we did
that very successfully. And atthe time, you know, I was asked,
you know, what I wanted to do,and I said, I, you know, that
they just assumed kind of maybedo you want to go into sales,
and I said not really, you know,I've been in sales now for you
know, a handful of years, and Ireally don't want to be 50 and

(07:17):
in sales is the ups and downs.
Those swings are are tough tostomach, you know, the big years
are amazing. But then you got tosurvive through years, like
we're in now, you know, the poorsales guys that are out there.
Now, it's, you know, Idefinitely feel for them. I was
a big complainer of ourtechnology. All throughout my
sales tenure at short. Iconstantly told anyone that
would listen, including the CEO,how horrible I thought our

(07:40):
technology was, he always toldme we have the best technology
that's out there. And you know,what's funny is we actually did
and I still looking at it was atthe time. Yeah, it was, it was
so bad. But it was the best ofthe worse, you know, at the
time, and we weren't even on themap yet. As a lender, we're
starting to get on the map. Ithink now. So, you know, they
mentioned that I complained alot about technology. And why

(08:02):
don't why don't I go over totechnology and see what I can
do. So our technology team, whenI started in 2010 was I think it
was two people. And when I camein, you know, four years later,
it's been eight years, I thinkI've been in tech now, there was
about 40 or 45 people or so. Sothe tech team is still very
small at this point. And thecompany is rapidly growing and

(08:23):
expanding. So I came into thetech space, not knowing anything
I didn't know, I sat in the roomwith a lot of the leaders and
the few of the VPS. And I didn'tknow a single word that they
were saying I didn't if and andthe or the only way. And I had
been in mortgages my wholecareer. Like I knew everything
mortgages,

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (08:43):
I can tell you need the big guy, but
you didn't have the technicalside. Yeah,

Jillian Mantua (08:47):
at all. Yeah. So eventually, I started to realize
that they didn't know themortgage side at all. And there
were things that they didn'tknow that I could start to
understand where my value waswithin the team. So they would
bring up I think at some point,someone brought up a question
and said, What is DTI? Andthey're working on our systems
that impacted our debt to incomeratio, you know, eight years

(09:09):
ago, and I said, you don't knowwhat that is. I said, You can't
mess that you can't mess thatup. If you mess that up. It's
going to impact our a USfindings. And they're like,
what's a US? Like? It's ourautomated underwriting system,
you know. And so we start to gointo at the in this meeting all
the details of like, it iscritical that you get this
right. So you need to make surethat you test this and how are

(09:29):
we going to test this? And doyou understand how this works?
And, you know, I started to layit out for them at the time, and
they're like, oh, wow, this ishelpful, all this knowledge and
all this knowledge that you havethat you're kind of just
spitting out in this meeting. Soat that point, I started to get
my legs under me a little bit intech, and they kind of sent me
loose to do whatever I wanted.
So this is my first year in TAC,they said Go Go find some things

(09:50):
you think we need to improve?
And I was like, Well, I gotlists. So let me let me show you
what you know. So I went into afew of our teams and came And so
here's some options of justmassive efficiency pickups that
we could make systems or slowsystem data points are all over
on 30 different pages for oneperson that's just trying to do

(10:10):
one loan, you know, it takesthem 45 minutes, it seems
ridiculous. They're onlyinputting like 35 data points.
And so they gave me adevelopment team. And they said,
here's the development team,tell them what you want to do
and put them to work. I said,Great, like, you know, so
happened to be a guy that I had,I was able to hire one

(10:31):
technology guy when I was on theretail side, because all my
complaining, I was like, justlet me hire someone, let me
here. They eventually took himbecause he was so valuable. And
he ended up being one of theguys on the team, when I had all
these ideas that they said, goexecute, it happened to be the
guy that I had hired, you know,years earlier that had moved
into wholesale law long prior.
So we get it going, they startdeveloping. And creating a web

(10:52):
based solution from where wewere getting us off of a vendor
that we were working with wasjust old and archaic. And I'm
probably six or seven monthspregnant at the time when we're
in the midst of all this. So,you know, first first
opportunity and tag team startsbuilding it in, we finally get
it out the door. And I think thefirst I took the whole
development team down to theusers with me, because there was

(11:14):
12 users on this team. And, youknow, five or six developers and
a handful of testers that werethere. So I said, Hey, the day
we deploy just come down,they're like, in there.
Everyone's like, we can do that.
And like, we can do anythinglike, people want us to be
successful. There's nobodytelling us we can't do anything.
I said, I'll get some foldingtables, like, let's sit there
and watch. Can you guys do thatwith you? They're like, yes. So

(11:36):
you know, the first day wedeployed my first ever
deployment, we sit down there,and the developers are just
watching the users as we golive. And they're seeing things
instantly, they're like, Oh, Isee that I see the error they're
having I see the problem, I seethe, I'm gonna fix it, and I'm
gonna re push to production. Soit was like rapid fire deploy,
where you don't have to wait forthat feedback cycle in that
feedback loop. And the team wasso energized and so excited

(12:00):
about it, I was like, this isfun. You know, I could like if
this is what tech is, like, Ican do this. The team that we
deployed to, they were stoked, Imean, the system was so much
easier. It was so simple, therewas limited training that was
needed. Now, I think in thefirst day, I have to check my
numbers. I don't want to getthese numbers wrong. But you
know, in a day a user could do12 A day is what I recall, from

(12:22):
that time. And the first day wedeployed, it went up to 40. And
also a user goes from 12 to 40.
Right. And then I think when I acouple years ago, I shadowed the
team and they were up to 120.
You know, just because we werejust chipping away at small
integrations and things that wecould do at the time, and the
quality went through the roof,because less human error, more
logical order of how they work adocument and the data points

