USA Funds Staff Profile: Showing the Value of Partnering With USA Funds

Thanks to Melissa Bolles, schools and lenders have a resource for reports they need to show the value of working with USA Funds^®.

Bolles, a senior financial analyst for USA Funds, compiles data that illustrates how USA Funds’ work with schools and lenders saves money for education loan borrowers and U.S. taxpayers. The reports help financial aid administrators and education lenders keep their management abreast of the savings associated with working with USA Funds.

“I want schools and lenders to be as prepared as they can be to work with education loan borrowers — and partnering with USA Funds is the best way for that to happen,” Bolles says. “My goal is to provide pertinent data that helps support a school’s or lender’s decision to work with USA Funds.”

Nationally, for example, USA Funds’ default prevention efforts helped to prevent more than $20 billion in defaults on more than 1.3 million student loans in 2008 alone.

Bolles also provides statistics for various USA Funds business areas. In fact, she compiles such a wide variety of data that each day brings a different project for her, she says.

“The finance division serves all other areas of the company as well as external customers,” Bolles says.

Her background includes working with both customers and figures. Prior to joining USA Funds in 2004, Bolles spent three years as a project manager for a consumer product research company. She holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she had a minor in statistics. She received a master’s degree in business administration with a concentration in finance from Butler University in Indianapolis.

A native of the Cincinnati area, Bolles moved to Indianapolis to be near her future husband, Chris Bolles, who became a compliance specialist for USA Funds in 2005. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her family, including her 1-year-old son, and traveling.