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Joe Wessel

New Position: Regional president, Central Florida, HomeBanc Mortgage Corp., Tampa. Previous Position: Senior vice president, HomeBanc Mortgage Corp., Tampa.

By Times Staff Writer
Published October 17, 2005

It's a long way from the football field, but Joe Wessel has found many of the principles of coaching apply in his career with HomeBanc Mortgage Corp., a residential mortgage company in Tampa.

Promoted to regional president in August, Wessel oversees offices in Tampa, Orlando, Sarasota and Jacksonville, with a staff of more than 190. His focus is on continuing to expand the staff and the company's market, he said, which has been helped by a red-hot housing market.

"The housing market has been fueling the economy for the last four to five years," he said. "People are not retiring to Buffalo and Pittsburgh. They're coming to Florida.

"As people retire or as people are looking for real estate, they're looking for warm-weather climates and opportunities."

The company topped $1-billion in mortgages last year, and it is faring even better this year. "We'll do close to $1.6-billion in the region" this year, he said.

Wessel said he believes in a hands-on approach to management, so he visits each of the offices in his region almost weekly. "As an ex-football coach in the NFL and college, I need to be hands-on and coordinating . . . putting in the right framework," he said.

Wessel said he ended up in the mortgage industry "by chance." He was coaching for the Philadelphia Eagles and his contract wasn't renewed. "As coaches, we always joke about what we'd be doing if we weren't coaching," Wessel said. "I would never have guessed I would be in mortgage banking. But the company thrives on teamwork. It pushes people to better themselves. I fit in here like a hand in a glove," he said. "It fits what I'm all about."

But Wessel adds that when he took the job and agreed to move to Tampa and open HomeBanc's office there, "the only thing I knew about mortgages was that I had two of them. I learned on the job."

A native of Miami, Wessel attended Florida State University, where he played defensive back and set several Seminoles records: most punts blocked in a single game (two), most touchdowns scored on blocked punts in a game (two), and most touchdowns scored on blocked punts in a season (four). Wessel also scored a touchdown on a blocked punt in the 1984 Citrus Bowl.

Wessel, 43, graduated from FSU in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in marketing and business.He was a defensive coach for Louisiana State University from 1985 to 1990, then moved to Notre Dame, where he also was defensive coach from 1991 to 1993. From 1994 to 1996, Wessel was defensive coach and special teams coach for the Cincinnati Bengals, then joined the Philadelphia Eagles in 1997 as special teams coach. A year later, he was out of football and in the mortgage business in Tampa.

He opened Atlanta-based HomeBanc's office in Tampa with a handful of people and has grown the branch to more than 80 employees. He also opened the company's offices in Jacksonville and Sarasota.

"I'm still outdoors, but in a suit," he said. "What I was able to do was take 18 years of playing and coaching and put it into the work environment and business world. You have to get people working in the same direction.

"Making decisions in front of 80,000 people and another 6-million on TV . . . business decisions are easy after that."

Wessel said he doesn't miss the politics of the NFL, but he does miss game day. "There's no one single thing that replicates what happens on a Sunday afternoon at Raymond James Stadium - that, I miss. But there are lots of things I don't miss."

Yes, sometimes people in the office call him "Coach," but Wessel said he is okay with that. He keeps a few football souvenirs in his office: helmets and game balls.

He and his wife, Mary Gayle, live in Tampa with their two sons, Trent, 9, and Parker, 6. Wessel said he still is very active and is an avid golfer with a nine handicap. He won the 2005 Outback Pro-Am, he said, and he enjoys the history of golf, often playing historic golf courses across the country.

"I guess it's my release now that I'm not in the sports arena anymore," he said. "It's my way of competing."

[Last modified October 13, 2005, 20:09:02]