GENERAL SESSION: The Value of Community Outreach

Mark Jones

2024 MBA Chairman; President, Union Home Mortgage

Mark Jones is the 2024 MBA Chairman and President of Union Home Mortgage. Mark co-founded Amerifirst Home Mortgage in 1983, a company he grew from an individual location in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to over 80 full-service locations and 900 personnel nationwide. In January 2023, Amerifirst merged with Union Home Mortgage to form a top 40 national mortgage lender, where Mark now serves as President. Prior to the merger, Amerifirst was the No. 1 USDA lender and the No. 3 FHA lender in Michigan, and the No. 13 FHA lender in Florida. Amerifirst was also a Ginnie Mae issuer and serviced in-house a $6 billion loan portfolio. Amerifirst ranked as a Best and Brightest Company to Work for in the Nation for five consecutive years (2016-2020) and was named one of the top 50 Best Mortgage Companies to Work For in 2021. In 2016 Mark received the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for Michigan and Northwest Ohio. In addition to his service as MBA’s Chairman-Elect, Mark currently serves as Chairman of MBA’s DEI Advisory Committee. He previously served as co-chair of MBA’s Independent Mortgage Bankers Executive Council. Mark also serves as a board member and Public Policy Committee Chair at Southwest Michigan First and serves as Chair of Southwest Michigan First PAC.

Twala Lockett-Jones

Real Estate Broker and Owner, Lockett-Jones Reality Group

Twala Lockett-Jones is a licensed Real Estate Broker, Developer, Investor, and Author. She began her real estate career in 1996. Twala owns a small boutique brokerage in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her service in this lifetime is bigger than selling real estate and providing housing. She longs to see revitalized neighborhoods and increased homeownership in underserved populations. One of Twala’s greatest accomplishments was buying her first home at the age of 19. Twala’s life's work is around closing the extreme gap between wealth and poverty in our country. Safe, dignified, and affordable housing provides stability. It's impossible to address poverty and the wealth gap in America in the absence of addressing the housing gap. Homeownership is the cornerstone of building generational wealth. In June 2022, Twala authored “Princess Mackie Buys a House” to introduce the concept of home ownership to youth because she noticed children’s literature is sorely lacking in the area of real estate. The story follows Princess Mackie, a 7-year-old girl, and her mother through their home-buying journey. Twala stresses it is imperative to plant seeds of homeownership early so that children of color can understand this as a true possibility for them in the future. Princess Mackie Buys a House” is empowering new black and brown homebuyers across the U.S. by providing an easy-to-understand, non-intimidating approach to homeownership and financial literacy education. Amerifirst Home Mortgage, led by Mark Jones, distributed more than 4000 Princess Mackie books to 4th graders in Detroit, MI. The book allows Lockett-Jones a platform to share financial literacy and homeownership education with BIPOC communities. Proceeds from “Princess Mackie Buys a House” help to fund Girls Build Kalamazoo, a non-profit organization founded in 2020 by Lockett-Jones which provides hands-on experiences in construction trades and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and entrepreneurship. Girls Build Kalamazoo empowers girls by building self-confidence, financial health, and self-esteem.