Joel Smith has been everywhere from New Zealand’s Cook Islands to Dublin, Ireland. The 32-year-old, who joined the First Federal team as its new Director of Mortgage Lending just over a month ago, loves to explore.
“I like being out of my element a little bit,” he says. “As much as I love routine, it’s really fun being somewhere where you really don’t know [what’s going to happen].”
Four years ago, Smith and his wife took a 22-day trek through Europe. They visited Paris, London, Oslo, Rome, Munich, Barcelona and Belfast, among other classic European cities.
But it was in Rome that they encountered some of that aforementioned uncertainty.
The couple relied heavily on Airbnbs throughout the trip. In Rome, they took a bus from the airport to the neighborhood where their room was located. When they arrived, graffiti and closed window shutters greeted them.
“Where did we pick to stay?” they asked themselves.
After conceding it was simply a place to rest their heads, the couple headed into the center of Rome to spend the day. When they returned that evening, the previously sketchy look of the neighborhood had transformed into a vibrantly lit nightspot of open-shuttered restaurants, all bustling with dinner-goers.
“I don’t think we would have ever gone to that part of Rome if we had booked a [more structured] trip,” Smith says.
An Accidental Find
Smith was born and raised in Colville, a rural town of approximately 4,500 people in Northeastern Washington, some 70 miles north of Spokane.
His mother worked as a registered nurse, while his father ran a local Internet service provider long before companies like Comcast became more prominent. The youngest of four children, Smith debated where to attend college. He had high school friends who’d settled on Western Washington University in Bellingham, but in the end, he chose a place where he knew no one: Tacoma’s Pacific Lutheran University.
Smith wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life, but he knew what classes he liked. He graduated with a double-major in economics and history in 2008. The summer after graduation, while living in Tacoma and working in Issaquah, he met his future wife, Jessica, who was attending WWU. After a year of long drives, he moved to Bellingham in September 2009.
Although he’d visited the area many times to see friends, Smith saw himself in a bigger city like Seattle. In time, he realized he was wrong.
“Whatcom County’s awesome,” he says. “I don’t want to leave.”
The foray into his current career is something Smith calls “an accidental find.”
After moving to Bellingham, he began working at Peoples Bank, first as a teller, and then in accounting. He re-enrolled in college, taking more than half a dozen accounting classes from WWU, and thought about getting his CPA.
But when Peoples Bank’s CFO told him they needed someone with finance knowledge to learn about mortgage lending, Smith changed course. He has been focused on mortgages for the past five years. When a former co-worker told Smith First Federal was seeking someone to oversee their mortgage lending department, he inquired and eventually took the job.
“It sounded like a really fun, exciting opportunity,” he says. “I just like being challenged and it was the next challenge that came my way.”
Even without meeting the families he helps, Smith realizes the importance of what he’s doing, especially since he and his wife have a mortgage of their own.
“You realize how big of an investment and how big of a step that is for people,” he says. “So, I think anything you can do in that process to make it better, make it more understandable, make it easier – I feel like it’s a really worthwhile cause.”
Gaining Perspective
Although Smith is now in charge of driving the vision and direction of First Federal’s mortgage department, his biggest challenge may be just around the corner: fatherhood.
His wife, Jessica, is pregnant with the couples’ first children: twins, due in a couple months. The birth will give Smith’s parents their ninth and tenth grandchildren. Although raising twins will likely impact how often the couple travel, Smith says they plan to travel with their children anyway, despite any challenges.
“We have way too many places we want to go,” he says.
Those places include New Zealand, Costa Rica, Scotland and many others. As their children get older, Smith says they want to travel with a purpose, exposing their kids to cultures not quite as financially well-off as their own.
In the meantime, Smith will focus on making First Federal’s mortgage department the best it can be. This is one of a growing number of community-based financial institutions that Smith finds a perfect fit for Whatcom County: small enough to be flexible, yet big enough to get things done.
“First Federal can be seen as a bank in Whatcom County that can help you with your mortgage need, no matter what it is,” he says, “not just helping their customers, but being able to work with realtors and everyone in the community to help people get houses.”
Founded in Port Angeles in 1923, First Federal currently has 12 branches in four Washington counties, including two branches in Bellingham. For more information, visit their website.
Sponsored
