“I come from a small business background, a family-owned business… working with people who are like my dad is the greatest joy because I can help them. I know how I'm able to help them through Apex, but I’m also able to level with them and understand what they're going through.”

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We’re pleased to spotlight… ‍

Pat Hasher, Commercial Account Executive, EF Vendor Direct Line

“I've been here for almost three years. I graduated from Westchester in 2016 and I started with Meridian Bank, as a loan officer in their residential mortgage division. And at the same time, I was working with my father – he had recently bought a restaurant in Northeast Philadelphia. So, I was doing a little bit of both – helping him launch and expand while I was an LO with Meridian. Then I joined Firstrust Bank as an Assistant Branch Manager in their corporate headquarters in the Whitemarsh branch, where I connected with numerous different departments. I worked there for about three years – built a little bit of a name for myself and tried to maneuver my way around. And that was when I met Andrew Tauber… and then I interviewed with what was then Firstlease.”

Can you describe your experience joining Firstlease and then the merger with Apex Commercial Capital:

“When I was at Whitemarsh, I had anywhere from two to five full-time or part-time employees that reported to me, and I reported to the branch manager. I was more or less in charge of many different things – including Compliance and daily operations… but I was mainly responsible for our sales. We had seven different buckets we had to hit, and six of them fell to the assistant manager. So, I was balancing all the sales performance, as well as the operations, compliance, and normal day-to-day duties of an assistant manager. Going from that to Firstlease, where I was strictly in a niche lending setting… I was able to focus on the one thing I loved, which was sales – producing and hitting a volume goal I was given.”

“I started with Firstlease in a peculiar time because it was COVID and we were fully remote. So, it wasn't until about six weeks after I started when I even met anybody that I worked with. So that was an adjustment, but it gave me time to learn the products, learn the procedures, and how things operated. I did a lot obviously with Giuseppe and Carlos, Shannah, and they kind of you know, showed me the ropes of how things went. So, it was a different transition going from the bank to this. But it was interesting, and it gave me time to get my feet firmly planted. And then the merger from Firstlease to Apex Commercial Capital happened about a year after I started, so, by that point, I already had a good footprint of what I was working on, what my responsibilities were, and what was expected of me.”

Can you explain your responsibilities as a commercial account executive for the intro direct side:

“I’ve been, since I started, a little bit of a catch all – in a really good way. I work on the vendor direct side, which means we are working with vendors, manufacturers, resellers, and distributors – basically winning their end users, their customers, and having them refer them back to us. So that's my main focus, my main job. I did inherit the food service and hospitality industry when I came over here, because that's where I came from, and a couple other niche industries, as well as wire processing, and a lot of title vehicles. That's, I would say, one third of my job – the second third would be my relationships with Firstrust.”

“My first year, I started doing a branch tour – where I would go and meet with all the different branch managers and branch executives, and talk about Apex and what we do – because one of the main points I made early on was… I was in the branch for X amount of years and I never knew what Firstlease did. And I never knew what Apex Mortgage did. And there were many times when I thought that we could use them as an asset. So, I wanted to go down that path, which worked out perfectly, because now, the bank and Apex are aligning more and more. There are a lot more opportunities that are coming, and we already had a good head start. So, it started with the branches, then we moved into the different lending groups. And now, two years later, we’ve been participating in weekly, monthly, or bi-monthly sales calls with a lot of the different lending groups in commercial real estate business banking. We have nice relationships with our Maryland team – I've spent a lot of time in Maryland, working with them and their lenders, fielding different opportunities from the bank and within our footprint and trying to bring those customers over to Apex. We've been extremely successful in that.”

“And since Apex Mortgage and Firstlease have come together with the launch of Apex Commercial Capital, we've seen a lot more of cross-selling opportunities within Apex – so I’ve been working with a lot of our Account Executives on the mortgage side that have brokers who either have an equipment footprint, or are establishing an equipment footprint, or have different equipment leads, and working with them to bring them onto the equipment side and filling their leads as well. So that's kind of been my daily routine and weekly routine chopped up into two, three different pieces.”

Favorite thing about your job:

“My favorite thing about my job is what we are able to do for small businesses… especially because I come from a small business background. I come from a family-owned business, and I see what my dad goes through with his business. So, working with people who are like my dad is the greatest joy because I can help them. I know what I'm doing here. And I know how I'm able to help them through Apex, but I’m also able to level with them and understand what they're going through. Seeing somebody who is similar to my family, or a small business in need, and be able to help them achieve what's next for them.”

Favorite thing about working at Apex Commercial Capital:

“I just think the camaraderie between all of us. I mean, I love my team members. I love how we get to work with the mortgage guys now as well. I love being in sales, obviously, just because we get to collab with each other. And one week is never the same as the next week. Right now, we're in a little bit of a slower time, so there's more time for us to brainstorm and come up with ways how we can become better. And when we are in our busy season, in our busy times, we work well together to try and help each other out.”

Favorite thing to do outside of work:

“Honestly, as I get older, I think I just like to be at home. I love being home with my wife and my dog. That's kind of been my favorite thing recently. We got our house a couple years ago, our dog’s two now, and I just like to relax, maybe make some food. I love to cook – I do all the cooking in my house. I love to barbecue in the summer. So, just being at home and being with my family is what's most important.”

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