• Carrie Hansen moved into a dedicated role as developer of new borrower education materials, expanding on our “Smart Choices” lender-neutral financial literacy series. Carrie led the development of “Smart Choices,” which you saw debut this fall. The goal of “Smart Choices” is to help borrowers understand key concepts of student loans, borrow wisely and borrow less, and find the best repayment strategy after graduation.
• Lori Stafford joined the debt management department as debt management supervisor, focusing on educating, training, and monitoring T.H.E.’s debt management team. Lori will also work with management to continue finding innovative, proactive approaches to help borrowers lower the cost of financing their education. One of these proactive approaches currently includes contacting our fall/winter graduates to ensure that they are prepared to transition into repayment.

T.H.E. also continues our commitment to superior customer service by adding a dedicated trainer position — Brenda Knutson will work with customer service, school relations and operations areas to provide training for new employees as well as ongoing training for existing employees. In a changing environment, Brenda provides extensive knowledge with more than 24 years in the student loan industry. We are also pleased to expand our executive account managers to include Terri Meis. The executive account managers, director of school relations and customer service experts provide you with your very own team of experts. Together, the various departments can help resolve any issue you may have with your loans.

While other student loan lenders have been negatively affected by the changes that swept the industry this fall, we are happy to say that T.H.E. will continue to expand and improve our borrower education programs and customer service. If you have any questions, suggestions, or other issues, please let us know at sales@theloanprogram.org. We look forward to working with you in the years to come.