MINNEAPOLIS, MN – ACA International, the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals (ACA), has announced the winners of its ACA International Foundation Loomer-Mortenson Scholarship for 2005.
The Loomer-Mortenson Scholarship is dedicated to advancing the higher education of people employed in the credit and collection industry, and their dependent children. Formerly open only to ACA International employees and their dependents, the program was amended in 2004 to add eligibility for employees and dependents of any company affiliated with the credit and collection industry, or for those employed in a collection or credit management function.
One first place award of $3,000 and two second place awards of $1,000 were given this year. Winners were selected based on grade point average and an essay on the importance of financial literacy education.
First place winner Steven Hoehn, son of Scott Hoehn, UCM Servicing, Charlotte, N.C., remarked on the troubling fact that only 21 percent of people ages 16-22 have taken a personal finance course in high school. What?s worse, he said, is that at most high schools such a class is not even offered. Steven plans to attend the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill or Furman University majoring in business and political science.
Second place winner Jaclyn Brooks, Bloomington, Minn., daughter of ACA International employee Julie Brooks, also sees the need for credit education among the young adult community. Jaclyn recommends her peers at Winona State University, Winona, Minn., use credit sparingly and, when absolutely necessary, as a back-up plan for emergencies. “What constitutes an emergency? The rule of thumb at my house was if you can eat it or wear it, it is not an emergency expense.” Jaclyn is pursuing a degree in elementary education.
Harrison Pearl, son of Cameron Pearl of ACA-member Nobis, LLC, Mobile, Ala., concurred that personal finance knowledge is crucial to successful money management. Consumers who develop the habits of judicious savings and prudent spending will be much more likely to use credit as a positive force in their lives, to the point where accumulating interest starts working in their favor through investments, rather than the penalty of expensive debt. Harrison plans to major in pre-medicine at the University of Alabama.
The ACA International Foundation Loomer-Mortenson Scholarship was created in 1985 and honors the memory of ACA member Robert E. Loomer and ACA staff member Irvin “Dempsey” Mortenson.
Loomer, an ACA instructor from 1975-1984, was one of ACA’s most often requested instructors and was awarded the Charles F. Lindemann Memorial award as ACA’s Certified Instructor of the Year in 1979. Mortenson was ACA’s director of public affairs from 1973-1981, and was instrumental in negotiations with congressional committees that produced the version of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act that became law in 1978.