(12:44):
that they need to input, youknow, automating fields that are
coming in. So it just createdsuch a better experience, not
just for our team members, lessstress on the leaders to have to
train people, less skilledpeople necessarily. And then our
brokers had a better experiencewith their loans move faster,
and there's less mistakes thatare happening. So that was my
first experience.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (13:04):
What I loved about all of that is that
it was intuitive to you and whatI'm hearing what you're sharing,
right, it was intuitive to yougiven your role as a Smee as it
as a former user, right? Andthen given the opportunity, a
latitude to try something new,right? And bring the teams

(13:24):
together and do that in realtime. And and let the experience
happen across the aisle. Right?
Where, you know, notnecessarily, that doesn't
necessarily happen all the time,right? Sometimes teams get the
list of requirements or featuresthat they would like to have,
and not a lot of dialogue,right. And then they don't see

(13:45):
the added value of what's reallybehind the scenes. So what I
love about that stories is it'svery intuitive in given that
just, that's who you were, atthe time and what you saw as
being valuable to the company.
So you brought it there.

Jillian Mantua (14:02):
Oh, yeah. And I kept afterwards they're like,
oh, you're a great, you're,you're agile, and you're a great
business analyst. I was like,what I don't even know what it's
like, we're just, we're justimproving technology for people.
You know, and this is, this isgreat. And this is how we should
do it. And, you know, I didn't,I was so I was so ignorant to
like, what the norms were, thatit didn't matter. I was just
like, This is what makesbrilliant about it. Right? Yeah.

(14:24):
Yeah. You know, and so I thinkover time is what we saw is
that, you know, I had success,and I had a lot of experience,
but we started have other peoplecome in from the business side
that they were adding value to,and they could pick up the tech
stuff, or they could push alittle bit to say, Come meet the
people or let me introduce youto this group. So you can see
how they work come shadow, youknow, so we kind of started to
break down a lot of thosebarriers where, you know, on the

(14:47):
technology side, they started tofeel more comfortable engaging
and interacting with thebusiness side where you didn't
have to write a longrequirements document and like
you said, throw it over thewall. And it's like, No, you're
a developer, but the people workright down here. Let's just go
on They show you Yeah, you'regonna see when you do a shadow,
it's like every everyone sees adifferent of like, you're gonna
see how slow it is the user hasbeen working in it for two

(15:08):
years. They don't even really,you know, they know it's slow.
But, you know, when you look atit, you're like, I would never
work in this system. I can'teven believe people are willing
to do it. Yeah, you know, to anextent. So what's so yeah, that
was my first taste.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (15:20):
I love that. And the other thing, which
I also struck me at the, when Icame and toured with you was,
how close in proximity everybodywas relatively, I mean, it's a
big campus, but it's accessibleto everybody. And you were also
sharing like, you guys were backfull time, like in person as

(15:40):
quick as possible, right? Yes.
Yes. Yeah. So can you share alittle bit about that? Because I
think that's also very unique.
And what you do today, too,right? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. But

Jillian Mantua (15:53):
there are so art, our culture here, united,
wholesale, mortgage, it driveseverything that we do. So the,
it's encouraged to get thingsdone and getting things done
doesn't mean you send an emailand feel accomplished, you know,
oh, you send an email. Andhere's the things I need from
somebody, no, go walk to thethird floor. Talk to the I just

(16:14):
had a meet with immigrationattorney, right, go talk to him,
figure out what he needs from usand make sure you got a good
plan moving forward. So I thinkthe environment that we have
here where it's highly alwaysencouraged, just go get the
answer that you needinterruption, you know, a lot of
companies, some people are like,Oh, that's so many
interruptions. No, it's, it's,it's, it's speeding you up.
Because you don't have to haveso much back and forth. It's

(16:34):
most people just need a quickanswer. Or there's a quick
question, or if there's a moreformal meeting that needs to be
set up, of course, those thingshappen here as well. But you
don't get a lot accomplishedthrough back and forth on email,
and even phone I mean, phone issometimes a little bit better,
you know, but getting someone onthe phone, and then
understanding context and bodylanguage and things like that.
So, you know, we solve a lot ofproblems by being able to be in

(16:57):
person and break down a lot ofbarriers on the IT side, like
how the teams are located, youknow, you've got your
developers, you've got yourquality engineers, you've got
your product owner, you know,your team leader that's
responsible for the careerprogression, and sometimes a
portion of those projects was,they're all sitting right next
to each other. So they spinaround, if the developer is
almost done, you know, it'slike, Okay, I'm gonna kick this

(17:18):
back to functionally test this,you know, take a look at it, let
me know if we're good, and thenwe'll move things forward. So it
just happens faster, you're notsweet. I mean, you're switching
tasks in our in our systems,ultimately, but it's more for
tracking purposes for fartherdown the line as it is for
getting these actual softwareout there. So it saves us a lot
of a lot of time and wastedenergy that happens when it's

(17:39):
you know, back and forth overemail or systems or, you know,
even overseas, you know, a lotof people that don't, they don't
be most, most companies don'twork together anymore. You know,
everything's over the computer,people are working from home.
But when I look around everyday, like the amount of people
that are talking and engagingand solving problems, it's, you
can see why it makes such adifference of like, why we're so

(18:00):
successful, because you'regetting the answers that you
need instantly. And that's aculture right, where everything
is moving. People want instantanswers.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (18:08):
And I imagine that also then
translates to further employeesatisfaction, right? When they
are not having to hunt thingsdown or getting frustrated with
email or whatever. Right? Like,because they are having an open
dialogue with their colleagues.
That just adds further. Youknow, fulfillment along Oh,
yeah.

