Tom Ferrara

My wife and I were born and raised in New York City. I have a high-tech engineering background but eventually left that career to start my own business. I developed one of the largest distribution/wholesale/retail of live, fresh, and frozen seafood in Queens, New York. Our specialty was live lobster, and we had the capacity holding of 10K pounds of lobsters. Whenever my wife and I weren’t working, we found ourselves running away from the city and spending time in the country. Twenty-five years ago, just before our daughters entered grade school, we relocated to Central Oregon. We sold the business and headed west without much of a plan other than we would make it work because we wanted the best for our children and us. Since moving, we welcomed our 3rd child, my son, to the family. Central Oregon is everything we hoped it would be and more, and it is the best thing we could have done for our family, giving all of us the lifestyle we always desired.

Besides enjoying the outdoors and travel, I have loved cars and auto racing since childhood. Eventually, that love translated into racing sports cars on road course race circuits around the country which I continue to be involved in today.

A year after moving to Oregon, I was invited to take a look at becoming a mortgage loan originator. This was a strange idea since my background was in high-tech and live seafood. At first, I said thanks but no thanks as I didn’t feel it was in my wheelhouse. But after several months of learning more about the mortgage financing business, I realized that it could be a fit for me. I took a personal approach to my engineering world and seafood business ownership. Both involved direct connections with thousands of business clients and customers as I helped them with their needs. The same is true for my mortgage lending career, as I learned after getting involved in mortgage that helping people is what I enjoy. Listening, learning, consulting, and understanding people makes me tick. I guess you could say I’m in the people business.