TMS Funding hired another round of new employees this week, more than doubling its previous staff count. And sources say the firm will continue to hire as big banks continue to contract wholesale lending. TMS Funding, the wholesale residential lending channel of Total Mortgage Services, brought on Robert Lukowski, Craig Castronovo, Matthew Neeley, Scott Beckwith, and Tracey Ibsen as wholesale account executives. The five attain more than 72 combined years of experience in the industry. Lukowski comes to TMS Funding from Nationstar Mortgage where he worked in wholesale lending around Illinois. Prior to that tenure, he worked with Wintrust Mortgage, also in the wholesale lending division. Castronovo, who has 14 years of wholesale and correspondent experience, joins the Milford-Conn.-based firm from Citigroup‘s consumer lending group. He previously managed sales as well as underwriting, pricing, risk and credit analysis. Neeley worked with Nationstar Mortgage prior to joining TMS Funding. As a 10-year veteran of the industry, Neeley managed clients in wholesale and retail lending. He also worked for Atlantic Home Loans. Beckwith joins TMS Funding from Proficio Mortgage Ventures where he served as branch manager and built a new mortgage platform. In his 14 years in the mortgage industry, Beckwith oversaw originations, processing and preunderwriting of residential loan applications. Ibsen comes to wholesale lender from Home Savings of America where she served as senior community banker with a specialization in wholesale mortgage banking. Ibsen worked in the Northeast the majority of her 15 years in the industry. The most recent hires bring TMS’ wholesale lending division to a total 12 employees working in 10 states. TMS Funding is expanding its operations to accommodate anticipated business growth, according to Lisa Schreiber, executive vice president of wholesale lending. “There is a void in wholesale lending where the big banks left, we are able to leverage great tools to manage risk and we’re enlisting operations help to manage the backbone of all of this,” Schreiber told HousingWire. “We’re going full force.” Schreiber was hired in January to lead the expansion, or what she calls development, of TMS Funding, which began business about a year and half ago. She added that the lender intends to expand its licensed operations from 22 states by the end of this year and plans to continue hiring, potentially doubling staff again. Just two weeks ago, the company hired two operations executives from technology firm ISGN. Schreiber said more hires will be announced soon. Write to Christine Ricciardi. Follow her on Twitter @HWnewbieCR.