Jillian Mantua (18:28):
Yeah, it ultimately it takes away the
excuses, right? You're never youcan't ever say I'm waiting on
someone. No, you're not. Yeah,like, unless it's a vendor we're
working with, like, Who are youwaiting on? Like, you know, one
of the SVP is good, I see asdoors gonna, you know, he's
probably in a meeting until 430.
And there's gonna be a switch,there's gonna be a enter, you
know, someone's gonna come out,someone's gonna go, and you can
pop your head in there and say,Are you good? With what? You

(18:49):
know? Are you good with this?
Okay, we're gonna move forward.
Right? So all those things areand I think the, the happiness
that you get of having, there'slots of small engagement that
happens to at a personal levelof getting to know people. And
there's so much support forpeople personally and
professionally here, right?
Because there's theseconversations that happen when
you're getting your lunch in thekitchen, or when you're standing

(19:11):
in line, and are you cafe orwhen you sit down with somebody
that you don't know, all of asudden, it's like, oh, I want to
get into it. I've been inoperations for four years here,
and I'm interested and they endup sitting with me, and we kind
of talk through it. And then youend up meeting for coffee,
because we've got the Starbuckshere and then greenlit another
coffee place on the other side.
Yeah. So there's all these likemicro interactions that are
happening, hundreds of them perday with everybody where when

(19:34):
you're up, you're moving aroundthe campus, because that's how
that as you saw the campus isdesigned. And when you're going
to meet somebody to get ananswer, you're again, you're
moving and so you're crossingpaths with so many people, and
you're fostering these deeprelationships that aren't just
your team and it's not justyour, you know, 10 person team
or your 40 person team. You'reinteracting and engaging at many
levels like a massive like amassive campus. You know, when

(19:56):
you think of a college campus ora big community like that, that
It's really what it is. And itreally fuels a great environment
for, for driving things forward.
So I love it, it's a buzz,there's always a buzz here to

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (20:08):
it is there very much true. So, so
let's pivot a little bit aboutyour team and your training team
and how that's kind of evolvedin what are you are focusing on
because you know, how, one ofthe things in that I see and
struggle with sometimes in in myspecific industry in life

(20:28):
sciences is that there's a,there's not a primary focus on
training, it's kind of abyproduct of, or, as a result of
a finding, or, you know, achecklist that has to get done.
My industry also tends to have alot of SOPs to read and

(20:50):
understand. And that is the cruxof that training. And that might
be all that it is. And it's notnecessarily like even like two
or three, it could be like 50SOPs that they have to read and
understand, but that's the onlything that they have. So So I
wanted to kind of pick yourbrain a little bit, if you can

(21:12):
share some of what what's beensuccessful for you, how you like
what you've done, and how largeof a group you do, based on who
you support as well, because Ithink some of these things are
very unique and have been verysuccessful for you.

Jillian Mantua (21:27):
Yes, so, you know, our training team, as a
company has been recognized, youknow, throughout the world,
ultimately, a lot of, you know,magazine coverage, and just a
lot of accolades that we'vereceived in the last several
years, my real focus with ITtraining has been that's been my
sole focus really, for the lastyear and a half. So prior to
that is application development,you know, product development,

(21:49):
in lots of other areas. And nowit's been solely, you know, it
training. So let me think backto kind of what you were
describing. So I think that ouragain, back to our culture a
little bit like, our culturefosters an environment where we
want to scale people up. And wewant to hire people with a great
attitude and a great work ethicand everything else we can train
them on, ultimately, like ifthey come in everyday positive,

(22:12):
and they want to work hard, andthey're willing, like we're
willing to invest in them andinvest in their future. So we do
a ton of that at the company, alot of internal mobility
happens, where someone comes inat a $15 an hour job, and then
they progressed to the company.
And all of a sudden, they're asoftware developer, you know,
three or four years later, justbecause they had a great work
ethic and a great attitude. Somy training team, it's grown a

(22:34):
lot in the last year and a half.
As everyone out there knowsthat's listening, that works and
technology, like it has been achallenging market to hire for
technology, I think it's beenfor probably the last decade,
you know, to hire and grow yourteam. And, you know, our, you
know, our C level executives andhaving the foresight to know

(22:56):
that we have to have strongprograms to bring people in and
bring people up and train themis going to be our best shot at
success and building a superstrong, you know, information
technology team and then beingable to supplement with some
external, you know, moretalented hires and more seniors
that can kind of help us on thatside. But so we've created a lot
of developmental programs.
Within it training, it's been,we're on like our prior 20th

(23:20):
iteration of a handful of them.
So software developers, businessanalysts, and quality analysts,
and then quality engineers, sotwo separate quality roles that
we have developmental programsfor last year, we rolled out
many more developmentalprograms, Salesforce, it can be
really hard to hire for. So wecreated our own our in house

(23:42):
training to take people intoSalesforce developer roles or
Salesforce admin roles. I thinkour Salesforce team is I don't
know how large they are there.
They've grown tremendously, Ithink there's five different
teams that work under Salesforceand Jackie donor VP over there,
DevOps. So DevOps has gottenbig, right, and DevOps
engineers, and understanding allthe tooling and technology that

(24:02):
comes with that, and growingpeople into those roles. So we
have a DevOps X program that'srolled out. So foundationally,
our training team has created alot of these entry level
development programs, to getpeople in the tech space and get
them to like, ultimately a highperforming level one. So we'll
take somebody that knows nothingabout training, or maybe they've
been to a tech boot camp. Andthen they get into our program,

