Friday Harbor adds Kate Schilling, Melina Stayton to bolster lender-facing teams

Seattle-based Friday Harbor, an AI-powered mortgage underwriting platform, has hired two mortgage industry veterans, naming Kate Schilling as director of sales and Melina Stayton as customer success manager, the company announced Monday.

Schilling brings more than 13 years of mortgage experience to the newly created sales role. Stayton adds nearly 15 years of banking and mortgage experience on the customer success side, where she will work directly with lender clients using Friday Harbor’s technology.

Their hirings come as lenders are under pressure to cut fulfillment costs, improve loan quality and adopt AI tools without disrupting already strained operations. Pre-underwriting platforms like Friday Harbor aim to help lenders automate income and asset review earlier in the process, which can shorten cycle times and reduce repurchase risk.

Schilling joins Friday Harbor from Dark Matter Technologies, where she served as a senior account executive supporting mid-market banks, credit unions and independent mortgage banks, according to a press release. In that role, she sold and supported mortgage technology solutions across a broad range of lender sizes and channels.

Before Dark Matter, Schilling was a mortgage originator at CrossCountry Mortgage, giving her firsthand experience with retail production and borrower-facing workflows. She also spent more than six years at National MI as a regional team leader and account executive, serving more than 100 lender clients and working directly with capital markets and operations teams on mortgage insurance execution.

Schilling began her mortgage career as a loan processor at a regional independent mortgage bank in New England. She is based in Boston and holds a bachelor’s degree in English from North Carolina State University and an MBA from Louisiana State University at Shreveport.

Stayton joins Friday Harbor as customer success manager after nearly 15 years in banking and mortgage, including a decade at Evergreen Home Loans. She started there as a loan officer assistant before moving into operations leadership.

Most recently, Stayton was a production operations supervisor, where she helped lead companywide technology implementations, managed point-of-sale and CRM platforms, and worked to align sales and operations teams during process and system changes.

Her background as a licensed loan originator gives her direct experience with borrower interactions and pipeline management, which the company said will support adoption and change management for lender clients using Friday Harbor’s AI tools. Stayton holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Western Washington University and lives in Port Orchard, Washington.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication. The system helps convert company announcements and industry data into HousingWire-style news coverage.