May-June2020 Issue

Talking Heads Tabatha Addison,Vice President, Wholesale Lending, American Advisors Group By Darryl Hicks FOR TWO DECADES, Tabatha Addison traveled the globe teaching business and sales executives how to achieve personal success. In 2013, she received a call fromKimberly Smith, who had recently been hired by American Advisors Group, Orange, CA, to start up a wholesale division. Neither person knew the other, but Smith had heard about Addison’s successes at other mortgage companies in the southern California region, and she wanted Addison to be part of the team. Addison was working, then consulting, in the biotech industry but agreed to help out Smith for six months. Seven years later, she is still with AAG. While she has embraced her current role, Addison’s ambition as a child was to be a lawyer. She had a knack for arguing her way out of the worst predicaments. Addison says her father once told her, “Half the time I knew you were lying, but your defenses were so bloody good, I just gave in.” Addison studied law for a time in Scotland, but her life trajectory changed. She ended up becoming a pro- fessional trainer and today is one of the top educators in the reverse mortgage industry. Reverse Mortgage magazine sat down with Addison to learn more about what makes someone successful. Reverse Mortgage: Tell us about yourself. Tabatha Addison: I was born in Orange, CA, coinci- dentally about ten minutes away from where AAG’s corpo- rate office is now located. I grew up in Southern California before moving to Edinburgh, Scotland, after high school in 1986. From as long as I can remember, I always wanted to go into law. Even in second grade, at parent’s night, that is what my presentation was on. Everybody else wanted to be a nurse or a fireman, but I wanted to be a lawyer. RM: How did your move to Scotland come about? TA: My mother and sisters were born there. My father was in the U.S. Navy stationed at Holy Loch, where he met my mother. After I finished high school, everybody moved back to Scotland. Except me. I planned to enlist in the Air Force and apply for Officer Candidate School. I had no means to pay for law school, so I felt the military was the best option. The deal was the Air Force would pay my way Tabatha Addison 14 REVERSE MORTGAGE / MAY-JUNE 2020