(24:24):
tough process, we get a ton ofapplicants. So externally, and
this wasn't always like this.
It's obviously built up overtime of people that want to get
into technology. But you know, alot of times we'll open the post
externally, and it can only stayopen for a day because we'll get
so many rounds. Yeah. Which isgreat. It's great for us, so we

(24:44):
just have to find a goodfiltering. Alright, a good
filtering process internally isthe same way. You know, we take
a lot usually we take about 75%internal candidates for most of
these programs, and everyone'swaiting for them to open
everyone's applying and now it'syou know, who's ready for it?
Who's Don't eat the most who'sdone as much as they can to
learn about our teams and thoseroles. And now we're really
taking the best of the best thehungriest people internally and

(25:07):
they are thriving, we are seeingjust every program, people are
getting better and better,they're hitting the floor, and
they're producing faster thanever, people that are coming out
of our programs, and they'redeploying to production. You
know, within two weeks, they'redeploying their first stories
into production successfully,which is huge. It's huge for our
teams that are supporting them,or product owners that are

(25:28):
teeing up small items. And youknow, our training team that
supports them even post theprogram after they've graduated
from the programs. We have a lotof all of our programs are
instructor led in person. Sothere is some small online
curriculum that they do thatcomputer based trainings that
we've created. But all of theseprograms we've we've built from

(25:49):
scratch, instructor led courses,quizzes exams throughout, just
like you would see, you know, ona cot will not college anymore,
a lot of colleges have moved toonline, right? You know, but
what you have seen before, interms of lots of classes,
they're attending 40 hours aweek paid training, and coming
out of it ready to, you know,hit the floor, we did something

(26:10):
fun, because I always like toget creative. And we were having
a challenge a year and a halfago, where we were just tossing
these people on teams, and therewas no process in place. And it
was it was a it was a bit of amess, to be honest. You know,
the leaders didn't know if theyneeded on what they were
expecting them. They're kind ofjust getting these people and
they were showing up one day,and we were like, we've already

(26:30):
trained them, they're ready. Andthen they would just get plopped
and there was no preparation,no, no good onboarding process.
And so we recognize that as wegrew, and we created a draft. So
we do you know, like you'd havean NHL draft or an NBA draft. So
we created a drafting processwhere there's a for this round
that we have going on, actually,we're about to send out a

(26:50):
scouting report, where we takeall the trainees that are in
these programs, and you got yourtheir picture, and you've got
some basic stats that we gotfrom how they got out, you know,
where they came from in thebusiness or where they came from
externally, how they'reperforming in the program, what
teams they would like to beplaced on or areas that they're
interested in a personality,predictive index, you know,
we'll run one of those to kindof do personality matches and

(27:12):
things like that as well. Andthen we provide all that to the
leaders that are going to begetting a team member that are
eligible to receive a teammember. And then the day that
they all get drafted, you know,we do like a first round draft
pick. And it's a wholeexperience where they get to
select their team member out ofthese developmental programs.
And it's created a much betterengagement with our IT training,
and then our leaders that arereceiving people, where before

(27:35):
there was the you're buttingheads almost a little bit,
right, just because there's,there's a, I don't want to say
an artificial barrier out. Butthere was just a, we did our
job, but now we'll throw himover to you. Right, just like
technology, right? I wrote therequirements. And now you guys
do

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (27:48):
this. And so is it more collaborative?

Jillian Mantua (27:51):
Yes, it's much more culture, like how we do
things here. And so, I mean, theCTO comes like he gives a speech
to everyone we bring everyone inat the end, people are, you
know, celebrate people who hadbanners for their people made,
you know, T shirts and thingslike that for their new people.
And it becomes this experiencewhere they're getting accepted
onto a team, the entire teamknows that they know that they
wanted them. And that becomes areally great experience. So

(28:13):
those are, those are all the funthings that we get to do, just
because we have the autonomy todo them here. Like nobody's
telling us not to, you know, wethrow it out there to the CTO,
and he's like, sounds great, doit, like invite me. So I can
come and watch it all happen. Sowe have a lot of support, I
think at the company. And sowhen you have that people can
get creative, and people can dotheir best work. And that makes

(28:33):
a huge difference when you'renot put in this box
artificially, you know, you justput good people in the role, and
now they're driven to becomesuccessful and driven to produce
great people, and they're proudof these programs. And these,
you know, these great things arehappening. So,

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (28:47):
so that was one of the things that you
were explaining on when we wereon the tour, right? You know,
the concepts of there's nooffices other than what like a
handful, like three, maybe fouroffices, true offices.

Jillian Mantua (29:01):
Just ask VPs and hire are the only ones I mean,
VPS are on the floor, you know,team leaders on the floor or
assistant vice vice presidents.
Yeah, they're all out there onthe floor with everyone else.
Yeah. So no barriers. There's

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (29:12):
no barriers. There's no pupils,
right. So you can see for miles,which it's literally miles
because you guys have so manypeople, right? But so you can
see the entire floor. There's avery well, not the New York
Stock Exchange sort of feel, butthere is that sort of feel in a

(29:33):
fun way. I guess the best way toActs, you know, there's not all
that hype and in craziness, butthere is a very, you said before
maybe collegial sort of way ofof being right where Yeah. Felt
very included. I felt includedeven just being there as a
visitor right, which is really,really unique around the leaders

(29:57):
and one of the things. What Ilike about what you're saying
and how you're you're able toelevate what you're doing is
because it's coming from the topdown to, right. So it's they're
giving, the top is telling you,you have the autonomy to do what

(30:17):
the right thing is to do and andbuild that culture. And then
from the bottom up, they wantthat too, right? So there's a
bit this very organic sort ofgrowth mindset. I see, when I
was there. How does that playout in terms of the ability to
adopt new technology andinnovation that you guys have,

(30:41):
and thoughts around that?

