Meet Brett Cowden: Opteon’s Professional Tinkerer

After a career that has taken him from commercial lending and financial advising to lobbying the state legislature, Brett Cowden says he’s finally found the perfect title for what he’s always been: a tinkerer.

“I love a problem to solve, whether that be a broken piece of equipment or a broken process,” Brett said. “I approach them all the same way: taking them apart, seeing how they’re supposed to work, identifying what’s broken or missing, and putting them back together in good working order.”

As Opteon’s Director of Process Intelligence & Development, that’s essentially Brett’s job. He is responsible for discovering what needs to be fixed, designing the right solution, building it, and proving that it worked.

In other words, he gets to be a professional tinkerer.

Making Complex Processes Simpler

That skill is especially valuable in an industry with no shortage of complexity. A single mortgage transaction can involve lenders, brokers, borrowers, appraisers, real estate agents, title companies and others, often working across different systems that all need to exchange information.

Brett’s role on Opteon’s Process Innovation Team, or “The PIT,” is to find high-impact opportunities within that complexity to make work simpler.

He often thinks about improvement in terms of “one less click.”

“If I can consistently remove one click from a workflow, we’re getting closer and closer to the ideal process,” Brett said.

One less click might sound small, but repeated across processes and transactions; those improvements add up. They mean fewer times Opteon team members have to leave their primary workspace to find, send or process information. That creates a better experience for our people and, in turn, a better experience for our customers and their borrowers.

Better Processes, Built Together

For Brett, process improvement starts with the people closest to the work. His role allows him to collaborate across Opteon, understanding how teams work today, where friction exists, and how processes can work better tomorrow.

That partnership is a critical part of The PIT’s approach. So is another rapidly evolving tool: AI.

Brett and the team are using AI extensively behind the scenes to help write code, problem-solve, and accelerate the development of new solutions. The result is a dramatically faster path from identifying an opportunity to putting a solution into practice.

“Things that used to take months now take weeks, and things that took weeks now take days,” Brett said.

And there’s plenty more to tinker with. For Brett, every process is another opportunity to remove a little friction, make someone’s job a little easier and create a better experience for the people Opteon serves.

One less click at a time.