Devon Hawkins

I have extensive experience in the mortgage and student loan industry.  I began my career in 2005 with AIG as a risk management analyst.  Fatefully, I would have this role during the rise and fall of the historic, American mortgage bubble. In this role, I was on the team responsible for evaluating and pricing insurance coverage on over $10B in mortgage-backed securities and assessing the credit quality of all potential MBS portfolios.  We saw stellar portfolios in the initial rise of the housing market but the credit quality rapidly deteriorated as mortgage lenders began loosening credit qualifications.  Our risk team's findings were responsible for raising the flag that revealed the inevitable housing market crash and AIG's collapse. (Sidenote: Hollywood really did an excellent job on the accuracy of the film The Big Short.) My tenure with AIG during the bailout was professionally one of the hardest times in my life but it catapulted me into the industry as a source of knowledge.  After the bailout, I spent the next decade working with many large corporations to help rebuild and reshape a healthy mortgage insurance and mortgage servicing industry.  Somewhere upon building statistical default models and tightening credit risk guidelines, I realized I needed my own professional bailout.  I decided to follow my passion to teach and bring my professional experience into the classroom to build the next generation of Economists.