Jillian Mantua (30:43):
Yeah, our CTO is like, word of the year is like,
fail. You know, he's like, failfast, you know, and fail.
Because you, that's how youlearn the most. And a lot of our
IT meetings recently, you know,with all of us, it's, he's
always telling the story aboutthat even, there's a great one
that he talked about, of whenyou work out, like you have to
work your muscles until failure,and they break and that's how

(31:05):
you rebuild stronger. And like,that analogy just stuck with me,
right? It's like, you have topush yourself to the point of
making mistakes ultimately, and,and then you have to be able to
be ready to recover, you know,in the recovery of those things.
So I think that the our, ourhighest leaders, they're very
okay with failures. Even yearsago, you know, in the space, we
were pushing out technology, andwe're like, oh, it's not ready,

(31:27):
it's not ready. And he's like,yeah, go, like, push it out
anyway, and we're like, it'sgonna be a hot mess. And he's
like, Okay, well, we'll figureit out, you know, we will, like,
I'm confident you guys willfigure it out. And what we got
really good at was was solvingbugs quickly, right, and
identifying them quickly. And westart, you know, through our
own, knowing there'll bepressure on us always, as we got
better and better at that,because there was always this

(31:48):
push to like, it's okay, we knowthey'll do the best you can, and
then learn once it gets outthere, let's, you know, put your
feet to the fire and learn. Andthose have been great
experiences, even from training,you know, we try things all the
time, and we have the autonomyto try. Whether it's a new
technology or a new processwe're putting in place, put it
in, try it. And if it doesn'twork, just change, just be ready
to recover and change. We'verolled out oh, gosh, the number

(32:12):
of technologies we rolled outlast year is is insane. And the
new ones that we've on boarded,to try them and see if this
solves a problem. Great, let'smove forward with it. And if
it's going to fix it, and if itdoesn't, then let's just let's
reverse and let's go go adifferent direction. So, you
know, the CEO always talks aboutspeed solves everything is do
it. But do it quickly. You know,don't don't overthink it, Don't

(32:33):
overanalyze it. Like, if youhave a problem, and this is a
solution potentially to thatproblem, you know, spend a
little time vetting it, and thenjust drive drive it forward and
see if it's all set. So,

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (32:44):
so along those lines, I mean, mortgages
are highly regulated, too. Yeah.
Right. So one of the so let'stalk about quality culture, and
changing the quality mindset.
One of the items that, you know,in life sciences, there's often
often this push and pull, you'venow sat in some of our women and

(33:07):
CSV meetings, where you've heardthis kind of, you know, very
risk averse perspective, fromsome, right, and then there's
the other side of, you know, thepush to innovate, right. And so
we see this a lot and, and fromthe quality units in particular,
and life sciences of this, thispush and pull. We can't do this,

(33:31):
because it's too risky, or we'reafraid of an audit finding or
that sort of thing. You guys arehighly regulated. How do you
balance? And where does yourquality group come into play in
all of this?

Jillian Mantua (33:46):
You know, we've got, of course, we've got good,
you know, automated regressiontesting. And we've got I think
we've got a lot of semis thathave been here that are they
they do know, the inner workingsof they know the critical
mistakes, like there's not Idon't know why it feels so low
risk, necessarily. You know,there's a clear understanding,

(34:08):
maybe it's the global knowledgethat we have across the floor of
all of our, you know, of oursystems in general, and all the
business knowledge that's thereof common pitfalls, like it's
just innately known by a lot ofthe groups of you, that's not
well, that won't work. Thatwould be catastrophic. You know,
that's catastrophic. And that'sjust well known, I think,
throughout many of the people.
Maybe even because of all thetraining that we had as a as a

(34:28):
company, you know, it's veryclear. And then there are
safeguards that are put in placefrom a technology standpoint,
where those critical safeguardsare already long in existence
and in place and redundancy.
Right. So I think we get awaywith

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (34:43):
doing Yeah, so you've actually layered
in the systematic structures toto guard against those. Yeah,
and I'm guessing though, if andwhen new regulations come out,
there is a team that kind ofobsessed Is and looks at that
structure. Yeah, yeah.

Jillian Mantua (35:03):
I mean, there's so many changes that happen
within mortgages constantly,right from products or from
conditions or oh gosh, overCOVID, think about all the
things changed with, you know,verbal verification of
employments, we were justtalking about earlier before we
started the call. And you know,what comes with that there was
mass change that happened, butagain, our ability to be here in
one building and adapt quicklyto those things, there was lots

(35:24):
of conversation that solvedthose problems, you know,
rapidly for us. And again, Ithink it's a lot of the long
invested Smee knowledge that wehave on the floor of we know
this, we understand this, and wecan make these quick changes and
quick pivots. And over time,it's just we've built up, you
know, a levels and levels, Ithink of behind the scenes
safeguards to protect us fromanything that's, that's big or

(35:47):
catastrophic, but changes orjust changes, you know, there's
this new product, and you haveto have this new document that
goes out good. We've done that100 times, you know, 1000 times
probably

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (35:54):
so interesting. So how, like, so
how many systems do you guyshave? And like, are we talking
like dozens, hundreds?

