Who We Are
The Names that Get the Numbers

Joel Spolin
President and Founder

SpoLoan was founded by Joel Spolin, one of the region’s leading names in residential and commercial mortgage banking.

Building on more than twenty years’ experience in the increasingly complex mortgage industry, Joel saw a growing need to combine personalized, executive-level service with the technology required to analyze literally thousands of mortgage products – all in the service of finding the most favorable financial package for each borrower’s unique needs.

Over the past two decades, Joel has funded more than $2 billion in mortgage loans – closing as much as $135 million per year in loans and ranking as high as the nation’s 26th largest mortgage originator by Mortgage Originator Magazine.

In addition to founding and operating one of the area’s largest mortgage banking businesses for nearly two decades, Joel has served as a senior executive at Trammel Crow Residential, Consolidated Capital, Kaplan and Bank of America. Joel graduated from UCLA with a BA in Economics, and has an MBA from UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

Over the years, Joel has been honored to hold multiple leadership positions in the mortgage and real estate industry, including serving on the boards of directors of the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors, the Housing Industry Foundation, and the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce.

As an industry leader, Joel has authored numerous articles on real estate finance for the Palo Alto Weekly and the San Jose Mercury News, hosted his own cable television real estate show for four years, and taught real estate finance at College of San Mateo and at Foothill College, where he also sits on the Budget, Finance and Audit Committee.

A long-time Palo Alto resident, Joel is married with four children, all of whom are students at or attended the Palo Alto public school system. As a proud father, Joel currently serves as the Treasurer of the Palo Alto PTA, and has coached Palo Alto AYSO soccer for more than ten years. Joel’s youngest two children currently attend Palo Alto High School.

Kevin LaBar
Partner

Kevin has been in the mortgage banking business for over 25 years including senior positions at Wells Fargo. He has personally negotiated and closed over $1 billion dollars in mortgages and has helped numerous borrowers with very complicated requirements. He is an expert in financial analysis and has developed an outstanding tool to evaluate marginal lending costs. Kevin specializes in no cost refinance transactions.

Paula Smith
Loan Production Coordinator

Relying on 14 years of mortgage banking experience, Paula coordinates the transaction flow for all SpoLoan mortgages, including direct interaction with third-party underwriters, title specialists, and escrow officers.

Paula’s background includes many years’ experience as a senior FHA/VA loan processor, as well as a conventional loan coordinator. Relying on her expertise in all forms of loan origination, Paula oversees SpoLoan’s origination software as well as a diverse portfolio of additional IT functions.

Marlene Wells
Loan Processing Specialist

With more than 10 years experience at Intel Corporation in project management, accounting and regulatory compliance, Marlene has the ideal skill set for overseeing all aspects of SpoLoan’s loan processing operations. Marlene’s duties include loan administration, review and analysis, as well as financial and IT responsibilities.