Last night reunited at the SeaTac Marriott.    My career began on May 1, 1986 as a doc puller at Safeco.   Andrea Budnick was my first “professional” boss in the PIC department and once again when I became a title rep in the SMART (Standard Mortgagees Assurance of Record Title) home equity loan department. 

I was barely 19 years old when I first worked for Andrea.  I thought I knew everything (what teen doesn’t).    I was a doc puller for a whole month and I tried to quit 3 times.   Each time I’d meet with Andrea to let her know that I did not want to be a doc puller and that was quitting, she would send me back to my desk and tell me that I could not quit that day!  Thanks to her, I wound up having a rewarding title career for 14 years.

Mary (Sweeney) Forrey and Adoline Brown were a few of my old friends from Safeco.   When I was in Property Information -Customer Service, I always looked up to Mary who was a Safeco Title Sales Rep.   I thought she was sooo cool…I wanted to be just like her and eventually, I did become a rep at Chicago Title (CTI bought Safeco).  It’s such a small world–now our kids go to high school together!

Adoline Brown, aka Addy or Ma Brown…I think the world of as well.   I was a Title Technician (prepared recordings, typed supps, wrote title policies…etc.) in Unit 5 for Adoline who was the Title Officer of our group.   She was so patient and taught me everything I needed to know about title insurance.   Safeco was known in the industry as “Safeco U” because we were paid very little (compared to other title companies) and we had excellent training.   People would go to Safeco U to learn and then be hired away by a competitor.

Last night we sat with Doug Pittman, Dan Duffus, Stephanie, Mike and Sam.   It almost felt like a high school reunion!  We did have some people missing.   I would have loved to have seen Bill Massey, Linda Yoo and Phil Jenkins (and others).   It was very nice for the group at Stewart Title to organize this event.   Many thanks to Teresa Dopps, Mark Perez and the rest…and to Sherry Gill (of Pacific NW Title) who told me about the event!   I had a great time.