What the Mobile Mortgage Center does is it brings the business to the customer, says loan officer Steve Pagac, here with with Jackie Su, of the converted motor home.

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If you've seen the Mobile Mortgage Center, the so-called "Micro Branch" of Home Loan Executives, then you may be wondering who is plastered all over the back of the motor-home-turned-motor-office.

That would be Steve Pagac, a guy who has worked hard to build his fortune, lost it a couple of times, and is trying again with a whole new concept.

Pagac ("rhymes with magic," he says) thinks his latest endeavor — centered on a 1997 Safari Trek motor home being used as a mobile office, complete with fax machine and copier — has the potential to grow and expand outside Tucson.

The Mobile Mortgage Center is basically an office on wheels staffed by a loan officer. It's been driven all around town to open houses and other events so that anyone seeking a mortgage can walk in and be comfortable while getting approval conveniently.

Pagac started working on the idea a little over a year ago while buying and selling real estate in Tucson and working as a mortgage officer for Home Loan Executives, based at 3116 N. Swan Road. Pagac said he wanted to be able to process loans but also work in the field to observe crews fixing up properties that he owned.

But his boss, Carmine Russo, managing partner of HLE, liked the idea so much that he said Pagac should develop it further. So, the two partnered to refurbish the motor home, which has a color television, sleek black Corian countertops, a refrigerator, and a 12-foot-tall image of Pagac on the outside.

"We put $10,000 into the wrap outside the thing alone," Pagac said.

Since March, Pagac's team has driven the motor home to open houses, trade shows and the Tanque Verde Swap Meet, all in an effort to bring in new customers looking for a mortgage.

"What that does is it brings the business to the customer, our customers being the Realtors or their clients," Pagac said.

Driving the RV to events in the summertime is a favorite strategy, Pagac said. At open houses, for example, real estate agents are lured into the air-conditioned center, which Pagac keeps stocked with food and cold drinks.

"We have a spread of food. The game is on. Where are they going to go send their next loan to?," Pagac said.

Business hasn't always been this good for Pagac, a native of Milwaukee, Wis., where he spent several years converting apartments to condominiums and buying and selling other real estate. In 1978, he moved to Tucson, where he said he lost all of his savings in the gold and silver market.

Pagac became a sales agent, spending several years with Realty Executives. He was a partner and president of his own real estate company, ERA Gem Realty, from 1986 through 1997. The company grew from about 10 agents up to about 185 agents, but Pagac ended up declaring bankruptcy and ultimately lost the company.

"I overextended on my expansion of the company. It was a miscalculation of resources and I lost. I feel it was my fault," Pagac said. "I'm forever optimistic and I thought no matter what I did, I thought I would do well, and no matter happened, I would recover. Unfortunately, I lost a very good company."

After working in mortgages for Home Loan Executives, Pagac eventually went to work with James Tiscione, a friend who invented the Auto Card Manager — that little metal credit-card holder you see in Sky Mall magazine and other places. Pagac said he traveled to trade shows and other places all over the world to sell the product. He eventually sold his interest in that company and returned to buying and selling property in Tucson and eventually went back to work for Home Loan Executives.

Lisa Larkin, a broker with ReMax All Executives who worked as Pagac's staff attorney at ERA, said Pagac has always been an innovator.

"He's got great ideas and he acts on his ideas," Larkin said. "When I worked for him, I felt like he not only empowered me to do my job and let me do it, but he also pushed me to go outside of my comfort zone and do things that I didn't want to do and helped me grow professionally."

Larkin laughed as she recalled when she, Pagac and a friend developed an idea to sell disposable binoculars called "pocket peepers." Larkin and Pagac, with samples of the device in hand, loitered around the University of Arizona campus before a football game for an impromptu test market.

"He's never going to look away from a possibly big idea," Larkin said. "We didn't sell very many of them that day."

Even if that idea didn't work out, Pagac has had others.

"My ability lies in marketing. Real estate sales had to do with how I marketed myself," he said. "Ultimately, it's about giving good service. But to get good business, you have to market yourself."