RN had the opportunity to sit down with Scott Sackett – a Receiver, Chapter 11 trustee, Professional Fiduciary, Software Developer, and Founder of Fiduciary Management Technologies, Inc. – to learn about his path into the world of receiverships.

Scott says he truly started what he would call practicing the profession of receivership back in July of 2005. It was the eve of the 4th of July holiday weekend and a bank, now defunct, called looking for a receiver. There was no one around. Scott explains, “This was before the economic downturn, and receiverships as well as receivers were few and far between, especially on a holiday weekend.” The bank was having trouble finding someone to step into their distressed real estate problem. Scott jumped right in. “I had helped other receivers in the past as ‘boots on the ground’ and even liquidated property as a partition referee, but this would be my first appointment as receiver. The banker said, ‘You write the software, you should be able to do the job’. I was appointed and have been working cases ever since.”

Scott has had the opportunity to do many different things: market an ownership interest in a professional basketball team; find legal services for 4,000 displaced law firm clients; inventory and sell a “Raiders of the Lost Ark sized” warehouse full of surplus military aircraft parts; and pick up the pieces after slum lords. He says his appointments have always involved something interesting.

Upon graduating with a naval architecture and offshore engineering degree from the University of California at Berkeley, Scott went to work for his father’s real estate investment and property management business. About this job, he says, ”It wasn’t engineering but, at the end of the cold war, it made sense. “During this time, he had an opportunity to earn a little cash on the side when he was asked to help a banker, Marilyn Bessey (who is also his mother), develop a Windows-based case management software for Chapter 7 trustees. Scott says that this would be a job that would come back around.

What Scott describes as a big learning opportunity arose from what was supposed to be some engineering work for a company in Orange County. The job turned out to be more of an education in the inner-workings of a distressed company. The company was planning the construction of refueling docks in Mexico. The docks were never started, but he was put to work managing multiple corporations and putting resort membership and real estate deals together. Scott says “I think the best thing my employer saw in me was my youth and naiveté.” According to Scott, his employer had a habit of purchasing companies, clouding the ownership of their assets, and putting them into bankruptcy. Scott says he learned a lot about playing the bankruptcy system. “I imagine that there are few Chapter 7 debtors that have experienced showing up to their 341 hearing in a chauffeur-driven limousine.” As part of the job, Scott got to play key roles alongside a former President of American Airlines starting an airline and an off-road recreational vehicle manufacturer, but only to see those companies put into bankruptcy. “They used to say Orange County was the white collar crime capital of the US, and this became pretty apparent the longer I stayed with this company. The light really clicked when, with IRS agents combing the parking lot recording employee license plate numbers, I was asked to open bank accounts and shuttle cash to Nevada. I refused and moved on, without the promised quick riches, but I had learned a lot.”

Scott did eventually spend a number of years putting his engineering degree to work with a startup sensor manufacturer. He had system development projects with NASA, Visteon Automotive Systems, and testified before the National Highway Safety Administration on technology controlling airbag deployment. “I even had the opportunity to handle and weigh a sedated lion in its cage during a zoo scale photo opp. at the Omaha Zoo.”

During the dot com era, Scott worked alongside the “Father of QuickBooks” and “white hat” hackers developing network security software, performing penetration testing, and otherwise protecting networks belonging to the likes of Sony, VISA, AllState Insurance, and the Federal Reserve Bank. “I once was left manning the cyber-attack alert hotline at the Federal Reserve Bank during an Orange level alert while their employee took a quick break to check on another project. I was told that, if the phone rang, ‘pick it up, just say yes and write down the instructions.’”

Scott was approached with an opportunity to purchase that Chapter 7 software program he had worked on years earlier. He made the purchase with a silent partner at the time, Marilyn Bessey, and along with Scott’s wife, Kim, they started Fiduciary Management Technologies, Inc. “We expanded our software offerings to include products for receivers, disbursing agents, private professional fiduciaries, and Chapter 11 trustees. We also moved from working in partnership with one bank to working with multiple banks. In the middle of providing software products to fiduciaries, I became my own customer.”

Since taking the plunge into receivership and Chapter 11 trustee work, Scott says he has been involved in a wide range of receivership cases including rents and profits, post judgment asset recoveries, and shareholder disputes. “Not only have I been called a lot of names in this line of work, I have had many different titles, including Receiver, Special Master, Trustee, and Third Party Neutral. Through my membership in the California Receiver’s Forum, I have had had the opportunity to meet and gain insight from many seasoned professional receivers, attorneys, bankers, and a few Superior, and Federal Court judges. There are a lot of subtleties to handling receivership cases, but one message has always been the same: Your integrity as a receiver is everything. With this in mind, I have always approached my receiverships with an emphasis on maintaining neutrality and, when possible, promoting settlement for the betterment of the parties.”

On a personal note, Scott says the favorite part of his week is with his family, usually coaching or helping my wife, Kim, a commercial real estate broker with Cushman and Wakefield, and shuttling their children to and from athletic events. Their oldest daughter, Shelby, is a competitive rower who has rowed for the US Junior Rowing Team in Canada and on the East Coast. Their son, Max, is a football and rugby player and Scott says, “I have been fortunate to be able to coach my son’s football teams for the past five years and we’ve had a great run with undefeated championship seasons the past two years.” Scott’s youngest daughter, Simone, with a year of rowing under her belt and eleven tries on the rugby pitch this season, is still trying to figure out whether she is going to follow in her brother’s or her sister’s footsteps, or maybe both.

Scott has also used his love of diving, which began at Cal when he was involved in the research diving program for the University of California systems, to serve as a volunteer sheriff public safety diver and rescue swimmer. He and his wife have enjoyed wonderful diving vacations in stunning locations like Honduras, Mexico and Hawaii. Scott concluded by noting: “If anyone has any receivership needs in those locations, I will happily send you my CV.”

*Robert P. Mosier is a Southern California receiver and trustee and principal of Mosier & Company, Inc., a firm that has specialized in managing and turning around troubled companies for more than 25 years.