Mr. Velez is one of the country’s most experienced yachting industry credit professionals, having advised clients and facilitated credit on hundreds of yacht acquisitions. He is an expert on all facets of yacht finance, from financing strategies to credit analysis and underwriting, to loan portfolio acquisition.

He began his yacht industry career with First New England Financial (later Capital One Bank), building and leading a credit and servicing team supporting a large-scale marine finance team engaging in loans to $50 million. He later established and grew yacht finance (department) for KeyBank and subsequently joined Radius Bank (later LendingClub Bank) developing a loan-purchasing business that supported the lending operations of successful marine service companies nationwide.

Most recently, Mr. Velez served as head of yacht lending for New York-based Grasshopper Bank, again developing a marine loan purchasing function from startup to scale.

Mr. Velez makes his home in Port Saint Lucie, Florida and if he can’t be on the water, he would just as soon be on the golf course.