Jillian Mantua (36:03):
So I mean, we have to we have a handful of
main systems. Right? So there'sone main system for our brokers
that our brokers are mostlyengaged with. And there's some
subsystems that are auxilary, Ithink off of that for marketing
purposes, or, or otherconnections, but there's one
main system for our brokers thatis the primary system, and then
there's really one internalsystem for our internal

(36:24):
operational people that theyprimarily work out of. So
there's two major systems andthen how

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (36:30):
do they change over the course of the
year? Are you doing like

Jillian Mantua (36:34):
quarterly from like a compliance from like, a
compliance standpoint? Or justtechnology changes? Yeah,

Dori Gonzalez-Aceved (36:39):
technology change? How much?

Jillian Mantua (36:41):
Every, I mean, every 48 hours, we're pushing to
production. We're pushing data,we're, I mean, daily, there's
teams that are pushingconstantly like CI CD. Yeah, so
it's a constant. It's funny, Iremember years ago, many years
ago, when I was new in it, Ithink I mentioned, we were
struggling because we were doinglike 2am deploys, because we had

(37:02):
to take our systems down, right,so we had to do it. And we're,
we handle west coast. So youknow, 2am is 11 on Pacific time.
And in order to push in anytechnology, we had to be on at
2am. And sometimes we went tillthree or four, because there was
issues with the builds. Andthere was all sorts of problems
that were happening. Andfinally, we were sitting in the

(37:23):
room with the I think the CEOand the CEO at the time, I was
like, you know, Amazon pushes toproduction every 30 seconds. And
I feel like at that point, wewere like, well, if they're
doing it, like we're gonnafigure out a way to do it. And
with Jason coming in, he reallystarted to make those pushes to
like, we have to get to a CI CDbattle, we have to be able to
deploy whenever, however, weneed to when businesses going

(37:46):
when it's not, you know, so thatwas a that was a huge push for

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (37:50):
because he was critical to this. I mean,
that is your business, like yourentire operation lives and dies
based on that technology. And sotherefore, it has to be right.
Yes, as critical as it is. Soall of the training that you're
doing supports that it there areother training groups for that

(38:11):
support other parts of thebusiness as well. Yes. When you
look at where you're at today,and, you know, wanting to
develop new leaders within theorganization, I'm also guessing
just based on what I've seenfrom the mission values that you
all are, that's part of theprocess, right? So to, you know,

(38:34):
that growth and development pathfor everybody is kind of laid
out. Is that

Jillian Mantua (38:38):
true? Oh, yeah, um, there's, I mean, there's so
many options, and so manyopportunities that have arisen
over the years for people tomove into leadership roles here.
But there is we have an entireleadership development training
team that's focused on not justgetting new leaders and but also
growing our current leaders. Andthey're doing, there's five

(38:59):
trainings that we're all leadersat the company are attending
right now to, you know, refresh,refresh, and then teach us
emotional intelligence, right,how we run our huddle. So we're
required, you know, at thecompany that we're huddling our
team daily, so there's a dailyhuddle. And often there's a
playbook of here's the thingsthat here's the communication
that needs to come down to theteam members from the top all

(39:21):
the way down, not an email onthis, but from the leader down
to the team members and say,here's things that are going out
of the company, here's how we'reperforming. You know, here's,
here's interesting engagementsthat, you know, here's when our
UW M live for all of our brokersis going to happen. So there's
all this great informationthat's shared at the senior
highest senior leadershiplevels, and those are all
brought down, you know, daily orweekly to the teams to have

(39:42):
those engaging huddles and, andthen we're trained as leaders of
how to make sure it's a goodhuddle, because it's one thing
to just share information. It'sanother thing to shout people
out and make them feelrecognized or, you know, have a
positive energy and bring ingreat news for the day or set
the tone for how you want theweek to go You know, there's
have a contest where people getto know each other better. So

(40:03):
there's better camaraderiewithin your team. So, as
leaders, it's like we'reconstantly, you know, we're
constantly pushed and evenrefreshed, you don't get stale
and stagnant sit at your deskand, you know, tell people what
to do this is you're gettingfeedback from your team, and
you're, you're trying to improveevery day. And then I think it
becomes this is a leadershiphere is very challenging, the

(40:24):
expectations are incrediblyhigh. You have to meet with
everyone in your team membersfor 30 minutes, every single
month, you cover their personalgoals, you recover their
professional goals, and then yougive them some feedback, what
they're doing well, and youknow, an area potentially of
opportunity. So that's allrequired, that's all documented.
And those are amazing sessions.
It's a lot when you're doing thejob though sometimes, right? If
you've got 16 direct reports,and it's time to prep that it's

(40:46):
time to sit, I

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (40:47):
was curious about the ratio, like
how many folks that were in ifit was capped to like, you know,
220, or something like there hasto be a limit to what someone
can really do? Well, given thatthat is the high bar that you've
set, right?

Jillian Mantua (41:04):
Yeah, yep. Yeah, it's usually, you know, anywhere
from eight to 16, is what you'llfind is pretty, pretty standard.
16, mean, high, but some teamscan handle it, depending on your
mix, right? If you've got someveterans that have been within
that can support you differentthan if you've got a whole new
team that you've overturned, andyou've got, you know, right 12
new people, that's a lot morestressful, you

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (41:25):
guys have all collectively, again, from
the top down has said, This iswhat we're investing in. And so
these are the standards, theseare the expectations, they are
high expectations. And we aregoing to fund that we are going
to enable you to do that get thetraining to be the leader that
you we want you to be right. Andso that is really walking the

(41:47):
walk from across the board,which I find really refreshing
in so many ways.

