While the behemoths of the mortgage industry are owned by huge publicly traded corporations, owning a small lending operation can still be a very profitable enterprise – for management as well as employees. Garden State Mortgage Corp., a $250 million-a-year originator based in Ridgefield, NJ, recently launched an employee stock ownership program because its owner thinks ESOP “is a neat idea.” Although not widely used in the mortgage industry, employee stock programs have proven