Kate Herrick lives in suburban Seattle, Washington, USA. She enjoys reading, traditional Irish music, international languages (particularly Spanish, Irish Gaelic, and French), cooking/entertaining, and American football. She is also a Google-Fu master, specializing in SEO-related tactics and finding the unfindable.

Employment History

March 2008 to Present

Senior Consultant

Direct Technology

Direct Technology provides professional consulting services, staffing, and hosting facilities for such entities as Microsoft Corporation, The World Bank, Sempra Energy, Pacific Gas & Electric, AT&T, Verizon Communications, U.S. Department of Labor, numerous states, and several foreign countries.

• Collaborated with Microsoft IT client resources and other consulting organizations to enhance and maintain customer-facing volume software licensing and entitlement management systems, including user interfaces, reports, web services and a variety of databases.
• Provided assistance to client in refining and consolidating functional and training documentation resulting from facilitation of multi-disciplinary design and testing efforts across numerous domestic and international sites.
• Consolidated delta functional specifications dating back to product inception into single, all-up document in excess of 300 pages which included functional requirements through current release cycle.
• Supported software defect triage, analysis and resolution, which in turn required subsequent regression and documentation revision.
• Prepared and obtained buy-in for technical, functional and training documentation for back-office tool developed by the client outside of their standard release practices.

July 2006 to December 2007

Assistant Vice President and Lead Strategic Development Analyst-Enterprise Risk Management

Washington Mutual Bank

Washington Mutual Bank was the United States’ largest savings and loan, providing financial services to individuals, small businesses, and commercial concerns.

• Recruited as lead analyst and subject matter expert in support of the development of an automated credit evaluation and decision tool used to underwrite residential mortgages.
• Gathered business requirements, collaborated to define scope and effort sizing, and engaged cross-organizational resources in development effort.
• Documented requirements catalog, business problem statements, project change requests and other documentation in conjunction with the SDLC.
• Prepared comprehensive unit, SIT, and QA test plans, wrote test scripts, executed tests and documented outcomes.
• Final project (exceeding a year in length) has six requirements catalogs directed at various audiences comprised of approximately 900 individual requirement specifications and 1800 test cases executed by remote resources located both domestically and offshore (India, Philipines).
• Managed several remedial rapid response releases (requirements, testing, and documentation) in the last two quarters to align credit standards with fluctuating domestic mortgage and lending market conditions, all on time and without defects.
• Interfaced with and managed relationships/expectations with wide range of stakeholders at every level of the organization except the executive with emphasis on understanding business operation and goals and as liaison throughout the development effort.

September 2003 to July 2006

Senior Product Analyst-Loan Servicing

Harland Financial Solutions

Harland Financial Solutions is a developer and provider of financial services software systems to a variety of clientele, including mortgage lenders, banks, thrifts, and credit unions.

• A leader responsible for requirement gathering, design, build, testing, and implementation of feature functionality within a client-server based mortgage loan servicing software system.
• Documentation of functional specifications, training materials, use cases and release notifications played a prominent role in duties.
• Features developed and enhanced included functions in support of servicing card and check-based revolving home equity lines of credit (HELOCs), functions in support of servicing exotic adjustable rate mortgages, customizable task tracking system, multi-tabbed collections screen, and automated disbursements.
• Facilitated thrice-annual focus groups with existing customers to gather requirements for planned initiatives and enhancements via teleconference and Webex sessions and documented end results.
• Documented functional specifications, help files, white papers, and training materials.
• Initiated and provided training and sales presentations as well as relationship management during product implementation and support.
• Engaged in cross-organizational collaboration and project management regarding multi-disciplinary development efforts.
• Liaison and resource analyst for development of similar functionality for origination system (separate organization).
• Collaborative project work included researching compliance issues, preparation of payment streams and disclosures, and planning for utilization of proprietary automated underwriting system for use with HELOCs.

September 1998 to August 2003

Technology Analyst-Customer Solution Center

Team Leader, Residential Collections-Loan Servicing

Washington Mutual Bank

Washington Mutual Bank was the United States’ largest savings and loan, providing financial services to individuals, small businesses, and commercial concerns.

Technology Analyst

• Knowledge manager for 100+ agent, multi-site call center in support of home loans and insurance services.

• Managed a 6,000+ document database containing business and technical solutions used in resolution of issues arising from utilization of over thirty mortgage-related systems, including origination, servicing, and appraisal systems.
• Prepared and provided usage and effectiveness analytics, system administration, agent training, data mining, and reporting.
• Managed multiple projects, including knowledgebase optimization, process improvement, and software implementations.
• Final software implementation involved converting the knowledgebase to a hosted solution, a cross-organizational matrix managed initiative that was completed in thirty five days and 40% under budget.

Team Leader

• Managed a sixteen agent call center performing collection activity for early-default single family residential mortgages.
• Day-to-day departmental administration, including employee performance management, hiring, coaching, etc.
• Implementation of predictive dialing system using proprietary workflow management tools interfaced with the loan servicing system of record.
• Substantial knowledge of a broad range of compliance issues, product lines, and research methodologies were intrinsic to the daily responsibilities of the position.

Hobbies/Achievements:

• Volunteer canvasser in local neighborhoods in support of four major political campaigns.
• Avid reader, particularly historical biography, religious studies and travel.
• Accomplished gourmet and home entertainer.
• Expert Internet researcher.