Walker & Dunlop just turned 75 years old, but the company is more nimble than ever after shattering its plan to grow revenues, operating and net income five-fold in five years Walker & Dunlop has been an industry pioneer for nearly eight decades. And with its recent market moves, the Bethesda, MD-based firm is now one of the largest such organizations in the commercial real estate finance industry.

When Walker & Dunlop opened its doors in 1937, it was one of the first companies to use Federal Housing Administration insurance to make single-family loans. By the end of World War II, the firm was pioneering the use of Taft-Hartley funds—a trust fund established through collective bargaining between unions and companies to offer health and other benefits for employees—for mortgage and real estate investment.

Decades later, in 1971, Walker & Dunlop arranged the first off-balance sheet financing for the US government at the US Geological headquarters in Reston, VA. And in 1988, the firm was one of the first in the industry to join Fannie Mane's Delegated Underwriting and Servicing program. By the 1990s, Walker & Dunlop was a major lender to the REIT industry, leveraging cross collateral and substitution of assets in revolving credit structures for major REITs like Charles E. Smith Residential, Walden Residential Properties and United Dominion Realty Trust.