Jillian Mantua (41:56):
There's we got I'll just one more point that I
think is important to make onleadership here. You know, we
have what we call 12 leadershipbehaviors. And they encompass
things like you know, wecommunicate, and we recognize,
and we share success. So theseare all themes that throughout
everything that we do that theseare reminders of like as a
leader here, your job is to be askilled communicator, to

(42:17):
communicate to your team tocommunicate up to your senior
leaders. And then we're actuallyrated on those things twice a
year by our team anonymously. Sothey rate us and like,
oftentimes you get I got acouple years ago, I got rated
low and we collaborate. And whenI thought back, I was like, I
never asked their opinion, likeI when I'm making a change, like
I never get my team together andsay, Hey, here's what here's our

(42:38):
problem, how do we solve it?
Here's what I think we shouldyou know, or how do we solve
this problem, right? It's howyou should approach it not
here's what we're going to do,which is what I was doing. And
so having those feedback loops,you know, just like with good
technology, it's like when youhave a feedback loop like that,
where the team members are ableto rate the leader and say that
they're doing terrible in thisarea, they're honest, they're
very honest. And they'll tellyou when you're doing great,
too. So those are things that Ithink as leaders, we really look

(43:00):
forward to, to getting that, youknow, unbiased feedback coming
our way to help us get better,

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (43:07):
which is something that you never learn
in school, right? Like, theseare things and skills that you
don't learn in school. And sowhen you get in the workforce I
was having, I did a nextgeneration webinar recording the
other day with five young folkand how the only way to get

(43:27):
those skills is to get into acompany that has the processes
in place, like you'reexplaining, right, like is that
real, like, again, the dollarsin the sense and the and the
purpose to really carry thatout. Because that is a skill set
and communication andcommunicating well, and feed and
how to give feedback, how toparticipate in a team. Not

(43:49):
everyone has gone through theirschooling necessarily as part of
a team. Like, maybe if youdidn't, you might not have
gotten the right, sort of teamcollaboration in that, right.
And so cultivating that as amodel for an organization and
remind me how this UnitedWholesale mortgage is not old,

(44:13):
right? This is not my third, I

Jillian Mantua (44:15):
mean, 30 years, but maybe I'm probably 40 I
don't know if it's I'mapproaching 40 Probably not this
point. But um, you know, we theywere so small up until the last
10 years, really. So it's beenmassive to get that scale to
this level. That's what itmeans. Level effectively with
these processes and these rightbehaviors and culture. Yeah, so
in less

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (44:35):
than 10 years, you've gone from how many
to 7000

Jillian Mantua (44:40):
Oh, gosh, we were Yeah, we were to for 13
years, and I think we were about200 or people 250 Yeah, and
overnight, our peak I think wehit about 9000 But, you know,
through natural attrition andeverything else. I think we're
down a little bit since then.
Yeah.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (44:53):
So it's it's very inspirational, that
again, can you share a littlebit about also So your what you
guys do in the your philosophyaround diversity, equity
inclusion, because I think, youknow, when I was there, it was
lovely to see. So I'd love foryou to share a little bit about
that. Yeah, we've got

Jillian Mantua (45:15):
great, we've just got kind of more, it's more
recent, when I say more recent,the last couple of years spun up
the resource group. So that'sbeen nice to see those things
get off the ground, becausethere's big impact that those
groups will make or people thatbecome part of those groups that
feel a sense of home or a senseof self, I think in those but
something that's awesome to youprobably noticed when you're

(45:35):
here is like we everyone wearsUWA gear when they're here,
right? The T shirts areeverywhere. And, you know, as
part of our marketing, I mean,they sold, they were selling
them, the price went up a littlebit inflation, right, but it was
like $6 for a T shirt, andthey're super high quality
shirts. So everyone was justbuying shirts left and right.
And a cup, it had to be two,maybe two years ago, our
marketing team, they starteddoing a monthly design, you

(45:58):
know, it would have been like,you know, Latino, or American
Indian, or, you know, blackhistory, and then LGBTQ, you
know, was another one. And sothe designs were PWM. But behind
it was, you know, all the thingsthat embody those. So you see a
lot of people and a lot of ourmarketing things. And it's just
a very cool way to bring peopletogether and to recognize people

(46:22):
and all the different culturesthat we have here. And celebrate
those, you know, at everyopportunity from food that we
have in the you cafe. Gosh, forour obviously our Indian
population is very big in thetechnologies area that we have.
And Diwali here is likeeverybody looks forward to it.
Well, because you were here.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (46:40):
It was beautiful. It was absolutely,

Jillian Mantua (46:42):
oh my gosh, it's, you've learned so much.
And hearing people that I'veworked with for years, talk
about their culture and talkabout, you know, the Festival of
Lights and seeing the dances andtrying the food that I would
have never tried before thatthey bring in and you know, and
we'll bring in a pay for it. Andthere's a whole buffet and then
the henna tattoos, and I mean,we've really like every year, I
think we get more and moreinvested in bringing all these

(47:06):
different cultures here oncampus together and ultimately
celebrating them, andcelebrating, you know, the
different groups that are here.
So, you know, we've, you know,you just love that it's like
people, people are who they are,and they feel like they can be
themselves here. And, you know,you see that all over. And it's,
I was just funny, I was justthinking about that today, I was
like, if I were in probably anyother company or any other role,

