TitleBytes News & Happenings

Reflections from the MLTA President

Debbie Wiley, NTP, CLTP
MLTA President

When you step into a new role in life one would like to believe that they know what lies ahead. That is what I thought as I took the podium at the 2016 Summer Convention as the newly appointed President of our great association. As my year as the MLTA President is coming to an end it gives me pause to reflect back on a busy yet successful year that really has flown by.

We started the 2016/2017 year with announcing the roll out of the new electronic version of our newsletter – TitleBytes at our summer convention with the first edition published in August. This has given the MLTA the ability to publisher our newsletter more often which offers quicker up to date information to our members. As a reminder, if you have missed a past edition of TitleBytes they are all posted on our MLTA website under the members tab. Thank you to all that made this happen including Marcy Welburn, Darlene Wilsey, Laurie Brecken, the Communications committee and last but certainly not least, our TitleBytes editor Allan Dick.

Your MLTA Board members have attended two bill-signing events with Governor Snyder for bills that we have supported becoming law. One in the fall of 2016 for predictable recording fees aka flat rate recording fees and another in early 2017 for the elimination of dower in Michigan.

On May 10th, we had another very successful Lobby Day at our States Capitol. Wherein we discussed new concerns that we have with the State Senators and Representatives for some future legislation that we may need to have passed. We have already been contacted by some of the Senators and Representations that our members visited wanting to support some of topics that were discussed with them. I am looking forward to what new legislation will come out of the efforts that were put forth by our members on Lobby Day

For those of you that know me, you understand that one of my passions is education for our industry. Stepping into my President’s role, I wanted to continue to focus on this passion. I am happy to say that we have continued to provide well-planned and beneficial fall and spring seminars. We also developed and presented a new and successful Boot Camp in March covering New Construction for some attendees and “Just beyond the Basics” of legal descriptions for others. Your education committee and Boot Camp adhoc committee are already busy working on future seminars and Boot Camps for the 2017/2018 year.
The Young Title Professionals (YTP) committee continues to offer new and inventive information and presentations for its members and recently sponsored a “Tech Talk” webinar.
The MLTA also rejoined the Michigan Association of Register of Deeds Association (MARD) as an associate member this year. We did this to continue to work together on issues that affect both of our industry’s as was the case with the flat rate recording fees. I look forward to continuing to strengthen this bond between our two associations.

At our 2017 Summer Convention at Boyne Mountain in Traverse City, I will be turning over the gavel to the very capable hands of your incoming President, John Bommarito. Knowing that he will lead your MLTA Board of Directors and this association through a very successful 2017/2018 year. John has a very information full convention planned with just enough fun thrown in to make it enjoyable for all. This is a convention you will not want to miss! Go to our website for more information.

Lastly, I would like to remind everyone that if you are not already sitting on an MLTA committee please consider doing so. We have had great success this past year on all of our committees and part of that success is because of new faces and voices that have come forward to participate. Thank you to all of the chairs, vice chairs and committee members that have participated by taking time out of your real jobs to help grow and strengthen our association.

I need to give a special thank you to our Executive Director, Marcy Lay. We all truly understand that not one of us could do our MLTA responsibilities without you!! Thank you as well to our dedicated Board of Directors and to all of you that continue to support the MLTA. It has certainly been an honor and a privilege to lead this Association through another successful year.