GreenPath Debt Solutions Settles in to New Farmington Hills Headquarters

More than 100 people watched Wednesday as GreenPath Debt Solutions president and CEO Jane McNamara cut a cash and credit card "ribbon" to officially open the company's new building on Corporate Drive in Farmington Hills. 

The company, which offers consumer debt counseling services, broke ground two years ago for the new facility, which brings together its headquarters and call center. GreenPath also has offices in Farmington Hills where employees meet with clients, and does business at more than 60 branch offices in 12 states and over the Internet. 

"We knew that based on our technological needs to best serve our clients that it would be necessary to build from the ground up," McNamara said. 

The company employs nearly 500 people in southeast Michigan, she added.

Client Jerry Bailey, who spoke during the ceremony, said GreenPath's debt management program "really made the difference" in helping him and his wife, Sue, clear more than $90,000 in debt. Next May, they will pay off the 30-year mortgage on their home in Jackson.

The Baileys contacted GreenPath after picking up a brochure at their credit union, but McNamara said the company also receives referrals from clients and from credit card companies, which are now required by law to provide consumers with numbers for counseling services.

Of the country's top 10 financial institutions, GreenPath has relationships with six, McNamara said. 

"They refer customers to us, because it's in the best interest of their customer," she added, noting GreenPath helps people manage their entire financial picture, not just credit card debt.

Jerry Bailey said without GreenPath's holistic approach, he doesn't know where he and Sue would be today.

"We probably would have been bankrupt, we may have been divorced, I may not have even been alive," he said. 

A full-time pastor, Bailey said the Bible refers to the borrower as slave to the lender and said debt made him feel like he was in jail. 

"GreenPath helped me with a program to have the key to that door and to be released from that, and we're not going back there," he said.