(47:26):
it's like I would not have allthis diverse understanding of
even the world of the peoplethat have immigrated here. And
hearing the stories, you know,we've got people that came from
Syria, people that are Iraqi,you know, people that are
Russian, and, you know, you hearabout they grew up in those
areas and what it was like andwhy they're here, and you know,
how exciting it is for them tohave their family here and to be

(47:50):
able to make a great living andto work for such a phenomenal
company when those opportunitiesweren't afforded. Right, you
know, where they were. So peoplebecome American citizens here.
And you should see thecelebrations that the leaders
and the teams have at their deskwith the flags and like, you
know, it's such a such a bigdeal. So yeah, yeah, I think
culturally here with diversity,equity, and inclusion is just
very, very celebrated in our Csuite. I mean, there's so much

(48:12):
female, you know, at that level,Melinda Willner, she's
phenomenal. Our CEO, oh, you'vegot Laurel Lawson, runs our
chief, you know, our chiefpeople, officer, Sarah DeSantis,
with a marketing team. And wewe've got so much. You know,
there's just there's so muchthat we have as a company that
just, it's just who we got, it'sjust who we are and how we're
operating. But there are thoselittle tangible things that I

(48:33):
don't even I don't evenrecognize them, because I'm in
it every day, right? Come andsee it, and I'm like, it's just
who we are. It's just what weare.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (48:39):
Right?
Right. Like it was. There was itjust brought a smile to my face,
right, like just be seeing howeveryone was embraced and and
how everyone's well being wasreally taken seriously. And so
and that definitely came throughand that says a visitor that's

(49:00):
not like I wasn't getting intoyour business. I wasn't like I
was just a visitor and that'swhat I felt. And so it was
really very impactful to me. Isthere anything like nuggets of
learnings that you would want toleave whether it's you know,
quality folks or IT folks oranything that as you kind of

(49:23):
lessons learned that you've hadthat you would like to impart on
folks as we close out here soon.

Jillian Mantua (49:32):
Yeah, you know, there's a it is so intimidating,
right? When you look on theoutside and look in I see so
many people that like, gosh,it's so hard or, you know, they
don't people don't realize thatit's a you know, you can learn
it and once people through ourprograms, you know, there's such

(49:52):
an excitement for people takingon this career, and it's so
rewarding. You know, it's sorewarding to see people now that
we take a lot of people,obviously, that have college
degrees and summer team membersthat transition into full time
and they work their butts off.
You know what people that camefrom backgrounds of a bus
driver, or someone that waswaiting tables that, you know,
have these opportunities, likeyou can learn, you can learn

(50:13):
anything, you know, put yourmind to it, and, you know,
getting with the right company,and all those things are
important. But, you know,knowing where the opportunities
are, and understanding the valueof what a company offers, I've
seen people that have come hereand have just, they get it, and
they're taking it and they'rejust working hard every day. And
all these opportunities juststart opening up for them
because they put their headdown, and they're a great

(50:35):
person, and they're greatculturally here, and it's just
the sky becomes the limit forthem. And it's, it's, you know,
it's exciting, it's exciting tosee them light up and to see
them Ignite. And to really takeoff, it just happens all the
time. So I think theintimidation factor like for
people that it's hard, but totry not to be so intimidated by

(50:56):
things like that, and just takeit out and try it or try to
learn or try to get your foot inthe door. With a place real
important than leaders outthere. I think any leaders that
are listening, you know, there'sinvesting in your people,
knowing your people knowing whatthey want, you know, personally
and professionally, those thingsare so rewarding to see people
buy their first house or havetheir first child or, I mean, we

(51:18):
have people that have gottenmarried, bought their first
house had their you know, thathave been here 10 years and to
see their life like transform,and to see their career and
their income go from $35,000 ayear to a six figure income and
technology and have crazy jobsecurity and be so valued here
and successful here. And theyhave so much success personally,

(51:38):
you know, to be saving andinvesting. Like as leaders, like
I don't know, if there'sanything more rewarding than
that, you know, you're skillingthese people up, and they are
taking full advantage of it. Sothose are the things that are
huge drivers. For me. I just Ilove it. You know, I love all
the all the people here,everyone, every interview, you
know, we get every interviewperson, the person that we're

(51:59):
interviewing, they say what doyou love about it, and it's
always unanimous around them.
Everyone's like the people, it'sall the people that are here.
They're just so supportive, andso helpful, and so great. They
work so hard. And to your point,I think it's just the culture
that has been created here. Andwe work hard to maintain that
culture. Over time, it it thosethings make a difference. And

(52:19):
it's hard to pinpoint exactlywhat it is, right? It's it's a
million little things, it's amillion little things that all
add up from T shirts that we doto Diwali dances to how we treat
each other to how we speak toeach other, you know, so, yeah,
I think all of those things areall the small pieces that have

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (52:37):
been contagious, I will say yeah,
like I left on on the high,right after just a few hours.
And so if that's what I feltjust after that little exposure
B, I can't imagine what it'slike being there from day after
day. So

Jillian Mantua (52:53):
I mean, in 13 years, there's been maybe a
handful of days where I don'twalk in here, excited, like,
there's people that talk about,you know, sitting in their car
in the parking lot and notwanting to walk into their job,
like I just can't even imaginelike, it's exciting to come in
and see and connect with peopleand to do the work, you know, in
front of us so

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (53:12):
well, Julian, thank you for sharing
today. I really appreciate it. Ilearned a lot every time I talk
with you and I value ourfriendship as well. Yes,

Jillian Mantua (53:22):
it's great to see you. Alrighty,

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (53:24):
well take care and we will talk to you
soon.

Jillian Mantua (53:27):
Okay, sounds good. Thanks, story.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (53:31):
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