Patty Arvielo has become her family's American dream. As a first-generation Hispanic, she grew up cleaning real estate offices with her mother, an immigrant from Mexico, and now has been leading her own mortgage company for over two decades helping others achieve their own . "Anything that this country has told me I had to have to be successful—I run counter to that," she told .
Arvielo didn't go to college and instead started working in an entry-level position at TransUnion at the age of 16. In three years, she worked her way up to a mortgage sales position. She then worked at Countrywide Home Mortgage, where she advanced from an entry-level loan set-up officer to a branch manager and eventually assistant vice president.
In 2003, Arvielo co-founded New American Funding with her husband Rick. Arvielo serves on the Mortgage Bankers Association Residential Board of Governors and is currently serving on the Leadership Council at Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership. New American Funding (NAF) was recently included in 's ranking of .
According to its website, NAF has nearly 4,000 employees, over half of whom are women, and about 40 percent are minorities. In 20 years of operation, NAF says it has become the largest privately-owned, women-owned mortgage company in the country. NAF was also one of the top overall lenders in 2023, according to Scotsman Guide, which has ranked the country's top-producing residential mortgage companies for over a decade.
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